The Power and the Glory

Book 3 Chapter I: Have You Heard?

"Why don't you just fly away?"

Irímé could not speak in this form. He did his best to convey how stupid he thought she was through his eyes alone.

Dragons haven't been seen in Eldrin for over twenty thousand years, he thought very loudly in her general direction. People might notice one if it flew overhead. Anyway, I don't know how to fly.

Abi gave no sign of having heard. She looked up at Irímé expectantly, still waiting for an answer. He groaned and buried his head in his hands -- or paws, or whatever they were called now.

Only you could manage to make a mess of turning into a dragon, a little voice in his head whispered. It sounded disturbingly like his mother.

Irímé ignored it and began wishing very hard to turn back into an immortal -- or else to become invisible.

~~~~

News spread like wildfire. In shops, houses, schools and offices the same words were repeated.

"Have you heard? There's a dragon in the city!"

Kiriyuki, still half-asleep and somewhat woozy after drinking so much, heard it from another patron at the hotel's bar. It sobered her up at once. "A dragon? Where?"

The other woman shrugged. "I don't know where exactly. Somewhere around the palace, I think. I heard it from my nephew's secretary who heard it from the postman who said a palace guard told him about it himself."

There was usually only one person to blame when something like this happened. If she had actually summoned a dragon then Abi had really surpassed herself this time. Kiriyuki set off for the palace with a grim frown, unsure what she'd find but certain of who to blame for it.

~~~~

"Have you heard? There's a dragon outside Gihimayel Palace!"

Raivíth had been in the middle of embroidering flowers on a blanket for her latest great-granddaughter. Only years of experience hearing similarly shocking news prevented her from accidentally stabbing her finger. She set down the fabric and looked up at her husband.

"There's a what outside where?"

Ninuath nodded. "That was my reaction too. No one can give me any more information yet. I've heard some wild rumours about assassins and venomous snakes and gods know what else. But the dragon does exist. I went up to the tower and saw it in the garden."

"It's not attacking anyone, is it?" Raivíth asked, just to make sure. She didn't think so -- Ninuath would have been more upset if it was -- but even so, dragons were not the sort of thing you liked to have in your garden.

"No. It's just lying there and letting people stare at it."

Raivíth wrapped up the blanket and put it back in her sewing drawer. "We'd better go and see what's happening." The memory of Abihira's antics made her add, "I have a suspicion about who's responsible."

~~~~

Irímé knew something new was happening when all the sight-seers began to be herded away. He waited resignedly for whatever would happen next. In hindsight he should have expected the empress to come and investigate personally. All the same, it was a shock to see her step out of the carriage that had just pulled up.

Shizuki slithered off Irímé's neck and down onto the grass. He turned back into a boy as easily as breathing. Irímé watched him enviously. How did he do that?

"Hello," Shizuki chirped, bowing to the empress as she approached. "Abihira's inside."

"I'm not here to see her," Raivíth said. She stared very hard at Irímé. He redoubled his efforts to become invisible through sheer force of will. "Would someone please explain what's going on here?"

~~~~

All the excitement in the last few hours alone was enough to make anyone long for a quiet life. To her own astonishment Abi found the thought of going anywhere or doing anything was too much for her to bear. She wished for nothing more than to go to sleep for a hundred years. When she finished talking to Irímé she went back into the palace, collapsed into an armchair, and did her best to make that wish a reality.

It didn't work. Every few minutes she would almost drop off to sleep. Every few minutes she would abruptly be yanked back to full awakeness by nothing in particular. She stared blankly at the wallpaper, dimly aware there was something odd about this but too tired to investigate further.

Knowledge of what was happening around her occasionally forced its way through her sleepiness and made her take note of it. Siarvin was fussing over Ilaran like a mother hen worrying about a very stupid chick. Koyuki was examining the bite-mark on Ilaran's neck with an alarmed expression. Ilaran was snapping at both of them to leave him alone and to stop acting like he was about to drop dead again.

Something nagged at the back of her mind. It was something very small but very insistent. The trouble was, she couldn't imagine what it was.

Voices outside drifted through the boarded-up window. She paid no attention to what they were saying. Then there was a series of shocked exclamations, the sound of a door opening, and a clamour of several people talking. Abi listened without understanding anything she heard.

At last a very familiar voice jolted her from her half-sleep half-daze. It was her grandmother's.

"Abihira Hartannasvóeln, what in the name of all the gods have you done now?"

Chapter Footnotes:

[1] Hiyori Nanairo kou Amatsukaze = A warlord who attempted to overthrow the emperor and in the process threw Seroyawa into three simultaneous civil wars. (Random side-note to increase the word count: like all Seroyawan names hers is derived from Takarazuka actresses -- in this case Hiyori Aiha, Hazuki Nanairo, and Shuri Amatsukaze. "Kou" is inspired by the Japanese particle "no".)