by E. E. Knight
“How can I be of service, Tighlia?”
“Good news. I’ve selected a mate for you.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Don’t act fixated. Whatever else is the matter with you, you can make up your mind and not just stand around gaping. I saw that yesterday.”
“I can’t imagine my mating or not is of consequence to you.”
“I want you a little more firmly in the Imperial line. The griffaran think well of you, and as you’ve no line to call your own, nobody hates you outright, which is more than can be said for most of your relatives.”
“I’m surprised you have time to think of such things with your dead mate still cooling. One might wonder—”
“You know, you almost look like a dragon who is working himself up to asking me if I’ve murdered my mate. And that would lead to a horrible scream from me, and a challenge, and then probably a duel, unless you have brains enough to flee for your scale, like NiVom.”
“Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Tighlia.”
“Everyone has the wrong idea of me. I want peace and quiet and beauty. Nothing more. No screaming dragons, no burning hills, no eggs tailswiped off their shelves to smash against uncaring, unknowing rock. Order, RuGaard. Simple order. You can help preserve that order.”
“I had other plans—”
“Well, forget them. Here’s my dilemma. Halaflora, my beloved mate’s oldest granddaughter through AgGriffopse and Ibidio—you remember her?”
“The sickly one.”
“You’re one to talk, but I like your honesty. Halaflora is from AgGriffopse’s first clutch. SiMevolant was the champion. Those eggs were laid under an evil star; that much is certain. Imfamnia and Ayafeeia came later. None of the males survived the hatching contest. Whatever’s the matter? She’s not that ugly.”
“Nothing. Go on,” the Copper said.
“Of course, Imfamnia—silly’s not the word for that brainless bit of fluff—has been dreaming about being mated with every breath her whole life, and now she’s got her wish. An Imperial mating, no less. It will be the celebration of a tri-score year.”
“What has Halaflora’s mating to do with this?”
“I was getting to that, if you’d tuck in your griff. Ayafeeia is taking formal vows to go into the Firemaids. Sensible girl—if I had to do it over again…Well, it doesn’t matter. But Halaflora. Poor little dear. She’s not as dumb as Imfamnia, but just as dreamy, and not as idealistic as Ayafeeia, but just as devoted. She wants nothing more than a mating flight, and those wings of hers aren’t even strong enough to get her off the ground. Poor dear. I’m not going to draw breath and have a titular granddaughter of mine sobbing her eyes out as her sister is mated. And I want some good news in this family for once! It’s like the last act of some bitter elvish tragedy. And fresh, hungry blood never hurts, if we’re to raise a new generation of dragons and not lounging, scaled felines. You need some new males now and then or you get more glittering piles of dung like SiMevolant. A mating between you and Halaflora is just the thing.”
“I’ve met a dragonelle already. Well, a drakka. She’ll have her wings in a year.”
Tighlia’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”
“I’m not sure I want to jeopardize her health by giving you the name.”
“I suspect it’s Nilrasha.”
This time the Copper was dumbstruck.
“Of course, you could do worse,” Tighlia said. “Do you forget that I’ve got the management of the Firemaidens? A word of advice, RuGaard. She’s from a bad family on a worse hill. She’s out for a position in the Imperial line and a lookout from this rock, nothing more.”
“What would an old viper like you—”
“So young. So young.” She pushed open a curtain, and light came into the room through tinted panels of some thin-shaved crystal, or perhaps glass. As the Copper suspected, the colors were bright and cheery. She tore a bit of fabric off a polished piece of brass.
“I’m not as vain as I once was, but I’m vain enough that I can’t stand what I see in this anymore. Look into this, RuGaard. Look into the mirror. A beautiful, vital young dragonelle is going to want that?”
He looked at himself. The half-closed eye, the sloping stance, thanks to his bad sii, the broken-jointed wing that wouldn’t close…
“Lame and twisted, that’s you, RuGaard. Another hatching under an evil star. She’s after your line, not your scale.”
“We neither of us much like what we see in that mirror,” he said. “Perhaps you should give it to Imfamnia as a mating gift.”
“You can live in the world and accept it, or you can pretend the hatchling songs and stories are true. Which will it be, dragon?”
“At the moment, a quiet life in Anaea seems enough of a dream.”
“Easiest thing in the world. Simply mate with Halaflora and you can be back on the western road the next day. You’ll forget your little Firemaiden soon enough, roasting ceremonial kern.”
“What if her love is some pleasant dream of mine? What’s wrong with dreams? I’ve seen enough of the world to prefer them.”
She took a deep breath. “Oh, you are a prize fool, boy. I try and I try to help you. And this is what I get. Ingratitude. Ah, well, you’ll get no more help from me. Or my brother. I’ll see to that.
“Go to your precious Firemaiden, RuGaard. Someday you’ll learn what dreams are made of.”
He sought out Nilrasha on the milkdrinker’s hill. The place was a warren of aboveground dwellings housing mostly human thralls, with blighters in huts on the other side of a filthy stream running in twin channels with a wall between that held washing.
He remembered NeStirrath on one of the hikes telling him that the humans wouldn’t drink or wash in the blighter water, and the blighters wouldn’t drink or wash in the human water, yet both were indistinguishable in their foulness.
There were dragon-holes on the hill too; in fact, the whole area was sort of one vast catacomb, with little ledges and chambers off the main passage, so that few had what could really be called a place of their own, and mother dragons had to shelter their eggs with the weight of their bodies to keep them from being disturbed, if not accidentally crushed.
“Our day for visitors,” a mud-speckled Anklene said, looking at the painted stripes curling back from his shoulders.
“I’m looking for the Firemaiden quarter. I was told it was down here somewhere.”
“Down it is, and then some; they’re well below. Bottom of the air shaft to the left, your Imperial grace.”
He had to climb slowly, thanks to his sii, but he made it to the bottom of the shaft. A few of the Firemaidens made jokes or hooted about an invasion of Drakwatch.
He searched for Nilrasha but could learn nothing more than that an Imperial messenger had come for her. He managed to find Fourfang, and told him to make ready for a journey back to Anaea.
He hurried on the path back to Black Rock, scrambling up every prominence and kern mill to look over the grounds for Nilrasha. He hoped it was just some matter of business with the Firemaidens, or that she’d gone to visit friends.
He marked a lone female sitting on a wall next to a mushroom field, and hurried toward her. With each step he became more certain it was Nilrasha.
He limp-trotted up to her. “Nilrasha! I’ve been looking for you for hours.”
Her tail flicked up, but she kept watching the mushrooms. “So you’ve found me. I understand you’re to be mated to the late Tyr’s own granddaughter. Well-done.”
“No, you misunderstood. I refused her.”
She turned and looked at him. “Refused her, or refused Tighlia? That was a foolish thing to do. Such a strong connection to AgGriffopse’s line would be to your advantage.”
“I’m not looking for an advantage, just a chance at what…what my parents had.”
And who took that away? Not Tighlia.
She looked away again, flicked out her tongue, and consumed a black beetle climbing the stones.
“I’ve changed my mind about mating. I’m taking vows as a Firemaid.”
“Have they threatened you?”
“No, they’ve not threatened me. I’m a poor drakka from a lowly line. What could they possibly take away that I cherish?” She blinked, and the Copper saw a wetness in her eyes; then she took a cleansing breath. “Our eldest was thrilled to hear me decide to take the vows. Offered me any guard post I wished.”
“No. Come back to Anaea with me. There’s nothing to stop us from mating.”
“Nothing but the fact that I don’t love you. I was just using words, words used by mated dragons for ages, and they worked their magic. But the Skotl clan is on the rise now, and they’ll never let go of Black Rock. I had hopes for you.”
“I thought—”
“I made you think, you mean. Yes, just as Tighlia said. I was after your lineage, your position, not some comedy of a mating.”
“How do you know what Tighlia said?”
She looked uncertain for the first time since he’d come upon her, resting on the wall. “I can guess. She’s a venomer, thanks to that tongue of hers. Go. Mate with that sickly little thing.”
She jumped off the wall and ran, making a retching sound, leaving the Copper feeling as though his body were dissolving, flowing into the rocky soil of the Lavadome.
Nothing to overcome now. The course of his life was set. Perhaps he’d take up hunting.
Their mating was done, and done quickly.
A goodly crowd turned up to watch them leave the Imperial Resort. According to NeStirrath, Halaflora had fond memories attached to her, for she used to ride atop her father as he went from hill to hill. AgGriffopse thought air and travel might improve her weak constitution, and his mate had no interest in leaving the Gardens atop the rock. So she was associated in the dragons’ minds to AgGriffopse more than to Ibidio.
Almost everyone of the Imperial line trooped out behind them, even SiMevolant, who disliked the dirt and rough stones. Thralls walked to either side with pieces of soft cloth at the ends of sticks, wiping dust kicked up by the mating party from his scales.
SiDrakkon led the party, with griff extended and a challenging eye, as though daring any of the spectators to throw dung. Imfamnia skipped next to him. Her wings were bulging against translucent skin and soon it would be her turn.
The party halted twice to let Halaflora catch her breath.
They finally came to the shaft everyone called the Wind Tunnel. Some trick of direction and air density ensured that this short tunnel to the slopes of the plateau always had a howling wind passing through it, equal to an uncomfortable mountain-top in a storm.
It was also called the “death tunnel,” for sometimes escaped thralls tried to climb out of it, or thieves tried to creep in from above. The winds usually snatched them up at some point and hurled them down the shaft. But no one called it the death tunnel today.
The Copper climbed to the top of a wind-cut rock with Halaflora and sang his song, with all around listening as best as they could in the wind. Rethothanna had helped him with the wording. The Copper felt that as long as the mating was to be done, it might as well be done well, so he sang of rivers, egg-snatching demen—who said a lifesong must be all true?—and wall-smashing boulders skipped across battlefields.
And with that, they spread their wings—SiDrakkon reached up and kindly helped him extend his injured left with a discreet pull—and jumped.
His mating flight lasted what a dwarf would call a full ten seconds. They hung in the wind for a moment, the Air Spirit’s untiring voice shrieking in their ears, Halaflora touching his good wing, and slowly glided to earth.
“I think they’re laughing at us, my love,” Halaflora said.
The Copper looked around at the assembly. Only SiMevolant was outright laughing—“That was worth a walk in the dust!” he seemed to be saying, though with the wind carrying his words away it was impossible to be sure—but most were at least fluttering their eyelids in amusement. Even the usually dour SiDrakkon looked to be enjoying himself for a change.
“I care not. This is the happiest day of my life. If I can share out some proportion of my own joy, all the better.”
The expression on his mate’s face washed the sting out of whatever wounds this exhibition cost him, and made the lies, if not pleasant, at least palatable enough so they didn’t stick in his throat.
Chapter 23
So the Copper and his mate returned—by a journey made in very easy stages, out of regard for his mate’s health—to the Uphold in Anaea.
The Copper was relieved to see that Fourfang and Rhea seemed to get along with Halaflora’s thralls. His mate took a special liking to Rhea, and soon she was supervising the other body-servant.
He took pleasure in pointing out the sights of Anaea and introducing her to some of “his” bats. Their lines had so intermingled, it was impossible to remember who was descended from Thernadad, or Enjor, or his oversize trio raised on dragonblood. She petted their strange furry skin and marveled at their ears and delicate wings.
At the western mouth everything was just as he remembered it, unexpectedly so. Nilrasha was back in the cave guarding the tunnel mouth, now with the Firemaid’s red-painted stripe around her neck, though she still had not uncased her wings.
She kept her eyes downcast as she greeted him. “Welcome, future Upholder.”
“We thank you,” the Copper said, his mind whirling like a leaf flung down the Wind Tunnel. What madness was this; did she wish to torture him with her presence? “On behalf of my mate and myself.”
“You’re very lovely,” Halaflora said. “You could be a statue in the Imperial Gardens. I hope we’ll be good friends.”
“Thank you, your honor,” Nilrasha said.
The first few feasts with the rather robust Upholder and his mate were a little on the awkward side. Halaflora had difficulty swallowing unless she ate tiny bites, and the tough-fibered game they brought back to the banquet floor was difficult for her to get down without choking.
But within the limitations of ill health, she was a superb mate. She made and arranged cushions for him on all his favorite lookouts, and she explored Anaea with FeLissarath’s mate and returned with rich, scented oils that she rubbed on the worn spot on his bad sii and the stuck folds of his wings, or fixed lines on his growing horns to make them come in so they matched each other in a slight, attractive curve. She experimented endlessly with their meals, discovering what they both liked—fish, sadly, which was rare save for the small specimens found in some of the mountain lakes—and sang to him at night.
He decided there were many dragons worse mated, and if she didn’t make his hearts hammer and his scale stir the way Nilrasha did when she stretched, there were other compensations.
Then there was his work. He tried to learn more about the ins and outs of the scale trade.
“Why is dragonscale so valuable to humans?” he asked FeLissarath.
“Jewelry, I’ve heard. Tips of sword scabbards, or holding wooden shields together. In some principality or other on the banks of the Inland Ocean, they use it as currency because it’s impossible to forge, and dangerous to get hold of. Very wealthy hominids will lay it on their roofs to keep off fire. Some of the larger hominid cities suffer terribly from fires, nothing to do with dragons.”
“It might behoove us to have a shortage of it now and then, especially when there’s a particularly large crop of kern. I think we could get more bags in trade for scale.”
“We have good relations with the kern kings, and the values were set long ago.”
“To their advantage. I’ve heard one of the kings now has a stairway decorated with golden dragonscale.”
“He’ll slip and break his neck when it rains.” FeLissarath laughed. “Ah, the follies of humans. They don’t live long enough to really learn what’s important in life. Did I tell you about the bear I got yesterday? Yes, you heard me right, a bear….”
The Copper spent a good deal of t
ime on the western road. Thanks to a bridge collapse at the Tooth Cavern, almost an entire pack-train of kern was lost when inattentive handlers allowed the mules to bunch up on one of the more rickety spans.
They were already making repairs when he arrived to survey the damage—thanks to the bats, he heard about it the same day it happened and left immediately—and a Firemaid was flying back and forth carrying thralls—mostly men, who, if their workmanship wasn’t quite as skilled as that of dwarves, at least labored more willingly—and tools from one end of the break to the other.
“Oh, your honor,” she said. “There’s a thrall been asking every day to speak to the dragon in charge. That would be you.”
“A human?”
“Yes. He’s got some plan or idea or bargain or something.”
The Copper half expected to see Harf again, recaptured, but the young man who came before him wearing the tatters of some very tight weaving just looked at him with clear blue eyes. He was extraordinarily handsome, as far as he could tell hominid standards went.
“What is it you want, man?”
“Great one. This bridge of yours. It’s a death trap.” He spoke the simplified pidgin Drakine with a thick accent; he hadn’t been in the keeping of the Lavadome long, it seemed. As for his observation, that required no great mind to discern, with the bones and bodies of dead animals and handlers scattered all over the floor of the canyon below.
“Do you offer a remedy, or is this just idle conversation?”
“I know how to improve it.”
“Do you, now. Have you built many bridges?”
“I’ve been involved in several construction projects. I was trained by dwarves.”
“I didn’t know they shared their secrets so readily with outsiders.”
“I was a kind of special apprentice, your honor.”
“What’s your name?”
“Rayg.”
The Copper did like the look of him, except for the fact that he didn’t appear particularly afraid of dragons. New thralls usually bent and tucked their heads down between their shoulders like frightened turtles.