Dragon Weather

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  In his last glimpse of Sweet’s face he had thought she looked somehow disappointed, but he couldn’t think why she would be—perhaps she’d noticed some flaw in his appearance? He didn’t dare take the time to think about it, though; he wanted to get safely into hiding in the attic.

  He had left Rose’s door open; now he strode briskly in, closed it behind him, climbed up on the chair, and lifted the attic trap.

  A jump, and his elbows caught the edges of the opening; then he hauled himself up, trying not to kick anything as he did. At last he tumbled into the attic.

  It was dark, and much cooler than the room below, but still nowhere near as cold as the outside world. Immense beams ran across it, dividing it into bands; he lowered himself carefully into one of these troughs and found himself on rough planking. He could see nothing of what he sat upon, as the faint light that leaked up through the open trap did not reach that far, but a brief exploration with his hands found what seemed to be solid wood—and also a band of stone, presumably the top of the wall between Rose’s room and the corridor.

  “Close it!” Rose called.

  Arlian started, then hastened to obey, lowering the trapdoor back into place, closing himself in and shutting out the light.

  That done, he sat alone in cool, silent darkness.

  He feared that his concealment might not be perfect; if he stepped on the wrong board it might sag visibly below, or even break, sending him tumbling through someone’s ceiling. The beams, wide as they were, were not so wide that he could lie down upon one to sleep. Accordingly, he settled onto that band of stone, bracing himself against the beams on either side. He lay there, intending to review his situation and make plans for the future.

  But then, despite the cold and the dark and his awkward position, exhaustion overcame him and he fell asleep.

  12

  Decisions

  Arlian awoke in utter darkness, and for a moment thought he was back in the mines, that his escape had all been a dream. Then he shivered with the cold, and knew he was outside—the mines were never so chilly. He reached out and touched wood instead of stone, the rough wood of a heavy beam, and remembered where he was. He raised a hand to his head and felt his neatly cut hair, then stroked his short-trimmed beard.

  The events of the previous night had been real, then. He was hidden in the attic of a whorehouse.

  He winced at the word, one he had learned in the mines; it was so harsh! And he couldn’t bring himself to think of Sweet or Rose as “whores.” It was unquestionably an accurate description, but it simply didn’t seem right. Sweet’s own word, “brothel,” was not much better.

  He sat up, and found that the windowless attic’s darkness was not absolute; faint sunlight seeped in through the eaves, enough to make out dimly the massive beams, the sloping rafters overhead—and not much else.

  He couldn’t guess at the time; the trace of light was far too diffuse to show him the sun’s angle. He hesitated, trying to think what he should do.

  He was hungry—hungry and thirsty—but where could he find food or water? He frowned.

  Food could wait, he told himself, but he needed water soon.

  And a chamberpot or privy would be welcome, too. He didn’t dare simply use a corner of the attic; it might seep through, and even if no one found that suspicious it might send someone up for a look at the roof.

  He could scarcely just open the trap and drop down, though; what if Rose were with a customer?

  He clambered cautiously over the intervening beam, knelt, ran his fingers along the boards until he found the edges of the trap door, then put his ear to the wood and listened.

  He heard voices—one he thought was Rose, but he didn’t recognize the other.

  Whoever it was, Arlian knew he would have to wait. He sighed and sat up on the beam.

  He remembered that before going to sleep he had intended to make some plans, but had dozed off; well, now he was awake, and not going anywhere. It was time to give some serious thought to his future.

  He was free of the mines; if the women carried through on their plans to dress him, once his disguise was complete no one would ever recognize elegant young Triv as the escaped slave Arlian. Escape, his first goal, was largely accomplished. He need merely cooperate with Sweet and Rose and avoid being spotted by the brothel’s guards or the dreaded Mistress, and he would be free to move on wherever he chose.

  Ensuring his continued survival had to be his next priority; he needed food and water, and some way to earn a living. He was a healthy young man, big and strong—surely he could find work.

  That would require some thought, though. Perhaps the women would have some useful suggestions.

  And his third goal was justice—vengeance for the murder of his family and the destruction of his village, vengeance for the looting of the ruins and his own enslavement.

  And the mine—was that just? Was it right that a score of men led such a miserable existence as that he had fled? Was it right that Lampspiller and Bloody Hand had power over them?

  His thoughtful frown deepened. There were undoubtedly many injustices in the world; he could scarcely hope to end them all.

  But surely, he had to do what he could. As he had told Bloody Hand, people could make their own justice, and he was obliged to at least try.

  Below him even now, he realized, was a massive injustice; what could Sweet or Rose or the others possibly have done to deserve being crippled? Did they really face the possibility of someday, when they ceased to be profitable, being murdered and fed to the dogs?

  That couldn’t be allowed. He would have to find some way to prevent it.

  But how? And how could he find the looters, or the dragons? How could he destroy the dragons? He was just a man—scarcely more than a boy. He knew little of the world; obsidian carvers and silver miners had no need to know of much beyond their own limited surroundings. He had no weapons, and no money; even his clothes weren’t fit to be seen on the streets.

  He had his little bag of keepsakes, but that was all—a few scraps of fabric, a crude necklace, and a handful of pretty stones. What sort of justice could that buy?

  Hathet’s stones … might they really be worth something, beyond the Borderlands in far-off Arithei?

  Was Hathet really even from Arithei? Did Arithei even exist?

  If it did and Hathet was genuinely Aritheian, Hathet might have family there, people who had been wondering all these years what had become of him. Perhaps they would appreciate word of their lost kin.

  Arlian swallowed, wishing his throat weren’t quite so dry—and that his bladder weren’t quite so full.

  He had intended to go to Manfort, in part to track down and confront Lord Dragon—for surely, even if Lord Dragon did not live in Manfort, most of the great lords and ladies did, and they might know who dared to use the name “Dragon.”

  Now, though, Arlian had second thoughts. He was just a youth, with no friends, no family, no funds—how could he hope to destroy a lord, a man who could casually buy and sell men and women? He remembered what that man had done to Sweet the night before, and how Sweet had not dared to resist or even speak, and how he had simply watched, not daring to act. He was not ready to fight such men. Perhaps he should go seeking Arithei to find Hathet’s family …

  Or perhaps he was afraid.

  He bit his lip. Was that it? Was this simply cowardice?

  All those years in the mines he had dreamed of the day when he would be free, and could confront Lord Dragon and strike him down. In the few days since his escape, though, he had learned a little more of the ways of the world, and of himself—he had not even dared confront ordinary farmers. Even now he was hiding in an attic, lest he be seen by mere guards.

  He had told himself that because right was on his side, in the long run he could not fail—but was that true? Perhaps justice must triumph in the end, as he very much wanted to believe despite all he had seen and heard, but need he live to see it? Had Fate, or the gods, told him
so?

  If he were to head to Manfort and march boldly into Lord Dragon’s home, did he really think that he would be able to kill Lord Dragon? Wasn’t it more likely that Dragon would run him through with the sword he carried? Or simply laugh, and call a dozen guards, who would deal with this intruder?

  And that assumed he could even find Lord Dragon’s front door.

  But his memory of the looters pawing through the wreckage of his home, the memory of being hauled to Deep Delving and sold as if he were a bolt of cloth, would not allow him to give up the idea. He must avenge himself somehow!

  He would need to work at it, to find some way other than simply walking in the front door.

  He needed to know more about Lord Dragon. He needed to know more about Manfort. He needed to know more about everything.

  And the women here might know a few things. They might know of Lord Dragon; he might even be a regular customer. He would, at the very least, want to ask them a few questions before he left and went on his way toward Manfort.

  And he might want more than that, if the women could provide it. There were many things he needed to learn about the outside world.

  Just then he heard a voice call, “Triv? Are you awake?”

  “Rose?” he called back quietly.

  “It’s clear!” Rose replied.

  Arlian hastened to dig his fingernails into the crack around the hatch and lift the trap open; then he lowered himself down until he hung from his hands, and let himself drop the last foot or two.

  Then he looked up at the black square, and hurriedly fetched the chair, climbed up on it, and slid the door back into place.

  Then he turned to Rose, who was sitting up in her bed, eating breakfast from a tray on the bedside table. The room was dim, lit only by what light filtered through the drawn curtains, but otherwise just as he remembered it. He stepped to the bedside.

  “Care to join me?” she asked.

  “In a moment,” he said; he felt along the side of the space under the bed with his toes, and found a chamberpot. Then he stood awkwardly for a moment, looking at Rose.

  She looked at his face, then down. Then she pointedly turned her back.

  “I won’t look,” she said.

  She didn’t, and a moment later, when the chamberpot was safely stowed away again, he was nibbling a sweet roll and drinking cider, sharing Rose’s cup.

  The food was excellent, but there wasn’t much of it. Rose noticed Arlian gazing hungrily at the empty plate and said, “They don’t want us to get fat; most of the customers like their women rounded, but not fat.”

  “Oh,” Arlian said.

  “We probably eat better than most slaves,” Rose said. “Maybe Sweet has more.”

  Arlian was at a loss for how to reply to this until Rose added, “Why don’t you go see? Careful going out in the hall, though—make sure no one’s collecting the trays yet.”

  Arlian nodded. He crossed to the door, opened it a crack, and peered out.

  The hallway appeared deserted. He slipped out, crept down the stairs and along the corridor to Sweet’s door, and knocked.

  “Come in!” she called.

  Like Rose, she had saved a portion of her breakfast for him; between bites he thanked her for her thoughtfulness.

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” she said, reaching up to pluck a cobweb from his hair. “Look at this! You’ve gone and messed up all our work. We’ll have to teach you to take better care of yourself!”

  “I’d like that,” he said. “Perhaps there are other things you can teach me, as well.”

  “I’m sure there are,” she said, putting her hand in his lap and leaning her face toward his; he started, scattering crumbs across the bedside table.

  She giggled, and slid her hand in the waistband of his breeches. “I told them I wasn’t feeling well,” she said. “Unless someone asks for me specifically and won’t take no for an answer, we should have at least an hour. And you’ve already mussed your hair.”

  Half an hour later, as they lay side by side on her bed, he remembered himself enough to ask, “Have you ever heard of someone named Lord Dragon?”

  “Not by that name,” she said, running a finger across his chest. “Why?”

  “I need to kill him,” Arlian told her.

  Sweet propped herself up on one elbow and stared at him. “Could you explain that, please?”

  Arlian explained; in fact, once he began talking he found it hard to stop, and he poured out everything—his happy childhood on Smoking Mountain, the long, hot months of dragon weather and their horrific end, his discovery by the looters, his years in the mine, his long conversations with Hathet, his rescue of Bloody Hand and the overseer’s repayment, his dreams of vengeance and justice.

  It took more than half an hour, but Sweet made no move to stop him; she listened intently to all of it.

  He ran through all of it, his life story to date, then began to fill in bits he had skimmed over at first. When he described lying trapped under Grandsir’s corpse, Sweet shuddered and asked, “You swallowed his blood?”

  “I choked on it,” Arlian answered.

  “Was there venom in it? They say dragon venom is powerful magic.”

  “What kind of magic?” he asked. For years, he had tried not to think about that horrible moment; now he suddenly tried to recall every detail.

  And he remembered what Grandsir had told him, that human blood and dragon venom were supposed to bestow long life. Did that mean that he could expect to live a century or more? Somehow, in seven years in the mines, he had never really given the matter much thought—time and age didn’t seem important down there in the dark.

  Sweet shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “We hear stories about dragons sometimes, though—some of the lords like to talk, and sometimes they talk about the dragons. They seem to admire them.” She shuddered again. “What does that say about them, that they admire monsters?”

  And what did it say about Lord Dragon, Arlian thought, that he had taken his very name from a monster?

  And what did it say about him that his face was so hideously scarred? That was no clean cut left by a sword stroke, nor the marks left by pox.

  “Have any of your customers here had a scarred right cheek?” he asked. Perhaps Sweet knew Lord Dragon by another name.

  She laughed, a high, sweet sound. “Oh, dozens of them are scarred!” she said. “At least one in ten, perhaps one in five. And the right cheek is as common a place as any.”

  “Oh,” Arlian said, disappointed and confused. Several of the men in his home village had been scarred, but most commonly on the hands or legs or chest, rather than the face.

  “I’m sorry I don’t know who your Lord Dragon is, Triv,” she said. “But we’ll fix you up, and teach you everything we can, so that when you go looking for him you’ll have a better chance.”

  “Thank you,” Arlian replied. “I wish there were some way I could repay you.”

  She waved that away. “Just knowing there’s someone out there trying to right some wrongs is enough for me,” she said.

  “I’ll do my best, then.” He sat up and looked at his clothes, lying bunched up at the foot of the bed. “What were you planning to do with those, wash them? I don’t know if those breeches will ever come clean…”

  “Those?” Sweet kicked at them with the stump of an ankle. “We’ll give those to the first beggar who asks, and make you some real clothes!”

  Arlian blinked, startled. “Make me clothes? Today?” It took more than a day to make a decent suit of clothes.

  She laughed. “No, not today, silly!”

  “But I thought I’d leave today or tonight…” Arlian began, puzzled.

  “Have you looked out a window?” Sweet asked, grinning.

  Arlian looked at her playful expression, then got up wordlessly and crossed to the window, where he pulled back the curtains to reveal a dim world of gray and white—gray skies, drifting white flakes, and white ground.

  He blin
ked and stared. “It’s snowing,” he said stupidly.

  “So Eahor told me,” she said. “When he brought my tray. I made him open the curtains so I could see.”

  “But I could still go,” Arlian said.

  “You’d freeze,” Sweet said. “And more importantly, you’d leave tracks, and tracks go both ways. You are not going to leave a trail back to my window, Lord Trivial! I’m in no hurry to meet those dogs Rose mentioned.”

  “You want me stay until the snow melts? But that might be days!”

  “It might be until spring,” Sweet said, smiling wickedly. “And that wouldn’t bother me at all.”

  Arlian turned to stare at her. “You think you can hide me here until spring?”

  “I think it will be fun to try!” Sweet told him.

  BOOK II

  Triv

  13

  Departure

  Arlian fluffed his pillow, settled down onto his bedding, then blew out his lamp. He groped for his coverlet in the dark, started to pull it up, then hesitated.

  The attic was warm tonight, almost uncomfortably so; he didn’t need the coverlet. He left it folded at his feet.

  He might never unfold it again. This was to be his last night here in the brothel’s attic. The snows had finally melted, and he had been planning his departure for several days now, discussing possible destinations with Sweet and Rose and the others—he had been introduced to all fourteen of the other whores in the House of Carnal Society, one by one, over the course of the winter, and all of them had heard his story and made suggestions about what he should do with himself after he left.

  After considering and discarding several other possibilities, from Arithei to the Eastern Isles, just about everyone had finally agreed that he should go to Manfort, at least at first. The great city was less than a full day’s travel to the east.

  Arlian intended to set out the next day and head in that direction.

  Sweet was still trying to talk him out of leaving so soon, claiming that footprints in the mud would be just as bad as footprints in the snow and that there was still too much he didn’t know, but Arlian was resolved; he couldn’t stay here, the pampered pet of a dozen or so whores, forever. He needed to make his own way in the world—and to avenge the injustices visited upon him and his family.