She strode to the edge of the tower and looked out from that dizzying height. For a moment, her fire vanished in a dreadful coldness—something akin to fear. How dreadful it was that she, a dragon, should fear to fall! She who had once flown upon wings of iridescent blackness, rising even to the highest vaults of the heavens!
Hri Sora put a hand to her head. The fire inside was so great sometimes. How often did it drive all thought away? “Cruel, cruel fate!” she growled, and fire gleamed in her mouth. “But . . . but have I . . .”
Oh! How her head pounded with mounting heat and pressure! She would have to flame it out, burn the air until it melted away. But when she flamed, she could not think. And she must think! She must devise some way to regain her wings.
Another memory stirred. “The . . . the Flowing Gold,” she whispered.
“I was wondering when you were going to bring that up.”
The voice came from somewhere near. Though the throbbing in her temples did not diminish, Hri Sora raised her head slowly. It swung on the end of her long neck like the weight of a pendulum, back, forth, searching for the speaker. The voice was familiar somehow, but she could not place it, nor even see from whence it came.
“Down here.”
A little iron cage sat on the stone floor near the center of the flat tower roof. Her heritage, nearly forgotten, flared in her memory for a moment. Cages! Those with wings could not abide them. The impulse to fling it from the tower nearly overcame her. But she strode over to it, the remnants of a green nightgown wafting about her limbs, and knelt to peer inside.
A tiny woman with white-gold hair gazed up at her from furious blue eyes.
The Flame at Night startled back, her lips curled into a dreadful snarl. “What are you doing here?”
The tiny captive folded her arms and shook her head, disbelieving. “Well, I like that! Here you go through the bother of kidnapping me, laying siege to unsiegeable Rudiobus, dragging me off in the middle of the night after I’d given you my own bed for your comfort . . . and you have the gall to ask what I’m doing here.”
Hri Sora hissed again. When she said no more, the tiny woman kicked the bars of her iron cage, rattling them with such force that the dragon drew back. “You kidnapped me!” the tiny woman cried. “You kidnapped me and shoved me into this cage, forcing me to take this insignificant size! And now you’ll attempt to wrest the secret of Rudiobus from my unwilling lips!”
“What . . . what secret?” The fire in her temples was mounting. Thinking was agony, as was remembering. Perhaps she should flame it out and destroy this creature, destroy this foul cage, and sink into forgetfulness.
“What secret?” The tiny woman flung up her hands, then planted them on her hips, shaking her head. “See here, you stole me away from my home because you desire the fabled Flowing Gold. I am one of only three who know its whereabouts, therefore—”
“Why should I desire gold?”
Gleamdren blinked. “How should I know?”
Hri Sora pressed her hands to her forehead. Her breath came in short pants. “I desire . . . many things. But not gold.”
Lady Gleamdren tilted her head to one side. “If you don’t want the gold, why bother kidnapping me? Pure sport? Well, you’ll have plenty of that, I can assure you. I expect no fewer than two dozen brave suitors have set forth from Rudiobus by now. Stalwart heroes bent on my rescue, fired with the passion of their adoration for . . . well, for me.” She simpered prettily. “I have quite the assortment of beaux, you see. They’ll all be in a state now that I’ve been torn from the bosom of my homeland. How do you like the notion of two dozen or more heroes bringing war to your demesne?”
For a long time, the Flame at Night stood silent, warring against her own inner furnace. When at last she spoke, her voice was so hot that the air about her mouth shimmered.
“In my day,” she said, “I have swallowed more than a hundred heroes in a single breath. Armies of every nation, every world, have set upon me with arrows, with engines, with weapons beyond your imagination. These I have devoured.”
She stood, her arms wrapped about her belly, where the depths of her flame flared into greater, more awful life. Her voice rose even as she forgot to whom she spoke. “The warriors of Etalpalli, winged and helmed, spears in hand, flocked to me in angry legions, ready to tear me apart, to mount my head upon my own city gates! I, who ruled them. I, who ate them. Ate them and burned their city, for they were mine to devour, and it was mine to burn!”
Her eyes squeezed tight, and when they again flared open, sparks flew. Flames ringed her eyelids. Lady Gleamdren screamed at the sight and covered her face, though the iron cage kept away the shower of fire that fell about her.
“You see, little creature with your laughing face,” Hri Sora said, “I do not care for whatever sport you may bring upon my realm. Even without my wings, I am the most glorious of my Father’s children! But what—”