Robin Hobb - City of Dragons

Sylve had slipped close to Thymara. “Do you hear that?”

“What?”

“Whispering. People talking.”

Thymara had listened. “It’s just the wind,” she had said, and Tats had nodded. But Harrikin had stepped back and taken Sylve’s hand. “It’s not just the wind,” he had asserted, and then they hadn’t spoken of it again.

They’d explored the portion of the city closest to the old docks and ventured into a few of the buildings. The structures were on a scale more suited to dragons than humans. Thymara, who had grown up in the tiny chambers of a tree-house home, had felt like an insect. The ceilings had been dim and distant in the fading afternoon light, the windows set high in the walls. Inside, there lingered the remnants of furnishings. In some, that had been no more than heaps of long-rotted wood on the floor, or a tapestry that crumbled into dangling, dusty threads at a touch. Light shone in colors through the streaked stained-glass windows, casting faded images of dragons and Elderlings on the stone floors.

In a few places, the magic of the Elderlings lingered. In one building, an interior room sprang to light when a keeper ventured into the chamber. Music, faint and uncertain, began to play, and a dusty perfume ventured out into the still air. A sound like distant laughter had twittered and then abruptly faded with the music. The group of keepers had fled back to the open air.

Tats had taken Thymara’s hand, and she had been glad of that warm clasp. He had asked her quietly, “Do you think there’s even a chance that some Elderlings survived here? That we might meet them, or that they might be hiding and watching us?”

She’d given him a shaky smile. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you? To try to frighten me.”

His dark eyes had been solemn, even apprehensive. “No. I’m not.” Looking around them, he had added, “I’m already uneasy and I’ve been trying not to think about it. I’m asking you because I’m genuinely wondering.”

She replied quickly to his unlucky words, “I don’t think they’re here still. At least, not in the flesh.”

His laugh had been brief. “And that is supposed to reassure me?”

“No. It’s not.” She felt decidedly nervous. “Where’s Rapskal?” she had asked suddenly.

Tats had halted and looked around. The others had ranged ahead of them.

Thymara had raised her voice. “Where’s Rapskal?”

“I think he went ahead,” Alum called back to them.

Tats kept hold of her hand. “He’ll be fine. Come on. Let’s look around a bit more.”

They had wandered on. The emptiness of the broad plazas had been uncanny. It had seemed to her that after years of abandonment, life should have ventured back into this place. Grasses should have grown in the cracks in the paving stones. There should have been frogs in the green-slimed fountains, bird nests on building ledges, and vines twining through windows. But there weren’t. Oh, there had been tiny footholds of vegetation here and there, yellow lichen caught between the fingers of a statue, moss in the cracked base of a fountain—but not what there should have been. The city was too aggressively a city still, a place for Elderlings, dragons, and humans, even after all these years. The wilderness, the trees and vines and tangled vegetation that had formed the backdrop of Thymara’s life, had been able to gain no foothold there. That made her feel an outsider as well.

Statues in dry fountains had stared down at them, and Thymara had felt no sense of welcome. More than once as she stared up at the carved images of Elderling women, she had wondered how her own appearance might change. They were tall and graceful creatures, with eyes of silver and copper and purple, their faces smoothly scaled. Some of their heads were crested with fleshy crowns. Elegant enamel gowns draped them, and their long slender fingers were adorned with jeweled rings. Would it be so terrible, she wondered, to become one of them? She considered Tats: his changes were not unattractive.

In one building, rows of tiered stone benches looked down at a dais. Bas-reliefs of dragons and Elderlings, their mosaic colors still bright after all the years, cavorted on the walls. In that room, she had finally heard what the others were whispering about. Low, conversational voices, rising and falling. The cadence of the language was unfamiliar, and yet the meaning of the words had pushed at the edges of her mind.

“Tats,” she had said, more to hear her own voice than to call his name.

He had nodded abruptly. “Let’s go back outside.”

She had been glad to keep pace with his brisk stride as they hurried out into the fading daylight.

Some of the others had soon joined them and made a silent but mutual decision to return to the river’s edge and spend the night in a small stone hut there. It was made of ordinary river stone, and the hard-packed silt in the corners spoke of ancient floods that had inundated it. Doors and windows had long ago crumbled into dust. They had built a smoldering fire of wet driftwood in the ancient hearth and huddled close to its warmth. It was only when the rest of their party joined them that Rapskal’s absence had become obvious.

“We need to go back and look for him,” she had insisted, and they had been splitting into search parties of three when he came in from the rising storm. Rain had plastered his hair to his skull, and his clothing was soaked. He was shaking with cold but grinning insanely.

“I love this city!” he had exclaimed. “There’s so much to see and do here. This is where we belong. It’s where we’ve always belonged!” He had wanted them all to go with him, back into the night to explore more. He had been baffled by their refusal, but he had finally settled down next to Thymara.

The voices of wind, rain, and the river’s constant roar had filled the night. From the distant hills had come wailing howls. “Wolves!” Nortel had whispered, and they had all shivered. Wolves were creatures of legend for them. Those sounds had almost drowned out the muttering voices. Almost. She had not slept well.

They had left Kelsingra in the next dawn. The rain had been pouring, wind sweeping hard down the river. They had known they would battle most of the day to regain the other side. In the distance, Thymara could hear the roaring of hungry dragons. Sintara’s displeasure thundered in Thymara’s mind, and by the uneasy expression on the faces of the other keepers, she knew they were suffering similarly. They could stay in Kelsingra no longer that day. As they pulled away from the shore, Rapskal had gazed back regretfully. “I’ll be back,” he said as if he were promising the city itself. “I’ll be back every chance I get!”

Thanks to Heeby’s powers of flight, he had kept that promise. But Thymara hadn’t been back since that first visit. Curiosity and wariness battled in her whenever she thought of returning to the city.

“Please. I have to show you something there!”

Rapskal’s words dragged her back to the present. “I can’t. I have to get meat for Sintara.”

“Please!” Rapskal cocked his head. His loose dark hair fell half across his eyes, and he stared at her appealingly.

“Rapskal, I can’t. She’s hungry.” Why were the words so hard to say?

“Well… she should be flying and hunting. Maybe she’d try harder if you let her be hungry for a day or—”

“Rapskal! Would you let Heeby just be hungry?”

He kicked, half angrily, half shamed, at the thick layer of forest detritus. “No,” he admitted. “No, I couldn’t. Not my Heeby. But she’s sweet. Not like Sintara.”

That stung. “Sintara’s not so bad!” She was, really. But that was between her and her dragon. “I can’t go with you, Rapskal. I have to go hunting now.”