Vorlian suddenly recalled the centaur's endless posing in front of the mirror during their meetings. So much for secrecy!
The dragon led him to the gold-framed mirror. Actaeon stood in front of it, and Vorlian stared and listened. The centaur's chant was low and rhythmic . . .
Not something that should crack the mirror-glass from side to side, and then shatter it into glass shards that reflected nothing.
The centaur turned and galloped out, without as much as a word of farewell.
Vorlian went back to his gold and lay down, deep in thought. So . . . either the alvar had lied to him deliberately, or he hadn't known about dragonish compulsion. Vorlian was going have to fly up to the conclave tonight, no matter how tired he was, and talk to the others, and also—if he was there, and he was quite often—corner a small black dragon and ask him some hard questions, with no space for clever-mouthed evasions.
That evening he took to the wing, early, to take best advantage of what help he could get from the thermals. Magic would have to do the rest, but it was a saving in effort. And besides he needed to talk to a lot of dragons. Some of them might be a little irritated, but he was one of the largest, and his recent conquest of one of the oldest and biggest dragons would influence the others.
He alighted at the cavern-mouth where the treasure of the creatures of smokeless flame still burned in its globe. He must have a closer look sometime. It looked rather like burning gas. But now to business . . .
"Vorlian."
He found himself faced by four large dragons, Chandagar, Lamdian, Myrcupa and Brennarn, backed up by several dozen smaller hangers-on. They blocked the entry to the conclave caverns. Chandagar and Brennarn had been on good terms with Zuamar. But Myrcupa had not been. Vorlian cleared his throat. "I have matters to address the conclave about. Things I have discover—"
"You have been banished from the conclave," said Myrcupa. "Go. Go or we will kill you."
"What! What for? Don't be ridicul—"
They answered him with a gout of flame. Fortune favored Vorlian—that and the fact that he was still outside the portal to the cave. The air was very thin making the flame far less effective. And Vorlian's reactions were fast. The sideways dive behind a projecting rock saved him from more than a tendril searing. But he did not wait to see if he could survive it twice. He was not that stupid. He retreated and dived out and down into the cloudy atmosphere again.
His mind roiled with fury and turmoil as headed back toward Starsey.
Fionn's Scrap was thoroughly asleep, having absorbed a far larger amount of knowledge in one day than was normal for her kind. As with her juggling, she did not know the limitations and thus, magically aided, was able to ignore them. Fionn had, by quietly listening in, made sure that the young Lyr-worshiping bravo didn't misteach, and that he also kept his distance. The man had delusions about being a great womanizer and being too handsome to resist. He was aware that Fionn watched, anyway. It had left the Scrap tired, as such magic use will. Fionn had taken the extra precaution of putting a simple sleep spell on the innkeeper's daughter and her swain. A little distraction, and he was able to slip overboard again. He needed time with his gold, and he needed to find out what else was afoot. And he needed to fly all the way to a cottage in the mountains on Yenfar to leave a silver harp with two Loftalvar women.
Once that was done he flew up to the conclave and sniggered at the flame in the orb at the entrance to the cavern. It never failed to make him feel good to see that. In the very early days dragons had only come up here rarely. It had been the simplest thing to replace it with a very ordinary globe which burned methane.
The caverns were quite full tonight, and definitely abuzz. He made his way to the back to the hot vents. The place had its attractions, as did the dream of a plane of dragons. But it too was dying.
He stood and listened in quietly, and warmed himself. It was both amazing and particularly foolish. Vorlian? Vorlian of all dragons. The only thing that was funnier was the idea that they'd somehow acquired, that a dragon did not invade the territory of another and kill it. Next they'd conclude that the hoard of the dead dragon—if you could survive the booby traps—did not belong to the victor.
"You always seem to find something funny, runt," said Myrcupa.
"Yes," said Fionn cheerfully, aware of the sudden silence. "It's all nearly as funny as you are."
Myrcupa raised himself up. "We've changed the rules here, you little black worm. We're in charge now. You owe me an apology." The place was utterly silent, as everyone listened.
Fionn chuckled. "What for? But I'll happily owe it to you. For as long as you live."
For a moment Myrcupa allowed a self-satisfied curl of the lip, and then he said: "What do you mean, 'as long as I live'?"
"Well, if you're dead I can't see any point in going on owing it to you. It's just like if I actually gave you an apology, I would no longer owe it to you."
"What?"
"Semantics. I can't owe it to you, if I have already given it to you. So I'll restrain myself from apologizing, until you're dead. And I see no point in owing or even apologizing to a corpse," said Fionn.
"Are you saying you're not going to apologize?" demanded Myrcupa, his forehead wrinkling at the mental demand, and signs of rage starting to show.
"I think you have finally got it," said Fionn, in mocking congratulation. "What do you think, my fellow dragons? Has he grasped it?"
There were a number of muffled sniggers, hastily hushed, as Myrcupa looked around for backup. "I am now High-Lord of Marchpane and also of Yenfar," Myrcupa announced.
Fionn raised his brows. "By conquest? You defeated the great Zuamar? I am impressed. He was one of the old ones, but wily and tough. And large. I wouldn't dream of offering disrespect to the kind of dragon that could do that. Why, a few days back I saw Zuamar invade Vorlian's territory. Vorlian is bigger than you, and he struggled to see Zuamar off."
Myrcupa was left wordless . . . so Fionn continued a little louder above the rising hubbub. "All hail the conqueror of Zuamar, who was turning into a danger to us all."
Myrcupa turned and stalked off. Fionn grinned and winked at several of the dragons staring at him. "Now, do you think I have offended him? Poor fellow."
One of the watchers shook his head. "I think you've made an enemy for life."
Fionn laughed. "Well, that won't be for too long. Anyway, I must be going. Things to do, centaurs to tease, Tasmarin to destroy. That sort of thing. If I were you I'd drop a message with Vorlian sometime soon that it was all a terrible mistake, by the way. He's a lot cleverer and more dangerous than that tailvent."
Fionn was up and out of the portal before Myrcupa's little posse could gather. It would seem that quite a lot of the dragons got in his way as the new Lord of Yenfar chased after him.
From the shadow of the crater Fionn watched him dive out and down toward Tasmarin. He sighed to himself and set out for his hoard. He really didn't know why he bothered to fix their problems. He would enjoy lying on his gold and looking at the beauty of it in the light of the hell-flame.
But while the gold comforted him, he was still restless. The dvergar had done their best to give his little scrap of humanity protection, with, it was to be admitted, awkward side-effects. But she was still at risk from the species which had greatest power over humans. The magic of the creatures of smokeless flame was singly effective on both humans and—to a slightly lesser extent, dvergar. Their magic was in turn ineffectual against the fire-beings. If the fire creatures could find her when Fionn was not on hand to defend her, she could be compelled to do whatever they wanted her to do. And he was not always able to be with her.
Most dragons scarcely bothered with treasures that were not at least partially gold. Fionn was not that different from any other in that respect. But he did have a few bits of junk he had never got around to throwing out . . . alvar stuff. Silvery metals. Alvar magic was very effective at repelling and unmasking fire-beings. Perhaps there might be something there. He got up and went to have a look. Eventually he found something full of magic to repel fire-beings—a belt woven of silvery metal threads.
There was only one minor flaw in the whole idea. It had obviously been made for a child. A small child. It wouldn't fit around her waist. It probably wouldn't even fit around her neck. He looked at it for a while. By dvergar standards he was barely an artificer. By dragon standards he was nearly as good as a good human craftsman. But that was still not good enough to make this into a human-size belt. And even on the slimmest neck it would barely make a dog-collar. A dog collar . . . it would fit Díleas. Hmm. Finn rooted about. Found a pair of thumbnail sized hollow crystal orbs, which he'd kept because they had a gold loop on them. They were intended to hang on a chain, and could be bespelled to hold light. He took them back to the hell-flame, and read deep into the ancient energies that danced there. It was not hard to take a tiny piece of that and put it into the little orbs. It lacked the finesse of dvergar work, but it would have to do. He bent open the gold loop on one and threaded it through the silvery fibers. The other . . . he found a long chain, also in among the alvar stuff. It would do for a belt, or she could attach Díleas to it.
"Prince Gywndar. The dragon Myrcupa is on the outer wall calling for you."
Gywndar went in haste.
Myrcupa was busy eating someone. "Gather your troops. Embark them on your ships. You sail for Cark tonight."
By now Gywndar knew better than to question the order.
Not even the news, finally broken to him by his mages, that the object he had assumed was the Angmarad was nothing more than old seaweed could stop him from obeying.
On Lapithidia, less than sixteen leagues from Cark, the Children of Chiron—from a centaur nation preparing for war, had been turned into a nation in panic. The dark pool which had showed them probable futures . . . was dry. This was a cataclysm for a people who used it for guidance in so many matters. They'd prepared for other cataclysms. Prepared for bloody war. Looked for answers far and wide.
No one had thought to look at the future of their pool.
That had always just been, and would always be.
Except that it wasn't.
Meb looked up from shaping and sounding out the words in the book Fionn had given her, to see the looming cliffs of Lapithidia. She stared at the sudden size of them, not having realized that she'd read for so long. The last time she'd looked up it had been a mere bump on the horizon. "Lapithidia," said Finn, lazily.
"The cliffs make Yenfar's cliffs look so small."
"Yes, but it's actually not as high in the middle as Yenfar. And relatively flat," said Finn. "Mostly rolling grassland. That suits them. They're obsessed with two things: soothsaying and story-telling. Don't look so eager. The stories are often dull and very full of details that most good story tellers would have very happily left out. They've got a very high opinion of themselves and skills at both, but there are limits on those skills."
That sounded like something that a good apprentice to whatever Finn's mysterious trade was, ought to know. So she asked: "How so?"
"Their histories are told from their point of view—and reality mostly has at least two if not more points of view—and their foretelling is the foretelling of the probable. I've found the improbable happens more often. Also they see true form. So glamor and shape-shift do not show. This can be very difficult for them. You're a woman in their scrying. I am a dragon. Which poses some difficulty for them, as we appear to be neither to ordinary sight."
"Um, Finn." The part about being a dragon was niggling at her. She'd been thinking how the guards on Gywndar's treasury had not believed him when he had told the truth. And she'd seen how the merrow changed form. It couldn't be true, could it? But he was still Finn . . . not a dragon, surely. She knew from childhood stories—and actually seeing Zuamar's slaughter, that they killed without compunction. Finn went out of his way not to kill things. Well, the tree-woman he turned into stone, but otherwise . . . "Are dragons evil? I mean, I always thought they were."
Finn considered this with a wicked look in his eye. "Depends on what you consider evil. Some are. Some aren't. Dragons come in all kinds, good, bad and indifferent. Of course here, on Tasmarin, they've had too much untrammeled power. That's not good for anyone. But they are no different than humans . . . or alvar or merrows. It depends on the individual. I've known a few dragons who fit just about any human category, from saint to thief. They're more solitary than humans and more predictable, generally. Size matters far more among dragons than it does among humans. I am rather small."
Meb look up at him. "No, you're not," she said defensively.
"For a dragon. I am tall and very heavy compared to humans. I change my form. Not my mass. Dragons are very light bodied, really. They have to be. By the way, I was looking through my possessions last night and found a suitable collar and lead for Díleas. Centaurs tend to kick dogs." He patted the young black and white dog who had come nosing him at hearing his name. Díleas was a little less certain that he wanted to wear a collar, even one with a tiny red bauble with a faint glow to it. "It would be useful if he got lost in the dark," said Finn.