"I have forgotten the number as well," Curatio said, inclining his head to the side. "I a.s.sume you have come to our august company seeking a certain someone."

"Indeed I have," the dragon said and looked right back to Cyrus. "I would have words with your Guildmaster, Curatio."

"I suspect he might find a few for you as well," Curatio said, lips pursed as he finished speaking. "May I present to you Cyrus Davidon of Sanctuary, Lord of Perdamun and Warden of the Southern Plains."

"I feel like if he got that printed on his stationary, there wouldn't be room for a very long letter after all that," Vaste said. "Which could be to his advantage, since I'm not so sure our humble warrior is very good at spelling-"

"Silence yourself," Vara said, once more placing her gauntlet over his mouth.

Vaste's teeth clinked against the metal as he placed his lips around her hand and smacked them together. "Tastes like-" She jerked her hand further into his jaws and drew a grunt of pain. "-I was going to say paladin, but now I think I'll go with 'gnome.'"

"At last we meet," the dragon said, coming ever closer to the wall with his head atop a perilously long neck. His skin was dark red, beyond the darkest crimson Cyrus had ever seen, almost black. He reminded Cyrus more than a little of Ashan'agar, whose eyes had been a similarly dangerous shade. "Cyrus Davidon."

"At last," Cyrus said, staring back at the dragon, not daring to look away from his eyes, just the same as he would with any foe. "And ... who are you?"

"Cyrus, may I introduce to you Ehrgraz," Curatio said, stiller than Cyrus could ever recall the healer, "the chief of the army for the dragons of the south."

"I've heard your name before," Cyrus said in greeting to Ehrgraz the dragon, who stood before him unflinching, yellow eyes not leaving his for a moment.

"Not half so often as I've heard yours, I expect," Ehrgraz drawled, sounding almost human in his delivery. He carried none of the raw rasp of Ashan'agar in his speech; his words were smooth and practiced.

"Look at you, legendary man," Vaste said from behind Cyrus, "they've heard tell of your cod swinging even among the dragons."

"If you don't shut your mouth, I will personally use his cod to shut it for you," Vara said, "and I must warn you, after he's been in the armor for a day, it's quite-"

"Okay, thank you, done now," Vaste said. "Please ... proceed."

"I can't decide whether it's a good thing or a bad thing that I'm known to the dragons," Cyrus said, still looking at Ehrgraz. The plains behind him seemed to fade away, and all that was left were those eyes, that snout. "But I can tell you I'm not terribly thrilled to speak with you now, especially with you staring at me in much the same way as Ashan'agar did."

"Ashan'agar used forbidden magics," Ehrgraz said, sounding just a little offended. "I trust you wouldn't accuse me of doing something of that nature?"

"I don't know enough dragons to be able to tell what's considered polite conversation among you," Cyrus said, not breaking off.

"No, I suppose not," Ehrgraz said, "being as you've only met two of our kind and you've slain them both."

"So that's why you've heard of me," Cyrus said.

"Oh, I had heard of you long before that," Ehrgraz said, and Cyrus detected a hint of slyness. "But the rest of my people did not know of you before you killed Kalam."

"I hope you're not sore about that," Cyrus said. "Him or Ashan'agar."

"Sore?" Ehrgraz's ma.s.sive, scaled brow wrinkled just above his eye. "Quite the opposite, in fact. I was there on the day you slew Ashan'agar, watching-"

"I find that hard to believe," Cyrus said. "I feel like I would have seen you."

"You were waking up from a resurrection spell," Ehrgraz said. "I could have paraded myself under your nose in Ashan'agar's skin and you would not have noticed, I a.s.sure you. But that is neither here nor there, for it is of the past, and I do not to come to speak to you of the past, but of the future."

Cyrus held himself up to his full height, for all the little good it did. "What did you come to speak to me about, in regards to the future?"

"I have heard," Ehrgraz said, his head moving a little, but never once surrendering his gaze on Cyrus, "that you are considering intervention in the southern lands." His neck straightened high, reminding Cyrus of a giraffe. "I have come to offer you counsel."

"Is that counsel to 'stay the h.e.l.l out'?" Cyrus asked. "Because I've heard dragons are insular and quite unwilling to suffer the advice of others, so it strikes me as ironic that you would-"

"My counsel is quite the opposite, actually," Ehrgraz said, cutting him off. "You're quite right; most dragons would bury their heads in the ash until such time as the world cracked around them. But I am no such fool, Cyrus Davidon, and do not mistake me for one. I watch your peoples, constantly, carefully, as I watched you the day you killed our former lord. I watch all threats, and I see one now that worries me as few have since the days when the original elves made their pact with us to leave the south alone." His head snaked closer to Cyrus, ma.s.sive skull coming to rest its chin on the wall. "You know the threat of which I speak. Large and looming, and suddenly capable of more danger than ever they were before."

"Your people are concerned about the t.i.tans, then," Cyrus said.

"My people," Ehrgraz said and laughed, rough and loud. "My people worry about nothing, for it is not their task. I head the army, and so they hang the worry upon me instead. No, they go about their business without concern so that I may carry it all for them, and now I find myself overburdened, and trapped in a position where none of them will listen to my rising fears." His wings swept back. "Even now, the sands shift in the south. The idea of the t.i.tans learning magic is a frightening one to anyone with sense, but my people lack sense, and worse than that, they have lacked a foe for more millennia than you could count. Peace has made them soft, and even the predations of t.i.tans against our lesser kin are cause of easy dismissal. They can't attack Hewat, after all, and they don't dare venture deep into the Ashen Wastelands, so why worry?" He lifted a paw and scratched along the side of the stone wall, causing a grinding screech that made Cyrus blanch. "But you know ... you know there is cause for worry, do you not? Do you not see it?"

"I see it," Cyrus said quietly. "It's what to do about it I'm not resolved on, yet. They are many-"

"So are you," Ehrgraz said, eyeing him again.

"They're a little bigger," Cyrus said, "and I don't know how many they have."

"They number more than you," Ehrgraz said.

Nice to hear that from someone in the know, Cyrus thought. "If you're proposing an alliance to stop the t.i.tans-"

"I am not," Ehrgraz said archly. "I told you-I came here to counsel. My people want nothing of war with the t.i.tans."

"Heh," Cyrus said, not actually finding any humor in it. "I don't think the t.i.tans feel the same."

"Nor do they about you, as I understand it," Ehrgraz said, "yet still you ponder." There was a strange amus.e.m.e.nt in the dragon's scaly face. "They are not nearly the threat to us that they are to you, though."

"But you still feel threatened," Cyrus said, feeling as though he were in some sort of contest with the dragon at this point, though he knew nothing of how victory could be won within it.

"As you have so successfully proven yourself, even you smaller beings can kill a dragon," Ehrgraz said. "We are hardly invulnerable, but millennia of peace have convinced countless of my people that we are. It is a lesson that will come to a rather abrupt and tragic conclusion, and one I work to guard against."

"What would you propose, then?" Cyrus asked. "If we did decide to embroil ourselves in this conflict?" He took a step closer to the wall and laid a hand upon the stone there as Ehrgraz took a step back.

"I would propose you think carefully about it," Ehrgraz said, backing away. "I will return to you in five days. An eyeblink for my people, but we are not working on the timescale of my people, are we?" His eyes narrowed. "No, we move at the behest of t.i.tans, whose mortality defines them as yours does for your people." He spread his wings. "If in five days' time you have come to a satisfactory conclusion, then perhaps we will discuss-and nothing more!-possibilities." The dragon drew himself up and flapped his wings, hitting Cyrus with a blast of wind that rattled his armor. "Consider it well, Cyrus Davidon." The dragon narrowed his eyes as he took wing, rising into the sky. "For these sorts of threats are not easily contained, and now loosed, they are unlikely to simply run around you like a river around a stone." He lowered his head as he swept up. "You may not have escaped my notice, but trust me when I tell you that in the south, you are too small to avoid being swept away by the course of things larger than you."

And with that, Ehrgraz took to the skies and flew up into the air, disappearing over the horizon in minutes, far, far faster than he had flown during his approach.

"What the h.e.l.l was that look all about?" Vara asked as Ehrgraz receded from view, alarmingly quickly.

"What?" Cyrus turned his head to look at her, genuinely perplexed. It was still around them on the wall, the Sanctuary officers quiet and grim after the meeting with the dragon. Probably stunned into silence, Cyrus thought. He gave a glance at Vaste, whose lips were puckered tightly and his eyes fixed in the clouds. Even him? G.o.ds. What times we are in.

"That look when you stared at Ehrgraz," she said, her blue eyes shining in the afternoon sun, "I've seen it before, on the battlefield, like you're going to grow fists out of your sockets and pummel through his scales."

"Hah," Cyrus said, breaking into a smile. "It's a-it's silly, really."

"What about you isn't?" Vaste asked, leaning over Cyrus and Vara. He caught a glare from her. "Oh, right. The cod."

"It's a thing I do," Cyrus said, giving the troll a sidelong look as he directed his explanation to Vara. "I've done it since ... I don't know. Forever, probably. I look them in the eyes and say to myself, 'I meet you.'"

"It sounds very brave, or inspirational, or something," Vaste said, nodding his head.

Vara gave him another acid look. "I was going to say something of that sort, but with actual sincerity." She shifted her gaze, gentler now, back to Cyrus. "I suppose they taught you that in the Society of Arms."

"No, I learned that before the Society," Cyrus said, turning his attention back to J'anda, who was standing quietly a few steps behind them. "Well, what do we think?"

"I think we need to attend our regularly scheduled Council meeting," Curatio offered.

"I meant," Cyrus said, drawing upon patience he didn't know he had, "I wonder what our enchanter thinks of Ehrgraz's openness."

J'anda blinked, eyelids fluttering delicately. "He seemed ... honest enough, I suppose-"

"Did he try to use enchanter magic?" Cyrus asked, spelling it out at last.

"I didn't see any of it from him," J'anda said, shrugging. "But perhaps I wouldn't have, would I, him being a dragon? He seemed to take umbrage when you brought the subject up."

"Dragons don't use magics the way we do in Arkaria," Curatio said, stepping closer. "They consider it to be the work of children."

"So, their children use it, then?" Vaste asked.

"Hardly," Curatio said with an impish smile. "They're too busy hunting and scorching their own food. Do you imagine it's easy to track down any living things in the Ashen Wastelands? I a.s.sure you it's not."

"I didn't like that meeting," Cyrus said, shaking his head, deep in his own thoughts.

"Is it because he had a bigger cod than you?" Vaste asked. When every head swiveled to him, he shrugged. "What? I know I'm not the only one who noticed. It was obvious, he didn't even bother to hide it with a loincloth or anything-"

"I didn't like it because there was a lot left unsaid." Cyrus tapped fingers on the side of his helm. "Ehrgraz has been watching me? He's-he's got spies watching the north?"

"Most probably," Curatio said, with his hands behind his back. "He is right, most dragons would consider us beneath their notice. Ehrgraz is no fool, and it does not surprise me that he keeps watch on things up here."

"What do you think he's suggesting in terms of those 'possibilities'?" Cyrus asked, focusing his attention on Curatio. The sun shone down on his black armor, warming him.

"I wouldn't even care to speculate," Curatio said with a shake of the head. "In fact, let me clarify this before you even ask-I do not know the dragons."

"And certainly not well enough to introduce one of their biggest leaders by name, so don't even ask him to!" Vaste said in a faux shout. "Oh, wait, he just introduced you to Ehrgraz personally, didn't he?" Vaste raised an eyebrow and turned to Curatio. "Forgive my sarcasm-"

"Always," Curatio said without expression.

"-but I feel like you're perhaps not being fully honest with us," Vaste finished.

Curatio sighed. "Just because I am familiar with him does not mean that I know him, any more than being somewhat familiar with Malpravus means that he and I are good friends. We had acquaintance in the past, when the elves treated with dragons in days long gone. That acquaintance is long past, and I have no idea what goes on in the land of the dragons at this point." He grew serious. "In short ... my ability to help you in this area is hardly comprehensive. Find another tutor."

Cyrus pondered that for a moment, and Vara spoke before he had a chance to get a thought out. "What does that look mean?"

"I think it means he's got a cramp in his b.u.t.tock," Vaste offered.

"Just a pain there," Cyrus said, sending the troll yet another sour look, "in the form of you." When he looked back to Vara, he said, "Well, I had an idea."

"Figures that would cause you pain."

Vara sent Vaste another searing glance before turning her attention to Cyrus. "What is it?"

"It's a thought, really, though I imagine his look was a little strange because you're not used to seeing it-"

"Vaste!" Cyrus snapped.

"Go on," Vara said, soothingly.

Cyrus turned to J'anda, who stood, placid, still holding his staff. "Well ... I was thinking about getting information on the dragons, and my mind came back to where I'd heard the name Ehrgraz before."

Vara placed a hand on his shoulder. "No. You can't be serious."

"Serious? He's Cyrus!" Vara's backhand caught Vaste in the nose and made a cracking sound. "Ow. I'll just go bleed quietly over here until I can gather my thoughts enough to cast a healing spell, then."

"Please do," Cyrus said. He felt a tightness inside as he considered the idea again, and it prompted-once more-an outburst of nerves. "We don't really have a lot of solid lines into the dragons, into what they're thinking ..."

"Not anymore, that's true," Curatio said carefully.

"But we still know someone who might," Cyrus said, and he could see by the look on every one of their faces that they knew of whom he was speaking.

"Are you sure about this?" Vara asked quietly, and her mouth settled into a straight line. She's anxious as well, then.

"I'm sure we're blind without his help," Cyrus said, settling uneasily upon his course of action. He turned to J'anda. "What do you think?"

The enchanter shrugged lightly, as though it were nothing. "It would not hurt to ask, certainly. I can do it with but a word, if you wish."

"I wish," Cyrus said, taking a long breath. "Please." J'anda nodded slightly, and Cyrus finished his thought. "Ask the Sovereign of Saekaj Sovar if he'd give me-" Vara's hand clinked on his backplate, a little harder than he would have liked, "-give us ... an audience."