A Shard of Sun (21 page)

“As the dragon told you, we settled there for some time, learning of fire—though they never told us how to make it, only feed it. We saw them turn raw metals into liquid fire and back into metals again. They possessed great stores of jewels which, with their talons, they could cut into any shape they like.”

“The dragon kit I’m helping,” Shard said, and his voice sounded far away to his own ears. “His claws can dig through stone.”

Groa’s blind eyes seemed to flicker. “Yes. And much more when he is grown. I saw dragon claws cut diamond.”

She laughed at the memory and as she laughed, her age faded and he saw a young, fit huntress the shape and size of a Vanir.

“The hardest stone imaginable, you know, a relic from the First Age, and precious to dragons. Their most prized gems were the ones of the brightest colors, the ones that reflected their beautiful scales—their scales, which change to at least four miraculous hues through the course of their lifetime. A new skin for each season. They used metal and stone to create adornments which flattered their scales, and it was Kajar who asked if they could make armor. Intrigued, they forged gauntlets, collars, and helms to—”

“Helms?”

“To protect the head. Crafted specially for a gryfon’s face. Did Kajar not take any of those home?”

“No,” Shard said. “Or I’ve never seen them. Maybe they were already so burdened it would’ve been too heavy to take over the sea.”

“Perhaps. It would make sense.” They hovered effortlessly in the half light of the dream place she had created, a Sunland from long ago. She swept her talons through the air, sculpting a shape from the wind, and held out to Shard a headpiece of gleaming bronze. It was shaped to fit over a gryfon head, contoured around the ears and eyes and with a clasp under the chin easy for talons to manage. Shard studied the vision, intrigued, and then Groa flicked her talons open, and it disintegrated. “Oh, Shard, you should have seen Kajar in the full armor they cast for him. Glorious, young prince. It was glorious, though cumbersome to fly in. There would be no enemy who could defeat him in that dragon armor.”

“The wyrms of the Winderost—”

“If you will listen quietly,” Groa said with all the patience of a mother, “I will tell all I remember, and then you may ask your questions at the end, if I haven’t answered them.”

Shard dipped his head in apology, and in the dream she could see the gesture. “Pardon me.”

Groa continued, and though Shard smelled smoke, he saw only her vision. Enormous dragons soared through his vision. As she wove the dream he also watched what she did, and thought he understood how she led him from one image to the next.

“They would not teach us how to make fire. It was then I began to suspect they weren’t as enlightened and flawless as we first thought.” The half light of the dream darkened to a hazy red with her change in mood, like sunset just before a storm, and Shard shuddered.

“And worse, something changed in us at the sight of sparkling gems and moonlight shining on gold. The treasures also began to seep into the minds and hearts of many of Kajar’s warriors, and they competed with each other to see who could charm the more elaborate or bejeweled bit of gold or silver or armor from the dragons. Oh, the dragons found us amusing. We would host games and contests of skill to show off, to impress them.”

Shard saw fighting arenas nestled in the valleys of vast, snowy mountains. The arenas, built to accommodate dragons sparring, filled with competing gryfons.

“These games grew fiercer and more dangerous with each passing turn of the sun until, at last, the unthinkable happened. A gryfon, in the midst of mock-battle, lost himself in the fight, blinded by the prospect of winning, of treasure, deafened by the encouraging roars of the dragons. He killed his own wingbrother.”

Shard closed his eyes against the sight—against Groa’s vivid memory of the battle. Almost afraid to know, he asked, “Who?”

Groa stared below. “The murderer was Kajar. And his wingbrother, his closest sworn ally and friend, was my brother. To kill one’s own wingbrother—unthinkable. That was the first blood to stain Kajar’s name.”

Eyes narrowed, his heart cold, Shard looked toward the arenas. “What happened then?”

“All grieved after the death of my brother,” Groa said at length. “The dragons felt terrible—or acted so—that their encouragement had led to the accident. They made us more gifts. More
things,
” she said, her voice sharpening, “as if metal and stones could replace my brother. They burned his body, the highest honor of their kind. But our hearts were turning cold. I longed for home. Kajar, I could tell, longed for home, for his family.

“Our band was splitting into those who sympathized with him and those who desired revenge, though on Kajar himself or the dragons no one could decide. There was so much anger and fear. It had been nearly a year at that point, mind you. I should have been there for him, Shard, but I never spoke to him again. I know what it is to become Nameless in the hunt, to forget yourself in a fight, but I never thought it would happen to Kajar. Not his noble bloodline, the blood of the very first kings to ever rise out of the dust of the Winderost.

“Kajar began asking more questions. Where did all the gold come from? For we’d kept exploring and found no tunnels or the mines of which the dragons spoke. He demanded to know where the riches came from, why the dragons were so powerful, why they led such brief lives. Why wouldn’t they teach us how to make fire? Oh, they didn’t like the questions. They thought he was being greedy.”

“He was curious,” Shard said softly, more to himself then her. Amaratsu’s story was much simpler, more misguided, or, as Groa had said, kit-like in its portrayal of the events. For a moment the vision of the Sunland faded, and he saw only mist, and her voice in his mind. “I would have been curious too, after that.”

“Yes. Anyone would have been. Certainly a prince like Kajar. I don’t know what they say of him in the Winderost now, Shard, but I wish you could have known him as I did.”

Shard thought of Kjorn, and was able to imagine what Kajar might have been like. “I do too.”

Groa seemed to gather herself, re-appearing as her young self in the dream and flinging her wings out. The vision of the Sunland and the dragons and gryfons unfurled before Shard again.

“Kajar, disgusted with himself and with the dragons, disillusioned, made preparations to leave.” Groa’s voice swelled with a distant passion, and for the last part of the tale she looked and sounded young again, as if it had only happened the day before. “The dragon emperor was displeased. Perhaps he feared we would try to take revenge later, or would spread tales of the sad events through our homeland.” A mountainous dragon whose scales shimmered like pearl flashed before Shard’s eyes.

“He invited Kajar and all his warriors to a feast, and Kajar agreed, mostly to make sure his band was well-fortified for the flight home, and to make as peaceful an end possible.

“The dragons laid out every extravagant manner of food you could imagine, Shard. Fish from the deepest sea, seabird eggs boiled in water using fire, mussels, seal, great carcasses of snow bear and penguin and reindeer.” Shard saw the feast, and through Groa’s memory, smelled it too. “Much of it they roasted using fire, but we never cared for the taste of it. It appeared to be a gesture of honor and friendship.

“Kajar knew better. We knew better. We ate politely, made conversation, spoke of our homeland while not exactly saying which direction it was. Near the end of feast, the emperor rose, and, looming enormous over the rest of the gathering, asked Kajar’s forgiveness. It was then that he told us from whence all the jewels and metal ore had come.

“He spoke of other dragons in a green land in the far, far, Nightward Sea, a land rich with metals and jewels. He spoke of those dragons, but called them wyrms, more like beasts than Named allies, who toiled happily in exchange for shining things. All the Sunland dragons had to do was promise them ornaments, and they dug in their mines, took orders, submitted to discipline. A reward here and there, for the wyrms are much longer lived than any other being, with an ancient memory.

“Do they also battle for your entertainment? Kajar asked him. I nearly choked, Shard, while Kajar continued. Do you dangle pretty pieces of metal at them rather than teach them the ways of honor, friendship, the light of Tyr, and use their own greed against them? Why do they toil for you, if not out of ignorance or fear? For Kajar could see the dragons had no love for those nightward wyrms, no respect, only contempt.

“All they care for in the world is gold, the emperor responded. Will you be like them? Or will you accept our true friendship?”

A dark sense of foreboding and revelation sat heavily over Shard’s heart, and he gazed, rapt at the scene Groa painted for him. But it wavered and faded before him. Then he remembered that part in Amaratsu’s version of the tale. “That’s when you left. You knew it was some kind of test.”

“I admit, Shard, I was a coward then. I could feel the tension gathering like a thunderstorm. I claimed the cooked meat made me ill and fled the gathering. I left the dragon’s grounds and waited outside the limit of their territory, where I could see if the rest of my companions made flight, and join them home.

“But instead of a great host of gryfons flying, after a time I saw them walking out of the dragon’s territory, toward where I hid in the foothills beyond the mountains where the dragons nest. A single dragon joined them. I knew her. She’d only just hatched the summer before we arrived, and had lived her whole short life knowing gryfons—and she was besot with Kajar from the moment we’d arrived, whether as a brother or in some other way I never knew. They came close to me, but I didn’t trust the dragon, and I stayed hidden in a cluster of rocks, eavesdropping.

“She told Kajar she’d never met the wyrms but that she felt as Kajar did, that there had to be another way of mining their gems, or a more equal partnership. She knew the emperor took advantage of the wyrms’ hunger for gold and thought it was wrong. She admired Kajar, and feared for him, for standing up to the emperor. And it was there, in front of all his gathered warriors, and I who wouldn’t come out of hiding, that this now old and withered dragoness told Kajar that she loved him, and that she had a gift for him, a true gift.

“Help me die, she asked of him. I am old, she said, and I don’t want to live in this land without you. I hurt, and I cannot bear the greed of my brothers and sisters any more.

“Kajar said she could fly with them and she only laughed and answered that she was too old, that she would fall in the ocean and die there.

“‘I give you the gift of my love,’ she told Kajar, and the others. ‘I am summerborn, and my element is fire. With my death and the fire of my blood you will see yourselves as I see you. The world will see you as I see you and your descendants for all time will bear the strength and beauty of the Sunland in their blood. But be warned, with a dragon’s blessing, everything that you are will be more so. If you are strong, you will be stronger. If you are arrogant, you will be more so, and if you are fearful and dishonest, you may lose yourself and your very name. If you are kind and honorable, there will be no creature alive to match you, and the blessing on you will serve as something to aspire to, or as a warning against arrogance and greed.

“‘Take the gifts my kin and I made for you, to remember us by, but remember they are not us, they are not our friendship or our time together. Only remembrances, only rocks and metal. Kajar,’ she begged him them, ‘now let me die.’

“I looked away, Shard. I knew Kajar would do as she asked. I heard great gasps from the rest of the warriors and I looked back, expecting to see them covered in dragon blood—but oh…I cannot tell you how it looked. Her body had burned into shining red flames like fire, but so much brighter, and washed Kajar and the others in that fire. Then it faded, and they stood there with her ashes and the snow. They looked radiant, like cut jewels. The colors that had once been natural were now impossible hues. Kajar himself, once ruddy like a Winderost hawk, now blazed the red of a dying fire.

“I’m sure the rest of the tale is much as your friend Amaratsu said. I fled after that, fearing for Kajar and the others, fearing for myself. I couldn’t bear to go home without my brother, without the blessing of the dragon on my feathers and in my blood. I have been here ever since, learning of the other creatures here, of dream catching, of fire…and at last, at long last, I heard a bit of silver in the wind. I heard a song of summer, and I sought you.”

As the dream images melted into a vague, starry twilight around them, Shard tried to gather his scattering awe. He had no words.

Groa laughed softly. “Shall I teach you dream catching and weaving? Then you may seek visions of your own, or send dreams to others, to any who dream.”

“I watched you,” Shard murmured. “I think I understand.”

They stood on a familiar cliff, and the thick scent of seawater and pine drew a loose breath from Shard’s throat. The Silver Isles.

Groa shimmered before him. “Is this your home?”

“Yes.” As she had done, he opened his wings, and felt in that place that he could gather and send his thoughts and his heart ever outward for all the dreaming world to hear. From his wingtips burst an apparition of Stigr, and the black gryfon wisped in front of them like smoke before fading.

“Well done,” Groa murmured. Her voice sounded old again, breathless, and he noticed that she was blind again in the dream. It was now
his
dream. “Again.”

Through her eyes he saw the dream net, and understood at once how the spirals echoed in the waking world—the winds and star light and the darkness of night tilted and turned in patterns repeated by leaves, shells, unfurling wings and beating hearts. He saw how he could soar along a strand and find a friend’s dream, and weave an image for them.

So Shard did it again, folding together the salt wind, the stars and earth to show Groa all the things that he loved. He showed her the pride, his birth mother Ragna, his nest-sister, Thyra, now a queen. Stern Caj and practical, caring Sigrun. For her he wove wolves rushing through the dark forest, and Aodh the graying caribou king, and the laughing ravens, Hugin and Munin. He showed her Brynja, the huntress’s wings broad and ruddy as fire in the dream light, and Groa laughed in delight to his desires displayed.