The Dragon Token

by Melanie Rawn

“After all the dead we’ve seen in Gilad and Syr, you think we should be merciful to this—this—”

  “He’s wounded,” said Amiel. “You’re physicians. Heal him.”

  Nyr looked up, startled. “My lord?”

  “He’s the first one we’ve found alive—the only one we’ve seen at all. And I have about five thousand questions to ask him.”

  “We’ve no language in common,” she protested. “Even if he lives—”

  “If he’s survived so far, I doubt he’ll die on us now.”

  Chegry offered, “The wound is but three or four days old, your grace.”

  “So they were here at least that long ago,” Amiel mused. “I wonder if we can catch up to them. Wherever they are.”

  Nyr got to her feet. “Be that as it may, my lord, once he has his strength back he’ll try to kill us. You know he will.”

  “Or try to escape,” Amiel said.

  She blinked, then smiled so dazzlingly that he nearly kissed her, right in front of their troops, the Vellanti, and physicians from all thirteen princedoms. Before he could act on the impulse, Nyr turned to Chegry and said, “Let us know as soon as he’s healthy enough to steal a horse.”

  When they were alone, Amiel put his arm around Nyr’s waist and rubbed his cheek to her bronze hair. “If I was sure he’d lead me to where the Vellant’im are, I’d draw him a map. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m spoiling for a fight. Hardly civilized of me.”

  “No one could blame you for it, my lord.”

  “I blame myself. It’s not what I was taught.”

  “It’s not your inclination, either. There are much better things to do with one’s time than fight battles.” She moved a little closer. “I can think of several. . . .”

  “So can I. But the baby—”

  “—won’t mind at all. Amiel, don’t be silly. He hasn’t even kicked me yet.”

  “But—”

  Her method of silencing him drove all thought from his head.

  Eighteen days out of Medawari, with the Vellanti looking healthier, Amiel stood on a promontory overlooking the Catha delta, marshy land where fresh riverwater played tag with the salt sea. He gazed out at a blue-gray horizon completely free of dragon-headed ships.

  “Where in all Hells are they?” he muttered.

  Behind him was the shell of Gilad Seahold. Lord Segelin, Lady Paveol, and their little boy Edrelin—Namesake of Amiel’s friend Edrel, whose sister Paveol had been—were charred bones somewhere inside, along with all their servants and retainers. The thatched cottages of the fisherfolk were burned and abandoned. Some of the survivors—very few; the Vellant’im had been very thorough—had been at Catha Heights, and told of how a juggler had frightened Paveol, and been chased up to the ramparts, and had thrown a torch over the wall. Signaling easy pickings at the castle, Amiel was sure.

  But not even their ships remained.

  His captive Vellanti had proved uncooperative. He behaved himself perfectly, never even murmured when the physicians tended his wound, and flatly refused to attempt an escape.

  “What’s that idiot waiting for?” Amiel fumed, and at his side Nyr shrugged. She was plying a comb through her tangled hair, thwarted at every attempt by a wind that seemed determined to tie it into knots. Amiel watched for a moment, then said, “Let me do that.” It was oddly soothing to comb out his wife’s hair, and after a time he smiled. How his childhood playmates would gape in disbelief if they saw their imperious prince playing lady’s maid.

  “We’ve given him every chance,” Nyr mused, taking the section Amiel had freed of snarls and beginning to plait it. “We ‘forget’ to put ropes on him. We make sure the guard is distracted. We let him near enough to the horses that all he’d need do is jump onto one. . . .”

  “You’d think he doesn’t want to escape.” Amiel listened to that, his hands moving automatically through the long, shining strands. “Perhaps we’ve made it too easy.”

  “My lord?”

  “They left him for dead. What if he showed up at their camp, healed and healthy and without a mark on him? How could he explain it?”

  She looked over her shoulder, eyes wide. “Amiel! You don’t mean you’re going to torture him!”

  “Of course not! But what if we don’t make things quite so easy? Your uncle’s a hawkmaster—when do the birds try hardest to escape?”

  “Unhooded but still jessed,” she answered slowly, then caught her breath. “They can see freedom but can’t get at it. Oh, Amiel, of course!”

  “If we tie him to leave bruises, maybe cobble up something in steel that he can’t get off, they’ll see what he had to do to get away. So they’ll praise him for his bravery instead of killing him for still being alive!”

  Nyr turned, the wind undoing all Amiel’s work, and kissed him. “Wonderful, my lord!”

  “I do try,” he said modestly, and grinned.

  So cuffs were made of spare cinch-rings, pried open at their joining and wrapped tightly around the man’s wrists, and linked by strong chain from an extra bridle. But all that evening and through the night the Vellanti did nothing.

  Then, the morning of their nineteenth day out of Medawari, Nyr approached him bearing a basin, soap, and Amiel’s straight razor.

  “Lice,” she said, and mimed scratching at her own chin and cheeks.

  His eyes popped half out of his head and he howled with outrage. She frowned and backed away, but by her gestures gave him to understand that sooner or later she meant to do it.

  With the incentive of an unthinkable desecration to spur him, he was gone by noon.

  The guard assigned to watch but not hinder him came up to Amiel as the prince was checking his horse’s hooves for stones.

  “Your grace, he took the hint.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I think I was convincing,” he added with a wince.

  Straightening, Amiel tucked the hoofpick into his belt. “But you’re all right? That’s a nasty lump.”

  “Oh, not much of a one, your grace. I’m fine—the more so for seeing my wife and her brother start after that bearded savage, just as your grace planned.” He grinned. “I only pretended to be out cold. I saw the whole thing.”

  “Wish I had, too! Which direction?”

  “Due east, your grace, right along the shoreline. Muddy going, I’m afraid. And I can’t think what he’s after, to leave such clear tracks without caring about it.”

  “Hmm. Interesting point. Well, we’ll soon see, won’t we? Have Master Chegry tend that for you. Nice work.”

  The little army of soldiers and physicians mounted up. They would never quite catch up to the Vellanti until the man had reached his goal—wherever and whatever that might be.

  They saw it sooner than Amiel had anticipated. Just at dusk, after they crossed the last fording of the Catha delta and crested the bluffs above, Nyr gave a sudden cry and pointed to the southern horizon.

  Ships, their square sails white in the gloom, were angling in for the bay at the mouth of the Faolain.

  Amiel reined in and stared thoughtfully at the display. Then he said something that made his wife feel queasy for the first time in her pregnancy.

  “I wonder . . . does anyone here know how to sail one of those things?”

  • • •

  Hildreth and Ullan stood with Princess Lisiel on the covered porch of the Princess Hall, watching Miyon and his Cunaxan troops ride down the valley to Dragon’s Gullet.

  “Thank the Goddess, he’s finally gone,” Lisiel murmured.

  “You don’t really think he’s going to Swalekeep, do you, your grace?” asked Ullan.

  The princess shrugged. “He can go to the Hell of his choosing for all I care, as long as he’s not at Dragon’s Rest when Princess Meiglan gets here. Besides, how much damage can he do with only twenty soldiers?”

  Hildreth smiled as her husband scowled. “If it’s Swalekeep he’s headed for, there’s nothing to worry about. I knew Ostvel in our youth at Goddess Keep. He’ll know what
to do with Prince Miyon.”

  “If Miyon ever gets to Swalekeep,” Ullan warned.

  “Wherever he goes, he’s not our concern any longer,” Lisiel said firmly. “Come, we’ve much to do to make ready for the High Princess.”

  Miyon was as glad to see the last of Dragon’s Rest as Lisiel was to see the last of him. He knew she doubted his intention to go to Swalekeep. He didn’t care if she thought he was going to a stone hut on the farthest of the Far Islands. All that mattered was where that so-called Merida courier thought he was going—and it wasn’t to Rezeld Manor.

  The “Merida” was oblivious to all of it, being still sound asleep in his bed in a locked room. When he woke, sometime around noon, he lazed for a while in luxurious enjoyment of warm, dry blankets and a real bed beneath his sore backside. At last he rolled to his feet and dressed, and with his clothes he also donned a different face.

  He never saw a middle-aged woman with gray-green eyes stop abruptly outside in the corridor. The muscles of her shoulders twitched and her fingers moved as if to ward something away. Her perceptions were dull with disuse. She had no need of them in serving her lady and the two little princesses, and there was always the chance that Pol might sense something. But she knew the feel of a spell being woven, especially this spell.

  Suspicion, comprehension, and fear chased each other across her face. After a second convulsive shudder, Thanys quickened her steps down the hallway.

  But there was no escape. Nine years ago she had won free of her family’s ambitions and thought their scheming as dead as Mireva. Evidently not—for who else would come to Dragon’s Rest wearing a shape-changing spell but another diarmadhi?

  • • •

  After Pol’s warning not to fly, Azhdeen settled himself huffily down to sleep once more. Pol went out to see him that afternoon. The dragon sensed his presence, lifted his head, and yawned in Pol’s face.

  If he hadn’t been sure it would crack his skull open, Pol would have laughed. His headache, product of the crack across the helm he’d received yesterday, lack of sleep, and the usual results of a chat with Azhdeen, was a brutal clanging from one side of his skull to the other. Even a smile hurt. But smile he must as the dragon stretched, yawned again, and meandered over to the lake for a drink.

  “Feeling better, I see,” Pol commented.

  The huge head craned around at the sound of his voice. A low rumble greeted him, and the offering of bright tangled colors.

  “Oh, Goddess—not just now, Azhdeen, please!” The weave slipped around him anyway, and he flinched and swayed.

  “My lord? Pol?”

  Azhdeen released him with an irritated growl. Pol squinted at the person—a girl, she wore, a skirt—who stood a respectful distance from him and the dragon. Slow-witted, he sorted through the list of persons here at Skybowl who were young, female, and addressed him by his name.

  “Jeni?” When she moved closer, his vision solidified and showed him the pitcher and cup in her hands. “If that’s more of Kazander’s brew, give it here. Nothing could possibly make me feel worse than I do right now.”

  She smiled, pouring a slosh of wine into the cup. After handing it to him, she reached in the pocket of her gown for a couple of thin, round wafers. “Lord Kazander sent the wine, but Feylin sent these. They’ll help your headache and settle your stomach.”

  “Promises.” He chewed the wafers, washed them down with wine, and managed not to choke. “I must be as crazy as Kazander. I’m starting to get used to this stuff. So, Jeni, what’s the bad news?”

  “Bad—?” She frowned.

  “Whatever it is you have to tell me that you had to make me feel better to hear.”

  “But there isn’t any bad news, Pol. No one died during the night, and Feylin says that with luck, no one will. The Vellant’im are all gone—every last one of them—so Lord Riyan led some people down to collect our dead.”

  “And—and Maarken? How is he?”

  “Sitting up, wide awake—well, almost,” she corrected with a smile. “Whatever Feylin gave him for pain makes him nod off now and then. But he’s fine, really.”

  Pol nodded, and started back with her to the keep. At every other step both his knees cracked like dropped plates.

  “Pol. . . .”

  “Mmm?”

  “Could you—I mean, you were talking with your dragon a little while ago, weren’t you?”

  “He made the attempt. I’m not up to it.” He found Azhdeen with his gaze. “He’s not limping, is he?”

  “He looks as if he’s favoring the one wing a little.”

  “As long as he doesn’t try to fly on it.”

  “You can tell him that, can’t you?”

  “I already did. It remains to be seen if he’ll pay any attention to me. Stubborn beasts, dragons.”

  “I know.”

  Pol studied her for a moment. “My dear,” he said, “you have your father’s eyes—and their total inability to conceal feelings. What else do you want to know about dragons, that you think only I can tell you?”

  She blushed all over her round cheeks, and burst out, “How to talk to them. To one. I’ve named him Lainian. That means—”

  “‘Sand wind,’ yes, I know. Did you pick him out of the bunch?”

  “He picked me.”

  She told him about the sandstorm, and how the dragon had hovered and cried out, and her sensation of his approach. “But I don’t know how to answer,” she concluded, frustrated. “I can feel him, Pol, but I can’t do anything about it.”

  “Which one is he?”

  Jeni pointed to the lip of the crater. “The reddish-brown one with black undersides to his wings. Isn’t he beautiful?”

  Pol—who had watched Daniv and Sethric watch Jeni back at Stronghold—had the sudden wry thought that if she ever spoke of a young man with that proud and dreaming note in her voice, he’d be down on his knees instantly.

  “Well, as you don’t really know how to go Sunrunning, you can’t expect to be able to talk with a dragon. If you can bear to wait until these clouds blow over, then I’ll teach you enough so you can.”

  “Oh, would you, Pol? Please?”

  He laughed aloud.

  “You must think it’s stupid,” she muttered, head bent to hide her crimson cheeks.

  “Not at all. I know what Lainian is offering you. He must be just as impatient as you are. But before I teach you, Jeni, you have to promise you won’t try things that are beyond your knowledge.”

  “I won’t—I mean, I will promise,” she said. “But it’s so unfair! Just because my parents don’t like Lord Andry, I can’t be trained as a Sunrunner. I’m sixteen, and I’d have at least one ring by now, probably two, and had my first—”

  She closed her mouth with a snap, and this time the blush went to her hairline. Pol felt no urge to laugh. He knew very well who had the woman-making night of most of the girls at Goddess Keep—and the thought of Andry bedding Alasen’s daughter made him nauseous.

  “Your parents have their reasons,” he managed. “And I have mine for making you promise. Since you have, then with the first good bit of sunlight, I’ll teach you how to weave your colors with those of your dragon. It’s similar to what Hollis does when speaking to you on sunlight. But the strength of a dragon can knock you out the first time, until you show him how to be careful.”

  “The sires are the most powerful, aren’t they? Feylin says so.”

  “True. I’m impressed that Lainian didn’t just grab onto you and half-drown you in his colors the way Azhdeen sometimes does with me. He seems to value you very highly already. But don’t mistake—they don’t feel about us the way we feel about, say, a friend or family.”

  “What do dragons feel?” She stood beside him, offering the wine cup once more. “Do you need more of this?”

  “No, thanks, I’m fine. But I think I need some more sleep.”

  They continued their slow circuit of the lake back to the castle.

  “Riyan and
I have talked about it,” Pol mused. “We’re rather like pets to dragons. They’re fond of us, like we’d be with a cat or a stuffed toy. Yesterday, even though Azhdeen was hurt, when the Vellant’im were marching straight for us he put his wing around me—damned near suffocated me, too,” he added, smiling.

  “So they do care.”

  “Of course. But not as friends, Jeni. After all, look at us compared to them. We’re nowhere near their equals—and I’m not referring to size. You’ll feel it when you touch Lainian’s colors. Dragons are so incredibly powerful.”

  She was quiet for a moment, matching his strides in the sand. “Is it anything like what happened at Stronghold? Your mother’s weaving, I mean.”

  “You were caught up in that, weren’t you? I’d forgotten. Well, double that, double it again, and imagine it’s a stained-glass window with four or five suns shining through it at different angles. All the colors are wrapped around you. Add to it emotions that are just as strong, and conjured pictures in the air between you and the dragon—all alive and swirling with color and feeling—and you get an idea of what it’s like. And that’s when the dragon is being gentle.”

  That kept Jeni silent until they were nearly at the gates. Then she shook her head. “If you’re trying to scare me, it didn’t work. I still want to learn. Will you still teach me?”

  “Of course! And I wasn’t trying to frighten you. I just want you to know something of what you’ll feel.” He glanced up. The sun was a vaguely brighter patch of haze in a gray sky. “But not today.”

  She frowned up at the sun as if it had offended her, and he laughed again. Putting an arm around her shoulders, he waited until she turned her face up to his with a rueful smile on her lips, and kissed her forehead.

  “Patience,” he teased. “Patience! Do you know how much I hated that word when I was your age, and learning how to be a Sunrunner?”

  “I’ve heard my father say it’s not a word you’re too fond of now, either,” she replied archly.

  “Ostvel knows me far too well for my own comfort. Come on, I need something to eat and someplace to sleep, and I need it now.”

  “Patience!” Jeni giggled, and he growled at her.

  • • •