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AuRon hadn’t brought anything at all. He was hoping there wouldn’t be feasting, so he could plead hunger and the need to hunt to shorten the meeting.
“Where’s NiVom?”
“Oh, he’s off in Bant, settling things there again. Bant, Bant, Bant, always trouble in Bant. Tribal blighters see a tree struck by lightning and decide the omens are right to start raiding our salt trains again.”
The trio ate. Imfamnia snuck in one of the loggers’ spits and a copper platter holding barbecued pork, each time trilling out an oops: “I’m such a metal hog. AuRon, you’re so lucky not to have scale. Istach, doesn’t it drive you absolutely mad, the smell of hot iron? I’d swallowed it before I knew what I was doing. Ah well, they won’t miss it. Istach, have some more of that spiced wine, it’s a favorite of mine.”
AuRon, knowing how scarce smithies were in the frontier, rather suspected they would miss it. Istach politely tongued the offered wine.
There wasn’t much to discuss. There was talk of whether to build a road between Ghioz and Old Uldam, and then a second between Old Uldam and Dairuss, or whether to use the existing rivers which would be longer and slower and seasonably unreliable without an equal amount of work put into dams and portage stations. AuRon was at least suspecting that there’d been some kind of bloodshed between men and blighter that had to be resolved, but apparently there was nothing but the usual complaints of thievery that the dragons couldn’t resolve without keeping track of every lamb and loom in their lands.
Istach yawned, being still a young dragon and having flown far with a burden of bullock, and Imfamnia dispatched her to her slumber. She hardly made three dragonlengths into the shelter of a copse before collapsing into deep, regular breaths.
“Ah, to be young again, and just drop off like that,” Imfamnia said.
“A hogshead of wine might have had something to do with that.”
“Oh, yes, I forget how it goes to the head of those who aren’t used to it. I learned all about wines from the old Queen, Tighlia. She was quite the connoisseur.”
AuRon rarely did more than politely coat his tongue with it. It was hard to imagine a more un-dragonish beverage than fermented fruit, but some of his kind were greatly fond of it.
“That was a silly affair with the war we almost had,” Imfamnia said, shortly after they agreed to get some Hypatian and Ghioz surveyors to map out a possible path for the imagined road. “It’s all your brother’s fault, in a way.”
“How is that?” AuRon asked.
“This Grand Alliance of his. It’s not under a firm hand at all. Sii hardly knows what saa is doing, and both are constantly stepping on tail. And the Hypatians!”
“I don’t know many,” AuRon said.
“Well, they’re a demanding lot, I can tell you. Fly this message at once! Don’t dawdle with the return. Can you bring these medicines north, there’s fever in Swampwater Wash and Farmer Pipesuck’s pig is ill. Protectors indeed, we’re errand runners and lost dog finders.”
“Naf just likes to have us show ourselves along the river. Makes the Ironriders think twice about raiding into Dairuss.”
“Well! Perhaps we should trade places.”
“I’ve learned enough hominid tongues in my life. I don’t want to have to learn another.”
“Oh, the Ghioz one isn’t so bad, sort of a cross between Pari and Hypatian. If you know Hypatian, it’s quite easy to learn, I’m told by the Ankelenes, but then I never was a scholar.”
“Well, I should have some water and—”
“AuRon, there was one matter I did want to discuss with you. We get on so famously, I feel like I can trust you. You’re just one of these dragons who inspires trust and sympathy.”
“Thank… you,” AuRon managed, worried at what was coming next.
“How would you like to join a little conspiracy?”
“Conspiracy?”
“You’re not usually so slow. Yes, a little conspiracy. You must know that when it comes to the ruling of the Lavadome, there are plenty of traditions and practices for obeying one’s Tyr, doing this or that properly and in style. But one area that’s sorely lacking—and we’ve suffered for it—is that there’s no set tradition for succession.”
“Birth is no good. Many a great dragon has fathered unadmirable offspring. Every time a Tyr dies we can’t have all these battles and uncertainties and torments, you know.”
“I’ve little experience in the Lavadome, and what I had I didn’t much enjoy,” AuRon said.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Well, it’s very much home to me even if I’m a coinless exile through circumstances beyond my poor powers.”
“Yes, well, that’s in the past,” AuRon said, not wanting to hear again her litany of “nothing was my fault” miseries.
