Isle of Dragons

by J H G Foss

  Ghene made no reply. He, after all, had dedicated his life to a lost civilisation and dreamed of its restoration. He had no desire to have a fight with Roztov about the restoration of the Dynar again so he did not mention where his thoughts had run to.

  The next morning they ate breakfast together, sweet honey rolls and a form of jellied fruit that was thick and chewy.

  ‘They eat this for breakfast?’ asked Meggelaine. ‘It has an earthy taste. Blackberries went into this I think.’

  ‘Try one of these cakes, there is something that tastes like chocolate in it,’ said Floran passing over a paper bag.

  ‘This is good, I think that might actually be real cocoa in it, and some kind of fruit. When you go out, ask them what went into these will you?’

  Floran bowed and said that he would. He was too polite to point out to Meggelaine that this was not information that anyone needed to achieve any of their current goals, just as he had not pointed out the night before to Roztov that his questions about social history and architecture were also of limited value to their current predicament. When he went out into the streets and talked to the friendly people there, in truth he spent a lot of his time talking of inconsequential matters. Floran was quiet by nature, and Draconic was not his native tongue, but he felt he was doing his best. The first thing he planned to find out was how the pieces moved on the game board they had discovered in an abandoned apartment and what the symbols on all the playing cards meant.

  Floran was first to leave, taking two empty bags with him. As she tidied up the breakfast things, Meggelaine chatted away to her fellow druids. ‘Listen, I was thinking Roz, if you must go into that tower, why not find that girlfriend of yours and see if she can help us?’

  ‘Shumakkak?’ asked Roztov as he swallowed a mouthful of roll, ‘but she’s a chasm dragon, how can she help us here?’

  ‘Not her, you dolt, the other one!’

  ‘You mean Lorkuvan?’

  ‘Etruna’s love!’ groaned Meggelaine.‘How many more dragon girlfriends do you have? Go find her, see if she can help.’

  ‘Yes,’ joined in Ghene. ‘We need to know what’s going on. Roz, hunt down that dragon you shagged.’

  Roztov put down the roll he was eating. ‘Ghene is using Stykian slang words on me now, Meg. Listen, you two. Firstly, I did not shag Lorkuvan. Secondly, she could be anywhere, and thirdly she may owe me a favour, but are dragons known for the returning of favours? Not that I know of.’

  ‘It’s worth a try though,’ said Meggelaine.

  ‘I agree,’ put in Ghene.‘She’s a diplomat, correct? She must have some sense then. I’m sure if she’s in the tower we can find her. You should talk to her. Find out if she knows anything. We need to know what’s going on.’

  ‘Don’t get distracted,’ sighed Meggelaine. ‘If you find out anything about you-know-who that’s fine, but getting off this island is the most important thing. I can’t take much more of this and its Arrin and Tankle I feel sorry for.’

  The conversation stopped for a while as Meggelaine joined the other two at the fire with three bottles of stout. They popped the corks and each took a swig.

  ‘Cheers. This is barely drinkable,’ said Roztov. ‘I could murder a cup of tea.’

  ‘Shagging dragons. Who is going to believe it when we get back?’ said Meggelaine in a sudden outburst of laughter. ‘Well, what was it like then? I’m surprised Broddor never asked you.’

  ‘He knew I am a gentleman,’ replied Roztov primly. ‘And I would never reveal the secrets between a man and err... a dragon. Well, regardless of the circumstances I hold it as a general rule never to bandy around a lady's name.’

  ‘Get her,’ said Meggelaine pointing her thumb at her friend. She was about to say something about what his wife’s opinion on the subject might be, but then thought better of it and held her tongue, something that for Meggelaine was a considerable achievement, so it surprised them all when it was Ghene who continued the banter.

  ‘Whatever happened,’ he said with a smile, ’I’m sure we’ll get to read it in one of his Royal Society papers when we get back.’

  Meggelaine snorted and chocked on her beer. ‘That’s true!’ she laughed. ‘He’ll never be able to resist.’

  ‘There is some information I’ll take with me to the grave,’ said Roztov. ‘I don’t write papers about everything.’

  ‘But this, Roztov?’ said Meggelaine getting her breath back. ‘In truth, Ghene is right. Who could ever have done such a thing before? You’ll be famous. To think, I’m sat here next to the bloke that shagged a dragon.’

  ‘We are truly honoured,’ agreed Ghene.

  ‘Mock me if you wish,’ grumbled Roztov. ‘The fact I’m so desirable saved our skins that day.’

  The other two could only nod in agreement.

  After they had finished breakfast, Ghene and Roztov returned to the tower of Stovologard once again, disguised as rock lizards. They split up and worked their way through the floors and stairwells, looking for anything they could find that might lead them to Lorkuvan.

  Roztov thought they had no chance of finding her, reasoning that she might not even be in the tower anyway, so instead spent most of the day examining the architecture and asking the other rock lizards about it.

  He was hanging out in the impressive entranceway of a dragon’s apartment when a tall man in expensive looking robes came out with a rolled up parchment and waved it at him. ‘You there!’ said the man. ‘You look like a fine fellow, can you deliver this for me?’

  Roztov the rock lizard looked up at the man.

  ‘Where to, guv?’

  ‘Three levels up, the apartment of Lady Fiewa. It has a blue door, ask for directions when you get to the third floor. You know your numbers?’

  As the man talked he fastened a collar around Roztov’s neck then tucked the scroll into a slit in the leather.

  ‘No worries,’ said Roztov getting into character. ‘You can count on me, boss.’

  ‘Good chap, there will be a bowl of scraps in it for you.’

  Roztov scampered off and had no great difficulty in finding the apartment of Lady Fiewa. It did indeed have a blue door, tall and decorated in lapis-lazuli. He had no way of opening it, so merely scampering up it and through the ventilation gap above into the courtyard beyond.

  His breath was taken away by what he saw on the other side, a green marble space, with tall ferns and orchids growing in pots the size of cauldrons. There was a fountain in the middle of the space and the sound of trickling water drew him towards it. It was like being in the opulent garden of a Stykian noble. There were hundreds of plants, big and small, the marble columns had well tended ivy climbing up them, and there was even an area of grass near a set of tall windows. It was a whole other world from the smoky city just a few hundred meters below.

  There was a young man re-potting plants not far from the fountain. He looked up as Roztov approached. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Message for Lady Fiewa, boss,’ he replied, pointing at the collar on his neck, still enjoying being in the character of a cheeky rock lizard.

  ‘Just go in,’ said the young man, pointing at a doorway with his trowel.

  Roztov scampered up some steps and through the open doorway. There was an elegant corridor beyond it, with paintings mounted along one wall, landscapes depicting scenes from around the island of Tanud. Whoever had painted them had an eye for beautiful scenes, mused Roztov as he paused to admire them. Here was one of a quaint mountain village, with its tall roofs, there was one depicting a sunset over the Chasm, the Spire a silhouette in the distance.

  He was admiring another picture, trying to figure out whereabouts it could be depicting when a female voice from the other end of the corridor spoke. ‘It’s the forest south of the Chasm, a mountain called Eldernarra is what you see in the distance. I’ve never known rock lizards to be interested in art.’

  Roztov turned to see a tall lady, in her early sixties, dressed in a green velvet gown, with long wh
ite hair tied back in a braid. ‘Oh, sorry, lady. Got a message for you.’

  Come into the study, said the lady as she turned and left. Roztov scampered along behind her and entered another, smaller, area that was also full of plants, but had a writing desk and several bookcases in one corner. There was an open window across from the desk that offered a view north across the city to the fog wall beyond the harbour. She went to it and beckoned him up onto the windowsill. He raised his head and she unfastened the collar from his neck.

  ‘Go to the kitchen my lad, the cook will give you some scraps.’

  ‘Oh aye, fair enough,’ said Roztov, but his eyes were still drawn to the view. There was a strong wind blowing from the south and this was the clearest view he had of the city since he had got here. It was incredibly impressive, in a ramshackle sort of way. He could see thousands of tenement buildings, there black roofs all leaning in on each other like drunks at a wake. His eyes followed the lines of the streets, he thought he could see where they had fought against Neith. Then carefully he traced the route he thought led to where they were now living.

  Lady Fiewa had finished reading her message and looked up. ‘You linger?’

  ‘I can see my house from here.’

  ‘You are an unusual sort of fellow for a rock lizard,’ she said as she walked back over to the window. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Err... Roztov.’

  ‘You are a city lizard?’

  ‘I guess so, probably,’ replied Roztov. ‘Tell you what though, how come you have such a fancy apartment, seeing are you are not a dragon? I like your garden.’

  ‘You do, do you?’ she said as she looked him in the eyes with a curious expression.

  Roztov, realising he was probably slipping out of character hopped down from the windowsill and made for the door. ‘Anyway, kitchen, and all that. Cook, is it? Scraps, yummy yum yum.’

  ‘Just one moment,’ said the lady as she raised her arms to cast a spell. Yellow light surrounded Roztov and he gulped, ‘hey steady on’ as he turned to look at her.

  As he turned, he grew taller, until he was a man again. He held up his hands, palms out to show he meant no harm. ‘I’m not here to cause trouble.’

  He flinched as Lady Fiewa raised her hands to cast another spell.

  Chapter 19

  The Diet of Dragons

  Meggelaine, realised somewhere in her confused and anxious mind that if she spent all her time healing the sick and wounded of this part of Stovologard it would likely draw the attention of the gendarmes and get them into another confrontation. Not only that, but she would lose herself in it. Ghene and the other druids of the council would sometimes tell a jokey little story about her that went roughly along these lines;

  One day Meggelaine went walking in the forest and came across a bird with an injured wing. She healed the bird and let it fly away. Later on she found another one and did the same. She then realised that there were probably other injured birds in the forest and began to seek them out. Soon she was living in the forest, doing nothing else but finding and healing injured birds.

  The point of the story was, of course, that it was easy to get distracted by trivial things when there was more important activities for a powerful druid to be doing, and besides, nature had a way of taking care of itself. Even so, torms were famously kind to animals and she knew one or two that did indeed dedicate their lives to the care and protection of all manner of creatures. Great as the suffering was in Stovologard, there was suffering everywhere. Roztov and Ghene would tell her, painful as it was, there were more important things to be doing. She found it difficult to think like that though.

  She was not the sort of person to be worried by the nagging of the likes of Roztov and Ghene. Quite the reverse, she worried over them like she was the mother of wayward children and she was all the more worried now, after the death of Broddor. They were a pair of fools, overconfident from the power that Etruna had granted them. They were playing with fire, going to the tower each day and poking around in dragon business. She could see the logic in finding out what was going on, especially as it had to do with you-know-who, but that made the endeavour none the less dangerous. One of the biggest tasks that fell to the GFC was holding back the machinations and plots that emanated from the east and as important as that was, they had forgotten the mission they were meant to be on. Even Ghene had lost sight of the fact they were meant to be finding the kingdom of Hanna. The way he had talked back in the GFC, he would have had them all believe that finding the lost people of Dynar would be the answer to all their problems. Now he was busy trying to get himself killed in pursuit of what? Interfering in something that none of them fully understood.

  And so, with all that in mind, she decided to get things moving along her own way. After doing some more house calls she returned to their apartment. Floran and Tankle were playing a game of cards in the main room, while Arrin was watching the ships down in the harbour from the broken window.

  ‘Let’s all go down to the docks, shall we?’ she suggested.

  They all thought that was a good idea and started to don their thick black cloaks and hoods.

  ‘We should be looking for a decent ship don’t you think?’ she wittered on. ‘Arrin and Tankle can get a closer look at what’s on offer. I mean, I don’t like stealing, maybe we can buy one. Well, Roztov stole all that gold I suppose, oh well anyway...’

  ‘It will be nice to get some fresh air at least,’ said Floran, humouring his friend.

  As they left the apartment and walked down the stairs she continued to fuss. ‘I hope the boys are not getting into trouble. I’m sure Roztov will be causing a ruckus. He’ll probably come back all covered in blood and bruises again.’

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me at all,’ agreed Floran.

  Roztov, in actual fact, was having a nice cup of tea on a private balcony with Lady Fiewa. The view across the city was spectacular. The rain had stopped for a while and there was a blue sky, breaking through the black clouds like a ray of hope that lifted Roztov’s spirits more than he had thought possible. Smoke drifted down from the tower onto the city, but there was a stiff breeze that was blowing most of it away, out to sea where it was swallowed by the wall of magical fog to the north. The smoke lingered in the streets though, an ever present smog that rarely lifted. It snaked about, below roof level, like a river of poisonous air, flowing slowly, untroubled by the winds above. Dragons, here and there, flew back and forth from the tower to whatever business they had in the city of men. Roztov pulled his eyes away from the view and looked back at his host.

  ‘Try one of the sugared rice cakes,’ said Lady Fiewa. ‘They are from the town of Tunde, a local delicacy.’

  ‘Oh yes thank you,’ replied Roztov. ‘We passed through there on the way up. I ate a lot of these when I was there. They are quite chewy, very sweet.’

  ‘Oh, they are filled with chocolate,’ he remarked as he chewed.‘I have a friend that would love these. She really missed the food in Tunde when we left.’

  ‘I can scarce believe that you made it all this way,’ said Lady Fiewa. ‘All the way through the reserve, past the Chasm, adventures around the Spire. All very thrilling, you must be powerful wizards.’

  ‘Druids mainly,’ corrected Roztov. ‘We do have a wizard on the strength though.’

  ‘Ah yes. Druid. The magic of the spell I am using to communicate with you has trouble translating that word. Different from wizards, but just as powerful, I understand from your tales of adventure.’

  ‘You don’t seem overly concerned about all the manhunters, dragons and gendarmes we killed getting here,’ observed Roztov.

  ‘Well, I’m sure it was all self-defence,’ she said with an airy wave of the hand. ‘I’ll let you into a big secret, if you promise not to tell anyone.’

  Roztov leaned forward.

  ‘I’m an agent of the Spire,’ she said with a sly smile.

  ‘Oh!’ exclaimed Roztov. ‘A white dragon in disguise, like Mord
ran?’

  ‘No,’ said Fiewa, leaning back on her wicker chair. ‘Stovologard have those spurn-magic devices now for spotting dragons in disguise. The Spire has a new tactic - they take human children and train them to be wizards. They then send them north to spy for them.’

  ‘And you are one of them?’

  She held up her hands, palms outwards by way of admission.

  ‘That, oh yes,’ said Roztov, rubbing his beard as he always did as his brain was working. ‘That would make sense of a settlement we found south of the Chasm that we called Moletown. It was essentially run by the Spire dragons.’

  ‘I came from one such settlement. I was a little girl when I was taken to the Spire.’

  ‘Huh, that’s astounding. What do you do here though, what’s your cover story?’

  ‘I am the chamberlain of Lord Pabajan, a dragon of a great noble house. I am permitted my own quarters and to study magic to further my ability to serve my master.’

  ‘You’re telling me a lot of secrets,’ said Roztov.

  ‘Well don’t tell the dragons,’ replied Lady Fiewa with a somewhat misplaced laugh. ‘I hope you’ll reciprocate my openness. In my last communication with my actual real master back in the Spire I was told to be on the lookout for outlanders, and now here you are! So, tell me what you know about Dreggen.’

  Roztov could see no great harm in it, so he told of Dreggen’s treachery, his lies and what was discussed when Ghene met him in the Spire.

  ‘You’ve still got him right? What do you plan to do with him?’

  ‘That I cannot tell you, because I do not know. If you don’t mind though, I’ll report your arrival back to my masters.’

  ‘If you like,’ replied Roztov a little nervously, ‘I’ll not give you my address just yet though.’

  They talked for maybe an hour or so longer. Roztov got the impression that Lady Fiewa thought herself very clever and that she considered herself a master in espionage to pull such valuable information from him. The truth was that he would have freely told her anyway, seeing no need to keep any secrets. She was probably thinking that she would be rewarded for sending so much news of the outlanders to her true masters, and all for the price of three cups of tea and a plate of sweet cakes.