by Jane Yolen
Jakkin stared at the houses. He'd only been to Golden's once before. It had been at night, for a party, a year and a lifetime ago. Did he recognize the house, or did he just want to?
"Are you sure about the oasis?" he asked Likkarn.
Before Likkarn could answer, a pulsing rainbow entered Jakkin's brain. "Here, here, here." Jakkin opened his door, leaped down, and with the sending still swirling in his head, he headed toward the source.
"Hey, worm waste!" Likkarn cried. "How do you know which house it is?"
Without slowing, Jakkin looked over his shoulder and shouted: "I know!" Within moments he found himself in front of number 17 and recognized it as Golden's front door. He was about to knock when the door opened.
There stood Jo-Janekk, clearly ready to walk out. His eyes widened. "Jakkin. Where have you been? How did you get here?"
Jakkin pointed over his shoulder where Likkarn was just steps behind."Has she been found? Akki—has she been found?"
Jo-Janekk shook his head. "We've been up and down these fewmetty streets for the last two days, knocking on doors, climbing around attics, and there's nothing. Nothing. No sign of her."
"You're not giving up, are you?"
"No, not at all. She's one of us. We'll find her."
"Is Golden here?"
"No, he's out with the searchers. But Dr. Henkky is. I've just gotten bags of food from her to bring back to my crew." He held up a large leather sack. "She's feeding everyone and taking care of Senekka."
Jakkin looked puzzled. "Who?"
"The girl who got shot," Jo-Janekk said. "She hasn't regained consciousness yet. A bullet evidently struck her in the head. Something about swelling in her brain." He nodded at Likkarn, who had just reached them. "Coming along?"
Likkarn shook his head. "I'll get something to eat and a takk for the road, then head back to the nursery. I should get there just before Dark-After. There are only three men and three women left, counting me. And Slakk is still not really well enough for heavy work yet."
"Hah!" Jo-Janekk laughed snidely. "Even well, he hardly works."
Likkarn laughed, too, as if sharing a private joke.
"He killed a drakk single-handedly," Jakkin reminded them.
They had the grace to look embarrassed.
"Wait a minute. Who's missing from the work detail? Not that little flake Errikkin."
Jakkin and Likkarn stared at one another, and Likkarn said, "I'll handle this." He turned back, put his hand on Jo-Janekk's shoulder, and said, "Let me tell you about an unlikely hero."
"I'm going to talk to Henkky," Jakkin said, "and then go out on the search." He wasn't about to tell Jo-Janekk that he was going on his own because he'd be using sendings and whatever dragons he could gather. But as he thought about dragons, doubt like an old friend crept in. How could there be any dragons here, in this small place?
"Here." The sending, like a golden thread, entered his mind again. And then he knew—it was the hatchling, of course. Akki had brought her along. Surely the hatchling could help. She could be his eyes and ears, flying above him as he tracked through the mazed streets of The Rokk.
"We'll be meeting back here in three hours, if no one has any news," Jo-Janekk said. He was looking sad and chastened, having heard about Errikkin from Likkarn. "I'll tell the others." Shaking his head, he went off.
As they entered Golden's house, Jakkin immediately remembered it, with its gaudy colors and fountain and pipes. He blushed and turned his head. Likkarn just chuckled.
"Everyone is exhausted," Dr. Henkky said, coming into the room. "Thanks for helping. We can use fresh blood." Certainly she seemed exhausted, her face almost as gray as the dress she was wearing. "Three-hour shifts, morning and afternoon, two-hour shifts at night, then back here to sleep through Dark-After. Two full days and nights with only four hours of sleep." She stopped when she recognized Likkarn. "Oh, it's you. Any news from your end?"
He shook his head.
"And nobody's found anything?" Jakkin asked.
She held out her hand. "And you are...?"
"Jakkin. Akki's friend."
"Oh—oh, of course you are. No, Jakkin. Nothing. Not the gun, not the man—he was Golden's driver, you know. They haven't found Akki. And no ransom note, either. The wardens are baffled, and so are we." She took Jakkin by the hand. "You look like you could use a cup of takk. And you, Likkarn—something stronger?"
"Don't give him anything stronger. He's driving back."
She looked at Likkarn quizzically.
"We have to keep the nursery going. Dragons don't care for themselves. And if anything happens there that we can't handle, I'm the only one of the short crew who can drive. We've buried two boys this week Jakkin's age, and the nursery folk need me there."
Henkky raised an eyebrow, questioning. "Sickness?" Then she shook her head. "And you said you had no news. I could send a doctor back with you, though I have to stay here, of course."
"Nah, nah. One died from a fall from a tree, going after drakks, and one..."
Jakkin held his breath, wondering what Likkarn was going to say next. If he mentioned the trogs, things would start unraveling fast.
"And the other, when three thieves captured our boy here and forced him to lead them to our nursery. You know, the usual."
"Two boys dead hardly sounds usual," Henkky replied.
"Dragon nursery's not an easy place, ma'am."
Jakkin was afraid Likkarn was overplaying the country bumbler, but Dr. Henkky didn't seem to notice. She accepted Likkarn's explanation and showed them into a room with a fireplace. Jakkin remembered that room, with books spilling all over its carpets. This time there was a large table, where platters of food were ruled over by an elegant takk pot.
"Did they hurt you?" Henkky asked Jakkin.
"Who?"
Suddenly her face had a suspicious look. "The thieves."
Jakkin shrugged. "Some bruises."
"Show me."
He held up his hands. The bruises on his wrists were now yellowing.
"Hmmm," she said. "Tied?"
He nodded, turned, lifted his shirt.
"Those have purpled nicely," she said. "I can give you a salve."
"They don't hurt."
"Nevertheless."
He nodded. Anything to get outside, onto the street.
She poured him a cup of takk.
"I prefer tea, actually."
"Ah, just like Akki," she said, and poured sand-colored tea into a delicate cup. He took it from her gratefully.
"Is Akki's hatchling here?" He tried to keep his tone neutral.
"Out in the garden."
"Ah, a garden." That explained the oasis in the sending. "Can I ... see her?"
She waved in the direction of another door down the hall. "Out there."
He drank the tea quickly, and said good-bye to Likkarn, who pressed a couple of coins on him.
"You never know when you might need them," the old trainer said before he gathered up several slices of meat and a traveling mug of takk and was gone.
***
JAKKIN FOUND his way into the garden, where he saw a yellow Beauty curled up in a garden chair. He shuddered because he couldn't stand the Beauties, artificially stunted as they were.
"I am here," he sent. The Beauty ignored him, but behind her, close to a small pool, and all but disguised by the reeds and some high tufted grass, lay the hatchling. There was a bandage—somewhat the worse for wear—on her left wing.
Jakkin circled the edge of the pool and squatted down next to her. Raising her head, she stretched her neck its full length so that he could scratch under her chin. He obliged her and she began a light thrumming.
"Brave dragonling, how art thou now?" he asked, before sending the same in a yellow burst of sunlight.
Gingerly, she lifted the injured wing for his inspection. It trembled, and she shut it again very slowly.
With a sinking feeling, he realized that she wouldn't be flying for a while so she
would be no help.
"I know. I know it hurts thee," he murmured. "And Akki? Where is she?" This time the sending was a portrait in cool blues.
The hatchling sat up awkwardly. Clearly the wing bothered her a lot. She wafted the good one, but the wounded wing barely fluttered. Her mind was in a turmoil. "Bad man. Bad man." In the middle of the sending was a whirlwind of gray and white, in the center of which stood a faceless man with a gun, the wind blowing his white-blond hair around like a halo. The gun went off soundlessly and a dragonling fell from the sky, landing at his feet.
"Bad man indeed," Jakkin sent back. Then he stroked her until she calmed and lay down again. To further help her, Jakkin began singing, "Little flame mouth, cool your tongue ..." Soon her eyes closed and she thrummed herself to sleep.
Jakkin waited a few minutes, until he was sure the hatchling was deeply asleep, then went back inside to look for Henkky. He found her downstairs in what looked to be partly a lab and partly a hospice with four white-sheeted beds. She was bending over one bed and washing the face of a slim dark-haired girl, who lay quite still, a sheet pulled up to her shoulders.
"I don't mean to bother you," Jakkin whispered, "or her."
"She's beyond bothering right now," Henkky said. "But she does seem a bit more alert. She squeezed my hand this morning."
"Is that a good sign, then?" Jakkin remembered how Errikkin had roused to speak one or two sentences before he died.
"Possibly," Henkky said. "Possibly not. Only time will tell."
"Will she be able to say who shot her and took Akki?"
"Usually brain injury patients can't remember anything that happened right before they were hurt. But we're pretty sure it was a man called Dikkon, who was Golden's driver." She sighed. "I always thought he was such a nice man, too."
Jakkin wondered how to phrase the next question. Then decided to plunge right in. "Do you know a man with whitish-gold hair who carries a gun?" He shrugged. "It's a worm-blasted description, but it's all I have."
She surprised him. "Of course. That's Dark. One of the candidates running against Golden. In fact, he was injured trying to save the girls and the hatchling. He ended up with quite a bruised face and a massive headache."
Jakkin tried to fit her description of Dark with the hatchling's "bad man." He supposed that to dragons most humans looked the same, especially if they couldn't do sendings. "Can I speak to him?"
"He's off with one of the groups looking for Akki. Even bruised, even with a headache, he's been working tirelessly trying to find her. He worked with Golden to organize the searchers and has been out every day. Maybe when his group returns for food you can speak with him." She paused, put her head to one side. "He often goes home instead of eating with the others. Most of the searchers are from the nurseries and I think they tire him with their incessant talk of dragons." She put a hand to her mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry, Jakkin. I don't mean you."
"No insult taken," he said. "Can you lend me a map and show me where your house is on it?"
"Of course. Follow me." She straightened out the girl's bed with a quick pat. Leading him upstairs, she took him back to the room with all the books. There was a pile of maps on one of the shelves. She took one, opened it, and with a pen, made a circle on a street in the middle of the map. "This is Golden's house." Then she looked up kindly. "I'm sorry, Jakkin—can you read, then? I know a lot of the nursery folk can't."
He nodded. "Enough."
"Right," she said. "Oh!" Her hand went to her mouth. "I remember now." She smiled. "I lent you a book once."
He stared sheepishly at his feet. "I'm afraid I didn't get through it all." When he looked up, a small smile was playing around her mouth. "I'm also trying to find where five big dragons have gotten to. Heart's Blood's brood. They were with me, but after the thieves ... Well, I think they may have come ahead here. They knew that's where I was heading."
"How could they possibly know that?" Henkky asked, puzzled.
"Well, they were following me and I was heading in this direction. Until the thieves got me, that is, and ... forced me to go back to the nursery."
Henkky appeared confused. "Golden has been up every day in the senate's copter looking for signs of Akki. What could the dragons see that he couldn't?"
Jakkin fretted about how to answer her. Should he say that dragons had better sight day and night than a human? Or that dragons and Akki could speak together mind-to-mind? He decided it was safer to say nothing. Let Henkky think he was being sentimental about the dragons. It didn't matter, so long as she answered his question.
Finally, Henkky shook her head. "No, I haven't seen five big dragons around here. We don't get ferals, certainly not in the city's central area. Not enough food for them. And usually any tame dragons are installed below the pits. Those have all been moved to the outskirts of the city since Rokk Major was blown. Oh!" She put her hand over her mouth again. "I seem to keep stepping on my tongue with you, Jakkin."
He wasn't surprised that she knew of his involvement in the explosion. After all, she and Golden had been together for some time. He turned his hands palms up. "Don't worry."
"Well, what I mean to say is that big dragons are hard to keep—feed and water—in the city center except at a pit. There are four small pits now. So your dragons may be off on the northeastern outskirts of town, where I wouldn't get to see them." She pointed to several circles on the map. "There, to the left, that's the warehouse district. It's set off from the city and there're plenty of fields where dragons could graze." She made a red circle around seven squares at the northwestern end of the city. "Dark and his group have already searched those warehouses quite thoroughly."
Jakkin nodded.
"And here..." Another circle, between the warehouse and the pits. "These were once a group of farms. Lots of weed and wort grow around there now. They're 'volunteer' plants that grow up without cultivation. Sometimes, I'm told, feral dragons can be found there."
"How far away to these places on foot?" he asked.
"Half an hour if you go at a good clip, closer to an hour if you stroll. Though there's at least that much time between the warehouse district and the pits. A large triangle, you see." She outlined it with her finger.
He did see. He understood he'd have to make some choices very soon.
"Was Akki wearing her gold hair band?" Jakkin asked.
Henkky looked startled. It wasn't a question she'd been expecting. "No, she was in an old blue dress of mine. And some heeled shoes."
Jakkin took a deep breath. "Then could I have it, for a kind of luck charm?"
"Oh. Of course." She went away for a few minutes, then came back holding something. "This it?"
He bit his lip, then took the gold band and wrapped it around his wrist. A piece of Akki.
"Now, be careful," Henkky said. Jakkin forced himself to listen again. "If you're late getting back, find a pub. They put people up during Dark-After." She felt in the pocket of her skirt. "Here are five coins. That should cover it."
"Likkarn already—"
She ignored him. "I'll wrap up some food and give you a sling to carry it in. And a thermos of tea."
He nodded, eager to be on his way.
Mistaking his silence as anxiety, she tried to reassure him. "We'll find her, Jakkin." It sounded rehearsed, like something she'd been repeating for days to strangers and no longer quite believed herself.
Jakkin took her right hand and spoke with great passion. "She's not dead, Dr. Henkky. I'd know it, here." He touched himself on the chest with his left hand, over his heart.
At that, Henkky burst into tears. "Please, please find her. It's killing Golden. He blames himself for bringing her here, for trusting the driver. He almost lost her last year when the two of you went missing. It changed him. Golden doesn't show his agony to anyone but me. Sarkkhan was his closest friend. Akki's his goddaughter. We have to find her or I'll lose him, too." She wiped a hand across her eyes. "The last words I spoke to her were sharp. I don't know why
. I would take them back if I could. Please, Jakkin, find her."
"I will," Jakkin promised. "Oh, I will." And for that moment he believed it himself.
36
THE MAP was easy enough to read, and Jakkin walked briskly along The Rokk streets, casting a loud sending every block in all four directions. A simple, declarative sending, a red map and arrow showing where he was standing. "I'm here, Akki. I'm here."
He didn't let himself hope too much. The Rokk was a big place. The larger houses within the center must have already been searched. Akki might have been moved somewhere else in the last two days. Or buried. His hands and shoulder still felt the heaviness of Errikkin's coffin, aching with the memory.
No, I can't think like that.
He passed a group of men and women—obviously searchers with food sacks on their backs. They were just knocking on the door of a sand-brick house. He could tell they were nursery folk, for they were in bonder leathers and sandals, but he didn't recognize any of them. He nodded at them and they returned his greeting.
"Sarkkhan's," he called out, flat of his hand to his chest.
"Master Drakkan's," replied one man, about forty years old, hair the color of smoking burnwort. He made a circle with his forefinger, pointing to the three men and one woman with him, then his hand went to his own chest.
"Anything yet?"
The man shook his head. "Nothing. We've done this whole area once and are back again, in case we've missed something." He came over and shook out a map that was just like the one Jakkin had. As he pointed out where they'd already searched, the door to the sand-brick house opened slowly and the group walked in. The redhead shrugged, then, folding his map, ran back to join them.
Jakkin took a moment to send to Akki again, listening carefully to the silence. He brought the gold hair band to his lips. Then he opened his own map, tracing with his finger where he was, how far he'd come. He was about halfway between the warehouse district and the small dragon pits now. Checking the sky, he saw that he still had a few hours till dark, and then another few till Dark-After.
According to Henkky, the man called Dark and his searchers had already been all over the warehouse area. Still, it looked to be a perfect place for stashing a victim. He should have asked Henkky more about that search. He should have asked the man from Drakkan's. He should have waited to talk to Dark. If they had already been over the warehouses, maybe he shouldn't waste his time there.