Rain Wilds Chronicles (203 page)

“Tintaglia,” Malta said suddenly.

He nodded. “I was just thinking of her, too. She was not so bad, for a dragon.”

Malta sat up straighter. “No. I feel her. Reyn, she's not dead. She's coming here.”

Reyn stared at her, his heart breaking. When they had first received the news that Tintaglia was dead, Malta had screamed like a madwoman. He had gathered her up and taken her away from all the others, even Tillamon. They had sat together with their doomed child, sat and rocked and wept and ranted behind closed doors. And when it was done, a strange calm had fallen over her. He thought perhaps it was a woman's way, to come out of such a storm of emotion and pain as if she were a ship emerging onto calm seas. She had seemed, not at peace, but emptied of sorrow. As if she had run out of that particular emotion and no other one arose to take its place. She had tended Ephron with gentleness, even during the long hours when his shrill keening nearly drove Reyn mad. She had seemed to be absorbing every sound, every scent, every sight of her child back into herself, as if she were a stone taking his memories into her.

It had frightened him, but this was worse.

“She's dead, Malta,” he said gently. “Tintaglia's dead. The dragons told us so.”

“The dragons were wrong!” she insisted fiercely. “Listen, Reyn! Reach out to her. She's coming, she's coming here! She's in a lot of pain, she's hurt, but she's alive and coming here.” She reached for the baby and whisked him out of Reyn's arms, standing suddenly. “There's a chance, just a chance she can save him. I'm going to meet her.”

He watched her stride away from him. Then he glanced back at the others gathered at the other end of the hall. They were still deep in their discussion. None of them seemed aware of anything unusual. But Malta had seemed so certain. He stood still and let his eyes close. He reached out, opening himself, trying to still all his own thoughts.

Tintaglia?

Nothing. He sensed nothing. Nothing except the pain of looming death. His pain or a dragon's pain?

He threw the thought aside and, catching up the cloak Malta had left behind, hurried after his wife and son. In the distance, he heard a dragon trumpet. Another replied, and another, and suddenly a chorus of dragon cries were resounding. As he stepped out into the early evening, the city seemed to light itself more brightly. Dragon cries came from every direction. Malta was a thin figure hurrying toward the center of the Square of the Dragons, her baby a tiny bundle in her arms. The wind whipped her hair. He looked up to see dragons against the reddening sky of evening, flying in like a murder of crows summoned by the caws of one.

N
ot much farther.

Hurts too much.

Look. Look there, that haze on the horizon. Those are the lights of Kelsingra, welcoming you home. Think of nothing else, Tintaglia queen. Get there and you will find hot water and Elderlings to tend you, and Silver. They were descending into the well to repair it when last I was there.

Silver.
There was a thought she could hold to. Silver could do marvels when administered by a skilled Elderling. She had ancestral memories of a drake struck by lightning. He had crashed to earth, his wing a scorched framework of bone and little more. It had taken over a year, but he had flown again. They had healed his burns with a spray of Silver. An Elderling artisan had built him a wing of Silver, light, thin panels that articulated on tiny gears. It had not been his own wing, but he had flown again.

Just fly. I will summon them to meet you.
Then Kalo trumpeted an alarm cry such as she had never heard. She heard it taken up in the distance, by dragons hunting on the wing, by dragons roused from sated slumber, and by dragons that were on the ground within the city. She thought she heard it echo from the distant hills and then knew that it was no echo. The dragons were continuing the calls as they began to gather. More dragons than ever she had seen in her life were welcoming her.

“Down there!” Kalo trumpeted it to her. “You see it now, don't you? You remember it?”

“Of course.” If she had not been in so much pain, his query would have annoyed her. She had been here before, even in this lifetime. She'd found it dead and deserted and had left it in anger. Now it was warm with light and welcoming sounds.

“Go there. They will help you. I go to hunt.”

She already knew of his hunger. She wondered why he chose to tell her obvious things and decided it had to do with his daily exposure to humans. They were always speaking the obvious to one another, as if they had to agree a thing was so before they could act on it. Below her, she saw the open square. Two Elderlings stood in the center of it, pointing up at her. “Tintaglia! Tintaglia!” They were shouting her name in voices full of joy. Others were just starting to pour out the doorway of . . . of the baths. Yes. The baths had been there. Hot water and soaking. The thought almost made her woozy, and then flapping her injured wing just became something she could no longer do. She was falling, trying to swing her body's weight toward her good wing, trying to spiral down to land gently. Then she realized who it was standing to meet her. The relief that washed through her slacked all her muscles.

My Elderlings. Silver. Heal me.
She threw the command at them with all her strength, too breathless to trumpet the words as she plummeted the last bit of distance to the ground. Her once-powerful hind legs folded under her as she struck, and then she fell to her side on the ground before them. Pain and blackness swallowed her whole.

“S
he has dozens of small wounds. Lots of nasty parasites in them. But if that was all that was wrong with her, I'd say we could clean them up, feed her good, and she'd be fine. It's the infection and that big injury just under her wing. That's foul, and it has eaten right into her. I can see bone in there.” Carson rubbed his weary eyes. “I'm not any kind of a healer. I know more about taking animals apart than I do about curing one. I'll tell you one thing, though. If that was game I'd brought down, I'd leave it lie. She smells to me like bad meat, through and through.”

Leftrin scratched his whiskery chin. It was venturing toward morning of a day too filled with events. He was tired and worried about Alise and heartsick about Malta's child. He had felt a wild thrill of hope when some of the keepers had begun shouting that Tintaglia had returned. But this was worse than the news of her death had been. The dragon lay there in the grand open square, soon to be dead. Malta sat on the ground beside her, huddled in her cloak, her child in her arms.

“The Silver!” she had cried out into the stunned silence that followed Tintaglia's fall. “Bring me all the Silver we have!”

Leftrin had expected that someone would object, that some other dragon would wish to claim a share. To his surprise, no one had challenged her. All the keepers seemed to think it an appropriate use. Only one of the dragons had lingered to watch what would happen. Night was chill and dark; dragons preferred the warmth of the baths or the sand wallows for sleeping. They were not humans, to keep a vigil by a dying creature. Only golden Mercor had remained with her. “I do not know why Kalo kept her alive, nor why he brought her here to die,” he had commented. “But doubtless, he will return for her memories. When he does, I caution you to be well out of his way.” When the others dragons had wandered away from the dying creature as if Tintaglia's fate shamed them, he had remained, standing and watching.

Sylve had run to fetch the flask of Silver and brought it out to the plaza. She carried the flask two-handed, and the Silver inside it whirled and swam as if alive and seeking escape.

“What do you do with it?” she asked as Malta gave the child to Reyn and took it from her hands. Such trust there had been in her voice, such belief that the queen of the Elderlings would know what to do for the fallen dragon.

But Malta had shaken her head. “I don't know. Do I pour it on her wound? Does she drink it?” All were silent.

Malta followed Tintaglia's outstretched neck to her great head. The dragon's large eyes were closed. “Tintaglia! Wake! Wake and drink of the Silver and be healed! Be healed and save my child!” Malta's voice quavered on her final plea.

The dragon might have drawn a slightly deeper breath. Other than that, she did not stir. In her opalescent robe that brushed the tops of her feet and clutching the flask of gleaming silver liquid, Malta looked like a figure from a legend, but her voice was entirely human as she begged, “Does no one know? What should I do? How do I save her?”

Sylve spoke quietly. “Mercor told me the dragons drank it. Should you pour it into her mouth?”

“Will she choke?” Harrikin ventured a cautious question.

“Tintaglia? Tintaglia, please,” Reyn ventured.

“Should I pour it in her mouth?” Malta asked the golden dragon directly.

“There is not enough there to save her,” Mercor said. “No matter what you do with it.” Then he had turned and walked away from them, up the wide steps and into the baths. Sylve looked shocked.

The words seemed not to register with Malta. “I can scarcely feel her,” Malta said, and Leftrin knew she did not refer to the hand she laid lightly on the dragon's face. “She has grown so much since I last saw her,” she added, and for a moment, she sounded almost like a doting parent. She stroked Tintaglia's face, and then pushed at the dragon's lip. Leftrin drew closer to watch, as did the gathered Elderlings. The lifted lip bared reciprocating rows of pointed teeth, neatly meshed together.

“There is room between them, I think, if I pour it slowly,” Malta said. She spoke very quietly as if she and the dragon were the only creatures in the whole world. She tipped the flask and the silver spiraled out in a slender, gleaming thread. It did not flow swiftly, as water would have, but cautiously, as if it lowered itself to the dragon's mouth. It touched her teeth, pooled briefly along her gum and then seemed to find the entry it sought. It vanished between her teeth. No last drop fell from the flask; it had poured like a spooled thread unwinding and so it vanished, too.

The night seemed darker with the Silver gone from sight. The ghost light of the Elderling city gleamed softly all around them. The keepers stood, waiting and listening. After a long, chill time, murmurs began. “I expected a miracle.”

“I think she is too far gone.”

“She should have poured it on the wound, perhaps.”

“Mercor warned us there wasn't enough,” Sylve said miserably, and she hid her face in her hands.

Reyn had been crouching beside Malta, their child in his arms. He stood up slowly and lifted his voice. “We would be alone with our dragon and our child, if you do not mind,” he said. He did not speak loudly, but his words seemed to carry. Finished, he sank back down to the cobblestones beside his wife.

In ones and twos, the keepers drifted away. Sedric tugged gently at Carson's arm. “We should go,” he said softly.

Leftrin glanced over at them. “You should,” he agreed gently. “There's nothing else any of us can do here. And death is a private thing.”

Carson had nodded, plainly reluctant to leave. Sedric had stepped forward. He unfastened the catch of his cloak, lifted it, and swirled it around Malta, Reyn, and their child. “Sa grant you strength,” he said, and then stepped quickly away, shaking his head.

Leftrin looked around the square. He was the last. He stepped forward, thinking to ask them if they were sure, if there was anything he might bring or do for them. Then he thought better of it. He turned and walked slowly away from the dragon. Away from the Elderlings and their dying child. He felt as if loneliness filled in the space he left behind him. Loneliness and heartbreak.

He pulled his old coat tighter around himself. It was not a time to be alone. The city whispered all around him, but he didn't want to hear it. Long ago, the city had died, and now he suspected he knew why. A cataclysm might have shattered it and sent some of the Elderlings fleeing. But when the Silver had run out, then the end had been inevitable.

He thought of the youngsters he had brought up the river. He had not meant to come to care about them. Just fulfill a contract, have a bit of an adventure in the process, maybe draw a chart that would carry his name into history. And then return to running freight on the river on his beloved liveship. He hadn't wanted his life to change this much.

Alise.

Well, perhaps he had. He sighed, feeling selfish that while others paid a serious price, he had gained a woman who loved him. A woman who was giving up everything to be with him. Hest had made it real for him today. So tall and grand a man, dressed so fine, speaking so genteelly. He had begged her to come back to him.

And she had turned her back on all that, for him.

She was waiting for him now, back on his liveship. He walked faster.

Day the 14th of the Plough Moon

Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

From Erek, of Trehaug

To Kerig Sweetwater, Master of the Bird Keepers' Guild, Bingtown

 

Kerig, it is with great relief that I have received your message. Detozi has also felt great anxiety and fear that our actions would be interpreted as disloyal to the Guild or perhaps even indicative of being traitors to the Guild.

I am glad to say that Two-Toes has gained weight and that the color to his hackle and bib has brightened. His foot was badly cut from hanging, but he has recovered warmth and movement in his toes. If he does not recover sufficiently to carry messages, I suggest that he is still of great breeding value and should be retained in that capacity. As you suggest, I will ask permission to continue to care for him until his recovery is complete. In any case, a live bird that was listed as dead is definitely a part of a much larger mystery!