visited he was surprised to find the Yafir so much like his own people that he was ashamed to have been filled with disdain and bigotry. He, too, opened his province to any with Beldanean blood who would come. “I have many men anxious to wed,” he told Behrooz.
“I think your lads will have to share the women for now until we can both replenish our populations,” Belbuoy’s duke answered.
Tullio could see the wisdom in that. “We will build a house for the women,” he said. “They may choose partners and mate until they are with child. And after each child is weaned they will return to the House of Women to mate again.”
“One day such desperate measures will not be necessary,” Behrooz said.
While visiting Belbuoy, Tullio learned in confidence from its duke the deception that had caused Cinnia and his niece, Sapphira, to exchange places. She had wanted to know if one day she decided to return to Beldane she would be welcome. Tullio embraced his deceased sister’s only child, and assured Sapphira that she would always be welcome in Beldane. Then he admired his great-niece, Gemma, tears in his eyes as he did, for she much resembled his dead sister in her features.
Dreng of Beltran remained intransigent. He could not be convinced that the Yafir were a people like himself. He would not see his granddaughter who was among the stolen females. But if Dreng would not change one day, it was clear his people would, for they came to visit Belbuoy out of curiosity and returned to their own province to preach the truth of the current-day Yafir.
Dillon and Cinnia, monitoring all of this, were pleased. Their magical companions had returned to their own homes. Kaliq to Shunnar and Cronan to his castle tower. Cirillo came and went from the forest kingdom of his mother on Hetar with great regularity, and Nidhug was a happy dragon, content to be with her lover, sleeping in between his visits for she was no longer needed. Belmair was peaceful.
But then Nidhug awakened one night, her great heart pounding against her ribs in terror, an emotion of which she was not closely familiar. She lay quiet, listening, and then she faintly heard a shout of triumph. The dragon arose from her bed, and went to the windows. Outside all was quiet, but she could see in the garden below outlined in the moonlight of the twin moons someone coming toward her castle holding a lamp to guide them. Opening the casements she called down, “Who is there?”
“It is I, Cinnia,” came the reply.
“I will come down,” Nidhug called, and she hurried from her bedchamber.
Tavey was already opening the door when she got downstairs.
“Do you not sleep?” she demanded of him.
“Something awakened me, mistress,” he said. “I know not what it was.”
Cinnia entered, and Tavey took her lantern from her. “I was awakened with the terrible feeling of impending doom,” Cinnia said. “Something is wrong, but what?”
As she spoke Nidhug felt as if something had gripped and released her heart, and she said, “I must go to Belia!”
“I will go with you,” Cinnia replied in a tone that brooked no argument.
Together they hurried outside, and Nidhug lifted Cinnia up onto her back. The young queen snuggled down into the pouch upon the dragon’s back as Nidhug grew to her full height and size. Unfolding her lacy golden wings, she rose into the air and turned toward Belia. Using her magic, the dragon flew so swiftly that they arrived at their destination on Belia’s heights within a few short minutes. There in the mouth of Nidhug’s nursery cave they saw Ahura Mazda. Nidhug let out a shriek of fury for the Yafir lord held in his hands the egg containing her successor.
“Your maternal instinct is strong, Great Dragon,” he mocked her cruelly. “It did not take you long to sense your offspring’s terror.” He laughed.
Nidhug was speechless with her own concern for her egg.
Cinnia crept from the pouch upon the dragon’s back, and standing, she called to Ahura Mazda, “Why do you wish to harm Belmair’s Great Dragon, my lord? What harm has she done you? She is a benevolent creature who protects us all.”
“What harm has she done?” Ahura Mazda snarled.
“She is responsible for Belmair, is she not? And what does she do when your father dies? She brings a stranger to Belmair to rule, to wed with you! You should have been mine. I marked you at your birth. The stranger the dragon brings to Belmair is a great and a powerful wizard. Together with his kind he seeks out my world, sets himself up to destroy me and dismantles my authority among the Yafir. None of this would have happened had the dragon simply chosen another Belmairan to rule. Now my sons have defied my jurisdiction over the Yafir. My first wife has left me. All because of the dragon’s decision I have lost everything I hold dear.”
“Your bubbles were overcrowded, and your people restless,” Cinnia reminded him. “My husband offered you peace. He created a beautiful place for you and the Yafir to live. An opportunity to rejoin our world, myl ord. He has done you no harm. Without Dillon’s foresight both of our worlds stood in danger of extinction. Do you not understand that? If Arlais has left you I do not doubt it was with good cause. And if your sons prefer peace and a life upon the land to living beneath the sea, is that not their choice. For they are men, not children. The Shadow Prince who created the bubbles and who has sustained them over the years is very old now. He no longer had the strength to keep you safe beneath the sea. Were my husband not a benevolent man he would have let those bubbles burst. Then you and your people would have died beneath the sea. But he did not. For that you owe the dragon a great debt of gratitude. Had she not brought Dillon to Belmair, who knows what would have happened to all of us.”
“I will tell you what would have happened,” Ahura Mazda said, enraged by her words. “The Yafir would have come from the sea, and taken Belmair for themselves.”
“Can you manipulate time, my lord?” Cinnia asked him sarcastically.
“What has time got to do with this?” he shouted at her.
“Have you forgotten that it was the bubbles that kept you from aging naturally?” Cinnia asked him. “How could you have brought the Yafir up from the sea? Even with the knowledge from
“I did not age when I traveled back and forth between Belmair and Yafirdom,” he said.
“Because those of you who are still pure Yafir have some magic about you,” Cinnia explained to him. “But most of your folk are now of mixed blood. They could not have survived your plans.”
“You are confusing me!” he shouted at her. “My world has been destroyed, and it is all because of your damned dragon! Now, Nidhug, I will destroy your world!” And raising the dragon’s egg high above his head Ahura Mazda smashed it to pieces on the rocks before the cave. “There!” he exulted. “There will never again be another like you to harm the Yafir!” And his wild laughter echoed throughout the craggy mountain peaks.
Cinnia could hardly believe what happened next. With a shriek of agony Nidhug’s body shot forward, and she bit off Ahura Mazda’s head. Cinnia could hear his skull crunching as the dragon’s teeth ground it into pulp. Nidhug reached up, and lifted Cinnia from her back. Then the dragon rose up into the air, her back claws clutching the decapitated body of her enemy. Flying out over the sea she dropped the headless form into the water, spitting the mash of Ahura Mazda’s head after it.
She was weeping uncontrollably when she returned to the ledge of the cave where Cinnia stood. Enormous tears flowed down her face, and then down the mountains. The rivers of Belia began to rise, and overflow as they flooded into the sea, and its waters began to rise. Her great body shook with her grief as she looked at the bits of shell and yolk upon the rocks.
Cinnia was crying, too, but she also had the presence of mind to realize what was happening. “Nidhug, please,” she begged the dragon, “shrink yourself to a smaller size. You are causing the sea to rise, and it will flood all of Belmair.”
“My child! My child!” Nidhug sobbed. But then she brought herself down to her everyday size, weeping all the harder.
They remained upon the ledge the night long, the dragon sobbing, Cinnia attempting to offer what comfort that she might. Finally as the sun began to rise Cinnia reached out to call to her husband in the silent language.
