Chapter 1
Chapter 1
As Lathwi padded down the cool stone passageway, echoes of her calloused footfalls scampered off in both directions. She walked with purpose, but not haste; and while the ochre gleam of rock light limned her path, she could have as easily found her way in pitch darkness. She was heading toward her mother’s favourite chamber—a chamber which few others were privileged to visit. Lathwi had spent the better part of her short life in there.
The entrance to that chamber loomed to her right. Even though she had no doubt that Taziem had heard her coming long before now, she cleared her throat just the same, for it was never smart to surprise a full-grown dragon. Especially when that dragon was ensconced in a den full of diamonds.
Her mother’s nest was resplendent, a veritable glacier of blue-white stones. A single glimpse of it inspired envy and awe in equal measure. Yet it was nothing but a trifling heap of pebbles compared to the black-scaled dragon who was lounging in its midst. She was magnificent: twice as tall as Lathwi at the shoulder, nearly ten times as long from head to tail, yet sleek and streamlined, an aeronautical wonder. The great membranous wings which carried her through the sky were folded now, all but invisible against the span of her sinuous back; and her whip-like tail was daintily coiled around her. Both sets of eyelids were closed.
As Lathwi waited to be received by the she-dragon, she projected a self-thought at her. On one level, it was merely a reiteration of her arrival; on another, it poked sly fun at her mother by insinuating that her senses were not as keen as they used to be. Lathwi took great pride and delight in her skills with dragon-speech. To her, well-wrought images were as pleasing as diamonds.
Although Taziem’s eyes were shut and she had not yet deigned to acknowledge Lathwi’s presence, she was not asleep. Indeed, she was busily contemplating Lathwi’s last thought—the latest illustration of her bizarre imagination. To most dragons, nothing was more pleasing than diamonds. Even she, The Learned One, an advocate of logic and intellect, admired them to an extreme. And it would never have occurred to her to compare the star-like stones with something as dissimilar as dragon-speech. Yet now that she considered the notion, she saw how such a comparison might be drawn: both possessed a multi-faceted beauty which ranged from subtle to raw, both contained images for others to contemplate. The tip of her tail twitched approvingly. Clever Lathwi.
Her eyelids opened to slits, affording her a covert view of her unlikely daughter. She was a runt, magnitudes smaller and weaker than any dragon. She was also wingless, tailless and nearly neckless; dull of tooth and nail; and appallingly tender-skinned. The supple shell of scales which she wore to preserve herself against the casual violence of other dragons had originally belonged to a tanglemate who had lost its life to a fall. The claws she carried with her were cast-offs as well.
Lathwi, The Soft One. It was an appropriate Name.
A memory flooded her awareness. In it, she was sunning herself in a meadow far from her usual hunting grounds. Her belly was swollen to monstrous proportions by a mad feeding binge and the clutch of unborn dragonets which had prompted such gluttony. Tomorrow she would have to return to her nest and stay there until she gave birth. She rumbled to herself, deploring that last and most tedious phase of pregnancy, then abruptly dismissed it from her thoughts. She did not intend to let tomorrow’s woes spoil today’s last snooze in the sun.
Her eyelids closed—the transparent inners first, then the scaled outers. Yet even as she began to drowse, a faint, arrhythmic thrashing dragged her back to awareness. The sound was not alarming, so she did not shift out of her comfortable pose, but she did continue to listen. The noise drew closer, then closer still. The sour stench of a red-blooded animal’s sweat invaded her nose. This smell continued to foul the air long after the thrashing retreated. Curious, she raised her outer lids a notch and surreptitiously scanned the area. To her vast surprise, she found a human youngling staring at her from less than a dragon’s length away.
Her curiosity flared like an itch in need of scratching. Never one to deny such impulses, she proceeded to study the creature.
Its eyes were its most remarkable feature. They were a glorious shade of blue, the colour of a cloudless summer sky; a dragon could almost take wing within them. But apart from those intriguing orbs, there was not much to see. It was a scrawny thing with a black mane and pale flesh. Its forearms were caught behind its back, seemingly entangled around a fat length of wood. A ring of wilted flowers hung from its neck.
Taziem was quick to grasp the youngling’s significance: it was meant for her. She snorted, venting her scorn. What purpose was such a gift supposed to serve? She had already slaked her pre-birthing hunger, and so had no need for more food. And even if it had been otherwise, so scant a morsel would not have satisfied the least twinges of that boundless appetite. She eyed the youngling again, no longer bothering to disguise her scrutiny. In response, it gurgled something unintelligible and then displayed its flat white teeth.
The gesture intrigued Taziem. She had no doubt that the youngling was frightened, for its fear was as pungent as its sweat. Yet few of any race, her own included, had dared to meet her gaze so boldly. Prompted by this contradiction, she delved through her memory for more information on humans. One of her tanglemates maintained that they were dumber than cattle; her chosen, Bij, despised them as thieves. But that was all hearsay. The only things she knew for certain about humans were that they were a noisy bunch, and not very tasty.
Such ignorance was intolerable! She was Taziem, The Learned One; it was her lot in life to know more than other dragons. She decided then and there to bring the youngling back to her nest and study it during the last stages of her pregnancy. If it proved to be an enlightening subject, she would let it go just before the birth. Otherwise, she would feed it to her newborns.
Eager to begin her research, she lurched to her feet and overtook the youngling. It was then that she discovered that its arms were not entangled behind its back, but deliberately bound. She hissed, wholly insulted by the implications. Did those who had left it for her really think that she could not have caught it otherwise? She hissed again, half-inclined to go and teach the fools a much-needed lesson, but then decided to save it for another day. Right now, she had the youngling to consider.
With a delicate swipe of her claws, she freed its arms. It yowled as the log thudded to the ground, but made no move to escape. Taziem hugged its feather-light body to her great chest, then unfurled her wings and invoked the secret Name of Wind. Aided by an obliging breeze, she then vaulted into the sky. Pride coursed through her veins like fire as she soared beyond the meadow and toward the distant jut of her mountain. She was Taziem, a dragon in flight—for the moment, nothing else mattered or sufficed. She celebrated that fact with an aerial dance, then bugled her joy to the world.
At that, the youngling loosed a squeal that defied its small size. Although she was sure that it was merely venting its fright, Taziem swung her long neck around to investigate. What she saw then amazed her. Its mouth was stretched into a toothy grin, its blue eyes were focussed on some faraway point in the sky. As she watched, it squealed again—a sound of pleasure rather than fear.
So, she thought, the youngling liked to fly. Therefore, it had more intelligence than a cow. The distinction pleased and encouraged her. At this rate, she would know all there was to know about humans before the sun went down.
A whisper of movement in the chamber drew Taziem out of the memory. She returned to her covert scrutiny of Lathwi, who was still waiting to be acknowledged. She could not be faulted for her patience, the she-dragon granted. Or for her cleverness. Many a dragon had survived fortune’s whims with no more than those two traits in their favour. But Lathwi had an extra advantage: Lathwi was smart. It was hard to believe that such a runt could possess so voracious an intellect, but the evidence was irrefutable. Long after her tanglemates had lost their appetites for learning and gone in search of other diversions, she was still living in Taziem’s caves and coming to her for morsels of lore. Curious as to how much she could retain, Taziem had let her stay.
Until now.
“
Lathwi
.” The image which accompanied the thought was deliberately harsh: soft and pink like prey. “
Why are you here
?”
Lathwi’s eyes narrowed. Her mother was not in the habit of questioning the obvious. Therefore, something strange was afoot.
“
I am here for knowledge
,” she replied warily.
“Know this then. It is time for you to leave.”
Too shocked for subtle speech, she blurted, “Why? I have not yet learned all there is to learn.”
Taziem snorted. “That is certain. Not even I can lay claim to such an accomplishment, and I have been studying for centuries. But that is irrelevant. Tomorrow you must take your leave of my caves and go in search of your own fortune.”
“
Why
?” Lathwi asked again.
A view of her teeth and claws was the only explanation that Taziem would have bothered to give to anyone else. But she had often times made exceptions for Lathwi because she was wingless and weak. Today she would do so again.
“I am almost ready to mate again,” she said, flashing her an image of two dragons entwined in mid-flight. “Bij is on his way. If he finds you here, he will eat you.”
“I will stay away while he is here,” she said, twitching her shoulders up and then down to show her unconcern. “When he leaves, I will come back. It will be like the last time. Remember?”
Taziem rumbled to herself. Impertinent sprat. Despite her age, her memory was superb. And she remembered the last time all too well.
Shortly after they arrived at Taziem’s nest, Taziem made a most astonishing discovery: the youngling could mind-speak! Its imagery was crude, true, but still the ability was there. This wholly unexpected sign of higher intelligence fanned her interest in humans into an academic frenzy.
The youngling, too, became excited. Using gestures and a sort of infantile dragon patois, it told her that its own kind communicated strictly with their mouths; and that they did not like or want it near them simply because it was able to hear thoughts other than its own. It went on to tell her that it liked it here in these caves; that it thought Taziem was a marvellous creature; and that it was not an it at all, but a female who had been born that way.
So the hours began to pass, one right after the other; and for Taziem at least, it was a time of perfect bliss. For not only did the youngling gladly answer her every question, she strove to please in other areas as well. She scratched itches that Taziem could not easily reach; rubbed the kinks from idle-sore muscles; applied her body’s own diffuse heat to joints that a gravid circulation had left swollen and cold. Taziem quickly grew fond of such pampering. Indeed, it was that fondness which persuaded her to let Lathwi stay and help as she claimed she could when the birthing finally began.
How convenient it would be to have to that kind of help again! How absolutely luxurious.
“No,” she replied firmly, addressing herself as well as Lathwi. “If you came too early, Bij might still be here or I might be in the throes of the pre-birthing hunger. In either event, you would most likely wind up as dragon meat.”
“What if I came later—perhaps after the birth?”
“No. If you are not here when the dragonets are born, then they will not recognize you later on. And if they do not recognize you, they will try to eat you.”
“And if I came after the hunger but before the birth?”
Taziem rumbled a warning. “Lathwi, you are stretching my patience toward its limit today. Perhaps you were meant to see the lining of a dragon’s belly after all.”
Lathwi exposed her throat, inviting the she-dragon’s teeth. “It would be a privilege, Mother. That is far from the worst fortune that could befall me.”
The image-thought was laced through and through with sincerity; all camouflage for a single strand of laughter. A perfect response, Taziem mused to herself. Too perfect. Her study had taken a slow and unintentional turn over the years. As a result, the only thing still human about Lathwi was her feeble form.
“Get your stumpy neck out of my face,” Taziem rumbled irritably. “You are not worth the trouble that it would take to swallow you.”
“Then may I know why I cannot come after the hunger and before the birth?”
“Because bonds formed at birth last a lifetime,” she replied, a grudging tribute to her fosterling’s persistence. “Members of the same tangle know each other by their secret Names. In times of need, they can Call upon those Names for aid.”
“I would welcome another set of tanglemates.”
“So would any reasonable dragon. But why should you have an advantage that the rest of us do not?”
“Ah, I see now
.” A flush raced across the plains of her dragon-scarred cheeks—a display of distress that she could neither hide nor control. “
Then I can never return
.”
“Your logic is sloppy.” The thought was quilled with scorn. “Bij and his offspring will go their own ways in due time. You may return then if it pleases you.”
“Time.” She curled her lip at the concept. “Only a hungry dragon counts the hours. How will I know when you are finally free to teach me again?”
“I will Call you
,” she said, working the last half of the reassurance around a massive yawn.
Lathwi barely noticed the she-dragon’s chasming jaws or the oddly delicate curl of her snake-ish tongue. Her thoughts were hollow, and all for herself. “
What shall I do between now and then
?”
“That,” Taziem replied, yawning again, “is none of my concern, so long as you do it far from here.”
She shifted onto her belly, then deliberately closed her eyes. Lathwi stared at her for a moment longer, then turned to leave the chamber. Quite by accident, a displaced diamond lodged between her toes. Instead of shaking it loose as she had done so many times in the past, she clenched her toes and continued on to the outer caves without so much as a hitch in her stride. There, she stopped to examine her prize. It was not a diamond at all, she discovered then, but only a reddish stone. Although it did not appeal to her, she popped it into her mouth anyway, because a thing that had belonged to Taziem qualified as a thing worth keeping.
Then she went outside and retired to her favourite sunlit rock. Almost as an afterthought, she Voiced a Name.
G
The narrow landing that prefixed Taziem’s caves spanned sharply into view. The bronze dragon circled the spot twice, then touched down upon its smooth rock surface and furled his wings. Before he could announce his presence, a shadow came bounding down the mountain’s side and toward him.
Delight took wing within him. Lathwi! Out of all his tanglemates, he liked her best. He extended his neck as she drew near, and then gently touched noses with her. Her scent was pungent and dry like a dragon’s, yet sweetly spiced with animal musk and red blood. It thrilled him for reasons which he did not bother to define.
A thought danced into his head.
“Shoq! You came
!”
“You Called
,” he replied.
As always, her size surprised him. How could she be so small? When he pictured her in his mind, she was almost as big as Taziem.
“Are you never going to grow?” he asked.
“I do not believe so
.” She rolled her shoulders to show her unconcern, then stepped back to get a better look at him. A moment later, her strange blue eyes flared with approval.
“I am glad to see that you are not suffering from the same affliction. If you continue to grow at this rate, you will be the rival of any sire in less than a century
.”
“It is true
,” came his thought, all puffed with pride.
“I am large for my age
.” He swatted her with his forearm, a playful cuff which tumbled her to the ground. “
Perhaps that is because I am so quick: a quick dragon gets all it wants to eat
.”
“Perhaps
.” With cat-like dignity, she picked herself up.
“Or perhaps it is because you are nothing but a giant bladder of gas
.” She punched his sensitive nose then. His surprised hiss prompted her to add,
“A bladder that leaks
.”
He roared with appreciation. As small as she was, she was still every inch a dragon.
“Shhh, you will wake Taziem
,” she cautioned. “
If she finds me here, she will eat me
.” He glanced furtively toward the mouth of the cave, then arched his neck into an unspoken query.
In response, she said, “
She wishes me gone
.”
“Ah
.” He did not ask why; it was none of his concern. “
Then we had best be off.”
He spread his forearms, exposing the junctures between limb and body. These were a young dragon’s soft spots, for the scales here were slow to mesh. She toyed with the idea of tickling those spots, but decided to postpone the attack until such time as she could enjoy his bellows of protest without fear of waking Taziem. Then, because she could not avoid the moment any longer, she backed into her tanglemate’s embrace. As his forearms closed around her, she turned her eyes away from the mouth of her mother’s caves.
“Go
,” she told him.
He coiled into a crouch. His wings unfurled with a leathery snap. With a powerful thrust of his hind legs, he catapulted them into the sky. Then a slipstream of cold mountain air whisked them away from Taziem’s fang-like spire and toward the shaggy-pined slopes of lesser peaks. Lathwi watched the world pass beneath her with disbelieving eyes.
“Where do you want to go?” Shoq asked.
“I do not know,” she replied. “Could we just fly for a while?”
In response, he aligned himself with an outgoing wind.
The mountains subsided, giving way to scruffy foothills; as the day passed, these flattened into a forest. High above this sea of still-brown treetops, Shoq began to dance. As lithe as an otter in spite of his bulk, he favoured backward loops and dizzying, headlong spirals; but for variety’s sake, he also chased his tail and ran a zig-zagging race with his shadow. Although he was dancing strictly for himself, his exuberant antics dispelled Lathwi’s gloom. The feel of wind bracing her skin and gravity tugging at her guts stirred wild feelings within her. She might be caveless now, but she was still a dragon! Brimming with fierce pride, she shrieked for all the world to hear.
Shoq matched her cry with a roar of his own, then shot straight up into the sky. Higher and higher he climbed, his great wings straining for speed. His goal seemed to be the heart of a cloud. Lathwi’s blood began to pound in her ears, her breath caught in her throat like a bone. Then, just as her vision began to fade, he abruptly folded his wings and plunged toward the ground. Her vision returned, but only as a blur, her stomach crowded her heart. The forest’s skeletal canopy expanded, then expanded again, blotting all else from view. In spite of herself, she tensed, anticipating impact. Then Shoq pulled out of his headlong dive, so close to the trees that a few of the tallest branches tickled the soles of her feet.
Still panting from the excitement, she urged him to do it again. Tired now, he pretended not to hear.
“Were you frightened
?”
he asked, as they coasted along on the breeze which he had surreptitiously invoked.
“Not at all,”
she replied.
“What if I had dropped you?”
“Then I would have flown by myself.”
“For a little while.”
They flew on in silence, heading west simply because that was the way the wind wanted to go. As their journey progressed, the top of the forest sprouted a faint green nimbus which seemed to shimmer in the sun’s waning light. Then a meadow spanned below them; it was dotted with the backs of grazing deer. The sight provoked a rumble from Lathwi’s belly.
“Are you hungry?”
she asked. The image with which he answered her was one of vast emptiness. She directed his attention toward the herd.
“Shall we hunt?”
“
We shall
,” he crooned, and cut a high, wide circle back toward the meadow’s edge. There, he swooped down on the herd with a roar, panicking its members into a helter-skelter dash for the trees on the far side of the field. Then he overtook a fat young buck and dropped Lathwi squarely on its back.
The deer’s legs buckled as she slammed into it. Before it could recover its footing and shake her off, she seized its antlers with both hands and wrenched its head sharply to one side. Bones popped. The body she was straddling went suddenly limp. As it started to collapse, she vaulted to the ground. And by the time Shoq circled back around again and landed, she had already split its carcass from breastbone to groin with one of her dragon claws.
“Which do you want—the heart or the liver?” she asked.
“I want them both,”
he said, eying the carcass greedily.
Because it was bigger, she tossed him the liver. He snapped the hunk of dripping flesh out of the air, gobbled it down without chewing and then resumed his unblinking scrutiny of the stag’s remains. Then, because it was not wise to keep a hungry dragon waiting for his meat, she hastily excised the heart and the better part of a hindquarter.
“The rest is yours,” she told him, and then hauled her portion toward a patch of untrampled grass. When she was out of Shoq’s immediate sight, she spat her purloined stone onto the ground, then sat down and began to feed.
The meat was tender and warm, an orgy of stomach-pleasing flavours. She tore into it with her teeth and nails, pausing now and again to slurp at the salty-sweet juices which were running down her arms and chin. The sounds of her feasting mingled with those of Shoq’s. Like her, he ate noisily, and with gusto.
Twilight came and went while she fed, but she took no note of the darkening sky until there was nothing left of her feast except scraps of hide and raw white bone. She belched, welcoming the advent of night, then began to clean herself—first licking the stickiness from her hands, then rolling in the grass to scour her scales. By the time she was done, the heaviness in her belly had spread to her limbs and eyelids. Without further thought, she curled into a comfortable ball and promptly went to sleep.
G
A raven’s distant caw roused her from her dreams. She opened her eyes to find a new day in full bloom. She wrung the last vestiges of sleep from her veins with a full-body stretch, then pawed through the grass for her stone. Finding it, she then rubbed it clean with her fingers and returned it to its hiding place beneath her tongue. Ready for the world now, she stood up and looked for Shoq. He was stretched out in a nearby patch of grass, his great belly angled toward the sun.
A mischievous grin curved across her mouth. Here was an opportunity too good to forego! Silent as a cat, she started to stalk her tanglemate. He stirred in his dreams. She sank down into a crouch and then pounced. As she slammed into the mound of his belly, her fingers burrowed into the soft spots beneath his arms.
His outraged bellow set a flock of birds to wing. His retaliatory swat sent her tumbling backward into the grass. Pealing with laughter, she bounced to her feet. An instant later, he bowled her over again. She rammed her fist into his nose, then got up and started to run away. With a flick of his tail, he tripped her. So they played, oblivious to all else, until she was too spent from laughter and abuse to get up from the dirt. Suspecting a trick, he thumped her one last time. When she did not avenge herself, he settled down next to her and rumbled contentedly.
“That
,” he said, his amber eyes glittering, “
was fun. What do you want to do next
?”
She rolled onto her back and stared at the sky as if divining for clues to her future. She knew what she wanted to do: she wanted to return to Taziem’s caves and sleep off the post-sporting stiffness that was creeping into her limbs. Then, when she woke again, she wanted to resume her lessons. She knew these wants were impractical, but she could think of nothing else with which to replace them.
“I do not know what I want to do,” she finally admitted. “I must give the matter some thought.”
His contented rumble slurred to a stop. “
Thinking is no doubt what you do best
,” he said, shading the thought with traces of a reproach. “
I, however, have no stomach for it
.”
He lurched to his feet. She stood up as well, then reached for his head and touched noses with him. She did not want him to leave, but could not think of a reason for him to stay.
“
You know my Name
,” he said, projecting a blend of rue and resignation at her. “
Call me if you are in need. Or if you want to play
.”
“You know my Name as well,” she replied. “If you Call, I will come.”
He nodded, then withdrew a half-dozen steps and unfurled his wings. The motion sent a sudden swirl of dirt and grass her way. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her tanglemate was already a soaring bronze glint in the sky.
She lay back down in the grass and began to think. Presently, she fell asleep again.
G
The tapping of raindrops against her eyelids rousted her from her slumber. She sat up, then scowled as she glanced at the sky. A solid mass of dark grey clouds portended rain for days to come. She thought of Taziem, all snug and dry in her caves. She imagined herself there, too, then hissed at such pointless longings. Past fortunes were not going to stop the rain from dripping down her neck. She would do better to get up and seek out new ones.
So she abandoned the meadow for the span of trees beyond it. But while the forest offered her a modicum of protection against the gusting wind, its sparse spring canopy did little to deflect the rain. It was pouring now—a cold, relentless deluge. As she rambled through the woods in search of a nook or cranny big enough to shelter her, the muddy ground sucked the warmth out of her through the soles of her bare feet.
The day waned, but the storm did not. By now, Lathwi was thoroughly miserable. Her search for refuge had taken one frustrating turn after another by day’s light; and she knew all too well that it would only get worse in the dark. She wanted to leave this awful place, to fly away and never come back. Now more than ever, she deplored the accident of birth that had left her wingless. Yet even as she bemoaned her ill fortune, the cloying smells of rain and sodden earth were suddenly joined by the faintest tang of wood-smoke. She hissed, recognizing Fire’s breath. And where there was fire, there would be heat! An eager shiver scudded down her spine. Nostrils flared, she began to track the exhilarating fumes.
Dusk came and went, leaving her in darkness, but she did not quit the hunt. She followed the gradient through a stand of oaks, over a knoll and into a tiny glen. There, the smoke thickened into tendrils of pungent white fog which led her to a most peculiar wooden structure.
The sight confused Lathwi. For all of its strangeness, it seemed hauntingly familiar. She slowed to a stop in front of the structure, then stared at it, trying to dredge answers from her memory. The pelting rain stung her face and hands, but she barely noticed. Where had she seen this thing? What was its significance?
From out of nowhere, a word popped into her head: house. With it came a fragment of information—the longish square of yellow light outlined an entrance.
Although the recollection pleased her, she was far from satisfied. How did she know this? And why had she forgotten it until now? She stepped up to the outline and touched the planks which defined its shape; the wood was gloriously warm, heated from within. It dawned on her then: this was a place of power! That power had already drawn one secret from her. If she went inside, perhaps it would draw others. And even if it did not, at least she would be out of the rain.
She gave the planked outline a gentle shove. It did not budge. She tried again, more forcefully this time, but again it resisted her. Annoyed now, she stepped back, then dropped her shoulder and slammed into it with all her draconic might. The sound of splintering wood filled her ears. At the same instant, the barrier gave way and momentum slung her through the sudden opening. As she scrambled to regain her balance, a myriad of hot, concentrated smells blasted her in the face. She hissed, venting her surprise.
“Be gone, thief! There’s nothing for you here!”
Lathwi pivoted toward the raucous sound, but her alarm melted into surprise as she spied its source. A human! He was standing in a far corner, his back pressed to the wall. His muddy brown eyes were wide with fright. He twitched a flat, shiny thing in her direction. The hand which held it was trembling.
“Go away, I tell you. Don’t force me to use this!” Fascinated, she continued to study him. An abundance of reddish fur framed his pointed face; it shaded his eyes and upper lip as well as his lower jaw, giving him the aspect of a shaggy fox. His body was covered with a variety of animal skins. He was small, more than a head shorter than her, and scrawny. She stepped toward him, curious to see if he was as soft as he looked.
“I won’t warn you again, thief! Be gone!”
His squawking rankled her ears. She projected a command at him:
be silent
! But the thought left no impression in his mind. Her curiosity soared. Did humans not mind-speak? She took another step, meaning to test him again at closer range.
With a strangled cry, he hurled the thing in his hand at her. It thudded against her scaled shoulder, then rebounded away and onto the wooden floor. Attracted by its shininess, she picked it up. Its shape reminded her of the dragon claws that she wore cinched at her waist, but in other ways, it was like no claw that she had ever seen. Its upper half was thin and flat, almost flexible; and its edges were as sharp as the point. The lower half was solid, agreeably thick; and felt comfortable in her hand.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
She wandered over to the tame little fire in the far wall to escape the moisture-laden wind that was blowing in through the hole that she had made. There, she sat down and resumed her examination of the not-claw. By the fire’s soft light, it gleamed hunter’s moon gold—the precise colour of Taziem’s eyes. It was an auspicious omen.
“Answer me, dammit! What do you want?”
Lathwi scowled at the human, annoyed by his incessant chatter. His face was flushed and puckered, a comical sight; his hands were frustrated knots. He was hovering just beyond her reach like a gnat in need of swatting. She wondered what he could possibly want from her.
“Look, you. I don’t know where you think you are, but this is my house, and I’m not going to—”
She cut him off with an excited hiss. House! That was the sound for this place! She remembered something else now, too—she had once been able to make these sounds! She raked her mind for other scraps of this awkward, unlovely language, but encountered only mystified silence. It was then that she realized why fortune had led her here: she was meant to study the human tongue! It made perfect sense now that she thought about it—while exiled among the land – bound, it would behoove her to speak as they did. Furthermore, this fox-like little man must be her new teacher. Why else would he be squawking at her so excitedly?
Eager to get on with the lesson which he had obviously already begun, she caught his eye with a flick of her wrist and then motioned him toward the patch of fire-warmed floor directly in front of her. His eyes narrowed, betraying his apprehension, but he made no move to join her. Instead, he folded his arms over his chest and glowered down at her.
“What happens if I decline your invitation?”
Although she did not understand the sounds, his stance was unmistakable. He was testing her. She responded to his challenge in true dragon style. She thumped her chest, then gnashed her teeth and then crooked a finger at his heart.
His reddened cheeks turned suddenly white. He glanced toward the opening that she had made, groaned at the rain that was pouring down beyond it, and then returned his gaze to her. A moment later, he grudgingly lowered himself onto the floor.
“Now what?” This time, the sounds left his mouth as a snarl instead of a squawk.
She pointed at him, then worked her jaws, pantomiming speech. The little man rolled his eyes.
“Dreamer! If this isn’t the strangest night of my life, then I’ll cheerfully die tomorrow. First you burst in on me like some storybook demon come to life and threaten to eat me if I don’t join you on the floor, then you want me to talk! Who in hell do you think you are?”
She had trouble assimilating the torrent of sounds. The only time her jaws opened and shut that fast was when she was feeding. Still, she endeavoured to repeat the few sounds that she had managed to grasp. The stone in her mouth garbled her first attempt, so she spat it out and set it down next to the not-claw, then tried again.
“Who you?”
The man’s brow furrowed with annoyance, and for a moment, she feared that her attempt at man-speech had offended him. But then, still scowling, he thumped his chest and said, “I am called Pieter. Pieter the Trapper.”
“Pieter,” she echoed. This time, she had no doubt as to what had been said. He had given her his say-name—the one that had no power. “Piterzatrapper.”
He nodded, then pointed a firm finger at her. “Now it’s your turn, stranger. Who the hell are you?”
She paused for a moment, trying to translate the nuances of her self-image into one coarse sound. “Lathwi,” she said, at last. “I Lathwi.”
“That doesn’t tell me much,” Pieter grumbled, although the crease in his forehead grew less severe. He nibbled on the fringes of his mustache, baffled by this uninvited guest. From this distance, he could see that she was a woman, but there was nothing even remotely feminine about her. She was well over six feet tall and at least two hundred pounds, with muscle accounting for every ounce as far as he could tell. Her face was angular and lean, criss-crossed with a multitude of scars; and any hair that she might have was hidden beneath the hood which was an extension of her peculiar black mail. She was, he thought, one of the most fearsome sights that he had ever beheld. Yet in spite her barbarous appearance and horrifying threats, there was something oddly ingenuous about her.
If only he knew what she wanted from him!
“Who?” she asked then, pointing at the fire in the hearth. Her voice was as shrill as a bird of prey’s, yet unnervingly sibilant. The sound of it sent goose-pimples racing down his back.
“Fire,” he said.
She repeated the word, then pointed to the blade which she had not yet returned.
“Knife,” he said.
Again she pointed, then again and again. Each time, he fed her a word.
“Floor. Log. Kettle. Stew—food,” he appended, when she crinkled her jut of a nose at the kettle’s reddish brown contents. To prove it, he fished a chunk of venison from the pot and popped it into his mouth. Her look remained dubious, so he gestured for her to do the same.
She complied. The thick brown fluid burned her fingers, and the chunk-thing burned her mouth, so she spit everything back into the pot without a second thought. Sure that he was testing her, she then hissed, “Not food.”
His astonished look pleased her. Clearly, he had not been expecting her to be so astute. Eager to continue, she then pointed to the next curiosity. “Who?”
“Bed,” Pieter replied, and then scowled at his uninvited guest. “And speaking of which, it’s time for me to turn in. You know, sleep.” He folded his hands against his cheek and closed his eyes. “You’re welcome to stay here for the night, but I’ve only got one bed, and it’s mine.”
To his relief, she showed no interest in contesting his claim, but simply curled up in front of the fire. “Sleep,” she hissed at him. To his ears, it sounded like a command.
Muttering at her seemingly endless supply of nerve, he got up and shut the door. But it didn’t fit quite right in the jamb anymore; and the wind came shrilling in through the resulting cracks. His scowl deepened. He was never going to be able to sleep with that racket in his ears! He glanced at Lathwi, fully expecting her to apologize for the damage she had wrought. To his profound annoyance, she was already fast asleep.
G
A clap of thunder rattled the cabin, shaking Pieter from his slumber. His mood, already rancid from a fitful night’s sleep, spoiled even further as he glanced toward the hearth. Lathwi was still there, softly snoring into the floorboards. The wetness which gleamed on her mail told him that she had been out and back at least once already. He grumbled at her sneakiness, then slung himself out of bed and went outside to relieve himself. Afterward, he tramped over to a nearby shed to tend to his mule.
When he returned, all sopping from the rain, Lathwi was awake. She greeted him with an unnerving grin, then pointed at the door.
“Who?”
“Save your questions for later!” he snapped, as he wrung the water from his beard. “I’ve got more important things to do right now.”
Although she did not understand the sounds, she knew by his tone that he was not ready to begin the lesson yet. That did not bother her—Taziem had taught her how to be patient. She curled herself back into a comfortable ball to watch and wait. Meanwhile, Pieter stirred the fire’s dying embers with a blackened rod and fed it a handful of sticks. Then he took the kettle full of awful not-food outside and came back with sweet-smelling water. Later, when the water started to boil, he scooped a portion of it into a wooden bowl and sprinkled desiccated grass over its surface. The rising steam turned suddenly fragrant. He sniffed at these vapours for a moment, then lifted the bowl to his mouth and supped loudly. When he finally set the bowl down again, he smacked his lips and then favoured her with a smile.
“Ahhh, much better,” he declared. “Nothing drives the rain from your blood like a bowl of hot tea.”
She interpreted this sudden change in his tone as a cue to resume the lesson and so pointed at the door.
“Who?”
For one stunned moment, all he could do was gape at her. Then he shook his head, conceding defeat, and said, “What the hell. It’s as good a way to spend a rainy day as any other.”
“Who?”
Her puzzled frown, comical in its intensity, unravelled the last half-buried threads of his resentment. “Door,” he told her. “You’re pointing at a door.”
The day passed, uneventful except for the rain and wind and the rate at which Lathwi learned to speak. For each new word that Pieter taught her, two others came tumbling out of her memory already ripe with meaning. The flood of knowledge excited her. She waited eagerly for a chance to show it off.
Her chance came that night, when Pieter pressed a hand to his breastbone and said, “I am a man. What are you?”
Without hesitation, she thumped her chest and replied, “I dragon.”
His snort of amusement was not the reaction she had been expecting.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lathwi,” he said. “You’re not a dragon, you’re a woman.” As she tucked the correction away for future reference, he added, “But I must admit that I’ve never met a woman quite like you. Do you come from a warrior clan?”
“Who warrior?”
“A person who fights in wars for a living. A soldier,” he said. Then, noting the frown that was prelude to another ‘who?’, he tried to simplify his explanation. “Someone big and strong, someone skilled with weapons like the sword and pike—“
She understood ‘big’ and ‘strong’ and knew that neither word applied to her. “I not warrior,” she said, cutting his definition short. “I small. Weak.”
His eyes turned suddenly round. “You? Small? Who told you that?”
“Mother say.”
“Dreamer! If she considers you small, then I’d hate to see what she looks like.”
“Say again?”
“Never mind,” he said, and then pushed himself to his feet. “It’s getting late. I’m going to take one last piss and then hit the sack.”
“Who?”
“Sleep, Lathwi. When I get back, I’m going to bed.”
This time, she understood: the lesson was over for now. She banished her disappointment with a shrug, then curled up in front of the hearth to review that which she had already learned. But the fire was down to a clutch of sullen embers now, and could not compete with the chill that was skating in through the cracks in the door. She got up and went over to the woodpile. There, she picked out the biggest hunk of wood she could find and hefted it into the fireplace.
At that very moment, Pieter came strolling back into the cabin. His jaw dropped. The hair above his eyes jumped up.
“Are you out of your mind?” he growled, closing the gap between them in three excited strides. “That’s too much wood for that tiny fire! The embers will smother and then—”
With a whoosh, the log ignited. An instant later, it began to burn with cheerful enthusiasm. Pieter blinked back an overabundance of disbelief, then turned to gape at Lathwi. She did not seem the least bit surprised.
“That’s not supposed to happen,” he sputtered. “Did you do something to make it do that?”
She shrugged. “I Call Fire. Fire come.”
“The fire came when you called it?”
His confusion puzzled her. How else was she supposed to bring fire into this world if not by summoning it? She could not breath it into existence like Taziem and her tanglemates could, but she knew its secret Name and could invoke it when there was need. So long as there was something nearby for it to eat, it did not mind answering her Call. Was he testing her again? Or was it possible that he did not know the power of Names?
“You no can call fire?” she asked.
“No,” he replied, slightly wild-eyed now. “When I want a fire, I make it with flint and tinder.”
The words meant nothing to her. She tried to think, to come up with a reason as to why he should be so unhappy, but the wind kept distracting her with its whistle. She invoked its Name to get its attention, then asked it to go away. The sudden silence was gratifying.
“You did that, too, didn’t you?” he accused.
“You no can?” she asked. He answered her with a shake of his head.
She was amazed. Even the dimmest dragons knew the Names of Wind and Fire; and brighter dragons knew many more. Names were everywhere—all one had to do to learn them was listen. But, she reminded herself, Pieter was different. If he could not hear mind-speak, then he could not be rightly expected to hear fire or water, either. She wondered if the problem came from not-hearing or not-listening; and if Pieter was the only human so afflicted. Whether he was or not, though, it seemed like a most dismal way to go through life. She curled up by the now-crackling fire to further contemplate the matter.
Pieter, too, was lost in thought, but he was not nearly as philosophical. He was desperately trying to figure out a way to get rid of Lathwi. He didn’t want a sorceress hanging around his house, conjuring up fire and The-Dreamer-only-knew what else. That was one of the reasons he had left the city of his birth so long ago. He wanted normal. He wanted safe.
And he wanted Lathwi gone.
But how to get her out of here? He could not just kick her out—fears of supernatural retaliation aside, he simply lacked the muscle for the job. And murder was out, too, for despite his solitary lifestyle, he was a civilized man. His thoughts drifted back to the city of his birth. Lathwi might like it there, he thought then. His aunt certainly did, and she was a sorceress. Liselle might even welcome the company of one of her own kind. Or, if nothing else, she would know where to send Lathwi next.
He decided then: he would take Lathwi to Compara. The journey would be time-consuming and inconvenient, but where sorcery was concerned, there were far worse prices to pay.