“So much good metal to eat in the Grand Alliance,” Natasatch said. “I don’t miss the ore from the island one bit. It would just sit in your gold gizzard, taking forever to digest.”
“You think we’ve made a change for the better?” AuRon asked.
“Time will tell. I think the offspring have.”
“I’m going for a walk,” AuRon said. “Enjoy the silver.”
He followed his nose and ears, watched the noisy construction of the dragon-face. His brother had faults, but he didn’t believe one to be vanity. He wondered if the image was meant to flatter his brother and disperse suspicions about Imfamnia’s and NiVom’s loyalty.
Frantic hammering and calls in the Ghioz dialect still echoed from behind the canvas on the brass dragon snout and lanterns cast shadowplay of swinging limbs and distorted bodies bent over work-surfaced. NiVom and Imfamnia had their labor gangs working through the night, it seemed. He saw one group of workers, obviously off-duty, huddled in the shelter of the scaffolding like pigs in a sty. Speaking of which, the underbrush was thick with dumped buckets of hominid waste and discarded food. He heard rats and other vermin.
There were other camps here and there, with cooking fires and bakeries going even at this late hour. So many workers! They had enough men here to form a small city of them—he wondered how NiVom and Imfamnia were able to afford such a monument to vanity.
His hosts should take more care with their charges; there’d be disease if they weren’t careful. He observed red welts on the backs and arms of some of the workers as they lay on their stomachs, the injuries dabbed with some kind of chalky paste.
Whip-rash.
Poor dumb brutes, treated like horses and mules who couldn’t be reasoned into performing their duties. Men could reason, after a fashion, though the ability varied from individual to individual. Too much intelligence made them mad, like Wrimere. Naf, perhaps not as bright as Wrimere, was a far more sensible reasoner. Maybe men needed the relief of frequent laughter to purge their brains the way indigestibles purged the bowels. Naf, always ready to bray in that mulish fashion of his or cackle like a sitting bird, had his mind right.
Some of the workers twitched in their sleep as he passed, startled awake and avoided his eye, as though guilty for being at rest. He smelled quick fear in their sweat.
He wanted out of the tumult and reek. It was a fine night, Ghioz apparently had milder winters than the Bissonian Scarpes he’d lived in to the east. Perhaps he could find a spot on the ridge behind the works to watch the stars and think.
He found his way up to the ridge, making use of a dusty road that must lead to a source of lumber or a quarry or smelter or some other camp supporting the alterations to the mountainside, for it was recently and heavily rutted.
As he stepped out upon it he saw a shadow shift on an overhanging tree ahead. The tree, a lopsided hardwood, had been trimmed back to keep the road clear, but a few branches at the top still overhung the road. Near the top, a mass that he took to be an eagle’s nest reached out a limb and moved through the canopy to a thicker mass of branches.
AuRon couldn’t identify the creature, with a reach like a vulture’s wing and smaller back legs, a paunchy body, and a neckless head like an overturned bucket. As it moved it looked at him, two red eyes glowed briefly from the foliage. Then it jumped, breaking through twigs with a crackling sound, and flapped off on leathery wings.
Cautiously, he climbed the tree it had rested on and extended his head to its perch. Claw marks. He tested the air with his tongue, a sharp smell like the worst mammalian urine, that of a cat, perhaps, lingered in the air about its perch.
He suppressed a shudder. Whatever it was, it was the eeriest-looking creature he’d ever seen. He’d have to ask Naf; he’d spent more time in this part of the world.
But the road ran up toward clean sky. Wanting clean air and quiet to think, he followed it.
AuRon smelled blighter on the wind, and investigated, following the scents. He left the road and wandered downhill, crossed a stream and lost the scent, and only picked up on a new ridgeline where the wind had free play. Now he could hear the sound of hammer on metal.
He sensed a dragon above. Imfamnia passed overhead, and loosed a friendly call. She executed a queer landing, dropping her wings, rolling over, and crashing into the branches. Startled birds and mammals fled the collapsing canopy.
She rolled over to land on her feet as she dropped beside them.
“Out for a moonlit stroll?”
“I’ve seen blighter children jump into a pile of leaves or cornstalks much the same way,” AuRon said.
“There wasn’t a clearing nearby,” she said. “I wanted to warn you away from this gully. It leads to the camp of some of our forces. The Protector’s bodyguard, to be exact. It would be tragic if there were a misunderstanding.”
“I smell blighters.”
“You’re aware of the principle of always using foreign soldiery as your bodyguards? They’re less likely to betray you.”
AuRon had, but wasn’t used to hearing Imfamnia speak of matters other than scale care or grooming.
“You spend a lot of time worrying about being betrayed?” he asked.
“When you grow up in the Lavadome, it becomes a habit.” She reached behind with her elegantly shaped claws and began to clean twigs and bits of canopy detritus from her scale.
“Do you know much about the wildlife around here, Imfamnia?”
“I know the rats in our resort come in three colors, all ugly, and the birds make far too much noise before it’s decently light out. I’m no Ankelene.”
“I saw a big—it must have been a mammal. But winged, and not feathered, with claws—”
“Oh, that’s one of NiVom’s snaggletoothed bats. He’s hard at work breeding them into gargoyles. He found the method in one of those dusty old books we took from the blighters in Old Uldam before that DharSii could get his greedy sii into it.”
“How does one breed gargoyles out of bats?”
“I’m not sure, something to do with dragonblood and certain choice organs. CuRemom knows more about it than even NiVom, perhaps you should ask him.”
“Is that wise?”
“They’re loyal as dogs, always in hope of the next drop of blood, but you can’t really trust them without evidence. They’ll lie like a rug to get the next feeding. Your brother almost got there before us, feeding some bloodsucking cave-bats, but he just lucked into it and didn’t breed for effect.”
“Why?” AuRon asked.
“For the same reason your brother does, to have spies. Clever of him, using vermin that way. You can never have too many eyes looking out for you, but I hope he stops at four with these gargoyles.”
The more he learned of the Lavadome and its ways, the less he liked it.
“I hope my brother’s Grand Alliance doesn’t turn into a vast version of the Lavadome. Sounds as though it could end badly.”
“You’re a droopy drake, to be thinking of endings with a new world just begun.”
“It’s my nature, I suppose. When the sun is shining I wonder how long until the next rain.”
Imfamnia gave up on her scale, muttered something about leaving it for the thralls, and went snout-to-snout with him. “What kind of ending do you want, AuRon?”
Growing up in the Lavadome must also give one different ideas about personal space. AuRon lifted his head away. “For me?”
“Yes, and for dragons in general.”
“I’d like to avoid an ending. That’s why I believe that the farther we stay away from humans, the better. I don’t like binding our fate to theirs.”
“You think humans are the real threat?”
“My father did, and nothing I’ve experienced has caused me to change my opinion. The deadliest nondragon I ever met was a human. He killed many of our kind.”
“Are you speaking of the Dragonblade?” Imfamnia asked.
“Yes.”
“He was just one man. Any on
e man only has a brief period of health and vigor, hardly longer than a butterfly’s beautiful season in the air. Men rarely see things through; they make some fine starts but it all goes to pieces in a few generations.”
“You’re an odd one, Imfamnia. You can prattle on for hours about dipping one’s claw-tips in liquid silver, then shift to questions of existence.”
Imfamnia looked over his leathery skin, from behind the crest to tailtip. “Mate with me, AuRon.”
“What?”
“Oh, fly with me, then, if you must use poetic language. Take me up.”
“Imfamnia!”
“You find me attractive. I can tell. Your neck-hearts go pink. Usually you have to look at a dragon at just the right angle to tell, but your skin makes things so much easier.”
“I’ve no wish to be with anyone but my mate.”
“Your neck says differently. You’re not a badly formed dragon. You lost your tail at some point, I can tell, and it’s come back—though there’s still that distinctive notch. I bet that just makes you faster in the air. You could catch me in no time.”
“Let NiVom do the catching. He’s your mate.”
“Being mated to NiVom was strategy. He’s obsessed with his plots and plans and tests and breeds. I’m asking you for a little excitement. It’s been forever since I’ve been around interesting dragons. Just your bucolic Upper World accent makes me go all goosey. I can hear the whisper of pines and howling of wolves in it. Those dull warriors of the host, suspicious Wyrr messenger dragons, soft Ankelenes—you’ve really lived and achieved, I should very much like to hear your song. You back-to-nature dragons are keen on that whole lifesong tradition, I believe.”
“What do you know about my song?”
“Natasatch gave me a few details. Now don’t look like a decapitated horse, she’s very proud of you, even if she thinks your reclusiveness is a bit stifling. I don’t blame her for being fond of you. I see what she means now, with a moon like that above and your snakelike suppleness. I’ll wager that you’re delightfully flexible, and I hate some big male’s scale catching under mine and pulling as we fall.”
“I’d never dishonor myself or Natasatch in that way.”
She extended her wings and fluttered them. “Honor takes all the fun out of life. Come, we’re lords of the earth, and leaders among dragons. Don’t let silly old notions tie you down until you’ve died without ever having lived, like livestock waiting for the culling. Life is short.”
“Dallying with mated dragons is a sure way to shorten it even further. A hot lust for—”
“You’re still talking to me, I notice.”
AuRon climbed up one of the trees she’d broken in landing. “Good night, Imfamnia.”
He returned to their guest-cave. Natasatch was sleeping lightly and opened her eye at his return. “So, what do you think of our neighboring Protectors?”
AuRon swished his tail in indecision. If he told her about Imfamnia, there might be trouble, there’d definitely be some pain and doubt, and there was a slim chance she’d demand a duel of some sort. “They’re free with their food and coin and… feelings.”
“This is a fine resort they have. I suppose Ghioz is a rich Protectorate. Naf could never afford to build us something like this. I don’t think it’s such a bad thing to be free with your feelings and quick to make friends.”
The wind veered, blowing cold right into their cavern and AuRon dragged a twin set of curtains closed over their entrance. He spat into a fire pit in the center of the room. It warmed within almost immediately, and the smell of dragon-flame stimulated him. “Not if it’s genuine. This is all play acting. They might have been elves acting out a mime-battle.”
“Oh AuRon. Ever the crab, worried about the next turn of the tide. Don’t be foolish in refusing riches. Let go and enjoy yourself a little.”
AuRon almost let out an embarrased Naf-ish mule’s bray at that.
“I’ll keep a foolish constancy,” AuRon said.
“Not the words I’d choose. Our Tyr has built a wonderful thing. Dragons can help humans and humans can help dragons. You and Naf will be long remembered as great among your people. Our offspring will see peaceful days.”
“Men rarely remember anything once the generation who saw it dies off. They’ve already half-forgotten Tindairuss and NooMoahk. Their deeds might as well be fairy tales, and they had a much more impressive alliance that freed a world. All too soon they were right back to fearing and hating us—not without cause, I suppose. One bad dragon can make thousands of men miserable. I wonder if we’ll ever work it out.”
“Quit wondering and start working to make it happen. Tyr RuGaard could use us. Imfamnia said she’d teach me all about being a Protector. By learning caution from you and charm from her, I’ll be formidable one day, I daresay.”
“Ever the practical dragon-dame. I don’t doubt it, once you get your teeth into a scheme you don’t let go. You’re the best part of me.”
They had a farewell meal the next morning, mostly broths made of animal fats with cold joint jelly so they wouldn’t be weighted down with heavy digestion in the air.
There was no honor guard, and the musicians were probably still recovering from the strenuous efforts of their arrival.
“I wish we could convince you to stay another few days,” Imfamnia said. “The moon is so lovely this time of year as the air cools and dries. Sometimes it turns quite blue, and I understand that’s an omen of change for the better. You should remain with us to enjoy it.”
“My lord insists that we return to Dairuss,” Natasatch said.
“Pity,” Imfamnia said, looking at AuRon, who was already extending and relaxing his wings.
“I believe matters on the northeastern frontier of the Empire are in good standing,” NiVom said. He looked exhausted. Was he giving blood to his gargoyles?
“Don’t you mean the Grand Alliance?” AuRon asked.
“I like to call things by their real name,” NiVom said. “Make no mistake, this is a new Dragon Empire. I hope our long years in the Lavadome have toughened us to run it properly.”
AuRon thought his scale looked a little dull. He probably wasn’t eating right, chasing around bats and thrashing his slaves.
“What would you do to improve on the present arrangement?” Natasatch asked.
“Stronger lines of authority with the humans. Those who properly submit to our will do well, others will be destroyed. Your brother thinks that they’ll act in their own interest, and in the interest of the alliance. Rationality and analysis from hominids? Maybe among educated dwarfs, but from these men of Hypatia? Lazy scut. His belief that humans can act rationally where dragons are concerned could prove our doom.”
NiVom paused, as if judging whether his words would bring argument. He sent the thralls away with a slap of his tail against the surface of the courtyard.
One of the workmen far above dropped a hammer in fright at the sound.
“RuGaard chose badly in his selection of allies. Certainly, we should select one nation of hominids and promote their interests, so that in return they’d be hated by the others and be forced to seek the protection of dragons or lose all, but Hypatians! They’re blood has bled out and run cold centuries ago. Dragons need vigorous conquerors at their side, not dissipated philosophers. He should have built around Ghioz.”
“Vigorous conquerors might be more likely to revolt, don’t you think?” Natasatch asked.
“The Alliance seems to be functioning well enough,” AuRon said.
“Must we spoil a delightful visit with politics?” Imfamnia asked. “Our guests don’t need to leave with their ears ringing. This is a farewell and goodwind toast, not an Ankelene conferral.”
NiVom ignored his mate. “To tell you the truth, AuRon, it’s Ghioz that’s mostly holding it up. Hypatia will take many years to rebuild after centuries of neglect. Tyr RuGaard is a little too impressed, I think, with old monuments and columns to achievements far out of living memor
y. Our Empire should support us, not the reverse.”
“Doesn’t it? Naf feeds us well, even if it’s just mutton.” AuRon said. “Ghioz is famous for its cattle and horses; you should eat more of them. Especially the liver.”
“I wanted to warn you, AuRon, war may be coming with the blighters of Old Uldam. No raid this time, but actual conquest. We may need your assistance.”
“Why will the Alliance do that?”
“I’ve an interest in that city. The sun-shard lived there for many years.”
“Lived?” AuRon asked. “It’s a rock that glows.”
“What do you know about the old statue?”
“It gave off enough light to read by,” AuRon said.
“You never felt any strange effects? Lapses of time, missing gaps where you found you’d done something and forgotten it?”
“No. NooMoahk used to sleep curled around it. He’d become addled, and challenge anyone in the chamber, thinking they were trying to harm him.”
“Or it. Perhaps it was protecting itself.”
“A piece of quartz was trying to preserve itself?”
“It’s no ordinary piece of quartz, or glass. It may be alive, though not as we know it. Many have died to gain or protect it.”
“Again with the sun-shard,” Imfamnia said. “It’s safe in the Lavadome, though I’d rather use it to impress the blighters. What do we care?”
“What is it for, then?” AuRon asked.
“It has something to do with the Wizard Anklemere, and the Lavadome, we believe,” NiVom said.
“Anklemere. I’ve heard of him again and again. If he was so powerful, I wonder how he was ever beaten,” Natasatch said.
“Like many would-be world conquerers, he was so focused on the horizons, he tripped over his own feet,” AuRon said. “That’s how King Naf tells it, anyway.”
“Tell us one thing,” NiVom said. “Your sister, Wistala, if it came between her brother and peace in the Lavadome, which would she choose?”
“Wistala and I have been long apart. She clings to her own ideals about dragons and hominids working together as equals. I know she believes in the Grand Alliance, and is doing her best to further it, but a Queen-Consort or whatever they’re calling her has many duties. I haven’t spoken to her since I became Protector.”
[Age of Fire 05] - Dragon Rule Page 12
