Free Master of Dragons by Margaret Weis Page B

useful in
this regard. I have noticed, however, that the longer they live among humans,
the more human the walkers become. They begin to empathize with the humans.
They lose their detachment, become emotionally involved. Usually we are able to
catch walkers before they do harm to us. We remove the walker from his or her
position and assign another. It is what I should have done with Draconas.”
    Anora sighed
deeply. “But he was the best walker we’ve ever created. He maintained his
detachment, or so I thought. I wonder now if he was lying all this time—lying
to me. Lying to himself.” She waved it away with a claw. “That is all past.
What’s done is done, as the humans say.”
    “So you foresee
that humans are going to cannonade us into extinction,” Malfiesto said
caustically. “Forgive me if I fail to understand how breeding humans with dragons
and thereby giving them even more power is supposed to save us.”
    “I will explain.
It all began with Brayard.”
    As she spoke,
Anora deliberately kept her gaze away from Lysira, who steeled herself to
listen and be silent.
    “Through Grald’s
bungling, Brayard learned about the smuggling of male babies out of Seth. He
suspected the existence of a city such as Dragonkeep, although I do not think
he ever found it. He told me what he knew and insisted that I bring up the
matter before the Parliament. If I would not, he said that he would. That could
not be allowed to happen. The revelation that we had been breeding humans to
use dragon-magic would have caused an uproar among all dragonkind.”
    The dragons
muttered, their colors black and tinged with fire.
    “Hear me out!”
Anora demanded, and she waited until they settled down. “He would have brought
our plans to ruin. For the sake of the many, he had to be sacrificed. And so he
was. No one was ever supposed to find out. Grald killed Brayard and made the
murder look like an accident—as if the dragon had lost way his way in a storm
and crashed into a mountain.
    “All would have
been well, but that Brayard’s son, Braun, was the inquisitive sort. He did not
believe that his father could have been so reckless. Prior to his death,
Brayard assured me that he had not spoken to anyone regarding his suspicions. I
now know that he must have mentioned at least some of what he suspected to his
son. How much, I’m not sure, but at least enough to cause Braun to fly to Seth,
with some scheme of trying to warn the humans about what was happening.
    “The women of
Seth, skilled in the use of dragon-magic, very nearly killed Braun. He managed
to escape, and he returned and told his tale to anyone who would listen. He
wanted to stir up trouble, believing that the truth about the murder of his
father would then float to the surface. You know what happened. Draconas was
sent to try to ‘deal’ with Maristara. He was to take a human male—a king of his
people—to Seth to meet the Mistress of Dragons and persuade her to leave Seth.
    “From that point
on, nothing went right. Grald lost his nerve and sent out his magic-wielding
monks to destroy Draconas. These lunatics did far more harm to us than they did
to Draconas, for they alerted him to the fact that humans had been given
dragon-magic. Maristara did not abandon the worn-out human body as swiftly as
she should have, with the lamentable result that two humans as well as Draconas
stumbled upon Maristara’s secret of body switching.
    “We had to act
fast to repair the damage that had been done. Fortunately, Draconas provided us
with the means. He came up with the idea of the human king mating with the
human female— a High Priestess of Seth—producing a son that would be strong in
the dragon-magic; a son who would then be sent in to deal with Maristara.
Draconas later abandoned that plan, but Grald and I saw how it could be useful
to us. I persuaded Draconas to go through with it. The humans mated and the
female was impregnated. Then Grald also planted his seed in the