Voyage of the Basilisk : A Memoir by Lady Trent (9781429956369)

by Marie Brennan

  The mere mention of this topic made me want to beat my head against my desk. Only the knowledge that Frederick Kemble had been beating his head against something far less yielding for nearly a decade now restrained me. Tom and I had hired him to create a synthetic replacement for preserved dragonbone, so that human society might enjoy the benefits of that substance without having to slaughter dragons to obtain it. Kemble had re-created its chemical composition, but the airy lattice of its structure, which reduced the already-slight weight without sacrificing strength, had proven less tractable.

  Natalie was correct: the aeration process devised by M. Suderac might indeed help. I, however, could not abide the man—to the point where the mere thought of partnering with him for such a venture made me ill. He was a handsome Thiessois fellow, and clearly thought his good looks ought to earn him more than mere friendliness from me. After all, I was a widow, and if not as young as I had once been, I had not gathered so very much dust on the shelf yet. It was not marriage M. Suderac wanted from me; he had a wife, and even if he did not, I offered very little in the way of property to tempt him. He merely wanted unfettered access to my person. To say that I was disinclined to grant it to him is a howling understatement.

  And yet, if financial partnership would save the lives of countless dragons …

  The secret of preserving dragonbone was out in the world. That particular cat had escaped its bag before I went to Eriga, when thieves employed by the Marquess of Canlan broke into Kemble’s laboratory and stole his notes, and Canlan subsequently sold them to a Yelangese company, the Va Ren Shipping Association. The fellows there seemed to have kept a relatively tight lid on their information, for it had not become common knowledge yet, but I knew it was spreading. Which meant the need for a synthetic substitute was urgent.

  I weighed these factors, until my heart sat like lead in my chest. “I do not trust him,” I said at last to Natalie. “I cannot. He is the sort of man who sees a thing and wants it, and thinks that alone entitles him to have it. I truly would not put it past him to crack the problem at last, but then keep the results for his own profit. And while I might forego my own stake if it meant having the answer, I cannot allow Kemble and the others to be robbed in such fashion.”

  Natalie dropped her head against the back of the chair, staring in resignation at the ceiling. “Well, I tried. You are not wrong about Suderac, I think—but I do not know how else we will make it happen.”

  “Perhaps I should try hiring thieves. They could break in and steal the secrets of the aeration process.”

  “Thank God you’re about to get on board a ship,” Natalie said. “Otherwise, I think you might honestly follow through.”

  She exaggerated—but not by much. For the sake of dragons, there was very little I would not do.

  * * *

  The next morning’s post brought a number of letters, some of them from people who had not noticed that I was about to be gone from home for an extended period of time and would not have much chance to answer them. One, however, caught my eye.

  The handwriting on the outside of the envelope was unfamiliar to me. It was not merely that I did not recognize the hand; the entire style of it was strange, as if written by a foreigner. And yet it reminded me of something, but I could not say what.

  Curious, I slit the flap with my knife. The note inside was written on excellent paper, again in that strange hand. It was an invitation to join one Wademi n Oforiro Dara for lunch at the Salburn that day, if I was not already engaged.

  Now I knew what the handwriting had evoked. I was still in occasional contact with Galinke n Oforiro Dara, the half-sister of the oba of Bayembe. This man’s script showed traces of the same style, though in his case much fainter. From this I deduced that he was more accustomed to writing in Scirling than Galinke was.

  Oforiro Dara. He was of the same lineage as Galinke. A brother? No, I was fairly certain she had no brothers born to the same mother, and the Yembe inherit their lineage names through the maternal line. He might be anything from Galinke’s mother’s sister’s son to a far more distant cousin than that. But the connection was enough to make me dash off a quick acceptance and send it to the man’s hotel. My alternative plans for lunch involved a quick meal gulped down while packing; this promised to be far more interesting.

  In those days, I did not often dine at the Salburn—which is my polite way of saying that I could not really afford it. I minded very little; I have never been a gourmand. But it meant that Wademi n Oforiro Dara was either a wealthy man or well-funded by someone else, as lunch for two there was not a thing to undertake lightly.

  I had no difficulty spotting him in the lobby. He was Yembe and dark, and dressed after their fashion in a wrapped and folded cloth, though he made concession to Scirland’s cooler climate and stricter sense of propriety with a mantle over his upper body. The coloration was almost Scirling-sober, too: black and gold in a simple geometric pattern. He was already on his feet when I entered, and approached me immediately.

  We exchanged Yembe greetings, which served to show me just how badly my accent and grammar had deteriorated. When he shifted to my native tongue, I apologized to him for it. “I’m afraid my command of Yembe has atrophied terribly for lack of use—and it was not good to begin with. Galinke and I correspond in Scirling.”

  His own Scirling was accented but fluent. “You should come for a visit! I hear that you are about to set off on a journey. Will you be stopping in Bayembe?”

  “Would that I could go everywhere,” I said. “But I’m afraid that my research requires me to expand my knowledge in breadth, rather than depth. I must devote my time to new areas and new species.”

  This was true, but not the entire story. I could not tell this man about my conversation with a certain member of the Synedrion (who shall remain nameless, though he is dead now and cannot be harmed by the gossip), wherein he made it clear to me that the government would not look kindly on my ever returning to Bayembe. What precisely they feared, I cannot say; I only ever knew the one state secret about our affairs there, and it was long since out of the bag. But having thus erred once, I could not be trusted not to err again.

  To my surprise, Wademi and I did not dine in the main room. He had acquired one of the private rooms for us—perhaps because that way we attracted less attention, the Yembe man and the woman once accused of betraying her country for his. The mystery of how he could afford such a thing was soon cleared up, for it transpired that he was indeed the son of Galinke’s mother’s sister. Anyone so closely linked with the oba of Bayembe, even through a lesser wife, could easily purchase me and my entire household without so much as a blink.

  We passed the starter course with pleasantries, but after the main course arrived, I discovered that he had another reason for arranging this private room.

  “What have you heard of the dragons?” he asked, once the waiter was gone.

  “The dragons?” I echoed. My mind was so full of various draconic species that it took me longer than it should have to see his meaning. “Do you mean the ones the Moulish have given to Bayembe?”

  It was not that I had forgotten them. One does not easily forget about deals one has helped broker between two foreign peoples, especially when that assistance has caused one to be accused of treason. But my interest in dragons was biological, not political; the fact that there were now Moulish swamp-wyrms in Bayembe rivers was not at the forefront of my thoughts.

  Wademi nodded, and I spread my hands. “I have heard very little, really. Galinke mentioned that the eggs had been brought as promised, and then had hatched—I believe she said the total was somewhat poor, though. There were arrangements to make sure the fangfish were sufficiently fed. But nothing since then.” Which, now that I thought of it, was peculiar. Granted, the dragons in the rivers of Bayembe were intended as a defense for that country’s border, and as such might be a protected secret. But Galinke would know very well that I wanted to hear more of their progress, and could
have found some way to tell me something. Instead, her infrequent letters had diverted me with other matters.

  It seemed that she had indeed found a way to tell me something, and his name was Wademi n Oforiro Dara. “The situation has become … odd,” he said, “and we are hoping you can make sense of it.”

  This, of course, piqued my curiosity like nothing else. “What do you mean, ‘odd’?”

  He spoke slowly, in between bites of his food. I reminded myself to eat my own, though I fear the best efforts of the Salburn chefs were entirely wasted on me that day.

  Wademi said, “At first it was the eggs, which did not hatch in the quantities hoped. But the Moulish brought more the next year, so we have enough now. The fangfish ate one another, and those who survived grew—some of them. Many were runts. But even those which grew are not like the dragons in the swamp. They are more slender.”

  “Juveniles,” I said. “Have you asked the Moulish? They would know how long it takes to reach full maturation.”

  He shook his head. “They should be fully grown now. And their hide is different; their scales are more fine.”

  I could not stop myself from asking, “Are you certain it is not a skin condition?”

  By way of reply, he reached beneath his mantle and brought out a small box, which he laid on the table between us. When I opened it, a strong smell of formaldehyde marred the air. The box contained a scrap of skin, which I pinched gently between my fingernails and lifted for a better view.

  It was not a skin condition. I had often observed the rough, crocodilian hides of swamp-wyrms, and while they were vulnerable to disease, what illness would refine their integument? What I held in my hand was more like the skin of a fish.

  Or a savannah snake. “They cannot have bred with the dragons of Bayembe,” I said. Although some of that species ventured into the fringes of the Moulish jungle, they did not go far enough in to encounter swamp-wyrms. And even if they did—and succeeded in producing viable eggs—the Moulish would not have given those eggs to the oba. They had a very rigorous process for breeding their dragons, which involved taking the males of the swamp proper to the lake where the queens swam.

  My fingernails pinched tighter on the skin. The queens …

  I had not learned as much about swamp-wyrm biology as I would have liked. I knew that the Moulish took the eggs after their laying and distributed them about the swamp, and I knew that the different incubation of the eggs encouraged some to develop into queens, while the rest remained male. (At the time I suspected, but had not had a chance to prove, that some of the “males” were either neuter or infertile females. Neuter sex was known in other draconic types, and I had a sense that only some of the wyrms in the swamp were eligible to breed with the queens. But I had not gotten to examine enough dragons at sufficiently close range to be certain.)

  My head was awhirl with these thoughts and others, various theories and observations colliding in untidy ways. What emerged from the scrum was this: what if the transplantation of the eggs to the rivers of Bayembe had produced queens instead of males?

  My observations of the queen dragons had all been at quite a distance, so I was only speculating that their hides featured such fine, overlapping scales. It made sense, though. They swam in the turbulent waters of the lake below the Great Cataract, where they would benefit from a more streamlined surface.

  But if that were the case, why had the Moulish not said anything to the Yembe?

  Because they did not want the existence of the queens known. The oba would certainly try to trade for one, and if that failed, he might well try to take one by stealth or force. Or, if he learned enough of the incubation procedures, try to mimic them so that he might breed his own dragons, without needing to rely on the Moulish.

  Which left me in rather a pickle. If my theory could be correct, then I desperately wanted confirmation. Moreover, Wademi—and through him, Galinke and all her people, half-brother included—were looking to me for aid. But it would not very well repay my Moulish friends if I spilled a secret they were trying to keep.

  I laid the skin back in its box. “I am not certain what to say. It may be a response to the cleaner, fresher environment of the rivers; swamp water is very full of silt and organic matter, which I imagine is quite an irritant to the skin of the young dragons.” Certainly it had been an irritant to my own hide. “Do your dragons seem healthy?”

  “For the most part,” Wademi said.

  “I should like to know if they keep growing,” I said. “Some fishes change size according to their environment; it is possible that your dragons will grow larger than those in the swamp, because of the more open waters.” If they grew to more than four meters in length, that would tell me a great deal. The queens, from what I had seen of them, were much larger than the males.

  Wademi made the humming noise that, among the Yembe, stood in for the refusal it would be rude to state directly. I thought about our private room, and Galinke’s reticence in her letters. He had invited me to lunch so as to convey information they did not want committed to paper. (It did not occur to me until some months later that someone in Scirland might even be reading my mail. If they did not want me going to Bayembe, they might have an interest in the letters I sent to and received from there. To this day, I do not know if it was so.)

  My thoughts were not on such matters that day, but even then I knew it might be difficult to keep me informed. I sighed, saying, “It will be difficult to write to me regardless, as I shall be rather peripatetic for a while.”

  “But what of the dragons?”

  Even had I possessed the courage to defy that unnamed gentleman of the Synedrion, I could not change our itinerary now. Although there was room for diversion in it—as this account will demonstrate—we could not divert all the way to Bayembe, just so I could look in on the dragons in the rivers. “I’m afraid there is very little I can do from where I am, sir. If they are healthy, then surely that is enough.”

  He looked dissatisfied. Had I given the Yembe such a high opinion of my knowledge that they believed I could resolve this question over lunch in a distant country? Or had they expected me to come to their aid in person? If so, it pained me to disappoint them. But there was nothing for it: too many things prevented me from going.

  As a sop to Wademi, I said, “I anticipate a great expansion in my knowledge of dragons, thanks to this expedition. It is possible I will learn something of use to you.”

  Which, as it happened, was true—albeit in a roundabout way. But that was no comfort to him at the time, and so we both left our meeting in less than good spirits.

  TWO

  The RSS Basilisk—Her mad captain—Boys on ships—Our quarters—A question of migration

  This was my third time departing from Scirland, and by now the process was beginning to feel familiar. I had put my affairs in order and packed everything I anticipated needing to the point where I could not do without—as packing for shipboard life requires great thriftiness when it comes to volume. I had bid farewell to the family members with whom I was still on good terms, which is to say my father and my brother Andrew, and (less warmly) my brother-in-law Matthew Camherst. Leaving Natalie in Falchester, Tom, Abby, Jake, and I went down to Sennsmouth, where our vessel awaited the start of our great adventure.

  For the sake of the maritime enthusiasts among my readership, and also so that my story may be more clearly understood, I will take a moment to acquaint you with the Royal Survey Ship Basilisk, which was to be my home for most (though not quite all) of my voyage.

  It had, during the Nine Years’ War, been constructed as what they call a “brig sloop,” which is to say it had two masts, both of them rigged with square sails. Following the conclusion of the war, some enterprising shipwright transformed it into a bark by refitting it with a third or mizzen mast, lying astern of the first two, with a sail rigged fore and aft—for what reason, I am not sailor enough to say. The captain tried to explain the addition to me on more than one o
ccasion, but my head was full of dragons and other such matters, leaving not much room for the finer points of nautical engineering. (And nowadays, I fear, my memory is not what it once was. Whatever understanding I once had is long gone, as I did not see fit to record it in my journals.)

  She was a pretty thing, the Basilisk was, though perhaps my opinion is coloured by the memories of my experiences there—which, though not without their dark spots, are still on the whole pleasant. She had seen little action during the war, and therefore had taken little damage, so her railings and hull were bravely painted in white and green. Her measurements were seven or eight meters from one side to the other, and nearly thirty from stem to stern.

  This sounds impressive, and when I first approached the vessel, I indeed found her enormous. Of course, what is spacious when seen from the dock or on a first tour rapidly becomes much smaller when it is your entire world. Before the first month was out, I felt I knew every last inch of that boat, at least from the deck on down. The rigging I left to others, except when my observations could not be made without a higher vantage point.

  Her captain was Dione Aekinitos, and it takes some restraint on my part not to refer to him as “the mad Dione Aekinitos” every time I write his name. He certainly had that reputation before we came aboard, and did nothing to persuade me it was undeserved during my time there.

  At first he seemed perfectly ordinary. To begin with, he lacked both peg-leg and parrot, which certain childhood stories had convinced me were the necessary accoutrements of any dashing captain. He kept, or attempted to keep, his dark, curly hair confined in a tail at the nape of his neck, but strands were forever escaping to blow in the wind. How they did not drive him mad, I cannot say, for I was more than once minded to cut my own hair off entirely and save myself the irritation. (Though in the end, the choice was not mine to make.) He was tall enough that he could stand fully upright only in the open air—the interior of a ship being rather a cramped place—and he had both a laugh and a bellow that could and did carry from the stern to the very tip of the figurehead’s nose.