title: Dragons: Worlds Afire (Forgotten Realms)
author:  R.A. Salvatore 
description: R.A. Salvatore has published numerous <b>Forgotten Realms</b> novels, most of which have been <i>New York Times</i> bestsellers.<br /><br />Weis &amp; Hickman are the original co-creators of the <b>Dragonlance</b> mythology. Together they have co-authored numerous <b>Dragonlance</b> novels and short stories.<br /><br />Scott McGough is a freelance author and editor. He has written many <b>Magic: The Gathering</b> novels for Wizards of the Coast.<br /><br />Keith Baker's <b>Eberron </b>setting was chosen out of 11,000 submissions to become the first new <b>Dungeons &amp; Dragons</b> setting in ten years.<br /><br /><br /><i>From the Trade Paperback edition.</i>
zlib_text:  
  R.A.Salvatore 
  The Ghost King 
  Transitions III 
  
  PRELUDE  
   
  The dragon issued a low growl and flexed his claws in close, curling himself into a defensive 
  crouch. His eyes were gone, having been lost to the brilliant light bursting from a destroyed 
  artifact, but his draconian senses more than compensated. 
  Someone was in his chamber—Hephaestus knew that beyond a doubt—but the beast could 
  neither smell nor hear him. 
  “Well?” the dragon asked in his rumbling voice, barely a whisper for the beast, but it 
  reverberated and echoed off the stone walls of the mountain cavern. “Have you come to face me 
  or to hide from me?” 
  I am right here before you, dragon, came the reply—not audibly, but in the wyrm’s mind. 
  Hephaestus tilted his great horned head at the telepathic intrusion and growled. 
  You do not remember me? You destroyed me, dragon, when you destroyed the Crystal Shard. 
  “Your cryptic games do not impress me, drow!” 
  Not drow. 
  That gave Hephaestus pause, and the sockets that onc