Robin Hobb - Dragon Keeper

She felt him swell with distress. An instant later, his small voice raised the alarm. ‘Tintaglia! This one is in trouble! She cannot finish her case. What should we do?’

The dragon’s voice boomed back to him from across the cocooning grounds. ‘The clay slurry, very wet! Pour it in. Do not hesitate. Cover her head with it and smooth it over the open end of her casing. Seal her in, but be sure that the first layer is very wet.’ Even as she spoke, the dragon herself hastened to Sisarqua’s side. ‘A female! Be strong, little sister. There are few who will hatch to be queens. You must be among them.’

The workers had come running, some trundling barrows, others bearing slopping buckets of silvery-grey clay. She had drawn her head in as far as it would go and lidded her eyes. The young Elderling outside her case shouted his orders, bidding them, ‘Now! Don’t wait for Tintaglia! Now, her skin and eyes are drying too fast. Pour it in. That’s it! And more! Another bucket! Fill that barrow again. Hurry, man!’

The stuff sloshed over her, drenching and sealing her. Her own toxins, present in the sections of the case she had woven, were affecting her now. She felt herself sinking into something that was not sleep. It was rest, however. Blessed, blessed rest.

She sensed Tintaglia standing close by her. She felt the sudden weight of warm, regurgitated slurry, and knew with gratitude that the dragon had sealed her case for her. For a moment, toxins rich with memories stung her skin. Not just dragon-memories from Tintaglia, but a share of serpent lore from the one Tintaglia had recently devoured enriched her case. Dimly she heard Tintaglia directing the scurrying workers. ‘Her case is thin here. And over here. Bring clay and smooth it on in layers. Then bank her case with leaves and sticks. Cover it well from the light and the cold. They cocoon late. They must not feel the sun until summer is full upon them, for I fear they will not have fully developed when spring comes. And when you are finished here, come to the east end of the grounds. There is another one struggling there.’

The Elderling’s voice reached into Sisarqua’s fading consciousness. ‘Did we seal it in time? Will she survive to hatch?’

‘I do not know,’ Tintaglia replied gravely. ‘The year is late, the serpents old and tired, and half of them are next to starved. Some from the first wave have already died in their cases. Others still straggle in the river or struggle to pass the ladder. Many of them will die before they even reach the shore. That is for the best; their bodies will nourish the others and increase their chances of survival. But there is small good to be had from those who die in their cocoons, only waste and disappointment.’

Darkness was wrapping Sisarqua. She could not decide if she was chilled to her bones or cosily warm. She sank deeper, yet still felt the uneasy silence of the young Elderling. When he finally spoke, his words came to her more from his thoughts than from his lips. ‘The Rain Wild people would like to have the casts of the ones who die. They call such material “wizardwood” and have many valuable uses for—’

‘NO!’ The emphatic denial by the dragon shocked Sisarqua back to a moment of awareness. But her depleted body could not long sustain it and she almost immediately began to sink again. Tintaglia’s words followed her down into a place below dreams. ‘No, little brother! All that is of dragons belongs only to dragons. When spring comes, some of these cases will hatch. The dragons that emerge will devour the cases and bodies of those that do not hatch. Such is our way, and in such a way is our lore preserved. Those who die will give strength to those who live on.’

Sisarqua had but a moment to wonder which she would be. Then blackness claimed her.

Day the 17th of the Hope Moon

Year the 7th of the Reign of the Most Noble and Magnificent Satrap Cosgo

Year the 1st of the Independent Alliance of Traders

From Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug to Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown

Attached you will find a formal appeal from the Rain Wild Council for a just and fair payment of the additional and unexpected expenses incurred by us in the care of the serpent cases for the Dragon Tintaglia. A swift reply is requested by the Council.

Erek,

A spring flash-flood has hit us hard. Tremendous damage to some of the dragon cases, and some are missing entirely. Small barge overturned on the river, and I fear it was the one carrying the young pigeons I was sending you to replenish the Bingtown flock. All were lost. I will allow my birds to set more eggs, and send you the offspring as soon as they are fledged. Trehaug does not seem like Trehaug any more, there are so many Tattooed faces! My master has said that I must not date things according to our Independence, but I defy him. Rumour will become a reality, I am sure!

Detozi

It was supposed to be spring. Damn cold for spring. Damn cold to be sleeping out on the deck instead of inside the deckhouse. Last night, with the rum in him and a belt of distant stars twinkling through an opening in the rain forest canopy, it had seemed like a fine idea. The night hadn’t seemed so chilly, and the insects had been chirring in the tree tops and the night birds calling to one another while the bats squeaked and darted out in the open air over the river. It had seemed a fine night to lie back on the deck of his barge and look up at the wide world all around him and savour the river and the Rain Wilds and his proper place in the world. Tarman had rocked him gently and all had been right.

In the iron-grey dawn, with dew settled on his skin and clothes and every joint in his body stiff, it seemed a damn-fool prank more suited to a boy of twelve than a riverman of close to thirty years. He sat up slowly and blew out a long breath that steamed in the chill dawn air. He followed it with a heart-felt belch of last night’s rum. Then, grumbling under his breath, he lurched to his feet and looked around. Morning. Yes. He walked to the railing and made water over the side as he considered the day. Far above his head, in the tree tops of the forest canopy, day birds were awake and calling to one another. But under the trees at the edge of the river, dawn and daylight were tenuous things. Light seeped down, filtered by thousands of new leaves and divested of its warmth before it reached him. As the sun travelled higher, it would shine down on the open river and send fingers under the trees and through the canopy. But not yet. Not for hours.

Leftrin stretched, rolling his shoulders. His shirt clung to his skin unpleasantly. Well, he deserved to be uncomfortable. If any of his crew had been so stupid as to fall asleep out on the deck, that’s what he would have told them. But they hadn’t been. All eleven of his men slumbered on in the narrow, tiered bunks that lined the aft wall of the deckhouse. His own more spacious bunk had gone empty. Stupid.

It was too early to be awake. The fire in the galley stove was still banked; no hot water simmered for tea, no flatcakes bubbled on the grill. And yet here he was, wide awake, and of a mind to take a walk back under the trees. It was a strange impulse, one he had no conscious rationale for, and yet he recognized it for the kind of itch it was. It came, he knew, from the unremembered dreams of the night before. He reached for them, but the tattered shreds became threads of cobweb in his mind’s grasp, and then were gone. Still, he’d follow their lingering inspiration. He’d never lost out by paying attention to those impulses, and almost inevitably regretted it the few times he’d ignored them.