Dragon Chameleon: Paths of Deception

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  I swallowed.

  A city.

  A huge city to be learned and conquered. I would plunder her secrets. I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my mind any more than I could keep my lungs from burning in the cold. I leaned in close to Saboraak, trying to absorb her heat.

  There was a cry from behind us and I looked back. On the mountainside behind us, I could still make out the small doorway on the edge of the cliff, at the very peak of the mountain. A carpet loaded with Magikas was crossing through – but whatever they used to fly it failed as it rolled through the doorway. It crumpled, a normal carpet once again, leaving its cargo to fall to earth. The Magikas fell, looking like tiny specks as they disappeared into the blue haze below.

  I swallowed down bile and looked up at Zyla. Her face was green.

  “Which of those mountains is the city?” I asked faintly. All three peaks were smoking – from fires, I guessed now. And all three had structures clinging to them, like barnacles on a rock. I’d seen a sea-rock with barnacles being sold as an oddity in Vanika once.

  “All three,” Zyla said, her voice shaking. We didn’t turn around when the second set of screams began. We didn’t want to see that. After all, we couldn’t stop it and we couldn’t catch them even if we wanted to.

  I can barely carry four. Don’t ask me to do more.

  I wasn’t asking. Boy, she was touchy.

  It’s my conscience. I don’t do well with needless death. There should be something I can do.

  Why? It wasn’t her responsibility. We could only be responsible for ourselves. And even then, well, accidents happened.

  Compassion means taking responsibility for all other people.

  Ugh. That sounded awful.

  It will make you a fuller person.

  Or a deader person. No one could live like that.

  I disagree.

  I sighed. “Which peak should we aim for, Zyla?”

  “The closest one.” Her voice was very certain. “That’s Eski. The other two are Ziu and Balde. The three peaks of Ko’Koren.”

  “Is that where your contact is?”

  “No. It’s the closest place to not freezing to death, which I think should be our main priority right now.”

  Agreed.

  “Is your dragon slowing down?” she asked.

  Yes. The cold makes it hard to fly.

  Skies and flaming stars! Out of one mess and into another!

  I warned you about your language!

  Chapter Nine

  “We should stop off somewhere quickly along the way and pull on that Kav’ai clothing,” Zyla said after long minutes.

  “Why?” I asked. “If there are people of the Dominion here, and Saboraak can’t change anything but her color, then why change what we are wearing?”

  “If she stays a pale grey and we cover the front of her head, and if we sneak through a back way into the city so that no one gets a good look, she can pass as an oosquer.”

  “I still don’t know what those are.”

  “They’re hard to explain. Ask the dragon if she would please set down on a mountainside - if she can.”

  There’s nowhere to set down and I need to take the shortest route to the city. I’m worried I can’t fly even that far. Can you put on your disguises while we fly?

  “She says we’ll have to get dressed on here,” I said.

  Zyla sighed. “Then you’re going to have to climb up behind me. I can’t reach into those saddlebags and hold these two in place at the same time. Bataar’s not doing well. He’s going to need a sickbed when we arrive.”

  Scrambling up onto the back of a dragon from the stirrup while she’s flapping like an eagle with a tick burrowing in his neck was no easy matter. To my embarrassment, I needed help from Zyla.

  “Grab me around the waist, it’s the only way you’ll be able to get your leg up.”

  I tried to reach for a far strap. I really shouldn’t be grabbing her waist or any other part of her. Especially not when that waist looked like the absolute perfect size for my hands. I swallowed.

  “Stop being so thick-headed and just do it,” Zyla insisted.

  I lifted my leg up behind her, wiggling to try to reach it further, but I really did need to hold on to something if I was going to swing up on to the saddlebags behind her. She sighed, shifting Bataar to one arm and then grabbing my wrist with her other hand. She planted it on her far hip.

  “Grip here and use it for leverage!”

  I felt my cheeks growing hot – far too hot in this frigid, icy air.

  Even I can feel the blood rushing to your head. Cool down, Tor. You’re climbing a flying dragon, not asking a girl to dance.

  I didn’t know of any dances that would end with me tucked in so close and with my hand on her hip.

  Don’t humans have any fun?

  Surprise distracted me for just long enough that my muscles worked on their own. I slid into place and then pulled my hand back like it had been bitten. It still felt warm from her touch. Maybe one day ...

  Just find what we’re looking for in those saddle bags! We’ll worry about your mating dance later.

  No one said anything about a mating dance! Now my cheeks were throbbing from blushing so hard.

  What kind of dance were you thinking about, then?

  A social dance! People danced in the city square on Sata Day and High Spring.

  Dragons only have one kind of dance.

  Earth swallow me! I wasn’t safe from women anywhere!

  I fumbled in the saddlebag and pulled out the over-stuffed satchel.

  “I’m surprised you all remembered to gather this in the excitement,” I said, reaching into it to pull out a loose hooded tunic, heavily embroidered and woven of a coarse fabric.

  “We didn’t leave anything behind,” Zyla said, turning to look at the tunic. When she looked down her dark eyelashes looked longer than usual and when she looked back up, they shaded her cat-like eyes in a way that made me swallow all over again.

  “Is this for you or me?” I asked.

  “It would be best on Zin. If I dress her as a Zyvaar, no one will ask any questions if she doesn’t speak. Here. Pass it to me.”

  “What’s a Zyvaar?”

  “One of the silent practitioners of the Kav’ai ceremonies,” Zyla answered. “Here, Zin, wear this.”

  Her sister obeyed silently, looking off into the distance as if she hadn’t heard at all, even though she was complying.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked. I needed to know and there was no delicate way to ask. If we were going to sneak into this city, then we had to plan around ... whatever.

  “Nothing,” Zyla snapped.

  “Can ‘nothing’ be healed?” I pressed.

  “No.”

  “Can it be reasoned with?”

  She made an exasperated sound in her throat. “Listen, boy. I don’t have answers to all your questions. I was in that house where Hubric left me when I was surprised by those ruffians who call themselves Magikas. They hauled me off to the camp you found me in. I was there for one day before you showed up and your dragon saved us.”

  Someone knows who to credit.

  “That’s where I found Zin. I thought she was dead with my parents. So, I don’t have answers to all your questions – or any of them, really. Zin will talk when she’s ready.”

  “She’s not even talking to you?”

  “She’ll talk when she’s ready!” Zyla’s voice had a snap to it that made me think of a whip cracking. “Now, reach into that satchel and see what else there is.”

  I reached in.

  “A leather harness.”

  “With a wide piece of leather at the center?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll use that to disguise Saboraak. What else?”

  “An embroidered scarf. It’s kind of filmy.” I said. I felt weird doing this with her. “How do we sneak into the city?”

  “The scarf is for me.” She took it and wound it around her h
ead and face, so I could see nothing but those mesmerizing eyes. “And it should be easy to sneak in. The Festival of Lights started yesterday, and it will go all week. Everyone will be distracted by the feasting and parades. We won’t interest anyone. We’ll fly in from the craggier side of Eski and try one of the smaller entrances.”

  “We’re flying a dragon. We don’t need to go in through a gate,” I objected, pulling from the satchel a wide embroidered belt with a sparkling silver buckle and a long leather strap with feathers sewn along it.

  “We do if we don’t want the city guard searching for us. All visitors pass through a city gate or don’t pass at all. We’ll find an inn there and lie low until I can meet my contact. And that belt is for you. The leather band is looped around your forehead four times and then tied.”

  “Like Bataar’s?”

  “He’s dressed like Kav’ai, isn’t he?” She sounded impatient.

  “How should I know?”

  She turned to gape at me. “You didn’t know?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then why did you agree to help him? How did you know he would be on our side?”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Why would a Kav’ai be on our side.”

  The look of fury on her face was only overshadowed by shock. “You mush-headed, sewer-dwelling, think-with-the-hair-on-your-chest ...”

  Had she run out of insults?

  “What?” I asked, letting my eyes go wide so I would look innocent. She was alive and out of the hands of Magikas and so was her sister. What more did she want?

  She took a long breath. “You need to learn to think before you act.”

  “If I did that, we’d still be fleeing from a forest fire and a bunch of guys on flying rugs. Instead, we’re on our way to a Festival.” I gave a bright – albeit false – smile. Maybe she could be distracted.

  Zyla rolled her eyes. “The Kav’ai hate Magikas. They found Bataar trying to sneak into the Dominion and snatched him up. They were hoping to get information about the rumors of Kav’ai magic. Everyone is saying they have an alternate source of power – one the Magikas are desperate for. I thought you knew that.”

  The city was growing closer and I focused on it instead of on her accusing eyes. Anyone could have made the same decision I did. After all, I needed an ally at the time, and Saboraak had insisted on Bataar.

  Don’t drag me into this.

  “So,” I said eventually, “what you’re saying is that Bataar doesn’t need any more disguise than what he has.”

  Zyla sighed so loudly that I was sure it was meant for me to hear. “Just listen to me from now on, okay?”

  Like I was going to promise that! I did what I thought was best, not what other people told me was best. Let their decisions kill or beggar them. That was their business. I looked out for me and I made decisions that kept me alive, and that was that.

  I huddled against the cold, doing my best not to touch Zyla despite the tight squeeze on Saborrak’s back. My heel throbbed uncomfortably. She was busy trying to get the headpiece to fit my dragon while Saboraak flew, and both of them were too occupied with that – a nearly impossible task – to berate me. For now.

  I crossed my arms. I never signed up to work with a bunch of girls who always thought I was the one to blame for everything. Shouldn’t they be glad to have me around? I’d saved both of their bacon more than once now. That doorway trick was ingenious.

  Ahead of me, the city grew closer and closer. It didn’t sprawl so much as climb. Who thought it was a good idea to build a city on an almost vertical mountainside?

  The buildings clung to the sides of the rock like nesting cliff swallows. Spiraling stairs and steep ladders led from building to building and formed soaring bridges from cleft to cleft.

  The buildings almost looked like tiny sculptures of the mountains. Their roofs were peaked and so steep that they were far higher than they were wide with round windows and many struts keeping the buildings in place along the steep mountainsides.

  Scores of people filled the ladder-and-stairs streets and narrow boardwalks between buildings, many of them carrying something that smoked in their hands. My feet were already itching to explore a new city. Would it be like Vanika with hidden spots only a few knew about? Could there be secret trade, and back alleys, and underground business in a place like this?

  I couldn’t wait to find out.

  “Here’s the gate,” Zyla said briskly. “Remember, let me do the talking.”

  Chapter Ten

  The ‘gate’ - if that was what it was - was three times as tall as it was wide, but four different boardwalks passed through it – two on one level and two beneath them, not quite parallel, but squeezing through the structure. Two guards were posted at each boardwalk, looking outward and stopping each person to note their names in a logbook.

  Stairs climbing from below or descending from above or winding up in spirals led to the boardwalks and where they surged through the gates they were straight and flat. Everywhere else they were more vertical than horizontal.

  My eyes stung from opening so wide. I wanted to see everything at once. I’d lived in Vanika while it was still a skycity. I shouldn’t be impressed by this – but I was. I was imagining what it would be like to pick pockets and try a round of ‘find the weevil’ in this city.

  Wait. Observe and think. You’ll only get us in trouble if you rush in without watching first. When you live to deceive, you’ll often find you are as much the victim as the perpetrator.

  Dragons sure were a stuffy breed.

  Saboraak descended to the lower level of boardwalk and tucked in next to the rock wall. I could see why. Here, in the shadows, she was less conspicuous. The guards would notice her, but I doubted anyone else would pay her much mind.

  Animals, carts – how did they move carts up the stairs? – and people filled the boardwalks despite the early hour. Their backs and beds were heavy with packs and loads. And the animals were not horses, as I would have expected but a creature that looked like a large mountain goat.

  Those carts move on rails. Do you see that? The animals and people pull them along those metal rails. I see them going up the slopes, too.

  How would that help anything?

  Maybe they have a system that keeps the loads from slipping backward once they reach a certain level.

  If Saboraak could think like that, then maybe she should have been planning better dragon cities instead of careening through the countryside with me. Did dragons have cities?

  Our cities would make your eyes pop right out of your head.

  Yuck.

  Your brain would get so hot from overuse that it would melt out your ears.

  That was so gross.

  I am not prone to exaggeration. I merely state the truth.

  Then keep me far away from dragon cities!

  “What’s that creature pulling the cart?” I whispered to Zyla.

  “A yudazgoat. They are native to these mountains.”

  We fell in line behind a cart and my eyes squinted as I looked for the rail Saboraak had seen. There it was. It made the load less maneuverable, but the path was also more predictable. I could see how that would help but there had to be more going on to make this possible. What if two carts wanted to go different directions on the same rail?

  Did you notice that everyone on this boardwalk is walking in the same direction? The other boardwalk on this level is walking the other direction.

  Weird. How did they get people to agree to that? If you told someone from Vanika that he could only walk in one direction on a road, he’d laugh in your face.

  This is not Vanika.

  Clearly not. Vanika made a lot more sense.

  From what you’ve told me, Vanika is a ruin on the edge of starvation.

  It still made more sense than this place.

  The guards pulled the cloth covering off the top of the cart, searching through the bags of cloth inside before letting it pass. The guard was
still writing in the book he carried when his partner motioned us forward.

  Zyla sat up very straight in the saddle, a bright smile on her face.

  “Purpose of entry?” the guard asked.

  “We are here to do business with to your potters’ guild,” Zyla said with a smile.

  “You look like you’re dressed for the festival,” the guard said smugly.

  “Do we? What a strange coincidence,” Zyla said with an equally smug smile.

  I felt my face contorting in confusion. Why did it sound like the guard knew she was lying and liked it? Why did it sound like she was teasing him with it?

  “And this creature?” he asked, poking Saboraak. I saw her head dip like it did before she flamed and I hoped she could hold in her temper.

  “My oosquer,” Zyla said.

  The guard made a note in his book, but his eyebrow quirked like he knew she was lying. “Then you’re from Kav’ai?”

  “From the northern reaches of Kav’ai where the cormorant nests,” Zyla said.

  He looked up sharply when she said cormorant and nodded before returning to his writing. “And the man? He is ill?”

  “Only injured. We seek the fine healers of Eski for help with him.”

  The guard snorted before running his eyes over Zin. “Honor to the Practitioners. Thank you for entering our city.”

  When she didn’t speak, that seemed to please him and he turned to me. “And you, boy?”

  I waited for Zyla to make an excuse for me, but the guards eyes tracked up to me and met mine. He made a motion like he wanted me to get on with it.

  “Yes, Kav’ai,” I said quickly.

  The guard rolled his eyes. “And you are from ...?”

  I was supposed to say which region? I didn’t know what regions there were in Kav’ai!

  “Ummm the ... region ... of ...”

  Zyla’s left hand, hidden from the guard, pointed urgently at my boot where the lightning had struck the heel. Was that a clue? Was there a boot region of Kav’ai? That didn’t make any sense.

  “Lightning,” I said in a rush.

  The guard looked up sharply and I felt Zyla tense in front of me.