The Blood of a Dragon

Chapter Thirty-Six

They talked for hours, well into the night, working out the details; when the sun dropped below the horizon they moved outside the nest, into a clearing where Dumery made a small pile of brush that Aldagon lit, providing a fire for light and heat.

They tackled such questions as how long it would take to get things under way, and how much of the arrangement they had made should be kept secret, and how many other humans would be hired to help with establishing a cattle ranch, selling blood, and the like.

Taking Dumery’s age into account, they decided to build up slowly.

“After all,” Aldagon said, “I’m in no hurry. I should live another millennium or so, if I’m careful, ere my body fails of its own weight and my heart bursts. I’ve learned patience.”

The final discussion was over just how Dumery was to get back to Ethshar.

“You can’t walk from here,” Aldagon insisted. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Why?” Dumery asked, puzzled. He had survived encountering wild dragons; what worse dangers could remain?

“Why, you’ll be passing within two leagues of the Warlock Stone!” the dragon told him.

“I will?” Here was a chance to confirm or refute what Teneria had told him. He asked, “So what?”

“Lad, don’t you know?” Aldagon said, amazed. “That stone is the source from which all warlocks draw their power, and which draws them in when it can, turning their own power against them. I don’t pretend to understand it well, but I’ve spoken with a good many warlocks on their way to it-on their way to destruction, for none have ever returned. Ordinary mortals who go too near the Stone become warlocks themselves, but take no pleasure in the transformation, as they’re drawn immediately to it. I’ll not have you devoured by the Stone, whatever it truly is!”

“But I don’t have any talent for warlockry!” Dumery pointed out. “Everybody told me that.”

Aldagon considered.

“Well, ’tis possible,” she admitted. “In truth, I’ve flown within a league or so of the Stone myself and felt nothing beyond a certain unease-but why risk it?”

“Because if I don’t, how am I going to get home?”

“Why, go around, of course. And in truth, to be sure, I could fly you there. I’ve not seen Azrad’s Ethshar in three hundred and seventy years, but I think I can find it. I could deliver you right into Westgate Market-if Westgate Market still stands.”

“Oh, it does,” Dumery said. Then he stopped to think.

The prospect of flying to Ethshar, on dragon back, was dazzling, both tempting and terrifying-and, after a moment, irresistible.

“All right,” Dumery said, “but you can’t fly me right into the city. Everyone would see you. Everyone would want to know what’s going on. And someone might get frightened and throw a spell at you.”

“True enough,” Aldagon agreed. “Well, then, what if I fly you to the highway north of Ethshar, in the hour before dawn when all’s quiet, and deliver you there, in sight of the walls?”

“That should be safe enough,” Dumery agreed.

It was settled.

Then Dumery curled up in his blanket and slept, while Aldagon returned to her nest.

The following afternoon, when the time came to depart, a small snag appeared in their plans-just how would Aldagon carry Dumery?

“I can hold you in my claw,” she suggested.

“It doesn’t sound very comfortable,” Dumery protested. “I thought I could ride on your back.”

“But what would you hold on to?”

Dumery had to admit that she had a point; her back was far too broad to ride astraddle, as he might a horse. Still, he refused to admit defeat. Flying the entire way clutched in the dragon’s claw like a sack of meal simply didn’t appeal to him.

“What if I sat on your neck, just behind your head?” he suggested. “I think I’d have a pretty good grip there with a leg on each side, and I could hold onto your ears with my hands.”

“And choke me, and pinch me?”

“I’d be careful. And I really don’t weigh that much.”

“True enough,” the dragon agreed. “All right, then, we’ll try it.”

Dumery grinned. Aldagon lowered her head, and he clambered up onto her neck, swinging one leg over.

His seat was rather precarious at first-dragon scales were much more slippery than he had expected. Twice he almost fell off, and only saved himself by snatching at Aldagon’s immense pointed ears at the last moment.

Finally, though, he found a position that seemed secure, with his toes hooked into the underside of her jaw, his body pressed forward along the back of her skull, and his hands hooked firmly around the bases of her ears.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Awkward,” she replied, the movement of her jaw knocking his feet loose, “but ’twill serve.”

“Don’t talk,” he said. “It pushes my feet out.”

“I shall attempt to restrain myself,” she replied. “Ready yourself, lad!”

Dumery crouched down and clung tightly while the great dragon leapt into the air.

The forests and hills fell away below with startling speed, the thick grey clouds above drawing nearer until they seemed to be almost close enough to touch.

Then Aldagon wheeled about, leveled off, and headed south.

They spoke very little; not only did Aldagon’s jaw movements dislodge Dumery’s toes, but the wind carried away the boy’s words before the dragon could hear them, making conversation impractical.

He would have had little to say in any case, as he was too busy watching the World sweep by below.

The forest was no longer a thing made up of individual trees, with trunks and leaves, but was instead a vast green sea spilling down the hills and splashing up around the rocky mountaintops. He marvelled at its beauty.

He marveled as well at his mount, her scales as green as the forest below, her wings as large as the mainsails of his father’s largest ships. He could see her talons outstretched, the cruel, curving claws each nearly as large as he was.

Had anyone ever had so magnificent a mount? Even Azrad himself-neither the present Lord Azrad VII, nor the original Admiral Azrad-had never had so fine a ride as this. And he, Dumery of Shiphaven, was riding her!

Aldagon sailed on, blithely unaware of Dumery’s egotisms.

He looked down at the ground below, and realized that it all looked alike to him-he couldn’t see any sign of where they had started from, or where they were going. How could Aldagon find her way, he wondered, with no paths to follow?

Presumably she was taking her directions from the sun, and the few recognizable landmarks that thrust up through the general green.

The sun had been low in the west and the cloud-cover dense when they took off, so it wasn’t long before they were flying through darkness, the stars and moons hidden by the overcast. The forest below turned grey, and then black.

Now, more than ever, Dumery wondered how Aldagon knew where to go. Did she have some sense he did not that told her the way? She seemed untroubled as she soared steadily onward.

Then, after what seemed like and may in fact have been hours, Dumery glimpsed a faint glow, far, far ahead, on the horizon, That puzzled him; it couldn’t possibly be dawn already, and besides, how could they have turned east?

After staring for long moments he looked down and saw lights-faint and scattered, but lights. Campfires and lanterns and candles, surely; they were out of the forest and over inhabited lands.

Not long after they passed over lights that seemed to be oddly spread out and mobile, and Dumery realized they were boat-lanterns reflected in the water of the Great River.

He looked ahead again, and saw that the glow on the horizon was growing.

Ethshar, he realized. The glow had to be the city, Ethshar of the Spices, with its thousands of torches and lamps and braziers, lights lining the streets and burning in hundreds of courtyards, doorways, and windows.

He was almost home.

He watched, and the glow grew nearer and brighter and spread across a wider area-Ethshar was a league across, he knew.

“Boy,” Aldagon said, “ahead I see naught but water between here and the city. Where does the highway lie?”

Startled, Dumery clutched at the dragon’s ears and wiggled a dislodged foot back into place. “West,” he shouted. “That’s the Gulf of the East ahead; we want to circle to the west!”

He wondered how she could tell water from land; except where there were lights it all looked like undifferentiated blackness to him.

Then he had no time to worry about anything but holding on, as Aldagon banked into a long, swooping turn to the west. She descended somewhat as well, looking for landmarks.

They passed over a building with a torch burning by the door, and Dumery thought it might be the inn where he had stayed that first night. Then they were over the highway, sweeping onward toward the city.

At last, as the city’s glow spread across the entire eastern sky, Aldagon dropped to the ground.

“Behold, the towers that flank the gate,” she said.

Dumery looked, and could just barely make out dim shapes on the horizon; there could be no doubt that Aldagon had better eyesight than he did. The great dragon lowered her head almost to the ground; Dumery swung his legs free, and dropped awkwardly down onto the hard-packed dirt.

He looked around, but all he saw was the city lights to the east and blackness everywhere else. He blinked, but it didn’t help. He could hear the breeze stirring through grass, or possibly young corn, and he could hear his companion’s breathing, like a strong wind in an open attic, but otherwise the night was silent. Not even crickets chirped.

“It strikes me,” Aldagon said, shattering the quiet so suddenly that Dumery jumped, lost his balance, and found himself toppling into the ditch by the road, “that we have neglected an important facet of our scheme.”

Dumery managed to land sitting up, with only a small splash.

“What facet?” he demanded, annoyed. The night was so dark he could barely even see Aldagon; only a faint glimmer of golden light reflected from her eyes was visible. He got carefully to his feet. His breeches weren’t actually dripping, he was pleased to discover, just damp.

“The means for communication,” Aldagon explained. “When you have all in readiness, and would summon me, or come to me, how are we to find one another?”

“Oh,” Dumery said.

The dragon was quite right, they had neglected that.

Still, he had a ready answer.

“While I was away,” Dumery said, “my parents contacted me twice by hiring a wizard to send me magical dreams. Do dragons dream? I mean, in their sleep?”

“Oh, aye, of course we do!”

“Well, then, when I have things ready, I’ll hire a wizard and send a dream.”

“Need you not know my location?”

“No-just your true name. Ah... it is Aldagon, isn’t it?”

The dragon was silent for a long moment.

“Isn’t it?” Dumery repeated.

“Tell me, lad, if you can,” Aldagon replied, “just what is a true name?”

“Oh,” Dumery said. “Well. Ah.” He stopped and thought.

He had heard magicians discussing true names when he had been unsuccessfully seeking an apprenticeship, and even before that, on occasion.

“I’m not sure,” he said, “but I believe it means the very first name that you recognized as your own.”

Aldagon sighed, and a pale flicker of flame emerged with her sulphurous breath, illuminating for an instant the muddy ditch, the dusty road, and the young green corn of a neighboring field.

“I was afraid of that,” she said.

Dumery started to ask a question, then thought better of it. He waited.

Aldagon sighed again. “I fear, manling, that I must confess that the name Aldagon was not my first, though I’ve borne it these four centuries and more. Ere I could speak, however, I was known by another, and answered to it.”

“Oh,” Dumery said. “What was it?”

“You’ll recall I had no choice, and was but a beast, in the service of Ethshar.”

“I remember,” Dumery said.

Aldagon hesitated, then admitted, “It was Yellowbelly. Yellowbelly of Third Company, First Regiment, Forward Command.”

“Oh,” Dumery said.

After a moment’s silence, he added, “Well, at least it’s easy to remember.”

He couldn’t see her face, but he heard Aldagon snicker. “Aye,” she said, “it is.”

Dumery waited for a moment, to see if she had anything more to say, then said, “I guess this is it, then.”

“Indeed so, young man. From here you need but follow the glow, and you’ll come to the city gates and your home. And when you’ve readied yourself, summon me to you with that spell of dreams, and I’ll come. Readily, I’ll come; we’ll put that foul family out of the business of butchering my kin, and make ourselves wealthy in the doing!”

“Right!” Dumery answered, with a gesture of enthusiasm.

“Fare you well, then, Dumery of Shiphaven!”

Dumery’s reply was lost in the booming of draconic wings as Aldagon leapt upward, into the black sky above.

When the wind of her departure had died away, Dumery turned and trudged toward the gate.

The next few years would be hard, he knew. He would take his father’s advice and apprentice himself to some successful merchant; he would learn the arts of buying and selling, of transporting goods hither and yon. At fifteen, if he was lucky and worked hard, he might make journeyman-surely by eighteen!

Until he was a journeyman, though, he would be careful never to mention what goods he meant to trade in. He would hoard his earnings carefully.

And someday he’d be ready-at fifteen, or eighteen, or maybe twenty-one, if there were unforeseen expenses. But someday he’d be ready.

Then he would start his business-Dumery of the Dragon, Purveyor to Wizards. He would bankrupt Kensher and his clan, put an end to the abuse they inflicted on dragons. He would watch Thetheran and the other wizards fume and fuss, and then have no choice in the end but to pay Dumery’s prices. He would send cattle to Aldagon, and collect blood in exchange, and he’d be, in time, very rich indeed.

At first he might pretend to be a dragon-hunter, he thought as he stumbled, then re-oriented himself and marched on. In time, though, once he was established, he could reveal his secret, show everyone that he had made friends with a dragon, rather than hunting or slaughtering the noble creatures. He didn’t need to worry about competition; after all, where would anyone else find a dragon like Aldagon? And once found, who could befriend such a beast? His own encounter had been a fluke, a lucky chance-had he come upon the nest when Aldagon was in it, or when it was empty, she would probably have slain him, had he dared approach. Had he been armed with anything more than a belt knife, and therefore more threatening, or had the hatchling been too far away to grab...

He doubted he would have much competition even when his methods became known.

As he finally came close enough to see the open gates clearly, light spilling out from the torches and lamps of Westgate Market, he wished he had flown openly into the city on Aldagon’s back. Think of the impression it would have made, he told himself. A hundred-foot dragon, landing inside the city walls, and he, Dumery of Shiphaven, Dumery of the Dragon, on its back! What a wonder!

The city gossips would have talked of it for years!

He hadn’t done it, of course.

But someday...

Someday, he promised himself, when his business was a going concern, he would do it.