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“Your terms?”
“Upon a dragon from the Lavadome attending as an ambassador to my court, and the appointment of an ambassador from Ghioz to the Lavadome, and the establishment of communications each way, we will present to you a ransom in pure gold coin.”
“A ransom?”
“Do you know our weights and measures?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“It is about the weight of a full-grown male bull.”
“That is a substantial sum indeed.”
“Then the terms are satisfactory?”
“The mission may fail. I would like to be compensated in that eventuality.”
“One-quarter shall be yours, then.”
“I do not know your customs, Great Queen. How do we call it a bargain?”
“There are seals and such that can be set upon paper, but they are only as good as one’s word, and you already have ours.”
AuRon decided that if nothing else, contact with other dragons would be beneficial. He hoped there weren’t remnants of the wizard’s old armada lurking in this Lavadome, nursing a grudge against the one who brought about their master’s fall. “Then you have mine as well.”
“We are always happy to come to agreement.”
“Will you satisfy me on something?” AuRon asked.
The mask spun around, and briefly frowned, then the smiling side turned back again. AuRon judged it a warning to get to the point. “We have other business this day, but you have our attention.”
“The friend I lost—DharSii spoke of her. How long had she been in the service of Ghioz? What were her aims and goals and so on?”
“Friend? Another dragon?”
“Yes.”
“There is some misunderstanding. We never had her in our service. We are afraid she was friend to the blighters and guarding a very great prize. As an obstacle to our will, she had to be removed. DharSii was fond of her, and gave her every opportunity to escape destruction.”
“She fought against DharSii, not with him?”
“That is our understanding. We regret that the encounter could not have ended more happily. According to DharSii, she was a worthy dragon.”
After all these years. If he’d come east just a few months earlier. . . . why couldn’t those cursed treasure-hunters have taken advantage of the first warm spring winds?
The last of his old family, gone. Why couldn’t dragons stay out of hominid quarrels? But hominids acquired gold like ants seeking fallen fruit, and dragons needed that gold. So here he was, mixing in hominid affairs again.
Maybe DharSii was right about the Ghioz. They are strong, and a tree does better to bend with a strong wind if it wishes to keep limbs intact.
He still had his new family to think about. They must come first.
“Does this change matter?” the Red Queen asked. “You may alter your decision. We have no desire to place such a mission on unwilling wings.”
“I am sorry that events went the way they did,” AuRon said. “But I still need that gold. The sooner I may claim it, the better.”
“Very well. Return to the fountain inside and we will have further instruction, and a small gift.”
AuRon idled by the fountain, thinking. The Red Queen’s evident desire for good relations with his island might be to his advantage after all. She seemed a wise ruler, and anyone who could bring different tribes of Ironriders together must be a diplomat to be reckoned with.
