Cascade Point

"The Rosette-Easterland border," Grail answered. "Louys Pass, about six kilometers southeast of Hagston. Our patrols say that there's a new Easterling base being set up there. I want to walk One past it, just to remind them what they'll have to face on this side of the line."

One. It was the first time Royd had ever heard Grail refer to any of his dragons by any sort of name. " 'One' is your biggest dragon, I take it?"

Grail nodded. "One, Two, and Three, in decreasing order of size."

"Not terribly original."

The Dragonmaster stared out a window. "I originally called them Alecto, Magaera, and Tisiphone—the three Furies from ancient Earth mythology, who pursued and punished evildoers in terrible ways. But... I suppose after the fracture- bombing of Solfa it seemed to me that I had no business calling the dragons by cute names. They're fearsome, deadly weapons and shouldn't be treated like pets."

Royd shivered. For the Furies to be considered 'cute names'... "It must have been pretty bad. Solfa, I mean."

"The entire world was destroyed. I mean that literally; what the bombs themselves didn't get the tectonic upheavals that followed did." Grail's jaw muscles tightened visibly. "Three billion people killed, for the sole purpose of trying to destroy two Dragonmasters. That shows you how much the Emperor fears us."

Royd digested that. "How'd you escape?"

"I was already in space when the attack started. My ship took some damage, but I got away. That's when I came here." Grail spoke almost mechanically; from the look in his eyes it was clear his thoughts were still with the slagged surface of Solfa. His breathing seemed to have quickened, and Royd noted with some uneasiness that he was begi

"Maybe we'd better stop talking for a while," he said. "You don't want to go into one of your coughing fits."

"You're right." Grail sank back in his seat and smiled wanly. "It has been getting worse, hasn't it?"

"Yeah. What are the doctors doing for you?"

"Not much they can do. My lungs are slowly filling up with scar tissue. It's something I picked up forty years ago out on Agave. Not contagious, by the way."

"Glad to hear it. Now shut up and get some rest."

Grail smiled again. "Yes, Doctor," he murmured, closing his eyes.

The aircraft reached its destination—one of Rosette's border outposts—an hour or so later. Grail, seemingly recovered from his earlier discomfort, obtained two horses, and he and Royd rode off into the low mountains that formed a natural barrier between Rosette and Easterland. No one at the base asked Royd's name or position; Grail did not volunteer that information.

The mountains were not particularly high, but they were steep and treacherous in places. Clearly, though, Grail had taken this path before, and he led them skillfully up the slope. After perhaps an hour he reined in. "We go on foot from here," he told Royd. "I want to get a little closer before I release One."

They made their way through the trees and underbrush for half a kilometer to a small clearing where, without warning, the forty-meter dragon appeared. Shifting its bulk with surprising grace, it moved off between the trees. "Glad we found this clearing," Grail grunted. "If you bring One out in the woods you usually knock down a tree or two in the process. Makes a hell of a noise." He looked at Royd. "Did you feel anything when I released it?"

Royd hadn't even thought to try applying his mind-conditioning work. "Uh—"

"Forgot to, huh? Never mind; get ready and I'll bring out Three."

And this time Royd did sense something. A presence of sorts, but cold and faintly menacing.

Grail nodded when Royd tried to describe it. "That's the dragon, all right. Scared hell out of me when I first contacted it, too. I'm going to put Three through its paces; watch how the feeling changes with each movement." The dragon turned and leaped into the lower branches of the nearest tree. "Shouldn't you stick with one dragon at a time?" Royd asked, glancing in the direction that One had taken.

"No problem. I can handle all three at once." He smiled crookedly. "And no more than three—which is why there are twelve Dragonmasters instead of just one."

"Oh?" Royd said with forced casualness. Grail had never given him more than tantalizing hints about how the older man had become a Dragonmaster, and Royd didn't want to scare the story back underground by seeming too eager.

"Yeah. The man who found the first amulet out at Castor was able to use it to find the other eleven. It had taken him nine years of trial and error to figure out how to call and control his first set of dragons, but he found out that there was simply no way for him to control two amulets at once—I suspect they were deliberately designed that way. So he called in a bunch of his cronies and taught us how to be Dragonmasters. We had it easy; with his knowledge the process only took a few weeks."

Royd shook his head. "Nine years. The man had a lot of patience."

"He didn't have much else to do," Grail replied bluntly. "He was in hiding. If he'd stuck his nose out of the Castor system the Imperial Patrols would have shot it off."

"What do you mean?"

"He was a pirate. So was I."

For a moment the two men looked at each other in silence. Then, slowly, Royd shook his head. "I don't believe it."

"Why not?"

"You don't talk like a pirate, for one thing. And you're too well educated."

From the other side of the mountains came the sound of gunfire. "Just the Easterlings shooting at One," Grail explained as Royd, startled, turned to face the sound. "Don't worry; it's not going to kill any of them today. You know, you can't be stupid and be a pirate these days—ru

Royd looked at the dictator's lined face. "What happened?"

Grail shrugged awkwardly. "I'm not really sure. Academic life was just too frustrating, I suppose. There were many improvements that needed to be made in the university, but no one would listen to my ideas. As low man in the pecking order I couldn't accomplish anything except irritating those in charge. "When they finally tossed me out, I drifted around industry for a while—no other college would hire me—and when Damrosch offered me a job on one of his ships, I took it. I didn't know then that he was a pirate, and when I found out... I don't know; I suppose I've always been a better follower than a leader. That's probably why he gave me one of the amulets—he figured I could be trusted to back him up."

"Did you?"

"More or less. Even when most of the other Dragonmasters deserted him during the Great War to try and set up their own kingdoms, I stayed with him. His plan was to capture one planet, build it up over a period of several years, and then use it as a base of operations to take over the whole Empire."

"Is that when you left him?"

"Soon afterward. The planet he chose was Solfa."

"Oh." Royd was silent for a moment. "For a born follower you sure picked up the trade of dictator pretty fast."

Grail took a step toward him, face contorted with sudden anger. "I had no choice, damn it!" he shouted. "This place was coming apart at the seams. Can't you get that through your head? I was the only one who could hold it together." He broke off in a fit of coughing, clutching his sides and sinking to his knees in the brush. "My inhaler," he managed to get out. "It's with the horse."

Royd glanced at Three as the dragon crouched motionless, temporarily bereft of guidance. "The dragon would be faster," he said.

"Scares the horses," Grail gasped, shaking his head. "You go. Hurry."