there. So you can hold her to her promise. Left to herself, she will worry first about her serpents and the possibility of other cocooned dragons surviving. If we leave it up to her, it will be months instead of days before she sets out to look for Malta.'
'Months!' Reyn felt a surge of rage. 'We should be departing today!' A sick certainty came over him. It would be days. Just signing the contract would probably take a day in itself. And then the selection of folk to go upriver, and the supplying of the Kendry. 'After all Malta did to free her, you would think she would have at least a scrap of gratitude for her.'
The boy frowned to himself. 'It isn't that she dislikes Malta. Or you. She doesn't think that way at all. Dragons and serpents are so much more important to her than people, to ask her to choose between rescuing her own kind and saving Malta is like asking you to choose between Malta and a pigeon.'
Selden paused. 'To Tintaglia, most humans seem very similar, and our concerns seem trivial matters indeed. It is up to us to make such things important to her. If she succeeds in her plans, there will be other dragons sharing our world with us. Only they will see it as us sharing their world. My grandfather used to say, 'Start out dealing with a man the way you intend to go on dealing with him.' I think the same may be true of dragons. I think we need to establish now what we expect of her and her kind.'
'But, to wait days until we depart-'
'To wait a few days is better than to wait forever,' Selden pointed out to him. 'We know Malta is alive. Did her life feel threatened to you?'
Reyn sighed. 'I could not tell,' he was forced to admit. 'I could sense Malta. But it was as if she refused to pay attention to me.'
They both fell silent. The winter day was cold but still under a clear blue sky. Voices carried, and hammers rang throughout the city. As they walked together through the Bingtown streets, Reyn could already feel the change in the air. Everywhere, the bustle of activity clearly spoke of hopes for and belief in tomorrows. Tattooed and Three Ships people worked alongside Traders both Old and New. Few of the businesses had reopened, but there were already youngsters on street corners hawking shellfish and wild greens. There seemed to be more folk in town as well. He suspected the flood of refugees had reversed, and that those who had fled Bingtown to outlying areas were returning. The tide had turned. Bingtown would rise from the ashes.
'You seem to know a great deal about dragons,' Reyn observed to Selden. 'Whence comes all this sudden knowledge?'
Instead of replying, Selden asked a question of his own. 'I'm turning into a Rain Wilder, aren't I?'
Reyn didn't look at him. He wasn't sure Selden would want to consider his face just now. The changes in Reyn's own appearance seemed to be accelerating. Even his fingernails were growing thicker and hornier. Usually such changes did not come to a Rain Wilder until he reached middle age. 'It certainly looks that way. Does it distress you?'
'Not much. I don't think my mother likes it.' Before Reyn could react to that, he went on, 'I have the dreams of a Rain Wilder now. They started the night I fell asleep in the city. You woke me from one, when you found me. I couldn't hear the music then, like Malta did, but I think that if I went back now, I would. The knowledge grows in me, and I don't know where it comes from.' He knit his scaled brows. 'It belonged to someone else, but somehow it's coming down to me now. Is that what is called 'drowning in memories,' Reyn? A stream of memories flows through me. Am I going to go crazy?'
He set his hand to the boy's shoulder and gripped it. Such a thin and narrow shoulder to take on such a burden. 'Not necessarily. Not all of us go crazy. Some of us learn to swim with the flow.'
CHAPTER TWENTY – Prisoners
'ARE YOU SURE YOU'LL BE WARM ENOUGH?' JANI KHUPRUS ASKED HIM AGAIN.
Selden rolled his eyes at Reyn in sympathy, and the Rain Wilder found himself smiling. 'I don't know,' Reyn replied honestly. 'But if I put on any more layers of clothing, I'm afraid I'll slip out of them when the dragon is carrying me.'
That silenced her. 'I'll be fine, Mother,' he assured her. 'It won't be any worse than sailing in foul weather.'
They stood in a hastily cleared area behind the Traders' Concourse. Tintaglia had demanded that henceforth every city in the Traders' control must have an open space sufficiently large for a dragon to land comfortably. And whenever a dragon chose to land in a city, the inhabitants must guarantee the creature a warm welcome and an adequate meal. Negotiating what an 'adequate meal' was had taken several hours. The meat had to be alive, and equal at least the size of a 'well-fleshed bull calf at the end of his first year.' When told she was more likely to get poultry, as Bingtown lacked grazing lands for cattle, she had sulked until someone had offered her warmed oil and assistance in grooming her scales whenever she visited. That had seemed to mollify her.
Days had been taken up with such quibbling, until Reyn had thought he would go mad. The dozen or so surviving pigeons that served Bingtown and Trehaug had been flown into a state of exhaustion. The terse missives sent and received had seemed incapable of explaining all that was going on in both cities. Reyn had been relieved when a single line informed them that his stepfather and half-sister had returned to the city in good health. Bendir had left Trehaug to venture upriver to locate the place Tintaglia had indicated on the tiny river chart they'd sent. He would begin both to ponder a method of deepening the river, and to survey for signs of a buried city. Content that her goals were being advanced, Tintaglia had finally agreed to depart to search for Malta. Reyn was surprised at how many folk had gathered to watch his departure, probably more from curiosity than any deep concern for his mission. Malta's life or death would little affect them.
'Are you ready?' Tintaglia asked him irritably. Through their bond, she spoke in his mind, so that he could feel her annoyance.
Resolutely, he set her emotions aside from his own. Unfortunately, that left him with little more than nervousness and dread. He stepped up to the dragon. 'I am ready.'
'Very well then,' she replied. She swept her gaze over those assembled to bid them farewell. 'When I return, I expect to see progress. Great progress.'
Selden broke suddenly from his mother's side and thrust a small cloth bag into Reyn's hands. It rattled. 'Take these. They were Malta's. They might help you get through.'
Gravely Reyn poked the mouth of the small bag open, expecting some token of jewelry. Instead, he found a handful of tinted honey drops. He looked up from the candy in puzzlement. Selden shrugged.
'I was at our old house yesterday, seeing what was left there. Almost everything had been stolen or destroyed. So I looked in some of the less obvious places.' Selden grinned, abruptly a small brother. 'I always knew where Malta hid her candy.' The smile softened at the edges. 'She loves honey drops. But they might keep you going in the cold. I don't think she'd mind if you ate them.'
It was so Malta. Hoarded sweetness against an uncertain tomorrow. Reyn tucked the bag into the top of his pouch. 'Thank you,' he replied gravely. He pulled a wool veil down over his face and tucked it into the throat of his jacket. It would keep his face warm, but limited his vision.
'That's wise,' Selden observed encouragingly. 'You've been changing a lot, you know. When I first saw you, I didn't think Malta would mind much. But you're a lot more lumpy now.' The boy lifted an unself-conscious hand to his face, and ran his fingers over his eyebrows. 'She's going to have fits when she sees me,' he predicted merrily.
The dragon reared back onto her hind legs. 'Hurry up,' she ordered Reyn tersely. To Selden, she spoke more gently. 'Move to the side, small minstrel, and turn your eyes away. I would not blind you with dust blasted by my wings.'
'I thank you, Great One. Though to be blinded might not be so great a loss, if my last sight were of you, gleaming silver and blue as you rose. Such a memory might sustain me to the end of my days.'
'Flatterer!' the dragon dismissed his words, but she did not hide her pleasure. As soon as Selden was clear, she snatched Reyn up from the ground as if he were a toy. She held him around his chest, his legs and feet dangling.
