City of Dragons

In a few places, the magic of the Elderlings lingered. In one building, an interior room sprang to light when a keeper ventured into the chamber. Music, faint and uncertain, began to play, and a dusty perfume ventured out into the still air. A sound like distant laughter had twittered and then abruptly faded with the music. The group of keepers had fled back to the open air.

Tats had taken Thymara’s hand and she had been glad of that warm clasp. He had asked her quietly, ‘Do you think there’s even a chance that some Elderlings survived here? That we might meet them, or that they might be hiding and watching us?’

She’d given him a shaky smile. ‘You’re teasing me, aren’t you? To try to frighten me.’

His dark eyes had been solemn, even apprehensive. ‘No. I’m not.’ Looking around them, he had added, ‘I’m already uneasy and I’ve been trying not to think about it. I’m asking you because I’m genuinely wondering.’

She replied quickly to his unlucky words, ‘I don’t think they’re here still. At least, not in the flesh.’

His laugh had been brief. ‘And that is supposed to reassure me?’

‘No. It’s not.’ She felt decidedly nervous. ‘Where’s Rapskal?’ she had asked suddenly.

Tats had halted and looked around. The others had ranged ahead of them.

Thymara had raised her voice. ‘Where’s Rapskal?’

‘I think he went ahead,’ Alum called back to them.

Tats kept hold of her hand. ‘He’ll be fine. Come on. Let’s look around a bit more.’

They had wandered on. The emptiness of the broad plazas had been uncanny. It had seemed to her that after years of abandonment, life should have ventured back into this place. Grasses should have grown in the cracks in the paving stones. There should have been frogs in the green-slimed fountains, bird nests on building ledges and vines twining through windows. But there weren’t. Oh, there had been tiny footholds of vegetation here and there, yellow lichen caught between the fingers of a statue, moss in the cracked base of a fountain but not what there should have been. The city was too aggressively a city still, still a place for Elderlings, dragons and humans, even after all these years. The wilderness, the trees and vines and tangled vegetation that had formed the backdrop of Thymara’s life had been able to gain no foothold there. That made her feel an outsider as well.

Statues in dry fountains had stared down at them, and Thymara had felt no sense of welcome. More than once as she stared up at the carved images of Elderling women, she had wondered how her own appearance might change. They were tall and graceful creatures, with eyes of silver and copper and purple, their faces smoothly scaled. Some of their heads were crested with fleshy crowns. Elegant enamel gowns draped them, and their long slender fingers were adorned with jewelled rings. Would it be so terrible, she wondered, to become one of them? She considered Tats: his changes were not unattractive.

In one building, rows of tiered stone benches looked down at a dais. Bas reliefs of dragons and Elderlings, their mosaic colours still bright after all the years, cavorted on the walls. In that room, she had finally heard what the others were whispering about. Low, conversational voices, rising and falling. The cadence of the language was unfamiliar, and yet the meaning of the words had pushed at the edges of her mind.

‘Tats,’ she had said, more to hear her own voice than to call his name.

He had nodded abruptly. ‘Let’s go back outside.’

She had been glad to keep pace with his brisk stride as they hurried out into the fading daylight.

Some of the others had soon joined them and made a silent but mutual decision to return to the river’s edge and spend the night in a small stone hut there. It was made of ordinary river stone, and the hard-packed silt in the corners spoke of ancient floods that had inundated it. Doors and windows had long ago crumbled into dust. They had built a smouldering fire of wet driftwood in the ancient hearth, and huddled close to its warmth. It was only when the rest of their party joined them that Rapskal’s absence had become obvious.

‘We need to go back and look for him,’ she had insisted, and they had been splitting into search parties of three when he came in from the rising storm. Rain had plastered his hair to his skull and his clothing was soaked. He was shaking with cold but grinning insanely.

‘I love this city!’ he had exclaimed. ‘There’s so much to see and do here. This is where we belong. It’s where we’ve always belonged!’ He had wanted them all to go with him, back into the night to explore more. He had been baffled by their refusal, but had finally settled down next to Thymara.

The voices of wind, rain and the river’s constant roar had filled the night. From the distant hills had come wailing howls. ‘Wolves!’ Nortel had whispered and they had all shivered. Wolves were creatures of legend for them. Those sounds had almost drowned out the muttering voices. Almost. She had not slept well.

They had left Kelsingra in the next dawn. The rain had been pouring down, wind sweeping hard down the river. They had known they would battle most of the day to regain the other side. In the distance, Thymara could hear the roaring of hungry dragons. Sintara’s displeasure thundered in Thymara’s mind, and by the uneasy expression on the faces of the other keepers, she knew they were suffering similarly. They could stay in Kelsingra no longer that day. As they pulled away from the shore, Rapskal had gazed back regretfully. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said, as if he were promising the city itself. ‘I’ll be back every chance I get!’

Thanks to Heeby’s powers of flight, he had kept that promise. But Thymara hadn’t been back since that first visit. Curiosity and wariness battled in her whenever she thought of returning to the city.

‘Please. I have to show you something there!’

Rapskal’s words dragged her back to the present. ‘I can’t. I have to get meat for Sintara.’

‘Please!’ Rapskal cocked his head. His loose dark hair fell half across his eyes and he stared at her appealingly.

‘Rapskal, I can’t. She’s hungry.’ Why were the words so hard to say?

‘Well … she should be flying and hunting. Maybe she’d try harder if you let her be hungry for a day or—’

‘Rapskal! Would you let Heeby just be hungry?’

He kicked, half angrily, half shamed, at the thick layer of forest detritus. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘No, I couldn’t. Not my Heeby. But she’s sweet. Not like Sintara.’

That stung. ‘Sintara’s not so bad!’ She was, really. But that was between her and her dragon. ‘I can’t go with you, Rapskal. I have to go hunting now.’

Rapskal flung up his hands, surrendering. ‘Oh, very well.’ He favoured her with a smile. ‘Tomorrow then. Maybe it will be less rainy. We could go early, and spend the whole day in the city.’

‘Rapskal, I can’t!’ She longed to soar through the morning sky on a dragon’s back. Longed to feel what it was to fly, study just how the dragon did it. ‘I can’t be gone a whole day. I need to hunt for Sintara, every day. Until she’s fed, I can’t do anything else. Can’t patch the roof of our hut, can’t mend my trousers, can’t do anything. She nags me in her thoughts; I feel her hunger. Don’t you remember what that was like?’

She studied his face as he knit his finely-scaled brows. ‘I do,’ he admitted at last. ‘Yes. Well.’ He sighed abruptly. ‘I’ll help you hunt today,’ he offered.

‘And I would thank you for that, and it would help today.’ She well knew that Tats had stalked off without her. There’d be no catching up with him. ‘But it won’t do a thing about Sintara being hungry tomorrow.’

He bit his upper lip and wriggled thoughtfully as if he were a child. ‘I see. Very well. I’ll help you hunt today to feed your lazy dragon. And tomorrow, I’ll think of something so that she can be fed without you spending the whole day on it. Then would you come with me to Kelsingra?’

‘I would. With my most hearty thanks!’

‘Oh, you will be more than thankful at what I wish to show you! And now, let’s hunt!’

‘Get up!’

Selden came awake shaking and disoriented. Usually they let him sleep at this time of day, didn’t they? What time of day was it? The light from a lantern blinded him. He sat up slowly, his arm across his eyes to shelter them. ‘What do you want of me?’ he asked. He knew they wouldn’t answer him. He spoke the words to remind himself that he was a man, not a dumb animal.

But this man did speak to him. ‘Stand up. Turn around and let me take a look at you.’

Selden’s eyes had adjusted a bit. The tent was not completely dark. Daylight leaked in through the patches and seams, but the brightness of the lantern still made his eyes stream tears. Now he knew the man. Not one of those who tended him, who gave him stale bread and scummy water and half-rotted vegetables, nor the one who liked to poke him with a long stick for the amusement of the spectators. No. This was the man who believed he owned Selden. He was a small man with a large, bulbous nose, and he always carried his purse with him, a large bag that he carried over one shoulder as if he could never bear to be parted from his coin for long.

Selden stood up slowly. He had not become any more naked than he had been, but the man’s appraising scrutiny made it feel as if he had. His visitors from earlier in the day were there also. Big Nose turned to a man dressed in the Chalcedean style. ‘There he is. That’s what you’d be buying. Seen enough?’

‘He looks thin.’ The man spoke hesitantly, as if he were trying to bargain but feared to anger the seller. ‘Sickly.’

Big Nose gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Well, this is the one I’ve got. If you can find a dragon-man in better condition, you’d best go buy him instead.’

There was a moment of silence. The Chalcedean merchant tried again. ‘The man I represent will want proof that he is what you say he is. Give me something to send him, and I’ll advise him to meet your price.’

Big Nose mulled this over for a short time. ‘Like what?’ he asked sullenly.

‘A finger. Or a toe.’ At the outrage on Big Nose’s face, the merchant amended, ‘Or just a joint off one of his fingers. A token. Of good faith in the bargaining. Your price is high.’

‘Yes. It is. And I’m not cutting anything off him that won’t grow back! I cut him, he takes an infection and dies, I’ve lost my investment. And how do I know that one finger isn’t all you really need? No. You want a piece of him, you pay me for it, up front.’

Selden listened and as the full implication of their words sunk into him, he reeled in sick horror. ‘You’re going to sell one of my fingers? This is madness! Look at me! Look me in the face! I’m a human!’