Far below, Tek stood upon the council rise. She was a striking sight, bold black and rose, her particolored mane lifting in the slight, frigid breeze. The herd around her assembled joyously. How regal she looked, like a princess, like a queen. She is their queen, he thought. Leader of the herd now that Korr is gone—and not as any regent, but in her own right: undeclared princess of the line of Halla all the time that I have ruled.
Watching her, Jan felt terror and longing war within his breast. He did not know, suddenly, how he would bear yielding his station as prince. For honor’s sake, and out of love for Tek, he could consider no other course. Yet its taste rose bitter in his mouth—for another thing he must relinquish, too. And this he could not face at alclass="underline" abandoning his mate, renouncing her. Not Tek, my belovèd! It was inconceivable.
Mounting panic took him by the throat. He gasped, shuddering. The image in the dragon’s pool wavered, obscured by snow. Frantically, Jan strove to still his roiling thoughts. Gradually, his inner clamor quieted, breathing eased. The images in the pool clarified. He gazed into them deeply, desperately. The scene below offered distraction, lifted him out of his turmoil and pain. His last awareness of the dragon’s den and his own identity faded as he grew wholly absorbed.
Tek spoke to the assembled herd, and they danced the great ringdance, trampling the snow. Much later, when the dance had ended, Tek again addressed the herd. Her foster father, Teki the healer, came forward and sang the lay of Jan’s winter captivity three years past and of his eventual return, bearing the secret of fire in his hooves and horn. Impervious to solstice chill in their thick winter shag, the resting herd stood harkening, or lounged at ease on the frosty ground.
Teki’s lay done, Tek called on Ryhenna to stand beside her on the rise. Dagg’s copper-colored mate had fought at the prince’s shoulder during his escape from the two-footed firekeepers. She too, like Jan, had trod upon the burning coals Jan had kindled that day, tempering her round, solid hooves to sparking hardness. Each year since the herd had acclaimed her its priestess, she had kindled the great bonfire that would burn all winter long.
Calling on Alma now, thanking the goddess for her gift of fire, the coppery mare reared and dashed her hooves against the stones on which the dried tinder rested. Sparks flew. Ryhenna rose and struck again, again. Whinnying, she cavaled, stamping her hind heels. All the herd whistled with her. More sparks. Some flew into the midst of the tinder and caught. Smoke curled up, then little tongues of flame. When the bonfire had become a blaze, Tek called members of the herd to come forward.
In twos and threes, unicorns approached the council rise. Each bore a dried branch clenched in teeth. Carefully, they dipped their brands into the flame, then raised them burning aloft. The fire-bearers sprang away at a gallop, ploughing through snow, seeking their grottoes before the firebrands guttered. Each grotto, Jan knew, housed a similar tinder pile beside a cache of stores. Here borrowed flames would burn all season, warming the herd, that none need ever again suffer privation from hunger and cold. Guardians would tend the great bonfire on the council rise until the birth of spring.
Jan found his viewpoint pulling back from the kindling, buoyed like a gryphon on a rising wind. The images before him blurred, altering. He seemed to have traversed many miles in a single breath. Vague impressions of Pan Woods and Plain swept rapidly beneath him, then the rises and ripples of the Hallow Hills. He began to descend, rushing earthward. Below, he glimpsed the Mirror of the Moon, the unicorns’ sacred pool, hard by the expanse of broken limestone shelves housing entry to the wyverns’ dens.
The next heartbeat found him within. Long caverns twisted through the white limestone, all coated with a crystalline glaze. As the pale wyrms slithered, their tiny scales sloughed, volatile oils from their skin rubbing off, forming silvery trails. Over hundreds of years, the trails had thickened into layers which caught the lightwells’ gleam, diffusing it, to lend a dim glow to the dens even in their deepest parts. The translucent patina had a resinous odor. Jan knew it to be fiercely combustible. One spark could set the whole warren alight.
Jan found himself in the deepest recess of the vast network of interlocking tunnels. A great wyvern lay curled in his lair, unaware of the dark unicorn’s distant observation. This wyrm was the largest Jan had ever seen, larger even than the three-headed queen he had battled as a colt. Jan guessed that this creature must be very old, for wyverns grew throughout their lives. At the tip of his poison tail, seven barbs glinted. Two badger-broad forepaws, his only limbs, scratched absently at his vitreous belly, stretched taut by a recent meal. Old scars disfigured his breast.
The wyrm had seven heads. Realization seized Jan with a start. Each head possessed a hood, bristling whiskers and dozens of needle-sharp teeth. The eldest, central pate was also the largest. It lay dozing, long neck stretched along the ground. Other heads twined about it. Two were nearly half as large. These also slept. The rest were smaller, younger, wakeful. Of them, the final, seventh nob was a mere slip, whining and nibbling at its own gill ruff. Its three companions stirred restively, glancing about the room as if on guard. A firebrand smoldered smokily nearby, only the smallest stack of twigs heaped by for future fuel. Furtively, in whispers, the four smallest heads argued.
“Why must we always keep watch,” the next-to-smallest complained, “while the large ones sleep?”
“Silence!” the fourth-largest head hissed. “You’ll wake the One.”
The complainer and its closest companion both hissed and turned to eye the largest pate, which slept on, unperturbed. The tiniest sniffed at a fellow’s gills, parting colorless lips for a tentative nibble. The second-to-smallest spun and snapped at the tiny head, driving it back. The fourth-largest clucked at the other three, then cast about suspiciously, eyeing the egress to the wyrm king’s den as if impatient for some visitor. The second-largest countenance, flanking the One, stirred. All four of the small aspects riveted their gazes upon it for a few heartbeats, then lost interest when it made no further move.
“Where in all the burrows is the kindling?” the fourth-largest demanded. “Our brand’s near burnt out.”
“Do you think it was the peaceseekers, waylaying the wood gatherers again?” the fifth-largest nob ventured.
“Peaceseekers!” the next-to-the-smallest growled, then spat.
“Stingless grubs.”
The tiny head hissed furiously, a tangle of sounds that might have been, “Stingless! Stingless!” Its three walking comrades ignored it.
“It was when our queen died, five seasons past,” the fifth-largest muttered, “that was when our fortunes fell.”
The next-to-smallest one beside it harrumphed. “They were wretched before.”
“Hardly!” the fourth-largest snapped. “While our queen lived, she kept the barbless freaks in check.”
“Verminous peaceseekers!” its companion, fifth-largest, snarled.
“We were never cold then; that I’ll grant,” the next-to-smallest face conceded.
“Peace! Peace!” the tiny head hissed as though it were a curse.
“Killed by those thrice-cursed unicorns,” the fourth-largest head murmured.
Its slightly smaller companion added, “Our gallant queen. Priestess of the divine fire.”
“She never let our torch grow cold,” the second-to-smallest added.
The tiny head alongside hissed out, “Torches. Cold.”
The gazes of the four small walking faces flicked between the egress and the guttering fire. The one largest pate dozed on, as did the two middle-sized heads that flanked it. The larger of those uncoiled its neck, turned upside down. Again the four small heads froze, silenced, until their medium-sized fellow again lay still.