Spark the Fire

by Melissa McShane

  “I understand.” She felt profoundly uncomfortable, as if Hyaloclast had asked her to betray Rokshan. It surprised her to discover she felt loyal to him despite his species. Maybe they weren’t so different, after all. “I’ll find whoever did this.”

  “Good.” Hyaloclast brushed past her out of the cavern. Lamprophyre followed more slowly, dragging her tail behind her. She hadn’t even reached the human city and already she was tangled in deception.

  Rokshan hadn’t moved. He looked completely undisturbed by being surrounded by dragons. Lamprophyre wished she felt as calm at the prospect of being surrounded by humans.

  “A fair sendoff for Lamprophyre, ambassador to the humans,” Hyaloclast shouted.

  Every dragon within earshot sat back on their haunches and snapped their wings open with a crack like thunder splitting the sky. Half of them tilted their heads back, drew breath, and blew great gouts of fire to stream in the wind that chased round the peaks night and day. More fires ascended as the female dragons farther away saw the flames and joined in. The fire tangled with the wind to trace delicate runes before extinguishing.

  The heat bathed Lamprophyre’s upturned face and for the moment, at least, chased away her disquiet. Hyaloclast had no intention of her succeeding, and had probably chosen her for that reason, but Lamprophyre intended to do her best as ambassador of her people, even if she was a powerless one. And she was even more determined to find the one who had ordered the egg theft and make her pay.

  “Thank you,” she shouted when all the fires were extinguished. “I’ll do my best to protect our interests.” She crouched beside Rokshan. “Shall we go?”

  “Right now? Don’t you, um, have belongings to pack?”

  “I don’t know what that means. We don’t have clothes like you do.”

  “Well, obviously…” Rokshan gave up and mounted with ease. “Thank you, your majesty,” he said, giving Hyaloclast a complicated salute. Hyaloclast inclined her head regally in return. Lamprophyre pushed off from the ledge and dropped a short distance before unfurling her wings and letting the wind carry her away.

  They flew in silence for a dozen dozen heartbeats, then Rokshan said, “An ambassador of her blood?”

  “We don’t have families the way you do,” Lamprophyre said. “We are members of the flight first, of our pair-bond second, and of our clutch—all the eggs born the same year—third. Once we’re adults, we owe our parents respect for giving us life, our mothers for laying us and our fathers for hatching us, but that’s not nearly as important as the respect we owe our queen. So we keep track of parentage and siblings for childbearing purposes, but that’s about all. It doesn’t really matter that she’s my mother.” She chose not to mention abasing herself in front of Hyaloclast on his behalf. It was the only time in her adult life she’d called the dragon queen Mother, and would certainly be the last.

  “How do you know about our families? We don’t know anything about you.”

  “There are stories from before the Cataclysm. Dragons live long and have long memories. Though I’m sure some of the stories are wrong. Like the one about you living with animals in your caves.”

  Rokshan laughed. “No, we don’t—wait, do you mean pets? I suppose that’s true, but it’s not like you made it sound. We only make pets of certain animals, and they’re trained not to mess indoors…” His voice trailed off. “You know, seeing that from your perspective makes my having once had a dog seem very strange.”

  “I’ve never seen a dog.”

  “There are plenty of them in the city, though if they’re anything like horses, you’ll probably spook them.”

  His words brought something else to mind. “Where are we going?”

  “To Tanajital. It’s the capital of Gonjiri. Which, as I say that, I realize means nothing to you.” Rokshan leaned forward, past Lamprophyre’s right ear. “It’s on the Green River—that one to your right. The wider one.”

  Lamprophyre banked right until she flew above the wide river. She couldn’t see why it was called Green; it was the same gray-blue as every other river she’d seen, and murky with sediment as it swelled its banks with springtime snow melt. “What does it look like? The city, I mean.”

  “It’s big by human standards. You might find it small compared to the mountains. White. Some buildings have brass or copper sheathing on their roofs. I can’t think of many streets you’d be able to walk down comfortably, but near the palace the streets are all very wide, and there’s the parkland surrounding it. Lots of markets, lots of people buying and selling in the markets. I’ve lived there my whole life, so it all seems ordinary to me. You’ll have a very different perspective.”

  Lamprophyre squinted into the distance, but saw nothing that resembled Rokshan’s description. “I don’t know all those words. What is a parkland?”

  “A place where trees and grass and flowers grow within the city. Not wild, but tended to. Do dragons grow things?”

  “We don’t really eat plants—not most plants. I love cherries. The pits are good for digestion. There’s a forest of cherry trees about a thousand dragonlengths from the caverns that we take care of so it will yield good fruit, is that what you mean?”

  “Yes, like that. Humans plant vegetables and grains and fruit trees and store the excess so we can count on food in the lean times.”

  Lamprophyre thought about that. It wasn’t anything she’d considered doing ever, but it made sense. “That’s very clever. I didn’t realize humans thought that far ahead. You live such short lives.”

  Rokshan laughed. The wind carried the sound away so it sounded like the ghost of laughter. “That makes us even more interested in making the most of the time we have.”

  “I guess that’s true.” Lamprophyre had hundreds of years of life ahead of her, but it occurred to her now that a human her age was heading into the end of her life. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “So, are you an adult?”

  “Humans are adults when they’re sixteen,” Rokshan said. “How old are you?”

  “Sixty. But for a dragon, that’s just barely adulthood. So in a sense, you’re older than me.”

  Rokshan laughed that faint laugh again. “That’s an interesting way to look at it.”

  Lamprophyre surveyed the ground beneath them. They weren’t flying very high, and now she saw pale lines against the green ground on which humans on horses, or driving wheeled wooden carts, traveled. She pointed. “Those people are staring at us.”

  “Nobody’s running to hide,” Rokshan said. He leaned to look over her shoulder. “Or trying to shoot you.”

  “Arrows can’t hurt me.”

  “They can hurt me, and I don’t know that anyone will care that you have a human rider if it’s a matter of frightening the scary dragon off.” Rokshan touched the scales at the back of Lamprophyre’s head, sending an odd twinge through her. “They feel so soft, it’s hard to believe arrows bounce right off, except I’ve seen it happen. What about a sword, or a lance?”

  “My scales can’t be cut by any human weapon, according to the stories.” Lamprophyre dropped lower until she could see her reflection skimming along the surface of the river. “Now that I’m an adult, my wing membranes are too tough to cut. And dragon bones are made of stone, so they don’t break. I imagine a bludgeon could hurt me, if you could find one big enough. That bandit leader came close.”

  “Stone?” Rokshan’s voice cracked. “How can you fly if your bones are stone?”

  Lamprophyre laughed. “We’re creatures of magic, Rokshan. And it’s not the kind of stone you’re thinking of. It’s strong and light at the same time.”

  “Astonishing,” Rokshan said. “I wonder, though.”

  “Wonder what?”

  “Our country is developing a new kind of weapon. It uses magic to create a pulse of force—that’s like a bludgeon. But it’s meant to be used against a human enemy, so I’m not sure it would affect you any more than that bandit leader’s
club did. I don’t think it’s big enough.”

  Lamprophyre considered this. “Have you seen it used?”

  “No. Not my field of military expertise, so I don’t know how it works. But we wouldn’t use it against an ally, which we want dragons to be.” He laughed. “I can’t believe you’re coming to Tanajital. My sister Anchala will be in ecstasies. She’s a student of history specializing in the lore surrounding the catastrophe. When we first learned there were still dragons in the world, she didn’t sleep for three days, pulling records from the archives and accosting anyone who got too close with stories of how it meant the ecclesiasts were right and we were intended to make common cause with you.”

  “I don’t know that I’m comfortable being the answer to some other religion’s prophecy.”

  “She’s just enthusiastic. Please don’t hold that against her. She’s not always good with people, but she means well.”

  “She’s your sister. How many siblings do you have?”

  Rokshan’s grip tightened. “There are five of us. Tekentriya is the oldest, my father’s heir. Then Manishi, Khadar, Anchala, and finally me. Do you have siblings?”

  Lamprophyre tried to look at Rokshan before remembering that was impossible. “No. Tell me more about your siblings.”

  “I’d rather talk about yours—or why you don’t have any. Unless that’s rude.”

  Lamprophyre blew out a cloud of steam. “My father Aegirine rejoined Mother Stone ten years ago. Cave sickness. Hyaloclast hasn’t pair-bonded again. And before you ask, I’d rather fly face first into a glacier than ask her why not. Now, why is it you don’t want to talk about your siblings?”

  Rokshan pressed his face briefly against the scales at the base of her neck, an odd feeling like having a thumb lightly touching an exposed nerve. “My family—politics is the sea we all swim in, except maybe my mother and Anchala. It doesn’t make for warm and loving relationships. Everyone else has a place in the royal household. Tekentriya’s the heir. Manishi has her magic. Khadar is an ecclesiast. And I didn’t want anything to do with any of it, so I was sent off to the Army.”

  “What’s the Army?”

  “It’s a group of humans who fight together, as a unit, I mean. They’re who’s developing that new weapon I mentioned. The Army defends Gonjiri against attackers. If, for example, dragons were to attack Tanajital, the Army would fight back.”

  “Dragons won’t attack Tanajital,” Lamprophyre said, feeling an itchy guilty sense that it might be a lie.

  “It was just an example. We’re more likely to go to war against Fanishkor. That’s why some divisions of the Army are stationed on the Fanishkorite border.” He hesitated. “There’s also a division of the Army on the border with dragon territory. It’s mostly to defend the settlers against bandits. I hope your people don’t take offense.”

  “It’s all right. You can’t hurt us.” She didn’t want to tell Rokshan that Hyaloclast would probably laugh herself sick over the idea that human armies might do anything except bleed and die if they attacked dragons.

  “Anyway, because I’m a prince they made me a commander, as if royal blood somehow confers leadership abilities. But it turned out to be something I’m good at. And as a bonus, it keeps me free from the politicking that goes on in the palace, between Father and Tekentriya and the foreign ambassadors.”

  “And I’m an ambassador.” She hadn’t felt nervous about her role until just that moment. Suddenly Hyaloclast’s instructions about not agreeing to anything were a comfort.

  “Don’t worry about it. They’ll all be too intimidated by you to try anything sneaky.”

  Lamprophyre wasn’t so confident, but there was no point in worrying about that before she’d even reached the city.

  She looked up from scanning the ground and was struck by the sight, unexpectedly near, of what could only be Tanajital. She sucked in a startled breath. Given how small Rokshan and the other humans she’d seen were, she had expected something equally small, but the stones of the human city rose high enough that even at her current elevation, she could fly past and scrape her claws on their pointed tops.

  Calling them stones wasn’t right, either. She’d never seen anything so obviously non-natural in her life as the human city. The…buildings, she thought the word was…the buildings bore some similarity to crystals in how regular and straight-sided they were, but they lacked the shiny reflectiveness or transparency of a crystal. They were white enough she might have thought them carved of talc, if she didn’t know how stupid building with talc would be, and she had no reason to think the humans stupid.

  Spots like bits of mica embedded in the buildings flashed white in the noonday sun, and there were blobs of copper or gold set atop the tallest buildings that made no sense to Lamprophyre. It was an alien place, and it made her shiver to look at it.

  She sped up, making Rokshan grip her ruff more tightly. “Maybe you should slow down,” he called out.

  “Why? I want to get a better look.” There was a wall, about a dragonlength in height, that hemmed the city in. It sparkled like granite in the bright noon sun, but had an unusual pinkish cast to it she wished she could taste. They probably didn’t want her tearing even very small bite-sized chunks out of their wall. She was sure it went all the way around Tanajital. That would be interesting to explore.

  “Because they—”

  There were humans on the top of the wall, running along the flat ridge of wood attached to the granite. Lamprophyre was too far away to hear any noise they might be making, but she wasn’t too far away to see them brandishing curved wooden sticks. No, not sticks, bows, taller than the ones the bandits had had. Before Rokshan could finish his sentence, they’d raised their bows to the ready and sent a hail of arrows directly at Lamprophyre.

  Chapter Seven

  Lamprophyre closed her nictitating membranes to protect her eyes and flapped her wings hard to slow her momentum. Too late to conceal herself. The archers’ first volley fell short, but that didn’t stop them trying again. Shouts drifted toward her from their direction. “I thought they were expecting me,” she said.

  “Sending you was Hyaloclast’s idea, remember? Nobody knows you’re coming. And I should have expected that reaction, but I was distracted by our conversation. Fly higher. Let’s get past the wall.”

  Lamprophyre beat the air, driving upward at a steep angle, though not so steep as to lose her passenger. “Past the wall? Shouldn’t we set down outside the city?”

  “It’s too late for a peaceful, non-aggressive approach—”

  “I wasn’t aggressive!”

  “You’re a dragon. Every one of those soldiers knows by now what dragons are capable of. You’re aggressive just by being here.” Rokshan leaned farther forward. “The only thing left is to brazen it out. Let’s head for the palace.”

  Lamprophyre blew out steam from both her nostrils. “Just because human weapons can’t hurt me doesn’t mean I want to be smacked by a sword, or pelted with arrows.”

  She felt Rokshan twist in his seat as if he were looking behind them. “The Army mostly posts guards at the wall, not at the palace. There’s a much smaller force there, and all of them know me and owe obedience to me as a commander. I can talk them down before they attack us. And then we’ll talk to my father.”

  The plan seemed rather thin, but Lamprophyre was willing to trust Rokshan’s knowledge of human behavior. She winged higher in the sky, then wheeled and beat the air to hover briefly. “So which one of these is the palace? I assume it’s big, but there are a lot of big buildings.”

  “Keep flying. It’s farther east, away from the river.”

  At the point where the river entered Tanajital, it was dozens of dragonlengths across and ambled like a well-fed bear through the river valley. The city sprawled on either side of it, though most of it lay on the east bank, making Lamprophyre wonder why it wasn’t considered two cities. Or maybe it was, and Rokshan just hadn’t mentioned it. The larger, taller buildings were all
grouped toward the center of the east bank city. In fact, all the buildings on the west bank were short and unadorned and very close together, adding to the illusion of companion cities.

  Boats filled the river, most of them making their way from one side to the other, a few with those scraps of fabric belling out to catch the wind to take them downstream. Lamprophyre thought about swooping low over them to see if any were the bandits, but remembered that had been a twelveday ago and the bandits had been on a different river. If she was to find the culprits behind the theft of Opal’s egg, she would have to go about it differently. And she’d probably terrify these humans unnecessarily, anyway.

  “There, where I’m pointing,” Rokshan said. Lamprophyre twisted her neck to follow the line of his finger. “Past the building with the red arches.”

  Lamprophyre swooped downward and glided toward the indicated building. “That one with the red arches is large,” she said. “What is it for?”

  “It’s a coliseum. For races, and competitions. A generation ago they held gladiatorial fights there, before people lost interest. The palace is—that’s it. The one with all the golden roofs.”

  Lamprophyre swept past the coliseum and descended, gaping in amazement. She didn’t know enough about human buildings to appreciate whether this one was nice, but gold was something any dragon understood, and the palace did indeed have a dozen gilded roofs, some angled, some round and curved. The smell of the gold roused her hunger, though gold was more a seasoning than a meal. “That’s impressive,” she said.

  “Most of what makes it really beautiful is on the inside, and you won’t fit into the halls to see it. But there’s the Great Hall, and the throne room, and a few other places that might be big enough to admit you. Set down there, at the center of the park. Let’s not scare the citizens.”

  Motion below her caught Lamprophyre’s attention, a surge and ebb like the flow of colored water. “I think it’s too late for that,” she said, pointing. Distant, terrified cries came to her ears and were carried away by the wind.