The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [152]
“Is that why you’re here?” Dallandra said. “I’m sincerely grateful. These days you never know what might happen.”
“Too true, alas. You’re welcome. We’ll stay with your alar after you all leave Cengarn. I want to keep an eye on Prince Dar. Now, if we run into trouble, I can summon my older daughter as well. Mezzalina, my elder mate called her for a false name. For the nonce, I’ve left her in the lair to care for my young son.” Arzosah paused, then rumbled loudly and long. “The look on your face, Dalla! Absolutely bursting with curiosity! I know you’re wondering who the father of that son may be.”
“Well, I can’t deny it.”
“I think me you can guess the answer.” Arzosah lifted a wing, then folded it close to her body.
Dallandra found herself utterly speechless. Why am I surprised? she thought. It’s the dweomer of the thing, I suppose. She had somehow assumed that two species so completely different could never—but he is a dragon now, she reminded herself. Arzosah was watching her with one huge eye half-closed, as if she were smiling to herself.
“You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?” Arzosah said. “I don’t understand why. We’ve both had more than one mate.”
Dallandra had to admit that the dragon was right—it wasn’t the hatchling itself that was troubling her, but its getting.
“Is your lair nearby?” Dallandra managed to speak at last.
“No,” Arzosah said. “It’s off to the west in a fire mountain, in fact. By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I destroyed that wretched bone whistle. I dropped it into a little pool of steaming rockblood down on the floor of the cavern. It burned with a puff of nasty smelling smoke.”
“You’re lairing inside a living fire mountain? I thought that you’d choose a dead one.”
“What good would that be in the snows? But it’s only a sleeping mountain. We’ll be able to tell if it’s beginning to wake. It takes a mountain a long time to wake. It groans, it shudders, and slowly its fires rise.” The dragon rumbled again. “Unless, of course, it gets a bit of help from dragonish dweomer.”
Dallandra shuddered at the thought. Arzosah raised her head and looked over Dallandra’s shoulder to the meadow beyond.
“Who’s that?” the dragon asked.
Dallandra turned to see Sidro trotting across the meadow toward them. “Sidro, a friend of mine,” Dalla said. “She looks awfully excited about something. Here, she only knows a little Eluish, so if you could lower yourself to speak the language of men—”
The dragon heaved a massive, vinegar-scented sigh, but she did comply. “Here, Sidro,” Arzosah called out in Deverrian. “I won’t eat you. You may come closer.”
With a hesitant smile, Sidro joined them. “Dalla, my apologies, but I did have the strangest feeling just now. Laz is back, I be sure of it in my heart, back and thinking of me. I did feel the touch of his mind on mine.”
“Oh, did you now?” Dallandra said. “You’re certain?”
“I am, and deep in my very soul. I thought I’d best tell you straightaway.”
“And I’m glad you did. I wonder if this means that Haen Marn’s back?”
The dragon growled under her breath. “Haen Marn? Is that where that slimy little sorcerer was, off in Alban with Haen Marn?”
“What? Alban? Where’s that?” Dallandra felt like growling herself. “Are you telling me that you knew where Haen Marn was?”
“Um, well, not precisely.” Arzosah’s normally huge voice had dwindled to a hatchling’s chirp.
“You knew!” Dallandra snarled. “You knew, and you didn’t tell anyone!”
“No one asked me.” Arzosah curled a paw and studied her claws. “Besides, I didn’t precisely know. I was guessing, and as much as it pains me to admit it, I might have been wrong.”
“You weaselly wyrm!”
“I truly wasn’t sure.” Arzosah spoke quickly, as if trying to change the subject. “I hoped it wasn’t there. It’s an awful place, Alban. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, not even Haen Marn.”
“You must have been in this