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“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.
“Of course. I hope someday to redeem myself to the dragons of the Lavadome. I’m not entirely without merit, if I apply myself I’m sure I can one day redeem my name and rejoin society.”
“Yes, well, I’ve never been much for society—”
“Wait, AuRon, don’t you want to hear my idea for improvement to the Grand Alliance?”
“I’m all in favor of improvements.”
“Well, to be perfectly honest, things aren’t going as well as they might under your brother. Yes, the wars are over and the Lavadome is at peace, but most of us expected rather more from the Grand Alliance. We barely see more gold than we did back in the days when we were furtively holding on to a few upholds. Your brother isn’t doing a good enough job supervising his ‘Protectors.’ Dragons are a greedy bunch, and that NoSohoth of his is one of the greediest. The Protectors are keeping all that surface wealth for themselves, when they should be seeing to it that it’s brought down to the Lavadome. I mean, there are hatchlings forced to eat iron ores just to keep scale on.”
“So, what are you suggesting?”
Imfamnia said, “No harm to your brother! (Unless, of course, you’d prefer some harm to come to him—but I think a little humiliation would quite suffice; he’s a dragon who’s already risen far beyond the station he deserves and should be taken down a few tailjoints.) We simply wish to have a plan for succession in place, so a new, better Tyr will take over for him.”
The rest of the conference passed in Imfamnia sounding out Istach on whether she’d like a trained thrall to help shape her scale and train her claws into a more elegant curve. AuRon quit it gladly.
He returned to Dairuss dispirited, and complained that night to Natasatch that he was considering giving up the Protectorship and returning to his island.
“Well, I like it here,” Natasatch said. “I feel at home, for some reason, with these social dragons. What is there to do on our island? Snooze out the winters, then argue all summer with the wolves and blighters about the number of sheep that may be taken. It’s no life for a dragon.”
“It is life. If this contraption my brother the Tyr has set up fails, it’ll be another fall of Silverhigh. A good many dragons will go down with it. I doubt we’ll ever rise from it again.”
Natasatch nuzzled him behind the griff. “There’s another matter. Think of the offspring. They’re doing so well here. Even Istach, who I thought would remain lurking outside our cave like a hungry dog, has found a position—one above her brothers and sister! They’re doing so well, because we’ve been here to help them along. Now, with Wistala acting as Queen, she can be of further use to them.”
“I’m not sure Wistala took the position with that in mind. She only wants to make sure everyone’s treated fairly.”
“What should we do about NiVom and Imfamnia and their ‘conspiracy’?”
“If the Lavadome breaks into factions, some will support the Tyr, some will support NiVom and Imfamnia. That seems a reasonable assumption, does it not, my love?”
