To my surprise, it was Montfre who shared my savage judgment. “That is what I have been trying to tell you, Narissea of the Souda. You already know that Inyene is cruel, and that she doesn’t care for anything but her goal of becoming High Queen – but now you know just how ruthless she also is. And clever,” Montfre said with wide eyes. “She managed to get from nothing and nowhere to be a noblewoman with riches and wealth, a private following of hundreds of mercenaries, as well as four or five hundred slaves.”
“As well as five mechanical dragons,” I added. Montfre was right. If she had managed to amass all of that – seemingly by the strength of her wits alone, then I was certain that it wouldn’t take her long to build her army of mechanical dragons.
“But now that you are here,” Montfre said, his voice dry from all the talking, “we have some hope,” he croaked, looking up at Ymmen sitting beside us.
The black dragon was looking resplendent, with the sun glinting across his snout and side. Just looking at him brought me hope, and I’m glad that Montfre shared my feelings.
The sun! I gasped, suddenly realizing how late – or early – it was. We had spent so long talking that the sun was already rising over the eastern plains, turning the sky a dim, suffused pink. “I have to get back!” I leaped up to my feet. Tamin. I had left him all night at the cave – he had food and water, but he would be beside himself with worry!
“Montfre – I thank you for everything that you have shared with me; I promise that I will return,” I said, already reaching my hands up to the sky as Ymmen stood up, stretching out his legs and wings.
“With a staff!” Montfre called out to me. “Just bring me a straight and strong staff. Rowan, oak, or ash if you can find it!”
I nodded, told him that of course I would, as Ymmen’s claws closed around me and I felt that familiar rush of being plucked into the air.
Chapter 17
Fates, Stories, and Staffs
“—and then he said that he needed a staff, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to perform any of his magic!” I said, somewhat breathlessly, to Tamin.
We sat just on the inside of Ymmen’s cave, with the light of the morning strong across the mountainside beyond. Tamin had already damped down the smokery, and it was still early enough that I knew none of the work shifts would be making their way up the mountain yet. In fact, no work shifts had come up the mountain since we had escaped, I realized, pausing my story of last night.
Ymmen had retired to the dark recesses of the cave, grumbling that he was tired. The more time that I spent with him, the more I came to think of him as an older dragon.
Not old! There was a distant tail thump from behind us, making me smile.
“What was that?” Tamin asked, looking warily between me and the shadows of the cave. He still had trouble getting used to my bond, I saw. The thought made me pause for a moment. Why wasn’t I just as surprised by this new ability to hear the dragon’s thoughts? To have the dragon hear mine – much better, I had to say.
Strange, but my bond with the black dragon felt almost natural. Almost, because it was still difficult to understand precisely what he was trying to say in my mind. But that was the limits of the awkwardness. Like getting to know a new horse – you might not understand each other perfectly, but there was an easiness to the relationship that was often lacking with people.
Honest, I thought. No bits of paper. No laws. In response, I felt a rising glow of warmth spread through me, and I knew it was Ymmen’s approval.
“So.” Tamin coughed. “That’s your plan, is it? To steal this scepter that this mage Montfre made, and do what with it?”
My mind went blank for a moment, confused at why he would even ask. “Destroy it, of course. That way, Inyene won’t be able to animate her mechanical dragons.”
“Hm.” Tamin nodded, clearly approving of my answer. “But, presumably this scepter will be well-guarded? Inyene is building an army. She will not leave her most precious item lying around, will she?”
“We have Montfre. We have Ymmen,” I pointed out. A mage and a mighty dragon. Why was Tamin being so difficult?
“Ah, my fierce Nari,” Tamin said softly. “I tried to explain to you before, when we first came here.” He meant the cave. He meant bonding with the dragon. “You cannot see it, but what you are doing here sounds more like the old legends of Torvald and the Middle Kingdom. It sounds like you have come to the attention of fate,” he said mysteriously.
Was that a bad thing? I wondered. Maybe my god-Uncle was just having cold-feet, I thought. I patted him on the shoulder.
There was a sharp and high-pitched pheeet that echoed over the Masaka, instantly cutting through our conversation. From its long, drawn-out wail I knew it to be the sound of either the morning work shifts beginning or the night shift ending. It made me anxious for every minute that I had to spend up here, hiding away.
“The thing with fate is,” Tamin said in a quieter voice, “and what many people do not understand, is that it is about stories.”
“Songs,” I heard Ymmen suggest, and the dragon-word in my mind was hazy with lizard-sleep.
“Most people’s stories are not straightforward – but they are understandable. They begin with their parents, they tell themselves through the course of their life, and they are passed on after they have left this world,” Tamin said.
I had never been very good at philosophy, but I listened all the same.
“But some stories are much deeper, and much older. They are told through generations, centuries, entire ages,” Tamin said.
So? I thought.
“You said that Inyene believes herself a descendant of Queen Delia?” Tamin asked, and I nodded. “Then let me tell you a little of the story that is associated with her.” My god-uncle scowled to the northeast, where Inyene’s camp was.
“Even though the high queen is taught as the mother of the Midmost Lands, there are still far too many stories associated with her that are not so wholesome. Stories of the compact she made with the dragons of the sacred mountain and how it might not have been so good-hearted as people believe.” Tamin’s voice was serious. “Magic, the very stuff that Montfre and Inyene are using, is rumored to come from that time. And there are clear accounts from people who called themselves the Western Witches that the High Queen Delia did something terrible in order to yoke the dragons to her will and release their magic. Something unspeakable.”
There was a slow, reptilian hiss from behind us in the cave. Even though I trusted Ymmen implicitly, I still did not think it wise to poke any more at this subject.
“Uncle,” I said. “We Daza have our own stories, do we not? We may never have ridden dragons – but we do now. We will write our own stories! Maybe fate had better prepare for us!”
“Foulness!” I awoke to a sudden storm of fire in my mind with a gasp. It was Ymmen’s thought, of course – and it took me a moment to center myself and work out what had enraged him so much.
But then I heard it – the clattering, whirring sound of one of the mechanical dragons, far above. I had slept through the day and it was sunset, the entrance of our den was filled with a blood-red light as the clacking, grinding, whirring sound only grew closer.