by Hobb, Robin
A bemused smile twisted Tats’s mouth. “When I ‘decided’ to be with Jerd. Hah.” Despite his misery, the memory lit his face with a smile. “I don’t remember deciding anything that night. Or thinking at all.”
“Well, perhaps for Thymara . . .”
The smile faded abruptly from his face. “But she’s a girl. Girls do think about those things. Don’t they?”
An incredulous smile spread slowly across Carson’s face. “You came here tonight to ask me for advice about women?” He turned and looked pointedly at Sedric. “Are you sure you knocked on the right door?”
Tats looked uncomfortable. “Well, who else can I talk to? The other keepers would just make fun of me. Unless I talked to Jerd, and that would go places I don’t want to go. Or Sylve, and then I just might as well talk straight to Thymara because anything I said to Sylve would get right back to her. So I came here. You, both of you seem happy. Like you got it right. And I thought, of everyone that’s here now, you seemed the best to talk to. You’re older. And it can’t be that different, can it? People being jealous, people being in love.” The last word came awkwardly to Tats, and he didn’t look at Carson as he said it.
Sedric found himself glancing away from Carson, as if he dared not read what might be on his face. For a time, the hunter didn’t speak. Then he said quietly, “Happy comes and goes, Tats. Loving someone isn’t that crazy infatuation that you feel at first. That passes. Well, not passes, but it calms down, and then sometimes, when you least expect it, you get a glimpse of the person and it all comes back again, in a big rush. But even that’s not what you’re looking for. What you’re looking for is the feeling that no matter what, being with that person is always going to be better than being without that person. Good times or bad. That having that person around makes whatever you’re going through better, or at least more tolerable.”
“Yes. That’s it, exactly. That’s what I feel about her.”
Sedric looked up at Carson. The hunter was slowly shaking his head. “Sorry, Tats, but I don’t believe it.”
The boy shot to his feet. “I’m not lying!”
“I know you aren’t. You believe what you’re saying. Now don’t get angry. I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Davvie not long ago. Don’t take offense, but you just aren’t old enough to know what you’re talking about. You want Thymara, and I’m sure you like being around her. And I’m sure it’s making you crazy tonight that she’s with Rapskal instead of you. But what I see is a young man with a very limited selection of partners and a very small experience of . . .”
“You don’t understand!” Tats cried and spun toward the door. He snatched it open and then paused to pull his hood up.
Carson didn’t try to stop him. “I do understand, Tats. I’ve been where you stand. Someday, you’ll be where I am right now, saying these same words to a youngster. And he probably won’t—”
“What is that? Look! Is it a fire? Is the city on fire?” Tats had halted in the doorway, staring out and across the hillside and river and into the distance.
In two steps, Carson was at his side, peering over his shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen light like that. It’s coming from windows, but it’s so white!”
A rumbling began, so deep that Sedric more felt than heard it. He rose, clutching the blanket around his nakedness, and joined them at the door. In the distance, in the night, he could see the city as he never had before. It was not a distant huddle of structures but an irregular pattern of rectangular lights scattered over the far shore and into the distance, right up to what he surmised were the foothills. As he watched, more lights kindled, spreading downriver, and his breath caught in his throat as he suddenly realized that he was looking at a city much larger than he had imagined. It easily rivaled Bingtown for size.
“Sweet Sa!” Carson breathed, and at that moment the rumbling Sedric had felt became a full-voiced trumpeting from a dozen dragon throats.
“What is it?” he demanded of everyone and no one, and he felt Relpda echo his query. His dragon had wakened to the lights and trumpeting. For a moment, he sensed only her disorientation, and then he felt her thought, both joyous and anguished. The city awakens and welcomes us. It is time we went home.
But we cannot get there.
Alise awakened to dragons trumpeting in the night. She put her feet over the side of the bed and winced as they hit the cold floor. She slept in the Elderling gown that Leftrin had given her, as much as to feel it as his touch as for the unfailing warmth it gave her. She hurried to the door of the hut that seemed so much larger and emptier without the captain, opening the door to rain and darkness.
No. Not complete darkness. Stars had blossomed across the river. She stared, rubbed her eyes, and then looked again. Not stars. Not fires. Windows lit with the sort of light that could come only from Elderling magic. Something had happened over there, something had been triggered. She stared in awe and frustration. “I should have been there when this happened. Who did this, and how?”
But she knew. Rapskal had been impulsive since she first met him, reminding her of a mischievous boy from the very start of the expedition. She knew that he had continued to visit the city in Leftrin’s absence and strongly suspected that he had ignored the captain’s warnings about immersing himself in the memory stone dreams. Now he had discovered something and had done something to waken that reaction in the city. If it was like other Elderling magic she had witnessed, it would last for a time and then, as abruptly as it had begun, it would fail and be gone, never to be seen again.
And here she was, on the wrong side of the river.
Tears pricked her eyes. She shook her face angrily, denying them. No time to weep. Instead, it was time to stare, to try to mark in her memory which of the distant buildings had lit and which had remained dark. It all had to be recorded. If this was as much as she could witness of this last great display of Elderling magic, then witness it she would and make a record for any who came after her to study the ancient ruins.
“I think the first thing is to rig a better shelter for the Elderling and her child,” Hennesey suggested. He was sitting at the galley table. He glanced at the veiled woman beside him as if awaiting her confirmation. She remained silent and still.
Leftrin nodded numbly. He was exhausted, but there was no time to rest now. His ears buzzed with weariness, and he shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “Is there any coffee left?”
“A little,” Bellin replied. She took the pot from the iron stove and brought it to the galley table. She poured more for him, and when Reyn nudged his mug to the middle of the table, she refilled his as well. Leftrin looked at the Elderling who sat across from him, so weary and so anxious. He wanted Leftrin’s help. He needed him and his ship, for the sake of his child. But from the story that Reyn had told, helping him could involve him in thwarting the Chalcedean spies. And he feared he knew at least one of those spies by name. If he openly defied him, what might Arich do? Betray that not only had Leftrin made illegal use of wizardwood to supplement his ship’s life, but that he had been the one to smuggle Sinad Arich up the Rain Wild River? He saw the guilt in the eyes of his crew. They’d done something wicked to protect their ship’s secret. At the time, they’d accepted their captain’s word that they had had no choice. When Arich had vanished from the ship when it docked, none of them had questioned him about it. But they all felt it now. Their wickedness had come right back at them. The very thing they’d done to try to protect themselves was what would damn them further. No one would excuse him on the grounds that he’d done it to protect his secret. Either of those crimes was scandalous. If both became known, he could not think of a Rain Wild faction that would not be furious with them. Alise among them. He wondered if Reyn or Tillamon felt their nervousness.
Skelly spoke hesitantly. “Malta the Elderling didn’t do anything wrong! They were going to kill her and her baby. Why can’t we just go to the Council? Shouldn’t we warn them, shouldn’t we tel
l someone so they can go hunt down that other fellow?”
He gave Skelly a warning look. Time for her to be quiet. “The Council is corrupt.” Leftrin felt the certainty of that now. Someone was turning a blind eye to Chalcedeans in Cassarick. It was not that big a town. If they were moving about as Malta had said they were, coming and going, buying supplies, one of them living in a brothel, then people knew. And someone was shielding them, either for money or because they were being threatened.
“The whole Council?” Reyn sounded horrified.
“Possibly. Maybe not. But we don’t know, and if we go to the wrong person, we may be running our heads into the snare.”
“And there’s no time,” Bellin observed heavily. “If there are Chalcedeans crawling all through this town and they’re not getting rid of them, they’re welcome to them. The ship spoke to all of us, plainer than he ever has. He can keep that baby alive for now, but the sooner we get the child to a dragon, the better.”
Leftrin swallowed his mouthful of coffee. “It bothers me that a newborn baby needs a dragon.” He knew how the dragons had changed their keepers, giving each a few drops of blood or a scale to eat. But that was keeper business, and perhaps the secret was not his to reveal. Still, it was easier to talk about that puzzle than dwell on what it might mean to have the Council in league with Chalcedeans. How far had the Cassarick Traders fallen? Trafficking with Chalcedeans was forbidden. He’d known that when he’d felt forced to bring Arich up the river. Trafficking in dragon parts was worse; it was the breaking of a signed contract, an offense to the very core of Trader culture. That idea spoke of changes to Rain Wild society that seemed almost impossible to consider. Easier to ponder why a baby needed a dragon to live than to wonder what could persuade a man to betray his own people for money.
Reyn was the one who attempted to answer his question. “I don’t understand it completely myself, Captain.” He sighed. “Malta and I know that we changed, and her brother Selden changed, after exposure to the dragon Tintaglia. We’ve had years to think and talk about it. We think that being around dragons and the things of dragons, such as the artifacts from the Elderling cities, are what change people—even babies in the womb, if the mothers have been exposed. But with us, Tintaglia guided our changes and intensified them. So instead of deforming or killing us, the changes gave us grace and beauty. And possibly an extended life span, though that we can’t know as yet.”
He sighed again, more heavily. “It was, we thought, a blessing. Until now. I had assumed that our baby would inherit the same benefits we had received. Malta was more worried about the changes than I was. But her fears were justified. Our baby is born changed, and the changes are not for the better. Malta said that he was grayish and not even crying at first. She says that since she brought him to the ship, Tarman has helped him. And we know that a liveship’s wood comes from a dragon’s cocoon, so perhaps Tarman can adjust some of our child’s changes. But Malta says the ship has told her he cannot remedy all that is wrong with our baby. That it will take a dragon’s intervention to put his changes on a path that will, at the least, let him live to be an adult and perhaps transform him into an Elderling.” Reyn stopped speaking and simply looked at Leftrin.
Earlier in the day, he had seemed to Leftrin so grand and elevated, an Elderling of old, scion of a wealthy Trader family, dressed in his fine clothes and carrying himself as a man of importance. Now he looked dazed with misfortune and very young. Very human.
The silence held in the galley. The sense of waiting was broken when Reyn made his request. “Please. Can you take us to Kelsingra and the dragons? As soon as possible?”
It was his decision. He was the captain of the Tarman, and no one else could tell him what to do. The running of a ship was never a democracy. But as he lifted his sandy eyes and looked at his crew members crowded into the galley, their thoughts were plain. If he gave the word, Bellin and Swarge would cast off the lines this instant, and Skelly would help them. Hennesey was watching him, waiting for his words, leaving the decision up to him. Big Eider stood by, waiting as he always waited for his next order. He wore a clean new shirt: he’d been to see his mother, then. Grigsby, the ship’s ginger cat, floated up and settled on top of the galley table and then walked over to bump his head confidently against the Elderling’s folded hands. Reyn absently petted the cat, and Grigsby gave off his rattling purr.
“You don’t want to tell the Council anything? Not about the Chalcedeans, not about what Malta had to do?”
“I’m sure they’ll know soon enough, if they don’t already.” Reyn’s voice was grim. “As soon as he’s found dead, someone will be reporting back to the Council about it.”
“That could be enlightening to watch. See who flinches, see who knows more than he should.”
“It could be dangerous, too.” Reyn made a sound that was not a short laugh but something darker. “And I don’t really care anymore. Their dirty politics don’t matter to me. My son does. Malta does.”
Leftrin nodded curtly to that. “I see your point. But we came back here for several reasons. The keepers and Alise wanted their families to know they were alive. I wanted to report that I’d fulfilled my contract. But the main reason was to get our pay and resupply the vessel. And we’re still held up on that. We need that money. The merchants let me use credit today and sent down enough to take care of my crew here. But that’s a drop in the bucket of what we need. We have what amounts to a small colony up the river there, with little to nothing in the way of supplies and winter right on top of us. Things are harsh up there. Food is what we can hunt; shelter is what we can contrive. The city isn’t ours yet, and even if it was, it’s a stark place. If we don’t get the money, if we don’t stay here long enough to load the ship with what we need, chances are some of us may not make it through the winter.”
Reyn was watching him intently, his face solemn. “Money is not a problem. Let them keep their blood money.” He dismissed that concern with a disgusted flip of his hand, and added, “The Khuprus credit is good. I’ll stock your barge with all it can hold and count it a small payment for what I’m asking. My son’s life is what matters to me. I understand, I think, what we are going into. We will face harsh and dangerous conditions. But if we stay here, my son dies.” His shoulders rose and fell in a tiny shrug. “So we go with you, if you’ll take us.”
The quiet in the room was pent breath, all waiting for the captain to speak. He thought of Alise, of what she would expect of him, and how she would react when he told her the tale. Make her proud.
We share blood with this child. His mother already gave him to me. And I will take him to the dragons.
It was seldom that his ship spoke to him in such a direct fashion. He looked at the others, wondering if they had heard Tarman as clearly, but they were all watching him. Alise had once asked him if liveships had the same sort of glamour as the dragons did. He had told her they did not, but now he wondered. But only for a moment. The impulse felt so much like his own that he spoke the words aloud.
“Family is family. And blood is thicker than water, even the water of the Rain Wild River. We’ll try for a departure tomorrow afternoon.” As Reyn’s eyes lit with relief and joy, Leftrin cautioned him, “A lot is going to depend on your being able to muster the credit to outfit the ship. And we’ll have to take what they have here, and what can be brought here quickly from Trehaug, and be glad of it.” He shook his head, knowing there were things he could not obtain that quickly. “Damn,” he said, more to himself than Reyn. “I wanted to try to arrange for some stock. Animals. A few sheep, a couple of goats, some chickens.”
Reyn looked at him as if he were mad. “What for? Fresh meat on the trip upriver?”
Leftrin shook his head, thinking of all that he hadn’t shared with the Council, all the things that no one knew yet. “To raise. To start flocks with. There’s land there, Reyn Khuprus. Meadows. Deep grass on dry ground. Hills and mountains in the distance. If we can get what we need, we’ll p
rosper.”
Reyn looked skeptical. “You’d have to order seed and livestock from Bingtown, and chances are you wouldn’t get them until spring.”
Leftrin nodded impatiently. “I knew that. But the sooner I order them, the sooner they come. I’ll make time to do it somehow. I’ll send a bird off to a fellow I know there, one who knows I pay my debts. He might arrange it for me.” He was doubtful. No one wanted to traffic in live animals unless they could deliver them quickly and get away before they dropped dead.
“No.” Reyn shook his head decisively. “You forget that my wife’s family has a liveship, too. I’ll send a message to Trell and Althea. They’ll get you what you want and bring it when we say you want it. You name the date, and they’ll have it in Trehaug waiting for you. My word on it. Part of our passage inland.”
A slow smile crept over Leftrin’s face. “Young man, I like the way you do business. The deal’s done then, and if a handshake is good enough for you, it suffices for me.”
“Of course.”
Reyn spoke as he leaned across the table to grip hands with Leftrin. “I’ll set the wheels in motion tonight. I’ll wake the storekeepers and have goods moving down here when dawn breaks.”
Leftrin did not release his grip on the other man’s hand. “Not so fast. I’m thinking we don’t want to call too much attention to our departure. And that maybe it would be better if there were no connections made between you and your lady and my ship. Someone’s already tried to kill her and your child, and she took blood in return. We know there’s one more Chalcedean in the city, maybe more, and someone must be helping them. We don’t want them to know or even suspect where you two are. You two stay aboard and hidden. You disappear.”