White Road

to please Tyrus, and he shared his tobacco with them.
    The others smoked a moment in silence, while Alec tried to hide his growing impatience.
    “You want to know if your Sebrahn is a dragon,” the old man said at last. “Don’t look so surprised, Alec. I see the dragon aura around him as clear as I see you.” He went back to his smoking, staring at Sebrahn.
    At last he took his pipe from his lips and pointed the stem at Sebrahn. “That is no dragon.”
    “But the aura?” asked Alec, though he was relieved.
    “I didn’t say he is no part of a dragon, only that he isn’t one himself, any more than you are.” He took a puff on his pipe and exhaled through his nose, looking a bit dragon-like himself. “Will he come to me?”
    Alec put Sebrahn down, and the rhekaro immediately went to Tyrus and climbed into his lap. Once there, he pointed upward. “Drak-kon.”
    As if summoned, the dragon swooped across the room and landed on the arm of Tyrus’s chair. Alec held his breath as Sebrahn reached to stroke its head and wings, but the dragon did not bite him.
    “If he’s not a dragon, then why do they come to him like that?” asked Seregil.
    “Why do they come to me?” Tyrus said with a shrug. “Now, then, shall we go see him?”
    Bundled once more against the cold, they followed Tyrus up a very steep but well-traveled path through the snow, moving steadily up the mountainside—Alec with Sebrahn in a sling on his back. A waxing moon balanced on the eastern peaks, and the stars were as sharp as glass.
    The trees grew thinner and smaller as they went, and soon they were above the tree line, boots scraping on bare rock. The air was filled with the sound of wings, and now and then Alec saw a dragon silhouetted for an instant against the stars. Caught between fear and wonder, he stayed close to Tyrus.
    He was glad of the sling; Sebrahn was as restless as a child going to a fair. Pointing frantically, he rasped out, “Drak-kon! Drak-kon!”
    A little farther on Alec was suddenly aware of loud hissing, though he wasn’t sure of the direction. It kept up and he couldn’t tell if it was one dragon following them, which was unsettling, or if there were a lot of them about, which wasn’t much comfort, either. Tyrus’s presence must have been keeping them at bay.
    We’d have been mauled and eaten by now, otherwise
, thought Alec.
    The way grew more level, and Tyrus finally stopped in the shadow of a high ridge. Alec could see dragons on the heights, perhaps dozens of them, some as large as bulls.
    “Drak-kon!” Sebrahn said, more loudly than Alec had ever heard him speak.
    “How large is your—friend?” Alec asked, wondering which dragon it was.
    Tyrus chuckled. “Oh, he’s a big one.”
    How large was large? The size of a horse, of a house? The ones in the murals and mosaics in Rhíminee were always portrayed as being as large as a city, but Alec doubted—
    Suddenly the ridge moved and the ground shook so hardthat all of them went sprawling. Dragons of all sizes took wing around them, like bats streaming out of a cave at sunset.
    What Alec had mistaken for a smaller, nearby ridge rose against the sky, the shape unmistakable. The horned head alone was half the size of the Stag and Otter; the curved, spine-ridged neck might be as long as Silvermoon Street. That large ridge was its back.
    Laughing, Tyrus pulled Alec to his feet. “This is my friend. Friend, this one comes to you with questions.”
    The head descended, the one huge eye Alec could see glowing like molten gold. Then, in a voice like a softly spoken avalanche, it said, “Hello, little ’faie. You smell of far places.”
    Hot, reeking breath rolled over him—bitter, with a metallic tang like cold iron against the tongue. It reminded Alec of the tinctures Yhakobin had forced down his throat. Sebrahn had gone completely still.
    “See? I promised I’d show you dragons one day,” Seregil told him. “Go on, it’s waiting.”
    “Uh—hello—Master Dragon.” Alec bowed. “Forgive me, I don’t know your name.”
    “My name?” The dragon raised its head and made an ear-shattering, incomprehensible sound. Then, lowering its head even with Alec again, it said, “You appreciate the difficulty. You may call me ‘Friend.’”
    “Thank you.” He didn’t know what else to say. He’d never addressed a living mountain before.
    “Show me the little one,” the dragon said.
    With shaking hands, Alec freed the rhekaro from his sling.