“What!?” I burst out.
“The voice, Little Sister – we have not much time, I will have to greet the other dragons of the sacred mountain—” Ymmen was saying, and at his naming of that place that was now wide and in front of us, filling half of the sky….
I heard it again.
“Home.”
It was a sleepy voice, and an ancient one – a truly ancient one, I realized. The knowledge not just of winds and forests and seas and the march of seasons flowed through it – but also the slow awareness of centuries – millennia, even…
“Home.”
It was also an old dragon; I knew it instinctively – but I couldn’t say how. And, I got the sudden suspicion that this dragon voice was asleep. Was that why she and I had shared those thoughts as I had been rising from my slumbers? Something felt right about that understanding. Maybe I was the one who was eavesdropping on this dragon’s dreams!
“Ymmen – is that even possible? To join a dragon’s thoughts in dreams?” I asked suddenly, as our blue escort flashed past underneath us before pulling up and slowing, clearly showing us that we should remember where we were and at whose mercy—
But as soon as I turned my awareness to my dragon-brother, I realized just how deeply shocked he was. He had withdrawn his presence back into his own mind, and, as we swept upwards past winding cobbled streets and through the wooden smokes of chimneys towards the palace – I could feel Ymmen’s confusion.
“Ymmen? What is it? Who is that dragon!” I asked, not caring at all about the difficult situation – and possible danger – that we were about to be in right here in the city of the Dragon Riders.
“That is the Sleeper,” Ymmen said. “No one has heard from her for a long, a very long, time. I have never heard her song at all in this world, as she went to sleep long before I was even hatched.”
“The Sleeper?” I asked.
“Her name is Fargal. She is sister to the Golden Bull Zaxx, who was killed many, many centuries ago. On her brother’s death, she retired from the world.”
“Oh, I’m sorry…” I started to say.
“Do not be sorry! Be glad!” Ymmen said, his voice filling with a brighter, hotter flame that I felt could sear through emotions and memories and burn them clear from my mind if he so chose to do so. “Zaxx was a tyrant! An evil dragon! He was the first Bull to claim this holy mountain for himself, and only for himself,” Ymmen explained quickly as the Palace approached us, and the blue dragon started to circle and slow as it moved around the different precincts and wide, gigantic courtyards.
“Dragons are ruled by Den Mothers, Brood-Queens, not Bulls!” Ymmen said, and I could tell that his horror for what this ancient gold dragon had done was very real indeed. “And Zaxx was the dragon who controlled every other dragon here and for leagues around. HE was the monster who submitted to the Old High Queen Delia’s will, and together—”
“They made the Dragon Riders,” I said, knowing how this story was supposed to sound – but that was all a lie, wasn’t it? This very Stone Crown that sat on my head had been fashioned for and had empowered the Old High Queen Delia, the mother of the unified Three Kingdoms of the West.
“She must have created it to help control this Zaxx,” I whispered, as the pieces started to slot together.
“And together, they controlled every dragon and every human for a hundred years or more,” Ymmen said darkly. “No, Delia did not create the Dragon Riders. Humans and Dragons have always been allies. But here, in this place, it was a young man named Neil Torvald and a young woman named Char Nefrette who created the true Dragon Riders,” Ymmen said. “Fargal,” he concluded darkly. “The Sleeper’s name is Fargal.”
I was still reeling from all of this information as the blue dragon swept past us, flaring and beating its wings to encourage us to land at the spot that she had decided. Looking down distractedly, I saw that it was a gigantic V-shape of cobbled and paved ground, where several metal poles taller than I was stood dotted here and there, forming a very wide sort of avenue. This was just one such courtyard (as large as my entire village out on the Plains!) that radiated from the many halls and wings of the Palace. Ymmen slowed our flight, and with just a few flickering wingbeats, he had landed gracefully on the ground, with just the faintest of scraping sounds as his claws clicked on the stone.
No sooner had we landed than there were lines of more of Torvald guards in their horned helmets and their green and purple cloaks jogging towards us. I stiffened when I saw the heavy chains they were holding, but a sharp whistle of noise from the blue who remained with her own Riders overhead, watching us intently, pulled these guards up short and standing to attention.
But, my mind was still thinking about everything that Ymmen had just told me. Somehow, as well as trying to find a way to beat Inyene the Metal Queen – with all of her stolen magics and her army of mechanical monsters – and trying to find a way to destroy the evil influence of the Stone Crown that seemed like it wanted me to turn into Inyene or the Dark King or worse – somehow as well as all of that, there was now a vast, ancient sleeping dragon called Fargal, whose brother had helped enslave the world.
When will the people of this world ever be free? I wondered, thinking about those long, dark, cold and cramped years spent up and down the Masaka Mines. But it wasn’t just my own slavery at Inyene’s hands that brought forth this sudden sadness, was it? It was also the slavery of the Daza – and now it seemed as though every person, every dragon in the world had been in danger of having their lives and hopes and dreams stolen from them, at some point.
Is this what the Lady Red was talking about? I considered, and wondered if the rise of Fargal, the Sleeper, would spell another time of enslavement for all of us…
Chapter 13
The King and I
“Narissea!” I heard a familiar voice shout, and looked up to see Tamin, emerging from one of the courtyard arches, surrounded on either side by guards and with his hands bound by thick ropes. Oh no! I thought, and my mind naturally turned to include Abioye and Montfre as welclass="underline" Were they similarly bound somewhere, like this!?
“Uncle!” I called with outrage at seeing this older man whom I loved treated like a lowly criminal. Like how Inyene treats us, I thought bitterly as my boots slapped onto the flagstones. The other Dragon Rider guards had clearly taken Tamin and the others to different courtyards first – maybe out of a fear of being able to control Ymmen?
“No man can control me!” Ymmen, at my side, raised his head and let out a cough of smoke and flame, causing the lines of helmeted Dragon Riders to shuffle nervously, looking at their stern-faced captains for direction.
The halls of the royal palace of Torvald stood proud and tall around me, although I could only make out the peaked and slated roofs and the tall and slender towers that stood like unlikely trees from my low vantage point. The triangular courtyard where Ymmen and I had been directed to land was bounded by open archways of yellow stone leading into what looked to be galleries, before large wooden doors led into the palace itself. I could see large trunks edging the walls all around – made of thick planks of some ruddy-dark wood, which I guessed must contain Rider equipment.