 "YOUR TRUE STRENGTH IS NOT DISCOVERED EASILY, OR WITHOUT GRIEF. LIKE A DESERT SEED IT LIES DORMANT, WAITING FOR THE HARD RAIN." —Lessons of NeStirrath

The Copper paid his respects to the FeLissaraths at the morning meal the next day, showing his wings.

"I've thought about it, and I would like to go back to the Lavadome. Just for a season or so. Nilrasha said she'd welcome the change of scene."

"You deserve to have a party where your dragon-name is cheered, RuGaard," FeLissarath said. His mate nodded. "Too bad about the wing. But there's many a grounded dragon living a long and happy life. That fellow who trains the Drakwatch, for example…er…"

"NeStirrath," the Copper supplied.

"I had the oddest dream last night," his mate said. "I could have sworn I smelled a strange dragon in the palace. It was almost alarming."

"You talk to the condors too much," her mate said. "They think every far-glimpsed griffaran is a dragon."

"I hear there was a herd of elk spotted on a frozen lake on the northern slopes," the Copper said, turning the talk to hunting.

"Yes, we should go," FeLissarath said. "Shouldn't we, dear? The larder's looking rather empty."

"Fattening up for my trip," the Copper said.

"You're a wise young dragon, RuGaard," FeLissarath said.

Though he was almost dancing with anxiety to leave, the Copper delayed another day or two, for a train of kern was assembling, the last of the fall harvest. It would be irresponsible of a future Upholder not to see it through.

Fourfang groaned about having to take care of mules, and Rhea looked glum. She liked the sun and air of FeLissarath's palace, though she still never said a word about any matter, great or small; she just nodded and followed orders and sometimes cried in her sleep.

Putting up a second set of bed curtains cut down on the noise.

On their first day into the cave they came across the pursuit, the noisome NoTannadon and another Skotl dragon searching westward, sniffing at every strange tunnel. Their reek set the mules to bawling, and the blighter mule tenders cursed and shoved them aside, clearing a way in the tunnel.

And the Copper moved up to block it.

"Cry meetings," NoTannadon said.

"Cry meetings, NoTannadon. Haven't seen you since the Black River fight."

"You're…you're RuGaard, now, as it looks," NoTannadon said. "Have you seen anything of NiVom? He's visiting the western Upholds and the Tyr has need of him."

"I'd be glad of the visit. But no dragons have passed through the cave mouth, have they, Nilrasha?"

"A dragon? No. We'd have welcomed a new face. Ha! No dragons, I'm afraid."

"I told you the trail went cold at the Tooth Cavern," the other Skotl dragon said. "He flew out there. We should turn around, catch up with the others."

"This drake—er, dragon…" NoTannadon said, then fell silent.

"Yes. Both my ears work, duelist. What were you going to say?"

"…Is in the Imperial line. I expect he'd notice if a dragon emerged in the middle of his palace. We should turn around."

"I'll send word back that the Upholder should tell him the Tyr needs him, should he show up for a surprise visit, shall I?" the Copper asked.

"Yes. Yes. That's a fair wind of an idea," NoTannadon said.

The dragons turned around in the rather cramped tunnel and hurried in the other direction.

Their arrival at the Lavadome merited no special reception, as it was simply another load of kern coming in. The trading house saw to its distribution to various wareholes and livestock corrals.

"Where will you go?" the Copper asked Nilrasha.

"Wherever you like, my lord."

"We're not mated yet, dear. Things may go ill for me on the Rock. Perhaps you should go to the Firemaiden quarters on your home hill. Your association with me could be hazardous."

"It's my blood. It flows for you. If you die, it might as well be spilled too."

"Where can I find you?"

"I grew up on Dufu hill. Yes, the milkdrinker's hill, among the thralls. Not much of a home, but the tunnels are clean enough. At least there's little chance of society from the Black Rock visiting."

"I'll come to you in a day or two. Take care of my thralls until then. If anything happens, treat them well; they've earned it. And as for you—if they come for you, just do what they say and feign ignorance."

"The way you feign your lack of ambition. Certainly."

"You may have to do more. Tell them you grew sick to death of the sight of me in Anaea. They'll believe that."

"I shall. But I won't enjoy it."

He wound his neck around hers, squeezed her, then broke it off and looked across and down the river.

"I did enjoy that, however," she said. "I'm told the Anklenes have some scrolls about how dragons can mate in a river, and it's like flying. It seems delightfully perverse."

"We'll have to find out."

They said no more. The Copper told the kern train that he was exhausted and would spend the night on the riverbank, washing and resting and preparing for his return to the Imperial Resort with a bellyful of fish.

And with that he hurried off toward the high rocks of the griffaran.

Yarrick's perch looked much the same, though the griffaran who flew him up to the high perch grew so exhausted he had to set the Copper down on a ledge and bring the aging grand commander to him.

"You right! Yark! It is that lame copper fellow."

The bird-reptile cocked its head so Yarrick's good eye was pointed straight at him. "It good to see you again. We heard about a battle in Bant, let loose victory cries on your behalf."

The Copper wondered what would happen if Yarrick knew the truth of his "rescue" of the eggs. He felt a twinge as he cleared his throat and spoke the words he'd rehearsed in his mind.

"Long ago, Yarrick, you befriended me and flew me to the Imperial Resort. I ask you to fly again, and beg the Tyr to come to me. All this must be done in secrecy."

"Too old for courier flying these days. Molting. Fishing is all I do anymore, and even then I need a long rest before returning to the perch. I'll send a younger set of feathers. The Tyr will come, though he, too, does not care as much for flying as he once did."

The Copper waited until the shafts of sunlight falling to the river disappeared. Though he sought it, sleep evaded him. He wondered how he looked after a long tunnel journey. Better than he would have without Rhea's endless cleanings and polishings, he supposed. The girl—no, woman, now—could do wonders with wet ash and a brush.

He saw the Tyr flying, a griffaran to either side, turning slow circles in his climb to the perch on the griffaran's rocks. He alighted rather heavily, and the griffaran retired.

"It is you, Rugaard. Or, I'm sorry, RuGaard now. Why this strange form of meeting? I know you don't like court ceremony, but this is a little extreme."

"I've seen NiVom, Tyr."

The Tyr's teeth disappeared and his neck straightened. "You have. Come to beg for his pardon, have you?"

"Your honor, it's all lies. He never attacked your granddaughter."

The Tyr sighed. "He's always been a bit of a brawler. You should know. He's welcome to come back and defend or explain himself anytime; he doesn't need to send emissaries."

"NoTannadon and another Skotl were hunting him on the western road. I met them."

"Hunting him? I said there was to be no pursuit! He's disgraced, and a coward to run away from a challenge issued and accepted, but no harm's been done apart from the bites and scratches on Imfamnia. I'd say the only permanent damage to her was to her dignity, but she's a flit young thing and has little enough to hurt." The Tyr rested in thought. "NoTannadon and another, you say?"

"I met them myself, Tyr. I doubt they were seeking him to share some meat and a song."

"He should have stayed and defended himself. The spirits would have seen him safely to his home cave if he's innocent. These things have a way of working out."

"Do they? How did they work out for your son, your clutchwinner? And what of this DharSii? I don't know his story, but NiVom seemed to think he was the victim of treachery. NiVom wouldn't hurt a female—of your line or any other—unless he had been attacked first. He said he had no idea how the marks got on her."

"Imfamnia would never make up such a thing. What has she to gain? She was getting a good mate, in all likelihood the future Tyr, there even if his lip was a bit torn up."

"She would if it meant reigning as queen over the Lavadome."

"She would have had that anyway. They were to be mated!"

"My guess is she doesn't want to wait and leave anything to chance. It's a plot, your honor. It's a game, with the throne as the stakes. Your life may be in danger."

"Yes, danger and I are old friends." The Tyr paused, and his expression went blank. "No! SiDrakkon hardly knows the dragonelle. I'll swear he's not spoken to her more than three times, all at banquets."

"If you become incapacitated, who rules?" the Copper asked, though he knew the answer.

"With NiVom gone, the title of Tyr passes to my mate's brother, for at the moment I have no heir."

"Would Tighlia be happy to see her brother in your place?"

"Of course. It's only natural. I just have never much liked SiDrakkon. He's too quick to quarrel. You can't hold dragons together if you're going to be the first to start a feud. That and his taste for human females. It's just not done. One can enjoy a discreet sniff now and then, but this habit of his, wallowing in it, it's revolting. I need a new regent. As it is, if I dismiss SiDrakkon the throne would fall to SiMevolant, now that he's matured. Physically, at least. He's still a tailgazer."

"You must hurry and appoint a new heir, then."

"Perhaps. No. No! They couldn't be so deceptive."

"I think they've wronged you worse than you can imagine, Tyr. Certainly one heir can be lost to accident. Twice might be a coincidence. But three times? That's the work of an enemy."

"I'll question Imfamnia again in the presence of her mother. Ibidio thought highly of NiVom, and a mother can sometimes get the truth out of the toughest dragon."

"Don't tell your mate or SiDrakkon any of this, Tyr, until you've learned the truth."

"You're a sly one, RuGaard."

"You must know I have no ambitions, Tyr. I speak only on behalf of my friend."

"If all this comes to pass you'll move several places up in the line. Perhaps I should be suspicious of you."

"I'm content to go back to Anaea for the rest of my years, Tyr. Get to the truth of this matter with NiVom. You might ask some questions about the others, as well. I don't know enough about those dragons."

"I will ask some questions. Starting with Tighlia."

"Tyr, no. Avoid her. Don't let her influence you."

"You've not been mated yet, have you? When you're older you'll understand these things. I can handle my own mate, dragon. Don't worry; your name will not pass my lips or waft across in thought."

"Go to Ibidio first, Tyr. I beg you."

"I'm not without resources, RuGaard. Where can I contact you?"

"I'll let the griffaran know where I am. I won't be far from these rocks."

"RuGaard, thank you for coming to me with this. Bravely done, if it's the truth. If this is all some scheme of your own…well, bravely done for that, too. I'll forgive you personally. But as Tyr, matters will go hard with you."

"I ask only that you try to find the truth, your honor."

The Tyr raised his wings, nodded to the griffaran escort, and dropped off the towering rock. He caught an air current and disappeared into shadow, entering the tunnel through which the Copper had been carried years ago.

Even the fresh fish the griffaran brought him soured in his mouth. He picked at rocks with his claws and wondered about Nilrasha. Finally the Copper could sleep, though it was a fitful one. His mouth had gone dry from the tension.

Yarrick himself woke him the next day with news that the glorious Tyr was dead.

The Copper stood before the massive Black Rock in the center of the Lavadome; it was dozens of dragonlengths high, heavy and black and forbidding.

He'd always thought it looked everlasting, a guarantee of dragonkind's survival. Now it seemed a marker in a vast, empty, crystal-topped tomb.

He could return to the Uphold and act as though nothing had happened. Perhaps he'd just been escorting the final bounty of the year's harvest to the Lavadome, ensuring its prompt arrival intact.

In the end, he decided he had to play his part in the tragedy, for good or ill. He walked up the path leading to the lower caves, the smaller one the Drakwatch used. There were dragons idling about the more elaborate main entrance, waiting for news, and more clustered at the servants' door, pestering thralls running errands.

The Rock seemed deadly quiet, as though expecting another outburst of battle. The Copper took the most familiar path, to his old residence in the trainee wing, and saw a good deal of water on the floor. They were fixing the water feed on the upper levels again.

The young drakes were sitting around the pooled water, chatting in low voices. "A visitor," one said.

NeStirrath stuck his aging, tangle-horned head out of his cavern. "That's no visitor; that's one of the Drakwatch, but so long away he's become a stranger. How are you, Rug—RuGaard. Wings up and out at last, I see!"

"Out, anyway. I've not managed up yet."

"You have heard the news, I expect."

"Yes. The Tyr is dead. What do you know of it?"

"It happened in his mate's chambers. I had only a quick word with NoSohoth; he could tell me no more. He advised me to get back down here and ready the Drakwatch, saying those were SiDrakkon's orders. So here I sit, awaiting further orders."

"I'm going up."

"Squeeze up the thrall passages, if you can. The great winding one is blocked by those waiting for news and spreading rumor."

The Copper took his advice and made his way up to the Imperial kitchens, at some cost of scrapes to the poor, thin-skinned humans he had to squeeze by. He fought his way out into the gardens, past dragons, drakes, dragonelles, and drakka thronging the garden.

Some of SiDrakkon's Skotl clan kept them back from the doors, exchanging rather profane insults with the catcalling Wyrr.

"We want NiVom back; he was an honest Wyrr!"

"Anklene, more like," a Skotl roared back.

"Make a breach, you; I'm in the Imperial line," the Copper boomed, a little surprised at how loud his voice sounded. "Let me in to see my family."

"Air Spirit, even Batty's turned up," someone said.

"NoSohoth," the Copper roared at the Tyr's door. "I know you're on the other side of that. Let me in."

"He fought with NiVom at the Black River. Let him pass," someone in the throng shouted.

"He's a no-line half-wit."

"Not even hatched in the Lavadome. What business is it of his?"

The portal opened, but the Copper didn't catch what was said. In any case, the fat Skotl toughs made room for him.

"RuGaard, what a pleasant surprise on this tragic day," NoSohoth said. Naturally he was the one dragon who pronounced his new appellation effortlessly, as though it had always passed his lips that way. "Follow me."

Nervous thralls gathered in the shadows. Even the tiniest brazier was aflame, sending out soothing fragrances. At the larger versions blighters worked the fire with bellows.

"Where's Tighlia? I wish to speak to her," the Copper said.

"She's obviously in a delicate condition, shattered by the loss of her mate. It happened in her sleeping chamber, you know. Tyr SiDrakkon is holding court in the Tyr's chamber."

"Why don't you just call him Tyr? Did the Tyr name a new heir?"

"Careful, now. There's the traditional one-year period of mourning."

"Of course. I'm no courtier; I apologize."

The Copper heard SiDrakkon's voice as he passed through into the Tyr's audience chamber. It was smaller than he remembered it, perhaps because of the crowd. Griffaran crowded the upper areas, two to a perch, looking agitated.

"We'll speak with one voice. United. I'm Tyr and that's all there is to it," SiDrakkon said. "They'll have to accept it. The succession is legal and according to tradition. The worst thing we can do is divide and argue like this. Blood could be spilled at any moment."

Imfamnia lounged at his side, looking as though she were enjoying the view down on the Imperial line.

"I still say NiVom should have a proper trial," Ibidio said. She stood just below the shelf. "One Anklene, one Skotl, and one Wyrr judging him."

"Mother, not that again," Imfamnia said. "He's violent. War-worn, I expect."

"He ran from a challenge. He's not going to appear for a trial," SiDrakkon said.

"You seem very sure of that," SiMevolant put in airily. He'd dusted his golden scales with ash for the occasion; otherwise he would have outshone the whole room.

"Are you implying anything?"

"Imply? Me? I come right out and say things. I've no ambition to conceal. I was just wondering if you'd had him killed, is all."

SiDrakkon turned a deeper shade of purple. "Of course not! Shut your snout if you've nothing to offer but blather. Talk! Talk! Talk! Talk! That's all the whole lot of you is good for. We have to act. Let's go out there and tell them something before flame begins to fly."

"Yes, I think that would be for the best," a raspy voice said.

The company hushed, and Tighlia emerged from behind the curtains. Both griff were down, and her wings dragged in mourning. She cleared her throat, but could produce only a rather loud whisper: "I won't have all that my mate worked for destroyed. If we go out and present a united line, they'll accept SiDrakkon. Well?"

SiDrakkon glowered down at everyone, and Imfamnia looked warily at her future sister.

"If no one's dragon enough to venture out first, I shall," Tighlia said, moving toward the door down one of the silver waterfalls.

"No, Granddam," the Copper said. "I'll go out first. No faction can do much worse to me than life's already done."

"What a way to begin your reign, Tyr SiDrakkon," SiMevolant said. "A lame half-wit announcing your ascendance."

"And a garrulous bit of rabbit fluff bringing up the rear, no doubt," Tighlia croaked. "Go on, RuGaard; show us what you're made of."

"I'll lead, blast it," SiDrakkon said. "Are you coming, Imfamnia?"

"You must be joking," she said, staying on her shelf. "I had dung thrown at me on the way in. They're like humans."

They began to file out, and the Copper felt a pressure on his saa. It came from Ibidio, who maneuvered him into an alcove between half-melted war trophies as the others walked past.

"Ummmm, RuGaard, is it now?" She glanced around to make sure none were listening, not even thralls. Outside, the crowed roared as the doors opened.

"Yes," the Copper said.

"You had the Uphold at the end of the western road. Did NiVom come your way?"

"If he had, I certainly wouldn't give him away. He was a good friend."

"I believe he's being hunted."

The Copper heard SiDrakkon roaring out a few emphatic words. A good deal of noise came back from the crowd.

"The Tyr came to me last night. He said he'd selected a new heir. He told me if anything happened to him, to ask you."

"Ask me what?"

"Did you see him or didn't you?"

"I did. I told him NiVom was innocent, and to ask you for the truth about your daughter. And your mate, and DharSii, whoever that was."

"He was our best air commander. Once."

"Dead?"

"No one knows. It's not important; we have only a moment here. Who is the heir the Tyr mentioned?"

"NiVom, I expect."

"What happened to the Tyr?"

"I was one of the first at my mate-father's side," Ibidio said. "We heard a roar from Tighlia's chamber. I tore down the curtains and rushed in. The Tyr was flat on his side, and there was a terrible smell in there. It made my head swim and brought my meal up. I found Tighlia on the balcony."

"What could have happened?"

The crowd outside was quieting.

"I don't know. She's half deman, that one. But I'll tell you this: Look behind her griff. There are claw marks. Deep ones. Someone tried to tear her head off."

"I have to go."

He hurried toward the door, but SiDrakkon was already storming back in, his face spattered. "They'll just have to get used to the idea," he said. "I'll be spending the rest of the day at the bath."

"In all fairness," SiMevolant said, "I don't believe they were throwing their own dung at you. It was some animal's. I think that makes a difference."

SiDrakkon ignored him. "The rest of you, go through the Resort, and then to all the hills. Talk to your friends and let them know I'll be Tyr, and there's to be no fighting, no changes in control of the hills. No decisions of the Tyr will be voided, no policies changed, and all are welcome to petition me after a six-day mourning period."

The line dispersed, with SiMevolant sighing. "I was hoping for a banquet…."

Save for Tighlia. She walked, a little stiffly, up to the Copper.

"I see your wings have come in," she rasped. "What's wrong with the odd one?"

"An old injury, Granddam," he replied.

"You call me that just to annoy me, I expect. Well, I'm sorry for you. Come to my outer chambers tomorrow. I have an interesting piece of news for you. Oh, come now. I don't bite, and after all these years I'm not about to start with you."

The Copper spent the night in anxiety in the strangely empty Imperial Gardens, trying to make out figures on the milkdrinker's hill. He wanted to go to Nilrasha, but she couldn't be linked to him so publicly until he learned what Tighlia had in mind.

His imagination offered plenty of possibilities, none of them less than terrifying. She was the most dangerous dragon he'd ever met, and she never even so much as extended her claws. He suspected she intended to entrap him with some giveaway.

He slept but little.

Bone-weary from his journey and the upsets of the previous day, he splashed cool water on himself and ordered a thrall to bring him some toasted meat and a little wine. Fortified, he made his way to her caverns adjoining the Tyr's. Or, now, Tyr SiDrakkon's.

He scraped outside the curtains.

"Come," she rasped.

It was gloomy in her reception chamber. On a happier day there would be light bouncing off the glasswork mosaics worked into her walls and floors. He was rather surprised at how cheery the room could be, if it were better lit.

"RuGaard. I'm glad you made it early." Her voice sounded a little stronger today. "I hate it when I invite someone over and they either don't show up at all or spend the whole day getting ready for the visit. Wastes my time."

"How are you feeling, Tighlia?"

"That's better. Dragons never realize how much dragonelles—and yes, dragon-dames—love hearing their names said. It's always 'dear' or 'my love' or 'cloud-dream' or 'tenderness' or something they've heard their fathers use. Just say her name, RuGaard. You have your faults, but you do speak well. It seems to me when you first came here, you lisped like a hatchling."

"I remember. I hadn't been around dragons much."

"Just bats. Yes. Well, at least you don't smell like them these days."

"How can I be of service, Tighlia?"

"Good news. I've selected a mate for you."

"What?"

"You heard me. Don't act fixated. Whatever else is the matter with you, you can make up your mind and not just stand around gaping. I saw that yesterday."

"I can't imagine my mating or not is of consequence to you."

"I want you a little more firmly in the Imperial line. The griffaran think well of you, and as you've no line to call your own, nobody hates you outright, which is more than can be said for most of your relatives."

"I'm surprised you have time to think of such things with your dead mate still cooling. One might wonder—"

"You know, you almost look like a dragon who is working himself up to asking me if I've murdered my mate. And that would lead to a horrible scream from me, and a challenge, and then probably a duel, unless you have brains enough to flee for your scale, like NiVom."

"Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Tighlia."

"Everyone has the wrong idea of me. I want peace and quiet and beauty. Nothing more. No screaming dragons, no burning hills, no eggs tailswiped off their shelves to smash against uncaring, unknowing rock. Order, RuGaard. Simple order. You can help preserve that order."

"I had other plans—"

"Well, forget them. Here's my dilemma. Halaflora, my beloved mate's oldest granddaughter through AgGriffopse and Ibidio—you remember her?"

"The sickly one."

"You're one to talk, but I like your honesty. Halaflora is from AgGriffopse's first clutch. SiMevolant was the champion. Those eggs were laid under an evil star; that much is certain. Imfamnia and Ayafeeia came later. None of the males survived the hatching contest. Whatever's the matter? She's not that ugly."

"Nothing. Go on," the Copper said.

"Of course, Imfamnia—silly's not the word for that brainless bit of fluff—has been dreaming about being mated with every breath her whole life, and now she's got her wish. An Imperial mating, no less. It will be the celebration of a tri-score year."

"What has Halaflora's mating to do with this?"

"I was getting to that, if you'd tuck in your griff. Ayafeeia is taking formal vows to go into the Firemaids. Sensible girl—if I had to do it over again…Well, it doesn't matter. But Halaflora. Poor little dear. She's not as dumb as Imfamnia, but just as dreamy, and not as idealistic as Ayafeeia, but just as devoted. She wants nothing more than a mating flight, and those wings of hers aren't even strong enough to get her off the ground. Poor dear. I'm not going to draw breath and have a titular granddaughter of mine sobbing her eyes out as her sister is mated. And I want some good news in this family for once! It's like the last act of some bitter elvish tragedy. And fresh, hungry blood never hurts, if we're to raise a new generation of dragons and not lounging, scaled felines. You need some new males now and then or you get more glittering piles of dung like SiMevolant. A mating between you and Halaflora is just the thing."

"I've met a dragonelle already. Well, a drakka. She'll have her wings in a year."

Tighlia's eyes narrowed. "Who?"

"I'm not sure I want to jeopardize her health by giving you the name."

"I suspect it's Nilrasha."

This time the Copper was dumbstruck.

"Of course, you could do worse," Tighlia said. "Do you forget that I've got the management of the Firemaidens? A word of advice, RuGaard. She's from a bad family on a worse hill. She's out for a position in the Imperial line and a lookout from this rock, nothing more."

"What would an old viper like you—"

"So young. So young." She pushed open a curtain, and light came into the room through tinted panels of some thin-shaved crystal, or perhaps glass. As the Copper suspected, the colors were bright and cheery. She tore a bit of fabric off a polished piece of brass.

"I'm not as vain as I once was, but I'm vain enough that I can't stand what I see in this anymore. Look into this, RuGaard. Look into the mirror. A beautiful, vital young dragonelle is going to want that?"

He looked at himself. The half-closed eye, the sloping stance, thanks to his bad sii, the broken-jointed wing that wouldn't close…

"Lame and twisted, that's you, RuGaard. Another hatching under an evil star. She's after your line, not your scale."

"We neither of us much like what we see in that mirror," he said. "Perhaps you should give it to Imfamnia as a mating gift."

"You can live in the world and accept it, or you can pretend the hatchling songs and stories are true. Which will it be, dragon?"

"At the moment, a quiet life in Anaea seems enough of a dream."

"Easiest thing in the world. Simply mate with Halaflora and you can be back on the western road the next day. You'll forget your little Firemaiden soon enough, roasting ceremonial kern."

"What if her love is some pleasant dream of mine? What's wrong with dreams? I've seen enough of the world to prefer them."

She took a deep breath. "Oh, you are a prize fool, boy. I try and I try to help you. And this is what I get. Ingratitude. Ah, well, you'll get no more help from me. Or my brother. I'll see to that.

"Go to your precious Firemaiden, RuGaard. Someday you'll learn what dreams are made of."

He sought out Nilrasha on the milkdrinker's hill. The place was a warren of aboveground dwellings housing mostly human thralls, with blighters in huts on the other side of a filthy stream running in twin channels with a wall between that held washing.

He remembered NeStirrath on one of the hikes telling him that the humans wouldn't drink or wash in the blighter water, and the blighters wouldn't drink or wash in the human water, yet both were indistinguishable in their foulness.

There were dragon-holes on the hill too; in fact, the whole area was sort of one vast catacomb, with little ledges and chambers off the main passage, so that few had what could really be called a place of their own, and mother dragons had to shelter their eggs with the weight of their bodies to keep them from being disturbed, if not accidentally crushed.

"Our day for visitors," a mud-speckled Anklene said, looking at the painted stripes curling back from his shoulders.

"I'm looking for the Firemaiden quarter. I was told it was down here somewhere."

"Down it is, and then some; they're well below. Bottom of the air shaft to the left, your Imperial grace."

He had to climb slowly, thanks to his sii, but he made it to the bottom of the shaft. A few of the Firemaidens made jokes or hooted about an invasion of Drakwatch.

He searched for Nilrasha but could learn nothing more than that an Imperial messenger had come for her. He managed to find Fourfang, and told him to make ready for a journey back to Anaea.

He hurried on the path back to Black Rock, scrambling up every prominence and kern mill to look over the grounds for Nilrasha. He hoped it was just some matter of business with the Firemaidens, or that she'd gone to visit friends.

He marked a lone female sitting on a wall next to a mushroom field, and hurried toward her. With each step he became more certain it was Nilrasha.

He limp-trotted up to her. "Nilrasha! I've been looking for you for hours."

Her tail flicked up, but she kept watching the mushrooms. "So you've found me. I understand you're to be mated to the late Tyr's own granddaughter. Well-done."

"No, you misunderstood. I refused her."

She turned and looked at him. "Refused her, or refused Tighlia? That was a foolish thing to do. Such a strong connection to AgGriffopse's line would be to your advantage."

"I'm not looking for an advantage, just a chance at what…what my parents had."

And who took that away? Not Tighlia.

She looked away again, flicked out her tongue, and consumed a black beetle climbing the stones. "I've changed my mind about mating. I'm taking vows as a Firemaid."

"Have they threatened you?"

"No, they've not threatened me. I'm a poor drakka from a lowly line. What could they possibly take away that I cherish?" She blinked, and the Copper saw a wetness in her eyes; then she took a cleansing breath. "Our eldest was thrilled to hear me decide to take the vows. Offered me any guard post I wished."

"No. Come back to Anaea with me. There's nothing to stop us from mating."

"Nothing but the fact that I don't love you. I was just using words, words used by mated dragons for ages, and they worked their magic. But the Skotl clan is on the rise now, and they'll never let go of Black Rock. I had hopes for you."

"I thought—"

"I made you think, you mean. Yes, just as Tighlia said. I was after your lineage, your position, not some comedy of a mating."

"How do you know what Tighlia said?"

She looked uncertain for the first time since he'd come upon her, resting on the wall. "I can guess. She's a venomer, thanks to that tongue of hers. Go. Mate with that sickly little thing."

She jumped off the wall and ran, making a retching sound, leaving the Copper feeling as though his body were dissolving, flowing into the rocky soil of the Lavadome.

Nothing to overcome now. The course of his life was set. Perhaps he'd take up hunting.

Their mating was done, and done quickly.

A goodly crowd turned up to watch them leave the Imperial Resort. According to NeStirrath, Halaflora had fond memories attached to her, for she used to ride atop her father as he went from hill to hill. AgGriffopse thought air and travel might improve her weak constitution, and his mate had no interest in leaving the Gardens atop the rock. So she was associated in the dragons' minds to AgGriffopse more than to Ibidio.

Almost everyone of the Imperial line trooped out behind them, even SiMevolant, who disliked the dirt and rough stones. Thralls walked to either side with pieces of soft cloth at the ends of sticks, wiping dust kicked up by the mating party from his scales.

SiDrakkon led the party, with griff extended and a challenging eye, as though daring any of the spectators to throw dung. Imfamnia skipped next to him. Her wings were bulging against translucent skin and soon it would be her turn.

The party halted twice to let Halaflora catch her breath.

They finally came to the shaft everyone called the Wind Tunnel. Some trick of direction and air density ensured that this short tunnel to the slopes of the plateau always had a howling wind passing through it, equal to an uncomfortable mountain-top in a storm.

It was also called the "death tunnel," for sometimes escaped thralls tried to climb out of it, or thieves tried to creep in from above. The winds usually snatched them up at some point and hurled them down the shaft. But no one called it the death tunnel today.

The Copper climbed to the top of a wind-cut rock with Halaflora and sang his song, with all around listening as best as they could in the wind. Rethothanna had helped him with the wording. The Copper felt that as long as the mating was to be done, it might as well be done well, so he sang of rivers, egg-snatching demen—who said a lifesong must be all true?—and wall-smashing boulders skipped across battlefields.

And with that, they spread their wings—SiDrakkon reached up and kindly helped him extend his injured left with a discreet pull—and jumped.

His mating flight lasted what a dwarf would call a full ten seconds. They hung in the wind for a moment, the Air Spirit's untiring voice shrieking in their ears, Halaflora touching his good wing, and slowly glided to earth.

"I think they're laughing at us, my love," Halaflora said.

The Copper looked around at the assembly. Only SiMevolant was outright laughing—"That was worth a walk in the dust!" he seemed to be saying, though with the wind carrying his words away it was impossible to be sure—but most were at least fluttering their eyelids in amusement. Even the usually dour SiDrakkon looked to be enjoying himself for a change.

"I care not. This is the happiest day of my life. If I can share out some proportion of my own joy, all the better."

The expression on his mate's face washed the sting out of whatever wounds this exhibition cost him, and made the lies, if not pleasant, at least palatable enough so they didn't stick in his throat.

So the Copper and his mate returned—by a journey made in very easy stages, out of regard for his mate's health—to the Uphold in Anaea.

The Copper was relieved to see that Fourfang and Rhea seemed to get along with Halaflora's thralls. His mate took a special liking to Rhea, and soon she was supervising the other body-servant.

He took pleasure in pointing out the sights of Anaea and introducing her to some of "his" bats. Their lines had so intermingled, it was impossible to remember who was descended from Thernadad, or Enjor, or his oversize trio raised on dragonblood. She petted their strange furry skin and marveled at their ears and delicate wings.

At the western mouth everything was just as he remembered it, unexpectedly so. Nilrasha was back in the cave guarding the tunnel mouth, now with the Firemaid's red-painted stripe around her neck, though she still had not uncased her wings.

She kept her eyes downcast as she greeted him. "Welcome, future Upholder."

"We thank you," the Copper said, his mind whirling like a leaf flung down the Wind Tunnel. What madness was this; did she wish to torture him with her presence? "On behalf of my mate and myself."

"You're very lovely," Halaflora said. "You could be a statue in the Imperial Gardens. I hope we'll be good friends."

"Thank you, your honor," Nilrasha said.

The first few feasts with the rather robust Upholder and his mate were a little on the awkward side. Halaflora had difficulty swallowing unless she ate tiny bites, and the tough-fibered game they brought back to the banquet floor was difficult for her to get down without choking.

But within the limitations of ill health, she was a superb mate. She made and arranged cushions for him on all his favorite lookouts, and she explored Anaea with FeLissarath's mate and returned with rich, scented oils that she rubbed on the worn spot on his bad sii and the stuck folds of his wings, or fixed lines on his growing horns to make them come in so they matched each other in a slight, attractive curve. She experimented endlessly with their meals, discovering what they both liked—fish, sadly, which was rare save for the small specimens found in some of the mountain lakes—and sang to him at night.

He decided there were many dragons worse mated, and if she didn't make his hearts hammer and his scale stir the way Nilrasha did when she stretched, there were other compensations.

Then there was his work. He tried to learn more about the ins and outs of the scale trade.

"Why is dragonscale so valuable to humans?" he asked FeLissarath.

"Jewelry, I've heard. Tips of sword scabbards, or holding wooden shields together. In some principality or other on the banks of the Inland Ocean, they use it as currency because it's impossible to forge, and dangerous to get hold of. Very wealthy hominids will lay it on their roofs to keep off fire. Some of the larger hominid cities suffer terribly from fires, nothing to do with dragons."

"It might behoove us to have a shortage of it now and then, especially when there's a particularly large crop of kern. I think we could get more bags in trade for scale."

"We have good relations with the kern kings, and the values were set long ago."

"To their advantage. I've heard one of the kings now has a stairway decorated with golden dragonscale."

"He'll slip and break his neck when it rains." FeLissarath laughed. "Ah, the follies of humans. They don't live long enough to really learn what's important in life. Did I tell you about the bear I got yesterday? Yes, you heard me right, a bear…."

The Copper spent a good deal of time on the western road. Thanks to a bridge collapse at the Tooth Cavern, almost an entire pack-train of kern was lost when inattentive handlers allowed the mules to bunch up on one of the more rickety spans.

They were already making repairs when he arrived to survey the damage—thanks to the bats, he heard about it the same day it happened and left immediately—and a Firemaid was flying back and forth carrying thralls—mostly men, who, if their workmanship wasn't quite as skilled as that of dwarves, at least labored more willingly—and tools from one end of the break to the other.

"Oh, your honor," she said. "There's a thrall been asking every day to speak to the dragon in charge. That would be you."

"A human?"

"Yes. He's got some plan or idea or bargain or something."

The Copper half expected to see Harf again, recaptured, but the young man who came before him wearing the tatters of some very tight weaving just looked at him with clear blue eyes. He was extraordinarily handsome, as far as he could tell hominid standards went.

"What is it you want, man?"

"Great one. This bridge of yours. It's a death trap." He spoke the simplified pidgin Drakine with a thick accent; he hadn't been in the keeping of the Lavadome long, it seemed. As for his observation, that required no great mind to discern, with the bones and bodies of dead animals and handlers scattered all over the floor of the canyon below.

"Do you offer a remedy, or is this just idle conversation?"

"I know how to improve it."

"Do you, now. Have you built many bridges?"

"I've been involved in several construction projects. I was trained by dwarves."

"I didn't know they shared their secrets so readily with outsiders."

"I was a kind of special apprentice, your honor."

"What's your name?"

"Rayg."

The Copper did like the look of him, except for the fact that he didn't appear particularly afraid of dragons. New thralls usually bent and tucked their heads down between their shoulders like frightened turtles.

"I should like to hear your plans."

"I have a condition."

"You forget your place. I could lift you and toss you down to rest with the other bones, and no one would say a word."

The man called Rayg just blinked at him.

The Copper relented, though he wondered if it was a mistake to do so. "What's your condition?"

"My freedom."

"Oh, dear. I can't say that I blame you, but there's a problem. You're not my slave."

"I'm sure I can be traded."

"Let me see your plans. Then we'll talk again."

He widened his stance. "No. Buy me, and then I'll show you the plan. If you like the plan, I'll expect my freedom."

"You'll supervise the construction?"

"Yes. As long as I can get more, much more, of the materials you're using now. And some good stonecutters."

"If I'm satisfied with the bridge you build, I'll grant you your freedom. You seem intelligent enough, so I'll see about buying you."

Negotiating with thralls. The duties of an Upholder, even an Upholder-to-be, had a variety of flavors. Which made him think of the herbs Halaflora added to those big-footed rabbits Fourfang had caught….

He learned from the grunting deman overseer that this Rayg belonged to a general pool of Imperial thralls, to be used for mundane duties like building dams, clearing tunnels, mining for ores necessary to a healthy dragon's diet. As a member of the Imperial line he could make claims on such thralls, so he simply affirmed that the Uphold in Anaea needed him and paid out a small sum to the overseer as a kind of gratuity.

The Copper was very grateful his life couldn't be bought and sold so easily.

He had Rayg transferred to his household and introduced to Fourfang and Rhea with a minimum of squabbling. He set Rayg to work with a chalk tablet used to keep track of rations—it would take time to get paper—and tried to do what he could to retrieve the bags of kern from the fallen animals. Blood or rats had spoiled much of it.

The Firemaid told him of rumors from the Lavadome of some political housekeeping carried out by SiDrakkon. Nothing severe, just a replacement of some staff with his Skotl supporters. There'd been a few duels and deaths. SiDrakkon had also converted the Imperial Gardens to a private topiary and bathing area for himself and his mate-to-be, which was causing some grousing, as a walk in the mushroom fields or past livestock pens couldn't compare with the view from Black Rock.

SiMevolant would have to find new flowers to contemplate. The thought brought him some pleasure.

Rayg presented him with a rough version of the plan, a mixture of tunneling through the stalactite formations and a new platform added to one of the rising rocks, complete with a drawbridge.

"I made it draw up toward the Lavadome," Rayg said. "I believe you are more worried about enemies getting down into the Lower World than threats coming up."

The Copper wondered if Rayg knew more about the jealousies and rivalries and head-hunting going on in the Lavadome than he let on.

"It's wide. Will it hold?"

"I thought you might like to take carts across. Yes, it will hold. The calculations are there, based on the materials I've seen. It's dwarven notation; can you read that?"

"Hmmm. Do it well, and you'll get your reward," the Copper said, dodging the question rather than admitting that a thrall could do something he couldn't, which seemed wrong in an indefinable way. "How long will it take?"

"Two years. Unless you give me more tunnelers and tools. A furnace on site would speed things up as well."

"I'll see what I can do."

It was rather nice to leave all the details and worries in the hands of Rayg. He left instructions to the Drakwatch and the Firemaiden garrison that everything he asked for should be given.

"It will take some time to assemble the materials. Maybe you'd like a little sun?"

Rayg's eyes lit up. "The surface?"

"Yes. Plenty of food, too. It's been a good summer; kern is coming out of our ears."

They had to return for SiDrakkon's mating, of course. They traveled light, bringing Rayg back to the works to supervise the first stages. A rickety catwalk replaced the gap in the bridge, and the Copper for once was slower than his mate, hobbled by his bad sii.

The Copper quietly warned the Firemaidens to watch Rayg, so that he didn't use his authority to fashion an escape. The project seemed well begun, and Rayg liked his work and got along well with the other thralls, but there was no telling with hominids.

The Copper went so far as to have Rhea decorate him for the mating banquet, as she had for the first time he'd attended a gathering atop Black Rock. NeStirrath helped him prepare by having a pair of blighters paint his war decorations on his good wing.

SiDrakkon reopened the Imperial Gardens to show all the improvements. There were more statues and galleries and plant beds everywhere, and it had been redesigned so a lone dragon could walk the perimeter in something like isolation, at the cost of making the space less functional for multiple dragons to enjoy.

But then, as Imfamnia liked to remind everyone, "It is our garden."

Halaflora set herself on some cushions near the banquet trench and spoke to her other sister, now grave in her Firemaid ring.

Their mating flight commenced with a long, expanding flight around Black Rock, then the inner hills, and finally the outer edge of the Lavadome. Thralls had been coached to cheer them from the rooftops and hills, and dragons who knew what was good for them trumpeted their well-wishes.

Imfamnia was in her element at the mating banquet, alternately roaring orders and simpering. The Copper was rather glad for a sickly mate rather than this whirlwind in painted scale. "This? This is nothing," she said. "Wait until we get a new trade route open. I want everyone to shake off every scale they can. There are some new metal-based paints that will drive everyone mad with excitement when they see them. Such vivid colors!"

"Is it wise to send dragonscale directly to the merchant houses?" Rethothanna asked. "Especially for luxuries? I always thought it was wiser to bring scale to market indirectly, so its source would be harder to trace."

"And what of it, if the source is found? We control every road and every river in the Lower World for many marches in every direction," Imfamnia responded. "I've even heard the Wheel of Fire has been smashed in the last year by barbarians. Those dwarves had the only army capable of forcing itself anywhere near here, or so my mate says. Isn't that right, Tyr?"

"Yes, the main threat against us in the Lower World is gone. And as for the Upper, the Ghi men got a lesson," Tyr SiDrakkon said, for in the Copper's heart there would only be one Tyr, and the title choked on its way out his lips. "We'll teach the same to any who dare come against us."

"War, war, war," Ibidio said. "You make it more likely with your foolishness and bragging. There's always risk in war. Always loss."

The Copper suddenly noticed that Tighlia wasn't at the celebration. "Where is my granddam?" he asked. "I would like to pay my respects."

"The old has-been keeps to her room," SiMevolant said. He'd had his claws painted up with gold striping and added black to his tail. The Copper thought he looked like a bumblebee among the coneflowers bordering one of Anaea's kernfields.

"She doesn't like being outdone by our beautiful new queen," SiMevolant continued, bowing to Imfamnia. "Ladies, look to your mates, for no hearts remain true when Imfamnia passes. Beautiful Imfamnia."

"I'm going to go see Tighlia. Will you be all right, darling?" the Copper asked his mate. She smiled up at him from her cushions and nodded.

"When has Halaflora ever been all right?" SiMevolant asked, and everyone waggled their eyebrows.

"You go too far, SiMevolant," the Copper roared in his face. "Cry challenge, and meet me in the pits!"

"RuGaard, you really must have your body-slave look to your teeth and tongue," SiMevolant said, his griff not even twitching. Behind him, NoSohoth pushed his way forward, guiding blighters with incense to calm the situation. "Unless you intend to slay with your breath. But soft! I cry submission. I meant no offense; it was only a little jest at my sister. She's known me for years. I mean no harm."

"Thank you, my lord," Halaflora said, ignoring her brother and staring at the Copper. "Thank you for that."

Her sister Ayafeeia looked at him with new eyes. She flicked a griff at him, one warrior to another. He turned away.

"Now I know why he walks so oddly," SiMevolant said. But softly. "It's that lance stuck up his tailvent."

He left the party and sought out Tighlia. One of her thralls admitted him.

"No, no more visitors," he heard her cry, followed by a low humming hominid voice. "Oh. Well, I can stand him," she said a little more quietly.

The elderly female thrall brought him into the cheery little room. Now a bronzed tooth and a scale and a claw from, he guessed, her mate stood on a special pedestal in the center of the room. Other than that it was largely unchanged, though perhaps the air was a little heavier, as though she rarely left the room.

"I've come to pay my respects, Tighlia," the Copper said.

"Wine?" she asked, indicating a deep cistern next to her low shelf. She took a tongueful. "It's good. Go ahead! I've never poisoned a guest's wine, and I'm not going to start today."

"A little, thank you." The Copper took a tongueful. "Why aren't you at the mating banquet?"

"Because my brother's going to be there," she said a little thickly. "I suppose you find that odd."

"I grew tired of the banquet myself."

"You know what he's done with the Gardens, I expect."

She's even drunk! All I have to do is make one good leap. I've got enough strength in my good sii to— "Made them into a private park for himself and—"

"Yes, that's bad enough," she said, taking such a great slurp of wine a little ran out of the corners of her mouth. The spill somehow disarmed him, and he relaxed. "Oh, how sloppy of me. Yes, bad enough to deny decent dragons the view, but do you know he's stocked it with his precious, plump human females? Brought at great expense, oh, yes, the demen slave traders and ferrymen are happy with him. He's in there all day sniffing around like some wretched dog. Getting himself puffed up for a night with Imfamnia."

"She's an energetic young dragonelle—er, dragon-dame," the Copper said.

"There's something sad about that mating. Of course, there always is with a dragon his age and some bright thing with her wings fresh out. Happened before, just not in the Imperial line. If you must dilly-dally you can at least be discreet about it and not bring the jade-scale into company."

"Manners have never been my specialty."

"He hardly visits me anymore," she said, and paused for a little more wine. "Doesn't care for my advice. You know what he told me, once we had things sorted in the Rock? I brought him a whole bellyful of matters needing attention. He said, 'I'm Tyr now; I can do what I want.'"

She paused.

"'I can do what I want.' What a child. What an old, foolish child. It's quite the opposite, you know. Perhaps he never really understood what it meant to lead."

"I came to tell you about some improvements I have in mind for the western road," the Copper said. "I was wondering if you had any advice about stonecutters."

"Oh, I've had too much wine for any of that. How is your mate?"

The Copper tried to find the proper words. "I'm…I'm content."

"Good for you, RuGaard. I hope you will be able to stay content. As for me…oh, I must do some serious thinking. But first, a little more wine. It is the day of my brother's mating, after all. Oh. Stonecutters. Yes, come tomorrow and I'll give you a name. Fat human, smelly as a pig's arse and dripping fleas, but he does good work with his crew."

The stonecutter's name was Hiriyal, and he did excellent work and regulated an efficient crew. With their quick—albeit expensive—help, each day saw the tunneling progress and the slag pile grow. Hiriyal was a "free slave," which sounded like a contradiction, but he made his strange social position work for the benefit of himself and his men.

The Firemaidens had carried out their orders a little too enthusiastically, and he found Rayg chained by the ankle to a heavy boulder. He got around by having a blighter help him lift it into a barrow, and together they could move it to the next site, though negotiating the catwalk was obviously impossible.

The Copper had the chain struck off and set up a temporary household while the most difficult element of the work, the stonecutting, was carried out under Rayg's supervision. After a few arguments about methods with Hiriyal, they made good progress.

The Copper was surveying the first span with Rayg when the young man suggested that he fly below and look at the supports.

"I can't fly."

"Is it that wing? The one that hangs?"

"Yes, useless. Not even good to glide; it's more of a swooping fall, I'm afraid."

Rayg walked around him. "I believe the problem's in that joint. It looks different from the one on the other side, like the two ends are slipped."

"I know the cause," the Copper said.

"I might be able to fix that. It looks like all it needs is a brace to keep the outer edge from sliding and then folding over the inner."

The Copper hardly dared hope. "You can't be serious."

"It's simple…" He said a word the Copper didn't understand. "Just a matter of give and take."

"If you do that, I will set you up like a kern king. Once you finish the bridge."

"I'd always heard dragons are terrible. You're better than barbarians."

"I should hope so," the Copper said.

Over the next weeks Rayg worked with two pieces of wood carved into shapes that resembled a crescent moon, thick leather, metal bands, and some studs. Rhea helped him, holding the wing still as he tested model after model. It infuriated the Copper, as each session ended with an "I've got to build another model" that became an inevitability ending the experiments.

He wondered if all this work was just an excuse to divert his attention from an escape attempt, or some bit of spycraft, but all Rayg seemed to do was spend more and more of his off time with Rhea.

Then one day, after an unusually long session extending and retracting his wing over and over and over again until the Copper's muscles grew weary, with Rayg making chalk marks on the wood, the man said, "This model will work."

"You mean—" the Copper began.

"Oh, I've got to improve it. A little more shaping. But this one folds just enough. It's a little stiff, but better too rigid than something that'll give way when you're in the air."

The bridge, and the wing contraption, both progressed daily. After having his skin rubbed raw extending and retracting his wing, he tried a short glide from one construction platform to another.

His wing stayed open! Hearts beating, he threw his head to the sky and roared, so loudly that the Firemaidens came running, thinking there was a fight.

With that he launched himself off the platform. Rayg shouted something but he didn't catch it; it was lost in the sound of air as he flew. He tried one beat, two, three, gaining altitude with each stroke of his wings. He had never realized how good it would feel to use the muscles on his back properly, how perfect the sensation—

Snap!

The device flew off and he felt the old, faint grinding sensation of his bones folding against each other. His wing collapsed and the world spun around him. No, yes, he managed a turn, leveled out, and then the ground was suddenly beneath him and it struck hard.

He woke smelling his own blood. But he managed to stand, and looked at the skid mark he'd made in the canyon's side. He'd lost a few scales as well.

He picked up the broken contraption and made the long, slow, sore climb back up to the construction site.

"I'm glad you live," Rayg said.

"How thoughtful of you," the Copper responded.

"No, I'm truly glad. The Firemaidens said that if you were dead, they'd throw me off the bridge."

"Ten lengths ago I would have told them to do it. I'm too tired now."

"Didn't you hear me shout? I wanted to take it off and make sure the leather strap was holding. It's meant to be permanently fixed with steel pins."

Rayg worked on his model for a few more days, and was extra diligent at the bridge as well. They went through a few more practice glides, and the Copper flew back and forth and did turns under the bridge—with the harness tied around his limbs and a long, long line leading back to the bridge, just in case.

But in the end, he flew. He knew he didn't fly well; nor could he do any of the fancy maneuvers he'd seen some of the dragons flying over the Imperial Resort perform for the sheer joy of it, but the ability made him feel complete, perhaps for the first time in his life.

And it hurt to know that Halaflora wasn't up to it.

After showing his mate, he demonstrated his wings to Nilrasha. Her wings had come in some months ago, but he'd purposely kept away so he wouldn't have to watch her fly. It didn't help that Halaflora described the occasion in excruciating detail, full of praise for how natural and well formed she looked in the air.

"Oh, it's a miracle, your honor. The Spirits are rewarding you at last."

"You don't have to call me your honor, Rasha. Not when we're alone."

"I like formalities. It's so easy to hide behind them. If you offered to take me up, I'd say yes. You know that."

"Take you up?"

"You know. Mate."

"Nilrasha, my mate is above in the palace."

"Oh, we wouldn't have to fly out together, silly. Go out separately, and meet where she couldn't see."

The Copper felt bar-struck. "I meant a dragon should just have his mate."

"So we are never to…I thought you just mated with Halafora to make the line happy."

"Yes, but it doesn't make the mating anything less for that. She's been kind to me."

"And you to her. Too kind. Do you ever—"

"I don't want to talk about that. You've got the wrong idea about me if you think I could—"

"Could? Do you have another injury I'm unaware of?"

He rattled his griff. "Would, then. No. Not while Halafora lives. I've pledged myself to her, and that's an end to it."

"But do you still love me, RuGaard?"

He couldn't answer that. If he did, he'd never be able to look at Halafora across a feast again. He turned tail and left the Firemaid's cold, chaste quarters.

He told FeLissarath and his mate that as soon as the bridge was completed and he could turn his attentions to Anaea, they would be free to leave.

"The odd thing is, I don't think we want to go," FeLissarath said. "The hunting is good, and we have friends here among the humans and condors. Perhaps we'll leave the palace to you and set up somewhere in the mountains. A little cave. Really rough it, like young, wild dragons of the north first mated."

His mate looked at him and she loosed a prrum.

Talk turned to politics, as it often did. Rumor had come up through the Drakwatch that SiBayereth, SiDrakkon's first clutchwinner, had been killed, not in a duel, but in his bath. Some were saying he was assassinated in retribution for some of the killings and forced duels that had been taking place with greater frequency since SiDrakkon turned Tyr.

Others said that he'd bodily insulted some maiden dragonelle and she'd taken the traditional revenge of a female wronged and discarded.

The Copper returned to his cushions and his mate, exceptionally happy to be in Anaea and out of the Imperial Resort and its feuds. He slept with his neck across hers in silent appreciation.

So eager were the FeLissaraths to be in their new digs that they started hunting for caves almost immediately, and turned over all the day-to-day temple duties to him.

Now that he had his wings he hunted for NiVom, searching the mountains to the south, but there was no sign of him. He spent a rather cold night in the mountains—the Upper World made him feel exposed and watched; he didn't like it, even when the unpredictable weather was nice—and flew back in the morning.

It was a brilliant, clear day. The sort of day that wouldn't think about being evil, and instead put off ill tidings until the next overcast.

He saw a distant dot. It was a dragon, male—and therefore not Nilrasha, nor FeLissarath. It was light-colored, reflecting the sun, perhaps white.

He beat his wings hard toward it. He hoped if it was NiVom he'd recognize him rather than think him an assassin, despite the improbability of his being in the air. The dragon turned a little, not running away then, but coming toward him.

They rushed toward each other with frightening speed. The Copper saw that it was a light shade of bronze, though a good deal smaller than Father, at least Father as he remembered him. The dragon gained altitude at the last moment, as though seeking an advantage, and the Copper veered away, fearing a tailstrike on his weak wing and upset by something odd about its lines.

The dragon had a rider!

The implications so upset the Copper that he dropped toward the palace as fast as he dared—Rayg said that he couldn't be certain that the joint wouldn't give way under what he called "extraordinary stress" but refused to further define it.

His wing held as he leveled off, making for the staircase cut into the side of the mountain, topped by the familiar outlines of the dragon palace.

The other dragon—for some reason the term hag-ridden popped into his head, but he couldn't remember the origins; perhaps it was some story mother dragons told their hatchlings to compel them to behave—followed his course, though it made no attempt to catch up.

He came in for a landing at the wide lower entrance hall, and Fourfang trotted up.

"Get my mate and Nilrasha. Danger!"

Fourfang glanced up and turned around, doing a fair attempt at running on all fours to get back inside the palace.

The Copper backed into the entrance to get solid Anaean stone between himself and the stranger—there was that term again, hag-ridden.

The man shouted words down at him, but he couldn't comprehend their meaning.

"May I land?" the dragon roared.

"What is it, my lord?" Halaflora said from the entrance.

"Stay back. If a fight begins, use your flame to help me and then run for the Lower World." He stuck his head out. Oh, this was cowardly! He stepped out.

"Cry parley and land away. Beneath me, now."

The dragon turned one more circle and landed well, though it rocked the man in his leather seat a little. The hag-rider wrapped the reins around a curved tooth at the front of his seat and hopped off, though he kept hold of a rope linking him to his leather seat.

The Copper tried not to stare at the elaborate reins linking dragon, head and wing, to the rider. There were copper rings punched through the skin of the dragon to better fix the lines. He wondered if that hurt.

The man glubbed out a few words.

"That's Parl," Halaflora said. "It's a trade tongue here on the surface."

"Can you speak it?"

"Only a few words. I know a greeting."

"Then say it."

She coughed something out that sounded like the mindless yapping of a dog.

The man took off his helmet and said something in return.

"He's being polite," she said.

And there the conversation sputtered and died out. The man spoke to his mount, and the dragon said, in a rather thick accent: "We have come to bring peace."

"That's good. I hope you may also go in peace."

The dragon translated for the hag-rider. The man responded, through his dragon: "We seek allies in a great war. A war that unites dragon and man against their common enemy."

Hawks and mice uniting against the dogs and cats! The Copper didn't know what to make of it, but he was in the Imperial line and needed to answer well.

"If you are so united," the Copper said, "why do you need to speak the man's words? Why do you fly tied head and wing tip to the man? Answer me that, and don't bother saying anything to him."

The bronze looked nonplussed.

"I tell the man that, and he will be angry," the bronze said.

"All the more reason not to translate it."

The hag-rider yapped something.

"That was a 'What?'" Halaflora said.

The Copper smelled Nilrasha lurking somewhere. He suspected she was slipping around the side of the palace, next to the stairs.

"It is a great war," the bronze said. "We win battles."

"I'm happy for you, then. I'll welcome any dragon who wishes to come in friendship, parley, and leave in peace. Leave your men at home, though. It's bad manners to bring armed men into a free dragon's home."

The dragon said something to the man, but it didn't take long. The Copper suspected much of the wordplay had been lost. He hoped the meaning remained.

The man showed his teeth and raised his hand to his chin. He gave a twist of his hand, as though fixing his faceplate.

"We may return," the dragon said.

"Yes, I think that was it," Halaflora added.

The man climbed back up onto the bronze and took up the reins. He prodded the bronze with his pointy boots, and the hag-ridden dragon flapped up into the clean blue sky.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Nilrasha said, looking up. "The creature's riding him like a horse."

"If that's the great alliance, I think we should have no part of it," Halaflora said. "I'd sooner trust a dwarf."

That night the three of them talked the matter over across the feasting floor.

Nilrasha tore into her meal of kern-fattened pig, tearing off lusty bits and swallowing them, while Halaflora ate in her usual dainty style due to her trouble swallowing.

They presented a pretty contrast, the Copper thought. But he couldn't consider aesthetics.

"I think we'll have to tell Tyr SiDrakkon. This is a matter for him."

No one objected to the compound name, a serious insult had they been back at the Rock. At least in that respect, all three were alike.

"I'm going to send word through the bats. I'm afraid it will get confused, so I'll follow to answer questions," the Copper said.

"What if the rider comes back? Shouldn't you be here?" Nilrasha asked.

"I'm not even sure I'm the Upholder. The FeLissaraths have moved to their lodge cave, but they still attend all the Anaean ceremonies, preside over them, in fact."

"I would go for you, your honor. But I cannot leave my post," Nilrasha said.

"You could leave it in my hands," Halaflora said. "I took the Firemaiden oath. I never did anything with the other maidens, but does that make the oath less valid?"

The Copper felt trapped between duty and need.

"No. I may need to argue, or even challenge. I'll beg the FeLissaraths to return to the palace long enough for me to return to the Lavadome. I can break tradition and fly to one of the griffaran cuts in the mountainside. This is important enough. I can make the journey at night and rest in the day and be there in two days."

"Will your wing hold up? You'll be far from help if that man's contraption fails," Halaflora said.

"If the joint fails after all this testing and trial, Rayg will wish I'd been on the other side of the world."

"Your blood certainly was up tonight," Halaflora said, as they settled into their sleeping chamber. His mate had turned several of the stone globes into rather comfortable backrests, thanks to cushions stuffed with bird feathers. "I've never seen you like this. Is this what war is like?"

"No. Nothing like this, and Spirits keep it that way."

"What way?"

"Far from here."

"You smell hot. I thought certainly you'd take your jade up tonight."

The world froze for a moment. "You thought what?"

Rhea finished cleaning out her mistress's ears and scurried out of the room. Had the girl put on weight? Ten other equally trivial thoughts washed through his head, so eager was he to avoid the consequences of thinking about what his mate had just said.

"I'm sorry. Am I being too direct? All those years with SiMevolant as a brother. Some time at night to relax and refresh, then."

"She's a Firemaid. She swore an oath. I swore an oath to you, for that matter. She's not…not my lover."

"Oh, RuGaard. My lord, I won't be hurt by the truth. I married a dragon, not some perfumed flower. There's nothing wrong with a jade for a dragon in your…in your situation. Because of my health."

"Have you gone mad?" He didn't mean it, but the words came out. Anything to stop her from going on.

"Our mating wasn't a real mating, after all. As much as it meant to me." She looked down.

"I had no idea you felt that way," he said at last. They each studied opposite corners of the room for a moment. What came out next was inspired by kindness, rather than love, but he meant every word of it. "Darling. Let's be mated again, then. Or mated for the first time. Whatever you call it. In tight spots, during wars and so forth, dragons have been known to mate underground. It's tactics, you know. Just a matter of position."

She looked up at him, blushing.

"Can we? Really? Would it be…proper?"

"Proper? Probably not. But it'll be exciting."

The sun rose in front of the mountains to the west and lit the night-curtains with its orange glow.

West? In front of the mountains?

The Copper's sluggish brain took its time apprehending the wrongness of the lighting. He opened another eye and righted himself, rose, and put his head out of the curtains.

Flames dotted the plateau, but they were nothing compared to the conflagration below the temple. The city of the kern kings was a solid mass of fire.

He saw dragonwings silhouetted against the flames, and then another set, and another, flying in a line.

"What is it, my lord?" his mate said.

He pushed the curtains open with his tail. "War."

"RuGaard." He heard a dragon voice from above, soft yet insistent.

With a single soft wing-beat, FeLissarath alighted on the top of the temple, keeping to the shadows. His mate followed.

"We have terrible news," FeLissarath said.

"A moment." He turned to Halaflora. "Get the thralls and such meats as can be easily carried. Go to the Firemaid chamber. If they come into the palace, bring the roof down on top of the entrance and head down into the Lower World. Have Nilrasha fight and delay them; you just run. Leave the thralls behind if you must, but find the Drakwatch and tell them Anaea's been attacked by man-ridden dragons."

"I understand. Thank you for not treating me like…like…"

"I know. They may not come here. They may just be after gold." He wished he could summon a prrum, and instead rubbed his snout on hers. "Go."

As she left by the inner exit he climbed out on his balcony and up. Together the three dragons watched the flames spread.

"Less than a score, do you think, my love?" FeLissarath's mate said.

"They're causing confusion," the Copper said, watching a trio of dragons land. "Burning the city but landing at the palaces. I think they're after gold."

FeLissarath spoke: "They're man-ridden, RuGaard. We had a brush with one, but we lost him by going to ground by the river."

"I know."

"RuGaard, the Tyr must be told of this, the faster the better. Thank the Air Spirit for that clever thrall. Take the skyway to the plateau—"

"Yes, Upholder, I know."

"After this night you'll be Upholder, I fear."

"What do you mean?"

His mate spoke: "We need a prisoner or two. Find out who they are and where they came from." She stared into his eyes.

"The most dangerous game of all, my love? We must be careful. They'll be tougher than wild griffaran." He turned back to the Copper. "You must make the best speed you can to the Imperial Resort and come back with everything the Tyr can send. He should come himself, at that."

"Oh, for DharSii's old aerial host at this hour," she said.

"We'll try from above, dear. Don't frame against the moon—"

"Am I a wet-wing?"

The Copper only half listened to them talk. He watched another trio of dragons come in, landing on a triangular temple top. It was hard to see at this distance, but it seemed figures dropped off the dragons as soon as they landed. The dragons took off again almost immediately.

"This is for my benefit as well," FeLissarath said. "We may get lucky and snatch one out of the saddle. In case of trouble, make for the big smoke column and climb. Whatever happens, we shouldn't lead them back here. If we're separated, we'll go to the high pass lookout and meet there. RuGaard, are you still here?"

The Copper extended his wings. "Back in three days if I can. Four days at most. More means I'm dead."

"If you don't see us again, lad, remember us every time you take a wild bighorn," FeLissarath's mate said.

The Copper launched himself into the night.

It took time to gain altitude, and he did so on the dark side of the mountain backing up the temple. Curse the bright moon tonight!

He saw the FeLissaraths take off from their palace and wheel around north to keep the attacking dragons on the moon side. He saw them gain altitude.

Three shapes dropped out of the sky upon them, falling like hawks.

The FeLissaraths closed up on each other, with the male slipping a little below the female, guarding his mate's vulnerable belly.

Suddenly the old Upholders flipped over on their backs, practically bending their spines in half. Tails a blur, they struck their lead pursuer, one high and one low.

The Copper saw an object fall, turning cartwheels as it plummeted to the plateau. He suspected—no, rejoiced—that it was one of the hag-riders. The dragon they struck convulsed in the air and fell, limp-winged.

But the two following avoided their quarry-turned-hunters and broke, one high and to the right, one low and to the left, a terrible perfection in their evolutions.

The male swung under his mate again, guarding her, and the low-flying dragon passed under him. FeLissarath twitched in midair, turned sideways, and began a stiff-winged fall to the surface.

The female flew to the aid of her mate, diving, but that just gave the one who turned high an opportunity. It dove on her, claws extended like a hawk after a duck, and raked her across the back.

The Copper saw one wing rise, fluttering.

But she wasn't done yet. She lashed up with her neck, got her teeth in her opponent's tail, and folded her wings. With her weight clinging to him, the other dragon couldn't stay aloft, and the pair began to fall, whirling around and around to destruction on the plateau. The female pulled herself up her opponent's tail and dug into his belly, trading bites as they went down.

So passed the Upholders of Anaea.

The Copper swung around toward the remaining hag-ridden dragon. He was descending to the aid of the other rider. But he saw another formation of three coming in, late to the fight but arriving before he could.

He couldn't match the flying of the FeLissaraths, let alone the guided enemy dragons working in concert. No flame, almost blind in one eye, and a bad wing. He wouldn't even get one. He turned east for the Lavadome.

But in his ascent, watching the aerial duel, he'd passed out of the shadow of the mountain and into moonlight. He realized it too late.

The three hag-ridden dragons flapped their wings in unison as they turned toward him.

They made no great effort to catch up to him as he fled east. After closing to two-score dragonlengths, they seemed content to trail him.

The long flight exhausted him. He passed over unfamiliar country, dry and rocky and dotted with widely spaced patches of vegetation clinging precariously to what he suspected were seasonal water supplies. There was little sign of habitation in this waste.

Thanks to his injury, he couldn't manipulate his wing to take the wind at a favorable angle, and he suspected he was ex-pending as much effort just to glide between beats as he would climbing. His strength would fail before dawn.

And on and on glided the pursuit. Didn't they have buildings to burn and gold to steal? Why didn't they close and put an end to him?

Painful beat-glide. Painful beat-glide. Painful beat-glide. On and on through the night.

A black scar broke the moonlit ground ahead.

Could it be the Tooth Cavern? He knew it opened to the sky not far north of the bridge at the Lower World. He altered his course a little south.

Fool! More the fool! The change proved to be a telltale to the pursuing dragons. They beat their wings harder, closing.

He expended what strength he had left trying to stay ahead; still they closed.

And still they fired no weapon, just kept him under observation.

At last the cavern was in his glide-path. No elegant flying, just a simple turn and descent. He closed his wings a little to hurry it, making for the canyon floor.

The leading two followed. The third stayed above, watching the action.

He looked frantically for some sign of the tunnel, the enclosure of the Lower World, but there was none. Columns of rock could be seen ahead; perhaps they were the beginnings of the teeth.

Reaching the stone columns, he swerved around one, the next painfully bashing his wing tip when he miscalculated his turn. Now the lead flier was closer behind, his companion a little farther back, and the Copper didn't dare roll his good eye toward the sky lest he hit the cavern's side.

There. Darkness ahead. As a dragon he could see well enough. He wondered how good the night vision of the riders was. Would they let their fliers choose their own path?

He whipped into darkness, and the first pursuer drew even closer.

These rocks he knew. He'd flown around them often enough in his practice flights as Rayg tested the joint brace.

The fat one ahead, in fact, had a deceptively wide but shallow route around the east side, and a narrow but deep channel to the left.

He approached the fat rock as though going around the east, then at the last moment rolled and shot through the west gap. But instead of continuing down the cavern he stayed in the turn, hoping to meet his pursuer coming around the other side—anything but nose-tip to nose-tip.

A flash, a thump in his wing, and they were past each other.

He found himself flying headlong toward the second hag-ridden dragon. The rider put a shimmering piece of metal to his shoulder and something whirled past his ear, turning tight circles as it cut the air—a crossbow bolt.

The Copper dove for the surface, and so did his opponent. He rose to turn and the opposing dragon lashed out with a saa as they passed, opening a wound in his belly.

He turned back south for the bridge.

Now the third dragon descended, its rider leaning over and struggling with his weapon. The Copper made for the tunnel, but the second pursuer banked in front of him. The rider hurled some kind of apparatus of chain and steel balls but missed, thanks to the tight turn his mount was making in the narrow walls of the canyon.

Ahead the Copper saw the first dragon shooting out of the mouth of the cave, the strapped-on leather chair hanging askew and reins loose and flying free in the breeze. He'd dismounted the rider!

Now in the cave he saw the hag-rider sprawled on the floor, unconscious or dead. He flapped into the canyon, the darkness promising safety, but still one dragon followed.

He didn't have time to wonder what had happened to the third.

The chasm descended sharply and he banked around a bend, and there ahead was the bridge.

He loosed a bellowing war call: "Firemaidens, cry havoc!"

He turned for the south side of the bridge and a crossbow bolt punched through his wing.

Under the bridge and up, he saw two shapes hiding at the openings of the short tunnel through one of the rocky "teeth" on the new bridge. As the dragon trailing him closed they loosed their flame and spread it.

The dragon closed its wings, and the rider crossed shield-elbowed in front of the Copper's face. They passed through flame together, the oily, burning mess sliding off dragonscale but clinging to the rider's exposed surfaces. The dragon flipped over, whether by orders, instinct, or accident, allowing the fire to fall off.

Until a stalagmite clipped off its rider from the waist up as neatly as a blade.

Now unguided, the dragon turned and fled, passing over the bridge this time.

A Firemaid spread her wings to pursue.

"No!" the Copper called, landing. "There's another waiting out there."

Alert Firemaidens guarded each end of the under-construction bridge and the tunnel in the center. The Copper felt confident they could deal with the remaining rider, even if the dragons assisted. They didn't seem like well-trained tunnel fighters, judging from their performance as soon as the walls closed in.

"What's your name?" he asked his rescuer.

"Asleea, your honor."

"Asleea, there's a rider down out there. If he's still alive, bring him back that way. If he's not, bring his body and whatever dropped weaponry you find. I'll fly above, close to the cavern ceiling, and keep watch. If they come down on you, turn tail and fly like the wind. Perhaps I can surprise them."

As it turned out, they retrieved the corpse without incident. Perhaps, having lost two riders, the remaining one flew back to wherever they came from to report.

He was a squatty sort of man, tanned and dark-haired, very different from the thin, darker, well-formed men of Anaea. His beard was almost as full as a dwarf's, and he had several layers of clothing on to protect him from the cold.

Rayg was most interested in the crossbow quarrels he found in a leather case strapped on the man's thigh. They were wooden, with nickel-silver tips, and two thin glass tubes to either side just behind the arrowhead containing a clear liquid.

"I'm guessing that's poison," Rayg said.

He carefully emptied the glass tubes on the ground, rinsed out the glass, then put them back in the sides of the quarrel. He wrapped his hand in a bit of leather and drove the quarrel into the dirt.

"Fascinating," he said, extracting the point.

"Yes?"

"When the head strikes it slides down the shaft, just the width of my thumb. But it's enough to shatter the glass, putting both vials into the wound."

The Copper thought back to the fight over Anaea. "I saw FeLissarath pass over one. He died within a few seconds. I thought an arrow found one of his hearts, but it could have been one of these."

"A few seconds, you say? That's a deadly toxin, to bring down a dragon so fast."

"Perhaps it found a heart after all."

"You should take that into consideration when fighting these dragon-riders. The quarrels are light; I suppose every bit of weight counts when you're loading a dragon. Unless they were fired from a very close range, they probably wouldn't go through scale without a lucky shot."

"'Close' and 'probably' are not exact enough that I wish to bet my life on it. I'm exhausted. I need a meal. Oh, and find one of my bats. I'll give him a nip of blood if it would hurry him down the tunnel in search of the Drakwatch."

The Copper sent messenger bats in both directions on the western road looking for Drakwatch patrols, bearing a request to hurry to Anaea and assist the Upholder's mate and the Firemaid at the cave mouth.

Upholder's mate. His mate. Sickly little Halaflora. So much depended on a cripple and a weakling. Whatever Spirit had put into dragons' nature the desire to contest every mouthful, with the weakest dying off, must be having a good, ethereal laugh at that.

Rayg found one other item on the dragon-rider and brought it to him before one of the Firemaids ate it. It was an odd little pendant on a thin chain, a tiny figure of a man standing with his arms and legs outstretched within a circle.

"I wonder what that could mean?"

"Man's first destiny," Rayg said.

"You know that symbol? Where does it come from?"

"The barbarians in the far north. I'm…familiar with them. They've got a few prophets and shamans who say life is like a great game between gods of each of the races, and we're all just pieces dropped into the world and taken up again when we fall to an opponent's piece."

"That's a grim way to think about life."

"The ones who wear this believe man is destined to rule the earth—worlds, Upper and Lower, as dragons think of it. Man will eventually remove all the blighters, the elves, the dwarves—"

"Dragons too?"

"They don't speak of it much, but I believe it's implicit in their philosophy."

"You get better with the dragon tongue every day, Rayg. You're an intelligent fellow. I'm glad you aren't wearing one of those."

"I was once," he said. "Now I'm just here to finish a bridge."

After getting landmarks from the Firemaid, the Copper scouted the mouth of the cavern as the sun set the next day. He took a short, circular flight. There was no sign of his pursuers—or pursuer, rather. It was hard to think of dragons as little more than brute service animals; he still couldn't quite get his mind around the idea.

Satisfied, he hurried west at the best speed he could manage. Luckily the wind here blew hard out of the northeast, a direction he vaguely knew to hold the Inland Ocean.

He managed to take down the smelliest, hairiest herbivore on four legs he'd ever encountered and, using the tiny gob of flame that was, as ever, all he could ignite, set fire to some brush to cook its skin off. Even the smoky scent didn't help the taste.

He saw the plateau a long way off, arriving in the late afternoon. It was an unusual sort of mountain range; all the peaks were so close to one another in height that from a distance they appeared identical. Only once you came closer did you see the variety in formations.

The plateau over the Lavadome was smaller, lower, and rounder than that of Anaea. Instead of being lush and green, it steamed and smoked.

He found one of the shafts the griffaran used and circled down toward it.

Two griffaran flapped up to challenge him, but recognized him, he supposed, by his bad limb.

"Good wind, egg saver!" one said, floating beside him effortlessly. The mixture of lizard and bird looked a little less strange aloft, thanks to its colorful wings.

"I'm on urgent business. I must use one of your shafts, and I can't be delayed. One of you, fly ahead and tell the Tyr I must see him as soon as I land."

"Follow, then."

The griffaran had to wait several times for him to catch up. He made the rather terrifying drop through the shaft—plummeting with wings folded into a shadowy gap was a bit of exhilaration he could do without—but it wasn't a far fall, and his eyes adjusted instantly to the tall cavern of the water ring.

He paused for water and to catch his breath, then went aloft again for the last, mercifully short leg to the Imperial Resort.

He made for the top of Black Rock and the griffaran swooped in front of him.

"Yark! No. No landings on Gardens. Through kitchens now fastest."

Next, he supposed, SiDrakkon would forbid flying in the Lavadome, or bathing in the river. The orange streams of lava, once so bright and beautiful against the otherworldly crystalline surface of the dome, seemed to have picked up on SiDrakkon's dour moods and now looked gloomy to him. Or maybe his eyes hadn't fully converted over to tunnel-sight yet.

He made for the red glow and smoke of the kitchens, and landed next to a pile of dead swine.

Thralls scattered.

He hurried past boiling vats and frying platters, smelling the sweat of the nearly naked kitchen workers. He knew the rest of the way to the Tyr's door.

NoSohoth, meeting him on the stairs, started babbling about Skotl and Wyrr, of course. "There's been a duel on almost every hill. The mating between SuUpshauant and Deresa—broke, now, and the Skotl blame the Wyrr, and the Wyrr blame the Skotl side. Hardly a moon goes by where we don't lose a dragon. Now there's a Wyrr Drakwatch and a Skotl, and they spend their whole time brawling with each other. CuTarin hill and the north side have threatened to burn each other's herds—"

"This is war news, man."

"War? The empire is cracking. After cracks, pieces crumble off. Then collapse. If the Kayai Uphold declares independence—"

"Flames burn in Anaea as we speak."

"Then you must speak to the Tyr. Except he's in his Gardens. He won't emerge until this evening, when the light fails."

"I know my way to the Gardens."

Though he knew the way, a wide-bodied Skotl, fully twice his weight, blocked the tunnel up to the courtyard and the gardens.

"Tyr level," the small mountain of scale grunted.

"Please, Skotl, let him pass," NoSohoth said. "It's war news."

"I have my order," the Skotl said.

Not smart enough to remember more than one, NoSohoth mind-spoke to him. The Copper thought it a rare intimacy.

"I'm mated to the sister of his mate. He can see me."

The Skotl's eyes narrowed as he tried to work out the family dynamics.

"You see Imfamnia, then," the Skotl said.

"Oh, very well."

NoSohoth led him, the Copper nudging him along whenever he tried to stop and talk politics. They found Imfamnia in Tighlia's old quarters. She'd mounted colored quartz and sheer fabrics in her balconies and galleries, bathing the room in a hideous watery color trying to be green.

"Tighlia lives with the Anklenes now," NoSohoth said. "She fell into a rage and started burning the silks and smashing Imfamnia's glasswork with her tail."

They found Imfamnia with SiMevolant. A thrall was painting her griff, and another slave was mixing colors for the one with the brush.

"No, dull as passwater," SiMevolant said as she lowered her griff and turned her head this way and that. "Would you consider having gemstones embedded?"

"But then my griff wouldn't close up properly."

"That may become the new fashion, then. Remember, as queen of the Lavadome you set the style."

Tyr's mate was always title enough for Tighlia, NoSohoth thought.

"Mate-sister," the Copper said, breaking in on the decorating. "I must see the Tyr at once."

"NoSohoth, I thought there were orders about guests without invitations," SiMevolant said.

The Copper came forward, the quartz-filtered light making the whole interview dreamlike. "Anaea has been attacked. By men flying on dragons."

"Ewwww. That must look a fright," SiMevolant said. "Skin tones."

Mother had warned him that he would have to overcome. But there were few foes as implacable as stupidity.

"Quiet, love," Imfamnia said. "You'll find my mate in his Gardens." She walked over to curtains dividing this chamber from another, opened them, and then stuck her head outside and said a few words.

"Not you, NoSohoth," she said as the Copper moved toward the gardens. "Family only."

The Copper passed out under two silver-clawed griffaran perched high to keep watch over the Tyr's privacy. He saw SiDrakkon in one of the warm pools.

One of his human females washed him behind the crest by sitting astride him, a blanket-sized piece of soft leather polishing Tyr SiDrakkon's scale, grinding her body back and forth. The rest of his human females bathed, or lounged, or ate, or anointed one another with oils taken from silver vials.

A muscular blighter brought forward a huge, polished turtleshell of wine. He grunted as he set it down.

"Idiot!" SiDrakkon roared. He knocked the vessel over. "Silver! I won't drink out of anything that isn't silver."

The blighter scurried away in the direction of the banquet entrance.

"The purity of silver! I require purity!"

The Copper approached and bowed. A few of the women covered themselves and cleared the way between the dragons.

SiDrakkon glared at him. "Everything around me is tainted and corrupt!"

The Copper didn't know whether it would be more dangerous to agree or disagree. One of the griffaran fluffed up his feathers and shifted his stance, leaning forward a little.

"Why am I being disturbed, RuGaard?"

"Bad news from Anaea. We've been attacked. Dragons, hag-ridden by men. I've seen it with my own eyes. They control them somehow."

Blighters extracted big river stones from his bath and disappeared as three more emerged and dropped the oven-hot stones in. "You can stop that now," SiDrakkon said to the blighters. "I'm climbing out."

He lowered his head so the females could dry his ears and griff. "I've heard these odd fables before, RuGaard. Men riding dragons come and take away young male dragons and insert logs into their—"

"No, they came with flame. They dueled and killed the FeLissaraths."

"My Upholder? Murdered?"

"They fell in battle. The riders use poisoned quarrels fired from crossbows."

"War, eh?" He climbed out of the steaming pool, and water cascaded off his scales into the tiles. It ran in channels down toward the lower Gardens. "War may shake the Lavadome out of the madness that seems to have crept in. I'll call for dragons and appoint a grand commander for the Drakwatch. Revive the title of aerial host commander. Perhaps I'll assume the responsibilities myself."

Whatever his faults, SiDrakkon could at least act decisively when it came to war.

"Will you come yourself, Tyr?" the Copper asked.

"No. Anaea may be a feint. The griffaran have reported strange dragons above the Lavadome, but they always flee north at sunrise. If I wanted to attack the Lavadome, I'd strike the most distant Uphold too, and draw our forces as far from the main blow as possible."

He shifted a little to let the women dry his underside, but he did it mechanically, grinding his teeth as he thought.

"You'll be host commander, RuGaard. You've seen me at war and know what to do. Strike fast and strike hard, and keep striking until the war is over."

"I've left my mate back in Anaea. I must return at once."

"Of course. You can take my personal flying guard with you; the Skotl bodyguard can remain. AuBalagrave is in charge of the flying guard. You remember him from the Drakwatch. I believe you served together. That'll give you an immediate force."

"Thank you, Tyr."

"Oh. I heard about this bat messenger service of yours. Let's talk again when this is over. I've an idea that we could expand it."

"They don't do it for love of us, sir, but the taste of our blood."

"Well, there are a few fat dragons here that could do with a little bleeding. Get back to your mate, Upholder, and keep me informed. Try to find out more about this enemy."

He rested for a few hours in a spare nook Imfamnia offered him. With the numbers of the Imperial line dropping, and the increased space closing off much of the top level of the Imperial Resort, there were rooms and cushions to spare.

She even offered him a bowlful of gold. "For family only," she said, as though the gold could tell the difference. "Have as much as you like; my mate eats only silver these days."

He ate but a few coins, not wanting to have to fly with a chest's worth of heavy metals in his belly.

After checking with SiDrakkon one last time, to see if any additional orders or circumstances arose—"I'll try to send as many as thirty dragons," Tyr SiDrakkon promised—he departed with AuBalagrave and the other two dragons.

They were good fliers, lean and wide-winged, and he held them back the whole way. He wondered how many dragons would really be sent. Using NiVom's old formula, perhaps six or seven might make it all the way to the Uphold.

They approached the plateau at night. The Copper, his hearts pounding, crossed the mountain line and looked first to the Upholder's palace temple.

It looked intact.

"Have two dragons fly high. Just in case," he called to AuBalagrave using mind-speech. "You follow."

The words must not have come through clearly, because AuBalagrave took another dragon and gained altitude. Well, mind-speech wasn't a perfect form of communication among dragons who hadn't been long together.

If anything, the plateau was darker than usual at night. The hearth fires sometimes glowing out of windows didn't give the city its usual ghostly glow. But there would be time to survey the damage in daylight.

The palace temple had been scorched about the roof, and one of the stone globes had been knocked off the roofing. Another was missing entirely, and judging from the cracks in the long set of stairs it had been sent bouncing down to the fields and woods beneath.

"Halaflora! Nilrasha!" he called as he landed, ready to tear into any dragon but his mate or guardian Firemaid.

Fourfang waved from behind a stone.

"All sleep be—"

"We're in the lower chambers, as you asked, my love," Halaflora called, surprisingly loudly for her small frame.

He looked at his escort. "Tell AuBalagrave that I'd like one dragon to stay aloft, keeping watch. The others may rest, and I'll send food if there's any to be had. Don't go down into the valley to scavenge; the humans there are frightened enough."

The Copper descended to the mouth of the Lower World. Two members of the Drakwatch stood guard at the tunnel, now partly blocked with piled stone and timbers. Nilrasha slept atop the blockage, but she winked at him with an eye and fluttered a griff.

"Asu-ra, that kern king, was up here," Halaflora said. "He cried. He wanted to know why the dragons had loosed such fury on them."

"You told him it wasn't our doing, I hope."

"I said there are good and evil dragons, just like there are good and evil weather gods. I think he understood."

"That's a better reply than I could have produced, with half the valley floor aflame."

"They were after gold. They didn't even steal any women or children, which I thought warriors always did."

"What happened here?"

"They knocked down some statues and set fire to a few curtains. I believe they wanted to show their contempt for us more than to try to kill us. They never so much as ventured inside, though the upper level is entirely open, as you know."

"Don't forget the mess on the steps," Nilrasha croaked.

"What happened on the steps?"

"They used it as a toilet pit," Halaflora said. "Just a little water and scrubbing. Hardly worth mentioning."

"Are you well, dear?" he asked his mate.

"Better than ever, my lord. You know, I think all this stimulation agrees with me. I almost feel as though I could fly, if I found a high enough ledge and caught a good updraft."

"Let's put the Uphold back in order before dropping you off any cliffs, shall we?" he said.

"How were things with Tyr SiDrakkon?"

"War always seems to put him in better spirits. He sent three dragons with me and promised more, and a grand commander of the Drakwatch."

"Grand commander? I didn't know there were as many in the Drakwatch as that anymore. So few of the drakes from the better families volunteer. You must tell me all the news of my sisters and brother."

"Let's save politics and family news until I've eaten."

"I've been saving a fat calf the kern king offered just for you. Would you care for the liver, Nilrasha?"

The Firemaid yawned. "Very kind of you, lady. Yes, I could do with some dinner."

"Fourfang," the Copper said, "see about feeding the dragons who came with me. Where's Rhea? I'm caked with grit."

"Wonderful news, my lord. She and that clever man of yours are mated! She's going to issue, or whatever they call it!"

"Whelp?" Nilrasha asked.

"I think it's give birth," the Copper said. "All the more reason for a dinner. We should send her some stewed brains and the tongue. I've heard that's good for brooding."

"Oh, I'm saving those for me, my love."

"You don't think—"

"We may have hatchlings. Isn't it wonderful?"

"That could be dangerous for you. Your mother told me—"

"Oh, forget my mother. She's always looking at the dark side of things. I'll wager she's back in the Lavadome now, foretelling a loss in the war against these riders and lamenting the weaknesses of dragons these days. Our cause is just, so we are sure to triumph, are we not, my lord?"

Perhaps that is why Tighlia mated us, the Copper thought. We both have what she called the simpleton's faith.

Dinner passed in a more jovial mood than the Copper would have expected with destruction all around. Thanks to the guard overhead and outside, they ventured to the upper level and ate upon the feasting floor. Nilrasha made jokes, and Halaflora ate with unusual enthusiasm.

Or perhaps her expectations were forcing her appetite.

"A griffaran comes!" the watchdragon aloft outside bellowed. "He makes the signal-wing of bearing important news for the Upholder, from the Tyr himself."

"A message? But you just got here," Halaflora said. "Whatever could it mean?"

"I'd better see to that," the Copper said, rising and taking the exit that would bring him to the stairs.

The griffaran alighted on one of the globes-atop-squares flanking the long staircase down the mountainside.

"Yark! Upholder RuGaard?"

"Yes," the Copper said. Fourfang trotted up with a torch.

"Written message. Sent yesterday." The bird detached a tube from some sort of hook in its tail feathers and passed it to him.

"You must have flown straight here without a break. Have you eaten? Fourfang, go down to the pool and see if there are any fish there."

"Read message first," the griffaran said. "Then duty done."

The tube was one of NoSohoth's message tubes, certainly. He flicked off the sealing wax with a claw-tip and extracted the paper inside.

TYR DEAD. PEACE DECREED. TYR SIMEVOLANT RULES. RETURN AT ONCE.

The Copper blinked, unable to believe his eyes. Each pair of words was harder to believe than the last.

Bwaaaaaaak!

He started. That was a blighter alarm horn!

It blew again, sounding from the dining chamber. His hearts froze for a second; then he spread open his wings and flew up to the balcony on the upper level. He crashed through the tattered, burned remains of the evening curtains and saw Halaflora, stretched out and twitching on the floor.

Blood ran from a corner of her mouth. A white-faced Rhea stood in the corner, gasping for air, the horn hanging loose in her hand. Over his mate Nilrasha stood, the claws of one sii bloody, scratched about her eyes.

"Away from her!" he roared, feeling his fire bladder well. He tripped on his bad sii and sprawled next to his mate, but he didn't care. He rolled her undersize head toward him, but Halaflora's eyes were white and sightless.

"She's dead, my lord," Nilrasha said, breathing hard. "There's nothing you can do for her."

The Copper shook his mate, struck her face, turned her upside down, and shook her until scales fell off and skittered across the spotless feasting floor. Finally he dropped her limp corpse.

"What did you do?" he asked Nilrasha.

"Do?" she choked.

"Shwok'd?"

"Am I not speaking clearly enough, you lisping lizard? Yes, she tore off a big piece of thigh—I think it had a bone in it—and lifted her head and gobbled it right down, smiling and happy as can be. It stuck. I tried to get at it with my sii, but I couldn't reach it without tearing her head off."

"How did you get wounded?"

"She panicked. She was flailing this way and that instead of letting me help her, and she scratched me."

"It's not like her to take such a big—"

"She's been delirious these last few days. She thought she was brooding, stupid thing."

"Get out of here!"

"But, Ru—I'm sorry about the lisping thing. You do it when you get excited. I shouldn't have said anything."

"Just go."

AuBalagrave and the other dragons arrived, looking for enemies, a fight, anything—but they just found the Upholder, lying against his mate. Nilrasha slipped out.

"Leave me alone!" the Copper said. "I'm staying with her until she cools! All of you, get out. No, not you, Rhea. Clear away this mess."

The dragons departed, and Rhea bent to pick up the spilled platter of spitted calf.

"Rhea. Please speak to me. For once in your life, don't be afraid and speak. Did you see this? What happened here?"

The pale girl—no, woman; she had a swelling at her midsection and the feeding sacs had enlarged—looked at him with terrified eyes. Then she fainted.

He buried Halaflora on the mountainside with a good view of the palace, the vale, and their sleeping chamber. Then he went to see Nilrasha and found her idling in her bathing pool.

"If I find that you had a sii in this, I'll kill you," the Copper said.

"You're upset, your honor. I know what you think. Put it out of your mind. She choked. It was a terrible accident."

"You're such a careful huntress."

"Wouldn't I have killed her long ago? I had opportunities every other day. I could have done it easily when we where hiding together, listening to those cursed dragons smashing the upper level. A quick pounce and—snap! She was so slight, you could practically poke a claw through her. What did the griffaran messenger want?"

The Copper couldn't decide whether she was being callous or just her usual practical self. She was a born warrior who left the dead behind and kept her regrets, if any, private. But maybe her instincts were such that when she had an enemy, she'd pounce. Grabbing a loin and shoving it down a rival's throat would be too roundabout a way of doing it. And if she wanted an accidental death, she would have just tossed Halaflora down that endless flight of steep steps as they took in the view, and then claimed she slipped.

"We have a new Tyr. SiMevolant. I'm to return to the Lavadome. I suspect his first edict will be that everyone paint themselves blue or add stripes."

"Si-SiMevolant? What happened to SiDrakkon?"

"He's dead. When I saw him last, he looked healthy enough."

"Is SiMevolant smart enough to execute an assassination?"

Would a killer be so ready to use that word? the Copper thought. His mind was turning quick enough circles, and he tried to put Halaflora out of his mind. "He may have just been pretending to be a fool so no one would suspect him. How did the title of Tyr fall on those golden haunches, I wonder?"

"Who will you leave in command here?"

"According to the message, there's to be no war. Which sounds like SiMevolant. He's just stupid enough to believe that it takes two to make a war."

"Challenge him if you get the chance," Nilrasha said. "You can defeat him. He's big and thick-scaled, but he doesn't know the first thing about fighting."

"I've never had much luck with duels. I always seem to come off the worse," the Copper said.

"Still angry with me?" she asked.

"Only if you killed my mate."

"Do you forget what you said? We can't be mated while she lives. She no longer lives. After a decent mourning period we can have our happiness. She would have died over your eggs. I can give you many."

The Copper snorted. "This is not the time for that kind of talk."

"I just…I just want to know that you don't hate me. What must I do to make you believe I tried to save her? Stuff a horse down my throat and choke myself?"

"You're too tough to choke on a horse. I must sleep. I've got a long flight tomorrow."

"I wonder what SiMevolant has planned for you?"

"Tyr SiMevolant," the Copper corrected.

"Not for long, I think. He won't last his name-year." She displayed her teeth and rattled her griff.

He left AuBalagrave at the Uphold, with instructions to defend the temple and inform the kern kings that he was in mourning over the death of his mate and would perform no functions, ceremonial or otherwise, until further notice.

Then he took to the sky. Thoughts of Halaflora took all the joy out of flying; now it was just a dull, exhausting routine. He broke his journey at the Tooth Cavern bridge to speak to Rayg and the Firemaidens and Firemaid.

"Supposedly there'll be no war," the Copper said. "But I want you watchful here nonetheless. I'm sure these hag-ridden dragons know of the existence of this bridge and this portal into the Lower World. They may use it to reach the Lavadome."

The dragons nodded their agreement. Then the Copper pulled Rayg aside, to the little bench where he kept his plans and designs.

"I understand you're to be congratulated," the Copper said.

"For what? Construction on the bridge has stopped ever since that fight in the cavern."

"Rhea. You're mated, I hear."

Rayg looked across at him, sucking on his fleshy cheeks. "I didn't know you paid attention to that kind of thing."

"I do. How would you like Rhea freed with you?"

"Nothing more, your honor. You would do that?"

"I just need you to turn your brain to one final project."

His shoulders dropped. "What's that?"

"You worked for the dwarves, I understand?"

"Yes, well, it was sort of an apprenticeship."

"They understand armor, I'm told. I want you to design some kind of armoring for the underside of a dragon. Enough to keep out one of those poisoned crossbow quarrels. It's got to be light, though. No layers of chain mail."

"It would help if I had one of their crossbows for a test firing."

"A few may have been lost thanks to those riders the FeLissaraths downed. I'll have Nilrasha hunt for them." He reminded himself to send a messenger bat as soon as he finished with Rayg.

"Leather would be best, then," Rayg said, eyes rolling in thought. "Perhaps if it were stiffened and reinforced with wire. Or wood flanges."

"One more request. It's got to look like a regular dragon's underskin, at least from a distance."

As there was no emergency, the Copper returned to the Lavadome by the more tiresome—and cramped—south passage. The entrance was well hidden by a thick, multicanopied forest, and he'd never seen it from the air, only from the ground in his orientation hikes in the Drakwatch. So he had to cast around a little before he found the right waterfall that led to it.

He found Angalia and another maid guarding the door.

"I come at Tyr SiMevolant's request, Angalia, but I cry joy at seeing you again," he said, figures of speech being just that. "How do you like your change of scenery?"

"Warmer, your honor, but still terrible. The air is so heavy and moist. I feel it creeping into my lungs. I'll be dead of a fever in a year; mark my words."

"It would take a tall tablet to mark all your words, Angalia," her companion observed.

He had no difficulty learning about the death of SiDrakkon on the way to Black Rock. It was all anyone talked of, from the youngest drake to the oldest dragon-dame playing with some widower's hatchlings. He'd been found alone in his garden bath, dead of some sort of seizure.

"Alone?" the Copper asked.

He'd named SiMevolant as his heir some time ago, it seemed, though the news had escaped the Copper in his far-off Uphold. Everyone took it to be a kind of joke.

It was NoSohoth who explained it to him, as he ran himself ragged arranging for an audience SiMevolant had commanded for his line and the principal dragons of the six hills.

"I believe he thought of it as a sort of safeguard against assassination," NoSohoth said. "With the Lavadome the way it is, a fo—a personality like SiMevolant atop Black Rock would guarantee chaos and destruction. He figured we'd all be invoking the spirits every dawn and dusk, praying for his health."

"I'm told he was found in his bath, alone."

"Yes, by his mate and SiMevolant."

"Alone. In the garden bath. How likely is that?"

"If SiMevolant said it happened, that's how it happened."

"I'll challenge him on that."

NoSohoth placed a sii on his. "Don't. He's been unusually wise about things since he rose to the rank of Tyr. Let's wait and see. Things may work out. I expect he's going to announce a mating to Imfamnia at this audience."

"So soon?"

"These last years have been rather a whirlwind, haven't they? No one's had a chance to right their wings and glide for a bit."

"I'm worried about those hag-ridden dragons returning."

"They'll be handled. With diplomacy."

"I had a mouthful of their diplomacy over Anaea. It tastes like death and ash."

"I've no more time. There're details for a grand banquet to be arranged; the gardens are to be opened up again to the dragons of the Imperial Resort…."

He hurried off down the tunnel, rounding up thralls to do his bidding.

The commanded audience was held just before a scheduled banquet of rumored magnificence, which showed some craftiness on SiMevolant's part. He'd speak to them in brief, and then dismiss them to go gorge themselves at length. No one could accuse the golden dragon of not knowing the most pleasant way to go about business.

Imfamnia, painted all in black—except for the sparkling jewels embedded into her griff—watched the dragons assemble from her bare widow's perch.

The Copper noticed that there were no griffaran above, and wondered. Either SiMevolant was extraordinarily brave or exceedingly foolish; both Tyrs he had known had found the implicit threat of a griffaran bodyguard useful.

The wooden arches above seemed cold and empty without their colorful feathers.

The audience chamber didn't look particularily full; perhaps some in the higher-ranking families feared reprisals. To fill the room NoSohoth began to shove in dragons of lesser lines. When a solid mass of dragonflesh stood before the Tyr's shelf, Tighlia foremost and eyes locked hatefully on her mate-sister, Imfamnia nodded.

"They're all assembled now, Tyr SiMevolant," Imfamnia called toward the curtains.

The curtains parted, drawn by thralls as though through sorcery, and SiMevolant emerged, moving forward on a sort of traveling perch that rolled both smoothly and almost silently, its wheels obscured by heavy fabrics, draped and corded. He had polished his scale to a bright sheen and purpled his eyelids and whited his claws, but other than that he looked like a fine, healthy, gold dragon. The Copper couldn't say what he was expecting—peacock feathers and snakeskins perhaps—but if anything, this mate-brother looked…kingly.

SiMevolant bowed, let his head rove across the audience, and let out with the loudest prrum the Copper had ever heard.

"I want to begin anew," SiMevolant said. "I've been distressed beyond words these last few years. Skotl set against Wyrr set against Anklene. Everyone may keep their current positions, but in the future I'm going to do my best to fill ranks based on merit, with the assistance of wise counsel.

"And I hate all this dueling. Is that really a way for dragons to settle differences? Can't we learn a new way that doesn't involve shedding blood? I don't have a solution, but I welcome ideas. I beg the assistance of wise counsel."

"Furthermore, I hate all this skulking around undergound. Dragons are the most glorious of all the Spirits' creations. It's time we started acting it instead of taking such pains to hide our existence."

"Bloody fool!" Ibidio hissed. The Copper hardly noticed that she'd slipped up next to him, shoving her way through a deputy of Firemaids.

"Also, I've thought it best to dismiss the griffaran guard, as you can see."

"Dismissed the griffaran?" NeStirrath asked, his tangled horns rising from the crowd. "Our stoutest allies?"

"And biggest appetites," SiMevolant said. "I've spoken to wise counsel, and, measure for measure, they consume twice what a dragon does. It's never been the greatest of friendships; there's almost no social interaction. We guard their nests and they guard our skies. The whole thing's based on some mossy old hatchling story of a griffaran egg and a dragon egg washed away in a storm, saved and hatched together by a wise old eagle. We're paying for it all these years later, in less for all of us to eat."

A few dragons raised their heads as though to object, but SiMevolant stared them down, his eyes full of power and certitude. The last time the Copper had seen eyes like that, they were attached to King Gan. It was as though SiMevolant could slay a dragon by thought alone.

"Let's hear how SiDrakkon died," the Copper said, not sure where the voice was coming from.

"Be silent," Ibidio whispered. "This isn't the time."

The surrounding dragons shrank away from the Copper as though he carried a new kind of parasite.

"I don't mind the question," SiMevolant said. "Not one little bit. He had some sort of seizure in his bath. His mate found him first; I arrived soon after. No one could say what caused it, or how long it took, but he did have a ghastly expression on his face. Accidents do happen, RuGaard. By the way, how is my dear sister? But back to our late, beloved Tyr. Perhaps it was an assassination; he had enemies enough, and there were no witnesses. Which reminds me—you'll enjoy the plumpest, most succulent, tastiest manflesh you've had in years at tonight's banquet."

"Look at you all! Lions led by a frothing hyena!" Tighlia said, stepping forward and rounding on the audience.

"Now, Granddam," SiMevolant said. "I thought I sent you some wine to keep you quiet. Why don't you go home and drink it?"

She ignored him, spitting a gob of flame at the audience. "The civil war killed off the good dragons. What's left? Brazen cowards, vain philosophers, mating deviants, and back-scratching scalemates adding to one another's hoards. It's the litter and detritus collecting in the shadows and corners that bred this, this…farce. This fool will get you all killed. Maybe it's for the best. We've earned our extinction."

"She's like one of those windup things the dwarves make. Same speech every time her tail is twisted," SiMevolant said quietly to Imfamnia, who giggled.

"Are you done, Tighlia?" Imfamnia asked.

"Yes. We all are," she said. She began to stalk out of the room, stumping out her own fire. She stopped and sent a sharp glance at Ibidio, who let out a startled gasp; then she moved on. The crowd parted for her, bending back like tall grass before a strong breeze.

"Good," SiMevolant said. "I want to introduce some wise counsel who will guarantee our dignity and security for generations to come. Mmmmmm? I present our new ally, recently sent here from the Alliance of the Golden Circle."

A tall hominid in black scale armor stepped from behind the curtains and strode forward so he stood next to SiMevolant. He had gray hair flecked here and there with black, and a slightly darker beard hanging from a scarred face.

The Copper recognized the armor, the weapons, the face.

The Dragonblade stood before the audience.

Tighlia turned again, knocking over two members of the Drakwatch.

"How dare you! How dare you!" Every scale stood straight up on her skin, her wings half-opened as they shook with fury; her griff rattled, and slime poured out each side of her mouth.

"On the shelf where my mate stood," she continued, hardly able to get the words out. "You bring a human arrayed for war? A spear and a drawn sword, atop the Black Rock? No man may dare stand on such hallowed stone!" "Not any human, Tighlia," the Copper said. "He kills dragons for a living."

The Dragonblade tipped his spear forward just a little. Some of the audience squeezed out of the audience room; others shoved their way forward.

"I expected to be challenged," the Dragonblade said. "That it comes from an aged female surprises me."

"She's under the impression she's still a personage of consequence," SiMevolant said.

"Are you going to come down, man, or will I have to soil my mate's memory by spilling your blood where he used to stand?"

"I've no wish to kill. I made my peace with dragons years ago. But a wise man convinced me your kind can be saved, if properly led and channeled. I don't want to begin my governorship here with blood."

"Governorship!" Tighlia roared, shaking the timbers all the way to the roof, and jumped.

She jumped well for a dragon her size, and against an ordinary man, even a warrior, she would have turned him into pulp and black blood against the obsidian stone of the Rock.

The Dragonblade set his spear and she impaled herself upon it. He rolled out from under her, on his feet with sword out as easily as a falling cat righted itself. The sword flashed up once, and liquid fire spilled across the Tyr's shelf, a second time down and the Copper saw the gruesome white of the bones of her spine.

Tighlia collapsed, all of her going limp at once—save for her tail and twitching saa, which jerked and shuddered as though trying to fight on.

SiMevolant looked down at her. "What's that, Granddam?…Well, first, I don't believe in curses; second…Oh, dear, you're gone. I must learn to make my points more quickly."

"I wish she had stayed at home and enjoyed her wine," Imfamnia said.

Liquid fire ran off the Tyr's shelf. To the Copper, the events on the Tyr's shelf seemed a horizon distant, yet etched in vivid detail. His head whirled.

"Sand. At once—now," Imfamnia called, lifting a curtain out of the way with her tail to keep it from catching fire.

"Are there any more challenges?" the Dragonblade asked. A drake tried to step forward, but NeStirrath pressed his heavy sii on the youth's tail.

The Dragonblade retrieved a decorative, jewel-encrusted goblet from the Tyr's display of trophies and knelt beside Tighlia. He filled his cup with the blood leaking out of her neck and drank, smacking his lips afterward.

"Our future is in alliances, not war," SiMevolant said to the shocked assembly. "United with these men, no power in the two worlds may threaten us. Let all who doubt this truth remember the fate of Tighlia. Now begins a golden era, begun by a golden dragon. Light the beacons, NoSohoth."

"Hurrah!" shouted the Dragonblade. "The union forever!"

Ibidio slipped up next to the Copper. "I must speak to you," she whispered, then switched to mind-speech. If you still live tomorrow, go to the hill of the Anklenes. Once inside, ask for the senior doorwarden. Tell him this: "Immortal Memory."

The Copper was still too shocked to do anything but nod. The swirl of memories, of fears, of regrets, of pain brought by the Dragonblade's slaying of Tighlia, had left him clouded.

"Immortal Memory," he thought back to her. If I still live?

In the lore of the Lavadome, the hours were afterward known as the Night of the Desperate Deaths.

To those who knew only vaguely of events within the Imperial Resort, the first sign of them was when two beacons were lit atop the Rock, burning a bright blue as though by magic—the Copper knew very well it was dwarvish chemicals, but what sort of mix the humans who lit the beacons used, he never could remember, despite all the pleadings and urgings of the Anklenes.

And with that, hag-ridden dragons flew into the Lavadome in two long lines.

Perhaps a score of dragons, knowing the war gossip that had been spreading ever since the Copper's arrival with the news of Anaea, realized what the invasion portended and took to the air to meet it.

No dragon who fought that night lived.

Black Rock was emptied of all dragons save for the Imperial line, who remained in the Imperial Resort in a nebulous role between leaders and hostages. The allies occupied the best caves and the best galleries, save for the top level and the Gardens, where SiMevolant, his widowed-and-mated Imfamnia, and the governor-general remained.

And the ubiquitous NoSohoth.

Atop the rock, as the hag-ridden dragons performed military evolutions, showing their skill, the most dispirited banquet in Lavadome history was held. The food—exquisite and tender. The wine—unparalleled by anything that had come before, thanks to exotic captured vintages brought in by the Andam, the Men of the Golden Circle.

It was a brave young drake who took the first bite. The rest of the company watched anxiously for signs of poisoning as they nibbled on bits of greenstuff, onions, and ores.

The Copper, never a fan of banquets and unable to enjoy the flesh of so many limbs and sides that looked like Rhea, sat in the garden and tried to think.

One thing the display of force and flying skill did offer him: a chance to count their numbers. Three-score dragons and riders, and another half-score of dragons on lines attached to the others, bearing baggage or supplies.

A few wings over forty, using the ten-count numbering system of the dwarves Rayg had been teaching him.

He did his best to overhear some of the conversation between SiMevolant and the Dragonblade. Evidently some kind of long-planned war had begun. They flew from a fastness in the north, and had just seized a sort of floating city on the Inland Ocean. Holding the Lavadome would give them a third hold for rest and organization in the south.

The Dragonblade filled SiMevolant's ears with praise about his foresight as a dragon and the heights his leadership would allow the Drakines to reach.

The Copper almost wanted to warn SiMevolant of the fine words that marched in front of betrayals, but when one gathered such snakes to one's bosom, one had to learn about being bitten.

He slunk off into the greenery and became violently sick.

The next day he did as Ibidio requested and went to the Anklene hill. He asked for the head doorwarden and gave him the signal phrase. The warden took him down a short ramp and stuck an odd metal spike into a crevice under a cast of a blighter's face, and the wall clicked.

He showed the Copper where to push, and soon he found himself in an underground chamber designed for dragon-sized creatures, with low ledges around the walls, fine sand on the floors, and a water cistern fed by a drip in the roof. There was also a tiled sanitary room with a gutter.

Rethothanna was already there, waiting with Ibidio.

"I don't understand," the Copper said. "Is this a conspiracy? If we packed this room with dragons atop one another, there wouldn't be enough to fight the hag-riddens."

"Well said, RuGaard," Ibidio said. "That's just what they are."

Rethothanna drew a claw across the sand, making a furrow. "This group was started…Perhaps you should tell him, Ibidio."

"After the death of my mate," Ibidio said sternly, "I suspected an assassination. He came back from the wars injured, yes, but he was a strong dragon who always recovered quickly, from even greater injuries than those I saw that last time. Then his wounds suddenly quit healing, became infected, and he died. Even the Anklenes said they'd seen nothing like it."

"No more than seven dragons ever belonged to this group," Rethothanna said. "One from each hill, and Ibidio from the Imperial Resort. We had Skotl, Wyrr, and Anklene members. All with one thing in common: love of my mate."

"And now you have an outcast of no particular line," the Copper said. "Even my name was once another's."

Others trickled in, at what seemed like long intervals. Finally NeStirrath arrived.

"Why, RuGaard too! You never seemed the conspirator type," NeStirrath said.

"We have two new members tonight," Ibidio said, with seven other dragons sitting around the edges of the room. "And we mourn the loss of UlBannesh in the fighting yesterday. A brave dragon. He will be missed."

"It's dangerous meeting so soon after yesterday," a Skotl dame said. "I'm sure I'm being watched."

"I will be quick. I have important news. Before she died yesterday, Tighlia and I exchanged our first mind-speech in…well, since my mate died. Yes, we used to argue or joke with our minds frequently, for our mates were kin and closer than usual for a dragon and his clutchwinner grown, but after AgGriffopse died—"

"Immortal be his memory," the others said in unison, save for the Copper, who just mumbled to join in, not knowing the group's habits.

Now I'm in league with the memory of a dragon I've never even met.

"But to go on," Ibidio continued. "RuGaard, this will be a shock to you. Tighlia mind-spoke and told me that just before he died, the Tyr—Tyr FeHazathant, my mate's father—said that he was appointing you heir and future Tyr. If you wanted the rank. That's what his words meant, the day he died. 'Ask RuGaard to be Tyr.' I'm so used to looking for plots and hidden signs in everyday talk I couldn't puzzle out its simple meaning. What do you say to that?"

All the dragons were looking at him.

"What does it matter?" he asked.

"What does it matter?" Ibidio laughed. "If we ever gain back the Lavadome, I think you'll find it matters very much."

"If we are to do it, we must strike quickly," NeStirrath said. "Strike before they get organized, and before all here become used to submission to men the way these accursed foreign dragons are."

"I have a small force on the Western Road," the Copper said.

Others listed a few dragons who could be relied on. NeStirrath could bring together his best Drakwatch. But as they counted in their heads they knew it would not be enough. Not against the training and weapons that had been displayed last night.

"The men alone, we might be able to handle," Rethothanna said. "They're not much without their dragons."

"The dragons aren't much better without men," the Copper said. "I've seen them. They're not like us. They can't think for themselves very quickly; they either do what they're trained to do—"

"Perhaps we could convince them to revolt," Ibidio said.

"Fat dragons stuffing themselves with Anaean gold?" a dragon from the Wyrr hill asked. "You might as well ask a horse to fight its rider. I'm not sure they could even grasp the concept."

"Let us meet again tomorrow," Ibidio said. "Early, around the morning meal. I'll try to get in and get a feel for the hag-riddens. What's the matter, RuGaard, not feeling kingly?"

"I'm being hunted by an old nightmare."

The others nodded understanding, but the last thing he wanted was for them to understand.

The Copper walked back to the Imperial Resort—it didn't seem like a resort anymore, just a rather dark and forbidding rock—with NeStirrath. They talked of unimportant matters, old memories of training with the Drakwatch.

He even returned to his old cave. There hadn't been a member of the Imperial line since him serving in the Drakwatch, and he even caught the faint smell of bats—wait.

A bat still lived, up in a shadowy corner. Something about the ears reminded him of an old acquaintance.

"You wouldn't be related to old Uthaned, would you?"

"I am Uthaned," the bat said. It stretched. "You've grown considerably, m'lord."

"It can't be. Mamedi and Thernadad's nephew? Bats don't live—"

"They do when they've been fed dragonblood. I even talk to Big Ear, Spike Hair, and Wide Nose, as you called them, now and again when they visit."

The Copper was relieved to be so pleasantly distracted. "But why are you still here, Uthaned?"

"The eating is good. These young drakes, they sleep hard after their days' hiking, and they dream better, down a little blood. They make it up quick enough. And that old one with all the horns and the stumps where his wings should be…well, he sometimes has a draft of wine to help him sleep, and with a bit of a nip he sleeps sounder still. I like to think I'm doing a service—Ah, soft. None have returned yet tonight. I don't suppose m'lord might spare…?"

The Copper was thinking back to his own days with the bats. Sometimes they'd left him so listless, and in the mornings if he lifted his head high, he went dizzy….

He froze. It was like the idea had a glowing aura around it, like the moon's halo in a mist. He didn't know exactly what the idea would look like once it took shape, but he knew its rough outlines.

"Are there any other bats still about?"

"Another of my cousins still lives near the kitchens, where it's warm. Then there's a son of mine, and his family. Oh, and of course—"

"I need more, many more. Can you go to your relatives and then send them out on the western road? Someone must know where that is."

"Yes, bats go to and fro all the time. That message system."

"Forget it. At least for now. I need every bat you can scrape up, big and small. But they've got to be smart, stealthy, sneaky."

"That's a good deal of flying on my part, m'lord." Uthaned smoothed down his hair and straightened his ears. "A bat setting off on such a flight needs a full belly, and at my age the wing joints pain me."

"Of course," the Copper said. "You can practice on me. I'll show you what to do."

The Copper walked in the Gardens, thinking. Some of the dragon riders, new to the rock, explored it as well, curious about the underground garden with its strange, spiked, low-light plants, or admiring the view of the lava streams against the dome.

He saw a glimmer of gold, and turned.

"Oh, RuGaard. No, don't sulk away. Your Tyr calls."

The Copper turned and approached SiMevolant. He bowed.

"What does my Tyr require of his Upholder?" the Copper asked.

"Just a chat. You looked so queer when the governer-general walked out, I thought you were going to keel over like SiDrakkon. Your face looked just like his. Shocked."

"I thought you arrived only after he died."

"I meant to say after he was dead, of course. Anyway, speaking of deaths, superb job on my sister. The more I think about it, the more brilliant it is."

"What do you mean?"

"The choking. I've heard all about it. I have my own sources and messengers, don't forget."

"It was an accident."

"Of course it was. And if it wasn't, you've got your jade set up to take the blame. You've got witnesses from two different species and three lines of dragons that can attest that you were nowhere near."

"She was my mate. She was your sister. How can you speak like that about her?"

"Because she was my sister. Sickly from the moment she came out of the egg and I sat on her while I dined on my late brother."

"I'm tired. I must beg your—"

SiMevolant flicked around the Copper and blocked his path. "Hold. Since you've shown such an aptitude for this, I've got a list. A tiny list, the briefest of lists; it'll take you no time at all to work your way down. The first is your old teacher, NeStirrath."

"I've got a list for you. Traitor. Cretin. Disgrace to—"

"Oh, please. Look, I've got a very clever weapon that will help you." He reached behind his griff and passed the Copper a silver tube, very much like the ones SiDrakkon had kept his oils in. "It's a dwarvish thing with a blade and a spring and a small vial of toxin drawn from—"

The Copper snatched it out of his hand before the tiny point projecting out of the end could be pointed in his direction.

He looked at the device. A little lever, a—what was the word?—trigger, was set into the side.

He pointed it at SiMevolant.

"Ah-ah-ah-ah," the new Tyr warned. "Am I stupid enough to hand you an envenomed weapon, or am I so clever I've given you a harmless point to test your loyalty, hmmmmm? Or, as a sort of a joke, have I given you one that in fact fires backward out of the thin metal on the bottom? And why am I even putting such doubts in your head? It's rather like looking at your image in a wavy pool, so many different possibilities in motion. Which do you think I am? Brilliant or an imbecile?"

"I think you're mad." He sent the tube spinning off the top of the Rock.

"You had your chance," SiMevolant said.

"We both did," the Copper said. "Let's see how we compare in surviving the consequences."

The next day the Immortal Memory group met, though it took twice as long for them to gather, and the Copper outlined his plan. NeStirrath improved on it, and a dragon from the Skotl hill promised to go up the western road and try to hurry things along.

"I've been to the stable caves," Ibidio said. "Off of the old spirit-caller's holes. Yes, I said stables. I can't think of what else to call them, dragons packed so close. They're well guarded, yes, and the men stay near. But there are vast galleries so several can take off at once, if need be."

"I might be able to get the men away for a few hours," the Copper said. "When the time comes."

"The sooner the time comes, the better," Rethothanna said. "A man and a drake crier came through the milkdrinker's hill today, looking for dragons to volunteer to be ridden, promising gold, food, a cave in the Imperial Resort, everything. With food stocks falling the way they are and dragons going without meat, soon half the dragons here will have nothing to look forward to but the saddle and a trough at the end of the day."

Rethothanna got her wish. Less than a score of days later, the Imperial line and the leaders of the hill selected the hour for the battle. Of course, not everything could be readied on time. The bats were still gathering, and every day the Copper was making a trip to the river to explain to them what to do. But each day's delay increased their risk, for more and more dragons found themselves watched, and the Immortal Memory group could no longer meet except in twos or threes for a few brief words.

The Copper had spies of his own. The bats, out of hunger or curiosity, went so far as to do practice runs, trickling into Black Rock in search of nourishment.

There was a last-moment change in the Immortal Memory's calculations. A half-score more dragons had arrived, carrying several people each on them and more possessions. Some of the mates and babes of the Andam had arrived.

So the Copper stood, flanked by Rethothanna and NeStirrath, listening to SiMevolant speak. He was explaining to the high-ranking dragons that soon each of them would have a human "assistant" to help allocate food and cave space, ore rations, and exercise flights. Even grooming standards would be discussed, if there were health-threatening habits that needed to be broken.

The Dragonblade lounged on a golden chair, brought up and fixed on the Tyr's shelf. A rich fur lay before it, and another hung off the back. He also wore a fur cloak closed with dragonscale.

Imfamnia was not in the audience. She was inspecting a case of luxuries brought in on dragonback.

"I do not say you must follow the advice of the human assistant," SiMevolant said. "But they are wise, and I feel matters will go easier if we heed them."

"I say enough," a Skotl called.

"I say too much!" a Wyrr added.

The Copper braced himself and took a breath. This was worse than spreading his wings to jump, trusting to a bit of wood and leather and steel pin. "I say we have no Tyr. Just a dog too well trained to need a collar."

"That's a poor sort of insult, RuGaard." SiMevolant yawned. "I hope you didn't labor hard over it. You wasted your time."

"I challenge you to a duel, with the charge of treason against the Imperial line," the Copper said.

"You can't challenge a Tyr," SiMevolant said. "The rank is too exalted."

"I may. There are some who believe I am the rightful Tyr. Tyr FeHazathant named me as his successor after NiVom fled and before he died."

"I witnessed it!" Ibidio called.

"I was told in secret as well," said NeStirrath. Which was a lie, but a lie he gladly offered to tell.

"He told me the same," Rethothanna said. "There is even a secret testament in the archives." Another lie, but one she had made true with a bit of parchment and a forged scale-seal.

"That's three," NoSohoth said quietly.

"So, yes, I do challenge you," RuGaard said. "If you refuse, all will know you to be a coward."

"Yes, yes, yes, heroes taste death but once and all that. But the coward gets a long time to enjoy all those deaths, bitter as the cup may be, and heroes die young. Still, you annoy me, RuGaard. I think I should like to kill you. I accept your challenge and name the Dragonblade as my duelist."

That startled the man out of bored daydreaming. He reached for his sword hilt.

"You get to kill a three-legged dragon," SiMevolant said.

"When I came down here, I was told I'd be acting as an adviser," the Dragonblade said. "I've had enough fights in my life. I'm old, my bones are easily chilled, and a hairy-rumped well digger would find this blasted rock uncomfortably cool."

"The alternative is fighting between the Andam and the dragons again," SiMevolant hissed.

"So be it. I'll kill the beast for you. What's one more to my tally? Ach, you're making me regret my chickens and coops."

"The deepest hour of the night, then," the Copper said. "When the new day rings."

Black Rock's dueling pit lay on its lowest level. An amphitheater had been dug out beneath a point of rock, and there was room for six-score or more dragons, though the air got closed-in and stuffy when it was that full.

Fewer than a score of dragons attended this duel. RuGaard was well liked (or at least not hated outright, as Tighlia liked to put it), so most of the audience was of the Andam. They would have preferred, perhaps, to see two dragons fight, but entertainments were few enough.

SiMevolant was there, of course, in his ridiculous bumblebee-painted scheme.

After a light dinner, the Copper took a last walk around the Rock. He wondered how many dragons—or men—noticed the bats flitting about. Every now and then one landed on his head to whisper in his ear.

Finally, it was time. He descended to the dueling pit with limbs that dragged reluctantly.

I've never had any luck with duels. From my first one out of the egg.

The Copper made a long, reluctant show of having himself groomed before the match, trying to make the contest last as long as possible. If he went onto the sand before the attack, in all likelihood he would be killed. The Dragonblade occupied his time sharpening his sword and testing his footing in the sand of the dueling pit. He picked up a bronze dragonscale shield—how odd, the coloring was much like Father's—and banged his sword hilt against it.

"Come on! It's late, beast, and I'll have this over with."

I've never had any luck with duels.

The Copper dropped into the pit and lowered his griff.

The Dragonblade put on a helmet featuring two wings rising up and meeting above his head, dropped his spiked face mask, and jumped into the pit. He took six paces forward so he couldn't be trapped against the wall. Then he waited, shield held ready and sword held loosely in one hand.

NoSohoth invoked the spirits, asking them to determine whose cause was just, and to offer strength to the combatant in the right—but took his time doing so, and had to go back and repeat several lines.

The dragon-riders began to shout and make venting noises with their lips and tongues.

At last NoSohoth finished the invocation. But then he improvised: "I give you one last chance to reconcile. You have both proved your bravery by stepping into the pit, knowing that only one will climb out again…."

Where are they?

Neither offered to forget the quarrel. NoSohoth had difficulty making out the Dragonblade's reply, and finally asked him to step over and repeat his words, without the face mask in the way.

With that done NoSohoth droned on and on about the glorious traditions of single combat and how these two opponents set an example of courage to be learned from by eyes young and old….

Never before had the Copper been so grateful for NoSohoth's ponderous speechifying.

"Enough, NoSohoth," SiMevolant cried. "Or I'll have a saddle made for the Dragonblade out of your hide. Begin!" he shouted, lest NoSohoth suffer another attack of deafness.

The Dragonblade dropped into a crouch. He whirled his sword, and it whistled an evil tune as it cut the air.

The Copper shifted stance and his wings opened a little and flapped, instinctively readying themselves.

"Now I know you. You're the little crippled traitor! Stupid of me!"

"Not finishing me when you had the chance?" the Copper asked.

"Thinking such as you might put up a fight."

Nothing to do but go forward. The Copper, for the first time in his life, made a show of limping.

The Dragonblade danced forward, deflected a bite with his shield, and cut the Copper in the shoulder. He moved as if he were made of air itself, a zephyr of slashing steel and stinking man-breath.

The Copper turned, swinging his stiff and broken tail, and beat his wings, kicking up a whirlwind of dust.

The men in the stands roared in displeasure, though whether they thought this was cheating, or just objected to not being able to see the action, the Copper couldn't say.

The Dragonblade was ready for the sand. Blocking it with his shield, he came forward and opened a cut in the Copper's vulnerable belly.

He's toying with me. He's going to let me die by scores of small cuts rather than a fatal blow.

Dribbles of blood made strange spiral traces in the sand beneath the Copper as he sidestepped, protecting his wounded underside. The man sliced a piece of skin from the Copper's haunch the size of his shield. Naked muscle gleamed red.

"I need a new shield-leather anyway," he said.

The Copper's fire bladder pulsed with his pain, and he vomited up its contents.

This, too, the Dragonblade was ready for. He crouched behind his shield and the thin liquid just splattered his shield, him, and the sand around. The liquid dripped off his shield like rain off a wide jungle leaf.

"Not even any fire? Let's end it; this is no contest at all," the Dragonblade said. He slashed the Copper's good leg, and the Copper collapsed face-first into the sand.

A man's voice shouted from the entrance. The Copper didn't understand the words, but the dragon-riders jumped to their feet and fought one another to the exit.

The dragons were coming at last!

He raised his head to see the audience in flight, and the Dragonblade kicked him behind the jaw. He saw stars and his whole neck went numb. He fought to regain control of his head and neck as painful, prickling electricity danced up and down his spine.

The Dragonblade planted himself in front of his snout, just out of reach. He pointed the tip of his sword at the Copper's eye.

If you died fighting, were you still vanquished?

A trickle of oily-smelling liquid dribbled out of the Dragonblade's scale greaves, spotting the sand. The Copper traced its source with his eye. It came from beneath the armor.

"Mercy," the Copper whispered, as Jizara had. Perhaps the Dragonblade had changed. Perhaps this time he'd grant mercy to a vanquished foe.

The man just snorted and adjusted the aim of his sword tip. "Not to such as you. Last words?"

The Copper refused to waste his final breath in a curse. With what wind he had left he forced a gob out of his mouth.

A flaming torf. Pitiful. Hardly bigger than a lump of coal.

A flaming torf that struck the Dragonblade on the boot.

A flaming torf that struck the Dragonblade on the boot and set his whole leg aflame.

Which set his hips on fire.

Which crawled up his torso and yes, even flickered out the slits in his face mask.

He died rather more noisily than Mother.

A blur of gold and SiMevolant landed heavily in the sand. He stormed toward the Copper, shining like the sun itself come to earth. "What have you done? Don't you understand? Our age is over! We must ally with men, or our flame will be extinguished forever."

"Not yet," the Copper gasped.

SiMevolant raised his tail. Along with the strange black stripes, a silver barb had been added to the end.

It dripped.

Open jaws and claws bounded out of the darkness. Nilrasha seized SiMevolant's tail in her jaws and yanked, tearing a third of it off. She threw the dismembered tail away, and it rolled and twitched in the sand.

SiMevolant forgot about the injured Copper—someone had done that before, to his regret, the Copper vaguely remembered with a tickle of pride—and turned on Nilrasha, rising and spreading his wings a little, showing this backbiting female how big he truly was!

The fool. He should have kept to his cowardly ways. Don't fight if you know nothing about fighting. He didn't even lower himself to protect his belly.

The Copper lashed out with a saa and opened SiMevolant wide and deep.

The would-be Tyr looked down at the coils spilling from his belly, writhing like a horde of unleashed snakes.

And then Nilrasha fell on him, pushing his neck to the sand, opening windpipe and blood vessels, and SiMevolant let out a gurgling protest as he died.

"Nilrasha, you've come again."

"I never thought I could fly so fast," she said, dropping beside him. "You're not badly hurt. Just cut up."

"You must go up. Help the others."

"I've no armor. Rayg had time and materials to make only three of the underside leathers. AuBalagrave and his dragons are wearing them."

"The plan could fail. We're deep beneath the Rock. You should leave, so you have room to run."

"In victory or defeat, I'm determined to die at your side, my love." She looked up. "Here! You! Bat. Get over here. I've work for you."

Uthaned himself, a gray mouse who could fit in the Copper's nostril, fluttered above his ear.

"The blood is in pools on the dragon-barrack floor, m'lord," Uthaned said. "The dragons rise just high enough to kill their men in their fall."

The Copper always regretted not being able to see it.

As Rethothanna related it to him later, like all well-fought battles, it was over before it was begun. The bats had opened veins on most of the dragon-rider mounts, numbing and cutting, numbing and cutting, and letting the blood run into the washing gutters.

In another cave it might not have worked—some attendant might have noticed the blood pooling on the floor—but not in the shining confines of the Rock. The black surface concealed the damage done until it was too late.

So when the alarm was sounded and the men ran to their mounts, the woozy beasts slipped and bumped. Those who even beat their wings hard enough to rise soon passed out, crumpled, and fell to earth. There was a terrible toll in broken necks and backs on the dragons, but the dragon-riders had it even worse.

Of course, a healthy patrol was up over the Rock, as always, and it took many lives before the hag-riders were plucked out of their saddles and their maddened, confused mounts crippled. Even AuBalagrave, one of the few dragons with his belly armored against crossbow bolts, fell with a poisoned arrowhead in his jaw. But other dragons battered and swatted the flying hag-riddens, or plucked the men off while they were reloading their weapons.

There was bitter tunnel fighting against the Andam, but the Drakwatch distinguished itself. Old NeStirrath fell at their head when a wounded human plunged a poisoned blade into him. Of all the names of the fallen from that day, his glory lasted the longest.

The Imperial line had been reduced once again. Now only a handful remained.

Imfamnia fled. Some said she had chains of gold clutched in each claw. Others said she was heavy with SiMevolant's eggs. Or SiDrakkon's. Or a dozen other rumored lovers, earning her the title "Jade Queen" in the Anklene Histories. None could say where she went.

A small group of men and dragons barricaded themselves deep in the rock with a reserve of food and water. They refused all attempts at parley until the Copper tottered to their tunnel, supported by Nilrasha. He dragged with him a woman clutching a squalling babe.

He showed the pair to the men at the other end of the tunnel and issued the only offer he could to give to the poison-men, for it was the only one their savage, half-formed brains could appreciate:

He summoned his best voice. "Surrender and give your lives over to us, or we'll kill each of you, your wives, and spit your babes for roasting. The choice is yours, men: fair treatment as thralls, or death."

Two committed suicide in despair. The rest sensibly chose thralldom.

And it was only while limping out of the Imperial Resort, with dragons and thralls alike calling him "Tyr RuGaard" and Nilrasha "Queen Ora," that he realized what he had become.

[ Epilogue ]

An Anklene, with the assistance of two elvish thralls, stitched him up. His good sii soon functioned again, though the scarred hide on his haunch never grew a proper set of scale again, just a sort of scabby covering like a turtle's shell.

He had to make a great many decisions from the Tyr's shelf, but he grew used to much of the labor required of a Tyr, to the point where he looked forward to the challenges, such as rebuilding the alliance with the griffaran. He even made a sort of art of delegating authority. The real trick was matching the right sort of brains and brawn to each task.

"Rayg is a clever man. In the world I intend to build, clever men will do very well. As long as they understand their place in the Spirits' grand design," he said to Rhea as she scrubbed him one morning. He had to confess that he liked the smell of bath-water with a slippery woman in it. But all things in moderation.

"You might want to communicate that to him," Nilrasha said as she performed her own ablutions.

Rayg had been kept busy studying the dragon-riders' weapons and equipment in the hope of making improvements. Now and then he complained that he should be freed by now, but the Copper always reminded him that the bridge was not yet built.

"Release me from this trivia and I'll finish it in thirty days," he grumbled. But he'd grumble more in the ore mines, seeing to improvements in the hydraulics, the Copper reminded him.

Bath done and breakfast down, the Copper hooked his mate at the wing and walked her to the balcony overlooking the now-public Imperial Gardens. And yes, he had a review to do, then a short speech to give to the newest generation of Drakwatch and Firemaidens.

With his beautiful mate pacing behind, the Copper walked through the quarters of his tiny aerial host, still new and untested as a wet hatchling, but they were learning.

Instead of reins, the warriors fought chained to their saddles. For their own safety, of course. But it also established who guided whom.

He limped down a long line of dragons, with a few dragonelles sprinkled in, the red bands of the Firemaid oath around their necks. Each set of wings faced a rider, free thralls all—a fine-sounding status, as long as one didn't think about it too much. Dragon and rider stared into each other's eyes over a lance's distance. Their armor was variegated, their weapons according to taste, but at least they all matched in their red cloaks. Not all the men were former dragon-riders; some were thralls who showed great loyalty and promise and skill at arms. And not all the dragons had once been hag-ridden. Those dragons who'd been victorious in combat had the Tyr's laudi painted on their wings in inexpensive but long-lasting tones. The dragon-riders had the equivalent, called "tattooing" or some other odd-sounding Parl expression, on their arms and at the outer edges of their eyes and temples.

Maturing hatchlings—clutchwinners, for the most part, including AuBalagrave's own champion—stood between and behind the dragons and men they attended. Hatchlings bore food and carried wash water for the men, fetched boots and flying cloaks when called for. The human boys and girls polished scale, cleaned teeth with bristle brushes, and adjusted saddle pads with their nimble little fingers. The Copper hoped that in time a firmer alliance could be bred.

In time, as he often told Rayg, whenever he presented them with a tender calf, advising that the liver go to the swelling Rhea.

Imfamnia would have thought them poor work and too dreary-toned for words. So would SiMevolant, though he would have been arch about it. SiDrakkon would have approved, for the markings were grim-looking enough.

"Let's make it loud enough so the Tyr RuGaard hears it this time!" HeBellereth, the aerial host commander, roared.

"This is my rider," the ranks boomed in unison. "He is unique, an individual, and deserving of my respect."

The men recited the same speech as the dragons, switching rider for dragon.

"Without my rider, I am nothing. Without me, my rider is nothing. If I fall, he dies. If he falls, I will see to it he rests on the empire's ground. My blood is his nourishment. His sweat is mine. So be it until death or our Tyr releases us."

Of course, the men had to change the wording of the last, too.

The Copper passed through the Black Rock, limping past bronzed skulls and captured banners hung from cut dragon reins. Thralls, drakes and drakka, dragons and dragonelles, and even a watchbat here and there bowed—or crossed their wings, in the case of the bats—to him.

There was no more laughter at his awkwardness. A Skotl or two, and the odd Wyrr holdout or Anklene radical, glared at him hotly.

They can hate as hard as they like, as long as they fear.

He looked in on the workshop, and the thrall's meal room. Rayg and Rhea and their growing brood stood with the rest, though their textiles and footwear were of much higher quality.

He paused, and put his head close to his mate's.

"There's so much still to be done. I believe before long we will long for those quiet evenings around the feast floor in Anaea."

"We're in charge of the Lavadome now. We can do what we want," Nilrasha said, smiling. A little piece of him deep inside turned cold. He could still admire her lines, her cool courage, and her tenacity at getting what she wanted. And above all, be grateful for what she had done for him. But she was no Tighlia.

But at that moment, he would rather have had frail little Halaflora. Halaflora understood the burdens of rank and station. When his mood turned dark like this, part of him believed Nilrasha hungered for bows and scrapes as Imfamnia had once wanted expensive baubles.

Then they went back up to the top level, or "their level," as Nilrasha styled it. She nuzzled her head under his as he stepped out onto the platform overlooking the Gardens. What little was left of the Imperial line looked up at him. Lesser dragons lined the garden walls, drakes and drakka perched atop broken columns and darkvine arches.

A pair of hatchlings batted a dragon-rider's rotting severed head back and forth with their tails and had sport snapping at the flies seeking the putrescent flesh.

The Drakwatch and Firemaidens looked up.

Time for the words a Tyr had to say now and then, to remind everyone that life was more than banquets and hunts and mating ceremonies and discreet little intimacies.

"Our species is at the beginning of a great awakening. The blighters had their Age of Wheels. Then the other hominids began the Age of Iron with a slaughter of our kind. Never forget the betrayal and fall of Silverhigh, or the fate that we in the Lavadome so narrowly escaped. The malice of hominids knows no charity or reason.

"They must be subdued and tamed. Or they will do the same to us, as the Dragonblade once tried. How many other Dragon-blades are there beyond our borders?

"Join me and look to our future. We need only master ourselves, and we can master the world! Today, here, atop this ancient stone, surrounded by the caves and egg shelves and trophies of our birthright, we dragons have inaugurated a new age. Let our enemies tremble, for now begins the Age of Fire!"

Drakine Glossary:

FOUA: A product of the fire bladder. When mixed with the liquid fats stored within and then exposed to oxygen, it ignites into oily flame.

GRIFF: The armored fans descending from the forehead and jaw that cover a dragon's sensitive ear holes and throat pulse points in battle.

GRIFF-TCHK: An instant, an immeasurably short amount of time.

LAUDI: Brave and glorious deeds in a dragon's life that make it into the lifesong.

PRRUM: The low thrumming sound a dragon makes when it is pleased or particularly content.

SAA: The rear legs of a dragon. The three rear true-toes are able to grip, but the fighting spur is little more than decoration.

SII: The front legs of a dragon. The claws are shorter, and the fighting spur on the rear leg is closer to the other digits, and opposable. The digits are more elegantly formed for manipulation.

TORF: A small gob from the fire bladder, used to provide a few moments of illumination.

Draconic Personae:

(ALL MALES ARE NAMED USING MATURE DRAGON FORM)

AGGRIFFOPSE—Tyr FeHazathant's only male clutchwinner, mated to Ibidio, died years before the Copper's arrival at the Lavadome.

ANGALIA—Firemaid in Anaea.

AUBALAGRAVE—member of the Drakwatch.

AURON—the clutchwinner at the Copper's hatching.

ESTHEA—NeStirrath's dead mate.

FEHAZATHANT—Tyr at the time of the Copper's arrival in the Lavadome.

FELISSARATH—Upholder of Anaea.

HALAFLORA—sickly daughter of AgGriffopse and Ibidio.

HEBELLERETH—Skotl clan duelist dragon.

IBIDIO—AgGriffopse's mate.

IMFAMNIA—daughter of AgGriffopse and Ibidio.

JIZARA—the Copper's weaker sister.

KRTHONIUS—member of the Drakwatch.

NESTIRRATH—chief trainer of the Drakwatch.

NILRASHA—Firemaiden.

NITHONIUS—Upholder of Bant.

NIVOM—member of the Drakwatch.

NOSOHOTH—majordomo of the Imperial line.

NOTANNADON—duelist.

RETHOTHANNA—Anklene historian.

SIDRAKKON—Tighlia's brother by mating to Tyr FeHazathant.

SIMEVOLANT (golden drake)—AgGriffopse and Ibidio's surviving clutchwinner.

TIGHLIA—Tyr FeHazathant's mate.

TYR—title for the ruler of the Lavadome, usually used in lieu of a name.

WISTALA—the Copper's stronger sister.