City of Dragons

wifely. She caught up only one extra cloak and swirled it around her shoulders as he led her out into the day.

Not much sunlight reached the household level of the family tree even on a bright day. On gray winter days like this one, forest twilight was the rule. In the high treetops, a wind was battering the forest. She knew it only by the occasional flurries of leaves and needles that drifted down. Most of the trees that would shed their leaves for this season were already bared, but there were enough evergreen trees in this section of the Rain Wilds to shelter them from all but torrential rains.

The lifts were a series of platforms with basket-weave sides that traveled vertically from canopy to earth, operated by stoutly muscled men working a system of lines and pulleys and counterweights. Malta did not enjoy using the lifts, but she no longer feared them as she once had. In truth, she had dreaded taking the long spiraling staircases that wound around the tree trunks and were the only alternate routes to the forest floor.

Tillamon, cloaked and heavily veiled, awaited them. Malta wondered why but said nothing. Reyn, in his typically brotherly fashion, was not so discreet. “Why are you veiled as if for a trip to Bingtown?”

Tillamon stared at him through a mask of lace. “To visit the lower levels now is almost like going to Bingtown. There are so many staring outsiders in the city now. And not all of us, little brother, are so fortunate as to have had our changes make us lovelier.”

Malta knew the rebuke was for Reyn, not her. Even so, she repressed a squirm. Of late she had become more aware that she possessed everything that Tillamon had ever longed for. She had a husband and a child on the way. And she was undeniably beautiful. The changes the Rain Wilds had wrought on her had all been kindly ones. The fine scaling on her face was supple, the colors flattering. She had grown taller than she had expected, and her long hands and fingers were graceful. When she contrasted that to Tillamon’s pebbly face and the multiple dangling growths that fringed her jaw and ears, it was hard not to feel guilty at her good fortune, though none of Reyn’s sisters had ever seemed to resent her for it.

She followed Tillamon into the lift and waited for Reyn to join them. Reyn tugged the cord. High above them, a lift tender rang a bell in response and from below she heard his partner’s answering whistle. For a brief time they dangled, waiting. Then, with a small hitch and a lurch of Malta’s heart, they were descending.

The lift dropped more swiftly than she liked, and she found herself clutching Reyn’s arm. She was grateful when they reached the bottom of the first lift’s run and stepped out and then into the next lift. “Slower, please,” Reyn warned the tender sternly, and the man bobbed his head in response. He was Tattooed, she noted, and watched how his eyes lingered curiously on Tillamon’s veil. Tillamon noticed also, for she turned away from him to gaze out into the forest. She spoke only after the lift was in motion. “Sometimes I feel that I am the stranger here, when they stare at me like that.”

“He is ignorant. He will learn better,” Reyn said.

“When?” Tillamon replied acerbically.

“Perhaps when he has a child and it is born changed by the Rain Wilds,” Malta said quietly.

Reyn turned startled eyes on her, but Tillamon gave a bitter laugh. “What will he learn then? To kill the children who can never be pretty? But I was born pretty. My changes came on me early, and now I walk in death. There will never be a marriage for me, never a child. He stares at me rudely, but my own people look away. Perhaps I should be grateful that at least someone sees me.”

“Tillamon! I see you. I love you.” Reyn was aghast. He set a hand on her shoulder, but she did not turn into his embrace. Her voice was muffled by her veil.

“You love me, little brother, but do you really see me? Do you see who I am becoming?”

“I don’t know-” Reyn began, but the lift had arrived at its next stop, and Tillamon lifted a lace-gloved hand to silence him.

Malta felt a wave of despair rise in her. She could think of nothing to say to Tillamon, but as they moved to the next lift, she quietly took her hand.

As the lift lurched into motion, Reyn began, “Tillamon, I-” but his sister quickly said, “You know, we should not speak of troubling things now. While Malta is with child, she should think only calm and pleasant thoughts.” Tillamon gave Malta’s hand a brief squeeze before releasing it.

It was clear that Tillamon wished to change the direction of the conversation, and Malta was happy to help her. “Look. Down there, through the trees. Is that our boat?” It was a long, narrow craft manned by many rowers, designed to defeat the river’s current as it moved upstream. Aft, there was a small cabin for passengers. A long deck for freight ran down the middle of the ship. At the very back of the vessel, a brawny man leaned idly on the sweep that was also the tiller for the ship. He looked bored.

“That’s the River Snake. And yes, she’s waiting for us.” There was relief in Reyn’s voice. He, too, preferred to think of pleasant things. Perhaps, for a short time, she could allow him that.

Tillamon asked, “Is that one of the new boats I’ve been hearing about? The Bingtown ones that can withstand the river water as well as a liveship?”

“No, she’s Rain Wild made and crewed. But you may get a glimpse of one of the Bingtown ships before we return. I’d heard one was making a tour of the Rain Wild settlements, to show how impervious it is to the acid and also how swiftly it can move, even in shallower channels. That’s what the Jamaillian boat builder is calling them: impervious boats. That one is supposed to make a stop in Trehaug and then go up to Cassarick. You know that’s been a choke point in the movement of goods: the locks we built for helping the serpents reach Cassarick are mostly destroyed now; the winter floods took them out. And the deep draught liveships can’t navigate past that stretch of the river. A freight vessel that can run the shallows and doesn’t melt after half a dozen trips would revolutionize how we trade up and down the river.”

“And they are made in Bingtown?”

“Yes. That one, at any rate. A Pirate Isles fellow came up with the formula for the hull coating, so it will be a joint venture. Some Jamaillian boat builder is financing the undertaking, I’m told.”

“Oh.” Tillamon’s voice went flat suddenly. “So once the ships start plying our waters, there will be more Bingtowners and Tattooed and Jamaillians than ever in the Rain Wilds.”

Reyn looked startled. “I. . suppose there will.”

“Not an improvement,” Tillamon said decisively, and she stepped off the lift briskly as it halted on the landing platform.

A final lift carried them all the way down to the ground and released them onto the wooden walkway. Walking on solid ground felt strange now, even if Malta was glad to be off the lift. Reyn took her arm, and Tillamon followed as they hurried toward the waiting boat. Malta heard a thud behind her and turned to see a faster freight lift arrive with her trunk on board. The servant who had brought it hefted it to his shoulder and followed them. “I hope they have saved room on the freight deck,” she said, and Reyn replied, “We are the only passengers today, and they didn’t have much of a load. There will be plenty of room.”

Stepping out of the forest’s eternal shadows and into full sunlight was almost as much of a shock as setting foot on earth had been. I’m truly becoming a Rain Wilder in all things, Malta thought. She glanced down at the finely scaled skin on the back of her hand. All things. The wind off the river struck her, and she wrapped her cloak more tightly.

The captain of the River Snake had freight to deliver and was eager to be on his way. Malta, Reyn, and Tillamon were scarcely in the passenger cabin before he was having his crew untie from the docks. In a matter of moments, the rowers had the long ship free and headed out into the river. Malta sat down gratefully on one of the padded benches that lined the walls of the cabin, but Tillamon stood at the aft window, looking out longingly. “It has been so long since I’ve been away from home to go anywhere. Ages since I felt full sunlight on my face.”

“You don’t need my permission,” Reyn commented.

“No, and I never did. I just need to find my courage. That’s all.”

Malta followed her gaze. There was a small square of deck outside the cabin and then the tillerman’s area. The man was working the long sweep in a series of steady arcs, holding only when the captain called a course correction to him. There was a strange beauty in the man’s strength and sureness as he either guided or pushed the ship along. Somehow he became aware of their scrutiny and glanced back at the cabin. His face was pebbled so that his brow overhung his eyes; a string of growths that reminded Malta of a fish’s barbels lined his jaw. “I think I’ll go out,” Tillamon declared abruptly. She lifted her veil and discarded it with the hat that had secured it, then peeled off the long lacy gloves that had covered her hands and arms. Without another word, she set the garments on the bench beside Malta and opened the small aft door to step out on the deck. Chill wind gusted in; it didn’t deter her.