The Dragon's Son (4 page)

“It was a fine plan,” Draconas added wryly. “It had the benefit of delaying
any action or decision-making for at least twenty years, while we waited for
the child to grow up. After all, what is twenty years to the life of a dragon?
An eyeblink, nothing more. Maristara had other ideas, however. She discovered
the plan through her spy, Grald. He lured me into a trap and there he delved
into my mind, tore it open, saw everything. He located the female and raped
her, impregnating her with his child.

“The female gave birth to two sons—one human, the other half-human,
half-dragon. The mother died, but both boys survived. They are now about six
years old.”

“You should have brought them to us,” Malfiesto insisted. “Let us raise
them.”

“We’ve been through this once,” Draconas said impatiently. “I see no reason
to go through it again.”

Malfiesto sucked in a breath, about to launch into a harangue.

Draconas swiftly forestalled him. “Madame, Honored Members, there has been a
new development.”

The dragons stirred uneasily. They did not like the word “new.”

“What is that?” Anora asked.

Draconas conjured up the image of a human face, a lovely face, that of
Melisande, the human female who had been in his care, the human he had so
grievously failed. He created the image of a child’s hand—one hand and then two
hands—reaching through a prison wall to touch each other.

“What are you trying to convey to us?” Anora demanded, her colors
sharp-edged and steel-pointed.

“Exactly what you see, Prime Minister,” returned Draconas, keeping the image
alive in his mind for all to see. “Because of our unfortunate intervention, two
human children have been born with the ability to use dragon magic as we do—to
communicate as we do. Mentally. Mind-to-mind. I know this because the two
children have been in mental contact with each other.”

The dragons all spoke at once, the images in their minds swirling about
Draconas in a flaring vortex.

“Humans! Communicating as we do! The only barrier that has kept the savages
from destroying themselves and harassing us is their inability to properly
communicate their thoughts. The need to take their thoughts and shape and mold
them into words that must then be taken by the hearer and shaped and molded
back into thoughts. Imagine what havoc they would weld if this process were
eliminated, if they could see clearly into each other’s minds!”

Draconas made himself the eye of the storm, the calm, the empty center. He
had set this trap for the spy and now he watched each male dragon, trying to
find the one who was shamming, the one who already knew what had happened. The
one whose claw had torn apart the children’s dream.

Draconas watched closely, but he was disappointed. The colors of the male
dragons were the same as those of their female counterparts: expressive of
shock, outrage, fear.

Anora attempted to bring the outburst to a halt, threatening at one point to
disband the Parliament if the members could not control themselves, and, at
length, she managed to restore order. She kept the speaker’s wand for herself,
however, ignoring the many demands being made for it.

“Did the father of Melisande’s sons intend this consequence, do you think,
Draconas?” asked Anora. “The ability of the human children to communicate
mind-to-mind?”

“You’d have to ask him,” said Draconas wryly. He made a frustrated gesture. “I
don’t even know for certain why he felt the need to father a dragon child. The
most obvious reason is that he wanted to punish Melisande, prevent her from
returning to Seth to tell the people the truth—that they are being ruled by the
very monsters they’ve been taught to hate. But, if that was all he wanted, he
could have simply killed Melisande when he found her. He has some dark purpose
in mind, of that I have no doubt. I just don’t know what it is.”

“My question—” Anora began.

“Yes. Sorry, I wandered down the wrong path. To answer your question, Prime
Minister, I do not think the dragon intended for this ‘consequence’ to happen.
In fact, I believe he is as dismayed by it as we are. The ability for the human
children to speak mentally is as much a threat to him as it is to us. When the
dragon discovered the children had found each other, he reacted quite violently
to put an end to their communication. He is not pleased.”

“He didn’t harm the children?” Anora asked anxiously.

“Not physically. He cannot find them. He is searching for them, however, and
sooner or later, because he can now enter their minds, he will discover them.
Therefore, I again bring up my original proposal. I have been looking for Grald’s
kingdom, the human realm where they have been hiding the stolen babies. I
cannot find it. Powerful magic—most likely dream magic— guards it. But if all
of us were to band together and search—”

Waves of slate gray and storm black, purple and indigo and green, crashed
and beat against him. Anora did not even bother to try to restore order.
Draconas let the fury roll over him. He had known before he made the proposal what
the response would be.

When the outcry had calmed and Anora could make herself heard, she named off”
the reasons why they could not do what Draconas had asked of them. He had heard
the reasons before. He knew them by heart. If dragons attacked a human colony,
the word would spread. The humans of every other human colony would hear of the
attack and they would panic. Nations would rise up against the dragons, seek
them out, destroy them.

Humans would die.

Dragons might even die.

“There are other ways, Draconas,” Anora said now as she had said before. “Patience.
That is the watchword. Be patient. Give us time to think up a better course of
action.”

And so on and so forth, forever and ever, amen.

Anora was right, of course. A war between humans and dragons was a terrible
prospect, one to be avoided at all costs. Yet, in the end, they might not have
a choice. . . .

“Why won’t you tell us where the children are hiding, Draconas?” asked
Lysira, a young female dragon. A sibling of Braun, she was now the last of her
noble House. She was a beautiful dragon, aquamarine, with a long, delicate
neck. “Let us protect them.”

Draconas’s thoughts softened as they touched hers. “I cannot tell you,
Lysira. For that would be to tell my enemy.”

Lysira bristled in shock and outrage. “How dare you accuse me—”

“I do not accuse you, Lysira,” said Draconas. “Any more than I accuse any
other member of this Parliament. But the fact remains that time and again,
Maristara has been apprised of our most secret plans and, because of that knowledge,
she is able to thwart them.”

He lost patience. Reds and oranges flared. “If our enemy is here among us,
that single question—where are Melisande’s children—is the one question he or
she most wants answered!”

He bowed stiffly to Anora. “This has been a waste of time, Minister.”

Turning on his heel, he walked out before he had been formally dismissed, a
serious breach of etiquette. He didn’t give a damn. He was angry, frustrated,
disappointed. He’d made the trip for nothing, it seemed, except to start a
furor. He could see the dragons’ colors flash and flare, their version of
shouting. The argument would rage for days and, in the end, they would do what
he had known they would do from the start—nothing.

Leaving behind the shifting, clamoring brilliance, Draconas began the long
ascent back to daylight.

The two dragons had seen all they needed to see and now they met,
mind-to-mind, the moment Draconas departed the underground cavern where the
Parliament was in session.

“The walker knows where to find the children,” said Maristara, gnawing,
frustrated. “If only we knew where to find the walker. Sometimes I am sorry we
ever took it into our heads to involve ourselves with humans. I had no idea
they would be so much trouble. Who -would have thought, for instance, that this
•wretched boy you fathered would turn out to be able to communicate mentally
with another human? This means the others can, also.”

“So far, I’ve seen no signs of it in his siblings. I am keeping close watch.”

“We need that boy!” Maristara said, frustrated.

“We will find him. Sooner or later, he will use the magic again and when he
does, I will seize hold of him and probe his mind—”

“A pity you missed the first time he used it.”

“Human minds are slippery at this age,” Grald protested. “I could not hold
on to him.”

“Suppose we find the walker,” Maristara suggested. “Suppose the walker
should meet with an accident. . .”

“We’ve discussed that before and discarded it. Draconas dead. Talk about
panic! Parliament would take action then. They would have no choice. Besides,
the walker serves our purpose. He is the buffer between us and them. So long as
he remains alive, they will be content to let him handle everything. Remove him
and they will be forced to intervene.

“Consider this, Maristara,” Grald added. “Draconas is our link to the
children, the children our link back to Draconas. Find one and you find the
other.”

“And what if the walker warns the children not use the magic? Then we will
have lost all three.”

“No need to worry about that,” said Grald. “One
thing that you can rely upon with humans is that you can never rely upon them.
No matter what the walker says or does, Melisande’s sons will go their own way
and then we will have them.”

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN BELLONA AND VEN reached the outskirts of
Fairfield. The main street leading into the city was clogged with travelers,
all coming to the faire. Those who wanted to enter the walled town had to wait
in line to pass through the gates. The fairegrounds were located outside the
city, however, and those going to the faire could circumvent the walls and
strike out for the smooth sward of fresh mown and rolled grass on which the
gaily colored booths were being erected.

Bellona did not have a booth. She did not sell her furs to the public at
large. She sold them to dealers in furs, who would take the ermine, the mink,
and the white fox back to the kings or queens or princes who employed them,
there to show the quality of each pelt and describe how it might look upon the
royal robe or royal gown. Bellona had no desire to enter the city proper. She
hauled the wagon past the walls, heading for the tent city located on the
northern edge of the fairegrounds, where the grassy field gave way to thick
forest.

Yen’s pulse quickened. By the end of the faire, he would be glad to leave
the noise and confusion; glad to return to his quiet, solitary existence in the
wilderness. And thus he tended to forget, from year to year, the thrill he
always felt when first arriving at the faire.

People were in a good mood at the start of the faire. Merchants anticipated
fat profits. The common folk anticipated some fun to brighten their drab lives.
The nobility anticipated intrigue, shopping, and gossip. And so, while there
was much confusion during the setup of booths and tents, jostling and
collisions were taken in good humor. Strangers pitched in to help when a wheel
fell off a wagon. The traveling actors, busy erecting a stage at one end of the
field, enlivened the work with the music of tambour and drum.

The mood would change by faire’s end. Exhaustion, disappointment,
pickpockets, and hangovers would take their toll on the fairegoer’s good
nature. But for now, every man was every other man’s brother. The merriment was
contagious and Ven felt himself swept up in the excitement and gaiety.

Not so Bellona. She pushed the cart with grim determination, glared at
anyone who jostled her, and swore at those who hampered her progress. Most
people rolled their eyes and got out of her way. Those who thought they might
want to make something of it were usually put off by the speed with which she
dropped the handles of the wagon to clasp the short sword she wore strapped
around her waist.

Bellona did not look like a woman, nor did she behave like one. By her dress
and her walk, she appeared to be a clean-shaven man in his mid-thirties. She
wore her black hair cropped short. Her gaze was bold and challenging and
unafraid. Her arms were muscular from hard labor, and she handled her sword
with practiced ease. All but the most obdurate (or the most drunken) backed
down from an encounter with her. Those who persisted in fighting often found
themselves lying on the ground, rubbing a cracked head or nursing a broken jaw.

Bellona made no friends at the faire. She wanted none. She made no enemies,
either. Most people were glad to leave the dour and half-mad fur trader to her
own devices.

She and Ven pitched their small tent made of bear hide at the very edge of
the encampment, as far from the other tents as they could manage, while still
staying within the established boundaries. The tent was intended more for the
comfort of the furs than it was for their own.

They both unloaded the cart; then Ven hauled it away to the nearby woods,
where he stashed it beneath a tree. Bellona arranged the furs inside the tent,
then both went to their rest. Ven slept inside the tent, lying on the ground so
as not to damage the pelts. Bellona slept outside, guarding the tent, her hand
on her sword’s hilt. Both were so weary from the road that they fell asleep
quickly, oblivious of the sounds of raucous merrymaking all around them.

The next day, the faire opened and business
commenced.

“If you please, kind sir,” said Ven, tugging on his forelock in respect, “my
master has arrived with his furs. He trusts that you are in the market for fine
pelts this year and, if so, he asks if you would be so good as to favor him
with your business.”

The busy merchant barely glanced at the boy. He knew Ven from years past. “The
usual place, I suppose?”