Page 127 of Dragon Rule (Age of Fire 5)

“If it was a treasure of your parents, he might have carried it away,” DharSii said.

“You don’t know our father,” Wistala said. “He was in a rage. I don’t think he had the presence of mind to look at anything except the bodies of Mother and my sister.”

“Still, there’s a small chance.”

“Very well,” Wistala said. “I’ll take you to where he died.”

She left the cave with small regret and tumultuous feelings. It would be a good place for eggs, if she could ever banish her memories. Once they reached the surface, she guided DharSii north.

The promontory with the old blighter altar was very much as Wistala remembered it, except the obelisk stones with their cryptic old runes no longer loomed quite so high. She re-experienced the ache brought on by the long, long climb down to the rushing white water turning its near-loop around the outcropping in her trips to get water for Father—she even smelled the rank rot of the old driftwood tossed up by floods with dwarfs-beard growing on it.

“This may have been a dragon-throne,” DharSii said.

Wistala didn’t know what he was talking about, but rather than ask DharSii to explain yet again she just cocked her head.

“Before the founding of Silverhigh, after the dragons had tamed the blighters, they worshiped us. Again, I suspect your parents knew something of the Star Order if he chose this as a place to land and die.”

“He had a little help with the dying,” Wistala said. “I led hunters right to him. Unwittingly.”

“Did he ever mention anything about a crystal?”

“No. Never. I’m sure of it. I hardly knew what the word meant until I saw the crystal ball—wait. Intanta. She had a ball. She claimed it was part of the old sun-shard. Why didn’t I remember—Oh, I’m a fool!”

DharSii stared hard at her. “You’re many things, Wistala, but you’re not a fool.”

“This Intanta traveled with a circus, it belongs to a dwarf named Brok now—she and her gang of humans never mixed much with the rest. They were—shady, I suppose you would call them. I think they cheated people and stole. But she had this crystal. It was most strange. It helped a woman—Rayg’s mother, in fact—with the nausea she suffered while carrying child. It also comforted her during birth.”

“I wonder if Rayg knows more than he’s saying. He’s studying the sun-shard,” DharSii said.

“I hardly know him,” Wistala said. “I doubt Lada would even recognize him. She’s old now, too, worn down with work as a priestess.”

“Then this Intanta is surely dead. Do you suppose the crystal is still with the circus?”

“Intanta’s people had left when last I met the circus. Her granddaughter, Iatella, inherited it, I believe. She read my fortune with it when she was just a little girl. She told me AuRon was still alive when I thought him dead.”

“I wonder how it ended up in the hands of that human? You say they were a strange tribe?”

“I always had the feeling they traveled with the circus, rather than as part of it. They dressed oddly, even for humans. Lots of metallic pieces on their clothing. They sewed layers of coins onto bandannas and belts and such.”

“Like they were imitating dragon-scale?”

“Perhaps, I thought they just wanted them to rattle together when they walked.”

“Just as Silverhigh still has its loyalists who still keep the faith, so too are the men who served it and later rebelled, passing their traditions on. It appears,” DharSii said. “I have a new quarry to hunt. Thank you, Wistala, you’ve given me hope.”

“I should return to the Lavadome. I have promises to keep.”

“And oaths that must never be broken,” DharSii said, a touch of fire in his voice. “We part for now, Wistala. If you think of anything else, or learn more from Rayg, you can leave a message with Scabia at the Sadda-Vale. Coin is no doubt growing short and I must return with more.”

He gave a brief bow to the altar Father had lain bleeding on, spread his wings, and launched himself off the precipice Wistala had fallen down all those years ago. Dogs with teeth locked into her tearing at her flesh. DharSii caught an updraft, turned, and swooped over her, gently running the end of his tail down her fringe. With that, he was gone once again.>“Well done, Wistala,” DharSii said. “That’s about the right size.”

A piece of her thrilled at the compliment. Another part wondered that he only truly became animated when something of interest to him could be found. Whenever DharSii looked at her he just stared at her as though she were an unusual boulder formation.

She nosed around. “Yes, this stone moves. I’ll pull it out, I think I can get my tongue awoun’ yeeth…”

The stone moved. She spat it out.

“Yes! Got it.”

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