City of Dragons

the silvery-gray mark there, the peculiar scar a legacy of a very strange encounter years ago. It had left her flesh unnaturally sensitive. A kiss from Reyn there was almost as sensual as a touch to the Elderling crown that had developed on her brow. As Malta rose to return to her wardrobe and packing, Jani ventured into her chamber. She closed the door behind her, shutting out the rising wind of yet another winter storm.

It was not unusual for her husband’s mother to drop in for a visit unannounced. Over the years of her marriage, Malta had become accustomed to it. Her room might be a completely separate structure, but it was still part of Reyn’s ancestral home. All the various rooms and chambers in this tree were a part of Jani Khuprus’s “house,” just as Malta’s bedchamber in her Bingtown family home was still a part of her mother’s house. To Jani, it was not a visit, but just a stroll down a corridor, even if that corridor was an airy pathway that followed the sweep of a vast tree limb.

Generations ago, when the Satrap of Jamaillia had first exiled “criminals” to the Rain Wilds, Reyn’s ancestors had chosen this tree. The sturdy lower branches that had once held their first dwellings now supported their counting houses and places of commerce, the shops where Elderling artifacts were cleaned and examined for magical properties, the work areas where sawyers had once sliced sections of wizardwood logs into planks, and the warehouses where, to this day, merchandise was stored and displayed until buyers could be found for it. The next layer of branches supported the dwelling chambers of the family. There was a large formal dining hall, built of solid wood and surrounding the entire trunk of the tree. It was as sturdy as any Bingtown mansion. Beyond, in chambers radiating out from the central trunk, were studies and morning rooms, bedchambers and sewing rooms, rooms for guests and bathing chambers and gaming rooms. Each structure stood apart from the others. Some sat solidly upon a fan of adjacent branches; others swung like birdhouses, suspended where they might capture sunlight and gentle winds. They were connected by pathways that followed the supporting limbs of the trees or man-made bridges and trolleys.

As the years had passed and both family and tree put out branches and new limbs, the Khuprus family had added more and more chambers that ventured higher and higher into the family tree. Malta and Reyn lived in a fine set of sturdy rooms built close to the trunk and only one level above Jani’s own rooms. Even by Bingtown standards, the rooms were large and well appointed. The corridors between the different chambers of their dwelling might be the paths and bridges that followed the branches or stretched from limb to limb, but Malta had grown accustomed to that. It was home now, and even the casual visiting habits of Reyn’s relatives seemed normal now.

Jani had raised an eyebrow at the overflowing travel trunk. “For a few days’ visit?”

Malta laughed self-consciously. “I’ve never learned to travel light. I know it drives Reyn mad. But you just never know what sort of clothes you’ll need. Especially since we’ll be dealing with the Cassarick Traders’ Council. I may go to some of the meetings he must attend, and I must be whatever he needs me to be. I don’t know if I’ll need to look regal and daunting, or simple and unassuming.”

“Regal and daunting,” Jani decided for her. “There isn’t a one of them on that council who isn’t a self- important upstart. The Rain Wild Council was foolish to allow Cassarick to start a council of its own. It gave them a false sense of importance. If you accompany Reyn to any of the meetings, don’t let them cow you. Squash them from the beginning, and don’t let them dare to attempt to dictate to you. Take the power and keep it, from start to finish.”

“I fear you are right. They are so intent on making a profit they’ve forgotten that the Trader traditions value honesty and fairness.”

“Wear your flame gems. Flaunt them. And your Elderling cloak. Remind them that you come from one of the original Trader families of the Rain Wilds. Demand that they treat you both with respect. When it comes to digging, let them recall that we were among the first to risk our lives in the early excavation of Trehaug. We have paid our dues and have a right to what we claim. And if there is news of the Tarman expedition, demand all of it. Remind them of their original agreement with Tintaglia. And that someday the dragon queen may demand an accounting of all they did for her fellow dragons.”

“Or didn’t do. It worries me that we’ve had no news of the Tarman at all. I sent a message asking if they would not send another ship to find what had become of them. The response was that ‘at present, there is no suitable vessel to send.’ ” Malta sighed heavily and subsided onto the bed. Reyn had raised the bed platform so that she was able to sit and stand from it more easily. She sat for a moment, catching her breath, while Jani watched her quietly. Malta smiled as she said, “Aren’t you going to remind me that I’m pregnant and ask me why on earth I’d choose to travel at such a time?”

Jani returned the smile, her finely scaled face rippling as she did so. “I know your answers almost as well as you know what my questions are likely to be. The closer it comes to your time, the more you wish to be near Reyn. That you feel that way brings me only satisfaction. Yet we both know you are taking a risk. We both know what it is to miscarry, and more than once. We both know that miscarriages either happen or don’t. We’ve seen the women who take to their beds the very first month and keep as still as a cocoon, hoping to save what grows inside them.” Jani sighed suddenly. “And we’ve seen them lose the child despite that. Or give birth to a child so weak or so changed by the Rain Wilds that it cannot be allowed to survive. You have choices as I did, to continue to lead a hearty life, to walk and work with no guarantees that your child will be robust. But I know from my own childbearing years that it is better to do that than to wait in stillness in a dim room and fill the long months with hoping and worrying.”

Jani stopped speaking, as if suddenly realizing that neither she nor Malta wanted to consider yet again the darker aspects of her pregnancy. She changed the topic abruptly. “So. You will go to Cassarick with Reyn. He told me that he wishes to speak with the Vargus family about how they are excavating our site. Reyn told me that he has heard rumors they move too fast and do not reinforce the tunnels as they should. He fears that they are placing quick profit above human lives. That was not our agreement when we entered into the partnership with them.”

“It’s worse,” Malta confirmed, grateful for the change in conversation. “Reyn says they are using Tattooed to dig. They pay them poorly and do not care as much for their safety as if they were Rain Wild bred. They receive no share of what they find, no matter how valuable it is, and no extra pay for the dangers they enter. They do not understand that an Elderling city has stranger and greater threats than cave-ins and flooding. The Vargus Traders are sending them where only experienced diggers should go, ones wise both in excavation and in the other dangers of the city.”

“I’ve heard the rumors,” Jani conceded uneasily. “They lead to theft and carelessness by the workers. When there is no personal reward for a chamber well excavated but only a day’s pay, why should they go cautiously and keep meticulous records? When the Vargus Traders treat them as little better than slaves, why should they behave any better?

“But I’ve also heard what the Tattooed say. We promised them that we would welcome them and make them part of us. That they could work and have homes and vote on their fates. That they would not be lesser citizens here but could live among us, marry among us, and, we hoped, have healthy children to repopulate our cities. I made those promises to them.” She shook her head bitterly. “Well, we’ve seen where that has taken us. Traders such as the Vargus family treat them poorly and disdain them for anything but physical labor. In retaliation, many of the Tattooed hold themselves apart. They keep to their own sections of the city and do not share in the upkeep of the public ways and bridges. They marry only their own kind and produce lots of children while our population continues to dwindle. They outlive us by decades. And they do not respect our ways. And that leads only to more resentment, as the established Rain Wild families fear they will be displaced by them.” She sighed again more heavily and said, “It was my idea to bring them here. In the dark days of the war with Chalced, it seemed a brilliant idea, one that would benefit all of us. When I told them they could live among us where their tattooed faces would not be a badge of shame but only markings on their skin, I thought they would accept the changes that the Rain Wild causes in us. I thought they would know that those things were likewise skin- deep.”

“But it did not work that way, not entirely,” Malta agreed. She heard guilt in Jani’s voice. It was a familiar conversation as the older woman went over what she had negotiated and wondered how it had gone wrong. Malta reached over and picked up a pair of stockings. Slowly she rolled them into a ball. “Jani, it is not your fault. At the time, it seemed a brilliant solution, for them and for us. You bargained in good faith, and no one can fault you if it did not turn out as you planned. We cannot force them to join us. But we all know that eventually they will. Already the Rain Wilds have touched some of them, though not as heavily as it did the early settlers. Some of the Tattooed who came here as adults have begun to scale as they age, and their youngsters more so. Their children are being