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BURNING THAT CLOUDED THE STRAITS OF HYLO, THE OIL AND ASH ON THE WATER, IGNITED COUNTRY. FOREVER AND EVER THE VILLAGES BUM IN HIS PASSAGE, AND THE GRAIN OF THE PEASANTRY, LIFE OF THE RAGGED ARMIES THAT HARRIED HIM BACK TO THE KEEP OF THE CASTLE WHERE PYRRHUS THE FIREBRINGER CANCELED THE WORLD BENEATH THE DENIAL OF BATTLEMENTS WHERE HE DIED AMID STONE WITH HIS COVERING ARMIES.
    FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS THE COUNTRY OF CAERGOTH HAS BURNED AND BURNED WITH HIS EFFACING HAND, A BARREN OF SHIRES AND HAMLETS AND Firebringer HISTORY HANGS ON THE PATH OF HIS NAME.
    I sat on the cold stone floor and laughed and cried quietly, exultantly. I waited there an
     hour, perhaps two, as the “Song of the Rending” ended and began again. I wondered briefly
     if this were the echo of Arion himself, if I was hearing not only the words but the voice
     of the bard my father had killed a generation back.
    I decided it did not matter. All that mattered was the truth of the words and the truth of
     the telling. Arion's song had marked my grandfather as a traitor, but it had preserved the
     land, for what bandit or goblin would care to invade a fire-blasted country? Orestes's
     song had rescued Alecto's name, at the price of flame and ruin and his own life. So when
     Arion's song returned again, I was ready to hear it, to commit it to memory, to wander
     these caves until I recovered the light, the fresh air, the vellum or hide on which to
     write the lines that would save my father's line, my line.
    It did return, and I remembered each word, with a memory half trained in the listening,
     half inherited from a father with bardic gifts. For the first time in a long while,
     perhaps the first time ever, I was thankful for who he was, and I praised the gifts
     Orestes had passed on to me.
    And then, with a whisper that drowned out all other voices, at once the beast spoke. It
     was a dragon!
    So HE HAS SENT ANOTHER FROM UP IN THE LIGHT... O MOST WELCOME . . . THE STRUGGLE IS OVER
     IS OVER . . . REST THERE REST... NO CONTINUING ... NO ... NO ...
    Oh. And it seemed not at all strange now to fall to the monster without struggle or issue,
     to rid myself of the shifting past and the curse of these scars and their burning, and to
     rid all above me of the land's torture . . .
    So I stood there, ridiculously clutching pen and ink, and though it was already darker
     than I could imagine darkness to be, I closed my eyes, and the alien heat engulfed me, and
     with it the evil smell of rust and offal and old blood. The jaws closed quickly around me
     as I heard a man's voice, saying, I HAVE KILLED ARION, AND THE BURNING WILL NEVER STOP.
     THE LAND IS CURSED. I AM CURSED. MY LINE IS CURSED. I DIE.
    And then, like a last sudden gift, a woman's whisper:
    THERE IS POWER IN ALL WORDS, AND IN YOURS ESPECIALL Y .
    *****
    It was the hot fetor that awakened me. I gasped and coughed and closed my eyes immediately
     to the fierce and caustic fumes.
    I was sitting upright in very confined quarters.
    Slowly I tested my surroundings, my eyes clasped tightly against the foul biting mist. I
     stretched my arms, and to each side I felt slippery leather walls.
    It came to me slowly what had happened.
    I sat in the dragon's stomach, like a hapless sailor at the end of an ancient tale.
    I cried out in panic and kicked against the pulsing walls, flailing frantically, but it
     seemed that the great beast had settled and fallen asleep, assured by long experience that
     the dark corrosives of his stomach would do the rest.
    I felt my scars hiss and bubble. The tissue was old and thick as hide, and it would take
     hours for the acid to eat through. There was a fair amount of air, though it was foul and
     painful to breathe. What was left to me was the waiting.
    For a while, for the space, perhaps, of a dozen heartbeats, the absurdity of my quest
     rushed over me like a harsh, seething wave. Four years of wandering across two continents,
     hiding away in castles and