by Byron Preiss
Kiorte’s windship moved quickly over the trees, back into the main fleet. He would direct their maneuvers, ensuring the capture of any stray bands of Fandorans planning to reach shore. Hawkwind was probably already on his way to prevent Evirae’s coronation. He would have to depart soon if he were to reach the Dais of Beron first. He glanced back at the Fandoran, who stood between two burly Windriders.
“At least this foolish war is over,” he murmured. “That much is fact, in a time of uncertainty.”
He had spoken to himself, but Tamark overheard him. “Aye,” he replied softly. “Would that it had never begun.”
Kiorte turned to look at him in surprise. “ ’Twas your country which attacked us!”
“Not so!” Tamark replied heatedly. “Your windships attacked our children!”
Kiorte stared at him. The man obviously believed what he had said. Kiorte turned back to the steering levers. He gripped them hard. He was remembering what Hawkwind had told him after he and the Monarch had fought, the discoveries Ceria had made of the reasons behind the Fandoran attack.
They had believed Simbala to be the aggressor, then. Hawkwind had been correct.
He stared ahead, watching the trees pass beneath the windship. They were moving quickly, he thought. The journey would be over far too soon.
* * *
Those few hours that Ceria waited in the depths of the forest were among the longest she had ever known. She had become more and more convinced that Hawkwind had been wounded or slain in the hills. Lathan, watching Ceria pace nervously about the glade, wished he could do or say something to comfort her, but he knew that only the appearance of her beloved would soothe her.
Then Ceria abruptly raised her head. “Listen!” she breathed. “Do you hear it?”
“Hear what, milady?”
Ceria did not reply. She listened intently, and a smile spread over her face like the burst of a sunbeam through the tangled canopy. “It is the cry of a hawk!” she shouted.
Now it came to Lathan’s ears too, along with the sound of a horse approaching through the woods. A moment later, Hawkwind, astride his horse, came into view. He had shed his armor, and both Lathan and Ceria shouted happily as the familiar figure swung down from his horse. Ceria ran toward him. A moment only did they embrace. “Quickly!” Hawkwind said. “Do you hold the Dragonpearl?”
“The pouch is within my mount’s saddlebag,” Ceria replied.
Hawkwind nodded with determination. “Then we ride!” he said. “Vora has told me of eight cavalrymen who wait within the forest. They will accompany us to the dais.”
He took to his saddle, and Ceria and Lathan mounted their horses. With a leap, once again Hawkwind’s dark stallion was on its way, Lady Tenor’s borrowed steed following close behind it. Lathan spurred his horse after them, but to little avail. Within a short time they were far ahead, lost in the afternoon light.
“It is like that night near Dragonhead,” he muttered, and he consoled himself with the thought that even with one of the swiftest stallions in Overwood, it would be difficult for him to catch Hawkwind or Ceria.
* * *
From the edge of the abandoned windship station within the palace, Monarch Ephrion stared out at the forest through an ancient skyglass.
“Nothing,” he said. “There is no evidence of Ceria’s return at all.”
Behind him Baron Tolchin waited. “Then we must go on with it!” he said. “The coronation must take place. It would be unfair to ask for further delay. Even if Ceria returns with proof of her innocence, Monarch Hawkwind will still be missing. We cannot reappoint a Monarch who has abdicated his role and fled the army!”
“I do not believe that for a second!”
“Nor do I believe that the Fandoran spy escaped the palace alone. But we must accept certain things if we are to get on with the affairs of Simbala. I do not think Kiorte would lie about Hawkwind’s actions. I am sorry, Monarch Ephrion, but I am convinced that Hawkwind has proven himself either a coward or a traitor.”
Ephrion was silent, but it was evident that his confidence in Hawkwind had not been diminished. He did not know what the miner had done, but whatever Hawkwind’s plans were, Ephrion knew they were in the best interest of Simbala’s safety.
“Kiorte has a plan,” said Tolchin, looking down at the empty courtyard. “He has summoned the remaining windships to the valley for an assault on the hills. They will drive the Fandorans back before nightfall.”
Ephrion shook his head. “The true danger remains.”
Tolchin nodded. “Kiorte will deal with the creatures you call the coldrakes, too. The Windriders will devise a plan to trap them.”
“You believe that, in light of what I have told you and Alora?”
Tolchin nodded.
“They are giant creatures, but they cannot be very smart. How many can there be, Ephrion? We have never seen another in all our days in the forest.”
Ephrion once again raised the skyglass and stared at the road which wound its way from Overwood. “I do not know how many exist or from whence they came, Tolchin—that was what Ceria had been sent to find out.” He did not mention Amsel or the related mission on which the Fandoran had been sent, for that would surely have enraged Tolchin and raised even more doubts in his mind.
The Baron glanced anxiously at the door behind him. “The Rayan has obviously been unable to complete her task. I must go now and join Alora in preparation for the coronation. Do not worry, Monarch Ephrion. We will keep Evirae under control.” He patted the elder statesman on his back and then turned from the open arch of the station. Ephrion sighed. The Baron listened too much to his nerves, he thought, but there was truth in something he had said. Even if Ceria were to return to the forest before the coronation took place, there was nothing to stop the naming of Evirae as Queen as long as Hawkwind was missing. It was obvious to the Family that Hawkwind had deserted the army, and they would support Evirae’s succession regardless of what Ceria might find. The truth about the coldrakes would help end the war quickly, but Hawkwind himself would have to be present to win the struggle for the palace that had so briefly been his.
Ephrion gripped the skyglass firmly. He did not know where Hawkwind had gone, had no assurance that the young Monarch would return at all, but he had not surrendered his hope.
* * *
“I’m spending more time in the air than I am on the ground,” Amsel told himself nervously, staring down at the bleak landscape below. He was crouched in a small hollow just behind the dragon’s head, sheltered from the wind by the huge carapace and from the cold by the dragon’s body heat. He held on to the horns that formed the serrated edge. It was not an uncomfortable ride, although Amsel felt at times as if a strong gust would send him flying toward the white blanket far beneath them. The Last Dragon had suggested that the safest place for Amsel to ride would be in his mouth, but Amsel had politely declined. It was not that it would have been more uncomfortable—the dragon’s mouth was the size of the windship cabin and his palate soft as a duck-down mattress, although admittedly somewhat more moist. His breath was sweet, because he was a herbivore, but Amsel still vividly remembered dangling in front of the coldrake’s hissing maw and had decided against it.
The return to the land of the coldrakes, from which he had fled over the course of the previous day, took much less time. The dragon had flown a different route north, above the snowy peaks, far from the edge of the river and canyon. Amsel saw few signs of life—an occasional reindeer or mountain goat hiding beneath scattered clusters of trees, but little else besides the snow. The vast range of ice was depressing, though it seemed a fitting stage for the last days of a magnificent race. In the dim sunlight, Amsel’s own home seemed terribly remote. An intense loneliness swept over him, and he was once again surprised by the longing he felt within his heart. He wished for a friend, a companion with whom he could share his thoughts. He was grateful for the company of the dragon, and his conversation. Amsel had begun to think of his hu
ge ally as “he” rather than “it.” Despite the rapidity of their flight, however, Amsel was keenly aware of the time they had lost.
When the dragon told Amsel he was thirsty, the inventor could not help objecting to the additional time the descent would take. “We will be in the land of the coldrakes soon,” he shouted. “There is water there. Could you not wait?”
“No,” the dragon bellowed, “I cannot wait any longer. My throat is very dry.” He dropped several hundred feet very suddenly and Amsel felt as if his stomach had been left in the clouds. “Be careful!” the inventor shouted. “This is new to me.”
“You wished me to hurry, did you not?” A rumbling sound followed the dragon’s question as he swooped toward a basin far below, and Amsel thought for a moment that the sound might be the creature’s laughter. He glanced down at the basin.
“It is a lake!” he said, “and it does not appear to be frozen!” He noticed melting snow and siliceous deposits all around its edge, and concluded that it must be partially fed by a warm spring. The dragon’s flapping became less frequent. He circled down and landed by the lake. Amsel felt the huge neck dipping forward, and asked to be let off so that he might also quench his thirst. The dragon complied, then politely waited while Amsel knelt by the water’s edge. Amsel found the water to be icy cold and refreshing, though with a strong mineral taste. He splashed some on his face, then watched the placid surface of the lake ripple heavily as the dragon dipped and drank. They would make it to the north, he told himself, no matter what obstacles impeded them. The coldrakes would not reach Simbala and Fandora. Amsel frowned. He had discovered the true cause of Johan’s murder, but he still did not know why it had occurred. Children had been killed in both Fandora and Simbala. Only children. There was something still hidden here, something he did not understand.
He was becoming lost in thought about the matter when he saw a bubbling beneath the surface of the water several yards away.
“We’d best hurry,” he murmured. “If there are hot springs, there could be geysers, too.” But before he could retreat, there was a sudden eruption in the lake near him. Amsel scrambled backward over the snow, and as he did he saw a huge head, crowned with writhing cilia, dart toward him. There was no way he could escape it. A fanged mouth gaped wide over him; then there was a whistling sound, and a giant wing struck the monster’s long slender neck from above, deflecting its course. A cilium struck Amsel like a whip as the head plunged past him; he shouted in pain and scrambled between two large deposits of geyserite. The creature darted up from the lake to meet the dragon’s attack, propelling itself forward with enormous fins. The wave it caused washed over Amsel and sent him sprawling, his eyes and nose full of water.
Coughing and sputtering, he looked up. He recognized the thing that lived in the lake now; in his studies, he had seen drawings of creatures like it. It was a seaworm, a serpent of the ocean. They were rare these days, but at one time they had been the bane of all seafaring lands. He wondered fleetingly how this one came to be in a landlocked lake; perhaps there was a subterranean channel to the sea. The seaworm was easily fifty feet long; Amsel could see loops of its tail rising out of the water. It had wrapped part of itself around the dragon’s neck, seeking to strangle its adversary. It made no sound, save for the snapping of the cilia about its head. The dragon arched his neck, breaking the seaworm’s grip momentarily, and fastened his jaws upon the scaled, sinuous neck. The seaworm thrashed its body and tail, pulling backward; its weight overbalanced the dragon, and he toppled over onto his left wing. Amsel hid behind the mineral formations to avoid being crushed. Peering out, he saw the dragon brace himself and pull backward, slowly dragging the seaworm from the lake. He also saw red lines of blood streaming down the seaworm’s neck. The dragon shook the worm, and Amsel heard a sharp crack. Then another curtain of spray drenched him as the seaworm’s dying convulsions whipped the water into foam. Amsel watched the dragon rise slowly and step away from the seaworm. He extended his left wing and flapped it experimentally. Amsel could see that the effort caused him pain.
“Are you hurt?” he called.
“I am,” the Last Dragon said, “but I can still fly. Come quickly, before my injured wing grows stiff. The night draws nigh.”
He lowered his head for Amsel to climb upon it. Amsel approached, rubbing his shoulder where the cilium had slashed his sleeve and raised a red welt. He climbed aboard. When he was secure, the dragon took to the air again. He flew unsteadily, favoring his left wing, and did not reach the speed he had earlier. Nevertheless, his determination was evident.
“He intends to help me now, no matter what,” Amsel murmured. “The legends about the dragons’ bravery are true.”
A question occurred to him. He leaned closer to the dragon’s ear and shouted, “According to all the legends, dragons can breathe flame. It is obvious from the warmth within you that the flame still burns. Why did you not use it to repel the seaworm?”
He put his own ear against the leathery skin covering the dragon’s head, and over the wind of their flight he could hear, vibrating through the bone, the dragon’s deep voice.
“It is true,” the dragon bellowed, “the flame still burns faintly within me. Only the dragons are so blessed; the coldrakes do not possess it, and it is one of the reasons why they have obeyed our orders. For the Dragonflame is not a gift to be used lightly, or for selfish ends, and never to take a life. From the beginnings of our race have we held that to be true. Within me the flame will come to an end; I will not violate its purpose.”
Amsel did not ask further. There was a very gentle but unmistakable tone of rebuke in the dragon’s reply, as if Amsel had inquired into matters that were none of his business. He respected this, and spoke no more of it. Nevertheless, it worried him. If the Last Dragon refused to use his flame, how did he expect to face all the coldrakes, especially with an injured wing?
The dragon would do it, Amsel told himself. He would because he had to, despite the pain, despite the danger. Why, it’s the same as I’ve done, Amsel realized. At first he had considered himself flung by circumstance into the actions he had taken, but that was not entirely true. He had done what he had because he felt that he must. His conscience would have permitted nothing less. Bravery had always seemed to him something found only in tales and songs, and Amsel did not think of himself as possessing it. But now he realized with surprise that perhaps he did.
Though he was terrified at the thought of facing the coldrakes again, he wanted to ensure the safety of Fandora and Simbala, no matter how dangerous it would be to do so. None would perish if he could prevent it. Despite all he had been through, he would see this through to the end, even if it meant his own death. He could do no less.
Then, as though his thoughts had been read, Amsel fancied that the Last Dragon’s speed increased slightly, that his wingbeat was stronger. They flew north together into the freezing winds of the land of the coldrakes, a tiny human and a huge dragon, equal in courage.
* * *
At the third hour of the afternoon, the preparations for the coronation were completed. In accordance with Simbalese law, the affair would take place at the Dais of Beron, where not long ago Prince Kiorte himself had been honored. Throughout the morning, banners had been hung along Monarch’s March, and oil wicks within hollow jewels now cast faint kaleidoscopic colors in the shade of the large trees. The dais itself had been polished to a warm brown. Already citizens of Overwood were starting to line the March; many looked forward to the coronation as a symbol that the war would be over soon, but there were others who remained loyal to Hawkwind and harbored the hope, however slim it seemed, that he would still return in time to stop Evirae from gaining the palace.
The miners were angry. Their hero had been removed from the palace without a chance to protest. Lady Graydawn had sent a contingent by windship to attend, but she herself had not come, and by her absence she expressed her disapproval on behalf of the entire Northweald. Only in the heart of Overwoo
d was there obvious support for Evirae’s succession. The Royal Family and Circle were happy to once again take control of the government. Many merchants favored this, too, for the meddling ways of Hawkwind would be ended.
The mood was that of quiet expectation; there was hostility from some, uncertainty from others, but all were aware of the fact that the Family had made its decision. Hawkwind would be a monarch no longer. Evirae would be Queen.
To Ephrion’s deep disappointment, there had still been no word from Lady Ceria or Monarch Hawkwind. He thought again of the courageous Fandoran he had sent to the north. There had been no indication of his return.
The elder statesman departed his quarters slowly. Although he refused to give up hope, Evirae’s triumph had taken its toll. He felt very tired.
In a small silver chest, Ephrion took with him the Ruby, for in accordance with Simbalese convention, he would be responsible for bestowing it upon the new ruler. He was not looking forward to the task.
Evirae, on the other hand, could not wait. She had anxiously made preparations for the procession from her mansion down Monarch’s March to the Dais of Beron. Despite the depopulation of Overwood due to the war, she was confident that most of those remaining would attend. The hours had crept by with maddening slowness, but now, at last, it was afternoon and time for the ceremony to start.
Seated in her parlor at the window, facing the palace, Evirae addressed Mesor while a manicurist buffed and lacquered her long nails to a dazzling shine. “Where is Kiorte?” she asked anxiously. “Where is my husband? Why has he not come?”
The Bursar smiled consolingly. “You forget that there is a war in progress. Prince Kiorte cannot leave anytime he wishes to do so!”
Evirae scowled. “This is not just anytime! This is the most important day of my life!”
