Marie Brennan: Voyage of the Basilisk

“It’s difficult,” I admitted. By then my hand was capable of going about its work without demanding all of my attention; I could ponder issues of classification at the same time. “The dentition bears some similarities to those reported or observed in other breeds, at least in number and disposition of teeth… though of course baleen plates are not a usual feature. The vertebrae certainly pose a problem. This creature has quite a lot of them, and we do not usually consider animals to be close cousins who differ so greatly in such a fundamental characteristic.”

Tom nodded, wiping his hands clean—or at least less filthy—with a cloth. “Not to mention the utter lack of hind limbs. I saw nothing in the dissection, not even anything vestigial. The closest thing it has to forelimbs are some rather inadequate fins.”

“And yet there are similarities. The generally reptilian appearance, and more significantly, the degradation of the bones.” I thought of the six criteria customarily used to distinguish “true dragons” from draconic creatures: quadripedalism, flight-capable wings, a ruff or fan behind the skull, bones frangible after death, oviparity, and extraordinary breath. We might, if we were very generous, count the serpent’s supraorbital tendrils (presuming it had once possessed them) as the ruff, and Tom had just confirmed that the creatures laid eggs. Together with the bones—which decayed more slowly than those of terrestrial dragons, but did become frangible quite rapidly—that made three of six. But was there any significance to the distinction between “true dragons” and their mere cousins? What if there was only one characteristic that mattered?

Yet there were problems as well with declaring osteological degradation the true determinant of draconic nature. We had established a fair degree of variation in the exact chemical makeup of different breeds, ranging from the rock-wyrms on whom the process had originally been developed to the simple sparklings who could be preserved in vinegar. There was every chance that it would prove to be a spectrum rather than a simple binary. Where, then, would we draw our boundary?

I could not answer those questions that day—nor, indeed, for years to come. But that dead sea-serpent, for whom I had conceived a belated sympathy, brought me one step closer to understanding.

I had not forgotten the message Wademi brought to me regarding the peculiar appearance of the dragons in Bayembe’s rivers. I had, however, put my thoughts on the matter to one side for a time.

There had been enough to do in preparing for our departure that I told myself I would discuss the matter with Tom after we had gotten settled on the Basilisk . Once on board, however, I found the flaw in my reasoning: there was simply no privacy on such a ship.

The sailors attended very little to our scientific discussions, caring naught for such matters. I could not trust, however, that they would continue to ignore us if phrases like “queen dragons” caught their attention. There were opportunists among them who might pursue such a prize—or at least sell word of it to an interested buyer. Even if they did not, they might reference it in their dockside gossip. Whether this might rebound ill upon Bayembe and Mouleen, I could not say for certain; but I did not like to risk it.

I therefore had to wait. Fortunately, we were not always ship-bound, and in time I had my chance.

The Basilisk stopped in Svaltan to replace the broken stay and repair the other damage inflicted by the sea-serpent, then rounded the northern edge of Anthiope and dropped anchor off the shore of Lezhnema at the mouth of the Olovtun River, some distance north of Kupelyi. We had the goodwill of the tsar; he had not forgotten that we were instrumental in the discovery of a firestone deposit in Vystrana, from which he had profited handsomely. Because of this, not only had we been granted visas, but he had arranged for a guide to take us inland, where we might observe wyverns.

These haunt the mountains of eastern Bulskevo and up into Siaure. A part of me wished that scientific rigor did not require me to carry out research in such places; even in late Caloris and early Fructis, and even confining ourselves to the foothills rather than going up into the mountains proper, what passed for their “summer” was decidedly on the chill side. The long days gave us ample opportunity to chase our prey, though, while the Basilisk continued down to Kupelyi and the markets there before returning to retrieve us from Lezhnema.

I will not say much of the wyvern-hunting itself, for it has little bearing on the key aspects of this narrative, and its scientific significance has been recorded elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the limb configuration of a wyvern—wings and two legs, instead of four—was of interest to us, chiefly as a possible link between the near-limbless serpents of the ocean and the quadripedal winged dragons.

This terrestrial detour gave me ample time to speak with Tom, particularly when we lay in interminable wait for a wyvern to happen past. I recounted what Wademi had said to me, and my speculations as to its possible import.

He frowned, laying one hand over the stock of his rifle. “I have a hard time believing the Moulish would make such an error.”

“We must consider the possibility,” I said. “Their usual treatment of the eggs is traditional, handed down to them through who knows how many generations. Things become habit, done because that is how one’s father and grandfather did them, rather than because their import is fully understood.” I paused, dissatisfied, and then was distracted by movement that proved to be some farmer’s errant goat.

When it was gone, I returned to the point. “But I must consider other possibilities, too. For example: what if the Moulish want queens in the rivers?”

Tom blew out his breath in a quick huff. “To what end? Do they mean to conquer Bayembe for themselves?”

We both knew that was ludicrous. The Moulish loved their swampy forest, even when it was trying to kill them; to them, the arid savannah of Bayembe was a wasteland. And they had no government at a scale larger than the elders who happened to be in camp at any given time, no warfare beyond small gangs of young men scuffling over personal insults. They had no desire to conquer Bayembe, nor the means to do so if they did. Not even with dragons.

“I wish I could go see them for myself,” I murmured—not least because an icy wind chose to blow through at that precise moment, reminding me of how much warmer it was in Eriga.

Tom knew why I could not. He was no more free to travel there than I. “What you need,” he mused, “is a protégé you can send in your stead.”

This made me sigh. “I am not likely to ever have one of those.”

He said nothing. After a moment, I became aware of his gaze on me. When I turned my head to look, he was staring. “What?” I asked.

“What of all those people who flock to your house every Athemer?”

“None of them are dragon naturalists.”

“Well, no—but gather enough bright young things about you, and sooner or later one of them will be. Likely sooner, if you go on a speaking tour after this expedition.”

I wanted to protest that the speaking tour, if it even happened, would simply be a means of raising money (which I expected to be in short supply by the time I returned home). My talks would be popular, not scholarly. But if I could be inspired to my career by something as trivial as a sparkling preserved in vinegar, was it so ludicrous to think that someone else might be inspired by hearing my tales? I thought of protégés as the sort of thing a man like Lord Hilford had: a respected peer, a Colloquium Fellow. Yet I might someday have one, too.