“Do you not! I have heard human folk speaking of the great Stegoman, who carried the Lord Wizard of Merovence to victory!”
Stegoman flew on in silence for a few wingbeats, then said, “That is heartening to hear.”
“Heartening! Do you think they would respect you if they knew that you are no more masculine than your rider, who fears women so much that he shrinks from coupling with dozens of willing and eager females?”
“Where I come from, that kind of self-control is regarded as a virtue,” Matt told her.
“Then you come from nowhere upon this earth!”
“Right,” Matt confirmed.
Dimetrolas stared at him, confounded just long enough for Stegoman to say, “He wooed a queen and won her heart. Would you not say that proves greater masculinity, not less?”
“Perhaps,” Dimetrolas sneered, “if it were not she who had wooed him! Surely you must be so wooed, too, deficient drake, for you approach no female!”
“What, do you think the measure of masculinity is a male's drooling after every female in heat he encounters?” Stegoman asked with contempt. “A fine warrior he would be, a fine builder or protector, if any passing female could distract him from his work!”
Stung, Dimetrolas retorted, “Protector, are you? Then defend!” She dove toward him, tongue of flame licking out toward Matt.
“Hold fast!” Stegoman roared, and folded his wings to plummet from the sky.
Matt held tight, hearing the wind whistle past him as his stomach tried to make friends with his larynx.
“Leap!” Stegoman cried, swerving five feet above a mountaintop.
Matt sprang down into the center of a cluster of needle-sharp rocks and crouched as Stegoman swooped up and away. Dimetrolas bellowed in anger as she backed air sharply, jolting herself to hover just short of the rocks. Then she plunged down from the peak, caught the updraft that rushed along its side, and spiraled up after Stegoman.
But the male dragon turned, wings folding again, and stooped upon her. Dimetrolas squawked with anger—he was breaking the rules, after all—and shot away in an Immelman that Matt thought would have done credit to a World War I ace. Stegoman pulled out of his dive and went rocketing after her.
Dimetrolas caroled in delight and dove toward a mountain-top. Stegoman, reading her intention, soared after her but fifty feet higher, and as Dimetrolas pulled up to avoid the rocks, she found herself gliding straight toward him. She roared, sending a tongue of flame twenty feet ahead to scorch him, but Stegoman swung to the side. She barreled past him, and he veered to follow, bellowing a fifty-foot tongue of flame that did no more than warm her toes. She chortled victory and plunged down past the horizon.
Matt waited, knowing that Stegoman was too much of a gentleman to hurt a female who wasn't really trying to kill him, but also hoping he hadn't become such a stuffy old bachelor that he wouldn't remember how to have fun.
It seemed so; suddenly, Stegoman reappeared over another mountain peak, and even at a distance Matt could see the contemptuous set of his lip—of course, with that muzzle, Stegoman had a lot of lip. Dimetrolas came after him with all the finesse of a cargo jet, screeching with anger, spiraling high above him, then folding her wings to plunge downward, all talons out. Matt's heart quailed; she looked as though she were really out for blood, and he didn't know how Stegoman would react to actual injury.
He should have guessed, Matt thought as Stegoman swooped past his hiding place, calling, “Send her home, wizard, I pray you!”
Then he was gone, sailing away into an updraft. Furious, Dimetrolas came roaring in like a fighter jet, howling insults in dragonese, but Stegoman spiraled higher in his updraft, gaining so much altitude that she couldn't pounce on him. Screeching with anger, Dimetrolas soared over to a faster updraft and shot higher, then dove back to Stegoman's air column, wings folding to stoop—but Stegoman looped the loop to come out above her.
While they were playing “Can You Top This?” Matt sighed and went to work granting his friend's request, but with considerable disappointment. What else could he do, though? If Stegoman didn't want to play, someone might get hurt sooner or later. Still, some sixth sense warned him not to send Dimetrolas completely home; instead, he sang,
“Up aloft amid the jet stream,
Swiftly blows the favoring gale,
Soft as hatchling's scales in eggshells,
Filling out wings' leathery sails.
As it turns to catch and bear you
(For you are the wild wind's pride)
To the peaks you've left behind you,
Where we met and for truce cried.”
A hot wind came howling in from the south and caught Dimetrolas. She squawked in outrage as it sent her tumbling through the sky, then managed to stabilize herself, leveling out, wings beating furiously as she tried to fly against the wind—but it bore her ever farther northward. Finally she tired and, just before it swept her past the horizon, turned to glide, nose pointing toward Maracanda and the mountains where she'd first met them.
Leather boomed as Stegoman cupped his wings to hover above Matt, then carefully lowered his legs. “Well done, wizard! That vexing female would have plagued me for hours if you had not sent her hence!”
“If you say so.” Matt leaped, wrapped his arms around Stegoman's ankle, and let the dragon carry him past the spike-rocks to a more open peak, where Stegoman landed completely and Matt could climb back up between his shoulders. “You know, though, she might just have been trying to get your attention.”
“That,” Stegoman said grimly, “was quite obvious.” He plunged off the peak, caught an updraft, and rose into the sky again.
Matt held his peace, waiting.
Finally Stegoman said, “I cannot comprehend why females find so great a need for attention that they must disrupt a male's peace to gain it.”
Delicately, Matt suggested, “It could be that she finds you attractive.”
“When she is at such pains to deny my masculinity? Hardly!”
“With most males, that's a sure way of getting their attention.”
“Not mine,” Stegoman snapped. “To what purpose, anyway?”
“It could be an overture to mating,” Matt suggested.
“Mating?” Stegoman squawked. “Me?”
“Hey, you are a big musclebound hunk, you know.”
“But I have no notion how to deal with a female! All my adult years have been spent in exile from my own kind!”
“You have had more dealings with humans than with dragons,” Matt conceded. “That's why you wouldn't realize that the females of your own kind might find you handsome.”
Stegoman was silent for a quarter of a mile. Then he said, “There might be truth in what you say. Why else should she have followed us?”
“Why indeed?” Matt asked as casually as he could.
Stegoman was silent for half a mile this time. Finally he said, “She is a vibrantly beautiful dragon.”
Matt nodded. “If Mother Nature is an artist, Dimetrolas is a masterpiece.”
Stegoman was silent again.
Matt ventured, “You must admit, that little chase was stimulating.”
“Must I?” Stegoman ground out.
Matt waited.
“Yes,” Stegoman said, with great reluctance. “I must. Stimulating indeed.”
“It makes a fellow think,” Matt offered.
“I shall,” Stegoman promised.
And he did, for the next dozen miles. Matt waited in silence and watched the road unwind below, knowing that when his friend wanted to talk, he would.
Finally Stegoman said, “We are not a promiscuous kind.”
“You're not,” Matt agreed. “Dragons are models of fidelity.”
“We mate for life,” Stegoman said.
“You do,” Matt confirmed.
Stegoman was silent a little longer, then said, “Our lives are very long.”
“Very,” Matt agreed.
“A drake would b
e a fool to spend the rest of his days bound to a sharp-tongued female who insults and criticizes him.”
“Even if she is beautiful,” Matt mused, “and sensuous. Even voluptuous, maybe. In dragon terms.”
“In dragon terms,” Stegoman repeated, and flew on in silence a little longer. Then he said, “Perhaps I have been living among humans for too long, but I find I want a mate who is capable of gentleness, even sweetness, as human mates often are to one another.”
The words evoked a vision of Alisande at her sweetest and most alluring, so powerful that it made Matt shiver. He forced himself to replace it with a picture of her at her most angry. It made him shiver again—unfortunately, he found his mate beautiful no matter what mood she was in—but gave him the impetus to remind Stegoman, “We can be pretty angry sometimes, too.”
“I can bear the storms,” Stegoman said thoughtfully, “as long as there is sunlight to follow, and far more fair weather than foul.”
“Could be Dimetrolas has a gentler side to her nature,” Matt suggested.
“Anything is possible,” Stegoman huffed, “but I have not seen it in her.”
“It's a little early in your acquaintance for her to let it show,” Matt said, “at least, if I understand dragon culture at all.”
“You understand the meaning of a dragon without a clan,” Stegoman snapped.
That gave Matt pause. He had to think it over for a minute. “I see…I'd thought she was the lookout for a clan back there in the mountains.”
“If she had been, why did they not come at her call?”
“Maybe because she didn't call?” Matt guessed. “Figured she could handle you herself?”
“No sentry would do such,” Stegoman assured him. “At sight of a stranger, she would have called for a squadron.”
“Since she didn't…”
“That means she had none to call,” Stegoman said grimly, “and no clan to protect.”
Matt was silent, absorbing the idea of Dimetrolas as an outcast.
“You know what it means for a dragon to fly alone,” Stegoman challenged.
“Since I met you while you were in exile yourself,” Matt said, “I can guess.”
“Would her clan have banished her if she were truly gentle and sweet, with her brash abrasiveness but a facade?”
Matt tried for the delicate touch. “There could be reasons for exile other than a disagreeable personality.”
“Such as drunken flying, for one who becomes intoxicated from the fumes of his own fire,” Stegoman said with a sardonic tone.
“Or being half dragon and half griffon,” Matt reminded.
“Like our friend Narlh? True.” But Stegoman's tone was thunderous, and the unspoken statement was there: any dragon who had committed a crime great enough for banishment was a dragon to be avoided—the kind who would make your life miserable, or even very short.
Matt might have pointed out that Dimetrolas didn't have the look of a murderer or traitor about her, but he had sense enough to realize that conversation had awakened Stegoman's memory of his own tatter-winged banishment, and that returning sober and self-possessed, and being hailed as a hero among his own kind, had not completely erased the pain of that early trauma—indeed, that nothing ever could. Matt was shocked to realize that even now, ten years after his triumphant return to his clan, the humiliation of Stegoman's own exile made him doubt his worth as a dragon, as an individual, and most especially as a mate.
It was time to shut up and let the obvious conclusion work itself out inside the dragon's mind.
* * *
Balkis and Anthony were still feeling hung over as they waved good-bye to the Piconyans and set out again on their northward journey. They were rather quiet—it had been an excellent party, and each was somewhat dazed by the realization that neither had made a fool of himself or herself. Indeed, in spite of the amount of wine they consumed, they had each kept their heads and asked many more questions than they answered, and listened far more than they talked.
The Piconyans, it turned out, were an outgoing and garrulous people, and had been all too glad to talk about themselves. In the process, Balkis and Anthony had learned a great deal about Piconyan ways and history—and imbibed a great deal of wine. Each had only sipped now and then, but the wine was served in bowls instead of cups, and the party lasted into the wee hours. The Piconyans, after all, had a great deal to celebrate, as they pointed out to Balkis and Anthony with lurid accounts of the carnage they would have discovered had they come near the end of the day instead of at its beginning.
Thinking of that now, Balkis shuddered. “It is only our good fortune that we did not come when the mass of the birds would have distracted us so with their pecking and clawing that we would have been unable to think of a spell.”
“Very true,” Anthony agreed, blinking.
“We need a guide,” Balkis said with the labored speech of one who had to work hard to drag a coherent thought from the wine-soaked wreckage of her brain. “We need to travel with someone who can warn us of such dangers before we come to them.”
“Dangers such as this war with the birds?”
“No, dangers such as Piconyan banquets! Let us ask at the next village we find.”
Anthony held up a small wineskin. “The king gave me this and told me to drink a mouthful if my head pounded too heavily. Will you drink?”
Balkis gave the skin a jaundiced eye. “What does it hold?”
“Wine that the Piconyans have boiled until it is three times as strong as that which we drank. That is why a mouthful will suffice, the hetman said. He also said to put a thimbleful in any cup of water that we think may be bad.”
Balkis shuddered. “If that is so much stronger than the wine that made my head ache as it does, put it away, good Anthony ! It may do to purify water, but not my blood!”
The land became dryer and less fertile as they walked; forest and field gave way to open meadow, a grassland that stretched as far ahead as they could see. Groups of dots moved against that green background, dots that grew, as they came closer, into antelope and wild oxen.
“Where there are grass-eaters, the flesh-eaters follow,” Anthony said, becoming tense, “and they may not care whose flesh they eat.”
“I shall keep a spell ready to seal their jaws,” Balkis promised, and began to work one out.
Before she needed it, though, the savannah narrowed to a river gorge, a valley filled with trees and bushes and the clustered cottages of human villages. With relief, Anthony and Balkis sought out a footpath and followed it down.
As they came out onto the valley floor, Anthony looked about him with a frown. “We have seen at least half this valley from above, but I have seen no fields, neither crops nor meadows for grazing.”
“Perhaps they are in the half of the valley that we have not seen,” Balkis suggested. “After all, we did see villages, and the people who live there must have some form of sustenance.”
“Let us hope they look kindly upon travelers,” Anthony said nervously.
The road led them through a grove, and Balkis stopped to inhale the scent. “How lovely! I never knew apples could smell so sweet!”
“Perhaps you have never been in an orchard.” Anthony looked about him. “I have, though these trees are far larger than those that grow in my mountains.” He frowned. “How poorly they are tended, though! I do not see a single tree but needs pruning, and the apples are so small! It is clear the farmer has not thinned his crop to let the fruits grow larger!”
“How strange to see one tree blooding while another bears ripe fruit,” Balkis said, looking about her, “and another has tiny green apples, while a fourth's fruit is half grown.”
“I had never thought what could happen in a climate where there is never autumn nor winter,” Anthony said, “but only ever-lasting summer. It seems almost magical.”
“It does, does it not?” Balkis frowned, then stilled, letting her thoughts settle and rest, opening her mind to such ten
drils of magic that might coil about this grove.
Dimly, as though at a distance, she heard Anthony ask, “Balkis? What ails you?” But when she did not answer, he desisted, only watching. It warmed her to realize that he was alert for the slightest sign of danger, but knowing that she was a wizard, he would not disturb her unless one emerged.
The constant exposure to magical creatures during her infancy had left Balkis not only with an unusual talent for magic, but also with a sensitivity to it. Now she listened, open to the touch of its tendrils, and felt them all about her. Slowly, she stepped over to an apple tree, pressed a hand against the bark, and thought a question to the dryad that lived within it. Instantly she felt the answer, guarded but intrigued, and was quick to think through her early days, to remember the nixies she had met in Maracanda, the same who had taken charge of her when her mother had set the infant Balkis adrift in a trunk because the barbarians were invading the city. Appeased, the dryad now gave her silent permission to walk her grove, gave her the freedom of the valley, and Balkis withdrew her hand, knowing that word would pass from spirit to spirit as soon as the human folk were asleep and the dryads felt free to come forth from their trees to play and celebrate life. Slowly, she let herself return to the world, feeling her pulse gradually speed up, felt the breeze on her cheek and the perfume of the apple trees become more vivid, until she was back in the world again.
She turned to Anthony with a smile. “There is magic here indeed, but it welcomes us and will protect us.”
“Will protect you, rather,” Anthony said with a smile, “but I suppose that as long as I am with you, I shall be safe, too.”
“You shall be, surely.” Balkis reached out to take his hand with a smile. “Come, let us find a village. If the valley itself welcomes us, can its people do less?”
Fortunately, the answer turned out as she hoped—the people were friendly indeed, and just as welcoming as the Piconyans.
The apple grove opened out suddenly into a meadow filled with a score of round, straw-roofed cottages circling a central green. Some of the people practiced archery on the common while others carved statues or painted landscapes on the walls of their houses. Nearer to Balkis and Anthony, a circle of people sat with strange-looking but beautifully crafted musical instruments, setting up harmonies that were strange, almost weird, but hauntingly beautiful.
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