“And now, time for questions,” Master Canneth said.
All around, hands flew into the air. The masters both laughed and Master Canneth murmured, “This is going to be some work, eh, Doronal?”
Master Doronal smiled and replied quietly, “It certainly looks it. Let’s get started.”
The first chosen was a young boy sitting on the fence. “Can she talk?” he asked breathlessly, eyes locked on the young dragon.
A few hands dropped in the crowd. They must have had the same question, Aeron supposed. “She doesn’t talk, exactly,” he replied. He glanced at Master Doronal, who nodded to him. “She can speak in your mind. She doesn’t always; she speaks to whom she chooses.”
The boy whispered excitedly to the children sitting next to him.
“Does she eat people?” This question was from a young woman who looked somewhat alarmed. Her eyes were large in her face.
Several hands dropped at that question. Aeron was surprised. He would not have thought so many people would be worried about that. Although, maybe seeing Anaya eat her meal had put the idea into people’s heads.
Master Doronal turned to Aeron, trying to suppress a smile, and asked, “Anaya has not eaten anyone, has she?”
Aeron looked at Anaya. “Dragons don’t eat people, do they?”
Not normally. Anaya blinked calmly at Aeron.
Aeron laughed, turned to the woman, and said, “She says they do not normally eat people.”
Her eyes lost some of their size. “Good,” she murmured. “Good.”
“Normally,” Master Doronal repeated.
The woman glanced at him and murmured something too quietly to hear.
“Where exactly did you find her egg?” The next question came from a young man, a few years older than Aeron. He stared fixedly at Anaya.
Aeron kept his mouth closed. The masters would have to answer this one.
“The where is not important,” Master Doronal said. “Suffice it to say that the location is no longer accessible, and more importantly, it was not a normal place for dragons to, ah, nest, as it were.”
“There were no more dragons or live eggs where I found Anaya,” Aeron said.
“If there had been, there would be more dragons here,” Master Canneth said, as if it should have been obvious.
Quite a few hands lowered in the crowd. It was a question that had been on a lot of minds.
“Will she be wandering around the Caer?” The face on this questioner was puckered and not at all happy, like she had just tasted very sour wine.
“No, madam,” Master Doronal said, “she will not be wandering around willy-nilly. She might have occasion to visit the Animal Craft Hall or some such, but in general, no. This is her home in the Caer,” and he gestured to the stables behind him.
The woman sniffed, nodded, and turned and began making her way out of the crowd.
The next question came from a girl. “First off, I want to thank you all for letting us ask these questions about Anaya and to lets us visit her.” Aeron, near the north end of the fence as he and Anaya made another round, looked over at the girl. She was standing by the far fence to the south. He thought he had recognized her voice, and he was right. It was Liara.
“You’re quite welcome, young lady.” Master Doronal bowed his head and then smiled at her.
Liara blushed and said, “I was wondering whether we would be allowed to stop by and watch Aeron and Anaya from the fence at other times?”
A corner of Master Doronal’s mouth lifted in a half-smile and he replied, “Assuming you aren’t shirking your duties or chores, I don’t suppose it would be too bad if you wanted to stand by the fence occasionally and watch . . . Anaya.”
Liara was blushing harder than ever. “Thank you,” she said.
There were several more questions.
“Does she only eat meat?”
No, but she prefers it.
“Can she fly?”
Yes.
“Is she evil?”
No more evil than a dog or cat or your best friend.
“Will she lay eggs soon?”
Aeron was a little uncomfortable with that question, but Master Doronal said that it wasn’t something they knew about yet.
On and on the questions went. Finally, Master Doronal called the last question.
The man chosen cleared his throat, glanced at Lord Baronel, and then looked back to Master Canneth for his question. “With all the food the dragon apparently eats and all the work that has gone into making this stable her home, what is she contributing to the Caer? Does she actually do anything?” His gaze was fixed on the zoology master, almost daring him to be able to justify the dragon. One or two people in the crowd were nodding, agreeing with him.
Aeron’s heart thumped in his chest. That exact question had been on his mind recently. What were they going to contribute to the Caer? What could they? He had no idea.
We will do what we will do.
Aeron sighed. I just wish I knew exactly what that will be.
Anaya stopped walking and touched her nose to Aeron. What we are meant to do.
“The amount of information we have learned from Anaya in the last few days is incredible,” Master Canneth began, but was interrupted by Lord Baronel.
“Edderin, isn’t it?” Lord Baronel asked the slight man.
The man looked at Lord Baronel in surprise. “Yes, my lord.”
“You have two daughters, yes?”
“Indeed I do, my lord. I’m flattered that you know.” He looked around at the people near him, preening at the fact that Lord Baronel knew him by name.
Lord Baronel smiled at him and asked, “What do your daughters contribute to the Caer?”
Edderin was taken aback. He stammered, “M-my lord? They are but two and three years old. They are much too young to—”
“Please forgive me,” Lord Baronel said, “I did not mean to upset you. I know they are yet babes. However, that is my point.” He looked around at the crowd and then back at the confused Edderin. “Anaya is but two weeks old tomorrow night. Perhaps we can grant her the same consideration and give her some time before we expect her to contribute? And as Master Canneth mentioned, we are learning a great deal of information about dragons from her even now. Information has value. Sometimes a great deal of value.”
Aeron’s spirits were lifted. Lord Baronel was right! Aeron shouldn’t be worrying so much about it yet. There was time enough for that. And besides, once they could fly together . . . “Soon enough, Anaya will be big enough to carry me, and she and I will go hunting for her food. Then that burden, at least, will not rest on the Caer.”
Lord Baronel looked at Aeron and smiled. “Just so.”
“Very good,” Master Doronal said. “Alright ladies and gentlemen, that is all for tonight. Perhaps we shall see some of you again tomorrow night? But for now, good evening.”
The crowd began to disperse, some having sober discussions and others chatting very excitedly. Aeron and Anaya made their way back to the others. Lord Baronel was talking quietly with the masters, while his wife, Lady Rora, and his children watched Anaya.
“You can pet her, if you like,” Aeron said to the children.
“Oh, can I?” Terra asked with bright eyes.
“Sure, she won’t mind.”
Lord Baronel’s youngest tentatively reached out her hand and ran it along Anaya’s neck.
Anaya began to hum her happy rumble.
“She likes it!” Terra said, delightedly.
Soon enough Gareth, the middle of the three children, was petting her as well, a large smile on his face. The eldest merely stood by her mother and smiled.
“We should probably take measurements now, before she gets too tired.” Sharrah walked into the stable and returned with her notebook and the measure tape. She looked at the children, who were still giving Anaya all their attention, and asked, “We need to take measurements now, but I was wondering, would you like to help?”
&n
bsp; “Yes!” Gareth was fairly jumping with excitement.
Terra nodded vigorously. “What do we need to do?”
“You’ll need to be very careful and calm,” Sharrah said. “Here, you can take this end,” and she handed the end of the tape to Gareth and then the rolled up end to Terra, “and you can take the rest, unrolling it as needed.”
She spent the next several minutes directing them on where to hold the tape and how to read the measurements, jotting down the results as they gave them to her. Anaya was careful to move slowly and deliberately as she spread her wings and changed positions while the children measured. By the time they were finished, Lord Baronel and the masters were standing with them, watching and smiling.
“Would that they did everything they were told with such care!” Lord Baronel laughed. More soberly he said, “Tonight went well, I think.”
“Very.” Master Canneth nodded.
“It’s good that something is,” Master Doronal murmured to himself quietly, but Aeron caught the worry in his voice.
“Master Doronal?” Aeron whispered to his master.
The magic master looked at Aeron. “Don’t mind me. Some bad news is all, but nothing to do with Anaya.” He turned back to Anaya and smiled. “She is a wonder.”
Aeron, still staring at Master Doronal, nodded absently.
A few minutes later, Aeron, Willem, Sharrah, and Cheddar were alone with Anaya. Lord Baronel and his family had returned to The Residence, and the masters had taken their leave as well.
“We should weigh her,” Sharrah said.
“Might as well,” Aeron agreed.
Sharrah walked to the weighing tower as Anaya padded onto the scale. After a few moments, she wrote down the weight in her notebook and then looked at Aeron. “Has she done her business this evening yet?”
Aeron blushed. Even after two days, he still was embarrassed about having to examine Anaya’s scat. He quickly tempered his feelings, though, and asked Anaya, Have you visited your toilet yet tonight?
I did, earlier.
“She has,” he replied.
Sharrah nodded and headed to the small enclosure, Aeron following behind.
“I have to agree with what Master Canneth said yesterday,” Sharrah said as she squatted down. “There is definitely something interesting going on with her digestion.” She poked at the relatively fresh scat with a wooden probe.
“I’m still not sure I follow,” Aeron said.
“Her scat is unlike any carnivore’s we’ve ever seen. You remember how we talked about checking whether she was getting enough bones by tracking how many bone fragments were left in her scat? The fewer bones that were left, the more she was needing?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there are none. Nothing at all. Not even the tiniest bits. In fact, there isn’t anything in it. Her scat is uniform and smooth, like clay. And while carnivore scat is usually dark, from the blood and meat, hers is pale. There isn’t as much of it as you would expect either, almost as if she is able to digest her food incredibly efficiently and in a way very different from other carnivores.”
“She isn’t exactly like other animals.”
Sharrah nodded and snorted. “We are realizing that more and more.” She wiped the probe clean on the grass and placed it to the side before standing and jotting some notes down.
“Lord Baronel was right. Tonight went very well,” Willem said as Aeron and Sharrah rejoined them by the scale.
“It did,” Aeron agreed, “all things considered. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it went smoothly.”
“I thought you were great,” Cheddar said, smiling.
“You were, you know,” Willem agreed, smiling at Aeron.
Aeron nodded his thanks, then frowned. “I wonder what was bothering Master Doronal, though.”
“I bet it had to do with the attack,” Cheddar said, eyes on Anaya.
“Attack?” Willem asked.
“What attack?” Aeron was looking at Cheddar intently.
Cheddar looked around, but other than the four of them and Anaya, there was only one other person, a young boy standing at the far end of the yard near the corner of the fence watching Anaya. “There was another nahual attack,” he whispered. “Several people were killed.”
“Wha—?” Willem caught himself, lowering his voice. “Another attack already?”
“Where?” Sharrah asked, in shock.
“A farmstead, half a day from Littletown.”
“Littletown?” Willem asked.
“It’s about a week’s ride southwest of here.” Cheddar’s eyes clouded over. “The whole family was found dead.”
“How many?” Aeron asked after a moment.
Cheddar grimaced. “Three. Two parents and a child. The child was just a babe, two years old.”
“That’s horrible!” Sharrah said.
“Three?” Willem murmured in shock.
“How,” Aeron began, but then he shook his head. “I mean, who found them?”
“They were late picking up an order for equipment in town. The shop owner sent his son to deliver the equipment. He found them. They’d been there a few days.”
Willem shook his head. “An entire family, slaughtered.”
“That’s the weird thing,” Cheddar said. “Two didn’t seem to have a scratch on them.”
Jessip was quiet as he walked beside Proctor Josephine on the way back to the Dining Hall and the wagons.
“She’s not as big as I thought she would be,” Proctor Josephine remarked after a few minutes.
“She’s only two weeks old,” Jessip said. “She’ll get bigger, I warrant.”
“True enough.” She glanced sideways at Jessip. “What did you think of her?”
Jessip shrugged. “She’s golden, of course. I was glad to get a longer look at her.” After a bit, he said, “He’s lucky to have her. Lucky to be alive, really.”
“Oh?”
“Aeron nearly died when he found her, almost fell to his death. They don’t seem to want people to know where, so I probably shouldn’t say either.”
Proctor Josephine smiled to herself and said, “Probably not.”
When they got to the wagons, there were four guards in full armor standing with Ash and the others.
“Guards?” Jessip asked, surprised.
“Yes,” Proctor Josephine said. “Lord Baronel has decided that we need to mount a night watch at the Farm, so he is stationing four guards with us. There seems to be an increasing number of nahual attacks in our region and he wants to be sure we are safe.”
Everyone started climbing in the wagons. He climbed into the back of the first wagon and tried to find a free spot amongst all the empty containers. Two of the guards climbed in with him while the other two climbed in the last wagon. At one time, he would have been excited to talk with the guards. But being a guard didn’t seem to be as important to him as it once was. And oddly, the work at the Farm wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. In fact, he found it enjoyable.
The ride back to the Farm wasn’t as comfortable as the trip to the Caer. There wasn’t anything but the empty barrels and flimsy crates or the wooden floor of the wagon to sit on. Jessip resigned himself to a sore rear and watched as more stars came out with the last of the day’s sunlight fading. He heard the occasional jingle of chain armor or metal clanking on metal each time the wagon hit a rut, and he smiled, wondering whether the guards would have sore butts at the end of the ride.
Chapter 20
Therday, Primory 4, 1874
Morning
Aeron woke before the chronometer alarm went off. He glanced at it— he was twenty minutes early—then toggled the alarm so it wouldn’t go off later. Checking the link he found that Anaya was still asleep, though only lightly. He jumped out of bed and grabbed a change of clothes from his wardrobe and then stood in the middle of his room. Even now, months later, he’d still occasionally be astonished and bewildered by the rooms and the furniture he had been pr
ovided with. But he didn’t have time to dwell on it today, so he stuffed his clothes in his satchel, grabbed his cap, coat and boots, and then quickly, though quietly, made his way out of the dragon stable and rushed off to the Bath Hall.
Though they had installed a small water closet in his bedroom, they had not installed anything with which he could bathe. Outfitted with a toilet and sink, there had not been enough room in the modest closet for a shower, much less a tub, so he still had to go to either the Magic Craft Hall or the Bath Hall to take care of bathing. The tub room in the Bath Hall was closer, so that’s where he usually went. They had installed showers last month in the Bath Hall, for which he was especially grateful this morning because he was in a hurry. It was his birthing day!
His boots made crunchy-squeaky sounds as he clomped through the snow. More had fallen last night, and the Caer was draped rather beautifully with it. The light fluffy snow was everywhere, the predawn light giving it a glowing appearance. Aeron hurried along, however, with nary a thought about the pale mantle covering everything.
It had been about two months since the week or so of question and answer nights. Those events had worked exactly as they had hoped. Everyone got to see Anaya and ask questions about her, so there weren’t very many people hanging around the dragon stable at other times. Although, there still were some. But, he had to admit, if he had been anyone else, he would have been there as often as he could too, hoping for even a glimpse of Anaya. A month after those nights, Sharrah and Willem had been put back on morning chores, with Therday mornings, the last day of the workweek, the only mornings still dedicated to meeting with Aeron and Anaya for dragon study. Any day now, Aeron expected to be put back on morning chores as well.
It didn’t take long to get to the dormitories. He removed as much snow and slush from his boots as he could on the large metal shoe scraper next to the door, giving his boots a couple of kicks against the side of the scraper for good measure before entering the building.
Inside, he removed his cap and unbuttoned his coat. Not many people were about. He made a stop at the toilets before heading into the Bath Hall. After showering, he quickly toweled off and got dressed. On his way out, he grabbed a fresh towel to finish drying his hair back at the dragon stable. In the hallway he pulled on his cap, put on his coat and then walked out into the bright and crisp winter morning. Sunrise had arrived, though he didn’t notice.
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