The walls were decorated with copper plates, AuRon noticed. He could just make out reflections from Natastach’s lodgings.

“He also keeps his side of bargains. He’s staying in exile, with his brother, the former Tyr,” Natasatch said.

“Does he indeed?” Imfamnia turned away and made a great show of inspecting a woven hanging. “Never slips in for a quick, discreet visit?”

AuRon held his breath.

“He has no wish to become entangled in politics. I suspect he’s unhappy. I am, too, truth be known. I get lonely.”

“Do you now? You know, Natasatch, I could hear your claim of abandonment—I promise you the Sun King will act in your favor—and find you a suitable mate. True, you run a very small province, but it’s an important one. Half our slaves come from the lands of the Ironriders. With the new tunnel to the Lower World that those miserable dwarfs overcharged us for, you’re second only to Ghioz as the most important entry point west of the mountains.”

“I’ve been . . . disappointed—with mating once. I’ve no wish to take a second.”

Imfamnia touched her snout to Natasatch’s. “Taking a second mate is the best decision I ever made. The great NiVom is such a fine dragon. So many good qualities. So quick-witted. Who would have imagined him using a decorative throw to stop poisoned crossbow bolts?”

AuRon heard Natasatch shift her hind legs about. Don’t squirm, dear, you always squirm when you’re trying to come up with a half-truth.

“I don’t understand half his conversation,” Natasatch finally said. “He’s such an intelligent dragon. I wish . . . I wish he’d make allowances for dragons who do not have the benefit of education.”

Infamnia laughed. It was an unnatural sound for a dragon to make at normal times and the racket sent nervous chills up AuRon’s spine—a dragonelle choking or having a fit might make that yakking sound. Typically dragons kept amusement to themselves with a private prrum, what a human might call a chuckle. Only dragons who’d been much among humans imitated their laughs. Imfamnia’s sounded like a dying hominid caught in her throat. “Oh, I just sing songs to myself when he gets going. I caught him rolling various sorts of balls and plates off the Gold Palace roof once. He was breaking some relics dating back to the blighter charioteers, or so the Red Queen’s elvish historian claimed. Said he was experimenting with shapes that might allow riders to travel dragon-back with easier passage of wind. Speaking of wind-passage, NoSohoth said that if you lacked a vigorous young escort, he’d be happy to sit next to you at dinner. The old lecher. I always thought Tighlia had him snipped.”

“Me?” Wistala said. “Why would he be interested in me? He’s rich enough to buy and sell my province ten times over.”

“That’s just what I was wondering. If he reveals the answer, I’ll be most grateful if you’ll tell me before you tell anyone else.... I would like to enjoy your confidence. Have you ever wondered why I’ve visited you so often, my dear?” Imfamnia asked.

“The duties of a Queen are constant. Don’t you go around to all the upholds?”

“Duties?” That dreadful laugh came again, only briefer this time. “I’d much rather be looking at what the artisans in Hypat have developed this year in fringe extensions, or enjoying some sun-dried saltwater fish. I have attendants for duties. No, you’re an important connection for me, Natasatch. That family of your mate’s—they’re a strange bunch, certainly, but the fates seem to have picked out certain dragons to survive anything.”

“I wish the fates had selected more dragons today.”

“I agree. Still, it is a historic day. So much for the bloodline of Tyr Fehazathant,” Imfamnia said. “NiVom, curse him, wants the bodies removed by barge. Something about the Ghioz stealing trophies to turn into icons to their old Red Queen. Such loyalty is touching. I wonder if anyone will ever fashion a fetish dedicated to me.”

“Why would NiVom need the bodies?”

“You know these scientific types. Ever pickling brains and grinding teeth into suspensions. Dragon-blood is mixed with preservative and bottled in beeswax. Among the humans of the Aerial Host, it’s said it can bring a man frozen and with altitude sickness back to life. I expect he’ll dump them, probably in the Star Tunnel. No Ghioz-man would dare go down there to pry out a few dragon-teeth.”

“What is the Star Tunnel?”

“Oh, you missed that part of the wars, didn’t you? Before your time. Wistala was muchly involved in it. I don’t know much of it, either, save that it was the last refuge of the independent demen. The Firemaids finally drove them from the place. I believe it’s some vast underground garden, not as great as the Lavadome, of course, but important enough in its own way. The chasm is located in those disputed grounds between Ghioz and your daughter’s blighter uphold in Old Uldam.”

Natasatch was never overly interested in geography, but AuRon, on the other side of his barrier, wondered why the bodies had to take such a journey. Didn’t the Lavadome dragons have ceremonies for honoring their dead?

Too much had gone wrong today for it all to be bad luck. How could such a mass of men from the Sunstruck Sea travel such a distance without being detected? It seemed that the Ghioz cosmetician had warned him that some plot was in the offing, yet he must have been the only dragon who listened, for there was only the smallest of guards around the feast-grounds. But why would NiVom and Infamnia want to kill enemies, especially in so unsure a fashion? The men might not kill enough, or might poison far too many with their wretched blades.

He owed the dead an answer.

Chapter 4

The morning clouds in the Sadda-Vale hung low, meeting the mists rising from the lake like ghostly dancers.

Wistala forced herself to have an appetite. She stomped dark teardrops of shelled creatures drawn from the lake by the blighter servants and picked up the mucousy flesh with her tongue. The blighters sank wooden beams by the garbage pool, and every few months drew up the creatures who’d anchored themselves to the accommodating timber.

She surveyed her reflection. The diet of the Sadda-Vale and infrequent sunshine had lightened the coloring of her scale progressively. She looked like young straw, so yellow the green had almost disappeared. She was wider of hip and longer of tail since her first clutch, and her fringe had grown out to a luxurious length. From the neck down there was no question that she was a different dragon, physically.

With a little paint, her face could be changed. According to Yefkoa, hardly a female in the Empire went about without scale painted. The richer ones decorated further with gemstones, the more daring added bits of feather, silks, or netting.

She’d fought, again, with DharSii last night about answering the Firemaids’ call. Neither of them had slept well in the vast old perch room, though each pretended to slumber to avoid further words. Wistala kept the eye DharSii couldn’t see on the weather through the circle in the roof that admitted light, air, and the usual condensation. Sometime in the early dawn she decided to leave with Yefkoa, who was testing her wings in the warm currents of the lake in the more wholesome waters nearer the springs.

Wistala lifted a crab-pot with her tail, found it only partially full, chewed it with an effort, and took another to keep it company. In her mood, the frantic pinches of the crabs and the effort to pop a few rivets and bend tin were welcome. It wouldn’t hurt to have some metals in her diet, just in case. Scale tended to drop on a long flight and the old habits of scrounging metals from her hatchling days. Scabia would be aggravated—crabs in garlocque-vinegar were her delight—and the blighter blacksmiths would need to make new cages.

“Scabia will be displeased,” DharSii’s voice said from behind, echoing her thoughts.

She startled despite herself. For a mature male dragon, he could be eerily silent when he wished, almost as quiet as her scaleless brother.

“Worried about being turned out of the Vale?” she asked.

“I’m not worried; annoyance is good for her. Expressing displeasure is her only regular exercise.” DharSii flicked a dropped rotten potato into the pool where it belonged.

Wistala didn’t like Scabia, and Scabia’s grudging kindness in allowing her exiled family safe harbor in the Sadda-Vale heightened the dislike.

DharSii’s color was up around his neck-hearts. She knew him well enough now to know that was the chink in his invincible aplomb. Eyes, wings, tail, claws, griff, and teeth would never betray his mood, but his capillaries let him down.

“Are you still determined to carry out this foolishness, bouncing off south like a broken chariot wheel?”

“I told you last night, the only way you’ll stop me is to break my wings. Care to try?”

“Sticking your nose into Lavadome politics might mean they gets lopped off, high up, where your fringe meets your head. I couldn’t bear that.”

Curse him! She would have covered twoscore horizons just on nervous friction.

“Ha-hem,” he harrumphed, falling into his old habit of clearing his throat as he made up his mind what to say, or to cover for keeping his tongue still. “I’ve met exactly one sensible, cultured, and lively dragonelle in my whole life. Can’t the world sort itself out for once? Who knows how many crises have passed in our score of years here, yet the sun still rises and the snows still come and go. We’ve had so many meetings and good-byes, I’ve resolved never to have another.”