Origins

by Lindsay Buroker

  “No, no, Lamby. I’ve seen you in the kitchen. It’s a wonder the army gives you a utility knife. Here, come in, all of you.” Grammy stepped back and waved everyone into the house.

  Grampy watched silently, nibbling on the stem of his corncob pipe as he eyed the invaders, probably wondering how long social propriety required he stay before he disappeared into his workshop.

  Grammy’s white hair was twisted up in her usual bun, her blue eyes sparkling as Trip introduced everyone to her. Plump, aproned, and welcoming, she was exactly how he remembered. Not that it had been long since he’d seen them, only a month since he’d been ordered to his new post. It just seemed like that had been ages ago. So much had happened since then.

  “Did she call you Lamby?” Duck whispered, coming up to Trip’s side.

  “What did the wolves call you?”

  “Dragon-hearted.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I was upset I couldn’t get Wolf Squadron to let me keep the name.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Leftie hung back as the others tramped into the living room, looking around before choosing spots on the perky floral furniture. They looked out of place in their gray and blue uniforms. Blazer plucked at one of the afghans Grammy had knitted and draped across the back of the couch. Cat fur stuck to the afghans, though the owners of it, Jangles and Tricks, were in hiding. Trip sensed them under the bed in the back room.

  He marveled that sensing things around him had so quickly become second nature, but then realized he’d never had trouble finding the cats when he was looking for them. He’d never had trouble finding much of anything.

  After offering to get drinks for everyone, Grammy disappeared into the kitchen, whistling cheerfully though she had to feel some stress at this unexpected task of feeding eight people instead of two. Grampy hung back in the doorway, not looking like he knew if he was supposed to make conversation with these strangers or not. He’d never served in the army, nor had he been enthused when Trip proclaimed his desire to join.

  Leftie, too, hung back, glancing toward the front door often.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Trip told him quietly, still standing in the hallway himself.

  Leftie jumped.

  “I’m sure you have lady friends that have been pining in your absence,” Trip added, wishing they could go back to trading jokes instead of sharing this ongoing awkward silence. At least, he found it awkward. Maybe Leftie preferred it.

  “That is undoubtedly true.” Leftie watched Grampy walk into the living room and take the remaining seat, Jangles’ rocking chair. Technically, it was Grammy’s rocker, but she rarely sat still for more than ten minutes, and the cat always claimed it for himself, in its entirety, whenever she got up. Leftie’s eyes narrowed. “Did they know?”

  “That I’m a charming and gentle soul?”

  “Please, I’ve seen you mow down pirates. They find you as charming as a toenail fungus. And far more deadly.” Leftie turned the squint on him.

  “They knew I was… different.”

  Leftie snorted so hard that Trip was surprised his tonsils didn’t fly out his nostrils.

  “I’m here tonight to see how much they knew.” Trip shrugged. “I’m actually hoping they know more than I think they do. Otherwise, I don’t know where to start looking for him.”

  “Be better if we don’t find another dragon. We’ve got plenty.”

  Trip wondered if Wolf Squadron would field a suggestion that they change Leftie’s nickname to Grumpy.

  “Why did you come along then?” Trip asked.

  Had Zirkander not given Leftie a choice? He supposed that was the most likely explanation.

  Leftie didn’t meet his gaze. He studied a framed watercolor of a tulip on the wall. “I figured you’d get yourself killed without someone looking out for you,” he finally said, the words coming out grudgingly, as if a tugboat had to drag them through a silt-filled channel far too narrow for them.

  It wasn’t exactly a smile and a heartfelt clap on the shoulder, but the admission that Leftie still cared made Trip feel better. Or did he care? Maybe he simply felt obligated for some reason. Though Trip couldn’t imagine what that would be. Over the years, Leftie had stood up for him far more times than the other way around.

  “It does seem inevitable that one of my side trips could lead to death,” Trip said, aware of Rysha occasionally glancing in their direction.

  Grampy had asked the others what brought them out here, and nobody seemed certain about whether they were supposed to mention dragons or Trip’s sire, so a range of different stories was coming out. Trip supposed he should go in there and explain the truth. Or maybe he would draw his grandparents aside for that.

  “Blazer says I should be polite to you,” Leftie said, glancing at his face for the first time. “Since you could incinerate my balls now.”

  “Even if I had that kind of precision, I wouldn’t touch another man’s balls.” Trip looked at the soulblades hanging from his waist. “Jaxi might burn your buckle off and leave your trousers around your ankles. She has a mischievous streak.”

  Leftie’s lip curled, making Trip wish he hadn’t reminded him of the soulblades’ magical presence. They’d finally been talking for the first time in over a week.

  “What about the other one?” Leftie asked.

  “He’s less mischievous and more…”

  Majestic and stately, Azarwrath supplied silently. Fortunately, he didn’t share the words with Leftie, who was definitely not ready for telepathic communication from swords.

  “Old,” Trip said.

  Really.

  Jaxi giggled.

  “And majestic and stately,” Trip added, having no wish to alienate his new friend. Though he wasn’t sure yet that the adjectives applied to someone who kept insisting a woman’s place was in the healing tent.

  Or the kitchen, Azarwrath informed him. Your grandmother knows her place. I do hope she cooks excellent food. You haven’t yet gone to a restaurant with fine cuisine so that I could experience something other than military rations or pirate fare. It’s been so long. A deep sigh resonated in Trip’s mind.

  The kitchen? Jaxi asked. How can you have such primitive notions when we found you in the hands of a female pirate throwing power like Therrik hurls privates around in the training arena?

  Berasa and I disagreed often.

  I bet a lot of women disagree with you often.

  “Trip?” Leftie prodded him in the arm.

  “Sorry, did you ask a question?”

  “No, but you had this weird distant look in your eyes. Is that your doing-magic face?”

  “It’s my listening-to-two-soulblades-arguing face.”

  “Huh, I wouldn’t have guessed that had a dedicated expression. You looked a bit like Colonel Anchor before he drops his morning cannonballs.”

  “That’s concerning.”

  “I’ll say.”

  Grammy entered the living area with a tray of drinks, and Trip decided to take the opportunity to draw Grampy aside. As much as he would like to stay here and enjoy a pleasant evening with his family, Zirkander had given him a deadline, and he felt it looming over him. He needed to learn what he could and hope he had a route to give the other pilots in the morning.

  If not, he would have to direct Rysha to the local library and hope for the best. It was too bad he hadn’t grown up in this house, because there would more likely have been clues lying around. But he well remembered why his grandparents had moved often… whenever some neighbor or teacher had noticed Trip’s oddness.

  Trip stepped into the room and touched his shoulder. “Grampy? Can I talk to you for a moment?”

  “Certainly.” Grampy pushed himself out of the chair with alacrity. “Do you want to go to the workshop where there are fewer—” he looked around at the people filling the seats, “—interruptions?”

  “I’d love to see what you’re working on this week.”

  “And suggest f
rilly improvements for it, no doubt.”

  “My improvements are useful, not frilly. Frilly is those doilies spread all over the living room tables. There are more here every time I visit.”

  “Your grandmother retired too early, I fear. Her hands don’t know how to be idle.”

  Trip waved a parting to Rysha, who was the only one watching him. Blazer was leading an argument about whether Cougar Squadron and the other more remote units were as well trained and experienced as Wolf and Tiger squadrons. Trip was glad Vapors hadn’t come along, or the discussion would have ended in blows. It might still, with Leftie defending their old unit.

  “What’s truly brought you back to Charkolt, Telryn?” Grampy asked, opening the door to the detached workshop in the backyard. He stepped inside and groped for the lantern and the matches underneath it.

  Trip resisted the urge to light it with his mind, something he’d done about five thousand times one evening, under Sardelle’s observant eye, as he’d perfected the size and shape of the flame that appeared. For a typically serene woman, she had a tyrannical streak when it came to teaching. Trip could also conjure an intangible lightbulb that would float in the air at his shoulder, so long as he didn’t lose his concentration. Thus far, that was something he’d only managed for three minutes.

  “We’re looking for my father,” Trip said, figuring there was no point in dawdling.

  The flame came to life, revealing Grampy’s raised eyebrows as he touched the match to the wick. “We?”

  “We. My superiors think he might be able to help defend Iskandia from dragons.”

  Interestingly, Grampy didn’t question that. “Do you know who he is, and if he’s alive?”

  He walked around, lighting a few more lanterns. The spacious workshop had a couple of large stationary tools that could be powered with a steam engine in the back, but he rarely used them. He preferred hand tools for almost everything, the hammers, saws, planes, and snips lovingly cleaned and arranged on peg boards and shelves. A few sawhorses and clamps supported his current project, a large dining table with the legs not yet attached. It wouldn’t likely end up with cup holders.

  “I was hoping you knew more than you or Mother ever told me. I have a name, but that’s it.”

  “Then you have more than I have.” Grampy picked up a piece of sandpaper and rubbed it over the table top.

  “Did Mother at least say which continent she met him on? You must have known where she was traveling to some extent. Didn’t she ever send back letters?”

  “Oh, a few here and there. Your grandmother might have them in her sewing desk still, though…” He shook his head. “That’s not an old sewing desk. We had to leave her first one and all of the furnishings the last time we moved.”

  Grampy didn’t look at Trip as he spoke, and there was no hint of blame in his words, but Trip winced, nevertheless. In his youth, he hadn’t understood that all the moves had been to escape people suspicious of him. His grandmother had finally explained it once when he’d been insistent, whining at her because they were leaving his best friend behind. His grandfather might not even know that Trip knew why they’d moved.

  “What are some of the places she traveled to often?” Trip sensed someone in the yard outside. Rysha. She seemed hesitant. Wondering if she should leave them to their privacy? “I know she used to look for new ingredients for her tinctures and formulas.”

  Trip had early memories of her creating stinky salves in the kitchen, and knew she’d always been trying to concoct new and useful formulas with the dried ingredients she’d collected during her travels. By the time he came along, she’d been done with those travels.

  “Dakrovia, the Cnat Islands, a lot of islands all over. For a while, she had a steady fellow with his own schooner, and we thought he might have been your father, but he was very blond, pale, freckled, and usually sunburned.” Grampy looked over at Trip, at his un-freckled and un-pale skin. “Rakgorath and the Desert Isles I remember were places she visited in those last years of her travels,” Grampy added. “She went through a phase of incorporating cactus flowers into things. I believe she also spent a few months in Cofahre, learning from a renowned herbalist there.”

  Trip stepped into the doorway and waved for Rysha to join them. So far, he hadn’t narrowed things down at all. He could probably cross the north and south poles off his list, since they weren’t likely to have much foliage to excite an herbalist, but that was about it.

  Rysha poked her head into the workshop. Grampy had returned to sandpapering and didn’t notice her. Trip didn’t know what his grandparents—especially Grampy—would think about a woman in uniform. They’d mentioned once when he’d brought a few squadron mates for dinner that women hadn’t been allowed to serve when they had been young. Grampy would probably agree with Azarwrath on some matters.

  “Has a list of her recipes survived?” Rysha asked.

  “Recipes?” Grampy looked at her.

  “Grandfather, this is Lieutenant Rysha Ravenwood. She has an academic background in addition to being an artillery officer. Rysha, this is Leamm.”

  “It’s good to meet you, sir. If I could see the ingredients lists for formulas she was creating around the time Trip was born, and there happen to be a lot of herbs from one continent, or even a particular area of a continent, I might be able to make some guesses.”

  Trip nodded warmly toward her. He wouldn’t have thought of that.

  “Hm.” Grampy scratched the gray stubble on his jaw. “Might be something like a recipe book in the sewing desk. I know Trip’s grandmother did manage to keep some things that belonged to Zherie.”

  “Good. We’ll check. Trip, what town were you born in? If it’s small enough, people might remember your mother there—and maybe someone was a friend of hers and might know where she’d been. Or were you—” Rysha nodded to Grampy, “—there in those days too? Were you with Trip’s mother when he was born, or did you become more of a part of his life after she passed?”

  It amused Trip that she’d taken over the questioning right away—and was doing a better job of it.

  “Oh, we were all in the same part of the province at the time. Had property at the edge of Ramshead, and Zherie had a cottage right on our land. But Telryn wasn’t born there. Zherie came back the summer of 851, I believe it was, and said Telryn was three months old then, though his grammy thought he looked a little older than that. Either way, we don’t know where he was born. Zherie said it was at sea.”

  Trip fell against the doorjamb. “You mean I wasn’t—I mean, I thought Mother was pregnant with me when she returned, not that I’d already been born.” He frowned, wondering if the birth date he’d been given was truly his birthday. “She told me that. I’m sure of it.”

  “She had a few different tales related to you.”

  “That’s interesting,” Rysha said.

  “Or alarming,” Trip murmured.

  “What story did she tell you?” Rysha asked. “Or did it also change? It’s possible she had a number of lies going and forgot the details of them. That happens regularly to people, especially if they have to remember a lie over several years.”

  Trip scowled at the idea that his mother would have lied to him.

  Grampy went back to sanding, the same spot over and over again. “In the little town we lived near, it was considered scandalous for a woman to have a baby out of wedlock. I’m sure she felt the pressure to make up stories to explain it. I’m not sure why she never told us more about the man—your father—but Grammy didn’t pry. I’ve always suspected Grammy believed it happened against Zherie’s wishes.”

  Trip gripped the doorjamb. That possibility would have been appalling no matter what, but now that he knew a dragon had been involved, it seemed horrifically feasible. Dragons could control people’s minds, right? If Agarrenon Shivar was the kind of being who would force a woman to have sex with him… Seven gods, did Trip truly want an ally like that? Even if the dragon could help Iskandia?

&nb
sp; “I prefer to believe the story she told us, of meeting a handsome man while she was exploring and falling in love with him. But then things didn’t work out in the end, and they parted ways and she lost track of him by the time she learned she was pregnant.” Grampy scrubbed harder at the table. “Maybe I’m a romantic.”

  “I don’t think Grammy would agree with that,” Trip said, though he would prefer to believe that version of the tale too.

  “I buy her doily-making materials when I go to the market.” Grampy looked at Rysha. “Isn’t that romantic?”

  “Yes, sir. Trip fixed a table in a tavern for me.” She bit her lip, as if she wasn’t sure she should have mentioned that.

  Had she considered that romantic? If so, Trip vowed to repair every wobbly table, cracked flagstone, and potential splinter that stood in her path.

  “Did he?” For the first time, Grampy smiled. He gave her a closer look too.

  “We should check that sewing desk.” Trip pointed toward the house, hoping to forestall further discussions of romance.

  “Of course. Come back if you want to interrogate me further, young lady.”

  Rysha blushed.

  “That was hardly an interrogation, Grampy,” Trip said. “She didn’t pull any of your fingernails out.”

  Grampy looked at his cracked and battered nails, kept short so they wouldn’t interfere with his work. “I do appreciate that. Grammy’s lotion already has to work hard to keep them from bleeding. That’s one of your mother’s recipes, you know. It’s too bad she never put more effort into packaging and selling her tinctures. She only wanted to invent new ones.”

  When Trip and Rysha walked in the back door, the scents of Grammy’s “coconut crunch” fish filets baking in the oven alongside cheesy potatoes filled the house. They almost made Trip detour to the kitchen, but voices still came from the living area, so dinner hadn’t been called yet.

  He led the way to what had once been his bedroom but had been converted to a crafts room with bolts of fabric and baskets of yarn fencing in the only original piece of furniture that remained, the bed. Potpourri flakes that hadn’t been entirely cleaned up after a spill dusted the quilt. A sack of dried flower petals slouched in one corner. The last time Trip had spent the night, he’d dreamed he was trapped in a greenhouse, a gardener with a pitchfork stabbing him every time he tried to escape.