Eon: Dragoneye Reborn e-1

by Alison Goodman

  When the courtyard was clear, I walked slowly up the path towards the kitchen. Lon, the gardener, was on his knees repairing the low bamboo fence that enclosed the Sun Garden. I nodded as I passed and he waved a dirt-crusted hand. Lon mainly kept to himself, but he always greeted me with gentle courtesy and even had a smile for Chart, the slops boy His kindness was not copied by many of my master's other staff. Our small household was very much divided: those who believed a cripple could be a Dragoneye, and those who did not. All who served my master knew that his wealth had nearly run dry; there would be no funds to train another candidate. If I did not secure the apprentice bonus and the twenty per cent tithe tomorrow, my master was ruined.

  The kitchen doorway was open and I stepped over the raised threshold that kept evil spirits from entering the house. Immediately, the heat from the large cooking stoves pressed against my skin and I smelled the sharp tang of sour plum sauce and salt-baked fish: my master's evening meal. Kuno, the cook, glanced up from the white-root he was slicing.

  'You, is it?' He turned his attention back to the vegetable. 'Master has already ordered the gruel,' he said, tilting his shaved head at a small pot hanging over the spit fire. 'Don't blame me when you eat it. It was according to his instructions.'

  My evening meal. As part of the cleansing ritual, I was allowed only one bowl of millet gruel before praying throughout the night to my ancestors for guidance and help. A few months ago, I had asked my master whether it mattered that I had no knowledge of my ancestors. He stared at me for a moment, then turned away saying, 'It matters very much.' My master was being very careful; he said we must do everything according to Dragoneye tradition to avoid attracting Council scrutiny. I could only hope that old Hian's precedent for the Reverse Horse Dragon Second was in the history scrolls. And that my master could find it in time.

  A rasping noise rose from behind the large wooden preparation table that stood in the centre of the room. Chart, calling me from his mat beside the stoves.

  'He's been waiting for you,' Kuno said. 'Been getting under my feet all day' He sliced off the end of the white-root with an extra heavy chop. 'You tell him I'm not blind, I know he's been at the cheese.' Although they had worked in the same kitchen for eleven years, Kuno still refused to speak to Chart or even look at him. Too much bad luck.

  I skirted around the end of the table and used its worn edge for balance as I sat on the stone floor beside Chart. He tapped my knee with a clawed finger, his lolling mouth slowly forming a smile.

  'Did you really get some cheese?' I asked softly, shifting my weight off my aching left hip.

  He nodded vigorously and opened his hand to show me a piece of dirty cheese rind. The muscles in his throat contorted as he struggled to speak. I listened for his words in the strained, elongated sounds.

  'For…the…rat.' He pushed the rind into my hand.

  'Thank you,' I said, slipping the cheese into my pocket. Chart was always giving me food he had found. Or stolen. He was convinced that if I fed the big grey rat that lived behind the storeroom where I slept, the Rat Dragon would repay the kindness by choosing me as his apprentice. I wasn't so sure an energy dragon would take note of such a thing, but I still gave the scraps to the rat.

  From beneath his body, Chart pulled out a thick slice of fine bread covered in dust. The master's bread. I glanced at Kuno; he was still bent over the white-root. I moved to my right until I hid Chart and the bread from view.

  'How'd you get that? Kuno will whip you,' I whispered.

  'For you…only gruel tonight…you be…hungry tomorrow.' He dropped the bread into my lap.

  I ducked my head in thanks and stuffed it into my pocket with the cheese. 'I think that's the whole idea. They want us to be hungry' I said.

  Chart twisted his mouth into a puzzled grimace.

  I shrugged. 'We're supposed to prove our natural stamina by doing the approach ceremony hungry and tired.'

  Chart rolled his head back and forth across the mat. 'Stu…pid,' he said. He took a deep breath and steadied his head against the side of the firewood box, fixing his eyes on mine.

  'Tomorrow morning you come…say goodbye?' His fingers closed around my wrist. 'Come say…goodbye…before the ceremony? Promise?'

  Chart knew that if I was chosen, I would not come back. A new apprentice was taken straight to his Dragon Hall after the ceremony. A new home. A new life. My scalp prickled from a sudden wave of heat and sweat; tomorrow I could be a Dragoneye apprentice.

  'Promise?' Chart said.

  I nodded, unable to talk through the squeeze of panic in my throat.

  He let go of my wrist, his hand suspended in the air. 'Tell me…what the…Rat Dragon Hall…is like…again.'

  I'd only seen the hall once. A few months ago during training, Ranne had marched us around the Dragon Circle, the avenue of halls that ringed the outer precinct of the Imperial Palace.

  Each hall had been carefully built at the compass position of the dragon it honoured, and was the home and workplace of the Dragoneye and apprentice. The Rat Dragon Hall was in the north-northwest of the Circle and, although it wasn't the biggest or the grandest, it was easily three times the size of my master's house. We were not permitted inside any of the halls, but Ranne allowed us five minutes' rest in the garden that now marked the position of the Mirror Dragon Hall. Five hundred years ago it had burned down; only the stone outline of the building remained embedded in the grass. Dillon and I had walked its perimeter and were amazed at the number of rooms.

  Beside me, Chart closed his eyes, preparing for my words.

  'Two grey stone statues of the Rat Dragon guard the gate,' I said, closing my own eyes to remember my brief glimpse of the hall. 'They stand bigger than me and twice as wide. The one on the right holds the Dragoneye compass in its claws, the other cradles the three sacred scrolls. As you walk past them, their stone eyes follow you. Inside the gate, a courtyard made of matched dark cobbles leads to the —'

  'I don't know why you bother,' I heard Irsa say. I opened my eyes. She was in the doorway, briskly brushing down her skirt. 'The freak doesn't understand your words.' She smoothed the looped braid of her hair.

  Chart and I exchanged glances. No doubt the miller's man was going home happy

  'Sl…u…t,' Chart said loudly.

  Irsa pulled her face into a mockery of Chart's and mimicked his elongated sounds, unaware of the word within it. Chart rolled his eyes at me, his body thrashing against the floor in laughter.

  I grinned as Irsa backed away.

  'Freak,' she said, her fingers making the ward-evil at Chart. She turned her attention to me.

  'Master said you were to go to him as soon as you returned,' she said, then added snidely,

  'although he wasn't expecting you until the end of training time.'

  'Where is he now?' I asked.

  'Moon Garden. On the main viewing platform.' She smiled slyly She knew I was not allowed in the Moon Garden — my master had forbidden it. 'He said as soon as you return.'

  I grabbed the edge of the table and pulled myself upright. Should I obey my master's ban on the Moon Garden, or obey his command to attend on him immediately? He would not be pleased that I was home so early Let alone the other news I had for him.

  'Irsa, do your work,' Kuno said. 'Stop wasting time or you'll feel the back of my hand.'

  Irsa gave me one last gloating look then hurried into the dark passageway that connected the kitchen to the main house.

  There was a saying in one of the earthier Dragoneye texts: a man on the horns of a dilemma ends up with his arse pricked. My master would find fault whether I went into the garden or I waited. Since there was no avoiding his displeasure, I would go to him. At least I would finally see the garden that had won him such fame.

  'Tomorrow,' I said to Chart. He gave his slow smile.

  I stepped over the threshold and out into the courtyard. To my left was the grey stone fence of the Moon Garden, its low metal gate etched with the shape of a le
aping tiger. I headed towards it, the promise of my master's anger dragging at my feet. There were many ways to tell the truth — I just needed to find one that would satisfy him. All that was visible over the gateway was a black pebble path leading to an impressive stacked slate wall. Along its face a waterfall cascaded down a carefully haphazard run of ledges, pooling into a white marble bowl.

  My master had designed the garden to symbolise female energy and it was said that during a full moon the garden was so beautiful it could rob a man of his essence. When I heard that, I wondered what would happen to a man robbed of his essence: would he become a woman or would he become something else? Something like the Shadow Men of the court? Or something like me?

  There was no latch on the gate. I traced the strong lines of the tiger on the metal for luck — or maybe for protection — then pushed against it until the gate swung open.

  The black path was made of pebbles and seemed to move in front of me like a slow ripple of water. As I stepped onto it, I realised why: the stones had been laid in a subtle graduation of matt to polished that caught the sunlight. On either side, a flat expanse of sand had been raked into swirling patterns. I pushed the gate shut behind me and followed the path to the waterfall wall, my uneven steps sounding like the chink of coins in a pouch. The path diverged around the wall. I paused for a moment, listening. Underneath the sound of the waterfall splashing into the bowl was the muted hiss of more flowing water. No other sounds of physical movement. But deeper, in my mind, I felt the soft thrum of carefully contained power. I chose the left path and walked around the wall into the main garden.

  It was a severe landscape: clusters of rocks on flat sand, swirling paths of black and white pebbles, and an intricate weaving of waterfalls, streams and pools that was directing the thrumming energy to the wooden viewing platform. My master was kneeling in its centre, as spare and severe as his surroundings. I lowered into a bow, watching for acknowledgement.

  He didn't move. And there were no signs of anger in the lean lines of his body A shadow above made me flinch. I looked up, but there was nothing. No bird. No cloud. Only a strange, hot joy that eased the cramp in my belly and the ache in my hip.

  My master's body stiffened. 'What are you doing here?'

  'I was told you wished to see me, Master,' I said, crouching lower. There was still no pain.

  'Why are you back so early?'

  'Swordmaster Ranne said I need not train any more,' I said carefully

  'You should not be in here. Especially not now. The energies are too strong.' He stood up in a single practised movement, the frayed silver embroideries on his tunic flaring in the sun.

  'Come, we must leave now.'

  He held out his hand. I hurried forwards and extended my arm, bracing myself as he leaned on me and stepped off the platform.

  He paused, still holding my arm. 'Do you feel them?' he asked.

  I looked up into his gaunt face, the prominent bones made even starker by his shaved skull.

  'Feel them?'

  'The energies.' Irritation edged his voice.

  I bowed my head. 'I can feel the flow of water energy to the viewing platform,' I said.

  He flicked his fingers. A novice could feel that. Is there nothing else?'

  'No, Master.' It was not the truth, but how could I explain the heat of an imagined shadow? Or the soft unravelling that was the absence of pain.

  He grunted. 'Then perhaps we have succeeded.'

  He turned and walked quickly towards the house. I followed two paces behind, concentrating on keeping my footing on the

  shifting pebbles. For once, each step did not jar with pain. We passed a simple Moon altar — a smooth concave stone resting on two smaller rocks — surrounded by a shallow amphitheatre of cut marble. Ahead, the pebble path widened in front of another viewing platform that also served as a step up to the house. Two carved doors stood open, allowing a view of floor-to-ceiling scroll boxes, a cabinet and a dark-wood desk. My master's library — another area forbidden to me. Until now. I paused, staring at the shelves of scrolls. My master had drilled me in my letters and I'd read all of the Classics and Dragoneye texts, but I longed to read about other things.

  'Don't just stand there gaping like a fool,' my master said, holding out his hand.

  I helped him onto the platform as Rilla, Chart's mother and my master's body servant, stepped out of the library and kneeled at the doorway For the first time I noticed the swirls of grey hair in the neat loop of her 'unmarried' braid. It was meant to be her disgrace, but she wore it with quiet dignity My master extended one foot and she slid off his scuffed silk slipper, then the other, placing them neatly on a small woven mat.

  'We are not to be disturbed,' my master ordered. He held out his hand and I helped him over the lip of the threshold.

  Rilla looked up at me and raised her eyebrows. I twitched my shoulder into a shrug, then hurriedly pulled off my woven straw sandals, grabbing the doorframe for balance. Black dirt striped my feet around the pattern of the straps. I licked my fingers and rubbed the top of each foot, but the dirt just smeared into streaks.

  'Stay still,' Rilla said softly. She took a cloth out of her pocket and wiped my left ankle.

  'You don't need to do that,' I said, trying to pull my foot away No one had touched my bad leg since the splints had come off three years ago.

  She held my foot still. 'A Dragoneye has servants,' she said.

  'Best get used to it.' She scrubbed my other foot clean. 'Now give me your sandals and go in.'

  Four years ago, when I came to my master's house — a half-starved drudge willing to become a boy for food and warmth — Rilla was the only person who showed me any care. At first I thought it was because I was a cripple, like her son, but later I realised she desperately needed my master to have a successful candidate. 'No one else will have us in their house,' she once told me, stroking Chart's dusty hair. 'I've seen a lot of boys come through here, Eon, but you're our best chance. "You're special.' At the time I thought she had guessed the secret, but she hadn't. And even if she did know, she would never say anything. Rilla was bound too tightly to my master, his tolerance of Chart a hundred times more compelling than any bond of indenture.

  I handed her the sandals, smiling my thanks. She shooed me into the library

  'Close the doors, Eon,' my master said. He was standing at the cabinet sorting through the keys he wore around his neck on a length of red silk.

  I pulled shut the doors and waited for further instruction. He looked up and nodded at the visitor's chair in front of the desk.

  'Sit down,' he said, shaking a key free.

  Sit down? In a chair? I watched him insert the key into the lock. Had I heard correctly? I crossed the soft, thick carpet and gingerly laid my hand on the back of the chair, waiting for a reprimand. Nothing. I glanced across at my master. He had a leather pouch and a small black ceramic jar in his hands.

  'I said sit down,' he ordered, closing the cabinet doors.

  I perched on the very edge of the leather seat, my hands tight around the carved armrests. I had always imagined a chair would be comfortable, but it was hard against my rump bones and made my hip ache again. I shifted around, trying to recapture the warm ease I'd felt in the garden, but it was gone. I looked at the closed double doors, imagining the stark landscape outside. Did the

  garden take my pain? Did its Moon energies call to my hidden self? I shivered. My master was right: I could not afford to enter it again. Not so close to the ceremony On the desk in front of me were two small, black lacquered death plaques. I tried to read the names carved into the wood, but I could not make sense of the upside-down characters. I quickly looked away from them as my master sat in the chair opposite me. He placed the leather pouch and jar next to the two memorials.

  'So it is tomorrow,' he said.

  I nodded, keeping my eyes fixed on the desk.

  'You are prepared.'

  It was a statement, not a question, but I nodded again.
An image of old Armsmaster Hian flashed through my mind. Now was the time to ask my master about the Reverse Horse Dragon Second.

  'I went to a ghost-maker today' my master said softly.

  I was so startled I looked up and met his eyes. A ghost-maker dealt in herbs and potions and, it was said, in the spirits of the unborn.

  'She gave me this.' He pushed the pouch towards me. 'If it is taken as a tea every morning, it will stop the Moon energy But it can only be taken for three months. Then it becomes poison to the body'

  I hunched down in the chair.

  'Your Moon cycle must be stopped for these ceremonies,' he continued. And if you succeed tomorrow, then —'

  'I am about to bleed,' I whispered.

  'What?'

  'I have all the signs.' I ducked my head lower. 'It's early. I don't know why'

  I saw my master's hands clench the edge of the table. It was as though his anger weighted the air between us.

  'Have you started?'

  'No, but I have the —'

  He held up his hand. 'Quiet.' I watched his long fingers tap the wood. 'If it has not started, then all is not lost. She said it was to be taken before your next cycle starts.' He picked up the pouch. 'You must take a cup now'

  He leaned back and pulled on the bell cord hanging behind the desk. Almost immediately the far door opened. Rilla stepped in and bowed.

  'Tea,' he said. Rilla bowed again and stepped out, closing the door.

  'I'm sorry, Master,' I said.

  'It would be most unfortunate if the whims of your body undid four years of planning.' He steepled his fingers. 'I do not know why you have the gift of full dragon sight, Eon. It must be some plan of the gods. How else can I explain my impulse to test a girl on my search for a candidate? It goes against all that is natural.' He shook his head.