She took a quick glance around and noticed a crude rubble ramp on the right that lead down to it. She took the incline quickly, and several rocks came loose and rolled around and under her before she was able to clumsily make her way to the ledge below.
A contraction brought her full to the ground. She gasped out loud. Had this one come sooner than the last? Once it passed, she took a brief moment to catch her breath. She had to hurry, though, so she stood up and began to examine the ledge.
Above her, she could see part of the darker opening of the passage through which she had come. On the right was a tall mound of rock, gravel, and soil piled against the back of the ledge. She guessed it was from the partial collapse of the ledge above that she had narrowly avoided. To her left was the rough rock ramp that she had stumbled down, probably also formed by a collapse at some time in the past. A rivulet of water emerged from under the ramp, gathered in a small pool, and then continued over the edge and down into the cavern below.
She looked again at the pile of debris on the right side of the ledge. It was not much, but it was all she had. She spent quite a few minutes dragging, shoving, and rearranging, using the pebbles and gravel from the pile to form a make-shift bed against the back wall. She then used soil, some of it sandy, to cover as much of the bed as she could. When she was done—dirty, dusty and tired—she looked over her handiwork. It would have to do. Besides which, she was now too exhausted to do anything else. She arranged herself on top of the crude bed and waited.
Searing, clenching pain arrived, and it did not fade this time. It intensified. A scream ripped its way out of her. Her abdomen became hard as stone, squeezing tighter and tighter. Painful, tortured muscles wove a tracery of fire across her belly, and a growl escaped from her mouth. It could not go on like this, could it? She had never heard even a whisper about this agony.
Her muscles released, and the pain started to subside. She started panting, trying to get more air, quickly. It seemed to help. Why had no one ever spoken of this? It was beyond any pain she had ever felt. She was terrified.
The pain returned. And sooner than before. Again her abdomen clamped tight, squeezing. The pin-prick fire of burning pain spread and blossomed to cover the width and breadth of her abdomen. Again and again the contractions returned. She thought she might go mad. A pain-induced haze descended over her, reinforced with each tortuous clenching of muscles. It went on for some time, over and over. But eventually the pain, the contractions, ended.
She cleaned herself up as best she could. She had thought she was exhausted before. Now, however, she barely had the strength to move. But move she did.
Four! No one had borne four children in decades, centuries even! One child was all most produced, if any at all. But not her! Four wonderful, beautiful, perfect children! She couldn’t believe her fortune. And wait until she brought them back! She would rise up at least two stations, if not more! All the scheming she had put into making it a successful pairing had been worth it.
Her partner she had selected carefully. He was young, like her, but from a very prominent line. It was almost unheard of for outsiders to be allowed near anyone in that family. She had done a lot of work in order to be with him. But it had been worth it. Four! She touched the first lovingly and froze. It was dead.
She was dumbfounded. This could not be! Impossible! She checked carefully again for movement, a heartbeat. There was none.
Her breathing increased its pace, panic setting in. What had happened? The dread came back, in full force. She turned to the second. Please, she thought desperately as she reached out, just, please. It was as still and silent as the stone walls of the cavern.
Her breath was coming in ragged gasps now, panic in full control of her. She backed away from the bed, toward the center of the ledge. In despair, she wondered what could have gone wrong. It was her first time, that was true. But even so, she had never heard of this many stillborn. Did she overexert herself in her mad flight away from everyone? Had she driven herself too hard this night? Was she responsible for this?
Distraught, she slowly she made her way back, her heart pounding in her ears. She moved around the front of the bed, reached out carefully to the third one. It was already cooling.
The shock of it was like lightning. She jerked back, stumbling. Was all her planning for naught? Dazed, she backed away from the bed slowly, blindly. It was all my fault, she thought. My fault. I did this.
Unseeing, she stepped off the ledge. She spun slowly as she fell through the humid darkness, so wracked with grief that she made no attempt to save herself. A low keen escaped her. It was all my fault, she thought. I killed my beautiful eggs, my children.
The dragon hit the ground and several stalagmites hard, forever releasing her from the guilt and pain.
Chapter 2
Hemday, Duody 3, 1873
Early Morning
“What’s the matter, runt? Feeling a little tired? Get up!”
Aeron, nearly tangled in the sheet and blanket, was able to roll off his cot just in time to avoid the kick from Jessip. And so another day begins, he blearily thought to himself. Laughter from a few of the other boys in the bunk room, some because Jessip had missed, some because he had almost landed, helped clear the last of the sleepy fog from his mind.
He glared at Jessip, who had already finished getting his own cot in order and was heading for the door, a fresh change of clothes over his shoulder. Jessip’s short brick-red hair was mussed from sleep, flattened on one side.
“You’re getting faster, runt,” he called back. His friends laughed along with him as they headed out the door of the bunk room on their way to the baths.
Aeron made a face and stuck his tongue out at the empty doorway before starting to make his cot. It wasn’t so bad, he thought, being the youngest boy in the dorm. Or the shortest, he added glumly. It was just . . . Jessip. Jessip was seventeen years old, older than Aeron by three years, and at six feet tall, he was taller by almost half a foot. More importantly, Jessip outweighed Aeron by three stone or more.
I’m not the only one Jessip picks on, Aeron reminded himself. Jessip picked on almost all the younger boys. But Jessip did seem to take special care to pick on him the most. And even though Jessip would be out of the dorms one way or another once he reached eighteen years of age, that day couldn’t come soon enough for Aeron.
“Maybe you’re right,” Willem said from behind him. “Maybe he picks on you because he’s bigger than you and figures you can’t hurt him. You might have to stand up to him at some point or do something to him.”
Aeron turned and saw Willem over on his cot, lying on his side, propped up on his elbow. Aeron sighed.
“Maybe,” he said as he looked back at the doorway, where Jessip had gone. “I just don’t know whether I’m ready . . . well, whether I can do something like that or not.” He shook his head and turned back to Willem. “Why do you think he picks on people?”
“Probably because he can.” That didn’t feel a satisfactory answer, even to Willem. He squinted an eye as he thought about it. “Maybe he lords it over others because he’s low born, and that’s the only way to feel good about himself. I dunno.” Willem shrugged.
“Yeah, well, we’re all low born here, except for Lord Baronel and his family, and we’re not all bullies.” Aeron sighed again and turned back to finishing his cot.
When he was done, he gave the top blanket one final swipe to smooth the last wrinkle before opening his footlocker. He grabbed a new pair of smallclothes and pants along with a new shirt and tunic from within. He looked at them critically. The dormitory uniforms at Caer Baronel, white shirt with gray pants and a gray tunic trimmed in black, were similar, though of different colors, to those he remembered from Caer Iron. The uniforms were serviceable, but everyone in the dorms was required to wear them during the day. They wore them in the evening too, if that was all they had, though usually not the short tunic. He’d be happy when he could afford to buy his own clothing, when he co
uld be different, at least in the evening. That wouldn’t be for a while, however.
He turned to Willem. “Do you think they’re almost done in the bath yet?”
“They should be,” Willem replied, yawning. He had yet to start with his own cot. “From the normal smell of them they don’t do a very good job of it and have probably already headed off to breakfast.” Willem smiled at Aeron.
“Ha ha! I hope so. I hate trying to bathe with those idiots bothering me.” He headed out the door and down the hall to the baths.
The Dormitory Hall was where children in the Caer who had reached their fourteenth year lived, other than Lord Baronel’s children, while they worked toward selecting a craft. One dormitory building was for the boys and one for the girls. The two dormitories were set on each side of the Caer’s Bath Hall, the tub room of which was divided by a wall down the middle, one side for the men and boys of the Caer and one for the women and girls.
The Bath Hall was a marvel in Aeron’s mind, in and of itself. He had watched as the final construction of the hall was completed last year. There were two large water tanks on the roof of the building, fed by pipes from the Caer’s giant water tanks at the Water Hall. One of the Bath Hall tanks was magicked to keep the water inside hot, the other to keep the water cool, but not freezing. Water from the hot and cold tanks was fed into the Bath Hall and the dormitories via a piping system. All very convenient and quite extraordinary to Aeron.
As he was walking, he saw one of Jessip’s friends heading his direction down the hallway. Aeron kept his expression calm and continued along, ignoring him. The other boy had a scowl on his face and didn’t even look at Aeron as they passed each other. Aeron mentally breathed a sigh of relief as he walked on.
When he got to the doorway of the Bath Hall, he paused. He hoped Willem was right about the rest of them already being gone. Whether he could take more ribbing in the Bath Hall he wasn’t sure, but he was sure it would happen if Jessip was still inside. As he stood there, he noticed the lightglobe in the sconce outside the doorway was dim. He looked back down the hallway toward the boys’ dorm, then down the other direction toward the girls’. It was the only lightglobe that had started to dim. He reached up on his tiptoes and carefully spun the fist-sized glass globe in its bronze sconce. The movement made the extract inside swirl with iridescence and fluctuating intensity. He loved the way it looked: magic in a bottle.
Well, I’m not going to be able to stand here all day, he thought. So, he took a breath and strode inside. He passed through the front room where the sinks, vanities, and mirrors were located, as well as primary storage for various bath linens. Aeron gave a passing wave to Merril, who was the attendant this morning, and saw that he had gotten a haircut recently. His gray hair was trimmed quite neatly. Merril acknowledged the wave with an easy smile and a nod.
Aeron headed through the right inner door and found to his great relief that Willem had been correct. Neither Jessip nor his friends were in the room. There were only two other boys and an elderly gentleman taking their morning baths. He grabbed a towel from the shelves just inside the door and made his way to an available tub. He placed all his things on the wooden bench next to the tub, then removed the items from his night clothes pockets, and placed them in the pockets of his fresh pants. He ran the water until it was toasty warm, the way he liked it, disrobed, and climbed slowly into the water.
Ah, he thought as he lay back into the tub, this was the stuff. A nice hot bath was another practical example of the beneficial uses of magic, and he loved it. But he didn’t want to be late for breakfast or his chores, so he only took a moment more to enjoy himself before he grabbed a bar of soap and got to it.
Once he had finished, he drained the tub, toweled off, and got dressed. He then took extra time and great care to dry his hair as well as he could. With autumn nearly done and winter approaching, the morning air was getting colder, and he didn’t want his head to freeze from his hair being unduly wet as he walked about the Caer.
“Don’t rub too hard, or you’ll wear off your hair!” Willem said. He had just walked in, a smile on his face.
Aeron turned, towel still on his head, and smiled back at his friend. “Ha! At least then it would take no time at all to dry off afterward,” he said. Willem chuckled and started getting ready for his own bath in the next tub over.
Aeron completed another long vigorous rub with the towel, tossed it and his dirty clothes into one of the baskets for the purpose located around the room, and waved goodbye to Willem as he made his way back to the front room. Willem waved back as he sank into the water for his own soak.
Aeron stopped in the front room at one of the mirrors, looked at his reflection a moment, and sighed. A gangly boy with crazy-unruly brown hair looked back at him. He rubbed his nose as he stared at himself, trying to decide what to do about his hair. A couple of girls laughed about something as they sat at mirrors on the other side of the room. The room was shared between men and women, though boys tended to use the right side of the room, and girls the left. He glanced over at the whispering girls. They were quietly talking about something and giggling as they brushed their hair.
“Girls!” he muttered to himself. He looked back at his reflection and his own hair and frowned. He ran his fingers through the slightly damp hair, trying to get it under control. After a minute of wrestling with it, he gave up. “It’ll have to do,” he said and started to brush his teeth. Afterward, he made a stop at the toilets, washed up, and headed off to breakfast.
Outside it was still dark, dawn at least half an hour away, with only the predawn light adding its illumination to that of the street lamps. And sure enough, the air was chilly. He made his way quickly past the Water Hall, which housed the laundry as well as the huge main water tanks, filled from deep underground. Beyond was the courtyard. Though mostly lit on the perimeter by the steady downward beams of light from street lamps and their oversized lightglobes, several fire pits around the courtyard also cast their flickering light on its large flagstones. Once he made his way across the courtyard, he ducked into the Dining Hall with a small shiver.
His heart sank. Jessip and his friends were still in the hall having breakfast. They were sitting on the south side of the hall at one of the lower tables. He clenched his teeth and walked along the west and north end of the hall toward the serving area, keeping as far away from Jessip as possible.
“Aeron! How are yeh this morning?” Mallory asked. She was one of the culinary adepts who worked at the Dining Hall. He could see a curl of her black hair peeking out from under her serving hat. She always seemed to have a kind word for him, for which he was grateful. But even her happy greeting wasn’t enough to lift him from his mood. Jessip’s mere presence was enough to make him sullen.
At the left end of the serving bar was a stack of carry trays. He grabbed one from the stack and walked along the front. “I was doing better a few minutes ago,” he replied glumly. “What’s on the menu for this morning?”
She said, “I’m surprised yeh didn’t notice. We’ve got yer favorite this morning. Breakfast pies!”
“Really?” he asked. Jessip momentarily forgotten, excitement lit up his eyes as he quickly searched for and then located the aforementioned, heavenly pies. “Oh, please,” he said as he looked at her, entreaty in his eyes, “a nice thick slice, if you would?” He absolutely loved the cheese and mushrooms that traditionally were part of the pie.
Smiling, she cut a rather thick wedge of breakfast pie and put it on a small plate, which she then placed on his tray. “What else for yeh, then?”
“Hmm. A nice bowl of porridge, if you please. And some bacon, too! Oh! And a biscuit. And some butter. And, uh, some juice would round it out nicely,” he said, a large smile on his face.
Laughing, she placed all the items on his tray and said, “There yeh go scamp. Now off with yeh. Don’t want to be late for yer craft chores!”
Smiling hugely, he thanked her and headed to the lower tables. The l
ower tables, of which there were quite a few, were for people, youths mostly, who had either not chosen a profession yet due to age, as was the case with him, or who were not yet journeymen in their trade. Once you reached journeyman level, you could sit at the journeyman tables, and once you reached adept, you could sit at the adept tables. And then there was the head table for masters, Lord Baronel and his family, and guests of the Caer. Of course, families usually sat together at whatever tables the parents had rank for. Neither Aeron nor his friends had family at Caer Baronel, so they usually all sat together.
Aeron made his way to a table as far away as possible from Jessip, who actually appeared to be finished, as he and his friends rose and sauntered out the door. Typical, Aeron thought as he sat down. Jessip and his friends did not bus their trays or dishes.
Breakfast pie! Aeron shoved a huge forkful into his mouth. So warm, delicious, and moist! The crust was perfectly flaky and buttery, and the egg, mushrooms, cheese, and other tasty ingredients were cooked perfectly. He spread a large dab of butter on his biscuit, took a bite, then ate a spoonful of porridge. He loved the hint of spice, the cinnamon, they put in the porridge. He took a bite of bacon, and then loaded up his fork with more breakfast pie and ate it gleefully.
“Someone’s hungry this morning,” Sharrah said with half a smile as she walked up and placed her tray next to his. Her long wavy hair, which framed her face in a chocolate-brown halo, bounced as she sat down. Sharrah was Aeron’s other good friend. Her dark, shiny hair and the gray of the uniform complemented her fair skin rather nicely.
“Mmmph!” Aeron replied around his full mouth, happy to see one of his friends. He swallowed quickly, took a drink of his juice, and said, “Good morning, Sharrah!”
“Good morning to you, too,” she said, a full smile on her face now. “It won’t stay good for very long, however, if you choke to death. You might want to slow down.”
“But . . . it’s breakfast pie!” he explained, gesturing with his fork to the now smaller wedge on his plate.
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