by Robin Hobb
‘No dragon likes to be dependent. Even the Elderlings came to realize that. ’
‘Dragons were dependent on Elderlings?’ She sensed that she trod in dangerous territory, but she formed the question anyway. ‘For what?’
The dragon looked at her for a long moment and she wished she had not dared to ask, sensing how resentful Sintara was of her question. ‘For Silver. ’ She spoke the word and stared at Thymara, eyes whirling as if the girl would deny what she said. Thymara waited. ‘For a time Silver ran in the river here and was easy to find. Then, there was an earthquake, and things changed. The Silver ran thinly for a time. Some dragons could find it by diving into the shallows and digging for it. Sometimes it welled up abruptly, and showed as a silver streak in the river. But mostly, it did not. Then, we could only get it from the Elderlings. ’
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‘I don’t understand. ’ Thymara kept her words as soft and neutral as she could. ‘Silver? A treasure of some kind?’
‘Neither do I understand!’ In a fury, the dragon erupted fully from the sand-pit. ‘It’s not a treasure, not as humans think of such. Not metal made into little rounds to trade for food, nor decorations for the body. It’s the Silver, precious to dragons. It’s here. It was here, first in the river near this city, and then, when the Elderlings lived, here in the city, somewhere. Everything else we can find here. All the pleasures we recalled from Kelsingra are here – the hot-water baths, the winter shelters, the sand-grooming places, everything else we recall so clearly is here. So the Silver should be here too. Somewhere. But not one of us can find it. There were places in the city where the Elderlings helped us get the Silver. None of us recall them clearly. All of us find that strange, as if a memory has been deliberately withheld from us. ’ Sintara lashed her tail in frustration. ‘One place, we think, is gone with the collapsing street along the riverside. Another may be where the earth split open and the river flowed in. Gone and lost. Baliper tried to dive for it there, but that chasm is deep and the water got colder the deeper he went. There is no Silver there for us.
‘There were other places. We think. But those memories are lost to us, lost since we hatched, along with all manner of information we cannot even guess at. We will not be full dragons, nor you real Elderlings, until we can find the Silver wells. But you refuse to remember! No Elderling dreams of the wells. And try as I may, I cannot even make you dream of a Silver well!’
With these words, she had given a final shudder and a lash of her tail. Thymara leapt back and watched her wade out of the sand-pit and then stalk out of the doors that opened for her and then closed behind her, leaving Thymara staring after her.
Thymara had pondered the dragon’s words in the days that followed. Sintara had spoken true. She had often encountered a dragon wandering the streets, snuffing and searching. Her curiosity was piqued. She had asked Alise if she knew of any Silver wells in Kelsingra, but Alise had only looked puzzled. ‘There is a fountain called Golden Dragon Fountain. I read of that, once, in a very old manuscript. But if it remains intact, I haven’t found it yet. ’ She had smiled and then commented as if vaguely amused, ‘But I dreamed a few nights ago that I was looking for a silver well. Such an odd dream. ’ She had cocked her head and furrowed her brow with the faraway look of someone who tinkers with the threads of a mystery. A strange thrill ran through Thymara. It was the same look Alise had worn so often earlier in the expedition, when she had been putting pieces together to understand something about Elderlings or dragons. She had not seen it on her face for some time.
Alise mused aloud, ‘There are odd mentions in some of the old manuscripts, things I was never able to make sense of. Hints that there was a special reason for Kelsingra to exist, something secret, something to guard …’ A slow look of wonder had dawned on her face. She spoke more to herself than to Thymara as she muttered, ‘Not so useless, perhaps. Not if I can ferret out what they mean. ’
Alise’s look had gone distant. Thymara had known that any further conversation with her that day would consist of her own questions and the Bingtown woman’s distracted replies. She had thanked her, decided she had delivered the mystery to someone better suited to handle it, and put silver wells out of her mind.
But Sintara’s remark about dependence she did not forget. She watched the other dragons grow and yes, change, some becoming more affable and others more arrogant as they gained independence of their keepers. It was odd to watch the ties between them loosen. Different keepers adapted to the dragons’ dwindling interest in them in various ways. Some relished having leisure time and a beautiful city to explore. Suddenly the keepers could put their own well-being first. They made their first priority comfortable lodging. Although the city offered a vast array of empty dwellings, Thymara was amused that she and her fellows ended up in three buildings that fronted onto what they had begun to call the Square of the Dragons, after a very large sculpture in the middle of it. They could have moved into what Alise called villas or mansions, structures that were larger than the Traders’ Concourse back in Trehaug. Instead, most of them had chosen the smaller, simpler quarters above the dragon baths, housing obviously designed for those who tended dragons. It was wonder enough to Thymara to have as her own room a chamber twice as large as her family home had been. It was wealth to possess a bed that softened under her, a large mirror, drawers and shelves of her own. She could soak in a steaming bath as often as she wished and then retire to a room so comfortably warm that she needed no blankets or garments at all. She had time to study herself in the mirror, time to braid and pin up her hair, time to wonder who and what she was becoming.
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But such luxuries did not mean that daily life was all leisure. There was no game in the city, and few green growing plants and no dry wood for cooking fuel. Gathering those demanded daily hikes to the outskirts of the sprawling city. Carson had suggested that they needed to create some sort of a dock for Tarman. The liveship would need a safe place to be tied up when he returned, and they needed a place for unloading the supplies they hoped he would bring. ‘We will need docks and wharves, too, for our own vessels. We can’t always assume Tarman and Captain Leftrin will ferry our supplies for free. ’
That comment had drawn startled looks from the gathered keepers. Carson had grinned. ‘What? Do you think we are reclaiming this city for only five years, or ten? Talk to Alise, my friends. You may well live a hundred years or more. So what we build now, we had best build well. ’ With that, Carson had begun to sketch out the tasks before them. Hunting and gathering for their daily needs, building a dock for the city and, to Thymara’s surprise, sampling the memories stored in stone to try to understand the workings of the city.
Thymara had volunteered to bring in food and hunted almost daily. As early spring claimed the land, the forested hills behind the city yielded greens and some roots, but their diet was still mostly flesh. Thymara was heartily weary of it. She did not relish the long hike to the edge of the city, nor the return journey burdened with firewood or bloody meat. But her days in the hills with her bow or gathering basket were now the only simple times in her life.
On the days when she remained in the city, she contended with both Tats and Rapskal. Their rivalry for her attention had eclipsed the friendship they once had shared. They had never come to blows, but when they could not avoid one another, the awkwardness between them froze any hope of normal conversation. Several times she had been trapped between them, besieged by Rapskal’s endless chattering from one side as Tats sought to win her attention with small articles he had made for her or stories of his discoveries in the city. The intensity of the attention they focused on her made it impossible for her to speak to anyone else, and she winced whenever she thought of how it must appear to the others, as if she deliberately provoked their rivalry. If Tats had noticed something about the city and wondered about it, Rapskal was sure to claim knowledge of what it was and explain
it endlessly while Tats glowered. As the keepers still gathered for most of their meals, it had begun to cause a rift in the group. Sylve sided with Thymara, sitting with her no matter which of her suitors claimed the spot on her other side. Harrikin made no effort to disguise his support for Tats, while Kase and Boxter were firmly in Rapskal’s camp. A few of the others expressed no preference and some, such as Nortel and Jerd, resolutely ignored the whole issue when they were not making snide comments on it.
If one had work duty, the other took advantage of his absence to woo her. When Tats worked on the docks, Rapskal would insist on going hunting with her, even if Harrikin were her assigned partner for the day. Worse were the days when both she and Rapskal were free. He would lurk outside her chamber door. The moment she appeared, he would beg her to accompany him back to the villa and the memory columns, to join him in learning more of their Elderling forebears.
She felt a trace of shame when she thought how often she surrendered and joined him there. It was an escape to a gloriously elegant time. In that dream world she danced gracefully, partook of extravagant feasts and attended plays, lived a life such as she had never imagined. But Amarinda’s passing observations of life allowed Thymara to gain an understanding of how the city had once worked. Conservatories had furnished fruits and greens year round, while the humans in outlying settlements and across the river had traded what they manufactured, raised and grew with the Elderlings for their magical items. With Carson and Alise she had visited several of the immense greenhouses. They were sized for a dragon to stroll through, with chest-high beds for soil and gigantic pots for trees. Yet whatever had once flourished there had perished long ago, leaving only a shadowy tracery of long-vanished leaves on the floor and hollow stumps in the soil. The earth in the containers looked usable, and water still spilled from leaks in the system of pipes that had once heated and irrigated the plant beds.
‘But without seeds or plant stock, we cannot start anything here,’ Alise observed sadly.
‘Perhaps in spring,’ Carson had said. ‘We might move wild plants here and tend them. ’
Alise had nodded slowly. ‘If we can find seed or take cuttings from plants we know, then the new Elderlings could begin to farm for themselves again. Or if Leftrin could bring seeds and plant starts to us. ’
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In other memory-walks, Thymara glimpsed gauntleted Elderlings at work. They stroked sculpture from stone, imbued wood with mobility, and persuaded metal to gleam, sing, and heat or cool water. Their shops lined some of the narrow streets and they called greetings to Amarinda as she passed. Thymara felt an odd kinship with them, an almost-recall of what they did but not how. Amarinda merely strolled past amazing feats with scarcely a glance, accepting them as part of her everyday world. But there were other places and times when Amarinda focused her attention intently and relentlessly, drowning Thymara in her emotions and sensations. The Elderling woman’s infatuation with Tellator continued, deepened and became a lifelong passion. In the space of a single afternoon of memory-walking, Thymara experienced months of her life. She would emerge from those hours with dimmed eyes and dulled senses, her hand clasping Rapskal’s as he sprawled on the steps beside her. She would turn her head and see him wearing Tellator’s smile, and the thumb that rubbed sensuously against the palm of her hand was not Rapskal’s at all. Only slowly would his gaze become Rapskal’s again, and she wondered who he saw when he looked at her, which parts he remembered as they rose, stiff and chilled. Rapskal always wanted to speak of the shared memories afterwards. And she always refused. After all, they were only memories. Dreams.
Did it matter what she experienced as a memory-walker? If the food she ate there did not nourish her, did the sex she enjoyed in that world matter in this one? She was of two minds. Certainly, it had changed her attitude toward many things that people could do in a cosy bed on a winter’s eve or in a meadow under a summer sky. Could she claim she was not being intimate with Rapskal when she knew that he wore Tellator’s skin? Certainly, she assured herself. Sometimes. For he could change nothing that Tellator did or felt, just as she had no control over Amarinda. She could not prevent their lovers’ quarrels and she could not sidetrack their sensuous reunions. It was as if they watched the same play, or heard the same story told. That was all.
Sometimes she could almost believe that. Certainly, that puppetry of intimacy did not seem to completely satisfy Rapskal. Often, as they walked back to their lodgings he would drop hints or outright beg her to come with him to some private place where they could re-enact what they had just experienced. She always refused. Over and over, she had told him that she did not want to risk a pregnancy. Yet she could not deny that she longed for the excitement of being the woman in control of the situation. Or a woman being loved by a man.
And today, as she strolled with Tats down to the riverside to visit the dock construction, the same thoughts were still on her mind. What would it be like to have Tats as a lover? She had experienced Tellator any number of times now, and shared one long night with Rapskal. Would Tats be as different from both of them as Rapskal had been from Tellator? It was an unsettling thing to wonder and she tried to push the thoughts aside. She gave the young man beside her a sideways glance. His face was grave and thoughtful. A question popped out of her mouth before she considered the wisdom of asking it.
‘Have you dream-walked in any of the memory-stones yet?’
He squinted at her as if she were a bit odd. ‘Of course I have. We all have. Boxter and Kase go to a whorehouse and linger with the sampling they offer there. Some of the others join them there from time to time. Don’t look at me like that! What else would you expect them to do? Neither Kase nor Boxter have any hope of finding a mate unless other women move to Kelsingra, and that certainly won’t be any time soon. Alum, Harrikin and Sylve found a place where some of the famous Elderling minstrels immortalized their performances. And you yourself lingered with us when we watched the puppet show and the juggler and then the acrobats that night the Long Street was remembering a festival there. So, yes, we’ve all memory-walked in the stones. Hard to avoid it when we live here. ’
That wasn’t what she had meant, but she was relieved he had taken her question that way.
‘I know. How can you walk down one of the broad streets at night and not share the memories there?’ She snorted. ‘Sylve told me that when Jerd finds a street memory of a festival night, she follows the richly dressed women home, and then searches their dwellings for any jewellery or garments that have survived. She has amassed quite a wardrobe. ’ She shook her head, wondering if she thought Jerd was greedy or envied her expert looting. Then in a low voice, she admitted, ‘That isn’t the kind of memory-walking I was talking about. ’
Tats gave her a long level look. ‘Do I ask you questions like that?’
She looked away. After a time had passed when she did not respond, he added, ‘There are a lot of reasons to memory-walk that have nothing to do with sex or eating or listening to music. Carson tries to discover how the city works. He asked me to see what I could find out about the original docks. Not that we can replicate them, lacking the sort of magic the old Elderlings had. But to see what sort of things they considered when they were building them, as people who had known this stretch of river for a long time. ’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘I went to places where I thought they would have kept records of things like that. That big building with the map tower, and then that one with all the faces carved above the doors. We thought maybe that was an important place. But nothing. Or actually, much too much. I learned things that I still don’t understand. Do you know why so much of this city is still standing? Why grass hasn’t grown in the streets, or cracks haven’t started in the fountains? It’s because stone remembers here. It remembers that it’s a building façade, or a street or the bowl of a fountain. It remembers, and it can repair itself, on some level. It can’t fix itself if a quake makes a gigantic crac
k. But tiny cracks and crumbles just don’t happen. The stone holds onto itself. It remembers. ’
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He shook his head in wonder at the thought and then added, ‘And they could do more than that, it seems. You know how some of the keepers swear they have seen a statue move? The Elderlings knew how to do that. They breathed life into the stone, and the stone keeps a part of them and can move. Sometimes. When it’s awakened by … something. Something that I could not understand, even though an old man was remembering it clearly. It made me realize that Alise was right, is right. We need to know what she knows about the history of this city, and then we need to apply it. You know what she told me a few days ago? That when Rapskal confronted her that day and said she wasn’t an Elderling and that the city didn’t belong to her, she was so discouraged that she nearly burned all her work! Can you imagine it? I knew I felt angry at him that day, but I’d no idea how badly he had hurt Alise. ’
He paused, and she sensed he hoped she would share his anger. He waited for her to say something and she knew that if she did, it would be saying much more than that she thought Rapskal had been thoughtlessly cruel. Tats watched her stillness. But she could not find a way out of her silence. Rapskal hadn’t said it to hurt Alise; he’d said it to assert his right to the city. A silly thought danced in her brain. Alise is a grown-up. Can grown-ups really have their feelings so badly hurt? So hurt they think of burning all their work or killing themselves? But by the time she realized how childish her reaction was, Tats had shaken his head at her silence and moved on.
‘We need to map this city. Not just the streets, but where the spring houses are, and the drains. And we need to make maps that show what information is stored where. Right now, it’s like a huge treasure house, full of thousands of boxes of treasures, and we have thousands of different keys. The wealth is here, right under our feet, but we can’t make sense of it. Like that Silver well that Sylve was talking about the other day. ’