“I was not ignorant of the situation. I tried to call for help from the Hypatians. The Hypatians must know of the Queen’s designs against them. Has she not built a web of allies all around their lands, from the Ironriders in the north to the Usuthu in the south? Dairuss had many advantages: a people already opposed to the Ghioz, a choice of passes they could use to throw forces against the flanks of any Ghioz moving up from the south, control of the mightiest of rivers, friendly terms with the dwarves and their Iron Road, giving them a clear path into the heart of the Ghioz Empire for their legendary Indomitables. But my pleas met with words rather than swords, diplomats instead of arrows. They sent a general of theirs, a learned elvish fellow named Sandwash and a dwarf engineer named Ermet, but they seemed more interested in observing Ghioz destroy my poor people than offering assistance.
“I’ll never forget the sight of the Ghioz armies, advancing in three columns, glittering golden serpents. That’s the Ghioz for you, an army of gold, the only god they worship, the only truth they recognize. While I tried to slow them, for I couldn’t hope to win a victory, the Ironriders struck in the rear. I’m told, and this is the one grim joy I take from the debacle to my people, that the Ironriders accidentally quartered Hischhein when he came out of hiding and presented himself to them as the Queen’s governor. I suspect the Ironriders saw their chance for a bit of sport and took it.
“Now my people are worse off than before I governed them. The old Ghioz governor who stood in place before me is returned, and his punishments seem light, I suppose, after the destruction the Ironriders loosed.
“But for all the catastrophes, all my mistakes, I still have, each week, two or three sons of Dairuss appear in this camp, even if their shoes have fallen to ribbons while crossing the mountains and their horses are gaunt as scarecrows. They call me King Naf in the Mountains and speak of this bandit-camp as a freeman’s hold. Ha! Oh, the world is a joke, AuRon! Life is a joke.”
Naf laughed, no longer the hearty and controlled racket of the booming, friendly sound AuRon had known as a drake but a sound that made him think of a goose noisily dying.
“So, what brings you south? Seeking an old friend, or did you try to claim your title, promised long ago?”
“I’m on a mission of diplomacy for the Red Queen.”
“You’ve found your sense of humor at last, I see.”
AuRon blinked. “No, friend, I am serious.”
“If she seeks my surrender—”
“Your name hardly came up in our converse. She sends me as ambassador to some dragons living in a great cave south of here. If her information is as faulty as her map, I expect I’ll find a score of dragons huddling cold in a mushroom-cave, eating their own eggs.”
“Interesting. That necklace, then, is hers? The chain looks like Ghioz artistry, though it’s not the Queen’s braiding on the chain, as you’d expect of a royal emissary.”
“She did give it to me. I wonder about this crystal, though. It reminds me of something.”
“Odd cut to it. You might find it convenient for scraping out your earhole.”
“So you’ve never seen anything like it, though you were once high among the Ghioz?”
“No. I suppose fashions come and go. Perhaps white crystal is the new ruby. There was a time when rubies were all the rage among the Ghioz.”
“Did the rubies—did the Ghioz jewelers know how to put light into their gems? This glows even in utter darkness. Faintly, but it does glow. I’ve known only one other stone that held such clear white light, a massive crystal NooMoahk kept in his library.”
“That must have brought some titleor a hefty bounty. There’s many a rich Ghioz dowager who’d see her brow glamoured by a stone that shines with its own light. Happy was the captain who found that!”
AuRon wondered how much of the burden DharSii carried was paid for with the crystal. Of course it couldn’t be all gold, not even a dragon could fly with such a burden. Had he taken a piece of it for himself?
Or perhaps only a few tiny fragments had been shaved off, such as he wore. Was there some power in the crystal he didn’t know? Why hadn’t NooMoahk warned him? Even his failing mind had its lucid spells, and so important a subject would have come up.
“I wonder, Naf, if the stone wasn’t the whole purpose of the raid, the war with the blighters there trumped up.”
“Perhaps. You know, AuRon, I think you should carry out this commission for the Queen. A suspicious mind like yours might go far.”
“As far from the Red Queen as my wings will carry me, once I have my gold. I shall have the dwarves of the Chartered Company account it for me so I may portion it out yearly.”
Naf went all still. AuRon seemed to recall that he would always quiet his body when he became serious and thoughtful. “Will you return to the capital to collect?”
“Yes. To that mountain-face they work upon.”
“I have another reason—no, reason is the wrong word. Hope. I have another hope, AuRon. It is that Hieba and Nissa still live. I must think and act as though they are dead, but Hieba and you were close. Let my hope live in your heart. Return to the Queen, your message delivered, and see if you can have news of her. It would be the most natural thing for you to ask. She knows that you and I spoke, about the threat of those dragon-riders, and Hieba was present when we did so.”
“I will see what I can find out,” AuRon said.
“Do not be afraid to return with bad news. It is better to know, I think. If I knew, I could cease thinking about it, or know exactly how to think about it. We shall look for you, and signal. A dragon with a stunted tail is easy to mark as he passes overhead. Look for us at dawn and dusk, so that we might signal you with fire if we are concealed. Two equal lines of flame meeting, vertical and horizontal, a dwarf-cross.”
He looked so miserable that AuRon would have promised him anything to bring the usual gap-toothed grin back. “Very well. Perhaps you can help me with this Ghioz map. There’s a waterfall I don’t seem to be able to find . . .”
With Naf’s advice AuRon set a better course and found the waterfall. From there he flew out of the mountains and into some high, dry plains inhabited by hominids—men, by the look of them, sun-dark and bronze-adorned. Though the cattle looked tempting, he avoided them and instead devoted himself to hunting the tiny jumping deer that lived in thornbrush between high outcroppings of rock that held fat, and tasty, rats.
He found a divided rockpile with a great sloping slab hung suspended between the two, thick with marks of men or blighters. While the iconography struck him as unique and interesting, he was nearing his destination and had no time for a lingering appraisal.
He hurried south into land that looked like it had once been sea-bottom. The ground was foul and salty and held only patches of desperate-looking green vegetation like stringy cactus that existed only to make white desert butterflies happy in its hanging blossoms.
Soon he found the great canyon at the bottom of his map. There could be no mistaking what must have once been a great watercourse but now was just a series of dry mudholes flaked like burned skin. He found some toads buried deep in the mud, but they were sour and dry and not worth the digging.
The canyon plunged into the earth, first in a series of breaks and then at last into darkness. He flew more cautiously here, wondering how such a land could ever support dragons, with the nearest edibles a long day’s dry flight away, and not much even at that.
His eyes adjusted to the dark and he flew at a pace he could almost match on the ground, wary, wondering what kind of reception he might meet.
And so he came to the bridge.
Of course he wondered what dragons would need with a bridge. The sides of the canyon were striped with holds that even a young hatchling might use as a hominid used a ladder.
It was a superior piece of craft as he understood such things, looking almost as fine as a dwarf-built in his estimation. It passed from rock-column to rock-column, joining two bits of tunnel, fixed here to cavern roof, there to a column, and in another place held up by arcs of metal and twisted cable.
“Land, stranger,” a dragonelle’s voice called from the center of the span. AuRon marked sort of a mini-cave in the cavern ceiling. She would have an easy time pouring her flame on him if she chose.
A drakka emerged from the east end of the bridge and opened her sii in an odd gesture. AuRon guessed it meant they wanted him to land there.
So he did. Two drakka and a dragonelle stared at him from a wide, well-dug tunnel.
“Do not even you know him, Angalia?” one of the drakka asked the dragonelle.
She blinked. “There is grit in my eyes, I cannot be sure. Oh, I am ill. This bridge and these dry holes will be the death of me.”
“For a moment, by the skin, I thought he was one of those awful monster-bats, but he’s dragon-sized,” the one in the cavern roof-hole called. “Who is he? Is there a gray in the Aerial Host?”
“I’ve not seen one, but I’ve been long away from the Lavadome,” the one AuRon thought to be Angalia said. “It seems I’m always indispensable in some unhealthy clime.”