Dragonhold (Book 2)

by Brian Rathbone

  "I didn't know it was my lucky day!" Ebrem said. "My favorite customer just shows up like the wind. I suspect you'll float out just the same."

  "Hello, Ebrem, I am once again in need of your services."

  "Did your boy put another one on the bottom?"

  "No. And to be fair, he left the last one on a mountaintop."

  "I can't help with that, unless said mountain is under water."

  "Sadly not."

  "That boy of yours is a piece of work, he is."

  "You can say that," Nora said. Ebrem nodded. "I did, however, lose something dear to me." He looked as if he wanted to ask what but showed restraint. This was why Nora trusted him; that and he was the cleverest man she knew. He also happened to know a lot about diving. "I roped it at three hundred knots."

  "Three hundred!" Ebrem's eyes bulged. "Outrageous."

  "What's the deepest you can go now?"

  "One seventy-five."

  "What's limiting you?"

  Now, it seemed, she had his attention. Nora knew the man well enough. Once he saw where she was going, his mind took over. He could see the possibilities. Even the most brilliant people sometimes need a little inspiration and motivation.

  "Air is the problem," he said, his eyes going distant. "We need a more powerful pump."

  "And what's it going to take to build said pump?"

  "Time. Gold."

  "I'll give you one of the two," Nora said, laying gold on the counter. He seemed to be doing the math in his head. "I need it now," she said, doubling the gold. This made the math much easier.

  "It's going to be big," he said, scratching down notes.

  "I can do big. How long? Realistically."

  "Sixty days if I put off everything else."

  "Too long," Nora said. "I need it in fourteen days."

  Ebrem's eyes bulged again. "Can't be done."

  "Why not?"

  Ebrem looked at her as if she were daft; it was not something most people dared to do. "Just getting that much metal hot and then cooled down again takes time."

  "Then don't make it out of metal."

  That statement confounded the man, but then his mind was fully engaged. He began sketching a spoked wheel. "We can make much of the structure from wood, but it won't last."

  "If we paint the wood, it'll last a year," Nora said.

  Ebrem nodded. "Yes . . . with proper maintenance."

  "And that will give you a year to build one out of metal."

  Blinking twice, Ebrem stopped. "That could work but it's going to be expensive. I'm going to need help from people with real talent. These things aren't easy, you know. People don't just dive to the bottom of the sea to recover . . ." He raised his eyebrows and waited.

  "Something precious to me." Nora added another stack of gold coins.

  "In fourteen days," he said, grinning, "we go diving, eh?"

  "Fourteen days." Soon she would be ready to sail. When they left the shop behind, Nora turned to Emmon and Gret. "He's a genius but sometimes you have to do the thinking for him."

  * * *

  While not a swift ship, the Portly Dragon could sail without wind. Given time and practice, Jessub Tillerman might one day be just as effective a thrustmaster as Gwen. Though he possessed some ability as flightmaster, it was tenuous at best and he was glad this ship did not require it. Thunderheads, dark green and occasionally lit from within, were still reason for concern. The ship had not been designed to fly through storms.

  Kenward stood at the clearly labeled stern. Some had laughed but he knew better. His ship had no broad side. With the exception of the masthead, there was really no such thing as a bow or stern. He continued to use them because that was what his crew understood. Such terms no longer fully applied to the ships in his mind, his imagination capable of so much more than the technology at his disposal. Construction techniques had already improved, and he himself learned from knowledge the ancients left behind, but there was much still to learn. Lessons at sea rarely came without pain.

  "Some of the cleats are coming loose, sir," Bryn said. Having already fetched the tool they made for that task alone, Farsy made it clear he agreed. Bryn stomped on the deck, allowing Farsy to find the place where he stood from belowdecks. There the exposed bolt and nut would be located. Driving bolts through the massive timbers that made up the Portly Dragon's deck had been a tremendous amount of work at the time, but the strength of these attachment points was paramount. Not long after, Farsy could be heard from below, albeit muffled and faint.

  "Excellent work," Kenward said. "Call for me if you find any other trouble."

  Walking toward the thrust tubes, Kenward avoided the parts of the deck painted with warnings, keeping to the space between the tubes, where the air was calm and smooth. "How are you feeling, my boy?"

  "I'm fine, sir," Jessub said. "I'm just feeling a little hungry. Maybe if Grubb could bring me something to eat . . ."

  "No. The Portly Dragon does not require thrust to stay in the air. When you're tired, when you are hungry, when you thirst, you may stop and satisfy your needs unless I tell you otherwise. There will be times I'll asked you to provide thrust until such a time as we no longer need it. There will come a time I'll ask from you more than you have to give. Be ready. We'll face the winds soon enough, and I'll want a refreshed thrustmaster when that time arrives. All I ask is that you use great care when you cease. When Catrin did it best, she reduced the thrust over time."

  "Yes, sir," Jessub said, easing out of the thrust, allowing the Portly Dragon to slow gradually.

  "Well done," Kenward said, and the rest of the crew hooted their approval. Jessub walked to the deckhouse with a lopsided smile on his face. Kenward Trell was determined to make the boy the adventurer he'd always wanted to be. He was well on his way. "How are those cleats coming?"

  "We've still got a few more to cinch up, sir," Bryn said. "But Farsy says some of the bolts are cracking."

  "Move those lines to spare cleats," Kenward said. "Then bring the cracked bolts to the forge. We'll see about reinforcing them." One advantage of steam-based travel was always having fires burning. Kenward had planned for this eventuality. All he had to do was reinforce the undersized bolts, one at a time, before any snapped. It was risky but no one complained. Those aboard knew what they had taken on, and they trusted him; the last bit was the hardest to believe. "And while he's down there, tell him to make sure there aren't any gaping holes in the hull." Putting the ship to sea for repairs wasn't Kenward's first choice but it never hurt to be safe. His mother would laugh.

  After scouting the seas and weather conditions, Sinjin and Kendra returned with concern on their faces. "Permission to board?"

  Despite the fact that Kenward had already told Sinjin and Kendra they could land on his deck whenever they wanted, he shouted in return, "Permission granted."

  Having landed the bumblebee on the decks of the Portly Dragon, Kenward marveled at the ease with which Valterius and Gerhonda gained the decks. No sooner did they land than did Sinjin and Kendra remove their straps and march toward him, their faces sour. Dragons flanked the boiler house, lying down to rest. Kenward wasn't sure if this was to shield their riders in the event the boilers failed or if the dragons just liked keeping warm. Either way, Kenward particularly liked the look of dragons on deck, rather than just as the masthead. Still, they could be unreliable creatures, and he hoped they behaved. It seemed unlikely.

  "Bad weather coming," Sinjin said. "How's the ship holding up?"

  "We haven't found any gaping holes in the hull, sir," Bryn said from nearby with a grin.

  "She's doing just fine…just fine," Kenward said. "How many people did you say those dragons can carry?"

  * * *

  The Trader's Wind was a purpose-built ship rarely called to do anything but what she was specifically designed to do. On this day, though, the crew would witness a spectacle. While the Wind was far from the ideal exploration ship, she did have a few advantages. Her cranes and pulleys
were built to lift massive cargo, and her decks, large enough to hold both an enormous pump and the barge that would soon support it. Getting the barge into the water was an impressive but simple enough affair. Getting the pump oriented properly, lowered onto the barge, and secured proved a more difficult and dangerous endeavor.

  Nora held her breath as the diver struggled against the waves while trying to tighten the straps. Two men used long poles to push the barge away from the ship since it was naturally drawn toward the Trader's Wind. Once the top and bottom straps had been secured, the crew took their places on the barge. On deck waited a suit of metal and oiled leather with a helmet that looked a lot like a cookpot with a hose coming out of it. Carefully the suit was secured to the hoist and readied for lowering to the barge.

  "Are you going to tell us what we're looking for yet? Is it a shipwreck? Lost treasure? What is it?" Ebrem asked. He had insisted on coming to fix any problems that might occur with his experimental pump. It was a beauty, painted black and gold, looking like a machine of the new age.

  Nora grinned. "You are sworn to secrecy." Ebrem nodded in acceptance as the loading crane lifted his pressurized dive suit from the deck. Nora reached in her pocket and pulled out a black crystal. "This is what we're after."

  Ebrem reached out his hand and grabbed the stone. Nora reluctantly let go. It was among her most precious possessions. "I don't get it. I've seen prettier crystals than that . . . and darned easier to get."

  Nora said nothing. She hated watching from above rather than from the barge itself. She felt disconnected from the operation but had learned to get used to such things. The climb was simply more than she could handle. She could have ridden the crane down, but as she was always so quick to point out to Kenward, that would create a risk not worth taking. If the crane malfunctioned, she would be in serious trouble. No, the deck was better--just frustrating and nerve wracking. She wanted to yell to them to triple-check the air supply before the suit dipped beneath water. Weighted down as it was, the suit sank like a stone, leaving a trail of air bubbles behind it.

  From her vantage, the suit disappeared almost immediately. All she could do was wait while those aboard the barge took turns using their full body weight to turn the massive wooden wheel that drove the oversized air pump. It was a graceful and stressful ballet the crew performed, lining up to jump onto the spokes at just the right time then riding the spoke down. Before it reached the bottom, the crewmen needed to jump off or be pulled through the framework that held the wheel and pump assembly in place. Nora was proud of their brave efforts, but she worried for them. This would all have been difficult enough on dry land, but compensating for the motion of the barge and pushing off the hull of the Trader's Wind made for an unsettling spectacle. Always when she needed them, her crew was there, and she prayed for their continued safety.

  "I just don't get it," Ebrem said, scratching his head.

  "Show him," Nora said to Gret, knowing he would never let it go. Again with reluctance she handed the noonstone crystal to the young woman. Nora could not blame Ebrem; she, too, had been unconvinced until Gret managed to test the ancient technique. Now she understood and soon so would he.

  "Come with me," Gret said. "This is most safely done inside. Captain Trell would not be happy if I lost her crystal."

  Thoroughly intrigued, Ebrem followed the young woman to the forward deckhouse. He watched in silent fascination as Gret produced a wooden cylinder and some string. When Gret suspended the crystal within the wooden tube and ran her hand over it, the man's eyes went wide. Soon he, too, came to see the truth.

  "They're coming back up," someone shouted.

  Nora beat the rest to the door, but they quickly matched her pace. None was rude enough to leave her behind, and they instead walked at an awkwardly slow pace. Air bubbles erupted from the sea nearby; watching that spot, they waited. Silence hung heavily while they waited to see movement, to know the larger pump had truly provided enough air even at such depths. When the diver brought his hands up, the people cheered. They cheered even louder when the sizable crystal he carried was pulled onto the barge.

  Nora Trell smiled. Gret, Emmon, and Ebrem all seemed to realize what this larger crystal might be capable of.

  "Now I get it," Ebrem said.

  * * *

  Wind tickled Onin’s beard. He was free but he was not. “We’re going to have to fly around it!”

  Jehregard ignored him, flying ever closer to the darkness and fog that shrouded the land Onin called his home. Only when he turned to look out to sea did he once again see nature as it should be. Darkness had consumed the great swamp. For as long as he had known this place, the Jaga had been dangerous and, in places, dark and twisted, but this was different. Now the darkness was pervasive, it leeched into the land and permeated everything. Once pristine shorelines now dripped with ooze that stained the sands.

  The tierre within which Onin sat tilted backward as Jehregard put them into an upward spiral, sending them higher and higher, using the unnatural thermals emanating from the fetid land below. The hot air stank, and Onin wished they had flown around the Jaga, just as he had asked the dragon to do. Never had Jehregard been a particularly obedient dragon, but in this instance, it could be deadly. When they reached the altitude where the smell finally dissipated, Onin found himself short of breath. Cursing age and a stubborn dragon, Onin looked down. “By the gods!” he said without meaning to.

  His stubborn dragon had brought them high over the Jaga, high enough to see the central feature, a place that had clearly been hidden for centuries if not thousands of years. It was an impossible place. Onin knew that it had always been; he remembered it from his flights over the Jaga and how it had made him feel. That feeling still existed, only now it was magnified many times over. No longer did marsh water and soil obstruct his view to the source of that feeling. From deep within the land rose and unholy spire. Inky black, yet filled with murky shadow that moved and writhed along its glossy surface, the mighty monolith dominated the land. Through some unknown force, it repelled the water in the mud and the black slog and held it at a distance.

  Onin of the Old Guard had dug holes within the Jaga and seen them fill with water immediately. And here rose what looked like an entire city ringing the ancient crystal. It emerged from the mire, sprung from some nightmare eons old. He could feel the evil of it, the wrongness, the corruption. It nearly made him wretch. And yet there was beauty to it. The architecture, though dark and foreboding, contained amazing symmetry and precision. How could anyone construct such a place? Power was the answer, Onin knew. Lightning danced along the walls of the cavern from the crystalline megalith to the suspended water, soil, and roots of the Jaga. It was like seeing a cross-section of the greatest known wilderness on Godsland at full scale. Architecture and twisted swamp life were almost indistinguishable. The mighty cylindrical fortress surrounding the Noonspire seethed with life, as if the fortress breathed.

  Continuing to take them closer, albeit going no lower, Jehregard kept ignoring Onin’s input. “One of these days, I’m going to find a big enough hammer to knock some sense into this dragon.”

  If Jehregard heard him, he gave no indication. When finally they were directly above the giant crystal, Onin looked down into his worst nightmare. What he had thought was simply architecture was something entirely different. Feral dragons of all sizes lined the gaping chasm surrounding the Noonspire. The entire structure and complex writhed. Through the gaps, the true architecture was visible, and symmetry did exist, but much of the darkness came from its inhabitants.

  Never had Onin seen so many dragons. Warnings he’d given those within the Heights rang in his mind. There was no joy in being right; he deeply wished he'd been wrong. No matter what he wished, the danger he’d warned of was before his eyes and even greater than he'd imagined. Lightning flashed along the top of the spire, and Onin looked into the uppermost facets. Within, he saw the dark forms of two women, a man, and a small child. Feeling his heart
tighten, the old warrior knew remorse and despair. Somehow he could feel how desperately they wanted to be free from that prison--those who had been there since the last age of power and those who had just arrived.

  Lightning leaped upward then, racing toward them, striking Jehregard’s legs and underbelly. Finally the stubborn verdant dragon realized it was time to go. Turning on a wingtip and using their altitude to gain speed, the verdant dragon took advantage of the nimbleness so many of his kind lacked. Thankful that everything in his tierre was secured, or at least most everything, Onin did his best to dodge the rest. Wind tore at them as Jehregard continued to gain speed. The farther away from the spire they got, the lower they went. Onin watched the black swamp attentively. If there were enough feral dragons to fill that chasm, then there would be more.

  Dense fog obscured his view of the Midlands, and when the Heights appeared, this sight was similarly obfuscated. It was not unusual or unheard of for the Heights to be surrounded in clouds, but this time those clouds were filled with smoke and fire.

  * * *

  Deep within Dragonhold, within the lap of a forgotten god, a dragon came as close to a smile as its physiology would allow. Mael was most pleased.