Dragon Rule

by E. E. Knight

  Wistala did agree, most sincerely, but perhaps Dharsii was blind to just how much she was like-minded.

  “But the moment never seemed to come,” he said. “One night, after a particularly wine-filled feast, we went for a flight around the river-ring. We were jostling and knock-winging. I was nipping at her tail and she was batting me about the face with her wingtip, young dragon play, when suddenly she threw herself into the cavern ceiling on some sharp rocks. I tried to assist her and she began to roar and call as if I’d been murdering her, and the next thing I knew there were some griffaran flying about and a pair of the Aerial Host on exercises were flying to my aid—

  “She flew back to the Imperial Rock as quickly as her wings could carry her, bleeding all the way.

  “Well, to make a very long and very angry story short, she accused me of attacking her. To this day I don’t know what was in her mind. Did she have a fit of some kind and hurt herself? And when I tried to support her she thought it was a mating embrace—or did she, from the very first, mean to hurt herself and go flying to the Tyr with a story that I’d attacked her.

  “I do know this: She closeted herself with the Tyr’s mate, Tighlia, and wouldn’t see me. Looking back on it now, it seemed clever Tighlia meant to put at least one of us out of the line of succession—if she was very lucky, both, as things turned out—

  “AgGriffopse went absolutely mad. That’s the only word for it. He challenged me to a death duel. No quarter given until one or the other of us would lie dead. Even if we were each too wounded to finish the other off, the one least able to have his limbs hold him up would be finished by the Ankelene duel-physician.

  “So we met in the old dueling pit in the black of night, as was the tradition for a death duel.”

  “Your wrath shouldn’t win . . .” Wistala said, quoting the first song her mother had sung to her hatchlings.

  “Exactly,” DharSii said. “I’m surprised you know it. That’s an old song of—well, I believe it dates back to before Silverhigh. A very old song indeed.”

  “There’s some truth in it. That’s probably why it’s lingered on all these years.”

  “It could be phrased more felicitously. I suspect we’ve lost a few words over the years and substituted worse ones. I didn’t know anyone remembered it outside the Sadda-Vale.”

  “My mother did.”

  “Ahh. Well, yes, AgGriffopse’s wrath won. But he also lost, in a way. He stood there, bellowing and stamping out his rage over the insult to his sister—an insult I knew I was innocent of, at least as innocent as a young dragon could be with my intentions of making her my mate. AgGriffopse was a fine dragon, but he did let himself run on a bit. He was yelling to the roof about how he’d tear out my liver and feed it to the fish in the river ring when I took my chance. I lashed out with a sii and caught him across the throat.

  “The wound wasn’t fatal. I know some accused me of poisoning my claws with a venomer’s spit, but I’d never resort to such tactics. Besides, if I had, he’d have died within minutes, and it’s my understanding that he was recovering and died from an infection or some such—that is, if Tighlia didn’t do him in. But don’t listen to rumors. The duel was fairly started, he just decided to waste his breath snarling at me rather than fighting.

  “He lost blood and consciousness with it, thought his neck hearts were still bleeding. As it was a death duel, one of us had to die, and I decided that it would be better him than me.”

  “But I’d heard he lingered—you didn’t finish him?” Wistala asked.

  “I didn’t have the heart. He had been my friend. Even when we were rivals for the Tyr’s admiration, we were still friends. I can’t believe that whichever one of us FeHazathant chose to succeed him would have become a bitter enemy of the other. I’d like to think either of us would have rejoiced. But who’s to say—dragons don’t care to lose. At least dragons worth the content of their gold-gizzard.”

  “So, what, it was suspended until he recovered and you’d fight again? That seems—”

  “No, nothing like that. One of us had to die. I just decided it would be me.”

  “You mean?”

  “Yes, I died, after a fashion. It was all perfectly in keeping with Lavadome tradition. I renounced my name, all my laudi, and my position. I went into exile from the Lavadome. The dragon who’d led the Aerial Host was no more, his name was never spoken—I became DharSii, quick-claw, a criminal’s nickname. AgGriffopse had won the duel, and avenged the insult to his sister.”

  “What happened to Enesea?”

  “Again, that depends on which rumor you believe. I was long gone from the Lavadome by the time it happened, but some say she went mad and threw herself into the Wind Tunnel after AgGriffopse’s death. Others say she was wined into a stupor and told to fly up it. Still others say her body was simply dumped into it after her death. Whatever the cause, she was found at the bottom with a broken neck.”

  “The poor Tyr. First his son, then his daughter.”

  “I think he was blind to the evil close to him. Though I hear Tighlia gave a good account of herself at the end. She was the only dragon who resisted the Dragonblade and his puppet Tyr, at the end.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  “I returned to the Sadda-Vale. I angered Scabia by refusing to recognize any name but DharSii, and found NaStirath mated to Aethleethia. They were kind enough to me, but I still felt like an exile among them. But they keened that they needed coin—it’s the one mineral the Sadda-Vale lacks. We resort to chipping ores out of the slate there, but they don’t care for the work or the taste. I’ve hired myself out for wars to bring them coin. But never enough, they gobble it down and then it’s back to slate chipping.”

  “You were doing that when we met.”

  “You think I’d forgotten? You were the first new face there in ages. I’ve roved the world. But somehow I always find myself returning there, even if the company is a little distasteful. It’s one of the few places that still belongs to dragons—not that the trolls don’t give us some bother about it, but then a dragon needs a challenge now and then. But I like the sense that it’s ours. Don’t we deserve a few patches of land, too?”

  Ours, we—DharSii, don’t you know that those words catch me in the throat, too? He was an intelligent dragon, spoke carefully when he did speak. He must be using them intentionally.

  “You make me want to fly away with you there, now.”

  “But you have duties to attend to,” DharSii said. “Watch your tail in this place, Wistala. And your throat. And your flanks, when you can spare the time.”

  “I’m the Queen-errant, don’t you know?”

  “Have you ever heard of a thing called a lightning rod?”

  “Umm . . .”

  “It’s a dwarfish invention for places struck by storms. It’s simply a piece of iron placed high, with a wire to the ground. It attracts lightning bolts, rather than the more vulnerable usual rooftop or ship mast. You’ll be a lightning rod for discontent. Your dragons are celebrating now, but as soon as bad news comes, a plague strikes, or a battle falls the wrong way, they’ll blame you. They always do. A Tyr can engage in all manner of foolishness and still be loved, but his Queen—her slightest misstep is remarked upon and criticized. She’s always accused of secretly manipulating her mate.”

  “RuGaard’s not my mate. He’s my brother.”

  “I’m very glad of that,” DharSii said. “I’ve delayed too long already. Tongues will be tasting the air about you tonight and discussing this tomorrow, you can be sure.

  “Now, I’ve recuperated enough to eat a meal without bringing it back up. The kitchens haven’t moved, have they?”

  “Just follow your nose,” Wistala said.

  “I was hoping you’d give me a tour, and take a bite with me.”

  “I was hoping you’d ask,” she said.

  Chapter 11

  Wistala longed to see the sun again.

  She was spending far too much time in L
avadome for her taste. It seemed the Queen, even a Queen-Consort, was expected to preside over every social gathering, on top of her largely ceremonial duties as head of the Firemaids.

  Having to listen to the same news repeated over and over and over again, discussed much the same way with the same insipid observations and jokes—it was enough to make you gnaw at your flanks until your scale fell out. Now there was news of the blighters she’d briefly lived with coming into the Grand Alliance, and all the Lavadome wanted to know what sort of gemstones and precious metals could be found in their lands.

  “Unless cattle horn is a precious metal and chicken beaks a gem, I don’t know that we’ll see much wealth from them,” Wistala said.

  She’d kept her ears open for news about DharSii. He was consulting with the Ankelenes about the crystal statue that had once stood in NooMoahk’s cave until the Red Queen of the Ghioz stole it. The dragons of the Lavadome claimed it when they settled matters with the Red Queen in a desperate attack.

  Strangely enough, it was when she paid a rare call on the Ankelenes’ “hill”—it wasn’t a natural feature of the Lavadome, but rather an artificial hill made of stone—that she happened upon the first evidence she found of Nilrasha’s purported conspiracy.

  While climbing the stairs to the Ankelene Hill, she met Ibidio, AgGriffopse’s mate and widow. Ibidio was a fixture at Imperial Line events, a sort of Queen-in-her-own-mind who saw to it the traditions of the Lavadome were upheld.

  “Ibidio, I’ve seen little of you for days. Have you been ill?”

  “No. I don’t care to meet my husband’s murderer. I understand today he’s swimming in the river-ring.”

  Wistala suddenly lost interest in visiting the Ankelenes. Her time there always passed like dried, splintered bones through her digestive tract, as she could rarely enter without having some expert question her about conditions near the pole or in the great east or other places she’d visited.

  “I might follow your example and go into hiding. I thought I’d borrow some books and spend a few days reading,” Wistala said. “I’m tired of duties and ceremonies.”

  Ibidio explored her gumline with her tongue. Wistala noticed she was lacking teeth. “You aren’t fond of your brother, are you?”

  “Fond? No, not fond.”

  Ibidio cocked her head. “Yet you have dropped scale all over the Lavadome acting as his Queen-Consort. Strange.”

  “I respect him, I respect what he’s built, and what others before him established. I believe in what he’s trying to do for dragons.”

  “Are you aware of the circumstances of my daughter’s death?”

  “His first mate? I’ve heard the story. RuGaard said she choked.”

  “No one knows the whole story, except perhaps for RuGaard and Nilrasha.” Ibidio sighed. “I’ve devoted myself to the subject. Halaflora wasn’t a favorite of mine at the time, but since Imfamnia revealed her true character, her memory has sweetened. I’ll never forgive her death.”

  “You believe she was murdered, then?”

  “Would knowing the truth change your opinion of your brother from respect?”

  “Of course,” Wistala said. “I have my own grievances and accusations against him.”

  “I remember that day in the Audience Chamber. His tyrancy should have ended that day. Would you like further proof of the character of that outcast and Tighlia?”

  “I will hear it,” Wistala said.

  “Follow me.”

  Ibidio led her into Ankelene Hill, and then down to the storage rooms. They passed through a corridor lined with scroll tubes and into a sort of reading room beyond. There were several smaller rooms off of it filled with materials and implements for writing—dragons had learned the practice from dwarfs, some thought—and Tighlia opened the curtain of one.

  A giant, bloated bat and a dwarf had just finished a meal inside.

  The bat was unremarkable except for its size and its overlarge ears. Wistala knew that there were some big bats in the Lavadome; the vermin did well suckling on the blood of cattle and dragons, when they got the chance.

  The dragons tolerated them, mostly because they’d been part of the fight against the Dragonblade’s riders. But she still suspected the dragons of squashing them on the sly.

  “Let’s hear his story, then,” Wistala said.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Ibidio said. “Tell this dragonelle your story.”

  “Could I have a sup, first, your lordship?”

  “After!” Ibidio insisted. Wistala thought Ibidio looked a little drained. Maybe she’d stayed in seclusion for more than one reason.

  “Well, it was like this,” the bat began. “Himself kept a few of us around as messengers.”

  “Himself who?” Ibidio prompted.

  “Tyr RuGaard. Or Upholder RuGaard, as he was then.

  “I’d come back from delivering a message. RuGaard wanted to ask something about the construction of a bridge. I was tired, and went right to the ceiling to find a comfortable spot. This horn-blowing woke me up, and I saw RuGaard’s human girl blowing on the horn, and both the Tyr an’ his Queen standing over the frail dragon, his mate.”

  “I don’t suppose we’re going to hear from this girl?” Wistala asked.

  “Her name was Rhea. She met with an accident. But this family servant RuGaard gave to Rayg’s family, Fourfang, he heard her at her death, talking about it.”

  “Where is he? Another room?” Wistala asked.

  “He’s afraid to return to the Lavadome to tell the story. But I heard it myself with two witnesses present.”

  “The female’s story, or this Fourfang’s?”

  “The human told Fourfang of her death.”

  “A human woman is dying, and she uses her last breaths to tell a story about a dragon dying years ago?” Wistala said.

  “She was afraid of telling the truth. Nilrasha killed Halaflora. She told RuGaard the truth, and he lied for her, stuck a bone in her throat. Vermin.”

  Wistala heard from the other witness, a beardless dwarf of the sort that seemed to wash up in the Lavadome, to do odd jobs until they built up enough of a hoard to move on to wherever they were going. This one must have been in the Lavadome a long time; he moved stiffly and held his toothless mouth shut.

  He only told his story with much prodding and prompting from Ibidio.

  He didn’t have much information to offer—all he told was a story about working a ferry in the depths of the western tunnel leading to Tyr RuGaard’s old uphold. RuGaard and his mate traveled west, and soon after, Nilrasha followed. She asked questions about whether RuGaard seemed happy with his new mate.

  Wistala thought the dwarf the next thing to useless. If Wistala wanted to get an idea of a dragon’s feelings, the last thing she’d ask would be a wandering dwarf.

  “So, a terse dwarf and a thirsty, blood-addled bat are going to bring down Tyr RuGaard?” Wistala felt a little sorry for Ibidio. A dead daughter, a fled daughter, and a third sworn to celibacy in the Firemaids.

  “No,” Ibidio said. “But I believe I can bring down Nilrasha. She’s his real weakness, not the bad sii or the lazy eye or the wing joint. Tell us the truth, did he have his family killed?”

  “That’s a truth not even my brother himself could tell you.”

  “Don’t say a word of this to anyone, if you value your position,” Ibidio warned.

  “I might say the same to you,” Wistala said. She turned and left Ibidio with her hate and her witnesses.

  Chapter 12

  Imfamnia called a meeting to discuss relations between Ghioz, Dairuss, and the new Protectorate of Old Uldam. This one came from a veteran Roc-rider who had survived the war between Ghioz and Lavadome and threw in with the new Protectors.

  His painted neighbor did keep her messengers busy.

  AuRon didn’t know of that many pressing issues. Istach was settling into the ceremonial duties of a dragon-Protector, supervising winter feasts and exhibitions of babies and newly matured male
warriors and so on. The only thing his offspring had asked him about in her brief reign was a request by some Hypatian mapmakers to survey the mountains—evidently Old Uldam was nearly unknown to them—and a request from some Hypatian librarians to inspect what little was left of NooMoahk’s old collection of books and scrolls. She’d never mentioned any difficulty with Ghioz.

  Imfamnia probably had some bauble or other she wanted to exhibit in front of Natasatch. Natasatch, both out of politeness and interest, marveled at Imfamnia’s collection of glitter that seemed to serve no other purpose than occupying a few moments putting it on and then taking it off again.

  Well, AuRon decided, he’d show Imfamnia. He’d leave his mate behind, or send her to the capital in Hypat or the store-houses of the Chartered Company. A silk-train had set up a market in Dairuss and Naf and Hieba had made them a present of some very fine purple bolts, Natasatch’s favorite color. Dragons had little use for silk, though, and their scale were rough on it, so she’d keep a little for a divider curtain and trade the rest for a bauble or two. Perhaps Hieba would like to try a dragon-saddle once more and advise her on getting the best value.

  Imfamnia arranged a meeting in the old woods where AuRon had given Hieba over to a human logging encampment—strange fate had led her to meet Naf that way. Naf had told him privately that when word came of a girl who made dragon noises coming out of the woods he’d suspected he knew the identity of both girl and dragon, and made it his business to visit the encampment in his rounds as a commander to check up on her. Eventually, they’d fallen in love.

  There were still loggers at work, here in the well-watered valley between Ghioz and Old Uldam. Game was plentiful and Imfamnia had arranged a selection of fresh frogs, smoked deer, wild boar in a sweet mustard, smoked-fish-stuffed raccoon in gar-loque, groundhog stewed, and an assortment of birds that were difficult to identify with heads, feathers, and feet removed.

  “I do so love eating rough,” Imfamnia said. “I feel quite like one of those back-to-nature dragons when I dine like this.” She swung her head around and poked one of her cooks with a wingtip. “Turn that spit more quickly, there’s my man, and don’t skimp on the cherry sauce.” She sniffed another’s bucket and ladle. “Oh stars, you aren’t using nearly enough onion in this.”