'The fate of the villagers should not concern you,' the rider said.
'The fate of one villager is of great concern to me,' said Bitterwood. 'Her name is Zeeky.'
The wyrm-rider smiled. 'The girl with the pig. Quite resourceful, that one. The goddess has taken special notice of her.'
'We want to meet this goddess,' said Hex.
'Her temple is a long journey from here,' said the rider. 'You must travel underground for several days. It isn't a journey to be taken lightly; men have gone mad contemplating the weight of the earth above them.'
'Perhaps men do go mad,' said Hex. 'I believe I'm made of sterner stuff.'
'I'm not afraid,' said Jandra. 'Take us.'
Bitterwood didn't answer. It didn't seem, from his posture, that the rider was planning to lead them into a trap. Still, if the temple was many days away, had Zeeky arrived there yet? He wasn't certain how many days he'd lost to the fever.
'Before we go, introductions are in order,' Hex said, apparently impatient with Bitterwood's silence. 'I am Hexilizan; my friends call me Hex. The woman is named Jandra. I fear I haven't been introduced to the gentleman yet.'
Bitterwood thought carefully of what to say. Jandra apparently had kept his true identity secret. A wise move, perhaps, but now that he had a sword in his hand he didn't care what Hex knew about him.
'My name is Bant Bitterwood,' he said. He saw the muscles beneath Hex's hide go instantly tense. More curiously, the rider also stiffened in his saddle. The man's mouth opened, but he seemed unable to speak.
Shaking off his shocked expression, the rider dismounted. He took off his visor and stepped toward Bitterwood. The look on his face was an expression half of disbelief, half of reverence.
'Do you…' he asked, his voice soft. 'Can you truly be Bant Bitterwood?'
'Is my name known so well in the underworld?' Bitterwood asked.
The rider drew closer. Despite the pallor of the man's skin, Bitterwood noted the rider's features in many ways echoed his own, from the sharp angle of the nose to the firm line of the brow. Yet while Bitterwood's face was leathery and wrinkled, the rider's visage had a baby-skin smoothness that no doubt came from avoiding the sun. The man was taller than Bitterwood, better muscled and much younger, at most a few years older than Jandra.
'I worried you were dead,' the rider said.
'I've done little to discourage that belief,' Bitterwood said.
'Your legend has preceded you,' the rider said. 'As I grew up, I took pride in your exploits whenever Gabriel reported back news from the world of men. I feel as if I've known you my whole life, though I have no true memories of you.'
'No memor… who are you?' Bitterwood asked, his voice trailing to near silence as he realized why this man might resemble him.
The rider nodded, as if recognizing that Bitterwood had figured out the puzzle. 'Yes,' he said. 'I'm Adam Bitterwood.'
Chapter Eleven:
Unhealthy Philosophies
The brilliant morning sun was a welcome change from the gloom and rain Graxen had flown through the last few days. The palace of Shandrazel stood in the distance, a small mountain of granite. The frost that covered this ancestral seat of power sparkled like jewels. Since Shandrazel had taken the throne, Graxen had spent little time at the palace. He'd traveled to the far reaches of the kingdom to summon guests to Shandrazel's conference. Today, sun-dragons would arrive, lords of the various territories that swore alliance to the king. Humans would attend as well, represented by the mayors of the larger towns, like Richmond, Hampton, Chickenburg, and Bilge. The earth- dragons would be underrepresented. Save for Dragon Forge, they claimed no territory as their own. They lived primarily in the service of sun-dragons, and depended upon these superior beasts for leadership. Male sky-dragons from all nine of the Colleges would be in attendance, but the female sky-dragons would only have one voice-the representative from the Nest. Graxen wondered how Shandrazel could hope to bring equality to races of such uneven power and resources; he couldn't even bring equal numbers of representatives to the discussions.
Still, there was an atmosphere of optimism about the palace. The red and gold flags that served as the banner of Albekizan fluttered everywhere. Earth-dragon guards in crimson uniforms stood at each door, and above the towers of the palace the brilliant blue figures of the aerial guard could be seen. The aerial guard were those rare male sky-dragons who had chosen lives of combat over scholarship. Graxen himself had wished to join the guard when he was younger. He'd trained his body to endure the hardship of combat, and his childhood as an outcast had toughened him for a life of constant vigilance. Yet, his letters of application to the commander of the guard had never been returned. No matter. As messenger of the king, his life at last had purpose.
The one dark spot on the landscape of this historic day was a literal one-the Burning Grounds, the blackened funeral field still smoking with the pyres of the previous night. Many noble dragons who had valiantly given all in the battle of the Free City still awaited the ceremonial cremations. All winged dragons were due this honor; it would be a long time before any hint of grass returned to that charred field.
Beyond the Burning Grounds, almost hidden by the long shadow of the palace, stood the Free City itself, the cause of much of the recent trouble. This city had been built as a trap for humankind. Albekizan had promised a life of luxury and ease to its chosen residents, a reward, it was said, for their faithful service. In truth, the city had been designed by Albekizan's demented brother, Blasphet, to serve as an abattoir. Albekizan had authorized the genocide in order to produce a definitive end to the legendary dragon-hunter Bitterwood. Of course, in the end, Albekizan had underestimated the humans; on the day the residents were to be massacred, a rebellion had spread. What was to be a day of human slaughter turned into a day of human victory.
The Free City was empty now. Graxen wondered what would become of it. It seemed pointless to tear down the structure after so much wealth and effort had been expended to construct it. The Free City could house thousands of people. Perhaps humans would one day settle there peacefully, if they could overlook its sinister origins.
Graxen's reverie ended as he passed over the palace walls. He tilted his body toward a balcony, angling his wings to slow his descent. He gracefully lit on the balcony then walked into the marble-tiled hall beyond. The murmur of voices told him many of Shandrazel's guests had already arrived.
This was the Peace Hall. Albekizan had always referred to it as the war room, but Shandrazel had renamed the chamber as a sign of his intentions. Yet, despite the room's new name, its history still hung on the walls. Tapestries depicted a dozen scenes of Albekizan's conquests. Even the floor of the room was inlaid with a map fifty feet long showing the entirety of Albekizan's kingdom, laid out in precious metals and polished stones of exotic colors.
Groups had gathered in the four corners of the chamber. Four enormous sun-dragons leaned in closely with one another in conference in the corner nearest the balcony. Graxen knew them all as dragons he'd personally summoned. In the opposite corner, a crowd of humans stood. Graxen recognized a few: the mayor of Richmond was noteworthy for being unusually squat and round, and the mayor of Bilge he remembered due to the fact he only had one arm. Few of the other humans looked familiar. Graxen prided himself on his eye for details and his excellent memory, but he still had difficulty telling one human from another. It wasn't that they all looked alike, rather, there was too much variance. It was impossible to catalogue all the countless configurations of the human form. Adult sky-dragons varied little in color and size; adult human came in hundreds of shades of tan, and could vary in height by several feet and weight by hundreds of pounds. Their faces were an equally exasperating mish-mash-some hairy, some hairless, some with hair on their scalp and none on their cheeks and jaw, some with the pattern reversed. And that hair could come in an array of colors: white, black, gray, orange, brown, and gold, each in dozens of shades and mixtures.
With a fellow dragon, there were only a few simple identifying cues: the bumps of the snout; the curve of the jaw; subtle variations in the shape of the eyes; the way that no two sky-dragons scale patterns were ever exactly alike. A sky-dragon face instantly triggered recognition as the mind filtered through the logical system of organizing who was who by these differences. With humans, most identities were drowned out by the cacophony of possible features.
As he mused on identity, Graxen cast a glance toward a third cluster of gathered guests-sky-dragons like himself, all male-the biologians, the scholar-priests that guided the intellectual life of the kingdom. A few cast
