Rain Wilds Chronicles

by Robin Hobb

  Tintaglia had no choice. She staggered toward them, stiffly and then in a lumbering charge, whipping her head from side to side, sending one man flying into the rushes and flattening another. She trod on her screaming victim as she passed, vindictively flexing her foot to be sure her nails scored him well.

  Once past them, there was no escape save the river in front of her. She could not take flight; she needed time to limber her muscles and space to gather herself for that first painful vault into the air. She lashed her tail as she thundered past them and knew the satisfaction of feeling it connect and hearing a man scream. She did not look back. Better to appear that she was merely stalking off rather than fleeing.

  The river awaited. She did not pause, but waded into it. Her enemies had nosed their vessels onto the bank downstream of her. So the humans had abandoned whatever quarrel they had with each other to unite in coming after her! She thought about destroying the ships in passing, but doubted her strength. Instead, she waded chest-deep in the water and started upriver. If they wanted to come after her, they’d have to reboard their vessels and man the oars. And if they did come up on her in the water, she thought she could possibly tip a boat over, or at least destroy a bank of oars.

  She heard them shouting in frustration on the bank behind her. A spear splashed into the water beside her, and an arrow struck her back plates, lodged briefly between two of them and then fell. Stupid insects, daring to attack her! If she hadn’t already been injured, there would have been nothing but smoking meat and shattered wood left of them and their ships!

  She took another step and then the river water penetrated beneath her tightly clasped wings and she trumpeted in furious pain as the icy water found her wound with an acid kiss. Lurching on, she stumbled to her knees as the agony stabbed into her deeper than the spearhead had ever penetrated. The men on the shore screamed and whooped like monkeys as they watched her sink, her legs collapsing under her. She turned to look back at them, and shrieked a thought out on a wild blast of anger. “You will all die! I give you a dragon’s promise unending. All humans who attack dragons die!”

  She sent that blast of anger winging wide, a desperate message to the distant dragons of Kelsingra. As the pain stabbed deeper into her and the cold water sucked the warmth from her flesh, she wondered if any heard it.

  Day the 5th of the Plough Moon

  Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

  From the Bird Keepers’ Guild

  Notice of Commendation

  To be posted at all Guild Halls.

  We are most pleased to announce this honor for Erek Dunwarrow, formerly a keeper of the birds in Bingtown and a master bird handler in good standing with the Guild. With this commendation, we recognize his significant contributions to the bird-breeding program at Bingtown, specifically the program for breeding birds for hardiness and swiftness.

  A prize of sixty silvers is hereby awarded to him, and the further honor that birds of this particular lineage and coloration will now be formally named as Dunwarrows.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Silver

  “There were some wonderful places up near the foothills. Smaller, but with sweeping views. Closer to hunting.” Carson added the last in a lower voice, knowing that hunting was not really one of the criteria that topped Sedric’s list. He turned his eyes toward the hills and cliffs that backed the city and stared wistfully at their forested flanks.

  “Closer to the wild lands. And farther from everything else,” Sedric pointed out with a wry smile.

  “From the river, perhaps,” Carson countered. “But closer to everything else that we need right now to live independently. The hunting is good in the wooded hills; the dragons prefer to hunt the more open lands. And there are trees that may bear nuts or fruit. There will almost certainly be wild berries. The supplies that Captain Leftrin brought back from Cassarick won’t last forever. We shouldn’t be waiting until they run out before we worry about it. We should be stocking up on meat now, and scouting for other food sources.”

  “I think I’ve heard this before,” Sedric said quietly, and Carson suddenly stopped in midbreath.

  Then he laughed. “I know. I say the same things over and over. Usually to you, because I sometimes think you’re the only one listening to me. The others act like children, thinking only of this day, this hour.”

  “The others listen too. They’re just enjoying a brief respite from daily hunts and work on the dock and every other task you urge them to undertake. They are young, Carson. And suddenly they have tea and jam and ship’s biscuit again. Give them a few more days, and then I’ll help you persuade some of them to go on an extended hunt again. But for now, can’t we take a bit of time for ourselves? There’s a house I want to show you. I think you’d like it.”

  “A house?” Carson cocked his head and grinned. “Or a mansion?”

  It was Sedric’s turn to shrug ruefully. “Well, any house in Kelsingra is bound to seem a mansion to you. The Rain Wilds taught all of you to build small. But there’s a street of houses I walked through a few days ago that intrigued me. And yes, they are large, even by Bingtown standards. But the one I went into had garden rooms in it, with transparent ceilings. So, although we might be a long way from the forest or foothills, we might be able to grow food right in our home.”

  “If we had seed— Oh, very well. Let’s look at it,” Carson conceded as Sedric shot him a long-suffering look. “I suppose you are right, and Leftrin did say that he put in an order for seed and chickens and so on. I just never imagined myself tending a garden. Or raising birds to eat.”

  “I never imagined myself as an Elderling,” Sedric countered. “Carson, I think we are going to have a lot of years to explore many kinds of lives. We may farm, or raise cattle . . .”

  “Or hunt.”

  “Or hunt. Here. I think this is the right street. Kelsingra is so big and so spread out. Every time I think I’ve learned the city, I find another street to explore. Up this way I think. Or was it downhill from here?”

  Carson chuckled tolerantly. “Did you notice if there was a view? If so, that would be uphill.” He halted and watched Sedric look up and down the street. He straightened the collar of his tunic. He had to admit that the clothing Sedric had chosen for him was comfortable. And warm. And weighed less than his leathers. He glanced down at himself, at his legs clad in a blue that reminded him of a parrot’s wings. Elderling garb. At least the boots were brown. They were so light he felt as if he had nothing on, and yet his feet weren’t cold and the stones underfoot didn’t jab him. The wide brown belt he wore was of Elderling make, as was the sheathed knife he wore on it. The blade wasn’t metal. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it had been razor sharp from the moment he drew it from the sheath and it had stayed that way. It looked like blue, baked pottery to him more than anything else. Yet another Elderling mystery.

  The more the keepers explored the city, the more artifacts they found. True, most of the houses and shops and buildings were empty, as if the people who had lived here had packed and left. But in some sections of the city, they were finding mansions and homes that held all sorts of Elderling items. Most items of wood had crumbled to dust, and scrolls and books had likewise decayed. But some of their fabrics had survived, especially of the sort that his tunic was made from, and it was not unusual anymore to see keepers ringed and necklaced as if they were wealthy Bingtown traders. It made Carson uneasy, though he had difficulty expressing why. Just as deciding which house to take over as their own made him uncomfortable. He and Sedric had been sharing chambers above the dragon baths, and even these had seemed a sybaritic luxury to him. He wasn’t sure that he understood why Sedric wanted a large and elaborate home. But he deserved one, if that was what he wanted.

  He glanced over at him and had to smile. Sedric looked so intent, as alert as any hunter, as he prowled down the street studying the grand houses that fronted it. The move to Kelsingra had agreed with him. Carson was a fastidious man about
cleanliness, when such a state was possible, but Sedric elevated it to an art form. His hair gleamed gold, touched with the metallic sheen that Relpda had awarded to every part of him. To his eyes and his skin, his nails, and even his hair she had lent coppery warmth. Today, Sedric had chosen to echo that gleam with metallic blues in his tunic and hose, while his belt and boots were black. The Elderling garb wore so well, Carson thought no one needed more than one extra change of clothing. But Sedric had appropriated a rainbow for his wardrobe and took unutterable joy in varying his garb, sometimes several times a day. Even if Carson did not understand his partner’s infatuation with clothing, it did not diminish his delight in watching him exercise it. Sedric felt Carson’s scrutiny and turned to the hunter with a questioning look.

  “What?” he demanded.

  Carson’s smile widened. “Just you. That’s all.”

  A blush suffused Sedric’s face, rendering him both more boyish and yet more charming. And that he blushed because he was overwhelmed by Carson’s compliment only magnified the effect for the hunter. He jostled Sedric with an elbow and then put an arm around him. “Which house?” he asked him genially, knowing that if, at that moment, Sedric declared he wished to live in all of them at once, he’d have done his best to make it possible.

  “Wait!” Sedric said sharply. He shrugged out from under Carson’s arm and strode briskly away. For a moment, Carson felt hurt; then he recognized the intensity of Sedric’s stalking. An odd prickle of premonition ran up his own spine as he stared around.

  This was a district of elaborate houses, and almost every intersection boasted a fountain or a statue or plaza of some sort. Any of the structures were palatial by Carson’s standards, but Sedric was moving steadily downhill, ignoring their allure. He strode through a small square with a statue of a woman pouring water and turned deliberately into a street of humbler houses. The thoroughfares went from broad avenues fit for a parade of dragons to wide but winding streets, and the buildings changed to a more human scale as they moved along it. Odd. Carson had never imagined that such simple dwellings might attract his peacock lover. Sedric moved strangely, peering from side to side, not like a man who considers the houses he passes but as if trying to find something he’d lost. No. Like a man who had lost his way, Carson suddenly realized, and was looking for a landmark. He lifted his own eyes and scanned the area. Like all of Kelsingra, it was built of stone, and here a bluish-gray stone predominated. He noticed nothing noteworthy. Cautiously, he opened his awareness of the city and let the impressions of Elderlings long dead touch his thoughts.

  He had always felt a bit squeamish about this aspect of being an Elderling. A private man himself, he felt strange wallowing in the personal memories of others. The other keepers seemed to take it in stride, and personally he did not blame those who chose to enjoy the sensual memories of another time. In such a small population, it was better for them to satisfy their needs that way than to jostle and fight for the available partners. And he knew there was valuable information to be gained in sharing memories from the stones, technical information on the workings of the city in addition to knowledge of the ways of dragons and the surrounding lands. He knew that Sedric enjoyed tapping the memory stones in the same way that he had enjoyed going to plays or listening to minstrels. The stones of the city were full of stories, some dramatic, some poignant. But no other part of the city had felt the way this one did. It was quiet. No memories stirred here, no brief waft of scent or echo of someone’s laughter from a long-ago summer day. Here the city was mute, hoarding its secrets in silence. Sedric glanced back at him, bafflement on his face, and Carson sensed his partner had just shared the same realization.

  “What are you looking for?” he called to Sedric, and his words bounced back to him from the silent stone.

  “I’m not sure.” Sedric stared all around him like a man wakening from a dream. “The streets just suddenly seemed very familiar. As if I’d been here before, and often. For an important reason. But every time I try to remember that part of the memory, it fades out of reach. But in an odd way. The Elderling memories I’ve taken from stone usually stay with me clearly. But this is like fog . . .”

  “In a purposeful way.” Carson finished the thought for him.

  “Yes. As if something were being deliberately concealed.”

  The buildings that they passed now were no longer homes or mansions but were designed to allow dragons to enter as freely as humans. They walked quietly past them, their softly shod feet whispering on the paving stones.

  “It’s older here,” Sedric said suddenly. “The way the streets are paved, the buildings . . . this is older than the part of the city where the dragon baths are, or that grand Hall of Records with the map tower.”

  “I suspect this is where Kelsingra began.” Carson nodded to where worn steps went down into a building’s entrance. “It seems to me it would take a lot of feet walking down stone steps before they were worn like that. And these buildings are actually lower than the street, if you look at it. As if the streets have been repaired and raised.” In reply to Sedric’s startled glance, Carson looked aside. “I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard that Old Jamaillia is like that. One fellow who had been there told me that openings that used to be first-floor windows are doors now, the streets have been built up so much.”

  Sedric nodded, a slow smile curving his lips. “I have been there, and you’re right. Strange. I was looking right at it and not really seeing it.”

  For a time, they walked in silence. The streets grew narrower and the buildings humbler, as if when people had first settled here, they had not known the full ambition of Elderlings. Carson found that Sedric had drawn closer to him. Carson linked arms with him and felt himself more alert than he usually was in this city. The din of memories simply didn’t exist in this part of the city. Perhaps it had been built before the Elderlings had gained the magic of storing memories in stone. The scuff of their footsteps on the cobblestones seemed louder, the warmth of Sedric’s skin under his fingers more intimate. All his senses were keener here. He felt more himself and wondered uneasily who he had been before.

  “There!” Sedric said suddenly, and pointed.

  “What is it?” Carson asked. Recognition tickled at the back of his mind, but he could not summon the memory.

  “I don’t know,” Sedric admitted. “I only know it’s important.”

  Carson shivered suddenly but not with a chill. Something else. Danger? Anticipation? He lifted his head and sniffed the air, wondering if the scent of a predator had triggered it. Nothing. But an almost sexual excitement infused him suddenly, and as it tingled through his body, he recognized it was not his own. Spit, never far from him in thought, knew something about this place. Or almost did. Somewhere, the little silver dragon had tipped his wings, ignoring the dozing deer below him. He was winging back to the city as fast as he could. Carson stared around him, trying to see what his dragon had glimpsed through his eyes.

  “It” was an open plaza, not as wide or as grand as many in the newer part of the city. In the center of it was a tumble of rubble. The destruction looked both deliberate and recent—or at least much more recent than the other quake damage to the city. A length of black chain coiled like a dead snake. Timbers of green and gold and red had been rendered to kindling. They approached the collapsed structure slowly, and Sedric was the first to speak. “It’s sticking out of a hole there. See the low wall around it, or what is left of it? It looks like a well, for drawing water, but much wider. But with a river so close by, why would they dig a well here?”

  “It wasn’t for water,” Carson said quietly. He listened to his own words as if someone else were speaking them, then he fell silent, chasing an elusive idea. At last he spoke a single word. “Silver,” he said aloud, echoing his dragon’s thought, and then shook his head in denial. “It makes no sense.”

  But Sedric seemed to grow taller, as if he were a puppet and someone had just drawn his head string up. His e
yes opened wider. “Silver? SILVER!” He shouted the word. “This is it, Carson. From my dreams. The Silver place. Sweet Sa, you’re right. This is the Silver well, the whole reason Kelsingra was first built. Remember, a long time ago, you wondered why they’d built such a grand city here. What was the reason for it, what trade, what industry, what port anchored it? Why build a city for dragons in a place so chill and damp in the winters? Why did the Elderlings stay here? And here’s our answer. The Silver well. The secret heart of Kelsingra.”

  Carson blinked. Sedric’s words had filled his ears, flooding his mind with vague memories, linking half thoughts and hints into an almost recognizable network. “Secret, indeed. Knowledge kept from outsiders. Only Elderlings were allowed to come here, to this part of the city.” He breathed deeply, and it was as if he inhaled information. He frowned as another thought drifted into his mind. “And not all Elderlings. Only a few had the privilege of this duty. It was a closely kept secret, not just from the outside world, but even within the city. Memories of it were never preserved in the stone, at least not intentionally. It was passed down, from one generation of well tenders to the next. Silver was so rare, so precious, that the well sites could not be mapped or recorded in memory stone. Like a guild secret that only masters could know. A secret so precious that even the dragons did not speak of it to dragons from other hatching grounds.” His gaze went sad and distant. “A resource so precious it was probably the only things dragons would war over with one another.”

  “How do you know?” Sedric demanded curiously.

  Carson lifted his shoulders and let them fall in a slow shrug. “Some of it comes from Spit, but even he didn’t have enough to puzzle it out. I’ve been deliberately seeking out the places where people stored memories of how the city worked. The water system, the heated buildings, how the stones were fitted so well to one another. I like to know how things are done, how things were done. I have found a lot of information about what they did, but little about how. I think those same people who left stone memories of what they did tended this well, and . . . did something else here. It’s not clear to me. But I think that, without intending to, they stored bits of those memories with the other ones. Enough for me to puzzle it together and get a feeling for it. Like following a game trail with no tracks. A bent stick, a torn leaf . . .”