It was several hours before dawn when they finally approached the Inn, and they could see a long line of supply wagons offloading goods. Felitza and Nick were outside with Mrs. Snodgrass, ferrying in sacks and bushel baskets. Char and Ven looked at each other, rubbed their shoulders in sympathy for their friends, and smiled.
When they were almost to the crossroads, two streaks of fur leapt into the wagon.
"Yikes!" sputtered Ven as they landed on Amariel's lap. "Murphy! What the heck?"
"Didn't you miss us?" the orange tabby asked, puzzled.
"Uh—not really," Ven admitted.
"Hmmm. Not a good answer, I'd say. What would you say, Leo?"
The brown cat coughed. "Leo."
Ven's mouth dropped open. "That's very good," he said. "Did McLean teach you that?" The cat nodded. "Oh. Well, congratulations."
"She's up to four words already," said Murphy proudly.
"She?" asked Ven. "She who?"
Murphy rolled his eyes. "Leo."
"Leo's a girl?"
Murphy sauntered over to Ven and leaned in close.
"Leonora is her real name, but she hates it," he whispered confidentially.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
The orange tabby pursed his lips, an expression that looked very strange on a cat face.
"You were a little busy," he said. He sauntered back to Amariel and climbed into her lap again.
Mrs. Snodgrass was shouting orders to the drivers when the cart with the children and the cats pulled up alongside the Inn.
"Three more sacks of oats, please, Bill." She looked up from her clipboard. "And what are you deliverin'—oh! Oh, my! Look who's here! Well, welcome home, loves! How was your visit to Saeli's family?"
"Wonderful," Ven said. "She decided to stay for a while." He leaned out of the wagon and kissed Mrs. Snodgrass on the cheek. The portly lady blushed, then smiled.
"Well, what's gotten into you, Young Master Polypheme? Whatever it is, I like it!"
"Sense, finally, perhaps," Ven replied.
"Neh," said Ida.
"But whatever it is, I have to take it with me to town right away," he continued as Murphy and Leo climbed off Amariel's lap, stretched, and leapt out the wagon. "Thank you for being so wonderful to me, Mrs. Snodgrass. I really do appreciate it."
The innkeeper's smile faded slightly.
"Why? Where are ya goin' now?"
"Just to the pier," Ven said as Tuck prepared to go again.
"Oh, good! Because I do believe the Captain may make port today," said Mrs. Snodgrass. "He'll be happy to see you."
Ven smiled bravely. "I hope so."
"We'll be back soon, Mrs. Snodgrass," Clem said. "But we have to go now. Anything you need from town?"
"No—what I need is comin' on his own, thank you. See you in a bit, children." The innkeeper went back to her deliveries.
Ven waved to Nick and Felitza, then turned to Char as the wagon began rolling toward Kingston.
"Don't you want to get out—go say hello?" He nodded toward the kitchen maid.
Char sighed. "I do—but I'll go later. Right now, we all feel there's nothin' more important than gettin' both you and Amariel to the dock."
"Perhaps you might want to rethink that, Ven," Tuck said. "That gentleman with the parsnips looks like he could use a hand with those sacks." He nodded toward the door of the kitchen, where a tall man stood, wearing a straw hat and a grin.
"The king!" Ven exclaimed, then clapped a hand over his mouth as if to call the words back. He grabbed his knapsack and hurried into the Inn.
"That was subtle," called Ida as he ran through the back door.
Ven caught up with King Vandemere in the kitchen. "How did you know when I was coming home?"
"In the tallest tower of Castle Elysian there is a telescope," the king replied, looking around the Inn again in wonder. "It belongs to my chief Vizier, Graal, who has been away for quite a while. It can see very far. I've taken to looking through it each morning and evening whenever I can, and last night I saw you on your way toward the bridge. So I timed my arrival to coincide with yours."
"Is it an odd, twisty sort of telescope?" Ven asked as he led the king hurriedly into the main room to the hearth.
"As a matter of fact, it is," King Vandemere said. "How did you know?"
"It's a popular style among the many kings I know," said Ven, chuckling.
On the hearth McLean was quietly singing to himself. The Singer looked up and bowed as the king came near.
"Scat," McLean said to the air. It swirled amid a good deal of sniffing and spluttering as the Spice Folk, clearly offended, huffily left the hearth. "Hello, Ven—welcome home."
"Thank you. Will you do me a favor, McLean? It's important."
"If I can."
"I need to be able to give this gentleman my report—and I need to do it quickly." It almost seemed like the handkerchief was itching in his pocket. "Without anyone else hearing."
The Singer nodded. He took out his strangely shaped stringed instrument and began to play, conjuring up a tune that seemed to blot out all other sound in the room.
Ven turned to the disguised king.
"Do I have a tale for you." he said. "I only wish I had longer to tell it."
27
Kiran Berries,
the Exodus, and the Day
the Sun Overslept
I tried as hard as I could to capture Scarnag's voice as I told the king his story, but gave up quickly. There was no way a human or Nain voice could duplicate all the sounds, the hisses and growls and the deep music in a dragon's voice. The dragon book he gave me—the one with the words—says that dragons have no larynx, the voice-box that people have that lets them speak. Instead they use the wind, a little like Singers do, to make the sound of what they want to say.
I gave McLean permission to listen in on the story, because I thought he would understand it better than anyone else could. I remembered what Scarnag said about how once it was told, it would be like a bell that was rung, staying in the place that it was told forever.
I couldn't think of a better place than the Crossroads Inn to tell it.
YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT CAN TURN WISDOM TO THE DESIRE to be a scourge, Nain?
There is but one answer: One day, the sun slept late.
That may make no sense to you. I'm sure you have never heard of a time when the sun did not come up in the morning. It is not something you ever think about, is it, Nain? Perhaps as you go about your life you wonder when the sun will come up, or whether the clouds will hide it when it does. But I imagine it never occurs to you to wonder if the sun will come up, does it?
Every being with a mind has something called Great Truths, whether he knows it or not. Great Truths are things we believe in without question, like knowing the sun will come up every morning. We ask ourselves when it will, not if it will. But if one day the sun were to sleep late, and leave the world in darkness until the next day, do you think anyone would ever take its rising for granted again?
It would only take one time for all of humanity to begin to question, to worry, to wonder if the sun was going to do it again. Right now it's something you believe without thinking about, isn't it? It's something you trust. That's the true meaning of trust, Nain—something you believe in completely without having to think about it.
So what happens when trust is betrayed?
But not just any trust—trust so deep that it is part of who you are. The betrayal has to be so immense that it is not only enough to change your name, it changes everything you believe about yourself.
You want to know what happened to Ganrax. I cannot tell you the tale as if it happened to me, because the being to whom it happened is long dead, as I told you truthfully when you first entered my library. So instead I will tell it to you from a distance, because that is how I see it. The distance of years, the distance of pain.
Ganrax, the young wyrmling you speak of, never knew any of his own kind, not even the one who
gave him life. From the time of his hatching he was raised among your kind, not his own. Fed by hand, nursed when ill, comforted when frightened, kept warm near the fires within their mountainous lands when he was cold. The Nain were the only family he knew, and to dragons nothing is more important than family.
You have said the Nain believe this as well. Let me tell you why I know that is not true.
More than feeding and raising the young dragon, the most important task in his upbringing that the Nain tended to was his education. Dragons hoard knowledge. They think of it as treasure. So when the Nain gave the young one an unlimited supply of history and lore, science and stories, maps and globes and books, he felt more loved, more cherished than you could ever imagine. He saw these creatures with whom he shared the earth, who gave him food, warmth, comfort and, most important, knowledge, as his family. He trusted them the way you trust the sun to come up in the morning.
There was one more thing that the Nain gave the young dragon, something that he loved almost as much as he loved learning. You know of the kiran berry? Perhaps not, as you are upworld Nain. But those who live within the earth know it well. The kiran berry is a tart, hard little fruit, red like a blood ruby. Its skin is sour, but if one is patient enough to get past it, the flesh deep inside it is sweet as honey. The berries have a deep taste of earth about them. They grow on spidery bushes beneath the ground, in caves and tunnels where the sun never reaches. They are a favorite, therefore, of creatures who live in such places, like the Nain—and dragons. Being a youngling, Ganrax loved kiran berries the way you or one of your human friends might love sweets. The Nain who raised him gave them to him as treats and as rewards for learning something well or behaving properly. Whenever the dragon child and his Nain family went for walks in the deep and winding tunnels of earth, the Nain would always bring along a pocketful of kiran berries to keep him from straying too far from the path. Ganrax was fascinated with the world around him, and often would scamper away to explore new wonders he saw. The Nain would bring his interest back by tempting and rewarding him with kiran berries.
So Ganrax's life was a happy one. He passed his days deep within the southern mountains of Northland, the vast continent to the north of this island. He did not know that he was away from his own kind, as most dragons live solitary lives anyway. He was well cared for, protected and encouraged to learn, everything that made his life blissful.
What the wyrmling did not know was the reason he had been given to the Nain from the time before birth, and why the Nain were raising him.
The continent of Northland is a place of great riches, immense cities, huge seaports. At the time of his birth, though Ganrax did not know it, a terrible evil was brewing in the cities and flatlands north of the Nain mountains. Slowly, over time, that evil spread south, choking out cities and villages, destroying everything good in its path and taking over what remained. But it moved slowly, to make sure that once it had taken over, it could never be uprooted, never be stopped.
And it has not been stopped to this day, Nain. It still grows, it still spreads. And one day it will come to this place. Remember my words, for it may happen in your lifetime.
The Nain had decided, long before Ganrax was hatched, that they needed to leave their mountain home, to flee to a place of safety on another continent and rebuild their kingdom. When this decision was made there was great suffering, because the Nain loved their home deeply, as all dwellers of the earth do, and did not want to leave. Even more terrible was the knowledge that they would have to cross the ocean to find safety, for as you know better than anyone, Nain fear the water and are afraid to travel on the sea. But there was no alternative, so the rulers of the kingdom came up with a plan.
They called the plan, and the leaving of their homeland, the Exodus.
First, they found three brave Nain who were willing to set forth as explorers and find a new, uninhabited land where they could rebuild their home. Because the evil was moving slowly, they had time to make careful preparations, and they did.
The tasks of the Exodus were also divided up. Some of the people of the mountains were responsible for taking apart and dismantling the things that would not be left behind. Others were responsible for buying ships to sail to the new world. Others were in charge of organizing how the population would be moved from deep inside the earth to those ships. It was a plan that took many years to achieve.
The Nain decided the most important thing they owned was their history. More than anything else, they feared losing all their legends, all the books about the past and the maps that brave Nain explorers had made, because Nain do not relish exploration and would hate to have to repeat it. Perhaps all creatures that live within the earth crave knowledge and value it. And the Nain knew that the best way to insure that their knowledge survived was to teach it to a being whose lifespan was vastly longer than any of their own, who had a great ability to learn it quickly and more completely even than they did, and who would guard that knowledge like a treasure.
So they decided they needed a dragon.
Not an adult dragon, however, because adult dragons have minds of their own, and their own knowledge. The Nain knew if they were to convince a dragon to adopt all their knowledge as its own, they would have to start with one who did not have any yet.
An infant. A hatchling.
I do not know how the Nain convinced the mother of the wyrmling to part with one of her eggs. The writings say that the dragon gave the Nain the egg willingly after they told her of the coming evil, and of their plans for the Exodus. I don't know if that is true or not. Dragons guard their children jealously, so it is possible that they killed her and took the egg, since it is hard to imagine that she would have given it up willingly.
The wyrmling was told that he was given to the Nain by his mother for both his own safety, to keep him away from the coming evil, and to aid in preserving the knowledge as his treasure. That part of the story is polluted, because once the trust was broken, the truth of the history is lost. This is the reason your Lirin Storysinger and everyone like him swears never to lie—because once falsehood enters the story, it is impossible to ever know what is true again. It destroys history, and all the world is weaker for the loss of it.
Whoever knew the truth is long dead. So I will never know the answer. And it haunts me. With every waking thought it angers me more. That anger seeps into my scales and turns them acid. Endless anger brings on endless pain—it is a cycle all but impossible to break.
I have strayed from the tale.
When the three Nain explorers set out to find a new land, they brought Ganrax with them. They also brought all of their most valuable books, maps, globes and charts—which you see here in this library—because the Nain rulers wanted to get those valuable things out first, in case the mountains were overrun before the Exodus.
The three Nain and the young dragon boarded a ship and set sail for the south, where they knew a great land mass lay. That land mass was this island, and in the north it had mountains even taller and more jagged than their own. They knew upon seeing them that those mountains would be the perfect new home, with untouched riches to plunder and great stone walls to protect them.
Neither the Nain nor the dragon enjoyed the voyage. All the Nain were seasick, but none so ill as Ganrax, who they feared might die. It's a miracle that they all didn't.
Finally, upon reaching land, the Nain were overjoyed. The northern mountains had many low foothills leading up to the High Reaches, which would provide a sturdier defense than they had back home. The riches they had anticipated—gold and silver, gemstones and coal, salt and potash, were plentiful and untouched. It was like discovering a treasure beyond price, and the Nain could not wait to get back to Northland to tell their fellow Nain about their new home.
Before they set sail, however, they built the dragon a library. You stand within the structure now, a deep, winding tunnel leading down to a warm lair. In the lair they carefully stored all their books and maps a
nd globes, all the documents of their history. They filled it with food and supplies, and made it as strong as a fortress could be, so that the dragon would be safe. They sculpted mazes and playgrounds for him to play in below the ground. They built everything they could think of to make him happy. They packed up their tools, told Ganrax to enjoy his new home, and that they would return as soon as they could with the rest of the population.
Then they bade him goodbye and walked away.
They had only gone about a hundred paces when the little dragon was beside them again. The Nain blinked in surprise, then led him back to the lair, explained that this is where he was to live, and they would return as soon as they could. Again they turned to leave.
And once again the dragon was beside them.
Now the Nain were worried. They had expected the dragon to understand the plan, being so vastly more intelligent than any of them were. They explained to Ganrax that he was being left in the fortress for his safety, and for the protection of their history. They reminded him how important his part in the survival of the Nain was. They lectured him about responsibility, and told him again they would return as soon as they could. Then they turned to leave one final time.
Only to find the baby dragon at their heels once again.
The wyrmling understood the plan for the Exodus. He understood his need for safety, and for the safety of the information in the library. He understood the threat in the mountains of Northland.
He just didn't care.
Because the Nain were his family. He was a child, an infant by dragon measure, and he did not wish to be separated from them for any reason. Dragons feel everything more intensely than men—jealousy, greed, loyalty, anger and love. Ganrax loved the Nain as much as his own life, and believed they loved him that much as well. It was his Great Truth. That was more important to him than his safety, than his mission, than his treasure.
The Dragon's Lair Page 22
