The tombs.
Hri Sora cried out at the sight. The tombs of the Kings and Queens of Etalpalli! Tall and grand and horrible were they, especially now with all their green growth stripped away. The dragon woman turned wildly, her gaze flying about her to see the names inscribed above the door of each tomb. Faerie kings and queens were not meant to die! Yet here the beautiful immortals lay, their remains secreted away in darkness. Here lay her mother, her father. And . . . oh!
Hri Sora fell to her knees, hands pressed to her cheeks. Before her, looming to the tortured red sky, was the tomb of Ttlanextu. Her brother.
She could not cry. She had been a dragon far too long, dying twice in fire. The tears she might have shed were long since burned away. So she sat, hollow and empty, before that awful edifice. Once, long ago, a little Faerie queen, her head bowed with the weight of her new crown, had carved that name above the solemn doorway. That Queen of Etalpalli had cried; this one did not.
Shaking her head, Hri Sora forced herself to stand and turn away. A new and more terrible sight met her eyes.
Across from the tomb of Ttlanextu was that of his sister.
“They built me a tomb,” Hri Sora whispered. “They built me a tomb when I left them and took the fire of my Father. They thought I was dead!”
Wonderingly, she stepped closer, gazing up at the great tower without windows that was, she knew, empty inside. As empty as she herself was without her fire. But the fire was mounting once more. She felt her furnace rising, painful and inevitable.
Then her eyes flew wide, and her furious roar shattered the silence of that dead city.
“They carved her name!” she screamed. “They carved her name above the door! Her name, which must be forgotten!”
The fire overcame her then. It burst from her mouth, her nose, her eyes, overwhelming everything. Her children, who had lurked nearby, fled. The towers of Etalpalli trembled.
And high at the top of Omeztli Tower, Lady Gleamdren looked up from her twiddling thumbs and gazed out across the city. She saw the explosion in the street, the flames shooting to the heavens.
With a heavy sigh, Gleamdren rolled her eyes. “That dragon-witch will never keep her mind straight long enough to begin questioning me,” she muttered, twiddling her thumbs some more. “Lumé love me, what a bore this imprisonment business is! I thought for sure she’d try some torture. And I wouldn’t give in, because I am the heroine of this tale, and it wouldn’t do for me to breathe a word of what I know.”
Another heavy sigh puffed between her lips. “No torture. Not a single question about the Flowing Gold! There’s something wrong with that Flame at Night. I do hope the lads are on their way. I’ll die of boredom if they don’t get here soon!”
To entertain herself, she began singing—a song written by Eanrin, of course, as were most of the songs sung in Rudiobus. She liked it because her name was in it many times over. All the best songs, she believed, were about her.
It gleams and glows like river shine
And swiftly golden flows.
In lustrous locks or silky vine,
Which none but Gleamdren knows.
With silver comb and silken twine,
Fair Gleamdrené does bind
The Flowing Gold, so soft and fine,
The Dark Man’s favorite find.
The Flowing Gold of Rudiobus,
The Flowing Gold of Rudiobus.
Anyone who might have caught sight of that iron cage on the tower roof would have heard the chirping of a bright yellow canary as she sang her little heart out. But not even the sun dared peer into that dreadful demesne, so Gleamdren sang for herself alone.
7
EANRIN PEERED around the trunk of a sheltering tree, down to the River’s edge, where the mortal lay. After his first shock, he had leapt into the deeper forest, intending to continue his flight in a new direction. But curiosity had a way of getting the better of him, and he could not keep himself from looking back.
The River’s voice was clearer here. Pretty maid, be mine! it said. And because it was a river and, therefore, rather repetitive, it said it again and again. Pretty maid, be mine, mine, mine!
The girl, lying helpless before that lecherous entity, did not stir. Her attitude suggested that she had fainted while bending over for a drink. Her face was pillowed on one extended arm while the other trailed almost completely in the water. Of all things—here Eanrin the dandy did not try to suppress a derisive snort—she was clad in what looked like animal skins. It was enough to make the poet’s tail bristle.