“Then we’re back to a diversion,” Andrew said. “But one quiet enough that it won’t wake up the whole camp. I’m on watch tonight, if you can arrange the meeting for the right hour, but there will be another fellow with me. And I don’t think it will work for me to simply point behind him and say, ‘What in the world can that be?’”
For the Khiam Siu to sneak out of camp, they would need a longer distraction than that. The three of us sat in silence for a time, broken only by the occasional aborted suggestion: “What if—no, never mind” and the like.
Finally a thought came to me, and a grin spread across my face. “I think I have the answer. But I will need something from Imsali first.”
It was a mad rush, arranging everything in time. Tom spoke to Giat Jip-hau, as he could do so without attracting as much attention as I would; but I had to settle the place and time of meeting with the elders, and then I had to talk to Ruzt. She doubted my ability to carry out the plan on my own—rightly, I suspect—and so when night fell at last, I crept out of Imsali and toward the caeliger meadow with Zam at my side, and two squirming bundles under my coat.
When we were still far enough from the meadow not to risk being overheard, she muttered, “One group of humans; another group of humans. How much difference will it really make?”
All the difference in the world, I hoped. But what I said was, “How much difference would it have made had I been found by Esdarr and her sisters, instead of you three?”
Zam spat something I expect was very uncomplimentary, and we left it at that.
At the edge of camp, beyond the light of their lamps and fire, we crouched down behind the same cover that had previously sheltered Ruzt. Zam released her own bundles first, with a quiet whistle to command them. My coat began squirming even more energetically; I opened it and let two more mews slip free. They lifted their heads and sampled the air; then one scurried away. They would have easy pickings in the camp’s supplies: Dorson and his men had not learned from the Nying to set traps.
Andrew had been listening for the whistle, but he waited several minutes to give the scouting mew time to call in the rest of its flight. Once they had settled in for a thorough raid, he cursed softly, as if he had just noticed the invaders, and dragged his fellow watchman over to drive the mews away.
The trained kind are more difficult to scare off than their wild brethren, especially when Andrew was deliberately ineffective. The mews were still hissing and flapping about the watchman’s head when I slipped away from camp, circling around to meet up with the aspiring emperor of Yelang and lead him to the Draconeans.
Once again I played interpreter, but this time for a very different sort of conversation.
Giat Jip-hau spoke very good Scirling, better than Thu’s, but I wished my companion could have been there. It was, after all, his discovery of the first Draconean body that had put us all on this path; and without him, I would not have known to engineer this meeting. Unfortunately, the elders insisted Thu remain with Suhail, under guard in Imsali, as insurance against any deception. I had complete faith that the Khiam Siu intended nothing untoward; my sole concern was that we get the prospective emperor back to camp as soon as possible. Neither of us had much hope that he could return as discreetly as he had left, of course. But if we could keep negotiations from dragging on for so long that his absence was discovered, I believed all would be well.
When we arrived at the copse of dwarfish trees where the elders and their guards waited, he showed respect to the elders as I had advised him, crossing his arms over his body in imitation of wings. Then he bowed in his own manner—a tiny inclination of the body; as much as could be expected from a man of his station—and held out a small object. “Lady Trent, if you would give this to them. It is my gift, in gratitude for their hospitality.”
A few torches lit the area, enough for me to see what he held. It was an intricate carving of a dragon, not very large, but all the more impressive for being executed so small—especially as it appeared to be made of jade, which is quite a hard stone. My naturalist’s instinct made me want to study it more closely, to see if I could identify the breed, but I carried it to one of the guards, who passed it to Habarz.
With that to pave the way, I told the story of the first emperor of Yelang, as Thu had told it to me: how the dragons had taken human form and blessed the man, and how this blessing was believed to legitimate each subsequent dynasty in turn. And I told how the Taisên had slaughtered dragons for their bones—but honesty would not allow me to leave the matter there. “My own people have done the same,” I said, “although now we have a way of creating the substance of dragonbone from other materials, as one creates butter from milk.” I bowed my head. “Indeed… I myself have been party to the killing of dragons. It is necessary for my study of them. But I confess that after coming here, to the Sanctuary, my feelings on the matter are rather different from what they were before.”
How could they not be? We still do not know which draconic species first gave rise to the Draconeans themselves; it may be a breed long since gone extinct. But I could not look at dragons any longer without seeing them as the cousins of the Draconean people. I believe this would have been true even had Ruzt not told me their myth, the one in which humans were born from the fronts of the four sisters, and dragons from their backs. I do not credit that story as factually accurate, but that does not prevent it from carrying a more symbolic truth. There are times when the death of dragons is unavoidable—they are, after all, still large predators who occasionally take it into their heads to threaten the lives of others—but ever since my time in the Sanctuary, it has been my habit to avoid killing whenever I can.
My revelation occasioned some muttering among the Draconeans, and a conference between Kuvrey, Sejeat, and Habarz, for which I stood well back and forced myself not to eavesdrop. At last Kuvrey turned back and said, “That is not the matter for which you brought us here tonight.”
“No, it is not.” I took a deep breath and brushed my hair from my face. The elders were correct; my own past behaviour was not the most important issue at hand. We were concerned now with nations, not individuals. “The alliance Giat Jip-hau proposes to you is this: if the council bestows its blessings upon his reign—publicly, with one or more Draconeans accompanying him into Yelang for the purpose—then when he claims the throne, Yelang will in turn acknowledge and protect the sovereignty of this place.” Figuring out a way to say “sovereignty” had occupied far too much of my time and Ruzt’s. If the Draconeans ever had such a word, it had been lost during the ages in which they hid from all foreign relations.
Before the elders could respond, I added, “This also protects you against my own people. Scirland will gain more from a friendly dynasty in Yelang than it will from taking over the Sanctuary of Wings. If they fail to respect your borders, they will lose their alliance with the Khiam Siu. If the Khiam Siu fail to honour their agreement with you, then you can withdraw your blessing of them, which will endanger their standing in Yelang. Because both groups benefit from your continued independence, they will be your shield against anyone else who thinks to threaten it.”
I knew full well that what I proposed was a house of cards. Others have built such things before, and seen them collapse, sometimes in catastrophic ways. It was, however, the only solution any of us could see: myself or any of my companions, human or Draconean. But the entire proposal hinged on one question: would the Draconeans bestow their support on a group of humans? It would cost them very little, and they stood to gain much… but part of the cost would be the willingness to look past the disputed history of the Downfall, their ancient fear of our species, and extend the hand of friendship in view of all the world.