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blast of flame the largest napalm ordnance in the American armory could not have matched, resulting in a massive avalanche outside the Special Place as a great sheet of ice and snow was loosened from beneath. The French climbing team far to the west heard but did not witness it.
    “It is the time,” Kurenskaya announced. He was very old, and most of his back scales had faded from red to silver. But he could still ravage and destroy with the best of them. Only these days, like all the recent others, he was forced to be more circumspect in his doings.
    He glanced around the crowded cavern, vertical yellow pupils narrowing. “I do not see As’ah’mi among us.”
    There was a moment of confusion until Nhauantehotec spoke up. “He will not be joining us.”
    Kurenskaya bared snaggle teeth. “Why not? What has happened?”
    Nhauantehotec sighed, and black smoke crept from his nostrils. “He was not careful. As careful as we must all be these days. I think he forgot to soar in the stealthy manner and was picked up on U.S. Border Patrol radar. Not surprisingly, they mistook him for a drug runner’s plane and shot him down. I heard him curse his forgetfulness as he fell, and altered my flight path to see if I could help, but by the time I arrived he was nothing but fully combusted brimstone and sulfur on the ground.”
    A smoky murmur filled the cavern. Old Kurenskaya raised both clawed forefeet for silence. “Such is the fate of those who let time master their minds. We sorrow for one of our own who forgot. But the rest are come, healthy and well.” He gestured to the one next to him with a clawed foot the size of a steam-shovel bucket. “As first to arrive it falls to you, Videprasa, to regale us with tales of your accomplishments.”
    She nodded deferentially to the Elder Dominant and instinctively flexed vast, membranous wings. “I have since the last gathering kept myself properly hidden, emerging only to wreak appropriate havoc through the guises we have had to adopt since humans developed advanced technologies.” Raising a forefoot and looking thoughtful, she began ticking off disasters on her thick, clawed fingers.
    “Eleven years ago there was the train wreck north of New Delhi. The devastating avalanche in Bhutan was one I instigated twenty years ago. There was the plastics plant explosion in Uttar Pradesh and the sinking of the small freighter during the typhoon that struck Bangladesh only a few years past.” She smiled, showing dentition that would have been the envy of a dozen crocodiles.
    “I am particularly proud of the chemical plant damage in Bhopal that killed so many.”
    Al-Methzan ras-Shindar snorted fire. “That was very subtlely done. You are to be commended.” He straightened proudly, thrusting out his scaly chest and glaring around the cavern. “You all know what I have been up to lately.”
    Quong the Magnificent flicked back the tendrils that lined his head and jaws. “You were fortunate to find yourself in so efficacious a situation.”
    Al-Methzan’s head whipped around snakelike. “I do not deny it, but it required skill to take advantage.” Eyes capable of striking terror into the bravest man glittered with the memory. “It was purest pleasure. I struck and ripped and tore and was not noticed. The humans were too busy amongst themselves. And around me, around me every day, were those wonderful burning wells to dance about and dart through and tickle my belly against.” Al-Methzan ras-Shindar stretched luxuriously, the tips of his great wings scraping the ceiling.
    “I haven’t felt this scoured in centuries.”
    There was a concerted murmur of envious delight from the others, and Old Kurenskaya nodded approvingly. “You did well. How else have you fulfilled the mandate?”
    Al-Methzan ras-Shindar resumed the recitation of his personal tales of mayhem and destruction. He was followed by Booloongatta the Night Stalker, and then the rest of them. The hours and the days passed in