by Robin Hobb
“Here a dragon could come and drink his fill. And that was well, for the Silver seeps grew less predictable and harder to find. At great risk to themselves, our Elderlings dug this well bigger and deeper, and built a kiosk to shelter the well. As the Silver receded, it became more and more difficult to bring Silver to the surface, but they found ways to manage it. Wells were made deeper, this one in particular. The Silver from this well seemed to ebb and flow with the seasons, sometimes shallow, sometimes flowing. Other, lesser Silver wells in this area eventually went dry. But this one remained, always, and so it became our treasure.”
Mercor paused. Thymara heard only the breathing of dragons and Elderlings and the distant whispering of the river. He spoke again. “We were not the only dragons then. There were others, but without the pure Silver, they were not clear minded as we were. Sometimes, they were little better than the lions and bears they hunted in their own lands. When we encountered them, in mating flights or migrations to the warm lands, they could smell the Silver on us. They wanted it. And sometimes they followed us back here, to the source, but we stood them off. They came, sometimes in droves, but always we prevailed against them and sent them back to their own regions.
“As Kelsingra prospered, we made many Elderlings, to tend the wells for us and to make places of warmth and comfort for us in the winter season. And to help us guard this, the best source of Silver in the world. And so our city grew around it. The Elderlings quarried stone that had threads of silver running through it, and they found many uses for it for themselves. We used Silver to change our Elderlings, and in turn, they used what they learned from us to change this part of the world. The Silver remains here, in threads in the stones, and it speaks to us of those days. But dragons cannot drink stone. And if this well has failed, and we have found no more seeps . . .”
“Why do dragons need Silver?” Sylve spoke her quiet question.
Her dragon swung his large head to look at her. Black on black, his eyes spun in the torchlight. Thymara felt that he spoke with reluctance. “It extends our lives, just as we extend the lives of our Elderlings. It is a part of us, in our blood and in our venom and in the cases we weave as serpents for our transformation. That was why Cassarick was so important. The clay banks there have Silver in the sand. It cannot be drunk, but in our thread spinning, it holds memories for us, in much the same way as the stones held memories for the Elderlings. It helps us to recall our ancestral memories as we pass from serpent to dragon. If the Silver is gone from the world, much of what dragons are will be gone also. We will continue, but I think our wealth of memories may be greatly shortened. Our minds will dim. And our life spans dwindle.” He lowered his voice and added, “As will our ability to shape Elderlings.”
The great golden dragon turned to look down on Malta and Reyn. As always, Malta carried her bundled baby against her chest as if she were a child and he her dearest doll. Even in the cold of night, she would not part from him. Did she think he could not die if she held him close? Mercor spoke words that drove all color from her face. “If Tintaglia ever returns, she will need Silver to change your child to a creature that can survive. All our lives depend on Silver, in one way or another.”
“No. Noooo!” Malta drew out the word in a low cry and then turned to her husband, folding herself into his arms and sheltering the child between them.
Anxiety rippled Sylve’s brow and she reached a sympathetic hand to touch her dragon’s face. “Mercor, if there is any Silver to be had in any way, I will get it for you.”
“I know,” the dragon responded calmly. “That is what Elderlings do. But I will warn you that it is at peril of your life that you touch Silver. Dragons may drink of it, but any touch of it on human skin is a precursor to a slow death. Only some of the Elderlings mastered it. At a cost.” He fell silent for a time, musing, and no one ventured to speak.
Malta lifted her bowed head. Tears tinged pink with blood showed on her face. “But you said I had been touched with Silver. If that is so, how is it that I am not dead?”
The dragon shook his great golden head slowly. “Elderlings found a way, but I do not recall the details of it. They could touch it and wear it on their hands to work their magic. It gave intent to stone, and it spoke to wood and pottery and metal, bidding it be a certain shape or react in a given way. And those things did as the Elderlings bade them. They made doorways from it, entries of stone that they used to travel to their other cities. They created buildings that stayed warm in the winter. They made roads that always remembered they were roads and did not allow plants to break them. The most powerful of them sometimes used Silver to transform themselves at death, going into the statues they made to preserve a strange sort of life for themselves.
“Sometimes they used Silver to heal, to recall for the body how it should be and help it to make itself right. Their own skill with the uses of Silver contributed to their long life spans. If an Elderling still existed with such a great level of skill with the Silver, he might even be able to heal your child. Magical creatures those ancient beings were. But perhaps their time is past, not to come again. And perhaps so it is with dragons.”
“Don’t say that!” Sylve cried and flung herself against his flank. She was not the only keeper to stand with brimming eyes. Had they come so far to fail?
Reyn gathered Malta and his child close to him and spoke a promise to her. “If there is Silver to be had, I will get it for Phron.”
Tintaglia was weaker than she had thought. The blows she had dealt to their tiller had splintered it but not shorn it from the ship as she had intended. She snaked her head in and seized the wood in her teeth, clamping her jaws on it and tearing at it, intending to pull it free of the vessel. Instead, the ship gave way to her pulling, throwing her off balance. She reflexively opened her wings to brace herself, and the unthinkable happened.
It was a lucky cast of the spear. Even the man who threw it gave a wild shout of surprise when it struck and went in. Tintaglia screamed. In the darkness, the cast had unerringly found her weakest spot, striking the swollen site where the buried spearhead still festered. She felt a hot stab of unbearable pain, and then the soft infected tissue gave way and the spear tore free. Blood and fluid poured from her into the cold river water. Pain surrounded a terrible relief of pressure as the wound drained. The world spun around her, distant stars and light glinting on the river’s face. She struggled to get away from the ship.
The first blow from the pole hit the side of her head. Suddenly there were men at the railings of both ships, raining blows down on her with oars and poles. Arrows shot at close range thudded painfully against her even if they did not pierce her scaling. In her confusion, she had trapped herself between the two vessels instead of evading them. Someone flung an empty cask; it struck the back of her head and for an instant, she was stunned, her head sinking beneath the water.
She lifted her head to the wild cheers of both crews. They were killing her and she knew it. Fury washed through her that puny humans should be able to treat a dragon so. Heedless of how she exposed her underbelly, she reared onto her hind legs and battered at the ships with her front legs. At the same time, she threw back her head in a wild trumpeting of anger and despair.
They kill me! The men of Chalced have stabbed and bludgeoned me. I die! Dragonkind, if any of you yet live, avenge me! Icefyre, if you can hear me, know that our young die unhatched! Avenge them!
Carson spoke gruffly. He sounded almost apologetic, as if he had told Malta the child must die. “I said the well was sanded in. Not dry. There are ways to dredge out a well and open it again. Drinking-water wells in the Rain Wilds mud in often enough. I just wonder why this well isn’t full of water, as close as we are to the river. Tomorrow, when there is more light to work by, we will hook onto that pot and all lend our backs to drawing it up. And then we will be able to see more clearly how deep the Silver is. But for now, it’s getting colder, and I suspect we will have rain again before morning. Let’s get back t
o shelter for the night, now. All will look better on the morrow.”
The keepers were nodding, and some of them were taking up torches from their makeshift holders. Hennesey offered his arm to Tillamon and she accepted it readily. Skelly was saying a private farewell to Alum behind the stack of timber. The dragons were turning to begin their slow promenade through the streets toward the sand beds or the hot-water baths as keepers and crewmen gathered tools from the work site. Spit followed last, head down, hissing a dribble of venom that sizzled as it hit the paved streets.
“They need Silver to live?” Tats said quietly beside Thymara.
“To live long. And to pass on their memories to their offspring, I think,” Thymara replied. Reluctantly, she added, “As we will need it. I suspect the old Elderlings extended their own lives by repairing their bodies as they aged.”
They had both heard Mercor’s words. It simply made it more believable to discuss it with each other. Neither mentioned what had been said about Malta’s baby, nor what it might mean to future children born in Kelsingra. In her heart, Thymara believed the child was doomed. He needed a dragon that had not been seen in years, and a magical element that had not flowed in decades. She felt sorry for the family but held her heart back from feeling too much. Privately, she was grateful she had not risked a pregnancy. She had no desire to feel what Malta was feeling.
Rapskal was suddenly beside them. “Tomorrow, I think that some of us should find the smaller wells that Mercor spoke of, and see if they are still dry. It seems to me that if a well goes dry because of an earthquake, perhaps another one might open it again.”
“Good plan,” Tats said, and in his voice she heard his worry for his green dragon. She tried to decide how she felt about this possible threat and sensed an echo from Sintara as she said, “I will wait to see how we fare with this well before I become too fearful. It may be that the well is shallow but refills fast. Some Silver at least we can draw from it, once the final blockage is cleared.”
“There is that!” Rapskal exclaimed hopefully. “And my Heeby will need . . .” His words trailed away. His eyes widened as he drew a deep breath and then held it.
“Rapskal?” Thymara ventured.
He turned his head sharply, and his eyes suddenly focused on her. “Treachery most foul! Dragons are set on by men! We must fly to her aid, now, tonight!”
His words were nearly drowned in the wild trumpeting as the dragons took up his call. A moment later, the meaning of it all permeated her brain. Somewhere, a dragon was dying, killed by humans. A queen dragon. Tintaglia! Tintaglia, she who had guided them all up the river as serpents, Tintaglia was falling to human treachery! She summoned them to avenge her!
“Tintaglia, Tintaglia!” Malta’s anguished shriek was a higher note among the dragon’s trumpeting. “If you and your offspring die, so do mine! Blue queen, wonder of the skies, do not die! Do not allow yourself to be taken!” She turned suddenly and spoke to the other keepers. She stood tall in the night and the force of her plea was something they all felt. “Elderlings, rise! Go to her aid, I beg you! For the sake of my child, yes, but for the sake of all our dragons! For if you let this happen to sapphire Tintaglia, what safety is there for any of you?”
Malta gleamed in the yellow light of the torches and lanterns, and with a strange thrill, Thymara recognized the queen of the Elderlings. No wonder all of Jamaillia had seen her so, commanding with words as compelling as the glamour of the dragon. Thymara was suddenly certain that if Tintaglia could feel Malta’s words, she would take heart from them.
“We fly!” Rapskal roared in response. His voice had gone husky and wild. His eyes glared with fury, and the set of his mouth made him a stranger to Thymara. He paced among the churning Elderlings and dragons, seeming suddenly taller. “My armor! My spear!” he cried aloud. “Where are my servants? Send them for my armor. We must fly tonight. We cannot wait for light, for by then she may have gone into eternal darkness. Rise up and seize your arms. Ready the dragon baskets! Bring forth the battle harnesses!”
Thymara stared at him, openmouthed. She felt caught alone in a vortex of whirling times. Tellator. Tellator spoke in that tone of command, Tellator strode like that. All around her, dragons were rearing and trumpeting furiously. Keepers darted among them, some imploring their dragons to stay safely here, to not try to fly in darkness, while some of the keepers had moved clear of a horde of dragons shaking out their wings and snapping their necks to fill their poison glands. Rapskal’s peculiar behavior seemed to have gone unnoticed.
He strode toward her, a clenched-teeth smile on his face. She froze as he took her in his arms and held her to his heart. “Have no fear, my darling. A hundred times have I gone into battle, and always I have returned to you, have I not? This time will be no exception! Have faith in me, Amarinda. I will safely return to you, both honor and life intact. We will turn back any that dare to enter our territory uninvited!”
“Rapskal!” She shouted his name and broke free of his embrace. Seizing him by the shoulders, she shook him as hard as she could. “You are Rapskal and I am Thymara. And you are not a warrior!”
He stared at her oddly as he drew himself up taller. “Maybe not, Thymara, but someone must fight, and I am the only one who has a dragon willing to carry me. I have to go. Those cruel murderers have attacked a queen dragon, seeking to butcher her like a cow! It cannot be tolerated.”
The voice was Rapskal’s and his very earnest stare, but the cadence of his voice and the words he used were Tellator’s. She tried again. “Rapskal, you are not him. And I am not Amarinda. I am Thymara.”
His eyes seemed to focus on her again. “Of course you are Thymara. And I know who I am. But I also bear Tellator’s memories. The price of his memories is a small one, and that is to honor the life of the man who gave them to me. To continue his duties and work.” He leaned closer to her and peered into her eyes as if looking for something. “As you should honor Amarinda’s memories by continuing her tasks. Someone must, Thymara, and that someone is you.”
She looked at him and shook her head. She became dimly aware of Tats standing beside them, watching them both intently. She could take no time for him now, regardless of what he thought. She held tight to Rapskal and spoke earnestly. “Rapskal, I don’t want you to be Tellator. I don’t want to be Amarinda. I want us to be us, and whatever we do, I want it to be our own decision, not some continuation of someone else’s life.”
He gave a small sigh and shifted his gaze to Tats. “Watch over her, my friend. And if I do not return, think well of me.” His eyes met Thymara’s again. “Someday you will understand. And sooner, I think, would be better than later. For the sake of my honor and my word. Heeby! Heeby, to me!”
He turned away from her. Some other woman from another time exclaimed, “Your sword! Your armor!” She very nearly ran after him.
But Tats was at her side, holding firmly to her arm. He spoke by her ear in the milling chaos of dragons and keepers. “He has neither, and never has had them. Thymara. Come back to me. You cannot stop him. You know that.”
“I know.” She wondered if Tats spoke of Rapskal charging off to fight a battle weaponless, or of his assumption of another man’s life and duties. She looked at the man beside her. Tears welled painfully in her eyes. “We’re losing him. We’re losing our friend.”
“I fear you may be right.” He pulled her into his arms and held her head against his chest to shield her as all around them, dragons trumpeted and then leaped from the ground to take flight. The wind of their beating wings battered them, and their war cries buffeted her ears. In moments, they were high above them.
Thymara lifted her eyes to watch them go, but the overcast sky had swallowed them all, and only rain fell on her uplifted face.
Day the 6th of the Plough Moon
Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Kim, Keeper of the Birds, Cassarick
To Trader Finbok of the Bingtown Traders, Bingtown
/> Dear Trader Finbok,
I am in possession of a message from you that, I must admit, confuses me greatly. Either you have sent this message to me in error and are unaware of the great damage such a missive could do to my reputation, or you are a villain and a scoundrel who deliberately seeks to disgrace me. Perhaps you are deceived by some evil person who has slandered my name by pretending to be me. I choose to hope that you are not truly the malicious sort of person who would risk both our reputations.
The letter I received claims that I have not only been sending you information stolen from other Traders’ messages but also shows that you have been paying me a great deal of money for such information. And it declares that unless I surrender certain information about your son, of whom I assure you I have never heard, you will betray me to the Guild masters in Bingtown!
I am astonished and shocked to receive such a letter. It has occurred to me that perhaps it is actually from an enemy of yours who seeks to cause you financial and social disaster! For surely if I took this to the Guild masters, protesting my innocence, they would present it to the Bingtown Traders’ Council, and leave it to them to determine if you have been a party to the theft of secrets of other Traders and profited by such knowledge.
Please immediately reply to this missive so that we may clear up this whole matter.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Final Chances
Dead things float.”
The Chalcedean spoke the words firmly, as if ordering someone or something to comply with them. The weary men gathered on the deck shuffled their feet, but no one replied. It was all too obvious to them that perhaps dead dragons did not float. In last night’s uproarious battle, they had slain the blue monster and seen her sink beneath the water. Many of the men had cried out in dismay as the lifeless hulk had sunk. The others had counseled them to wait: she would rise.
