City of Dragons: Volume Three of the Rain Wilds Chronicles

by Hobb, Robin

  She lifted her eyes to consider the tower that reared up from the massive building. At the very top was a dome made with curved glass panels. A glance around her assured her that she had come to the tallest structure on this hilltop, and perhaps the tallest in the city. As she dropped her eyes again, her gaze fell on the inscription chiseled above the entryway. The Elderling characters writhed and danced, enticingly familiar in their evasion of her understanding. Lions of stone guarded the entryway.

  Very well. She would go inside, eat her meal, and then see if the steps to the tower were still intact. If they were, she would take advantage of that viewpoint to create a grand sketch of the entire city, something she should probably have done when she first came here! She began the long climb to the entrance. The steps were broad and shallow. “What an annoying design,” she muttered, and then gave a snort of laughter. They were annoying to a human’s legs and strides. For a dragon, they would be perfect. She looked up to the looming black gap of the entrance. The great wooden doors to this chamber had long since collapsed. Bits of them littered the steps. She reached the doorway and stepped over the rubble of fallen wood and brass fasteners and into the interior.

  A surprising amount of light entered the interior chamber. Its vast marble floor was littered with the scattered remnants of furnishings. Desks or tables? Had this been a bench? Tapestries that had once graced the walls between the windows now hung as tattered remnants. She advanced into the room, fragments of desiccated wood from the door crunching under her feet.

  There were stone benches in the window alcoves, and Alise chose a likely one for her luncheon. She sat on the cold bench, pulled her knees up to her chest, and carefully tucked her damp cloak in close all around her, hoarding the warmth of her body. She thought of the Elderling robe that Leftrin had given her; if she had been wearing it now, she would have been warm. But despite the apparent sturdiness of the ancient fabric, she preferred not to wear it outdoors. It was as irreplaceable as any artifact from this city, and something to preserve and study rather than use as a common garment.

  She took her packet of smoked meat out of her bag and unslung the leather water bottle from her shoulder. Stripping her gloves from her hands, she unwrapped her meal. The twisted sticks of reddish meat were tough, but the alder smoke had made it flavorful. She chewed doggedly and followed each bite with a sip of water. The water was water. A simple meal and not a large one, it was soon over, but she reminded herself to be grateful for what she had. As she ate, she looked at the fading day through the broken door. Winter days were so brief. She would climb as high as she could, look out on the city, and sketch what she could before returning to the old docks to wait for Heeby.

  Across the room from the fallen doors, wide stairs ascended into shadows. She stood up, slung her water bottle on her shoulder again, and crossed to them. A fair-sized orchard could have grown on the amount of ground she covered. As she left the doors behind, the very vastness of the room made her feel smaller and more vulnerable. The distant whispering of the shadow denizens of the city grew louder. The deeper she went into the building, the more pervasive the lingering presence of ancient Elderlings became. She thought she caught a whisk of movement from the corner of her eye, but when she looked, no one was there. She steeled herself and went on.

  It was useless to be afraid, she told herself. Afraid of what? Afraid of memories stored in stone? They couldn’t hurt her, not unless she allowed them to dominate her and draw her under their spell. And she wouldn’t. She simply wouldn’t. She had work to do. She increased the length of the stride and refused to look behind her as the whispers grew louder. The stairs were steeper than the outside steps; these, at least, had been structured for the convenience of humans. She set her hand to the banister as she ascended.

  And then a hubbub broke out all around her. Three young pages rushed past her, their youthful voices accusing one another of some fault that doubtless all had committed. Coming down the stairs, scowling at the wayward pages, were at least a dozen tall folk clad in yellow robes. Their eyes gleamed, copper and silver and gold, and when one woman gestured with a long-fingered hand, Alise flinched back from a ghostly touch that never reached her. She snatched her hand from the banister, and the room quieted. But once wakened to her senses, the ghosts seemed to have gained power. The murmur of their business ebbed around her ears. She might not see them as clearly as she ascended, her hands clasped together in front of her, but she could still sense them.

  Reaching a landing, Alise glanced out across a wide room. Ghosts of benches and desks stood above their own crumbled remains. She heard a bell rung impatiently and turned her head to almost see a page in a short pale yellow tunic and blue leggings dash to answer the summons. She turned back. Government business, she judged. Perhaps a hall of records, or a chamber for the establishing of laws.

  Up she went. The stairs were lit only by the wide windows at each landing. The panes were clouded with thick rain streaks. The first one had shown only the neighboring buildings. From the second, she glimpsed roofs. That was as far as the grand staircase went. She crossed a spacious room to find a smaller staircase for the next ascent. But at the next landing, her hopes of viewing the city were frustrated by an opulent stained-glass window. The daylight was too dim to do it justice, but she could make out an Elderling woman with black hair and dark eyes in intense conversation with a coppery dragon. The landing opened into a sort of gallery room, tall windows admitting more light than had been present on the lower floors. The walls between the windows were decorated with friezes of Elderlings plowing fields, reaping crops . . . and preparing for war?

  She stepped into the room to study them more closely. Yes. In one of the friezes, a powerfully muscled Elderling hammered sparks from a glowing blade. In another, a lithe green dragon reared on her hind legs beside a slender Elderling woman with red hair. The woman’s fists were set on her hips above her sword belt. Her rounded arms were muscled, her legs armored with what looked like flexible silver scaling. A blue dragon wore a spiked harness and glowered at Alise with scarlet eyes.

  She walked the room slowly, trying to commit each picture to memory. The Elderlings and dragons were individuals, she was sure. She could almost read the inscriptions that gleamed beneath each image. She paused long before a scene of a red-and-silver dragon. The Elderling beside him was red and silver as well, and their matching armor was studded with black spikes. The man clutched a peculiar bow, short and fitted with a pulley. The dragon’s harness bristled with spikes and quivers of additional arrows. A sort of throne with a tall back and dangling straps was fixed to the dragon’s back. There the warrior had ridden into battle with his dragon. So, despite how Sintara decried Heeby allowing Rapskal to ride her, ancient Elderlings had ridden on dragons. She wondered who their enemy had been. Men? Other Elderlings? Other dragons? Her long-held perceptions of that ancient time wavered and re-formed. She had thought the Elderlings peaceful and wise, too wise for warfare. She sighed.

  She lingered too long. The dimming images told her that the brief winter day was giving way to evening. Time to move on if she was to finish her tour of the building. The next stairway was a spiraling one, and she suspected she had finally come to the base of the tower she had glimpsed from outside. Her path followed the outside wall, and her way was lit by deep narrow windows that showed only tiny slices of view. She came to a door, but it was locked, as was the next, and the one after that. Surely no one would lock a door on an empty chamber? Whatever had called away the populace of this city, they must have left something behind these locked doors that had merited protection. She imagined racks of scrolls or shelves laden with books. Perhaps this was the treasure house of the city, and the doors concealed struck coins and other wealth.

  As Alise continued to climb the winding stair she encountered more locked doors, one at each brief landing. She tried every door, bracing herself whenever she touched the metal handles with the small insets of black stone. Each time, it was like a st
rike of lightning that briefly burned an image of activity and life into her eyes before she snatched her hand back and restored the tower to silence and gloom. At each landing, the stairs grew narrower and steeper.

  Then abruptly she climbed up and into a much larger chamber than she had expected. The top of the tower was like the cap of a mushroom on a stem and domed with a thick glass ceiling. It had begun to rain again, and the rain ran down the grimy glass in tiny rivulets as if she looked up at the bellies of snakes. The walls of this domed chamber were made of alternating panels of glass and stone. One, she saw to her shock, was broken. She walked hesitantly around a collapsed table in the middle of the room. As she drew closer, she scowled. Someone had started a fire in the room! And the window had been broken deliberately: the glass shards were both on the floor and also on the parapet that ran around the outer edges of the tower. There was a clear handprint in the soot on the wall beside the window.

  Outrage flooded her. What had Rapskal been thinking? For he was the most likely culprit. He had spent more time in the city than anyone, had been the most curious to explore it, and was the only keeper she could think of who would be so impulsive as to do such a thing simply so he could lean out and have an unimpeded view of the city.

  It was the same temptation that called her now. She leaned out briefly to confirm what she already knew. The sun was going down, and the rain had returned. Then, her heart in her mouth, she ventured out past the jagged shards that still clung in the framework and onto the parapet. A chill wind tugged at her, and broken glass gritted under her feet. The walkway that encircled the tower was narrow, and the railing that edged it was ridiculously low.

  She kept close to the wall as she circled the tower cautiously, peering through the rain at the city and its surroundings. Mist and oncoming darkness frustrated her. The outflung city was a huddle of buildings against the dim land. Across the shining black river, she could see sparks of light from the keepers’ settlement, but grand Kelsingra slept in darkness. She had almost completed her circuit when she saw the narrow gate set in the railing. Heart in her mouth, she forced herself to step to the edge and look down. Yes. The gate gave onto a ladder that descended to another encircling balcony. She divined their purpose at once. Access for cleaning the windows. She gripped the railing in both hands and leaned out. The ladder went down several stories; the locked chambers that she had passed on her climb had windows. If it had been a dry bright day, she would have risked going down to see if she could enter the locked rooms that way. But alone and in the wet wind and with the light fleeing was not the time for her to risk a fall. She squeezed back into the tower room and stood blinking raindrops off her lashes.

  The pile of rubble in the middle of the room claimed her attention. She crouched down to peer at it. There had been a large round table, and it had collapsed. But there had been something on the table. She stared at it for a time before she made out what it was. It was a model of a city, of this city! Here was the river harbor and here the docks, a bit degraded where the rain had driven in through the broken pane. But the rest of the model was remarkably intact. The tower she was in seemed to also be in the center of the city as it was portrayed, making the panels of glass the corresponding viewpoints to the map itself.

  If only she had a torch! The light was going too quickly. She would have to come back here first thing tomorrow and bring something to draw on. And this wondrous map of the city had to be preserved somehow! Rapskal’s careless vandalism had put this precious artifact in danger. She’d have to speak to him tonight, to be sure he understood the damage he had done. She only hoped he hadn’t been so destructive elsewhere. Whatever had he been thinking?

  She rose with a heartfelt sigh, reluctant to leave the wondrous map but equally reluctant to face finding her way back down the stairs in the gathering darkness. A final glance at the map as she left the room made her halt. Her breath caught in her throat. A bridge? There was a bridge over the river? But there couldn’t be! No one could construct a bridge that long over such a raging torrent. Yet there it was, a tiny model of a black bridge spanning the wide river. She oriented herself and once more ventured out onto the rain-slippery parapet. She peered through mist and rain and saw nothing. Likely it had disintegrated long ago.

  She returned to the tower room and began her long descent of the steps. Going down the stairs now was like descending into a well. She managed the first flight before the darkness defeated her and she was forced to let her hand trail the black wall beside her. To her astonishment, instead of the mere support she had sought, her touch woke the tower to light, for her fingers had found a jidzin strip set into the wall just above the banister. The light raced ahead of her, not bright but certainly preferable to the darkness and enough to guide her feet. There were fewer Elderling memory-ghosts on the stairs, and those she saw carried brooms and dusters. Once, she saw a yellow-robed official with some sort of shoulder decorations to indicate his importance emerge from one of the locked doors. He carried an armful of scrolls and moved ponderously as he trudged down the stairs. It took her two flights of steps before she had the courage to push through the insubstantial vision and hurry past him. She glanced back up at him, and his preoccupied scowl ignored her as if she were the ghost.

  Crossing the darkened rooms was a challenge. When finally she reached the ground floor and saw gray evening through the fallen doors, she burst into a run to be out of the building. Her footsteps echoed on the floor, and the terror she had not allowed herself to feel till now suddenly gained control of her and she fled as fast as she could from the Elderling tower, out into the streets and down to where Heeby would be waiting for her.

  Day the 25th of the Change Moon

  Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

  From Kim, Keeper of the Birds, Cassarick

  To Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

  How dare you imply that I am the source of the lice problem! It is just as likely the birds could have picked up these pests when they overnighted in the forest during one of their flights. You may hide yourself behind the Guild inspectors, but I know who lodged this complaint and provoked these unjustified and inconvenient inspections of my lofts and cotes! You and your family have never forgiven the fact that a Tattooed came among you and rose by diligence and hard work to be a bird keeper. This is how you people welcome us to the Rain Wilds and “equality,” with lies and sneaking accusations! You scale-faced, boy-chested lizard-bitch! I will be bringing grievances of my own to the Council, beginning with how you and Erek and your nephew have conspired against me and slandered me ever since I assumed this post! You may think you can end this vendetta now, but I will not be finished with you until your cotes are emptied and your bird keeper papers retracted!

  Chapter Eight

  OTHER LIVES

  It was their second day without rain. Sedric would have felt more blessed if the day had warmed a bit, too. Cold rain chilled them almost every day now. He had wondered aloud once, “Why on earth did Elderlings settle here? Why build a city in such a rainy place instead of choosing a beach by a warm sea? Dragons love sun. Why did the Elderlings settle here?”

  Carson had given him a piercing look. “A very good question. Sometimes, when Spit is dreaming and his thoughts push into my mind, I feel like I’m on the edge of knowing why. There was definitely a reason and an important one for Kelsingra to be built where it is. I feel it in his memories. Dragons coming to this city were filled with fierce anticipation. I share it in his dreams and I almost know why. Then the knowledge flits away from me. But I’ve wondered the same thing myself.”

  Small comfort. Well, at least today there was no rain. Sedric reminded himself of that and tried to find some gratitude in his heart. It was hard. On days when it didn’t rain, Carson rose even earlier to take advantage of the better weather. Sedric had awakened that morning to the sounds of a hammer tapping gently on the outside of the cottage, right by the bed. He glanced up at the framed opening in the
wall above their bed. The sound came from there.

  At one time there had been glass in the windows of the cottage, and perhaps even shutters. The stone walls were well made, as was the stone hearth. The roof had been long gone when they’d chosen the cottage. Carson had rebuilt it, with rough-hewn timbers to support it and branches and grass bundles from the meadow as thatch. When they had first moved in to the cottage, they had curtained the empty window frames with extra ship’s blankets. But as the days and nights grew colder, they had reclaimed the blankets for their bed and Carson had pegged hides up instead, which not only had blocked the rain and wind but also kept out daylight. The crudely tanned leather had contributed to the endless smell of dead animal that permeated Sedric’s life. Carson had promised, several times, to try to find a better solution. The stiff hide was now moving in gusts to the rhythm of the tapping hammer. Why Carson had to do this at the crack of dawn, Sedric didn’t know.

  He rolled from the crude pallet they shared and wandered over to the hearth. The fire had burned low. He added a couple of logs even though he knew it meant that he’d have the task of hauling more firewood in. Then he felt the garments they had washed out and hung up not last night, but the night before. The shirts were dried, but the seams and waistbands of the trousers were still damp. It was almost impossible to get anything completely dry during the days of constant rain. With a sigh, he pulled on the driest clothes he could find and then rearranged the rest of the laundry in the hope that it would dry by nightfall. He longed to be able to fold it and put it away. Living in a small cottage that smelled like hides and required him to dodge dangling socks at every step was severely affecting his spirits. He longed for cleanliness and tidiness: it was hard to find peace in the middle of disorder. He had always felt this way. He’d always had to tidy his workroom before he could settle to his tasks. The tapping outside the window had continued and was becoming more urgent.