by J H G Foss
As she poured Roztov another cup of tea Lady Fiewa returned to some of Roztov's earlier story. 'It occurs to me on reflection and from what I know of the way of the dragons of Tanud your ship was most likely attacked by a Chasm dragon, some of them still patrol that region, the more responsible ones under the command of Rah-Ur.'
'It makes sense,' agreed Roztov. 'I'm still not sure Dreggen didn't have something to do with the attack though. After Vine Street we were all pretty much convinced of it, but now I know more of the politics of Tanud, perhaps it was just bad timing after all.'
'Indeed,' replied Fiewa. 'You may never know for sure. In any event, I should imagine once the Stovologard manhunters in the area got wind of it they would have all been after you. They love to hunt and slay shipwrecked crew, it doesn’t happen much these days so they get very excited about it. It provides much better sport than hunting runaway dragonthralls apparently. When you killed some of them it only made all the others much more determined to find you. It was a wise move on your part to hide in the lands around the Spire. For manhunters, flying over the top of it is one thing, hunting prey through the forest and setting fire to their trees is another.'
'Yes, there were somewhat of a pest,' was all Roztov wanted to say about that. He had told her of their encounter with Mordran and Ghene's incursion into the Spire, assuming that she'd find out about it sooner or later anyway, but didn't want to remind her of it again.
After a while there was not much left to be said though and Roztov was content to sit and watch the sun go past. When the balcony they sat on was finally put into shadow he decided it was probably time to go.
‘I’d better get back, or they’ll worry about me,’ he said with a stretch.
‘Indeed. I get the sun in the morning, but not in the evening sadly. Please call again tomorrow, or sometime soon at least, I need to digest what you have told me and formulate more questions. Oh, and please, take some of the mandu for your friend.’
Roztov smiled, nodded and filled his pockets with sweet buns. Lady Fiewa stood and motioned to the door.
‘I’ll show you out.’
‘No need,’ said Roztov as he climbed onto the railing, ‘I’ll just go from here. See you later.’
He then threw himself off the rail and turned into a sparrowhawk as he fell. The bird stooped, using a downdraught near the tower to plummet down to street level at incredible speed. Lady Fiewa followed it carefully with her eye, leaning over the balcony, and watched as the bird, now little more than a black speck, levelled out and then disappeared into the street level fog like an arrow fired into the sea.
‘Show off,’ she muttered with a smile. She patted the rail then went indoors.
Roztov was the last one back to the apartment that evening. Taking off his black cloak at the door as he entered he noticed an old man sat at the table, playing cards with Floran and the sailors.
‘Who is this old fellow?’ asked Roztov.
‘His name is Bulo. He is teaching us how to play with these cards,’ explained Floran. ‘It is a game for four.’
Roztov saw that another table was now in the room, beside the window, and this was where the food and drink was being stored. He went to get his supper.
‘Ask Bulo what he knows about the Spire dragons.’
Floran and Bulo conversed for some time. The old man repeated himself over and over and laughed a lot.
‘Nasty evil things,’ passed on Floran. ‘He says he is loyal to the dragons of Stovologard.’
‘I’m sure he is a model citizen. Does he know anything about Spire dragons sending spies here?’
Again Floran talked to the old man and translated for the others. ‘He says that they used to send spies, disguised as men, but that was many years ago, when he was a child. Then the Stovologard dragons crafted the blue stones that we have seen. Since then, no more spies.’
‘That’s what he thinks.’
He went on to describe his evening. ‘Lady Fiewa, she must be one of them. She’s human, but a Spire spy, she admitted as much to me. She’s a chamberlain to dragon nobility and they suffer her to know some magic, but she’s way more powerful than she lets on to them if she can remove a druid’s transformation.’
‘You’d better take care, Roz,’ warned Meggelaine.
‘Och, I’ll be fine. I’m going back tomorrow. How was your day?’
‘Oh, we went down to the docks to take a look around.’
‘And what did you see,’ asked Roztov with a sigh, suspecting he knew her answer based on the tone of her last sentence.
‘You’ll see, it’s early days, but we might be onto something interesting.’
‘Well?’
‘All in good time, Mr Nosey-Parker, just you concentrate on not getting killed in that tower of yours.’
Roztov didn’t press her, he didn’t have the energy.
The next day, Roztov and Ghene returned to the tower. Roztov met and talked with Lady Fiewa again. In return for answering some more of her questions, she told him that she would put him in contact with Lorkuvan if that was what he desired.
‘Take care though,’ she warned. ‘The dragons of Stovologard care little for the lives of men. I suppose if she’s a diplomat she might be a little less aggressive.’
He then met Ghene for lunch, in a dimly lit gallery area used by the human servants that sold food to those that could afford it, or offered dole bread and stout to those that could not.
They had used some of their stolen gold to buy a decent meal of spiced rice, shredded vegetain meat and onions in fish sauce.
‘This is really good,’ remarked Roztov. ‘Something occurs to me. Did you actually see Ophess dead?’
Ghene looked up from his plate. ‘I saw her eaten.’
‘Blood and guts everywhere?’
‘Well, I confess I did not see that.’
‘Then it’s conceivable she’s still alive,’ mused Roztov. ‘It pains me... but let’s not mention it to Meg. I’ll be buggered if I’m going all the way back there on the off chance Ophess is still alive. Logically, if they didn’t want to kill her, then they are taking care of her.’
‘And teaching her magic apparently,’ said Ghene. ‘I can’t see that ending well.’
‘You think we should go back?’
Ghene put his fork down on his plate and thought for a while. ‘It is a painful thing to just leave her fate unknown I concede, but there is too much at stake. We need to see what happens here first. Let’s wait until after we’ve dealt with whatever is going on here first, and then think about it. Besides, I saw her go into a dragon’s mouth, most people don’t come out again.’
‘Right, right. Good idea, let’s leave it until after we’ve dealt with all this Dreggen business. We’ll probably get killed anyway, so that makes this purely an academic point I suppose.’
‘That’s right. Look on the bright side. When you meet Lorkuvan she’ll probably eat you.’
Roztov gulped down the food that was in his mouth. ‘If that’s the case, I’m having two puddings.’
He attracted the attention of a server, pointed at the sticky buns being eaten by people at a nearby table and held up four fingers.
‘I haven’t spoken of this before,’ said Ghene, ‘but Our Lady Etruna has been coming to me in my dreams of late. I have been shown visions of the end of the world. I see a burnt landscape, full of corpses, a city on fire in the distance. I see the walking dead. I see mountains of bones, literal mountains. In the sky all I can see is black clouds, lightning bolts and fire. The black shapes of dragons...’
‘Well, we’ve all been under a lot of stress. Are you going to finish your rice?’
Ghene pushed his plate towards Roztov. ‘I will do anything to prevent that future.’
‘You sound like Meg. Not even the gods can see the future Ghene.’
‘Maybe not. A warning then.’
Roztov was not a religious man, he paid lip service to the gods at best. He had never received visions or dr
eams, he rarely prayed and didn’t even think all that much of Etruna, the patron deity of druids. He considered religion a distraction, something to coddle or fire up the masses and to rob money from the poor. He didn’t doubt that the gods existed, his powers depended on them after all, he just didn’t see them as all that big a deal.
He also did not doubt Ghene, being an elf, had a different mind to his, perhaps more receptacle to visions sent by gods, it was not something that Roztov spent much time thinking about. Meggelaine, on the other hand, at the farthest end of the scale from Roztov, received visions and dreams not just from the gods, but from animals, trees, doors, chairs, broken plates, you name it.
Ghene gazed over Roztov’s shoulder, looking across the hall, deep in thought. Roztov finished the rice and looked up. ‘Cheer up you miserable bastard, you’re not the one with an appointment inside a dragon’s belly.’
‘It’s every night now Roz. She comes to me every night. I’m standing on a hillside. The grass is all burnt, I can smell it, and I look down on a city in flames. I look around and there is not one thing that isn’t charred black. The sky is black. Everything is black except for the flames and the bones of...’
‘All right!’ cried Roztov. ‘You’re giving me the heebie-jeebies, I get the picture. At least Etruna is aware of us then? Maybe she’ll help for a change.’
After lunch they went their separate ways, Ghene to work his way up into the noble district and Roztov to seek out Lorkuvan. It was late when Roztov found her chambers and since he was reaching the limit of how long he could remain as a rock lizard he decided to approach her the next day.
As he flew back to their apartment, he kept an eye on a battle that was being fought in the sky in the southern part of the city. It was getting dark and there was a good deal of smoke, but it appeared that a group of Chasm dragons were breathing fire down on the tenements. Stovologard dragons were harassing them, but making no great effort to stop the burning. Even from this distance Roztov could tell them apart. The Chasm dragons varied greatly in size and colour while the city dragons were uniformly black or dark green. He resisted the temptation to go watch the battle and dove down into the smoke filled streets.
Roztov found he was the last one back again that evening.
‘This place is a bit much,’ he said as he helped himself to the food laid out on the table. ‘There is a battle to the south. The Chasm dragons are torching the houses.’
‘We need to get out of here,’ said Meggelaine. ‘I’m very stressed. There is no one else to help these people. No one helps them Roz, they just die!’
‘I know sweetie, let me eat first.’
While he ate, Roztov told the others of his latest encounter with Lady Fiewa and his plan to seek out Lorkuvan the next day. 'There are some big players in this game,’ he concluded. 'I'm not sure of what our involvement should be.’
‘Why should we be involved at all?’ chided Meggelaine. ‘You men are infuriating.’
‘If Garumuda is involved in all this, we need to know what it is Meg,’ put in Ghene.
Meggelaine, sat by the fire was now actively shivering. ‘For the love of Etruna, stop saying his name! I’m a nervous wreck as it is! Now look what you’ve done.’
Meggelaine held out her hands to show how much they were shaking.
‘I apologise,’ said Ghene.
‘He'd never come anyway, he'd send a captain,’ said Meggelaine, trying to quell her fears. ‘He never leaves his lair. He just sets up powerful undead in places, like King Bloodwurm, or all those witch-queens in the Norob Forest.’
‘I’m scared too Meg,’ admitted Ghene. ‘Terrified. But, we need to find out what’s going on. This could mean the end of Nillamandor. Or even all life on Goffehag.’
‘I don’t think it will come to that,’ grunted Roztov through a mouthful of spiced beef.
‘That’s his ultimate goal, to destroy all life. Even if he may never realise it, that’s his only driving force. To turn all of Goffehag into a wasteland. Every time he gains more power, anywhere, in any way, it impacts the Great Forest. We are the front line.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Roztov, gearing up for another debate with Ghene, ‘I’ve heard it many times “The kingdoms of man don’t know the debt they owe the GFC” and “We are all the holds him back”. I’ve heard it all before and while some of it may be true, you are not the only ones with skin in the game. Oh, and I’ve got news for you, he’s already west of the Great Forest.’
‘Roztov,’ said Ghene with a hint of irritation. ‘Why does that not prove my point? We are already losing. We don’t need any more dragons, alive or undead.’
‘True,’ admitted Roztov. ‘There is so much to take in and think about. You know, there was a vast kingdom of men here once. I am sure of it now. Is there a way, I wonder, to throw off the oppression of the dragons and claim it once more?’
‘The people seem almost happy with the arrangement though,’ said Ghene. ‘You said yourself that that people are better off here than some of the kingdoms of Nillamandor.’
‘The strongest chains are those we forge ourselves,’ quoth Roztov, ‘You know...’
‘Oh shut up!’ shrieked Meggelaine. ‘You bloody – druids! You talk of freeing Tanud. You’ve just got here! What of Tormwood? We’ve suffered for two hundred years under an oppression worse than dragons I can tell you. And yes, I raise a hidden glass to Queen Jally ever now and then – but that only means that unlike these people – I haven’t forgotten and I haven’t given up hope! Unlike the elves, unlike the druids, who don’t give a tinker’s curse for any of us.’
Roztov and Ghene were silent for a while.
‘If we could do anything we would, Meg...’ said Ghene, trying to sooth his anxious and fretful friend.
‘Oh, spare me.’
Roztov patted his pockets. ‘Oh I forgot. Hey, Em, this might cheer you up.’
He took a bag of mandu from his pocket and tossed it to her.
‘Let’s just go home,’ she said as she opened the bag. ‘Back where it’s safe. This has all been a terrible mistake. I’m too old for adventures.’
After they had eaten, the druids flew south to help the burnt and injured. They returned near to midnight, covered in blood and soot. Roztov fell straight into bed without washing or undressing, or even scratching a few notes into his new journal. Ghene and Meggelaine were just as exhausted, but found the idea of going to bed without changing and washing unimaginable.
The next day, Roztov the rock lizard made his way to the chambers of Lorkuvan, after following the directions given to him by Lady Fiewa. He knew enough about the tower now to know that the higher you went, the more important the dragon. Since Lorkuvan was quite near the top, this marked her out as nobility of some kind.
He found her in a large meeting hall, where she was talking to five other dragons. He scampered up the wall and hid in the cornicing. There were other rock lizards there too, dozing or chatting. A female came up to him. ‘Hello darling.’
‘Hey, sweetie. How’s it going?’
‘Good. You here for the food? They give good scraps here.’
‘I’m here to see Lorkuvan, I suppose,’ confessed Roztov nervously.
‘Got a message for her have you babe?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Where’s your collar?’
Roztov sighed. He was used to dealing with nosey rock lizards after his last few days in their society. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Rosey.’
‘Tell you what, Rosey, give me a kiss you saucy thing.’
Rosey blinked rapidly several times, the rock lizard equivalent of a blush. ‘I’ve got a boyfriend, cheeky!’
‘Is he bigger than me?’
Roztov was trying to listen to the conversation between the dragons in the meeting, but the rock lizards were too distracting.
‘Hey pal, hey pal,’ said another rock lizard. ‘Are you looking at my girl?’
‘A lizard can look.’
‘A wise guy, eh? You been talking to her?’
‘A lizard can talk.’
‘Get outta here, small tail.’
Roztov had done this dozens of times already, the tower rock lizards were always arguing. Lacking teeth or claws, they only ever used harsh language on each other. He found that generally he could win any fight by using an insult none of them had heard before. ‘Get outta my face, err... Pink bum!’
‘I... What? Oh! Pink? Why, you’ve hurt my feelings!’ The male lizard was about to something else, but a dragon down in the room looked up and let out a high pitched hiss. This had the same meaning as a man saying “Hey!” to a pack of dogs and the rock lizards all froze.
Roztov turned his head very slowly and poked his tongue out at the male lizard, which had the same meaning with rock lizards as it did with people.
The conversation below centred on the progress of the war with the dragon’s of the Chasm. After a while food was served and eaten. Roztov was greatly interested to see what a dragon’s dinner looked like. He had assume that all dragon’s hunted for their food, but here they ate from plates sat on tables, just as if they were humans at a banquet. The food was on a larger scale of course, whole roasted vegetains, great vats of rotrok meat and racks of ribs from deer or goats or possibly yales for all Roztov could tell from his lofty vantage point. They also ate fresh green grass once they had finished their meat course, served in golden tureens and he supposed this was a digestive. Much to his amazement they drank tea, from silver cups, tossing it down their throats in single throws. He tried to remember everything he was seeing, to write down later, but he imagined that this sort of dining behaviours surely must have been unique to Stovologard, perhaps from the influence of intermingling with humans, as he could not imagine a Chasm dragon eating this way and certainly not the Usurper of Tomsk or any of the other terrible worms of Nillamandor.