They spoke very little; not only did Aldagon’s jaw movements dislodge Dumery’s toes, but the wind carried away the boy’s words before the dragon could hear them, making conversation impractical.
He would have had little to say in any case, as he was too busy watching the World sweep by below.
The forest was no longer a thing made up of individual trees, with trunks and leaves, but was instead a vast green sea spilling down the hills and splashing up around the rocky mountaintops. He marvelled at its beauty.
He marveled as well at his mount, her scales as green as the forest below, her wings as large as the mainsails of his father’s largest ships. He could see her talons outstretched, the cruel, curving claws each nearly as large as he was.
Had anyone ever had so magnificent a mount? Even Azrad himself-neither the present Lord Azrad VII, nor the original Admiral Azrad-had never had so fine a ride as this. And he, Dumery of Shiphaven, was riding her!
Aldagon sailed on, blithely unaware of Dumery’s egotisms.
He looked down at the ground below, and realized that it all looked alike to him-he couldn’t see any sign of where they had started from, or where they were going. How could Aldagon find her way, he wondered, with no paths to follow?
Presumably she was taking her directions from the sun, and the few recognizable landmarks that thrust up through the general green.
The sun had been low in the west and the cloud-cover dense when they took off, so it wasn’t long before they were flying through darkness, the stars and moons hidden by the overcast. The forest below turned grey, and then black.
Now, more than ever, Dumery wondered how Aldagon knew where to go. Did she have some sense he did not that told her the way? She seemed untroubled as she soared steadily onward.
Then, after what seemed like and may in fact have been hours, Dumery glimpsed a faint glow, far, far ahead, on the horizon, That puzzled him; it couldn’t possibly be dawn already, and besides, how could they have turned east?
After staring for long moments he looked down and saw lights-faint and scattered, but lights. Campfires and lanterns and candles, surely; they were out of the forest and over inhabited lands.
Not long after they passed over lights that seemed to be oddly spread out and mobile, and Dumery realized they were boat-lanterns reflected in the water of the Great River.
He looked ahead again, and saw that the glow on the horizon was growing.
Ethshar, he realized. The glow had to be the city, Ethshar of the Spices, with its thousands of torches and lamps and braziers, lights lining the streets and burning in hundreds of courtyards, doorways, and windows.
He was almost home.
He watched, and the glow grew nearer and brighter and spread across a wider area-Ethshar was a league across, he knew.
“Boy,” Aldagon said, “ahead I see naught but water between here and the city. Where does the highway lie?”
Startled, Dumery clutched at the dragon’s ears and wiggled a dislodged foot back into place. “West,” he shouted. “That’s the Gulf of the East ahead; we want to circle to the west!”
He wondered how she could tell water from land; except where there were lights it all looked like undifferentiated blackness to him.
Then he had no time to worry about anything but holding on, as Aldagon banked into a long, swooping turn to the west. She descended somewhat as well, looking for landmarks.
They passed over a building with a torch burning by the door, and Dumery thought it might be the inn where he had stayed that first night. Then they were over the highway, sweeping onward toward the city.
At last, as the city’s glow spread across the entire eastern sky, Aldagon dropped to the ground.
“Behold, the towers that flank the gate,” she said.
Dumery looked, and could just barely make out dim shapes on the horizon; there could be no doubt that Aldagon had better eyesight than he did. The great dragon lowered her head almost to the ground; Dumery swung his legs free, and dropped awkwardly down onto the hard-packed dirt.
He looked around, but all he saw was the city lights to the east and blackness everywhere else. He blinked, but it didn’t help. He could hear the breeze stirring through grass, or possibly young corn, and he could hear his companion’s breathing, like a strong wind in an open attic, but otherwise the night was silent. Not even crickets chirped.
“It strikes me,” Aldagon said, shattering the quiet so suddenly that Dumery jumped, lost his balance, and found himself toppling into the ditch by the road, “that we have neglected an important facet of our scheme.”
Dumery managed to land sitting up, with only a small splash.
“What facet?” he demanded, annoyed. The night was so dark he could barely even see Aldagon; only a faint glimmer of golden light reflected from her eyes was visible. He got carefully to his feet. His breeches weren’t actually dripping, he was pleased to discover, just damp.
“The means for communication,” Aldagon explained. “When you have all in readiness, and would summon me, or come to me, how are we to find one another?”
“Oh,” Dumery said.
The dragon was quite right, they had neglected that.
Still, he had a ready answer.
“While I was away,” Dumery said, “my parents contacted me twice by hiring a wizard to send me magical dreams. Do dragons dream? I mean, in their sleep?”
“Oh, aye, of course we do!”
“Well, then, when I have things ready, I’ll hire a wizard and send a dream.”
“Need you not know my location?”
“No-just your true name. Ah... it is Aldagon, isn’t it?”
The dragon was silent for a long moment.
“Isn’t it?” Dumery repeated.
“Tell me, lad, if you can,” Aldagon replied, “just what is a true name?”
“Oh,” Dumery said. “Well. Ah.” He stopped and thought.
He had heard magicians discussing true names when he had been unsuccessfully seeking an apprenticeship, and even before that, on occasion.
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but I believe it means the very first name that you recognized as your own.”
Aldagon sighed, and a pale flicker of flame emerged with her sulphurous breath, illuminating for an instant the muddy ditch, the dusty road, and the young green corn of a neighboring field.
“I was afraid of that,” she said.
Dumery started to ask a question, then thought better of it. He waited.
Aldagon sighed again. “I fear, manling, that I must confess that the name Aldagon was not my first, though I’ve borne it these four centuries and more. Ere I could speak, however, I was known by another, and answered to it.”
“Oh,” Dumery said. “What was it?”
“You’ll recall I had no choice, and was but a beast, in the service of Ethshar.”
“I remember,” Dumery said.
Aldagon hesitated, then admitted, “It was Yellowbelly. Yellowbelly of Third Company, First Regiment, Forward Command.”
“Oh,” Dumery said.
After a moment’s silence, he added, “Well, at least it’s easy to remember.”
He couldn’t see her face, but he heard Aldagon snicker. “Aye,” she said, “it is.”
Dumery waited for a moment, to see if she had anything more to say, then said, “I guess this is it, then.”
“Indeed so, young man. From here you need but follow the glow, and you’ll come to the city gates and your home. And when you’ve readied yourself, summon me to you with that spell of dreams, and I’ll come. Readily, I’ll come; we’ll put that foul family out of the business of butchering my kin, and make ourselves wealthy in the doing!”
