PART OF HIS DRAGON. THE DRAGON IS STRONGEST. DESTROY THE DRAGON BUT CAPTURE HIS CHOSEN FOR LATER CONSUMPTION BY THE DARK ONE."
Greble directed a roc she had been holding in reserve to snatch up the boy Chosen and carry him out of reach of KraKara. Moments later she watched in satisfaction as KraKara completely enveloped the weakened dragon. She again felt the Talisman vibrate its approval.
That situation addressed, the Witch turned to regard her own captives on the transport. Most of the humans were weakened but still alive. They lay about the airplane unconscious, except for one pilot that flew the airplane as her puppet.
The captured female Chosen One was partly conscious and despite punishing pain still resisted her will, though she was gradually weakening. She had much less dragon strength than the boy, but enough to be a nuisance, were she given the opportunity. Greble had managed to control a few brief statements the girl made to the dragon and the boy, but it had taken all her strength. She couldn't have done it without help from the Talisman.
But even the Talisman and its great Evil powers were repulsed by the girl! "SHE WEARS A TALISMAN OF HER OWN THAT REPELS ME," it told Greble.
Indeed Greble had earlier noticed the goldish silver-dollar-sized trinket that the girl wore chained around her neck but paid it no heed. The Witch reached for it now, intending to rip it off of her neck, but found that she couldn't even touch it! Something, either her talisman's or the girl's, held her back! Greble tried unsuccessfully again and again until she was greatly drained of her own strength.
While Greble was weakened, the girl quickly regained control of herself. Fortunately, as a precaution the Chosen was handcuffed and tied with strong ropes, and her probing senses and telepathy were contained by Greble’s strongest spells. Before she could fight free, Greble sucked the life from several captives to quickly regain her own strength.
As the Witch again turned to regard her young captive she let the enchantment that provided the illusion of human appearance and beauty slip, such that the dragon-girl could see her as she really was: a roughly humanoid hulk of oozing puss with eyes and mouths that slowly meandered around the mound that loosely resembled a head. Throughout the Witch's body there were tinges of elemental energies and Evil that twisted and swirled as though in constant struggle among themselves. Her left hand was enveloped by a dark evil something that Mary couldn't scry, but had a familiar taste to it that puzzled her.
Greble was disappointed when the girl didn’t even flinch. “You have seen your champions defeated, Chosen One. They are being completely absorbed by the monster and are gone forever. You too will soon weaken and die before your own dragon returns to Earth and finds me gone. Perhaps by then the stupid Earth monster will be strong enough to overcome your precious dragon also.”
“I regret I will not see you die,” the girl managed to reply. “but I hope that Jewel doesn’t find you. When the Dark One finds that you have destroyed the last trace of green dragon, your death will be a thousand times worse than mine.”
Greble laughed as the Talisman vibrated its amusement! Thanks to the Talisman she had confidence that she would indeed please the Dark One.
She knew that the Dark One wanted the egg, everyone knew that. And of course over the centuries he had been pursuing the dragons of all colors, and gaining their different strengths when he absorbed them. Had he wanted the egg to absorb it and not simply to destroy it? Did he need a living white dragon or its chosen to obtain the strength of a green? Was there a special significance to the juvenile dragon being white? She had never seen or heard of a white dragon. What did it all mean? She wasn't sure but her Talisman indicated that she didn't need to know.
At a certain level she didn’t like this; there was too much she didn’t know. Dealing with the Dark One was already going to be far too dangerous. What if her Talisman was wrong? She had perhaps become too dependent on it, but there was nothing she could do about it. The last attempt she had had made to remove it from her hand had been unbearably painful, and that was many days ago when the Taliman was much smaller and weaker.
She returned her attention to the camera view screen, where a house-sized mound of KraKara material had formed where the combatants had earlier been visible. KraKara had already engulfed the White Dragon. It was too late to change that; freeing the dragon would be impossible. She had tested KraKara’s strength before and wasn’t anxious to do so again, particularly after she had the humans feed it two of those things they called nuclear bombs.
As there was nothing she could do to save the dragon anyway, she dismissed her worries about the issue. KraKara would doubtlessly destroy the White Dragon, but her roc had captured it's Chosen to turn over to the Dark One. "EVERYTHING IS GOING WELL!" the Talisman reassured her.
Witch Greble didn't fully understand that, but she didn't really care. More and more, she was letting the Talisman do her thinking for her, and more and more she was comfortable with that.