Jandra's cheeks tingled at the word 'lust.' But with Hex flying her, the journey to find Zeeky and the real Bitterwood might only take a few days. Perhaps by then she could trust herself to work with Pet without risking becoming another of his conquests.
'Hex,' she said, 'It would be an honor. Do you need anything before we go?'
'I arrived with only the scales on my back and so I shall depart. There is nothing I need that the forests and the streams cannot provide.'
'Wonderful. I travel light as well,' she said, fingering the pouch of silver dust that hung on her belt. If she needed a change of clothes, she would simply weave them from materials at hand. In fact, her skirt seemed a little impractical for dragon-riding. She ran her fingers along the velvety cloth, willing it to transform. The fabric responded almost instantly, reweaving itself into a pair of riding pants.
'Wow,' said Pet. 'I didn't know you could do that. Change your clothes just by thinking.'
'I've been able to transmute matter for a while,' she said. 'I've just gotten better at it.'
'Do you, uh, take off your clothes the same way? Just think about at it and, whoosh, they fall off? Because that's just… I mean-' Pet's voice trailed off dreamily.
'Take care, Pet,' she said as Hex crouched, giving her access to his broad back.
She glanced toward Pet as she straddled Hex's neck, grasping his mane of long feather-scales. She was out of range of Pet's aroma once Hex rose to his normal height. Pet didn't look as delicious as he had a second before. He looked a little pathetic, actually, small from where she sat on the back of a dragon. Which only made it all the more urgent to her that she not be near him should her senses run wild again.
'Let's go, Hex,' she said.
Hex ran forward, spreading his wings. With a flap they were airborne and Jandra clenched her knees, holding on for her life.
Jandra had never ridden a sun-dragon before. When she was younger, she'd often flown with Vendevorex, riding in a harness strapped to his chest, looking out over the world upside-down. But once she'd gone through the growth spurt of puberty, she'd become too heavy for him to carry easily, and slowly she'd come to accept that she'd spend her adulthood earthbound.
Hex carried her across the night sky as if she was weightless. Sun-dragons' enormous wings had always reminded her of sails. Sun-dragons moved through the air the way ships sailed across the water, slowly, taking turns in great arcs. Sky-dragons moved more like fish, darting and flashing in any direction with the speed of thought.
As Jandra watched the moonlit landscape unfolding beneath her, she suddenly found a deep appreciation of the sun-dragon's command over the air. The relative slowness of their flight felt graceful, as if they were drifting down a river of wind, with Hex's wings carefully dipping and tilting in the current. From time to time he would beat his broad wings. His powerful muscles rippled beneath Jandra's legs as they climbed into the sky. She felt as if they must be miles above the earth. Yet, even as she thought this, her brain began to buzz as her helm gathered various bits of data-the angle of the crescent moon above in comparison to the size and shape Hex's shadow below-and a string of numbers flashed through her mind to inform her they were roughly three hundred yards above the countryside.
The terrain below was mostly gentle hills. It was late fall and most of the trees had shed their leaves. Cottages and barns dotted the hills; rail fences divided the land into large parcels, marking the boundaries of farms. It seemed odd that the earth should look so peaceful, with Albekizan's castle so near. Most humans had returned home after the battle of the Free City. It mattered little to them who sat upon the throne. They would continue their daily lives of raising families, planting, harvesting, and trading goods.
Vendevorex had told her long ago that humans benefited from the rule of sun-dragons. War had become a thing that dragons waged against other dragons. The armies that dragon kings amassed weren't aimed primarily at the oppression of humans, but at protecting themselves from the threats posed by other dragons. It was true that, under the law, humans owned nothing. They were legally little more than parasites upon the king's property. All the products of their labors could be taken from them on a whim. But, in practice, most humans were allowed to live their lives unmolested. The human arts of farming and tending livestock had never been activities dragons embraced. Humans produced food, the dragons took their portion, and beyond this most people spent their lives catching only the occasional glimpse of dragons. In return, humans lived in a state of relative peace. They weren't allowed to amass armies. The ruling sun-dragons would quickly quash any human militia before it could become a threat. While humans did skirmish with neighboring villages from time to time, most humans spent their lives never having to pick up a weapon to use against a fellow man. For centuries, there had been no human-against-human battle that involved more than a few dozen men. This time in history, Vendevorex had told her, was known as the Pax Draco-the Peace of Dragons.
Was Shandrazel risking this peace with his talk of freedom? Having grown up among dragons, Jandra had spent most of her childhood assuming that the existing world order was essentially fair. Perhaps the world would be better if the dragons continued to rule.
As she thought this, they passed over a high hill and on the far side found what looked to be a city of tents. Smoke from a hundred smoldering campfires scented the air. In addition to the hundreds of small and tattered tents, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of humans who were slumbering on the bare ground, with not even a blanket to cover them.
'Who are these people?' Hex asked.
Jandra wasn't sure. 'I suppose they're refugees,' she answered. 'People from the Free City who don't know how to find their way home.'
'This is why Shandrazel's vision of a new world order is doomed,' Hex sighed.
'Why?'
'Humans will care nothing for Shandrazel's proposed reforms after what my father has done,' said Hex. 'They may even take up arms to avenge my father's misdeeds. And what then? Shandrazel will use the armies he now commands to force the humans to respect his new laws. He'll become as much a tyrant as my father was no matter how good his intentions.'
'You're something of a pessimist, I take it.'
'On the contrary,' he said. 'I believe there is every chance a new and better world is only a few years away. Perhaps Shandrazel will lose control of his armies. The various domains that make up the kingdom will revert to local control. No longer ruled by a higher authority, the inhabitants of the land may learn to work together for the good of all. Simple self interest will lead dragons and humans to peace, once the claw of tyranny is lifted.'
Jandra now found Hex's world view overly optimistic. Then she remembered the sound of the executioner's axe falling and taking the lives of her friends. She remembered the cries from the courtyard as Albekizan had all the humans in the palace slaughtered. Maybe Hex was right-perhaps all authority in this world did derive from violence.
She grew quiet, lost in thought, as the refugee camp vanished in the distance behind them. Hex said, 'Perhaps I should have asked this an hour ago, but where are we going?'
'Oh,' said Jandra. 'Excellent question. I wish I knew. You were heading west, and I know that's right, at least. Zeeky said her village was called Big Lick. Supposedly, it's in the mountains near Chakthalla's castle.'
Hex stiffened at the word 'mountains.' Jandra had always been mystified that dragons were afraid of the western mountains. Vendevorex had told her that dragons lived in lands beyond, but for some reason dragons avoided journeying to those distant lands.
'I don't think it's far into the mountains,' she said, hoping to reassure him.
'It won't matter if it is,' Hex said, sounding defiant. 'I've never placed much weight in the legends of the cursed mountains, though others do. Dacorn, the most rational dragon I've ever known, told me that it was certain death for a dragon to risk traveling over them. I've faced things in life worse than death; a cursed mountain isn't all that worrisome.'
'There's still the matter of finding it. I know we follow the river, but as it heads west more and more tributaries join it and I'm not sure which one Vendevorex followed when he took me there. Perhaps we should turn back. There are atlases at the palace.'
As she said this, she saw in her mind's eye the giant pedestal that sat in the main library, and the atlas upon it, containing all the maps of the kingdom. She could still feel the weight of the parchment in her hand as she looked through the tome-a book scaled for sun-dragons had pages nearly as tall as she was.
