[Age of Fire 05] - Dragon Rule

by E. E. Knight - (ebook by Undead)

“I don’t think it’s likely I’ll mate anytime soon.”

  “In theory—”

  “Our hatchlings would be able to produce more hatchlings, so of course we’re still the same species.”

  “Perhaps, if Anklemere had lived long enough, the dragon lines would have become truly estranged.”

  “Just as well he didn’t. We have problems enough.”

  “Oh, the Wyrr and Skotl and Ankelenes cause enough grief. The slight differences just give them that much more reason for faction and clannishness. Like sea-elves and forest-elves and bog-elves, or all the fall-foliage colors of humankind. I imagine dwarfs fight over something, too.”

  “Bearded and unbearded females, I’ve heard.”

  The shared a chuckle. “But back to your story.”

  “Yes, well, the smallest number of refugees from Silverhigh fled to the old winter palace in the north. It’s a region few hominids dare approach. Volcanic activity keeps the vale itself hospitable enough in the winter, but there are only a few months in summer when men may approach it overland, and even then they have to wade across marshes filled with disease-carrying insects. They say you can find bones of every great hominid empire in those bogs—I’ve seen a jeweled chariot of the blighter kingdom of Old Uldam myself, when off exploring. I was born to that little clan of dragons, where we first met.”

  She nudged a wayward paving stone back into place. “Yet you are also known in the Lavadome.”

  “The dragons made cautious contact—we’d practically died out at the old Winter Palace in the Sadda-Vale. The trolls are a nuisance and have killed their share of drakes and drakka, or the more adventurous had struck off for better hunting. But through NooMoahk, back in his younger days before he became addled and obsessed with that cursed crystal, we learned of the dragons in the Lavadome.

  “It became a tradition for at least one drake or drakka to be exchanged. In the middle of the clan wars between the Wyrr and Skotl—at first it was just the two of them, with the Ankelenes ostensibly neutral, the tradition was stopped. It only restarted again after the wars were over and Tyr FeHazathant and his mate calmed things down.

  “I was both the first and the last of that old tradition. Scabia sent me because she thought me obstreperous, and the Lavadome would knock some discipline into me. In exchange we received NaStirath, who I believe you met in the Sadda-Vale when you were seeking allies to avenge your family.”

  “Yes, though it was a bloodless hunt. NaStirath was quite possibly the silliest dragon I’ve ever known.”

  “Somehow the Lavadome managed to spare him, yes. But he did learn to flatter there. Scabia enjoys hearing him prattle about her greatness.”

  “So you weren’t originally from the Lavadome.”

  “No, but I grew to love it as if I’d been hatched there. It felt like home, more so than anywhere else I’ve lived. Mystery and history and secrets, there’s more worth finding there than I could discover in a lifetime. But it was only home for a while. I went into the Aerial Host more for mnemonic powers than athletic ability or fighting skill or what have you. If you don’t mind listening to me sing my own praises, Wistala, I’m good at finding my way around, even by dead reckoning. I was usually flying scout—this was in the days when the Lavadome was reestablishing upholds that had been lost in the civil wars—and made excellent maps.

  “Well, I found myself giving advice to the commander of the Aerial Host, FeHazathan’s clutchwinner AgGriffopse. I’d lay out enemy positions, or find a new route to an objective, a few times I even scared up allies—AgGriffopse would base his battle plans on what I’d discovered and we’d usually win without too much fighting. There’s a rumor in the Lavadome that AgGriffopse and I were enemies from the very start, but that’s not true. He usually sent me back to report his victories, the tradition then was that report running was a mark of high distinction, given only to dragons of sense and ability, because the Tyr would question them and form judgements and give orders based on the reports. I repaid AgGriffopse with my loyalty, always giving him his proper due.

  “When he started assisting his father in Tyr duties, I took over the Aerial Host. My name back then—oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m DharSii. I like it better anyway.”

  He watched a new stream of molten rock start down the side of the Lavadome, bright and almost yellow in its heat. “My command of the Aerial Host is better remembered now than I thought it at the time. While living it, it seemed as though I was making one dreadful error after another. Each victory seemed to cost me dragons, yet when we’d return to the Lavadome we flew around the Imperial Resort to roars of praise. Seems a hundred years ago. Perhaps it was.”

  “You don’t look so old.”

  “It’s the waters of the Sadda-Vale. I think that’s why the summer palace was up there; they’re filled with minerals dragons need, I believe.”

  “I could use a few mouthfuls I think. All this back and forthing and keeping everyone placated—it would tax old Rainfall’s patience.”

  “You must tell me more of him, sometime.”

  “Finish your story.”

  “It’s not a happy ending, I’m afraid. AgGriffopse and I became, I suppose you would say, rivals. The Tyr liked us both a great deal, I believe. His blood called to AgGriffopse, but I’d like to think that part of him considered me as a possible future Tyr. You always want to look back at yourself in the best possible light, but I find myself unable to do that. I believe I was ambitious, perhaps too ambitious.

  “The Tyr had a daughter, as well. Enesea. She was silly and headstrong, decent looking enough but a little on the weak side—never flew for exercise, in that she resembles our friend Imfamnia. Not surprising, Enesea being her aunt.

  “If ever a dragon courted, so I courted Enesea. I gave her merits she didn’t deserve, though I will admit she always made me laugh. In the right way, through wit, not in the wrong way, through foolishness. She enjoyed mentioning other young dragons as rivals, but I believe in the end she would have had me. Not from affection or real respect based on knowing each other’s strengths. No, it was status. My position in the Aerial Host made some of her friends sigh and hoot and ripple-wing when I was about, and she enjoyed their jealousy to the fullest.

  “I was working myself up to sing my lifesong to her—an old-fashioned proposal is best, don’t you agree?”

  Wistala did agree, most sincerely, but perhaps Dharsii was blind to just how much she was like-minded.

  “But the moment never seemed to come,” he said. “One night, after a particularly wine-filled feast, we went for a flight around the river-ring. We were jostling and knock-winging. I was nipping at her tail and she was batting me about the face with her wingtip, young dragon play, when suddenly she threw herself into the cavern ceiling on some sharp rocks. I tried to assist her and she began to roar and call as if I’d been murdering her, and the next thing I knew there were some griffaran flying about and a pair of the Aerial Host on exercises were flying to my aid—

  “She flew back to the Imperial Rock as quickly as her wings could carry her, bleeding all the way.

  “Well, to make a very long and very angry story short, she accused me of attacking her. To this day I don’t know what was in her mind. Did she have a fit of some kind and hurt herself? And when I tried to support her she thought it was a mating embrace—or did she, from the very first, mean to hurt herself and go flying to the Tyr with a story that I’d attacked her.

  “I do know this: She closeted herself with the Tyr’s mate, Tighlia, and wouldn’t see me. Looking back on it now, it seemed clever Tighlia meant to put at least one of us out of the line of succession—if she was very lucky, both, as things turned out—

  “AgGriffopse went absolutely mad. That’s the only word for it. He challenged me to a death duel. No quarter given until one or the other of us would lie dead. Even if we were each too wounded to finish the other off, the one least able to have his limbs hold him up would be finished by the Ankelene duel-physician.
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  “So we met in the old dueling pit in the black of night, as was the tradition for a death duel.”

  “Your wrath shouldn’t win…” Wistala said, quoting the first song her mother had sung to her hatchlings.

  “Exactly,” DharSii said. “I’m surprised you know it. That’s an old song of—well, I believe it dates back to before Silver-high. A very old song indeed.”

  “There’s some truth in it. That’s probably why it’s lingered on all these years.”

  “It could be phrased more felicitously. I suspect we’ve lost a few words over the years and substituted worse ones. I didn’t know anyone remembered it outside the Sadda-Vale.”

  “My mother did.”

  “Ahh. Well, yes, AgGriffopse’s wrath won. But he also lost, in a way. He stood there, bellowing and stamping out his rage over the insult to his sister—an insult I knew I was innocent of, at least as innocent as a young dragon could be with my intentions of making her my mate. AgGriffopse was a fine dragon, but he did let himself run on a bit. He was yelling to the roof about how he’d tear out my liver and feed it to the fish in the river ring when I took my chance. I lashed out with a sii and caught him across the throat.

  “The wound wasn’t fatal. I know some accused me of poisoning my claws with a venomer’s spit, but I’d never resort to such tactics. Besides, if I had, he’d have died within minutes, and it’s my understanding that he was recovering and died from an infection or some such—that is, if Tighlia didn’t do him in. But don’t listen to rumors. The duel was fairly started, he just decided to waste his breath snarling at me rather than fighting.

  “He lost blood and consciousness with it, thought his neck hearts were still bleeding. As it was a death duel, one of us had to die, and I decided that it would be better him than me.”

  “But I’d heard he lingered—you didn’t finish him?” Wistala asked.

  “I didn’t have the heart. He had been my friend. Even when we were rivals for the Tyr’s admiration, we were still friends. I can’t believe that whichever one of us FeHazathant chose to succeed him would have become a bitter enemy of the other. I’d like to think either of us would have rejoiced. But who’s to say—dragons don’t care to lose. At least dragons worth the content of their gold-gizzard.”

  “So, what, it was suspended until he recovered and you’d fight again? That seems—”

  “No, nothing like that. One of us had to die. I just decided it would be me.”

  “You mean?”

  “Yes, I died, after a fashion. It was all perfectly in keeping with Lavadome tradition. I renounced my name, all my laudi, and my position. I went into exile from the Lavadome. The dragon who’d led the Aerial Host was no more, his name was never spoken—I became DharSii, quick-claw, a criminal’s nickname. AgGriffopse had won the duel, and avenged the insult to his sister.”

  “What happened to Enesea?”

  “Again, that depends on which rumor you believe. I was long gone from the Lavadome by the time it happened, but some say she went mad and threw herself into the Wind Tunnel after AgGriffopse’s death. Others say she was wined into a stupor and told to fly up it. Still others say her body was simply dumped into it after her death. Whatever the cause, she was found at the bottom with a broken neck.”

  “The poor Tyr. First his son, then his daughter.”

  “I think he was blind to the evil close to him. Though I hear Tighlia gave a good account of herself at the end. She was the only dragon who resisted the Dragonblade and his puppet Tyr, at the end.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  “I returned to the Sadda-Vale. I angered Scabia by refusing to recognize any name but DharSii, and found NaStirath mated to Aethleethia. They were kind enough to me, but I still felt like an exile among them. But they keened that they needed coin—it’s the one mineral the Sadda-Vale lacks. We resort to chipping ores out of the slate there, but they don’t care for the work or the taste. I’ve hired myself out for wars to bring them coin. But never enough, they gobble it down and then it’s back to slate chipping.”

  “You were doing that when we met.”

  “You think I’d forgotten? You were the first new face there in ages. I’ve roved the world. But somehow I always find myself returning there, even if the company is a little distasteful. It’s one of the few places that still belongs to dragons—not that the trolls don’t give us some bother about it, but then a dragon needs a challenge now and then. But I like the sense that it’s ours. Don’t we deserve a few patches of land, too?”

  Ours, we—DharSii, don’t you know that those words catch me in the throat, too? He was an intelligent dragon, spoke carefully when he did speak. He must be using them intentionally.

  “You make me want to fly away with you there, now.”

  “But you have duties to attend to,” DharSii said. “Watch your tail in this place, Wistala. And your throat. And your flanks, when you can spare the time.”

  “I’m the Queen-errant, don’t you know?”

  “Have you ever heard of a thing called a lightning rod?”

  “Umm…”

  “It’s a dwarfish invention for places struck by storms. It’s simply a piece of iron placed high, with a wire to the ground. It attracts lightning bolts, rather than the more vulnerable usual rooftop or ship mast. You’ll be a lightning rod for discontent. Your dragons are celebrating now, but as soon as bad news comes, a plague strikes, or a battle falls the wrong way, they’ll blame you. They always do. A Tyr can engage in all manner of foolishness and still be loved, but his Queen—her slightest misstep is remarked upon and criticized. She’s always accused of secretly manipulating her mate.”

  “RuGaard’s not my mate. He’s my brother.”

  “I’m very glad of that,” DharSii said. “I’ve delayed too long already. Tongues will be tasting the air about you tonight and discussing this tomorrow, you can be sure.

  “Now, I’ve recuperated enough to eat a meal without bringing it back up. The kitchens haven’t moved, have they?”

  “Just follow your nose,” Wistala said.

  “I was hoping you’d give me a tour, and take a bite with me.”

  “I was hoping you’d ask,” she said.

  Chapter 11

  Wistala longed to see the sun again.

  She was spending far too much time in Lavadome for her taste. It seemed the Queen, even a Queen-Consort, was expected to preside over every social gathering, on top of her largely ceremonial duties as head of the Firemaids.

  Having to listen to the same news repeated over and over and over again, discussed much the same way with the same insipid observations and jokes—it was enough to make you gnaw at your flanks until your scale fell out. Now there was news of the blighters she’d briefly lived with coming into the Grand Alliance, and all the Lavadome wanted to know what sort of gemstones and precious metals could be found in their lands.

  “Unless cattle horn is a precious metal and chicken beaks a gem, I don’t know that we’ll see much wealth from them,” Wistala said.

  She’d kept her ears open for news about DharSii. He was consulting with the Ankelenes about the crystal statue that had once stood in NooMoahk’s cave until the Red Queen of the Ghioz stole it. The dragons of the Lavadome claimed it when they settled matters with the Red Queen in a desperate attack.

  Strangely enough, it was when she paid a rare call on the Ankelenes’ “hill”—it wasn’t a natural feature of the Lavadome, but rather an artificial hill made of stone—that she happened upon the first evidence she found of Nilrasha’s purported conspiracy.

  While climbing the stairs to the Ankelene Hill, she met Ibidio, AgGriffopse’s mate and widow. Ibidio was a fixture at Imperial Line events, a sort of Queen-in-her-own-mind who saw to it the traditions of the Lavadome were upheld.

  “Ibidio, I’ve seen little of you for days. Have you been ill?”

  “No. I don’t care to meet my husband’s murderer. I understand today he’s swimming in the river-ring.”<
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  Wistala suddenly lost interest in visiting the Ankelenes. Her time there always passed like dried, splintered bones through her digestive tract, as she could rarely enter without having some expert question her about conditions near the pole or in the great east or other places she’d visited.

  “I might follow your example and go into hiding. I thought I’d borrow some books and spend a few days reading,” Wistala said. “I’m tired of duties and ceremonies.”

  Ibidio explored her gumline with her tongue. Wistala noticed she was lacking teeth. “You aren’t fond of your brother, are you?”

  “Fond? No, not fond.”

  Ibidio cocked her head. “Yet you have dropped scale all over the Lavadome acting as his Queen-Consort. Strange.”

  “I respect him, I respect what he’s built, and what others before him established. I believe in what he’s trying to do for dragons.”

  “Are you aware of the circumstances of my daughter’s death?”

  “His first mate? I’ve heard the story. RuGaard said she choked.”

  “No one knows the whole story, except perhaps for RuGaard and Nilrasha.” Ibidio sighed. “I’ve devoted myself to the subject. Halaflora wasn’t a favorite of mine at the time, but since Imfamnia revealed her true character, her memory has sweetened. I’ll never forgive her death.”

  “You believe she was murdered, then?”

  “Would knowing the truth change your opinion of your brother from respect?”

  “Of course,” Wistala said. “I have my own grievances and accusations against him.”

  “I remember that day in the Audience Chamber. His tyrancy should have ended that day. Would you like further proof of the character of that outcast and Tighlia?”

  “I will hear it,” Wistala said.

  “Follow me.”

  Ibidio led her into Ankelene Hill, and then down to the storage rooms. They passed through a corridor lined with scroll tubes and into a sort of reading room beyond. There were several smaller rooms off of it filled with materials and implements for writing—dragons had learned the practice from dwarfs, some thought—and Tighlia opened the curtain of one.