Race for the Dragon Heartstone

by K. D. Halbrook

“What do you mean?” Silver said.

  Lothilde buried her face in her mug. Her voice echoed out of the little chamber. “That’s what the nomadic tribes believe.”

  “Arkilah and her ilk, you mean?” Mele said.

  Silver didn’t know how her friend could say Arkilah’s name so easily. Just hearing the syllables made Silver cringe.

  But then Mele rolled her eyes. “There are no such things as curses.”

  “So you say,” Gavi said. “But the nomads believe in an ancient group of people who once did something so terrible that the goddesses cursed them to live forever, with one grand task to perform and otherwise allowed only to watch the fallout of their decisions.”

  “What did they do?” Silver asked.

  Gavi’s eyelids lowered to slits. “They released a darkness.”

  Silver shivered. She didn’t believe in the goddesses—no one in Jaspaton did anymore. And she didn’t believe in curses, nor had she ever heard of a “darkness” being released. But the way the Watchers hid in their Keep, only emerging to seek a new desert ruler, as needed, fit the story.

  “Then again,” Gavi continued, shrugging, “perhaps the Watchers are simply wise people who shun the monotony of human life and nothing more.”

  The seven other Watchers each reacted differently to Gavi’s words. Dasia sighed and looked sadly into her cup of hot chocolate. Lothilde pressed her lips into a fine line, her eyes going steely. A man, exceedingly tall with dark brown skin and furs across his shoulders to match, tipped his chin up proudly. Another man, the shortest of the group, pulled his eyebrows together and sucked on his teeth.

  And Gavi stared at Silver, his face as unreadable as rock.

  “Come, it is time to continue our catalog,” the tall man said in a deep, rolling voice. “Until our shift ends.”

  “Until then, Baana,” Lothilde said.

  Accompanied by hollow laughs that confused Silver, five of the Watchers retreated once more, leaving only Lothilde, Gavi, and Dasia behind.

  “You watch in shifts?” Silver asked.

  “Endless shifts,” Gavi said.

  “Or so it feels,” Dasia quickly added in her high-pitched voice. “So many events, so much cataloging.”

  “What do you mean by cataloging?” Mele leaned forward, her eyes lit up with interest.

  Silver rested her chin on her palm, covering her small smile. What sort of upheaval could Mele cause with hundreds upon hundreds of years of knowledge?

  “We catalog as many events of the world as we possibly can,” Lothilde said.

  “Do you include water dragon history in your histories?” Silver said.

  “Of course. They are the other dominant race in our world,” Lothilde said. “Their history is tied to our own.”

  “I’m ready to search that history.” Anticipation made Silver’s toes curl and uncurl in her boots. The Watchers had said there wasn’t much information about heartstones in their generation, but since the beginning of all time? The answers she needed to help Hiyyan had to be in those catalogs.

  As if summoned, Hiyyan’s thoughts erupted in her mind.

  Fifteen fish! Each one more delicious than the last! Whatever sad thing you’re eating can’t compare.

  Silver couldn’t keep back her laugh—how could she not be overjoyed at a sudden burst of energy from her Hiyyan? Then she quickly coughed to cover the laugh once she noticed everyone looking at her as though the ice had frozen an integral part of her brain.

  Mele raised her eyebrows. Silver cleared her throat.

  “It’s nothing. Just remembered an old joke is all.”

  I’m happy you enjoyed your fish, Silver bond-said. My chocolate is better. And now I’m trying to find out everything about dragon heartstones. Healing, soon!

  Soon. Hiyyan’s thoughts grew drowsy.

  Lothilde pressed her fingertips together. “You underestimate the enormity of the search.”

  “I’m ready. In school, we learned that Watcher knowledge belongs to all,” Silver said. Emboldened by Lothilde’s nod, Silver rushed on. “Where do I find the knowledge?”

  “It begins in the Chamber,” Lothilde said. “And is recorded in the library.”

  “Can you show us?” Mele asked.

  “Lothilde…” Gavi’s voice was low.

  “Oh, stop, Gavi.” Dasia waved her fellow Watcher away and leaned in close to Silver, her stage whisper loud enough for everyone to hear. “Sometimes, we call him Grumpy Gavi. But it’s in the oath we took when we were called to Watch: Knowledge belongs to all.”

  “If that’s true,” Mele said, “why don’t more people come here in search of it?”

  “I imagine many fear they’ll be made into our next sacrifice,” Gavi said, echoing some of the rumors that the girls had heard about the Watchers.

  “Others can’t or have no interest in making the trek all the way here,” Dasia added. Silver grunted her agreement with that. She’d never have scaled the mountain had she not truly needed to.

  “And others,” Lothilde finished, “do come. Learn a few things. Take that knowledge into the world with them and share it in various ways. But that is rare. More often, they come, find themselves buried under knowledge, and become more confused than when they came.”

  “How long do those people stay?” Silver asked.

  “Without fail,” Gavi said, “they perish here.”

  Silver caught Mele’s glance, knowing her friend’s wide eyes mirrored her own. Silver’s breath came quickly when Lothilde stood and indicated with a nod for Mele and Silver to follow.

  “To the library,” Gavi mumbled.

  One corner of Lothilde’s mouth twitched. “And then to the Chamber.”

  Gavi’s jaw clenched once more, but he held his tongue as the five of them all filed out of the dining hall and back to the grand staircase. At the top, Silver paused, studying the huge room below, ready to learn the most valuable piece of knowledge of all: how to find her own dragon heartstone.

  * * *

  LOTHILDE’S SLIPPERED FEET shushed quickly as she guided the group down a flight of stairs that twisted narrowly to what Silver assumed was a space below ground level.

  They reached the end of the stairs, and the Keep once again opened up into a massive room. Unlike the sparsely decorated great room above, however, the library was packed side to side and top to bottom with furniture, shelves, supplies, stacks of parchment, and—

  “Books,” Silver and Mele breathed in unison.

  Thousands upon thousands of huge tomes of history. The majority of the books were bound in burgundy leather, with nothing more than a range of dates stamped into the spine, but Silver noticed that one corner of the library was dedicated to brown leather-bound books, the tan creases an indication that they’d been read many, many times, and in between the burgundy books, here and there, sapphire-blue-bound pages.

  Silver turned in a slow circle, overwhelmed by the display of human history in one single room. Her skin tingled, and her nose twitched. The room, despite the many items inside, was meticulously clean to a degree that even Aunt Yidla would approve. It was cold and dry, as well, she assumed to keep all the parchment in good, archived condition. Binding materials were arranged neatly across several of the tables, and at one, the Watcher Baana worked in silence, neatly transcribing a set of notes from one stack of parchments into a book. Silver waved a greeting in his direction, but he was too engrossed in his work to look up. There were no other Watchers working in the room.

  Silver walked over to the brown books. “Why are those bound in a different color?”

  “They are prehistory,” Lothilde said.

  “Lore and myths,” Gavi said. “Stories of things that may or may not have happened before the discovery of the Ever.”

  Silver frowned. “Stories of the ancient goddesses, then?”

  “Yes,” Lothilde said.

  “And what about the blue books?”

  “Ah.” Lothilde swept across the room, as though relie
ved to get away from the brown books. Silver kept right on the Watcher’s heels. Lothilde reached for one of the blue tomes and opened it, the spine creaking with the effort. “The Ever shows us six views of the world at once.”

  “Literally?” Mele scrunched her face disbelievingly. “You’re supposed to write the history of the whole world by only looking at six things?”

  “The Ever shows us things that, over time, allow us to piece together a holistic view of modern life. How people in various regions cook and speak and work and celebrate and educate. And it shows us unusual things, as well. Changes of power, seminal events like major water dragon racing events, shifting of landscapes under storms, for example. We believe the Ever shows us the most important things for us to see, because we must believe that. We have no choice. There are, surely, things we never see. But isn’t that always true of recorded events?”

  Silver pressed a thoughtful finger to her chin. Beside her, Mele let out a soft hmm.

  Lothilde continued. “Almost always, these views center on the experiences of humankind. But sometimes, and for reasons we don’t understand, one view of the Ever focuses on water dragons. Here, in these blue books, we keep track of the history of water dragons as it happens in concert with our own.”

  “May I?” Silver asked breathlessly. Silver balanced the book on her hip. The answer to finding a heartstone for Hiyyan could rest within those pages.

  She rushed over to a table and struggled to open the book with her good arm. The pages were nearly as big as Silver’s chest and weighed more than one of Brajon’s dinner platters on a feast night. “Ugh!”

  Mele joined her, peeking over Silver’s shoulder.

  “Watchers are artists?” Mele said.

  On the parchment, a lovely charcoal sketch featured Abruqs, the little water dragon guards of Calidia, frolicking on a pebbly beach, with tall evergreens for a backdrop. Their trumpet snouts lifted to the sky playfully, but hiding in the trees was a sinister shadow: a human. The note on the page said: Initial Abruq-human contact.

  Silver put a finger to the page to trace the illustration, but pulled her hand back when Gavi sternly cleared his throat.

  “No touching!” Gavi snapped. “The oils from your skin eat away the parchment.”

  “We wear gloves when we fill the books, dear,” Dasia said. “It was a hard-learned lesson. Some of the very earliest pages have been eaten away. But we do have excellent archivists here in the Keep, so we’ve saved all we can.”

  “Has much been lost?” Silver asked.

  Dasia waved her white-fur-clad arm. “Oh, nothing of importance, as far as we can tell.”

  “Most of what is contained in these books is nothing of importance,” Gavi grumbled. “Imagine spending your days detailing the process of making bread or crossing a desert. You lowlanders might think we’re wise, but really all you need to be a Watcher is an endless supply of patience for the utterly mundane lives most people live.”

  “Imagine forgetting how to make bread or cross a desert,” Lothilde said. “These books would be put to good use then.”

  “The kind of earthly event that would wipe out the knowledge of bread baking or desert crossing from humanity would destroy this library, too.” Gavi’s entire beard seemed to droop when he frowned.

  He cleared his throat again and shot a look at Silver and Mele. “As mealtime has concluded and I’m no longer entertained by the novelty of our guests, I will relieve one of the other Watchers’ shifts at the Ever. How delighted I am to fill yet more pages with mediocrity and uselessness.”

  “Has he always been like that?” Silver said.

  “He really has, my dear,” said Dasia, shaking her head solemnly.

  A soft chuckle came from Banaa across the room.

  Silver read a few sentences on the open page. It was the history of the Abruq water dragons becoming part of the royal protection unit. Silver smiled, recalling her first encounter with the silver-and-black-striped water dragons. They were so cute and just the right size to hold in her arms and snuggle, which belied their stoic dedication to duty. Silver saw how their horn-shaped snouts were perfectly shaped for sounding an ear-piercing warning at any sign of danger around the royal palace in Calidia.

  She pressed a finger to her lips. Now she understood what Lothilde meant by the chronicling of water dragon history in concert with human history. Which meant that somewhere in those blue books had to be the answer she sought regarding dragon heartstones.

  Silver gently closed the cover of the book she was reading. There must be thousands of burgundy-bound histories and several hundred blue. It would take ages to get through them all.

  She stepped closer to a set of shelves and glanced at the spines. “They’re all organized by date … but is there any other way of knowing what they contain? Specific volumes, I mean. If I wanted to know one particular thing, how would I find it?”

  “Banaa is the best for that!” Dasia said.

  “You’re in charge of keeping track of what each book contains?” Silver called to him.

  “I do. It’s all up here.” Baana paused his writing and tapped his temple with a raised finger. Silver’s heart sank. There was no way she could tend to her task privately. As she looked at Baana’s cloudy gray eyes, she wondered if she could trust him. Any of them. The Watchers seemed unconcerned by the presence of Aquinder, and, when it came to knowledge, they were open and ready to share. Nothing to hide, as Lothilde had said.

  “What about the Ever?”

  Lothilde clapped her hands together once, her slender cheeks rounding with a smile. “It is the most incredible thing. The entire Keep was built up around the Ever, you see.”

  “It was here before the Keep was here?”

  Lothilde’s eyes sparkled. “It was.”

  She beckoned for the girls to follow her into a narrow stone passageway that led to yet another staircase. This time, though, Silver and Mele took only seven steps down before reaching their destination. Here, the stone walls were as smooth as obsidian, as if time had worn them to a glittering luster. The room contained three stone tables with just enough room for one person to sit at each. Atop each table, there was a stack of parchment, a jar of ink, and several styluses with sharpeners. All the tables were occupied by Watchers, including Gavi, whose brow wrinkled with displeasure at their appearance.

  Silver didn’t care. Her attention was stolen completely by the object in the center of the room.

  “That’s the Ever?” Silver asked.

  “That’s the Ever,” Lothilde confirmed.

  The Ever was like a glass box, or cube. Perched on a stone dais that rose to the height of Silver’s shoulder, its six sides rotated slowly on a spindle about the same thickness as Silver’s mother’s favorite fiberworking needle. Silver thought the Ever looked like an oversized version of the dice used in children’s games in Jaspaton, except that a scene played out on each side of the Ever.

  “What interest can mere children have in the Ever?” Gavi was so worked up that his words were accompanied by a spray of spittle. “You shouldn’t have brought them here.”

  “It’s within their rights to see it, no matter how young they are,” Lothilde said firmly, sending Gavi back to his work, grumbling.

  “How did the Ever get here?” Silver asked, peering closer. On one side of the cube, in a harsh landscape that mirrored the mountain, a small Snucker made its way along an underground stream.

  “The Ever has always been here. There’s no answer to that. The first book begins with the actions of those observed in the Ever, but there’s no account of the first Watcher who found it. Interesting, don’t you think?”

  “So the Ever was just lying here. In the snow.” Mele raised one eyebrow. “For anyone to find.”

  “That is our understanding.”

  “And the Keep?” Silver said.

  “It grew up around the Ever.”

  Mele’s expression was still one of deep disbelief. “It grew?”

 
“I see there is no mincing of words with this one,” Gavi said sullenly.

  Lothilde laughed. “The Keep was built slowly, over many … generations. To protect the Ever, and to provide comforts to Watchers as their needs and desires for, well, warmth and space evolved. This room is the oldest. Then came the library and”—Lothilde winked at them—“not long after, the kitchens.”

  “Kitchens are essential!” Mele said. “So, can I watch the Ever? Like you do?”

  Now even Lothilde looked uncomfortable. Her wide brown eyes scanned the room. “There are only enough tables for Watchers,” she finally said.

  Mele nodded, but her clever face shadowed. Silver had the feeling her Calidian friend would find some way to become a Watcher of the Ever, even if unofficially.

  Silver glanced at the Ever again and bit her tongue to keep from crying out. This time, she caught a glimpse of a boot on ice just before the scene shifted to somewhere else in the Desert Nations. There had been a sled in the background of that scene, she was certain of it. A huge one, mostly broken.

  Silver elbowed Mele. “The trackers are back on the trail,” she whispered.

  They had to hurry.

  The Watchers didn’t seem in any kind of hurry, though.

  “Well, that’s enough of the Ever. You’ve had an exciting day. I think two girls should be heading to bed now.” Lothilde’s grandmotherly tone, suddenly firm, was the kind you didn’t question.

  Silver bristled and pulled Mele close as they followed the Watcher back upstairs.

  “I need you to help me go through all those books in the library,” Silver whispered. “As fast as possible. Surely somewhere in the history of human and water dragon kind, there is an answer to where I can find my own dragon heartstone. And once we do that and I heal Hiyyan, we can get to King A-Malusni and put all our troubles behind us.”

  Mele nodded.

  “I am so tired,” Mele announced. Lower, so that only Silver could hear, she said: “For now.”

  “We have rooms prepared,” Lothilde said. “They have every creature comfort we can manage up here in the Keep, but please, if there’s anything else you require before the morning, do not hesitate to ask.”