Dragon Prince 02 - The Star Scroll Page 16

  “Do you want me to try and touch a dragon tomorrow?” She joined him in bed after draping her robe over a chair.

  Rohan gathered her close beneath the light sheet, stroking her damp hair. “It might be interesting. They’re all thinking about nothing other than mating, and who knows what you might sense—and want to act on?”

  “Don’t you just wish!” she retorted, biting his shoulder.

  “Stop that. Or at least do it as if you mean it.”

  She raised her head and looked into bright blue eyes that danced with humor and desire. “If this is middle age, then it’s a wonder we both survived our youth!”

  Chay leaned back in bed, a thoughtful frown furrowing his brow. “Tobin. . . .”

  She stopped brushing her long black hair. “You honor my ears with speech, O light of my eyes?”

  “Don’t be impudent, woman, or I’ll beat you senseless.”

  “You and what army?”

  “Well. . . .” He cleared his throat. “Tobin, that boy is too damned perfect.”

  “What boy? Pol? What’s wrong with him?”

  “Just that. Nothing’s wrong with him except that there’s nothing wrong with him. He adores his mother, worships his father, is reasonably obedient, doesn’t pick his nose in public, washes behind his ears, and is entirely too smart for his age.”

  “And this is cause for complaint?”

  “It’s unnatural. No, it is,” he insisted when she laughed. “He doesn’t get in trouble. Our boys were never so well-behaved.”

  “Or so clean,” she added, grinning.

  “I want to know what’s wrong with him.”

  “Nothing, according to you.”

  “That’s the whole point. Consider Rohan at his age.”

  “My darling brother was perfect, too. Just ask him.”

  “He was the slyest, wickedest, most impossible brat I ever met. He just never got caught at it.”

  “Well, perhaps Pol’s like him—too clever to get caught.”

  “I don’t think so. Not that he’s not clever. I mean. But I don’t think he has to use it to keep himself out of mischief. I wish he deserved a few swats now and then. It’s good for the character.”

  “Are you aware that this is one of the most ridiculous conversations we’ve ever had?” She slid into bed beside him.

  “No, it’s not. The prize for that goes to anything we said to each other before the first time I kissed you. Thousands of words, all of them a complete waste of time.”

  “So is this discussion.” She made several unsubtle movements designed to distract him.

  “Stop that.”

  “Two more ridiculous words.” She gave him a look of vast patience. “Chay, Pol is a polite, respectful, mannerly, conscientious fourteen-year-old boy.” Snuggling back into his embrace, she added, “But don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll grow out of it soon.”

  Maarken had been bred to the Desert through at least fourteen generations on both sides of his family. He loved the wildness of the land, knew its moods, respected its dangers. He asked nothing more of a day than to spend it watching the delicate sunrise colors flare into dazzling noon, then slowly mellow to the rose and purple shadows of dusk that gave way to sparkling black skies and silvered dunes. He relished the heat that seeped into his bones, the soft whispers of sand beneath his feet, the shimmer-visions that danced enticingly just out of reach. In this place where others could not even survive, his people had thrived; he had his share of pride in the accomplishment, his share of love for the harsh land that, testing them, had not found them wanting.

  But though he intended to spend his life in the Desert, at present it was the last place he wanted to be. A ride of thirty measures, a long walk, and hours of waiting had not sweetened his mood. He crouched in a sandy hollow watching dragons, and chafed at the slow passage of the sun across the sky.

  Hollis had promised to contact him sometime today. Her duties at Goddess Keep varied, and it was uncertain when she could be alone. His mind understood; but his heart, like that of any other ardent lover, resented anything that diverted her from thoughts of him and him alone. His sense of humor provided a balance between the two extremes, for he knew she could scarcely go through her day languishing over him, nor would he want her to. He also knew she would have laughed herself breathless at the very thought. Still, he told himself, she was supposed to be in love with him. Surely she could make time to reach across the sunlight to him, if only for a little while.

  Boredom did not help his temper, either. He had chosen to join the observation party for something to do that would keep him out in the sun and reasonably occupied, but thus far absolutely nothing had happened. The she-dragons, back from an early morning foray to feed, lolled in the sand, baking their egg-swollen hides. The immature dragons had been chased off for the duration, though Maarken knew they had probably found some vantage point, just as the humans had. Of the sires there was no sign at all, although the occasional distant roar from the canyons made everyone start in surprise. But the females paid not the slightest attention to the bellowings of their mates; they only yawned.

  Maarken glanced at Pol, who sat beside him in the sand. The boy’s dusky yellow-brown cloak was pulled around him, the hood up to protect his blond head from the heat. He looked like a miniature tent. Maarken grinned, seeing the rest of the group spread out along the dunes like a little village of Isulki tents, all in lightweight cloaks that blended with Desert colors. Dragons were keenly sensitive to color, as Feylin had discovered some years ago.

  She had conducted an experiment involving some humiliated sheep dyed garish shades of blue, orange, scarlet, and purple, which the dragons scrupulously avoided in favor of their unaltered tan and white brethren. Maarken remembered the trouble Feylin had taken to make sure no scent of dye clung to the wool, and especially he recalled the chaos they’d watched from a hilltop as the poor undyed, unsuspecting sheep had tried to escape thirty-five gleeful young dragons presented with a free meal.

  He had to chuckle under his breath as memory stirred of the subsequent experiment. Feylin had used more subtle shades this time, browns and grays that were near the usual colors of sheep. The dragons had not been so choosy that time, and it had been concluded that protective coloration would only work if the most lurid hues were used. They had all had a good long laugh at the idea of convincing shepherds to watch over flocks of purple sheep.

  Still, the tests had shown that dragons were sensitive to color. Maarken adjusted the hood of his own taze-brown cloak and recalled the shock of bumping into a dragon on the sunlight. He had talked it over with Sioned at great length, agreeing with her that it might just be possible to pattern and understand dragon colors. But the problems presented were serious ones.

  Those not faradhi never understood the limitations of the gifts. A steady source of light was essential. A cloud over the sun or moons, a venture timed too close to sunset or moonset—and shadows drowned all color. Shadow-lost was the most hideous death a Sunrunner could face. Spark of mind gone with the lost color-pattern of thought and personality, the body lived for only a little while longer in consciousless, empty void.

  Maarken fixed his gaze on the great lolling dragons half a measure from where he sat. What if a faradhi in contact with a dragon was pulled into a cave or the shadow of a mountain? What if the dragon flew into fog, or from day into night? No one but Sunrunners comprehended the vulnerability of their kind to darkness. He wondered if Rohan had any idea of the real dangers—or if Sioned would tell him.

  The pair were seated together a little beyond Pol, two matching triangular tents of dull gold silk. They would have been anonymous but for the small dragon cypher stitched at the right shoulder of each garment, the same symbol that appeared on Pol’s cloak. Other princes had adopted Rohan’s innovation of a device in addition to colors, and some were quite beautiful—Ossetia’s golden wheat-sheaf on dark green, Fessenden’s silver fleece on sea-green. The athr’im were clamoring for similar p
rivileges now, and the Rialla this year would decide if such were to be granted. Thus far only one of the lords had been given the right to use a cypher with his colors. Maarken smiled and glanced to his left, where his parents sat side-by-side, their tan cloaks distinguished by the symbol Rohan had given them: on a red field bound in blue, a sword was stitched in silver thread, signifying the role of Radzyn’s lord in defending the Desert. On Chay’s pennant and battle standard the whole was bordered in white, and looked magnificent. Maarken dreamed a little of the time when he would give Hollis a cloak carrying that symbol. . . .

  His mother looked around at him then, and Maarken tensed slightly as if suspecting she had read his thought. But she only smiled and rolled her eyes expressively, and he grinned back. She had the least patience for sitting still of anyone he had ever known. She hated lack of physical activity, and even when discussing a problem she tended to pace, drum her fingers, tap her feet, shift position constantly. Her activist approach to everything was occasionally her husband’s despair; she believed that there was nothing in her world that could not be helped, solved, or conquered if only one got up and did something about it. Rohan was her opposite in that way, as in most others; he believed in allowing things to develop, in not forcing events. In the very personal matter of Hollis, Maarken knew he could count on his uncle’s quiet support, and that was a help. But if Tobin decided she approved of Hollis, she would do everything in her considerable powers to facilitate the match. Maarken did not like to think what she was capable of if she did not approve of his Choice.

  It amused him that his quiet, serene Hollis was so different from his mother. She would never fly into a tearing rage, give imperious commands, or escalate a difference of opinion into a shouting match. Tobin did all these things with as much relish as she lived the rest of her life. Maarken adored his mother—but he did not want to marry a copy of her.

  Without warning a dragonsire trumpeted a challenge across the dunes. Maarken nearly jumped out of his skin. The deep, hoarse cry echoed all the way out to the Long Sand. Feylin stirred from her perch on the highest dune and slid down to where Sioned and Rohan sat. Maarken strained to hear their whispers, and saw his uncle and aunt straighten expectantly. A ripple of alertness went through the she-dragons as a shadow appeared across the sand, then another, then another. The sires were ready at last.

  The females shifted, moved from the low hills that bordered the plain and grouped together in bunches of five to ten. Feylin moved over to Pol and began a low-voiced explanation of the hierarchy.

  “The youngest are to either side of the senior females. You can’t really tell them apart except for their wings. See the scars on the older ones? Mating gets pretty rough. But there’s another way to tell the younger from the elder. The ones who’ve been through this before are pretending to be bored.” She chuckled softly as Pol blinked at her. “The sires will have to impress them. The youngsters will be the first to choose their mates, but the others will wait a while. They’ve seen it all before, and, like most ladies, they want to be wooed.”

  Maarken whispered playfully, “Bear that in mind, Pol.”

  “I’ll be marrying a girl someday, not a dragon,” he scoffed.

  “My husband says there’s no discernible difference!” Feylin laughed softly. “Watch the sires now. They’re just about ready.”

  The three dragons made a delicate landing in the sand and were joined by a fourth and a fifth. Two were golden with black underwings. The third was russet-colored, the other two black and brown. Maarken had seen their dances before, but never so many dragons at once. He glanced up and saw the remaining eight sires hovering watchfully on thermals high above, waiting for the first dragons to exhaust themselves; when one tired, a fresher male circling overhead would land and take his place.

  The five took up position before their audience, rearing back as one with wings spread wide and heads thrown up to the sky as they howled their opening music. The chord slid up and down the scale, wailing like five separate wind-storms. Maarken fought the urge to put his hands over his ears and knew the others were just as disturbed by the wild music. Feylin huddled in her cloak. Pol froze in place, eyes huge as he listened to the terrible dragonsong. But the females reacted with the dragon equivalent of shrugged shoulders, and the older ones opened their jaws in wide, insulting yawns.

  The reddish-brown sire was the first to move. His head dropped down and his wings swept sand before him in great glistening waves. His song became a low, keening moan as he reached up, claws extended as if to tear down slices of sky. Neck writhing, wings sweeping back and forth to spew sand in all directions, his voice rose to a screech once more. And then he began to dance.

  Poetry in flight, dragons ought to have been lumbering lumps on the ground. But their grace in the air was nothing compared to the elegance of the sand-dance. Swaying from side to side as smoothly as a slim willow in the breeze, the russet dragon folded his wings, spread them, swept them out once more as he paced with nimble ease across the sand. He was soon joined by the black dragon with rose-brown underwings, then a gold, then the brown and the second gold. The sequence of movements was as orderly and patterned as a Sunrunner’s colors, repeating from dragon to dragon as each followed the other in ritual steps and wingsweeps.

  Sand flew high and wide as the dragons repeated the steps over and over, each marking out his territory, each rising to full height with wings spread before dipping down again to pace the dunes, swaying gracefully until the end of the sequence when it was his turn to repeat the song. The younger females were shifting in rhythm with their tentative choices, sometimes changing in mid-beat as their attention was captured by another male moving in a different place in the dance. The older she-dragons had abandoned their pretense of indifference, but still sat back on their haunches, waiting to be impressed.

  The black dragon tired first. He missed a step, one wing folding down to keep his balance. An ash-gray sire instantly saw the opening and swooped down, calling out derisively to his faltering rival. The black snarled, but the pattern had been broken and he could not recapture it. He took a few reluctant steps back, then beat his wings to lift away from his landing challenger. The gray sire then began his dance, fresh and energetic. The young females immediately focused on him, and the first rearrangement of their ranks came as they were attracted by his vigor.

  But when he accidentally caught the first joint of a wing on one foreclaw, the females hissed their disapproval and abandoned him to watch the other sires. A gold had dropped out, replaced by another brown with gorgeous red-gold underwings. Another dragon, very young and without a battle scar on his hide, was bold enough to join in without taking the place of a faltering sire, spreading his wings in defiance of the older females’ snorts at his insolence. It was as if he knew very well that his green-bronze hide, accented by startling silver underwings, made him easily the most beautiful of all the sires—and he intended to take advantage of it.

  They were moving apart now, slowly, subtly, and the females were moving with them. The dance continued. The russet sire who had begun it all drifted farther and farther from the territory he’d marked out; he had lasted the course and would now see how many mates he had won. Seven followed him, young ones who waddled egg-heavy after him. It was his turn to pretend to ignore them, sweet revenge after their seeming indifference earlier. One of them cried out plaintively, and another hurried forward to nip gently at his tail, but he showed no sign of noticing them at all. This impressed one of the older females, who started after him. A few moments later, another followed.

  The group was well away from the others when the sire suddenly sprang up with a single powerful stroke of his wings and landed neatly behind the two older females. His attempts to herd them after the other seven brought howls of protest and a few angry snarls. One eluded him and returned to the watching group. The sire bellowed at her on her way past him, but evidently felt she was not worth going after; he gave a yowl obviously meant as an insult
, to which she responded by baring her teeth. The russet sire then gathered his eight females and they took off at his side for the caves above Skybowl.

  This process was repeated seven more times. Eight sires captured anywhere from five to nine females each. But there were still five males unmated at the end of the dance, and their furious screams of rejection made the sands tremble and the watching humans shrink into their cloaks.

  Maarken, enchanted during the dragons’ performance, abruptly felt the delicate brush of familiar, beloved colors. Startled, he turned his head instinctively to the west, where the sun was still above the Vere Hills.

  Is that how you’d behave if I refused you? came a teasing voice in his mind.

  Worse! he replied, gathering Hollis’ brilliant colors to him and steadying the weave of sunshine. How long have you been watching?

  Only a little while, and with much less devotion than you were. It took me four tries to get your attention! But they’re magnificent, aren’t they?

  Next time you’ll be here with me to watch them. Where’ve you been all day?

  Working since dawn with your fiend of a brother, helping him translate those scrolls Meath brought. I’m surprised I’m able to communicate in words less than four hundred years old!

  There are a few words I’d like to hear right now, he suggested, and smiled as her colors laughed around him. But I’ll say them first because I’m a knight, a gentleman, and a lord. I love you! And Sioned knows it—not that it’s you specifically, but we have her help if we need it.

  The legendary Sunrunner Princess. Is she really as beautiful as they say?

  If you like redheads. I like blondes. Hollis, I’ve spoken to my parents about opening Whitecliff, so they know I’m ready to marry. Why don’t I tell them now instead of waiting?

  Maarken, I love you, but—don’t we owe them a look at me first? What if they don’t like me?