Tortall (17 page)

Then Emperor Kaddar decided it would be wonderful to travel some of his country with Numair and Daine. Kalasin had to stay in the new palace and govern while Kaddar took to the road. I remained with Daine, Numair, and Kaddar as we journeyed east, where Kaddar stopped at every oasis and town to talk. The village of Imoun looked to be an ordinary stop on that trip. It was a small clump of humans who lived beside the river Louya and the Demai Mountains.

We had arrived halfway through the afternoon. The soldiers helped us set up Daine and Numair’s tent above the camp, on a spot where it overlooked the rest of our tents. When they were done, I walked up to a flat stone outcrop where I could watch the rest of the day unfold. I don’t know why I bothered. It was the same as it had been for the last twenty villages. The soldiers put up the platform, then covered it in carpets and decorated it with pillows and bolsters. The important humans would talk with Kaddar there later. More soldiers placed magical globe lights on posts around the platform, so everyone would be able to see when it got dark. Villagers built fires around the platform to warm the humans once the sun went down.

I never watched the setting-up from close by. Early on I had learned that I was always getting in the way of those who set up the platform and everything around it, even when I tried not to. The guards would complain to Papa Numair about me. The villagers only screamed and ran. Finally Kaddar asked me nicely to stay away. It’s not Kaddar’s fault that his people had never encountered anyone like me.

The soldiers got better. Some of them did. Some of them still treated me like Daine and Numair’s pet, though my humans had explained many times that I was as clever as any two-legger. A few of the soldiers learned for themselves that I did indeed understand what they said.

Although I was brooding, I had not forgotten the world around me. I heard the horse that was climbing to my position. I knew who it was without looking, because I recognized the sound of his breathing. When Spots reached me, I pointed to the line where all of our other horses were tethered. They were happy to stay there, finished with their day’s work. Then I made a fist and shook it at him. I wasn’t angry. I was reminding him of how the horse guards would react when they found that Numair’s very own gelding was gone again. They were lucky that Daine’s pony, Cloud, had refused to come because it had meant a boat trip and Cloud hates those. Cloud and Spots together got into all kinds of mischief.

I don’t care if they are angry
, Spots told me. Though I am as mute as a stupid rock with animals, they can talk with me.
Daine will defend me. She knows that I like to look around. And who else can keep Numair in the saddle?

He was right. Years ago Spots had learned to counter Numair when he let go of the rein or moved off balance. He was also good at pulling my foster father away from cliff edges and other hazards that Numair tended to find.

Once Spots had been like any other horse, only more patient and sweet tempered than most because Numair was his rider. I barely remember that Spots. Like any creature who lived near my foster mother, Daine, for a long-enough
time, he grew more clever, as humans judge such things. Numair calls it “the Daine effect.” Spots began to help my foster parents in their work. He watched me when I was small. That was when we found ways to talk to each other with sounds and gestures.

How long will we be here, do you suppose?
Spots asked me.
It doesn’t look like a very interesting place
.

I shrugged. I didn’t know how many days we were going to stay. No one ever asked what I wanted. Spots nudged me with his nose and stuck his lower lip out.

I glared at him. I was
not
pouting.

“Kit, I can hear you scratching rock down at our tent.” Daine walked up the slope to us, tying her curling brown hair in a horsetail. “It’s a dreadful noise. I thought you were chewing stones. Oh, Spots, you undid your tether again. You know it makes the horse minders nervous when you do that.” She cocked her head, listening as Spots replied, mind-to-mind. She slung his rein up over his back so he wouldn’t trip on it. “I know Kitten digs at the stone because she’s unhappy.” Daine sat beside me and reached over to pat the rock. I looked. I had gotten so cross, watching the humans prepare for more talking, that I had gouged my claws deep into the rock at my side several times.

“It looks like you’re trying to slice it for bread,” Daine told me.

I gave her my sorry-chirp and leaned against her. I wished so much that I could talk to her in more than noises! Spots stretched around Daine and nuzzled the back of my head.

“You’re bored, aren’t you, poor thing?” asked Daine.
“At least Spots can talk to the other horses. Which reminds me,” she said, turning to look at him. “Back to the ranks with
you
, magical escaping horse. The soldiers fear they’ll be punished if one of the mounts vanishes.”

Spots snorted, but he did walk, slowly, back down to the tethering lines.

I was still shocked by what Daine had said about me. How did she always
know
how I felt?

“At home you usually have something to busy yourself with,” she said, running her cool fingers over my snout. “We might have left you in the capital, but the only person there who knows you well is Empress Kalasin.
She
can hardly take you about.”

I whistled my agreement. Kalasin had to rule the Empire.

“We thought we’d see more of the sights, didn’t we?” Daine asked. “But this, Kit, it’s a wonderful thing, for Kaddar to meet with his people. Normally he’d travel with all manner of ceremony, and the local folk would be too frightened to say a word to him. With me and Numair to guard, and only a hundred soldiers instead of a thousand, he’s approachable. They will talk to him and tell him the truth.”

I made my rudest noise. Human truth telling was a mixed quantity at best. There were always untruths and evasions of some kind mixed in.

Daine looked sideways at me. “Oh, all right. As much truth as folk will tell their emperor. It’s a good thing Numair and I are the only ones who speak Kitten.
You
are not suited to a life of diplomacy.”

I made a lesser rude noise. Dragons do not use diplomacy. We are not good at it.

I heard the new visitors before I saw them. Daine and I looked down. Twenty fluffy-tailed mice had come to meet her. This sort of thing always happened when Daine was about. I loved it.

“Well, look at you!” Daine said, opening the pouch at her belt. She
always
carried food for small animals with her. “Kit, see how our friends have more red in their fur than the ones we met twenty miles back?” A few of the mice climbed up on Daine, holding on to her shirt or sitting on her shoulders, arms, and legs. She offered them dried raisins and sunflower seeds, inquiring mind-to-mind after their families and winter food supplies. A pair of the braver mice climbed up on me, which made me happy. Too often I remind small prey animals of a snake or a cat. Lately they had been more accepting. Perhaps a bit of Daine’s beast-People kindness had begun to cling to me, reassuring them.

At last the mice said their farewells and ran into the rocks. Daine straightened with a grimace and looked at the sky. Dark was coming. Soldiers were lighting the fires below. The platform was finished. I smelled good things being prepared by the villagers and the emperor’s cooks.

“I’ll make sure a dish is brought to our tent for you,” Daine told me.

I cawed at her. I hated the tent, and Daine knew it!

“We got here too late to take you about and show you to the local folk; you know we did,” Daine said. “And two-leggers
always
startle more when they see you after dark. I’m
sorry. Just stay in the tent for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to the village.”

I knew she was right, but what was there to do in the tent? I gave her my saddest whistle and walked away. I had already gone through everything in Numair’s mage kit and in Daine’s. I had even read all of the books they had brought along.

Humans were so
stupid
. They likened me to a crocodile or some kind of lizard, though surely they should have known that those creatures did not have silver claws or rudimentary wings, let alone the ability to change color. They also did not stand on their haunches and chirp in a reassuring way, indicating that they would like to be friends. My muzzle was far more delicate than that of a crocodile, and my teeth stayed inside it! I was slender and fine boned. I was only forty-five inches long in those days, and fifteen inches of that was tail. Yet somehow there were always humans who were terrified by the sight of me. To cater to such idiots, I was kept to my foster parents’ tent when there was no time to introduce me in a new place.

It was hard to stay inside. I could hear music and laughter, the welcome that came before the boring speeches. One of the emperor’s soldiers—one of my friends—brought me a bowl of stew. I chirped happily at him: he’d remembered I liked honey-nut pastries and gave two. After he left, I was alone. My boredom soon reached the point at which I might shriek if I didn’t do something. Since Daine only liked me to shriek during combat, I was really doing the right thing for Daine if I took a walk instead.

I wriggled under the back flap of the tent. On that side lay mountains, their ridges and peaks sharp in the light of the half-moon. A small herd of screwhorn antelope was climbing to higher pastures, away from the noise. They were just as visible to my dragon eyes as they would have been with no moon at all.

When I could no longer see the antelope, I concentrated on my scales. I changed color according to my mood; my parents knew that. They did not know that, over the long journey, I had learned to change colors deliberately. I let my magic spread out and around me, collecting the shades of shadowed sand, reddish limestone, black lava rock, gray-green brush, and moonlit air. I drew the colors back into patches over my scales. Then I set out for the village.

I was about to pass through the gate when I heard the very distant sound of young humans whispering together. Since I am always curious, I followed the faint noise around the outside of the wall, away from the meeting of the emperor and his people. Soon the voices were clearer. They belonged to boys, excited ones.

“Look! She’s at it again!”

“She don’t learn.”

“You got rocks? Gimme some.”

Four boys crouched in the shadows around the ruins of a shed. They were barefoot, their clothes mostly patched. I halted, secure in my camouflage, waiting to see what had their attention. The village garbage heap lay in a dip in the ground nine yards or so away from the boys. A young woman was sifting through the heap, collecting pieces of food and
stowing them in a basket on her arm, working by feel and scant moonlight. Magic burned at the heart of her, the stuff called the Gift that humans put to use like a servant. Could she not make money with her Gift, as so many mages do, and buy food?

The thinnest of the boys crept forward and threw the first rock. He missed by a foot.

The other three ran up to hurl stones at the woman. One hit her shoulder; another struck her leg; the third missed. She dropped the vegetable she’d been holding, but she made no sound. Instead she knelt and scrabbled to get the vegetable into her basket. The boys threw more stones. All four hit this time. She half-turned, catching them on her shoulders and back. Then she grabbed one and threw it sharply, striking the thinnest boy hard in the belly. While the others took care of him, she scrambled to her feet and ran, ignoring their shouts of anger.

The boys gave chase. I followed on all fours, trying to think of what I could do that would stop them without permanently injuring them. In normal battles no one cares if I split someone’s skull or shatter his bones with a whistle. I can throw fire, but that is just as fatal. These were human children. Daine, Numair, and Kaddar would have been very angry with me if I killed children.

The open ground before us gleamed in the dim moonlight. Here the mountains reached into the flatlands with long, stony black fingers that dug into the pale earth, leaving bays of light-colored dirt and brush between them. The woman ran for the bays, clutching her basket to her chest. The boys were hard on her trail. In addition to calling her
vile names, they said that she had no business stealing their garbage. I wished I could ask the woman, or them, what they meant. Perhaps it was some odd local custom. Everywhere else I had been, garbage was made of things humans had no more use for.

Suddenly the race ended. While the woman ran from my sight between two black stone fingers, the boys began to act very strangely. They separated and ran about, skirting areas as if there were obstacles in the way. They never strayed from the open ground between the garbage heap and the rocks.

At last they came together, panting and exhausted. I crouched flat, listening.

“We searched those rocks everywhere, but she vanished!” the thin one said.

“Every time we think we got Afra cornered, she goes into the Maze,” said another, a male with a long scar on his face.

The Maze? I wondered. I had seen no maze, though the boys
had
moved on the open ground as if they walked such a thing.

“You’d think the rock itself hid her,” grumbled the third boy.

The four of them drew the sign against evil on their chests. “I tole you Afra was a witch,” said the one whose clothes were a little better than the other boys’. “Witches do that. They vanish right in front of you.”

That
was pure nonsense. Numair is one of the greatest mages in all the world.
He
cannot do it unless the spell is already prepared. The female Afra had used no spells at all
that I had seen. Her Gift was visible to me, but she had not employed it, nor did she wear any spell charms.

“We have to warn the emperor!” the scarred one said. “Afra might cast a spell against his life!”

The four turds raced away, eager to tell a man guarded by my foster parents that their witch, who was too generous to singe
them
, was a danger to him. Like most humans, they didn’t realize that an emperor would never venture so far from his palaces unless he was very well guarded. I
did
think that perhaps the boys had seen Numair and had mistaken him for someone who was silly. Many people do.