Alar
"A masterful strategy is three-dimensional—the visible action, the concealed purpose, and the ultimate goal."
—Commander Brusdick Gorlin, Elite Forces' Vedona Academy
As we entered our room at the Pilgrims' Lodge, Codric dropped his bags on the floor and sat down on the narrow bed.
"The mattress is as thin as a pancake, and there is no bedding.
" He let out a long-suffering sigh. "The things I have to endure for you.
This is by far the poorest excuse of a room we have ever stayed in. "
At least it was clean, and my initial scan didn't discover any bugs or spiderwebs.
"First of all, you are not doing this for me because you want to be here as much as I do.
Secondly, we knew that there would be no bedding, and that's why we have sleeping bags.
And thirdly, we are lucky to have a private room for just the two of us.
Most of the other pilgrims are sleeping in communal halls and use communal showers.
This room is as fancy as it gets around here. "
Thousands of Elucians came thrice yearly to Skywatcher's Point for the pilgrimage, and they all stayed in this sprawling lodge. In fact, the entire economy of the small town was probably based on accommodating the pilgrims.
I dropped my luggage next to Codric's and walked to the window. "The view more than compensates for the lack of amenities."
"It's pretty out there," Codric agreed. "But it won't make sleeping on this mattress any more comfortable."
"It's just for four nights. You'll live." I shifted my gaze back to the stunning scenery outside the lodge.
I'd seen pictures and vids that tried to capture the natural beauty of this land, but they hadn't done the grandeur of these rugged mountains justice. The constant light show playing in the skies was just the icing on a spectacular cake.
Still, the beauty of these inhospitable mountains couldn't have been what had drawn the first Elucians to them. They were easier to defend than the flats and gentle hills of Eluria or the swamps of Sitoria, but they certainly made survival more difficult in almost every other way.
Had it been proximity to the dragons?
I had studied what I could find about Elucian lore, but there wasn't much that was known to outsiders.
According to the Elucian creation myth, Aurorys had no human beings until the Two-Faced God Elu had opened a divine portal and called people forth from another world, giving a chosen group of them the ability to communicate with dragons. Those had been the first Elucians.
The story was no doubt an allegory and not an actual account of how people had come to be in Aurorys, especially given the mythical numbers.
Seventy-three thousand people had come through the portal, of which precisely seven hundred and thirty-one were chosen by Elu to become the first Elucians.
Three hundred and sixty-five young women and three hundred and sixty-five young men were touched by the god and given the gift of telepathy so they could bond with dragons.
A wise woman had been touched twice and given the additional gift of prophecy, and she'd become the first shaman.
I would have preferred a scientific explanation that didn't involve divine intervention, but we didn't have any, and we could only speculate about our origins.
The oldest human remains discovered to date were estimated to be about fifteen thousand years old, so obviously we weren't the product of natural evolution, which led me to conclude that humans were settlers from somewhere else in the universe.
I didn't believe in divine portals or magical manifestations of something out of nothing, so I had to assume that those first humans had arrived on ships.
Our scientists postulated that there were numerous populated worlds in the universe, but because of our problematic atmosphere and geological conditions, we couldn't launch ships into our own sky, let alone space.
The chaotic conditions also limited communications between our towns and cities to what could be transmitted through cables, so communicating with other beings on other planets was not possible either.
Still, our inability to launch spaceships didn't mean that other intelligent beings couldn't travel through space, and it was possible that one such ship had crash-landed on Aurorys, bringing with it the first settlers.
The Elucians were the oldest civilization on our planet, so if there had been a ship, it had most likely crashed in the Elucian Mountains, but to date, no wreckage had been found.
After the Elucians had been exiled from their land, the Sitorians had combed through every nook and cranny for centuries, searching for dragon eggs, and when they couldn't find any, they'd offered bounties for anyone who did. Many Elurians had taken up the challenge, and yet nothing had been found.
No eggs and no spaceship wreckage.
Besides, even if there had been a spaceship, nothing would remain of it after thousands of years of erosion. It would have turned to dust a long time ago.
If the Elucians knew about an ancient alien landing, they weren't telling. Their civilization had kept written records from its inception, but they guarded them zealously.
Their xenophobia might be well justified given their enemies and having been nearly wiped out of existence more than once, but I had a feeling that they would have been just as reclusive even in the absence of the fanatical Shedun threat.
Part of my secret mission was to find out as much as I could about what the Elucians were hiding, and there were only two places that might contain that information.
One was the Dragon Force Citadel, and the other was the famous Podana Academy, but getting invited to attend the academy was even rarer for an Elurian than becoming a dragon rider.
Anyone with a drop of Elucian blood in their veins had a hypothetical chance of becoming a rider, but only scholars of great renown were invited to the academy, and neither I nor Codric qualified as such.
We could have faked our credentials, but we couldn't cover up our lack of achievements or knowledge.
The Elucian Secret Service would have discovered our subterfuge with minimal effort.
But even as good as they were, they couldn't untangle the complicated web of the upper echelon of Elurian society and figure out that our identities were fake.
"You haven't tried the bed yet." Codric pulled me out of my musings. "I think I will use my sleeping bag to cushion the damn mattress."
I sat on the other bed and stretched my legs in front of me. "Conditions on the trek will be much less comfortable."
Codric sighed dramatically. "I guess it is all worth it for the chance to soar through the sky on the back of a dragon."
"That's right." I leaned my back against the wall.
"Have you given any thought to what would happen if we actually get accepted? The service is for life, and you have other obligations." Codric shifted on his bed to face me. "I'm disposable, but you are not."
I waved a dismissive hand. "First of all, you are not disposable, and secondly, my other obligations, as you call them, are dismal. The family will fume and fuss and pressure me to return, but they can't force me."
Since my father knew where I was and what I was planning to do, the fussing would only be for show. He didn't believe I would succeed and thought that I was foolish to attempt it, but he also agreed that it was worth a try. There was very little downside to my plan and a lot of possible upside.
Codric arched a brow. "They could forward a demand to the Elucian government to return us. We were accepted under false pretenses."
"True." I lowered my voice. "If it is discovered that we lied, both of us will be expelled.
Elucians are very strict about their adherence to the precepts of Truth, but I'm counting on our family wanting to avoid a scandal.
They wouldn't want to tarnish the family name by publicly admitting that their scions lied and cheated to get into the pilgrimage. They would support us."
"Are you sure about that?"
Of course, I was. Codric didn't know that my father was well aware of where we were and what we were attempting, and it had to stay that way.
"I'm pretty sure," I said. "I also have a contingency plan."
Codric smiled. "Of course, you do. You're such a clever bastard. You always have plans within plans."
I smiled. "Naturally."
That was only partially true. There were many things I hadn't figured out yet, but what was the point of planning every detail when there was no guarantee that either of us would get accepted, and if we were, that we would graduate and live to tell the tale.