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“I wonder what that could mean?”
“Man’s first destiny,” Rayg said.
“You know that symbol? Where does it come from?”
“The barbarians in the far north. I’m…familiar with them. They’ve got a few prophets and shamans who say life is like a great game between gods of each of the races, and we’re all just pieces dropped into the world and taken up again when we fall to an opponent’s piece.”
“That’s a grim way to think about life.”
“The ones who wear this believe man is destined to rule the earth—worlds, Upper and Lower, as dragons think of it. Man will eventually remove all the blighters, the elves, the dwarves—”
“Dragons too?”
“They don’t speak of it much, but I believe it’s implicit in their philosophy.”
“You get better with the dragon tongue every day, Rayg. You’re an intelligent fellow. I’m glad you aren’t wearing one of those.”
“I was once,” he said. “Now I’m just here to finish a bridge.”
After getting landmarks from the Firemaid, the Copper scouted the mouth of the cavern as the sun set the next day. He took a short, circular flight. There was no sign of his pursuers—or pursuer, rather. It was hard to think of dragons as little more than brute service animals; he still couldn’t quite get his mind around the idea.
Satisfied, he hurried west at the best speed he could manage. Luckily the wind here blew hard out of the northeast, a direction he vaguely knew to hold the Inland Ocean.
He managed to take down the smelliest, hairiest herbivore on four legs he’d ever encountered and, using the tiny gob of flame that was, as ever, all he could ignite, set fire to some brush to cook its skin off. Even the smoky scent didn’t help the taste.
He saw the plateau a long way off, arriving in the late afternoon. It was an unusual sort of mountain range; all the peaks were so close to one another in height that from a distance they appeared identical. Only once you came closer did you see the variety in formations.
The plateau over the Lavadome was smaller, lower, and rounder than that of Anaea. Instead of being lush and green, it steamed and smoked.
He found one of the shafts the griffaran used and circled down toward it.
Two griffaran flapped up to challenge him, but recognized him, he supposed, by his bad limb.
“Good wind, egg saver!” one said, floating beside him effortlessly. The mixture of lizard and bird looked a little less strange aloft, thanks to its colorful wings.
“I’m on urgent business. I must use one of your shafts, and I can’t be delayed. One of you, fly ahead and tell the Tyr I must see him as soon as I land.”
“Follow, then.”
The griffaran had to wait several times for him to catch up. He made the rather terrifying drop through the shaft—plummeting with wings folded into a shadowy gap was a bit of exhilaration he could do without—but it wasn’t a far fall, and his eyes adjusted instantly to the tall cavern of the water ring.
He paused for water and to catch his breath, then went aloft again for the last, mercifully short leg to the Imperial Resort.
He made for the top of Black Rock and the griffaran swooped in front of him.
“Yark! No. No landings on Gardens. Through kitchens now fastest.”
Next, he supposed, SiDrakkon would forbid flying in the Lavadome, or bathing in the river. The orange streams of lava, once so bright and beautiful against the otherworldly crystalline surface of the dome, seemed to have picked up on SiDrakkon’s dour moods and now looked gloomy to him. Or maybe his eyes hadn’t fully converted over to tunnel-sight yet.
He made for the red glow and smoke of the kitchens, and landed next to a pile of dead swine.
Thralls scattered.
He hurried past boiling vats and frying platters, smelling the sweat of the nearly naked kitchen workers. He knew the rest of the way to the Tyr’s door.
NoSohoth, meeting him on the stairs, started babbling about Skotl and Wyrr, of course. “There’s been a duel on almost every hill. The mating between SuUpshauant and Deresa—broke, now, and the Skotl blame the Wyrr, and the Wyrr blame the Skotl side. Hardly a moon goes by where we don’t lose a dragon. Now there’s a Wyrr Drakwatch and a Skotl, and they spend their whole time brawling with each other. CuTarin hill and the north side have threatened to burn each other’s herds—”
“This is war news, man.”
