The Dragon Keeper (41 page)

“But . . . the dragon is not speaking. Unless mooing like a cow or barking like a dog conveys some meaning to you. What am I to record?”

She looked at him in confusion that became dismay and then, inexplicably, sympathy. “Oh, Sedric, you cannot understand her at all? Not one word?”

“If she has spoken a word, I haven’t understood it. All I’ve heard are, well, dragon noises.”

Almost as if in response to his comment, the dragon released a rumble of sound. Alise swiveled her head to face the dragon. “Please, I beg you, let me have a moment with my friend! He cannot seem to hear you.”

When Alise met Sedric’s gaze again, she shook her head in woe. “I’d heard that there were some who could not understand clearly what Tintaglia said, and a few who could not even perceive she was speaking at all. But I never thought you would be so afflicted. What are we to do now, Sedric? How will you record our conversations?”

“Conversations?” At first he’d been annoyed at her childish pretense of talking to the dragon. It was the same annoyance he always felt when people greeted dogs as “old man” and asked “how my fine old fellow has been.” Women who talked to their cats made him shudder. Alise, as a rule, did neither, and he’d thought her calls to the dragon had been some new and unwelcome Rain Wild affectation. But now, to insist that the dragon was speaking to her and then to offer him her pity—it was too much. “I’ll record them just as I would log your conversations with a cow. Or a tree. Alise, this is ridiculous. I’ll accept, because I must, that the dragon Tintaglia had the ability to make herself understood. But this creature? Look at it!”

The dragon writhed its lips and made a flat, hissing noise. Alise went scarlet. The young Rain Wilder beside the dragon spoke to him. “She says to tell you that although you may not understand her, she understands every word you say. And that the problem is not in her speaking, nor even in your ears, but in your mind. There have always been humans who cannot hear dragons. And usually they are the most arrogant and ignorant ones.”

It was too much. “Keep a civil tongue in your head when you address your elders, girl. Or is that no longer taught here in the Rain Wilds?”

The dragon gave a sudden huff. The force of her exhaled breath blasted him with warmth and the stink of the semirotted meat she had just eaten. He turned aside from her with an exclamation of disgust.

Alise gave a gasp of horror and pleaded, “He does not understand! He meant no insult! Please, he meant no insult!” An instant later, Alise had seized him by the arm. “Sedric, are you all right?” she demanded of him.

“That creature belched right in my face!”

Alise gave a strangled laugh. She seemed to be trembling with relief. “A belch? Was that what you thought it? If so, we are fortunate that was all. If her poison glands were mature, you’d be melting right now. Don’t you know anything of dragons? Don’t you recall what became of the Chalcedean raiders who attacked Bingtown? All Tintaglia had to do was breathe on them. Whatever it was she spat, it ate right through armor. And right through skin and bone as well.” She paused, and then added, “You have insulted her without meaning to. I think you should go back to the ship. Right now. Give me time to explain your misunderstanding of her.”

The Rain Wild girl spoke again. She had a husky voice, a surprisingly rich contralto. Her silver gaze was both unsettling and compelling. “Skymaw agrees with the Bingtown woman. Whether you’re my elder or not, she says you should leave the dragon grounds. Now.”

Sedric felt even more affronted. “I don’t think that you have the right to tell me what to do at all,” he told the girl.

But Alise spoke over his words. “Skymaw? That’s her name?”

“It’s what I call her.” The girl amended. She seemed embarrassed to have to admit it. “She told me that a dragon’s true name is a thing to be earned, not given.”

“I understand completely,” Alise replied. “The true name of a dragon is a very special thing to know. No dragon tells her true name lightly.” She treated the dragon’s keeper as if she were a charming child who had interrupted an important adult conversation. The “child” did not enjoy that, Sedric noted.

Alise turned back to the hulking reptile. The creature had ventured so close that it now towered over them. Her eyes were like burnished copper, glittering in the sunlight. Her gaze was fixed steadily on him. Alise spoke to the creature. “Great and gracious one, your true name is an honor that I hope one day to win. But in the mean time, I am pleased to give you mine. I am Alise Kincarron Finbok.” And she actually curtsied to the creature, bobbing down almost into the mud.

“I have come all the way from Bingtown to see you, and to hear you speak. I hope that we shall have long conversations, and that I shall be able to learn a great deal about you and the wisdom of your kind. Long has it been since humanity was favored with the company of dragons. What little we knew of your kind has, I fear, been forgotten. I would like to remedy that lack.” She gestured toward Sedric. “I brought him with me, to be our scribe and record any wisdom you wished to share with me. I am sorry that he cannot hear you, for I am certain that if he could, he would quickly perceive both your intelligence and your wisdom.”

The dragon rumbled again. The young keeper looked at Sedric and said, “Skymaw says that even if you could understand her words, she thinks it likely you would be unable to comprehend either her intelligence or wisdom, for plainly you lack both.”

Her “translation” was obviously intended to insult. The girl’s eyes, silvery gray, darted toward Alise when she spoke. If Alise was aware of her animosity, she ignored it. Instead Alise turned to him and said quietly but firmly, “I’ll see you when I return to the ship, Sedric. If you don’t mind, would you leave your lap desk with me? I may try to write down some of what we discuss.”

“Of course,” he said, and managed to keep the bitterness and the resentment from his voice. Long ago, he thought, he’d had to learn to speak civilly even after Hest had publicly flayed him with words. It was not so hard. All he had to do was discard every bit of his pride. He’d never thought that he would have to employ that talent with Alise. He thrust the lap desk at her, and as she took it was almost pleased to see her surprise at how heavy it was.
Let her deal with carrying it about,
he thought vengefully. Let her see the sort of work he’d been willing to do for her. Perhaps she might appreciate him a bit more. He turned away from her.

Then, with a sudden lurch of heart, he realized there were things inside that lap desk that he emphatically did not wish to share with Alise. He turned hastily back to her. “The entire secretarial desk will be too heavy for you to use easily. Perhaps I could just leave you some blank paper, and a pen and ink?”

She looked startled at this sudden kindness, and he suddenly knew that she knew he’d intended to be rude when he’d burdened her with the whole desk. She looked pathetically grateful as he took it from her and opened it. The raised lid kept her from peering inside, but she didn’t seem to have any curiosity about it. As he rummaged inside it for the required items, she said quietly, “Thank you for your understanding, Sedric. I know this must be hard for you, to come so far on such a great adventure, and then to find that fortune has excluded you from the best part of it. I want you to know that I think no less of you; such a lack could afflict anyone.”

“It’s fine, Alise,” he said, and he tried not to sound brusque. She thought his feelings were hurt because he couldn’t communicate with the animal. And she felt sorry for him. The thought almost made him smile, and his heart softened toward her. How many years had he felt sorry for her? It was odd to be on the receiving end of her pity. Odd and strangely touching that she’d care if his feelings were hurt.

“I’ve plenty of work to do back on the boat. I trust you’ll be back for the evening meal?”

“Oh, likely much before then. I shan’t stand here in the dark and quiz her, I assure you. Today I’ll be happy if we just get to know each other well enough to be comfortable. Thank you. I’ll try not to waste your ink.”

“You’re welcome. Really you are. I’ll see you later.”

THYMARA WATCHED THE exchange between the well-dressed man and the Bingtown woman and wondered. They seemed very familiar with each other; perhaps they were married. She was reminded of her parents, and how they had always seemed connected and yet distant to each other. These two seemed to get along about as well as her parents did.

She already disliked both of them. The man because he had no respect for Skymaw and was too stupid to understand her, and the woman, because she had seen the dragon and now she coveted her. And she would probably win the dragon, for she seemed to know how to charm her. Couldn’t Skymaw see that the Bingtown woman was just trying to flatter her with her flowery phrases and overdone courtesy? She would have thought that the dragon would be angered by such a blatant attempt to win favor with her. Instead, Skymaw seemed delighted with the extravagant compliments the woman showered on her. She fawned on her, openly begging for more.

And in turn, the woman seemed completely infatuated with the dragon. From the first moment they had seen each other, Thymara had almost felt the mutual draw between them. It irritated her.

No. It was more than irritation. It made her seethe with jealousy, she admitted, because it excluded her.
She
was supposed to be Skymaw’s keeper, not this ridiculous city woman. This Alise would not be able to feed the dragon or tend her. Would this woman with her soft body and pale skin walk beside the dragon as they wended their way upriver through the shallows and the encroaching forest? Would she kill to feed the dragon and perform the tedious grooming that Skymaw so obviously needed? She thought not! Thymara had spent most of the day scrubbing at Skymaw’s hide until every scale gleamed. She’d dug caked mud out of her claws and claw sheaths, picked a legion of nasty little bloodsucking beetles from the edges of the dragon’s eyes and nostrils, and even cleared an area of reeking fresh dragon dung so that Skymaw could stretch out for her grooming without becoming soiled again.

But the moment this Bingtown woman threw her a compliment or two, the dragon focused entirely on her as if Thymara had never existed. Would the woman have thought her so “gleamingly beautiful” if she’d seen the dragon five hours ago? Not likely. The dragon was using all Thymara’s hard work to attract a better keeper for herself. She’d soon find she’d made a poor choice.

Just like Tats.

The thought ambushed her, and she felt the sudden sting of tears behind her eyes. She pushed all thoughts of Tats and Jerd aside. That night when Tats had left the fireside and Jerd had followed, she’d thought nothing of it. Tats, she thought, had needed time to be alone. But then, when they came back to the fire together, it was obvious to Thymara that he had been anything but alone. He seemed completely recovered from his exchange of comments with Greft. Jerd had been laughing at something he said. At the fire’s edge, they’d sat down side by side. She’d overheard Jerd quizzing him about his life, asking the sort of personal questions that Thymara had always avoided for fear of Tats thinking she was too nosy. Jerd had asked them, smiling and tipping her head to look up into his face, and Tats had replied in his deep soft voice. Thymara had sat by the fire and Rapskal supplied an unwelcome distraction as he pelted her with his speculations about the journey and what they would have for breakfast tomorrow and if it was possible to kill a gallator with a sling. Greft had glared at her, Tats, and Rapskal and then had gone stalking off into the forest on his own. Nortel and Boxter had both seemed out of sorts as well, exchanging small barbed comments. Harrikin had suddenly seemed sullen and sulky. None of it made sense to her; she only knew that her earlier sensation of goodwill and friendliness had been more fleeting than the smoke from their campfire.

And that night, Tats had spread out his bedding and gone to sleep near Jerd without even speaking to Thymara to say good night. She’d thought they were friends, good friends. She’d even been stupid enough to think that he’d only signed up as a dragon keeper because he knew that she’d be going, too. Worse, Rapskal had tossed his blankets right down beside hers after she had made her bed for the evening. She couldn’t very well get up and move away from him, much as she wished to. He’d slept next to her every night since they left Trehaug. He talked and laughed even in his sleep, and her dreams, when she did find them that night, were uneasy ones of her father looking for her in a mist.

In vain, she tried to recall her mind to the present and focus on the conversation next to her. The Bingtown woman was speaking to Skymaw. “Do you recall, lovely one, your immediate ancestor’s experience, your glorious mother’s life? Do you know what happened to the world to cause dragons to become nearly extinct and leave humans to mourn in loneliness for so long?” She stood awaiting an answer, her pen poised over her paper. It was sickening.

Worse, Skymaw was wallowing in the praise and answering the woman in dragon riddles while telling her nothing at all. “My ‘mother’? Were she here, you would not insult her so lightly! A dragon is never a mother as you know it, little milk-making creature. We never fuss about squealing babies or waste our days in tending to the wants of helpless young. We are never as helpless and stupid as humans are when they are first born, knowing nothing of what or who they are. It is irony, is it not, that you live so short a time, and waste so much of it being stupid? While we live for dozens of your lives, aware every instant of what we are and who our ancestors were. You can see that it is hopeless for a human to try to understand dragonkind at all.”

Thymara turned away abruptly from the dragon and the Bingtown woman. “I’d best go see if I can kill some food for you,” she announced, not caring that she broke into the midst of their conversation. It was disgusting anyway. The woman kept asking Skymaw stupid questions, phrased in groveling, honeyed compliments. And the dragon kept evading the questions, refusing her any real answers. Was that just what any dragon would do? Or was Skymaw trying to conceal her own ignorance?