by Robin Hobb
He turned away from them and the shocked murmur that was arising. “That is as much mercy as can be offered to you,” he concluded without regret and walked back to the waiting red dragon. She lowered her huge head and sniffed him. He stroked her face, his own expression becoming silly with affection for the beast.
Hest knew a moment of utter disbelief. “But . . .” he began to protest, and then fell silent as the Chalcedean leaped to his feet. He shook his head like a man who stands in a swarm of midges and then raised a shout. “No! I will never be a slave. I am Lord Dargen of Chalced and I will sooner die than bow my head to the yoke!”
His hands were just as fast as Hest remembered them. The little knives were snatched from hiding and took flight as if they had wills of their own. They did not miss. They rattled like hailstones off the hulking blue-black dragon’s thick scales. One stuck for a moment at the corner of one of the great creature’s silvery eyes. He shook his head and the dagger fell free. An oily drop of scarlet dragon blood welled from the wound and began a slow slide down the dragon’s face.
The Chalcedean gave a shout of triumph. It rang oddly in the absolute silence that had framed his act. Then a smaller silver dragon gave a shrill trumpet of outrage. But the blue-black one made no sound as he took one step forward. All around the Chalcedean, his fellows crouched or cowered as the dragon stretched his head toward the man. He did not hiss or roar as he opened his jaws. As a man might snap an offending branch from a wayside path, the dragon bit the Chalcedean in half. In one head-snapping gulp he swallowed his head and torso. A moment later, he picked up the man’s hips and legs and likewise downed them. Then he turned and stalked off. One of Lord Dargen’s hands and part of a forearm had been sheared off in the dragon’s first bite. It remained where it had fallen, palm up on the muddy earth as if offering a final plea. One of the other Chalcedeans turned aside and vomited noisily.
The scarlet man seemed unsurprised and untroubled. “He has had his wish. He will not bow his head.” He turned back to his dragon and vaulted lightly onto her shoulder and then settled himself just forward of her wings. She snapped her wings wide. All around them, the other dragons were crouching and then leaping skyward. Wave after wave of wind, heavy with the smell of dragon, washed over Hest, until only the red dragon and her scarlet rider remained. The warrior looked over them with hard eyes.
“Do not be slow. If you need guidance, look to the sky. There will always be a dragon over you, making sure that you do not pause until you reach Kelsingra.”
Then, to Hest’s astonishment, the red dragon made a trundling run down the muddy strip of riverbank before leaping into the air. She flapped her wings frantically and ungracefully until she was airborne. In another time and place, he might have laughed at her ridiculous launch. Today, he knew only a moment of great relief that the dragons were gone.
A ringing in his ears that he had not noticed faded. He blinked. The day seemed dimmer, the smells of the swampy riverbank less intense. Around him, other men were shifting, looking at one another, shaking their heads and rubbing their eyes.
“They made us accuse ourselves!” one of the Chalcedeans shouted in fury.
A slave next to Hest stared at the man, and then a sneer crossed his face. “Is that what it takes to make a Chalcedean tell the truth? A dragon standing over you?”
The man lifted his fists and advanced on the slave, who stood his ground to meet him.
Someone screamed. A silver dragon swept in low over them, and the slave stood alone. Hest had a glimpse of a body dangling from the dragon’s jaws before it flew over the trees and out of sight. He turned and ran for the ships. He was not the first to get there.
There was an interruption in the light. And another. A gust of wind rattled the tall rushes all around her. Tintaglia managed to open one eye a slit. She was still dreaming. A female green dragon looked down on her. Too late.
I fear you are right.
She had not seen the golden dragon. He had landed behind her. It was only now as his head came into view that she knew he was there. He sniffed her, his black eyes roiling with sorrow. The infections are too far advanced. She will not fly again. He lifted his head. A shameful way for us to lose her. Killed by humans. No dragon should die so.
Other dragons were alighting nearby. A blue queen, a silver drake, a lavender drake. Dragons. Real dragons, dragons that could fly and hunt.
Dragons have avenged you, Tintaglia, the golden one told her, as if he could sense her next thought. The humans have been judged and punished. Never again will any of them lift a hand against dragons. The golden dragon glanced skyward. You were long coming back to us. Perhaps you had given up on us just as we had given up on you. But we will not abandon you here. Your flesh will not rot, nor be food for rats and ants. Kalo will gather your memories, blue queen. And all of us here will bear our recollections ever forward through time. Your name and deeds will not be forgotten among dragonkind.
A scarlet Elderling stepped forward. She had not seen him, had not known that Elderlings had returned to the world. She thought of the three she had begun and knew a moment of sorrow. Incomplete, and without her continued presence in their lives, doomed to die. The scarlet Elderling was speaking. “ . . . and a statue to your glory shall be raised in the center of the new Kelsingra. Savior of dragonkind, first queen of the new generation, Serpent-Helper, you will never be forgotten so long as Elderlings and dragons still breathe in this world.”
His praise warmed her, but only faintly. He was not a singer such as Selden had been. She thought of her little dragon singer, only a boy when she had claimed him, and knew a moment of nostalgia for him. Dying, she sent a thought winging to him. Sing for me, Selden. For whatever time remains to you before my death ends you, sing of your dragon and your love for her.
Somewhere in the distance, she thought she felt a response from him, the sympathetic thrumming of a far string in tune with her own heart chords. She closed her eyes. It was good to know that a drake would circle over her and watch her death, good to know that no small animals would chew at her as she lay dying, that her memories would not be feed for maggots and ants. All she had learned in this life, all she had known would go on in some form. It would have been better if she had been able to lay her eggs, if she had died knowing that one hot day her serpent offspring would wriggle free of their shells and slither down the beaches to begin their sojourn as sea serpents. It would have been better, but this, at least, was as good a death as any dragon might have.
The keepers had awakened to a city bereft of dragons. None strolled out from the baths, gleaming in the spring dawn. None alighted in the square with a rush of wing and wind. In the absence of the dragons, the city became vast and empty and far too large for humans.
Tats had been startled when Thymara tapped on his door to waken him. If she hadn’t come, it was likely he would have slept longer. But he rose and went down with her to enjoy a hot cup of fragrant tea and a round of ship’s biscuit with jam. Odd, how such simple foods seemed so good after a time without them. Midway through breakfast, Thymara had set down her cup and tilted her head. “Do you hear anything from Fente?”
Tats closed his eyes and reached out toward his feisty little queen. He’d opened them again almost immediately. “Still flying, I think. I wonder how far they are going. Whatever she’s doing, she’s intent on it and wants no distractions.” He cocked his head at her. “Has Sintara spoken to you?”
“Not directly. She seldom does when she’s away. But I felt something, a thrill of excitement. I wish I knew what was happening.”
“I’m almost afraid to know,” Tats admitted. “The way they rushed out of here was frightening. So much anger in the air.”
“And Rapskal became so strange,” Thymara added shyly.
Tats gave her a look. “He’s my friend still,” he said. “Don’t think you can’t speak of him to me. I think he has spent more time in the memory stone than any of us, and it’s beginning to show. When he ret
urns, I think it’s time we sat him down and talked with him about it.”
“I fear it may be too late for that. He’s so sincere in his belief that this is how Elderlings are meant to live, immersed in the memories of those who have gone before us.”
“Perhaps he is.” Tats had drained the last of his tea and looked reluctantly at the few uncoiled leaves in the bottom of his cup. “But I won’t give him up without trying.”
“Nor I,” she admitted, and she’d smiled at him. “Tats,” she had added frankly, “you are just a good person. My father once told me that about you. ‘Solid to the core,’ he said. I see what he meant.”
Her words flustered him more than any declaration of love could have done. He felt his face heat with a rare blush. “Come. Let’s get down to the well and see what is to be done there.”
He had not been too surprised to see that Leftrin and Carson were already at the well site and discussing methods of reaching the silver. Carson had been pragmatic. “It doesn’t look like there’s much left blocking the way. Send someone down with an axe, and a hook and line. If the blockage won’t come up, chop at it until it goes down.”
“Send who?” Leftrin had demanded, as if no one would be foolish enough to go. “That’s deeper than any of the previous jams. It’s going to be cold down there and pitch-black.”
“I’d never go down into that black hole,” Thymara had muttered. She’d shuddered.
And Tats was almost certain that was the reason why he’d stepped forward, saying, “I can do it.”
They had sent him down with a hatchet and a line and a ship’s lantern. Leftrin himself had fastened the harness they rigged for him, and the captain hadn’t said a word of protest when Hennesey had checked all his knots. “Better once too often than once not enough,” he muttered, and Tats had felt his belly go cold. The descent had taken an eternity; allowing his body to dangle freely from the line had been the hardest part. He’d listened to the sounds of the heavy timber and the pulley rigged to it as they took his weight and he began his creaking descent. They lowered him slowly, and the lantern in his left hand showed him almost smooth black walls; the worked stone that composed it fit almost seamlessly together. His right hand gripped the line that held him, and he could not seem to let go, even though he knew it was securely fastened to his harness.
The voices of his friends receded to anxious birdcalls in the distance. The circle of light over head became smaller, and the sounds of the straining line louder. The harness dug into him. And down and yet down he went.
When he came to the wedged timbers, the circle of light overhead had become a well of stars. It made no sense to him. He shouted up at them that he had reached the blockage. He gave his weight to it, standing on the heavy plank, and felt the line that held him go loose, and then abruptly tighten again. He felt like a puppet, suspended weightlessly on the plank. “A little slack!” he shouted up at them, and heard their distant voices arguing. Then they complied and he stood, balancing on the blockage. He lowered his lantern to rest it on the plank.
They’d sent him down with an extra piece of line tied to his harness. His first task was to unfasten it. It was surprisingly difficult to do, for his hands quickly chilled. Once he had it freed, it took a surprising amount of courage before he could bring himself to kneel and then reach down to wrap the line around the timber he stood on. It was a hefty piece of wood, as big around as his waist and just slightly longer than the well shaft was wide. He knotted the line with the knot that Hennesey had insisted he use, and then tested it, pulling with all this strength. It held.
Then he moved on his knees to the higher end of the timber, took out the hatchet looped to his hip, and began to chop. The vibration traveled, at first just an interesting phenomenon, and then an annoying buzz in his knees. The wood was dry and hard and lodged as tightly as a cork in a bottle neck. He wished he had a heavier tool with a longer handle, even as he realized the hazards of trying to stand and chop something under his feet. He spent a good part of the morning chopping away the final barrier in the well. He had to pause to warm his hands under his arms and rub the numbness from his knees. Only his Elderling tunic kept the cold at bay. The tips of his ears and his nose burned with cold.
Eventually, the timber under his feet began to give small groans. Even though he had known the harness stood ready to take his weight, he had roared in terror when the beam suddenly gave way beneath his feet. The short end of it fell away into the darkness. The larger piece fell and swung wildly, the knotted line singing with its weight. He dangled next to it and only slightly above it. He clung to the lines with both hands, knowing a moment of shame when he realized he had dropped his hatchet in his terror. A heartbeat later he was being hauled up so swiftly that he could not even brace his feet on the wall to steady himself.
He was dragged over the lip of the well so enthusiastically that it took the skin off his shins. Big Eider picked him up in a rib-crushing hug of pure relief that he was safe. But Thymara was the next to seize him in an embrace, and he counted his moment of terror a fair price for feeling her hold him so close and hearing her whisper, “Sweet Sa, thanks be. Oh, Tats, I thought you were gone forever when I heard you shout!”
“No. Just startled, that’s all.” He spoke over her head, his arms still around her. She was so warm under his chilled hands. “The way is cleared once we haul up that last piece of timber. We can go after the Silver now.”
Hennesey and Tillamon had just arrived to trade shifts with Big Eider. It startled Tats to realize that a full shift had passed since Hennesey had sent him down the shaft. The mate dropped easily to his knees and peered down the well. “That’s even deeper than I thought it was. First thing is to haul up that old beam and then get the bucket out of the way.” He got up slowly with a wry grin. “Time to go fishing, boys.”
Leftrin took the first fruitless turn at the “fishing.” It was arm-wearying, shoulder-wrenching work. Hennesey had rigged a line through the same pulley that had supported Tats. On the end of it was not only a heavy hook, but a necklace made of flame jewels. Malta had brought it and all but begged them to use it to light their way to the well’s bottom. Wrapped a few feet above the hook, the gleaming metal and sparkling stones gave off their own light as he attempted to guide the hook down. The illumination did not spread far. Leftrin lay on his belly, one hand on the line, and tried to guide the hook toward what they guessed was the handle of the bucket as he peered down into the well. It was far deeper than Tats had descended. Too deep, Leftrin had decided, to risk sending a person down.
When his back began to ache unbearably and his eyes to water and blur, he gave the task over to Nortel and stood up slowly. His gaze traveled around the circle of watchers. The keepers and some of his crew watched anxiously. At a distance behind them, as if their misery were too great to bear any company, were the king and the queen of the Elderlings.
Malta sat on a crate that Reyn had carried there for her, her baby in her arms. Her eyes were fixed on the crumbled wall that surrounded the well. Her Elderling robes gleamed in the sun, and a golden scarf swathed her head. Spring sunlight glittered on the fine scaling of her perfect features. Dignity, he thought as he looked at her. Dignity, no matter what. Reyn stood beside her, tall and grave, and the three together were like a sculpture of royalty.
Or misery, when one looked at their faces. The child was crying, a thin breathless wailing that made Leftrin want to cover his ears or run away. Neither parent seemed to hear it anymore. Malta did not rock Phron or murmur comforting words. She endured, as did her mate. They waited in a silence beyond words, their desperate hope as thin and sharp as a knife blade. The well would yield Silver and somehow one of the dragons could tell them how to use it to heal the baby. The child wailed on and on, a sound that peeled calm from Leftrin’s mind. Soon it will stop. It will be exhausted, he thought to himself. Or dead was the darker thought that came to him. The child was so emaciated now that Leftrin did not want to look at him. Scales
were slipping from his grayish skin; his small tuft of pale hair was dry and bristly on his head. The captain knew that if the well yielded Silver, the parents would risk touching Phron with it. They had no other course. For a long moment, he tried to imagine what they must feel, but he could not. Or perhaps dared not.
“Leftrin.”
She spoke his name breathlessly, and the weakness in her voice jerked his eyes to her. Alise appeared at the bend of a narrow street, walking slowly toward them as if the weight of her Elderling cloak were almost too heavy to bear. “What is wrong with her?” Tats muttered, and Harrikin quietly replied, “She looks drunk. Or drugged.”
Leftrin spared a moment to shoot them a warning look, and then hastened toward Alise.
“She looks very sick,” Sylve suggested.
Leftrin broke into a run with Sedric and Sylve not far behind him. Up close, Alise looked more haggard than Leftrin had ever seen her. Her face was slack and heavy, and his heart sank as he gathered her into his embrace. She sagged against him.
“I found nothing.” She spoke the words loud and clear, but there was little life in her voice. She leaned into him and looked past his shoulder at Malta. Her voice had the quaver of an old, old woman. “My dear, I tried and I tried. Everywhere. I have spent the night listening to stone, touching anywhere that I thought they might have stored it. I feel I have lived a hundred lives since last I spoke to you. Many things I have learned, but of how pure Silver might be used to heal, of how to touch Silver and not die, I have found nothing.”