Tyron passed the compass back to me, briefly closing my hand in a reassuring grip.
'No, you won't need it for the test. Ido will have already made the Ascendant calculations for the ley lines. You can use those, and I will teach you the rudiments of focusing your power through the ruby'
'But the calculations will be for the Ascendant Rat Dragon. How can I use them?'
Tyron chewed at his top lip. 'You're the Co-Ascendant. I'm hoping they'll be the same. Or at least close.'
'What do you mean you hope they'll be the same?' I demanded. 'Don't you know?'
He shook his head. 'No one knows what will happen tomorrow. No one knows what this Co-Ascendancy means. We don't know if you have the same doubled powers as Lord Ido, or if the double power is split between you. We just don't know.'
I stared at him. 'You don't know how to help me pass this test, do you?'
He gripped my shoulder and shook it. 'Right now we need to concentrate on teaching you how to control your power. First
things first.' He leaned out of the carriage and yelled, 'Hollin! (Jet over here.'
The lanky apprentice strode up to the side of the carriage. 'Yes, my lord.' He saw me half hidden behind the bulk of his master and bowed. 'Greetings, Lord Eon.'
'Hollin, I've decided you'll ride with us,' Tyron ordered. 'Give your apologies to Lady Dela — tell her that Lord Eon has need of you. Then tell Ridley to take your place in the lady's cart.'
The young man's face brightened: no back-breaking ox-cart journey for him. He hurried away
'Hollin can remember his early apprentice days more clearly than I can,' Tyron said. 'He can quickly take you through the basics. Then we can get on to the task of how to direct the King Monsoon.'
It was a long day of relentless information, roads lined with bowing peasants, and searing heat. The cabin of the carriage reeked with our sweat and the silk fans that we waved made no impression on the mind-numbing temperature. It was almost impossible to concentrate on Hollin's earnest voice as he tried to explain the give and take between dragon and Dragoneye.
'Do you remember the moment of union, Lord Eon?' he asked, then smiled sheepishly. 'Of course you do. Every Dragoneye remembers that moment. Cast your mind back to the feeling of being in two places at once. Of being dragon and man at the same time.'
I nodded, trying to hide my panic. I had not felt a sensation of being in two places at once.
Only the rush of power from the Mirror Dragon. And then, later, from the Rat Dragon. But I could not explain that to the two men in front of me — it would mean admitting I had never made the full union with my beast. I squeezed the Sun-drug pouch in my pocket. Perhaps my chance of connecting with the Mirror Dragon would be stronger if I took more than one pinch per day.
'The key is in the balance,' Hollin continued. 'It takes a long time to recognise when you are giving too much I lua and not
taking enough power.' He wiped the sweat from his top lip and looked at his master. 'I low do we explain the balance?'
It was like that all the way to the first sleep stop: one step forwards towards enlightenment and then (wo steps back as my lack of experience blocked the way.
As was custom, the Dragoneyes and their servants were lodged in houses deferentially vacated by local landowners. I was so tired that I knew nothing from the moment I entered my borrowed bedchamber to when Rilla woke me the following morning with a cup of the ghost-maker's tea. When she left the room to collect my aired clothes, I dumped two large pinches of the Sun drug into the earthenware cup and drank it in one gulp.
The small bedchamber was airless. Rilla had laid out a cotton robe for me and I wrapped it around myself as I clambered off the raised pallet and headed for the shuttered window.
Overnight, Hollin's coaching seemed to have become a jumble of unrelated nonsense; all I could remember was him explaining how to draw power from a ley line and then Lord Tyron urging him to move on to the next subject. And there was another day of hurried instruction to come. I feared that very little of their teaching was going to stay with me.
I pushed open the shutters and looked into the compact inner courtyard of the house. The landowner was rich enough to afford a small pleasure garden along the nearby wall, and Lady Dela was walking its short, winding path. Now that the official mourning period was over, she wore a blue travelling gown with a strip of memorial red pinned to her sleeve. She turned as though my gaze had called her and dropped gracefully to one knee, politely averting her eyes from my lack of propriety. I pulled the robe tighter around me and held my hand up in greeting.
'Lady Dela. I hoped you passed the night comfortably'
'I did, thank you.' She rose from her bow and I saw that her face was once again carefully painted into femininity. 'Would it
be possible to speak to you before we continue our journey, my lord? There are some protocol matters to discuss.'
'Of course.'
'After the breakfast of gratitude?'
I nodded and drew back inside the room. According to tradition, the visiting lord thanked his host by eating with him and his sons at the formal morning meal.
Compared to what I had experienced in the last few weeks, the fare was simple and sparse: a rice porridge with four condiments, raw eggs broken into a hot fragrant soup, fried soy curd and a finely milled wheat bread. As I dripped sweetener over the pale mush of rice, it occurred to me that I would have once considered this a feast. The landowner reminded me of a brown dog that used to skulk around the salt farm — always anxious to belly-up and please.
He was so overwhelmed by sharing his table with a Dragoneye lord that he bowed three or four times to every remark I made, and was only able to manage one complete statement during the whole meal.
'Your sacred pact to protect us and our land brings us all much comfort, my lord.'
His sons — three smaller versions of himself — nodded vigorously their eyes never leaving me as they silently spooned up their soup. I looked down at my own bowl, my hunger suddenly gone. This was not just about my own survival; the whole land now relied on me to manipulate the earth forces and bring the luck of a good harvest. I fingered the pouch in my pocket. Could I risk another pinch of Sun drug? Three in the space of an hour was probably too much — it would be more sensible to leave it until the evening meal and space out the doses.
Lady Dela approached me immediately after the torturous meal, her eyes tracking every movement around us.
'May we now speak privately, my lord?'
I sighed. A lesson in protocol was the last thing I wanted; my head already felt overstuffed with information. 'Can this not
wait?' I asked. 'Surely we can go through the protocols when we are closer to the village.'
She leaned closer until I smelled the frangipani scent of her hair.'It is not about protocols. It is about the test.'
'The garden then,' I said shortly. All ol my limbs felt as though a clockwork spring was coiled inside them, straining to release. Perhaps a walk would work the tension out of my muscles.
Lady Dela waited until we were at the far end of the garden path before she spoke.
'I have heard some rumours, my lord.' She looked around, then led me further from a kitchen maid shaking out bedclothes. 'Lord Ido intends to sabotage your test.'
'The way things are going, he won't need to take the trouble,' I said grimly 'Did your rumours tell you how?' I balled my hands into fists then straightened them. Every joint seemed to be stiff and sore, although the usual sharp pain in my hip had dulled into an ache.
She shook her head.
'Then they are not of much use, are they? Don't come to me with vague servants' gossip. Bring me details.'
I stalked away from her astonishment. What use were rumours? I needed real information.
Real strategies. I swiped past an elegant arch of fronds that hung over the pathway. The branch broke with a satisfying snap.
