The Cygnet And The Firebird Part 22

"Is that what you saw, Meguet?"

"Yes."

"So Saphier lies somewhere beneath the dragon's eye. I can sail there-"

"Please," Meguet breathed.

"I'll send explorers," Nyx conceded. "Messengers- Even my mother would approve of that. As much as she approves of any of this. I'll take Chrysom's box to Rad Ilex; perhaps he can help me find a path between Ro Holding and Saphier. A private path ..." Her voice trailed into silence; she contemplated the dragon's eyes a moment before she asked slowly, "How would a man born in a swamp in the Delta in Ro Holding recognize a dragon?"

"I was wondering that myself," Meguet said. And then she felt all thought fade away until she was barely air, barely night within the night. She was touched, it seemed, by the light, flickering, changing winds of the Luxour. "Were you there?" she asked die Gatekeeper. His face was in shadow again; she could not see his eyes. "On the Luxour? All those dark swans flying out of my night-shadow, all those winds stealing magic out of me. One of those swans wasn't wind. One was real." He didn't answer. "Tell me," she pleaded, her voice still spellbound, her bones shaped of stars now, at her elbow and ankle, throat and amazed eye. "Tell me that you saw the dragons. That when I say dragon, that's what you will see: the flight of dragons across the Luxour under the noon sun."

He started to speak, stopped. Then he shifted into light, and she saw them in all their terrible grace and power flying through his eyes. He drew her against him tightly, perhaps to hide what he had seen by day, perhaps in memory of what he had fought by night. "Gatekeepers don't leave the gate," he said at last into her hair. "But what my heart does, flying out of me in terror or wonder or love, only you can tell me, because it will follow only you."

She felt his heart fly into her; her mind filled with dreams and memories of the soft touches of wings, the rustlings and night-murmurings of flight- Her hand brushed his wrist; his fingers opened, linked with hers. She whispered, "Then follow."

She led him down the turret steps. Behind them, Nyx stood in the moonlight, waiting as patiently as stone or time, for the slow dance of constellations to reveal a path by star and water into the Dragon's dawn.