Sharrah gasped and Aeron’s eyes widened. Jessip was going to be turfed out? It would be almost impossible to find work at another Caer with that in his past.
“However,” Lord Baronel said, “because Aeron was not harmed, I will offer you,” and his gaze turned to Aeron for the briefest moment before returning to Jessip, “one last chance. You will be moved to the Farm. Three months from now your record will be reviewed. If all is well, we shall see where we go from there.”
Jessip dropped to a knee and bowed his head. “Thank you, my lord.”
Aeron breathed a sigh of relief.
Lord Baronel glanced at the silent man to the side, who was now writing on a piece of parchment. The man looked up, nodded at Lord Baronel, and motioned to a guard, who took the now rolled-up parchment and escorted Jessip from the room.
“Apprentice Zoologist Sharrah.” Lord Baronel’s sudden words broke the silence and made Aeron jump a little.
Sharrah stepped forward. “Yes, my lord.”
“Master Canneth tells me you are a remarkable zoologist.”
“I-I,” Sharrah stammered, a little flustered. “I thank the master for his kind words.”
“Aeron mentioned that you had taken measurements of the eggs?”
“Yes, my lord. I, that is, we, started taking measurements and recording data on Anaya last night. And earlier this evening we took more measurements and went to her cavern where I took some notes on the eggs. I should have thought of recording data on her sooner, but we were so busy wracking our brains for a way to let people know about Anaya.”
“That concern is a little moot at this point, wouldn’t you say?” Lord Baronel asked, with a slight smile.
Sharrah nodded solemnly.
“Apprentice Leatherworker Willem.” Lord Baronel was now looking at Willem.
He stepped forward. “My lord?”
“How were you involved in all this tonight?”
“The four of us were at the dance, my lord. Aeron had gone off to the toilets. Several minutes later we saw Anaya fly in.” Willem looked over to Anaya. “She looked amazing, flying in over the trees from the south.” His voice betrayed the obvious awe in which he held Anaya. Then he remembered where he was and quickly said, “And she, ah, looked agitated, as if she was looking for something, or someone. Soon after, she ran into the trees. We followed her to see where she had gone.”
“And Apprentice Archivist, Cheddar is it? You were with them at the dance?”
“My true name is Nilbert, my lord.” Cheddar stepped forward.
Aeron, Willem and Sharrah all looked over at him, shocked. He glanced at them momentarily, a half-smile on his face.
“But everyone calls me Cheddar. And yes, my lord, I was with them at the dance as well. I followed Willem and Sharrah into the trees.” He looked at Anaya. “Stunning creature, isn’t she, my lord?”
“She is a remarkable creature,” Lord Baronel agreed. “Very well behaved, too.” He looked at Aeron. “Someone reported that she had roared?”
“At Jessip, my lord,” Aeron replied. “He had the knife on me when she arrived. She was a little . . . anxious.”
Lord Baronel nodded, eyes back on Anaya. “I can imagine.”
He stood then and walked around the table to stand in front of her. The masters followed him. Anaya watched the men before her impassively.
Looking at her, Lord Baronel asked. “How old did you say she was?”
“She hatched a week ago last night.”
Lord Baronel, not taking his eyes off Anaya, circled her, examining her from all around. “Handsome creature.”
Master Canneth nodded. “Very.”
Master Doronal wore a bemused expression, almost as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Lord Baronel looked at Aeron. “Do you think she would mind if I . . .” and he tentatively reached out his hand toward her.
“Not at all,” Aeron said. He was shocked and more than a little pleased that Lord Baronel would ask him for permission. “She likes to be stroked along her neck. Or even to be scratched on her head here.” He demonstrated for them.
Lord Baronel, a faint smile on his face, stroked her neck. “She is softer than one would think.”
Master Canneth reached out and scratched her head, a delighted smile on his face.
“Master Doronal?” Aeron noticed his craft master standing a few feet back from Anaya. He had not approached closer.
“Hmm?” Master Doronal looked at Aeron. “Oh, my apologies. Thoughts racing around in here.” He tapped his temple with his finger. He walked over and stroked Anaya along her neck. Smiling, he said, “She is magnificent. Truly magnificent.”
Anaya began to hum, and on each eye her clear protective eyelid closed, a sure sign she was enjoying the scratching and attention.
“Oh! She really does enjoy it!” Lord Baronel said, smiling.
Master Doronal peered closer at Anaya’s hide. “And she appears to have . . . patterns? On her hide.”
“Willem compared them to fingerprints,” Aeron remarked, smiling at his friend.
“With the whorls and swirls and other patterning, it is an apt comparison,” Master Doronal said, examining Anaya’s hide.
Master Canneth had leaned in for a closer look as well. “I wonder what purpose they serve? On our fingers you can imagine they are to assist in gripping, but all over her hide?” He ran his fingers across Anaya’s hide from her neck and down to her wings. “How large are her wings?” he asked.
“Let’s just see, Master Canneth, shall we?” Aeron looked at Anaya. Can you extend your wings, love? Carefully?
Anaya slowly stretched out her wings. Lord Baronel and the masters were suitably impressed. Her wingspan was now close to eleven feet from wingtip to wingtip.
“Astonishing,” Master Doronal remarked. “And she’s only seven days hatched.” He had a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Her wings appear to be growing the fastest, at least at this time,” Sharrah said. “There was a three percent increase just since last night.”
Anaya carefully folded her wings on her back.
“Sharrah,” Master Canneth said, “I’d like to see your notes on Anaya and the eggs, when you have time.”
“Of course, Master Canneth,” she replied.
“And now your comments the other day about dragons make a little more sense to me.” The animal craft master looked at Sharrah, a faint smile on his lips. She blushed.
“Yes,” Master Doronal agreed. He looked at Aeron, a twinkle in his eyes. “Aeron was all talk about dragons as well, recently.”
“There is so little information about dragons,” Aeron began, feeling guilty, “that I wanted to know how people felt about them. If there was a chance that Anaya would be killed when she was discovered, I wanted to know about it.”
“Killed? I think not,” Lord Baronel said, eyes still on Anaya. “I am, however, at a loss as to how she can contribute to the Caer.”
“Lord Baronel,” Master Canneth began, “the research opportunities alone are well worth the effort of maintaining her.” He looked at Anaya. “No one has ever had the chance to record hands-on data from dragons.”
“I’m curious about the magic of the Bond, myself,” Master Doronal said. “Dragons appear to be magical creatures. Another point no one knew before.”
“I suppose the fact that there was something special about them should have been obvious before,” Master Canneth remarked.
“Oh?” Lord Baronel asked.
“They have six limbs,” he replied.
Master Doronal, after a moment of surprise, nodded.
“Yes,” Lord Baronel said. “I see what you mean. They have four legs and their two wings.”
“There are bugs with more than four legs or whatever,” Cheddar pointed out.
“Yes,” Master Canneth said. “But the larger animals, amphibians, birds, reptiles, mammals, and such, all of them are tetrapods, or four-limbed animals. No large animals are
hexapods, except for dragons.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t catch that,” Sharrah said, a frown on her face.
Willem chuckled and smiled at her. “You were going on about how they don’t seem to fit into any of your current animal classes. I think having six limbs is a real stumper, no?”
“I’d like your thoughts on classification at some point as well, Sharrah,” Master Canneth said.
Sharrah blushed and nodded.
“They do seem to be an enigma,” Master Canneth continued. “In all other animals you can see relationships to other animals. We divide them into classes or families of animals that have similar characteristics. But dragons, well, they seem a breed apart. True, they do have some similarities to other animals, but the stumper, as Willem said, is that they have six limbs. They are unique in that regard.”
“And that isn’t some minor characteristic like a differently shaped beak or bone,” Sharrah said. “Two entire extra limbs?”
“It’s a mystery,” Master Canneth agreed. “Where did dragons come from?”
“Anaya said their purpose is to help us,” Aeron said quietly.
“Purpose?” Master Doronal said.
“Help us? With what?” Lord Baronel had turned to Aeron and looked at him now with brows raised.
“She doesn’t remember.”
“Remember?” Lord Baronel turned back to Anaya, a quizzical look on his face.
They all looked at Anaya.
“She can remember things, from long ago, from before she was hatched. An ancestral memory, I call it.”
“Dragons have these ancestral memories?” Master Canneth was looking at her with interest.
Aeron shook his head. “Not all dragons. She told me those kinds of memories are only awakened by the Bond. Because we are the first to be linked, no other dragons have them.”
“Fascinating,” Master Doronal remarked. “There are so many things about dragons we do not know.”
“I agree.” Lord Baronel tore his eyes from Anaya and looked at Aeron for several seconds. He seemed to come to a decision and nodded. “I will maintain her in the Caer. At the very least while the masters are researching her.”
Aeron’s initial happy smile faded somewhat with the last. But his worries were over for now, at least. “Thank you, Lord Baronel.”
Anaya could live in the Caer!
Anaya, sensing Aeron’s excitement and the reason for it, let out a pleased rumble.
“I will leave it to you two,” and Lord Baronel nodded to the masters, “to figure out the details.” He stroked Anaya’s neck once more, a quiet smile on his face, then left the room, the silent man and the guards following behind.
“The first thing to decide, I think, is where she will live.” Master Canneth looked at Master Doronal, who nodded.
“I don’t suppose you have any room at the barn?” the magic master asked.
“Some, but dragons get quite large. I don’t think there will be room enough for her after a few months.”
“And,” Sharrah added, “I am not sure what other animals will feel about living with a dragon.”
“A good point,” Master Doronal agreed.
“What about the other loading stable, the west one?” Aeron asked.
The loading stables were two structures beyond the north doors of the Magic Craft Hall, one stable on each side of the road that lead down to the loading dock of the magic hall. For extra-large orders, say for a caer or village, special delivery wagons were used to ship the order direct. The horses used to pull the special lightglobe delivery wagons were housed in the east stables. They were hitched to the delivery wagons, which they moved to the loading dock. The horses were then unhitched and returned to the loading stables until the wagons were loaded and they were needed again.
Lightglobes were somewhat delicate, and their crates needed to be very carefully loaded and stowed on the delivery wagons built special for the purpose. Depending on the size of the order, that could take up to an hour or more. Even though the horses used for lightglobe wagons were chosen for their stolid natures, if one of the horses got restless in all that time and started moving, it could in turn move the wagon and cause someone to drop a crate. Therefore, they were taken back to the stables during loading.
After a year in operation, and even though lightglobe orders were steadily rising, there were only enough orders to justify the current number of delivery horses, which the one stable could easily accommodate. Thus, for now, only the east stable was used. This left the west stable empty, and available.
Master Doronal looked at Aeron, thinking. He began nodding his head. “Yes. We could appropriate the west loading stable. If we need more room for horses later, we can just expand the east stable or,” and he looked at Master Canneth, “maybe just house the extras at the Caer stables and bring them over as needed.”
Master Canneth shrugged at him. “Either way.”
Still looking at Master Canneth, he asked, “Do we know how big dragons get?”
“Based on remote observations, we think they get up to twenty feet long and can weigh anywhere from three thousand to five thousand pounds, depending on their size.”
“The weight is a guess, however,” Sharrah added, “based on their size, and comparing to other large animals.”
“If that’s true,” Master Doronal said, “she will eventually need most of the building to herself.” He nodded once. “Yes, this is a good start.” He looked at Aeron. “For tonight she can fly back to where she lives now, and we can start work on her den, I suppose we can call it, tomorrow. We,” he looked at Master Canneth, “can work out other issues tomorrow as well.”
“Just be sure she doesn’t fly over the fair on her way back to the caverns,” Master Canneth said, looking at Aeron.
“Of course,” Aeron said.
“And once she is safely back to her cavern, you can all get back to the fair. And dancing!” Master Doronal smiled at them.
Jessip grunted as he placed the trunk in the wagon. The guard must have summoned the wagon while he had been packing. His hand was stinging from carrying the trunk. He’d have to put more salve on it soon, but the jar was in the trunk so it would have to wait.
The guard had summoned Assistant Proctor Alden and spoken with him at length. Afterward, they had made their way to the room Jessip had shared with the three men. His roommates hadn’t said anything as he stuffed his meager belongings into the trunk that Assistant Proctor Alden had given him.
Now, the guard handed the message up to the wagon driver and turned to Jessip. “Hop on up, son.”
Jessip glanced at the guard, momentarily thinking about making a remark about not being his son. But he didn’t. Proctor Jarvis was right. Aeron was right. He had to stop acting like everyone was against him. If he wanted something, he was going to have to work for it. Being rude to this guard, who had actually treated him well, was not going to help anything. So, he just climbed up to the seat of the wagon, being careful of his right hand.
The driver shook the reigns, and the horses started their slow walk up the cobblestone road on their way to East Gate.
In the distance Jessip could faintly hear the music out at the fair. Even a dragon in their midst couldn’t keep the festivities stopped for long, it seemed. He still couldn’t believe it. He had touched a dragon. Well, she had touched him, really, and hard. He rubbed his chest. They were just as amazing as he thought they would be. And he really couldn’t begrudge Aeron the dragon after hearing what he’d gone through. Jessip would never have done any of it himself.
Several minutes later, the eastern gate loomed ahead, the tops of the two large guard towers looking like massive shoulders against the night sky. As they passed through the gate, Jessip looked back. He kept watching as the Caer grew smaller and smaller.
“Yer gonna get a crick in yer neck that way,” the driver said.
Jessip grunted and turned back forward.
The ride out was dark. There were stars,
brilliant points of light in the night sky, but their light was faint. The starlight was supplemented by the merest sliver of a crescent moon, waning, and the two lanterns, one on each side of the wagon seat. The lanterns were not large, their light only extending three or four feet before and to either side of the wagon. The extract in their lightglobes swirled every time they hit a bump. Which happened a lot on the unpaved road outside the Caer.
After what seemed like an eternity to Jessip, they made it to Baronel Farm. The driver stopped in front of a wide building with a covered porch that ran the length of the front. Jessip hopped off the seat to the ground, happy to finally be off the wagon. Gods, but his ass was going to be sore for days after that bumpy ride on the hard seat. He rubbed his backside, trying to get feeling back.
A large, well-muscled man walked out to the wagon, eyeing Jessip as he passed. In the light of the lantern, his blond hair was almost white on top where the sun had bleached it. The driver handed him the rolled up message, saying, “Evenin’, Assistant Proctor Marcus. Got a new recruit for yeh.”
A rather tall and large woman made her way out the front door of the building and over to the wagon. Her hair, dark brown as far as Jessip could tell in the available light, was done up in a large, tight bun. She wore a simple nightdress that managed to cover her entire body, up to and including her neck. Which, Jessip thought, considering the size of her and her bosom, was quite a trick. If one took the time to examine her closer, however, one would realize that her size was not due to being overweight, it was due to hard work on the Farm. She had muscle.
Assistant Proctor Marcus silently handed her the message.
She read it quickly and looked at Jessip.
“Jessip,” she said. “There’s quite a bit in here about you.” She stared at him with an unreadable look. “Welcome to Baronel Farm. I am Madam Proctor Josephine. Assistant Proctor Marcus here is my eyes and ears everywhere, especially in the Men’s Quarters. His word is my own. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he said and nodded.
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