Rain Wilds Chronicles (40 page)

Sintara stretched her jaws wide in pleasure and concluded, “Then it is not just the color of the flower that makes you think of me? It is the danger it poses?”

“I suppose. Yes.”

“Then you may call me Skymaw. Do you see what the boy over there is doing to the runty red dragon?”

The girl followed Sintara's glance. Rapskal had pulled an armful of needled branches from a tree and was energetically scrubbing his dragon's back. Cleansed of mud and dust, even that stumpy little dragon sparkled like a ruby in the sunlight. “I don't think he means any harm. I think he's trying to get some of the parasites off her.”

“Exactly. And the wax from the needles is good for the skin.” Graciously, Sintara told her, “You are allowed to perform that service for me.”

A
S THE
TARMAN
slowly nosed its way onto the muddy bank, Alise looked over the fantastic scene before her and felt rankest envy. Sun and heat baked the bare riverbank as the final hours of afternoon dwindled away. Scattered about on the bank were at least a dozen dragons in every imaginable color tended by young Rain Wilders. Some of the dragons were stretched out in peaceful sleep. Two stood by the water, waiting impatiently as a couple of boys holding spears walked slowly up and down the riverbank, looking for fish. On the ebbing edge of a sun-washed mudbank, a long gold dragon sprawled, his blue-white underbelly turned toward the last kiss of the sun. Lying against him slept a little girl, her pink-scaled scalp glittering as brightly as the dragon she tended. At one end of the long bank of mud stood the largest dragon of all, tall and black. The sun struck glittering dark blue sparks from his outstretched wings. A bare-chested young man, almost as heavily scaled as a dragon
himself, was grooming the creature's wings. At the opposite end of the beach, as if in counterpoint, a girl with a broom made of cedar boughs was diligently sweeping a sprawled blue dragon. The girl's black braids danced against the back of her neck as she worked. The dragon shifted as Alise watched, stretching out a hind leg so that the girl might groom it.

“I didn't realize the dragons had human tenders. I mean, I knew that they had hunters helping provide for them, but I didn't realize that—”

“They don't. Or they didn't.” Leftrin had a knack for interrupting her in a way that was friendly rather than rude. “They're all newcomers. Those are the keepers you heard about, the ones who are going to move the dragons upriver. They can't have been here much longer than a day, at most two.”

“But some of them are only children!” Alise protested. It was not her concern for them that sharpened her voice. It was, she thought, simple jealousy. There they were, mere youngsters, doing exactly what she had imagined herself doing. Somehow, she had visualized herself as being the first to befriend a dragon, to touch it with kindness and win its confidence. The way Althea and Brashen had described the dragons, she had thought they would be like reptilian half-wits, awaiting, perhaps, her understanding and patience to unlock their innate intelligence. What she saw on the beach was another broken pane in the dream window; she was not to be the dragons' savior, the only one who understood them.

Leftrin shrugged a heavy shoulder in response to her comment, mistaking it for concern. “Youngsters don't get to be children long in the Rain Wilds, and especially not children like those. Look at them. It's a wonder their parents kept them. You can't tell me those youngsters are all late-changers. You don't get claws unless you were born with them. And that young man there? I'll wager he was born with scales on his head and has never had a bit of hair anywhere on his body. No, they're all mistakes, the lot of them. And that's why they were chosen.”

His blunt and cold appraisal of the dragons' attendants shocked Alise into silence.

“And are you and the
Tarman
a mistake? Is that why you were
chosen for the expedition?” Sedric's voice was as acidic as the river.

But if Leftrin noticed the intended unpleasantness in his tone, he didn't react to it. “No, me and Tarman are hired. And the contract's a good one, tight as a contract can be written. And the terms are good, for Tarman and me.” Here he tipped Alise a broad wink, and she almost blushed. He spoke on as if Sedric could not have noticed it. “Not just because no one else would take it, but because the Rain Wild Council knows that no one else can do this job. Tarman and I have been farther up the river than any other large vessel. There may be a few who have gone farther, game scouts in canoes and such. But you can't do what the Council wants done from a canoe.”

“And what the Council wants done is the dragons driven away from Cassarick.”

“Well, that's putting it a bit harshly, Sedric. But look for yourself. They're obviously not in a good place. They're not healthy, there's no game they can hunt for themselves, and they're killing the trees all around the beach.”

“And they're impeding a profitable excavation of the old city.”

“Yes, that's true also,” Leftrin replied implacably.

Alise gave Sedric a sideways look. His last little remark had been barbed. He was still upset, and she supposed he had every right to be. Her session at the Traders' Hall in Cassarick had gone on much longer than she had expected. Thrashing out the details of Leftrin's contract with the committee had taken most of those hours. Malta the Elderling had remained for the long discussion, but with every passing hour, she looked more like a weary pregnant woman and less like an elegant and powerful Elderling. Alise had observed her unobtrusively but avariciously.

When Alise had first encountered the idea that humans became Elderlings, it had cracked her sense of reality. Elderlings had been the stuff of legend for her when she was a girl. Shadowy, powerful creatures at the edge of tales and myths; those were the Elderlings. Legends spoke of their elegance and beauty, of power sometimes wielded with wisdom and sometimes with casual cruelty. When the original Rain Wild settlers had discovered traces of ancient
settlements and then connected those ruins to the near-mythical Elderlings, many had been skeptical. Over the years it had become accepted that they had been real and that perhaps the magical and arcane treasures unearthed in the Rain Wilds were the last remaining traces of their passage on this world. They had been a glorious magical race and now they were vanished forever.

No one had connected the unfortunate and sometimes grotesque disfigurements of the Rain Wild settlers with the ethereal beauty of the Elderlings depicted in scrolls, tapestries, and legends. Scaled skin and glowing eyes were not always lovely to look upon, and in the cases of the Rain Wild offspring afflicted with them, their life spans were greatly shortened, not the near immortals that legend decreed the Elderlings were. Vultures and peacocks might both have feathers and beaks, but one did not confuse the two creatures. Yet Malta and Selden Vestrit of Bingtown and Reyn Khuprus of the Rain Wilds had changed, just as those touched by the Rain Wilds changed, not toward the monstrous but toward the fantastic. Dragon touched, some now called them to distinguish them from the others. Somehow, she suspected, their being present during the emergence of Tintaglia from her case and spending so much time with her afterward had caused their metamorphoses to proceed in a different pattern.

Watching Malta Khuprus had given her much to think about during the long and tedious hours of Leftrin's haggling. He had not seemed to find the delay boring, but had settled into his deal making with the enthusiasm of a pit dog trying to pull down a bull. While he discussed who would pay for food and how much the
Tarman
could carry and if the small boats for the keepers would be his responsibility and who would pay if a dragon did any damage to his vessel and a hundred other variables, Alise covertly studied the Elderling woman and wondered. It was too obvious to ignore that the physical changes a human underwent were that his or her body acquired some of the characteristics of a dragon. Or a reptile, she judiciously added. The scales, the unusual growths, Malta's crest on her brow all spoke of some connection to the dragons. But other parts of the puzzle did not fit. The strange elongation of her bones, for instance.

If the Elderlings had known exactly what precipitated the changes that took them from human to Elderling, they had not written it down, at least not in any scrolls that Alise had ever seen. Then she wondered if Elderlings had ever been a completely separate race from humans. Had humans always changed to become Elderlings, or had Elderlings existed separately but perhaps interbred with humanity? Alise had become so enmeshed in her pondering that when Leftrin abruptly announced, “Well, it's all settled then. I'll depart as soon as you've managed to ferry the supplies down to the dock,” she felt jolted out of a dream. She looked around her to see the Council members rising from their chairs and coming to shake Leftrin's hand. A document, evidently written as they settled each term, and signed by all, was being sanded to set and dry the ink. Malta, looking frailer than ever, had signed in her turn and was now gazing at Alise. The Bingtown woman gathered all her courage and went to present herself.

Yet before she reached Malta, the woman had gracefully but with weariness come to meet her. She took both of Alise's hands in hers and said, “I truly don't know how to thank you. I wish that I myself could be going. Not that I have any great fondness for dragons; they are difficult to deal with, being nearly as stubborn and self-justified as humans.”

Alise was astonished. She had expected the Elderling to declare her undying devotion to dragons and to beg Alise to do all she could to protect them. Instead, she continued, “Don't trust them. Don't think of them as especially noble or of a higher morality than humans. They aren't. They're just like us, except they are larger and stronger, with potent memories of always having their own way. So, be careful. And whatever you learn of them, whether you find Kelsingra or not, you must record and bring back to us. Because sooner or later, humanity is going to have to coexist with a substantial population of dragons. We have forgotten all we ever knew about dealing with dragons. But they have forgotten nothing about humans.”

“I'll be careful,” Alise promised faintly.

“I'll take you at your word.” Malta smiled, and her face seemed briefly more human. “You seem to be a Trader who remembers
what a promise means. In these times, we could do with more like you. And now, I'm afraid I must go home to rest.”

“Do you need any help to get home?” Alise was bold enough to ask. But Malta shook her head. She released Alise's hands and slowly but gracefully climbed the shallow steps to the entry doors. Alise was still looking after her when she felt Leftrin's heavy hand clap her on the shoulder.

“Well, didn't you turn out to be just the ticket for both of us! I wonder if Brashen Trell knew what a bit of luck he was sending my way when he sent you to me! I doubt it, but there it is. Well, my lady luck, the deal is signed, save for your mark, and we're all waiting on that.”

In astonishment, she turned to find that it was so. The Council members were reseated in their places. The pen in its stand awaited her. As she glanced from it to the Council leader, Trader Polsk gestured at it impatiently. Alise glanced back at Leftrin.

“Well, get it done,” he urged her. “The day gets no longer!”

In a sort of daze, she crossed the room. She shouldn't do this. She couldn't do this. Had she ever before set her signature to a document that bound her? Only when she had set her hand to her marriage agreement with Hest. She recalled as a waking nightmare all the particulars of that agreement, and how she had willingly marked her name on every one. It was the only time her signature had bound her as a Trader. Time after time, she had recalled that afternoon. Now when she thought of how quickly Hest had moved through the ceremony, she saw it not as a bridegroom's eagerness, but as yet another mark of how he would trivialize their bond. She had lived to regret binding herself that way. How could she even think of setting her hand to another document? Her eyes wandered over the words above her name. Someone had negotiated a wage for her, a daily payment for each day she was on the vessel. How peculiar to think that she would earn money, money of her own, doing this. If she did it. And then she knew that she would.

Because she wanted to. Because despite being Hest's wife, she was still of Trader stock, and still capable of making her own decisions. It was her hand, her familiar freckled hand that lifted the pen
and dipped it. She watched, oddly distant, as she formed the characters of her name in her strong sloping penmanship. “There. It's done,” she said, and she heard how small her voice sounded now in that large room.

“Done,” agreed Trader Polsk, and dumped a generous measure of sand on the paper. Alise watched as the sand was shaken off, leaving her signature strong and black on the page. What had she just done?

Captain Leftrin was at her shoulder. His hearty laugh boomed out, and he took her arm and turned her, leading her away. “And that's a fine morning's bargaining for both of us. I'll admit that having your company on this expedition suits me very well indeed. The Council insists that it can have Tarman loaded and ready to sail by late afternoon. Between you and me, that won't be much of a trick. I knew I'd get the contract, and I've already made arrangements for the supplies that I want. Now. We've not far to go for the first stop on our journey. The dragon grounds are an hour past the city docks. But for now, there's a bit of time for us to spend as we wish. I've arranged for a runner to take the news to Hennesey. He's a good mate and I've no worries about him seeing the cargo loaded. So. Shall we take a bit of a tour of Cassarick before we go? You didn't have much of a chance to see Trehaug from what you've told me.”

She should have said no. She should have insisted on immediately returning to the boat. But somehow, after the morning's adventure, she couldn't bear to return to being not only rigorously correct but timorously so. Nor could she imagine meeting Sedric's eyes and admitting what she had done. Sedric. Oh, Sa have mercy! No. She couldn't confront that thought yet. She boldly set her hand on Leftrin's arm and said, “I think I'd enjoy seeing Cassarick.”