PART I Chapter 3

Ashanta sighed gratefully. The precautions that she had put in place several weeks earlier seemed to be working. They had had several visitors to the castle, but none seemed to be aware of just how few people were currently in residence. Rather, they had commented on the efficient way that the castle seemed to be run. Ashanta had nearly spit out her wine at that. Efficiently run indeed, when they had dozens of young men and women assigned simply to the task of bustling about the courtyard without actually accomplishing a thing. Such a waste of effort would never be condoned under normal circumstances. In addition, she had recently had a bird from Rafe, telling her that they had nearly arrived at the meeting point, and well ahead of schedule. They planned to wait a day's travel away from the site until they were due to arrive, though in the opposite direction, in an attempt to deter anyone who might be laying in wait for them. All in all, things seemed to be going much better than she might have expected. She would sleep well tonight, for which she was grateful.

Ashanta sank gracefully into the warmth of her bed. The maid had refreshed the sheets that morning, taking advantage of the warm and sunny weather. Soon she was asleep.

Ashanta woke with a start. Her room seemed to be pressing in on her and her head was spinning. That dream, what had it been about? She tried to bring it back to the front of her mind. There had been some creature in it. Something large and scaly and, there was a name for it. Something from mythology, she was sure. A dragon. That was it, she had dreamed about a dragon. And what a dragon it was, burnished bronze and long and…. Well, she wasn't really sure what else could be said about it. It was just a dream, she told herself, if a rather unsettling one. She had been in the dream too, she knew. Doing something with the dragon, she wasn't entirely sure what. Or, maybe she was, but she didn't really want to think too hard about it. He, somehow, she knew that the dragon was a he, had touched her. Were all dragons hes she wondered, or did they come in male and female, like people did? Well, the dragon had touched her in the dream, and she had, in the dream, of course, felt the warmth of his scales and breath.


Ashanta shook her head. It had just been a dream, she told herself sternly. Go back to sleep. Surely it isn't anything like time to wake up yet. Still, there was something unsettling about the dream. Something too real, somehow, to be a dream. And yet.

There was nothing to be done about it now, Ashanta thought. She would have Firth investigate in the morning.

Ashanta awoke to sunlight streaming through her window. Oh dear, she thought, the sunlight never comes in here until midday. I must have overslept, and badly too. I was supposed to meet with Sharra and Lingqui to discuss the plans for the castle. Funny how the jester had become one of her most trusted advisors. But, as it turned out, he was nothing like the fool that people took him for, and so he could listen and learn in places that she would never have been permitted to go.  Had she missed the meeting? Had they met without her? Ashanta tumbled out of bed, and pulled angrily on the cord that summoned Thara. Why had no one awakened her.

Thara came panting in some minutes later. "Highness! You're awake."

Why is she acting like this, wondered Ashanta. "Why wasn't I awakened hours ago?" she demanded, "It is unseemly for a queen to lie abed until midday. You should know that, and you should have woken me!"

Thara looked guilty, "A thousand apologies, Highness. It's just that the castle is in somewhat of an uproar. One of the children swears that he saw, quite early this morning when the sun was first coming up, a giant lizard, with wings, flying over the castle towers. Of course, it was quite a young boy, and the sun was very low in the sky, but some say that the true king of the Shauvrin has come back to rule his land and lead us the the defeat of the Kreign."

Ashanta tried to hide the shock that she was feeling. A lizard, with wings, flying over the castle. Surely…. Of course not, she told herself. You are being ridiculous. It's just a coincidence. Of course, the lizard had been seen, but only by a very small boy, and in a very bad light. But what was this about the true king coming back to rule the land? King Rafe was the true king, surely. His father had been king before him, and his grandfather before his father, and so on, back to the very beginnings of the history of the Shauvrin.

"Help me to dress," she ordered Thara. "I will wear the red velveteen dress and the white headpiece. When you have finished, send Sharra up to me." If anyone would know something about this story of the true king, it would be Sharra. Nobody else in the entire kingdom was so familiar with the myths and legends of the Shauvrin as Sharra.

"Yes, Highness," murmured Thara, helping Ashanta with her dress. "Shall I send up Misha with your breakfast as well?"

Ashanta gave a short laugh, "Perhaps it would be better if you sent her up with my lunch, seeing as it must be past noon by now. Better, send her up with lunch for three of us. Perhaps I will have another join us."

Thara looked at her archly, "You mean the jester? I don't see what you see in that fool. And why you should wish to dine with him is beyond my comprehension."

Ashanta smiled gaily, "I wish some entertainment while I eat. With King Rafe gone, my life is dull. I spent all of my days worrying about him and the kingdom. Lingqui takes my mind off of my troubles with his tumbling and jokes."

Several minutes passed before Sharra arrived. "Highness," she murmured, inclining her head to the queen. "The castle is in an uproar. Perhaps you have heard?"

Ashanta nodded. "I have heard something of it," she acknowledged, though I confess that there is much that I do not understand. I hope that Lingqui will be joining us shortly. Misha as been instructed to bring up luncheon for three. I have some questions to put to you about the mythology of the Shauvrin, but first I wish to ask your advise in understanding a most unsettling dream that I had last night."


Sharra looked at her, surprised, "An unsettling dream, you say? Perhaps I can help you understand, perhaps not. But at any rate, dreams are always interesting stories. I quite like listening to them." She settled herself comfortably on a cushion and waited for Ashanta to begin.

"Well," began Ashanta, "I can only sort of remember the dream. It keeps coming back to me in flashes, but it doesn't seem to have any coherent whole. I remember that there was a long, bronze animal, with wings. It body was scaly, not furry or slimy, and quite warm. I know that, because I was in the dream as well. I think that maybe the animal was a dragon, though I've only heard about them in stories, not seen one, nor even a painting of one." She paused.

Sharra nodded, and waited for her to continue. "The strange thing about the dream was that the dragon was touching me, and breathing on me. But not my hand, or face or something like that. He was touching me like a husband touches, but he, erm, didn't seem to have the right equipment to do the job, so to speak. And then, when I woke up Thara said that a huge flying lizard had been seen over the castle towers by a child. Surely my dream did not take flight over the castle, it was only a dream, right?

"And so, in addition to my dream, I need to understand the mythology of the Shauvrin. The servants are saying that the lizard — it must have been a dragon, really — was the ancient ruler of the kingdom, come back to save us from the Kreign. I do not know this legend. We, those of us raised in the castle, were only taught facts by our tutors. The stories of legend were dismissed as unreal, and not worthy of study by those who would rule, or become spouse to those who rule."

"That is an odd coincidence, there is no doubting that," Sharra mused aloud. "That you should have a dream about a dragon — you said that in your dream you had relations with the dragon? — on the morning that a dragon was seen flying over the castle…and a dragon has not been seen here in centuries. Why all the parchments we have about dragons are crumbling away. It was thought that the dragons had gone extinct; the papers are not even being copied any more."

Ashanta sat watching and listening wide-eyed. "So you think that the dragon was real? But aren't dragons just mythology? I mean, has anyone ever really seen a dragon? Really?"

Sharra looked at her, "I think that you have much to learn about the history of your people. Not the history that is written in the books, but this history that goes back, even to the very start of time, when the world was created. That history you must hear now if you are to understand your dream, and the events of this morning." She sat back against the cushion, "But I am not the person to tell them to you, and we should eat first. The stories are long, and complicated, and you had best have food in your belly before they are begun."

"But Sharra," demanded Ashanta, "if you will not tell me the stories of the Shauvrin, who will? Surely there is no one who knows the stories better that the high priestess?"

At that moment, there was a tap at the door, and Lingqui poked in his head. "I believe that I am to join you for luncheon," he said. "You maid, Thara, told me to come, and with such a look on her face. Like I was made of rotting horse shit, it was." He paused, "I passed Misha on the stairs. I believe that our food should be delivered shortly."

Sharra glanced up, "Good afternoon Lingqui. Highness would like to hear the stories of the beginning of the Shauvrin, if you would be so kind. Events at the castle this morning have her rather shaken."

Ashanta looked startled, "You mean that…."

"That Lingqui is the person who is best suited to tell you the legends of the earliest years of the Shauvrin?" broke in Sharra. "Yes Highness, it was he that I was thinking of. Many years ago he was the most brilliant student in the castle, and learned much of our earliest history. He studied long hours amongst the crumbling scrolls of our earliest years, hidden in the darkest parts of the castle libraries."

"But," protested Ashanta, "why then is he the court fool? Surely someone so brilliant would be better used as a trusted advisor!"

Lingqui spoke with a smile, "You see Highness, I am a trusted advisor. King Rafe has long known that I am wise, as did his father before him. A fool is permitted many things that an advisor is not. He can spend his morning in the kitchens, eating and drinking and listening to the conversations of the kitchen folk. He can fall asleep on the haystack in the stable, and can lay there, listening to the gossip of the stable hands. He can roam through the Great Hall at meals, and eavesdrop on any conversation that promises to be interesting. And nobody suspects him, for he is a fool. It has been a truly invaluable thing."

"So you have been advising my husband?" asked Ashanta, "and I never knew it. You have kept the secret well, methinks."

Lingqui nodded. "And now there are four who know it. King Rafe, and the three of us here in this room. It must go no further, for a secret, once spread, is no more a secret, and then I am of no more use to anyone. And now, let us eat, for the story I have to tell is a long and complicated one. One that is best begun with full bellies, for we shall be here, telling and listening, for many hours."