by Devin Hanson
“I’m going to try it,” he announced, more to himself than to Jules. “Carefully,” he added, seeing the alarm on Jules’s face. Fire was a dangerous thing to play around with and alchemical fire more so than any mundane blaze. Unlike other runes, you couldn’t just write Ig on a piece of paper. The moment you finished the rune, the paper erupted in flames. He could create a torch, perhaps, but he was too impatient to laboriously carve an Add chain around the torch head to contain the flames, and the wood might make carving the rune to the desired perfection difficult.
Jules saw him casting about looking for something appropriate to carve the rune into and she nodded down at the stream. “There’s an eddy down there with a buildup of fine sand. It’s as good a medium as any for testing Ig. The sand won’t burn.”
After lying out in the sun, getting back into the cool stream was a shock and helped quench the urgent desire to test the rune out right away. It was just as well, he thought, as he carried handfuls of pure, clean sand up out of the stream and packed it into a ring of smooth river stones Jules collected. The first time he tested new knowledge of the Ig rune, he had badly burned Jules in the process. Safety was best.
The fine sand proved to be an ideal medium to practice his runes in, and he got the feel for the sand by writing out the Aqir runeword a few times.
“Okay,” he told Jules, “I’m ready.”
Jules backed up a few paces, eyed the distance and took another measured step back. “Okay. Show me what you can do.”
It was best, Andrew decided, to make the tail of the rune small. With the Ig rune, the longer the tail, the hotter it burnt. He just wanted to see if it was right, not start a forest fire. As soon as he started drawing the rune in the sand, it felt different. In the past, he had, perhaps instinctively, made the rune have depth to it, but never with the deliberate and precise care he took now.
Once, Jules had said that a Master Rune was different from a rune carved imperfectly. That didn’t make sense to Andrew until now. As the last piece of the rune fell into place, he came to a stop, his stick hovering over the final jag. He found he was nervous, a feeling he hadn’t felt while practicing alchemy for nearly a year.
He bent down and backed as far away from the sand as he could, turned his face away as far as visibility let him, and carefully finished the final jag.
The rune blew with a bang that knocked Andrew on his side. His face and exposed skin stung with the impact of flying sand. Above the ringing in his ears, he heard the sudden panic of birds and saw a flight of them lift into the air. A dragon roared from high up in the valley and a sudden shadow loomed over him.
A glance at Jules showed she had already rolled into the cover of her cloak. He turned to face the dragon swooping down on him, preparing a shield in case the dragon didn’t recognize him. With a disgruntled growl, the dragon turned and flapped heavily back up to his perch on the valley rim.
Andrew let out a sigh of relief. “It’s safe, the dragon’s gone. Tiny gods, Jules. I made the jag as small as I could! What was that?”
Jules stood and brushed sand from her clothing. Their arrangement of river stones and sand had been blown apart. Where the sand had been was a small crater with a few smoking roots showing along the edges.
“That,” she said with a smile, “was a Master Rune. Congratulations!”
“You knew that was going to happen?”
Jules tilted her head. “I couldn’t be sure, since Ig is a fairly rare rune to master. I certainly haven’t mastered it. But it seemed prudent.”
“It felt… different. Right, somehow.”
“Good! If you haven’t figured it out yet, average applications of runing don’t call for Master Runes. In alchemy, a perfect rune means minimum use of vitae but little else. Runing, though, is a completely different story. A perfect Master Rune is drastically… more so. If you’re making a torch, a master Igan would be horrendous overkill.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Andrew rubbed at the side of his face, scrubbing at the sand embedded in his skin. “I can’t think of a real use for an Igan of that power. Not as a rune.”
“That’s one of the reasons there are so few people who bother to master it,” Jules laughed. “But don’t worry, it isn’t a waste. You’ll find your fire alchemy enormously improved. Besides, now that you know what to look for, you can start mastering more runes.”
“I can think of a few that would be good to master,” Andrew mused. He lifted the dragon scale back up to the light, examining the scale again with new interest. What rune to learn next?
Chapter 18
Dragon Song
Andrew woke to the bed trembling. Jules startled awake next to him, one hand clutching the scale hanging about her neck, the other stretched out and ready to direct alchemy at any threat. No light entered the cave, putting the time somewhere in the early morning, when Romeda was high in the sky but the sun had not yet started to lighten the eastern sky.
The dull red glow of the kossarigan showed Ava in silhouette as she passed by the sleeping alcove. Red light glinted off the metal buckles of the saddle and harness that Ava still hadn’t given them an opportunity to remove.
“Avandir,” she rumbled as she passed, “rouse yourself and your mate. We meet with the kossi at dawn.”
“Will the kosso be there, Ava?” Andrew asked, reaching for his pants and gesturing for Jules to get up.
“To what end? This is beyond the kosso.”
“Right. Never mind.”
“What’s happening, Andrew?” Jules asked, hopping on one foot as she dressed.
“The meeting of the dragons is happening at dawn.”
“Where will it be? Dawn must be hours away still.”
“Ava hasn’t said.”
Jules finished dressing and picked up the coldbox. She undid the hasp and glanced inside, her mouth twisting with grim satisfaction at the visage of Bircham Lameda that stared back up at her, his eyes frozen open and opaque.
“He still in there?”
Jules flipped the lid closed with a nod and refastened the hasp. “Still.” She set the box down and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Andrew saw her swallow a few times.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Andrew opened his mouth to say more, then tilted his head to the side, listening. “Ava waits for us at the entrance. Do you have everything?”
“I do.”
“Maybe when we get back to Andronath you should see a doctor.”
“I told you, I’m fine. It’s nothing. Probably just indigestion.”
They returned to the mouth of the cave and climbed Ava’s flank. Andrew double-checked that the coldbox was secure, then got himself and Jules strapped in.
“You okay to fly?”
“What, and miss seeing the dragons?” Jules shook her head. “I said I’m fine. I’m already feeling better. You worry too much.”
Andrew sighed and patted Ava’s neck. With a grunt of effort, Ava threw herself into the air, trumpeting her departure. All up and down the valley, the male dragons responded, bellowing their reply.
After a last circle around her nesting cave, Ava turned to the north. Now that they were out of the cave and had a clear view of the sky, Andrew guessed they had an hour before dawn. Romeda was a hands-breadth above the horizon and the eastern sky was just starting to show a deep blue.
“Why didn’t Ava let us know earlier when the meeting was going to take place?” Jules shouted above the wind. “We could have gotten ready earlier and not have been in such a rush.”
Andrew shook his head. “That’s not the dragon way,” he shouted back. “She didn’t tell us earlier, because it wasn’t time to go.”
“That doesn’t make sense. What if we’re late? Getting the coldbox secure took a few minutes.”
Andrew just shrugged. How could he explain to Jules? Time to dragons wasn’t the same as it was for humans. It wasn’t that they didn’t
plan for things, or look to the future for things bad or good. Humans tended to dwell on things and over- or under-estimate how long things took. That led to an over-emphasis on time and a worry about getting things done according to schedule. For a dragon, time just was. Things happened at their own pace, and that was just the way it was. He didn’t doubt for a moment that they would arrive precisely at the crack of dawn.
As they flew north, the eastern sky slowly grew brighter and a single, isolated mountain loomed up out of the gloom. As they grew closer, it became obvious it was their destination. The mountain was a cinder cone, its southern face blown out in some cataclysmic eruption centuries ago, forming a lake surrounded on three sides by towering cliffs.
Ava came in for a landing on the shore of the lake. Nothing grew in the black sand along the shore or among the tumbled rocks that formed the area of flat land before the cliff dropped away to the south. The air smelled faintly of rotten eggs and the water of the lake had an unnatural yellow-green tint to it.
“What is this place, Ava?” Andrew asked as he jumped down to the ground and reaching up to take the coldbox as Jules handed it down. The rock beneath his feet was strange, porous with sharp corners. The sky to the east was brightening to a salmon color and streaking shades of blue to the west.
“A meeting place of old,” Ava replied. “It has been a long time since humans last set foot on these shores.”
Jules jumped down to the ground and covered her nose. “It smells terrible here. What’s wrong with the water?”
“I saw a hot spring, once, that had a similar smell. It might be something to do with the volcano.”
“I want to go look,” Jules said then glanced up at Ava. “But I don’t think wandering around would be a good idea right now.”
“You’re probably right about that.”
Andrew turned in a slow circle, scanning the skies now that it was light enough to see. There were dragons coming, still barely visible in the distance, but unmistakable.
“Stay close, Avandir,” Ava rumbled. “And be silent until you are addressed.”
The ground shuddered as the first of the dragons landed, her scales and wings an even darker shade of red than Ava’s. The new arrival roared a greeting and tossed her head, her scales gleaming in the sun just now peaking over the horizon.
More arrived, until Andrew lost track of the number. They were stocky with broad wings, long and slender with wings that shone like gossamer, and every variation between. The dragons were invariably shades of red, with some so light as to be nearly pink and others all but black, with as much variety in color as shape and size.
Avandakossi stood, her wings spread wide in the light of the rising sun. Each dragon, as she landed, bellowed a single greeting and then remained silent. No dragon spoke aloud after the initial greeting, just quietly joined the growing circle with Ava at the southern point.
The last dragon landed, and Andrew was glad to see Benettikossi was not among them. The dragons were silent, but that did not mean they weren’t communicating silently amongst themselves. Andrew had never felt the focus of such intense scrutiny before. They eyed him, some with open hostility, some with curiosity, some with hope.
“Welcome,” Ava rumbled finally. “You know me. I am Avandakossi, eldest among the kossi, and I have called this meeting to discuss the return of the kossirith.”
In a circle, starting at Ava’s left, the dragons introduced themselves. Andrew stared up at Ava in surprise. Eldest? He hadn’t known that. Ava had never really said one way or the other. There were other dragons that had survived the Breaking, but he had assumed some of them were older than she. Someday, he had to get Ava to tell that story.
The last dragon introduced herself, and Ava spoke again. “Nain has circled our sun two thousand times and more since the last kossirth walked among us. The Breaking was terrible, and the deaths of our sisters irreplaceable. Mankind was crushed for their betrayal. In the years that followed, we have dwindled. A hundred and more of the kossi survived the Breaking, but giving birth without the kossirith was too hard. Many of us died, consuming ourselves in an attempt to bring our young into the world.
“I myself would have died in this way, had it not been for the discovery of a kossirith. He has crafted the kossarigan and my eggs glow with health.”
“Have you forgotten the Breaking, Avandakossi?” another dragon asked. “Mankind will always fall to the temptation of the kossante. Even now, I smell that curse upon your humans.”
“I have not forgotten, Suinakossi,” Ava replied. “How could I forget? The curse of the kossante still exists, with or without the kossirith. But I have witnessed with my own eyes my kossirith killing the kossante. And he hunts them still, having raised an army to fight by his side.
“In all the years of the Breaking, how many of the kossante were slain? I will tell you, as I was there. Two were slain. Two!” Ava barked the word, and the echoes rolled around the lake, bouncing off the encircling cliffs. “But in six months, the kossirith has killed over a dozen of them.”
“How can this be?” another dragon asked. “The kossante are terrible foes and even the kossiriths of old could not fight them. Your irith is young, even for a human.”
“The ith are not what they once were, Erinakossi. Avandir may be young, but he is a Singer, a true lauith.”
This caused a stir among the dragons that settled slowly. Erinakossi spoke. “In time, it will be seen. You spoke earlier of proof. Bold words are one thing, but it is proof that will turn this congress.”
“All Avandakossi has are bold words,” Suinakossi snarled. “Benettikossi spoke true. We waste our time.”
Ava tilted her head down to regard Andrew. “It is time, Avandir. Bring forth your proof.”
Andrew picked up the coldbox, forcing himself to breathe slowly. He sensed the bridled rage in Suinakossi, and the skepticism and doubt among the others. What did Ava mean by him being a Singer? He shook the thought from his mind and stepped forward, clear of Ava’s looming presence.
Without fanfare, he flipped the hasp on the coldbox and upended it. Bircham’s head fell to the ground with a thump and rolled a few feet before coming to a stop against a jagged volcanic rock, his frozen eyes staring up at the sky.
“You asked for proof,” Avandakossi said. “Here it is.”
Suinakossi hissed and her tail rattled against the stones of the beach. “Kossante!” she cried. “I can smell the corruption!”
Of all the dragons, only Ava remained calm. The sight of the head caused a few to rise up and display, hissing and screeching with wings spread wide. Others bellowed their dismay or roared in challenge. Andrew stood frozen, shocked by the volume of sound hammering at him from all sides.
Ava spoke directly into his head. Return the kossante to its frozen box, Avandir.
Ava’s voice snapped him out it. Andrew knelt and complied, sealing Bircham’s head back into the coldbox and twisting the hasp closed again. The dragons calmed slowly. He was shocked at the intensity of the dragons’ reactions, though he probably should have expected it. When Ava had gotten her first scent of an Incantor, she had lashed out in a blind fury. He was lucky none of the dragons present had done something similar.
“My kossirith is taking definite, successful action to eliminate the kossante,” Ava proclaimed. “Avandir acts as kossirith did of old and has provided me with kossarigan. In time, more kossirith will be found, this I know to be true. I say the alliance of men and dragon can be rebuilt anew, this time without the plague of the kossante.”
The dragons muttered to one another, a sound like a not-too-distant rolling of thunder. A dragon spoke up and the others stilled, almost in deference. “Avandir. We have heard from your kossi. But what say you?”
You may speak now, Ava encouraged him.
Andrew stepped forward, marshalling his thoughts. Ava’s goals were fairly clear. She wanted to return to the old ways and destroy the Incantors. In all honesty, Andrew wanted the same thing. H
e just wasn’t sure that he wanted it to depend on him. But if not him, who else would it be? There must be other kossirith out there, but none of them were here now. There was nobody he could hand the responsibility to. If he wanted it, he would have to do the work.
“When I was young,” Andrew said, raising his voice to carry to the furthest of the dragons, “I dreamed of a world where men could live without fear of dragonkind. After I met Ava and discovered that I was kossirith, my dream changed. Or rather, it grew. It wasn’t enough for men to be free of dragons. To be truly at peace, we must be allies and work toward the survival of both our species.
“Avandakossi has shown me it is possible. With her aid, and my friends among the ith, we have destroyed the kossante in the southern desert and struck a blow against those in the north. We will not stop until the last of them have been killed and their corruption cleansed from the land.”
Andrew finished talking and the dragons regarded him intently, their eyes fixed upon him. Suinakossi spoke first, her voice twisted with anger. “The manling speaks of dreams. Benettikossi was right. There is nothing here but death and loss.”
Suinakossi turned and left the circle, launching herself off the cliff to the south and flying away.
“Avandakossi, your kossirith has provided proof of his deeds. There was more to the old alliance than hunting kossante or carving the kossarigan, but I see here a new beginning. We do not return to the old ways, but we move forward and build a new alliance.”
“Thank you, Maricikossi,” Ava said, bowing her head.
“Avandir,” Maricikossi continued, “the koss know you, and those of us present will not interfere in your affairs nor bring the kosso down upon you, so long as you hold true to your kossi.” The dragon turned her head to regard the others. “If any disagree, leave now.” No dragon so much as blinked. “So be it. Avandakossi, you have our accord to forge a new alliance with man. Suinakossi and Benettikossi are forbidden contact with man unless a majority of living kossi permit it.”
