Sha-Kaan closed his eyes once more, breathing in the damp of the earth beneath his great body and recalled the Ancients’ meeting with Septern. He had arrived irritable but well and Sha-Kaan well remembered the look of awe on his face as he took in the Broodlands. There was no Wingspread then, of course, but the structures of the Ancients sprang from the ground, testimonies to their leadership of the Kaan.

The Ancients had chosen to meet Septern on the banks of the River Tere, allowing those with the need to rest in its calming flow. In addition to Sha-Kaan, invited as the one who found Septern, three Ancients met the human. Ara-, Dun- and Los-Kaan. All had been in the last flights of their long lives, scales fading from gold to a dull brown, wings drying making flying a painful and difficult process.

Septern had walked into the middle of them, craning his neck to see their faces, his eyes trailing over their massive bodies, down to the tails which twitched impatiently. Ara-Kaan had opened his mouth to speak but Septern had spoken first, chilling the proud thought in Sha-Kaan’s mind. Ara had been an ill-tempered dragon at best and the current Great Kaan felt the shudder of ages through him as he remembered what followed . . .

‘—I’m not happy about this,’ said Septern. ‘I arrive in good faith, after winning the trust of the Avians to let me build a rip in their land and they are rewarded by wanton destruction by your . . . your minions or whatever you call them. It was their fatal misfortune that my incomplete knowledge of the workings of dimensional magics in their land led to it being far larger than I had intended. Then, as if that’s not—’

‘Silence!’ thundered Ara-Kaan. ‘Skies fall but you humans do not know when to hold your feeble tongues.’ The sound of Ara’s voice cracked across the valley, once again dumping Septern from his feet. He looked straight into Ara’s eyes, defiant.

‘I understand that I’m important or I would already be dead,’ he said.

‘Then you understand very little.’ Ara’s long neck snaked out, his old head, eye ridges blistered, dim blue eyes losing their lustre, coming to rest directly in front of Septern’s. ‘We already have the means to travel to your dimension, which you presented to us. There will be other humans we can talk to.’

‘Then burn me and find out how wrong you are,’ said Septern, getting back on his feet.

Ara cocked his head.

‘No!’ shouted Sha-Kaan. ‘Great Kaan, don’t.’ Ara-Kaan paused, one eye swivelling to fix on Sha-Kaan.

‘Hear him,’ said the young dragon. ‘He has mastered controlled dimensional linking. He deserves some respect.’

‘He is human,’ said Ara dismissively.

‘And here, where he shouldn’t be,’ said Dun, speaking for the first time. ‘Hear him.’ Ara relaxed his neck.

‘Speak, human,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ said Septern tersely. ‘Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Septern, nominally a mage of the College city of Dordover in Balaia. However, I do not feel allegiance to any one College, having been blessed with an understanding of multiple disciplines.’

‘Excellent,’ said Los-Kaan, his tail absently sweeping water over his back as he sat half in, half out of the River Tere. ‘And so does this mean that more than one of these multiple disciplines has an understanding of dimensional magics, as you would call them?’

Septern looked hard at Los-Kaan, presumably weighing up the meaning behind the question. He shrugged.

‘Yes, in theory, all four Colleges have the knowledge to develop dimensional magics. It is a subject that crosses the ethical boundaries quite freely. However, it is the individual mage who has the responsibility to forward research and precious few work in this field. Dimensional theory is new and so is mistrusted.’

‘But not by you,’ said Ara gruffly.

‘Of course not,’ said Septern, smiling. ‘I originated it.’

‘Really,’ said Ara. He stretched his huge jaws, displaying his rank of yellowed fangs. ‘Tell me why we are so wrong about your gateways.’

‘Because when I went through the rip to witness your attempted genocide, I made some adjustments to the rip magic. Now, the starting point of your travel is crucial and since the rips to the Avian dimension and Balaia are linked, you have to start in Balaia to travel back there. So the rips are useless to you, aren’t they?’ Septern’s smile became patronising, an expression Sha-Kaan had seen among the Vestare.

‘By the Skies, if I wasn’t sure you were speaking the truth, I would burn the flesh from your crumbling bones,’ spat Ara.

‘That’s your answer to everything, is it? Set light to the offender and hope they learn their lesson? It’s no wonder you’re fighting your Skar and destroying your own lands.’

‘Meaning?’ demanded Dun-Kaan. The Ancient’s tongue flicked out of his age-paled face, moistening the lids of his eyes.

‘Ever tried employing this?’ Septern pointed to his mouth. ‘You sound bright enough; why don’t you talk?’

‘Ah,’ said Los-Kaan. ‘There speaks one who knows nothing of our history. The time for talking has long since passed. Conquest is the only way to secure peace now.’

‘Gods falling, you sound like a Wesman,’ said Septern.

‘A who?’ asked Los-Kaan.

Septern shook his head. ‘The race in Balaia who are threatening my lands and people. But never mind that. What is it you want?’ His tone was suddenly impatient. ‘And why do you sound like you’ve met humans like me before?’

‘Not quite like you,’ said Sha-Kaan. There was the nodding of heads and feelings of humour arose in his mind.

‘Why don’t you answer the human’s questions, Sha?’ said Dun-Kaan. ‘It will be a good test of your knowledge.’

‘Yes, Dun-Kaan, it will be my honour.’ Sha-Kaan swept his head low, extending his neck before snapping it back to the formal stretched ‘s’ shape, head angled down to look directly at Septern more than a dozen feet below him.

‘We flatter ourselves that we are complex beings trapped in ungainly bodies that only fulfil their potential in flight. There are many among us who crave the freedom of hands that could carve and build, and a size and flexibility that allows travel everywhere,’ began Sha-Kaan.

‘But the trade-off with size is the loss of power,’ said Septern.

‘And we would no longer be dragons,’ agreed Sha-Kaan. ‘So the craving is limited to those moments when we watch the Vestare at work on the structures we would love to build ourselves.

‘But there is much more to us than size, strength and language. We feel the press of dimensions, we can travel them without the aid of magic such as yours and we need the energies they provide us to survive and develop.’

‘So you don’t need me.’

‘Ah but we do.’ Sha-Kaan moved closer, relaxing his torso and leaning forward, his shadow covering Septern. ‘Because to leave our dimension without the knowledge of where we will finish is a risk none but the foolish and desperate would take.’

‘But you’ve seen other humans,’ said Septern. ‘So you must have been to Balaia.’

‘We receive visions. All dragons do. I have seen the sights of countless dimensions, including yours, when the alignment has been right and they have passed through the sphere of my psyche. But for all we see, we cannot travel to these places to establish links unless we are shown the way or manage to arrive with luck after a blind flight.’ Sha-Kaan settled on to his stomach, folding his front legs in front of his chest, scales glittering gold as they caught the reflection off the river. Septern moved back to accommodate him. ‘We want you to show us the way to your dimension.’

Septern scoffed. ‘I’m sure you do,’ he said. ‘But if you don’t mind, I think I’ll pass on the sort of help you offered the Avians. I like my land and at least some of the people in it.’

‘Stubborn human,’ hissed Ara-Kaan.