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Nolan Redmane strode the halls of the palace, armor clanking, chainmail crunching. He carried himself as always: head erect, back straight, and his stride quick and purposeful. His steel-shod hooves clacked on the stone floor and echoed along the cool bright passageway, caught in the stony alcoves and in the eaves of the tall, lead-crossed windows, and returned to his leaf-shaped ears projecting out of his steel open-faced helm. He turned a corner, passed through a heavy iron-bracketed oak doorway, ascended a tight spiral staircase, and then through another reinforced door and out into the morning sunlight.

The Palace of Yldon, an immense grey prospect with the look of a fortress, was built into the side of mountain and loomed above the tight-packed city. It was a palace of stairs; tight winding stairs, broad sweeping stairs, boxy internal stairs. To get anywhere meant going up or down. The palace was split, the lower levels housed the guards, the less auspicious meeting halls, the kitchens, the guard's and servant's quarters, the yards and the lists for the competitions, squared off from the city behind stone walls. Above, the King's residence; the high ceilinged throne room with its tall colored glass windows, and wide balconies, towers, palatial rooms with their carpets, tapestries and wide, deep fireplaces, and elegantly dressed people who, it seemed, spent their days roaming purposelessly and gossiping lazily. The two levels were joined by a vast stairway; nine-hundred steps of grey stone, a hundred yards wide and open to the cramped city of Yldon below.

Nolan, emerging from the reinforced side-door, turned to face the massive staircase and began the climb. Earlier in his life he had been told that the best physical training he would ever receive would come from simply moving around the palace, a decade later and the advice still held true. His thighs were like granite. He made the climb - in sixty pounds of armor, and with a twelve pound straight-sword on his hip - effortlessly, breaking neither stride nor a sweat. The guards, in their gaudier armor and colored cloaks, recognizing the Champion, set to work heaving open the tall upper-palace doors.

He guessed the theme of his summoning, though not the precise reason. Two weeks earlier, terribly, infamously, one of the King's sons had been murdered while strolling on one a walkway of the upper palace. His assailant, astonishingly, luridly, had been a Dragon, and a supposed friend of the Prince. The Dragon had circled, swooped in, landed, bellowed and whipped his tail at the Prince's bodyguard, scattering them and isolating his victim who he then incinerated in a breath of excoriating flame.

Nolan had been in one of the lower courtyards at the time, leading the recruits in sword practice. He had not witnessed the murder, though he had seen the cloud of black smoke rising from the burst of flames, and the Dragon alighting and flying away in a hail of arrows. In the chaos that followed he had rushed to the high walkway, summiting two-dozen staircases and several thousand steps, arriving drenched in sweat. He saw the charred and blackened walkway. There had been no corpse. The Prince, who was called Yldgard, who Nolan did not know as unlike his two more belligerent elder brothers he was not interested in the martial arts, had apparently been burnt to a fine dust that had then blown away in the mountain winds.

Tragedy and intrigue were compounded by panic. The murderer flew north and had been witnessed crossing into the Empire of Kalrithia. The Kalthrithian Emperor, Hrosti V, was on poor terms with the King of Ylot, King Yolantine IX. Kalrithia was ten times the size of Ylot, while Ylot was mountainous and festooned with castles. Neither could invade the other with any chance of achieving a worthwhile success and so an uneasy peace existed. In the immediate aftermath of Yldgard's murder the upper palace set loose a series of hurried decries. First King Yolantine ordered the militias, the ordinary citizens who swelled the army ranks in times of war, to be raised, seemingly predicting conflict. A day later he ordered them disbanded. Entreaties were dispatched to the Kalrthian Emperor by the most urgent of means: Dragon courier. Dragons acted as couriers only in the most dire of situations, seeing their comings and goings did nothing to assuage anyone's fears. Then, suddenly, Hrosti publicly proclaimed himself innocent in the most crass and pragmatic manner, stating that if he were intent on murdering any of Yolantine's sons he would have done away with the eldest, not the youngest, and that if he had a Dragon for an assassin he would not have bothered with the son but would have gone after the father. The defense won him no fans in Ylot but it was nonetheless accepted. Emperor Hrosti was not responsible.

The throne room vast and airy. The layout was clam shaped; broad and round at the front and pinched at the rear, where, upon a marble plinth, the King kept his throne. The throne was empty, but that was normal. It was only occupied for ceremonial purposes. The rest of the hall was deserted, silent. The types who filled it with the hum of innuendo and gossip were rarely around in the mornings, they were all still in bed.

Nolan's hooves thumped on the red carpet. He rounded the empty throne, the smaller companion throne for his wife and the other chairs for his three sons, and entered an alcove that was like the inside of a cupola. Here, the real business of state was conducted. There was a long table lined with high-backed chairs. The King was present, as was his wife, Queen Ystrella, and the Chancellor and a few of his black-clothed agents.

King Yolantine was a Wolf; portly, elderly, possibly senile; dressed in plush red robes and a circular soft-cloth hat. For as long as Nolan could remember, which was over two-decades, the King had not once descended from his high palace. He claimed he had no reason to, however the likely truth was that he could not handle the steps. Queen Ystrella, another Wolf, was sat beside him; stick-thin, cosmeticized, less old; an inveterate schemer and rumor-monger. She wore a long blue dress that matched her dangly sapphire earrings. The pair were deep in conversation, or, more accurately, the Queen was whispering in her husband's ear.

The Chancellor, Brobham Tellard, sat opposite. A Bear in his middle-age, he wore spectacles clipped to his short brown snout, a round-topped black cap and long black robes with huge billowy sleeves. He was aloof, sneering, and very intelligent. He believed he alone ran the Kingdom and was probably correct. Several open books were spread out in front of him along with letters bearing wax seals, a few of which were in the impenetrable Kalrithian script.

"Ah, he's arrived!" said the King, upon seeing Nolan approach and respectfully remove his helm.

"Our brave Champion" said Brobham Tellard, employing his habitual sardonic sneer. The Queen said nothing to greet him, but instead smiled at him and hummed with pleasure. Her unfaithfulness was almost as famous as her scheming, and while it was true that all three of her children were Wolves, like their ostensible father, it was also true that her numerous handsome male servants were Wolves as well. In recent years, as she passed the age of child-bearing, she had broadened her interests.

"Your Highnesses, my Lord" said Nolan in a flatly formal tone, bowing curtly. He had never fallen for his Queen's dubious charms. Suffice to say he was not interested.

"We have a little task for you" said Brobham silkily. "It relates, as I'm sure you've guessed, to our scaled friend."

"Murderer! Vile fiend!" the King burst out, banging his furred fist on the table. The Queen affectedly wiped a non-existent tear from the corner of her eye.

"Before I detail your task I must detail our situation" Brobham continued, ignoring his King. "We are in contact with Hrosti. He has promised to hunt down our friend and deliver him to Ylotian justice. 'Tie him up in a bow and pitch him over the border', I think were his exact words. However we have reason suspect that he is dragging his feet."

"He is the Emperor of lies" added the King sternly, wagging his finger and leaning forward across the table to address Nolan warningly. His senility was becoming less questionable by the day.

"Indeed" said Brobham, "in fact we have reason to suspect that he is not searching at all. Hrosti is no ally of ours, nor does he wish to be. He'll not lift a finger for us, nor will he allay a penny for the search. This, my dear Champion, is where you enter the picture."

"Find him! Bring him to me so that my executioners can wet the blades of their axes on the blood of his neck!" yelled the King, eye bulging, face reddening.

"You will disguise yourself" said Brobham, "cross into Kalrithia, locate our friend and return him to us so the King might chop off his head. If that proves too difficult you can chop off his head yourself and bring that back instead. You can work out the minutiae yourself, so long as he is dead the crown will be satisfied. Do you understand your task?"

"Yes my Lord," said Nolan in the same flat voice.

"And you also understand that this task requires the utmost discretion" said Brobham, "no one can know, not your friends, not your partner. Nobody."

"Yes my Lord."

"Good" said Brobham, "I've prepared a little liquidity for you, to aid you in your task." The bear twisted around and gestured lightly to one of his black-robbed agents. The agent produced a pouch which he passed to his master. "Thirty gold coins" said Brobham, he bounced the purse in his hand and its contents jangled illustratively. "More than enough for you to hire a band of mercenaries, if you require them. Find him, hire mercenaries, catch him and bring him back. Very simple."

Brobham held the purse out. Nolan stepped forward, he took hold of the purse but Brobham did not let go, instead he drew him close and spoke menacingly: "If I don't see these coins again I'll want to hear why, and if I don't like what I hear I'll take the debt from your hide. Are we clear?"

"Yes, my Lord" said Nolan.

"There's a good lad" said Brobham. He relaxed his grip and Nolan took the purse.

"Do not return without his head!" Queen Ystrella wailed in a theatrical burst of emotion, "whether his body is attached or not!" She dabbed again at the corners of her eyes.

"Ever your servant" said Nolan, he bowed again. "Your Highnesses, my Lord" he said with all civility, then he replaced his helm on his head, turned, hand on his sword's grip, and clanked out the same way he had entered.

***

Nolan first went to the training yard in the lower palace, he found the Sargent of the Guard and told him to take over the training of the recruits, when asked 'for how long?' he replied 'indefinitely', then he went to his quarters. His room was one flight up from the recruit's dormitories and so close to the training yard that he could hear the bellowed words of encouragement and the metallic 'clack, clack, cla-ang, clack' of the sword practice that, an hour before, had been his sole concern. His room was small and all of stone, it contained a single bed, a small deeply recessed window that overlooked nothing, and little else. He tossed the purse of gold on his bed and set about removing his armor.

He cast from his mind all thoughts unrelated to his mission. He forgot his work rota for the week, the tournament he had been preparing for, even the plot of the book he had been reading. Weighing his prospects, he supposed he would die; at the hands of bandits or wild animals, or at the border when he tried to cross. Or he might become lost and starve in the forest or be murdered by the mercenaries he was supposed to hire when they learned of his gold coins. The chances of him living long enough to be roasted by the Dragon were slim to say the least. He would go all the same. The idea of not going, of weaseling out or running off, did not enter into his consideration.

It took him the best part of half an hour to remove his armor. He arranged the pieces on his bed, along with his sword and swordbelt which he had also removed and would also be leaving behind. Dressed then in the dull, battered padded tunic and scuffed straight-legged trousers that he wore under his armor, he retrieved from the corner the knapsack that contained his wash things; his soap, the rag he washed with, his two brushes, one for his mane and tail and the other for the fine coat of needle hairs that covered the rest of his body, his toothbrush and his spare horseshoes and shoeing kit, and placed that on the bed too. He loosened the neck, intending to add his spare clothing and thus complete his packing.

A knock interrupted him. Nolan answered. Opening the door, and found himself pleasantly surprised by the identity of his caller. She was one of the magicians conducting research in the ancient libraries of the upper palace. She was a Lynx, young, he guessed about twenty, and short, about 5'1". Her eyes were large and brown. Her fur was tawny with black spots and she had black tufts sticking up from her large feline ears. He knew her a little, they had spoken a few times. Her name was Zephalia.

Like everyone else with no magical ability Nolan was awed by the supernatural. That special talent that manifested itself in five in every hundred, at age five or six, and required years of study to hone into a practical skill. As a teen Zephalia would have picked a discipline; Sorcery, Alchemy, Witchcraft, Conjuring, Occultism, Wizardry, Necromancy, etc. etc.

Sorcery was the most common and practical, the jack-of-all-trades-yet-master-of-none discipline. Occultism was practiced by odd communities of collective recluses, in catacombs, abandoned ruins and underground societies. Its most esteemed practitioners could, supposedly, enter people's minds and control their bodies, or transform into mythical beasts. The practice was highly dangerous, it was known to drive its adherents insane. Necromancy was the toughest, but was the most financially rewarding; a skilled 'mancer' could raise the spirit of those who died suddenly while in possession of great wealth and then negotiate for themselves a cut of the money in exchange for guiding the next of kin to their treasure's location. The gift of Witchcraft was rare and powerful, it appeared only in women, or, to be more exact, only in lesbian women.

Zephalia was unusual in that had chosen Wizardry, a discipline dominated by stuffy old men, all cynically prolonging their lifespans with elixirs and dragging with them every bigoted outlook and tradition that they had acquired over the course of their long lives. For a girl, Wizardry was not for the faint of heart. It was also by far the most scholarly of the disciplines, lots of books, scrolls and libraries.

Now she was standing in his doorway. She was wearing her Wizard clothes, the rare female iteration of the Wizard uniform, and in the Yldon colors; white and azure. A pair of wide, stiff ribbons of blue and white diamond pattern material arched over her skinny shoulders, narrowing and coming together over her navel and at the small of her back, and were attached to another ribbon that formed a broad belt around her waist. Underneath, around her arms and torso, she wore soft blue bandages, and on her lower body she wore a pair of very loose blue trousers that clung at the waist and ankles, and had an opening in the rear for her stubby black Lynx tail that flicked and curled constantly. From her clothes, and from the way her flat little stomach was rising and falling rapidly, Nolan surmised that she had rushed from her work in the high palace libraries. She had only been at the palace for a few months and had not yet grown accustomed to the stairs.

There was one other thing about Zephalia, Nolan was fairly convinced that she had a crush on him. Whenever she had a moment free from her work, she came down to watch him. Many was the time he had been in the yard, exercising shirtless, conducting sword-practice, or training on horseback in the field beyond the walls, and had felt eyes on him, and he would look up and see her on a walkway or balcony, staring down at him, always at him. He found her crush endearing.

"Hi" she said, she smiled broadly, showing off the long sharp canine teeth in her feline mouth, "I heard you were leaving and I wanted to bring you something."

"Did you now?" said Nolan genially. He grinned at his Chancellor's idea of what constituted discretion as well as at the temerity of Zephalia's infatuation.

"Here" she said, she held in her black-clawed, tawny brown hands a pair of small leather flasks with cork stoppers, the stoppers were attached to the flasks by strings. "They're elixirs" she explained. She showed him one of the flasks, "this one's for stamina, you drink and you can fight for hours, or run for hours, or whatever. And this other one," she raised the second flask, "this one's a healing treatment. If you get a cut or a break or anything like that, pour it on and you'll heal right up."

"I know how the elixirs work" said Nolan. He loosened a few strings around the collar of his padded tunic and tugged the neck down, and showed her the largest of the scars that he carried; a perfectly straight line of shiny-smooth scar tissue running from the underneath the left side of his jaw to the middle of his bulging chest. "A recruit caught me on his backswing," Nolan explained. "Severed the artery in my neck. I would have bled to death if it weren't for one of these, almost did anyway. I was light-headed for a month afterwards."

"Wow" she said, she was starry eyed with amazement.

"Thank you for these" said Nolan, "I'm sure they'll be useful." He took the leather bottles from her, each had a sigil denoting its contents, and turned and placed them both in his knapsack.

Nolan heard the wooden clunk of the door closing, he thought Zephalia had gone, and when he turned back he was mildly surprised to see her still there. She was leaning back against the door, hands flat on the woodwork.

"I thought," she blurted "maybe, you'd like to have a little fun before you left. Help you clear your head, or, or whatever." He could practically hear her heart hammering. With trembling hands she parted the blue-white 'V' ribbons of her Wizard's outfit, and lowering them revealed the rich blue bandages that covered her small breasts.

Nolan grinned. This was her last opportunity, she was making her play while she still had the chance. He went up to her, towering over her, her head barely came to his chest, and took the thick straps of her outfit and brought them back into place, covering up her chest and shoulders, and then backed away from her again.

"What's the matter?" she asked, her face a picture of disappointment. "Are my boobs not big enough for you? Because there's a spell that'll make them bigger. I just need to check the book again, if you wait I can go fix them and then-"

"That's not it" said Nolan calmly, he was grinning and trying not to snigger.

"Then... w-what..." she stammered.

"Women don't excite me" he stated gently.

"Oh..." she said. Zephalia looked down for a moment, pursing her lips, and then she looked up and said: "Well you could have told me sooner!" Her broad smile betrayed the indignation she sought to impart.

"You never asked."

"That's no excuse!" she said, still smiling ruefully. She was plainly embarrassed, but she was taking it in good humor. She placed her hands on her hips and sighed heavily. "Well, I hope you enjoy your potions."

"I'm sure I will" said Nolan, "thank you again for bringing them."

"You're very welcome" she said ruefully. She went to his door, opened it and went out into the hall. Then she asked as a parting thought: "Are you going to visit Aiun before you leave?"

"Do you think I should?"

"It didn't occur to you to visit the resident Dragon before setting off on a Dragonhunt?" she asked mockingly. She was quite right, it had not occurred to him. He supposed he ought to pay him a visit. He actually knew Auin quite well, insofar as anyone could know a Dragon. They were almost friends.

"I'll go and see him now. Is he in his tower?"

"So far as I know" she said. "Anyway, if I'm not going to get laid I might as well get back to work. I guess I'll see you around, then."

"Yes, I'll see you around" said Nolan. Zephalia departed off along the stone hallway, her short black tail twitching behind her as she went.

***

Aiun was not his full name, nor was it even the first part of his full name, rather, it was the part of his name that non-Dragon's found easiest to pronounce. Individuals varied and some varied more than others, however the same handful of traits always manifested: solitary, secretive, philosophical, and condescending. Most were at least friendly towards people, some could even be called sociable. The most sociable became the 'residents'. Oddballs amongst their own kind, the residents were often the only Dragons that most people ever got to meet or even see up-close, and so they were treated as representatives, unfairly, as in truth they were probably the least representative of all.

They lived in mountains mostly, in caves often, though a few lived on rugged islands out at sea. Some Dragons spent their whole lives in the mountains or on the wing, ignorant of the customs, languages and politics of the people down below. The greatest chauvinists (as the residents called them, though they were biased) supposedly never left their mythical city, the very name of which was a guarded secret. The city existed (supposedly) in the heart of a vast mountain range a thousand miles to the north and west of Ylot; cut from a mountaintop; home to a thousand Dragons, infinite wealth, lost technologies, secret magic, the temples of their mysterious religion and the seat of their government.

Though it was not even clear if the Dragons had a government, they seemed to operate as an informal society of individuals, organized not by laws or Kings or economy, but by a powerful code of ethics. And though their kind spanned the globe their customs, language and religion was singular, unitary. Liberated by their wings from the tyranny of distance; a thousand miles, an ocean, was as nothing to them and they were able to maintain a universal community.

Their interactions with people varied. The chauvinists of course never interacted, but most came down to experience the world of people, usually immediately after adolescence when they were at their most adventurous. They arrived naked and ignorant, able to speak a few words of their host culture which they had gleaned from other Dragons, their hulking bodies sometimes wreathed in the bones of sheep and deer, and clumsy. However they always found work; a single Dragon could perform the work of ten laborers and could expect to be paid appropriately. With wealth they made friends, and with friends they learned customs. All quickly dispensed with their decorative bones, started wearing clothes, became fluent in whatever language. It was, again and as always, not fully apparent why they chose to descend to the realms of people. There was no obvious physical or economic need for them to do so. It was assumed their motivations were based more upon curiosity, boredom, and loneliness.

And while money was arbitrary, they horded wealth; the famous Dragon's Horde. There were two competing explanations, the first, which was less kind, was that all Dragons possessed a pathological need to acquire precious metals and jewels, and guard them. A kind of mania, a fit of unreason. The other explanation, which was probably likelier and certainly friendlier, was that the Dragons earned so much and spent so little, and lived such long lives (Auin, for example, was barely into middle age at 176 and could expect to remain spry for another hundred years at least) that they accumulated wealth without meaning to, and far from hording their wealth they simply placed it in the same place as everything else: far from prying eyes and grasping hands. It was, of course, also possible that their hordes were another myth, borne of superstition and a few rare corroborating cases. Though many Dragons, the ones who stayed long on the ground, soon progressed from laboring to some form of artistry, and with two-dozen decades to master their chosen art form they often progressed their abilities to an extreme of expertise, and so commanded vast sums. The money had to go somewhere.

Though no matter how acculturated a Dragon became they were never truly comfortable on the ground. The ground, the flat ground, was the one place a Dragon was vulnerable, and it was a fear that never abandoned them. No Dragon could sleep on the ground. At night they always returned to a cave in the mountains, to a tower, or to some other appropriately inaccessible place.

Nolan ascended the vast stairway to the high palace for the second time that morning, though this time he did not enter the main palace doors but instead went to a small side entrance. He climbed further, ascending past rooms and floors, and exited and followed a pathway around the raw edge of the mountain that the palace was built into, continuing until he arrived at a solid oak and iron door. He moved a rock, picked up the iron key hidden there, unlocked the door and entered. Beyond, there was a tight, ancient spiral stairway. It was damp with age, Nolan had learned recently from one of the palace's curates that it predated much of the rest of the palace. He climbed in the semi darkness, rising precipitously inside the sheer cliff face, until he arrived at another thickly reinforced door.

He pounded on the door and waited. After a moment a panel behind an iron mesh cage slid open and a huge yellow eye peered out, vertical slit pupil narrowing against the gloom. "Ah!" said a deep, rumbling voice. The eye disappeared and the panel shut, there was a clunk and then the door opened. "Nolan Redmane, my favorite Champion, come in, come in" said Auin in his booming, friendly voice.

Auin more than filled the doorway. He was as tall at the shoulder as a draft horse and much stockier, his limbs were heavier and he had a thick snake-like tail that he dragged along the ground. A Dragon's scales could be almost any color, Nolan had seen Dragon's that were purple, red, green, brilliant dazzling yellow; Auin had the misfortune of being dull brown. It was a misfortune Auin had confided in Nolan in the past, apparently Dragon's thought bright colors were the most attractive. He was dark a woodish brown on the thick defensive scales on his back and scalp and more of a tan on the softer scales of his throat, chest, belly, and the underside of his slithery tail. He was dressed in wool; a vast grey shawl with a wooden buttons covered his shoulders and his wings which were folded on his back, and his bulky hind-quarters were enveloped in a great pair of hairy brown-grey pants. Clipped to his fearsomely ridged snout were a round pair of spectacles. They were not lensed. He had perfect eyesight, in fact his eyesight was greatly superior to any non-Dragon. His spectacles were entirely an affectation, the same as the rest of his outfit, the same as his manners.

"Would you like tea?" Auin offered, lumbering away from the door in his usual waddling, four-legged gait. By making the offer he was mimicking Ylotian hospitality.

"No, thank you" said Nolan politely. He had tasted Auin's tea before. The Dragon's advantage in eye-sight had their antithesis in his sense of taste; he had none. Auin could not tell the difference between cooked meat and raw, nor did he know what tea was supposed to taste like. When he served tea he always guessed. The amount of tea leaves, milk, sugar, and so on, was never correct. The result was seldom palatable.

"Perhaps another time" said Auin, unoffended, crossing the room, heading away.

Auin's home was a misnomer. A 'Dragon Tower' was merely what every Dragon residence was called, since most of them were towers, while Yldon, with its mountain, didn't need a tower for altitude. His quarters consisted of a single large room, built of stone and with a dome roof, and minus a wall. Furnished sparingly, there was a bookcase full of non-Dragon books and a standing desk that enabled him to read them, a stove (for guests), a very large easel and some similarly large canvasses (he liked to paint). A few quaint tapestries and pictures hung on the walls and in one corner there was his bed; a nest constructed from random sheets, rags and blankets. There were small windows, unglazed, crossed with ancient bars that had rusted and the rust had run down the walls. The missing wall opened onto a large stone patio which served as his launch and landing pad, and beyond the patio, wedged between a sheer unguarded drop and the rising cliff face, there was a patch of rugged brown grass and a spindly tree. Auin called this his garden.

Nolan followed Auin through his room and out onto the patio. The air was palpably thinner and the mountain wind blew. Dressed still in his dull padded tunic and his scuffed trousers, Nolan tucked his arms in at his sides against the cold. The sky was crystalline, the view infinite. They loomed over the palace that in turn towered over Yldon which, in its own turn, towered over a forested valley with a river at its base. He could see for fifty miles at least.

Near the spindly tree, sunken into the long hardy grass, there was a bench, and set up beside the bench was another easel bearing a half completed painting; a majestic landscape, Auin only painted landscapes. He motioned that Nolan could sit on the bench if he liked, and then he parked his own voluminous rear end in the grass, picked up his pallet, and with his dexterous forepaws resumed painting.

"I'm afraid this isn't a social call" said Nolan, standing, stamping his hooves to keep warm. Auin was, of course, with his internal heat source, oblivious to the cold.

"Oh?"

"It's about the Prince. I mean not the Prince, his murderer" said Nolan.

"Ah, yes, that rotter" said Auin, "frightful business, makes the rest of us look bad."

"I've been tasked with tracking him down."

"Can't say I envy you. Well, what would you like to know about the fiend?" Auin asked.

"His name, his appearance, where he might go. Did you know him at all?"

"Not intimately" said Auin. "You might know him as Roevwyn, though he'll have probably changed it if he's on the run. Red scales. Quite small, smaller than I."

"He's a juvenile?"

"In essence if not in fact" said Auin, daubing a little blue on the sky he was filling in. "But yes, quite young. I doubt he's seen more than fifty winters. What would the non-Dragon equivalent be? Maybe twenty. Even then he was never terribly mature."

"The same as the Prince Yldgard" said Nolan. Auin looked around, puzzled. "The victim?" said Nolan.

"Oh, yes" said Auin. Dragons sometimes had difficulty matching names to faces when it came to non-Dragons. "I remember him now."

"They were friends, or so I've heard."

"More than friends, I would venture" said Auin with a throaty harrumph.

"Really?" said Nolan, surprised.

"Oh yes, those kinds of relationships are certainly rare but they're hardly unheard of. Though it is very unusual for those relationships to progress beyond the physical, as I believe those two had."

"I would have thought the physical stage would have proven challenging enough" Nolan joked.

"Quite! I wouldn't know myself..."

"So you've never been tempted then?" Nolan inquired humorously. He liked to ask awkward questions of the Dragon as it carried the possibility of a glimpse behind the scaled curtain.

"Well..." Auin became embarrassed. He didn't like talking about himself, any such discussion carried a risk of giving away Draconic secrets. "Those relationships are... frowned upon, shall we say, by other Dragons. Much in the way that your people frown upon physical relationships between non-Dragons and... farm animals. Though admittedly minus some of the ethical objections."

"Ah" said Nolan. "So what made Roevwyn different?"

Auin put his brush down, threw his reptilian head back and briefly folded down his ribbed ear frills in exasperation. "Before I tell you, you must understand there is a universe of difference between myself and Dragons like Roevwyn. I am a Dragon who prefers to live amongst non-Dragons. I will never be a non-Dragon, I do not wish to become a non-Dragon. I am quite content to live as I do, astride two worlds, belonging fully to neither. Roevwyn... he thought he could become one of you people, if he tried hard enough. That was what he wanted."

"And he was in love with the Prince, too?" Nolan asked.

"Yes, I believe he hoped to imitate your concept of permanent pairing" said Auin. "Poor soul."

"So then why would he murder Prince Yldgard, if they were lovers?"

"Oh, I don't know" said Auin wistfully. He picked up his brush and started mixing a little white into the blue, for a cloud. "You'll have to ask him when you find him. He was always impulsive, passionate. The young often are. My guess is that it was a lover's quarrel. Perhaps the Prince tried to break things off and he took it badly."

"Very badly" Nolan agreed. "It's certainly possible."

"I suppose it hardly matters" said Auin, "he's murdered Prince Yldgard and now he has to accept the consequences, can't say I have much sympathy for him. The blighter."

"Do you know where he might have gone?" Nolan asked.

"No. He won't be with any Dragons, we'll be shunning him now. If he shows up at any communal nest the other Dragons drag him back here, dump him on the steps on the palace. No, he'll have secreted himself away somewhere."

"I guess he could be on the other side of the world by now."

"No, no, he wouldn't have gotten that far" said Auin. "To have travelled that far he would have had to have flown, and he can't have flown without one of us spotting him. And if we had spotted him, well, like I said, he would be hogtied on the palace steps by now."

"What if he flew at night?"

Auin snorted contemptuously. "My dear boy, I can see better in the darkest night than you can in the brightest sunshine. No, he hasn't been seen by any of us since the day of the murder, which means he can't have gotten too far."

"Any idea where he might be?"

"Up a mountain, somewhere in southern Kalrithia" said Auin. "I'm sorry I can't be more specific."

Nolan resisted the urge to snap at the Dragon, say to him: not tempted to look yourself? Or something equally heated and futile. He knew the answer: 'is it not sufficiently demeaning that I have to follow your laws, now you want me to enforce them too?' The Dragon wished him success, but he wouldn't lift a wing to help him beyond giving him advice. It wasn't his job or his business. He was an impartial observer. It was one thing to act upon seeing Roevwyn, it was entirely another to go looking for him. His wings would have certainly helped in the search, though.

"I should be on my way" said Nolan. "I have to pack and make some other preparations, I wish to get started as soon as possible."

"Then I suppose this is farewell" said Auin, he put his paint things down and turned to face Nolan, who was by now shivering from the cold. "I have enjoyed watching you in the tournaments and I have enjoyed our conversations, I wish you good fortune in your future trials."

"Thank you, Auin" said Nolan. The Dragon extended a forepaw, Nolan took it in both hands and shook it. It was a formal Ylotian goodbye.

"Can I offer you a ride down?" Auin asked. "I've been painting all morning and I need to stretch my wings."

"No, that's alright" said Nolan. He had accepted the offer once before, it had turned a forty minute walk into a thirty second ride, and it had been the most frightening experience of his life. And for someone who fought in the tournaments that was really saying something.

"In that case..." said Auin, he nodded casually and resumed painting. That was a real Dragon goodbye.

Nolan started for the door and the stairs beyond, then he halted and turned back. "Oh, and Auin?"

"Yes?" said Auin, looking over his broad, hairy-wool covered shoulder.

"That's a very good picture" said Nolan. Auin was the most celebrated artist in the Kingdom, his work sold for fortunes.

"So they tell me" said Auin wryly, he repeated the nod and returned to his painting. Nolan continued on his way. When he closed the heavy door he made sure the mechanism locked behind him, he had left it unlocked once and Auin had been very upset. Then he began the long walk back to his quarters.

***

By the time Nolan returned to his room it was nearing midday. Upon entering he found that his armor, sword and swordbelt had been taken away and in their place a heap of items had been left. News of his departure had apparently spread around the lower palace, people had come along and left him items they thought might be useful. There were items of clothing, a sturdy grey blanket impregnated with oil to make it waterproof, a heap copper and silver coins. It seemed someone had passed a hat around, and then donated the hat too - the coins were all in a woolen cap. There was a short bow, unstrung and with a few spare strings coiled beside it. There was a short sword, presumably from the boys in the armory. It had a hacking hour-glass blade, no crossguard and not much of a pommel, and it had a note: 'small enough to hide in your knapsack'. Nolan had assumed that he would not be able to take a sword with him, since openly carrying a weapon was not exactly legal (though anyone caught with a weapon could resolve the matter by paying an 'informal fine'), nor was it subtle.

He admired each item in turn before packing it away. It was heartening, he hadn't realized he was so popular. When he had finished his knapsack was bulging. He placed the sword so the flat of the blade would be against his back and the grip would be just inside the draw-string mouth, so it would be both hidden and close at hand. The stringless bow went across the top of the knapsack and was secured in place by the top flap while the spare strings went into a side pocket. He gathered up the coins and placed them in a leather pouch, and he attached the pouch to a string, tied the string to his waist, and then he pushed the pouch down into the front of his trousers, inside his underwear, where the bulge would be invisible to even the most hawk-eyed pickpocket.

Then he remembered the bag of gold coins. His stomach disappeared and his spine turned to ice. The purse with the coins was nowhere to be seen. People had been coming into his room, someone must have taken them. There was enough wealth there to start a new life with.

But maybe not. He tipped out his knapsack, then he spent the next few minutes ransacking his room. He flipped his mattress, moved every item of furniture and checked every corner. No luck, the money was gone. Nolan stepped out into the hallway in a state of panic.

"There you are!" said a boisterous voice. Nolan turned, a Falcon was approaching, holding in his outstretched talons a large leather belt that he held up as though it were a snake. Nolan recognized him by sight; he was the King's tailor. Like every avian he was wingless and thus flightless, though he was covered in short brown and black-tipped feathers. His legs were scaled from the mid-shin downward and ended in long, widely splayed, clawed, tan colored toes. He had a small black-tipped tan beak, perforated on each side by his nostrils, and his brown tailfeathers were long enough to dust the floor as he walked. He was overweight with a big round belly, middle-aged, and, predictably, being the King's tailor, he was finely attired in a loose-sleeved azure-purple robe, open at the front over a pair of matching black pants and shirt.

"Though I could get it back to you before you returned" said the Falcon tailor whose name Nolan did not know.

"Leave it in the room" said Nolan distractedly, he assumed the belt was another gift, he was deeply impatient to find whoever had robbed him. He tried to push by.

"Hold on, hold on!" said the tailor jovially. "No need for panic, I've got your lost gold!"

"What?"

"In the belt" he said, he held it up. "I took the liberty of creating a disguise for your little nest-egg." He chose not to resist the pun. "The coins are inside. Leather on the exterior, canvas on the interior. I made hollows in the leather. Strip the canvas off when you need to get at them. Should keep them good and safe. How do you like the workmanship? Not my finest work but it should be fit for purpose."

"Uh, very good" said Nolan. He took the belt. It was slightly cracked black leather with small silver knobs all round. The buckle was non-adjustable, hidden behind a large metal disk showing a stylized stallion's head, his mane blowing in the wind, silver on black. Nolan rubbed with his fingers and felt the hard coins within.

"Try it on then, try it on!" the tailor blustered. "What are you a thirty-two? You look like a thirty-two to me. Had to guess a little. Can always fix it. Well? Well? Don't keep me in suspense any longer."

Nolan rushed to appease the babbling bird. He put the belt on, it fit like a dream. "It's good, it fits great" he said.

"Ah, sterling!" the Falcon rejoiced, "I always say the fit is the most important thing. That's what I tell the King. After that it's the material, you must have the best materials. That there is best black leather. For a belt there's nothing better than best black leather. How do you like the studwork?"

"It's-"

"Atrocious, I know! No, don't apologize, you're quite right. I was on the cusp of fixing it when I realized that if you're going to be slumming it with the peasants and guttersnipes then it might be to your advantage if it was a tad skew-whiff."

"No, it's ideal, really."

"How about the buckle? Not too on-the-nose is it? No harm in embracing the obvious. Better that way sometimes. No harm in saying what everybody's already thinking, now and then, where appropriate, you understand. And it is a handsome design, you have to admit. Had it lying around for months, the King didn't go for it so I'd nowhere to put it. You'll be doing me a favor taking it off my hands. Ah, bugger! Now I've gone and made it sound like I'm dumping unmarketable wares on you. Not a chance! No, a fine specimen that. Don't get around as much as I used to or else I'd have it sold off right quick and proper. Don't you worry!"

"Thank you very much!" Nolan cut in firmly, big smile. He grabbed the talkative Falcon by the scaly tan-gloved hand and shook it vigorously. "I have to pack, you understand, for my journey. Can't stay and chat. You know how it is."

"Of course! Of course!" said the bird. "Can't keep the King waiting can we? And I should know! Won't keep you any longer, just wanted to wish you the best of luck in all your future trials. I've seen you in the yard - that blasted Dragon doesn't know what he's up against! You'll see him off in no time, mark my words. Must dash mi'self, the King probably wants a few more of his trousers let out, just have to hope they come back eh? Ha! That's an old tailoring joke, you understand."

"Yes, and thank you again" said Nolan.

"It was nothing! Farewell my boy, farewell!" said the Falcon, and he finally started off along the hall at a brisk pace. Nolan watched him go, grateful the conversation had lasted longer. For someone unaccustomed to talking much, being engaged in such a manner was a violently invasive experience.

When the Falcon arrived at the far end of the hallway he met a group of sweaty recruits in dented breastplates coming up from the training yard, heading for the mess hall and lunch. "Out of the way!" the Falcon bellowed, the startled recruits leaped aside and the inexhaustible avian cannon-balled through the middle of them, not slowing for a second. Nolan sighed and returned to his room.

***

Nolan righted the mess he had made and packed again, exactly as before. Then he put on a long grey hooded coat that someone had donated to him, it was scuffed, worn out, had patches on the elbows and another patch on the back. It was, like everything else that he had been given, a hand-me-down. Gifts from people who didn't have much to give. He recognized many of gift-givers by their gifts, he recognized the coat too. It belonged to a man he had been intimate with, a person he could almost call an ex-boyfriend. He didn't really have any of those. Then he shouldered his bulging knapsack and left his quarters, he left the room precisely as he had found it, a decade and a half before.

The halls and yards were vacant, he avoided the mess hall where he could hear the clatter of lunch being served. He decided to avoid any further goodbyes. It wasn't the lower palace's style, nor was it his own style. The shower of gifts had expressed the sentiment more effectively than any awkward and fumbling goodbye made by gruff men, unaccustomed to expressing feelings other than anger. He climbed some stairs and took a seldom used passageway around to the other side of the lower palace, descended some more stairs and emerged into a straw-strewn yard by the stables, and went to the kitchen's rear entrance.

The door was open, he put his head through and attracted the attention of a broad-hipped, enormous-bosomed Cow. She was brown with small horns, dressed in a pale blue checkered dress. She was rosy-faced, sweaty with work, and had a rag roped to her hip. She was toting a breadbasket when Nolan waved her over. "Can I get something to eat?" he asked.

"Of course" she said, "just let me finish with this and I'll fetch you something."

"Thank you, I'll be out here."

She smiled warmly at him and then went off, long dress undulating with the movement of her chubby legs. Nolan set his knapsack down and seated himself on a crate near the door. The Cow reappeared a couple minutes later with a bowl of vegetable stew, a plate with a potato cake on it and a wooden spoon. "Thank you" he said, taking the food.

"I talked to some of the other girls, they all want to bring you things, is that alright?" she asked.

"Uh, sure, but I don't want to take too much" he said awkwardly. He used to people being so nice to him.

"It's no bother, really, they want to help" she said.

"Well, alright then" he said, and she went away. Then as he tucked into his stew and his potato cake a steady procession of sweaty-faced women came out and delivered him gifts of hardy food. He got dried meats, jars of preserves, hardtack that was like roofing tiles and came with the stern advice not to try and bite into but to soak it in water first, and other small things wrapped in white linen. Before long he had to turn them away, he had run out of room in his knapsack and could not carry any more presents.

The last woman, the one he delivered that last request to, a Fox, a Vixen, put her gift in the pocket of her checked dress, hovered for a moment, then she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek before rapidly departing, seemingly in tears. Nolan was confused for a moment, but then it made sense to him. Why the gifts, why everybody was being so nice to him: they all thought he was going to die, they felt sorry for him. The vegetable stew soured in his mouth. The abstract concept of his own mortality had grown steadily more tangible over the course of the morning, it solidified for him now. He had been in dangerous situations before, had been confronted with his own mortality before. But never like this, never with odds this long.

Nolan finished his meal in contemplative silence. Then he went to return the bowl, plate and spoon to the kitchen. By chance the person he dropped these items off with was the same Cow that he had spoken to initially. He thanked her again for the meal, then, as if suddenly remembering something, asked if he could have an apple. Not for himself, he added, but for Hunter, his horse. She brought him a shiny red apple. He thanked her again, and she told him to stop being so grateful, and he went to the stables across the yard.

The stables were gloomy, fetid, and smelled strongly of horse. He kicked through the bed of straw, avoiding the mounds of shit, and came to Hunter's stall, unmistakable on account of the brass plaque bearing his name and the fact that it was double the size of the others. A white stallion with a white mane and tail and a black muzzle; Hunter was not the biggest horse, nor was he the fastest, but he was the smartest, and that made him the best. Nolan had ridden him in more than two-dozen jousts and they were great partners. He was gentle too. He was just a really good horse.

Hunter came over to greet him, he put his huge head out over his stall door. When Nolan came close enough the horse stuck his nose straight into the pocket of his grey coat, searching for goodies. "You know me too well" said Nolan. He produced the apple from the pocket Hunter had been sniffing and fed it to him, and he petted the horse's sloping face as he gobbled the treat. Then he unlatched the stall door and made to go inside, he needed to get Hunter saddled and harnessed for their journey, the gear was hanging at the rear of the stall.

"And just what do you think you're doing?" somebody sneered loudly. Nolan looked up. It was one of Brobham Tellard's black-gowned agents, one of his minions, come to do his bidding. He was Deer, he had delicate features, a narrow brown muzzle and a small mouth and eyes. He was unnervingly tall, almost as tall as Nolan, but his was a skinny, bean-pole tallness, while Nolan's height was far more substantive. Though the Deer's growth of antler tipped the scale in the stature stakes.

"I have to get him ready" said Nolan coolly, expecting trouble.

"Oh, ah-ahaha" the black-robbed Deer chuckled falsely in a high falsetto. "What did you think, that he's your pet, and you can take him whenever you liked? That is rich. Oh no, oh no-no-no."

"Speak plainly."

"You're not taking Hunter" said the Deer in a sneer of incredulity, swanning over. "He's a valuable animal, we can't risk losing him. Oh no, he's staying here."

Nolan sighed, he couldn't fight this man in any sense of the word. He was merely the messenger of a far greater power, one he could not hope to tangle with and come out unscathed. "Then which mount might I take?" he asked tersely.

"Oh, umm..." the Deer pretended to ponder, bringing his hand up to his tiny chin and looking around the stables. "I think... none, you can have none."

"Then I am to walk?" he asked flatly.

"Yes" said the Deer. "What, is there something wrong with your legs?"

There was a fairly large pile of manure, still with that freshly deposited moistness, and almost right behind the arrogant agent, and Nolan was sorely, sorely tempted to shove him in it. He imagined the girlish shriek the Deer would produce. But he decided not to. There would be no point in it, and there was no telling what kind of negative response it would unleash.

"Nothing wrong with my legs" said Nolan, he shut the stall door and snapped the latch down "nothing at all." He petted Hunter one last time, annoyed that such an odious person had to be present at this moment, and then he swung up his bag and made to leave.

"Best of luck out there" the Deer gloated, "we're all rooting for you." Nolan ignored him, and even resisted the urge to mutter something under his breath as left the stables.

He stepped out into fresh air and sunlight. He crossed the yard, passed through a broad archway and descended a stairway, dropping down to the next in the series of plateaus the lower palace was built on, and emerged onto a large stone balcony covered by a colorful awning, overlooking a much larger sandy yard.

He knew the yard well, though it would have been more familiar packed full of cheering crowds, a waist-high fence boxing in a square of open space in the center. He would come in, his view obscured by the grill of his long-faced helm, the sound of the crowd distorted, heavy limbed, full of focus. He and his opponent would circle the ring, the crowd would grow silent, and then at the first steel-on-steel clang they would roar to life and would not go quiet again until the sweat ran in rivers from the gaps in the armor, and one fighter had taken the requisite hits to the torso or was unable to continue. Or the match was to the first blood then he would enter without a carapace of steel, and the fighting would be quick and cagey, and he would be able to feel the hands of the crowd on his back when he fell against the fence, and it would be finished very suddenly and the bonesetters would leap in with their red liquid potions to see if they needed to close the wound of the defeated fighter, or re-attach any lost fingers.

He knew this yard like he knew a dozen others. The yards in Uxdiliki to the south, in the shade of the palm trees, where the ground was sandier, and where the fighters shined their armor to mirrors and always lost to outsiders because they were seafarers at heart. In Aboney to the north and east, on the rugged coast, where they did not cancel the fights when the weather was stormy and the men were large and slow and could only be beaten if you tired them out first. And even Kalrithia, where the sword-fighting was not well attended because the masses and the wealthier patrons who watched from their cushioned seats only cared about jousting. And so he had to beat them there too, and he often did, but it was in the ring with the sword, the two handed great-sword in the full carapace, or with the lighter one handed sword in the breastplate only, or without a breastplate in the hair-raising unarmored matches; he beat them. So many times and so convincingly that King Yolantine had named him the Champion of Ylot, his personal representative in the tournaments.

But it had not always been so. His first fight had been in this yard, too. He had entered bursting with the confidence of ignorance, a cocky nineteen year old. It had been a preliminary round, first blood with breastplates. His opponent had been a Grey Fox named Daltry, no surname given; a man of fifty or so, minus several teeth, with stringy muscle, threadbare fur, a rusted sword and old armor, and a black bandana tied around his grizzled forehead. Nolan had strutted in, showboated for the crowd, and got taken apart in four moves.

Daltry attacks: Left swing, blocked easily! Right swing, blocked again! Daltry leaves an opening, Nolan steps in! Daltry turns his sword and thrusts pommel first, he smashes Nolan an inch above the eye, splitting his brow. Nolan goes down like a sack of potatoes. Blood drawn, match over.

Teenage Nolan was carried from the square to chorus of boos and a hail of thrown turkey bones, and later he discovered that he had shit himself too.

But there had been an up-side. He learned more in those twelve seconds of real competition than in all of his previous training combined, and he learned humility. For the rest of the tournament he had sat alone in his room, a bandage round his wounded head (potions were reserved for the more serious injuries), and rehearsed the fight over and over in his mind, from every angle, accounting for every humiliating detail. He thought about why he had lost, not simply how. When he emerged, meek and eager, he had thrown himself into his training. The next tournament had been three months later, in the thick snow of a Ylotian winter. He made it to the final four and had been frustrated at himself for not doing better.

The far side of the yard was the lower palace's outer wall. There was a drop-down iron portcullis and guard house, there was a walkway, and in the corner of the yard was a flat-topped tower where Auin perched to watch the fights, if he decided to come down. And before then, his own childhood. Nolan had grown up in the palace. The yards, stairways and walkways had been his playground, the palace's guards had been his friends, his teachers, and the Sergeants had been his surrogate parents. His crib had been in the guardhouse and for some years part of the night-watch's duties had included reading him his bedtime story and making sure he went to sleep. At age four or five he had moved into the stables and slept in the hayloft, and then when he was fourteen he had been given the room that had been his ever since. And there were other, more intimate memories. It had been on one of the lower palace's dark and quiet balconies, when he was about fifteen, that he had tenderly lost his virginity to an older boy who worked in the stables. It had been as uncomfortable as it had been exciting, but he had been sure that it was something he wanted to do more of. Roles reversed, that was.

Nolan never knew his mother, or his father for that matter. He supposed he might be an orphan, or that his mother was a frightened teenager, or a prostitute, or that his parents were simply destitute and could not afford to raise him. He had been left on the steps of the palace in a basket, pinned to the basket had been a note that said simply: 'Nolan'. They had nothing else to give him, they had at least given him a name. And it had been the palace guards who had given him his last name, Redmane, since his mane was red, and since he needed a last name and they had liked the sound of it. He didn't know his date of birth, only that he had been born sometime in the spring. Twenty-nine winters had passed since then, and so he was thirty.

And now he was leaving it behind. He thought they were casting him off very lightly. He felt Brobham Tellard's hand in this. It felt like a deal had been made, that he was being gotten rid of, removed so that someone else could become Champion. It hardly mattered. If it happened it happened. That was upper-palace intrigue and he wanted no part of it. He had been given a task, he had to see that task carried out. That was all. Thoughts that were not directed to that end needed to cease. The time for reminiscing was over, now was the time for focus. He had a fine capacity for focus. He felt sure that he was going to need it on the road ahead.

Nolan turned away from the balcony. He descended another stairway, crossed the yard and made the guards on duty crank the portcullis open enough for him to duck through. There was something poetic and appropriate about leaving through the entrance he had arrived by. It had a circuitousness to it, a closed circle. In front of him were the densely packed, crooked roofs of Yldon, down the grassy slopes that surrounded the lower palace. And beyond the city: the road and the journey. He started down the dirt trail, heading downhill.

As he left he overheard the two young male guards on the gate.

"So who d'you think's going to be the new champ, now that Nolan's out?"

"Not you, the only thing you beat is your dick every night."

"Judge if you want but I win every time." The two guards sniggered. "They're good fights too."

"Shut the fuck up."

Nolan refrained from smiling. His long face was hard-set, cheerless, and his gaze was fixed on the road ahead.