Shadowed By Wings (39 page)

“Are they?”

“Think you the Realm is a bottomless lode for any to pillage at will?”

“Or perhaps,” Kratt drawled, and again he looked at me, “perhaps that bird is no Skykeeper. Perhaps this deviant is merely a demon disguised. As that faithful daronpu outside insinuates.”

The voice of the daronpu in question rolled around the courtyard like the distant thunder of a fast-approaching storm.

“Perhaps certain advisors in Cafar Re are correct: This woman is not Celestial sent, but kwano hatched.”

“She is the Dirwalan Babu, I tell you,” the dragonmaster growled.

“Then why can she not understand dragonspeak any better than an ordinary woman, hmm?” Kratt’s voice turned flinty. “Why does Caranku Bri of Lireh’s Yenvia also reluctantly admit to having experienced dragon-tongue hallucinations while in the Ranreeb’s fortress?”

“Jotan Bri,” I gasped. I’d wondered all along what had become of Misutvia but had seen no way to get an answer. Now that I had one, I didn’t like the answer whatsoever.

The bead on the end of the dragonmaster’s chin braid quivered like an enraged hornet. “I’ve heard many a boy blather nonsense while in venom’s grip. It means nothing.”

“Does our Dirwalan Babu here understand dragonspeak better than they? Tell me, Komikon: How many times has she lain before your destrier since her return? How much have you learned about hatching bull eggs from this deviant?”

“I’ve not had her perform the rite; she needs to conserve her energy to survive Arena! After Abbasin Shinchiwouk, she can lay before the destrier day and night till we solve the dragons’ riddle!”

“I see.” Barely restrained fury was audible in Kratt’s voice, was visible in his flushing cheeks. “So you don’t believe she’s the Dirwalan Babu, do you, old man? For if she were, you’d not fear she’d die in Arena because of how debilitated she is.”

“I told you, the powers of the otherworld are governed by certain laws!”

“Laws that only you are privy to, it would appear.” Kratt stabbed a finger in my direction. “Get her to lay with the destrier tonight. I’ll renounce you if she dies without revealing the riddle’s answer to me. Temple will have your head on a pike.”

“But—”

“Do it,” Kratt ordered in a tone that brooked no argument. “I can repair my relationship with the Ranreeb yet. I’ve not gone so far that I can’t recover, having first tossed him a scapegoat for my temporary madness of permitting this dragonwhore into my stables.”

“I’ll not be your sacrifice!” the dragonmaster cried. “We’ll have the answer, I tell you. She’s the Dirwalan Babu; you’ve seen the Skykeeper!”

Kratt held up a hand to silence the dragonmaster. “See that you learn the dragons’ secret, old man.”

With a swirl of his cape, he stormed out.

For long moments, the dragonmaster and I stared at each other, both of our chests moving quickly, shallowly. I jumped when he broke the spell of stillness by striding over to me.

He gripped one of my biceps hard. His split nails dug into my skin.

“Stay here,” he hissed into my face. “I’ll be back at midnight.”

“You’ll take me to the destrier, as Kratt orders?” I was revolted by the ill-concealed eagerness in my voice, and I cringed at the sharp image of Ingalis that sprang before my eyes.

“Whore,” the dragonmaster spat, and he released me, spun on his heel, and stalked out of the stall.

I crouched on my haunches and hugged myself to still my violent shivering.

It was not just my anticipation of once again experiencing the divine grace of dragonsong that rattled me, understand. It was the forces gathering against me, building to a frothing crest, that filled me with dread.

The rage of Temple. The resentment and hostility of my fellow apprentices. Kratt’s determination to learn the dragons’ secret. The dragonmaster’s plans to free the Djimbi. The rapidly approaching date of Abbasin Shinchiwouk. My still-weak body. My stubborn determination to never strike an apprentice down to save myself.

And now, like a great, dragon-prowed ship cresting this formidable wave, was the knowledge that I
could
have my revenge against Kratt. I
could
ruin him, as I’d once vowed. Despite the storm-mass of forces gathering and colliding like a thunderhead about me, I saw a way that I could achieve that long-held ambition of mine. Instantly.

Kratt himself had inadvertently told me how to destroy him.

I could disappear.

The new law the Ashgon had woven into his Bill held the means to fulfilling my vow of vengeance against Kratt.
Eight years without entering Arena would ruin me, Komikon. No Clutch could survive such.

If I didn’t show up at Arena, if I somehow got past my guards and fled the stable domain forever, the Ashgon would refuse Kratt permission to enter Arena for eight years. With only unfertilized eggs being laid upon Clutch Re, his herd of egg layers would be decimated. He’d be financially ruined. His political alliances would crumble.

Why, then, did delight not rush through me? Instead of plotting escape, why was I racking my brains to figure out how I might remain in these stables? Was I truly enslaved to venom? Was it solely for want of divine union with a dragon that I remained?

No.

I couldn’t then put into words why I wanted to remain, but I can now.

Home.

I wanted a home.

Orphaned, outcast, and haunted, I craved a sense of belonging. I hungered for love and acceptance. The nine-year-old child who had watched her father murdered, who had been evicted by her clan, and who had been abandoned by her mother over a mad obsession now wept for want of a welcoming hearth.

And so, as darkness descended and the stars came out as hard and sharp as quartz and the chanting daronpu left the stable domain until his return on the morrow, I racked my brains to determine how I might stay in the stables, how I might again win the grudging respect of my peers. How I might secure for myself a place I might call home.

So enwrapped was I in desperate thought that I didn’t notice the music until it eclipsed my mind like a finespun cloud that was both hirsute and silky. A green feeling slowly began pulsing through me, a raw, sappy feeling fluorescing with budtime, seedtime, dew, and youth. The stronger the sensation grew, the more it altered; I became buoyant, supernal, belonging to a higher world. I was lured and goaded by the sweetening infusion, a sound that both incited and soothed.

As I stared, eyes fogged, at flagstone, my flesh began pricking with latent memory. The sensation was akin to when one has sat too long in a still position, and then, upon moving, blood rushes painfully back into stifled limbs.

Djimbi chants. I was hearing Djimbi chants.

I felt a sting, then, down in my groin. Heat that titillated and seduced. Need that was suddenly incendiary.

Daronpu Gen loomed over me.

At once, the enchantment shriveled and I snapped back into the present.

Behind Gen, both my Cafar guards stood at the threshold of my stall, swaying, moaning, and lovingly handling themselves beneath their leather-and-mail skirts. Their eyes were closed, mouths slack.

Daronpu Gen shrugged. “Best Djimbi charm I know, what-what. It’ll do; it’ll do.”

“Why are you here?” I gasped.

His expression turned dark. “Come to take you away. I don’t like the way events are turning, not one bit.” He flicked a mosquito from my shoulder. “Something is amiss; I can’t see a clear picture.”

“Amiss?” I croaked. My heart had begun pounding as fiercely as it had at Kratt’s appearance.

“The prophecy, blood-blood,” Daronpu Gen said. “I thought that it foretold your appearance in Arena: Zafinar waskatan, bar i’shem efru ikral mildron safa dir palfent.
The Dirwalan Babu is present the day the efru mildron clash, on the field-soon-to-be-marked-by-talon-and-blood.
But I think now that perhaps my interpretation of those words is wrong.”

Efru mildron: those of great strength, intellect, and importance. Efru mildron: the colossals. I’d heard the phrase used by Djimbi before, when, during my stay in Convent Tieron, we onais had illicitly done trade with a passing tribe. The Mottled Bellies had used the phrase indiscriminately, applying it to both the senile bulls in our care and the ever-absent Temple wardens who had ruled Tieron life.

“Is that what dragonmaster apprentices are called then, in this prophecy?” I asked, struggling to grasp what he was saying. “Efru mildron?”

“I’d assumed the reference was to the bulls fighting.”

“But bulls don’t clash in Arena. Not with each other.”

“No. They don’t.” His tangled eyebrows created sharp angles upon his brow. “As you can see, my interpretation of the passage is unclear. So you’ll come with me now; it’s no longer safe here for you. The Komikon has informed me that Kratt disbelieves you’re the Dirwalan Babu, and Temple means to have your death.”

I felt beads of sweat forming on my upper lip.

“So, Babu, we leave. You and your Skykeeper will wrest Temple from the Emperor’s hands not at Arena, but at some other place and time, on some day yet to come.”

I swallowed.

“No.”

His eyes turned as large as plums. “What?”

I shook my head, barely trusted my voice. “I stay here.”

Behind Daronpu Gen, someone emitted a strangled cry. I jumped, startled; the dragonmaster had appeared at the threshold of my stall, and he smacked his bald pate with both hands. “She’s cracked! All is lost.”

“What are you saying, Babu?” Daronpu Gen said quietly, his eyes boring into mine.

“I want to enter Arena.”

“How so?”

I took a quavering breath, let it out on a flood of words. “I want you to lay a wager at Arena, a large one, a very large one. With Clutch Xxamer-Zu. The odds will be heavily against me, and if I survive against those odds, Clutch Xxamer-Zu will never be able to meet its debt. That estate Roshu is infamous for his reckless wagering; I want him to be forced to forfeit his entire estate to me.”

“Madness,” the dragonmaster spluttered, almost dancing in his outrage. “The crackbrained fool!”

“No,” I whispered, and I felt a tear slide down one cheek. I was shaking badly by then, could scarce draw an even breath. “Kratt has Misutvia in his hands; by his own admission we know he’s keeping her in Cafar Re. One of you must fly to the Caranku Bri of Lireh, the merchant guild clan in the coastal capital. Find Malaban Bri and tell him that you know where to find his sister, Jotan. Tell him you’ll divulge the information only upon the agreement that he underwrites your wagers.”

Daronpu Gen stared at me. “And then?”

I swiped a hand across my eyes. “Once the agreement is in writing, tell him that Jotan can be found in Cafar Re, but that he must arrive unannounced and with others, else Kratt may kill her rather than release her.”

“If she’s alive yet,” Gen murmured. “He oft plays in the fields of algolagnia with unwilling partners.”

“She’s alive,” I said with certainty. “He wants the secret to breeding bulls in captivity more than he wants that kind of pleasure from Misutvia. She’s alive and well looked after.”

Daronpu Gen conceded the point with a grimace and a nod.

“So it’s true, then?” I asked him, voice quavering. “Any woman who lies before a dragon can hear the dragons’ song?”

“Yes, yes, but only the Dirwalan Babu will understand the words!” the dragonmaster interjected, eyes rolling. “The prophecy says so.”

Daronpu Gen nodded, a thoughtful look entering his eyes.

“Nashe. Freedom. Manumission. Only the Dirwalan Babu will answer the riddle that will lead to such,” he murmured. He straightened, glowered at me. “You’ll have to disappear from sight during Arena the moment you’ve performed shinchiwouk.”

I nodded, and my teeth clattered together as I shuddered from the realization that he was agreeing to my wild plan.

“Can you arrange such?” I asked, voice small.

He sighed heavily, shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps. This is such a risk you take, Babu. Such a risk.”

“And all for what?” the dragonmaster hissed. He came at us as if he would tackle me in his outrage. “Look at you, girl! You’re weak still from your imprisonment; you’ve not regained half your former strength and skills! You’ve no allies amongst the apprentices; Temple’s poisoned them all against you. And make no mistake, Dono is slated to enter Arena alongside you, his sole intent to strike you down.”

“These are poor odds, Babu,” Daronpu Gen said gravely. “Your Skykeeper will be hard-pressed to come to your aid in time.”

I shuddered mightily, felt another tear slide down one cheek.

“ ‘Advances are made,’ ” I whispered, “ ‘by those with at least a touch of irrational confidence in what they can do.’ ”

The line was famous, attributed to Zarq Car-Mano. My namesake.

The dragonmaster all but yanked his goatee braid from his chin in frustration. “Why take this mad risk? Why?”

“I want my own Clutch.”

The dragonmaster snorted and threw his hands into the air. “She is mad, mad!”

Daronpu Gen rumbled in his throat like an unhappy cat. “Even if I place the wager, even if Roshu Xxamer-Zu forfeits his estate, Statute declares that only a Temple-sanctioned warrior or lord may hold a Clutch. In case you haven’t noticed, Babu, I’m neither. The Ranreeb will whisk the Clutch from my hands the moment I win it.”