Dragon

"Good work, Daymar," I said aloud. And to Fornia I said, "You don't know exactly what it is, either. And you're only guessing about how to bring it out. That was a possibility that hadn't occurred to me."

Ori stared back and forth between me and Fornia, and the other sorcerers and the bodyguards also seemed uncertain about what had just happened and what to do about it. Fornia said, "I suspect killing you here will draw him to me anyway; I think I no longer need you alive."

Now, that was unfortunate for me.

I said, "Remember, I surrendered."

"Spies can be executed."

"I'm in uniform," I said, remembering from somewhere that that might matter.

"Then you'll look properly military when—" He broke off, staring over my shoulder.

"Boss, don't look now, but we've got company."

"Who?"

"Napper."

"What?"

In spite of his warning, I looked. And there, about fifty yards away, was Napper, sauntering up the hill, come, no doubt, to get in on the action. Did this change anything? Well, yeah, it did change one thing—it put my back to Ori, and that caused a panic that, I suppose, was inevitable after what I'd been through the day before, so I spun back and almost set off a melee right there. I can't believe, with Napper showing up right then, that Fornia would have done anything except have us killed at once if there hadn't been sudden cries from the honor guard—Morrolan's band was on the verge of breaking through—thus giving him other things to think about than this pesky Easterner and his odd friends.

He addressed those of his guard who had been about to bind and search me, and said, "Guard them, all of them. Kill them the instant they do anything suspicious," then he turned back to his war.

That was good. Twice in two days would have been uncalled-for, even if I lived through it.

I almost hadn't lived through it the first time. I even dreamed that I didn't. I half remember several of the dreams, but in one that I remember most of I was sent over Deathgate Falls, and in the Halls of Judgment (which looked a lot different in my dream than they did when I'd actually been there) the Gods all thought it was the greatest joke in the world that I was asking to be admitted, and in the confusion of the dream I tried to explain that I deserved to be admitted as a Dragon, and they just couldn't stop laughing. It sounds funny to tell, but I woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat, breathing hard, and shaking.

I got out of bed because I suddenly couldn't stand to be lying still. I walked out into the quiet of the camp; the mountain air was cold on my chest, but felt good on my back, which was hot, like I had a localized fever.

"Where are you going, Boss?"

"I'm not sure. I need to walk."

"The physicker's tent is this way."

"I've gotten plenty of physic."

I slipped past the pickets, almost out of habit. "Am I going the right way, Loiosh?"

"What do you mean, Boss? You're not heading toward the enemy, but you're going downhill."

"That's what I meant. I wouldn't want to present myself to the enemy just yet."

"Then where are we going? Are we finally getting out of here like sensible people?"

"I'm not sure."

"Because if we are, you've forgotten a few things."

I made my way down into the darkness, my eyes straining to pick out a path from the bits of light from distant campfires. Loiosh landed on my shoulder.

"Ouch"

"Sorry, Boss. You should have a jerkin on."

He was probably right. I had no jerkin, no cloak, no boots, no sword, Spellbreaker was back next to my bed, and the only weapons I carried were two paper-thin throwing knives concealed in the seams of my trousers. I hadn't been out of doors this naked since I joined the Jhereg, and there was something exhilaratingly spooky about it. It was a cleaner fear than what I'd felt in battle, and the pain of stepping on rocks with my bare feet was clean, too, and so was the cold. I hadn't realized how much I needed to feel clean.

I slipped past another line of pickets, effortlessly, and for a while I entertained the illusion that I was the wind itself, that I didn't feel the cold, rather I was the cold, and none could see where I went, but they would feel me pass by a prickling of the hairs on their necks. I was naked but invisible, helpless but omnipotent, and I was lost in the world I all but owned. Certainly, it was false; in the streets of Adrilankha I owned the world, but this was a desert filled with soldiers; the feeling was different, and illusory, but it was there. I made no sound, and, had anyone been looking, I don't think he'd have seen more than my breath in the night air. My awareness of those around me came, above all, from the faint sounds of breathing, and I knew that Loiosh, as silent as I, was above me in the night, in the wind.

A single bush, like a sentry, waves to say with a laugh that it, at least, sees me, and I wave back though my arm doesn't move; a pebble between my toes is a burden which I reject, so it rolls away in search of its own reason for being; my time is filled with empty space, and my space with empty time, and my legs can't move so I must float float float through the armies of the world, clashing forever on the battlefield of my mind where all is in motion and nothing moves and the Cycle looms overhead, and at its top is the Dragon, glaring, plotting, scheming, protecting its young by devouring the souls who are cast loose to roam the night and come to me for protection that I cannot give, for I am in no place but everywhere, and there is no end to the night that is me.

How long I walked, or where, I don't know; nor do I know how far my mind wandered on a journey of its own, but somewhere in the night real thoughts returned, and practical matters impinged on my consciousness and brought me a few steps closer to home.

I found that I was thinking, for example, about just how big Morrolan's army was. My own unit—I couldn't help thinking of it that way—was one company out of scores in one brigade out of dozens. I passed tent after tent, all the same, all full of Dragons and Dzur and Teckla who would be going out the next day to cut and hack at Dragons and Dzur and Teckla on the other side. I walked through the camps as one might travel in a dream, apart from it all, and it came to me that the power I held as a Jhereg was nothing to the power of a Dragonlord, who could, on a whim, command so many to do so much. If I had such power, how would I use it? And what would it do to me? Did that explain why Morrolan was the way he was? There are stories that, in his youth during the Interregnum, he had entire villages put to the sword in sacrifice to the Demon Goddess that she might grant him knowledge of the Elder Sorcery. If the stories were true, did I now understand why? Was it that, having such power, he used it merely because he could? And would I be the same way, given the chance?

I came to the river and turned north, walking by still more camps, and supplies, and pickets to whom I was invisible. That was my own power, and I was using it, I suppose, because I could, and maybe there was my answer. To my right were several large pavilions, some with lights showing within. Perhaps Morrolan and Sethra were meeting even now to plan the destiny of the thousands assembled here—because they could.

And what of Virt, and Napper, and Aelburr? They were all volunteers, professional soldiers, who fought—why? Because if they died bravely they would receive high status in the Paths of the Dead? Or have a chance to be reincarnated as a commander who could lead others into the sorts of battles that led to their own deaths? That didn't account for it, but I couldn't get any closer.