Dragon Weather (2 page)

“A fair question,” his grandfather said, smiling. He glanced at the water-haulers, judged it would still be a while before they reached the village, and settled down cross-legged on the ledge, into a better position for storytelling. Arlian settled beside him.

“Yes,” Arlian's grandfather said, “there have been a few people who saw dragons and lived to tell about it. Most of them were at a safe distance, and the dragons simply didn't notice them, but there have been a few…” His voice trailed off as he looked to the west, at the approaching clouds. He frowned.

“A few what, Grandsir?” Arlian looked, trying to see what his grandfather was staring at.

The old man shook himself. “Nothing,” he said. “I just don't like this weather.” Then he smiled at Arlian, and said, “Of course, there were a few who got a good
close
look at the dragons. There might even be some of them who are still alive today.”

Arlian nodded. “From that village in the Sandalwood Hills, you mean?”

“Oh, no.” Grandsir shook his head. “Nothing like that; I saw that village, and there wasn't so much as a rat left alive there, just bones and cinders. But there are old stories,
very
old stories, about dragon venom.”

“Venom?” Arlian frowned. As Grandsir had said, most of the adults in the village didn't like talking about the dragons; there were so many superstitions about them that most people thought it safer not to discuss them at all. Dragons were magical, and magic was wicked and untrustworthy, and speaking too much about it could attract misfortune.

Still, Arlian had thought he had a reasonable understanding of what a dragon was, and he didn't remember anything about venom. “I thought dragons breathed fire!” he said.

“Well, they
do,
after a fashion,” Grandsir said. “Or so I'm told. But the older stories, the ones from the early days of the Years of Man, say that dragonflame isn't so much fiery breath, as some people would have it, but a spray of burning venom, like a snake's spit of poison. Except dragons somehow set their poison ablaze, and thereby spit flame.”

“Ooooh!” Arlian shivered at the thought. It seemed somehow more
real
to know that dragonfire was burning venom, rather than some sort of magical breath. It made dragons seem more like actual beasts, rather than spirits, or illusions like the little images the village sorcerer sometimes conjured up.

“Whether it's the truth or not I can't say,” Grandsir continued, “but there are
stories,
very old stories, so old I don't know where they came from, that say that sometimes the venom doesn't catch fire properly. It's still deadly poison, of course, a poison that will burn the flesh from your bones—but supposedly it quickly loses some of its virulence when once it's been sprayed, and a mixture of this dragon venom and human blood is said to bestow long life on anyone who drinks it.
Very
long life. There are tales of men who lived centuries after surviving dragon attacks in which blood from their wounds was mixed with dragon venom and then swallowed—though many of them had been horribly mutilated in the attacks, their faces burned away, arms or legs lost, so that such a life would hardly be a blessing.”

Arlian shivered again. He looked at the clouds. The dragons seemed so terrible that it was hard, sometimes, to believe that they were ever real.

Everyone knew they were real, though, or had been once, at least. The dragons had ruled all of the Lands of Man, from the eastern sea to the western wilderness, from the Borderlands in the south to the icy wastes of the north. People had resisted their rule sometimes, fought great wars against the dragons, but to no avail—until one day, about seven hundred years ago, when the dragons had all gone away, leaving humanity free.

Arlian's mother said the dragons had all died, perhaps of some plague, but most people insisted they were still alive, deep in their caverns, and might come back at any time.

And sometimes, according to Grandsir, they
did
come back, briefly.

“That village in the Sandalwood Hills,” Arlian asked. “What do you think the people there did to anger the dragon? Why would it destroy them all?”

“I don't think they had to do
anything,
” Grandsir said. “The dragon simply felt like destroying something, and they were close at hand.”

“But that's so unfair! You mean they didn't do anything to deserve it?”

“Not a thing,” Grandsir replied.

Arlian absorbed that unhappily. He didn't like it at all. He knew life wasn't always fair, but he felt, deep in his heart, that it
should
be. He always tried to be fair to his brother, Korian, and to their playmates in the village—even the giggly girls. In the stories his mother told justice always triumphed in the end. Why was the rest of life so messy and unjust?

His father said it was because the gods were dead, and only Fate remained, and Fate had its own plans for everyone.

The village sorcerer—the only person in the village of Obsidian whose name Arlian didn't know, because he said names had power—had said that justice was as much an illusion as any of the little tricks he did to entertain the children.

Arlian wondered sometimes if it might be the other way around—maybe everything
did
work out fairly in the end, somehow, and the apparent injustices were the illusions. He wiped sweat-damp hair away from his eyes and looked down at the approaching wagons.

Maybe the dragon
did
have a good reason for destroying that village. Maybe the dragons were part of Fate's plans.

“Do you really think it's dragon weather?” he asked.

His grandfather put an arm around Arlian's shoulder and gave him a reassuring hug.

“I hope not,” he said. “Come on, let's go give your mother a hand.”

Together, they turned away from the ledge and ambled toward the house.

2

The Coming of the Dragons

The dark clouds hung heavy in the western sky for the next three days, creeping very slowly nearer, spreading across the sky like a stain. The water wagons were brought to the cisterns above the village and emptied into the great stone basins, and water was doled out carefully to each family, enough to keep both crops and people alive, but still thirsty.

The mountain above the village continued to smoke and steam; the air now had a very noticeable sulfurous stench to it, and the sun, when it could be seen through the haze at all, was as orange as a pumpkin.

Despite the oppressive heat and gloom the young men of Obsidian returned to their usual tasks, working the mines, carving the black glass, tending the crops. The women kept house, cooked and cleaned, wove and sewed, minded the livestock and the children. The old men thatched roofs, polished brightwork, and took care of the other less urgent, less strenuous jobs.

And the children ran errands and helped out as required, but still found time to play and explore. On the third morning after the water run Arlian climbed up to the top of the great black rock north of the village; at the top, sweaty and filthy, he settled down cross-legged and looked out over the countryside.

Up here it was just as hot as in the village, but the air seemed not quite so still and thick. From here he could see for miles upon miles, out across the Lands of Man, across fields and forests, from the Sandalwood Hills to the Bitter Lake, from Skygrazer Peak back to Tara Vale, miles in every direction but southeast, where the mountain blocked his view.

To the north, far off on the horizon, beyond the lowering clouds and the pall of mountain smoke, he could see a dull line of blue sky. At one point, to the northeast, that blue was marred by a smudge of smoke; his father had once pointed it out and told Arlian that that was where the great city of Manfort lay, where humans had first resisted, and finally broken, the dragons' hold on the world—Manfort, where the great lords and ladies lived in their stone palaces, in their fine clothes and fancy coaches, with their dress balls and formal duels, amid rumors of secret societies and elaborate intrigue.

Arlian stared at the smoke for a long time, trying to imagine what the city was like.

When he grew up he wanted to travel; he had said so for as long as he could remember. His grandfather had been a traveler in his youth, and Arlian loved to hear him talk about it. He wanted to see all the places Grandsir had described—Blackwater, and Deep Delving, and Benth-in-Tara, and the groves of Nossevier.

And maybe he could even get to Manfort, as Grandsir never had, to see the palaces there, and the old shrines to the dead gods, and the lords and ladies with their swords and horses, and the Duke of Manfort, heir to the great warlords of old. Grandsir had stayed clear for fear of being robbed, or captured by slavers and sold, or killed by some lord he had inadvertently offended, but Arlian was certain he would be able to handle a visit there.

Or he might cross the Desolation to the Borderlands, where, it was said, one could see wild magic flashing across the southern skies, above the wild lands—magic was weak and scarce in the Lands of Man, useful only to trained sorcerers and severely limited even then, but Arlian had heard that in the Borderlands beyond the desert magic was so strong it danced like brightly colored fires in the sky. The intervening Desolation was said to be hot and almost waterless, a wasteland where anyone losing his way would leave bleached bones in the sand, and where bloodthirsty bandits roamed—but caravans still crossed it every year, and Arlian could surely join one.

There was magic beyond the eastern seas, as well, and ships sailed there from the ports of Benthin and Lorigol, and someday Arlian might travel in one.

And maybe he would become a lord himself—he would own a business, perhaps a caravan or a ship or a manufactory, where others would labor on his behalf, and he would carry a sword and dagger on his belt and ride a fine horse.

But wherever he went, Arlian told himself, he would come home at the last, to settle in his own familiar village, just as Grandsir had. Arlian thought he would find a pretty wife somewhere and bring her back here and raise half a dozen children, sons and daughters both, and he would treat them equally and fairly and raise them to be good and just people. And he would tell them stories of his travels at the supper table, just as Grandsir did.

With that thought he realized that it was almost time for the midday meal. Arlian wiped black-tinged sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, then turned away from the distant smoke of Manfort and started back down the jagged side of the black rock.

Later, after everyone had eaten, as his parents headed for the fields, Grandsir beckoned to Arlian.

“Summer can't last much longer,” he said, “and we haven't put aside as much for the winter as usual. I want to take a look in the cellars, see what we have and what we need. Come along and give me a hand, would you, Ari?”

Arlian smiled and came willingly; the cellars were usually cool, and any respite from the muggy heat would be welcome. He was not permitted in the cellars without adult supervision; there were too many ways for an active lad to do damage, down there in the cool darkness.

“Bring a candle,” Grandsir said, gesturing toward the drawer.

Arlian rummaged through the drawer until he found a good thick candle stub as long as his finger; he lit it with a splint from the kitchen fire, which was kept burning even on days as swelteringly uncomfortable as this.

The candle flared up, and even in the well-ventilated kitchen with its wide-open doors and windows the little flame seemed to brighten the room; the day was darker than Arlian had realized, and seemed to be darkening as he watched.

He took a final glance out the window at the black clouds, then followed his grandfather, trotting through the long narrow pantry, past the tiered shelves to the door at the back.

The rush of air from the cellars when Grandsir opened the door was disappointing, nowhere near as cool as Arlian had expected—apparently the heat had even penetrated into the stone-lined depths beneath the house. Still, it was cooler than anywhere else he might go.

The old man went down the ladder first while Arlian held the candle high; when he reached the bottom the boy handed the light down, then turned and made his own way down the sagging wooden rungs. The rails were slick in his hands, polished to a silky sheen by generations of hands sliding down them, and he had to watch his step closely.

When he stepped off the final rung the stone floor felt warm beneath his bare feet; he glanced down in surprise.

“The mountain is hot,” Grandsir said. “I wouldn't be surprised if it erupts soon.”

Arlian said nothing, but his eyes widened at the notion. The crater that loomed over the village had smoked all Arlian's life, but there had been no actual eruption for almost fifty years.

The natural path for any lava or ash was down the far slope, well away from the village, but still, an eruption was an exciting, frightening thought.

“Come on,” Grandsir said, leading the way down one of the passageways, between dusty shelves lined with earthenware crocks and black glass jars.

Arlian followed, brushing aside cobwebs and soaking in the dimness and the rich musty smells. Somewhere behind him, from the sunlit world above, he heard a distant shriek—probably Kashkar the Stonecarver's three girls playing some silly game, Arlian thought.

A man's voice shouted, but Arlian could not make out any words—probably Kashkar, telling his daughters to go elsewhere with their racket. Arlian paid no attention to the noise, but watched as Grandsir ran a careful finger along a shelf, counting crocks.

“Eighteen pots of the soft cheese,” the old man said. “Count the wheels of hard cheese on the bottom shelf, boy, the ones in black wax—my old knees don't want me to stoop that much anymore, and my eyes…”