Жаклин Кэри - Banewreaker

“No.” Calanthrag did not blink. “Only the Great Ssstory, little ssson.”

Whether or not it was true, Ushahin could not say, for he had learned truth and lies were but two sides to the same fabric for dragonkind, inextricably interwoven. He thought of the things the dragon had shown him in the long night he had passed in the Delta; of the Chain of Being looped and looped and looped again, gathering him in its coils. A mighty consciousness, fragmenting, sighed and consigned itself to its fate. A world was born and died, and dying was born anew. Across the vastness of the stars, in the hidden bones of the earth. Nothing was born but that died; nothing died but was born. Fragmented. Striving, all in ignorance, at cross-purposes and folly. Waiting, all unknowing, for magic to pass from the world, for the deep fires to be extinguished, until there was only the hunger, the memory and wanting .

Such were the things the Eldest knew; the Eldest remembered.

Only then; only then would the cycle have come full circle, and true sentience reemerge, ready to be reborn.

Ushahin’s hands tightened on the pole. “Will it truly come to pass, Mother?”

The dragon’s jaws parted in a laugh, a true laugh, punctuated with jets of smoke. “Yesss,” Calanthrag the Elder said. “Oh, yesss. Sssome day. Without usss, it shall not passs. Yet may it come later than sssooner for ssuch as I and you.”

“So.” Ushahin nodded. “I will play such a role as I may.”

Plumes of smoke rolled and roiled, dark and oily, coiling around the branches of the palodus tree and obscuring its spatulate leaves. Ushahin coughed and the ravens of Darkhaven rose in a ruckus into the cleaner air above, chattering with annoyance.

When the smoke cleared, the dragon regarded him. “Go, little Ellyl-Man,” she said. “It is time. Go, and remember.” She moved one foreleg, then another; legs like columns, churning the mire. The vast hummock shuddered, moving. Murky water surged as Calanthrag’s plated breast emerged from the swamp, mossy and dripping. Along the dragon’s sides, vaned pinions stirred, revealing their sharp angles, hinting at their folded spans. The thick, snaking column of her neck arched, spines jutting erect as her head reared into the sky to brush the uppermost branches of the tall palodus tree. Gilt-green eyes glowed from on high and the massive jaws parted, revealing rows of jagged teeth, darkened with the Delta’s corrosion. A forked tongue, red as heart’s blood, flickered between them. “Remember the plasse of the Sssower’s birth,” Calanthrag hissed. Behind those terrible jaws, the opening of the dragon’s iron-grey gullet glowed like the glory-hole of a kiln. “Remember I am here!”

The skiff rocked under the dragon’s shadow. Ushahin Dreamspinner rode it out, legs braced, holding tight to his pole and craning his neck, caught between awe and terror. “I will not forget, Mother!” he shouted. “I will not!”

“Go!” the Eldest roared in a gout of fire.

Ushahin crouched, jamming the pole into the submerged roots of the palodus and shoving hard, launching his skiff into the waterways. A blue-white ball of flame passed low over his head, singeing his pale hair. Above, the ravens gathered in a flock launched themselves like an arrow in a southern trajectory, heading for the outskirts of the Delta.

“GO!”

He went, hard and fast, arms a blur planting and moving the pole. Dip and push; dip and push. The pain that wracked his ill-set bones was never more forgotten. Dip and push; dip and push. The skiff hummed over the waters, Darkhaven’s ravens fanned out before it in a flying wedge. They found a path; he followed. How far was far enough? Mangrove and palodus ignited in their wake, bursting into flame in this unlikely, water-sodden place. In moments they had left the heart of the Delta behind them. Ushahin poled the skiff without thinking, winding his way through the narrow waterways, his gaze fixed on the flying wedge before him; small figures, darkly iridescent in the sunlight, beating frantically, tilting the knife-edges of their wings to catch and ride the wind.

He followed.

Stand upon stand of mangrove passed uncounted, measuring the distance they traveled. Two, four, eight … how far was far enough? Whatever the distance, they traversed it. Gouts of fire gave way to tendrils of smoke, until its reaching fingers crumbled, fading into nothingness in the bright air.

The glade, with its tall palodus tree and its strange hummock, was behind them.

Stillness settled over the Delta.

Ushahin leaned upon his pole, panting. After a moment, he laughed softly.

Amid the quiet hum of insects, the ravens settled around him, closer than they had dared in the dragon’s presence. One spread its wings and dropped, landing neatly on the top of his pole, fine talons clutching the raw wood. He cocked his head, eyeing the half-breed; an effect rendered comical by an irregular tuft of feathers.

“Greetings, Fetch.” Ushahin smiled. “I thought it was you I saw among the flock. Have you learned something of the uncertain nature of dragons? So have I, little brother; so have I.” He dragged his sleeve across his forehead, smearing the residue of unwonted sweat. “I thank you for guiding me to that place, and I thank you for guiding me out of it. I am glad to leave it alive.”

The raven squawked and wiped its beak on the pole, quick and nervous.

“Tanaros?” Ushahin’s brows rose. “He travels the Unknown Desert, or so his Lordship says. Would you seek him, Fetch? There is no water there.”

The raven bobbed its head, sidling from foot to foot.

“Very well.” He shrugged, too weary to argue the matter. “Go, if you will. I have companions enough to guide me home, and much to contemplate along the way.”

Fetch squawked once more and launched himself in a flurry of feathers, dark wings beating. Ushahin Dreamspinner watched him go, bemused. “Why?” he asked aloud. “Is it love? What a strange conceit, little brother!” There was no answer, only the stares of the other ravens, hunched and waiting, the sheen of their feathers purple in the swampfiltered sunlight. Ushahin sighed, planting his pole. “Home,” he said to them, giving a strong shove. “Home, it is. Onward, brethren!”

The remaining ravens took wing, arrowing for the fringes of the Delta. Somewhere ahead, where the mangrove thinned and the swamp turned to marshy plains, there was a mount awaiting; a steed of Darkhaven, with arched neck and preternatural intelligence in its eyes. Ushahin poled his skiff and followed, navigating the waterways.

Only once did he pause and gaze behind him,

The Great Story that encompassed the world was vaster than he had reckoned; than any had reckoned. Even Lord Satoris, who had listened to the counsel of dragons, could not hold the whole of it in his sight, enwrapped as he was in his Elder Brother’s enmity. It was older than time, and it would outlive the Shapers’ War, and perhaps Ushahin’s role in it had only begun.

“I will not forget, Mother,” he whispered.

In the glade at the heart of the Delta, Calanthrag the Eldest chuckled, settling her bulk into the swamp. Twin plumes of smoke trailed above as her sinuous neck stretched, her head lowered. Sulfurous bubbles arose as her nostrils sank below the water’s surface, breaking foamy and pungent. Nictitating lids closed, filmy and half-clear, showing the unearthly gleam of gilt-green orbs below until the outer lids shut like doors. The last ripple spent itself atop the waters.

Beneath the tall palodus tree, the hummock in the heart of the Delta grew still, and the bronzed waters reflected sunlight like a mirror.

Calanthrag the Eldest slept, and laughed in her dreams.