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Talk turned to politics, as it often did. Rumor had come up through the Drakwatch that SiBayereth, SiDrakkon’s first clutchwinner, had been killed, not in a duel, but in his bath. Some were saying he was assassinated in retribution for some of the killings and forced duels that had been taking place with greater frequency since SiDrakkon turned Tyr.
Others said that he’d bodily insulted some maiden dragonelle and she’d taken the traditional revenge of a female wronged and discarded.
The Copper returned to his cushions and his mate, exceptionally happy to be in Anaea and out of the Imperial Resort and its feuds. He slept with his neck across hers in silent appreciation.
So eager were the FeLissaraths to be in their new digs that they started hunting for caves almost immediately, and turned over all the day-to-day temple duties to him.
Now that he had his wings he hunted for NiVom, searching the mountains to the south, but there was no sign of him. He spent a rather cold night in the mountains—the Upper World made him feel exposed and watched; he didn’t like it, even when the unpredictable weather was nice—and flew back in the morning.
It was a brilliant, clear day. The sort of day that wouldn’t think about being evil, and instead put off ill tidings until the next overcast.
He saw a distant dot. It was a dragon, male—and therefore not Nilrasha, nor FeLissarath. It was light-colored, reflecting the sun, perhaps white.
He beat his wings hard toward it. He hoped if it was NiVom he’d recognize him rather than think him an assassin, despite the improbability of his being in the air. The dragon turned a little, not running away then, but coming toward him.
They rushed toward each other with frightening speed. The Copper saw that it was a light shade of bronze, though a good deal smaller than Father, at least Father as he remembered him. The dragon gained altitude at the last moment, as though seeking an advantage, and the Copper veered away, fearing a tailstrike on his weak wing and upset by something odd about its lines.
The dragon had a rider!
The implications so upset the Copper that he dropped toward the palace as fast as he dared—Rayg said that he couldn’t be certain that the joint wouldn’t give way under what he called “extraordinary stress” but refused to further define it.
His wing held as he leveled off, making for the staircase cut into the side of the mountain, topped by the familiar outlines of the dragon palace.
The other dragon—for some reason the term hag-ridden popped into his head, but he couldn’t remember the origins; perhaps it was some story mother dragons told their hatchlings to compel them to behave—followed his course, though it made no attempt to catch up.
He came in for a landing at the wide lower entrance hall, and Fourfang trotted up.
“Get my mate and Nilrasha. Danger!”
Fourfang glanced up and turned around, doing a fair attempt at running on all fours to get back inside the palace.
The Copper backed into the entrance to get solid Anaean stone between himself and the stranger—there was that term again, hag-ridden.
The man shouted words down at him, but he couldn’t comprehend their meaning.
“May I land?” the dragon roared.
“What is it, my lord?” Halaflora said from the entrance.
“Stay back. If a fight begins, use your flame to help me and then run for the Lower World.” He stuck his head out. Oh, this was cowardly! He stepped out.
“Cry parley and land away. Beneath me, now.”
The dragon turned one more circle and landed well, though it rocked the man in his leather seat a little. The hag-rider wrapped the reins around a curved tooth at the front of his seat and hopped off, though he kept hold of a rope linking him to his leather seat.
The Copper tried not to stare at the elaborate reins linking dragon, head and wing, to the rider. There were copper rings punched through the skin of the dragon to better fix the lines. He wondered if that hurt.
The man glubbed out a few words.
“That’s Parl,” Halaflora said. “It’s a trade tongue here on the surface.”
“Can you speak it?”
“Only a few words. I know a greeting.”
“Then say it.”
She coughed something out that sounded like the mindless yapping of a dog.
