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“Tell me more about how one becomes a Firemaid,” Wistala said.
Chapter 12
The chief dragons of the Lavadome met in the map room.
The map room was a minor wonder. It was the design and labor of one of the Copper’s predecessors as Tyr, the thrall-sniffing sybarite SiDrakkon, begun in the days when he assisted Tyr FeHazathant.
SiDrakkon took the idea from a map the Anklenes made of the Lavadome, formed in three dimensions out of the poured stone the dwarves made. He turned one of the Tyr’s old hoard-rooms into a map room and had the Anklenes re-create the Upholds as though viewed from high above, mountains and rivers and forests in miniature.
The only shortcoming was that one had to be careful where one stepped, for some of the peaks proved fragile.
The Copper thought the map rather shortsighted. It encompassed only the Upholds of the Dragon Empire of long standing, from Anaea to Bant. The rest of the world did not exist unless it bordered their Empire. But then, SiDrakkon always had lacked imagination to match his ambition.
Already, thralls with artistic talent had started painting the walls with the representations of the rest of the Upper World. It didn’t look quite right, but SiDrakkon’s artisans had done such a lovely job with the mountains and rivers that he couldn’t bear the thought of tearing them down and starting afresh.
The Copper listened to HeBellereth’s chief of thralls report of matters in the southern and northwestern Upholds. The human captain could more easily step through the sculptures without obstructing the others’ view.
NoSohoth had to be present to keep track of decisions and opinions and supervise decorum. HeBellereth had to be there to give his opinion; he’d just returned from a tour of the Upholds with a few snout-picked fast-winged scouts of the Aerial Host. HeBellereth wasn’t the quickest of the dragons in the Lavadome but he had a good eye for weaknesses and fault and his snout-picked thralls showed the quality of refined gold. Then there was LaDibar, of course, so that Anklene opinion might be consulted. NoFhyriticus stood apart, close to the wall, his gray skin darkening so that he seemed hardly present at all. The Copper asked him to attend because of his practical mind. He would have liked Nilrasha to be present as well, but she had business with the victorious Firemaids just returned from the Star Tunnel.
Just outside the entrance a few dragons of the principal hills waited so they might have their share in the discussion.
CoTathanagar was among the outer audience, of course. He’d found his way into the map room despite the lack of an invitation, probably to cadge for an Upholder apprenticeship for one of his relations. At a griff-twitch to NoSohoth he’d been ejected.
Thralls worked hard at the entrance, circulating air with fans. Despite its size, the map room tended to grow stuffy very quickly if more than two dragons stood in it. SiDrakkon had always been an aloof, solitary dragon, and couldn’t imagine bringing other dragons into the map room, so he’d never improved the airflow in the chamber. He liked to brood in peace.
“Ever since the Ghioz claimed all those islands to the east in the Sunstruck Sea I’ve feared for Komod and Tuvalea. Men and blighters of the most primitive sort live there, unchanged in their worship of dragonkind since Silverhigh, and they cry and wail of Ghioz slaveships raiding their coasts. On the Windbreak Isles the Ghioz established relations with the headhunters there—they paddle their canoes into Tuvalea and whole villages disappear. They kill the old and take the young.”
“One might ask the difference between a Ghioz slave-raid and our own thrall trade,” LaDibar said with a sniff.
“The tribes willingly offer up strong sons and daughters as sacrifice to the Upholders for their favor,” NoSohoth said. To the Copper’s mind NoSohoth had his own ways of wasting time and breath, but even patient, courtly NoSohoth tired of LaDibar making the same observations over and over again.
“Ah, yes, that old swindle,” LaDibar said. “After a poor harvest the Upholder explains that he was unhappy with the quality of the last offering and sent a warning. To think of dragons resorting to such tricks in this advanced age.”
“We fight for them,” HeBellereth said. “Remember the great migration out of the Black Tip. The Komod and Tuvalea would have been driven from their huts and fetish-places by those . . . one hardly wants to call them blighters. Primitives, more like.”
“Thralls. I’m sick of hearing of them,” the Copper said. “What are a few thralls a year compared to the cattle and goats we need?”
“Not to mention the oliban,” NoSohoth said.
“Especially not to mention your profitable skimming from the oliban trade,” LaDibar said in the airy manner that allowed the Anklene to claim he was joking if challenged.
“Worse news,” HeBellereth said. “We saw many of those Ghioz roc-riders over the Sloai Horsedowns. If the Ghioz swallow Hypatia, as seems likely, the Ku-Zuhu could be lost to us. Without Hypatia’s protection they’ll become just another province of the Ghioz.”
HeBellereth’s chief of thralls put models of condor-like birds over a depiction of gently rolling hills.
“Ku-Zuhu is not ours to begin with,” LaDibar said. “It’s not even an Uphold.”
“But they are friendly to us, as well as the Anaeans,” the Copper said. “We and the Anaeans both benefit from their cattle and grains.”
“And the cloths. There are no weavers like the Ku-Zuhu. They remember patterns even the elves have forgotten.”
“Textiles!” LaDibar said. “We cannot eat textiles.”
“But we trade the textiles to the other Upholds, you Anklene cloudhead,” one of the assembly outside the door called.
“Who said that?” LaDibar called. “I’ll have your—”
“Let’s not spoil the sculpture with blood,” the Copper said.
