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“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.
