Dragon Keeper

by Robin Hobb

“Kelsingra!”

  “Kelsingra!”

  The shouts of agreement from other dragons took Thymara by surprise. She had been crouching by the silver’s tail. She rose to her feet now and became aware that the dragons had finished eating. Another one suddenly stood briefly on his hind legs, roared “Kelsingra!” and came down with a thud.

  She glanced at Sedric and realized that once more, he’d only heard half of a conversation. She interpreted hastily. “The dragons want to go to Kelsingra. The place that Alise has been talking about to the silver. It’s the name of a city, an Elderling city, that they all seem to recall.”

  She sensed restlessness in the air and saw another of the dragons fling up his head, turn, and abruptly move toward the river’s edge. “They’ve finished eating. We’d best get this fellow’s tail bandaged and gather our gear. I’m sure our barge will give us the signal we’re to leave soon. This morning they told us they wanted us to leave as early as possible.”

  As if her words had sparked it, dragon after dragon was leaving the feeding grounds and striding toward the river. It was the first time she had seen the dragons move with such concerted purpose. She kept her hand on the silver, as if that could detain him. She saw Tats coming with a bucket of clean water. “Are they just going down to drink?” she asked him, as if he would know the answer. She’d seen the dragons wallow and even drink the river water, something that would have meant eventual death for a human.

  But he looked after the departing dragons with the same puzzlement she shared. “Maybe,” he said.

  But before another word could escape his mouth, the silver dragon lifted his head high. He stared after the others, and Thymara felt a shimmer of excitement from him that infected her whole body. “Kelsingra!” he trumpeted suddenly, a blast of sound and emotion that sent her reeling. Even Sedric recoiled from it, staggering back and lifting his hands to his ears. It was well that he had, for the dragon wheeled away from Thymara’s touch and suddenly lurched after his departing fellows. With no regard for the humans, he trampled through them, narrowly missing Tats as he leaped to one side and shouldering Alise as he passed. The Bingtown woman was knocked off her feet and landed heavily on the ground. Thymara expected her to cry out in pain. Instead, she caught her breath and shouted, “His tail! We didn’t bandage it up. Sedric, head him off! Don’t let him get into the river!”

  “Are you mad? I’m not getting in front of a hurrying dragon!” Alise’s friend stood clutching his medicine case to his chest.

  “Are you all right?” Thymara asked her, hastening to her side. Tats was already there, kneeling by the supine woman. Sedric hastily knelt and opened his case of supplies, and Thymara half expected him to offer bandages, but he appeared to be checking the contents for damage. His face was anxious.

  “Sedric, please, go after him. Stop him. The river water will eat into his tail!” Alise commanded him.

  He shut the case with a snap and looked after the retreating dragons. “Alise, I don’t think anyone can stop that creature. Or any of them. Look at them go. They’re like a flock of birds on the wing.”

  They were not the only ones shocked by the dragons’ abrupt departure. Thymara heard the voices of other keepers lifted in alarm and surprise. All up and down the mudflats, humans trotted after their large charges, shouting to them and to one another. On the barge, a man called a warning to another man on the shore and pointed at the dragons.

  Alise sat up with a groan, rubbing her shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

  Thymara asked her again.

  “I’m bruised, but no more than that, I don’t think. What got into him? What got into all of them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They’re not stopping,” Tats observed in awe. “Look at them.”

  Thymara had thought that when they reached the river, they would halt there. For so long, their lives had been bordered by the forest at the back of the clearing and the river that flowed past it. But now the lead dragons waded out into the shallows and headed upstream. The smaller and less able ones didn’t hesitate, but followed them out into the water. Even the silver and the dirty copper dragon followed the herd out into the murky gray water.

  “Help me up!” Alise demanded of Sedric. “We have to follow them.”

  “Do you think they’re leaving here, just like that? Now? With no thought, no preparations?”

  “Well, they haven’t much to pack,” the Bingtown woman said, and laughed at her own feeble jest. She sat up, then gasped and clutched at her shoulder. She caught her breath raggedly and cried out, “Sedric, stop gaping at me. Yes, they’re leaving. Couldn’t you feel it? ‘Kelsingra!’ they shouted, and suddenly off they went. They’ll leave us behind if we don’t hurry.”

  “Now wouldn’t that be tragic,” Sedric observed wryly, but he offered Alise his hand and helped her to her feet.

  “Do you think they know the way?” Tats asked with interest. “I mean, I’ve heard the name of the city, but it’s like hearing about an imaginary land. People say this or that about it, but no one really knows anything about Kelsingra.”

  “I do,” Alise asserted with quiet confidence. “Quite a bit, actually, though I won’t claim to know the exact location, other than that it’s upriver of here, possibly on a tributary of the Rain Wild River. But the dragons will know more than that. They have their ancestral memories to draw on. I suspect they’ll be our best guides.”

  “I’m not sure how much they recall,” Tats said quietly. “My little green dragon seems ignorant of a lot of things.”

  “Such as?” Alise pushed.

  Tats shifted uncomfortably under her focus. “Oh, odd things. I was talking with her while I groomed her, but she seemed to have very little to say, so I was chatting about anything at all. I asked her if she remembered being a serpent, and she said no. Then I told her that it had been years since I’d seen the ocean, and she asked me what the ocean was. It was very strange. She knows she hatched from a serpent, but the river seems to be the only body of water she recalls.” He halted, as if he dreaded admitting something, and then added, “I don’t think she remembers anything except the life she has had here.”

  “That’s . . . disturbing,” Alise agreed. She stared after the dragons, frowning.

  Thymara shifted restlessly. “We need to follow them.”

  The man from the barge, Captain Leftrin, came running across the mudflats toward them. “Alise!” he shouted. “Sedric! Get aboard. We need to cast off and follow the dragons as soon as possible. The ship is ready to leave.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Alise promised, but Sedric shook his head wearily. “What is the need to hurry? They’re going upriver. Seems to me that it would be hard for us to lose track of that many dragons on a riverbank.”

  “If the Rain Wild River were a single river, that might be true,” Thymara said. “But it isn’t. There are tributaries that feed into it. Some are seasonal and shallow, but others are rivers in their own right. There’s no telling which one the dragons will follow.”

  Captain Leftrin joined them just as she finished speaking. The riverman was panting from his jog across the mudflats. Thymara had met him only briefly, but she already liked him. He was a man who worked. It showed on his weathered face and capable hands, and even on his worn clothing. He looked at her directly when he spoke to her, and even when he had first met the dragon keepers, he hadn’t flinched at the sight of them. It was too soon for her to say she trusted him, but she doubted that he would deliberately deceive anyone. She valued that. He pulled a bright orange kerchief from his pocket and wiped his sweating face before he spoke. “The girl’s right. That’s been the whole difficulty with this expedition. ‘Upriver’ from Cassarick can take a man in any of a dozen directions. Unfortunately, no more than three or four of them have been charted, and those charts are unreliable. Channels and waters that were navigable by flatboat one year are sanded in the next.”

  “But I’ve seen charts of the Rain Wild River. I’ve s
een them for sale in the bazaars of Chalced. They’re very expensive and not offered to all, but they exist.”

  “Have you?” Leftrin grinned at Sedric and his comment. “I imagine that the same booths will sell you charts to the treasure island of Igrot the Pirate. Or maps of the best harbors in the Spice Islands.” He shook his head. “Cheats and fakes, I’m sorry to say. People know there’s a market for such things, so what they don’t have, they’re willing to create. But don’t feel bad. I’ve seen experienced mariners fooled by them.”

  The Bingtown man looked at him. “Then how do we know where we are going?”

  Captain Leftrin’s grin widened. “I’d say our best bet is to follow the dragons.”

  SEDRIC’S HANDS WERE SWEATING. So far, it had all gone so well. He had inside his case two strips of dragon flesh and hide, with scales attached. One he had pushed into a bottle prepared with vinegar and stoppered it securely. The second piece he had placed in a small wooden box with coarse salt around it and latched the lid tightly. One or the other method, he trusted, would work. Both preservation vessels had been prepared weeks ago, before he had embarked on this journey. Once he had realized that Hest was serious, that he was going to force him to go to the Rain Wilds as Alise’s companion, he had been determined that the journey would provide him with a way to escape a life he had begun to find burdensome. Everyone knew that the desperate Duke of Chalced was willing to pay anyone’s asking price for the ingredients that might cure his maladies and extend his life. Sedric had decided he would be the one to furnish them.

  And he had succeeded.

  Now he was torn between triumph and dismay. He had exactly what he needed to change his fortune. As soon as he returned to Bingtown, he could contact Begasti Cored. The man had been eager to act as a go-between when Sedric had ventured the idea to him. Begasti would arrange his journey and his audience with the Duke of Chalced. It wasn’t just the riches that these scraps of flesh would bring him. It was the complete change in his life that he hungered to experience.

  For the first time, he would have money, money that was his, earned solely by his own efforts. Not his father’s money, not his family’s money, not even the inflated wages that Hest paid him for his ser vices. His own money, to spend as he desired. Exactly as he desired. Dreams that had slowly shaped themselves inside his heart for the past four years clamored to be free. With this money, he could take Hest and they could leave Bingtown. They could go south, to Jamaillia, no, beyond Jamaillia, to lands he knew only as exotic names. There were places where two men could live as they wished to live, without questions, without condemnation or scandal. The money these scraps of dragon flesh would bring him would carry the two of them to those places, far from their families and their histories. It would buy them a future without secrets.

  He scarcely dared to taste the thought that followed. It would buy him a future in which he and Hest were on an equal footing. For far too long he’d been completely dependent on Hest financially. The inequity had intruded more and more cruelly into their relationship. Hest was no longer merely assertive; he’d become cruelly dominant of late. If Sedric had a fortune of his own, perhaps Hest would give him more respect.

  He had what he needed; all that was left to do was to get his treasure safely back to Bingtown and make contact with Begasti. And the sooner the better. It was a long sea journey to Chalced, but he would not trust these goods to any hand save his own; the swifter he delivered his merchandise, the better. Vinegar and salt were excellent ways to preserve many sorts of vegetables and flesh, but they had never been tested on dragon meat. The stuff that the girl had cut from the dragon wasn’t exactly of the best quality, either. He planned, when he had a quiet, private moment, to clean both strips of maggots and tidy them up a bit. He’d pluck the scales free and store them separately from the flesh. But the important thing was to get them back to Bingtown as quickly as possible. An extended wander along a riverbank following a herd of dim-witted dragons did not feature in his plans.

  “Alise,” he said, and her name came out more sharply than he intended. She turned away from Captain Leftrin, her brows raised quizzically. The others were watching them, but he spoke as if they were alone. “You can’t intend to follow through on this wild adventure. Surely by now you’ve seen that nothing is to be gained by following the dragons. They’ve scarcely spoken to you, and what they did say wasn’t useful. Alise, it’s time to admit that you’ve learned all you can here. We can’t get on Captain Leftrin’s boat and leave here. Once we do, we’re committed to travel for weeks, perhaps months. Neither of us can do that. It’s time to admit we’ve done all we can with these creatures.” He let his voice drop into gentleness. “You did what you set out to do. It’s not your fault that they aren’t what you hoped to find. I’m sorry, Alise. It’s time to go home.”

  She stared at him. She wasn’t the only one. Leftrin was looking at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. The two Rain Wild youngsters exchanged glances, and Tats suddenly said, “I think Thymara and I had best be going after our dragons.” It was as awkward an excuse to flee from the site of a quarrel as Sedric had ever heard. But the girl was obviously grateful for it, because she nodded emphatically. The two of them immediately set off at a dogged trot.

  Alise was silent for a moment longer, obviously waiting for them to be out of earshot. Sedric could almost see her putting her objections into polite phrases. They would quarrel, yes, but politely and calmly, as civilized people did.

  Leftrin had evidently never been taught such niceties. The color had come up in his face. He took a deep gulp of air, struggled for control, and then blurted, “How can you say such a thing to her? She can’t go back now. She’s the only one who knows about Kelsingra. Besides, she promised. She signed the contract! She can’t go back on her word.”

  “This doesn’t concern you,” Sedric said flatly. His voice had risen in spite of himself. He was offended, both that Leftrin had dared to challenge him on this and that he had sided with Alise. It was going to be hard enough to herd her safely back to Bingtown; if she felt she had an ally in Leftrin, it was only going to complicate his task.

  “It does,” the captain said flatly. “She was there when I made my deal with the Council. Think I would have agreed on this trip if she hadn’t said she’d heard of the place and that it did exist? I only took the contract because I thought that she’d be along as a guide, not just to the possible location but to the dragons.”

  Sedric glanced at Alise, but she seemed content to let Leftrin speak for her. Sedric focused his words on her anyway. “You may have heard of the city, but that doesn’t mean you know the way. Come, Alise, be your calm, sensible self about this. You’re a scholar, not an adventurer. Even the dragon that can speak to you told you nothing; you said so yourself. And the silver and Tats’s dragon don’t seem promising sources of information, either. If you are honest, you have to admit that you’d gain more from spending a week in Trehaug, touring the underground city. There is a treasure trove of material there for you to study and translate. Why not return there with me and put your time to something that will not only increase our knowledge of Elderlings and dragons but will gain you the respect you deserve from those who know the most about these creatures?” Even if they had to spend a few days in Trehaug to placate her, that would be better than setting off on a harebrained journey to parts unknown. He knew that once they boarded that barge and departed upriver there would be no easy way for them to return, save on the barge itself. And that stubborn old goat of a captain was not likely to turn back until he’d given the task an honest try. “Alise, it’s not safe,” he went on desperately. “How can I accompany you on this journey, how can I allow you to go? You’ve all admitted you don’t know where you are going, or how long it will take to get there, or even if the city still exists. This is a ridiculous journey.” He firmed his resolve and ended his lecture with, “We aren’t going. That’s all there is to it.”

  He had never spoken s
o firmly to her. For a long moment, she regarded him in silence. Her mouth worked and he feared she would cry. He didn’t want to make her weep, only to be sensible. She glanced over at Leftrin. The riverman had folded his arms across his chest; his face was set like stone. Even the stubble on his unshaven cheeks stood out stiffly. He looked, Sedric thought, like an indignant bulldog.

  When Alise’s gaze came back to him, she was pink all around her freckles. Her voice was low, not shrill. She declared stubbornly, “You may do as you wish, Sedric. As you say, it’s a foolish quest. I won’t argue with you there, for I can’t. You’re right. It’s insane. But I’m going.”

  He stood stunned as she turned away from him. She put her hand out as if groping blindly, and suddenly Leftrin was there, offering her his arm. She set her hand on his grubby jacket sleeve and then he was leading her away, leaving Sedric staring after her. He clutched his precious case with the preserved bits of dragon in it and weighed his options. In his anger, he wanted to just do as she had suggested; leave her there and go home himself. Leave her to her own foolish decision and let her find the disaster she was so eagerly courting.

  But he couldn’t. He couldn’t go back to Trehaug, let alone Bingtown, without her. Certainly not back to Hest, not even if he had dragon flesh and scales worth a fortune preserved in his case. It would take time to change those things into money, time and discretion. And returning to Bingtown without Hest’s wife would be the most indiscreet thing he could ever do. He’d have no way to explain it. It would focus attention on him, attention he could not afford to attract to himself just now.

  He realized abruptly that Alise and Leftrin had nearly reached the barge. Ropes were being untied, and the polemen stood ready to shove the barge back out into the river. He looked up and down the mudflats. The dragons were gone. At the river’s edge, the keepers were dragging small boats down to the water. In a very short time, he suspected this area would be deserted. “Alise!” he shouted, but she didn’t even turn her head. The sound of the river and the endless wind carried his voice away. He cursed then and began to walk toward the barge as swiftly as he dared. “Alise, wait!” he shouted as he saw her start up the ladder dangling over the barge’s stern. And then he began to run.