The White Road - Lynn Flewelling [54]
"To be used for making rhekaros?" asked Alec. "What sort of gift is that?"
"Their making does not have to be evil, Alec Two Lives. Surely you realize this little one's worth, the worth of even a rhekaro that cannot raise the dead or kill, for they are not supposed to have that power."
"What if we take Sebrahn to the Hazad?" asked Alec.
The dragon considered this, then raised its enormous head and turned its face to the moon.
They waited in silence. The moon was brighter now, and Alec could make out the jut of the great dragon's wing and spine-ridged back. Smaller dragons--though hardly small--crawled around up there, as if it were a mountainside rather than one of their own.
The great dragon lowered its head again. "The Lightbringer tells me that death lies in the north--your death. But you might not die if you return to the source of this creature. If you do go that way, then you must destroy the source, lest any more such creatures be made."
Alec's mouth went dry. "I--I am his source."
"No, you were only the means, Alec Two Lives. Words are the source of alchemy. Destroy the words and no more such creatures can be made."
"Words?" asked Micum.
"Books!" said Alec. "Yhakobin's workshop was full of books. And there was one on his worktable--a big red one, with a picture of a rhekaro in it. I never saw Yhakobin use a wand or an incantation, just his symbols and metals--and me. But there were always books open on his worktables, and he'd refer to them while he worked. But to destroy it--"
"We'd have to go get it," Seregil finished for him. "And if we don't?"
"Then you cannot destroy it," said the dragon.
Alec suspected it was unwise to be impatient with a dragon of any size. "But what will happen if we don't?" he asked as politely as he could.
"The future is not written, Alec Two Lives. The Lightbringer reveals only what can be, not what will be. Destroy it, or don't. The choice is yours."
"But if we do find it, whatever it is, will it tell us what Sebrahn really is?" Alec asked, frustrated now.
"That you know, little friend. He is unlike anything that has been or will be. The question is, what will you do with him?"
"But we came to ask you!" Alec cried.
The dragon did not answer. Raising its great head, it snapped up one of the dragons that had been resting on its back and swallowed it whole. Then, without another word, it stretched out in the position they'd found it in and heaved a great sigh that shook the ground again.
"He's finished, cousin," Tyrus told Alec. "It's time to go."
"But--"
"It's all right, Alec," said Seregil, setting off down the steep trail with the others. Alec picked up Sebrahn and followed.
The rhekaro looked back over Alec's shoulder, pointing. "Drak-kon!"
"Yes," Alec said, feeling a little shaky now as the full import of what he'd just done set in. "It certainly is."
When they reached the cabin, Tyrus took up his pipe again. The small dragon flew down to curl up in his lap. Sebrahn stood beside his chair, stroking the little dragon as he had the giant one.
Alec sat with his chin in his hands, feeling dazed. "How can what the dragon said about me be true?"
Tyrus smiled. "Young Alec, do you know the origin story?"
"I think so. The sun pierced the Great Dragon with a spear and eleven drops of blood fell on Aurenen. The first Aurenfaie sprang up where the blood fell--the eleven major clans."
"That's right. And though it was the same blood for all, each drop fell on different soil, and that's how we came to differ."
"But how could the Hazadrielfaie be more--dragonish than any other clan?"
"That's the great question, isn't it, cousin? But then, even in the same clan, everyone does not have the same magic--or even any magic at all. For those who share the same type, though, it usually grows stronger when people of the same talents come together. It must have been like that with Hazadriel's followers, bound by the blood that brought