“She doesn’t like being outdone by our beautiful new queen,” SiMevolant continued, bowing to Imfamnia. “Ladies, look to your mates, for no hearts remain true when Imfamnia passes. Beautiful Imfamnia.”
“I’m going to go see Tighlia. Will you be all right, darling?” the Copper asked his mate. She smiled up at him from her cushions and nodded.
“When has Halaflora ever been all right?” SiMevolant asked, and everyone waggled their eyebrows.
“You go too far, SiMevolant,” the Copper roared in his face. “Cry challenge, and meet me in the pits!”
“RuGaard, you really must have your body-slave look to your teeth and tongue,” SiMevolant said, his griff not even twitching. Behind him, NoSohoth pushed his way forward, guiding blighters with incense to calm the situation. “Unless you intend to slay with your breath. But soft! I cry submission. I meant no offense; it was only a little jest at my sister. She’s known me for years. I mean no harm.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Halaflora said, ignoring her brother and staring at the Copper. “Thank you for that.”
Her sister Ayafeeia looked at him with new eyes. She flicked a griff at him, one warrior to another. He turned away.
“Now I know why he walks so oddly,” SiMevolant said. But softly. “It’s that lance stuck up his tailvent.”
He left the party and sought out Tighlia. One of her thralls admitted him.
“No, no more visitors,” he heard her cry, followed by a low humming hominid voice. “Oh. Well, I can stand him,” she said a little more quietly.
The elderly female thrall brought him into the cheery little room. Now a bronzed tooth and a scale and a claw from, he guessed, her mate stood on a special pedestal in the center of the room. Other than that it was largely unchanged, though perhaps the air was a little heavier, as though she rarely left the room.
“I’ve come to pay my respects, Tighlia,” the Copper said.
“Wine?” she asked, indicating a deep cistern next to her low shelf. She took a tongueful. “It’s good. Go ahead! I’ve never poisoned a guest’s wine, and I’m not going to start today.”
“A little, thank you.” The Copper took a tongueful. “Why aren’t you at the mating banquet?”
“Because my brother’s going to be there,” she said a little thickly. “I suppose you find that odd.”
“I grew tired of the banquet myself.”
“You know what he’s done with the Gardens, I expect.”
She’s even drunk! All I have to do is make one good leap. I’ve got enough strength in my good sii to— “Made them into a private park for himself and—”
“Yes, that’s bad enough,” she said, taking such a great slurp of wine a little ran out of the corners of her mouth. The spill somehow disarmed him, and he relaxed. “Oh, how sloppy of me. Yes, bad enough to deny decent dragons the view, but do you know he’s stocked it with his precious, plump human females? Brought at great expense, oh, yes, the demen slave traders and ferrymen are happy with him. He’s in there all day sniffing around like some wretched dog. Getting himself puffed up for a night with Imfamnia.”
“She’s an energetic young dragonelle—er, dragon-dame,” the Copper said.
“There’s something sad about that mating. Of course, there always is with a dragon his age and some bright thing with her wings fresh out. Happened before, just not in the Imperial line. If you must dilly-dally you can at least be discreet about it and not bring the jade-scale into company.”
“Manners have never been my specialty.”
“He hardly visits me anymore,” she said, and paused for a little more wine. “Doesn’t care for my advice. You know what he told me, once we had things sorted in the Rock? I brought him a whole bellyful of matters needing attention. He said, ‘I’m Tyr now; I can do what I want.’”
She paused.
“‘I can do what I want.’ What a child. What an old, foolish child. It’s quite the opposite, you know. Perhaps he never really understood what it meant to lead.”
“I came to tell you about some improvements I have in mind for the western road,” the Copper said. “I was wondering if you had any advice about stonecutters.”
“Oh, I’ve had too much wine for any of that. How is your mate?”
The Copper tried to find the proper words. “I’m…I’m content.”
“Good for you, RuGaard. I hope you will be able to stay content. As for me…oh, I must do some serious thinking. But first, a little more wine. It is the day of my brother’s mating, after all. Oh. Stonecutters. Yes, come tomorrow and I’ll give you a name. Fat human, smelly as a pig’s arse and dripping fleas, but he does good work with his crew.”
The stonecutter’s name was Hiriyal, and he did excellent work and regulated an efficient crew. With their quick—albeit expensive—help, each day saw the tunneling progress and the slag pile grow. Hiriyal was a “free slave,” which sounded like a contradiction, but he made his strange social position work for the benefit of himself and his men.
The Firemaidens had carried out their orders a little too enthusiastically, and he found Rayg chained by the ankle to a heavy boulder. He got around by having a blighter help him lift it into a barrow, and together they could move it to the next site, though negotiating the catwalk was obviously impossible.
The Copper had the chain struck off and set up a temporary household while the most difficult element of the work, the stonecutting, was carried out under Rayg’s supervision. After a few arguments about methods with Hiriyal, they made good progress.
The Copper was surveying the first span with Rayg when the young man suggested that he fly below and look at the supports.
“I can’t fly.”
“Is it that wing? The one that hangs?”
“Yes, useless. Not even good to glide; it’s more of a swooping fall, I’m afraid.”
Rayg walked around him. “I believe the problem’s in that joint. It looks different from the one on the other side, like the two ends are slipped.”
“I know the cause,” the Copper said.
“I might be able to fix that. It looks like all it needs is a brace to keep the outer edge from sliding and then folding over the inner.”
The Copper hardly dared hope. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s simple…” He said a word the Copper didn’t understand. “Just a matter of give and take.”
“If you do that, I will set you up like a kern king. Once you finish the bridge.”
“I’d always heard dragons are terrible. You’re better than barbarians.”
“I should hope so,” the Copper said.
Over the next weeks Rayg worked with two pieces of wood carved into shapes that resembled a crescent moon, thick leather, metal bands, and some studs. Rhea helped him, holding the wing still as he tested model after model. It infuriated the Copper, as each session ended with an “I’ve got to build another model” that became an inevitability ending the experiments.
He wondered if all this work was just an excuse to divert his attention from an escape attempt, or some bit of spycraft, but all Rayg seemed to do was spend more and more of his off time with Rhea.
Then one day, after an unusually long session extending and retracting his wing over and over and over again until the Copper’s muscles grew weary, with Rayg making chalk marks on the wood, the man said, “This model will work.”
“You mean—” the Copper began.
“Oh, I’ve got to improve it. A little more shaping. But this one folds just enough. It’s a little stiff, but better too rigid than something that’ll give way when you’re in the air.”
The bridge, and the wing contraption, both progressed daily. After having his skin rubbed raw extending and retracting his wing, he tried a short glide from one construction platform to another.
His wing stayed open! Hearts beating, he threw his head to the sky and roared, so loudly that the Firemaidens came running, thinking there was a fight.
With that he launched himself off the platform. Rayg shouted something but he didn’t catch it; it was lost in the sound of air as he flew. He tried one beat, two, three, gaining altitude with each stroke of his wings. He had never realized how good it would feel to use the muscles on his back properly, how perfect the sensation—
Snap!
The device flew off and he felt the old, faint grinding sensation of his bones folding against each other. His wing collapsed and the world spun around him. No, yes, he managed a turn, leveled out, and then the ground was suddenly beneath him and it struck hard.
He woke smelling his own blood. But he managed to stand, and looked at the skid mark he’d made in the canyon’s side. He’d lost a few scales as well.
He picked up the broken contraption and made the long, slow, sore climb back up to the construction site.
“I’m glad you live,” Rayg said.
“How thoughtful of you,” the Copper responded.