by Alison Baird
“My mother . . . I still cannot accept what they say of her, Auron.”
Auron made no reply to this. “Ah, here is someone you must meet, Princess!” he said instead.
Something was lying at rest in the shade of a flower tree: an immense animal of some kind, or so it appeared. Within a few paces she saw what it was, and her eyes, already besieged with marvels, widened in awe. She had not been with Damion and the others when they were rescued by the cherubim on Mera, and had never seen one of this remarkable race, celebrated in holy scripture, and in myths where they were known as gryphons. The cherub was a magnificent creature, with a leonine body and the beak and wings of a great bird of prey. Atop his head was a tall crest of golden plumes, rising between sharp tufted ears. Yet he was not grotesque, like a gargoyle: his avian and mammalian parts made a harmonious whole, the wings neatly folded upon the tawny-furred flanks, the shape of the pointed ears echoing the upright plumes of the crest. As he reared up, stretching and beating his wings, the white sun’s light rayed through his primary feathers as though it were flowing out of him.
“That is one of the Guardians of the Stone,” Auron told her. “His name, Falaar, would translate in your tongue as Sun-hunter. He has come to watch over the Stone while its bearer is occupied with her lessons.”
The enormous creature came up to her with his regal leonine tread. He looked down at the small alabaster casket she carried and uttered a series of trumpeting cries that instantly translated themselves in her mind as a formal greeting. “Hail, Stone-wielder. I am sent to protect thee, and that which thou bearest.”
“I am honored,” she answered, bowing her head. “I have never before met with one of your kind, Falaar, but I owe your people a heavy debt for saving the lives of my dearest friends in Trynisia.”
“I was of that company, Highness. I will convey thy words to those that were with me in Mera. But it was merely our duty: we were made by the Archons for such deeds. We are their creation, and not the work of nature.” Pride rang in the creature’s clarion voice.
“That would explain your odd appearance, certainly,” remarked another voice from somewhere over their heads. They all looked up to see what looked like a child’s gaily colored paper kite caught in the branches of a flower tree.
“Ah, there you are, Taleera!” said Auron. The firebird fluttered down from her perch to stand next to them.
The cherub’s neck feathers and the fur along his spine bristled. “Odd! Thou wouldst call us odd!” he protested.
Auron intervened. “Ahem! I think Taleera means that your anatomical construction is observably inconsistent with any natural adaptation.”
“It is true,” said Falaar, mollified. “We did not arise from the slime like common mortals, but were made by the Archon race to combine the strongest features of many kinds of beast. And certain Archons took our form, and mated with our ancestors, so that we are of one blood with them.” The great beast raised his crest until it stood erect as the plumes on a knight’s helmet. “Our ancestors were Elyra, oldest and strongest of the Archons, who wielded power over the stars themselves. And so the star-magic is subject to us, and not we to it. Humans, dragons, even the Elaia may quail before cold iron, but not the cherubim: we are immune to it. I will guard thy Stone well, Highness.”
“You may safely leave it with him,” Auron told Ailia. She stooped to set the little box down on the ground before Falaar. He lay down again and folded his great forepaws around it.
“Good. Now that’s settled I will go to the guesthouse, and prepare Her Highness’s chamber,” announced Taleera, and she flew off in a whir of red and green and golden plumes.
Auron laid a hand on Ailia’s arm. “Come now and meet some of the Loänan. I believe there is a hatching in progress.”
They walked on into a wide, cleared area. These grounds were designed for dragonets, she realized: there were many pools, flat rocks for basking on, and taller rocks for the fledglings to try their first, experimental flights from. The water steamed, heated from beneath by some artifice that imitated natural hot springs of the earth, and the pools’ surfaces glowed with the soft reflected colors of the nebula. Wallowing in these pools or stretched out along their brinks were young dragons in various stages of development, some winged, some still wingless. Of the former some were plainly but newly “fledged,” the membranes between the ribs of their wings like fragile, iridescent soap films stretched between one’s fingers. The older ones had more opaque, stronger-looking wings. Most were ethereal dragons, though a few had the golden coloring of Imperial Loänan. Auron stopped here and transformed to his draconic shape. He called out to the dragonets in his great booming voice, and they hastened toward him in a mass, necks outstretched and jewel-like eyes eager. They frolicked around the adult dragon, nipping him on the flanks and legs and clambering on his back, like puppies playing with a big dog.
“Enough, young ones!” Auron said at last. He gently cuffed a young ethereal dragon, the silvery creature howling with delight as he bowled it over and over. “And you, Gallada! Have you flown today?” he asked another.
“No!” the young Imperial dragon replied pertly, unfurling the amber-colored folds of her wings. “I am weary of flying practice. I wish to go to the Ether now, like you!”
“All in good time,” he admonished. “One does not fly before one can walk, nor take the dragon-ways before one’s wings are tutored in the ways of air. And now, you unruly creatures, be still for a moment if you can: I want to introduce you to Princess Ailia of Arainia.”
“Is she a new playmate?” asked a small wingless dragon.
“She is your new classmate; she has come to learn with you about the worlds of the Empire. Now, to the hatching.”
At the edge of the nearest pool there lay a mound of what looked like crystalline globes, piled pale and gleaming on the moss. Ailia was reminded of the round glass floats used by Meran fishermen to float their nets. “Those spheres you see are the eggs of my kind,” Auron told her. And now she saw that there were small wriggling shapes inside the eggs. Suddenly one of the translucent spheres split, and the dragonet thrust its way through. Ailia caught her breath as it spilled out and lay in a glistening heap on the stone brink. After a moment it began to slither toward the violet-colored pool. It had neither legs nor wings at this stage, but looked something like a snake. Tiny horn-buds showed atop its head, but the dracontias crystal had not yet emerged. It also possessed gills. “I could sense this one yearning to leave the egg.”
“It’s an Imperial dragon,” exclaimed Ailia. “It’s golden, like you.”
“Yes. My people wanted a special type of dragon, larger and with extra claws, to guard the Celestial Empire and its rulers. And so my kind came to be.”
Ailia watched in delight as the dragonet slipped into the pool and began to swim about, its gasping gills drawing in water. “In a few centuries’ time he will look just like me,” said Auron. “He will have grown legs and wings, and learned to walk and fly—and to fight, if need be.”
They walked on, down to the sea. Curious-looking trees grew by the shore, their winding roots immersed in the water like those of mangroves. She saw swift darting shadows among their foliage, too large for insects or hummingbirds but moving with the same whirring motion, and round coarse-rinded fruits like coconuts dropped periodically from the boughs to splash into the water. Ailia glanced at one of these nuts idly, where it floated on the surface. Suddenly it cracked open and something emerged—a downy mass like dandelion fluff, or very tiny feathers. It unfurled two wings, green and translucent as leaves, and darted upward, dragonfly-swift. As it hovered briefly above her, she saw the long, stemlike neck and almost birdlike head. The plant-creature flew upward with a leafy rustling of its green wings and vanished among the trees. “Many lives have begun today,” said Auron.
The sun had set at last, so the nebula shone brighter. The waves were all lit along their crests by the great ringed globe of Alfaran and its attendant moons. One
huge wave heaved up, a concave cliff of water: there were dark shapes inside it, shadowed against the luminous sky like leaves in a piece of amber. Those shapes, she saw, were alive. They moved within the wave, rising as it rose, until they burst through the high foaming crest into the open air. She heard their cries as they leaped, trilling sounds halfway between birdsong and laughter. But most wonderful of all was the greeting they spoke within her mind.
It was true: what the myths and the legends, the oldest of all tales, older than home and hearth, had said. She forgot even the dragons and plant-beasts in her wonderment. They had been there all along, swimming the seas of Mera: talking beasts. She need not have traveled to the stars to find them. How often had her foster-father told her of these “animals” playing with children, and pushing drowning sailors ashore? How could she not have understood these clear signs of thought and reason? Humanity had never been alone, save in its fearsome ignorance. It was as though she had been transported back to the dawn of her race, to the very beginnings of time; as though humanity had never fallen into the errors that marred its history, but could start anew as part of a larger world. Suddenly she laughed aloud, and ran down to the water’s edge to meet the dolphins.
DAMION STOOD GAZING across the Zimbouran desert.
It was a dreary prospect: league upon league of rolling dun- colored dunes beneath a sky blanched almost to whiteness with heat-haze. To the east a range of low brown hills sprawled, like a pride of lions sleeping in the sun, with the blue backs of mountains far beyond—though Damion found himself thinking of them merely as large hills, so conditioned was he now to the soaring grandeur, the more ambitious peaks, of Arainian mountain ranges. Behind him loomed two huge stone shapes, headless and weatherworn beasts reposing on the sand with forelegs extended. The fragmented shapes of furled wings could still be seen upon their flanks, and between their forepaws rose broken pillars built of the same tawny-colored stone. A gateway of Elei make, perhaps the oldest of the ethereal portals in Mera. Through the unseen rift within this long-neglected door the Arainians had come a few days ago, blinking and bewildered as men aroused from sleep.
To the west lay nothing but desert. He thought he could glimpse a shifting shimmer like water where the sand met the sky, but that was all.
“The Great Desert. My people called it the Muandabi,” said Jomar, coming up behind him. “Back when these lands were ours, before the Zimbouran invaders came.”
“I must admit,” said Damion, “I find it hard to understand why anyone would fight over it.”
“It isn’t always like this,” Jomar explained. “The Muandabi has cycles of dry and wet weather. The rains come here only once in a half-dozen years, but they turn this waste into a huge stretch of grasslands, with water holes where thousands of animals can graze and drink: antelopes, rhinoceri, elephants. At least, it used to be that way. The rainy season hasn’t come in decades now. My people like to say the drought’s a curse on the Zims. There used to be fertile areas by the river, too, but then the Zims brought their cattle and grazed the land to dust. Nothing will grow there now.” Jomar moodily kicked a clod of dry earth. “That’s the Zimbouran way. They move into an area, take it from its inhabitants, graze out the pastureland, and hack down the trees to make more room. Then when all the soil blows away because there aren’t any trees or grasses to drain it and hold it in place, they move on—leave nothing but desolation behind. This is the result.”
“People did this!” exclaimed Damion, appalled.
“Oh, they didn’t do it out of spite. There are too many of them, that’s their difficulty. There’s never enough food to go around. The poor can’t think beyond the next meal, let alone the next growing season.”
“There won’t be any growing season anywhere if they keep this up.”
“They’ll just move on—declare a war, and take someone else’s land and ruin it.”
Damion was silent, thinking of the verdant forests and grasslands of Arainia.
The two men walked back to their camp. It was situated near the hardscrabble farmlands that lay outside the main city. Shallow irrigation ditches carried muddy water from the nearby river Gativah to the dry fields where a few dispirited crops grew. The residents of the tumbledown farmhouses had fled at the arrival of the Arainian army, before Jomar and his men could assure them that they were in no danger. The abandoned farmsteads made the land look more desolate still. Damion was grieved to think of their poor owners fleeing in terror—from us, he reflected in horror. It did not matter that their fear had been unfounded. The people had felt it all the same.
Around a stagnant pool at the end of one channel were ranged the tents of the Arainian army, including the large one for Jomar and his officers. Ypotrylls stood about with insolent expressions on their long bony faces, the only living things unperturbed by the heat and dryness. Horses drank thirstily at the pond and grazed on a few tough reeds at its edges. To the east the river wound away through the hills. Somewhere beyond those hills lay Felizia, capital of Zimboura, and the stark stone bastion of Yanuvan.
He and Jomar walked on among the tents, hearing snatches of conversation, watching soldiers clean their gear and play dice games. Under the scant shade of the tents the heat was cruel. Damion saw Lothar and Raimon nearby; both had changed to loose, light clothing, but the latter still sported a helmet with closed visor. Jomar saw, too. “That’s past a joke now,” he said, irritated. “Raimon will be down with heatstroke next. Can’t these fools think of anything but their faerie tales? We’re in the enemy’s territory now—anything could happen.”
Damion felt a surge of excitement at those words. It all lay there, beyond the heat-browned hills: Felizia, Khalazar, Mandrake, their army. The Enemy. Danger lurked behind those hills . . . so close! But how much better it was to confront that danger at last, to challenge and defy it!
“Who leads their army? Your General Mazur?” That was the man who had purchased Jomar from the royal arena and forced him to become a soldier and spy.
“No, Mazur was King Zedekara’s man. He was murdered when Khalazar overthrew Zedekara. Gemala, the man who helped bring Khalazar to power, is the general now.”
They entered the main tent, where the leaders of the army, knights, and Nemerei were gathered. A great Elei sorcerer of Melnemeron, Ezmon Magus, looked up at them as they entered. He was an imposing figure, clad in the blue-starred robe of an astromancer, his grizzled hair proclaiming him to be at least a hundred Arainian years in age. Before him stood a table laden with charts and scrying crystals. “I can feel that the enemy is preparing to take action against us,” he told Jomar. “But a barrier surrounds our foes like a wall of black smoke. That barrier tells me there are Nemerei on their side also. Mages of Valdur most likely, skilled in the dark arts.”
Jomar shifted uneasily—even now he found it hard to accept intelligence from a sorcerer. Plain facts were what he preferred. “What about your dragon friends? Have they seen any activity on the ground?”
“Yes—a great deal. An army is assembled, but with that sorcerous barrier we cannot say when—or if—they mean to attack. I have informed King Tiron and the Council of Arainia, and they advise us to remain here, but to be vigilant.”
Jomar said, “If they attack they’ll do it soon—by night.”
“Night?” repeated Damion. “Won’t it be hard for them to see?”
“They’ll have torches. No one fights by day in this land,” explained Jomar. “They’d roast inside their own armor. I don’t like this,” he added to Damion as they left the tent again. He gestured in the direction of the city. “There hasn’t been a sign from them, even to acknowledge that we’re here.”
Damion glanced up to where a pair of their dragon allies circled in the reddening sky. “We can wait. With these flying friends of ours, perhaps the Zimbourans are afraid of us,” he suggested hopefully.
“Maybe. But they’re more afraid of Khalazar,” said Jomar. “And Mandrake. I’d give a good deal to know where he is ri
ght now.”
The atmosphere of tension in the desert camp increased as the swift desert night closed in. Nemerei tended to make one another uneasy, moods spreading from mind to mind like a contagion. Damion looked up at the moon, its old familiar patterns of dark blotches and craters inverted here in the Antipodean sky, and thought how large it now seemed in comparison with Arainia’s smaller satellite. According to Arainian lore, this moon had also been an inhabited world once: the fair green garden of Numia, before the comet barrage of the Disaster reduced it to its current lifeless state. He himself, in his vision of Trynisia’s long-ago past, had seen that bright disc tinted viridian and streaked with white cloud. Now it was scarred and barren, like a face blotched and pocked by plague. Mera itself had only narrowly avoided the same fate.
He was turning to go back in the tent when his eye caught a movement in the sky above: a faint flare of light that came and went, like a shooting star . . . Had he imagined it? No, there it was again, a spurt of flame high over the distant hills. It could not be a meteor: it was rising, not falling. And it came from the direction of Felizia.
At the same instant a Loänan called out, high in the sky overhead. It was an inarticulate clanging cry, like the ringing of a great bell: an alert. Even his undeveloped Nemerei sense could feel the warning in it. Other dragons took up the cry as he ran back to camp, yelling to wake the sleepers and alert the guards.
“Firedrakes!”
9
The Battle in the Waste
THE ZIMBOURAN SOLDIERS STOOD GAZING fearfully across the wasteland toward the lights of the enemy camp. They spoke among themselves in whispers, as though the invaders might hear them even at that distance.
“Valdur’s teeth, but there are many of them!”
