“Damn. Invisible?” Parlan grunted. “Whether you can see ’em or not, though, it’s still a terrible way to go.”
Tobin tried not to recall those memories. “At least High Lady Hasana has the dragon guild patrolling at night to catch those damn things, now.”
Parlan nodded. “Yeah. They’ve caught a few, too.” He glanced around the stage a moment and then frowned. “Wherever he is, Mack said he saw one that a dragon and its rider killed.” Parlan leaned back on his elbows. “Said it was the ugliest thing he’d ever seen aside from his mother-in-law.”
A chuckle escaped Tobin’s lips despite his somber mood. “Just how hideous are they?”
Parlan laughed. “Right? I have no idea, though. Haven’t seen one myself.”
Something the man said finally registered. Tobin drew his brows together. “What kind of questions did Astin have?”
“Hmm. A lot were about the work a stage hand does, but he was also curious about the different jobs here. Maintenance types, mostly. The thermal conditioners and their air ducts were of particular interest, but so were the loading docks, and even the plumbing seemed to fascinate him.”
Cadoc had asked Tobin to get his brother part-time work at the performance theater. The excuse he’d been given was that it would allow Astin to learn the place and become a familiar face. If something befell Tobin, his brother could take over his final part of the plan.
“Astin also asked a lot of questions about the storm tunnel access door in one of the storage rooms.” Parlan chuckled. “He thought it was interesting in a creepy, ghost fancy way. I told him that this building is new, and despite the appearance of the cellars, the padlocked hatch didn’t lead down to catacombs or anything, just to the storm drainage tunnels.”
“I see.” Tobin looked back out at the house seats.
Maintenance workers were involved with everything Astin had inquired about, true. But that he’d asked about these things made Tobin uneasy for some reason. When not with Preeti, Astin’s time was taken up with working at the shipping company and for Lord Koen, so why ask about a job he couldn’t take? And what was this about storm tunnels? Tobin had never even heard of them, but mayhap that was because he was an usher and he didn’t venture down there very often. That aside, Astin had always been somewhat fearful of anything related to death—graveyards, ghosts, skeletons and the like, so why would he be curious about something that might lead to burial chambers? So much didn’t make sense.
“Okay!” The crew boss had returned. “Let’s get started on the other bust.”
Tobin stood and scowled at the enormous head, twin to the one they’d already packed up. He’d think on Astin’s questions later. Right now he had to get on that guyline.
+ + + + +
“I’ll be damned.”
Master Gella looked up from the file and stretched her back. Sitting over documents in these little record rooms was getting to be much too familiar. “What did you find?”
Dima looked up from the form he was reading. “I think the kid was on to something.”
“What kid?”
“Fillion.”
Master Gella lifted a brow and chuckled. “You’re not that much older than him. Three years, mayhap?” She stood and walked over to the young man. “So, who’s paying the bills for the old performance hall?”
“Oh, when it was defaulted on, the bank who owns the note took over the public utility bills. That’s almost always the case on properties with loans against them.”
She drew her brows together. “So then—”
“But.” Dima raised a finger. “Fillion’s idea about looking into those kinds of bills paid off in a different manner.” He slid a stack of files to the side and spread out a few sheets of paper. “As I’ve been going over the utility records looking at properties we discovered, I’ve also kept an eye out for those in Master Elizabeth’s notebook. So far, I’ve found two where the company that paid those bills was not the one listed on the loan as buying the property. That company, Honor Investments, is the same for both of those properties.”
“I see. But why would a different company be paying those bills?”
“From an accounting perspective, it sometimes makes sense for a company to pay certain bills with checks drawing from a different bank account, and perhaps in this case, from a different company entirely.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That implies that both companies are owned by the same person or persons.”
He smiled. “Precisely.”
“If we’re lucky,” she said, “they didn’t cover their tracks with this company as well as they did for all the others.”
“The fact that this company was paying for the city services may be an indicator of just that. The fires at these two properties were among the oldest listed in Master Elizabeth’s notes, having taken place over a year ago. Mayhap our mysterious organization’s procedures hadn’t been completely worked out at the time. And, too, the sheer number of shell companies we’ve found is such that perhaps it was just an early oversight.”
She frowned. “It is more than a little worrying just how long these people have been working at this.”
“Indeed. But on the bright side, we’ve not come across this company before in anything we’ve looked into, so it could be important.”
Gella nodded. If this did lead somewhere, it would be fantastic. These people had been incredibly difficult to track down.
“That sounds more promising than what I’ve been working on.” She returned to her seat and gestured to the lists. “You keep at it with Elizabeth’s properties. Give me the list for ours. With both of us searching the records, we’ll get through this faster and mayhap find more companies we’ve not come across before.”
Chapter 23
Duviday, Diamy 26, 1875.
Morning.
“Sitting here watching these younglings practice doesn’t bore you?” Cheddar was staring up at the wheeling dragons. “I mean, we’ve got so many new adult dragons around, now.”
Sharrah glanced up to where Citlali flew among them. Yes, there were a lot of other dragons to study, but that didn’t mean you just abandoned what you were already doing. She and Adept Komako, along with Adept Oran and Gregor, had been studying how young dragons interacted when the Departed made her visit. The two adepts had completed initial notes on those who’d joined House Mochyehua and wanted to return to their work in progress. After all, obser—
“Observation is probably the most important thing we do,” Adept Komako said. “Watching them work together to get their performance as good as they can reveals much about how dragon minds work at this point in their lives.”
Sharrah nodded to herself. Just as in animal studies, observation was part of good science, and with people, perhaps it was the most important part. One could ask someone questions until hoarse, but simply watching them often revealed more than inquiries alone could. That had been known to her since, well, forever.
Cheddar grunted. “You sound like Sharrah.” He was eyeing her sidelong, smiling.
Sharrah lifted a corner of her lips in a small smile and let out a short laugh.
We are so much better now!
She glanced up. Yes, you are, sweetheart.
Practice had definitely helped these six become a coordinated mass of wings and tails. Sharrah was certain the audience would love them.
Cheddar, eyes on Xoc, chuckled but said nothing out loud. He was speaking with his bond-mate, too.
The two of them and the adepts sat on the bottom rows of the south bleachers with the other bond-mates of the young dragons, watching them practice above. Liara, Korrie, and Terry sat to the right, chatting among themselves and cheering on their bond-mates in the sky. Gregor, too, was here, to the left, watching Kisa and the other dragons.
The Summer Festival would begin in two days, so all the dragons were going to have a last practice today at the sports field. As most attendees would arrive at the Guildhall and Caer Baronel tomorrow, if
they wanted to avoid giving too much away beforehand, today would have to be the last day of practice. They’d been working on their performances for some time, but had been doing so here for the last week in order to get used doing their stunts at the actual site.
This place had only been somewhat familiar to her, before. She used to pass it all the time taking Copper for morning rides. Only a couple of years old, at least in its present state, Caer Baronel’s sports field sat just beyond North Gate, on the east side of and running perpendicular to the cobbled road.
Initially just an area of grass, it now consisted of a large oval running track, the center of which was used as a field for other kinds of sports. Rows of tiered benches for spectators ran along both long sides of the track. Many called them bleachers, she recently learned, because their wood bleached in the sun. With how high interest was in dragons, they would likely be filled with people in two days. At the top of these south bleachers was where special guests sat—a section with a roof to block the sun. Those seats would not be the best ones for the dragon show, however. That selfsame roof would block the view of some dragon tricks.
“And what have your observations shown you, thus far?” Gregor eyed the Animal Craft adept.
“About young dragons?” Adept Komako glanced back up to the subjects under discussion. “Just after hatching, they have the same curiosity and . . . joy of life? . . . that human children display, but emotionally, mentally, they are years ahead of human newborns and are perhaps closer to ten-year-olds in that respect. At least those dragons who are bonded.”
“We think it may have to do with the ancestral memories,” Adept Oran said. “Those give them examples they can access that humans do not have. We have to learn through our own experiences, while they have decades of memories they can reference.”
“And perhaps because of that,” Adept Komako said, “their emotional growth proceeds rapidly. Within a year they seem to be on an even footing with humans who are in their late teens or early twenties. It’s quite incredible.”
“I never thought of it so explicitly,” Cheddar said, “but now you mention it, everything I’ve seen is absolutely as you’ve said.”
Sharrah nodded to herself. Anaya had definitely been a fierce and unyielding Highest Mother of House Mochyehua when dealing with Queen Ixtab, but then not too long after in the courtyard, she’d been so excited talking about the House Wing, she’d seemed almost like a kid.
Sharrah smiled. Joy of life, indeed.
“Having someone they can depend on,” Gregor said, “someone who loves them—who they can feel loves them—may also help.”
“True,” Cheddar said. “The Departed, and even those that came from House Yaot, seemed very anxious and nervous.”
“As do Nenet, Chel, and Tozi.” Adept Komako still watched the young dragons practicing.
“Speaking of them,” Adept Oran said, “there’s something I’ve wondered about for a while now.” His brows drew together. “In all the accounts I’ve been told concerning dragons who brought their children to the guild, I’ve never heard of the father dragon accompanying the mother.”
“I wondered about that myself,” Sharrah said. “I asked Citlali if she knew anything. It seems her father was too anxious about the long trip here. Not only is this place a big unknown to most of those dragons, it also seems that House standing means almost everything to them. Her father didn’t want to risk his standing for any reason, even to witness the hatching of his children.”
“Hmm,” Cheddar said. “Our dragons seem to want to spend time with each other whenever they can. Balam, for instance, was with Anaya each time their kids went up for flying practice.”
Sharrah chuckled. “Yeah. He and Anaya are always together.”
“Coatl also seems to always be by Kisa’s side when he’s not off with Fillion somewhere,” Gregor said. “Not that she minds.” He glanced up at his bond-mate. “I know how she feels about it, the little minx.”
An angry bark came from the direction of the flying dragons.
Gregor raised his brows. “Oops. I guess I embarrassed her, though I don’t know why. Everyone knows how she and Coatl feel. I’m madly in love with Fillion, and you don’t see me . . .” His eyes widened and his cheeks grew dark. “Kisa! That’s not—!”
His lips clamped shut and he sat down.
Sharrah drew her brows together. “Gregor?”
The healer adept glanced at her, then at the auditors. “I suppose in the interest of your paper, I should tell you.” He cleared his throat. “Kisa thought I meant how she feels, um, sexually about Coatl.”
The sound of a pencil scratching on paper drew Sharrah’s attention from her own note-taking.
“And how does she feel?” Adept Komako asked as she wrote something down.
“C–Curious.” Gregor couldn’t seem to look anyone in the eye. “I mean, obviously Coatl and her experience everything through the link when Fillion and I, ah, that is, when we’re intimate.”
In order to keep from smiling, Sharrah looked down at her notebook and continued writing. Poor Gregor’s cheeks were about as dark as she’d ever seen anyone’s!
Gregor let out a chuckle. “So this is what it’s like on the other end.”
Sharrah looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“As a healer, one often has to ask your patients questions of a personal nature.” He quirked his lips into a rueful half-smile. “I will certainly keep today’s experience in mind when I have to do so again.”
“Do you recall when Kisa first started feeling that way?” Adept Komako stared at him, but only with intellectual curiosity.
“Recently,” Gregor said. “Say, the last couple of weeks? And as far as I can tell, it’s only curiosity. I’ve not felt actual, ah, desire through the link.”
“Her size notwithstanding, she is only five months old,” Sharrah pointed out. “From what we learned, females don’t reach reproductive age until a year or so.”
“If I recall correctly, wasn’t that based on Anaya’s memories of unbonded dragons?” Adept Komako asked.
Cheddar grunted. “That’s a good point.”
“The experience of living here as a bonded dragon is different from living in other dragon Houses,” Adept Oran said. “That will likely have an influence on a number of things.”
“It certainly affects how self-assured they are,” Cheddar said. “And if one is self-assured, one feels more confident about many things.”
Sharrah grunted. The letter sitting in her room came to mind once more. Self-assured and confident, eh? That was her all over. She glanced at Cheddar. Would things be more complicated if they got—
Here we come! Excitement surged through the link.
Sharrah looked up.
The dragons appeared as dots high in the sky above them. The two older dragons were positioned one on either side of the row of four younger dragons. The line of dragons slowly rotated as they dropped lower and lower, getting closer and closer. The two at the ends had to cover more distance as the line rotated, but their practice showed in the way they kept up perfectly with the rotation. The six rapidly dropped toward the sports field, rotating, and growing larger and larger.
“This next part always gets me,” Gregor said.
“Me, too.” Liara’s gaze was directed upward.
Worry wrinkled both their brows.
Sharrah looked back up.
Oldest and largest of the six, Kisa and Mia had a great deal more mass than the younger dragons. And their masses were quickly approaching the ground.
From lessons in school, Sharrah recalled that something in motion will stay in motion if not acted on by a force. Also, changing the vector of that object’s motion was more difficult the higher the velocity or the higher the mass. Because all the dragons were dropping at the same speed, velocity could be factored out, leaving the difference in their masses, and thus the likely concern of Gregor and Mia. The larger dragons would have a harder time pulling out
of the drop than the smaller dragons.
“They’re getting awfully close, aren’t they?” Adept Oran’s voice was a little concerned.
At their current height, you could see that their wings were only half-open, allowing for the fast plunge.
Sharrah’s heart started pounding. They really were cutting it close. She dared not talk to Citlali, however, and end up distracting her bond-mate at this critical time.
“Good gods.” Gaze to the heavens, Adept Komako rose to her feet. “Surely they have to fly off, now, don’t they? They’ll hit the ground!”
Gregor stood suddenly and Liara jumped to her feet, too.
Sharrah held her breath.
The large dragons forced their wings out fully from their bodies and caught hard air. The deep thumps of their wings snapping open and filling was remarkably loud in the tense silence. Kisa and Mia, wings outstretched, broke off to the east and west. The thrumming of air rushing over their flight membranes went with them.
Not even two seconds later, Citlali and Tenoch opened their wings. The sound from their maneuver wasn’t as loud as from the larger dragons, but Sharrah could feel the tense effort involved through the link. Citlali’s focus was total as she worked hard to keep her wings at the proper angles while her drop arced away from its former course.
As Tenoch raced over their bleachers and on to the south, one of the most precious things in Sharrah’s life hurtled safely to the north.
She started breathing again. Well done, love.
Thank you! Pride and happiness poured through the link.
“Yeah!” The shout from Terry made Sharrah jump. On his feet, arms raised in the air, he gazed off to where Tenoch had flown. “You’re the most awesome dragon, ever!”
“Gods!” Korrie glared at Terry. “I nearly wet myself when you screamed.”
The boy laughed. “Sorry. Hey, Nelli’s part is next.” He pointed to the remaining dragons above.
Sharrah, smiling, watched Xoc and Nelli break from their drop into a spiraling descent. Theirs was a somewhat more difficult maneuver in that they had to shed their velocity without peeling off into the distance. They did, however, arc out in an ever-widening circle as they spiraled down toward the ground.
Of Gods, Trees, and a Sapling: Dragonlinked Chronicles Volume 4 Page 75
