Nightpool

Chapter 14

It takes ten months to hatch a dragon. The eggs were cream colored and rubbery. By the time the dragonlings hatched in late spring, the shells were stained dark by the rotted carcasses. Dawncloud would lay her head close to each egg and listen to the new little creature inside, wriggling and changing position. When the first hatchling began to scratch on the egg, during a screaming storm that nearly tore the nest from the stony peak, Dawncloud hunkered down over it and cocked her great head, and smiled, filled with wonder and joy, then raised her face to the raging skies and screamed her pleasure out onto the storm.

By the time spring had raged its final storm and turned gentle, all five young were out of the egg and curling and twisting about the nest, raising their little heads up blindly into the warm spring light. In another ten days their eyes were open and they had begun to perch out on the edge of the nest flapping their young wings, and to cluster around Dawncloud, slithering up her sides and listening intently to the songs she sang to them. She had sung to the eggs, too, all during the incubation, and now the dragonlings pushed at her with demanding little horns to hear the songs again, and to hear others. Without the songs, a dragonling is nothing; the songs were as much a part of them as their brand-new fangs and their fiery breath.

They were very alike, these young, yet each was its own creature, bold in its own way, clever in its own way. They named themselves, as is the custom among dragons, with names chosen from the wealth of the songs. Three were females; two were males. The males would grow darker later. They were heavier and broader of head. The males named themselves Starpounder and Nightraider. The females were Windcaller, Moonsong, and Seastrider. It was Seastrider who began to yearn first out toward the vast world of Tirror, to lean out on the winds staring eastward as if something drew her there, where the sea lay beyond Windthorst. As the summer grew warm they all began to flap on the edge of the nest, and then in late summer to soar down to the lower peaks. Dawncloud was very protective of them, for fear of common dragons and hydruses, and would not let them fly out over the bays at all, for fear of the more formidable sea hydrus she knew lurked somewhere there.

She had sensed the hydrus during all her long months on the nest, and sometimes an ugly song of him touched her. It was not a good time on Tirror; the dark was growing bold. And the young humans who could turn the tide were not many. One boy, one girl, and if there were others they were distant, and vague in her mind.

She did not know just where the boy and girl were, but not far. Surely on, or near to, Windthorst. The wild, larger scenes that marked Tirror’s history filled her mind now, the battles and movements of armies, perhaps because of the growing warfare that scoured this world, and it was harder to touch the unique, small scenes and thoughts. The boy’s songs touched her sometimes, though, pleasing her and exciting Seastrider unbearably. Did the boy sense the young dragon’s yearning? Was he even aware of her?

Dawncloud herself had begun to know a yearning, as fragile as mist, so small a feeling that she could hardly trust it. Was there to be another bonding for her? She had not heard her own name spoken by a human voice since her tall, sandy-haired bard, Daban, had leaped to her back for the last time calling her name and laughing with her and singing. When Daban was murdered she flew to Tendreth Slew and crawled into the mud and went to sleep there, heartbroken.

Was there another calling now?

Did someone stand at the doors of the black palace, perhaps, come from another world? Or was someone meant to come to those dark doors soon, approaching the vague gauze of Tirror’s future? From no other place, she thought, would the sense come, then vanish so elusively. It was a woman, she thought. But the pale aura of her presence was so very faint, nearly without substance at all.

Dawncloud was far too busy tending her young to dwell long on her own needs, for she was driven to hunt ever harder to feed the rapacious young fledglings, to sing to them long into the night, and to watch over their still-clumsy flying. Starpounder still held his tail too low in the wind and grappled at the nest before launching out in unsteady flight; his three sisters laughed at him before leaping skyward themselves. Nightraider kept to himself, diligently strengthening his wings. It took the males longer to master flight because of their added weight. But summer was young yet; they would all be skilled by fall.

*

The owl returned to Nightpool after the last spring blizzard, and then again two days later. When he learned that Teb was the son of the murdered king of Auric, he flew at once to Auric’s palace to search for Camery, but within two days was back, to say she was not in the tower.

“Did you look for her in Bleven?” Teb said, his heart sinking. “Maybe Garit took her to Bleven.”

“I went to Bleven to the place of brewing, as you said. Ah, fine brew, such as was left. There wasn’t much, an open crock, and the brewer himself gone, no sign of anyone, the place ransacked and the whole town deserted.”

“And Camery was gone?”

“Yes. If she was ever there.”

“And you didn’t see a redheaded man?”

“I saw no one.”

“I must go to look for her.”

“Where will you look that the animals cannot? Already the foxes search for her up through Mithlan and Baylentha and over into Ratnisbon. The foxes send you greeting, Tebriel. Did you know that Luex and Faxel tried to rescue you there on the battlefield at Baylentha and drove the dying horse off your leg?”

“No. I don’t remember. . . . But what happened to them? It must have been their cries that Charkky and Mikk heard.”

“Chased by jackals clear to the western ridge, where they went to ground and lost them,” Old Bloody Beak said, grinning. And then, “Here,” he said, pushing out a small object that had lain under his feathered posterior where he had dropped it. “I found this in the house of the brewer, underneath a girl’s ragged gown and tangled beneath a pile of bedclothes.”

Teb took the small, leather-bound diary eagerly. It was Camery’s, the spine sewn with linen thread by a little girl’s hand, the vellum pages covered with her neat, familiar handwriting. She had been at Bleven!

He turned the pages, hoping they would speak to him. But he could read no word, only a few scattered letters and his own name. The writing was very small and crowded, and she had written on both sides of the paper. The last entry was hastily written, scrawled angling across the page.

“I can’t read it,” Teb said, ashamed. “Can you?”

“No owl can read. Our eyes are not suited to such work. Nor can otters,” he said, anticipating Teb’s thought. “Owls can see small birds at great distances, and an otter can see clearly underwater. But letters on a page are altogether a different matter.”

“I must know what it says. Maybe the last pages tell what has happened to her.”

He put the diary into his tunic pocket. He would not look at it again until after the meeting in the great cave, where Thakkur bid the owl come for prayer.

*

Teb sat at the side of the cave with Charkky and Mikk and Jukka and Kkelpin, ignoring the sour looks from Ekkthurian’s friends. More otters than not smiled at him, twitching their whiskers, and he heard soft hahs across the cave in gentle greeting. The owl sat up on the dais next to Thakkur, surrounded by the twelve, Ekkthurian scowling among them, along with Urikk and Gorkk.

“Old Ekkthurian’s lucky he doesn’t have to look at himself,” whispered Charkky. “That frown would make a person sick to his stomach.”

“He doesn’t like having Red Unat up there,” Mikk said. “He doesn’t think it’s seemly.”

“He doesn’t think anything’s seemly,” Charkky said. “Except making others miserable. I wish the hydrus would eat him.”

“Does it eat folk?” Teb said, frowning.

They all stared at him. “Of course it does,” Kkelpin said. “What else would it be wanting?”

“I don’t know.” But it seemed to Teb it wanted something else. He could still see in his mind the lure of those three terrifying faces. “I don’t know what else it could want.”

His songs had returned to him shortly after the hydrus attacked them. But there were new songs, too, come into his head then, ugly songs filled with a sense of the hydrus. And if it had put them there, why had it?

On the dais, Red Unat fluffed his feathers and shook his wings, then stood looking down at the mass of otters crowded into the cave. It was a moonlight meeting, and moonlight shone across his dark, mottled feathers, silhouetted against Thakkur’s whiteness and against the pearly gleam of the mosaicked walls. The crowd of otters covered the floor of the cave in a great dark mass, and only the gleam of their eyes was clear. Though to the owl’s sight, Teb thought, every detail of nose and whisker and claw would be visible. The owl spoke of the wars in the north, and it was not cheering news, for Quazelzeg was still moving south, slowly destroying everything in his path, food and shelter and herds.

“He has conquered the Seven Islands and enslaved the fishing villages of Thappan and destroyed the fishing boats—the hydrus did that in one raging night of terror. He has taken the mines at Neiwan. They are working women and children in the mines to make coal for Quazelzeg’s forges and driving the men hitched to plows, instead of oxen. They ate the oxen and commandeered every horse and pack pony. They are raping the land, and already the conquered are starving. They will come down into Windthorst to deal with Ebis the Black soon enough. And,” said the owl, turning to stare at the council, “once he has conquered the human world, he will prey on the animals in one way or another.”

“But there is nothing here for him,” said Ekkthurian. “Why would he want to come here?”

“He doesn’t need a reason,” said the owl. “He will invent a reason. Otter hides, maybe,” he said, glaring at Ekkthurian. “Soft, warm otter hides for winter.”

There was a great hush in the cave.

Charkky turned to look at Mikk, and their paws touched across Teb. Teb heard Jukka swallow as she pulled her heavy tail tighter around herself.

“And now the hydrus is returning, too,” said the owl. “It is a more immediate threat. It moves south from Vaeal, along in the shallower coastal seas. There are three teams of little screech owls watching and tracking it, and they will warn the otters at Rushmarsh when it gets close and send a message to Ebis the Black.”

“How can it be dangerous to Ebis the Black?” said Ekkthurian. “That hydrus can’t go on land.”

“It can move up the rivers to the inland ports, and it can destroy the lowland grain paddies during flooding cycle. It can move like a salamander over very little water when it wants to, on its great spread fins. And it will rend and kill anything that comes near the shore, reaching out with those long necks and wicked teeth. It is surely a slave of the dark,” said the owl. “And it will kill for the dark.”

Ekkthurian was quiet. The owl opened his beak in a soft clicking, as the hunter does before he swoops on his prey, and glared at Ekkthurian. Then Thakkur said softly, drawing attention to himself without ever raising his voice:

“Tebriel has brought us knives. They are effective against the hydrus. We must have more knives. And we must have swords and learn to use them.”

Ekkthurian stared at Thakkur, his body going rigid with anger. Then he hissed through bared teeth, “You would not dare to arm this nation like humans! Such a thing is blasphemy!” He rose and stood staring out at the silent crowd of otters. “How would you acquire such weapons? Only by stealing! And that, too, Thakkur of Nightpool, is against all Ottra tradition!”

Thakkur spoke softly in the silent cave. His voice seemed to carry more clearly than Ekkthurian’s. “I do not call it stealing,” he said evenly, “if we take from the dark. I call it weakening the enemy.”

There was a long moment of silence. Teb and Charkky exchanged a look. Then Ekkthurian barked, “What of the otters who must do such a deed? Do you not think many would be killed in a stealing raid? The owl is right, the dark raiders would skin any otter they could catch!”

“We are only a small band,” cried Urikk. “We are not warriors, to be pitting ourselves against the dark forces.”

“If the dark forces come here,” said Thakkur, “we will have no choice. If they come in the form of the hydrus, and attack you in the sea, you will have no choice.”

Ekkthurian and his friends were silent.

The owl began to fidget, grooming at a patch of tail feathers.

“Red Unat came here,” Thakkur said, “to bring us news of the wars, not to listen to our bickering. I apologize for the entire council.”

Teb thought Ekkthurian had been defeated, at least into temporary silence, but suddenly the thin otter rose again and stood at the edge of the dais with Urikk and Gorkk beside him, staring down at the gathered otters.

“If there is a dark,” said Ekkthurian, “if the hydrus does return and attack us, you can lay the blame directly on the human boy, for it is him the hydrus comes seeking. Him alone! It never attacked any of us or came near Nightpool before the boy came here.”

“If the boy leaves Nightpool,” growled Gorkk, “the hydrus will follow him, and leave us unmolested.”

Thakkur stood tall and still, an icy pillar staring at the three. “Would Nightpool deny sanction, deny safety and protection to the King of Auric?”

“What has the King of Auric to do with the boy?” Ekkthurian snapped. “We are speaking of a small, troublemaking boy.”

“We are speaking of the King of Auric,” said Thakkur. ‘Tebriel is the son of Everard of Auric, who was murdered by the dark forces. Tebriel is rightful heir to the throne.”

“You are lying,” shouted Ekkthurian. “He is only a homeless waif.”

But the tide was turned, and the seated otters began to grumble at Ekkthurian. They knew Thakkur did not lie.

‘Tebriel’s memory has returned to him,” said Thakkur. “He remembers his father’s murder and his own enslavement at the hands of Sivich, of the dark.”

“He says he’s the king’s son,” said Ekkthurian. “Does that make it fact?”

“It does. And my visions show the same.”

“And even if he were king,” growled Ekkthurian, “it would not change the harm he has brought to Nightpool. King or commoner, he must not be allowed to stay. He draws the hydrus here. He is a danger to us. He brings new ways that are a danger. The making of fire is insane; if fire is seen from the mainland, humans will be over here. The dark forces—if there are such—will surely be all over Nightpool, then. He is a danger, I tell you. A danger to all of us.” Ekkthurian seemed to grow blacker in his rage. “And if the hydrus comes for him again, here, many of us could die in its jaws.”

Teb stared across the heads of the gathered otters. Not one otter turned to look at him. He watched the three dark council members standing so fierce and still on the dais, and suddenly he had had enough. He was tight with fury as he stood up. All heads turned to look then.

“I am going,” he said evenly. “I am going now. You can expect that by the time you leave this cave I will be away from Nightpool.”

He walked out quietly, then ran the ledge to his cave, grabbed the knives and flint from the shelf, the cookpot, and shoved them into the pack, pulled Camery’s diary from his tunic pocket and pushed it in, too, grabbed his flippers, and made his way in the moonlight around the stone rim of the island, and down the cliff to the little beach. The path of the moon lay white across the water. I will find Camery and Garit, he thought. And I will retake Auric. I should never have stayed at Nightpool once I got well and could walk. He knelt to pull on his flippers and was thankful he had them as he stared out at the black, moon-washed sea.