by Robin Hobb
'This is very short notice,' Captain Leftrin replied. He took a deep breath and when he spoke his words were slow and carefully considered. 'Almost impossibly short notice. I need to know exactly what I'm agreeing to before I can give you any sort of an answer.'
Alise heard the speculation behind his reserved words. Malta's tirade had revealed to him that he had the Council of Cassarick over a barrel. They had admitted that they had to act swiftly. If what Leftrin had told her about his ship was true, then his barge was the only vessel of any size that could accompany the dragons upriver. They'd have to pay him whatever he asked, or lose their window of opportunity. It was clear to Alise that they wished to have the dragons under way before either winter or Selden Vestrit returned.
The councilwoman looked trapped as her eyes darted from Leftrin to Malta. 'We do have an offer to make you, Captain Leftrin. We wish to negotiate a charter with you. We'd like to hire your vessel as an escort ship for the dragons and their keepers. The Tarman would carry extra provisions for both the keepers and the dragons, and be transport and housing for our hunters. It would be the mother ship that the keepers' smaller boats could tie up to at night, if needed. One of the hunters we have chosen to accompany you is an experienced explorer. In addition to providing meat for the dragons, he will construct a chart of the river and keep a journal of any noteworthy events. He will also represent the Council and is authorized to decide when the dragons have been appropriately settled. When he reaches that decision, he will let you know, and at that point you will turn back toward Cassarick.'
Malta interrupted with a sharp question. 'If the keepers' boats need to tie up at night to a floating vessel, then where are the dragons at that time, I'd like to know, Trader Polsk?'
The woman shook her head. 'The need for a mother ship is a hypothetical need, Malta. We are simply making arrangements for every contingency.'
'And the Council representative? Why is one necessary? Will not the dragons know when they are "appropriately settled" and release their keepers from service?'
A strange light had come into the Elderling woman's eyes. They glowed, Alise realized. The set of her mouth proclaimed her anger, but there were other signs of it as well. The shimmering gold orbs that lit the room slowly began to shift their positions. Whatever had anchored them before gave way as the balls of light began to slowly but purposefully drift toward Malta. One Council member gave a brief huff of uneasiness but the others kept stony faces of indifference.
The chairwoman tried to speak calmly. 'The dragons may not realize when we have reached a point where we have done all we can for them. This is sad, but true. So we have arranged for someone to accompany the dragons and provide an impartial evaluation.'
Malta spoke. 'Impartial? A Council representative who is «impartial»? Perhaps a representative for the dragons should be assigned also, to see that the dragons are fairly treated and that our contract is observed. Have you considered arranging to keep your word to the dragon Tintaglia? As per the signed contract we made?' The floating orbs ringed her now, leaving most of the rest of the room in dimness. The light from them glittered and ran over her scaled face and gleaming arms. She shone like a jewelled statue. Her eyes were as hard as faceted gems.
'Has she?' Trader Polsk hissed back at the Elderling. 'Tintaglia has vanished and left us with a horde of hungry dragons to care for! What would you have us do? Keep them here on the very doorstep of Cassarick? It is not good for them or for us! Keeping them here will solve nothing. But there is the possibility that if we send them upriver, they may find a better location for themselves. Look how many of them have already died, and those who remain are in poor condition. Now is not the time to flaunt your powers to make us cower. You would better use your time to help us plan the best way to aid them in their evacuation. It is the best we can offer them, Malta. Surely you must see that!'
'I see nothing of the kind,' Malta retorted in a low voice, but there was a tattered edge of defeat in her voice. 'I see that there is something here I do not know, something that propels the urgency of this expedition. Do any of you see fit to be honest with me?' The lights around her dimmed, very slightly.
Trader Polsk ignored her words and pushed her advantage. 'Have you heard from either your brother or the dragon Tintaglia?'
'My brother is travelling, and all know how irregular the mails are from abroad. And I have not heard Tintaglia nor felt her touch in months. I do not know what her fate is. She could simply be far afield, or some terrible accident may have befallen her. I do not know.' She sounded anguished. But her voice firmed as she went on, 'But I do know that many Bingtown Traders gave their word to her that they would do all they could to help her offspring in return for her aid. Without her actions during our war with Chalced, Bingtown itself might have perished. She kept the Chalcedean ships from the mouth of the Rain Wild River. When we most needed her help, she was there for us. And now that she is away, will we abandon the young dragons to death, simply because caring for them has become a hardship? Has the word of a Trader come to mean so little to us in these kinder days?' As she spoke, the light globes that surrounded her burned warmer. Light reflected from her, until she seemed the source of it rather than the recipient.
A silence, perhaps one of shame, followed her question. A few of the Council members exchanged glances.
Alise timidly broke the silence. 'I was there. I was there, the night the dragon came to the Bingtown Traders' Concourse. I was there the night the deal was struck. I heard Tintaglia speak, and young as I was, I was among those who signed our agreement with her.' Her voice dropped as she added, 'I was even there when Reyn Khuprus spoke out and demanded that Tintaglia help him find Malta, as a condition of that agreement.' Her glance went from the startled Elderling to the Council. She drew herself up straight and summoned courage she didn't know she had. She lifted her voice, willing it to fill the hall. 'My name is Alise Kincarron Finbok. In addition to signing the agreement with the dragon Tintaglia, and thus having a vested interest in these decisions, I am one of the foremost experts on both dragons and Elderlings that Bingtown has to offer. I have travelled here from Bingtown for the express purpose of speaking with the dragons and learning more of their kind.
'Since Tintaglia first appeared in our midst, I have devoted all my time to the studying and translation of every scroll or tablet regarding dragons and Elderlings that exists in Bingtown. When you speak of breaking an agreement with a dragon who had given you her true name as her binding word on it, I do not think you fully comprehend what you are suggesting. As Bingtown's most knowledgeable authority on dragons, I do.'
As she drew breath, she shoved aside her doubt that any one in Bingtown would agree with her previous statement. No one else from Bingtown was here to contradict her. And she knew her words to be true, and right now that was all that mattered. She spoke on, decisively, listening in amazement to the words coming out of her own mouth. 'I do not believe that the Traders' Council of Cassarick has the authority to make this decision regarding—'
'You have studied dragons and Elderlings.' It was Malta the Elderling who so precipitously interrupted her. 'In all the ancient scrolls you have studied, have you ever found mention of a place called Kelsingra? I believe it was an Elderling city.'
Alise felt like a sailing boat that had suddenly lost the wind from its sails. Malta's question was so unexpected that she lost the chain of argument that she had wished to present to the Council. The news that they wished to 'evacuate' the dragons immediately had stunned her. From what Leftrin had told her on the boat, she had believed she would at least have her few days with them. Now it appeared that even that short time might be snatched away from her. For an instant, she had been filled with resolve to do or say whatever she must to win those few days back. But at Malta's interruption, she lost the thread of her words and her courage. All her bravado suddenly fled. She glanced at the Council members, expecting them to be annoyed by Malta's question. Instead, they seemed as focused on
her answer as Malta herself did. Trader Polsk leaned forward, eyes fixed on her. Alise had all but forgotten the captain at her side, but now he reached over and set a reassuring hand on her forearm. 'Go on. Tell them.'
It rattled her for a moment; how could he know that she knew about Kelsingra? Then she recalled that yesterday afternoon when he had been telling her tales of river navigation, and how quickly a channel he had used one month could silt in by the next she, burning to distinguish herself, had nodded wisely and recounted a story from an old scroll that had spoken about how often the passage to the Kelsingra docks had to be dredged. He had replied that he'd never heard of such a city, and she had dismissed it with a shrug, saying that perhaps the river had swallowed it long ago.
She looked at Malta. The Elderling looked poised for flight; she leaned slightly toward Alise, her eyes burning with hope. The light globes that had drifted to surround her had spread again, but she still seemed at the centre of all light in the room. How could Alise tell her that Kelsingra was little more than a name in a scroll to her? She glanced helplessly about and her eyes, by fate or chance, snagged on a tapestry to the left of Malta. A strange thrill shot through her. She slowly lifted her hand and pointed at it. 'There is Kelsingra.' She walked toward it, her heart beating faster with every step. 'Give me more light here, please,' she said, almost forgetting where she was and to whom she spoke in the excitement of her find.
In response to her request, Malta sent the light globes flocking after her. They followed her and when she halted, they did. When they gathered around the tapestry, it was almost like looking out a window into a woven world. It was all there. The perspective had been skewed deliberately by the weaver so that more landmarks could be included. 'There.' She lifted her hand and pointed as she spoke. 'That would be the famous map tower of Kelsingra. From what I have read, I believe that map towers were created in several of their larger cities. In each tower there would be a large relief map of the surrounding area, and the encircling windows of the tower looked out on the depicted area. Sometimes there were symbols for more distant locations. The scrolls imply that somehow the map towers helped people to travel swiftly, but they do not say how. The map tower at Kelsingra is referred to in several scrolls, perhaps indicating that it was of more importance than some of the others.'
Distantly she heard her own voice. She had taken on a pedagogic tenor, the tone she had sometimes dreamed that she would employ someday when her scholarship was recognized and people would wish her to share her knowledge. Never had she dreamed she would lecture in a place like Cassarick or that her audience would include an Elderling. Her hand moved and she pointed again. 'You can see that the map tower is in the spire of a very impressive building. The decorative frieze on the front shows an Elderling woman ploughing behind an ox. The adjacent wall, as you can see, depicts a queen dragon. I speculate that the conjunction of the two is no accident, but shows that the two of them were as important to the city as the two walls that support this main city structure. We can only wonder what was on the other two faces of the building.
'Note the depth and width of the stairs that approach the grand entry doors. Human, or human-sized Elderlings would have no need of such steps, nor of such immense doors. It's clear to me that this structure, identified in one scroll as the Citadel of Records, welcomed both Elderlings and dragons inside its walls.'
'But where is it? Where is Kelsingra?' Malta's low anxious voice cut through Alise's lecture.
Slowly the Bingtown woman turned to look at the Elderling.
'I cannot tell you that with any precision. As far as I know, no map of the areas that we now call the Rain Wilds has ever been recovered. But from the written descriptions we have, I can say with certainty that it was substantially upriver of both Trehaug and Cassarick. We do have descriptions of the lush meadowlands that surrounded the city and provided good grazing for both domesticated cattle and wild game. The dragons feasted freely on both, and it was considered their right to do so. But such open rolling meadows do not fit with the jungled Rain Wilds that we know. Nor does the description of the river. According to the scrolls, the river that ran past Kelsingra was deep and during flood-times, it was swift running and treacherous. The illustrations in the scrolls and here on this tapestry clearly show keeled sailing vessels both approaching the city and tying up at its docks. There are trade vessels of considerable size already moored there. Again, these images do not fit with the Rain Wild River as we know it now. So, we can speculate that either the river has changed, a fact that is obviously true given the buried ruins that have been unearthed here, or we can wonder if there existed another, different river, a tributary or one that is perhaps merged now with our Rain Wild River, that originally fronted Kelsingra.' She ran out of breath and words at the same time. She turned away from the tapestry and back to her audience. Malta's face was a mixture of triumph and misery. The brushy haired Rain Wilds woman at the table was nodding her head vigorously. 'Excellent!' she exclaimed before anyone else could speak. 'We are indebted to you, madam. The black dragon has spoken of this Kelsingra as the best possible destination for the dragons. They have dropped hints to us that it was a major Elderling city. But up to now, we lacked confirmation of its existence. You offer us not only the physical evidence of the tapestry but your scholarly opinion that such a place did, and possibly still does exist. We could not ask for better news, any of us!'
'I could,' Malta asserted flatly. 'I could ask for a map that would clearly show us where the city once existed in relation to the two Elderling cities that we have already located.' She flicked her fingers as if in annoyance and the light globes scattered like startled cats. She moved to one of the tiers of benches and slowly sank down onto it. She suddenly appeared not only merely human, but very tired. 'We have failed them so badly. We gave a promise to Tintaglia and we began by doing the best we could for them. Slowly we let our standards fall, and the last two years have just been a nightmare. So many of them have died.'
'Without our help, all of them would have died. Without our help, most of them would never have cocooned, let alone hatched.' Trader Polsk presented the fact simply.
'Without us cutting them up into planks to build ships, more of them might have survived to hatch during that quake,' Malta retorted.
'If there had not been liveships, would you have been there at all?' Alise dared to interject the question. Malta appeared to be mired in despair, but Alise felt a growing excitement. The most wonderful idea she had ever imagined was slowly unfolding in her mind. She hardly dared state it. She teetered on dread that they might refuse her and terror that they might accept her offer. She tried to keep her voice steady as she asked, 'How soon must the dragons be moved?'
'The sooner the better,' Trader Polsk replied. She ran both her hands through her brush of grey hair, standing it up like a dragon's crest. 'Delay can only make it worse for all of us, including the dragons. If it were possible for them to leave tomorrow, that is what I would choose.'
'Yet I have come all the way from Bingtown just for the purpose of studying these dragons and possibly conversing with them,' Alise objected.
'You will find them little inclined to conversation,' Malta said drearily. 'Even if you had come months ago, it would have been so. They have ancestral memories of the dragons they should have been. Much as I hate to admit it, Trader Polsk is right. They are and have been miserable where they are. I have done my best to visit them often, and I know the hardships that have been created for those who tried to keep faithfully the terms of our bargain with Tintaglia. I am not blind to those things. I just wish it could have a better ending. I wish that I could go with them and see them safely settled in some better place. But I cannot.'
She sounded so defeated that Alise wondered if the Elderling woman were ill. But then she set her hands to her belly in the unmistakable gesture of a woman who is with child, and sets that child's well-being above all in her life. It was like the last piece of a puzzle falling into place.
The circumstances were exactly right for her; if it was not fate, it was close enough.
'You cannot go, but I can.' She spoke the words clearly, offering herself and seizing a chance for herself in the same breath. 'I am willing to travel with them, using my knowledge of their kind to aid them in any way I can. I am eager to travel with them, to learn of them all I can, to observe their kind and, if I dare to admit it, in the wild hope that I could be with them if and when Kelsingra is rediscovered. Let me be the one to go.'
Silence greeted her words, but it was of a mixed sort. Malta looked at her as if she were a vision of salvation. Trader Polsk looked intrigued. Two of the committee members were regarding her with sick horror. She made an intuitive leap; those two had had some inkling that Kelsingra was real and that valuable Eldering relics might be discovered there. She'd just spoiled some sort of secret scheme without even intending to do so. The thought of that fired her courage. She spoke aloud to Malta. 'If Kelsingra is rediscovered and is intact at all, it could be the greatest resource yet for understanding how Elderlings and dragons interacted. The mysteries that have been discovered at Trehaug and Cassarick may be solved at Kelsingra.'
'Surely that is a matter for Rain Wild Traders to discuss,' one of the men at the table assayed.
'Surely it is a matter for Elderlings and dragons,' Malta countered.
'The first step is to find the place. And get the dragons to safety.' Leftrin was grinning from ear to ear. He strode across the darkened room to step into the light and stand beside her. 'If the lady's willing to go on the trip to continue her study of the dragons, then I'm willing to take her.' As the grey-haired committee leader leaned forward as if to object, he added calmly, 'In fact, I'm willing to make it one of the conditions for my accepting the charter.' He boldly turned to Malta and made a small bow. 'Perhaps we should defer to Malta Khuprus. She suggested that the dragons should have a representative. Seems to me that having a dragon expert aboard might be one of the wiser things that we could do.'
