by Robin Hobb
WARKEN: This tall, long-limbed keeper lost his life on the journey to Kelsingra. Baliper, his scarlet drake, has refused to accept a new keeper.
THE BINGTOWNERS
ALISE KINCARRON FINBOK: Descended from a poor but respectable Bingtown Trader family, Alise entered into a loveless marriage arrangement with Hest Finbok. The gray-eyed, freckled redhead has repented at leisure and has now become involved with Captain Leftrin. She has been rebuilding her childhood friendship with Sedric.
HEST FINBOK: A handsome, well-established, and wealthy Bingtown Trader’s son, perhaps the only action he has ever been forced to perform was marrying Alise. He is ruthless in the pursuit of his own pleasures and has concealed from Alise and his family the true nature of his relationship with Sedric Meldar.
REDDING: Hest’s current paramour, he is very pleased to have replaced Sedric in Hest’s life. He hopes to enjoy Hest’s extravagant lifestyle with him while building his own fortune through Hest’s connections.
SEDRIC MELDAR: Secretary and former lover to Hest Finbok, and friends with Alise since childhood. He has accidentally bonded with the copper queen Relpda. Now partnered with Carson Lupskip, he is struggling to adapt to his new life in Kelsingra.
TRADER FINBOK: Hest’s father is a successful Bingtown Trader who is growing weary of his son’s self-indulgence and his failure to produce an heir. Married to Sealia Finbok, Hest’s doting mother.
THE CREW OF THE TARMAN
BELLIN: Deckhand. Married to Swarge, she is a quiet, powerful woman and a stabilizing influence on the crew.
BIG EIDER: Deckhand. A large and powerful man of simple thoughts and a good heart.
CARSON LUPSKIP: Hired by the Trehaug Rain Wild Council as a hunter for the expedition, Captain Leftrin’s old friend has now become a dragon keeper as well. Spit is a small, temperamental, and potentially dangerous silver dragon. Tall, powerfully built Carson is partnered with Sedric.
DAVVIE: Apprentice hunter to Carson Lupskip and the son of his old friend, Davvie is like a nephew to Carson. The fifteen-year-old is bonded to Kalo, the largest of the drakes. The blue-black dragon’s previous keeper, Greft, proved a traitor to the expedition. Davvie is partnered with Lecter.
GRIGSBY: Ship’s cat. Orange and insouciant.
HENNESEY: First mate on the Tarman and something of a ladies’ man. Competent and loyal to his shipmates.
JESS: This hired hunter had a secret agenda of his own. He lost his life on the upriver journey.
LEFTRIN: Captain of the liveship Tarman, he has lived and served aboard the ship since he was a boy. Heir to his family, he is now bonded to Tarman for life. He has gray eyes, brown hair, and a robust build. He has fallen in love with Alise.
SKELLY: Leftrin’s niece and presumed heir currently serves as a deckhand so that she will know every position on the liveship she expects to inherit. She is infatuated with the keeper Alum, but has an arranged marriage and a fiancé awaiting her in Trehaug.
SWARGE: The tillerman for Tarman. Quiet and knowledgeable of the river and its ways, he has served aboard the ship for more than fifteen years. Married to Bellin.
TARMAN: The oldest existing liveship is a river barge, long and low, with many secrets of his own as to why he is able to attain such speeds and go where few ships can follow. He has painted eyes on his bow, but no figurehead.
MISCELLANEOUS CHARACTERS
ALTHEA VESTRIT: First mate on the liveship Paragon out of Bingtown (the Liveship Traders trilogy). Aunt to Malta Khuprus and Selden Vestrit, she is married to Brashen Trell.
BEGASTI CORED: Chalcedean merchant, this bald, rich trading partner of Hest Finbok’s has been forcibly recruited by the Duke of Chalced to obtain dragon parts by any means.
BRASHEN TRELL: Captain of the liveship Paragon out of Bingtown. Married to Althea Vestrit.
CHANCELLOR ELLIK: Adviser and “sword arm” to the aging Duke of Chalced. Once they rode to war together and were comrades. Now he is reduced to serving the Duke. He is dismayed to see the Duke’s health and power unraveling and anxious to seize power before the Duke’s death plunges Chalced into civil disorder.
CHASSIM: Eldest daughter of the Duke of Chalced. Widowed several times, she has once more become a part of the Duke’s household.
DETOZI: Keeper of the messenger birds at Trehaug, she is engaged to Erek, a bird keeper from Bingtown.
DUKE OF CHALCED: Chalced’s aging despot is ruthlessly desperate for the dragon parts he believes will restore his health and vitality. He is capable of any cruelty to get what he wants.
EREK: Bird Keeper of Bingtown, and engaged to Detozi, he is a knowledgeable bird handler who takes his duties very seriously.
JANI KHUPRUS: Matriarch of the Rain Wild Trader family, she is a powerful and determined woman. At one time, the Khuprus family controlled the lion’s share of the trade in wizardwood and built many of the surviving liveships. Mother to Reyn Khuprus, her family fostered Selden Vestrit.
KIM: Keeper of the Birds, Cassarick. A Tattooed, this former slave came to the Rain Wilds seeking a better life and is endeavoring to build a fortune.
MALTA KHUPRUS: Born a Vestrit of Bingtown, the Elderling “queen” now resides in Trehaug with her husband, Reyn. Malta and Reyn were tormented and then claimed by the dragon Tintaglia, and their bond has never been an easy one (Liveship Traders trilogy).
PARAGON: Once called the Pariah, the mad liveship has entered a more stable time in his life, but remains a challenging vessel. He helped escort the serpents up the Rain Wild River on their journey to becoming dragons. Fiercely attached to his humans.
REYALL: Acting Keeper of the Birds at Bingtown; nephew of Detozi.
REYN KHUPRUS: Younger son of the powerful Rain Wild Trader family, he married Malta Vestrit and was claimed by the dragon Tintaglia (the Liveship Traders trilogy).
SELDEN VESTRIT: Youngest son of the Vestrit family, he was claimed by the dragon Tintaglia when he was still a boy and changed by her to an Elderling. He has been missing for some time after setting out on an errand for Tintaglia to collect news of any other surviving dragons (the Liveship Traders trilogy).
SINAD ARICH: A Chalcedean merchant who strikes a deal with Captain Leftrin via blackmail of the captain. The Duke of Chalced holds his family hostage.
THE CHALCEDEAN: Hest’s nemesis is a Chalcedean nobleman. Under duress from the Duke to obtain dragon parts, he has become a tormented and ruthless man who will do whatever he must to ransom his family. Proper name Lord Dargen.
TILLAMON: Older sister to Reyn Khuprus, she is heavily changed by the Rain Wilds and has begun to live the life of an outcast within her own society. Unwed and isolated, she seizes the opportunity to build a new life for herself.
PROLOGUE
Changes
Tintaglia awoke feeling chilled and old. She had made a good kill and eaten heavily, but she had not rested well. The festering wound under her left wing made it hard to find a comfortable position. If she stretched out, the hot swollen place pulled, and if she curled up, she felt the jabbing of the buried arrow. The pain spread out in her wing now when she opened it, as if some thistly plant were sending out runners inside her, prickling her with thorns as it spread. The weather had become colder as she flew toward the Rain Wilds. There were no deserts, no warm sands in this region of the world. Heat seemed to well up from the earth’s heart in the Chalcedean deserts, making it nearly as warm as the southern lands were at this time of year. But now she had left the dry lands and warm sands behind, and winter’s stranglehold on spring had claimed its due. The cold stiffened the flesh around her wound, making each morning a torment.
Icefyre had not come with her. She had expected the old black dragon to accompany her, although she could not recall why. Dragons preferred to be solitary rather than social. To eat well, each needed a large hunting territory. It had only been when she had left his side and he had not followed that the humiliating realization had drenched her: she had been following him, all that time. She could not recall
that he had ever requested her to stay; neither had he asked her to leave.
He had all he needed from her. In the early excitement of discovering each other, they had mated. When she grew to full maturity, she would visit the nesting island, and there lay the eggs that he had already fertilized. But once he had impregnated her there was no reason for him to stay with her. When her eggs hatched into serpents that would slither into the sea and renew the endless cycle of dragon-egg-serpent-cocoon-dragon, the memories of his lineage would continue. Eventually, there would be other dragons for him to encounter, when he chose to seek their company. She felt puzzled that she had lingered with him as long as she had. Having hatched so alone and isolated, had she learned undragonlike behavior from humans?
She uncoiled slowly and then, even more gingerly, spread her wings to the overcast day. She stretched, already missing the warmth of the sands, and tried not to wonder if the journey back to Trehaug were beyond her strength. Had she waited too long, hoping she would heal on her own?
It hurt to crane her neck to inspect the wound. It smelled foul, and when she moved, pus oozed from it. She hissed in anger that such a thing had befallen her, and then she used the strength of that anger to tighten the muscles there. The movement forced more liquid from the wound. It hurt and stank terribly, but when she had finished, her skin felt less tight. She could fly. Not without pain, and not swiftly, but she could fly. Tonight she would take more care in selecting her resting place. Taking flight from the riverbank where she presently found herself was going to be difficult.
She wanted to fly directly to Trehaug in the hope of locating Malta and Reyn quickly and having one of her Elderling servants remove the arrowhead from her flesh. A direct route would have been best, but the thick forests of the region made that impossible. For a dragon to land in such a thickly treed area was difficult at the best of times; with a bad wing, she would certainly go crashing down through the canopy. So she had followed first the coast and then the Rain Wild River. The marshy banks and mud bars offered easy hunting as river mammals emerged on the shores to root and roll and as the forest creatures sought water. If she was fortunate, as she had been last night, she could combine a stoop on a large meal with a safe landing on a marshy riverfront strip.
If she was unfortunate, she could always land in the river shallows and crawl out onto whatever bank the river offered. That, she feared, might be her best option this evening. And while she did not doubt that she could survive such an unpleasantly cold and wet landing, she dreaded the thought of attempting to take flight from such a place. As she had to do now.
Wings half extended, she walked down to the water’s edge and drank, wrinkling her nostrils at the bitter taste of the water. Once she had sated her thirst, she opened her wings and sprang into the sky.
With a wild flapping of her wings, she crashed back to earth again. It was not a long fall, but it jarred her, breaking her pain into sharp-edged fragments that stabbed every interior space of her body. The shock jabbed the air from her lungs and crushed a hoarse squawk of pain from her throat. She hit the ground badly, her wings still half open. Her tender side struck the earth. Stunned, she sprawled, waiting for the agony to pass. It did not, but gradually it faded to a bearable level.
Tintaglia lowered her head to her chest, gathered her legs under her, and slowly folded her wings. She badly wanted to rest. But if she did, she would awaken hungrier and stiffer than she was now and with the daylight fading. No. She had to fly and now. The longer she waited, the more her physical abilities would wane. She needed to fly while she still could.
She steeled herself to the pain, not allowing her body to compensate for it in any way. She simply had to endure it and fly as if it did not hurt. She burned that thought into her brain and then, without pausing, opened her wings, crouched, and launched herself upward.
Every beat of her wings was like being stabbed with a fiery spear. She roared, giving voice to her fury at the pain, but did not vary the rhythm of her wing beats. Rising slowly into the air, she flew over the shallows of the river until finally she lifted clear of the trees that shaded the river’s face. The wan sunlight touched her, and the wilder winds of the open air buffeted her. The breezes were heavy with the threat of chilling rain to come. Well, let it come, then. Tintaglia was flying home.
Day the 15th of the Fish Moon
Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Reyall, Acting Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown
To Erek Dunwarrow
Enclosed in a standard message cylinder.
My dear uncle,
My delayed response to your offer is due to my utter surprise at receiving it. Over and over, I have read it, wondering if I am ready and more: if I am worthy of what you propose. To vouch for my promotion not only to a master within the Guild but also to select me to take over your personal birds and cote . . . what can I say to such an honor? I know what these pigeons mean to you, and I have faithfully studied your breeding journals and your documentation of how you have improved the birds for both speed and vitality. I have been in awe of your knowledge. And now you propose to put your birds and your careful breeding plan into my hands?
I shudder to think you will take this amiss, but I must ask you, are you certain you wish to do this?
If, after consideration, you still wish to offer me this extraordinary opportunity, then yes, I will accept it and endeavor for all the rest of my life to prove worthy of it! But be assured, if you have reconsidered, there will be no ill will between us. To know that you even considered me worthy of such an honor and responsibility makes me resolved to strive to be the keeper that you believe I can be.
With humble thanks, your nephew,
Reyall
And please assure my aunt Detozi of my good wishes and utter delight in her good fortune in wedding you!
CHAPTER ONE
Ending a Life
She opened her eyes to a morning she didn’t want. With great reluctance, she lifted her head and looked around the single room. The cabin was cold. The fire had been out for hours, and the cold and damp of the unseasonably cold spring had crept relentlessly in while she huddled under her worn blankets waiting for her life to go away. It hadn’t. Life had lingered to ambush her again with cold and damp, disappointment and loneliness. She clutched her thin covers to her chest as her eyes wandered to the stacked and sorted papers and parchment that had occupied her for the last week. There it was. Alise Finbok’s life work, all in one stack. Translations of ancient papers, speculations of her own, careful copies of old documents rendered in black ink with her best guess at the missing words inked in red. Deprived of any significant purpose in her own life, she had retreated to ancient days and taken pride in her scholarly knowledge of them. She knew how Elderlings had once lived and interacted with dragons. She knew the names of Elderlings and dragons of old; she knew their habits; she knew so much about a past that no longer had any relevance.
Elderlings and dragons had returned to the world. She had witnessed that miracle. And they would reclaim the ancient city of Kelsingra and take up their lives there. All the secrets she had tried to tease out of old scrolls and moldering tapestries meant nothing now. Once the new Elderlings gained their city, they would need only to touch the memory stone there to discover all their history for themselves. All the secrets she had dreamed of discovering, all the puzzles she had longed to solve were finished now, and not by her. She was irrelevant.
She surprised herself when she flung the blankets suddenly to one side and stood up. Cold wrapped her instantaneously. She stepped to her clothing trunks, the grand traveling trunks that she had packed so hopefully in the days before she left Bingtown. They had been stuffed when she began her journey, full of sensible clothes fit for a lady adventurer. Stoutly woven cotton blouses with a minimum of lace, split skirts for hiking, hats with veils to ward off insects and sun, sturdy leather boots . . . little but memories remained of them now. The hardships of travel had sof
tened the fabrics. Her boots were scuffed and leaked, the ties now a series of knots. Laundering clothes in the acidic waters of the river had been her only choice, but seams had weakened and hems had frayed. She drew on a set of her worn clothes with no thought as to what they would look like. No one was going to look at her anyway. She was finished forever with worrying about what she looked like or what people thought of her.
An Elderling gown, Leftrin’s gift to her, hung on a hook. Of all the clothing she owned, this alone retained its bright colors and supple softness. She longed for its warmth but could not bring herself to put it on. Rapskal had said it and said it clearly. She was not an Elderling. She had no right to the city of Kelsingra, no right to anything pertaining to Elderlings.
Bitterness, hurt, and resignation to the reality Rapskal had voiced formed a tight, hard knot in her throat. She stared at the Elderling gown until the brilliant colors shimmered from her unshed tears. Her sorrow only deepened as she thought of the man who had given it to her. Her liveship captain. Leftrin. Despite the differences in their stations in life, they had fallen in love with each other during the arduous journey up the river. For the first time in her life, a man had admired her mind, respected her work, and desired her body. He had kindled a like passion in her and awakened her to all that could exist between a man and a woman. He had created desires in her such as she had never known before.
And then he had left her, here. Alone in a primitive cabin . . .
Stop it. Stop whining. She stared at the Elderling gown and forced herself to remember the wonderful moment when Leftrin had offered it to her, a priceless artifact, a family possession; he had shared it with her, with never a qualm. And she had worn it as armor against cold and wind and even loneliness. Worn it without a thought about its historical significance. How had she ever dared to rebuke the keepers for wanting something as warm and impervious as the “priceless artifact” she had enjoyed so often? And Leftrin? Was she faulting him for her loneliness? Hypocrite! she rebuked herself.
