A/N: First things, first. I don't know why, but now not all of the "Chapter number" titles are bold. Fanfiction is not liking me at all, is it? sigh Just… pretend they are. And if anyone has a clue as to why some things aren't italic or bold, maybe that might help me fix it. grumbles Other than that… I don't really have anything to say in this right now. So I'll just keep typing this crap until I get some reviews for my stories. I need them, people! It keeps lunatics like me writing, and not doing other crazy things… like… liberating baboons or something. shrugs Oh, and Ara… I kind of specifically overdid that first description of the dragon to kind of set it apart. And yes, Lady Bevier, he would have kicked butt. Blast those conniving brigands and their rock-throwing skills! And you get a prize! You guessed that the person would be female! Huzzah for you! Your prize is… um… glances around Chocolate! Oh, and I've got a quiz on Quizilla now! It's "Which Elenium character are you?" Which I felt it needed, since that unfortunate site lacks any sort of Eddings quizzes whatsoever. But no worries now, brave people! I have remedied such blasphemy! So go there and check it out!

Disclaimer: I don't own anyone you recognise from the books, but Nightflash and Valmai are mine, along with Bevier's mother, Tsaran, Caedryn, and anyone else who happens to crop up in here.

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Chapter Four

When Bevier came to again, he wasn't alone. His dark eyes flickered over to the large form of the dragon he had seen before. He must be hallucinating, he told himself. It was only a side effect of him being hit so hard on the head. Sitting up, slowly, he saw that the sun had almost set. He raised a hand and put it to his head, closing his eyes.

"Oh, good, you're awake," a voice said to him.

He opened his eyes to find a helm in the likeness of a dragon's face hovering beside him. He yelped a bit and jumped back, only to groan and feel the world spin beneath him. The Cyrinic felt hands that were covered in gauntlets steady him.

"Whoa, there, Rock Boy," the voice said, muffled enough by the mask so that he couldn't tell if it was male or female. "Don't be so skittish, and you won't pass out again." The voice had a strange accent to it, with sort of an exotic flair.

"Who are you?" Bevier asked. His vision cleared and the world stopped spinning.

The armoured person sat back a bit, but did not remove their helm. "A simple dragon knight, trying to make their way in the world. Who are you?"

The young Arcian pursed his lips a bit at their avoidance of his question, but he decided not to press the issue. He wasn't really in a position to ask questions. For all he knew, this person was keeping him captive, and could have sent those brigands upon his friends and himself. Well, let them lie all they want. Bevier was a true and honest person, and he would not lie. That part of his past was just that: his past.

"I am Sir Bevier, the Cyrinic Champion," he said, quite proudly.

"The Cyrinic Champion, hmm?" The voice sounded a bit confused, and the dragon helm cocked a bit to the side. "I've never heard of them."

Bevier was a bit surprised. "Oh, well, it's an order of Church Knights—

"Church Knights?" The tone of the voice was heated this time. "You're a Church Knight?"

"Why, yes, what's wrong with that?" Bevier was baffled by the reaction.

"They aren't anything more than pompous asses dressed in useless armour! They are of no purpose to anyone!"

It was Bevier's turn to get angry. "How dare you speak such slander against us! We've saved the world any number of times over countless centuries, and this is what you think of us?"

"What? Church Knights have never saved the world! They're only used for show and to round up more converts to that blasted Lanokan faith!"

Bevier did a double take. "Lanokan?" he queried.

"Yes, Lanokan! If you're a Church Knight, you know exactly what I'm talking about, you ostentatious ass!"

The Cyrinic felt his cheeks grow hot. "I serve the Elene god, not some blasphemous Styric god!"

"Styric? What are you talking about? That rock hit you harder than I thought," the voice replied.

Bevier stared at his captor a moment. "You aren't from around here, are you?"

"I just flew in from Kran'ahkan, so no, I'm not from around here."

"From where?"

"Don't tell me you haven't heard of Kran'ahkan! Have you never been to the Games?"

Bevier shook his head. "I think you are a long way from where you intended to be," he said gravely.

"What…" The voice trailed off, and the speaker seemed to think about this for a moment. "What are you saying, exactly?"

"I think you're on a different world," the Arcian replied.

"You mean… This isn't… Miomir?" the voice asked hesitantly.

The champion shook his head. "No, it isn't. You're in Eosia."

The armoured captor sat down on the ground, evidently struck speechless. After a few minutes, they asked, albeit suspiciously, "If I'm from a different world, then how do you and I speak the same language?"

Bevier shrugged. " I really can't tell you."

I can. There was that voice again. The Cyrinic's eyes flickered over to the dragon, which had been so silent Bevier had forgotten about it. We dragons can speak every language. It is a trait of ours, and any that have dragon blood in their veins, though even I did not know it extended to worlds beyond our own.

"That doesn't explain how I can—"

You share some blood with me. Remember when you were attacked by that wayward minatan, and I healed you? The dragon knight nodded. We shared blood then. I had to give you some, since you had lost so much.

"Oh."

"Now that we've established that, I believe some names are in order," Bevier said sternly.

The dragon knight looked back at the Cyrinic. "Pardon me, Rock Boy." The gauntleted hands lifted and removed the helm, revealing a smooth, ivory-toned face, surrounded by purplish-black hair, curling and framing the face attractively.

Bevier gasped a bit. The dragon knight was a woman. Her eyes were the deepest purple he had ever seen, set like amethysts in her alabaster face, and they tilted up the slightest bit. Her cheekbones were high and delicately defined and strong at the same time. Her lips were full, the colour of a rose in bloom, and curving up in a wry smile.

"Name's Valmai Morgann," she said to the still shocked Bevier. "That dragon's Nightflash." Leaning toward Bevier a bit, she said, "Hey, Rock Boy, don't pass out again. You looked like you've seen a ghost or something."

"But… you're a woman!"

"I see you've noticed," Valmai said sardonically, sitting back. "What's your point?"

"Women can't be knights! There's too much danger!"

The foreign woman laughed, the sound very musical and rich. "Maybe on your world, Sir Rock Boy, but on mine, it's nearly common practice." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder to Nightflash. "With companions like that, would you go against me?"

Bevier, having recovered a bit from his initial shock, glanced over at the dragon. As if on cue, the beast grinned ominously at him, baring a full set of deadly teeth. The Arcian nodded, seeing the sense in this.

"I suppose you have a point there." He learned to deal with the Atana rather quickly, so he should have minimal trouble dealing with this woman knight. He sighed. Despite his best efforts, however, it would take quite some time getting used to.

Valmai grinned reaching over her right shoulder to draw her well-worn sword. Bevier could tell at a glance—even in the dim light of the campfire; the sun had set by now—that she wasn't lying about being a knight. The sword she handled with apparent skill was most assuredly a knight's sword, and it looked as if had seen many battles. The woman knight grinned easily and ran a finger encased in steel along the blade.

"Eärorfilas and I have been through a lot," she said fondly.

"Eärorfilas?" Bevier asked. Was she… talking about her sword?

"Oh, aye. He's my sword here. We've seen many a-battle, haven't we?" Valmai asked her sword, stroking it lovingly.

"You named your sword?'

The dragon knight shot him a sharp look. "Yes, of course. It is customary among my people. No one else will be so close to you as your sword or your dragon," she replied angrily.

Bevier shook his head. "Forgive me, I did not know." Her expression softened a bit.

"No, I'm sorry. I forgot that I was on a different world." Her face scrunched a bit, and she twisted her slim torso to look back at Nightflash. "How did we get here, anyway?"

His burgundy shoulders, blackened by the inky night, lifted in a dragonish sort of shrug. "I couldn't tell you."

"You were flying! Didn't you notice a change in scenery?" She turned to him fully now, as if forgetting about Bevier entirely. It gave him a moment to look about the camp more.

He spotted his Lochaber by the fire, and crawled forward to get it, only to have his hand grabbed by Valmai's. She wasn't even looking at him; she was still talking with her dragon. He grunted and grabbed the axe with his other hand, then pulled the one she had hold of free, causing the woman to look at him, startled.

She blushed a bit, and drew her hand to her body. "Sorry; warrior's instinct," she apologised.

He nodded. "It's all right."

Valmai watched as he scrutinised the edge of his blade, and made a little noise, pulling out special implements to sharpen it.

"That's a nasty-looking axe you've got there," she noted after a while. He nodded and made a noncommittal noise. "Bet you've done quite the bit of damage with it," she continued. "I've never seen anything like it before. What's it called?"

Bevier looked up from his axe. "It's called a Lochaber axe, and yes, I've done a certain amount of damage with it." He put the sharpening tools away and attempted to get to his feet.

Of course, he was still very unsteady, and didn't quite handle the vertical concept yet, and very nearly fell down. He would have, if Valmai hadn't leapt up and caught him. Though she was strong, Bevier doubted she could have caught him if he had been in full armour. Then again, he probably wouldn't be in this situation had he been in full armour. He leaned upon her shoulder, not really wanting to, but having no other visible option other than to do so as she walked him closer to the fire.

"It doesn't look like you'll be going anywhere for a little while," Valmai noted.

"Are you keeping me captive?"

She laughed again, and as much as Bevier told himself that he wouldn't allow himself to trust this stranger too much, he found himself not being able to do anything but like the sound of her laugh. It was so musical.

"No, I'm not. What would I have to gain from it? I know nothing of who you know, or who's important in your world, or even what sort of reward to ask for you." She grinned crookedly at him. It was a fetching grin. "But if you feel like leaving, then, by all means, be my guest to walk out of here. If nothing else, it will provide us with some entertainment." She patted his shoulder and pushed him gently but firmly back into a sitting position, then checked a piece of meat cooking over the fire on a spit. "You don't seem to have that vertical thing quite figured out yet."

Bevier couldn't help but smile at that, and it didn't look like he had much of a choice at the moment. He was incapacitated, and this woman knight wasn't the worst of company he had been in, and she didn't seem to be planning against him, so he didn't think he was in any sort of real danger. And besides, he was still continuing with Lord Abriel's order; this was more than likely one of the knights the Pelosians had seen, and he probably would gain more information by staying in her camp than by riding all over Pelosia looking for another dragon knight, if, indeed, there were others like her. So he settled back and listened to Valmai's enthusiastic storytelling—she had as much passion for the pastime as Tynian did—and ate the food she offered him with genuine interest, all the while keeping the information stored in the more dutiful part of his memory for Lord Abriel's report.

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"You're not very quiet, are you?" Ulath asked Kalten as he watched the Pandion hack at a particularly resilient bush in their way.

"I don't have to be, so I'm not," the big Pandion replied. Ulath shook his head.

"For all we know, Bevier could be captive to some lunatic somewhere, and you're announcing our position to him. Might as well shout, 'Here we are! Kill our friend before we find you!' to him."

"You're very cynical, Ulath."

"I believe that's the word they use, yes."

The two knights made their slow, indiscreet way through the forest, calling for their lost friend. Bevier's trail following the brigands wasn't too hard to follow, so they did just that. After quite some time walking, Kalten noted:

"He sure did chase them down for a while, didn't he?"

"What, are you getting tired?" Ulath glanced over at his Pandion brother. "You're getting fat, Kalten."

Kalten's face reddened a bit. "I'm not! Just because I eat a lot, it doesn't mean that I'm fat! I need a lot of food to keep going!"

Ulath laughed loudly and pounded Kalten on the back. "I was only kidding," he told the Pandion. "Don't take everything so seriously. You've been really touchy recently. Haven't you had some nice entertainment lately?"

Kalten shook his head. "No, that's not it." He paused, serious for a moment. "I have had this strange feeling as of late, though…"

"Maybe it's your conscious."

"Don't be silly. You know I don't have one of those."

"Ah, yes. How could I forget? But what's this feeling, then?" Ulath pushed aside a few saplings to walk by them, but just happened to let go as Kalten was starting to walk through them.

Giving off a vulgar oath, Kalten shoved his way beyond the saplings. "You had to do that, didn't you?"

"Do what?" Ulath said innocently, his blue eyes wide.

Kalten grumbled something under his breath that the Genidian didn't quite catch. Then he continued, ignoring Ulath for the moment.

"I'm not too sure what it is," he said.

"It is anything like the Troll Gods, or Bhelliom?" Ulath inquired. The Pandion shook his head.

"No, it's from nothing substantial. It's more of a gut feeling."

"Like something bad is going to happen? Or that something's going to go awry?"

"You think more than you look like you do, Ulath," the big Pandion told him. The Genidian shrugged.

"Like I've said before, there isn't much to do in Thalesia while it's snowing. Thinking and meditating suddenly become interesting pastimes if you don't like to watch the snow fall."

Kalten shook his head, then stopped and cocked his head to the side. "Do you hear that?"

Ulath fell silent and listened a moment. "Sounds like a waterfall."

The Pandion nodded. "When in doubt, head for water," he said sagely.

"Where did you hear that?" Ulath wanted to know as they headed toward the sound.

Kalten shrugged. "I just made it up."

"That explains it."

"Explains what?"

"Never mind."

The two knights stopped just short of the waterfall clearing and drew their ready weapons, "just in case", as Kalten's explanation went. Ulath didn't exactly disagree. Moving silently as their chain mail would allow, Ulath and Kalten crept to the waterfall, expecting to find the brigands holding a tortured and unconscious Bevier hostage. They burst through the leaves with a fearsome war cry only to be looked at indifferently—and perhaps a tad annoyed—by Caedryn, who had been happily munching on the sweet grass of the pool's bank before their vociferous appearance. They stared right back at the stallion, aghast.

"Well, at least we found his horse," Ulath said, slipping his axe into its holder.

Kalten sheathed his sword sheepishly. "Boy do I feel dumb," he announced. Ulath shot him a look.

"Only just now?" The Genidian held up a hand to silence Kalten's protest. "Never mind. Maybe we can get Bevier's horse to take us to him."

"A horse?"

"Why, yes, that's what I said. Some of them are dumb, but there are a few that possess a few shreds on intelligence, and I think that Bevier's is one of the latter." The Thalesian walked over to Caedryn and gently stroked the velvety muzzle. "Where's Bevier, hmm? Have you seen him lately? Do you know where he is?"

Caedryn shook his head and finished chewing the current pieces of grass he had in his mouth. Pawing the ground a bit, he whickered, shaking his head again. Blinking, he regarded the massive man before him, then lowered his large green eyes, as if to tell the man he didn't know.

Ulath sighed a bit and looked back at Kalten. "He doesn't know." The Pandion made a face.

"That's what you get for asking a horse," he told Ulath. The horse flicked his tail irritably and snorted. Ulath grinned

"This is Bevier's horse, Kalten. I'm not sure you want to get into any sort of argument with him. You'd look funny with hoof prints on your face."

Kalten chose to ignore that. He was busy trying to puzzle out the whereabouts of either Bevier or the brigands. Both seemed to have dropped out of sight. "The trail led here, though, didn't it?"

"No, it didn't." The Pandion gave Ulath a quizzical look. "We were following the path until you decided you wanted to go chase a waterfall."

"That's right. How could I have forgotten?"

"You were busy trying to get a hoof tattooed on you somewhere." Kalten ignored that, too. Caedryn nickered, the sound remarkably resembling a laugh.

"Logic dictates that we should get back to the path then, doesn't it?"

"It does."

"Then shouldn't we be heading back?"

"We should." Ulath took Caedryn's looks reigns and led him back to the path of crushed and broken foliage they had been following for the better part of the day.

"So we're assuming that Bevier chased after the brigands," Kalten said once they were back on the trail.

"You're attempting at logic, aren't you?"

"Just be quiet and listen. Bevier hunted down the brigands, let's say, and killed them. Or maybe he didn't. Let's run with the idea that he didn't have the chance to kill them all for a while and see where it leads us. He wasn't wearing any armour, but that shouldn't have been that much of a disadvantage. He's a skilled enough warrior for that. And a bunch of half-trained brigands could never be a match for his skill—add on to that his fervour and the way battle always seems to get the better of him, not to mention that axe of his, and you're talking about the imminent doom of some unlucky brigands."

"Right," Ulath conceded. "So why hasn't he come back yet?"

"He could either be still dashing after the rest of the brigands, or he could be captured by them."

"I don't think that they were so fast as to outrun Bevier—even if he was on foot. Which leads to another flaw in that first theory: why would Bevier run down anyone without his horse?"

"So the second one is more likely."

"Of those two, yes. But there could be some unseen component that alters your entire logic." Ulath paused a moment to look over Caedryn. "His horse doesn't seem to be hurt in any way, so he might have been knocked off somehow."

"Maybe," Kalten said and fell quiet, thinking a bit more. "Where's Sparhawk when you need some good, thorough logic?" he muttered.

"You're not doing all that badly trying to copy him. You're technique needs more work though."

"I'm glad you approve," the Pandion said dryly. "But would Bevier allow himself to be taken off his horse?"

"If that's the case, then he was probably knocked off. Maybe someone hit him in the head." Ulath shrugged.

"And dented that thick skull of his? Unlikely."

"Maybe not dented, but perhaps they rattled him enough to knock him out."

Kalten's voice grew glum. "And if that happened, they might be halfway to Cammoria right now, for all we know."

"That might be a bit tough to accomplish in a day," the Genidian remarked.

"So I exaggerated." Kalten dismissed his comment with a wave of his hand. Then he sighed. "It seems all we can do at this point is to speculate."

"And follow the path," Ulath pointed out. "Besides, the bulk of most logic is speculative anyway. Yours is just more so because one, you don't have very much to work off of, and two, you were never that good at it anyway."

"Gee," Kalten said sardonically, "you're such an encouragement to my self-esteem."

"Always glad to help, Kalten." Ulath grinned at him.