City of Dragons

report.

“Council didn’t send us any coin, sir. But the one store delivered everything you ordered on credit. And we got most of the other supplies you told us to get the same way; the merchants here know us well and know that if they won’t advance what we need now, when we do have funds, we won’t be coming back to them.”

“Well done, Hennesey, and enough for now. We have a guest.”

Reyn knew that Leftrin was shutting down the crew’s chatter, effectively cutting him off from any knowledge they might want to share until Leftrin had evaluated him and what he wanted. He employed his own gambit. He glanced at Hennesey, obviously the mate, and then back at Leftrin as he said, “The Khuprus lines of credit are as good here in Cassarick as they are in Trehaug, cousin. I am sure that our family would be happy to flex a bit of influence since the Council here is not treating you fairly.”

Leftrin watched him for a long moment. “Surprised you remember me as a cousin.”

Reyn widened his eyes. “Oh, come, there weren’t that many of us annoying the men working on the wizardwood back in those days. You were good at the shaping. I recall there was some talk that your mother might persuade your father to let you follow that trade instead of taking over the Tarman.”

“Only talk. My heart was always with the ship; I actually feared that I’d wind up working wizardwood! And where would I be now if I had, I wonder? Whereas you, I recall, were always fascinated with the uncut logs. Always slipping away to go exploring.”

“I was. And always in trouble because of it.”

“It was feared you’d developed too much of a bond with the city. That you would drown yourself in it. .”

“As my father did,” Reyn filled in quietly.

The silence in the galley grew charged. The woman had picked up the teapot to refill it. She stood still, just holding it and watching him. There was something here, and he’d best get to the bottom of it quickly. Speaking plainly now might buy him plain talk in return. Reyn nodded as if to himself. “But I didn’t drown. Because, for me, it wasn’t the stone and the memories it held. It was the dragon Tintaglia, trapped and aware in her wizardwood log. She drew me and held me and eventually I served her. As I still do, in many ways. The dragon is what brings me here tonight. I must know, Captain. What became of the dragons and their keepers?”

Leftrin had seated himself near the stove. Now he lifted his mug of tea and took a cautious sip. Over the rim of the mug, he regarded Reyn thoughtfully. Reyn wondered how he saw him. To the liveship captain, was he a freak, a man too deeply touched and changed by the Rain Wilds? Or did he see him as an Elderling, one of the mystical and revered creatures who had first built the hidden ancient cities of the Rain Wilds? Or a shirttail cousin, vaguely remembered from what now seemed a distant childhood? Reyn sat straight now and let Leftrin stare at his scaled face and think what he would. He waited.

A rangy orange cat with white socks suddenly floated up from the deck and landed on the table. He walked the length of it, undeterred by Hennesey’s shooing hand, to meet Reyn’s gaze with gleaming green eyes. He bumped his striped head against Reyn’s folded hands on the tabletop, demanded homage. Reyn lifted a hand to pet the creature and found his fur surprisingly soft.

As if the man’s welcome of the cat’s attention had decided something for him, Leftrin spoke. “Where’s Malta? I know Alise would want her to know everything. That’s why she wrote her that letter and sent her that bit of tile.”

“Her pregnancy weighs heavily on her now. I sent her home to rest. She only went because I promised I’d come here and beg you to return to our rooms with me. She will give me no peace until she gets answers to her questions.” Reyn took from his pocket the small scroll of scribbled questions that was covered in Malta’s tiny but looping handwriting. He squinted at it ruefully. “All of them,” he said, as much to himself as to Captain Leftrin, and was surprised when the man let loose a guffaw of laughter.

“Women and their scribbling,” he commiserated. “Do they never get enough of finding things out and then writing them down? Wasn’t Alise’s letter enough for her?”

Reyn smiled and suddenly relaxed. He picked up his mug of steaming tea and warmed his hands around it. “Malta has always had endless curiosity. She tried to read the note you gave her, but the writing was tiny and the light outside the concourse very bad. The questions she wrote here are just the ones that occurred to her as you were speaking to the Council. As for me, I had no chance even to look at Alise’s missive before Malta dispatched me here, to beg you to come and talk with her.”

Leftrin shifted in his seat and looked down at his hot tea. “Would tomorrow do?” he asked reluctantly. “I’ve been up since before dawn, and I’m soaked and chilled to the bone. And I need to get my crew’s report on the errands I sent them on.”

Reyn sat very still, trying to read the man. He had to bring him back to Malta tonight: if he didn’t, she would immediately start making plans on how soon she could get down to the boat and speak to him herself. Ever since the Tarman expedition had left Cassarick to herd the dragons upriver, Malta had been anxious about it. She had always been clever with sifting through gossip to find out things that were going to happen or might happen. In Trehaug, she could tell him which ships were going to arrive and what cargoes they were bringing days before they reached the city. And she had been certain that there was something else going on when the Cassarick Traders’ Council practically drove the dragons and their keepers out of town.

“It wasn’t an expedition to seek haven for them,” she had told him, more than once. “And it wasn’t just an exile, though I believe there are several on the Council who were happy to be consigning them to just that. The dragons were expensive, and messy, and dangerous. And they were in the way of the ongoing excavation. But there was something more beneath the surface, Reyn, something sinister. Something nasty that involves a lot of money and possibly our dear, dear friends the Chalcedeans.”

“What did you hear to make you think that?” he had asked her.

“Just bits of things. A rumor that one of the hunters for the expedition would do anything for money, that possibly he had murdered someone a few years ago to help someone else get an inheritance. And that perhaps someone now on the Council knew that and was either instrumental in getting that hunter on the ship or that the hunter used what he knew about the Council member to get the job on the ship. Oh, just gossip, Reyn, in little bits and pieces. And uneasy feelings about all of it. Selden has been gone far too long, with no real word from him. I know there was that last letter, but it didn’t seem right to me. And why, oh, why has Tintaglia not returned to see what became of the other dragons? Could she be that heartless about her kindred? That once she found a mate and the possibility of having her own offspring, she would abandon the others? Or has something terrible befallen her? Has the Duke sent hunters after her and her mate?”

“Don’t think the worst, dear. Selden’s a young man now, well able to take care of himself. For all we know, he may be with Tintaglia right now. As to why she hasn’t returned, well, maybe Tintaglia thought the young dragons would not need her. Maybe she thought we’d do better at keeping our promise to care for them.” He’d meant the words to be comforting, but after he’d said them, he heard how sad they sounded. Why she was so fixated on the dragons, he was not sure. Tintaglia had saved both their lives and brought them together, that was true. But only after the dragon had repeatedly endangered and tormented them. Did they really owe the blue dragon anything? Sometimes, he would have been very content to simply settle with Malta, to leave behind the exultation and exaltation of being an “Elderling” and be just another Rain Wild couple expecting their first child.

Leftrin cleared his throat and Reyn started. He saw the weariness on the man’s face and felt churlish to be asking such a favor. But it was for Malta, and he had promised he would try. “Please,” he said, and for a moment the word hung alone in the silence.

Someone coughed deliberately. Reyn turned his head to find a young woman looking at the captain. By her rough clothes she was a deckhand, and by the tracing of her features, she was somehow related to Leftrin. And thus, in all likelihood, some sort of cousin to Reyn as well. She didn’t flinch before her captain’s stare. “I could go in your place, if you’re too tired,” she offered. “I don’t know everything you do, but I’ll wager I could answer enough of the Elderling lady’s questions to content her.”

“Oh, would you?” Reyn asked, relieved at such a solution. But before she could respond, Leftrin gave a weary groan.

“I’ll come. Let me find something dry to put on. Though doubtless I’ll be just as wet when I get there.”

“May I still come?” his deckhand asked hopefully.

Leftrin glanced at Reyn. “Would your lady welcome two visitors so late at night?”

“I’m sure she would,” Reyn replied gratefully. He smiled at the girl, who grinned back mischievously.