the extreme cold. Peering southward, he could see — very faintly — the pale, golden glow on the horizon that heralded the city of Silvanost.
Remarkable. To think there could be a gathering of the creatures so large that the combined light of their fires stained the night sky. A part of him would enjoy making the long flight to see such an amazing sight. Instead, he made a wide, sweeping turn, speeding his strokes.
Now that he’d determined Vedvedsica was beyond his reach, he wanted to get back to Yala-tene as fast as he could. It was apparent Pa’alu had made some kind of bargain with the elf priest. The bronze disk had contained so much power it glowed in the dragon’s vision, even when clenched inside the man’s hand. By the time Duranix had gotten hold of the metal, it had given up its power somewhere, for some purpose. He needed to discover exactly what had happened.
The landscape slowly unfurled below the flying dragon. The dense forest home of the elves gave way to grassy plains, which in turn began to swell and roll as he drew near the mountains that held the Lake of the Falls. Those mountains loomed larger and larger before him, clouds thickening on their slopes. Soon he was gliding in their silent heights, alone save for the tallest peaks poking up through the clouds.
It was irksome that Vedvedsica had succeeded in getting the stone, but it was much to be preferred over Sthenn or the humans having it. The elf had some limited knowledge and experience of higher powers, but he could be in for an unpleasant surprise should he try to use the stone. It was a whole order of magnitude greater in strength than any fetish or object of power he would have encountered before. It could consume him in the end.
Vedvedsica reminded Duranix of the thirsty centaur in a story Amero had told him. The centaur had stood under a thundercloud, eyes closed, mouth open, expecting a refreshing shower. Instead, he received a white-hot bolt of lightning. As the humans said, “Thought rain, got pain.” The elf priest hoped to bend the stone to his own ends; instead, he might end up being the one bent — or broken.
Duranix smelled the waterfall from twenty leagues away and descended through the clouds. He circled the mountain once, morning sunlight flashing from his scales, then dived for the cave. His hind claws caught the rim of the opening, and he hung there for an instant, shaking the water from his long face. He smelled a human in his cave. It didn’t smell like Amero.
He leaped to the floor, and his landing made the mountain shake. The cavern was dark, but his eyes noted a glimmer of body heat, far off to his left, near the small lower door.
“Come out, little mouse, come out,” Duranix rumbled, in a very undragonlike, sing-song manner.
Nianki stood away from the hoist basket, hands clasped in front of her. “Ah, no mouse after all,” said Duranix. “A wolf, more like.”
“Save your humor, dragon,” she said. “I have something important to ask you.”
He lowered his belly to the floor and folded his tree-trunk size legs under him. “Speak, Nianki,” he said.
“Karada,” she said sharply. “Nianki is an old, empty name. It only sounds right coming from my brother’s lips.”
“Speak then, Karada.”
She stepped forward, and he saw her cheeks were damp with tears, her eyes red-rimmed. His barbels twitched with surprise.
Drawing a deep breath, she said, “You’re a creature of great power, I know. I’ve seen some of it these past days. Just how great is it?”
“It’s the measure of myself, no more, no less.” Karada gave him a disgusted look, and he snapped, “I’m not being coy or poetic, woman. I don’t know how to quantify my own strength. How powerful is the sun? How forceful is the wind?” He lowered his chin to rest on the stone floor, bringing his eyes more or less to the level of her own. “Why do you ask?”
“I need your help,” she said, her voice tinged with real pain. “I… I’m going mad.”
“For most humans, a short journey.”
Karada was in no mood for levity. She whipped a flint knife from her belt waved it under the dragon’s vast eye. “I’ll not be made a fool of!” she cried, her voice ragged with emotion. “Listen to me or I’ll start that journey right now!”
It was absurd, threatening a bronze dragon with a span of sharp flint. Duranix was unmoved, and the click of his blinking eyelids was loud in the quiet cave. However, her obvious sincerity moved him to say, in a kinder tone, “Please continue, Karada, but calmly.”
She returned her knife to her belt and ran a hand through her gilded brown hair. “I have… I have a… sickness of the mind,” she faltered. “I don’t know where it came from, and I don’t know how to get rid of it.”
“What are the symptoms?”
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Her voice was barely audible. “I think about a man, all the time. I hear his name when I draw breath. I see his face whenever I shut my eyes. If I let his image linger, my face grows hot and my legs and arms feel weak.”
“That’s not so mysterious. Humans are so afflicted all the time. You’re in love. Haven’t you ever been in love before?”
Nianki turned quickly on her heel. “No, never! There’ve been men in the band I admired — Pakito is strong and loyal, Hatu a fine tracker, even Sessan was good fighter when he wasn’t listening to the venom Nacris poured in his ear…” Her voice trailed off. “But, it’s nothing like that. I feel sick… here.” She pressed a hand to her belly. “And I have thoughts. Strange thoughts.”
“I’m sure you do,” Duranix said quickly. The last thing the dragon wanted to hear were this warrior woman’s inner thoughts. “In my years observing humans, I’ve learned love is an extremely potent feeling. It makes people happy and miserable, often at the same time.” He cocked a flaring metallic eyebrow at her and added, “You seem no different than the rest, except you’re not used to it.”
His bantering tone was lost on Nianki. Arms hanging limply at her sides, she stared dully at the floor and said, with no emotion at all, “I’m in love with Amero.”
The smoldering question in Duranix’s mind suddenly flared to brilliant life. The disk Pa’alu had been concealing the night of the feast must have caused this. He’d tried to get Karada to take his hand while he held the disk. He must have intended the spell (most certainly cast by Vedvedsica) for her and himself. This outcome had surely been an accident.
Or was this exactly what Vedvedsica had intended?
“Did you hear me?” she demanded.
Duranix pulled his attention back to her angry, worried face. “Yes, I did,” he assured her. “Humans don’t mate with their siblings, do they?”
“No!” Her eyes widened in self-loathing, and she clutched her head in both hands. “The very thought is a horror! How can I, born of the same spirit and flesh as Amero, possibly be so unnatural?”
Duranix gave no reply, but instead reared up on his haunches. Shuddering, he shrank himself into human form.
Eyes downcast, wrapped in her own misery, Nianki didn’t notice his transformation. She started when his human hand touched her shoulder. When she looked up at him, she flinched even more violently.
Duranix wore a completely new form. He was a tall, muscular plainsman with glossy, waist-length black hair and deeply tanned skin. “Be calm!” he told her. “I took on this form to make a point.”
“What point?”
“Outward appearance is an illusion. Every being is unique because his or her spirit is unique. I could, if I chose, take on the appearance of Amero, but would that make me Amero? Of course not.”
With her mind in such turmoil, Nianki could not understand the reasoning behind his demonstration. “Are you telling it me it’s all right for me to feel this way?” she said, astonished.
“No.” He sighed at the obtuseness of humans. “I believe you’re the victim of a plot, Karada.” He told her about Pa’alu and the amulet. As he watched her face redden alarmingly and her body begin to shake with anger, he chose to keep the name of Vedvedsica to himself. She was capable of any foolishness just now, even embarking on a quest for vengeance that would most likely end with her death.
When Nianki finally spoke, her voice was a hoarse, furious whisper. “Do you mean that I’m suffering this unnatural love because of Pa’alu?” Duranix nodded. She clenched her fists and said, her voice rising with each word, “Oh, the filth-eating dog! The crawling, cold-blooded, wretched — !”
