Alison Goodman - Eon - Dragoneye Reborn

'Did you really get some cheese?' I asked softly, shifting my weight off my aching left hip.

He nodded vigorously and opened his hand to show me a piece of dirty cheese rind. The muscles in his throat contorted as he struggled to speak. I listened for his words in the strained, elongated sounds.

'For…the…rat.' He pushed the rind into my hand.

'Thank you,' I said, slipping the cheese into my pocket. Chart was always giving me food he had found. Or stolen. He was convinced that if I fed the big grey rat that lived behind the storeroom where I slept, the Rat Dragon would repay the kindness by choosing me as his apprentice. I wasn't so sure an energy dragon would take note of such a thing, but I still gave the scraps to the rat.

From beneath his body, Chart pulled out a thick slice of fine bread covered in dust. The master's bread. I glanced at Kuno; he was still bent over the white-root. I moved to my right until I hid Chart and the bread from view.

'How'd you get that? Kuno will whip you,' I whispered.

'For you…only gruel tonight…you be…hungry tomorrow.' He dropped the bread into my lap.

I ducked my head in thanks and stuffed it into my pocket with the cheese. 'I think that's the whole idea. They want us to be hungry' I said.

Chart twisted his mouth into a puzzled grimace.

I shrugged. 'We're supposed to prove our natural stamina by doing the approach ceremony hungry and tired.'

Chart rolled his head back and forth across the mat. 'Stu…pid,' he said. He took a deep breath and steadied his head against the side of the firewood box, fixing his eyes on mine.

'Tomorrow morning you come…say goodbye?' His fingers closed around my wrist. 'Come say…goodbye…before the ceremony? Promise?'

Chart knew that if I was chosen, I would not come back. A new apprentice was taken straight to his Dragon Hall after the ceremony. A new home. A new life. My scalp prickled from a sudden wave of heat and sweat; tomorrow I could be a Dragoneye apprentice.

'Promise?' Chart said.

I nodded, unable to talk through the squeeze of panic in my throat.

He let go of my wrist, his hand suspended in the air. 'Tell me…what the…Rat Dragon Hall…is like…again.'

I'd only seen the hall once. A few months ago during training, Ranne had marched us around the Dragon Circle, the avenue of halls that ringed the outer precinct of the Imperial Palace.

Each hall had been carefully built at the compass position of the dragon it honoured, and was the home and workplace of the Dragoneye and apprentice. The Rat Dragon Hall was in the north-northwest of the Circle and, although it wasn't the biggest or the grandest, it was easily three times the size of my master's house. We were not permitted inside any of the halls, but Ranne allowed us five minutes' rest in the garden that now marked the position of the Mirror Dragon Hall. Five hundred years ago it had burned down; only the stone outline of the building remained embedded in the grass. Dillon and I had walked its perimeter and were amazed at the number of rooms.

Beside me, Chart closed his eyes, preparing for my words.

'Two grey stone statues of the Rat Dragon guard the gate,' I said, closing my own eyes to remember my brief glimpse of the hall. 'They stand bigger than me and twice as wide. The one on the right holds the Dragoneye compass in its claws, the other cradles the three sacred scrolls. As you walk past them, their stone eyes follow you. Inside the gate, a courtyard made of matched dark cobbles leads to the —'

'I don't know why you bother,' I heard Irsa say. I opened my eyes. She was in the doorway, briskly brushing down her skirt. 'The freak doesn't understand your words.' She smoothed the looped braid of her hair.

Chart and I exchanged glances. No doubt the miller's man was going home happy

'Sl…u…t,' Chart said loudly.

Irsa pulled her face into a mockery of Chart's and mimicked his elongated sounds, unaware of the word within it. Chart rolled his eyes at me, his body thrashing against the floor in laughter.

I grinned as Irsa backed away.

'Freak,' she said, her fingers making the ward-evil at Chart. She turned her attention to me.

'Master said you were to go to him as soon as you returned,' she said, then added snidely,

'although he wasn't expecting you until the end of training time.'

'Where is he now?' I asked.

'Moon Garden. On the main viewing platform.' She smiled slyly She knew I was not allowed in the Moon Garden — my master had forbidden it. 'He said as soon as you return.'

I grabbed the edge of the table and pulled myself upright. Should I obey my master's ban on the Moon Garden, or obey his command to attend on him immediately? He would not be pleased that I was home so early Let alone the other news I had for him.

'Irsa, do your work,' Kuno said. 'Stop wasting time or you'll feel the back of my hand.'

Irsa gave me one last gloating look then hurried into the dark passageway that connected the kitchen to the main house.

There was a saying in one of the earthier Dragoneye texts: a man on the horns of a dilemma ends up with his arse pricked. My master would find fault whether I went into the garden or I waited. Since there was no avoiding his displeasure, I would go to him. At least I would finally see the garden that had won him such fame.

'Tomorrow,' I said to Chart. He gave his slow smile.

I stepped over the threshold and out into the courtyard. To my left was the grey stone fence of the Moon Garden, its low metal gate etched with the shape of a leaping tiger. I headed towards it, the promise of my master's anger dragging at my feet. There were many ways to tell the truth — I just needed to find one that would satisfy him. All that was visible over the gateway was a black pebble path leading to an impressive stacked slate wall. Along its face a waterfall cascaded down a carefully haphazard run of ledges, pooling into a white marble bowl.

My master had designed the garden to symbolise female energy and it was said that during a full moon the garden was so beautiful it could rob a man of his essence. When I heard that, I wondered what would happen to a man robbed of his essence: would he become a woman or would he become something else? Something like the Shadow Men of the court? Or something like me?

There was no latch on the gate. I traced the strong lines of the tiger on the metal for luck — or maybe for protection — then pushed against it until the gate swung open.

The black path was made of pebbles and seemed to move in front of me like a slow ripple of water. As I stepped onto it, I realised why: the stones had been laid in a subtle graduation of matt to polished that caught the sunlight. On either side, a flat expanse of sand had been raked into swirling patterns. I pushed the gate shut behind me and followed the path to the waterfall wall, my uneven steps sounding like the chink of coins in a pouch. The path diverged around the wall. I paused for a moment, listening. Underneath the sound of the waterfall splashing into the bowl was the muted hiss of more flowing water. No other sounds of physical movement. But deeper, in my mind, I felt the soft thrum of carefully contained power. I chose the left path and walked around the wall into the main garden.

It was a severe landscape: clusters of rocks on flat sand, swirling paths of black and white pebbles, and an intricate weaving of waterfalls, streams and pools that was directing the thrumming energy to the wooden viewing platform. My master was kneeling in its centre, as spare and severe as his surroundings. I lowered into a bow, watching for acknowledgement.

He didn't move. And there were no signs of anger in the lean lines of his body A shadow above made me flinch. I looked up, but there was nothing. No bird. No cloud. Only a strange, hot joy that eased the cramp in my belly and the ache in my hip.