Vorlian lay on his gold and brooded and healed. He looked out of the cavern mouth of his eyrie across Starsey and to the purple bulk of Yenfar across the ocean. A visit from Belet was the only thing to interrupt his dark thoughts.
The fire-being was of course his usual apparently respectful self. Vorlian right now felt that he could use some respect, but that of the demon was . . . wanting. "Greetings, great Lord Vorlian."
"Spare me the flattery. What do you want?"
"Merely that you had sent a message to say that you had found out more about our fugitive human. We are finding her very hard to track down. She vanishes in our auguries."
"She's sailed from here, going West. She is in the company of a black dragon called Fionn. There are two other humans with her. An innkeeper's daughter called Keri and a man called Justin—he's a petty criminal and informer."
"West. I will alert our contacts," said the fire-being.
"Do that," said Vorlian, tersely. "Tell the tree-women too. I told the centaur. He broke my mirror."
"One of my informants tells me he has sailed for Lapithidia. I thought that he was in exile," said Belet.
"Umph," said Vorlian, deciding for now to keep his council about the centaur and the mirror. "Well, now we need a centaur and the human mage, and of course the merrow and the dvergar."
"The sprites can always constrain the merrows and we can deal with the dvergar."
The fire-being took his leave, and Vorlian continued his dark thoughts about Myrcupa and even the doings of that rogue Fionn. Then he spotted a dragon. Far off-shore, making no attempt to come closer. But plainly intending to be seen.
Fury roused Vorlian and, despite still being in some pain, he flew out. However, distance cooled his temper, added caution. What if it was a trap? The other dragon was not attempting to gain altitude and in the clear sky Vorlian could see no other dragons. He flapped slowly out. The other dragon was considerably smaller, but not black. He placed her. Tessara. He had nothing against her, and he would have thought she had nothing against him. They had mated once.
"What do you want?" he asked from a safe distance, still keeping a weather eye out for other dragons.
"To talk," she said. "Some of the others sent me. We're worried."
"Having chased me out of the conclave, why would you want to talk to me?"
"That was before Fionn came and set things straight. Anyway, that was all Myrcupa and his gang of friends. Nothing to do with me," said Tessara.
Vorlian absorbed this. "My wings are sore and I am still a little burned," he said in a more reasonable tone. "Let us fly to those hills over there and we can talk."
"Awkward not to have the conclave as a neutral meeting ground. I was ready to flee," said Tessara, turning to follow.
Soon they'd settled on the high, sunbaked rocks of the ridge. "So, just what did Fionn say?" asked Vorlian.
"He made us laugh as usual," said Tessara. "And he took a great deal of risk in irking Myrcupa to tell us that Zuamar had been in your territory in the last week or so."
Vorlian blinked. "Yes. But what does that have to do with it?"
"Well, it does make your ambush and the murder of Zuamar more understandable. I mean, we knew that he'd killed Jakarin. We can understand you felt threatened. Perhaps it is best that he's dead. And if you were injured, it made sense not to fight Myrcupa. You didn't just run away."
Vorlian opened and shut his mouth like a beached fish. Then asked in a dangerous voice. "Did Fionn tell you this?"
"No. Myrcupa told us about the ambush and you running away from the scene of the murder, and then him . . . I found that hard to believe. Fionn just made a fool of him and said you'd defeated Zuamar and that we should all be grateful. Myrcupa was all set to kill him, but he slipped away."
"Fionn would kill him, rather than the other way around," said Vorlian. "He was the one who defeated Zuamar. Not me."
"But . . . but everyone, even Fionn, says that you killed Zuamar," said Tessara.
Vorlian nodded. "He defeated him and let him go. I merely killed Zuamar afterward, but in a fair midair fight. Half of Yenfar must have seen it. And I'll fight Myrcupa, injured or not. I'll fly over there now and deal with him. He couldn't drive me to flee if I was on death's door, Tessara. I have my sources. He's there by invitation. By invitation from the alvar! They sought protection from me, alvar alone know why. In fact I think I will fly over and devour the liar! And those alvar."
Tessara shook her head. "They are flying in pairs, expecting you, Vorlian. It's not natural. And they're changing things in conclave. They attacked Marcellus there. Inside the caverns. There was almost a riot. But not quite. They're the largest, and are sticking together. They say we need to start a program to exterminate humans."
Vorlian took a deep breath. "Then maybe we need to come together too. In times of crisis, dragons have allied before. We allied to create this refuge." He looked around. "What I really need to do is something I thought I would never admit to wanting to do. I want to talk to Fionn. I'm not sure what his game is but I think it is time that I found out."
Tessara shook her wings out. "I will talk to the others. Among the females we have our own . . . arrangement. There are those who have contacts among the lesser species. They will tell us what happened on Yenfar."
"I will lie on my gold and recover for a while. But if you hear of any sightings of Fionn, will you let me know? I need to talk to that black smart-mouth." He sighed. "I ought to have before."
"No one takes him seriously," said Tessara.
"Maybe that was a mistake," said Vorlian.
"That is the strangest thing I've ever heard a dragon say, let alone you," said Tessara dryly. "You never admit to mistakes. Dragons don't." And she flew off, leaving Vorlian to his thoughts again. They were as confused but less dark. Where did Fionn disappear to?
The answer, when he thought about it, was painfully obvious. It was just so undragonish . . .
Fionn had no qualms about assuming other shapes.
He was the tall, foxy-faced human.