Blood of Dragons

by Robin Hobb

  ‘I never imagined myself as an Elderling,’ Sedric countered. ‘Carson, I think we are going to have a lot of years to explore many kinds of lives. We may farm, or raise cattle …’

  ‘Or hunt. ’

  ‘Or hunt. Here. I think this is the right street. Kelsingra is so big and so spread out. Every time I think I’ve learned the city, I find another street to explore. Up this way, I think. Or was it downhill from here?’

  Carson chuckled tolerantly. ‘Did you notice if there was a view? If so, that would be uphill. ’ He halted and watched Sedric look up and down the street. He straightened the collar of his tunic. He had to admit that the clothing Sedric had chosen for him was comfortable. And warm. And weighed less than his leathers. He glanced down at himself, at his legs clad in a blue that reminded him of a parrot’s wings. Elderling garb. At least the boots were brown. They were so light, he felt as if he had nothing on, and yet his feet weren’t cold and the stones underfoot didn’t jab him. The wide brown belt he wore was of Elderling make, as was the sheathed knife he wore on it. The blade wasn’t metal. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it had been razor sharp from the moment he drew it from the sheath and it had stayed that way. It looked like blue, baked pottery to him more than anything else. Yet another Elderling mystery.

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  The more the keepers explored the city, the more artefacts they found. True, most of the houses and shops and buildings were empty, as if the people who had lived here had packed and left. But in some sections of the city, they were finding mansions and homes that held all sorts of Elderling items. Most items of wood had crumbled to dust, and scrolls and books had likewise decayed. But some of their fabrics had survived, especially of the sort that his tunic was made from, and it was not unusual any more to see keepers ringed and necklaced as if they were wealthy Bingtown Traders. It made Carson uneasy, though he had difficulty expressing why. Just as deciding which house to take over as their own made him uncomfortable. He and Sedric had been sharing chambers above the dragon baths, and even these had seemed a sybaritic luxury to him. He wasn’t sure that he understood why Sedric wanted a large and elaborate home. But he deserved one, if that was what he wanted.

  He glanced over at him and had to smile. Sedric looked so intent, as alert as any hunter, as he prowled down the street studying the grand houses that fronted it. The move to Kelsingra had agreed with him. Carson was a fastidious man about cleanliness, when such a state was possible, but Sedric elevated it to an art form. His hair gleamed gold, touched with the metallic sheen that Relpda had awarded to every part of him. To his eyes and his skin, his nails and even his hair she had lent coppery warmth. Today Sedric had chosen to echo that gleam with metallic blues in his tunic and hose, while his belt and boots were black. The Elderling garb wore so well, Carson thought no one needed more than one extra change of clothing. But Sedric had appropriated a rainbow for his wardrobe and took unutterable joy in varying his garb, sometimes several times a day. Even if Carson did not understand his partner’s infatuation with clothing, it did not diminish his delight in watching him exercise it. Sedric felt Carson’s scrutiny and turned to the hunter with a questioning look.

  ‘What?’ he demanded.

  Carson’s smile widened. ‘Just you. That’s all. ’

  A blush suffused Sedric’s face, rendering him both more boyish and yet more charming. And that he blushed because he was overwhelmed by Carson’s compliment only magnified the effect for the hunter. He jostled Sedric with an elbow and then put an arm around him. ‘Which house?’ he asked him genially, knowing that if, at that moment, Sedric declared he wished to live in all of them at once, he’d have done his best to make it possible.

  ‘Wait!’ Sedric said sharply. He shrugged out from under Carson’s arm and strode briskly away. For a moment, Carson felt hurt; then he recognized the intensity of Sedric’s stalking. An odd prickle of premonition ran up his own spine as he stared around.

  This was a district of elaborate houses, and almost every intersection boasted a fountain or a statue or plaza of some sort. Any of the structures were palatial by Carson’s standards, but Sedric was moving steadily downhill, ignoring their allure. He strode through a small square with a statue of a woman pouring water and turned deliberately into a street of humbler houses. The thoroughfares went from broad avenues fit for a parade of dragons to wide but winding streets and the buildings changed to a more human scale as they moved along it. Odd. Carson had never imagined that such simple dwellings might attract his peacock lover. Sedric moved strangely, peering from side to side, not like a man who considers the houses he passes but as if trying to find something he’d lost. No. Like a man who had lost his way, Carson suddenly realized, and was looking for a landmark. He lifted his own eyes and scanned the area. Like all of Kelsingra, it was built of stone, and here a bluish-grey stone predominated. He noticed nothing noteworthy. Cautiously, he opened his awareness of the city and let the impressions of Elderlings long dead touch his thoughts.

  He had always felt a bit squeamish about this aspect of being an Elderling. A private man himself, it felt strange to wallow in the personal memories of others. The other keepers seemed to take it in their stride, and personally he did not blame those who chose to enjoy the sensual memories of another time. In such a small population, it was better for them to satisfy their needs that way than to jostle and fight for the available partners. And he knew there was valuable information to be gained in sharing memories from the stones – technical information on the workings of the city in addition to knowledge of the ways of dragons and the surrounding lands. He knew that Sedric enjoyed tapping the memory-stones in the same way that he had enjoyed going to plays or listening to minstrels. The stones of the city were full of stories, some dramatic, some poignant. But no other part of the city had felt the way this one did. It was quiet. No memories stirred here, no brief waft of scent or echo of someone’s laughter from a long-ago summer day. Here the city was mute, hoarding its secrets in silence. Sedric glanced back at him, bafflement on his face, and Carson sensed his partner had just shared the same realization.

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  ‘What are you looking for?’ he called to Sedric, and his words bounced back to him from the silent stone.

  ‘I’m not sure. ’ Sedric stared all around him like a man wakening from a dream. ‘The streets just suddenly seemed very familiar. As if I’d been here before, and often. For an important reason. But every time I try to remember that part of the memory, it fades out of reach. But in an odd way. The Elderling memories I’ve taken from stone usually stay with me clearly. But this is like fog …’

  ‘In a purposeful way. ’ Carson finished the thought for him.

  ‘Yes. As if something were being deliberately concealed. ’

  The buildings that they passed now were no longer homes or mansions, but were designed to allow dragons to enter as freely as humans. They walked quietly past them, their softly shod feet whispering on the paving stones.

  ‘It’s older here,’ Sedric said suddenly. ‘The way the streets are paved, the buildings … this is older than the part of the city where the dragon baths are, or that grand Hall of Records with the map tower. ’

  ‘I suspect this is where Kelsingra began. ’ Carson nodded to where worn steps went down into a building’s entrance. ‘It seems to me it would take a lot of feet walking down stone steps before they were worn like that. And these buildings are actually lower than the street, if you look at it. As if the streets have been repaired and raised. ’ In reply to Sedric’s startled glance, Carson looked aside. ‘I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard that Old Jamaillia is like that. One fellow who had been there told me that openings that used to be first-floor windows are doors now, the streets have been built up so much. ’

  Sedric nodded, a slow smile curving his lips. ‘I have been there, and you’re right. Strange. I was looking right at it and not really see
ing it. ’

  For a time, they walked in silence. The streets grew narrower and the buildings humbler, as if when people had first settled here, they had not known the full ambition of Elderlings. Carson found that Sedric had drawn closer to him. Carson linked arms with him, and felt himself more alert than he usually was in this city. The din of memories simply didn’t exist in this part of the city. Perhaps it had been built before the Elderlings had gained the magic of storing memories in stone. The scuff of their footsteps on the cobblestones seemed louder, the warmth of Sedric’s skin under his fingers more intimate. All his senses were keener here. He felt more himself, and wondered uneasily who he had been before.

  ‘There!’ Sedric said suddenly, and pointed.

  ‘What is it?’ Carson asked. Recognition tickled at the back of his mind but he could not summon the memory.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sedric admitted. ‘I only know it’s important. ’

  Carson shivered suddenly but not with a chill. Something else. Danger? Anticipation? He lifted his head and sniffed the air, wondering if the scent of a predator had triggered it. Nothing. But an almost sexual excitement infused him suddenly, and as it tingled through his body, he recognized it was not his own. Spit, never far from him in thought, knew something about this place. Or almost did. Somewhere, the little silver dragon had tipped his wings, ignoring the dozing deer below him. He was winging back to the city as fast as he could. Carson stared around him, trying to see what his dragon had glimpsed through his eyes.

  ‘It’ was an open plaza, not as wide nor as grand as many in the newer part of the city. In the centre of it was a tumble of rubble. The destruction looked both deliberate and recent; or at least much more recent than the other quake damage to the city. A length of black chain coiled like a dead snake. Timbers of green and gold and red had been rendered to kindling. They approached the collapsed structure slowly, and Sedric was the first to speak. ‘It’s sticking out of a hole there. See the low wall around it, or what is left of it? It looks like a well, for drawing water, but much wider. But with a river so close by, why would they dig a well here?’

  ‘It wasn’t for water,’ Carson said quietly. He listened to his own words as if someone else were speaking them, then fell silent, chasing an elusive idea. At last he spoke a single word. ‘Silver,’ he said aloud, echoing his dragon’s thought, and then shook his head in denial. ‘It makes no sense. ’

  But Sedric seemed to grow taller, as if he were a puppet and someone had just drawn his head string up. His eyes opened wider. ‘Silver? SILVER!’ He shouted the word. ‘This is it, Carson. From my dreams. The Silver place. Sweet Sa, you’re right. This is the Silver well, the whole reason Kelsingra was first built. Remember, a long time ago, you wondered why they’d built such a grand city here. What was the reason for it, what trade, what industry, what port anchored it? Why build a city for dragons in a place so chill and damp in the winters? Why did the Elderlings stay here? And here’s our answer. The Silver well. The secret heart of Kelsingra. ’

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  Carson blinked. Sedric’s words had filled his ears, flooding his mind with vague memories, linking half-thoughts and hints into an almost recognizable network. ‘Secret, indeed. Knowledge kept from outsiders. Only Elderlings were allowed to come here, to this part of the city. ’ He breathed deeply and it was as if he inhaled information. He frowned as another thought drifted into his mind. ‘And not all Elderlings. Only a few had the privilege of this duty. It was a closely kept secret, not just from the outside world, but even within the city. Memories of it were never preserved in the stone, at least not intentionally. It was passed down, from one generation of well-tenders to the next. Silver was so rare, so precious, that the well sites could not be mapped nor recorded in memory-stone. Like a guild secret that only masters could know. A secret so precious that even the dragons did not speak of it to dragons from other hatching grounds. ’ His gaze went sad and distant. ‘A resource so precious, it was probably the only thing dragons would war over with one another. ’

  ‘How do you know?’ Sedric demanded curiously.

  Carson lifted his shoulders and let them fall in a slow shrug. ‘Some of it comes from Spit, but even he didn’t have enough to puzzle it out. I’ve been deliberately seeking out the places where people stored memories of how the city worked. The water system, the heated buildings, how the stones were fitted so well to one another. I like to know how things are done, how things were done. I have found a lot of information about what they did, but little about how. I think those same people who left stone memories of what they did tended this well, and … did something else here. It’s not clear to me. But I think that, without intending to, they stored bits of those memories with the other ones. Enough for me to puzzle it together and get a feeling for it. Like following a game trail with no tracks. A bent stick, a torn leaf …’

  For a moment, his vision dimmed. He blinked and shook his head, and then realized he hadn’t imagined it. The day was darker. He glanced up to find the reason. Overhead, the dragons were gathering in a gyre that spiralled up to block the sun’s thin rays. They circled overhead, coming lower. Spit led the way. In the distance, golden Mercor was coming fast, growing larger. He trumpeted and the others answered. Wordlessly, they were summoning all the keepers to converge here. Carson looked at Sedric; his friend was smiling. ‘I think they heard me. ’

  But as Carson looked up at the circling creatures, he felt a premonition. It became a flood of sensation, jubilation and anticipation making his heart hammer. He knew he felt only an echo of the emotions of the dragons. ‘Sedric. What is the “Silver well”? What is it about the stuff that comes out of it?’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly. Mercor said to Malta that all dragons have some Silver naturally, in their blood, that it helps them change us to Elderlings. There has to be more to it than that, given how anxious they are to find it. I think we’ll soon find out just why it’s so important. ’

  Thymara jerked as if jabbed with a needle. An instant later, Tats followed her example. She had been dozing in the crook of his arm. They had fallen asleep in the glass-roofed atrium of a building that had once been devoted to flowers. The bas-reliefs on the walls depicted flower blossoms of a kind she had never seen before, and of a size that seemed completely impossible, until Tats had gently suggested to her that the images were made so large in order to show detail. The room they were in was at the top of the building. A flat section of the roof would have allowed dragons to alight and enter through an archway. A maze of large pots and vessels of earth surrounded benches where once Elderlings had sat and discussed the plants. She had tried to imagine having the leisure hours in her life to spend a whole day just looking at flowers, and could not. ‘Did they eat them?’ she had wondered aloud. ‘Did they work here, growing them for food?’

  By way of response, Tats wandered over to a statue of a woman holding a basket of flowers and set his fingertips to her hand. His face grew bemused, his gaze distant. She watched his awareness recede from her, slipping into the memories of the woman with the flowers. His eyelids drooped and the muscles of his face loosened as he wandered through her life. His expression became vacant and slack, almost idiotic. She found she didn’t like how he looked, but knew it was useless to speak to him. He’d come back to her when he willed it, and not before.

  Almost as soon as she had the thought, she saw his eyes twitch, and then he blinked. Tats came back into his face and then smiled at her. ‘No. The flowers were cultivated simply for their beauty and fragrance. They came from far away, from a land much warmer than here, and only inside this room could they flourish. This Elderling wrote seven books about them, describing them in detail and giving directions for their care, and telling how one might force larger blossoms or subtly change the colours and fragrances by using different types of soil and adding things to the water. ’

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  Thymara drew
her knees up to her chin. The benches were like the bed in her room; they appeared to be stone, until one had been seated for a time. Then they softened, slightly. She shook her head in wonder. ‘And she devoted months of her life to this work. ’

  ‘No. Years. And was well respected for it. ’

  ‘I don’t understand. ’

  ‘I’m starting to. I think it has to do with how long one expects to live. ’ He paused and then cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘When I think about how long we may have to live, how many years I may be able to spend with you, it lets me think about things differently. ’

  She shot him a strange look and he came over to sit on the wide bench next to her. He met her gaze for a time, and then lay back on the bench and stared up at the sky through the dust-streaked glass. ‘Rapskal and I had a talk. About you. ’

  Thymara stiffened. ‘Did you?’ She heard the chill in her own voice.

  A small smile tweaked Tats’s mouth. ‘We did. Would you be more pleased if I’d said we’d had a fist fight? I think we both knew it might come to that. Rapskal is changing as he takes on the memories of that Elderling. He’s becoming more …’ He paused, seeking a word. ‘Assertive,’ he said, and she sensed it was not quite the word he wanted.

  ‘And he was the one who was wise enough to come to me and say he didn’t want us to end up fighting. That we’d been friends too long to end it for any reason, but especially over jealousy over you. ’

  She sat stiffly beside him, trying to decipher not only what she felt but why she felt it. Hurt. Angry. Why? Because she felt they had gone past her, perhaps decided between themselves something that should have been discussed with her. She imposed calm on her voice. ‘And what did the two of you decide?’

  He didn’t look at her but he reached over and took her hand. She let him hold it but did not return the pressure of his fingers. ‘We didn’t decide anything, Thymara. It wasn’t that kind of a conversation. Neither one of us is Greft, thinking that we can force you to make a decision. You’ve proven your point to both of us. When or even if you want to be with one of us, you will. And until then …’ He gave a small sigh and then finally looked at her.