Dragon Soul

by Danielle Bennett

  “Well,” I said, “that’s good to hear about the…er…whores, anyway.”

  “Shut up,” Rook said, but there was a weariness in his voice, and he lacked his usual venom. I was worried about him, though that was the most foolhardy emotion to experience when it came to Rook.

  Perhaps he missed his friend—if Adamo could even have been called that.

  Or perhaps he was offended at the idea of an airman running a haberdashery.

  But, of course, it was far more than that—a deep vein of grief he could only express through anger, and even that was wearing thin. I swallowed uncertainly.

  “He has been quite helpful,” I offered. “Hasn’t he? There’s a lot to go on, here, and if Margrave Royston says that a dragonmaker—your dragonmaker, to be precise—is likely to be in the desert—”

  “I ain’t thinking about that right now,” Rook ground out. “Read that part again, about one of th’Esar’s people being on the job.”

  I obliged him. Rook wasn’t exactly a theoretical thinker, but his critical analysis was excellent; he could immediately pick out the necessary information, when he put his mind to it, and it stood to reason that he would understand straightaway the most troubling aspect of Adamo’s letter.

  We were on to something. We had to be, if the Esar himself was looking into it.

  “I don’t like it,” Rook said, folding his arms over his chest. “I don’t like any of it.”

  “Neither do I,” I admitted. Aside from how troubling it was that the Esar was capable of exiling those most useful to him because of their potential usefulness to others—an abuse of power that unsettled my very personal understanding of justice—it was difficult to address the sudden knowledge that he seemed intent on hunting down all evidence that remained of his dragons and their inventors. If Adamo’s information was anything to go by, then one could only imagine what the Esar intended to do with it once he found it.

  “He wants to destroy them,” Rook said finally. “I know it.”

  “I’m not sure we can assume—” I began, but Rook snorted.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Rook said. “That’s the kind of man he is. He’s got power and he wants to make sure he’s the only one who has it. So he’s got his men going off to find everything they can. Sure, he doesn’t want the Ke-Han or who the fuck ever to get their hands on ’em—the dragons or the magicians or anyone who fucking knows anything—but I bet you good fucking money that if we got in his way, he’d have us slit open just like we were the enemy too—like neither of us’ve ever done anything for him. He’d forget that, easy as you forget a one-night bitch. We done our duty. We’re worth shit to him.”

  It was a sobering thought, but not entirely off the mark, either. I breathed out slowly, trying to find some logical way around it.

  There was none.

  Rook knew the Esar better than I did, but my own experiences with him led to the exact same conclusion. Simply put, that was the kind of man the Esar was. He was in a position of power that I couldn’t possibly understand, so perhaps I should not have been so quick to judge him for it. Yet the point of the matter was, he would hunt us down the same as he would a Ke-Han spy if he thought we intended to get between him and his goal.

  It unsettled me, not knowing exactly what that goal was. Rook’s guess was as good as—if not better than—mine.

  “I agree,” I said finally. “Your assessment is very…keen.”

  “I been with him,” Rook muttered. “I fucking know his kind. Wouldn’t look twice at me, wouldn’t care if I live now or die, ’cause there ain’t no fucking war left for me to fight. Fair-weather friend, that son-of-a. I always knew it.”

  I scanned the relevant parts of Adamo’s letter for a third time, wondering if I should commit them to memory, then burn the paper on which they were written. Surely I was being too paranoid—and yet I didn’t want to involve Adamo in something that was, as they said, bigger than he was, simply because I hadn’t thought of it in such dire terms when I’d begun my investigation.

  “Rook,” I said suddenly, realization hitting me like a sack of Molly-shit. “What if…What would you say if I thought that we’ve already run into one of the Esar’s men?”

  I didn’t even have to say anything further. Rook whistled, then whirled to the window and spat right out of it—angry little motions that spoke of a deeper rage.

  “Shit,” he said when he was done. “That bastard back at the camp.”

  “And yet, I think we do have a lead,” I said. Rook would like the irony in this. “He sent us all the way out to the desert, probably hoping we’d get lost or give up. But the Margrave Royston seems to believe that we’re on the right track after all.”

  “Tch,” Rook muttered, letting me know that he was as steadfast in his opinion on the Margrave as ever. Or perhaps he was still furious over letting Fan get away—just as I was, only I had to be the one who kept his mouth shut about it. “I knew I should’ve cut that smiling bastard up.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but you couldn’t possibly have known who he was at the time. Neither of us could have, and there’s no point in beating yourself up over something you can’t change now.” I hesitated, not wanting to encourage him, yet at the same time not wanting to let him down, then added, “Revenge is a dish best served cold, as they say. I’m sure we’ll—you’ll have your chance.”

  Rook grunted, which I hoped meant we were on the same page.

  “In any case,” I went on, “as I said, it doesn’t really matter, because while Fan evidently hoped to mislead us, he ended up doing the exact opposite.”

  “Yeah,” Rook said, relishing the fact that we’d somehow managed to turn the tables. “Bet he’s feeling like a real idiot right about now. He’ll get his, and no mistake.”

  “I imagine he will if the Esar ever finds out,” I said, hoping that would conjure all sorts of bloody images in Rook’s mind and therefore cheer him up slightly.

  “I don’t like it,” he said, turning sharply on his heel to pace. I wished fervently that there was no one sleeping on the floor below ours; if there was, they certainly weren’t sleeping anymore. “Not one damned bright spot in this shit hole we’ve landed in, with th’Esar’s fucking spies breathing down our necks and just when we need to be getting a fucking move on we pick up another giant waste of time.”

  “You’re referring to Geoffrey,” I said, reading the letter over once again. I couldn’t help it; rereading was a nervous habit of mine I’d picked up even before school. Much as I hated to admit it, I wasn’t feeling entirely comfortable with the idea of taking a friend into territory I now knew to be far more dangerous than it appeared. Terrain and hostile natives were the least of our problems if the Esar was spying on us. Geoffrey had evidently proven himself capable of looking after matters quite capably on his own—I held no illusions about how I might have fared in his place—but this was a different sort of threat altogether. One that years at the ’Versity or in the desert couldn’t train you for.

  “Who the fuck d’you think I’m talking about, Annabella the camel? Of course I’m fucking talking about that piss snake. Are you even paying attention?” Rook swung his fist into the window frame, stopping short just before it could connect. His reflexes were a constant marvel to me, someone who couldn’t seem to quite get out from under his own feet most days. I put the letter down.

  “I agree that the timing is not particularly ideal,” I admitted, “but we can’t expect to find our way through the desert on luck alone. We will need a guide, and we don’t have the money to hire one. It’s as simple as that. As long as we’re useful to Geoffrey, he’ll be useful to us.” Not to mention we would be going back on our word if we simply left in the middle of the night, same as we’d abandoned the innkeeper to the damages we’d done to his establishment. I knew that Rook hadn’t exactly taken a shine to Geoffrey, but that didn’t excuse our behaving like common thieves—even if that was the turn this trip had taken in the past.

  Our luc
k would only change once we began attempting to change it.

  Rook snorted like an angry bull. “All comes down to th’Esar making things as hard as possible for anyone that ain’t him,” he said.

  “It’s going to be difficult for anyone to cross the desert,” I reminded him. “Even the Esar’s spies are only human. We’ll have an advantage; Geoffrey knows the area better even than spies, and certainly better than we would, on our own.”

  “His spies’re magicians,” Rook corrected me, throwing himself down onto the mess of blankets and woven straw that made up our pallets for the night. He looked like he wanted to spit again, but thankfully didn’t. “Magicians that even the bell-cracked fucking Basquiat won’t accept, which means we don’t know what they are, or what they’re capable of. Maybe they’re cold-blooded like fucking lizards and they’re already halfway there while we sit here talking about Geoffrey.”

  “Stop,” I said, and I did something ridiculously brave: I reached out and put my hand on his arm. He was tightly wound; I wasn’t above thinking he might lash out at me next, just as he’d done toward the window. But nothing happened. “You aren’t doing yourself any favors, thinking like that, and you have no way of knowing whether it’s happened or not, either. Individual Talents are hardly my expertise, but I happen to know that it’s very rare to have a Talent that affects your internal structure like that. Nearly impossible. So that’s not something to worry about. We’ll rouse Geoffrey first thing in the morning and tell him we intend to leave early, all right? Under the circumstances, I think that’s the best we can do—and at least now we’ve got an idea that we’re heading in the right direction.”

  “Yeah,” Rook said, like that was a real comfort to him. After a moment he looked at me, and I hurriedly pulled my hand away.

  “We’ll just have to be on our guard,” I said, as much for myself as for him. “No more talking to friendly strangers.”

  “You’re telling me?” Rook asked, with an expression on his face like I’d just attempted to instruct him on the ancient art of sucking eggs. “I’m not the one who was all friendly with him in the first place.”

  That was true, I would have been the first to admit; but the reason he knew who we were was because Rook wasn’t exactly an inconspicuous traveling companion. I didn’t remind him of that, however.

  “Only one of us is a chatty fucking blabberbox and it ain’t me,” Rook added, for good measure.

  “I’m well aware of that,” I said, my own feelings about having been either ignored or abused for the vast majority of this trip coming dangerously close to the surface. Something else occurred to me then, and I looked down at the letter on my pillow. “When did you get this?”

  “Took it,” Rook said, punching some life into his pillow with disturbing enthusiasm. “Saw it on one of those stupid low tables in Bless’s stupid whorehouse of a sitting room and I figured it was ours. Who’d write that bastard? Not even his fucking dam.”

  “So you just…took it?” I asked, not even terribly surprised, which was the most frightening aspect of all. “Did you even ask if it was the right letter first? Before you robbed my friend of his mail?”

  “It’s our mail,” Rook said. “And he ain’t your friend, but that’s not the point. Shouldn’t he have given it to us, anyway? What the hell was he keeping it back for? That’s what I wanna know.”

  “I’m sure he just forgot,” I said, covering a yawn with my hand. “He’s brilliant, but the practicalities of life tend to elude him every now and then. He was likely just excited to have company. I’m sure it slipped his mind.”

  “Sure,” Rook said, putting his head on the pillow and rolling away from me. “Whatever you say.”

  With a sigh, I folded the letter up and stuck it into my pack for safekeeping. Once woken, it was rather difficult for me to fall back asleep, and so I stared at the ceiling in silence while I waited for my brother’s breathing to even out.

  Eventually my worries eluded me, and I must have fallen asleep.

  When I woke up next, it was morning. Rook was not only out of his bed, but he was also fully dressed. It was already starting to get hot—a most disheartening way to start the day—and I’d somehow managed to kick off all my covers in the night. From outside I could hear the shouts of the marketplace, already roaring into full swing. Geoffrey had been right; they began quite early to beat the worst of the heat.

  I scrambled off the bed and to my feet, dressing and packing up what few things I’d taken out of my bag last night. I did it all in silence; it was the most efficient way.

  “Good,” Rook said, “you’re up. I was gonna start shaking you soon.”

  “Let’s not make that into a habit,” I pleaded, achieving record time in getting ready. “May I ask what you’re doing up so early?”

  “I wanna go see your little friend,” Rook said, looking at something out the window. I was sure it was only the market, which held enough surprises to catch even my brother’s attention—but there was something about the action that made me nervous too. It was too much like standing on guard, I realized, like the contents of Adamo’s letter had bothered Rook more than even he was willing to let on.

  If Fan was indeed an agent of the Esar, then we’d as good as told him to follow us by letting him know we were out for the dragons as well. I didn’t like it, but it wouldn’t do to allow myself to become carried away—precisely in the manner I’d warned Rook against.

  Hypocrisy, I recalled, was a chink in my armor.

  “I believe we were scheduled to meet Geoffrey again for lunch,” I said, trying to be helpful. At the very least, it would put my mind off of being panicked, if only for the moment. “But if you’d like, we can do some sightseeing beforehand. The market’s not the only thing to see in Karakhum. There are monuments and museums—not to mention the old prince’s palace, which is said to be entirely empty these days. Did you know it’s a democracy here now? Quite fascinating—”

  “I ain’t doing any sightseeing,” Rook said, taking the opportunity to speak while I’d paused to take a breath. “We’re going to see Geoffrey Fucking Bless, then we’re renting some camels and we’re leaving.”

  “I…” I began, momentarily at a loss. “You can’t be serious.”

  Rook shot me a look that could have melted dragonsteel, then turned and walked out of the room. I scrambled after him, which he’d probably known I would do from the beginning, slinging my pack over one shoulder.

  “Rook, we can’t possibly—” I said, following him out into the street. The sunlight glared down at us from above and I had to shield my eyes. The very thought of being out in the desert, with no shade to speak of…

  I was going to need a hat.

  “Yes we can possibly,” Rook said, not even looking over his shoulder as he strode off.

  “No,” I insisted, “I really mean it. It takes time to prepare for such expeditions—get supplies, rent…rent the camels, see to all the arrangements. I’m sure Geoffrey has to hire extra hands, especially since he intends to excavate. Rook, it’s simply impossible!”

  “Nothing’s impossible,” Rook said, and this time he did look back at me for long enough to flash a grin, “with the right motivation.”

  It wasn’t a reassuring prospect. I skittered to one side to avoid a man carrying a giant smoked fish—it actually smelled delicious, but I had no time for thoughts of breakfast now—trying to keep up with Rook’s determined pace.

  There was no changing his mind once he’d decided on a course of action. There was only following desperately behind, attempting to prevent whatever physical violence was bound to occur as a result of Rook following through on his inspirations.

  Rook didn’t even bother to knock on the door of Geoffrey’s home.

  “Bless,” he shouted, giving the door a good kick. “Wake the fuck up. It’s time to head out!”

  The door swung open more quickly than I’d expected—almost immediately, in fact, as though Geoffrey had been waiting for us.r />
  “Ah, it’s you,” he said, completely unruffled by our presence. “Would you care to come in? Have a spot of breakfast?”

  Well, yes, I thought miserably, not even bothering to voice my opinion on the subject.

  “No thanks; we’ll get our own damn breakfast,” Rook said. And there it was. “You’ve got work to do, so get on it.”

  “Excuse me?” Geoffrey said, smiling broadly. “I’m not quite sure I follow you.”

  “We’re heading out for the oasis,” Rook said flatly. “Today. So get us some fucking camels and let’s get cracking.”

  Geoffrey smiled again. This smile I recognized—the patience of a professor who’d long since lost the hope of really teaching—one who’d dealt with one too many obtuse students, and had no faith left in the system. It was a condescending smile—a smile I had always dreaded being met with whenever I stepped into a brand-new lecture hall at the start of a semester. Somewhere along the line, my friend Geoffrey had become quite jaded.

  “You’d best come inside and have breakfast,” he said. “After that, we’ll be ready to leave.”

  I blinked. Sand had gotten into my eye, and obviously my ears as well. I couldn’t possibly have heard that correctly. “Ready to leave?” I asked.

  Even Rook had the decency to look startled.

  “Don’t seem so shocked, friends,” Geoffrey said. “I assumed you’d want to start out as quickly as possible. I knew you’d see things my way, so I took the liberty of arranging everything last night. Didn’t want to waste a moment of our precious time, eh?”

  Both Rook and I were stunned into momentary silence. It didn’t last as long for Rook as it did for me, because an instant later, I heard him cursing.

  “Fuck you, Bless,” he said. “If you lead us on a fucking chase—”

  “There would be no profit in that for either of us, would there?” Geoffrey said. “No, no, no; I’ve lured some of the locals into offering assistance with promises of great treasure from afar. There was a little accident on our last dig that made some of them reluctant to work with me again, but they soon saw reason. Enough money will get you results in this world, no matter what anyone tells you.”