The Dragon Token

by Melanie Rawn

  When she did, it was with an eagerness that nearly made him laugh. Easy! Don’t drown me, girl!

  Sorry—oh! she exclaimed, astonished as he patterned her colors for her, showing her what she was. Her dominant color was blue, skirting in and out of a complexity of bright yellow and a milky pink glow like moonstone held up to a red lampshade.

  Is this me? she asked shyly, and he replied, Every bit of it.

  He guided her around and through the image, formed in the space between them much as dragons presented their colors. Every angle and curve and depth, every crystalline clarity and subtle opacity was explored so that she might memorize it and call it up again with ease.

  Watch for the faceting—there, you see, right where that darker blue meets the yellow? The sparkle is the place where your colors merge with sunlight. See? Here, and here, and along this junction—can you feel them?

  I think so. But there are so many! And you have even more than I do.

  I’m twice your age. As you grow older, your pattern will become more complicated—not in its configuration, but in the shadings of color.

  Can I speak with Sunrunners who don’t share a color with me?

  Of course. These are just your primaries. A musician would call it an open tuning of lute strings, without fingerwork making the string shorter and the note higher. Only we can’t adjust our colors—blue to purple, for instance—so I suppose it isn’t a very good analogy.

  But each color has different shades already there, so maybe it’s like a string that plays all its possible notes at once.

  Hmm. I never considered it that way. I’ll have to try that idea out on my mother one of these days—or on Meath, he’s always interested in the hows of Sunrunning.

  You mean nobody’s ever sat down and figured it all out?

  Pol laughed. Careful. I just might appoint you my faradhi scholar!

  I promise I won’t emulate Feylin’s curiosity about dragons and take one of us apart to see what makes us work.

  Snide child, he teased. Before you start—and before you start asking questions no one’s been able to answer—I think I ought to show you what you’ll be dealing with. That sensation I mentioned earlier, of feeling where the joinings are—when you pull the sunlight in on your own, it’ll be much stronger. I’m going to draw back a little now. As I do, weave light through all those places. Like this.

  And he found and gathered more skeins of sun, showing her as Meath had shown him how to separate and plait them, for all the world as if they were individual silk threads. There was something inside faradh’im that instinctively recognized and delineated strands of light; the closest anyone else ever came to understanding it was the sight of the sun shafting through clouds. Sunrunners could describe color patterns as being stained-glass windows, and working with light to be weaving or stitching, but to those who could not scent color or taste the sun, true comprehension was impossible.

  He should have known that Jeni, daughter of a fine musician, understood best using the lute image. I can hear it! Pol, I’m listening to sunlight!

  And drinking it, touching it, smelling it, seeing not just one color in it but millions. Now do you know why nobody’s ever been able to figure it out? Look at what you’re doing. I’m gone from your pattern, but it’s still there—and shot through with sunlight you gathered in. How did you do it, Jeni?

  I don’t—I don’t know. But one of these days I’m going to find out!

  When you do, explain it to me! Now, I’m going to back off even farther. I want you to approach me, just the way Hollis approaches you on sunlight.

  For a long time he heard nothing, sensed nothing but his own colors, elegantly precise as his mother had taught him. Then, at the edges of himself, a brush of sensation, a tentative touch.

  And then a chaotic crash of colors against his own.

  He steadied her, sorted them both out, and said, I can see we’re going to have to teach you some subtlety. I’m not a mountain that you have to slam up against like a Sunrunner sandstorm!

  I’m sorry. What went wrong?

  Nothing, really. It’s just manners. The first little quiver lets me know you’re there. Choice of acceptance is up to me. Of course, you can try to knock me down with it if I’m unwilling, but then you risk retaliation. Come at me again, and I’ll show you what I mean.

  The contact was less forceful this time, but he used what Sioned had taught him—and what he’d taught Alasen some years ago at Castle Crag, to allay her fear of being similarly seized by Andry’s colors against her will. First he built a wall of solid sunlight around himself so that Jeni could not get through. This was Alasen’s defense, but Pol did more. He reached through the wall and pushed her back out of reach.

  She lost it all then, her concentration and her colors. He felt it and opened his eyes. She was staring at him, breathing raggedly, her cheeks ashen.

  “Not very nice,” he apologized. “But I was rather gentle with you. Your dragon won’t be.”

  “You mean—no, Lainian would never—”

  “Azhdeen does, when I make him angry. You never know what’s going to set a dragon off. And that little bump you gave me was nothing compared to what a dragon can do.” He smiled. “Sure you want to talk to him?”

  “Yes!”

  He waved a hand toward the far side of the lake where the dragons sunned themselves after their usual dawn hunt. “Go right ahead.”

  “Now?”

  “You know what you need to.”

  She was on her feet and running. Pol followed more slowly, aware that she would probably have to be carried back to the keep after the initial shock. He hoped Lainian would be more tender of Jeni than Azhdeen usually was with him, but dragonsires seemed to need tutelage in the care of fragile humans. While the females were just as powerful, they were much gentler.

  Halfway around the lake, he paused to watch Jeni catch her breath before continuing on to her dragon. Ah, Goddess, he’d forgotten what it was like to weave sunlight for the joy of it, to talk with someone and not talk of war. When all this was over, and he was back at Dragon’s Rest where he belonged—

  He could see that very clearly. What he could not see was how to get there.

  And even when this was over, all the ensuing problems would be his to solve. There was the intransigence of certain princes to be dealt with; he already had a few ideas about that. If people like Velden of Grib and Pirro of Fessenden thought he would excuse their cowardice, they had another think coming. The treaties of mutual defense meant he could not touch them legally, but he would get them where it really hurt when it came to reestablishing trade. They could damned well pay up for the privilege of sitting on their asses while brave men and women died. After all, there were castles and towns to rebuild—Tuath for young Jeren, Remagev for Walvis, Riverport and Gilad Seahold and Graypearl, where he had spent so many years. And Stronghold.

  Shying away from the pain, he started for Jeni again. She stood before her big russet dragon. He saw her stagger, then fall to her knees on the hard stones. Hurrying now, Pol winced as Lainian cried out plaintively and nudged her with his nose. But when he got closer, the dragon unfurled a wing over the trembling girl and snarled at him.

  Pol stood his ground. “Let that be a lesson to you,” he told the creature. “If you could understand me, I’d tell you I can help her. But you can’t, so what am I going to do? Trying to chase you off won’t help me survive to old age. And I know from experience that you dragons are a picky lot—you don’t talk to anybody but your own chosen human. So I suppose I’ll just have to wait you out. Or—”

  But Azhdeen was curled up in the warm sunshine, sleeping off his injury. Pol didn’t have the heart to wake him and ask him to explain things to Lainian. So he hunkered down in damp sand to wait.

  Footsteps crunching the gravel behind him made his head turn. Sethric, dark curls wildly tangled by the breeze, charged up with one hand on his sword.

  “Your grace! We have to help her, she’s h
urt!”

  “Not a bit of it,” Pol replied cheerfully. “She fainted, and he’s protecting her. Dragons get that way sometimes.”

  “But—”

  “Sethric, please don’t tell me you believe dragons eat pretty girls for breakfast.”

  “Your grace—”

  “Settle down. And don’t you dare draw that sword against a dragon, or I’ll have you in my court for breaking the first law my father ever wrote.”

  “But—”

  “Have a seat. You don’t happen to have a wineskin on you, do you? Teaching a Sunrunner how to talk to a dragon is thirsty work.”

  The young man plopped down next to him, not entirely as if he’d had any say in the functioning of his knees. “She—Jeni—that dragon—?”

  Infatuation, Pol reflected, made perfectly rational individuals into total imbeciles. “Yes. Jeni and that dragon. His name’s Lainian, by the way.”

  Heavy-lidded hazel eyes opened very wide. “Lainian?”

  “It strikes me as very natural,” Pol observed, “that you don’t quite know what words to employ. When and if any apply for the job, then we can discuss it. For now, the fact remains that Jeni has been talking to a dragon she Named Lainian, the experience literally felled her, he’s standing guard until she wakes up, and all that you and I can do is sit here and wait.”

  “Oh,” said Sethric.

  “Oh,” agreed Pol. After a moment he added thoughtfully, “Something else you might wish to consider is how you’re going to contend with this.”

  He waited for Sethric to say something. All he got was a blink and a stare.

  “It’s not every man who has to compete for a lady’s attention with a dragon as well as a good friend and the lady’s desire to be trained as a Sunrunner.”

  Once again he paused to let the young man respond. Once again Sethric kept his mouth shut—but his gaze narrowed a bit.

  “Of course,” Pol went on, beginning to enjoy himself, “if all you’re after is hand-holding and a few kisses, none of the rest really signifies.”

  Sethric went crimson beneath his sunburn, and Pol bit back a grin.

  “It may seem presumptuous of me to bring it up, but I am her father’s overlord and in his absence—well, you understand, I’m sure. My point is that if you’re serious about her, I ought to tell you a few things. Her dowry will be substantial, one might even say staggering. Actually, I’m thinking about giving her something in Meadowlord, because Rinhoel is not going to be its prince, believe me. Waes might do. I’m not sure, I haven’t thought that far ahead. But she’ll bring much more than wealth to the man she marries. She’ll bring her Sunrunner gifts—and a dragon.” He pointed. “That dragon.”

  “I don’t care,” Sethric blurted. “Not about the dowry or her being a Sunrunner or even the dragon. I don’t have any right, your grace. It’s all hopeless. My uncle Velden—”

  “—is not making himself conspicuous in our support,” Pol interrupted. “I’m not going to punish him—well, not severely, anyway,” he admitted. “He can keep Grib, if not the better portion of his treasury. But there’s no reason for you to think you’ll share in—good Goddess, boy, you’ve led part of my army!”

  Sethric picked at the worn knee of his trousers. “She won’t even look at me,” he muttered.

  “She’s not yet seventeen. You’re twenty.” Pol smiled. “I think you’ve got time.”

  “In the middle of a war?”

  That brought Pol’s amusement to a staggering halt.

  “I don’t blame you for teasing me, your grace. Nor Lord Walvis and the rest. Daniv and I are making fools of ourselves over Jeni. But there’s no time, you see. And we both feel guilty about even trying to get her to—to—” He raked both hands back through his hair.

  “To like one of you?” Pol supplied gently.

  Sethric nodded. “What if she does, and whoever she picks gets killed? How could any man do that to a woman he cared about? But even knowing that, we both want to be with her as much as we can so that if something does happen—”

  “I ask your forgiveness, Sethric,” Pol murmured. “It was thoughtless of me to make fun of you.”

  “You have more to worry about than us, your grace. We don’t matter.”

  “Lives are all that matter.” Finally he understood something Rohan had known instinctively: that as High Prince, it was his responsibility and his alone to make sure lives could be lived in peace. Even though he hadn’t started this war, even though he was doing all he could to finish it, every day that it continued was his fault.

  But he would never take conflict inside himself and make of his own soul a battleground as his father had done. He must turn this war back on the enemy, become a mirror that reflected violence and destruction on those who had brought it to his lands and his people. Innocent people, such as these children who had all their lives ahead of them, yet worried about dying.

  “I’m sorry,” he told Sethric, thoroughly ashamed of himself. “All I can tell you is that when this is over, you’ll have a holding of your own to offer any lady you Choose.”

  “I’m not here for—”

  “I know that. I’m not promising a reward. Princes are practical folk, Sethric. We’re never generous unless it profits us. I need you and I’m going to make just as much use of you after the war as I have during it.”

  The young man stared at him with something akin to awe. “You’re the only person I’ve heard talk about after since the war began. Can you see an end to this, your grace?”

  “Not clearly. Not yet.”

  “But you’ll make an end, and a victory. We all know you will.”

  Pol nodded, not trusting his voice, and looked away from the glowing confidence in Sethric’s eyes. He’d done nothing to cause such belief. He didn’t deserve it. But he would use it, as he must use everything and everyone to make that end, that victory.

  But how? In the Name of the Goddess, how?

  He was abruptly distracted by a dragon. A black female with iridescent silver underwings called out from her vantage at the crater’s lip. Azhdeen raised his head, grunted irritably, and snuggled back into his hollow. The female growled back at him and swept her tail along the ground, sending a small avalanche of stones down the slope—right into Azhdeen’s face.

  The dragon shook himself from nose to tail and bellowed his displeasure, an impressive rebuke interrupted by a mighty sneeze. The female, Maarken’s Pavisel, snorted with what Pol swore was laughter, and repeated her original call. Azhdeen blew dust from his nostrils and craned his neck around to peer at Lainian. The younger dragon was whimpering in bewilderment, poking gently at the unconscious girl like a cat puzzled by a bird that won’t play anymore.

  “What are they doing?” Sethric whispered.

  “Shh. Just watch.”

  Azhdeen rumbled deep in his chest, then snarled loudly enough to make Lainian jump. Pol’s breath caught in his throat as the russet dragon turned and a hind foot nearly crushed Jeni’s outflung arm. Azhdeen howled again. Lainian gave a worried yelp and stepped carefully around the girl as he backed away.

  After a satisfied grunt, Azhdeen settled down. He cast a baleful look at Pavisel where she watched from her sentry post, as if daring her to interrupt his nap again, tucked his head under his wing, and went back to sleep.

  Sethric started for Jeni. Pol grabbed his arm. “No. None of the dragons know you.” He darted forward himself and gathered Jeni up. She was a tall, sturdy girl, an awkward dead weight in his arms as he carried her. When she jerked awake and moaned, he almost dropped her.

  “Hold still,” he panted, setting her on her feet with an arm around her shoulders for support. “Are you all right?”

  “Ohhh, my head!”

  “Experience tells me that means you were successful.” He grinned. “Welcome to the exalted ranks of people owned by dragons. Let’s get you back to the keep so Feylin can give you something for the headache. You can tell me all about it later. For now, you have a
n anxious—umm, friend—ready to make a fuss over you. I suggest you let him.”

  “What? Oh. Sethric.” She dismissed him with a shrug and stared over her shoulder at her dragon. “Is Lainian all right?”

  “Of course. We’re the weaklings in these encounters. Come, my dear, you can’t mean to keep the young man waiting.”

  He gave her over into Sethric’s care, and she was glad enough of his strong arm to steady her steps. Pol lingered beside the lake, thinking about what he’d seen. Pavisel had noted a difficulty and alerted Azhdeen, who had scolded Lainian as if the younger dragon was a child who had played too roughly with a new toy. Pol didn’t miss the humor of it—but the additional implications of swift communication among dragons was more important. Had they done it only with their voices, or had there been colors woven on sunlight that he hadn’t sensed?

  As he walked back to the keep, he told himself that Feylin was going to be fascinated. But he also began to wonder if this was something else that he might use.

  • • •

  Andry took advantage of the sunshine to make a quick sweep of what he could reach of the continent. What he saw puzzled him in some cases, alarmed him in others—and in two instances made his throat ache and tears spring to his eyes.

  Predictably, these involved his children.

  At High Kirat, Andrev was intently watching some of Tilal’s soldiers at sword practice. A woman came over to the boy and said something; he shrugged and gestured to his side, where only a knife was attached to his belt. She smiled, reaching out as if to ruffle his hair, and then seemed to think better of it before drawing her own dagger.

  It was a terrible thing to watch someone come at your son with a blade, even to teach him how to defend himself—all too easy to imagine a Vellanti warrior doing the same—but Andry was startled by Andrev’s skill. True, he was entering the gangly stage, and his technique was more accident and instinct than purpose and training, but he managed to hold his own for quite some time. The lesson ended with Andrev on his back on the cobbled courtyard, naturally enough, but for a boy of thirteen winters he had done very well. His teacher thought so, too; she stood over him and grinned her approval, and he blushed with pleasure.