Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb
She looked at him, surprised. He mistook it for confusion.
‘I guess your mind was elsewhere. She says she keeps having dreams about a silver well. She’s wandered through the city looking for it, but hasn’t seen anything like what she dreamed. She thinks she’s remembering something that Mercor knows about. She says he mentioned something about the silver wells of Kelsingra, a long time ago when we first began our journey here. She wants to talk to him but she’s like the rest of us. Since her dragon took flight, he doesn’t have a lot of time for her. And she said another odd thing. She says it feels like he avoids the topic, as if it makes him uncomfortable. ’
‘Sintara spoke to me once of a silver well. It seemed very important to her. But she said her memories of it were fragmented. ’ She put the words out casually.
‘The well isn’t silver,’ Tats said slowly. He gave her a sideways glance as if he expected her to mock him. ‘I dreamed of it last night. The structure around it was old and very fancy. As much wood as stone, as if it had been built at the very beginning of the city. Inside there was this mechanism … I couldn’t see it well. But when you cranked up the bucket from the depths, it was full of silvery stuff. Thicker than water. Dragons can drink it and love it. But I had the feeling it was dangerous to humans. ’
‘Humans? Or Elderlings?’
He looked at her for a long moment. ‘I’m not sure. In the dream I knew I had to be very careful of it. But was I dreaming it as if I were a human or an Elderling?’
It was her turn to sigh. ‘Sometimes I don’t like what this place is doing to me. Even without touching memory-stones, I have dreams that don’t quite belong to me. I turn a corner and just for an instant, I feel like I’m someone else, with a whole lifetime of memories and friends and expectations for the day. I pass a house and want to visit a friend, one I’ve never had. ’
Tats was nodding. ‘Those standing stones, the big ones in the circle in that plaza, they remind me of different cities when I pass them. You know, the other Elderling cities …’
She shook her head at him. ‘No. But I walk through a memory of a market and suddenly I want a fish cake spiced with that hot red oil. And then, just as abruptly, I’m me again and I know that I’m sick of fish, with or without red oil. ’
‘The memories tug at me, too. I don’t like it—’ Tats halted suddenly. He took her arm, pulling her to a stop.
Down by the river, work progressed under Carson’s supervision. A crude wooden dock made of logs had been roped to some of the old support columns. The river tugged at it and grey water bulged and flowed over the end of it. Harrikin, stripped to worn trousers and securely roped against the current, was in the water, trying to force one log into alignment with another. Carson was shouting directions to him as he kept tension on a line tied to the opposite end of the timber. Lecter, muscles bunching with effort, crouched over a log on the shore, slowly turning a drill to put a hole through it. Not far away, Alum was smoothing straight pieces of sapling into dowel. The sound rode thin on the spring wind. Nortel, ribs bandaged from a log-setting mishap earlier in the week, crouched on the dock with a mallet and pegs, waiting to fasten the log. It was cold, wet, dangerous work. And it was Tats’s assignment for the afternoon. He tugged at her hand and she met his gaze. ‘I’ve heard what Rapskal says. That we have to plunge ourselves into the city’s memories if we are to learn how to live here as Elderlings. But I also remember all the warnings I heard in Trehaug. What Leftrin told us before he left, that lingering too long near memory-stone can drown you. That you can lose your own life in remembering someone else’s. ’
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Thymara was silent for a moment. Tats had put a precise finger on her own fear, the one that she didn’t like to admit. ‘But we are Elderlings. It’s different for us. ’
‘Is it? I know Rapskal says that, but is it? Did the Elderlings prize having their own lives, or did they grow up so saturated in other people’s experiences that they didn’t realize what was theirs and what they’d absorbed? I like being me, Thymara. I want to still be Tats, no matter how long I live and tend my dragon. And I want to share those years with Thymara. I don’t need to soak you in someone else’s life when I’m with you. ’ He paused, letting her feel the sting of that little barb. Then he added, ‘My turn for a question. Are you living your life, Thymara? Or avoiding it by living someone else’s?’
He knew. She hadn’t confided in him about the memory columns and her visits there with Rapskal. But somehow he knew. A deep blush heated her face. As her silence became longer, the hurt in his eyes deepened. She tried to tell herself that she’d done nothing wrong, that his hurt was not her fault. He spoke while she struggled to find words.
‘It’s pretending, Thymara. ’ His voice was low but not gentle. ‘It’s not plunging into this life in Kelsingra. It’s letting go of now, and living the past, a past that will never return. It’s not even really living. You don’t make decisions there, and if the consequences become too dark, you can run away. You take on a style of thinking, and when you come back to this world, it sways you. But worst of all is, while you are swimming in memories, what are you not doing here? What experiences are you missing, what chances pass you by? A year from now, what will you say about these seasons, what will you remember?’
She was moving from embarrassed to angry. Tats had no right to rebuke her. He might think she was doing something foolish, but she hadn’t hurt anyone with it. Well, only him, and only his feelings. And wasn’t that partially his own fault, for caring about such things?
He knew she was getting angry. She saw how he tightened his shoulders and heard his voice deepen a notch. ‘When you’re with me, Thymara … if you ever decide to be with me … I won’t be thinking of anyone else except you. I won’t call you by someone else’s name, or do something to you because it’s what someone else liked a long, long time ago. When you finally decide to let me touch you, I’ll be touching you. Only you. Can Rapskal say that to you?’
Her mind swirled with conflicting thoughts and emotions. Then, from the riverbank, Carson shouted, ‘Dragon fight! Keepers, get down here!’
She spun away from Tats and ran, as much toward danger as away from it.
‘Why do you hate me?’
She gave two final snips with her shears before she spoke, then ran her slender fingers through his hair, loosening it as she checked for any more mats or tangles. It sent a shiver up his back and he shuddered to cast it off. Another woman might have smiled at his reaction. Chassim’s eyes remained cold and distant. She replied with a question of her own. ‘Why do you suppose I hate you, dragon-man? Have I treated you with anything less than respect? Been less than attentive and subservient to you in any way?’
‘Your hatred shimmers around you like heat from a fire,’ he replied honestly. She stepped away from him to fling handfuls of his damp hair out of a barred window. That task done, she closed the window and then folded down the elaborate wooden cover. Even though the cover was painted white and bore images of birds and flowers, it still plunged the room into gloom. Selden sighed at the loss of sunlight: his body craved it after the long months of deprivation.
The woman halted, her hand on the screen. ‘I have displeased you and now you will tell my father. ’ It was not a question.
He was startled. ‘No. I just miss the daylight. I was kept for months inside a heavy tent, and journeyed here in the hold of a ship. I’ve missed fresh air and daylight. ’
She moved away from the window without opening the cover. ‘Why look on what you cannot have?’
He wondered if that was why she had draped herself, head to foot, in a shapeless white shroud. Only the square of her face was visible; he had never seen a woman attired so and suspected it was her own invention. All Rain Wilds folk went veiled when they visited other places. Even when they went to Bingtown, where folk should have known better, their scales and wattles drew curious eyes and invited fea
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Yet the fury in her eyes had not reached the gentleness of her touch. He lifted his hands to his hair and ran his fingers through it. She had left it to his shoulders. It felt light and soft, and for the first time in months his fingers moved freely through it. Such a wonder to be entirely clean and warm. She had trimmed his nails, hands and feet, and scrubbed his back and legs and arms with a soft brush until his skin blushed pink and his scaling shone. His wounds had been cleaned and bandaged with salves and clean linen. It had felt odd and uncomfortable to be groomed as if he were a prize animal, but he had neither the strength nor the will to resist her. Even now, wrapped in soft blankets and enthroned before a fire, he felt it took all his strength just to hold his head upright. He gave up and let it loll back on the cushions. He could feel the drag of his eyelids. He struggled to stay awake: he needed to think, to put together the pieces of information they had given him.
The Chancellor had brought him here, apparently at great expense, and presented him to the Duke. The Duke had spoken kindly to him, had placed him here with this woman who tended him with both gentleness and disdain. What did they want of him? Why had his presentation to the Duke seemed so formal and portentous? Questions, but no clear answers. Life was suspended, his existence dependent on the whims of others. He had to decipher the mystery. In this woman’s care, he had the chance to regain his health. Could he manipulate that into a chance to regain his freedom?
Stay awake. Ask questions. Make plans. He fixed a smile on his face and inquired casually, ‘So. Chancellor Ellik is your father?’
She turned back to him, startled. Her upper lip was lifted like a cat’s that smelled something bad. He could not tell if she were pretty or even how old she was. He saw her pale-blue eyes and sandy lashes, a face sprinkled with faded freckles, a small mouth and a pointed chin. All else was hidden. ‘My father? No. My suitor. He wishes to marry me, to gather power to himself, so that as my father fails, he may assume it. ’
‘Your father is failing?’
‘My father is dying, and has been for a long time. I wish he would accept that and do it. My father is the Duke of Chalced. Antonicus Kent. ’
Selden was doubly startled. ‘Your father is the Duke of Chalced? That is his name? I’ve never heard it. ’
She turned away from him again, hiding her face from his honest stare. ‘No one speaks it any more. When he made himself Duke, years before I was born, he declared that was all he would ever be, for the rest of his life. Even as a child, I did not refer to him as “father” or “papa”. No. He is always “the Duke”. ’
Selden sighed, all hopes of an alliance fled. ‘So. Your father, the Duke, is my captor. ’
The woman gave him an odd look. ‘Captor. That is a kind word for someone who intends to devour you in hopes of prolonging his own life. ’
He stared at her without comprehension. She met his gaze. Perhaps she had intended to jab him with her words but as he looked at her, her face changed slowly. Finally she said, ‘You don’t know, do you?’
His mouth had gone dry at the look on her face. She didn’t like him, so how could she feel so much horror and pity at his fate? He drew an uncertain breath. ‘Will you tell me?’
For a moment, she bit her lower lip. Then she shrugged. ‘My father has been ill for a very long time. Or so he says. Others, I think, would simply accept it as ageing. But he has done all he could to stave off death. Many a learned healer he has brought here and many rare cures he has consumed. But over the last few years, all efforts have failed him. Death beckons, but he will not answer its call. Instead, he threatens his healers and in turn, fearing death just as much as he does, they have told him that they cannot cure him unless he can procure for them the rarest of all ingredients for their medicines. Powdered dragon liver to purify his blood. Dragon blood mixed with ground dragon’s teeth to make his own bones stop aching. The ichor from a dragon’s eye to make his own eyesight clear again. The blood of a dragon, to make his own blood run hot and strong as a young man’s. ’
He shook his head at her. ‘I don’t even know where my dragon is right now. In the past three years, I have felt her mind brush mine only twice and never have I been able to reach out to her. She does not come at my call, and even if she did, she would not give up her own blood to save me. I feel sure she would be roused to killing fury at the thought of a man wishing to drink her blood or make medicine from her liver. ’ He shook his head more strongly. ‘I am useless to him! He should ransom me and demand his healers find other cures for him. ’
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She cocked her head and the pity in her eyes became unmistakable. ‘You did not hear me out. He could not get his dragon’s blood, but what my suitor gave him woke his curiosity. A small square of scaled flesh. Flesh cut from your shoulder, if I am not mistaken. Which he ate. And it made him feel better than he had in months. But not for long. ’
Selden sat up. The room began a slow turn, rotating around him in a sickening way. He shut his eyes tightly, but it only became worse. He opened them again, swallowing against the vertigo. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked her hoarsely. ‘He told you such a thing, that he ate my flesh?’
‘My father did not tell me, no. My suitor … Chancellor Ellik … bragged of it. When he … came to … tell me that you would be put in my care. ’ The smoothness had gone out of her speech. Her words hitched along and he sensed a terrible story behind them.
Her eyes had gone distant and dark. He reached out to touch her arm. She gave a small shriek and leapt away from him. She stared at him wildly. ‘What is it?’ he demanded. ‘Tell me what you know. ’
She retreated from him, reached the covered window and halted there. He feared suddenly that she might fling the cover wide and throw herself through the window. Instead, she turned back to face him, a cornered animal, and flung the words at him as she might fling stones at hounds baying after her. ‘He cannot have dragon’s blood, so he will have yours! He will consume you, as he consumes every living being that comes near him. Consume and destroy, for his own dark ends!’
To hear her speak the words made the unthinkable something he must confront. A strange coldness filled him slowly, flowing out from his bones. When he spoke, his voice was higher than usual, as if air could not quite reach the bottom of his lungs. ‘It won’t work,’ he said desperately. ‘I am as human as you are. My dragon has changed me, but I am not a dragon. Drink my blood, eat my flesh, it will not matter. He will die just as surely as I will. ’
Full knowledge of the fate the Duke intended for him penetrated his mind. He had not, at first, comprehended why they had taken a sample of his flesh and skin when he was being sold. He had thought then that it was to prove that he was scaled. The wound on his shoulder from that ‘sample’ still oozed through the clean bandaging the woman had applied to it. He had thought it was healing and left it alone, but the girl had abraded away the thick scab to reveal the festering infection beneath. He wrinkled his nose as he recalled how bad it had smelled.
Even the meaning behind the Duke’s words when he had first been brought before him had slipped past Selden’s cognizance. But this woman who had been entrusted with his care seemed determined to make him confront it. She studied him from across the room, then, as abruptly as she had taken flight, she calmed. Her voice was low as she crossed the room to sit by his couch. ‘The Duke knows that your flesh and blood will not serve him as well as a dragon’s would. Knows it, and does not care. He will spend you ruthlessly, using you as a stopgap measure to keep himself al
She tugged his blanket straight, her lips folded. Then spoke without hope. ‘And so I must heal you of infection, and clean your body, and ply you with food and drink, just as if you were a cow being fattened for the slaughter. We are both his cattle, you see. Chattel to be used however it best suits him. ’
He stared into her face, expecting to see anger or at least tears. But she looked wooden, her eyes fixed on a hopeless future. ‘This is monstrous! How can you just accept what he does to me? To you?’
She gave a bitter laugh and slumped on the simple wooden stool and gestured around the little room. It was small and comfortably appointed, but the bars on the window and the stout door proclaimed what it was: a gilded cage. ‘I am as much his captive as you are, and as human as you say you are, but it will make no difference to him. He will consume us both. I am the bribe that he offers Ellik in return for the Chancellor doing all he can to preserve my father’s miserable life. It gives me a little comfort that you say that if he consumes you, your death will not buy him more life. ’ She looked down at her hands and confided hopelessly, ‘Once, I had planned to outlive him and then to proclaim myself his rightful heir. All my brothers are dead, either at my father’s hands or of the blood plague. And I am eldest of my sisters and the only one not wed away in trade. The throne should be mine upon his death. ’
He looked at her incredulously. ‘Would his nobles support you in such a claim?’
She shook her head. ‘It was a silly dream. Those I attempted to rally to my cause are, ultimately, as powerless as I am. It was the fancy I concocted to give purpose and hope to my life. Now it’s gone. I have no way left to reach out to those who also shared my ambition. Instead I shall comfort myself with the knowledge that he will not outlive me by much, if at all. ’