Ship of Destiny (45 page)

She almost succeeded. After Roed, she sounded reasonable. Ronica Vestrit watched folk exchanging glances. Then Dujia spoke from the other end of the dais. “I speak for the Tattooed when I say that we have had enough of the ‘equality’ the Satrap bestowed upon us. Now we will make our own equality, as residents of Bingtown, not Jamaillian subjects. We will have a voice in what is promised to this dragon. For too long, others have disposed of our labor and our lives. We can tolerate it no longer.”

“I feared this,” Mingsley broke in. He pointed a shaking finger at the tattooed woman. “You slaves will spoil everything. You care only for revenge. No doubt, you will do all in your power to defy the dragon, for the sake of bringing her wrath down on your masters. But when all is done, even if all your New Trader masters die, you will be the same folk you are today. You are not fit to govern yourselves. You have forgotten what it is to be responsible. The proof of it is in how you have behaved since you betrayed your rightful masters and abandoned their discipline. You have reverted to what you were before your masters took control of you.

“Look at yourself, Dujia. You became a thief first, and a slave afterward. You deserved your fate. You chose your life. You should have accepted it. But master after master found you a thief and a liar, until the map of those you have served stretches across your face to your neck. You should not even be up here, asserting the right to speak.

“Good people of Bingtown, the slaves are not a separate folk, save that they are marked for their crimes. As well give the whores a right to speak in this, or the pickpockets. Let us listen to Serilla. We are all Jamaillian, Old Trader and New, and all should be content to be bound by the Satrap’s word. I speak for the New Traders when I say I accept Companion Serilla to negotiate for us with the dragon.”

Serilla stood straight and tall. She smiled, and it seemed genuine. She looked past Mingsley to include Dujia in the smile. “As the Satrap’s representative, of course I shall negotiate for you. For all of you. New Trader Mingsley has not well considered his words. Has he forgotten that some in Bingtown now wear the tattoos of slavery, when their only crime was to be captured by the Chalcedeans? For Bingtown to survive and prosper, it must go back to its oldest roots. By its charter, it was a place where ambitious outcasts could forge new homes and lives for themselves.” She gave a small, disarming laugh. “Left here to wield the Satrap’s power, I, too, am an exile of sorts. Never again will I return to Jamaillia. Like you, I must become a citizen of Bingtown, and build a new life for myself here. Look at me. Consider that I embody all that Bingtown is. Come,” she urged them softly. She looked all around at the crowd. “Accept me. Let me speak for all of you, and bind us into one accord.”

Jani Khuprus shook her head regretfully as she stepped forward to claim the right to speak. “There are those of us who are not content to be bound by the Satrap’s word, or any man’s word, save our own. I speak for the Rain Wilds. What has Jamaillia ever done for us, save restrict our trade and steal half our profits? No, Companion Serilla. You are no companion of mine. Bind Jamaillia as you will, but the Rain Wilds will bear that yoke no more. We know more of this dragon than you do. We will not let you bargain our lives away to placate her. My people have said that I speak for them, and I shall. I have no right to let their voices be muffled in yours.” Jani glanced down to exchange a look with Reyn.

Ronica sensed that Jani and Reyn had prepared for this moment.

Reyn spoke up from the floor. “Listen to her. The dragon is not to be trusted. You must guard your senses against her glamour, and your hearts against her clever words. I speak as one who was long deceived by her, and paid for that deception with a deep and painful loss. It is tempting to look on her beauty and believe her a wondrous wise creature, sprung from legend to save us. Do not be so gullible. She would have us believe she is superior to us, our conqueror and ruler simply by virtue of what she is. She is no better than we are, and in my heart I believe she is truly no more than a beast with the cunning to shape words.” He raised his voice to be heard by all. “We have been told that she is sleeping off a full belly. Dare any of us ask, full of what? On what meat has she fed?” As his words settled on his listeners, he added, “Many of us would rather die than be slaves anymore. Well, I would rather die than be either her slave or her food.”

The world dimmed suddenly. An instant later, a blast of cold air, noisome with the stench of snakes, swept over the crowd. There were shrieks of terror and angry shouts as the gathered folk cowered in the shadow of the dragon. Some instinctively sought shelter near the walls while others tried to hide themselves in the center of the crowd. Then, as the shadow swept past and the fading light of day returned, Ronica felt the creature land in the Concourse grounds. The impact of her weight traveled through the paving stones and made the walls of the Concourse shudder. Although the doors were too small to admit her, Ronica wondered if even the stout stone walls would withstand a determined assault by the dragon. An instant later, the creature reared up; her clawed front feet came to rest on the top of the wall. Her cart-sized head on her serpentine neck looked down on them all. She snorted, and Reyn Khuprus was staggered by the blast of air from her nostrils.

“So, I am a beast cunning enough to speak, am I? And what title do you give yourself then, human? With your paltry years and truncated memory, how can you claim to be my equal?”

Everyone pressed back against their fellows to clear a space around the object of Tintaglia’s displeasure. Even the diplomats on the dais raised their arms to shield their faces as if they feared to share Reyn’s punishment. All waited to see him die.

In a move that made Ronica gasp, Selden jumped lightly from the edge of the dais. He placed himself in the dragon’s sight, then boldly inserted his small body between Reyn and the dragon’s angry gaze. To the dragon, he swept a courtly bow. “Welcome, gleaming one!” Every eye, every ear was focused only on him. “We have gathered here, as you bid us. We have awaited your return, sky-ruler, that we might learn exactly what task you wish us to perform.”

“Ah. I see.” The dragon lifted her head, the better to observe all the folk. There was a general cowering, an unintended genuflection before her. “You did not, then, gather to plot against me?”

“No one has seriously considered such a thing!” Selden lied valiantly. “Perhaps we are merely humans, but we are not stupid. Who among us could think to defy your scaled mightiness? Many tales have we told one another of your valiant deeds today. All have heard of your fearsome breath, of the wind of your wings and the strength of your tail. All recognize that without your glorious might, our enemies would have overrun us. Think how sorrowful this day could have been for us, for they would have had the honor of serving you instead of us.”

Whom, Ronica wondered, did Selden address? Did he flatter the dragon, or were his words to remind the gathered folk that other humans could serve her just as well? The people of Bingtown could be replaced. Perhaps the only way to survive was to claim to serve her willingly.

Tintaglia’s great silver eyes spun warmly at Selden’s flattery. Ronica gazed into their swirling depths and felt herself drawn to the creature. She was truly magnificent. The lapping of the scales on her face reminded Ronica of the flexible links of fine jewelry chain. As Tintaglia considered the gathered folk, her head swayed gently from side to side. Ronica felt caught in that motion, unable to tear her attention away. The dragon was both silver and blue; every movement called forth both colors from her scales. The grace of her bent neck was like a swan’s. Ronica was seized with a desire to touch the dragon, to discover for herself if the smoothly undulating hide were warm or cool. All around her, people edged toward the dragon, entranced with her loveliness. Ronica felt the tension ebb away from her. She felt weary still, but it was a good weariness, like the soft ache of muscles at the end of a useful day.

“What I require of you is simple,” the dragon said softly. “Humans have always been builders and diggers. It is in your nature to shape nature to your own ends. This time, you will shape the world to my needs. There is a place in the Rain Wild River where the waters flow shallow. I wish you to go there and make it deeper, deep enough for a sea serpent to pass. That is all. Do you understand?”

The asking of the question seemed to loosen their silence. People murmured amongst themselves in gentle surprise. This was all she asked, this simple thing?

Then back in the crowd a man shouted a question. “Why? Why do you want serpents to be able to go up the Rain Wild River?”

“They are the young of dragons,” Tintaglia told him calmly. “They must go up the river, to a special place, to cocoon so that they may become full dragons. Once, there was a hauling-out place near the Rain Wild city of Trehaug, but the swamps have swallowed those warm and sandy banks. Upriver, there is still a site that may serve. If the serpents can reach it.”

Her eyes spun pensively for a moment. “They will require guards while they are cocooned. You will have to protect them from predators during the winter months while they are changing. This was a task, long ago, that dragons and Elderlings shared. The Elderlings built their cities not far from our hatching grounds, the better to be able to guard our cocoons until spring brought the bright sunlight needed for us to hatch. If not for the Elderling city near the lower hatching ground, I would not have been saved. You can build where the Elderlings once lived.”

“In the Rain Wilds?” someone asked in incredulous horror. “The water is acid; only the rain is drinkable. The land trembles constantly. Folk who live in the Rain Wilds for too long go mad. Their children are born dead or deformed, and as they age, their bodies become monstrous. All know that.”

The dragon made an odd sound in her throat. Every muscle in Ronica’s body tightened, until she realized what it was. Laughter. “Folk can live by the Rain Wild River. Trehaug is proof of that. But before Trehaug, long before, there were wondrous cities on the banks of the Rain Wild River. There can be again. I will show you how the water may be made drinkable. The land has subsided; you must live in the trees, as they do in Trehaug; there is no help for that.”

Ronica felt an odd prickling sensation in her mind. She blinked her eyes rapidly. Something . . . ah. That was what had changed. The dragon had shifted her gaze to a different part of the gathering. Ronica felt more alert again. She resolved to be more wary of the dragon’s spinning glance.

Jani Khuprus spoke from the dais. Her voice shook as she dared to address the dragon, but iron determination ran through her words. “Indeed, folk can live in the Rain Wilds. But not without cost and not without skill. We are proof of that. The Rain Wilds are the province of the Rain Wild Traders. We will not allow them to be taken from us.” She paused, and took a shaky breath. “No others know how to subsist beside the river, how to build in the trees or how to withstand the madness seasons. The buried city we once mined for trade goods is lost to us now. We must find other ways to survive there. Nevertheless, the Rain Wilds are our home. We will not surrender them.”

“Then you must be the one to do the winter guarding,” the dragon told her smoothly. She cocked her head. “You are more suited to this task than you know.”

Jani visibly gathered her determination. “That, perhaps, we can do. If certain conditions are met.” She glanced out over the gathered people. With fresh confidence she directed, “Let torches be kindled. The settling of the details may take some time.”

“But surely not long,” the dragon intoned warningly.

Jani was not daunted. “This is not a task for a handful of men with shovels. Engineers and workers from Bingtown will have to help us deepen the river channel for you. It will take planning and many workers. The population of Trehaug may not be great enough to support such a venture on its own.”

Jani’s voice became more certain, and took on the cadence of a bargainer. This was something she knew how to do well. “There will be difficulties to surmount, of course, but the Rain Wild Traders are accustomed to the hardships of the Rain Wild. Workers will have to be fed and sheltered. Food supplies would have to be brought in, and that requires our liveships, such as the
Kendry,
who was taken from us. You will, of course, aid us in recovering him? And in keeping the river mouth free of Chalcedeans, so that supplies can flow freely?”

The dragon’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Of course,” she said a bit stiffly. “Surely that will content you.”

Throughout the roofless concourse, torches were being kindled. Their brightness seemed only to make the night sky darker. Cold was settling over the gathered folk. Breath showed in the light of the torches and people moved closer to one another, taking comfort in body warmth. The night sky began to draw the warmth of the brief day away, but no one thought of leaving. Bargaining was the blood of Bingtown, and this was far too important a deal not to witness its birth. Outside, a man’s raised voice was conveying the negotiations to the folk waiting there.

Jani knit her scaled brows. “We shall have to build a second city, near this ‘upper hatching ground’ you speak of. That will take time.”

“Time we do not have,” the dragon declared impatiently. “It is of the essence that this work begin as soon as possible, before other serpents perish.”

Jani shrugged helplessly. “If haste is necessary, then even more workers will be needed. We may need to bring them from as far as Jamaillia. They must be paid. Where is the money to come from?”

“Money? Paid?” the dragon demanded, becoming incensed.

Dujia suddenly claimed the floor. She stepped to the edge of the dais, to stand beside Jani. “There is no need to go to Jamaillia for workers. My people are here. The Tattooed were brought here to work, and paid nothing at all. Some of us will be willing to go up the river and do this work, not for money, but for a chance. A chance for homes and futures of our own. Give us, to begin with, food and shelter. We will work to make our own fortunes.”