The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood

by J. Marshall Freeman

  Davix noticed Zent’r waving at him, a look of desperation in his eyes.

  “What is it?” he asked when he reached the young apprentice.

  The boy drew close, discreetly pointing up at one of the corner towers. “There! In the window.”

  Davix glanced up and saw a blue shawl hanging half out of the window, shifting in the evening breeze. He recognized it immediately as Tix-etnep-thon-dahé’s.

  “Quickly,” he said to the boy. They moved as fast as they could without drawing attention to themselves, pausing at the edge of the People’s assigned area. To reach the tower, they would have to cross an open space, under the watchful eye of many mixed beings.

  Davix had a cold premonition of tragedy. “Zent’r, I need you to go find someone from Health and Healing—Krenlin-etnep-bor-dahé if he’s available—and bring him to the tower.” The boy slipped away through the crowd. Davix tried to get his nerve up to run, but fear held him like the teeth of a bear. He had been through too much already. All he wanted was to lie down and mourn. But he was certain his master needed him, so he ran.

  He reached the tower door and, finding it unlocked, raced up the stairs, even as a voice behind him called, “Stop!”

  Tix-etnep-thon-dahé was lying on the cold stones of a dusty storeroom at the top of the tower. Above him was the window where his shawl had caught on a hook. His cane lay halfway across the floor, where it must have rolled when he fell. Davix cried out, thinking he was dead, but then the cloudy eyes opened—one more than the other—and the old man reached out a faltering hand in Davix’s direction.

  “Master, thank the Dragon Lords you are all right.”

  But he wasn’t. His eyes roamed wildly, and his speech was a garble of incoherent vowels. Mixed beings arrived at the window and door, surveying the scene with cool curiosity. Davix stood between them and Tix-etnep-thon-dahé. He would defend his master to the death if necessary. But a minute later, the Master of Health and Healing arrived with another physician. He pushed brusquely past the mixed beings in the door.

  “He has had a stroke,” Krenlin-etnep-bor-dahé said after a cursory examination. And then to his colleague, “If you have redstones in your kit, bind two at his left temple.”

  Davix had no more shock or tears left. Only anger kept him moving. He kneeled again by his master. Tix-etnep-thon-dahé lifted his left hand, the fingers splayed, and waved it up and down, as if he was greeting an old friend seen at a distance.

  “Master, rest now, please.”

  But the hand kept waving, the old man moaning, “Ahh, ahhh.”

  Chapter 39: Translator

  I have no clever jokes or quips to make about those hours in the talons of the Air dragon. They were too awful and terrifying and their memory will forever haunt me. So, all right? No smart-ass Crispin lines.

  Okay, if you insist.

  I would say that having flown first class from the Chend’th’nif to Cliffside on Sur Airlines, I was returning like a stowaway squeezed into a golf bag, freezing and faint in the hold of the plane.

  I was numb with shock and cold during most of the flight, but woke out of my stupor to scream as we descended like a meteor, my ears and stomach squeezed in misery. The dragon released me without warning, and I rolled across the hard ground, scratched and bruised by the rocks under me. The howling wind that accompanied the creature suddenly quieted, and I turned over to see it flying off again. Good fucking riddance.

  I sat up fast, taking in the scene around me. A camp had been set up on a rocky plateau at the base of a mountain with tents and lean-tos, a cooking area, and racks of tools and weapons. I saw half a dozen octonas and quadranas, and a few of those nasty cat soldiers. I was the only human. But the most prominent feature of this one-star holiday camp was the fire pit at the far end of the compound—a volcanic trench which roared like a jet engine and spewed smoke and fire.

  As cold as it had been in the air, I was quickly baking in the dry heat. The glow from the pit was intense enough to obscure the stars above, and I had to remind myself it was still the middle of the night. Above us, I could see the strands. I’m usually slow on the uptake, but I quickly realized these were not the strands back to Earth. These strands connected the Realm of Fire with the Realm of Air.

  In all the noise and confusion, I didn’t notice the calico cat soldier until it was looming over me, sniffing at my scent, raising a big clawed paw. All the carnage I’d just seen at Cliffside replayed in my mind. I shrieked and wrapped my hands over my head, but the cat only snarled and gave me a kick in the ribs. I think it was making sure I knew my place in the social order.

  My shriek must have attracted more attention. Two octonas walked my way.

  “Look, the mighty Dragon Lord has brought us the Dragon Groom,” said one.

  “An important prize indeed.”

  They were looking at me like I was a slice of beef on the butcher’s counter.

  “Help,” I said, “cats from the Realm of Air attacked Cliffside. An Air dragon carried me here!” But nothing made sense. They saw the cats, so they had to have seen the dragon. One of them turned toward a big tent, decorated with purple banners and gold tinsel, the only thing in the whole camp that could be described as pretty.

  “Farkol-dahé!” the octona called, and out of the tent stepped the fashion forward quadrana I’d last seen running the Sarensikar dance contest. He wore long yellow robes and an ornate war helmet with three big feathers sticking up from it.

  “Why do you disturb my wise deliberations?” he asked.

  “We have an important prisoner, honoured one. The Dragon Groom.”

  Farkol clapped his hands together like a thrilled toddler. “Excellent. Put him in the cage, and we will decide how he may be of use.”

  Panic seized me by the throat. “What? You’re supposed to be our friends. What about—”

  The octonas didn’t wait for me to finish. They each grabbed one of my arms, dragged me across the compound, and tossed me into a cage.

  “Hey,” I shouted, trying to hide my terror. “Let me go! I’m friends with Great Sur!” But clearly, they didn’t give a frog’s ass.

  Did I call my room in Etnep House a cage? Is that the word I used? I’m not sure, but if I did, I was begging karma for a kick in the pants, because this was the real deal. It was made of discarded bits of rough lumber and twisted lengths of rusted wire. One crumbling brick wall was a leftover from some previous building. Some of the bars were actual bones, long bones like from the thighs of a cow, white except for blackened bits of gristle at the joints. And as the octonas closed the big, ugly metal lock and walked away, I shook the bars and screamed at them, but I could hardly hear myself over the noise of the fire pit. Sweat dripped down my forehead and stung my eyes, and when I wiped them with my sleeve, I saw a face glaring at me from the shadows to the side of the cage. It was a tortoiseshell cat, a savage scar running from below one eye and across its cheek.

  The cat reached into the cage and grabbed my arm. His mouth stank of foul meat, and I could feel the tips of his claws pierce my skin.

  “Human of copper blood,” it hissed. “Stop your useless howling.”

  I screamed some more and broke loose from its grip, falling down and curling into a ball. Maybe I scared the cat away, because it didn’t speak again. I cowered on the ground, drenched in sweat from the heat of the pit which roared and roared until I wanted to stuff my ears full of stones. After moaning in a delirium for God knows how long, I begged the universe to let me escape into sleep. I imagined Davix curled up next to me, stroking my hair and telling me we would be together again, and eventually I passed out. But when I woke up crying later in the night, I thought about my mom, not Davix. Maybe my sweaty, fractured sleep reminded me of when I was a little kid, sick with a fever. She would sit at the edge of my bed, laying cool cloths on my head and singing softly. It was the only time I ever remember her singing.

  I slept again, not waking until the sun was up, though it was hard to tell.
Thick fog mixed with black smoke from the fire pit darkened the sky. The glowing pit was the major source of light. One small mercy was the pit was not as loud this morning. I watched the camp waking up. An octona was doling out food from a big pot to the mixed beings and the cats. Eating would have been terrific, but what I desperately needed was a drink. Dehydration was giving me a headache.

  “Good morning, Copper Blood,” said a voice above me. I looked up and saw the tortoiseshell cat sitting on top of my cage. “I am Translator. We talked when you arrived last night.”

  My heart started pounding, but I was damned if I was going to cower again. “You better let me go. I’m an important person, and they’re going to come and rescue me. Defence of Realm. Or the mixed beings. Or Sur.”

  The cat jumped to the ground, landing almost silently. He was dressed in brown leather, his feet were bare, and he wore a cloth backpack. The tortoiseshell fur made his face into a chaotic map with no place to put your focus other than the red-rimmed eyes or the shining fangs that showed when he spoke.

  “You are stupid, human. Your mixed beings have aligned with conquerors from the Realm of Air. The dragons of Fire sit in ignorance in their mountain, placidly awaiting their deaths.” I was stunned into silence. The cat reached toward me with a bulging waterskin. “Drink?”

  Much as I hated to cooperate in any way, I grabbed the waterskin and practically drained it in one swallow. Handing it back, I couldn’t help saying, “Thanks, Translator.”

  “You are welcome. Would you like to eat, too?” He uncovered a dish, and the smell of stew hit my nostrils, making my stomach sing a little ballad.

  “Yeah, for sure.”

  “Well, then, you have to help me.” Translator pulled a fat, leather-bound book from his backpack. “This is a dictionary I have compiled myself. Tongue of Air to Tongue of Fire.” He stroked the cover tenderly with the pads of his hand. “I have little opportunity to speak to anyone in the Tongue of Fire. You could help me confirm some pronunciations.”

  “And if I do, you’ll give me the food?” He pushed the bowl through the bars, and I grabbed it, scooping up chunks of meat with my fingers before bringing the bowl to my lips to lap up the greasy broth. Under other circumstances, I don’t think I could have choked this mess down, but beggars can’t be restaurant critics. “Uh, did they give you any bread with the soup?”

  He handed me the end of a dark loaf from a side pocket of his backpack, and I wiped the bowl with it. The world, while still bleak, didn’t seem quite as hopeless.

  “Finished?” the cat asked, turning his dictionary so I could see it. It was open to a page with three columns of neatly penned words. “Now, Copper Blood, say each word slowly and clearly for me, so I may verify my pronunciation. And don’t touch the pages with your filthy fingers.”

  Before I could say anything, another cat soldier passed by with dramatic black-and-white fur and a crest on its head, like a mohawk. It hissed something at Translator and pushed him up against the bars of the cage. Translator hissed back, but I had the impression he was scared. When the black-and-white raised its claws like it was going to give him a smack, Translator mewed and raised his arms to protect his scarred face. The black-and-white swaggered away, making little grunts of satisfaction.

  Not that Translator was my friend or anything, but I knew bullying when I saw it.

  “You okay?” I asked him.

  He hissed at me, his pink tongue lolling like Japanese tentacle porn. “I don’t need human sympathy. I am a cat warrior of Air.”

  “Whatever,” I muttered. “Look, I can’t help with your dictionary. I only speak Tongue of Fire. I can’t read it.”

  He shot me a fierce, carnivorous glare. “Then what use are you?”

  “It’s not my fault! Why don’t we just talk? You probably don’t get much chance, right?”

  He growled low. “Agreed.”

  “Wait, what about that other cat at Cliffside? The brindle one? He speaks Tongue of Fire. Well, sort of.”

  “Exactly. He has no grasp of the idiomatic language. He speaks word-for-word translation, and with only the most rudimentary vocabulary. I should have been sent to the city in his place.” Apparently, I had uncovered a sore spot.

  “So, why weren’t you?”

  “They think because I am a scholar, I am no warrior. But I am a cat soldier of Air, same as he!” Translator puffed out his chest and roared in my face.

  “Hey, you have me convinced,” I assured him, my heart racing. “How many cats came over the Strands?”

  “Twenty-nine. Though there are only four at this camp.” He glanced around, his bravado suddenly not so brave. “But I should not tell you strategic information.”

  He handed me back the waterskin, and I drank the last of it.

  “Then let’s just talk everyday stuff,” I said. “What’s your real name?”

  “Only my family calls me by my given name. You will call me Translator.”

  “Oh, okay. I’m Crispin, not that anyone on this world ever gets it right.”

  “Kras-pa-han,” the cat said with a nod like he had nailed it. I sighed.

  “So, you’re from the Realm of Air. Nice place?”

  He looked up into the sky, like he could see his world floating there. Now it was his turn to sigh. “Air is a world of impressions. We move through the coloured mist, finding our way by scent and feel. The wind makes the mist dance, and in those cyclonic movements, tales are told.” The cat clearly had the soul of a poet under his motley hair and scars.

  “Are there trees?” I asked. With all the violence and fear I’d been living through, making small talk was a relief.

  “Yes. Majestic evergreens, whose tops pierce the mist and bring us news of the sky.”

  “I love forests. It sounds like a beautiful place.”

  “Indeed. But how much more beautiful it would be were we allowed to sleep every night in our lairs with our spouses and our kits. By hand have I written a modest but wide-ranging library, and as each of my children grows to cognizance, I read with them the histories and the fancies. But not every kit has received my tutelage. All too often, I am called away from home to translate, sometimes for more than a cycle.” He brought his face closer to the bars and whispered, “Kras-pa-han, you do not know. Air is a land without mercy. Our only value is how we may serve the twenty-two dragons and their obsessive quest to rule all of Realm Space. If they intend to bring you there…”

  This awful possibility hadn’t occurred to me. “Let’s talk about something else,” I said quickly. “Do you sing songs in the Realm of Air?”

  “Oh yes, songs martial or songs romantic. Farces and roundelay japes. Perhaps that is what keeps us from going mad. Here, I shall sing you a song about an aerialist named Aaaf-thal-asoff Softhal-mas.”

  The song, which he sang in a surprisingly sweet voice, got faster and faster as it went. I think it was basically a joke song, made up of crazy tongue twisters. At one point, it got so fast and complex, my eyes widened. Translator finally messed up and started laughing. The difference in his personality now that he was talking about things that mattered to him was a shock. I realized how lonely he must be.

  A quadrana showed up out of nowhere and prodded Translator with his spear handle. “At attention. Farkol-dahé comes, requiring your services.”

  As we awaited the boss’s arrival, our good mood grew dark again.

  “Translator?” I asked.

  “What is it, human?”

  “I was wondering, am I the first prisoner you’ve had in this cage?”

  “No, there was another. A ranger named Twis’wit.”

  Great. I knew how his story had ended.

  The big, glam quadrana emerged from his tent and crossed the compound to us, surrounded by a retinue of mixed beings. Today’s outfit featured lots of mauve, and he was leading a pet deer on a silver leash.

  “You are well, Dragon Groom?” Farkol asked. Every other quadrana I’d met spoke in a flat voice, just this sid
e of bored, but Farkol’s ranged up and down like he was performing Shakespeare. “I trust the accommodations, though simple, suffice.” He gestured at the cage like he was a spokesmodel showing off a designer kitchen.

  “Sure. It’s a terrific holiday resort you have here. I’d love a bubble tea, if the kitchen’s still open.” I realized I was angrier now than scared. “Oh, and congrats on the ‘dahé.’ I thought only dragons could give you that.”

  He let out a high, fake laugh and explained to his retinue, “The humour of the Realm of Earth is most subtle and particular.” He laughed again, like a barking Chihuahua. His pet deer, I noticed, kept big, wary eyes on Translator. The cats must have been drooling over this tasty meal.

  “Seriously, Farkol-dahé,” I said, giving him his title as well as a head and heart bow. “Why don’t you let me out of the cage?”

  “The cage is for your protection, Dragon Groom,” he answered in his sing-song voice. “If you were to escape, you could only die trying to scale the cliffs into the Chend’th’nif or by running into the Badlands, where the arid heat and burning ground would kill you before the sun had set. Your safety is important to us.”

  “Oh, gee, thanks a lot then,” I muttered. Still, it was good to hear I was being kept alive, which was more than Twis’wit got. Why bother kidnapping me if they were just going to kill me, right? Maybe I was going to be ransomed. What would the dragons of Farad’hil pay to keep my copper blood safe?

  The air was torn by a long, grinding screech louder than the sound of the fire pit, and the dragon of Air came in for a landing on a rocky ledge above us. Its swirling skin of tornados thinned to a writhing mist and what was left over looked bony and disgusting. The deer tried to bolt, but Farkol held the leash tight.

  “Well, Translator?” the quadrana said, and I realized the dragon’s screech had actually been, you know, words.