The dragon preened and looked smug. “I do have my moments,” it agreed.
Omar threw tea leaves into the pot of melted snow and then said, hesitantly, “If you don’t mind my asking…how did you get caught and collared? As fast as you are, I mean. I would never be able to catch you if you didn’t want to be caught.”
The dragon sighed. “I was young, and they had magic.” It shrugged. “It’s easy enough to catch a youngling, no matter the species. And at first, it’s like nothing really happened. They catch us, collar us, and release us. We can live normally, for the most part, until one of you needs guarding. Then the spells are activated, and that’s that. We’re cut off from our own magic and from the power of human speech if we have it, and we’re transported to the tower we’re supposed to guard and then we’re stuck there.”
Omar echoed the dragon’s sigh. “I can’t believe they would do that. Just to get us married? I mean, I know it’s important for alliances and that kind of thing. We can’t simply date and flirt like normal people, we have to prove we’re worthy of kingdoms and alliances and all that nonsense. But…there has to be a better way to do it!”
“That’s the point of all this,” Gerald reminded him, waving vaguely around the cave. “We’re freeing the guardians so a better way can be developed.”
Omar opened his mouth and closed it again.
“What?” Gerald asked.
“It’s just… Well… What we’re doing feels a little, um, haphazard. I mean, back there? If we had been even an hour later, Thierry would’ve already been rescued. The wolf would’ve been badly hurt, maybe even killed. Or simply gone—what happens, Dragon, when the royal you’re guarding gets rescued? Do you get transported back home?”
“No. The spells tying us there and limiting our own powers are disabled again, but we have to find our own way home. And we’re often half a continent away or more.”
“And where the royals are left behind, like Elinore, eventually someone is going to realize the guardian is gone. And then what? They’ll capture another one or send another one there, and then what? We go back? We keep moving from tower to tower, in an endless loop of freeing individual guardians? We need to do something more…systematic.”
Gerald hunched his shoulders under the blanket. “I know. We’re just…we’re disrupting. We’re not dismantling. I know. But I don’t know what else to do.” Because I never know what to do. People are so much more complicated than animals… They want so many things I don’t, I don’t have the same motivations, I don’t know what they want.
“Stop that!” Omar said.
“What?”
“That look on your face—I can tell what you’re thinking. You’re criticizing yourself, aren’t you? Well, there’s no reason for it. You’ve already done more than anyone else has bothered to. We just need to stop and plan a little bit more. And,” he said, with a shrug and a nod toward the mouth of the cave, “it looks like we’ll be stopped for a while.”
“How did you know what I was thinking?” Gerald asked.
“I told you. The look on your face. You looked the way you did when…well, when you were saying you didn’t feel human. Looking like you think everything is your fault. And it’s not.”
Gerald hunched over further. “I know,” he said softly. “I know it’s not, but it feels that way.”
“Well, it shouldn’t. Look at everything you’ve done already! And we’ll take care of the rest of it. The three of us—and your magic cousin—can definitely come up with a plan. I think what we need first is a replacement system.”
Omar poured tea for himself and Gerald and handed him a cup, punching him gently on the shoulder as he did so. “So drink up, cheer up, and let’s plot.”
Gerald took the tea, took a sip, and smiled. Behind them, the dragon was starting to rumble contentedly. The cave was warm, the fire was bright, the storm was blocked away outside. His self-critical inner voice was drowned out by the dragon’s purr and the crackle of wood.
“Let’s plot,” he agreed.
Chapter Eleven
“SO,” GERALD SAID. “A replacement system. What do you mean by that?”
“Well, royals are still going to need to marry, right? So they’re—we’re—still going to need to meet other royals, still going to need to prove ourselves worthy of kingdoms and alliances and all that. If we get rid of the guardian system, the rescues will be much easier. They won’t be a test of skill or proof of worth. The entire rescuer/rescuee system will fall apart. So, what are we going to put in its place?”
“A contest?” Gerald suggested.
“Hmm…maybe,” Omar said. “What kind of contest?”
“Oh…I don’t know. Each kingdom could have its own, maybe? Whenever a royal comes of age, each kingdom could decide its own contest to win their hand.”
“I don’t know if they would want to take responsibility for that,” Omar said doubtfully. “Also, who would the suitors be, then?”
“The other—oh. They would be involved with their own contests. Okay. Yeah. So that won’t work.”
“It sounds like an interesting idea,” the dragon interjected. “It just needs some tweaking.”
“One big contest, maybe?”
“Of what, though?” Omar repeated.
“Whatever people are good at,” Gerald sighed. “Lila could enter a weapons contest. Erick could enter a magic contest. You could enter a…”
“Enduring extreme temperatures contest?” Omar finished with a grin.
“Seriously, though. You could do weapons for sure. What else do you like?”
“Arguing.”
Gerald rolled his eyes. “Diplomacy, then. Or debate. We could have a contest for everything! Cooking. Horseback riding. Singing. Metalworking. Dancing. Practical skills and royal skills and whatever else we can come up with. We could have open signups. Anything that gets at least two entrants could become a contest.”
“That would cover the meeting other royals and proving worth aspects, definitely.” Omar nodded approvingly. “It also sounds like a tremendous amount of fun. But how will it turn into pairings? Couplings and engagements?”
“Well…maybe not exactly contests, then, not in the strictest sense of the word. More like…like showcases. People show off what they can do, people find others who like the same things as they do, or who have skills that complement theirs…people make connections. That’s how it works, isn’t it?” Gerald looked to Omar for confirmation. “That’s how people fall in love? They share interests, they find common ground?”
“It certainly helps,” Omar said. “Especially if you want a real relationship. A real partnership, and not just…well.” He made a crude gesture.
“Yeah. And…if we bring everyone together…there might even be someone else like me there, don’t you think? Someone else who maybe wants a partnership but not the rest of it.”
Omar opened his mouth and then thought better of what he was going to say. “Why not?” he said instead.
“I like this plan,” the dragon said. “It sounds like it will be a fantastic spectacle. You will allow observers, won’t you?”
“If it’s you? Definitely.”
“We’ll need your help getting everyone there,” Omar pointed out. “Wherever there ends up being. We’ll have to collect everyone.”
“Maybe we should stop disabling the tracking spells, then,” Gerald said. “We might need them if we want to find everyone…”
Omar nodded. “You’d better write to Erick again. We can work out more of the details in the morning.”
Omar was already yawning as he spoke, and he eyed the fire pensively. “I suppose it’s probably safe to leave that burning as long as we don’t sleep too close to it. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like it’s in a proper fire pit…”
The bare stone of the cave floor meant they hadn’t had to worry about the fire spreading to any nearby grass or brush. And that, coupled with their hurry to get
the fire going, meant it was essentially burning away in the middle of the floor.
“If a log rolls off while we’re sleeping, it could be very bad,” Gerald finished.
Omar rubbed his eyes. “You’re right. It’s going to get very cold in here if we douse it, though. All right. I’ll find some rocks or something while you write to Erick. Tell him not to spread the disabling spell, but to keep working on making it stick. Once we start gathering people up, we are going to want to take their spells off.”
“Gathering people up,” Gerald repeated thoughtfully. “That’s going to be easier said than done, I think.”
“Oh, definitely. But, hey, we can always abduct them. You’ve had practice…”
Omar ducked as Gerald tossed a handful of kindling at his head. “Start writing!” he called over his shoulder as he started scouring the cave for loose rocks. The dragon’s blue mage light bobbed after him, floating over his head like a friendly will-o’-the-wisp.
Gerald shook his head in amusement and took out parchment and ink to do as he was told.
GERALD SLEPT FITFULLY that night. He woke up repeatedly, because he was too cold, the ground was too hard, the dragon was snoring…and sometimes for no reason he could determine. The dragon was sound asleep each time Gerald awoke, and although Omar stirred once or twice when Gerald crept over to feed the fire, he never came awake completely.
It’s only me who can’t sleep.
Gerald sighed. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but he had a feeling it was close enough to dawn that there was little point in trying to go back to sleep. Especially because I’ll undoubtedly wake up again in thirty minutes. I don’t even know why I can’t sleep. The ground’s not that uncomfortable, and it’s not bothering Omar. I’m not having nightmares. I’m not even that worried about anything. Okay, the rescues haven’t been going exactly according to plan, but they’ve still worked. We rescued Tska and the amarok. And now we have an even better plan. So why can’t I sleep?
He didn’t have an answer for himself, and no one else was going to wake up and offer one. With another sigh, he dragged a blanket and his knapsack over to the fire and started going through the Who’s Who guide, his lists of sequestered royals, and the maps.
The new plan means we need to gather everyone up; put them in one place; set up all these contests or showcases or whatever we’re calling them; and we still need to free all the guardians. We…we could keep doing what we’re doing, I guess. Going to the towers, freeing the guardians…take the royals with us afterward.
So we need somewhere to put them—and some way to keep them there.
I wonder how many relatives the dragon has…
Gerald counted up the pages in the Who’s Who guide and rubbed his face. There were a hundred and twenty-five of them. One hundred and twenty-five royals to track down. Forget even getting them all into the same place, it was going to be a task and a half to find them in the first place. Only fifty of them were in towers. The other seventy-five were the rescuers, and they could be anywhere in the Thousand Kingdoms.
No wonder they put tracking spells on us. Deity. We have to stop disabling them. We need them to find everyone.
There was no response from Erick yet, but Gerald wrote to him again anyway. It was a short note this time, little more than a reiteration of what had already been said and an admonishment to write back as soon as he could.
He’s been traveling too. He’s been on the ground. Maybe he’ll have an idea of where to put everyone. There’s no point tracking them down until we have a place for the showcase.
Gerald turned back to the maps, looking for some bit of unclaimed land, or even a disputed bit of it, some borderland no one could agree on the owner of. He had a feeling not a single one of the Thousand Kingdoms would be open to hosting their showcase, not when it meant undercutting the entire current system. Not until they proved it worked. Not until they could turn it into a recurring event, for everyone who had turned eighteen since the end of the previous showcase, and for everyone who wasn’t yet paired off.
Which will be at least one person, this year, since there’s an odd number of us. He pushed down the automatic thought that the lone leftover would be him. There’s probably going to be at least half a dozen people who don’t find a pairing. I didn’t even look at the ratios of princesses and princes and princexes, let alone look at anyone’s preferences. I only counted people. And even if everyone except the odd one out—this time he wasn’t able to keep from assuming it would be him—pairs up on paper…there are still personalities to deal with. He thought of the ridiculously socially inept letters he had gotten from Lukas before he had escaped from the tower and tried to imagine the type of person Lukas would impress at a showcase. He couldn’t.
Gerald shook his head. Ratios and personalities and all of that isn’t going to matter one bit if we can’t find somewhere to host this! He went back to the maps and decided he wasn’t going to think about or worry about any other aspect of the entire plan until he found a place that was big enough for all of them, and was politically and environmentally viable, and was private enough they wouldn’t end up with curious neighbors from nearby villages, towns, cities, or farms stopping by to see what was happening, but also was close enough to somewhere they could get food and supplies.
Of course with a dragon around, “close enough” becomes quite a relative term.
Gerald pored over the maps until his eyes began to cross and he had filled two pieces of parchment front and back with notes and lists of what they needed and what they needed to avoid.
I’ll think better after I have some tea, he decided. The water in the barrel had thawed nicely over the course of the night and he was able to fill a pot without having to squeeze past the dragon—who was still asleep and snoring—to get some snow to melt.
When the water was boiling and the tea leaves were steeping, Omar started to stir, his nose twitching. “That smells good,” he said through a yawn. “Pour me some?”
“Sure.”
Gerald parceled out the tea while Omar dragged himself out of his nest of blankets. He moved stiffly over to the fire, rubbing absently at his hip. “I don’t care what people say about firm surfaces being good for your back… I want a mattress tonight.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Gerald said, hiding a smile as he handed Omar a tin mug.
Omar looked at the mess of papers, inks, quills, and maps spread out on the cave floor and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been busy this morning,” he observed. “What have you been working on?”
Gerald filled him in while he prepared some porridge for their breakfast.
“Yeah, that’s a puzzle,” Omar agreed. “We really need to set everything up first, and then recruit everyone. But if we recruited people first, they could help set things up.”
“I know,” Gerald sighed. “We need to balance it.”
“Well, Erick’s already recruited, right?” Omar said. “What about your twi—uh, what about Lila?”
Gerald shook his head. “Even if she liked the idea—and I doubt she would, she’s been wanting to go on this rescue quest for years—she would oppose it solely because it’s my idea. What about you? Siblings, friends?”
It was Omar’s turn to shake his head. “I don’t know anyone in the current group. Not well, anyway.” He took another bite of breakfast and then said, “This porridge is excellent, by the way. I don’t think I’ve ever had good porridge.”
Gerald smiled. “I just seasoned it, that’s all. People always serve it plain and then wonder why it tastes like grout.”
The dragon roused itself then. “What’s this about food?” it asked.
“Do you eat porridge?” Gerald asked.
“I could.”
“Have at it, then.” Gerald pushed the leftovers toward the dragon, and it quickly cleaned out the pot and then licked its chops speculatively.
“Not bad, not bad,” it said. “A nice nutty flavor. Rich. A bit of meat would make it better,
of course.”
“Of course,” Gerald echoed, straight-faced.
“Is it still snowing?” Omar asked, and the dragon shifted to look outside.
“Yes, but only lightly. Although…the sky does not look promising. There are more black clouds coming.”
“Do you think we should try to beat the storm?” Gerald asked. “Or should we stay here for another day?”
“We-e-ell,” the dragon said slowly, “I overheard some of your conversation and it seems like we don’t currently have a destination in mind. Is that right?”
Gerald scuffed his toe on the ground. “We-e-ell,” he echoed, “That depends on what you think of all this. I mean, our first priority was freeing the other guardians. If we change things around like this…we’ll still free them, of course, but it won’t be right away.”
The dragon let out a porridge-scented sigh. “We’ve survived this system for several hundred years. We can survive a bit more delay. Especially if it means we’ll be the last ones enslaved by it. If we take the system down, these will be the last guardians who need to be freed.”
“Then no. We don’t currently have a destination in mind.”
“I suggest we stay in, then,” the dragon said. “I could probably beat the storm. If it were only me, I might risk it. But you two are so fragile.”
“I vote for not freezing to death,” Omar said. “Let’s stay. We can get a good plan squared away and get out of here tomorrow without worrying about the snow.”
“All right,” Gerald said. “You won’t get your mattress tonight, though.”
Omar made a face but said, “I expect I’ll live.”
“I’m going to hunt up something more substantial, then,” the dragon said, standing up as it spoke. “I won’t go far,” it said over its shoulder. “Yell if anything tries to eat you.”
As soon as the dragon moved out of the cave mouth, the ambient temperature dropped by several degrees. A breath of wind blew in and sent Gerald scrambling after the loose papers that got caught up in the breeze.
Royal Rescue Page 14