The Dragon's Path

return.”
    “This is totally unlike any account I ever read,” Geder said.
    “Do you doubt me?” Basrahip asked, his voice low and gentle and with the strange throbbing that seemed to inflect all his speech.
    “Not at all,” Geder said. “I’m amazed! A whole era before the dragons? It’s something no one has written about. Not that I’ve ever seen.”
    Outside the small stone room, the stars glittered in the sky and the crescent moon lit the cascade of stones. In the darkness, Geder could almost imagine the great stone dragon above the temple wall moving, turning its head. The odd green crickets that infested the temple sang in shuddering chorus. Geder wrapped his arms around his legs, grinning.
    “I cannot tell you how pleased I am that I found this place,” Geder said.
    “You are an honored man of a great nation,” the high priest said. “I am pleased that you have come so far to find our humble temple.”
    Geder waved the comment away, embarrassed. It had taken the better part of a day to explain that, while he was nobility,
prince
was a particular title where he came from, and couldn’t be applied so widely. He’d spent most of his life being called
lord
and
my lord,
and even though it meant the same thing,
honored man of a great nation
left him self-conscious.
    Basrahip rose and stretched as, in the distance, a harsh voice screeched out the call to night prayer. Gerder expected Basrahip to make his excuses and hurry out to lead the priests in their rituals. Instead, he paused in the doorway, candles casting shadows over his eyes.
    “Tell me, Lord Geder. What was it you most hoped to find here?”
    “Well, I wanted to see if I could find the Sinir mountains and some source material about the Righteous Servant for a speculative essay I’m drafting up.”
    “This is what you
most
hoped to find?”
    “Yes,” Geder said. “It is.”
    “And now that you have found it, it will be enough?”
    “Of course,” Geder said.
    The big man’s gaze locked on him, and Geder felt a blush rising in his neck and cheeks. Basrahip waited for what seemed half a day, then shook his head.
    “No,” he said gently. “No, there is something else.”
    T he days since Geder’s arrival at the temple had been astounding and rich and unnerving as a dream. For two full days from morning until nightfall, he had stood in the great court between the temple itself and the gated wall. A dozenpale-robed priests with long hair and full beards sat around him as he drew maps and tried to summarize centuries of history. Often when they asked questions of him, he had to admit his ignorance. How had the borders of Asterilhold and Northcoast been set? Who claimed the islands south of Birancour and west of Lyoneia? Why were the Firstblood centered in Antea, the Cinnae in Princip C’Annaldé, and the Timzinae in Elassae when Tralgu and Dartinae had no particular homeland? Why were the Timzinae called
bugs,
the Kurtadam
clickers,
and the Jasuru
pennies?
What names were the Firstblood known by, and by whom were they hated?
    They seemed particularly intrigued by the Timzinae. Geder prided himself on knowing a great deal. Having his limits exposed was humbling, but the thirst the olive-skinned men had for every scrap of information made it bearable. Every story and anecdote he gave them, they were fascinated by.
    He found himself telling them his own past. His life as a boy in Rivenhalm. His father and the court in Camnipol. The Vanai campaign and how it ended and the mercenary attack on Camnipol, traveling the Keshet.
    When the sun grew too hot to bear, the priests brought out a huge half-tent of stretched leather and wide wooden beams that shaded Geder and rose behind him like a gigantic hand. They hauled out wide-mouthed ceramic pots of damp sand that kept the buried gourds of water cool. Geder chewed lengths of dried goat meat spiced with salt and cinnamon, talking until his throat was hoarse. They stopped as the sun slid behind the peaks, answering the harsh, barking call. Geder’s servants made camp for him there and slept on the ground beside him. And then, on the third day when he was certain his voice would fail him, Basrahip—theBasrahip—came to him and motioned that he should follow. The huge man led him up stone stairways worked smooth as glass by generations of leather-shod feet, through the wide passage as much cave mouth as corridor.
    He had expected carved stone, but Geder didn’t see any sign that the halls