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“Perhaps, if Anklemere had lived long enough, the dragon lines would have become truly estranged.”
“Just as well he didn’t. We have problems enough.”
“Oh, the Wyrr and Skotl and Ankelenes cause enough grief. The slight differences just give them that much more reason for faction and clannishness. Like sea-elves and forest-elves and bog-elves, or all the fall-foliage colors of humankind. I imagine dwarfs fight over something, too.”
“Bearded and unbearded females, I’ve heard.”
The shared a chuckle. “But back to your story.”
“Yes, well, the smallest number of refugees from Silverhigh fled to the old winter palace in the north. It’s a region few hominids dare approach. Volcanic activity keeps the vale itself hospitable enough in the winter, but there are only a few months in summer when men may approach it overland, and even then they have to wade across marshes filled with disease-carrying insects. They say you can find bones of every great hominid empire in those bogs—I’ve seen a jeweled chariot of the blighter kingdom of Old Uldam myself, when off exploring. I was born to that little clan of dragons, where we first met.”
She nudged a wayward paving stone back into place. “Yet you are also known in the Lavadome.”
“The dragons made cautious contact—we’d practically died out at the old Winter Palace in the Sadda-Vale. The trolls are a nuisance and have killed their share of drakes and drakka, or the more adventurous had struck off for better hunting. But through NooMoahk, back in his younger days before he became addled and obsessed with that cursed crystal, we learned of the dragons in the Lavadome.
“It became a tradition for at least one drake or drakka to be exchanged. In the middle of the clan wars between the Wyrr and Skotl—at first it was just the two of them, with the Ankelenes ostensibly neutral, the tradition was stopped. It only restarted again after the wars were over and Tyr FeHazathant and his mate calmed things down.
“I was both the first and the last of that old tradition. Scabia sent me because she thought me obstreperous, and the Lavadome would knock some discipline into me. In exchange we received NaStirath, who I believe you met in the Sadda-Vale when you were seeking allies to avenge your family.”
“Yes, though it was a bloodless hunt. NaStirath was quite possibly the silliest dragon I’ve ever known.”
“Somehow the Lavadome managed to spare him, yes. But he did learn to flatter there. Scabia enjoys hearing him prattle about her greatness.”
“So you weren’t originally from the Lavadome.”
“No, but I grew to love it as if I’d been hatched there. It felt like home, more so than anywhere else I’ve lived. Mystery and history and secrets, there’s more worth finding there than I could discover in a lifetime. But it was only home for a while. I went into the Aerial Host more for mnemonic powers than athletic ability or fighting skill or what have you. If you don’t mind listening to me sing my own praises, Wistala, I’m good at finding my way around, even by dead reckoning. I was usually flying scout—this was in the days when the Lavadome was reestablishing upholds that had been lost in the civil wars—and made excellent maps.
“Well, I found myself giving advice to the commander of the Aerial Host, FeHazathan’s clutchwinner AgGriffopse. I’d lay out enemy positions, or find a new route to an objective, a few times I even scared up allies—AgGriffopse would base his battle plans on what I’d discovered and we’d usually win without too much fighting. There’s a rumor in the Lavadome that AgGriffopse and I were enemies from the very start, but that’s not true. He usually sent me back to report his victories, the tradition then was that report running was a mark of high distinction, given only to dragons of sense and ability, because the Tyr would question them and form judgements and give orders based on the reports. I repaid AgGriffopse with my loyalty, always giving him his proper due.
“When he started assisting his father in Tyr duties, I took over the Aerial Host. My name back then—oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m DharSii. I like it better anyway.”
He watched a new stream of molten rock start down the side of the Lavadome, bright and almost yellow in its heat. “My command of the Aerial Host is better remembered now than I thought it at the time. While living it, it seemed as though I was making one dreadful error after another. Each victory seemed to cost me dragons, yet when we’d return to the Lavadome we flew around the Imperial Resort to roars of praise. Seems a hundred years ago. Perhaps it was.”
“You don’t look so old.”
“It’s the waters of the Sadda-Vale. I think that’s why the summer palace was up there; they’re filled with minerals dragons need, I believe.”
“I could use a few mouthfuls I think. All this back and forthing and keeping everyone placated—it would tax old Rainfall’s patience.”
“You must tell me more of him, sometime.”
“Finish your story.”
“It’s not a happy ending, I’m afraid. AgGriffopse and I became, I suppose you would say, rivals. The Tyr liked us both a great deal, I believe. His blood called to AgGriffopse, but I’d like to think that part of him considered me as a possible future Tyr. You always want to look back at yourself in the best possible light, but I find myself unable to do that. I believe I was ambitious, perhaps too ambitious.
“The Tyr had a daughter, as well. Enesea. She was silly and headstrong, decent looking enough but a little on the weak side—never flew for exercise, in that she resembles our friend Imfamnia. Not surprising, Enesea being her aunt.
“If ever a dragon courted, so I courted Enesea. I gave her merits she didn’t deserve, though I will admit she always made me laugh. In the right way, through wit, not in the wrong way, through foolishness. She enjoyed mentioning other young dragons as rivals, but I believe in the end she would have had me. Not from affection or real respect based on knowing each other’s strengths. No, it was status. My position in the Aerial Host made some of her friends sigh and hoot and ripple-wing when I was about, and she enjoyed their jealousy to the fullest.
“I was working myself up to sing my lifesong to her—an old-fashioned proposal is best, don’t you agree?”
Wistala did agree, most sincerely, but perhaps Dharsii was blind to just how much she was like-minded.
“But the moment never seemed to come,” he said. “One night, after a particularly wine-filled feast, we went for a flight around the river-ring. We were jostling and knock-winging. I was nipping at her tail and she was batting me about the face with her wingtip, young dragon play, when suddenly she threw herself into the cavern ceiling on some sharp rocks. I tried to assist her and she began to roar and call as if I’d been murdering her, and the next thing I knew there were some griffaran flying about and a pair of the Aerial Host on exercises were flying to my aid—
“She flew back to the Imperial Rock as quickly as her wings could carry her, bleeding all the way.
“Well, to make a very long and very angry story short, she accused me of attacking her. To this day I don’t know what was in her mind. Did she have a fit of some kind and hurt herself? And when I tried to support her she thought it was a mating embrace—or did she, from the very first, mean to hurt herself and go flying to the Tyr with a story that I’d attacked her.
