The dragons we saw, above and below, changed from random straglers and loners to the more usual crowds of Gwymr/Frina, but thinned this late in the night. We began to see real houses, either below the catwalks or built onto the ravine walls, and we had entered the town proper.
With two thirds of my canteen left, I heard an cheery, questioning voice call out, “Hinte?”
We turned in opposite directions, and I fanned out my frills, listening.
Hinte tapped me from behind with a wing. She said, “Over here.”
The source of the voice stood on the opposite catwalk, a warm gray dragon waving at us hard enough that his body jerked with his wing. Digrif. What rotten winds we’d run into him when I looked like this.
My frills flattened against my neck, my tail hidden in the folds of the cloak, and my alula came to my face to adjust the bandages until they felt flat and straight and wait, are they bloody? Dirty? Maybe I should pull the cloak’s hood over my head.
Wiping her goggles, Hinte looked left and right across the ravine, but no bridge connected our catwalks for as far as we could see in the dark. She waved him over. The warm gray dragon leapt over to our catwalk But he undershot, and fell until he grabbed the edge of the catwalk and pulled himself up.
Settling, he smiled at us. Even in the dark, his warm gray scales would catch your eye, halfway between the mottled grays of the mountain-dwellers and the reds of the local cliff-dwellers. Curling hornscales lined his long muzzle, and longer, straighter horns emerged from the top of his head.
In the darkness you only saw hints of the his laborer muscles, but I had looked at it enough to read the rest from those hints — the sort of tight, comfortable muscle you wouldn’t mind being embraced in at night.
Demons below, Digrif was cute. I wished we had a chance to talk more, but he never really noticed me. He never even remembered my name!
I licked my eyes. The warm gray dragon stood with a thin, dark-green ashcloak draped over him, not fastened to any legs; it billowed in the breeze. On his legs, plaid yellow and white sleeves clung loosely over his forelegs. On his back, he carried around a cardboard box, nestled between his wings. It hadn’t fallen or even flipped when he leapt over!
“Hey Hinte, hey Hinte’s friend,” he said with a wiggle of his frills that seemed like a wave too.
The wiver returned the greeting in a dismissive hiss. “Digrif. How unfortunate.”
“Oy, pleasant as ever.” He was drawing his alula together, across his neck. “But I see you were out in the cliffs again, off on your mysterious adventures.”
I clicked my tongue, a little. Hinte might’ve glared or just glanced.
Digrif looked at me. His dark-yellow eyes flickered in muted yellow sclerae, seeming to smile with him. “Oh, and you have an accomplice now! Why was I never invited?”
“Kinri has not bothered me for as long you have.”
Digrif’s head jerked up. “What? That’s the opposite of how it is supposed to work!” On his back, the box had slid back a bit. He jostled it, setting it aright. The warm-gray drake had stand high to meet Hinte’s low stand.
Hinte waved a wing. “No, it is working as designed. Doing it your way would encourage you two to bother me.” I gave Hinte a sidelong, tongue-waving glance. I’d never heard a line of reasoning so Hinte before.
Digrif’s head tilted as he unwrapped her twisty logic. “Hmm. That almost makes sense. But it’s still unreasonable. How can this be so asecret if she can just join you at random?”
“This was her first time,” she said.
“Well yeah, but I don’t get why I can’t come for once!” He upset the box again but caught it before it slid any.
Hinte glanced at the obelisk. “We need to leave now. This is important.”
“Huh? What happened?” Digrif asked.
“It is nothing to you.”
“Why so harsh? I’m only curious.”
“We just found some creatures in the cliffs,” I said.
He looked at me again, this time seeing the bandages on my face. When he jumped a bit, the box slid again. This time, he let it slide to the ground with a small thud. Looking back to me, taking in my bandaged face, his frills widened and he mouthed a ‘woah.’
I preened, fluttering my frills at him. Could he smell my chamomile perfume?
I said, “These, uh, humans. They injured Hinte, and we don’t really know what they were doing there.”
“Hm.” Digrif scratched his neck.
“So we were just heading to the faer to tell her what happened.”
“Oh, godsluck to you. I hope you’ll get there in time.”
“Thanks Digrif. I, uh, we appreciate it.”
“What are friends for?”
Staring at Digrif and his golden eyes, I strained to keep another flutter out of my frills. I looked up.
“Ooh!” I said, my gaze falling back to the warm gray dragon with another skip of my heart. “Hinte had said that having two fledgling sifters in the lake at once was really dangerous. So um, we couldn’t both have come? Maybe when you come we won’t all nearly die.”
I glanced at Hinte. She stared at me from my right, her visage looking extra vicious with the unnatural yellow of her goggles. I tried a smile, but gave up when her look remained unchanging, frills like glass.
“Yeesh. You two look sca-ry. Did these humans do this to you?”
“No,” I said. “It was uh… rockwraiths. It’s kind of a story. Maybe we can tell you later?” I glanced at Hinte.
“Ouch,” he said, wincing. “That’s a lot for one evening.”
“It was! It was — it’s like it’s us versus the rest of the lake.”
Hinte’s look changed, frills bending, face gaining a touch of — warmth? She said, “It was.”
Digrif must have sensed something different too, because he glanced to Hinte face glowing with curiosity, tongue flicking out all the way.
“We are leaving.” Hinte jerked me away. Turning to Digrif, she said, “I will tell about this, in the morning, at my home, over breakfast. Do not be late. For now, forget this.”
Digrif must have caught something in her tone, because he lowered his head instead of pressing. His farewell was, “Don’t wait for the falling rocks.” He waved us off.
I returned the wave, but Hinte had already twisted around. Giving me one last smile, he leapt to the opposite catwalk and slinked off. I turned to follow Hinte, but looked back one last time.
Digrif had left his box on the ground, and was rushing back to get it. He undershot the catwalk again, and this time he sailed past it, lighted somewhere on the ravine wall below us. But he climbed up again at some point, recovering his box at last.
My wings covered a muffled giggle at the whole sequence. Silly Digrif.
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A violent thrum of strings echoed from farther up the ravine. The intervals came harsh and dissonant, like a composition from House Locrian. A nostalgic trickle dewed on my fangs, and I fanned my frills.
Further up the curve of the catwalk, several strides away, two dragons were sitting in the shadowy gulf perfectly between lampposts. Hindlegs dangled off the edge of the catwalk. Both had cloaks; only one wore the hood up.
The hoodless dragon waved his forelegs and brought them down in chopping motions. A thick, smooth voice was saying, “…a tad too disc — err, dissonant. Oh, try a root a few pitches thinner, like,” the hoodless dragon reached over, bringing down his foreleg. More strumming strings came, sounding thinner, less angry.
I was padding closer to the pair and slipping in front of Hinte, oddly pulled look at the closer figure. All you saw was a cloak that hid everything about them, with a color you couldn’t make out in the night — only that it had color.
In contrast, the bright, metallic strings of the instrument glinted; they looked brighter, more distinct, than anything else about the musician.
They pushed the other dragon away, alulae poking, before returning to strum the instrument in their wings — a vague, long form in the darkness, with a round shape in the middle. The playing still sounded dark and angry, but the discordant notes had receded a bit.
“Would it ground you to stick even one clear tick in there?” They shook their head. “Scarcely a smile in your spirit.”
The musician growled something, but it came out low and quiet.
The hoodless dragon whisked a wing. “Whatever. I know I’m not a musician. Why play me something unfinished?” When the speaker looked away, they caught our approach. “Look, more sifters. Mawla, these your consb–conspecifics?”
Behind them, near flush with the cliff face, a shadow shifted. Moonlight glinted over ragged white fabric, illuming a familiar sifting suit. Brown frills squinted and jingled.
“Yeah, them the crazy human-hunters I told you about,” came her saccharine voice.
The hoodless dragon leaned back, kicking their dangling hindlegs. “Human-hunters? Interesting.”
The strumming lulled for a few beats. The musician glanced up for once. “Did you catch them? I have heard humans are dreadfully difficult to catch.” For his tone and mien, you expected a growl — but his voice sounded precise and pitched in a way that didn’t clash with the music.
“We did,” Hinte had said without turning.
I gave some halting tongue-clicks, looking around over at the three dragons. “That’s a perfect description. Why do they have to be stinking clever?” The musician had looked at me when I spoke, and it took only a beat for their frills to wrinkle into a sneer, and fangs to tinge venomous. What was that about?
Mawla hitched her wings. “That’s nature keeping us on our toes.”
“I’d rather stay on my belly. It’s more comfortable.”
Hinte was in front of me now. She prodded me, then started pulling me along. I stumbled after her. We walked toward the dragons. The musician’s song was rising high before it fell to a crash of notes. It rose again, slower. Why did it seem familiar?
The hoodless figure spoke, shifting to get a better look at us. “So.” They held a long rod, dark and unidentifiable in the moonlight. You couldn’t tell if they pulled it out then or had just held it idly. They twirled and spun it in their forefeet, tossing it up and asking, “Did these humans have any treasures? Legend says that humans carry magical gemstone.” The rod fell back into their foot. “Or something.”
I glanced beside me. “Did you find anything like that, Hinte?”
“No.”
The rod-twirler spun their rod into the air. It tipped, and they caught it with a hindfoot. “Oh pity. One could hope,” they said. Beside them, the musician was glancing at the wiver beside me, frills thoughtful.
Mawla slid down beside the hoodless twirler, opposite the musician, and dangling her legs with them. She said, “Like they’d give you any treasure if there was any.”
“Oh, don’t doubt my persuasivity.”
“But I can, after you couldn’t even convince me to open my bag.” Mawla flicked her tongue at the sky, patting a bag by her haunches. “Face it, you couldn’t talk a sun into rising.”
The twirler was spinning the rod around their hindfeet. “I simply didn’t wish to have it.”
At this Mawla just rolled her head and glanced slowly around. Her dark eyes landed on me and stayed there, watching as I stepped forward with Hinte. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. I broke eye before it might last too long, looking over to the hoodless twirler or the once-sneering musician.
The twirler spun the rod around a toe a few times before saying, “Mawla, catch,” and tossing it into the air again.
Mawla looked at the twirler, face shadowed with the lamp behind her. Though the night hid her face, her wings drew together and the rod fell past her, cracking against the catwalk in time with her saying, “Nah.”
The twirler was reaching a wing past the sifter to stop the rod from rolling off. I wrenched my gaze from the three to follow after Hinte. The smooth voice was laughing, and after a beat addressed us:
“Oh, where are you two going so fast? Off on a moonlit date?” The twirler had tossed their rod back up, watching us with a smile.
“No!” I squeaked.
“No,” Hinte growled.
They caught the rod a heartbeat before it would smack them in the head. “Don’t bite me, ’twas a question.” The twirler spread their wings. “What other business is worth slinking so intently after, this time of night?” They tossed the rod up again, this time breaking eye to watch it.
The words fell from my mouth, “We’re going to the faer!” I took a moment to slow myself. “She’s going to get to the bottom of this human business.”
The rod fell past the twirler’s forelegs. It rolled down their dangling hindlegs and leapt from the curve at their hindfeet, flying into the air again. They caught it.
The musician hadn’t looked at me again, their gaze seeming fastened to the filthy road below. Their strumming quickened, and the discord fled from the song, waning to a floaty progression of chords that suffused the ravine. It became thin and implicating, rising, rising, rising to a climax.
The twirler tossed the rod again. “Is the cloudy faer even going to be awake this time of night?”
“Don’t you know?” Mawla replied. “The faer never sleeps. A friend told me so. The fires in the town hall never go dark.”
The twirler caught the rod, humming.
Meanwhile, the song fell to another discordant crash. The strumming became a wavering tremolo and stayed there for a bit while the musician spoke. “And he told you her secretary would eat you if you looked at them the wrong way as well?”
“Well, yeah,” Mawla was saying. “She’s the faer’s stray. The faer can’t even keep this town under control.”
Even when the musician laughed, it was in key. “Ashwits, everyone sleeps. Stories are stories.” The tremolo rose, rose, rose to a peak and lingered there for a bit. There was some odd nostalgia to it, even within all the darkness, but it was something I felt, rather than being there in the music. The melody was trembling at its peak; I expected it to crash again, and ruin the buildup. Instead it glided down, as if the chords carried the song back to its beginning. Emptily, because it denied it the implied climax once again, but still pleasant.
Mawla was saying, “Everyone dies after a few dozen gyras, too. But I bet on you hearing the stories that the eternal faer lived three hundred. How you riddle that?”
“Not living in a slum does a wonder for your health.”
Mawla huffed, and jabbed the twirler beside her with a wing. “Smack him around with your fancy rod, would you?” the yellow-brown wiver asked.
The musician spoke low enough for their words to blend with the strumming and hide. Whatever they said, it only had Mawla scowling higher.
The twirler was nudging Mawla beside them, but spoke loud enough we could hear. They said, “Could be worse than the cloudy faer. They could bump into the treasurer.” They glanced over to me, then to Hinte. “Especially with scales like those. If you go, hope the faer has him leashed to some tax patents.
The musician suddenly struck a sharp interval. They said, “Why would the faer listen to you two, an exiled sky-rat and a traitorous alchemist? It’s a waste of time.” Neither their voice nor their playing had faltered. Mawla had stood up and stepped back toward the shadows of cliff face.
My voice became loud. To be heard in the ravine. “What in the wind is your problem? I’ve never even met you!” My wings flared and spread as I spoke.
The muscian turned their gaze back toward the road below. “If only I could retain that pleasure.” A single note now lingered, filling the ravine. Then it became a progression, crescendoing to another climax.
Hinte growled — the music paused — and the wiver at last deigneed to look at the figures ahead of us. “Shut up before I make that the first pleasure you lose tonight.”
I glanced at Hinte. She had turned to face the dragons, and salty venom scented her bared fangs. A smile tugged at my lips.
I looked back the musician, then said, “And what’s wrong with being an alchemist? Hinte hasn’t even betrayed anyone.”
“Her clan name proceeds her, just as your name proceeds you, Specter.”
My wings flared wide. The sheer loathing in his tone bit me. “My name is Kinri, not Specter. My family is irrelevant.”
The musician spat venom trailing out in the twin streams down to the road below.
A hindleg clad in ragged white kicked the musician. “Get over yourself, Bauume.”
Bauume and his strumming faltered, and he took breaths to keep his balance on the catwalk.
Mawla’s growling voice continued, “Kinri is alright. She grounded those humans and she’d ground you too.”
“You’ll regret this, mudling.” Bauume spread their wide wings. “This is a waste of my evening.” The musician dropped from his spot on the edge of the catwalk, gliding off into the night.
I’d never hear the end of that song.
“What was his problem?” I said.
“No idea.” Mawla rolled her head, turning the catwalk’s edge. “I just found these two after I sloughed that loser, Wrang. They seemed fragrant enough, and I had a night to ride out.”
“And,” the twirler started, “you can imagine I would enjoy her levity after spending an evening with that cat-tongued wraith of a drake.” I flinched. Hinte jerked her head.
“Maybe he spent all his good spirit on that music of his,” Mawla said.
Hinte glanced at the obelisk. “We are leaving.” Hinte turned again and stepped away.
“Oh, maybe don’t go to the faer with this.” The twirler was climbing to a stand in front of us. “Do you want the extra scrutiny?” They carefully tossed their rod.
“Yeah,” Mawla said, stepping away from the edge too. “Nobody needs the faer and her ten thousand laws waving a tongue in their direction.”
Hinte walked on. I stepped after her, saying, “But the faer needs to know.”
Mawla just waved her wing, and climbed onto the cliff wall behind her. “Yeah, but if it matters, then the guard will scent after it soon enough. No use shattering the glass. Let it fall on someone else’s head.”
“But… that just seems wrong.”
“Flick,” she said, looking down from the cliff, “you had a storm of a day and got a nice, tangy story to tell out of it.”
“I guess.” I had stopped moving, but Hinte stared at me from a few strides away.
“Isn’t that enough? You don’t need to call down another storm on top of that. And that’s all involving the faer is going to do for you.” Mawla reached the catwalk above us. She said, “Just hop in bed and rest up for another day in the lake, is what I say.” She climbed up the next catwalk, and waved her tail as she stepped out of view. “Sweetest luck, Kinri.”
“Mists hide you,” I said without thinking. Her laughter reached me, fading as ragged-white figure disappeared into the night.
“Kinri, stop wasting time.”
The twirler had caught their rod, but I hadn’t seen when. They stood there, blocking our path. They said, “Consider what I’ve said, Kinri. You don’t have anything to gain by taking this to the faer.” They paused. Instead of tossing their rod, they let it stand on their sole, balancing. “Don’t you want this day to be over?”
I did.
But I looked up at the rod-twirling dragon standing there, alone. I looked at the bright-white figure waiting for me to catch up to her.
I said, “Why would I listen to you? You’re alone, and both of your companions left you. I’m following Hinte.” I turned and strode toward the wiver, who had the presence — the height, the muscle — to force the twirler aside.
I wasn’t alone. If that meant calling down another storm, letting the glass shatter on my head, making this day even longer?
It’s what I wanted.
----------------------------------------
It hadn’t felt like not a long walk from there to the city center. This time we traveled without fuss. I had questions about the twirler perched on my lips, but the calm silence between Hinte and me along the way didn’t bear breaking. It felt like I’d made up for my thoughtlessness.
Here in the center of the town rose an obsidian pillar, a monument to Dwylla, who’d quelled the pits and turned the Berwem sifting outpost from a labor camp to a blossoming town. Cyfrin ac Dwylla had been the first name for the town, his honor. This obelisk was the town’s pride of the town, and it was to remember Dwylla, the eternal faer. It circed a few strides at the base and rising dozens of wing-beats into the air.
I stepped over to the base of the obsidian pillar. It met the ground in a stone fountain that doubled as a water clock. While Hinte checked the water clock, I gawked at the obelisk. The glassy black obsidian glimmered in the light of the Ceiwad and the yellow-white lamps lining it, and a simple line pattern engraved its surface.
Along the length of the pillar, the pattern tended to a few sparse lines that ran a few strides before turning or meeting another line. Simple, minimal. I guess it fit. Dragons always talked of the eternal faer being someone straightforward and plain.
At the bottom of the pillar was a small, flat likeness of that faer. Black and white opals were his eyes, tiny white aluminum plates were his scales, and brilliant stained glass was his tongue. The portrait showed him with his left foreleg raised in command and his right off to the side, wielding a pickax.
The pillar looked of Geunantic make. It wasn’t a hard guess to make, with that invasive purple eye symbol above the likeness’ wing. I’d seen it drawn, etched, engraved; peering from anything nearing related to Dyfnder/Geunant. Rainbow rays flew out from the eye, and above it, on the opposite side of the old faer’s likeness, there burned a fiery sun (you couldn’t tell which). That sun somehow had fewer rays outpouring than the purple eye.
Below the portrait lay a short dedication to the first faer of Gwymr/Frina.
‘Dwylla,’ it read, ‘of deepest gaze, whose wings shall shelter us now and forever.’
‘Take to the highest skies.’
‘612–960’
Even among high-class dragons, Dwylla had lived a very long time. He reigned for seven generations before alighting one night in his sleep. While he lived, he had been like a pillar of the town. The eternal faer, they had called him.
It was a story stuck with dragons and traveled far beyond the town because you couldn’t, as the usual went with rulers, pin Dwylla’s age on the work of a team of master alchemists. No, Dwylla had shunned alchemy. His superstitions had sparked the Inquiry and still lingered.
Before that, his longevity had attracted forest- and ash-dwellers hungry for his secrets. I could wonder if the reason I’d been told to come here was some echo of that.
“Highest skies, mister faer,” I found myself murmuring.
Hinte prodded me, meaning she’d finished checking and we could leave. A fifth of the night had passed, but Mawla said the faer didn’t sleep. Even if they did, wasn’t it rumored she worked late into the night?
We walked the few blocks to the building. It felt like a long walk; flying would be so much faster. But even without Hinte’s injuries, we couldn’t fly with this sort of weight.
What waited for us at the town hall? Hinte said these apes trespassed in our territory. That they resisted their arrest. And they had fought and schemed and injured and made a mess of things.
I no want death dragon.
I bury comrade. Please.
Humans had no fangs, didn’t they? They deserved what we gave him, didn’t they?
Tracking down those two had felt so easy. Even their crafty resistance proved futile in the end. If the faer’s administration followed Hinte’s lead, tried to stop the other humans from making things worse, would that episode repeat again and again, but with the dragons on the offense?
You monster.
The human’s eyes had been wide, even in death. Even after Hinte had ended it all, its last gesture had been holding the foot of its dearest friend.
We didn’t make things better. Could I? Try to explain the humans’ side of things?
I looked up. Hinte was looking at me.
“You are dusty,” she said. I peered at her. Now that I was paying attention, my eyes caught the dust from the Berwem coating her suit and scales. I must look the same way.
“So are you,” I said.
“My scales are duller, it is harder to notice,” she said, “and I do not care.”
I smiled, and that seemed to be what she’d wanted, because she turned and we walked forward like that.
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The town hall towered before us. Polished granite frame the building in regality. Shaped like a hexagon, it stood about a wing-beat or three high, and had two stories ringed with windows. The main entrance sat on the roof, and two ramps rolled down to the streets on either side
Clumps of night guards patrolled or kept watch, both on the building itself and the surrounding rooftops and walkways. I’d pulled the cloak’s hood up like Hinte and stuck closer to her, but none of them gave us unusual scrutiny. As we walked toward the town hall, we drew more attention — but how could it be otherwise?
From the base, one of the ramps spiraled us up to the roof. What was the point of these things? Stairwalls took up less space and were so much quicker.
The roof, a tiered thing, sprawled out, with the highest tier wrapping around and over most of it, dropping once near the roof’s center, before at last sinking down in three wide stair-steps to the doors. They slanted slightly, and had the holey look of futilely polished pumice. Silly material aside, the door had the massive, belittling look of something imperious; its presence seemed to command the rest of the roof.
Three alert guards ringed the roof, one in a prefect’s fullrobes, and the others naked. The red-scaled prefect was high-walking up as soon as we came off the ramp, and the others fell in sycophantic step behind them. Frowing, the prefect looked us up and down — mostly down, for me — and they said, “Move along. This is no shelter.”
Hinte stood high. “We have business with the faer.”
The prefect shook his head. “Save it for the morrow,” they said, and firmly, “Move along.”
“Oh, is the faer asleep?” I asked. Hinte glanced at me, and looked back to the prefect with a certain crook to her lips.
“Move along,” they said. One of the guards behind him, face wild with hornscales, stepped forward in punctuation.
Hinte stepped forward too, and she said, “My grandfather is Mlaen’s personal alchemist.”
The wild-horned dragon started to speak, but the prefect nudged hard with a wing, and only the prefect spoke, voice very calm or strained.
They said, “Then bring your grandfather here in the scales. I’m not swallowing your words alone.”
I didn’t like the way Hinte’s claws were out, scoring the gravel of the roof. I pouted up at the prefect. “But this is important!”
“It is a matter of the town’s security,” Hinte said, very level. After a breath, she added, “It could endanger the sifting parties.”
“Flick at yourselves.” It was the last guard who spoke, a plain-dweller so quiet I forgot them. They continued even as the prefect jabbed them, saying, “We let in someone that looks like you to do, and we’d have to let in every vagrant with an excuse. Move —”
The pumice doors slid open then, and a slender figure, scales dark-red slinked forth. Black and yellow robes rippled with their steps, and I watched their stride stopped just behind the prefect, and the two guards let them.
The prefect jumped with a yelp at a poke from the dark-red dragon. I laughed behind a wing, and Hinte wasn’t so nice.
A look like sour flames flickered at me and Hinte, before it snapped over to the offending dragon behind the prefect. At the prefect’s glaring, the newcomer flinched and cringed.
“I have a message,” said that dark-red dragon.
The prefect rolled head, and let the newcomer lean in near their frills, and whispered something.
“I see,” was the response. “Now spit off.” And with that, the dark-red dragon slinked back in faster than they slinked out. The prefect turned back to us, still looking sour, and said, “Seems the treasurer is aware of your coming, and vouches for your credibility. You may enter.”
I smiled and let out a cheer, but Hinte was frowning even deeper.
As the two guards strode back to their places, the prefect was turning away; but they added, “And he says to tell Ushra the lout owes him a favor, now.”
* * *