Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  “Then send him to me. Send him to me, and I’ll take a few of your bonds along with him—name your price.”

  Vivienne hesitated. She’d considered long and hard where Ran might safely continue his education. The practice of dispatching noble children as hostages to cement alliances had ended, but it lived on in the kinder, gentler disguise of the semester system, where highborn children went to study for periods of six months to a year at the castles of their parents’ allies. Vivienne, distrustful as she was, would be the first to acknowledge that society needed the system. There could be no disputes too severe among lords and knights when they had each other’s children in their care. And on a more practical level, it was important for children to go away from home to make the friendships that would benefit them in later life.

  Most highborn children were not incurable. But she and Wills had agreed they would not treat Ran as different. They would give him the same sort of childhood his peers had, for as long as possible. Was it not even more important now to keep up that pretense of normality?

  This was the way to avoid war. Perhaps the only way.

  An explosion crumped through the paddock. Overhead, wheels of fire expanded, overlapping, burning, fading.

  “Send us Phyllicia,” she shouted to Thom. “Send us Phyllicia and you shall have Ran for the next six months.”

  “My favorite granddaughter! She’s only six.”

  “I’ll care for her as if she were my own.” A granddaughter for a son and heir, it’s a more than fair bargain, she thought. And the whole country will see the publicity shots of Ran studying and sporting with your grandsons, and will know that we are closely allied. Yes, the arrangement would suit both their Houses.

  She had to let her baby boy go.

  “A year,” Thom said.

  “Six months.”

  “Done. Who’ll you send with him? His brother? We’d be honored to host the great Sir Guy for the spring season.”

  Vivienne’s lips tightened. “My son Guy,” she said, “has retired from tourney.”

  Golden rain dripped from the night sky like napalm.

  23

  Ran

  At The Same Time

  As soon as the first fireworks went off, Ran dashed to the mews to make sure the dragons weren’t too frightened.

  Just as he’d feared, he found them all wide awake, rigid on their perches with their tails lashing.

  Dragons liked heights, and so the Dublin Castle mews had a ceiling as high as a church. It was not divided into stalls, as in most mews; instead the space was filled by a wooden structure like a jungle gym that went all the way to the ceiling. When Ran had been younger, he used to climb up to the topmost perches himself.

  He padded into the middle of the mews, avoiding clumps of fewmets. The dragons’ fright gave a sharp edge to the hot, musthy, metallic smell. “Honor! Honor! It’s all right. There’s nothing to be scared of,” he called. His dragon’s comb—the frill of skin that ran from her elegant, greyhound-like head to her withers—stood up, quivering. “It’s only silly people having their fun. You’re too brave to be scared of a few old bangs and booms, aren’t you, my straker?”

  She hopped off her perch, half-opening her wings to break her fall, and landed awkwardly by his side. She was eighteen months old, not even half-grown. He laid his cheek against her dark grey neck. She vibrated like a silent engine—that was normal, not a sign of fear. Despite being reptiles, dragons could keep themselves warm by motitation, a clever trick of fidgeting their core muscles. The downside of using so much energy to stay warm was that they needed to eat their own weight in meat.

  Come on, my straker. You wouldn’t say no to a midnight snack, would you? This time Ran spoke to the dragon without using his mouth. She did not answer back, but then she never did. She just gave him her feeling of hunger and anticipation. Dragons were simpler than people. He wished he could be one, quietly motitating on his perch while the world flashed and banged and boomed around him.

  He led Honor through to the stores and surgical area. Sir Beatty, the Sauvage dragon maester, sat on an overturned feed bucket by the gas fire, massaging the belly of the orange female Topaz, an adult dragon five times Honor’s length and weight.

  Ran tiptoed towards the cold store, careful not to break Sir Beatty’s concentration. But Honor nipped at Topaz’s rump, and Ran had to dash back and drag her away from the pregnant cow. “Sorry, sir!”

  Sir Beatty shook his head. “The damage is already done, I fear. All our good work for naught.”

  “Oh, sir! Because of the fireworks?”

  “And other disturbances. There’s no beast as sensitive as a gravid dragon. The wing-span is there, but the flight muscles have stopped developing. Growth may resume, but if it doesn’t, we’ll have an abortion on our hands.”

  “Oh, sir!”

  Dragons were not natural animals. Human fanciers had bred them up from fey long, long ago, using their fancying knack to tame the wild faery creatures and reinforce useful traits. As such, each generation had to be fancied anew: they couldn’t reproduce on their own. Master fanciers like Sir Beatty had the awesome responsibility of safeguarding bloodlines going back hundreds of years. For the last couple of years, Ran had been helping him with his work.

  He fetched a nice meaty bone for Honor. Touchingly, she carried it to the fire to share it with Topaz. Ran squatted by the orange cow’s haunches and stretched his hands in between Sir Beatty’s. He felt the shape of the fetus in his palms and fingers, and ever so tenderly “touched” the developing musculature, remembering his anatomy charts and Sir Beatty’s lessons. Safe and sound in your mother’s womb, grow big, grow strong, grow wide-winged and swift-clawed …

  “That’s it, boy. You have the touch,” Sir Beatty praised him.

  The fancier’s touch was a good thing for a nobleman to have. Ran used to like the idea of having it, as a sort of compensation for his incurability. But now it felt like Sir Beatty was trying to make him feel better about Piers being dead.

  “I do not have the touch.” He scrambled around to pick up the bits of gristle Honor was scattering on the flags.

  Sir Beatty pointed a thick forefinger at him. “I’ve seen you and that straker of yours deep in conversation, for all the world as if you were discussing philosophy.” He chuckled.

  Ran flushed guiltily. “Dragons can’t discuss philosophy.”

  “Of course they can’t—fortunate beasts. My point is that you’ve got the whisper, and the whisper goes with the touch.” Sir Beatty got serious. “Promise me you won’t stop coming to the mews, no matter how many new duties they lay on you. Remember, the Lord Protector of Ireland can do as he wishes!”

  “That’s right,” Ran said. “But maybe I don’t wish to be a fancier. I wish to be a knight!” He coaxed Honor to her feet and threw the remainder of her bone to Topaz. “I have to go. I’m taking her, all right?”

  He fled before Sir Beatty could stop him, hauling Honor after him.

  Why did everyone have to keep reminding him how much everything had changed? Did they think he didn’t know?

  A green spark travelled into the sky and exploded into a swan with spread wings, lighting up the clouds of smoke left over from earlier fireworks.

  They slipped through the shadows around the edge of the mews yard, to the stables. The horses and destriers were restless, too. A wireless was playing reggae. Guy and his friends sat in the storage area beyond the stalls on piles of horse blankets, eating and drinking and talking.

  They were impressed to see Ran leading a dragon. They cooed at Honor’s lithe, streamlined beauty, and threw sausages in the air for her to catch. Ran took one, too.

  “Sit by me, darling,” said a comfortably plump girl with brown hair. “Would you like some orange fizz?”

  “Yes, please. Thank you.”

  “I’ve heard an awful lot about you, but I don’t think we’ve ever met,” the brown-haired girl went on.

  “No, I don’t think we have
,” Ran said politely.

  “I’m Hanna, and I know you’re Ran. Your brother used to praise you to the skies.” Suddenly she sniffled.

  “Were you a—a friend of Piers’s?”

  “Yes.” She turned her head aside. Ran saw that she was blinking back tears.

  He hunched his shoulders. “Could you pass the chocolate cake, please?” he said after a moment.

  A different girl slung him a piece. “Baked it myself, with these little white hands,” she smiled, to general laughter and cries of “Don’t give him any.” Ran bit in, thinking: Piers used to praise me to his friends? And I never knew. I thought he was always disappointed in me—and thinking that Hanna was very different from the girl who had baked the chocolate cake, and all the other girls who trailed around after Guy and the Overwhelm. She seemed nice.

  Listening to their conversation, Ran realized they were talking about the very thing he had brought up earlier. They were talking about going to war against House Wessex.

  “A provocation would have to be serious to succeed,” Roger Cork said. “An attack on one of our own castles should do it.”

  “Whose? Yours?” said Sir Laurence Whitefield, grinning.

  “Details, details,” Guy said. “Let’s just assume for now that our provocation has succeeded, we have public support, and we’ve mobilized. Who can we count on to join us?”

  The smoke from the hand-rolled cigarettes they were passing around smelled funny, sweetish. Ran ate another piece of chocolate cake and lay back with his head on Honor’s flank. The flam was drowsing. He felt oddly drowsy, too. Floaty. He wondered if he were coming down with an ague. Oh please not.

  Fanciers used their touch to heal the animals under their care. Ran had wondered if they couldn’t do the same for him, and had actually asked Sir Beatty to heal him once, that time he had broken his leg in a tilting fall.

  Sir Beatty had at first seemed to be angry with him, then sorry for him. Can’t be done, Ran. People are different from animals. Our souls block out the touch, like castles blocking out attackers.

  But the Egyptians fancy their babies before they’re born, Ran had said. I read it in a book.

  Sir Beatty’s face had gone cold and hard. Yes, they do. And that is why they aren’t human. They are monsters.

  Colin Argent came to sit next to Hanna. “I ask you,” he muttered. “What’s the point of talking about Lancashire, and Lackland, and this one and that one who might owe us a favor from a generation ago, and not talking about the IRA?”

  Hanna said, “They’re not serious. If they were, they would be talking about the IRA.”

  “It’s just so obvious! Alyx MacConn is the only leader with the ability to rally the country against the Wessexes.”

  “Then tell them that.”

  “I will.” Colin raised his voice. “Guy! Have you forgotten the IRA? There’s our natural ally!”

  “Barking,” yawned Sir Laurence. “Sometimes I wonder about the company you keep, Guy.”

  “It’s just Colin,” Guy said, his eyes heavy-lidded. “Don’t start banging on about long-lost magical swords and things just now, Colin. We’re trying to decide whether to start with an assault on London, or employ a covert strategy and sound out the leaders of the other provincial regiments.”

  Suddenly the door opened and Mother swept in. “Randolph! I thought I might find you here. Oh, and Honor, too.” She turned to old Lord Stuart, who was with her. “That’s his special pet. Ran, come and show Lord Stuart your dragon.”

  “She’s a steed, not a pet,” Ran muttered, “and she’s asleep; I’m not waking her.” But Honor had awakened on her own. She stretched and rolled onto her feet. Ran stood up, too. He felt dizzy. His head seemed to be a long way away from his feet.

  Guy’s friends were all stubbing out their cigarettes, scrambling up and bowing or curtseying.

  “Young people always contrive to have the most fun,” Lord Stuart said. “What’s that smell? No, no need to answer—wouldn’t want you to lie.” He aimed a grimace at Guy that was probably supposed to be friendly, but looked to Ran like a warship turned broadside.

  “Ran,” Mother said. “Come along now. Lord Stuart and I wish to talk to you.”

  “You can talk to me right now.”

  Mother sighed in exasperation. “Very well. It has been decided that you’ll go to Edinburgh Castle next semester. Isn’t that exciting?”

  “Bring your dragon if you like,” Lord Stuart said with his forty-gun smile. “She can mew up with ours. We’ve got lots of ʼem; and horses, destriers, ponies, hounds, falcons—you’ll have the time of your life. My grandson Adair’ll be there. You know him, don’t you?”

  Ran did know Adair Stuart. He was a big bully. This was the worst news he’d had since he heard about Piers. If there was any silver lining, he had thought it would be that he need no longer go away from home, away from Honor and the other flams and Sir Beatty and his own tutors and his own room and his own castle walls and Faith, Chivalry, Enterprise, and Wicklow Forest and the trout stream where Piers had taught him how to fish …

  “This is a bit sudden,” Guy said, looking at Mother.

  Ran took courage from Guy’s reaction. “Thank you very much, but I’d rather not, my lord.”

  Mother’s face darkened. “Ran! Don’t be difficult!”

  “The heir of House Sauvage can do as he wishes,” Ran yelped. He put his head down and blundered through the stable door with Honor at his heels. They burst into the yard. The fireworks had ended. The sky was black with a rim of green fire from the neon on the walls.

  Mother made a grab for Ran. He dodged.

  “Tally-ho,” sang Sir Alan, circling around to cut Ran off.

  There was only one thing for it. Dizzily, Ran flung himself onto Honor’s back. She wasn’t saddled, of course, and her spine felt very knobbly, her sides very slick, but he gripped her with his knees and wrapped his arms around her neck. “Fly, my straker, fly!”

  She bunched under him and leaped, spreading her wings. They lifted into the air, leaving Ran’s stomach behind. That normally delightful sensation now made him feel sick. In an instant they soared too high to be grabbed. Ran nudged Honor with his knee, guiding her into a tight turn above everyone’s heads. “Catch me if you can,” he yelled.

  “Come back down here this instant!” Mother screeched. “Oh God, he’s riding bareback, it’s so dangerous—”

  Dangerous? Dangerous was nothing. But Honor had an itch or something, she was darting her head around to his knee, snapping at him. Of course, she thought he was too far forward; she was used to the saddle and harness that kept him seated between her wings with his legs almost out straight. She didn’t like being guided by his knees as if she were a pony. He loosened his grip and slid back into a proper riding position. The pale faces below looked like stars in a mass of jaggedy grey clouds, and for a moment Ran was completely disoriented, as if he were flying upside-down.

  He felt himself sliding forward again. He scrabbled at Honor’s ruff, too late. He fell.

  * * *

  16 Hours Later. November 19th, 1979

  Ran woke slowly. His eyelids felt sticky, and when he managed to get them open, the light stung his eyes.

  “Awake?”

  Ran rolled over and burrowed his head into the pillow. “Turn off the lights.”

  He heard curtains rattling shut. That had been daylight, not electric light. He must have overslept! He started to get up.

  “Don’t move. Relax,” said a familiar, lisping voice. Hands slid under his shoulders, supporting his head. He looked into the face of his uncle, Francis Sauvage.

  He struggled into a sitting position. He was in the castle hospital, in the big room where his father had died. A cheerful little fire blazed in the hearth. The mantelpiece held a row of holy relics on pedestals and in feretory caskets. Pride of place belonged to the plastinated head of Duke William Wessex-Sauvage himself. They must have moved Father here from the chapel in the hope that he co
uld cure Ran … or more likely, just to make everyone think Ran had been cured.

  Plastinated, Father looked sad and stern. Show me your tourney face, Randolph, he seemed to say. Make me proud of you.

  A carafe of water stood on the nightstand. Ran reached for it. “Did I …” The water went down the wrong way. Ran coughed until his his head hurt.

  “You fell off your dragon,” Francis said. “The beast was already diving, so you only fell a short way. But you hit your head.”

  “It hurts,” Ran admitted. Exploring the back of his skull, his fingers came in contact with a tender swelling. He yelped, the noise a shameful admission that he hadn’t been cured, never could be cured. Tears dripped onto the nubbly green silk over his lap.

  “Why did you go up bareback, Ran? You know better than that.”

  “I’m going to be a knight.” A knight who fell off his steed. How Guy’s friends must have laughed at him.

  “So you shall be, so you shall! But just now we have to … talk … about what happened last night.” Francis awkwardly patted Ran’s leg through the bedspread. “You have always known you were different from other children.”

  “I’m sick.” Tears welled so fast he had to wipe them away with the heels of his hands. His head throbbed. “Uncle, could I … could I have one of my special pills? Panally knows where they’re kept.”

  Francis shuddered. “Put those pills out of your mind! I advised against giving them to you from the start. They are the same stuff that’s issued to soldiers and sold on the black market to the poor. Horribly bad for you, and addictive in high doses. Don’t cry! Despite what ignorant people say, being sick is not shameful. Sickness is power.”

  Francis might have been trying to sound reassuring, but his upper lip was twisted by a scar that gave him a lisp, and his voice sounded spooky. He had always made Ran uneasy: all those degrees, all that cleverness, and yet everyone treated him with a certain dismissiveness.

  “You’re barmy,” Ran snuffled.

  “If you were poor, you’d be dead already,” Sir Francis hissed. “As it is, your training has been postponed too long.”