Dragon Rule - E. E. Knight [83]
“Yes. When I was in the east I almost ended up as part of someone’s medicine supply. Aren’t most of those legends, though?” Wistala said.
“Not all. The Tyr himself has been feeding bats dragon-blood for decades. His original strain of rather overlarge, greedy cave-bats has grown into an entirely different species of quasi-bat. NiVom in Ghioz, who’s been breeding with more care toward developing certain traits, has created gargolyes almost as large as old Anklemere used to keep.”
“I should pay a visit to Ghioz and see what he’s up to,” Wistala said to herself.
DharSii continued: “We must use that gift wisely, our power to change what we touch. The problem is, destruction is too easy. It has a terrible beauty. A burning tower falls and in one glorious moment, we forget all the effort and care it took to lay the stones for a tower that will even stand up straight.”
“Where did we get that gift, I wonder?” Wistala asked.
“Some old songs say the sun gave it to us, so pleased was she with our ability to tame the blighters. Others say the moon snuck it in to ruin us, for once a creature has tasted dragon-blood and enjoyed the benefits, the desire grows in them for more. Around Hypatia much of that lore has been forgotten, but it still exists in the east. That’s why there are practically no dragons there, though they figure so strongly into their culture.”
He finished his circuit in silence. Wistala waited, lost in memories. “Did anyone else return to the cave?” he finally asked.
“My brother,” Wistala said. “I met him here. I gave him that droopy eye, too. Father, too. We tried to warn him but we were too small. He couldn’t hear us. He left again, fighting.”
“If it was a treasure of your parents, he might have carried it away,” DharSii said.
“You don’t know our father,” Wistala said. “He was in a rage. I don’t think he had the presence of mind to look at anything except the bodies of Mother and my sister.”
“Still, there’s a small chance.”
“Very well,” Wistala said. “I’ll take you to where he died.”
She left the cave with small regret and tumultuous feelings. It would be a good place for eggs, if she could ever banish her memories. Once they reached the surface, she guided DharSii north.
The promontory with the old bligher altar was very much as Wistala remembered it, except the obelisk stones with their cryptic old runes no longer loomed quite so high. She re-experienced the ache brought on by the long, long climb down to the rushing white water turning its near-loop around the outcropping in her trips to get water for Father—she even smelled the rank rot of the old driftwood tossed up by floods with dwarfsbeard growing on it.
“This may have been a dragon-throne,” DharSii said.
Wistala didn’t know what he was talking about, but rather than ask DharSii to explain yet again she just cocked her head.
“Before the founding of Silverhigh, after the dragons had tamed the blighters, they worshiped us. Again, I suspect your parents knew something of the Star Order if he chose this as a place to land and die.”
“He had a little help with the dying,” Wistala said. “I led hunters right to him. Unwittingly.”
“Did he ever mention anything about a crystal?”
“No. Never. I’m sure of it. I hardly knew what the word meant until I saw the crystal ball—wait. Intanta. She had a ball. She claimed it was part of the old sun-shard. Why didn’t I remember—Oh, I’m a fool!”
DharSii stared hard at her. “You’re many things, Wistala, but you’re not a fool.”
“This Intanta traveled with a circus, it belongs to a dwarf named Brok now—she and her gang of humans never mixed much with the rest. They were—shady, I suppose you would call them. I think they cheated people and stole. But she had this crystal. It was most strange. It helped a woman—Rayg’s mother, in fact—with the nausea she suffered while carrying child. It also comforted her during birth.”
“I wonder if Rayg knows more than he’s saying. He’s studying the sun-shard,” DharSii said.
“I hardly know him,” Wistala said. “I doubt Lada would even recognize him. She’s old