“You won’t find any libraries up there,” Dsossa said. “Rainfall always appreciated the volumes you sent, you know.”
Wistala hardly believed her eyes, but it seemed the growth atop the clay pyramid tilted ever so slightly in her direction. Had the broccoli bowed to her? No, it was simply responding to the moon above and behind her.
Maybe.
“I must go north. According to the librarians, there are others of my kind there,” she said. “But I will come back to visit. Perhaps to your winter camp, so I don’t get frozen solid up there when the sun runs south.”
“Don’t expect to lie around all day stuffing yourself with veal at my expense,” Ragwrist said. “You winter at my circus, and you’ll be speaking to select seekers at a commanding price!”
“Oh, give it a rest. I’ll buy her a bullock or two,” Brok said. “If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll show you your new harness.”
He’d made a leather neck pouch, easily expandable, that had stiffened cases all around the sides, about the size of the ones the dwarves used for their crossbow bolts.
“I put a couple vesk-stone of good softmetal in for you. Metal is rare up there, I understand they use bone fishhooks and flint scrapers and such. Or at least that’s what the traders bring back.”
A transparent blister showed at the buckle on her breast, and a familiar blue sat within. “That’s the old elf’s battle sash. Safe from weather and wet in there, though honestly I wasn’t expecting the cold of the icelands. If you open the latch,” he showed her how, “you can unscrew the crystal if you’d like to take it out for some reason, but remember to seal it up again with good wax to make it airtight.”
“You raided my ironmonger?” Ragwrist said. “Are you trying to ruin me, Brok? Am I to support the family of every blacksmith in Hypatia?”
Brok ignored the protestations and slipped it over Wistala’s outstretched head.
Wistala thought it looked like an oversize gem, and wearing such a thing would make her feel flashier than a proper young dragonelle from her family should—Your wings and scales should be advertisement enough, Mother always said, no need to adorn for Silverhigh aerials—but had to admire the workmanship.
She put it on. It turned on her neck easily enough, and she could reach the cases, probably even while flying.
“Rub some fats into the leather now and again,” Brok advised. “It’s the finest hardened cowhide, but don’t mistake it for steel. It needs care.”
“Improvident—,” Ragwrist sputtered. “He speaks of care. Care! Have care to my balance book!”
“I don’t know how to thank you, Brok,” Wistala said, ignoring the byplay. “You should have my coin savings.”
“Ha!” Brok said. “I loaded two of these cases with it. Eat them sparingly, good dragon.”
“What of you, Dsossa?” Wistala asked. “Will you live near the inn?”
“I will still breed my horses, though on this side of the river, and Hammar won’t get one for any price. Old Avalanche left some colts on this side of the river, and I’ll see if I can’t better the bloodline.”
“Stog might suggest a dose of donkey.”
“Yes, I’ll breed mules too. Less money in mules, but they are more easily sold in any market.”
They looked at each other around Rainfall’s rooting place.
“I shall be sorry to leave you all,” Wistala said.
“That’s circus. You’ve outgrown us,” Ragwrist said.
“No. I’ve learned so much, and I could lear—”
“I don’t mean that,” Ragwrist said, waving away the dragon breath. “I mean the circus can’t afford to feed you any more, or employ an army of shovelers to keep the air breathable.”
Wistala slept out the next day in the old troll cave, half a horse inside her—she’d flown up to Galahall and snatched one from an outer pasture as it stood sleeping—and the other half hanging for breakfast, when she heard a faint shouting.
“Wistala! Wistala!”
It was a female voice. She sent the seagulls flying as she crawled out the entrance—from the noise they made anyone would think it was their cave—and cautiously peeped up the cliff.
Lada lay flat on her belly. She waved.
“I hate heights, you know,” Lada said.
“You don’t look well,” Wistala said. “But I’m glad for a chance to say good-bye.”
“I need to speak to you. Please!”
“I’d prefer if you’d come after dark. I don’t want anyone to know where I am. Speaking of which, how did you find out?”
“Jessup told me. His oldest pointed out the cave from chalk hill. And tonight I must stay with a sick family.”
Wistala sighed. It would be easy to fly up there, but any fishermen along the river and every shepherd on the hills would see her.
She climbed. Amazing how much stronger her forelimbs felt with her wings out. In a moment she stood on the thick pasture grass.
“Let’s try that little hollow over there, out of the wind,” Wistala suggested. Also out of view.
Even without the hat Lada’s priest’s robes made her look older than she was. A summer ribbon bound her hair with the aid of a bean-stake. Her eyes were dark and worried.
“So this is more than just a good-bye, or a last moment of consolation over our father’s death,” Wistala said, once in the hollow.
Lada brushed some snails from a rock and sat down. “It’s Rayg. His body was never found, you know.”
“I saw several carried off,” Wistala said. “He was taken at Quarryness?”
“Yes. Another low priest with experience in these matters says he’s most likely been made a slave. He’s at the perfect age: old enough to work intelligently but still small enough to be overpowered by the least housewoman. Mod Daland believes him to be alive.”
“But in barbarian hands.”
“I went to see Hammar, you know,” she said, her thin lips almost disappearing. “Just yesterday. Just—it took all my nerve.”
“He claims to have influence with them.”
“His hall is full of their banners, drums with claws and feathers on the heads, and that horrible reeking charcoal they use to toast their flesh. You can scarce see through the glass in the windows. But I threw myself down before him, on those stones full of dog hair and spit, and begged him. I told him that he could have anything—anything—if he’d help find my son. His son.”
She hid her eyes under her hand. “He took my offer, took me. Took me and made a sport of my body . . . I can’t describe more. But afterwards when I asked him to get Rayg back, he laughed and said he didn’t need another bas—boy hanging about the place, counting on a position or thinking of the throne. He calls it a throne now. He said he’d make inquires so I could go north and seek him.”
Wistala watched one of the brushed-aside snails go back up the rock. “I’m sorry to hear your troubles. But if you think I need more reason to hate Hammar—” She began to describe the scene before the fountain, but it so upset Lada that she stopped. “How can I help?” Wistala asked.
Lada wiped her eyes. “I’m supposed to be the priestess—oh, well, an inworld acolyte, I should say. This is so selfish, I’ve left the world behind but—he’s my son! I’m supposed to be the one who helps people with their troubles. The world is wheels within wheels, and each turn grinds . . . but the words aren’t helping me.”
Wistala waited.
“I heard you were going north. I ask you to look for Rayg while you’re there. If I learn anything about his location I’ll try to get word—Copex knows how—but I’ll try, and leave word with the circus. Then you can go in and get him and . . . and—”
“Burn anyone who gets in my way?” Wistala supplied.
“Yes,” she said, hard and low and with eyes alight as though she relished the thought. Perhaps Lada had her heart no more in her role as priestess than as a circus performer.
“And if I retrieve him?”
“A temple built in your honor enclosing a statue of bronze and silver, if I have to work the rest of my life toward it.”
Hominids and their strange vanities. How many times can you fill your gorge at a temple? “I’m not going to live in barbarian lands. I’m going beyond men, looking for my kind.”
“I heard some sailors saw one of your kind. But it is a secondhand story, perhaps they got it wrong?”
“Where?”
“Oh, to the north, while crossing the Inland Ocean. They’d been blown off course by a storm and they saw a dragon aloft. They thought for certain they were doomed and made their last offerings, but the dragon only swooped low over them. They said a man in heavy fur rode its back, but sailors are always telling tales.”
“Are they sure it was a dragon? Not feathered?”
“Yes, a dragon, and blue as the sky. Speaking of blue, I must admire that belt around your throat. Wait—if it goes around your throat is it a belt or no?”