#
Dax slept most of the afternoon—except for an urgent and extended trip to the jakes. Still, by evening he felt better than he had since he had left the ship. Figgeir did not restrict him to her residence, but she did suggest he not wander around idly. It could upset the community consonance so dear to the heart of the Kotkel.
#
The second afternoon, Figgeir checked him thoroughly and pronounced him well. The next morning she took him to Seigneur Marny. Marny Eggether-a-Effyrod was a little stouter than the other Kotkel Dax had seen, but no taller. He moved with the same fluid grace. Dax had expected the leader of the settlement to be as busy and officious as other community managers he had met. Marny was older, however, and he had a grandfatherly approach to life. He did have more hair than Figgeir. His hair started at the crown of his head, and he wore it long on the sides, gathered into three braids on either side of his head.
“Ah, our young visitor,” Marny exclaimed when Figgeir introduced them. “We don’t see people from the outside often. The dragon-bound stop by from time to time, but no others.” Marny made it sound like an oversight on the part of humans, but the flèches at the mouth of the harbor were designed to keep people out. “Since you are here,” Marny continued, “will you sit with me in my garden and chat for a while?”
Figgeir took her leave at that point, and Dax thanked her profusely for her help.
His conversation with Marny went on through the morning and into the afternoon. At midday Marny served them both a light lunch of fruit and nuts. Marny was curious about everything going on in the world. At first Dax was guarded in his replies, but he soon relaxed as Marny’s questions ranged over a wide range of topics beyond politics. In reality, it was less a conversation than it was an interrogation. Marny drew out every single fact and observation he could from Dax. The seigneur’s large, dark-amber eyes missed nothing, and he was perceptive enough to probe for more information if Dax tried to avoid details. In a way, the exchange reminded Dax of Evnissyen’s lessons at the castle.
The next day followed the same pattern. Dax stayed in a pleasant room at the seigneur’s home, which was more comfortable than Figgeir’s spartan quarters. At one point during their talks, Marny did give Dax more insight into the hatch proceedings. He wanted to check that Dax knew ahead of time what was going to happen. He repeated the information that Dax would have to put his egg into the fire to hatch. Figgeir had told him that, but Marny made clear that this was the one necessary part of the process.
“The Dragon Lands have regular fires,” he explained. “Dragon eggs are so tough they can survive the fires while they develop, but they need fire to eventually hatch. It happens naturally for the wild ones, but for your draig, you will have to put it in the fire to help it hatch.”
Since Marny was providing information in bite-size pieces, Dax took the opportunity to ask for clarification. “Draig?” he asked, hoping for details.
“Yes, of course. There are different kinds of dragons, and the one you are bonded with is a draig. I’m surprised that Figgeir didn’t mention that.”
Dax smiled, a little embarrassed. “She did, but I had trouble following everything she told me.”
Marny chuckled. “Yes, I suppose you heard more than you ever wanted to know about dragons.”
“She said it was the short version.”
Now the Kotkel laughed. “If it was just two days, then yes, it was the short version.” His eyes sparkled with real humor, the first Dax had seen from one of the Kotkel. Marny went on to describe the types of dragons in some detail. He explained the hatch of a bound dragon was celebrated by the Kotkel and the other dragon-bound alike. “The Kotkel appreciate the dragon-bound,” he added, “because they are tataluelhe we can work with. The dragon-bound celebrate the hatch because they welcome a new member to their group.”
#
As seigneur, Marny had various small responsibilities to attend to, and from time to time over the next few days he had to be absent from his home. Dax was fascinated by the objects in Marny’s house, and he examined them closely. Marny had assured him that he did not mind if Dax investigated his home, but one comment both puzzled and worried Dax. “Don’t worry, young one,” he had said as he was about to leave. “Nothing I have will kill or even hurt you.” He nodded decisively. “All my things have been made perfectly safe.”
While Dax was reassured to know the seigneur’s articles were safe, it raised an immediate question in his mind. What could the objects have done if they had not been secured from handling by tataluelhe? He examined everything in the house closely, but he only looked. He did not touch. Most things, anyway. Dax could not resist picking up a large cup made from a darkly silver metal with a strangely intricate design worked onto its surface. He stared at the pattern of swirls for some time but could make no sense of it. It did not look like writing, yet it did not look like any type of picture either. He carefully returned it to exactly its original position.
After reassurance from Marny that it would not bother the Kotkel, Dax went walking in and around the settling. He took one long hike back down the channel to the mouth of the inlet to see the beach area now that he was stronger. He even examined one of the flèches again but found nothing new. This time he carefully stopped studying it before he got a headache. On his walks around the settling, he nodded politely to the Kotkel he encountered. After what both Figgeir and Marny had said about the calm, well-ordered daily life in the community, he did not try to engage them in conversation. The Kotkel acknowledged him, but none offered more than a nod of greeting.
On his walks, he came to understand the settling as one large, all-encompassing garden. Tall hedgerows wound in and out in a series of random curves that defined patches in which other hedges and beds of plants made arbitrary patterns. It seemed arbitrary, anyway. The large curving arcs reminded him of similar markings on Marny’s silver cup.
Some plants were in blossom, but the Kotkel planting beds were not gardens with plants all in straight rows. Flowers appeared to be placed without pattern, yet when he looked at the whole bed, there was order. One particular bed had snowy-white flowers along the inward-curving left border. The blossoms smoothly shaded to pink in the middle and on to deep red at the outward-curving opposite side. Other species had no blossoms, but the colors and textures of the plants themselves made patterns but followed no regular plan. On his walks he encountered many more of the rounded white Kotkel homes in the curving, garden-like layout than he had thought were there.
#
On the afternoon of the day of the hatch, Dax was comfortable enough with Marny to ask a direct question about the Kotkel. “You said your people have been here for a long time. Where did the Kotkel come from? You seem to know many different lands beyond this one.”
“Now that is a profound question.” Marny nodded in recognition. “Maha Gramah has been our home for an age before there was a Landly. I myself remember when the third Ambergriff . . .” He paused and scratched his chin. “Or was it the fourth?” He laid his hand down on the arm of his chair in a Kotkel dismissive gesture. “When your kingdom was divided.”
“The third,” Dax interrupted. “What was he like? Why did he do it? Did he realize what he was doing?”
Marny waved away the questions. “No, we lived then much as we live today, and I know little of it save what I have heard on occasion from the dragon-bound.” He shifted in his seat and thought for a moment before taking up Dax’s original question. “My point was going to be, my young friend, that we have lived as you see us for a long, long time, but once, the Kotkel held dominion over this world—Dragon Lands and all.”
Dax waited for him to go on, but when Marny said nothing, Dax finally asked, “So what happened?”
“It was the Circular Sea.”
Again Marny let the statement dangle, and Dax asked, “What does the Circular Sea have to do with it?”
Marny made a little motion with his hands. “We are not sure. Our records
from the Great Times describe many places in the world, but they do not describe that body of water. In fact, the old maps show a great city once stood near where the Circular Sea is, but now there is no trace of it.” His eyes were haunted, and he looked out the window for a time. When he turned back to Dax, however, he was his old, easygoing self. “The Kotkel have a great gap in our knowledge. Ever since the gap, we have had our harmony.” He made the gesture again. “These days when we need to know something not part of the harmony, we read the old records.”
Dax bubbled over with questions about this revelation, but the Kotkel waved them away. “Another day, perhaps. Now it is time to get ready for the hatch. First we have the feasting. Afterward the fire will be lit, and you will get to meet your dragon. Are you ready?”
Of course he was not ready. Dax knew the essence of the ceremony; he had to put the egg into the fire, then wait to greet his dragon. His dragon? No, he and the dragon would be a team, but he was unsure about meeting the hatchling dragon. No one would tell him what it was like. Marny had only said that both dragon and human greeted each other with great joy. Great joy sounded promising, but he worried about what it would mean and how it would change his life.
#
The garden of Maha Gramah was not a garden with the regularity and symmetry that humans preferred. It could have been living art on the ground with flows and eddies of vegetation. Like the curves and swirls of their decorations, it was a visual portrayal of the eddies and surges of the Kotkel harmony song. At the center of its complex, wandering landscape, the settling had a large clearing. The hatch would take place in the heart of the Kotkel’s strange garden.
Dax had been restless with anticipation all afternoon. He did not have much to do to get ready for the hatch that evening, and Marny’s conversation was a welcome distraction. Finally at the given time, he followed Marny to the central clearing, which was filled with Kotkel. Ranks of long tables had been set up, and several hundred of them were seated there. Were these all the Kotkel in Maha Gramah? Dax knew they were long-lived, but he had not seen any yet who he would have called young. Except for a few elders like Marny, most had a smooth, ageless look to their faces, with no clues to their years.
Marny led Dax to a table where eight other humans sat. These were the dragon-bound who had come to attend the hatch. He was introduced around the table, and Dax was carefully polite to each. Both men and women shared a common appearance. They wore rough but sturdy clothes, and their faces had the weathered look of those who spent much of their time outdoors. Their eyes were dark and challenging. He had the feeling they could read his deepest secrets. The thought made him uneasy.
One by one, they presented themselves, and each named his or her dragon as well. They offered ritualistic words of welcome to Dax as one who was about to join their ranks. Dax in turn nodded carefully, giving words of greeting in return. Not only was the formality of their welcome off-putting, but Dax had gotten used to being of a height with the Kotkel. Being around other human adults for the first time in days made him feel small and inconsequential. No, he corrected himself, he was small and inconsequential. He was about to become one of them, but what would that mean? What did it mean to be small and inconsequential—and dragon-bound?
A welcome dinner preceded the hatch. Kotkel servers brought covered platters full of the fruits and porridge dishes that were staples of their diets, but they brought an additional platter of cooked meats to the dragon-bound table. While the dragon-bound ate, they spoke freely with each other. Dax had no context, and most of what they said was meaningless to him. He sat there and tried to be politely inconspicuous. They passed around the food, but he did not eat. Although he had had no food since midday, he was not hungry.
#
After everyone had finished, the Kotkel cleared the tables and took them away. A large pile of wood had been laid at the center of the space, and as the sun set behind the ridgeline, they lit the wood on fire. As the first flames leaped into the darkening sky, Dax tried to recapture the focused determination that had aided him in times of danger, hoping it might calm his nerves. Nothing happened, and he stared as the flames mounted into the sky. Light filled the clearing, and a blush of heat warmed his face.
Figgeir appeared at his side. Dax wrenched his eyes away from the growing fire. Cradled on a cushion in her arms was his egg. Carefully, Dax took it. The comforting flow of warmth in his hands was welcome. He smiled, no longer fearful. Although the egg seemed the same as it always had, it felt . . . he felt . . . He was confused by two sets of sensations. He sensed the egg . . . was tight? Restricted. Confined. In his hands the egg was warm as always, but inside—was it the dragon?—it was chilled. The fire. The dragon—his dragon?—was cold. Frigid. The flames were warm.
Carrying the egg before him, Dax approached the burning wood. Several Kotkel had been tending the fire, adding more wood to the center of the blaze as the fire caught. The flames roared up into the night in front of him, driving a stream of sparks upward into the darkness. He was warmer near the fire, but he still was chilled. He stepped closer.
“Fulfill your bond!”
Dax heard Marny’s distant command. Both Marny and Figgeir had said this was the critical moment. The dragon inside the egg shared its need for the fire with him, but Dax’s human body could go no farther. He looked at his egg one more time and hurled it from him into the heart of the flames. He stood there watching the fire after the egg had vanished from sight. A rough hand on his shoulder drew him back away from the heat. The fascination of the fire broken, Dax looked up into face of Bindle Treyhorn, one of the dragon-bound.
“Enough of that for now. You gave it what it needs.” She patted her clothes. “Now look to yourself. Check your clothes for hot spots. You were close enough to set fire to the cloth.”
Bemused and distracted by the fire, Dax patted at his jerkin. He was startled to find a smoldering hot spot on his sleeve. Treyhorn smiled at his surprise. “We dragon-bound have some dragon in us, and we can take fire better than most.” She grimaced. “But if your clothes burn, it hurts.” She reached up and brushed some ash from the side of her face and made a noise of disgust. “Well, that lock of hair will grow back—eventually.”
Treyhorn nudged Dax back toward the spot in the ring of waiting Kotkel where the rest of the dragon-bound stood together. “Now we wait,” she said. She handed him several bits of cooked meat saved from their evening meal. “For your dragon,” she explained. “They hatch hungry.”
Sharp bits of fiery embers swirled up into the cool evening darkness as the fire burned on. Dax tore his eyes from the mesmerizing flames and looked around the circle. Dragon-bound watched with the Kotkel, but looming behind them all were tall, dark, shadowy shapes. The shadows had eyes—eyes set in large heads at least twice the height of a man above the ground—eyes that caught the fire with yellow glints. He watched one shadow blink and shake its head.
Dragons.
Dragons had come to the hatch. Dax wished for more light. He had only seen a dragon once, and it had been in flight and at a distance. Now all he could see were vague shapes in the gloom. Namkafnir was the name of Treyhorn’s dragon. She had told him that at supper. Which one was she? Or was it he? Inundated with information about dragons in the last few days, Dax had neglected to ask that simple question when they had been introduced earlier.
He heard a silent exclamation in his head. He whirled around to look at the fire, but there was nothing. “What was that?” he asked as he wheeled his head from side to side, still searching.
“If you heard something, it was your dragon.” Treyhorn laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Its hatch has begun.” She pointed at the flames. “You’re feeling your dragon’s emotions more clearly now. They pick up our language quickly, but small dragons have small thoughts.”
Dax stood breathlessly still. Waiting. Nothing more happened for several minutes. Suddenly he felt . . . free? It was not a word but a sense of larger space around him. Af
ter being bundled in unmoving tightness, the lack of restriction was pure joy. Dax gasped. “Something happened,” he said breathlessly. “I feel . . . free!”
Treyhorn nodded. “Your dragon has kicked its way out of the shell.”
“It?” Dax asked. He looked at the dragon-bound. “Won’t it be a boy or a girl? How will I know?”
She smiled in response. “Oh, you’ll know soon enough. It will also tell you its name. Dragons have their own names and suffer no one to tell them any differently.”
“Where’s him? Dax?” The thought was clear in Dax’s head.
Dax’s snapped his head toward the fire. “Here,” he called. “I’m here.”
A stunning connection of communication flared inside his head—a new and distinct presence was there. Young, eager, and caring—Dax could feel, hear, and see the young dragon’s thoughts. Their bond was deep and loving. The pile of glowing embers in the center of the fire rearranged itself. A glowing comet erupted out of the heart of the flames, headed toward Dax.
“Steady now, Leith,” Treyhorn said. “We warned you about this. Your dragon will be hot, but it won’t burn you. It just wants to come to you.”
Dax did not care. His dragon was coming! He welcomed it into his arms. For a moment he juggled the stinging-hot little animal until it found a comfortable niche. Dax caught his breath. He was overpoweringly hungry. No, it was his dragon. “Here you go, little one,” Dax said. “You’ve been in that egg for a long time. Have a bite of food.” Dax held up a piece of meat. The tiny dragon snapped it out of his hand in a blink.
King's Exile: Chronicles of the Dragon-Bound: Book 1 Page 27