Dragon Soul (20 page)
Authors: Jaida Jones
“Not with these old bones, but you’re a kind lad to pretend.” Nor chuckled, looking pleased. “We wanted to draw up a map for you, but it was a hell of a job finding anyone who could write directions in the first place, let alone a stinkin’ cartography expert.”
“Any kind you found down here
would
be stinkin’,” I quipped, rolling up my sleeves. “Don’t worry about me, I’m as good as a bloodhound once I’ve got some kind of direction to follow.” Little did Nor know how close to the truth that actually was.
I’d started packing what meager belongings I’d brought—mostly clothes that I could layer over what I was already wearing in case it got cold on the road at night. I would have to make a stopover in my own home to get real supplies for the journey—chiefly a more universal disguise than a Molly dung-rat, since one could never tell
who
they might end up needing to impress. Outside of Molly, looking as poor as dirt closed more doors than it opened, even if it was heaps more comfortable than wearing a corset.
“You would be,” Nor said, fishing around in one of his pockets for something. He came up with a grimy piece of paper, folded twice, and thrust it at me as I passed him while looking for a scarf.
“Thanks,” I said, snapping it up between two fingers. On it was an almost childlike scrawl, wide-looped letters in a shaky hand that directed me straight through the lower Volstovic countryside and below the Cobalt Range. “Shit. That’s farther than I thought, hey?”
“You won’t be needing that,” he replied, gesturing to the scarf. “They told me the road goes south for miles. You’re like as not to end up in desert country, then you’ll look like a right proper fool with all them scarves.”
“All right, then,” I said, and looped it quickly about his shoulders before he could blink. “You keep it. You could use something to cover up that turkey neck of yours anyway.”
“No respect for your elders,” Nor growled, in a way I’d come to understand
meant he was touched. It was fascinating what emotion people could conjure simply by changing the tone and quality of their voice. I would have to work on that myself. Since it was no longer practical, I’d forgotten the natural way of it.
“’Course not,” I said, securing the last of my belongings in a tatty little bag I’d brought along with me. There was one last matter to attend to, much as I hated to bring it up. If it’d been up to me, I’d have given Nor the whole pot and never looked back, but a hefty sum of money could bring just as much trouble as no money at all down in Molly. “You brought my money?”
“Sure did,” Nor said, shaking a sack of coins out of a different pocket. “Was waiting for you to ask too. Gotta keep a youngster’s instincts sharp. Especially with you going away and all, won’t have ol’ Nor around to look after you.”
I took the bag, and made a show of counting it.
“You already take your share?” I asked.
“I did,” said Nor.
“Good,” I said, and slapped two more coins down on the table. “One’s thanks for taking me to the market, one’s for you to go and buy yourself a nice, stiff drink, all right? I don’t wanna come back here and hear you’ve been
saving
them or something foolish like that. You got it?”
“Damn kids,” Nor muttered, but he pocketed the coins. That much generosity, and the promise of more to drink, was acceptable for a man in Nor’s position, no matter what pride he still had left.
I took a look around the little room I’d rented out for my stay in Molly. It was, to put it simply, the most god-awful wretch of a hovel I’d ever stayed in. The only way to ever make it clean again would be to burn the whole piece of shit down and start building it again from scratch. I hadn’t taken leave of my senses, and so I could hardly pretend—even to myself—that I was going to miss it. Still, there had been something very enjoyable about the freedom I’d experienced during my time in Molly. Certainly, it stank to high heaven, and you didn’t know what you were stepping in more often than not, but there was no one to answer to beyond yourself and no duty beyond surviving another day. It had been refreshing, and I was sorry in some respects to give it up for the life of precautions and pretenses I now faced.
“Well,” I said.
“Well,” Nor agreed.
“Be seeing you when I make my fortune,” I finished, swinging my pack up onto my shoulders. I would be sad to leave Nor behind, but the truth of the matter was, he would soon forget about me—or assume I’d hit it big in the desert and never returned. He could imagine, with what little imagination he had, that I was sitting on a carpet and drinking wine, surrounded by camels and dancing girls and giant fans, and he’d sigh and drink to me until he found someone else to drink to. That was life.
I clasped Nor’s shoulder firmly—a good manly gesture—and he clapped me on the back with one of his large hands. It made the voice box in my throat rattle; I cleared my throat to hide the sound.
“Take care of yourself out there, or you’re no Mollyrat,” he told me.
“I will,” I promised him, and walked out the door into the night.
I woke up because Rook was shaking me. It was still dark out, and I had no idea where I was.
“Read this,” Rook said, and shoved a letter in my face.
Needless to say, I was somewhat perplexed. On top of that, my entire body was aching. The beds in Karakhum were far from luxurious—or at least, the beds in the establishment Geoffrey had managed to reserve for us—and I must have slept strangely on my left arm, because I’d lost all feeling below the elbow.
It was not my most glorious moment.
“What’s it?” I asked.
Luckily, Geoffrey was not there to hear me sound like an imbecile.
Rook gave me a funny look over the top of the letter, and I reached up to take it with the hand that still worked before I could embarrass myself any further. The other one was tingling back to life as I tried to remember where and who I was.
“It’s a letter,” Rook said, like he thought I’d taken leave of my senses at last. “You’re always so keen on reading, so why don’t you read
this?”
“Ah,” I said, blinking rapidly and rubbing my poor arm back to life. “Yes. I’m sorry. Just a moment.”
I stared at the letter. Everything was slightly blurred, due to the fact
that, on our second week of traveling, my reading lenses had “mysteriously” turned up broken. I had my suspicions, but nothing could ever be proven one way or the other. In any case, I had no way to commission a new pair, and the light in the room was dim enough that I was going to have a headache by the time I was through.
The writing itself was unfamiliar but plain enough.
“It’s from Adamo,” I informed him, after a quick scan.
“Got that,” Rook said, waving his hand impatiently. “I know what it looks like.”
I cleared my throat, lifted the letter, and read out loud.
Thom
—, it began.
I’m not much in the habit of writing letters, so don’t judge this one by any standards. Things in Thremedon are the same as ever, and the citizens being as resistant to change as they always were. There was some talk of tearing down the old Airman and replacing it with a proper monument a while back, but we straightened them out, reminding them it
was
about as proper as the likes of us deserved. You can tell Rook his statue’s become something like the patron saint for Our Lady, and you can see whores there night and day, praying for safe childbirth and protection from diseases and the like. Though why they think
he’s
the man to go to for that kind of help is beyond me. Just thought he might like to know there’re whores on their knees in front of him—so I guess that goes back to what I was saying about things never changing
.
Rook snorted.
As to your mention of the dragons, I can’t say I’m too surprised. Men’ll do all kinds of shit in wartime, so it only stands to reason they’d do the same kinds of shit after wartime is through. I didn’t know how much help I’d be on my own, so I consulted with a friend of mine. Rook, of course, remembers the “Mary Margrave,” and maybe you do too
. He
said that I was off my rocking groove just asking about trying to track down the dragons, and that the Esar himself’s already put one of his spies on the case. Now, I’ve gone and committed treason putting that bit in, but I’ll just have
to hope no one gets too curious about this letter before it reaches you. No one usually reads my mail, even the poor shits I send letters to. Anyway, fair warning that you aren’t the only bastards from Thremedon out looking for a needle in a haystack. Roy says those spy-magicians are a nasty piece of work, and none of them welcome in the Basquiat. Sounds pretty paranoid to me too, but that’s the shake. If the Esar’s after what’s left, then you can bet there’s something to look for, so I guess one of you has as good instincts as they ever did. Bastion knows Rook can look after himself, and I daresay you can too well enough, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be on your guard if someone’s out there looking for what we went and left behind
.
Sure, there might be magic-doers in the desert. Them magicians that put a little of themselves into our girls, more specifically. Roy says that these poor fools were meant to be banished better than he ever was, and I’ll take his word for it, seeing as how he knows more about the creation of the dragons than I ever will. My expertise, as you know, comes in well after they were built, but that won’t stop me from doing what I can. What’s more, it seems like the one you’d be most interested in, the magician responsible for Havemercy, is what you might call infamous in certain circles. Banished about as far as the Esar could banish the poor fool, or so it’s said. Desert seems as good a shot as any—not that it’s the sort of thing his highness would let the Basquiat know about, so I’ve run out of leads there beyond what Roy calls a suspicion. But his hunches are usually good, and seemed like he approved when I told him your direction. You didn’t hear it from me, but I think you might just be on the right track, except I’m not a snooping man, and that’s all you’ll get
.
Not much else information I can send your way. Roy says he’ll look into it all and I guess I’ll pass what I can on, unless it’s a matter of statewide secrecy, in which case I might or I might not. No use getting my balls strung up over a wild-goose chase, not that I wouldn’t rather be out there sweating and dealing with Rook. A man feels alive when he’s yelling at a stubborn bastard in ways he can’t when that stubborn bastard’s off and gone, so good luck filling my shoes and remember to be loud if you can
.
As for the rest, the weather is fine and such. Luvander has opened a hat shop, which you may have heard from your pen pal already. Good luck as you will need it
.
I didn’t need to read out his signature, which was quite like the man himself—a sturdy block print of his last name with an X after it, nothing overly fancy, and yet nonetheless incredibly impressive. I folded the letter back up and let it drop into my lap.
“Well,” I said, “that’s good to hear about the…er…whores, anyway.”
“Shut up,” Rook said, but there was a weariness in his voice, and he lacked his usual venom. I was worried about him, though that was the most foolhardy emotion to experience when it came to Rook.
Perhaps he missed his friend—if Adamo could even have been called that.
Or perhaps he was offended at the idea of an airman running a haberdashery.
But, of course, it was far more than that—a deep vein of grief he could only express through anger, and even that was wearing thin. I swallowed uncertainly.
“He has been quite helpful,” I offered. “Hasn’t he? There’s a lot to go on, here, and if Margrave Royston says that a dragonmaker—your dragonmaker, to be precise—is likely to be in the desert—”
“I ain’t thinking about that right now,” Rook ground out. “Read that part again, about one of th’Esar’s people being on the job.”
I obliged him. Rook wasn’t exactly a theoretical thinker, but his critical analysis was excellent; he could immediately pick out the necessary information, when he put his mind to it, and it stood to reason that he would understand straightaway the most troubling aspect of Adamo’s letter.
We were on to something. We had to be, if the Esar himself was looking into it.
“I don’t like it,” Rook said, folding his arms over his chest. “I don’t like any of it.”
“Neither do I,” I admitted. Aside from how troubling it was that the Esar was capable of exiling those most useful to him because of their potential usefulness to others—an abuse of power that unsettled my very personal understanding of justice—it was difficult to address the
sudden knowledge that he seemed intent on hunting down all evidence that remained of his dragons and their inventors. If Adamo’s information was anything to go by, then one could only imagine what the Esar intended to do with it once he found it.
“He wants to destroy them,” Rook said finally. “I
know
it.”
“I’m not sure we can assume—” I began, but Rook snorted.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Rook said. “That’s the kind of man he is. He’s got power and he wants to make sure he’s the only one who has it. So he’s got his men going off to find everything they can. Sure, he doesn’t want the Ke-Han or who the fuck ever to get their hands on ’em—the dragons or the magicians or anyone who fucking knows anything—but I bet you good fucking money that if we got in his way, he’d have us slit open just like we were the enemy too—like neither of us’ve ever done anything for him. He’d forget that, easy as you forget a one-night bitch. We
done
our duty. We’re worth
shit
to him.”
It was a sobering thought, but not entirely off the mark, either. I breathed out slowly, trying to find some logical way around it.
There was none.
Rook knew the Esar better than I did, but my own experiences with him led to the exact same conclusion. Simply put, that
was
the kind of man the Esar was. He was in a position of power that I couldn’t possibly understand, so perhaps I should not have been so quick to judge him for it. Yet the point of the matter was, he would hunt us down the same as he would a Ke-Han spy if he thought we intended to get between him and his goal.