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She stood up on the rock, let her hair flow on the wild currents. She held out her hand. There was a
blood-red jewel on her forefinger: a dragon s eye. Come with me. I ll show you where I live, among the
lizards and the sand beetles and the blue-eyed snakes. There s a well of water beneath the rocks, so
deep I never touch the bottom when I bathe in it. A dragon sleeps at the bottom of the well. Sometimes
at noon when sunlight pours between the rocks, I glimpse it, coiled, golden as the light. Come. I ll show
you.
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I cannot, Meguet said gently. I must cross the Luxour. I dare not be distracted by it.
So I felt. when I was much younger. That a hundred reasons compelled me across the desert. But after
a time, I realized there was no reason for me not to stay. No reason at all. What compels you? I must
get to Draken Saphier s court. Draken Saphier. The woman s face smoothed, as if she barely
remembered the name. Then she gave a sudden laugh. It held memory, ambiguity, a touch of rue. The
Dragon of Saphier. I was in Saphier when his mother ruled. She was silent a little, her silver-blue eyes
looking inward. Perhaps that s why I lost myself in the Luxour so long ago. I, too, wanted the dragon s
child. But She tossed her hands lightly, freeing memory. I could never find the dragon. If you stay
long enough, Draken Saphier will come here. The Luxour will call him home. She waited; when Meguet
did not answer, she turned, slipped away among the ruins, as swiftly and easily as a desert animal. Her
voice drifted back. The world beyond the Luxour is the dream. Stay here.
Meguet rose. As she stepped out of shadow, light pressed down at her again, trying to melt her, reshape
her into something shrunken and flat that huddled close against the earth. She drew long scarves around
her face, her head, and marked a path from stone to stone, shadow to shadow. Water, the desert-mage
had said- A well. Deep water. But perhaps that was also a dream, for nothing grew out of the ground but
rocks. Still, she remembered the ice cave, the dragon s cold breath. The memory itself cooled her until
she reached another shadow. Stay, the desert said- Sit. Wait. There is no end to me, I am everywhere,
and you will never find your way beyond me. There is no path out of me. Stop here. Stay. Rest. But she
refused to listen, even when the light pressed her head down, her eyelids closed as she walked. The light
was dragon s breath; the Dragon hunted the Cygnet... She walked across the face of the sun itself, and
she told the desert;I have fought the sun and lived. She stumbled into shadow and back into endless fire,
and again into shadow until both sun and shadow weighed her down, and time and the sun seemed to
have stopped.
Finally the hot black cooled; the sun loosed its grip of the desert. A lavender sky began to darken,
reveal the first faint stars. She heard water bubbling around her, smelled sulphur. Her mouth felt stuffed
with sand, her body worn like old stone. She sat, felt for the water skin, took a few sips of warm water.
Her eyes burned suddenly, though she had nothing left for tears; her body shook in a sudden, noiseless
sob of fear and despair. She calmed herself, watching the night deepen, the stars grow huge, impossibly
close. She saw no shimmering wings, no shadows unfolding to block the stars. Perhaps all she had ever
seen were Rad Ilex s dreams. The vast, warm dark, the star-shot silence comforted her. Others have
been lost here and lived, she thought. And I m not lost yet. She ate fruit that had fermented in the heat,
cheese that would not last another day. She lay back again, above the ground along a ledge of stone,
feeling the stone pull at her bones as if to draw her into itself. Tomorrow, she thought, I ll walk before
dawn. Just before she fell asleep, she saw the stars flow together against the dark, shape themselves into
the dragon s face.
The next day she walked into the dragon s heart. It was vast, golden, seething with hidden fires that
blazed within stone, sand, shadow. Plumes of steam blurred the landscape, were snatched up and
shredded by winds that blasted from the dragon s mouth. Mud bubbled and belched; the ground hissed.
Even the air she breathed burned, rank and fiery with steam. Sometimes she could barely see to cross the
sun s path; other times sun was everywhere, glowing in water, leaping out of raw crystals or dragon s
eyes. Steam or dragon s breath trailed through the ruins, shaped ghostly faces where windows might
have been. The ruins gave some shelter from the light, and the hot, stinging winds, but even their shadows
burned. She made some attempt to capture lizards, shards of sun or shadow that scattered at her footfall
and darted among the rocks. But they were too quick, and she couldn t remember which Rad had told
her not to eat. She ate dried, crumbled bread, a withering apple. Her eyes closed. She forced herself to
rise, find her direction. She could barely see the dragon s backbone pointing east and west behind her;
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