Dragon Coast

by Greg Van Eekhout

  But he’d had help. He had Otis’s other orphans. He had Moth and Cassandra and Jo and Punch. He had friends.

  “You know,” he said, “I look at your face, and I recognize it. I know your name. And I’m not going to say I don’t have a mom, that my mom is dead. Because here you are. And I’m not even going to say that I don’t care why you left me behind with Otis. Why you took Paul with you and not me. It’s not that I don’t care. Of course I care. You’re my living mother, and you orphaned me. But right now, at this moment, I don’t have time to care. You are not the most important thing to me. My pain is not the most important thing to me. I have a job to do, and all I care about is how your presence complicates it.” Moonlight threw stark shadows across her face. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you had a whole speech worked out.”

  “Don’t be petty. You must want an explanation.”

  “Not as much as you want to give it to me. But you don’t get that. You don’t get to explain. You don’t get to let it off your chest. You don’t get a chance to make me understand.”

  “This is the punishment you’ve chosen for me, Daniel?”

  For a long time, neither of them spoke. Water flowed beneath their feet.

  “If you’re ever ready to hear my explanation, Daniel, ask Cassandra. She was willing to listen.”

  “When did you see Cassandra?”

  “Today. She’s in the city with Argent. And Argent’s hound. They haven’t found the dragon yet. I don’t think they can without my help.”

  “Did you hurt them?” Heat came to his lungs.

  “I’m a spy. That doesn’t make me a monster. I want to help you, Daniel.”

  She reached out to touch him and he flinched away.

  “How can you help?”

  She closed her eyes, gathering herself, and he understood that it was costing her to stand here, so close to her son, not being able to get past the walls he’d erected to keep her out. He wouldn’t even permit her to explain. He wouldn’t even be angry at her. All he would talk to her about was business. All he would give her was coldness. It must be hurting her a lot. When she opened her eyes again, he saw how much.

  “Your friends are on the right track,” she said, “looking for large movements of osteomancy to a place big enough to house a dragon. And there is a lot of magic being moved around. The problem is, it’s being moved to multiple locations, to the airship fields south of the city, to a flotilla of container ships docked off the coast, a few other places. Either someone’s deliberately set up some decoys, or else there’re multiple large-scale projects under way.”

  “Don’t you know? You’re the Hierarch’s spymaster.”

  “That was a long time ago,” she said. “And Paul’s failure to deliver the dragon hasn’t helped my position. I’m no longer privy to all the machinations of the Hierarch and her court. And there are a lot of machinations.”

  “Then what’s your best guess?”

  “I’d say the Presidio. It’s got easy water access, large warehouse buildings, and they just got a delivery of two hundred feet of gleipnir chains.”

  “Gleipnir chains?”

  “Not something you’d have seen in the South. It’s an unbreakable compound.”

  “Just the kind of thing you’d need if you wanted to tie down a firedrake.”

  “Exactly.” She smiled at him, proud.

  Daniel made himself colder.

  “My team needs better intel than that,” he said. “I can’t have them breaking into every possible facility in San Francisco.”

  “I just need a little more time,” she said, encouraged. If Daniel wouldn’t forgive her, then she’d have to settle for bonding with her son over a covert operation.

  “How much time?”

  “Two days. Maybe three.”

  “You have until the investiture the day after tomorrow.”

  She gave one brisk nod. Messalina Sigilo was a no-nonsense spy-mom.

  He was ready to leave her here and go back to the palace, but hesitated.

  “Just tell me one thing.”

  “Of course,” she said, almost desperate. “Anything.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because you’re my son and I love you. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No. It’s really not.”

  She drew a deep breath and exhaled it shakily.

  “Well, accept it or not, that’s my reason. But, no, it’s not the only one. Paul was my son, too. I loved him. He gave his life trying to craft the firedrake. Call it foolish if you like. Call it inhuman. But he was my son, and this is what he would have wanted. I won’t let the Hierarch keep his dragon as a toy.”

  He turned to go.

  “Daniel, just one more thing. Ethelinda.”

  He stopped. “What about her?”

  “When are you going to tell her that you’re not her father?”

  “Work in progress,” he said, heading back to the palace.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “What I would like to know, Paul, is precisely when you decided to make an enemy out of me.”

  Daniel and Cynara had been having a nice morning stroll through the palace gardens. Threads of fog softened the views and lent an authentic backdrop to the cloud forest. Daniel was admiring the pink polyps of fuchsia plants when Cynara made her accusation.

  Taken aback, he fumbled for an adequate response. Lovers’ quarrels were hard enough. Faking your way through one added an extra degree of difficulty.

  “I’m not your enemy.”

  “Why haven’t you taken yourself out of consideration? Why haven’t you stepped aside for me? I don’t understand your game. You can’t really want the office for yourself.” She looked at him with eyes like scalpels. “You were always about study. About pushing at the frontiers of magic. You wanted the power of osteomancy, but you never cared about power over people. You were the tweezers and the lens. I was the knife and hammer.”

  It disturbed Daniel how well Cynara had just described Daniel’s father. Had there ever been a more powerful osteomancer who didn’t want to be the Hierarch, or even hold a seat on the Council? All Sebastian wanted was a well-equipped laboratory and the freedom to work. Apparently, that’s all Paul had wanted as well.

  They came down the path into Sonoran desert. Saguaro cacti lurked behind the fog like sentries. A ship’s horn wailed from nearby.

  “You are not the man who left a year ago. I wish I had more time to let you become that man again, or to learn who this new version of you is. I mean that, Paul.” She touched his hand, her fingers brushing across his palm and leaving a trail of warmth behind. “But the investiture is tomorrow. If the Hierarch names me, maybe there’ll be some time for us yet. But if not, I will claim the Rite of Challenge.”

  The Rite of Challenge? There was a Rite of Challenge, for crying out loud?

  “Isn’t that a little extreme?” It sure sounded extreme to Daniel.

  “You haven’t left me much choice. Either I will be High Grand Osteomancer, or I will fight whomever the Hierarch names, be it my teacher, my brother, or the father of my child.”

  “And what if you lose?” If there was going to be a fight, then Daniel wanted to know what would happen to the loser.

  “You think that’s possible?”

  “In a fight, anything’s possible.”

  “Not if it comes down to tweezers against knife.”

  A figure came out of the fog, a man dressed in the green livery of Cynara’s house.

  “My lord,” he said, out of breath. His face shone with sweat, even in this cold air. He graced Daniel with only the slightest head bob and turned his full attention back to Cynara. “It’s Lady Ethelinda. Another attempt has been made upon her life.”

  There was a moment of paralyzed dread, surely just an instant in reality, but in that frozen moment, Daniel felt as if he’d fallen through the earth. He recognized the sensation, and the hollowness in his chest and gut. He’d felt the same way when he’d watched Sam plunge into a
tank of raging firedrake amniotic fluid and thought he was dead. He looked at Cynara and saw the same horror and fear in her face.

  They raced back to the tower.

  Palace guards stood outside Cynara’s guest apartments, but not within. A woman in a black housedress and white apron came up to Cynara. She was ordinary-looking, but magic curled off of her with powerful odors.

  “Your daughter is unharmed, my lord.” Her voice was rough with emotion. She must be Ethelinda’s governess, the unmeltable one.

  Cynara gathered herself, took a breath, and stood tall. She went in to see her daughter. Daniel followed.

  Ethelinda was in the sitting room, working on a jigsaw puzzle. Controlled and graceful, Cynara lowered herself to her knees.

  “Are you all right, my darling?”

  Ethelinda nodded.

  “Were you frightened?”

  She shook her head. Cynara brushed hair off her forehead and planted a kiss, and they spoke in hushed tones.

  Daniel went to the governess. “Where’s palace security?”

  “They were not informed, my lord. This is being handled by Lord Cynara’s household.”

  “Good. Take me to Ethelinda’s room.”

  The governess looked to her master, but Cynara was still fully occupied with Ethelinda. Reluctantly, she complied with Daniel’s order.

  Ethelinda’s room was unfit for a child. The walls were opaque panels of dark green glass, almost black, and the furniture was all heavy slabs of wood. A few portraits of sinister old people glared from frames. Cynara never should have brought her here.

  Daniel didn’t spot the assassin’s corpse immediately because it was strewn in parts across the room. One arm lay between the bed and the bedside table. Another had landed against the bathroom door, a trail of blood describing its trajectory. A leg lay near the wall across the end of the bed. The other lay on the black marble floor, bent at the knee into a bloody L.

  Inside the tub, he found a woman’s torso, with the head still attached.

  He bent down and smelled the air around the assassin’s open lips. There were essences of aranea, a creature whose closest living analogs were spiders.

  The governess stood behind Daniel.

  “Was she attacked in here or in bed?” he asked her.

  “She was in bed. Still sleeping.”

  “And you?”

  “Outside her door, in the vestibule.”

  Daniel didn’t know this woman. Cynara trusted her enough to leave her alone with Ethelinda, but Daniel didn’t really know Cynara, either. If it were up to him, Ethelinda would never be left alone. He’d load her in a car and haul her out to the remotest parts of the kingdom and beyond, never staying anywhere long, try his best to keep her a moving target. Just like he’d done with Sam.

  Because, gosh, that had turned out so well.

  Whether or not the governess was complicit in this, she’d done a good job of ripping the assassin to bits.

  “Did she put up a good fight?”

  “I wasn’t there to see, my lord.”

  Now Daniel was confused. He gestured at the head and torso. “If this wasn’t you…”

  “Your daughter, my lord. She defended herself.”

  Daniel suppressed any reaction.

  He returned to the bedroom and took another look at the dismembered limbs. Ethelinda was only four years old. One of the legs had struck the glass wall hard enough to leave a web of cracks.

  * * *

  Allaster laughed when Daniel demanded to know who was behind the assassination attempts. “Of course it was me.”

  Daniel had found him in the stables, about to set off on a chocolate-brown gelding for a morning ride around the palace grounds. Sunlight came through a patch in the fog to touch his hair with gold. In an open-collared white shirt tucked into tan riding pants, he was the picture of aristocracy.

  “You’re admitting this to me,” Daniel said, unprepared for such an open confession.

  “Well, who else would it be? Unless you’re playing the game with someone else.”

  “The ‘game.’” Daniel repeated the word with contempt, but he also meant it as a question.

  Allaster’s face grew serious. Maybe even sad. “I thought we could pick up where we left it before you went off to fool around with your patchwork dragon. And it was my turn, so I had your dinner poisoned. I’d tell you which one of your kitchen staff I paid, but if I developed a reputation for betraying the people who do my handiwork, then … well, you understand. Anyway, I waited. And waited. And waited. And you did nothing. I found that vexing.” He wagged a finger at Daniel. “So I sent the assassin to your room. And, yes, I know, I broke the rules. And I’m sorry for that. I guess. But what else could I do? You weren’t playing your turn, so I took an extra. I thought I could smack you out of this boring lassitude you’ve been stuck in since you came back.”

  “All the assassination attempts. They were all you?”

  Allaster frowned. He seemed confused.

  “Just the two. Wait, have there been more?” The horse nickered, and Allaster ran a hand over its neck. “I suppose I owe you an apology.”

  “For trying to kill me? You think you should apologize for that?”

  “I thought it would be a good way to welcome you back. It’s schoolboy stuff, I know. But I suppose the closer one gets to the throne, the less time one has for games and old friends.”

  “The assassins. That was just a game.”

  “You’ve had a hard year, Paul, healing and recovering. I didn’t anticipate it would injure your sense of humor so much.”

  Allaster put his foot in the stirrup and began lifting himself up to the saddle, but Daniel grabbed him by the shirt and threw him into the dust. The horse grunted and skittered away.

  Allaster looked up at Daniel with a quizzical smile. “You’re being violent.”

  “I’ll—”

  “Hit me with your little nubbin fist?”

  “If you know me at all, then you know I can do much worse than that. I’ll bury you, Allaster. Come at Ethelinda again, and even before Cynara gets to you, I’ll bury you.”

  Allaster’s face changed. He rose effortlessly back to his feet. “Ethelinda? Wait. You can’t think I had anything to do with that.”

  Was Allaster playing Daniel? Was this part of his and Paul’s game?

  He looked sadly at Daniel and shook his head. “You really think I’d harm her? She’s my niece, Paul. She’s your daughter. Listen, I don’t know what happened to you in the South, and you seem determined not to tell me. As you will. It’s your business. But that doesn’t mean we’re strangers. We may have started off as rival apprentices. And we’ve had some bumps. And I’m not going to quite forgive you for everything you’ve done. But you brought us together. You, me, and Cynara. It was always us three, whether it was cheating on exams, or beating back other osteomancers. Cynara and I are family by blood, but you made the three of us family by choice. And you think I would hurt Ethelinda? You break my heart, Paul.”

  It had never occurred to Daniel that Paul might have friends. Close ones, as close as family, as close as Daniel was to Moth and Cassandra.

  Allaster gathered his horse by the reins and mounted the saddle.

  “Whatever happens at the investiture, Paul, just remember this: Whether we end up loving or hating each other by the time the sun goes down, there’s always the chance we’re both going to survive till the next morning. Let’s make sure we can both live with whatever we’ve done.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Paul’s field kit came in a briefcase of brushed aluminum. Precisely cut foam compartments kept all the little vials of powdered bone safe and snug, the tongs and thermometer and density calipers and balance and torch all fitting cleverly in place. This was luxury.

  Daniel arrayed several items from the kit on the table. His hands craved work, because he knew it would help distract him from thinking about his mother. And as much as he didn’t want to dwell on her, he wanted
to ponder his inevitable conversation with Ethelinda even less. He was impatient for Moth to get back from his shopping trip.

  He began by accumulating a little pile of bone, just pebbles and bits of grit, until he had a mass roughly equivalent to the axis mundi bone. He deposited it in his crucible and set the crucible on a tripod stand over Paul’s torch.

  The bones were all tiny fragments from various kinds of dragon—Colombian firedrake, western wyvern, Siberian yelbeghen. They didn’t like to melt, so Daniel added a few drops of water spirit to give them encouragement. He set the torch for red-purple flame and left it to do its work.

  “Ho, ho, ho, got your presents,” Moth boomed, arriving with shopping bags clutched in both hands. He set them on the table.

  “Run into any troubles?”

  “Only that I didn’t want to come back to the palace. San Francisco’s a really lovely town.”

  Moth unloaded the bags. There were mallets and hammers and pliers and tweezers, clamps and metal-bending tools, and an array of files and a soldering iron. There was a smaller bag containing four chunky, gold rings. Daniel weighed them in his palm.

  “Where’d these come from?”

  “Got them off a dead pirate. You want the fingers, too?”

  “Pawnshop?”

  “Yeah.”

  Most important, Moth had found him two books, both of them heavy slabs: Slaker’s Complete Manual of Lapidary and a twin volume on making jewelry. Inside were pasted “City of San Francisco Library” stamps.

  “You stole from a library?”

  “Just what kind of man do you take me for?” Moth said. “I filled out a form and got a library card. You have these for nine days. And I better not get an overdue fine.”

  Daniel checked the dragon bones in the crucible. They were starting to soften.

  “You still haven’t told me what all this is for,” Moth said.

  “There’s no way I’m going to be able to steal the axis mundi from the treasury. It’s just too well guarded.”

  Moth frowned. “So you said. But we’re good stealers, and I am always willing to employ my mastery of blunt force trauma.”