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He looked at Yefkoa. The dragonelle looked away, stricken.
“Long enough to burn my dead mate, I expect.”
It was a long, exhausting flight, lengthened by having to go to ground and wait out a thunderstorm. He was tempted to test his artificial wing-joint against the winds, but the griffaran guard practically dragged him to earth, where they knitted him a shelter out of pine branches laced by the effort of their beaks.
He arrived at Hypat thin and hungry, but would take no food until he learned the fate of his mate.
“She still breathes, my brother,” Ayafeeia said, as she led him up the hill toward a ruined temple with a great piece of canvas stretched between the broken columns.
“The remaining Directors of Hypatia are more willing to hear your words now, Tyr.”>The Copper decided he much preferred having AuRon as an ally. He seemed to have the knack of making friends who didn’t demand blood or gold or rank in exchange for their service.
Some of the Queen’s servants took their own lives rather than surrender. The Copper found a heap of corpses, male, female, even children, lying peacefully beneath a statue of the Queen.
The sight depressed him.
Dragons, at least, had more sense. They accepted a new Tyr and got on with their lives.
Time, indeed, for dragons to get back to the purpose of living.
They found the crystal in a blue-domed chamber, high in the mountain. Careful star-charts were etched above. He picked out patterns both familiar and unfamiliar. AuRon wondered if the stars bore some purpose related to the crystal or if they’d preceded its installation. There was an even smaller passage, too cramped for any but a human, that led up to a tiny platform with a good view of the sky.
AuRon guessed the crystal chamber lay just behind the forehead where the eyebrows met, or perhaps just above.
He sent for his brother. The Copper might be interested in this if he could squeeze up the stairs.
HeBellereth made it, well dusted with scrapes and scraps from the stair-passage walls, along with a slender young Firemaid named Yefkoa who had distinguished herself with fast flying.
“I was afraid I would have to go for oil to work him through,” she said.
“I wanted to see the source of so much misery.”
So they stared, the four dragons, at the Red Queen’s seat of power.
She’d set an impressive throne against it, built a comfortable seat and arm and footrest. Instead of facing outward, the throne-chair faced toward the crystal, so that one might peer deep into it. The throne itself was built on some sort of mount that allowed it to rotate around the crystal.
“So careful, with each and every step,” Naf said. “Until she found this. Then she thought she could see everything.”
“She saw how weak her enemies were,” the Copper said. “More, she knew how to exploit faults, primarily greed. The greatest stone gives way if you tap it in the right crack. It is a strange thing. It almost seems to be—to be looking at me.” Did the stone dislike him? What did a piece of crystal care who its owner was? “I can’t help but feel it doesn’t like me.”
“Perhaps you’re just seeing your conscience in the reflection,” AuRon said.
“Don’t speak to the Tyr that way!” HeBellereth snapped. “He saved your thin little hide, you know.”
“And helped himself to a new Uphold. One worth all the rest put together, I expect,” AuRon said. “My profound admiration, Tyr RuGaard. You’ve won a gamble for the ages.”
“What shall we do with this trophy?” HeBellereth asked.
“Perhaps we should smash it,” AuRon said.
The Copper tapped it with a sii. “Go ahead. Try.”
“Perhaps some dwarves could do it,” HeBellereth said.
“I know a man who would enjoy spending some time with it. Or perhaps the Anklenes.”
“It could be dangerous,” AuRon said.
“I thought NooMoahk lived with it for years,” the Copper said. “And you, and our sister, spent some time in its presence. It is only fair that I take my turn to see what mysteries it holds.”
