The only response he ever gave me was,“At least now I have a lord who matches my temperament.”
I left it alone after that. He wasright after all. I still didn’t know the secrets of his past, but Iguessed that we must have similar scars inside.
None of the knights had the earth-bondthese days. Each of them had to give it up eventually, or risksuffering a fate like Dorian’s. I politely refused all suggestionsthat I should create more of them. The world was at peace now, andI had better alternatives.
Ariadne’s bond with her dragon,Carwyn, provided her with much the same effect as the earth-bond,but without the troubling side-effects. Her senses were improved,her body was stronger and faster. Most importantly, she had adragon companion. The new dragons I had created each possessednearly a full Celior of aythar. Because of the nature of theenchantment that created them, they had abilities similar to theold ‘Shining Gods’, but unlike them, they had living, flesh andblood bodies.
After hatching, one of the new dragonswould grow rapidly until it reached full size, generally over thecourse of a couple of years. The enchantment that I designed toanchor their artificial minds was much the same as the oldgod-enchantment, but it had a lot of additional modifications andcontingencies. Each of them would ‘bond’ with an individual,assuming the right conditions were met. They would live as long astheir partner, but would undergo a regressive transformation oncethat person died. It was meant to be an approximation of death; thebody would die and the mind would contract into a new ‘egg’,returning them to stasis.
At the same time, the dragon’s memorywould be wiped clean, leaving only the basic information I hadinitially implanted them with. When they finally found a new‘master’ they would have no memory of their former life. It was thebest answer I could come up with for the suffering that seemed tonecessarily result from an immortal existence.
Some of the dragons I created to bondwith normal humans. In each of those cases, I keyed them to theirfirst partner using a drop of blood. From that point on, the onlynew partners they would accept would be descendants of their firstbond-mate. Those that I made to bond with wizards were different,though.
As I had learned from myown experiences, a tightly woven bond, such as that with anAnath’Meridum or even an earth-bond, wouldinterfere with a wizard’s abilities. To avoid that problem, thebond forged with a wizard was only a pseudo-bond, allowing thewizard to draw upon their aythar when necessary. It didn’t providethe physical enhancements that a full bond would, but it left themwith the full use of their natural abilities.
So far I had only givenout a few dragon eggs. One to Penny, to replace her earth-bond, oneeach for Matthew and Moira, one for myself, and one for GarethGaelyn. Aside from those, only the Queen had one. The others I kepthidden, against any future need. I had offered one to Cyhan, but herefused.
I planned to give one to each of mytwo younger children when they were older and perhaps one to Gramsomeday, though I was uncertain how Rose would react to that. Shehad continued to steadfastly stick to her resolution that her sonwould never become a warrior, even though it was readily apparentthat the boy desperately wanted to follow in his father’sfootsteps.
A simple bit of math wouldreveal that, while nearly twenty-two Celiors of the aythar we hadtaken from Mal’goroth had gone into the creation of my twenty-threedragons, another twenty five Celiors remained. I used some of thatto provide a new stone to power the World Road, and I gave some toGareth Gaelyn, to create a new shield around Albamarl, similar tothe one I had around Castle Cameron.
The rest I hid, separatingit into a variety of storage vessels. I split it up to reduce therisk of a major disaster, such as what had happened when Balinthorhad been destroyed long ago, but I told no one where or how it washidden. I had plans to share the information if it were evernecessary, and even if I died suddenly, I knew that Matthew wouldretain the knowledge by virtue of the loshti, which residedlatently inside him, too.
Other than raising mychildren and my work and projects, life was simple and quitepredictable. Until the Kriteck returned and deposited a new burdenon me. Lyralliantha had finally grown large enough to bear herfirst fruit. According to the memories I received from the loshtithey usually arrived fully grown, by human standards, but she andTennick had chosen to create their first child in a slightly morejuvenile form.
The girl they brought intoCastle Cameron was roughly the same apparent age and size as mytwins. She looked almost human, aside from the gently taperingpoints on her ears, which were mostly hidden by the shimmeringsilver hair that flowed down and past her shoulders. Like all theIlleniel She’Har, she had icy-blue eyes, and in them I could seefar more maturity than a young girl should possess. She’Harchildren were born with much of the information that humans spenttheir youth acquiring, things such as language and basic socialgraces. What they generally lacked was knowledge of the past andexperience of the present.
As their first child,Lynarralla would likely be chosen to receive the loshti, becomingthe first new lore-warden of the reborn She’Har, but that would bemany years in the future. For now, she was expected to learn aboutthe new world that her people would share withhumankind.
Tennick and Lyralliantha, having noolder ‘children’ to assist, had chosen me to serve as theirfirstborn’s parent and teacher.
Oh joy.
***
We were sitting at thedinner table a few days after Lynarralla’s arrival, when thestrange girl brought up the subject of Tennick’s origin.
“I was given to know that you are myfather’s great-grandson, many times removed,” she began. “Does thismean we are related, even though we are of differentspecies?”
I
