watched. I sought to question him, but alas, the poor thing was still only a beast, with no powers of speech and little thought beyond his belly. So no greater purpose was served by my effort.”
Dumery nodded his understanding.
“I noted that no retaliation was made against me for his freedom, though,”
Aldagon went on. “No embassy was sent, no traps set, no spells cast. It seemed to me that though I dared not blast the farm to rubble, I might even so save some of its inhabitants from the abattoir, and the humans would not trouble to stop me, should I keep my depredations minor. And in fact, such has proved true-though I have returned every few years and carried off as many as a half-score of dragons at a time, as yet have they done naught to deter me.”
She made an odd noise in her throat, then continued, “I confess, ’twas for the most part loneliness that drove me to these rescues, more than altruism, for I had hoped to enjoy the company of my own kind again, as I had not since I fled my duties long before. In that I was sorely disappointed, for the infants I have saved from slaughter are none of them capable of speech, and most perish ere they learn.” She glanced around the nest. “I see, certes, that the one I called Kuprik has fled the lair, no doubt seeking the food that I would have brought him, had he but waited.”
“Was that a big red and gold one?” Dumery asked. “I mean, not big, not like you, but bigger than most of those.”
“Indeed he was,” Aldagon answered, startled. “Saw you such a one?”
Dumery shook his head. “No,” he said, “but I followed his trail back here. He left some scales on a tree he scraped against, so I knew what color he was.”
“Ah, well,” Aldagon said, “and you had seen him he would most likely have devoured you. A shame that he’s gone, for he was the eldest and largest I had here, and knew a few words, as none of these others yet do.” She sighed.
“Couldn’t you follow him and bring him back?”
She shook her head, and Dumery got dizzy just watching it swing. “Nay, how could I know whither he’s fled? And am I a gaoler, in my turn, to keep him pent against his will? Neither gaoler nor mother, but only a friend and tutor, and with other charges who must be tended, leaving little time to pursue those who refuse my care.”
Dumery blinked. “But... you said you’d rescued a lot of dragons. If you’ve been doing it since just after the war, that’s two hundred years! You must have rescued hundreds of dragons. Where are they all?”
“How am I to know?” Aldagon snapped, angrily; Dumery cowered a little, involuntarily. Then the great dragon calmed and said, “I fear, though, that most have long since perished. I have seen them fight amongst themselves, aye, and even battle to the death over a scrawny bullock ere I could intervene. I have seen them slain by men armed with swords and spells, their heads and tails fetched away as trophies of the fight. I have found their starved bodies, little but skin stretched on bone, dead of hunger, for most never learned to hunt properly-the foolish creatures have been accustomed to having their food fetched to them. I have found them dead in a hundred ways, of falls and drowning and fire, sword and spear and spell, choking and poison and traps, claws and teeth and fangs. Few have lived long enough to learn speech, and none long enough to learn sense.” She twitched her tail. “Which may be all for the best, in truth, for if dragons were wiser when young and survived in greater numbers, the entirety of the World might now be covered with dragons.”
Dumery shuddered at the thought, and for a moment the two simply stood looking at one another.
“It occurs to me,” Aldagon said, staring at Dumery, “that your presence here may bring me the answer to a mystery, to wit, the continued existence of that farm. Is’t maintained only lest there be another war, and dragons recalled to service? If so, it seems to me that they are doing their job but poorly, as they train them not, neither do they permit them to attain a size that would allow them to be effective in combat. Why, then, do they continue, breeding the poor little beasts and then slaying them? And you have not answered my question, as to the part you played in the liberation of little Pish. Might there be some link, betwixt these two?”
“Well,” Dumery said, “you might say so...” He hesitated, trying to think what to say, and the hesitation grew into an awkward silence. “I mean...” He let his voice trail off.
“Speak to the point, Dumery of Shiphaven,” Aldagon said irritably, “ere my temper bests my honor.”
“I’ll try,” Dumery said. “I... I let the black dragon out because I was trying to steal it.”
“Steal Pish?” Aldagon asked, startled. “Whatever for?”
“I wanted him and a female, a breeding pair, so I could start my own farm.”
Dumery suddenly found himself fighting back tears, and though he succeeded in that effort, words began to spill out instead. “I didn’t mean any harm, and I wouldn’t have broken their wings that way, I think it’s cruel, and I’d be good to them, and...”
“Peace, lad, and fear not,” Aldagon told him, holding up a foreclaw.
Dumery gulped, and regained control of himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Lad, you’ve no need to apologize,” Aldagon said kindly. “Think you I know not that I am a thing of terror to you? Think you I expect a mere child to have courage to face me without fright, or the wit to charm me, or the wisdom to know wrong from right, when your elder fellows do not? You saw a farm where dragons were treated as cattle, and you knew naught of dragons but what you saw there, so why should I think the less of you for wishing to keep dragons yourself, as if they were only cattle?”
Dumery swallowed again, and attempted a smile.
“There, lad, that’s better! Now, tell me, what use are these infants, that they have been raised there these two centuries, and that you would have your own?”
“Blood,” Dumery explained.
Aldagon blinked, and Dumery was surprised just how puzzled a dragon’s relatively immobile features could look.
“Dragon’s blood,” he elaborated.
“I had not supposed you meant chicken blood,” Aldagon retorted, “nor fish oils nor insect’s ichor. Of what use to them is dragon’s blood?”
“For magic,” Dumery said. “Wizards use it in their spells. Almost all the good spells need dragon’s blood.”
Aldagon frowned. “Do they?” she asked. “Do they indeed?”
Dumery nodded. “I think so,” he said. “I wanted to be a wizard, but it’s all secret, you have to be an apprentice to learn anything, and then join the Wizards’ Guild and swear secrecy, so nobody really knows but wizards. I wanted to be a wizard, but they all turned me down, nobody would take me on as an apprentice, and then I saw Kensher selling dragon’s blood and the wizards had to pay any price he asked, and I thought...”
“You thought that you would take a petty revenge,” Aldagon finished for him.
Dumery nodded, shame-faced.
“Well, ho, boy, I expect no better from one of your years, so you needn’t look so woeful. You’ve done no wrong that I can see-save, wait, you sought to steal Pish and his mate?”
Dumery nodded again. “They wouldn’t take me on as an apprentice there, either.”
“Nor sell you a pair?”
“No, of course not,” Dumery replied.
Aldagon blinked. “Why not?”
“Because that would break their monopoly,” Dumery explained. “That’s the only dragon farm left in the World.”
“Is it, in truth?” Aldagon rocked back on her four heels at this news and eyed Dumery with renewed interest.
Dumery nodded.
“And they bleed the little dragons, and sell the blood?” Aldagon asked. “Well, I suppose ’tis no worse than some other wizardly ingredients-now that I think back all these long years I seem to recall wizards calling for virgin’s tears and lizard skulls and the hair of unborn babes, and other such things, and dragons are said to be magical in nature-though the gods know I have no magic, else I could scarcely live here, so close to the Warlock Stone!” She mused, while Dumery absorbed this new mention of the Warlock Stone. Was it really close by?
“Do you know,” Aldagon said at last, “I believe I remember, when I was very young, that at times wizards
