“Perhaps you could sound her out on the matter for us. No need to mention our names, though,” NiVom said.
Imfamnia glared at her mate, and AuRon was sure he heard griff being tightened to keep from rattling.
“She’ll certainly oppose Tyr RuGaard if she believes he’s not playing fair by the hominids she cares for,” AuRon said.
“The Tyr’s reign won’t last forever. I hope your sister is sensible about it, when the end does come.”
“I won’t regret it,” AuRon said.
Imfamnia relaxed a little. “Please, enough idle chatter about our good Tyr. There are all these rumors passing around about him giving up his position to be with his mate and selecting a successor. That sort of rumor gets tongues wagging. Remember, AuRon, and remember for him, Natasatch, this was just idle talk between neighbors. You, NiVom, were up too late working again. I suggest you rest your mouth and your body.”
As if some understanding had passed between them, Imfamnia called out thralls who tied bags of farewell presents around their necks. She opened the bags to highlight a few. Some were delicacies in pots, others trinkets of copper and brass, for wearing or for eating.
“I very much enjoyed this visit,” Natasatch said. “You know you are free to come and spend a few days with us any time.”
“Didn’t I say we would be great friends?” Imfamnia asked. “Perhaps we will come. I want to know what you eat to keep your claws so strong. Mine get worn down just handling fabric, I oath.”
The four dragons exchanged bows and the Protectors of Dairuss took wing. The thralls let out a loud cheer as they rose into the air. AuRon guessed they’d been ordered to, under pain of punishment.
They flew home over the course of a day’s journey of easy, brief flights, laden as they were by presents and trinkets. They opened one of the pots on a mountainside and enjoyed honey-roasted organ meats stuffed with smoked fish.
They passed the trinkets back and forth. Natasatch agreed that it was junk, but they might as well keep it against a rainy day when metal ran short.
Their little cave, looking out on the Golden Dome and Naf’s thriving, smoky city, in the early winter chill, was a welcome relief after the pomp of Ghioz.
They alighted. “Good to be back,” AuRon said. He wondered how soon he could get away to speak to Naf. There was much he wished to discuss.
“I smell Istach,” Natasatch said. “She must have come from the Lavadome with a message.”
In returning to the cave, they woke their offspring. Istach jumped to her feet.
“A dragon, a dragon has come, Father. He wishes to speak to you. He’s back in the deep room.”
AuRon recognized the odor of a healthy male dragon as he descended. The blazing, almost red-orange scales and the black stripes stood out even in the dim reflected light of the deep cave.
“Greetings, AuRon,” DharSii said. “Is this your mate and the mother of your quiet daughter? Honored to meet you, madam. I’m afraid there’s a war in the offing, and we may be on opposite sides of it.”
Chapter 8
Fount Brass was much as Wistala remembered it. Tucked between two converging mountains like the last pea in a pod, the tin roofs gleamed from far off. Its famous wind chimes and musical water cascades—the water flowed through tubes that created notes through the flow—that gave the city its name could be heard from a hundred of dragonlengths away if the wind was favorable.
Inhabited by men, many of whom were wider than they were tall and bowed in leg and arm, who cultivated and knotted their beards with the same care dwarfs took in dusting and watering the lichen within, it was a city of ringing smithies and white-hot foundries venting sulfurous fumes.
They were notoriously independent. They were a province of Hypatia, but didn’t accept Hypatian law or temples, and had fought wars to keep their freedoms in Rainfall’s day.
She’d last passed through as a reluctant fortune-teller with a traveling circus. She’d have an easy time telling the fortunes of the men now: If they didn’t accept a dragon into Fount Brass, her brother had every intention of cutting off all trade with the obstinate men.
“The slow pillage of a dragon-lord. No thank you,” their king, a hulk of a man named Arbus Glorycry said, bouncing his daughter on his knee. The curly-furred little girl was fascinated by Wistala and watched her every move, wide-eyed.
Wistala wondered if he’d brought his spawn forward as a shield against dragon-wrath or to show courageous nonchalance against yet another of the Tyr’s emissaries.
Perhaps a little of both.
“Every other Hypatian province of the old order has accepted the help of a dragon. Why not yours?”
“Where were you when the Ghioz were battering down our towers? Where were the dragons when my daughter’s room was burned?”
“Myself, I was fighting in the snow of the Ba-Drink Pass,” Wistala said. “Others fought and died in the streets of Hypat, or over Ghioz. Have you not been at peace for ten years? Are there still bandits riding your mountains? Do Ghioz soldiers still walk your streets?”
“They never conquered us,” King Arbus said. “As to the old Hypatian order, it fell apart in my grandfather’s time, when he knew only the title of Lord Protector. My father took the title of King and passed it to me. Am I to relinquish it to a dragon?”
“We do not interfere with your traditions. Your dragon would act as an intermediary between you and the other lands of the Grand Alliance.”
“What good would that do us?”
“Trade. The Hypatians are rebuilding their armies and shipping fleets. They’ll need swords and shields and helms. Would you rather have the orders, or shall they go to the dwarfs of the Diadem, or new smithies in the north?”
“Dwarf make! Ha! Twice the price for the same quality, just to say some grubby, coal-oil-reeking dwarf labored over the edge.”
Wistala listened to the music of wind and water all around, no two refrains ever the same, no melody repeated, infinitely complex yet soothing in its smooth sameness. “You might find markets for your delightful chimes at the edge of the world to the south, or in the far north.”
At that, there was a murmur from some of the King’s retinue at the sides of his thick-beamed, tin-roofed hall. Wistala thought the style of the architecture so striking in the manner it echoed the mountains that she considered flying north at once to see if the roof on her eventual resort might be restyled in the manner of King Arbus’ palace.
“If we do not join?” he asked.
“I’ll make no threat. The world around you is changing. You can remain apart from it, in your fastness and isolation and independence, tending those throwbacks to another age you ride and harness into pulling your wagons. You’ll lose sons and daughter to the cities that will grow and thrive and ring the Inland Ocean again like a jeweled necklace.”
King Arbus laughed. “I see you’re still a fortune-teller.”
Wistala breathed easier. When the men of Fount Brass laughed, all was well.
“There’s no need to put a dragon in these hills, King Arbus. Only give your word that you and your heirs will offer food and shelter to a tired messenger, and reaffirm the old bonds to the Hypatian Directory, and you’ll have title not just here in your city, but throughout the Grand Alliance. You’ll be welcome in a dozen courts, even deep in the Lavadome, and not just be limited to your own. What say you, King?”
“I thank you for not salting your tongue with threats. I am moved by the truth in your eyes. I suspect you are a dragon Fount Brass can trust. Prove your words with deeds, though, Wistala. I provisionally—provisionally, mind!—accept. If all goes well for three years, we shall call it an Alliance. There! I have given. Will you give as well?”
“In the name of the Lavadome, as Queen-Consort, I accept.”
Wistala wondered who she should report the change in Fount Brass to first. The Lavadome or the Hypatian Directory? The Directory dealt more frequently with the men of Fount Brass, but she held a more
important position in the Lavadome as Queen-Consort.
In either case, she allowed herself a short prrum of satisfaction at crossing the very last item off of Nilrasha’s list of issues to which she should devote mind and talent.
Save the unwritten one. Of a conspiracy against the Tyr she knew next to nothing. There were complaints and gossip, but unless her brother and Nilrasha had become unhinged, there was no danger in complaints and gossip.
Wistala decided to return to the Lavadome with the news of Fount Brass. Her brother, glad to have another triumph to celebrate, ordered a feast held in her honor for the new Protectorate—even if it was a provisional one.
“There’ll be nothing provisional about the provisions,” the Copper said.
NoSohoth saw to it that the banquet pit atop Imperial Rock was decorated with wind chimes, a gift from the King of Fount Brass.
The old silver dragon assigned Wistala the honor of the first position at the feast, so that fresh platters from the kitchen passed under her nose as they were brought up.
So many members of the Imperial Line and the principal hills attended that the dragons had to take turns around the feasting pit. By tradition, the younger ate first and the older ate longer.
Thanks to new Hypatian trade there were entertainments to delight the dragons beyond the usual songs. Trade with the Hypatians had brought fireworks from across half a world. Rayg had arranged them on a series of wooden platforms, starting off with fountains of light and having them grow into colorful missiles that almost touched the top of the Lavadome.
“Exquisite,” Wistala said to her brother, thumping her tail with the others. “Who is that human controlling the display?”
“Have you never met him? That’s Rayg, my engineering adviser.”
Wistala hadn’t thought of the name in so long it took her brain a moment to make the connection.
“Rayg… Raygnar?”
“I believe so. He was raised and taught by dwarfs, I believe.”
“Rayg. Trained by dwarfs?” Wistala asked, shocked. This was Lada’s child! What was he doing in the Lavadome? For him to have come so far, she had no idea the Wheel of Fire dwarfs traveled so far in the Lower World. The last she’d ever learned of him was that he’d disappeared into the Lower World after King Fangbreaker’s death in the barbarian victory over the Wheel of Fire dwarfs—an assault and a regicide in which she’d played no small part.
“How did he ever come here?”
“I hardly remember,” the Copper said. “Some traveling dwarfs we captured, I believe. He’s smarter than any of our Ankelenes. He designed and built my wing joint. Dwarf-training, I suppose, but he’s built things not even a dwarf could create. I keep meaning to free him, but there always seems to be one more task for him to do.”
One more trip to make. She’d have to find time somehow to go north and tell Rayg’s mother that he still lived. Not only lived, but had grown into brilliant manhood.
But nevertheless, he was little more than a slave.
So when her brother asked her for a private chat in his baths after the feast, she happily accepted.
“It’s much reduced from SiDrakkon’s day. At one time his bath took up most of the upper level of this end of the Imperial Rock.”
“I’ve heard stories from the Firemaids about all the human women he kept.”
“Not my weakness,” the Copper said.
Thralls brought in stones heated in the cooking fires until they created an optical illusion of waves above them. The thralls dropped the stones into shallow pools of water, which instantly boiled and filled the bath with steam.
The heat raised her scale and the water beaded up on skin and scale, washing her delightfully clean from nose to tailtip. She felt as though a dwarf’s weight in dirt ran off her and into the sluices.
“You’ve never been in the Tyr’s bath before, have you?”
“It’s pleasant,” Wistala said. “Why doesn’t the Queen have her own?”
“The Queen, or Queen-Consort, can use this one whenever she likes,” the Copper said.
“I shall. Nilrasha never said how much flying would be involved in being Queen-Consort.”
“Her experiences predate the Grand Alliance,” the Copper said.
“Of course.”
“I think my Protectors are cheating me,” the Copper said.
Wistala sighed. She’d much rather brief him on the campaign to get the bandits off the oliban trade routes. Or new hatchlings. Or the promotions in the Firemaids, and who had taken what oaths.
No, he had to talk about the Protectorates—and how much gold was coming in.
She prepared her usual speech about how dragons should work out a system where they’re paid for the services they provide—keeping bandits off the roads and brigands out of the hills, and flying messages. The problem was the role of “Protector” wasn’t codified in Hypatian law.
Her brother had kept the costs, duties, and responsibilities of a Protector vague for a reason.
“Everyone takes a little bit off the tributes we are supposed to be given to keep scale healthy,” the Copper said.
Wistala was distracted by motion caught in the corner of her eye.
The Copper continued: “I think that the men—gaaagk!”
Wistala felt a hard jerk under her jaw. Strangulation—her vision blurred.
A winged shape, smaller than a griffaran, fluttered under her neck and she felt new pressure on her throat.
Her brother had managed to get a griff open—the one on the side where his eye was damaged tended to hang half open or move about on its own, adding to the lopsided look of his features.
He extended his wings and used them to deflect other fliers circling his throat with lengths of chain.
Wistala felt the pressure subside and took a desperate breath. Her brother pulled a length of chain away from her throat with his tail—he couldn’t reach his own but he could get at hers.
Wistala pulled back—hard—and heard a high, metallic ting! as a link parted. Now with the fighting blood running hot in her veins, she lunged and snapped at one of the fliers. She caught it across the back and shook it like a dog killing a rat, flinging it into a corner and going after another.
Leathery flaps covered her eyes. She whipped her neck up hard and heard a satisfying splat as she crushed it against the wet ceiling.
Blinking the sting of the creature’s blood from her eyes, she saw her brother still fighting the chains around his throat.
For the first time Wistala had a clear look at their tormentors. They were batlike creatures, furless with thick, spiny skin. Evilly smiling jaws bristled with teeth and wide red eyes shone under cavernous ears. A thick mat of hair remained on the head, trailing down between the eyes to an upturned nose.
The legs, short but powerful, ended in quadruple claws. Long arms trailed veined webbing; the wings extended down the sides of their bodies to the knee joint.
“Pah!” one screamed at her brother, spitting a green globule at his good eye. He lifted his chin and managed to catch it on the griff, where it sizzled briefly.
Wistala spat back. Her fire ran across the ceiling of the bath, dropped to a pool, and spread atop it like a flaming leaf, adding to the steam. The creature vanished in the fire, its flaming body plummeted.
Striking with her wing, she brought down another. It tried to right itself on the slippery floor but she stomped down hard with a sii.
Just as suddenly as they’d come, they were gone, leaving hooked chains behind. And the bodies of their comrades.
She helped her brother out of the choking chain.
“We’ll need someone to extract these fishhook things,” Wistala said.
“Thank you,” the Copper managed.
Once the alarmed Griffaran Guard, Shadowcatch, and some servant thralls had attended to them, they ordered a thorough search of Imperial Rock for the rest of the assassins.
Their wounds were frightful—the hooks had left holes under the
scale. They easily could have lost one or both neck-hearts in the struggle.
“How did they get into the Imperial Rock ?”
“Flew—they’re dark, we don’t have a permanent guard circling in the air. The Drakwatch and Firemaids guard the entrances and lower passages. I expect they just flew in quietly and entered through someone’s balcony.”
“They must know their way around well.”
“Perhaps they explored,” Wistala said. “Late, when all are asleep.”
“I suppose they could have been mistaken for one of my bats. But not up close. These are out of the ordinary.”
“They must have been hidden by someone in the Imperial Rock. Fed, watered, washed out—until we were together and alone.”
“Perhaps they just attacked me to keep me from defending you,” Wistala said.
“Then why aren’t there three chains—or four? No, they brought two sets of hooked chains. Enough for two dragons. Someone must have seen us go off to the baths together and called them in.”
“I see being Queen is not all feasts and viewing hatchlings,” Wistala said.
“We’d better see about these wounds,” the Copper said. “Some of my own bats can take care of them.”
Wistala didn’t care for her brother’s method of treating wounds—washed out with bat spit, ragged flesh snipped away by sharp little teeth, all to the tune of cooing and animal slurping sounds in between “’ere, under tha’ scale” and “oh, this bit’s good, wha’s next?” But she had to admire the pleasant numbness and the clean scars.
At last, she had evidence of a conspiracy. But nothing on who might have sent the extraordinarily malformed bat creatures to kill them in the first place.
Chapter 9
NiVom was up to something. The Copper could smell it on him.
His Protector of Ghioz had invited him to enjoy a few days of sunlight in the Upper World “observing a show of Grand Alliance strength designed to enhance our prestige and intimidate possible rivals on our eastern borders,” or so the Firemaiden messenger told him.
[Age of Fire 05] - Dragon Rule Page 13