The Dragon Keeper

by Robin Hobb

  She ran out of breath and words at the same time. She turned away from the tapestry and back to her audience. Malta’s face was a mixture of triumph and misery. The brushy-haired Rain Wild woman at the table was nodding her head vigorously. “Excellent!” she exclaimed before anyone else could speak. “We are indebted to you, madam. The black dragon has spoken of this Kelsingra as the best possible destination for the dragons. They have dropped hints to us that it was a major Elderling city. But up to now, we lacked confirmation of its existence. You offer us not only the physical evidence of the tapestry, but your scholarly opinion that such a place did, and possibly still does, exist. We could not ask for better news, any of us!”

  “I could,” Malta asserted flatly. “I could ask for a map that would clearly show us where the city once existed in relation to the two Elderling cities that we have already located. ” She flicked her fingers as if in annoyance, and the light globes scattered like startled cats. She moved to one of the tiers of benches and slowly sank down onto it. She suddenly appeared not only merely human but very tired. “We have failed them so badly. We gave a promise to Tintaglia and we began by doing the best we could for them. Slowly we let our standards fall, and the last two years have just been a nightmare. So many of them have died. ”

  “Without our help, all of them would have died. Without our help, most of them would never have cocooned, let alone hatched. ” Trader Polsk presented the fact simply.

  “Without us cutting them up into planks to build ships, more of them might have survived to hatch during that quake,” Malta retorted.

  “If there had not been liveships, would you have been there at all?” Alise dared to interject the question. Malta appeared to be mired in despair, but Alise felt a growing excitement. The most wonderful idea she had ever imagined was slowly unfolding in her mind. She hardly dared state it. She teetered on dread that they might refuse her and terror that they might accept her offer. She tried to keep her voice steady as she asked, “How soon must the dragons be moved?”

  “The sooner the better,” Trader Polsk replied. She ran both her hands through her brush of gray hair, standing it up like a dragon’s crest. “Delay can only make it worse for all of us, including the dragons. If it were possible for them to leave tomorrow, that is what I would choose. ”

  “Yet I have come all the way from Bingtown just for the purpose of studying these dragons and possibly conversing with them,” Alise objected.

  “You will find them little inclined to conversation,” Malta said drearily. “Even if you had come months ago, it would have been so. They have ancestral memories of the dragons they should have been. Much as I hate to admit it, Trader Polsk is right. They are and have been miserable where they are. I have done my best to visit them often, and I know the hardships that have been created for those who tried to keep faithfully the terms of our bargain with Tintaglia. I am not blind to those things. I just wish it could have a better ending. I wish that I could go with them and see them safely settled in some better place. But I cannot. ”

  She sounded so defeated that Alise wondered if the Elderling woman were ill. But then she set her hands to her belly in the unmistakable gesture of a woman who is with child and sets that child’s well-being above all in her life. It was like the last piece of a puzzle falling into place. The circumstances were exactly right for her; if it was not fate, it was close enough.

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  “You cannot go, but I can. ” She spoke the words clearly, offering herself and seizing a chance for herself in the same breath. “I am willing to travel with them, using my knowledge of their kind to aid them in any way I can. I am eager to travel with them, to learn of them all I can, and to observe their kind in, if I dare to admit it, the wild hope that I could be with them if and when Kelsingra is rediscovered. Let me be the one to go. ”

  Silence greeted her words, but it was of a mixed sort. Malta looked at her as if she were a vision of salvation. Trader Polsk looked intrigued. Two of the committee members were regarding her with sick horror. She made an intuitive leap; those two had had some inkling that Kelsingra was real and that valuable Elderling relics might be discovered there. She’d just spoiled some sort of secret scheme without even intending to do so. The thought of that fired her courage. She spoke aloud to Malta. “If Kelsingra is rediscovered and is intact at all, it could be the greatest resource yet for understanding how Elderlings and dragons interacted. The mysteries that have been discovered at Trehaug and Cassarick may be solved at Kelsingra. ”

  “Surely that is a matter for Rain Wild Traders to discuss,” one of the men at the table assayed.

  “Surely it is a matter for Elderlings and dragons,” Malta countered.

  “The first step is to find the place. And get the dragons to safety. ” Leftrin was grinning from ear to ear. He strode across the darkened room to step into the light and stand beside her. “If the lady’s willing to go on the trip to continue her study of the dragons, then I’m willing to take her. ” As the gray-haired committee leader leaned forward as if to object, he added calmly, “In fact, I’m willing to make it one of the conditions for my accepting the charter. ” He boldly turned to Malta and made a small bow. “Perhaps we should defer to Malta Khuprus. She suggested that the dragons should have a representative. Seems to me that having a dragon expert aboard might be one of the wiser things that we could do. ”

  Malta smiled wearily. Then she looked to the committee table. “I will speak for Tintaglia in this. ” She swung her gaze to Alise, and that look was compelling. Alise was nodding even before Malta said, “If Alise Finbok is willing to go, I am willing to accept her as an impartial judge to act in the best interest of the dragons. ”

  Day the 4th of the Grain Moon

  Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

  From Detozi

  To Erek

  That sneaking little bastard! He is too low for his own pigeons to shit on! As if the weight of our ink on the tiny corner end of a scroll was an added weight for the pigeons to carry! He is so self-righ teous, and always seeking a way to discredit me, because he knows that if I am discharged, then his brother will probably be hired on in my place! I pray you, be cautious of which birds you use if you have added a note for me. Recall that all the birds that home to my coop are banded with red bands. Kim does not even paint his bands, but uses plain leather, the lazy piece of dung.

  Detozi

  Chapter Eleven Encounters

  The muddy banks of the river were drying out. Cracks and fissures had opened up in the flat brown plain. As Sintara waded out of the gray silt-laden water, the wet bank gave unevenly under her feet. She lurched as she walked. Dragons, she reflected, were not intended to be creatures of the ground.

  Her blue-scaled hide was still dripping from her attempt at a bath; she left a wet trail behind her. She opened her stunted wings, flapped and shook them in a shower of water droplets, and then refolded them against her sides. She wished in vain for a wide bank of hot sand where she could bask until she was dry, and then polish her claws and scales until she shone. In this lifetime, she’d never had the luxury of a good dust bath, let alone a nice rasp on a sandbank. Dust and sand, she was sure, would have cleansed her of a lot of the tiny sucking insects that infested her and the other dragons. Although she still groomed herself daily, few of the others did. As long as they were infested and she had to live in close quarters with them, there seemed little point to grooming. Yet she refused to give up that ritual. She was a dragon, not a mindless mud salamander.

  The forest that backed onto the beach put most of the riverbank in perpetual shade. During the years they had been trapped there, the dragons had enlarged the clearing. Some of the surrounding trees had been killed accidentally by dragons sharpening claws or rubbing scaled shoulders against them in search of relief from the pests that infested them. Several trees had been killed deliberately as the dragons sought to enla
rge the area in which they were forced to live. But killing a tree and pushing it down and out of the way were two different tasks. Killing it meant that its foliage dropped and an additional but small amount of light reached them. But despite sporadic efforts, not even several dragons together could push down one of the towering trees.

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  Sunlight reached the riverbank at the height of the day and lingered there strongly only for a few hours. Sintara surveyed the fourteen dragons spread out before her. Most of them slept or at least drowsed, soaking up light and warmth while they could. There was little else for them to do this afternoon. The larger dragons had claimed the prime spots for sunbathing. The lesser dragons took whatever space they could find. Most of them napped in areas that were shadow dappled; the smallest and least able slept in full shade. Even the best spots were barely adequate for comfort. The river mud dried to a fine sneeze-inducing dust that was annoying to eyes and nostrils. But at least it was warm and there was light. Sintara’s skin and bones constantly longed for light and heat almost as much as her belly hungered for meat.

  The sunlight sparkled on a few of the better-groomed dragons. Kalo, the largest of their clan gleamed blue-black as he sprawled in the strongest patch of sunlight. His head rested on his forelegs. His eyes were closed, and his slow breath stirred a small plume of dust each time he exhaled. At rest and folded to his back, his wings looked almost normal. He seldom spread them, but when he did, the flimsy musculature betrayed him.

  Beside him, Ranculos shone scarlet in sharp contrast to the dusty shore. His silver eyes were lidded in sleep. He was badly proportioned, as if someone had sculpted parts of three different dragons and then assembled them. His front shoulders and legs were powerful, but he dwindled at his hindquarters and his tail was ridiculous. His wings drooped and refused to stay properly closed. Pathetic.

  Sintara narrowed her eyes to see that azure Sestican had sprawled out, wings open, and was occupying her space as well as his own. His long scrawny legs twitched in his sleep. Between her and him, several of the smaller and less able dragons were sleeping. Their dull hides were daubed with mud, and they slept packed together like the toes on a foot.

  She paid no attention to them as she thrust her way over and through the sleeping creatures. One squeaked and two gave snorting growls as she trod on them. One rolled under her, throwing her off balance. She lashed her tail to stay upright and flapped her still-drying wings, sprinkling all of them with a shower of cold droplets. A mutter of snarls greeted that, but none of them could be bothered to really challenge her. As she reached her place, she deliberately trod on Sestican’s spread blue wing, pinning it to the earth.

  He gave a surprised roar and tried to roll free. She pressed down harder on the trapped wing, deliberately bending the delicate bones. “You’re in my place,” she growled.

  “Get off me!” he snarled in return. She lifted her foot just enough for him to drag his bruised wing free of her weight. As he snapped it back tight to his body, she sank down to the bared dust. She was still displeased. It was warm from his body heat, but not hot from baking sunlight as she had fantasized. Nonetheless, she settled into place, pushing ungraciously against Veras to make more room for herself. The dark green female stirred, bared her puny teeth, and then went on sleeping.

  “Don’t ever sleep in my place again,” Sintara warned the big cobalt dragon. She arranged her body, resentfully tucking her tail around her instead of letting it sprawl out as she wished to. But she had no sooner settled her head on her front paws than Sestican abruptly lurched to his feet. She snarled as his shadow fell over her. At the edges of the sleeping swarm of dragons, one of the smaller ones lifted her head and asked stupidly, “Food?”

  It was not time for them to be fed. There was a general lifting of heads followed by dragons wallowing and lurching to their feet, trying to see past one another for a view of what was arriving on the beach.

  “Is it food?” Fente demanded angrily.

  “Depends on how hungry you are,” Veras replied. “Small boats full of people. They’re pulling their boats up onto the bank now. ”

  “I smell meat!” Kalo announced, and before he had even voiced it, the swarm was moving. Sintara shouldered Veras aside. The nasty green female snapped at her. Sintara gave her a lash of her tail in passing but didn’t bother with any further retaliation. Being the first to the food was much more important than any vengeance right now. Sintara gathered her strength and made a springing leap over Fente. Her withered wings opened reflexively but uselessly. Sintara snapped them back close to her sides and continued her lumbering gallop down to the riverbank.

  The cluster of young humans on the shore huddled together in fear. One yelled and ran back toward the beached boats. As the dragons advanced, three others joined him. Other people were emerging from the narrow beaten trail that led back into the forest and to the ladders that went up to their tree nests. Sintara caught the familiar scent of one of their hunters. The man raised his voice and shouted at the boat humans. “It’s all right. They smell the food, that’s all. Stand your ground and meet them. It’s why you’re here. We’ve got meat for all of them. Let us feed them first, and then you should move among them and let them greet you. Stand your ground!”

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  Sintara could smell the fear on them. She noted in passing that the humans from the boats were mostly youngsters. Their voices were raised to one another, piping questions and squeaking warnings. Then the other hunters emerged from the path, pushing their barrows. Each wooden barrow was heaped high with meat and fish, a generous pile surpassing what they usually held. Sintara chose the third barrow as hers and pushed Ranculos aside to claim it. He roared, but swiftly chose the fourth barrow instead. As they always did, the barrow pushers quickly left the area to stand well back in the trees. They’d reclaim their barrows and trundle them away when every dragon had finished eating.

  Sintara sank her muzzle into the heaped carrion. The meat was still, the blood dried and the muscles stiffened. The deer in it had probably been killed yesterday or even the day before. The smell of the offal was rank, but she didn’t care. She seized and gulped, seized and gulped, eating as swiftly as she could. Even though there was a barrow for each dragon, it wasn’t uncommon to have to fight for the last pieces of her carrion if some other dragon had already finished his share.

  She overturned her barrow in her haste, spilling the final pieces of meat. The last piece of river carp was covered in dust: it stuck in her throat and she had to shake her head to get it down. It still stuck. Ignoring the others, she went to the drinking hole. The water that seeped in from the sides and filled it was less acidic than that in the river itself. She sank her muzzle into it and drew up a long draft. She lifted her head skyward, pointed her nose up, and swallowed. The fish was still caught in her throat. Another long drink and it finally slid down. She belched in relief. She was startled when someone asked her, “Are you all right now? You looked as if you were choking. ”

  Sintara slowly turned her gaze downward. Standing at her shoulder was a thin Rain Wild girl. The faint trace of scales on her cheekbones glinted silvery in the sunlight. Sintara said nothing to the human, but rotated her head to look over the mud plain by the river. Some of the humans still clustered near their small boats, but several of them had ventured away from the group to mingle with the dragons. She gave her attention back to the girl who had spoken to her. The human barely came to her shoulder. She smelled of wood smoke and fear. Sintara opened her mouth and breathed in deeply, taking in the girl’s full scent. Then she breathed out and saw the girl flinch as her breath streamed past her. “Why do you ask?” she demanded.

  The girl didn’t answer the question. Instead, she pointed toward the forest and said, “The day you hatched, I was there. Up in that tree. Watching. ”

  “I didn’t ‘hatch’ here. I emerged from my case. Are you too ignorant of dra
gon ways to know the difference?”

  The skin of the girl’s face changed temperature and color as her blood beat more strongly there. “I’m not ignorant. I know that dragons begin their lives as serpents, hatched on a beach far from here. To say that you hatched here was just a manner of speaking. ”

  “A careless use of words,” Sintara corrected her.

  “I’m sorry,” the girl apologized.

  “I’M SORRY,” THYMARA said hastily. This dragon seemed very testy. Perhaps she had made an error in choosing her. She glanced over at Tats. He was trying to approach a small green female. She didn’t seem to be paying any attention to him, other than to hiss threateningly when he stepped too close to her barrow of meat. Rapskal already had his arm around a runty little red dragon. He began scratching her head near her neck fringe and the dragon leaned into him, thrumming with pleasure. An instant later, Thymara realized he was dislodging an entire colony of parasites from her. Leggy little insects were falling in a shower from the dragon as he diligently scratched at her scales.

  Most of the other dragon keepers still huddled by the boats, watching them. Greft had announced his claim as soon as the boat touched shore. “The big black one is mine. Everyone stay back and give me a chance to talk to him before you approach the others. ”