City of Dragons

‘Nothing. Just thinking.’

But as she said it, she became aware of a rhythmic pounding. Something was running, with no effort at stealth, coming up the trail behind them.

‘What is that?’ Tats asked and then glanced at the trees nearby. She knew what he was thinking. If they had to take refuge, climbing a tree might be their best hope.

‘Two legs,’ she said abruptly, surprising even herself that she had deduced that from the sounds.

An instant later, Rapskal came into view. ‘There you are!’ he shouted merrily. ‘Heeby said you were nearby.’

He was grinning, full of joy at finding them. Full of pleasure in life itself, as he always was. Thymara could seldom look at Rapskal without returning that smile. He’d changed a great deal since they had left Trehaug. The boyishness of his face had been planed away by hardship and the approach of manhood. He’d shot up, taller than anyone should grow in a matter of months. Like her, he had been born marked by the Rain Wilds. But since their expedition had begun, he’d grown lean and lithe. His scaling was unmistakably scarlet now, to complement Heeby’s hide. His eyes had always been unusual, a very pale blue. But now the lambent blue glow that some Rain Wilders acquired with age gleamed constantly in them, and the soft blue sometimes had the hard silver bite of steel. Instead of becoming more dragonlike, the features of his face were chiselled to classical humanity: he had a straight nose, flat cheeks and his jaw had asserted itself in the last couple of months.

He met her gaze, pleased at her stare. She dropped her eyes. When had his face become so compelling?

‘We were trying to hunt,’ Tats responded irritably to Rapskal’s greeting. ‘But between you and your dragon, I suspect anything edible will have been scared out of the area.’

The smile faded slightly from Rapskal’s face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he responded sincerely. ‘I just wasn’t thinking. Heeby was so glad to find so much food and it feels so good when she’s happy and has a full belly. It made me want to be with my friends.’

‘Yes, well, Fente isn’t so fortunate. Nor Sintara. We’ve got to hunt to feed our dragons. And if Thymara had brought down that deer, instead of Heeby crashing on it, we would have had enough to give both of them a decent meal.’

Rapskal set his jaw and sounded defensive as he insisted, ‘Heeby didn’t know you were nearby until after she’d killed her meat. She wasn’t trying to take it from you.’

‘I know,’ Tats replied grumpily. ‘But all the same, between the two of you we’ve wasted half the day.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Rapskal’s voice had gone stiff. ‘I said that already.’

‘It’s all right,’ Thymara said hastily. It was unlike Rapskal to become prickly. ‘I know that you and Heeby didn’t mean to spoil our hunt.’ She gave Tats a rebuking look. Fente was just as wilful as Sintara. He should know that there would not have been anything Rapskal could have done to stop Heeby from taking the deer, even if he’d known they were stalking the same prey. The lost meat was not the main source of Tats’s irritation.

‘Well, there’s a way that you can make it up,’ Tats declared. ‘When Heeby’s finished, maybe she can make a second kill. One for our dragons.’

Rapskal stared at him. ‘When Heeby has eaten, she’ll need to sleep. And then finish off whatever is left of the meat. And, well, dragons don’t hunt or make kills for other dragons. It’s just not … just not something she’d ever do.’ At the stern look on Tats’s face, he added, ‘You know, the real problem is that your dragons don’t fly. If they would fly, they could make their own kills and I’m sure they’d love it as much as Heeby does. You need to teach them to fly.’

Tats stared at him. Sparks of anger lit his eyes. ‘Thanks for telling me the obvious, Rapskal. My dragon can’t fly.’ He rolled his eyes in exasperation. ‘That’s a real insight into the problem. So useful to know. Now, I need to go hunting.’ He turned abruptly and stalked off.

Thymara watched him go, open-mouthed. ‘Tats!’ she called. ‘Wait! You know we aren’t supposed to hunt alone!’ Then she turned back to Rapskal. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what made him so angry.’

‘Yes, you do,’ he cheerily called her on her lie. He caught up her hand and held it as he spoke on. ‘And so do I. But it doesn’t matter. You were the one I wanted to talk to anyway. Thymara, when Heeby wakes up from her gorge, do you want to go to Kelsingra? There’s something there I want to show you. Something amazing.’

‘What?’

He shook his head, his face full of mischief. ‘It’s us. That’s all I’m going to tell you. It’s us. You and me. And I can’t explain it; I just have to take you there. Please?’ He was bouncing on his toes as he spoke, incredibly pleased with himself. His grin was wide and she had to return his smile even as she reluctantly shook her head.

Kelsingra. Temptation burned hot. He would have to ask Heeby to fly her over. Riding on a dragon! Up in the air over the river. It was a terrifying yet fascinating thought.

But Kelsingra? She was not as certain about that part.

She’d been to the Elderling city exactly once and only for a few hours. The problem had been the river crossing. The river was rain-full now, swift and deep. It wandered in its wide riverbed during the summer, but now it filled it from bank to bank. A wide curve in the river meant that the current swept most swiftly and deeply right past the broken docks of ancient Kelsingra. Since they’d arrived, the Tarman had made two forays for the far shore. Each time, the current had swept the barge swiftly past the city and downriver. Each time, the liveship and his crew had battled their way back to the other side of the river and then back to the village. It had been horribly frustrating for all of them, to have come so far seeking the legendary city, and then not be able to dock there. Captain Leftrin had promised that when he returned from Cassarick he’d bring sturdy line and spikes and all else needed to create a temporary dock at Kelsingra.

But the young keepers had been unable to wait that long. Thymara and a handful of the other keepers had made the crossing once in two of the ship’s boats. It had demanded a full morning of strenuous rowing to cross the river. Even so, they had been pushed far downstream of the city’s broken stone docks and had to make their tedious way back. They’d arrived in late afternoon with only a few hours of rainy daylight left in which to explore the massive city of wide streets and tall buildings.

Thymara had always lived in a forest. That had been a strange thing to realize. She’d always thought of Trehaug as a city, a grand city at that, the largest in the Rain Wilds. But it wasn’t.

Kelsingra was a real city. The hike from the outskirts to the old city dock, portaging their boats, had proved that to her. They had left their small boats stacked there and ventured into the city. The streets were paved with stone and incredibly wide and empty of life. The buildings were made of immense blocks of black stone, much of it veined with silver. The blocks were huge and she could not imagine how they had been cut, let alone transported and lifted into place. The buildings had towered tall, not as tall as the trees of the Rain Wilds but taller than any human-created thing had a right to be. The structures were straight-sided, uncompromisingly man-made. Windows gaped above them, dark and empty. And it had been silent. The wind had whispered as it crept through the city as if fearful of waking it to life. The keepers who had made the crossing had kept to their huddle as they trudged through the streets and their voices had been muted and swallowed by that silence. Even Tats had been subdued. Davvie and Lecter had gripped hands as they walked. Harrikin had peered about as if trying to wake from a peculiar dream.

Sylve had slipped close to Thymara. ‘Do you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘Whispering. People talking.’

Thymara had listened. ‘It’s just the wind,’ she had said, and Tats had nodded. But Harrikin had stepped back and taken Sylve’s hand. ‘It’s not just the wind,’ he had asserted, and then they hadn’t spoken of it again.

They’d explored the portion of the city closest to the old docks and ventured into a few of the buildings. The structures were on a scale more suited to dragons than humans. Thymara, who had grown up in the tiny chambers of a tree-house home, had felt like an insect. The ceilings had been dim and distant in the fading afternoon light, the windows set high in the walls. Inside, there lingered the remnants of furnishings. In some, that had been no more than heaps of long-rotted wood on the floor, or a tapestry that crumbled into dangling, dusty threads at a touch. Light shone in colours through the streaked stained-glass windows, casting faded images of dragons and Elderlings on the stone floors.

In a few places, the magic of the Elderlings lingered. In one building, an interior room sprang to light when a keeper ventured into the chamber. Music, faint and uncertain, began to play, and a dusty perfume ventured out into the still air. A sound like distant laughter had twittered and then abruptly faded with the music. The group of keepers had fled back to the open air.

Tats had taken Thymara’s hand and she had been glad of that warm clasp. He had asked her quietly, ‘Do you think there’s even a chance that some Elderlings survived here? That we might meet them, or that they might be hiding and watching us?’

She’d given him a shaky smile. ‘You’re teasing me, aren’t you? To try to frighten me.’

His dark eyes had been solemn, even apprehensive. ‘No. I’m not.’ Looking around them, he had added, ‘I’m already uneasy and I’ve been trying not to think about it. I’m asking you because I’m genuinely wondering.’

She replied quickly to his unlucky words, ‘I don’t think they’re here still. At least, not in the flesh.’

His laugh had been brief. ‘And that is supposed to reassure me?’

‘No. It’s not.’ She felt decidedly nervous. ‘Where’s Rapskal?’ she had asked suddenly.

Tats had halted and looked around. The others had ranged ahead of them.

Thymara had raised her voice. ‘Where’s Rapskal?’

‘I think he went ahead,’ Alum called back to them.

Tats kept hold of her hand. ‘He’ll be fine. Come on. Let’s look around a bit more.’

They had wandered on. The emptiness of the broad plazas had been uncanny. It had seemed to her that after years of abandonment, life should have ventured back into this place. Grasses should have grown in the cracks in the paving stones. There should have been frogs in the green-slimed fountains, bird nests on building ledges and vines twining through windows. But there weren’t. Oh, there had been tiny footholds of vegetation here and there, yellow lichen caught between the fingers of a statue, moss in the cracked base of a fountain but not what there should have been. The city was too aggressively a city still, still a place for Elderlings, dragons and humans, even after all these years. The wilderness, the trees and vines and tangled vegetation that had formed the backdrop of Thymara’s life had been able to gain no foothold there. That made her feel an outsider as well.

Statues in dry fountains had stared down at them, and Thymara had felt no sense of welcome. More than once as she stared up at the carved images of Elderling women, she had wondered how her own appearance might change. They were tall and graceful creatures, with eyes of silver and copper and purple, their faces smoothly scaled. Some of their heads were crested with fleshy crowns. Elegant enamel gowns draped them, and their long slender fingers were adorned with jewelled rings. Would it be so terrible, she wondered, to become one of them? She considered Tats: his changes were not unattractive.

In one building, rows of tiered stone benches looked down at a dais. Bas reliefs of dragons and Elderlings, their mosaic colours still bright after all the years, cavorted on the walls. In that room, she had finally heard what the others were whispering about. Low, conversational voices, rising and falling. The cadence of the language was unfamiliar, and yet the meaning of the words had pushed at the edges of her mind.

‘Tats,’ she had said, more to hear her own voice than to call his name.

He had nodded abruptly. ‘Let’s go back outside.’

She had been glad to keep pace with his brisk stride as they hurried out into the fading daylight.

Some of the others had soon joined them and made a silent but mutual decision to return to the river’s edge and spend the night in a small stone hut there. It was made of ordinary river stone, and the hard-packed silt in the corners spoke of ancient floods that had inundated it. Doors and windows had long ago crumbled into dust. They had built a smouldering fire of wet driftwood in the ancient hearth, and huddled close to its warmth. It was only when the rest of their party joined them that Rapskal’s absence had become obvious.

‘We need to go back and look for him,’ she had insisted, and they had been splitting into search parties of three when he came in from the rising storm. Rain had plastered his hair to his skull and his clothing was soaked. He was shaking with cold but grinning insanely.

‘I love this city!’ he had exclaimed. ‘There’s so much to see and do here. This is where we belong. It’s where we’ve always belonged!’ He had wanted them all to go with him, back into the night to explore more. He had been baffled by their refusal, but had finally settled down next to Thymara.

The voices of wind, rain and the river’s constant roar had filled the night. From the distant hills had come wailing howls. ‘Wolves!’ Nortel had whispered and they had all shivered. Wolves were creatures of legend for them. Those sounds had almost drowned out the muttering voices. Almost. She had not slept well.

They had left Kelsingra in the next dawn. The rain had been pouring down, wind sweeping hard down the river. They had known they would battle most of the day to regain the other side. In the distance, Thymara could hear the roaring of hungry dragons. Sintara’s displeasure thundered in Thymara’s mind, and by the uneasy expression on the faces of the other keepers, she knew they were suffering similarly. They could stay in Kelsingra no longer that day. As they pulled away from the shore, Rapskal had gazed back regretfully. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said, as if he were promising the city itself. ‘I’ll be back every chance I get!’

Thanks to Heeby’s powers of flight, he had kept that promise. But Thymara hadn’t been back since that first visit. Curiosity and wariness battled in her whenever she thought of returning to the city.

‘Please. I have to show you something there!’

Rapskal’s words dragged her back to the present. ‘I can’t. I have to get meat for Sintara.’

‘Please!’ Rapskal cocked his head. His loose dark hair fell half across his eyes and he stared at her appealingly.

‘Rapskal, I can’t. She’s hungry.’ Why were the words so hard to say?

‘Well … she should be flying and hunting. Maybe she’d try harder if you let her be hungry for a day or—’

‘Rapskal! Would you let Heeby just be hungry?’

He kicked, half angrily, half shamed, at the thick layer of forest detritus. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘No, I couldn’t. Not my Heeby. But she’s sweet. Not like Sintara.’

That stung. ‘Sintara’s not so bad!’ She was, really. But that was between her and her dragon. ‘I can’t go with you, Rapskal. I have to go hunting now.’

Rapskal flung up his hands, surrendering. ‘Oh, very well.’ He favoured her with a smile. ‘Tomorrow then. Maybe it will be less rainy. We could go early, and spend the whole day in the city.’

‘Rapskal, I can’t!’ She longed to soar through the morning sky on a dragon’s back. Longed to feel what it was to fly, study just how the dragon did it. ‘I can’t be gone a whole day. I need to hunt for Sintara, every day. Until she’s fed, I can’t do anything else. Can’t patch the roof of our hut, can’t mend my trousers, can’t do anything. She nags me in her thoughts; I feel her hunger. Don’t you remember what that was like?’

She studied his face as he knit his finely-scaled brows. ‘I do,’ he admitted at last. ‘Yes. Well.’ He sighed abruptly. ‘I’ll help you hunt today,’ he offered.

‘And I would thank you for that, and it would help today.’ She well knew that Tats had stalked off without her. There’d be no catching up with him. ‘But it won’t do a thing about Sintara being hungry tomorrow.’

He bit his upper lip and wriggled thoughtfully as if he were a child. ‘I see. Very well. I’ll help you hunt today to feed your lazy dragon. And tomorrow, I’ll think of something so that she can be fed without you spending the whole day on it. Then would you come with me to Kelsingra?’

‘I would. With my most hearty thanks!’

‘Oh, you will be more than thankful at what I wish to show you! And now, let’s hunt!’

‘Get up!’

Selden came awake shaking and disoriented. Usually they let him sleep at this time of day, didn’t they? What time of day was it? The light from a lantern blinded him. He sat up slowly, his arm across his eyes to shelter them. ‘What do you want of me?’ he asked. He knew they wouldn’t answer him. He spoke the words to remind himself that he was a man, not a dumb animal.

But this man did speak to him. ‘Stand up. Turn around and let me take a look at you.’

Selden’s eyes had adjusted a bit. The tent was not completely dark. Daylight leaked in through the patches and seams, but the brightness of the lantern still made his eyes stream tears. Now he knew the man. Not one of those who tended him, who gave him stale bread and scummy water and half-rotted vegetables, nor the one who liked to poke him with a long stick for the amusement of the spectators. No. This was the man who believed he owned Selden. He was a small man with a large, bulbous nose, and he always carried his purse with him, a large bag that he carried over one shoulder as if he could never bear to be parted from his coin for long.

Selden stood up slowly. He had not become any more naked than he had been, but the man’s appraising scrutiny made it feel as if he had. His visitors from earlier in the day were there also. Big Nose turned to a man dressed in the Chalcedean style. ‘There he is. That’s what you’d be buying. Seen enough?’

‘He looks thin.’ The man spoke hesitantly, as if he were trying to bargain but feared to anger the seller. ‘Sickly.’

Big Nose gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Well, this is the one I’ve got. If you can find a dragon-man in better condition, you’d best go buy him instead.’

There was a moment of silence. The Chalcedean merchant tried again. ‘The man I represent will want proof that he is what you say he is. Give me something to send him, and I’ll advise him to meet your price.’

Big Nose mulled this over for a short time. ‘Like what?’ he asked sullenly.

‘A finger. Or a toe.’ At the outrage on Big Nose’s face, the merchant amended, ‘Or just a joint off one of his fingers. A token. Of good faith in the bargaining. Your price is high.’

‘Yes. It is. And I’m not cutting anything off him that won’t grow back! I cut him, he takes an infection and dies, I’ve lost my investment. And how do I know that one finger isn’t all you really need? No. You want a piece of him, you pay me for it, up front.’

Selden listened and as the full implication of their words sunk into him, he reeled in sick horror. ‘You’re going to sell one of my fingers? This is madness! Look at me! Look me in the face! I’m a human!’

Big Nose turned and glared at him. Their eyes met. ‘You don’t shut up, you’re going to be a bloody human. And you heard me tell him, I’m not cutting anything off you that won’t grow back. So you got nothing to complain about.’

Selden thought he had already experienced the depths of cruelty that these men were capable of. Two cities ago, one of his tenders had rented him for the evening to a curious customer. His mind veered from recalling that and as Big Nose’s grinning assistant held up a black-handled knife, Selden heard a roaring in his ears.

‘It has to be something that proves he is what you say he is,’ the buyer insisted. He crossed his arms on his chest. ‘I’ll pay you ten silvers for it. But then if my master is satisfied and wants to buy him, you have to take ten silvers off your price.’

Big Nose considered it. His assistant cleaned his nails with the tip of the knife.

‘Twenty silvers,’ he countered. ‘Before we cut him.’

The Chalcedean chewed his lower lip. ‘For a piece of flesh, with scales on it, as big as the palm of my hand.’

‘Stop!’ Selden bellowed, but it came out as a shriek. ‘You can’t do this. You can’t!’

‘As big as my two fingers,’ Big Nose stipulated. ‘And the money here in my hand before we begin.’

‘Done,’ said the buyer quickly.

Big Nose spat into the straw and held out his hand. The coins chinked, one after another, into his palm.

Selden backed away as far as his chains would allow him. ‘I’ll fight you!’ he cried. ‘I’m not going to stand here and let you cut me.’

‘As you wish,’ Big Nose replied. He opened his purse and dropped the money in. ‘Give me the knife, Reever. You two get to sit on him while I take a piece off his shoulder.’

Day the 14th of the Hope Moon

Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

From Kim, Keeper of the Birds, Cassarick to Trader Finbok, Bingtown

Sent in a doubly sealed messenger tube, with plugs of green and then blue wax. If either seal is missing or damaged, notify me immediately!

Greetings to Trader Finbok.

As you requested, I have continued to inspect shipments from my station. You know the hazards this presents for me, and I think you ought to be more generous in rewarding my efforts. My gleanings have been a bit confusing, but we both know that where there is secrecy, there is profit to be made. While there is no direct word of your son’s wife or on the success or failure of the Tarman expedition, I think that tidings I have sent you may be valuable in ways we cannot yet evaluate. And I remind you that our agreement was that you would pay me for the risks I took as much as the information I gleaned. To put it plainly and at great risk to myself if this message should fall into other hands, if my spying is discovered, I will lose my position as Bird Keeper. If that befalls me, all will want to know for whom I was spying. I think that my promise to keep that information private no matter what befalls me should be worth something to you. Think carefully before you rebuke me again for how paltry my tidings are. A man cannot catch fish when the river is empty.

For this reason, you must speak to a certain bird seller in the city, a man called Sheerup on the street of the meat vendors. He can arrange for me to receive a shipment of birds that will return to him rather than to the Guild cages, ensuring the privacy of our communication. He will then pass on my messages to you. This will not be cheap, but opportunities always go to the man who makes them his.

Convey my greetings to your wife, Sealia. I am sure her continued comfort and well-being as the wife of a wealthy Trader are important to both of you.

Kim

CHAPTER FOUR

Kelsingra

She walked the deserted streets alone. A gleaming Elderling robe of coppery fabric sheathed her body. In strange contrast, her boots were worn, and her flapping cloak was mottled with long use. Her bare head was bent to the wind that tugged her hair free of its pinned braids. Alise squinted her eyes against the tearing chill of the moving air and trudged doggedly on. Her hands were nearly numb but she clutched a floppy roll of bleached fabric in her hands. The doorway of a nearby house gaped open and empty, its wooden shutter long rotted away.

When she stepped inside, she gave a shuddering sigh of gratitude. It was no warmer, but at least the wind no longer tore away her body’s heat. The Elderling robe that Leftrin had given her kept her body warm, but it could not protect her head and neck, nor her hands and feet. The susurrus that filled the moving air and tugged at her attention died away. She hugged herself, warming her hands under her arms as she gazed around the abandoned dwelling. There was little to be seen. Outlines on the tiled floor told of wooden furniture long rotted away to crumbly splinters. She scuffed a boot across the floor. The tiles beneath the dust were a rich dark red.