The Dragon Caller

by Pauline M. Ross

  Jonnor looked at him oddly. “You seem to know a lot about all this.”

  “Not about dragons and such like, but mages…” Pain speared through him. Gods, the memory was still raw, even after all these years. Would it never fade? He took a deep breath. “I know something about mages, yes, but nothing related to Ruell.”

  “Well, I’m glad he stayed on the island,” Jonnor said. “He needs to keep far away from those Tre’annatha.”

  Ruell might need to keep away from them, but Garrett had business of his own with Famri, so after he left Jonnor, he made his way straight to the school. The first classroom was now open, and as he crossed the courtyard, the sounds of childish chanting could be heard.

  Garrett was surprised to find himself struck by pangs of envy. He hadn’t regretted much in his past, because he’d only done what he needed to do, but now he wondered just what his life might have been like if he’d had the normal sort of upbringing. Parents who cared for him, for instance. An education. An apprenticeship in some congenial trade. Where might he be now? A wealthy craftsman with a troop of his own workers? A guild leader, maybe, respected and looked up to? He might have married and had children of his own, or grandchildren even.

  Then he laughed at himself. No, he wasn’t really the settling type. There was an excitement to living on the streets that had always appealed to him. Sometimes he’d gone to one of the markets and picked a few pockets just for the thrill of it. Once he’d got into the goldsmith’s house, which had more locks and sealed doors and barred windows than the prison, and stolen a single gold candlestick, just to prove that he could. On the whole, he’d enjoyed his street days, and it was only when he’d been accused of cheating at bones and been sent to fight an endless war that life had begun to pall somewhat. Even then he’d made the best of it. He wasn’t one to fall into despondency.

  The library was quieter today, more than half the boxes gone and shelf after shelf filled with books. Several tables now occupied the centre of the room. There was no sign of Famri, but Darro was still hard at work, sorting and shelving, with just a couple of helpers. He looked up with a smile as Garrett pushed open the door, but when he saw who it was the smile faded and he sent one of his helpers dashing off.

  “Good day to you,” he said gamely, crossing the floor. “Erm…?”

  “Garrett.”

  “Of course. You are Ruell’s friend. Is Ruell with you?” He peered round Garrett, as if Ruell might be hiding in his shadow.

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Was that concern on his face genuine? “I hope he has not suffered any lasting harm from the unfortunate attack.”

  “None at all, but—”

  “Garrett!” She’d glided up silently behind him, her voice as smooth as satin. “How delightful! Will we have the pleasure of seeing Ruell today?”

  Spinning round to face her, Garrett said, “No, but don’t worry, I can take the books to him.”

  “The books?”

  “The books about dragons that Darro found in a mislabelled box. Surely you haven’t forgotten what you told Ruell when he was last in the Bay?” He smiled blandly at her.

  She was disconcerted, but in a moment she’d recovered her composure. “Of course, although I hope Ruell’s hopes were not raised too high. It was only two or three books. We’ve set them aside for him, and he can have a look at them next time he’s here.”

  “No need for that, I’ll take them with me, and he’ll have them tomorrow.”

  “We can’t let them leave this building,” she said, her tone suddenly icy.

  “You were quite happy for Ruell to borrow books last time.”

  “ForRuell to borrow them, yes, and they were staying in the town. They are too precious to be sent over the sea, Garrett.” She smiled at him smugly.

  He gave her his most guileless expression. “No problem. I’ll just have a look at them here and make a few notes to take back to Ruell.”

  For an instant she was rattled, but she quickly schooled her features. “Of course. Let me show you to a quiet room where you can work without disturbance, and Darro will look out the books for you.”

  He smiled and thanked her politely, and allowed himself to be led to a small office some distance from the library. She disappeared, and he had time to examine his surroundings thoroughly. The furnishings were uninteresting – a pair of small tables, one laden with papers, two plain wooden chairs, some shelves, still unpainted. No fireplace and no outer door, but there was a small window high up, propped open. He smiled, and settled down to wait for the books.

  It didn’t surprise him that he had quite a while to wait. He’d never believed the tale of newly-discovered books, and now he was quite certain it had been just a ruse to get Ruell on his own. It was a mistake, though, not to have some books ready, in case Ruell had returned and asked for them. Or perhaps they really had found some books, but they only wanted to show them to Ruell. That was an interesting idea, and kept him occupied until Famri returned with four books under her arm.

  “Here are what we have at the moment. We may find others as the rest of the boxes are unpacked, for whoever wrote the labels was not very accurate. Let me find you some paper and a pen.”

  “Thank you,” he said absently, trying to read the strange script on the cover of the topmost book. “Where did these come from?”

  She hesitated, but perhaps she could see no reason not to answer. “From the homeland.”

  Once she had gone, he settled down to read as best he could. He’d never had Ruell’s facility with words, but he could read and write well enough for everyday purposes, as a rule. These books were a challenge, though, since they were all in High Mesanthian. He had a working knowledge of the spoken language, but the written version was much more difficult, with words joined together into almost impenetrable strings. Still, he had no plans to actually read the books. Only the list of chapters at the end was of interest to him, and he knew the word he was looking for:‘dashka’. Dragon.

  The first book was all about money, he determined, from the repeated mention of‘rhay’and‘rhay’ar’: gold and silver coins. The second was about Mesanthia itself, an easy word to recognise, and from the drawings and maps on many of the pages, it was about the streets and buildings, and nothing to do with dragons. The third book was about animals, since he recognised the words for goat, sheep and pig, but he put it aside as a farmer’s manual. The fourth book was trickier, and he struggled to identify any familiar words. Twice he worked through the chapter descriptions, and his eye was drawn to a word repeated many times over:‘da’aassh kah’.

  “ ‘Dashka’,” he breathed, understanding at last. “Dragon.”

  When Famri returned, he was poring intently over one of the maps in the book about Mesanthia.

  “Did you find anything of interest?” she asked sweetly.

  “Oh… I’m not sure. I haven’t got very far. The letters are very small – hard to read with these old eyes of mine. May I come back in the morning to carry on?”

  “Of course, Garrett,” she said, smiling broadly, and he thought he detected a gleam of triumph in her eyes. Good. Let her think him illiterate.

  Leaving the school, he made his way to the inn, ate his supper with a tankard or two of Amontis ale, refused the advances of the whores and went to his room. But not to sleep. Setting aside his sword and the armoured leather, he dressed in dark clothes and waited patiently until the last bell had sounded, the last drunk had sung his way down the street, the last tired kitchen worker had banked the fires and crept off to bed. Then he waited another hour, at least.

  Finally it was quiet enough. He wrapped a scarf around his head to conceal most of his face, and carried a canvas bag over his shoulder. Then he slipped out of his room and down the stairs, leaving by way of the kitchen door, and walked with silent steps in the deepest shadows until he came to the school. The building was shrouded in darkness, not a light anywhere. There was a low wall around the perimeter of the grounds, but h
e hopped over that and snuck round to the back.

  It was a piece of luck that the school had been established in the old corn exchange, a building that Garrett knew well. Not that he’d ever engaged in the buying or selling of corn, but on market days, after the trading had concluded, the beer barrels had been tapped and the place had routinely descended into drunken revelry. As a result, Garrett knew his way around rather well, not just the inside, where the drinking and dancing had gone on, but the outside, where the pissing and fighting and gambling and whoring took place. Truth be told, he knew the outside somewhat better than the inside, and a range of ways to get from one to the other undetected.

  So it was the work of moments to walk around the building and locate the window of the small room he’d been in that afternoon, the frame jammed open by means of the nail that had been there for ten years at least, to his knowledge. He reached up to locate the sill, latched a grappling hook over it and climbed up and in through the window with an agility born of long practice. Then he waited, while his eyes adjusted to the dark.

  The books still sat on the table in a neat pile, just as he’d left them. He’d planned only to take one book, the one with dragons in it, but at the last minute he put them all in his bag. Famri would know at once who had taken them, and there was no point in revealing his knowledge of High Mesanthian. He was just about to jump for the window sill when a sound behind him made him stop and turn.

  Silently the door opened, and light spilled into the room, dazzling him momentarily. He shielded his eyes with one hand, so that he could see a figure in long, pale clothes behind the lamp. A nightgown, perhaps.

  “Garrett. I might have guessed as much.” Famri. Alone, by the look of it, which was a bonus. And she’d closed the door behind her. He couldn’t fault her courage, but it was foolhardy, nevertheless.

  “Good evening, Famri. Or should I say good morning? Do you always wander around this part of the building in the dead of night?”

  “Only when I expect thieves to break in. You may put the books back where you found them.”

  She set the lamp down on a shelf, and stepped away from its brightness, a smug smile on her face, so that he could see the hammer in her hand. He almost laughed.

  “No, I don’t believe I will. You’ll hardly miss them, after all, when you’ve got so many more, and Ruell will enjoy them.”

  “Do you think so?” A definite smirk there. She thought he had no idea what was in them.

  “I think he will. Of course, he’d probably enjoy them more if they wereall about dragons.”

  Her smile slipped a little, eyes narrowing in anger. “Leave the books and get out, and we’ll say no more about it. And don’t come back here, because you won’t be welcome.”

  “But Ruell will, is that it? Yes, you’d like to get your hands on him, wouldn’t you?” He took a step towards her, and the smile wavered even more. “You’ll showhim the interesting books, no doubt.” Another step. “Yet I get fobbed off with the rubbish.” One more step and now there was definite alarm on her face. “Farming books. Guide books. Coins. Did you think I wouldn’t know?”

  She shrank back against the door. “Leave me alone, you… youbarbarian!” She raised the hammer to shoulder height, waving it vaguely in what she probably imagined was a threatening manner. “I’m not afraid to use this.”

  Garrett reached behind him and pulled out a dagger as long as his forearm. With his free hand he slammed the wrist with the hammer against the wall so hard that she yelped and dropped it. Pressing in close, he positioned the point of the dagger at her throat.

  “Barbarian?” he spat, his face a finger’s width from hers. “You want to see what a barbarian I am? Fine. I’ll slice you open from neck to belly, and leave your entrails for the rats to find. And maybe I’ll rape you first, just for fun.”

  “I’ll scream,” she said, in strangled tones, but her eyes were huge with terror.

  “And I’d cut your tongue out before you’d finished drawing breath. You people, you think you’re so fucking clever and grand and we’re just scum to you, less than the termites in their mounds. You think we don’tmatter, that you can squash us under your well-shod feet like beetles, make us do whatever you want because it’s the word of the fuckingGods, and set us slaughtering each other, just because you say so. Well, we don’t forget and wecertainly don’t forgive, and one day I’ll come for you and your kind and make you suffer the way we did, and I’ll glory in your pain. Gods, I’ll enjoy that! If I’m a barbarian, it’s because you made me one.”

  He stepped back, lowering the knife and deftly sweeping the hammer from the floor. When she stepped forward, rubbing her arm, he gave her a hard shove in the chest, so that she crashed against the wall with an ‘Oof!’ of surprise, and slid to the floor on her hands and knees.

  “In the corner,” he barked. There was no defiance left in her and she scrambled to obey. “Face to the wall, and curl up in a ball.” Instantly she complied, and he caught a hint of a sob. Sheathing the dagger and tucking the hammer in his bag, he dragged the empty table across the floor and tipped it on its side, placing it across the corner to make a little prison for her. It wouldn’t hold her for long, but it would take effort for her to shift it aside and escape. Would she scream and raise the alarm that way? Possibly, but he’d be long gone before help could reach her. More likely she’d be too proud to admit to being bested by a barbarian. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to make sure.

  “I’m leaving now, and you’ll notice that you’re both unraped and ungutted. However, if I hear so much as a cheep out of you, that will change. Do I make myself clear?”

  A muffled sob. He took that as a yes.

  He quickly placed a chair beneath the window, and hauled himself up and through, dropping lightly to the ground on the outside.

  Then he ran. There was no point tiptoeing around waiting for Famri to pluck up the courage to scream or move. He flew over the low wall, and ran full pelt back to the inn.

  It was no more than a few moments’ work to collect his things and be gone. No more running, though. If Famri raised the alarm and called out the watchers, a running man was all too conspicuous. So Garrett slipped through the shadows and the darker back streets, and made his way to safety. Not to the ship, for that would be the first place they’d look for him. Not to Zamannah’s tavern, either, for he didn’t want to involve his friend.

  His refuge was Amontis House, looming like a ghostly mountain at the junction of the main street and the southern wharf road. The front door was locked and guarded, but round the back was a service door whose lock yielded to his picking tools. He locked the door again behind him, then crept up the back stairs to Jonnor’s office, where a comfortable sofa tempted him.

  He placed his sword on the floor within arm’s reach, and the sheathed dagger under the cushion he was using as a pillow. Then, and only then, did he allow himself to drift into sleep.

  11: The Cliff (Ruell)

  Ruell had had a fraught evening. His mother was still in the throes of protective maternal urges, and insisted that he have supper with her. He soon got tired of her solicitous concern, much preferring her usual impatience alternating with neglect.

  Kestimar, too, treated him differently, asking question after question that he couldn’t answer. Had he ever felt the presence of dragons in the daytime? What if he could see the dragons over the sea? Was there any awareness in his mind then? Had a visible dragon ever shown any interest in him? All very good questions, to which he had no answer.

  Mikah was there too, and that was another layer of awkwardness. Ruell couldn’t look at Mikah now without imagining him in bed with Tella, and that was disconcerting in the extreme. And then Mikah was quickly told the story of the dragon sex, to Ruell’s deep embarrassment. How he wished he’d never said anything about it!

  Probably all young men stumbled through their earliest sexual experiences, and had shameful fumblings and mistakes to try to put behind them. He’d heard some of them talk
about it when the ale came out – the slapped faces, the too-early releases and the misguided efforts at achieving entry. One couple had rolled right out of the hay loft and fallen, mostly naked, into the pig pen below. But such misadventures always seemed like a great joke, whereas Ruell’s were not at all funny. Two attempts that had him turning into a dragon, and one dream of dragon sex. It wasn’t a history he could laugh at, it was far too humiliating for that.

  Nowadays the others of his age mostly avoided him. Or he avoided them, he wasn’t quite sure which way round it was. Even when he ate his supper in the main hall with everyone else, even when he sat with the people he’d grown up with, people he’d always thought of as friends, he had nothing to say to them nor they to him. Sometimes he thought they averted their eyes when they saw him, but perhaps he was imagining it. People he’d played with as a boy, run races with or bashed with a wooden sword, people he’d learnt to swim with – now they were all guards or working the boats or learning to be cooks or away at the Bay brewing Amontis beer or building ships. One or two were even settled with a woman, and had children of their own. So grown up, so serious. Whereas he hadn’t settled to anything, and the only thing he was good at was sweeping leaves.

  It was getting close to brightmoon, so after supper he went out again, this time to the eastern shore of the island. He avoided the headland where the watchtower brooded over the Straits of Dri’allar, and the harbour with its constant traffic of small boats. Instead he walked north, on low, rounded hills that gradually climbed to become bleak headlands above rocky shores where the surf pounded constantly and the wind, funnelled between the mainland and the islands, was relentless. Even on a balmy summer’s evening, his hair whipped about his face and the tail of his coat wrapped itself around his legs.

  After a while, once he was sure he was well out of reach of other people, he followed a goat trail over the rim of the cliff onto a grassy shelf just below. As soon as he was in the lee of the cliff, the wind vanished. Thankfully, he threw himself down onto the grass and gazed across the strait to the mainland. Sand Eagle Bay was out of sight around a jutting promontory, but that was where his thoughts lay, with Garrett and Zamannah and Brialla and Famri and Darro. So much had happened on his last two visits – if only he could start his life over again, or perhaps go back to when he was twelve and grow up sensibly. Perhaps he should go and work with Jonnor, and learn how the Amontis businesses were run.