Avram Davidson - Rogue Dragon

The brown waters gurgled slowly past the packet’s hull, the forest slid by on either side, league after league, all the same, all the same.

“Mighty hot,” the old man said. The lunatic groaned and mumbled. The old man’s eyes rolled a bit uneasily.

For the first time the young boy spoke, saying, “He won’t hurt you, granther.”

The old man leaped to his comment like a fish to a fly. “What for he’s like that, boy? Huh?”

Rather wearily, as though tired of giving the same reply so often, the boy said, “He slept outdoors one night in the black of the moon. So.”

Wide-eyed, but utterly believing, the old man gave a long, drawn out Ooooo; nodded rapidly. “Poor poke. He must’ve let his mouth open when he slept, what for some duty person stole his soul.” And he preceded to tell an interminable anecdote incorporating several others equally interminable, about people he knew or had heard of who had suffered the same outrage. The boy’s head drooped, snapped back up, drooped again. The old man droned on. He told the story of his life, including the loss of his leg (“An afternoon, hot as this one”) to a rogue dragon long, long ago.

The boy’s sleepy eyes lit up and his lips parted. Then he closed them both again. And the old man droned on. And the lunatic drooled and moaned.

There was some discussion at the land-stage in Peramis as to whether the boy had to pay head-tax for one person or two. A reference to the dirty, dog-eared book of regulations, however, soon provided the answer.

“No… Boy’s right. Nut-heads and little kids, no head-taxes…” Absently, the official took the boy’s money.

“Estates of nut-heads got to pay land-taxes,” another official pointed out, unwilling to lose the argument absolutely.

“‘Estates,’ ‘land,’” the first one said, testily. “Estates and lands got nothing to do with us… Honey, huh. How many jars you got, woman?”

They began to count and squabble. The boy and his keeper drifted away through the crowd and out into the streets.

Presently they wandered along a refuse-strewn alley backing on a row of cookshops, entered a gaping doorway. Time passed; not much. The boy emerged again, a man with him, arm in a sling, head covered with what might have been ill-trimmed hair… or… if one looked quite closely… a wig. The man’s gaze was blank. Now and then he made a faint mewing sound.

The alley led into another which emptied onto a court, the doors and windows of its rotting tenements boarded shut. The boy studied the crude graffiti, scrawled in charcoal, mostly obscene; rapped softly on one, in an irregular rhythm.

Silence.

He rapped again. The man began to move away, was jerked back, whimpered.

There was a screech of seldom-used wooden hinges and a door opened, narrowly, boards and all, the entire frame moving in. After a second or so, it opened wider. Man and boy entered. The door closed behind him.

A bitter-faced woman said, in a harsh voice, “You’ve been long in coming.” Then, looking at the man: “He’s had black brew to drink.” He looked at her, blankly. The boy nodded. “I’ll make some white,” the woman said.

In the sole clean room of the cluttered warren she set charcoal to burning in a small brick stove, put herbs into a pot, added something fine and powdered, and water, fanned the fire with a shingle.

“I can make something to eat,” she said after a while.

“No.”

The white brew boiled, was poured off, strained, diluted With tepid water in a mug. The woman put it to his lips, he drew his face away, she jerked his chin down and poured the drink into his mouth. Much ran out but his throat bobbed and he swallowed.

“Now we’ll see,” the woman said. They both looked at him, expectantly.

He winced, shuddered. His face, his limbs, his body, began to twitch. This soon stopped. The man looked around him, confused. He licked his lips, frowned at the silent woman with the bitter face. His head turned slowly. At sight of the boy he cried out, jumped, then gave a groan of pain. He subsided in his chair.

“How did I get here?” he muttered.

Then he asked, “Why are you dressed as a boy, Lora?”

Now it was her turn to frown. Perhaps it was his use of her name — although there was no reason for him not to know it by now — or not to use it.

Her voice was low, restrained, husky. She gave her head the immemorially conventional toss, forgetful that her hair was now cropped short. “We picked you up when your shoulder was hurt,” she said. “And brought you here.”

“We?”

She hesitated. “I brought you here.”

“Using the riot for your own purpose…”

Her laugh was brief, scornful. “Who do you think began the riot? Or why?”

He considered this. His shoulder and arm were throbbing. “I can’t remember… anything…”

“You were drugged. It was easier to get you out that way. Everyone thought you were a lunatic.”

“Mmm… And now I’m here…Where is ‘here’? Peramis? At last. Well… What’s to prevent my talking freely?”

He blinked when she told him; nothing prevented it. He had in fact been brought here for that reason, not any other one. There was no longer any purpose in keeping, or trying to keep secret, the work at the Kar-chee castle. It was disrupted, it was known. Another training place would have to be set up in another location, there to teach the dragons how to kill their hunters. But this could not be done in a day and a night — indeed, it was impossible to say how long it would take.

And Hue’s purpose could not be delayed, whatever advantage so far gained dared not be lost—

“You tried to have me killed,” he interrupted her.

She waved this away with her hand. “That was before we realized that there was no point in silencing you. No, we almost made a mistake there. Now we want you to talk, tell everyone, let the whole Galaxy know what we’ve been doing, why we’ve been doing it. And why we intend to keep right on doing it until we win. Maybe it will help us. It’s clear it can’t hurt us any more.

“The only thing we ask you not to talk about is this place here. It’s useful to us, and we think you owe us that.”

For a moment he reflected. Then he nodded. “All right. But answer me this: Has your father anything to do with the dragons in the Bosky? No? Curious. Well. Take me as near to Company House as you can. I won’t say a word about your hide-out here.”

Nor did he. He wasn’t even asked. Jetro Yi’s effusive and almost incredulous pleasure at seeing Jon-Joras return soon vanished on hearing what he had to say.

“Then it’s true? It is true! We’ve heard rumors, we were naturally, P.M., you understand, we were unwilling to credit them. But — Oh, that’s horrible! That’s unbelievable! But… I mean… actually training them to become rogues! That’s worse than anything I could imagine!”

His rubbery features were distended, distorted by shock. He took him to his superior, the Hunt Company’s Chief Agent in Peramis, one Wills H’vor. H’vor was a man of full flesh, he began to tremble, then to shake. Before Jon-Joras was quite finished, the Chief Agent’s heavy face and pendulous cheeks, the slack muscles of his arms revealed by the sleeveless shirt, were wobbling and quivering. His teeth clattered. With a convulsive movement, he steadied himself enough to speak.

“We — we-we-we — we might have all been killed!” he burst out. Clearly, no conceivable detail of that dreadful death was escaping his imagination. “How can we be-be-be sure?” he cried. “From now on—?”

“Whether the dragons are honestly marked or not? And rogues or not? You can’t,” Jon-Joras said. “I suppose that’s part of their purpose, the outlaw Doghunters, that is.” He felt no desire, now, to go into the morals of the matter, to blame the raging hatred of the outlaws any more than the cold, indifferent oppression of the Gentlemen. His injured arm was giving him infinite pain, he felt sick and hungry and weak. “My king’s hunt will have to be put off… canceled… or held elsewhere. It may have to be in The Bosky, Company Yi — still no? Well—” Jon-Joras shrugged, sighed.