Robin Hobb - Blood of Dragons

‘Why didn’t you go?’ Tats asked her curiously.

She looked startled. ‘This is my home now,’ she said. ‘Kelsingra is the city of Elderlings. I may go back to visit Trehaug or Bingtown, some day. Or perhaps my family will come here. But Ephron will grow up here, amongst his own kind. He will never go veiled. Kelsingra is where we belong. This is our home now.’

‘Mine, too,’ Tats admitted, and Thymara nodded.

Spring sunlight glittered on the dragons in the distance. Alum drifted over to join them. It was a small, disconsolate group that stood in the plaza and watched the dragons wing away into the distance. Carson cleared his throat. ‘Well. There’s work to do. From what Thymara has told us, there’s a danger from that well if we can’t find a way to cap it in times of high Silver. And the dock isn’t going to build itself. Nor those boats get cleaned up.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘No sense standing around wasting daylight. The sooner we start, the sooner we’re finished. And work keeps the mind busy.’

‘There’s always work where Carson is involved,’ Tats muttered, and Thymara smiled her agreement.

Day the 21st of the Plough Moon

Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

From the Masters of the Bird Keepers’ Guild, Trehaug

To the Masters of the Bird Keepers’ Guild, Bingtown

To our fellows, greetings.

As was suggested by Master Kerig Sweetwater, we have proceeded with great circumspection and attention to detail in the matter of Kim, formerly Keeper of the Birds, Cassarick, and the grave allegations that have been made against him.

Close scrutiny of the birds coming and going from his coops, an accounting of revenues collected, and the judicious interception and inspection of messages passing through his hands have revealed too many irregularities to be ignored. At best, they indicate a complete disregard for Guild standards, and at worst, treachery to the Guild and treason to the Independent Alliance of Traders. The full extent of his wrongdoing has not yet been established.

For now, he has been stripped of all authority, his birds confiscated, his apprentices reassigned for retraining in correct procedures and his journeymen rebuked for not reporting irregularities that they must have witnessed. Some may eventually be dismissed from the Guild or required to spend additional years as journeymen.

There are indications that the corruption was not confined to Cassarick. As the connections become clear, other bird keepers may face charges of broken contracts or dismissal from the Guild. A painful time is before us, but at least we have flown through the worst of this storm and may soon emerge into better weather.

Thymara felt strangely shy as she took them out of the pouch where she had stored them. ‘They don’t really fit me. My claws stick out too far.’ By daylight, the gauntlets were green. No trace of Silver clung to them. ‘They’re very supple, and I think perhaps they were made especially for her. Amarinda.’

‘Where did they get the dragon hide?’ Harrikin wondered aloud.

Thymara shook her head wordlessly. Tats hazarded a guess. ‘It would have been a special gift from a dying dragon, maybe. Or maybe from a dragon who had the duty of devouring a dead dragon.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe the answer will be found in one of the memory-stones one day.’ A darker thought came to Thymara. ‘Or it might have been taken from a fallen enemy. A dragon who came and tried to raid the well and was defeated.’

‘Did you look for it in Amarinda’s pillars?’ Carson asked her.

She found she was blushing. ‘No. I didn’t find anything about working Silver in her pillars.’

Those who had stayed behind were gathered around the Silver well, former slaves as well as keepers. The slaves still kept their own company, but were beginning to take an interest in the keepers’ daily tasks. Carson had been trying to convey to them that if they wanted to share the keepers’ food, then they had to share the work as well. Thymara was not completely certain that they understood that. But all of them had begun to look less haggard and cowed. When asked to help, they did, but so far none of them had volunteered. They had debated keeping the Silver and the gauntlets secret from them, but in the end they had decided to not worry about it. To whom could they tell the secrets of Kelsingra? ‘If we knew what the secrets really were,’ Carson had added dourly.

In the absence of the dragons, Carson had declared that they had to devise an effective cap for the Silver reservoir. He and Harrikin had hunted the hills for downed trees and had the good fortune to find the trunk of a substantial oak. All had laboured to cut and shape the slabs of timber that they had fashioned into a well cover. It was rough, little more than a rectangle of wood that fit over the well mouth. As it was, it might keep anyone from falling into the well, but it would do little more than that. It was Carson’s hope that Thymara might be able to shape it into a securely fitting cap.

A bucket of Silver, drawn from the well, waited on the paving stones before her. ‘I suppose I just put on the gauntlets, dip my hands into the Silver and then …’ She looked all around at the others. ‘Has anyone ever found a memory of anyone working Silver? Seen them at work?’

‘I’ve seen people wearing Silver gloves, still gleaming. But I didn’t really see what they were doing. They were crouched down by a statue, looking at the base of it and talking as I walked by. In the memory,’ Alum added, as if to explain.

Thymara slowly began to draw on a gauntlet.

‘What if it leaks?’ Tats demanded wildly. ‘What if it soaks through? What if there’s something about this that we don’t understand, something that hurts her or kills her?’

She spoke patiently. ‘I tested them earlier. In water. Not a drop got in.’

‘But that’s not water in that bucket!’

‘I know.’ She had both gauntlets on now. She flexed her hands and felt the pull of the supple leather against them. For only a moment, she considered that she was wearing someone else’s skin on her hands. A dragon’s, certainly, but had not he or she thought and spoken just as clearly as a human? How would she feel about someone else wearing her skin as gloves? She stared at her green-gloved hands for a moment and then shook her head. ‘I’m going to try it,’ she said, as if any of them had doubted it.

The Silver in the wooden bucket swirled sluggishly. No one had jostled it. It had not ceased its restless motion since Carson had slowly lowered the bucket into the stuff, poked it with a long stick to make it tip, and then gingerly hauled it up again. He had held it by a length of dry rope to allow every droplet of Silver to drip back into the well before setting it beside the well mouth on the paving stones. They had all gathered around it, to watch the slow undulation of the liquid within.

‘Is it possible it’s actually alive?’ Tats had asked.

No one had tried to answer. And no one had touched the bucket since, but still the stuff moved, coiling within itself, silver, white, grey, a fine thread of black, moving like liquid snakes tangled with one another.

Slowly, being very careful not to splash, Thymara pushed her right hand into the bucket of Silver. She went no more than fingertip deep and then drew her hands out. For a moment, the Silver clung smoothly. Then it began to pull away from the glove in droplets. She held her hand over the bucket and there was silence as they watched the Silver droplets fall.

‘Do you feel anything?’ Tats asked tensely.