Crucible of Gold

“You must realize,” Laurence said, “dragons can stay aloft at most two days—perhaps three—”

“As I understand it, there is very little chance of a boat making landfall, either, from these latitudes,” she said. “If it were done, t’were well it were done quickly, I think.”

“Of course you are much better remaining with me than going in one of those boats,” Temeraire said, swallowing a last morsel of raw mutton. After all, Lung Shen Li flew all the long way from China to the coast of Australia, scarcely landing along the way. Laurence might be pessimistic, but Temeraire was quite certain he was not going to sink in an ignominious fashion, without even a battle for excuse; he would certainly not drop before they found land.

“I still think we ought to pull her up,” Iskierka grumbled, circling the tip of the Allegiance once more: all her prize-goods had been in the hold, and Granby’s coat was entirely spoilt. That did not cheer Temeraire precisely, because one could not be happy that anything so very nice was ruined, or going to the bottom of the ocean for no-one but sea-serpents to enjoy, but it was something that Iskierka could not show away anymore, and meanwhile Laurence’s own formal robes were safely aboard in their oilskin bag, with Temeraire’s talon-sheaths for company; he could congratulate himself on having detailed Roland to keep them safe, and on the deck.

“We have already tried, when she did not have so much water in her, so there is no sense in imagining we will do any better a second time,” Temeraire said. “We had much better go.”

He put the sun behind him and flew.

Laurence looked around only once while the Allegiance dwindled away behind them, wreckage and flotsam spreading wide around her like the skirts of a court dress; the sharks were already busy in the water. It was a sorry, bitter end for so many good men: the worst saved and even now making moan in Temeraire’s belly-netting, the best sent down to a silent grave trying to repair their folly, without even hope of glory for reward. Riley would be remembered as the man who had lost a transport on a cloudless day; if any of them lived to carry the report back to the Admiralty.

The weak sun, shrunken down and pale this far south, did little to warm skin and clothes waterlogged with salt, but Laurence was sorry to see it sinking, and still more sorry that the dragons had spent so much of the morning aloft in hunting and play.

They spread out as they flew; by dusk, Kulingile and Iskierka were specks to either side like distant sea- birds, growing faint to see as night fell: then there was only the small struggling glow of the lanterns keeping pace with them through the dark. They made not much noise besides the complaining from below, and even that died over time. The wind cut sharp and icy through the oilskins and tarpaulins on their backs, whistling, and the ocean muttered in low voices, patient.

“I am sorry we did not bring along some of the sheep with us,” Temeraire said, yawning tremendously into the wind as the sun came up after only a brief night. “I would not mind another one now; it cannot be convenient to fish when I have so many people dangling off me.”

He put his head down and flew onward. Laurence could not help but think how much lighter Temeraire would go without the men crammed into his belly-netting; it might mean as much as another day aloft. A thought rooted in darker sentiment, in angry resentment: They have killed us.

There were a few rocky atolls scattered across the Pacific at these latitudes; the chances of finding them with neither map nor compass were not to be counted, and if found, little hope of finding another within flying distance from there. These waters were not so hospitable they would sustain three large dragons for long, fishing in the same narrow space.

There was some better chance they would find instead a ship, which might be spied at even great distance by her lights—some lonely whaler plying her lines, or a clipper making for Cape Horn. But such a ship would offer no refuge for any of the dragons; they could only let off their burden, then drown having spent their last strength to rescue the men responsible for the disaster, who deserved better to end their journey at the end of a rope.

Laurence wrote a report as they flew, ten minutes at a time before he had to pause and warm his hands again, tucked inside his coat beneath the tarpaulin. If they did find any such refuge, the Admiralty should at least receive a full accounting, and know Riley had been neither a fool nor an incompetent.

He was betrayed, rather, by the Folly of foolish men, and the Evil of Liquor: when he and his Officers, who had put forth every most heroic effort and preserved the Ship throughout a Gale of terrific force and danger, over the course of five Days and Nights, were overcome for a little while by Fatigue; a great many of the less-skilled Hands, who were used more gently during the Crisis, in Shifts, than the Officers used themselves, seized upon this Opportunity to bring Ruin on all alike in their mad greed for spirits.

I deeply grieve to communicate such a Loss to you, which must be felt all the Worse for its inutility, and the unwarranted Harm it must do to the Reputation of one of the most deserving Officers of my Acquaintance; and hope only that this letter, reaching you, may offer to you and to his son the Consolation of knowing any Ill-Report of him which may be bruited around shall be without Merit.

He enclosed this more personal letter to Catherine Harcourt along with his report, folded within a square of oilcloth sawed away from the one wrapped around himself, and tied with a few scraps of fraying rope. He at least had little likelihood of having to face her in person with such evil news; which event would have been all the more painful for his doubts of her reaction. He hoped Riley would be mourned; Riley deserved to be mourned; Laurence was not at all certain that he would be. Harcourt had married him reluctantly and only for the sake of her coming child, who indeed had proved to be a boy, and she had shown only the greatest impatience since with Riley’s every attempt to fulfill his duty to her.

“Roland, you will keep that by you, if you please,” he said, and she roused from drooping half-slumber to take the packet and put it into her clothing, for safe-keeping. “I hope you will see the letter reaches Captain Harcourt, if you have the chance.”

“I will, sir,” she said, calm as though there had been any real hope of that; it was already afternoon, on the second day. The dragons had been aloft steadily for nearly thirty hours.

“I think there are some dolphins there,” Gerry said, peering over Temeraire’s shoulder. “Look, they are jumping.”

Temeraire roused and abruptly dived, throwing all their stomachs into their throats and raising a yowling of alarm from below, which was silenced by the spray as Temeraire plunged into the pod and came away with three of the dolphins in his talons; he ate them with the efficiency of real hunger and without pausing in his flight, blood spattering back against his breast.

“That is very heartening, I must say,” Temeraire said, licking his talons clean, when he had finished. “And I am sorry, but it is no use complaining; if you had not all run wild, you would not have had to be put into the netting, anyway,” he added, to the unhappy sailors. “I suppose we have not had any sight of land?”

“Not yet,” Laurence said.

Gerry’s sharp young eyes caught a patch of foamy ocean, the next morning: only a scrap of reef some dozen feet from the surface, but that was something. Laurence signaled to Granby and Demane, and the dragons had an hour’s rest, sitting perched on their hind legs with the waves washing over them; the sailors in the netting all pulled themselves up to the top and hung there to keep out of the water as best they could: they had by now given over complaining.

The dragons drooped half-sleeping. At last, Iskierka roused and said crabbily, “We may as well go on; there is no sense sitting here getting colder and colder,” and shook the spray off her wings before leaping back into the air.

“Are you ready?” Laurence asked Temeraire.

“Oh, certainly,” Temeraire said, although it came out mostly in a murmur; he stretched out his neck very far, crackling, and then one mighty heave propelled him aloft again.

The day crept away slowly, measured out in wing-beats; Temeraire did not bother to open his eyes very often, but only altered his course if Laurence touched him gently and spoke to correct their path. He startled awake once with cold water and yells, and jerked himself farther aloft: he had drifted so low a rising swell had struck him full in the face and run along his belly.

He would have liked to reassure Laurence that this had only been an accident—the result of a moment’s inattention—not in any way a sign. He was tired, of course, but not nearly that tired;