I hadn’t. Supposedly, he had recovered fully and was in the caravan, but I’d been avoiding him. I’d been avoiding everyone. Jalla kept me busy enough that I didn’t even need to work at it.
As if thinking about him called him into being, Renn stepped out from behind a rock on the trail in front of me. He leaned against it, waiting as I slowly limped to his spot on the path.
“Can I help you with that water?” he asked, eyeing the four heavy waterskins slung over my shoulder.
“I’m fine, thanks,” I said tersely. “Just don’t touch anything that looks strange. I don’t want to be made a slave twice because of you.”
He chuckled. “Wow, you are bitter! I would have thought you’d be excited. You’ve been granted one of the highest political positions in all of Baojang, rubbing shoulder to shoulder with the Winged Prince!”
“Are you fully recovered, Renn? You looked pretty beat up back there.”
“Fit as a fiddle!” He straightened up, squaring his shoulders as proof.
My hand shot out and shoved him. If he was fine, he could take a little roughing up.
“Hey! What was that for?!”
“If it wasn’t for you, I could fly where I wanted! I wouldn’t be a slave right now.”
He laughed – again! As if that was okay.
I told you he’s only a pretty face...
“At least tell me she made you a slave, too,” I said. Maybe he was just better at handling difficulty than I was.
“No, she made me her cultural advisor. I’ve been meeting the greatest people. I love the way of life here! Did you know that they’re bringing it to the Dominion? Everyone will get to enjoy this kind of freedom.”
“Freedom?” What was he talking about?
“In Baojang no one is limited to the challenge of a meritocracy.”
“What does that mean?”
“They don’t have to constantly earn their places! It’s so freeing! Positions are granted by the favor of the Princes, so it has nothing to do with who works the hardest or has accumulated some sort of social stance based on unfair physical and mental attributes. You should appreciate that with your leg. Would a Dragon Rider with one leg be the highest Dragon Rider in the Dominion? I doubt it! But here you are – the X’erac! Everything is based on their honor system and honor is granted equally to all. It’s really wonderful. Jalla is letting me devise a way to bring the Dominion under the honor structures.”
I gasped. “You know her plans for the Dominion?”
“And I couldn’t agree with her more. She’s so fierce! I love it.”
My mouth was still hanging open when we reached the camp and parted ways, but the shock of his treason reverberated through me for the rest of the day.
And yet, by Dominion standards, your loyalty to Shonan over Iskaris is just as treasonous.
But unlike Renn, I was right.
Chapter Four
As we reached A’beranza, the pomp of the ever-growing caravan grew to proportions I had never dreamed possible. By night, feasting filled the caravan and soldiers were added by the hundred to the army that marched West. Eastern tribes sent pigeons saying they were following and hoping for the chance to pledge to Jalla when finally they reached A’beranza. The entire nation was swept with a sort of almost-fanatical devotion to their leader that took me by surprise.
Well, they have been waiting for her for hundreds of years, Raolcan reminded me when I pondered why a nation of warriors – capable and fierce - would be so willing to throw their authority under Jalla when she was nothing more than a common tribe sub-leader in their society. She is their Chosen One just as Savette is ours.
I briefly considered finding a second Kah’deem and opening that, but I doubted that would give me freedom. Jalla would just take anything I found inside and the price to open them was much too steep. Never again.
By day, I flew Jalla over the rocky scenery and played cards with her on mountaintops when she was bored. At least cards were easy on my healing hand. I was still favoring it as the deep wounds healed.
“You’re actually getting good, Amel, though you should win less often. It’s irritating to lose to you,” Jalla said on the last day of the journey when A’beranza was in sight.
“Not as irritating as it is to serve you,” I replied, taking the trick. I’d started to weave in the language of the cards to see if she noticed, but she said nothing, so it was possible that they didn’t play that way in Baojang.
“Renn Woelran seems to like serving me,” Jalla said with a smile. “I plan to appoint him war leader over one of the provinces of the Dominion when those lands belong to me.”
I dropped the cards, my hands suddenly awkward as rage burned through me. She was far too casual in how she spoke about taking my land and country for herself.
I never suspected that you loved the Dominion so much.
And if I was being honest with myself, I hadn’t suspected either. I knew I loved Raolcan and my friends, but it had taken this experience of being in a strange place among people so different from me to teach me what I loved about home. The Dominion was my home. Maybe I wasn’t important to the Dominion – I was just a Dragon Rider trainee, and only one among many – but it turned out that the Dominion was important to me.
“And Amel,” Jalla said with a tone of warning in her voice. “I gave you this esteemed role. I can just as quickly take it away.”
And that was the thing with Renn’s beloved system of Baojang. If my place was granted to me by someone else and not something that I could earn or win or work for, then it could be snatched away just as quickly. That would be fine if it was someone I trusted granting me this – Hubric or Raolcan, but with a leader like Jalla? Maybe I started with a disadvantage, but that didn’t mean I wanted what I’d fought for taken from me on a whim anymore than I wanted things just handed to me that I hadn’t had to build for myself. I just wasn’t wired that way.
I took a sip from the waterskin as I considered her words. I’d drained most of it over the course of the afternoon, though Jalla was sticking to wine as usual.
“I’ll remember that, Jalla,” I said, dealing the cards. Ironically, she had become my only friend here other than Raolcan and Enkenay. Renn made me sick and Rakturan’s betrayal stung every time I laid eyes on him. The hurt of it made me draw back from them. At least Jalla was barefaced about her Jalla-centered view of the world. At least she didn’t try to pretend she was something more than that. I didn’t feel the same hurt being near her. But with everyone else my hurt led to bitterness and bitterness to isolation until some days, despite traveling with over five thousand soldiers, retainers and servants, I felt like the only person on this dusty trail.
“Good, because I have a mission for you,” Jalla said, rearranging the cards in her hand. “When we arrive in A’beranza, I will have many official meetings, including the Great Ceremony of the Ancestors to install me as the head of Baojang. I will be busy. But, as soon as all the ceremonies are finished, we will march on the Dominion. And you know how quickly I can get people moving. It will be days, not weeks before we embark. I want you to fly on ahead and scout for me. You will find another Dragon Rider and return to me with him or her. I will need more than one of you to help deliver messages back and forth to my armies.”
“You expect me to spy on my own people? And then trick someone into following me here?”
“Trick, kidnap, convince – you decide how to do it. I can’t do everything for you.”
“I would never do that!”
“Not willingly,” Jalla said, handing me the waterskin. I drank again, grateful for the water in the heat of the afternoon. “Despite your willingness to die for me, you still have a strange obsession with your former home. But that water you’ve been drinking is Baojang water and it contains Silla. Don’t ask me what it is – a mineral maybe? Or a spice? It’s in all our water and it’s very addictive. Have you noticed how good it tastes? You’ll crave it when you leave, and because of that, I know you will r
eturn to me. And you’ll do what I ask because I know you – despite all these protests, your loyalty has already been confirmed.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “Rakturan lived in our lands for weeks without those effects.”
“He brought water from home with him. All of us do. And we can go for a while without it – just not forever. You will see.”
“He didn’t have it when we were traveling together.”
“You mean after his eyes were changed? I think that changed something in him. Maybe it took away the addiction. I don’t need you to trust me, Amel. It’s true whether you believe me or not. And because it is true, you will never leave me.”
Chapter Five
I stewed on Jalla’s threats as we approached A’beranza. I needed to get Rakturan or Renn alone to ask them if these things were really true. Raolcan didn’t know.
It seems unlikely – but this is a land of secrets.
But he’d traveled there before and didn’t show signs of addiction.
Drugs of any kind don’t work on dragons. We burn off toxins.
Which actually made a lot of sense. Only, that wouldn’t work for me. If she was right, then I really was stuck with her. That didn’t mean I needed to bring someone here against their will.
But you will need to find someone to bring here. Perhaps you can find a volunteer – someone willing to work with you to preserve the Dominion. Someone trustworthy ...
He sounded like he had someone in mind.
I can think of a great candidate. I’m just not sure if we can find her – and you won’t like it.
I didn’t know enough Dragon Riders to have opinions on most of them.
“You’d better fly faster,” Jalla counseled from behind me. “We need to enter the city at the same time as the caravan. You will fly me to the steps of the Cha’leef – the palace at the top of the hill – and then you will immediately depart on your journey. I have already ordered a division of Sentries to escort you to the city wall. You will speak to no one about your mission – especially not my other councilors or War Leaders. This mission must be kept a secret.”
She’d thought of everything! It would be impossible to get confirmation from Rakturan or Renn if I couldn’t speak to them! Unless Raolcan could read it in her thoughts...
I can only read what she is thinking. She’s certain you will obey, but she shows no hint as to whether the threat is real.
Maybe if I dug a little. “I have no funds. I’ll need coin for a journey like that. And if I’m going to return I’ll need to be recognized by the guards.”
“I’ll give orders to receive you if you return with another Dragon Rider. And yes, you will need funds.” I heard a clink and then she shoved a silk bag in front of me. I took it awkwardly. “Don’t open it now. The coins are gold and it would be a shame to lose any. Don’t fail me in this, Amel. But of course, you won’t. That has already been proven.”
She put far too much confidence in her own interpretations of my actions. With a frown, I tucked the gold away. I would need it. And I would need a plan. Maybe we could take Raolcan’s suggestion and find someone willing to return who would undermine Jalla’s plans for the Dominion.
“If it takes you more than a day or two, we will be following. Meet up with us on the road when you’ve accomplished your mission.”
“Do you really think you can muster an army and start marching in just a few days?” I asked. “That sounds unreasonable.”
“I am Jalla, the Winged Prince. The people of Baojng stand ready for my decree. I don’t plan on being reasonable.”
Clearly. I supposed that in Jalla-language she’d already told me she wasn’t reasonable by taking me as a slave and then taking my victory from me. That’s how this worked, right? I heard a whistling sound and turned to make sure it wasn’t some baggage flying loose. It was only Jalla – still trying to make the Pipe of Winds work for her. She scowled at me and shoved it guiltily into a saddlebag.
“I think it only had the power to work once and you wasted it on those dust devils.”
“You mean the ones that were going to kill us?” I let my tone be as dry as the landscape below us.
“Yes. You should have saved it for something massive – like the battle we are marching toward.”
“I’m sure I would have done that if I’d thought of it.” Sarcasm dripped from every word, but she ignored it – as usual.
“That’s why you should leave the thinking to me.”
We were circling the city now as Raolcan chose the best spot outside the Cha’leef. I let my gaze take in the city. As usual, I wouldn’t be able to explore it. When all this was over Raolcan and I were going to go on a tour and explore every city in the world.
Yes!
Even the ones in hostile places.
Those are the very best ones!
Until then, I could only enjoy looking. The city was laid out around the hill that the Cha’leef stood on. The peaks of the palace looked like they were dipped in gold that ran in drips like melting wax from the tip and down the white stone walls. The gold reflected the bright sun in painful sunbursts. Around the Cha’leef were long ramps that pierced through the wall ringing the base of the hill. The wall was also made of smooth white walls frosted with gold.
Roads spread out like streams in a delta from the ramps until they reached the city walls and between the roads homes, inns, taverns, warehouses, and mercantile buildings rose and fell in peaks and valleys, built from yellow and pink earth. It gave the impression of a particularly fertile field of lilies. If it wasn’t so hot and dusty here I could circle this city all day.
The gold hurts my eyes too much for that.
Our circle grew tighter until I could see the leaders of A’beranza clustered around the base of the Cha’leef, bedecked in colorful silks and bearing the curved ceremonial swords of their people. There were dancers and swordsmen already performing to the beat of skin drums and slender pipes.
Timing his landing perfectly, Raolcan dropped into an open space on the wide stone courtyard at the same moment that Rakturan and Prince Gahteen arrived with the dusty caravan they led through the inner wall and up the ramp. I could just make out Rakturan’s calm expression as Raolcan’s feet set down on the stone.
Good! There would be time to speak to him. I began to smile as Jalla dismounted, but when she cleared her throat I turned to her and the smile froze on my lips.
She hissed her last order with her dark, lash-rimmed eyes narrowed to a tiny slit. “On your honor, do not fail. Speak to no one. Go!”
Chapter Six
She smacked Raolcan’s flank dramatically and I gasped. Who did that to a dragon?
Jalla.
He almost sounded like he was laughing as he leapt into the air, swatting Sentries away with his wing tips as they clustered in too close. Jalla had been truthful when she said she’d given orders for a gnat-like cloud of the creatures to escort us away. Their riders squinted eyes told me they weren’t happy, even though scarves covered the lower parts of their faces making it impossible to see their expressions.
I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Rakturan as we flew away. There was something in his eyes – as if he knew exactly what was happening and was trying to tell me something, but it was too late. We were past the inner wall when I lost track of him. A gout of fire marked the beginning of the celebration for Jalla at the Cha’leef.
Eventually, I lost track of even the flames when we passed the outer wall and the final Sentries stopped – in that eerie way of theirs where they just slowed to a silent, hovering stop – in a perfect line along the wall. The road west was clear to see, the clouds of dust that traced it snaking away toward the mountains. I sighed as we soared up into the clouds above it. I didn’t know if I was relieved to be on our own again, or distressed at the thought of serving as Jalla’s agent in the Dominion.
We have six water skins in the saddlebags, if I counted right. Assuming they all have Silla in them, that’s qui
te a bit. Maybe, just to hedge our bets, we should try to keep as much Baojang water as we can for you.
I still didn’t know if I believed her about the Silla or not.
Which is exactly what she’s counting on.
I worried at the edge of the saddle all through the afternoon, picking at the stitching, until we landed in a small village at dusk.
See if they have anything to eat and stock up on food. You should be safe enough here. I saw an interesting sheep in those high hills just north of here.
By the time I had the things I needed and Raolcan had eaten, there was no daylight left. I didn’t stay in the little town. Bargaining had been hard enough with nothing but gold to pay with and no understanding of the language. We needed to leave Baojang as soon as we could.
I’d had to accept three scarves along with the food – the only way to make up the difference of a single gold coin. They were silk and I’d insisted on purple so that I could tie them around my neck and at my elbow and knee. The images printed on them – swirling birds, an intricate pattern of rings and knots, and something that looked like swirls of sand in the desert – were so like Baojang that they’d remind me not to get myself enslaved to anyone else.
You’re not supposed to add scarves to your collection until you’re a full Dragon Rider. Not unless a full Rider gives one to you.
If they didn’t want me taking on full Dragon Rider privileges they shouldn’t have shoved me into full Dragon Rider responsibilities.
Touché. We can fly through the night if you want. I could use some exercise.
And I didn’t feel like sleeping. We flew until dawn, my mind circling round and round and my temper growing hotter and hotter as I thought about the impossible situation I was trapped in. I hadn’t seen visions of my friends since the battle at the Kah’deem and worry for them infected all the rest of my emotions, leaving me an indecisive mess.
Seriously, you need to stop. You are exhausting me, Raolcan said as dawn lit the sky. Let’s rest on the top of this hill. You can sleep under my wing. I don’t mind the sun.
Dragon School: Pipe of Wings Page 2