Rain Wilds Chronicles (199 page)

“My lord, favored of the gods, beloved of the people, I fear you attempt too much too soon. Your recovery has been swift, but so quick an improvement, if followed by too much activity, may lead to a relapse and—”

“Be quiet or die.” The Duke kept his response short. He knew the wisdom of not taxing himself just as he was starting to recover. But to no one else could he entrust this errand. “Carry me to her chambers, set down the chaise, and leave. Stand ready outside the door until I summon you. Do not otherwise disturb us.”

Last night, after the dragon man's blood, he had eaten and drunk wine with pleasure for the first time in months. When he awoke, he could sit up in bed, and could control his bowels once more. He had not soiled himself, nor spat blood today. He knew it was soon to demand to be conveyed to his daughter's presence, but it was a risk he had weighed well. Beneath the light coverlet, he grasped a knife in each hand. If she saw fit to show her vicious side, he would kill the bitch regardless of the consequences. But if she could be reasoned with at all, there might be great benefit for both of them. He intended to show her that.

He had sent a messenger ahead, to inform her of the visit. He had no wish to have a vase flung at him. Something almost a smile hovered at the corners of his withered lips. She got her spirit from her father. Briefly, he considered ordering that all heavy objects be removed from her rooms. No. That was not how to begin with her. She must not think that he feared her, or know, completely, just how much power she held. This would be a delicate negotiation, one only he could perform.

The locks were unfastened. “Knock!” he ordered the guard who had begun to open the door. The startled man hesitated as if questioning his order. Then he hastily rapped on the heavy panel of the wooden door and called out, “Lady Chassim, you are honored with a visit from the Duke!”

A moment of silence stretched almost long enough to be insolence. Just short of defying him, she called, “Enter and honor me, then.”

His guards looked uncertain. Had she mocked the Duke? Were they required to kill her? It was almost amusing, and he nodded for them to obey.

They carried him into a sunny room with thick carpets on the floor. There was a cage of songbirds in one corner and a table with a silver bowl of fresh fruit from his hothouse. Evidently courtiers had already begun to send her favors. How quickly word spread in his court! He narrowed his eyes and decided to put a stop to it. Nothing must enter this room save that he sent it. To him she must come for any little favor she sought. She must depend on him for every single thing, even a glass of water or a husk of bread. For he knew his life now depended on her.

“A pleasant room,” he reminded her as they lowered his chair to a spot before her hearth. A slight motion of his head dismissed his guards and bearers. He did not deign to watch them leave. He would not take his eyes off her. Witches were best watched closely. She had muffled herself most peculiarly, covered her entire body in drapery from head to foot. All he could see was her face, but at the same time he took in the details of the room. He listened to the door close behind them as he met his daughter's gaze.

A divan in the corner held his dragon man. He was very still, but the sheet that swathed him rose and fell. By the divan were a tray bearing partially consumed food and a glass with the dregs of wine in it. So, she had fed him and the creature had eaten. Good. “Plenty of sunlight,” he added to her lack of response.

“There would be more were there not bars on the window.”

“That is true. Would you like me to have the bars removed? Or move you to larger quarters that do not have bars on the windows?”

That unbalanced her. The flicker of uncertainty in her eyes warmed him more than her fire did.

She drew a breath, hesitated, then bravely countered, “I would wish to go back to my own quarters among your women, free to walk the gardens and use the baths as I once did.”

“Impossible, I am afraid, for it would scarcely do for my dragon man to be quartered among my women. I do not trust them as I do my only daughter.”

The uncertainty was consternation now, and she could not mask it. Wariness swam behind her eyes. “What do you want?” she asked bluntly. “Why have you come to see me after years of banning me from your presence?”

He stared at her for a time, and she held his regard.
She looks,
he thought,
more like me than her mother. I should have seen that years ago. There is more of me in her than in any of the sons who failed me. I have battled my dilemma, and the solution was before me the whole time.
A rush of inspiration filled him. He kept his voice low. “I know what you've done. And I know your ambition.”

A shadow of fear flickered across her face, but she did not speak.

“You sought to stir insurrection against me. Rebellion. Your exhortations were skilled, for a woman. But you sought your alliances in the wrong places. To build a throne, you must build on stone, not flowers. I am stone.”

“I don't understand.”

He hadn't intended that she should. He needed to draw her into the conversation, to make her think she negotiated for what he would offer her. “You should have come to me with your ambitions for power. Am I not your father? As much of my blood flows through you as through any son I sired. Did you think I would find your craving for power reprehensible rather than true proof you are worthy to be my daughter? To be my heir.” He dropped his voice on the last words and was gratified to see her lean forward to catch them.

She swayed slightly; the offer had dizzied her. But she recovered quickly. “Mother of your heir, perhaps. Ellik told me the terms of your agreement when he . . . visited me here. I will be the cow that drops a calf for both of you.”

That explained the fading shadow of bruise on her face. Ellik had been quick to take him up on his offer. The Duke rather hoped she was not pregnant. He did not want her mawkish with maternity, not until his own health was fully restored. And that, he was convinced, rested on her keeping his dragon man alive and well.

“I will not allow him to ‘visit' you again, if that is what you wish. I will move you to better, larger quarters where your ward can have a chamber of his own, and there are no bars on the windows.” He thought of a set of rooms in a tower not far from his own. Windows set so high in a sheer wall had no need of bars on them. She was staring at him. Recklessly, he enlarged the offer. “And you, not Ellik's child, shall be written as my heir. With the power to choose your own consort, when the time for that is right.” He paused. What other female silliness might please her?

“Why do you come offering me these things?” She did not even pretend to be anything other than astounded. And cautious.

“Because you have proven yourself worthy,” he told her grandiosely. “I do not think you really sought to overthrow me,” he lied. “Even you must have seen that you could not come to power in a land torn by civil war. Every warlord beneath me would have risen, seeking to claim my throne, with you the swiftest path to legitimacy. No matter how many women you could rally to your cause, they would swiftly be subdued by their own husbands and fathers and sons. No. You cannot rest your throne on frail flowers, my dear. You must build it on the stone of your father's strength.”

He lifted a hand and gestured casually at the dragon man. “I gave you a task, thinking that I would test where your loyalty lay. Would you obey my request, or purposely kill the valuable creature put into your keeping? You knew that I wished him restored to health. And, my Chassim, you have passed my test of you. Last night when he was brought to me, I found his health much improved. And by that I knew that your wishes aligned with mine.”

“He was swooning when they returned him to me, his wrist chewed as if an animal had been at him.”

She spoke the accusation in a low voice. He felt a muscle twitch and thought of killing her. How dare she? Instead, he smiled affably. “Another small test. And again, you have passed it. I see that you have made him comfortable, have persuaded him to eat and drink. I do not doubt that soon you will have restored him even more completely than he was last night. You have done well, daughter. And that is why I have come to see you, and to offer you your earned reward. Continue as you have begun. This very day, you and your charge will be moved to better quarters. If there is food or drink you wish, music or books or flowers, make your desire known to the servants I will give you. And it shall be done.”

“Freedom to come and go as I please?”

He smiled again, but he was wearying of her. “In time, perhaps. For now, I think you will be too busy taking care of our special guest. Occupy your time and thoughts with tending to him. As you can see, my health is improving. Soon I will begin instructing you in the ways of power. Before I can formally declare you my heir, I must show you well groomed for the position. It has been long since a woman has come to power in Chalced. The way must be prepared for you, my dear.”

He took a breath. Tired. Time to return to his bed, to sleep. Tired, yes, but not sickened with weariness. Only tired as any man would be after having to deal with a witch. She opened her mouth to speak. He lifted a cautioning finger. “Later,” he said. “After you have had time to think well, and have shown me, yet again, that you can employ your skills for love of me.” He nodded toward the supine dragon man. Then he lifted his voice. “Guards! I wish to return to my rooms.”

They entered with alacrity. Had they feared for his safety? Good. To his daughter he said, “You see. They respect your abilities as I do.” As they lifted his chair, he leaned back on his cushions. Let her ponder what he meant by that.

“Y
ou are awake.”

He opened his eyes. The room seemed very bright, and he quickly lidded them again. He felt her hands on him. They were light and cool as she felt his brow and then slipped her fingers down to his throat to touch his pulse.

“Don't go back to sleep. Not until you've eaten and drunk.”

“To make me strong.” He could manage no more than a hoarse whisper. “So your father can bleed me again.”

She didn't deny it. “I knew you were awake and listening. And yes, for now, that is what we must do, to buy time for ourselves.”

“I must live, waiting for him to want to use me again? That is why I should get better?” He did not have the strength to put the full outrage he felt into his voice.

“Not so different from what I have had to do, and more than once,” she hissed back at him. “Do you think that to be kept in a pen and fed like a fattened bullock is so different from being confined until you are bred like a cow for the calf you may drop? Yes. It will be hard for you. It has been hard for me. But we are both still alive. And that is what it will take for both of us to remain alive long enough for us to make a different plan.”

“What plan?” He hated that her words made sense to him. He wanted her to be wrong, wanted to be offered a future that did not include the ghastly old man's withered lips sucking at his wrist.

“If I knew already, we would not have to make it. Here. Let me help you to sit up a little. I want you to drink some wine and eat something. It seems you can have whatever you wish to eat or drink now. Is there anything you would fancy? Anything that would tempt your appetite?”

“Meat. Fresh meat,” he demanded. He spoke the words without thinking and then fell suddenly silent. He looked up to find her staring at him quizzically.

“Just a touch of the dragon speaking,” he said, meaning it as a jest. But he wondered.

Day the 12th of the Plough Moon

Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

From Sealia Finbok, of the Bingtown Traders

To Hest Finbok, of the Bingtown Traders

 

To be held at the Cassarick Traders' Hall.

My dearest son, how can you leave us in such suspense? All matter of strange tidings have my friends received from the Rain Wilds, and yet not a word from you! My dear, it is humiliating that I must hear tales of dragons sighted, and the mysterious and sudden departure, upriver, of the very impervious ship that you were on! I am told that it set off without a word to anyone, and that several very important Traders appear to have departed with it! If you know anything of this delicious bit of gossip, I implore you, send me tidings by bird at your earliest possible opportunity! All my friends are boiling with curiosity. Some are saying it was an incredible trading opportunity that led the boat to depart immediately, and others that it has to do with the other ship that followed the
Tarman
upriver.

My friends are speculating that you have dashed off on a mad adventure to find your missing Alise. They imagine all sorts of romantic reunions and rescues, but I will tell you again, I have always found her an unsuitable match for you. I do hope you will not put yourself into any danger or great inconvenience for her sake.

I am trusting that you will contact me almost immediately, by the swiftest messenger bird that can be hired!

Your loving mother

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

Hostages

W
e're wasting our time, Cap,” Skelly said. She stood squarely before Captain Leftrin as she spoke. “It's too dark down there, the drop is too long, and the Silver too shallow. We'll never bail up any Silver dropping that bucket. It lands wrong every time. Weight it to tip on its side, and it's going to stay tipped on its side, spilling out any Silver it might take in as we haul it back up.”

She paused to draw breath. All around the well mouth, the few keepers who had gathered remained silent. Three fruitless days of fishing for Silver had brought them only discouragement. Carson had insisted today that regular work be resumed. So some had gone to the hunt to add meat to their stores while most of Tarman's crew was back at the docks, tending Tarman or working on reinforcing the dock. Thymara and Tats had returned to the well to see if any progress had been made.

“You saying we should give this up?” Leftrin scowled down at her.

“No, sir. I'm saying, it's going to take hands. You have to let me try. I'm the smallest and lightest of the crew. And you need someone with some muscle in her arm for the climbing part. It has to be me. Sir.”

Tats lowered his eyes, and beside him, Thymara was silent. She knew they both agreed with the deckhand. Skelly was the one for the job. At the same time, she suppressed a shudder. She could not imagine trusting her life to a length of rope, let alone descending so deep into a cold, lightless hole in the ground. Just the thought of it made her queasy. The job might need hands, but they wouldn't be hers.

“I'm not going to trust your life to a piece of line that long.” Captain Leftrin was blunt. “Your rigging skills won't be much use to you if your hands are numb from cold. If the rope breaks, you die from touching the Silver. We heard that from Mercor himself. So. That's not going to happen.”

“Then
you're
saying we're giving up?” She was so astounded that she forgot the “sir.”

“Not giving up. Just not doing it your way. We've got a lot of salvaged chain. In pieces. I don't know what broke it into lengths, but whatever did it is a lot stronger than a man with a hammer. I had Big Eider working on some last night, trying to see if he could open some links and hammer it back together. No luck so far. But once we get it mended, if we can make it long enough, then I might trust it to take someone down that hole. Not you, but someone.”

“Sir, I—”

Her offended protest was cut short. Distant trumpets were sounding. Everyone froze, and then the meaning dawned on them.

“The dragons are coming back!” Lecter shouted. “Sestican! Sestican!”

“Fente will want a hot soak and a grooming.” Tats sounded almost apologetic.

“As will Sintara.” Thymara knew what it meant. Until the dragons were bathed and groomed, their lives would not be their own. And as Sintara did not enjoy the company of any of the other queens, chances were that she would not see Tats for that time. She felt a pang that surprised her. Had she so quickly become accustomed to spending her days with him? It had been simpler without Rapskal and her feelings for him complicating her life. And with that thought came another on its heels. She would have to deal with Rapskal again and what he was becoming. A shiver of dread went through her. Each time she saw him, he was stranger. And more of a stranger.

“Are you coming?”

The others, keepers and ship's crew, had already begun hurrying back toward the Square of the Dragons. Tats had paused to wait for her. “I'm coming,” she replied, and she hurried to catch hands with him before they ran together.

B
y twos and threes, the dragons arrived. The boasting and trumpeting and the cries for attention from the keepers made it nearly impossible to get a coherent account of what had happened. Fente was disgusted that she had had to land in the river and walk about on the mud. She had made several kills on the journey home, all in the muddy margins of the river, and insisted that she was filthy even though, to Tats's eyes, she was her green gleaming self.

Her account of how the dragons had flown into battle, cowing the evil humans into submission by virtue of their glittering beauty, seemed far-fetched to him. “So you captured them all without shedding a drop of blood?” he asked as he inspected her claws after her long soak in the hot water.

She stretched her toes languorously. He found a bit of grit caught between two of them and diligently brushed it away.

Some died. One demanded to be eaten, so Spit ate him. Some jumped in the river and drowned. Some ran off in the forest, and so we left them. Then they had a fight among themselves on the way here, and some of them were injured. Stupid humans.

“I see,” Tats said quietly. “And Tintaglia, who you went to rescue?”

“Dead by now. We were too late. All we could do was avenge her. Kalo remained behind with her, to eat her memories when she was gone.”

Tats looked away from her. Tears stung his eyes. So the firstborn child of the king and queen of the Elderlings must perish as well. “That will be hard for Malta to hear.”

“She is deaf now?” Fente asked, her curiosity idle. Tats shook his head and gave it up. From the way she dismissed the events, he knew there was no use in asking for details. She would be far more interested in telling him what she killed and exactly how it tasted than in explaining to him how a battle had been won and two ships captured.

Or so they claimed. Not all the dragons had returned yet. Of the ships and Rapskal and Heeby there was no sign, nor of Kalo, Mercor, and Baliper.
They are coming, very slowly,
she had explained to him. And then she demanded that he clean very carefully around her eyes, for she feared she had picked up water ticks from hunting in the river.

He had just finished that task when he heard more trumpeting from the river.
The others have returned,
she told him. He followed Fente out to the square where she launched into the air without a word of farewell. She was off to the hunt. She had no interest in ships or homecomings, not while her stomach was empty. He watched her depart and then followed the other keepers down toward the city docks.

That area had changed substantially since Tarman's return. Leftrin and his crew had turned to, making a dozen small changes to Carson's handiwork and expanding it in other ways. Tarman was now tied securely within a slip, his lines run to stout shore anchors as well as to an anchor set in the river to keep him from being driven against the shore. It looked to Tats as if the ship could not possibly be torn free, but Leftrin insisted that two hands be aboard him at all times, and none of the crew seemed to think that odd.

When the dragons had arrived and told them that they could expect two more vessels to dock soon, the first reaction had been disbelief. It had been followed by activity that reminded Tats of a stirred-up wasps' nest as keepers and crew frantically tried to make space for two more boats at their ramshackle dock while dealing with the demands of the dragons.

Mercor had been the first of the dragons to land. He came in gracefully, landing against the river's current and sending a plume of water rooster-tailing behind him. He had calculated his speed precisely and emerged quickly from the water to Sylve's shouts of admiration.

But his first words had not been a greeting but a query. “Have you found Silver yet? Is the well cleared?”As the other dragons landed and made their way to shore, he listened gravely as he was told that only a small quantity of the precious stuff had been pulled up from the well, and that efforts to reach the bottom of the well had been suspended by news of the dragons returning with two ships.

“And the Silver you did find?” he asked avidly.

The small quantity of the precious stuff had been carefully poured into an Elderling flask made of heavy glass and placed in the center of the table where the keepers dined. There it sat and shimmered, casting an unearthly glow of its own into the room. Tats had been certain that Malta and Reyn would try to apply it directly to the child, but they had not. Perhaps Kase's small mishap had persuaded them of its danger. In the transfer from the large bucket to the much smaller flask, a single drop of Silver had fallen onto the back of his forearm. He had exclaimed in fear, and then as the others drew near, he bent his head over his arm and stared at the Silver as it shimmered.

“Wipe it off !” Tats had exclaimed, tossing him a rag.

He had dabbed at it, to no effect. “It doesn't hurt,” he had told them. “But it feels very wrong, all the same.” They had all watched in silent fear as the Silver spread on his skin, outlining the scales on his arm and then almost disappearing.

“Nothing happened,” Sylve said hopefully.

Kase had shaken his head. “Something's happening there. It doesn't hurt, but something is happening.” He'd swallowed uneasily and then added, “I hope Dortean comes back soon. He'll know what to do about this.” In the day since then, he had shed all his scaling where the Silver touched him, and the skin beneath it looked raw and angry. And remained a dull, silvery gray.

Mercor had listened attentively to their tale. “Yes. Dortean will be able to deal with that much Silver, if Kase goes to his dragon promptly.” The golden dragon's eyes had whirled slowly. “And that was all the Silver you were able to bring up?” he asked again.

“I'm sorry,” Sylve had told him, and her dragon had wheeled away from her in silent disappointment.

The other dragons soon knew the full tale and had unhappily conceded that until all the dragons had returned, the vial of Silver would remain untouched. They had accepted the news that the well was all but dry and that the Elderlings would have to work on a device that would lower one of them down to harvest what little Silver there might be. They had not seemed very excited at the news and he guessed the reason. The well was already incredibly deep. They surmised, as he did, that the Silver was all gone.

“Tats!” Thymara called, and he glanced back to see her running toward him. The back of her Elderling tunic stirred as her wings struggled to open. She had confided to him that sometimes that happened when she hurried, as if some part of her thought she should take flight. Now as she came toward him, smiling, the wind lifting her hair, he saw how much the wings were changing her. She carried them, a weight on her back, and even folded, their angles projected up higher than her ears. Lovely as they were, he suddenly wished she did not have them, for they forced him to recognize that all of them were changed as much as she was, just as far from the humans they had been. And all were just as much at risk from the lack of Silver as the dragons were. He thought of Greft, dying of his changes on the journey to Kelsingra. Did such an end await all of them?

“You look so solemn,” Thymara said as she caught up with him.

“I'm a bit worried about Rapskal,” he said, and it was not a lie even if it was not the immediate truth.

They crested the last hill and looked down at the docks. Sintara and Baliper were wheeling overhead, and Spit had flown up to join them. Rapskal circled them on his scarlet dragon. His shouted victory song reached them as a thin whisper on the wind.

Oars powered the two ships that were coming in to dock. They were long and lean, low to the water. Their masts were stripped of sail and folded down to the deck. The oars rose and fell in an uncertain rhythm that spoke either of weariness or of clumsy oarsmen. “Catch a line!” Big Eider's cry rang out as he threw a coiled line to them, and the men who scrambled to catch it were certainly not sailors. They caught it, and then stood staring at it until one of the oarsmen jumped up to take it from their hands.

The rest of the docking proceeded with similar awkwardness. Some of the men on the ships were doing nothing to help, only standing and shouting that they were innocent men, honest Traders from Bingtown, and that they had done nothing to hurt a dragon or to deserve to have their ship stolen from them. Tats and Thymara halted where they stood to watch the spectacle. As the second ship ran into the first, tangling oars and breaking several, the shouts and curses rose in a storm. Other lines were thrown, and a man stood on the raised deck of one of the ships screaming orders that either his crew ignored or did not know how to obey. On the other, a reasonably competent crew ran about frantically trying to protect their vessel.

“This is bad,” Tats said in a low voice. “Fente told me the dragons conquered evil warriors. They don't look like warriors. They look like merchants.”

“Trouble will come of this,” Thymara agreed.

Slowly they moved down the hill to see what the river had brought them.

“L
ike a courting bird,” Big Eider said, and Leftrin growled in agreement. It had driven him nearly mad to see ships handled so. They might not be alive, but they were gracious, well-built craft and they did not deserved to be run into pilings or each other in the course of a simple docking. As they were finally being secured to the dock that he did not completely trust for one ship, let alone three, Heeby landed Rapskal nearby. The young Elderling slid down from the scarlet dragon's shoulder, patted her, and suggested she “go take a long soak, my lovely, and I'll be along to scrub you down soon.” As his darling lumbered off, Rapskal promenaded down to the tethered ships. He stood, looking at his prizes and nodding to himself, prompting Big Eider's remark.