into subtle links, wrapped around Vild’s long serpentine neck. He advanced the last few steps toward the master of this guile of masters. The sun was on the crooked eastern horizon; its light faded with Morlock’s every step. But in the light that remained, including the dragons’ own fire, he examined the Triple Collar.
It was, he saw at once, as different as could be from the collars of the other dragons. Those were badly formed adaptations; some, like that of the dragon slain at Southgate (Gharlan Jarl?), were merely iron chains crudely fused and partly coated with precious metal. But Vild’s collar was no mere chain; its linkages were subtle, and he could see the gleam of etching on its flat dull plates (though whether images or symbols he could not tell). He was certain that no dragon could have made the Triple Collar. But it had been made for a dragon; that was also obvious. By whom? And why?
He drew to a halt, his head bowed with weariness and frustration. Then he raised it, drew a breath, and opened his mouth, Earno’s death sentence on his lips. He didn’t speak it. Everything seemed so futile. Earno had counted on their unity, and it was their division that would give them victory. It made them seem invincible. All his life he had been taught that division was weakness; it was hard to grasp that it could be a kind of strength as well. But when he saw this, he also saw (madly and irrelevantly) it was the strength that guarded the Wardlands. Division guaranteed that everyone would be strong.
But the guile of masters was different from this. They were like his ruthen father. They settled for division, but each one dreamed of unity, longing for the unity of its own undisputed dominance. Those dreams of unity were the weakness in their division. The thought lightened Morlock’s heart. He spoke at last. He spoke from his heart to theirs. He was inspired.
“Masters of the Blackthorn Range!” he cried in the Dwarvish language. His thainish training was not wasted: the upper valley rang with his voice. “I bring a message from your peers and enemies, the Graith of Guardians—”
The rumble of draconic voices behind him rose to a tumult.
Silence! the master dragon roared. And silence fell. They might hate him, but still they feared him. Why? It would be worth knowing, but Morlock felt he would never know. He raised his eyes and deliberately met those of Vild Kharum. He saw those red-gold slotted eyes narrow and intensify to fire-bright clarity. Silence, Vild repeated, exerting his power of fascination. The word hung in the steam-thick darkening air, creating the thing it named.
Morlock waited, until he was sure every dragon in the guile knew its master was attempting to place a spell on him. He hoped it would fail, as Saijok’s had failed in the Runhaiar. When he knew it had, he raised his voice and cried out, “Go forth from this land, now under the Guard, or prepare to be hunted down one by one for your crimes against the Guarded—”
He got no further. From the moment the master dragon saw his spell had not taken he began to prepare his answer—an unanswerable one. Vild rose to his crooked hind legs and threw back his wings, drawing air deep into his fiery lungs, the sunken serpentine chest expanding to three times its normal width. Finally the wolflike jaw lowered, and he roared down flame on the thain.
Morlock’s last word crumbled to an unintelligible scream of defiance as he saw the flames lance forward between Vild’s dark fangs. The flame swept forward and hurled itself about him, carrying him off his feet, throwing him backward. Wrapped in red light and poison, Morlock lost consciousness.
That was all there was. That was all that was necessary to take him from the Runhaiar to the wreckage of Haukrull, where he now guessed himself to be. He supposed he had fallen among the remains of an outlying house. That was all there was.
Except . . . (he admitted it reluctantly to himself) there was more. It was impossible, as if he had grown new memories, like mushrooms, as he lay unconscious in the dark. Perhaps they were just dreams. Certainly they were quite strange.
He remembered standing in a faraway place, having an insane argument with a voice that spoke to him from a cloud of bright unburning flames, demanding recognition. It was as if he had to