Dragonforge

Graxen dropped from the rainspout down to the balcony rail, twirling to face her, landing as silently as a leaf. With his voice at its softest, he said, 'We both know that isn't true. You treated me kindly when your sisters turned me away. You're an individual as well as a valkyrie.'

'In the heat of battle, there can be no individuality,' Nadala said. She no longer sounded as if she were repeating slogans. She believed these words. 'A valkyrie must be a part of a greater unit. In unity, we will never know defeat.'

'But life isn't always a battle,' said Graxen. 'Shandrazel wants to bring an era of peace to the world.'

'There will never be lasting peace,' said Nadala. 'Especially not in this time of upheaval, following the death of a king. I know with the certainty that night follows day, I'll be called to battle soon. My subservience to the unit must be complete.'

Nadala sounded resigned as she spoke. Her eyes looked past Graxen, into the distance, as if seeing that future battle.

Graxen nodded, accepting the wisdom of her words.

'You're right,' he said. 'Mine was a foolish dream.'

Her eyes suddenly met his. She whispered, 'Tell me of your dreams, Graxen the Gray.'

'I'd only lower myself in your eyes to speak of such fantasies,' he said.

'No,' she said. 'I'm fascinated by dreams. I envy your freedom to dream them.'

Graxen wanted to leap from the balcony and flee rather than confess his thoughts. Yet, for so long, he'd wanted to talk to someone about his most cherished hopes. He'd never been asked before; he couldn't run away now. 'Before I visited the matriarch I dreamed… I dreamed I would be allowed to mate. It's utterly foolish. I know that centuries of careful planning aren't going to be set aside to accommodate the hopes of an aberration. Yet… still I dreamed, and still I hope.'

'I admire that you can hold on to your dreams,' she said. 'It's been many years since true hope burned in my heart.'

'But, certainly you'll be allowed to mate,' he said. 'You must be highly respected, to be chosen as a guard for Zorasta. I know from experience you're a formidable warrior.'

Nadala lowered her eyes as he spoke, as if embarrassed to discuss the matter. Despite her discomfort, she said, 'I find the possibility that I'll be selected as breed stock as dreadful as I do hopeful. I won't be allowed to choose my mate; he'll be assigned to me. The matriarch selects biologians who excel in intellectual arts, yet frequently these biologians lack even the most basic sense of decency. They spend their lives being lauded for their greatness, and they approach the mating as just another award they've earned.'

'I've heard the boasts of the chosen ones,' Graxen admitted. 'They do seem to relish in describing how they, um, dominated the female. I think they overcompensate. Many biologians fear the power of valkyries; they become overly aggressive when confronted with a creature they secretly believe to be their superior.'

'We don't wish to be your superiors,' said Nadala. 'Only your equals.'

'Those are the sorts of words that Shandrazel is hoping to hear. It's a shame you aren't the ambassador.'

'And it's a shame that the matriarch is blind to your virtues. It was kind of you to come speak to me tonight, Graxen. I fear for the future of our race, should the last traces of kindness be bred out of it.'

There was a noise in the chamber beyond the balcony, a soft mumble, like someone speaking in their sleep.

Nadala whispered softer than ever. 'If Zorasta wakes, it will be difficult to explain why I haven't gutted you.'

'Understood,' said Graxen. 'It's been worth the risk of gutting to speak to you. I feel… I feel less alone after hearing your thoughts. I wish we could continue our conversation.'

Nadala shook her head. 'You mustn't take further risks. Leave, knowing that you're less alone in the world, yet also knowing we cannot speak again.'

Graxen swallowed hard. Could this really be the end? Ten minutes of conversation was so inadequate for the lifetime of words he'd stored up inside him. He could hear in her voice that she was also full of such words. She was simply too disciplined to risk speaking them. She had so much more to lose than he did. He should go and be satisfied. Still, some desperate part of him wanted more.

'I could write you,' he said.

She cocked her head at the suggestion, intrigued.

There was a further mumble in the chamber beyond.

'I know where you could leave the letters,' she said, her voice rushed. 'On my patrol, midway between the nest and Dragon Forge, there's a crumbling tower, long abandoned. It's easy to find if you follow the river. Atop its walls stands a single gargoyle; there's a hollow in its mouth big enough to hold a scroll. You could leave letters for me there, if you wish. Perhaps I'll answer them.'

'I'd like that,' said Graxen.

In the room beyond, there was a sudden snort, the sound of a dragon jerking awake.

'Fly!' Nadala whispered, raising her fore-talon and stroking Graxen's cheek. He tilted his cheek against her touch, feeling the smoothness of her scales, and the fine, firm strength of her talons.

Graxen tilted backward, then kicked into space, corkscrewing until he caught the air. He flew out beneath the stars, lighter than air, a song rising in his heart.

La-la-la!

Na-da-la!

He shuddered as he realized it was the same tune as 'Yo ho ho, the slow must go!' Would he never get that accursed song out of his head?

After the success of his will-deadening paste, Blasphet felt, paradoxically, a sense of dissatisfaction. This was something he'd learned about himself over the years; his setbacks usually stirred his spirit and prodded him to meet new challenges. His successes frequently left him feeling hollow and analytical, wondering if his achievement had come because he'd lowered his standards. With the paste, he should have been celebrating the results of years of research and testing. Instead, he found himself wondering why a gaseous or even liquid version of the poison had proved so elusive. The results of the paste pleased him, but the thought of force-feeding a gallon to his planned victims offended his aesthetic sensibilities. It simply lacked grace.

A lack of grace was also an attribute of the current demonstration of the taxidermy arts of the Sisters of the Serpents. Their earlier disguises of themselves as earth-dragons showed their talent at the art. Now, they were attempting to bring a stuffed sky-dragon back to some semblance of life.

Anatomical difference prevented the sisters from assembling a wearable sky-dragon costume. At first glance, it seemed as if a sky-dragon's knees bent backwards, something a sister in a suit couldn't duplicate. Of course, Blasphet knew that, at the level of skeletons, all mammals, lizards, and birds were built from the same archetype. All shared the same basic structure of four limbs, a torso with a rib cage and hips, a spine, and a skull. The bones of a sky-dragon's legs were similar in size to a human's bones, but of different proportions. The thighs were nearly the same length, bending forward from the hips. Then, the shins bent backward at the knees. However, human shins were long. Sky dragon shins were short, and the bones that formed the human ankle became a backward bending knee. The bones of a human foot were stretched into a long lower leg for the sky-dragon. Where humans had short stubby toes, the same bones in sky-dragons splayed out as talons.

Before his arrival, the sisters had tried to make a sky-dragon costume work by chopping off the shins of one of their order and teaching her to walk on stilts that resembled sky-dragon legs. The experiment hadn't gone well, and the sister had died of infection. Blasphet suspected that if he had a human baby to work with, he could devise a device that would confine the shins. He could lengthen the feet as the child grew by the use of screws and clamps. If any of the sisters became pregnant, he would give the matter further thought.

This evening, the sisters were demonstrating a mummified sky-dragon turned into a puppet. The black silk threads that held the preserved corpse were invisible in the candlelit room. A team of sisters in the rafters tugged and tweaked the beast's limbs. Curiously, the fine details proved effective-the sky-dragon's eyes blinked in a realistic fashion and its fore-talons were manipulated with enough dexterity that the puppet could pick up a quill. Alas, it was the larger movements that seemed exaggerated. The beast's stride was off. Even the way the corpse's head bobbed upon its neck felt false. Blasphet doubted the illusion would fool a real sky-dragon. Their eyes were the sharpest of the dragon species. You could never make a puppet string so fine it wouldn't stand out like thick rope to them, even in candlelight.