Spine of the Dragon

by Kevin J. Anderson

  After tying their horses to a tree, Hale led the way to the middle of the camp, greeting everyone they passed, calling many by name. Few seemed to know Adan, or if they recognized that he was king, the Utauks didn’t seem to care. The noise and the laughter, the whirlwind of faces, made him dizzy. Adan wondered what he had gotten into.

  Penda held his arm. “Utauks try to look at life through happiness, but you should not misjudge the seriousness of this meeting, my Starfall.”

  Hale paused. “Normally, when it comes to Utauk business, we would tell you only what you needed to know.”

  “As king, don’t I need to know everything?”

  Penda elbowed her father before he could answer. “Yes, you do.”

  “My daughter called in a favor,” Hale said. “Although it was a surprise to me, I now agree with her. All humans need to be concerned about the wreths. I’ll take you to the matriarch of our clans. It is high time you met Shella din Orr.”

  On the way, Penda introduced him to a girl with dirty clothes and unkempt hair, who ran forward. “This is Glik, my foster sister. She takes care of herself, but whenever she needs something, she can ask me.”

  “Maybe I need your ska,” the girl said, waggling a finger in front of the green reptile bird on Penda’s shoulder. “I miss my Ori so much.”

  Indignant, the ska clicked, then flew off to circle above the camp. “Xar is heart-linked to me,” Penda said to Glik. “You need to find another ska of your own.”

  “I will, you’ll see. I dreamed about it. I don’t want a tame ska from a merchant. I’ll get a new ska from an egg in one of the mountain eyries. My heart link will be even stronger that way.” Glik traced a circle on her heart and went off, clearly determined.

  As the families settled down to eat, Hale took Adan and Penda to the main tent with decorative tassels as large as horse tails. “We will dine with my grandmother. She wants to see you in private.”

  The spacious tent was lit with candles and lanterns, decorated with silk hangings, plump cushions, and furnished with carved wooden chests and shelves. Orange fires in braziers warmed and lit the tent, sending smoke up through a hole at the apex.

  Though he was the king of Suderra, Adan sensed he was in the presence of someone extremely important. On a rug woven with threads of countless colors sat an ancient woman, her body shrunken and twisted with age. Her skin was wrinkled like the bark of an old oak tree, but her eyes were bright sparks full of intelligence. Her withered mouth formed a smile, revealing that even at her age she still had at least three of her teeth.

  Hale bowed deeply. “This is Shella din Orr, matriarch of all the tribes.”

  “And Hale Orr is my grandson,” the woman said in a raspy voice. “One of a thousand or so. It’s so hard to keep track. My own children have outdone themselves in reproducing.”

  Penda led him forward by the hand. “This is Adan Starfall, king of Suderra, son of Konag Conndur in Convera.” She met the ancient woman’s gaze. “And he is my husband, the father of our child to come. Therefore, he is one of us.”

  Shella nodded. Her gray-white hair was as thin as spiderwebs on her skull. “Yes, one of us.” She patted the multicolored rug beneath her. “Sit next to me, young king. And your wife, too. I remember Penda … such a sweet girl.” Her grin widened to reveal that, yes, there was a fourth tooth embedded in the back of her gums. “She seems to have married well.”

  “I did,” Penda said with a smile.

  “And so did I,” Adan added. “I am honored to meet you, Shella din Orr.” He sat on a cushion and looked at the thread patterns in the rug.

  The matriarch ran a long, hard fingernail along the weaving. “Each thread, each color, represents a different Utauk family, all of them interconnected, forming a beautiful pattern that is difficult to discern unless you study it for years. Even though my eyesight has gone dim, I like to look at it and think. The world faces many troubles now, and I do not envy those who will live long enough to face them.” Her words had an ominous undertone.

  Adan admired the complex pattern in the carpet. “Thank you for welcoming me, Matriarch. Is that what I should call you?”

  “Call me Mother. Everyone does.”

  Adan recalled his own mother, Lady Maire, who had died many years ago from a sleeping sickness. He didn’t remember ever seeing her happy. “Your tribes astonish me, Mother … all these families.” He adjusted his knees on the cushion. “I’ll be happy to meet as many Utauks as wish to introduce themselves.”

  “You are here because your wife demanded that we share our Utauk secrets,” said Shella din Orr. “She called in a debt that had to be honored.”

  “And why did she demand it?”

  “Because she wanted you to know what we know, so that as king of your people you can make the proper decisions. We have much to share and be shared.”

  The old woman clapped her hands and let out a high, shrill whistle. The tent flap opened and three broad-shouldered Utauk men stood there, waiting for instructions. “Go to the library tent and bring the books. It is time to show the king a small part of what we know.”

  The men soon returned with another ten helpers, all carrying leather-bound volumes and wrapped scrolls, stack after stack. They placed the first ones on the writing table near the braziers, then they piled books on the floor of the tent. The mountain of knowledge grew minute by minute, already twice the size of the library at Bannriya Castle. “You carry these with you as you travel?”

  “They are books. They are important,” said Shella. “They hold information the Utauks have gathered since the end of the wreth wars. This is our heart camp, and we have several wagons of books, but every Utauk caravan, every clan, every camp has its own library of the world. Our information network is connected with thousands upon thousands of observers, all of whom take notes and share what they see.” She casually indicated the volumes. “Choose a book. Any example will do.”

  Adan picked one from the nearest stack and extended it to the old woman, but she did not take it. “Open it. Any page.”

  He flipped to the middle, where he discovered charts, ledgers, and drawings. He found lists of towns, names of people, extraordinarily detailed maps of rivers and lakes, rock formations, valleys, roads, unknown mountain passes.

  “No one knows more about the three kingdoms than the Utauk tribes,” Shella said.

  Adan tried to grasp what it all meant. He had maps back in his castle, but nothing in such detail. Neither the libraries in Bannriya or Convera nor any remembrance shrine could match this. He looked up at the ancient woman from the stacks of books. “This information is accurate? And recent?”

  “Dear boy, we have collected knowledge for nearly two thousand years.” Shella sounded as if she herself had been there since the first page was written. “We keep track of all villages and towns we trade with, customers on farmlands, a family here, a camp there, even isolated Brava training settlements.” Her brittle gray eyes became sharper. “Our records are current. And hear me when I tell you that some towns have disappeared. Villages simply aren’t there anymore, erased from existence.”

  One of the stocky nephews interrupted, “Shall we bring in the mothertears too?”

  Hale blurted out, “Of course bring the mothertears! Cra, that’s the most interesting part.”

  Xar flapped his wings on Penda’s shoulder, bobbed his scaly head, and preened to show off the diamond in his own collar.

  When the tent flap moved aside again, two burly nephews carried a heavy chest. Wheezing, they set it down on the many-colored rug in front of Shella’s knobby legs. The old woman opened the lid to reveal countless diamonds the size of Adan’s thumbnail tucked into cloth-lined cubbyholes. Each mothertear was labeled with an amazingly small piece of paper and fine handwriting.

  Shella selected and scrutinized one. “These diamonds record the landscape of the kingdoms, every tree, every rock. So much detail, it can be overwhelming.” She picked up another gem, squinting at the facets. “
It takes quite some time to find what you seek, but it is here.”

  Adan leaned close. The facets of the mothertears reflected faint rainbows, hinting at the images preserved inside them. “Are these all from the skas? Images recorded by their collars, like Xar’s?”

  “Yes. For many centuries,” Shella said. “If you want to see the village of Broken Wheel from six hundred years ago, we have it.” She clucked her tongue against her gums. “Though I don’t know why you would want to.”

  He glanced at the reptile bird on his wife’s shoulder. “So you aren’t the only spy, Xar? Skas are watching the world all over?”

  Xar turned his faceted eyes toward the king, as if proud of what he had done.

  Penda said, “Skas see things we cannot, and the Utauks travel where most people don’t go. This legacy of our tribes holds the whole world and all its history.”

  “But times are changing, and we suspected as much long before the sandwreths rode out of the dust storm,” Hale explained. “That’s why my dear heart convinced me to bring you in on the Utauk secret. The reports we’ve received, the vanishing towns and villages, families whisked away from their homes…” He sorted through the gems with his one good hand and pulled up one in particular, held it in his palm.

  When he activated it, an image shimmered in front of them showing hill towns in the west of Suderra—Adan recognized the terrain. He saw untended orchards heavy with fruit, croplands never harvested, sheep and cows wandering loose.

  “I don’t see any people,” Adan said.

  “Exactly!” Shella broke in. “After the skas alerted us to this, we sent a trading party to investigate, but they found no sign of the population, only a few abandoned buildings filled with drafts, dust, and mice.” She rummaged among the stored gems, removed another one as Hale dissolved the first images and put the diamond back in its place.

  The matriarch displayed a new projection, wooden cabins in a deep pine forest, all of them just as empty and silent. “This was the home of Bravas, one of their training settlements. Again, all gone.”

  Penda was deeply concerned. “I told you my dreams worried me, Starfall.”

  He looked around the tent piled with books. He had never known that such a vast trove of knowledge existed. And now that he knew, he was troubled by what it showed.

  23

  PLEASANTLY sore from another day in the mines, Elliel relaxed in the inn’s common room, enjoying her second cup of the local ale, although she felt only a slight effect from it. Bravas had a high tolerance for alcohol or drugs; their wreth blood kept them clearheaded and alert, even when they didn’t wish to be.

  After finding the dragonblood rubies, Elliel had received a significant bonus, but since her needs were modest, she asked Hallis to distribute most of it among the other miners, with an extra silver coin for Upwin and Klenner, who were with her when she’d found the gushing red liquid. Such generosity earned her gratitude and welcome among the townspeople, but Elliel was not trying to buy friendship. Who would want her as a friend, knowing what she had done?

  She sat by herself at a small table, absently eating dinner. Shauvon had brought her a spiced venison sausage and a hunk of white cheese on a wooden board, even though she hadn’t asked for it. The pleasant innkeeper and his wife went out of their way to look out for her.

  The other townspeople gathered for regular fellowship. Upwin laughed with his friends, playing a game with stone dice. Two miners sat with their wives and an assortment of children for a family meal in the inn. The children kept staring at Elliel and whispering as if she were a strange creature, but their mothers shushed them, pulled them back.

  Preoccupied, she thought of her last two years of wandering. Since awakening to her new life, she had traveled much across Osterra, generally heading west and south, finding work where she could. Bravas were in great demand, even disgraced ones. For a time, she had bonded herself as personal guard and protector for an ambitious merchant. She wanted to start rewriting her legacy, to do good for a change, but she soon realized that the merchant wanted her to be his enforcer, to twist arms, set fires, and collect debts in any way possible. After a month, Elliel’s discomfort and shame reached the point of intolerability.

  The merchant had sent her to confront a farmer who owed him a quarter of his harvest because of a past-due loan. He ordered Elliel to take a torch and offer the man a choice—pay, or have his face burned. But when she saw the farmer’s terrified expression, saw the helplessness of his wife and their four children, she turned her back and stalked away. That day she severed her bond with the merchant.

  He was outraged. “Bravas are required to obey orders from their bonded masters!”

  She simply regarded him. “As you’ve reminded me many times, I am no longer a Brava.”

  Glad to leave that obligation, she had wandered for months, seeking work that didn’t rely on her fighting skills. Here in Scrabbleton, she actually liked being a miner.

  Now she looked around the common room at the wooden tables and the fire in the hearth, listening to the hum of voices. These people knew one another and relaxed after their long shifts with an ease of camaraderie. At a table against one of the stone walls, two young lovers shared a potato pie. They leaned close, speaking softly, though their eyes communicated more than words. Their hands touched, lingered, as if to reassure each other of their mutual affection.

  Watching them filled Elliel with questions about herself. Had she ever experienced love? She was young and pretty. Had she ever kissed a young man in the shadows, giggling and touching? Had she given her heart to someone? Had she been married, to a human or to another half-breed Brava? Or was she still a virgin? Elliel had no idea.

  Alone at her table, she flexed and unflexed her fingers, staring at her palm as if she could find secret answers written in the lines there. The little finger on her right hand was shortened, the top cut off at the upper knuckle, leaving only a smooth scar. Had an animal bitten it? Had she suffered frostbite? Had the finger been severed in a knife fight?

  She glanced at three children crawling by their mother’s skirts under a table. Did Elliel herself have any children? A chill shot through her like a bolt of icy lightning. What if she had killed her own children? What if her sons or daughters had been among the victims in that schoolhouse?

  She touched the golden band clipped at her side, the metal worked with ornate spell symbols and sharp metal teeth. Only a Brava carried a ramer, a rare object she no longer had the knowledge to ignite. The inability reminded her of what she had been, what she had done.

  She removed the band and placed it on the table. The gold seemed dull to her now. The symbols mocked her. She turned the cuff in the dim light of the inn’s common room, musing about the things she must have done. What sort of legacy had she built before Utho had stripped it all from her?

  She clipped the ramer back in place and got up to leave the inn. Upwin called after her, “Thanks again for the bonus, Elliel! Let’s find more rubies tomorrow.” She nodded absently, tossing her long cinnamon hair behind her.

  In the quiet night, smoke curled up from a few chimneys, and a faint orange glow shimmered near the summit of Mount Vada, where a crack revealed fires within the mountain. She paused before the town’s remembrance shrine, which was built with dark wood and carefully fitted stones. The door was open, welcoming anyone who wanted to remember lives long gone.

  Entering, she saw the shelves filled with volumes that listed the names of families from Scrabbleton: mothers and children, husbands, wives, miners who had died in tunnel collapses, young people who had gone off to seek their fortunes. They were all noted here, remembered. The people of Scrabbleton recorded everyone, from stillborn babies to men so ancient they no longer knew what year they’d been born. In the dimness, Elliel traced a finger along the spines. The shrine smelled of leather, old paper, dust.

  At least these records existed, while she knew none of her history, except the one horrendous act that had cost her legacy
.

  Elliel returned to the inn and entered through the back door. Shauvon’s wife was in the kitchen, scraping trenchers and soaking mugs in a washbasin. The woman’s orange hair had gone mostly gray, and she kept it tucked up in a gray bonnet. “Elliel! Help me clean up?”

  Happy to help—to be invited to help—she toiled in comfortable silence beside the woman until the pots were scrubbed and the mugs rinsed. When they were done, Elliel went to her room. She closed the door, lit her lantern, and turned down the wick because she didn’t need much light. She undressed, removing her belt and setting it aside, peeling off her linen work jerkin and placing it on the chair. She stepped closer to the lantern. The orange light bathed her naked skin, and she ran a hand over her arms, her chest.

  Thin scars and thick welts formed tortured patterns across her body. Beneath her breast, she felt an X-shaped scar that was hard under her fingertip, as if someone had cut it with the tip of a dagger. With a palm she brushed her breasts, closed her eyes, and wondered if a lover had ever done that. Gooseflesh ran down her arms.

  She let her fingers trail down slowly to her flat abdomen, pausing at the long nasty welt that curved from her right side to just above her navel, where it stopped abruptly. Such a deep cut should have been fatal, but she had survived. She felt a twinge of pain from the long-forgotten wound.

  She tried to imagine herself in battles as a Brava, using a sword or a knife, or igniting her ramer in great struggles. A waxy patch on her upper left arm was obviously a burn. How had that happened? Each of these scars had a story, all of which had been erased from her legacy.

  When Elliel tried holding a sword, she instinctively knew what to do. Her muscles felt right, her reflexes well practiced. She must have been a fearsome warrior, expertly trained. The memories might be gone, but fighting techniques came naturally to her.