“So, how am I supposed to, you know, fulfill my Dragon Groom responsibilities if being near the Queen is going to kill me?”
“THE DEATH OF A DRAGON/WILL REALIGN THE REALM/YOUR BODY WILL RESPOND/WITH INEVITABILITY/WITH GLADNESS.”
“Gladness, right…” What about this whole process could any sane person think of as glad? And realign? Realignment did not sound like a safe process. What was it I’d been turning into in the Matrimonial Tunnels? Something capable of being baby daddy to the Queen of Dragons, obviously. But what was that form? Winged? Scaly? Heterosexual? I pulled the curtains over the ugly pictures in my brain and swore not to think about it until I was myself again, whatever that meant.
“Are we going back to Cliffside now?” I asked, thinking, because there’s this boy I really need to kiss.
“FIRST WE VISIT THOSE APART/ALONE BUT FOR EACH OTHER/AND THE VISIONS THEY SHARE.”
“A party. Great. I hope I wasn’t supposed to bring the chips.”
The cold was starting to get to me, so I curled up at the bottom of the basket wrapped in the blanket, with the hood of my cloak pulled low. I could feel a comforting heat rise up from Sur’s back and I wondered if there really were fires down in her belly she could breathe out if she felt threatened. Or if someone didn’t like her poetry.
I fell asleep like that, dreaming Davix and I were in Farad’hil together. I was super excited to flip the script and be his tour guide for once. But when we visited the different dragons’ abodes, the rooms were abandoned, bare to their cold stone walls. In Renrit’s Editorium, there were no desks, no books or flying words; there was no glowing machinery in Inby’s science caves; Sur’s poetry loft was still as a tomb.
I started awake and sat up to see where we were. Sur’s wings were extended straight to the side, and she was gliding into a snowy valley, somewhere farther along the Chend’th’nif range. Ahead, a tall cloud of steam and gas rose into the air, climbing high above the treetops before it broke up in the breeze. Sur circled the towering white pillar once and then flew on, bringing us in for a landing in a clearing beside a small wooden cottage. It was straight out of a Christmas card—neatly built of rough logs, with smoke rising from the chimney. I could see the big pillar of steam climbing into the sky over the tops of the trees to our right.
The door of the cottage opened, and a woman with a large basket made of woven branches stepped out into the snow. She was dressed in bulky furs, and her long grey hair stuck out from under a fur hat. She crossed through the deep snow to a neat woodpile and began filling her basket. Old as she was, she looked strong and healthy. Only when she started walking back to the door did she see the dragon in front of her house. I expected her to scream or drop to her knees and start praying.
Instead she wrinkled her nose and turned back to the house. “Arjee! Sur’s here.”
The door opened again, and an old, bald man with a messy salt-and-pepper beard poked his head out.
“Does she want a biscuit?” He turned to Sur. “Do you want a biscuit? They’re fresh.”
“THE DRAGON GROOM IS HERE/TESTED BEYOND WHAT HE DESERVES/BRING HIM FRESH PASTRY/AND YOUR BERRY PRESERVES.”
The woman put down her basket and crossed to us. “So, Dragon Groom, you’ve come to the Realm of Fire. I’m Glei’hak. My husband, Arjee, will bring you a biscuit. He just made them.” She squinted her eyes, appraising me. “He looks ill, Sur. We better bring him inside and bundle him up in bed.”
“THE TIME IS SHORT/WE COME FOR ILLUMINATION/THEN WE FLY.”
“I’m okay,” I assured her. I climbed awkwardly from the basket and slid down Sur’s back, making a clumsy landing in the thick snow. I still had my hood up and the blanket wrapped around my shoulders, but when the snow snuck into the back of my shoes, I gasped at the cold. Glei’hak took my face in her furry mitten.
“So young,” she sighed. “Humans shouldn’t visit Farad’hil, not that anyone’s asking my opinion.” Sur ignored her and started marching toward the tree line in the direction of the pillar of the steam.
“Oh, llama dung,” cursed the old woman. “Arjee! Her Highness needs a prophecy. Get out here!” Sass turned up to ten! Clearly, these folks didn’t think they had to treat the dragons as A-list celebrities, much less gods.
The old man hurried out of the cottage, stomping his feet into his boots and pulling a fur coat over the baggy grey onesie he was wearing.
He said, “Sur, we gave you everything the emanations showed us. There won’t be any more yet.” But the dragon didn’t turn or slow her pace. I figured I wasn’t going to get my biscuits any time soon.
The three of us hurried after Sur into the woods, though we stayed far enough back that the big branches she was bending out of her way didn’t knock us over like bowling pins when they snapped back. We came out of the woods in front of the pillar of steam. It was rising from a pool maybe four metres in diameter, in the middle of another, smaller clearing. Its steaming surface bubbled, giving off a strong smell of sulphur that stung my nostrils and made my eyes water. The snow at the edge of the pool was melted, revealing wet, black earth.
Sur started waving her head back and forth, her chin high, like she was getting off on the fumes. When she lowered her head toward the old couple, her eyes had turned a dark red, flecked with spots of gold.
“ASK, ASK THE EMANATIONS/STUDY THEIR VIBRATIONS/IS A DRAGON STILL DOOMED?/WHICH OF THE FIVE?/DOES IT HAPPEN ALL TOO SOON?/WHAT ROBS THEM OF THEIR LIFE?”
“You know it doesn’t work that way, Sur,” Glei’hak grumbled.
Husband and wife both closed their eyes and started preparing for whatever it was they were about to do. Glei’hak rocked back and forth from toe to heel, arms wrapped around herself, slapping her shoulders from time to time. Arjee, meanwhile, was lowering and raising his arms and mumbling little mantras as he hopped from foot to foot like a sparring boxer.
He said, “This may be pointless, Sur. I hate to disappoint—”
“SPEAK TO THE LAVA./THE ROCK OF THE REALM KNOWS THE STORY/FROM THE DAY OF SEPARATION/TO GLORIOUS REUNION.”
“Yes, we know,” said Glei’hak, taking her husband’s mittened hand and walking toward the stinking, steaming pool. They stood on the muddy black earth, right at the pool’s edge, breathing in the vapour. I wasn’t surprised when they started coughing and retching. But they didn’t give up. They spread their legs wide, raised their arms, and tipped their heads back in unison. They were breathing deeply now, chests rising and falling, and the steam that poured from their mouths joined the towering column over their heads. Someone on Earth could market the whole ritual as a trendy wellness thing, but tranquility wasn’t on offer here; whatever was happening, it clearly hurt.
Glei’hak began to cringe as if someone was flicking hot embers on her face. Arjee swayed unsteadily, moaning.
Suddenly, he cried out, “The hot flow, the red river…”
She answered, “History will not be told. History will tell us.”
“The history of a dragon…the course stopped, the flow cooled, hard and unforgiving.”
“From five to four, the realm staggers.”
Almost in unison, they dropped to their knees. Their eyes were open now, and holy shit, they were white and blank. Not surprisingly, they seemed to be blind now, and the man reached for his wife, pawing the air until he found her hand. They leaned on each other for support, tears flowing from their blank eyes.
“Death crosses, hides in the fog, springs with claw and tooth upon the unwary.”
“From the sky, in fury and vengeance, a dragon drops.”
“Falls, falls…”
“Betrayal of the beloved, the heart cries in shock.”
“Betrayal…Darkness…Farad’hil grows quiet.”
The woman fell forward, catching herself before she face-planted into the mud.
“Enough, enough,” she called. “Help us!” She reached a hand out to anyone. I looked at Sur, but she seemed busy, puzzling over all the mumbo jumbo she had just h
eard. So I hurried over to the old couple, holding my breath and squinting against the acrid fumes as I took Glei’hak’s hand. She was still holding Arjee’s hand, and I led them back to the relative freshness of a nearby snow bank, where they sat heavily. Arjee dropped his head into his wife’s lap.
All the normal parts had returned to her eyes, though they were red, streaming with tears. She turned and snarled at the dragon. “I hope that was worth your time, Sur. Because I’m not letting him do that again anytime soon.”
“WORDS, WORDS TO CONTEMPLATE./MEANINGS NESTED, EMERGING/DANCING TOGETHER IN THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH.”
“Dancing,” she scoffed. “You should dance this poor boy back to Cliffside. He’s pale as a night frog and shivering. That’s no way to treat the Dragon Groom.”
I was going to say I was fine, but the truth was, I was completely drained. I wanted to sleep again, and I wanted to get far away from the craziness of dragons. After everything I had seen in the last three days, getting back to Cliffside felt like going home.
Arjee coughed and sat up. “Did we give her what she needed?”
“You did fine, husband.” Glei’hak heaved herself to her feet and brushed the snow off her butt. “Come, let’s get the boy up on Sur’s back. I’ll be glad to see them gone.”
Her words kind of stung. It hadn’t been my idea to make them do their prophecy thing. But I also understood what it was like to have your life hijacked at the whim of a bunch of dragons.
“Wait, love,” Arjee said, coughing again. “The body. Sur should take it back.”
“Do what you like!” the woman snapped at him. “I’m done here.” With that, she turned her back on us and trudged into the woods.
“What body?” I asked, helping him to his feet, though I almost fell over myself in the process.
“Sur!” he called. “There’s a body. Human. Down at the base of the cliff. Must be a ranger had an accident. Stumbled to his death in the fog, I figure. Or maybe in that storm t’other day.”
“I WILL INVESTIGATE,” she said, for once without a word of poetry, and took off over the trees.
As the sound of her wings vanished in the wind, Arjee opened his eyes wide.
“I forgot!” he exclaimed and reached into his coat pocket, bringing out a fat biscuit, a little squashed on one side, but still warm. He handed it to me. “Grow strong, lad. The rock of the Realm is saying that troubled times are coming.”
The only problem with the biscuit was that there was only one of them. If I ever wrote a travel blog on the Realm of Fire, I’d definitely give the food four stars.
“You will return to Cliffside?” Arjee asked.
“Yeah, have you been there?”
He surprised me by laughing. “Oh, not for dozens of cycles. Do send our warmest regards to Grav’nan-dahé.” He laughed again, though it was a bitter kind of laugh. I half remembered something. Arjee and Glei’hak—their names had come up during the fight between Tiqokh and the Prime Magistrate on my first night. Yes. The couple had been banished for prophecy by Grav’nan-dahé himself.
We waited in silence for Sur’s return. I finished up the last buttery morsel of biscuit and then searched my blanket for crumbs, like some crazed drug addict. But when Sur reappeared in the sky, carrying a corpse in her talons like she was an oversized hawk with a squirrel, I almost threw up all the goldeny goodness.
Sur laid the body out in the snow and lowered her head to investigate. The old man walked over to join her, but I stayed where I was. I had never seen a dead body before, and I was kind of curious, but even from a distance, I could see the bloody wounds across the neck and face, the furs torn aside to reveal more torn flesh and gore. Not this time, I decided.
“Could be the cougars,” Arjee said, fingering the corpse carefully. “Or else a bear.”
“THE ACCIDENTALS ROAM THE LAND/BEYOND KNOWLEDGE/OUTSIDE THE PLAN.”
“Mmm. Whatever beast, it was more angry than hungry. All his parts are here. Or maybe he beat it off, then bled to death overnight. Tragedy however it happened. I met him a few times. His familiar name was Twis’wit, but I wish I had his proper name to say now. Send him off right.”
He strapped the body to Sur’s flank with ropes and belts tucked into a compartment of the saddle basket. I tried to help, but I got light-headed and had to sit down before I fainted. That was pretty embarrassing, since fifteen minutes earlier Arjee had been fainting, too. Now he was apparently fully recovered, and clearly fitter than this sixteen-year-old suburban rat. I climbed into the basket from the opposite side, but my stomach still heaved when I caught a glimpse of Twis’wit’s frozen, staring eyes.
I turned to Arjee. “I’ll make sure they take good care of him back in Cliffside.”
“Thank you.” He wrinkled his brow. “Twis’wit was stationed up by the Red Hammer, higher up the range and some days’ march to spinward. It’s strange he should have been down this way so early in the season. Almost like he was heading back to Cliffside already. Why would he be doing that?”
Obviously I had no answer to this, so I just said, “Thanks for the biscuit,” and held his gaze, hoping he got that I was saying more: Thanks for being kind and Sorry Sur made you do all that. And then the world reeled as the dragon flapped her powerful wings and launched us into the air. She never even said thank you.
Chapter 25: One Day before Sarensikar
Davix sat cross-legged atop the heavy wall surrounding the Citadel, watching the sky go through its changes. The thick fog glowed orange and red as the sun began its final descent. Soon another wasted day would be over, another day with his own heart as clouded as the realm. Out of habit, he estimated the speed and direction of the wind from the fog’s rolling dance. Out of habit, he muttered the sunset prayer.
Below him was the place where the Curator of Sites Historic had met his death, body smashed on hard stone. He hadn’t planned on coming to the very spot where the man must have jumped, but it hadn’t exactly been an accident either. Instead of looking down, he stared out at his world. If the weather had been clear, he’d have been able to see as far as the greenward edge of the Chend’th’nif Mountains. But while the fog remained—whether by chance or conspiracy—his world was smaller than that. He could glimpse all five of the city’s houses; the Retreat of Tarn was already decorated for Sarensikar, and looking right, Davix could see the Atmospherics Tower. Tall and shadowed, its unwavering rectitude rebuked him:
I have stood here, loyal and unflinching, through hundreds of cycles. Wind and war have battered me, yet I stand. While you, boy, cannot take the smallest blow to your ego before you run off.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the tears forming there, and another voice spoke in his head: “When your soul is burdened, D’gada-vixtet-thon, recite the Litany of the Generations.”
Davix, barely out of childhood, had been crying alone in an empty classroom when he’d first heard those words. He couldn’t even recall now why he’d been crying. The man had entered quietly, sitting in a nearby chair to offer the solace of ritual. It was Grav’nan-dahé, a person so exalted, Davix almost regarded him as a myth.
The man said to the weeping boy, “There is great comfort in acknowledging the pious ones who came before us, building the citadel of the law brick by brick. Come, I will say it with you: Griit, Gram’jn, Novh’it’dafan, Stemmik, Disnof, Tren’fas-xak-dahé…”
It had been the start of a new path to peace. The Prime Magistrate’s piety had been lodestone to his lost soul. But no more.
“Traitor,” Davix accused that inner voice. “You betray the trust of the People. You betray the Dragon Lords. You betray me.”
If it was true, that is. If Tix-etnep-thon-dahé’s wild theory was not just an artifact of some ancient jealousy. The ache in Davix’s chest was unbearable. His stinging eyes snapped open and he found himself at the edge of the wall, staring into the fatal drop. How could someone seek such an end? What kind of despair would have to shroud your heart to make you take that final step? T
o jump. To fall. To let fate have its way.
“Do not be reckless, D’gada-vixtet-thon,” Grav’nan-dahé’s voice said. “Youth seldom comprehends how slim is the line between life and death.” But the voice was not in his head.
Davix spun around and looked down into the courtyard where the Prime Magistrate stood, peering up at him with those hawk-sharp eyes. At a loss for words, Davix simply stared at him. What he had once found noble in the solemn line of posture and dress now seemed sinister.
“Teacher…” he finally managed, his voice tight with discomfort. He stood and walked along the wall until he came to a narrow staircase. Descending, he found Grav’nan-dahé speaking to Convenor Zishun, gesturing out into the courtyard where a half dozen mixed beings were placing barricades around the entrances to the Citadel’s underground bunker.
When Zishun went to join the others, Davix approached Grav’nan-dahé and asked, “What are the mixed beings doing?”
“Some repairs to the support structure, apparently.” Grav’nan-dahé turned to Davix. “But you and I must speak of serious matters. This is the third day you have absented yourself from your duties in the Atmospherics Tower.”
Davix gave an involuntary gasp. Somehow, having run away from his life, he believed the world had forgotten about him, too.
“Who told you of my absences?”
“It is my business to know what goes on in Cliffside. Especially the actions of those I have come to depend on.”
Davix straightened from his embarrassed slouch. To stand tall before the Prime Magistrate, accepting the rebuke, was a gesture of obedience. Yet rising to his full height also changed his perspective. For the first time he saw Grav’nan-dahé not as mentor, not as avatar of the living DragonLaw, but as a man. Davix noted with surprise that he had grown taller than his teacher.
The older man was watching him carefully. “You quit your studies with me in order to aid the Atmospherics Master, but now you shirk those duties as well. You wander lost, D’gada-vixtet-thon, and grow unproductive. I know the anticipation of Sarensikar can distract a young heart, but I thought you were stronger. Perhaps a cycle of work on the silence farms would serve to focus your soul.”
The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood Page 17