The D'Karon Apprentice (11 page)

“I am pleased that we agree on this matter,”
Ether said. “I was instructed to inform you that this carriage is a
fine example of the many trades and materials that have brought the
Northern Alliance great pride in the years since the war began. The
copper of the hardware is from the historic Grossmer Mines, the
leather is worked and dyed Alliance blue by skilled artisans, and
the wood is rock-pine felled from the base of the Dagger Gale
Mountains. At your feet is a basket of food, each a Northern
delicacy. You may partake as your appetite requires. It may also be
of value to you to know that this is my first and quite likely my
last instance as an ambassador.”

“This, may I say, does not come as a
surprise.”

“No?”

“There is a… a certain language a diplomat
uses. It is softened, smoothed. It has no edge, padded with bluster
and pomp. Many words are used, but little is said. You speak like a
blade hacking to the core. Also, what you have done, breaking with
arrangements agreed upon? This is something an ambassador would
never do.”

“I see. Then this is a profession defined by
rigid adherence to arbitrary customs.”

“Most definitely. Another man might have
refused the new arrangements, or perhaps terminated the whole of
the tour in outrage.”

“You feel no such outrage.”

“I am old, I am cold, and I am hungry,” he
said, opening the basket and looking over the contents. He selected
a small cloth pouch of dried fruit. “They will say their empty
words and come to their agreements in the other carriages. A
pleasant ride with a lovely woman sounds like a far preferable way
to spend this journey. Now, please, tell me about your land…”

#

Most of Myranda and Deacon’s first day in
Tressor was spent traveling. The first half of the day’s travels
had been through towns and fields that at one time or another had
been at the center of the fighting. While a century of warfare had
kept the front line remarkably consistent, this stretch of it still
wandered north and south a dozen miles or so depending on the
intensity and outcome of the battles. As a result, some towns
they’d passed through were being rebuilt for the dozenth time. The
same thing had happened all across the northern side of the border
as well, but Myranda had had a lifetime to adjust to it, and the
Northern Alliance was far less populous than Tressor. After it
became clear to the people that a city could not be reliably
defended, it was simply abandoned, even if it was a capital like
Kenvard. It said something about these people that they continued,
decade after decade, to take back the land and return to the life
they wanted to live.

The sun was setting by the time they were
beyond the reach of the war, and the tone of the landscape changed.
Buildings were older and more ornate. Indeed, if there was one
thing to be said about the people and the architecture of Tressor
at a glance, it was that much more time and effort were put into
expression. Clothing was more colorful and vibrant. Buildings were
more than just shelter; they were nuanced and accented, often to an
almost sculptural degree.

And then there were the fields. All of the
Northern Alliance’s greenest land was also closest to the border.
The same shifts in the front that had chased away the cities could
easily wipe out the farms. Therefore they were kept small so that
if one was destroyed, it was not so great a loss. Even those fields
safe from battle tended to be small because any land far enough
from the front to avoid combat was also cold and rocky enough to
need tremendous care to bear any crop at all. For that reason
farmers could only manage small plots. Here the farms and
plantations seemed endless, literally covering the whole of the
landscape in both directions at times. Just one such farm could
probably feed half of Kenvard.

Myranda looked out the window of their coach
at the green expanse, workers still toiling in the fields as the
light faded. They were tending to thorny bushes Myranda had never
seen before.

“Excuse me, Valaamus, but what is this farm
growing?” Myranda asked.

“Ah! This is a rakka plantation. They are
rare so far north. Surely you have heard of rakka?”

“Yes… yes, I think so. Your provisions. The
berry you bake into your bread.”

“Yes indeed. Very hard to grow. Closely kept
secret. Most of our plantations are much farther south, but where
the soil is right, our enterprising farmers are always willing to
give a rakka crop a try.”

“I understand the plants are quite finicky,”
Deacon said. “Surely the climate here would be too volatile for
them.”

“Again, it is the soil that is most
important. If the soil is good enough, it is well worth the effort
to have the slaves dig up saplings down south and bring them here
to bear fruit.”

Myranda looked to the window again, eyes
scanning the workers.

“Slaves…” she said.

“Of course. Rakka requires much work. It
would not be possible to grow it in quantity without slave
labor.”

“We abolished slavery in our kingdom,” she
said.

Valaamus nodded. “A recent decision, I
understand. Bold, in the aftermath of war, to make so sweeping a
change. Surely more strong hands would be preferable, particularly
when rebuilding is necessary.”

“We now believe that freedom takes
precedence,” Myranda said.

“A fine philosophy. I wish you luck in
putting it into practice.”

“We’ve done well enough so far,” Myranda
said.

As evening slid into night, they approached
the place where they would take their meal and sleep. It was a
small, comfortable cabin overlooking a lake and nestled in a dense
forest. The carriage pulled to a stop not far from the cabin, where
a small shrine stood by the lakeside. Myranda and Deacon gazed at
the shrine. It was tall and carved of stone. Like most Tresson
creations it was elaborate without being gaudy, and even without
understanding the symbolism, there was a solemness about it. The
top of the shrine was a carving of a lantern. A flame burned
inside. The rest of the shrine was an obelisk carved with the
likeness of ivy and accented with copper inlays tinged green with
the passage of time. On either side of the shrine, each rising only
as high as the hub of the carriage wheel, was a line of stone
slabs. The sweeping, curling script of the Tresson language formed
the names and ranks of hundreds of Tresson officers in total.

An attendant opened the door to the carriage.
Before Myranda could step out, the thumping of heavy footsteps
caused the attendant at the door to quickly retreat. A moment later
Myn’s head filled the doorway, looking somewhat reproachfully at
the diplomats who had tucked Myranda away with them for so
long.

“Myn,” Myranda scolded, “don’t forget your
manners.”

The dragon backed away and sat on her
haunches, eying the attendants, who were reluctant to return to
their tasks. Eventually they got their nerve and saw to the
delegation, helping each down and seeing to the bags of the Tresson
nobles.

“You speak to her as if to a child,” Valaamus
observed, “and yet she obeys.”

“I’ve been with her since she was born,”
Myranda said, walking over to the impatiently waiting dragon and
giving her some long-awaited attention as Deacon unloaded their
things from her back and handed them to the attendants.

Grustim, for the first time since Myranda had
been introduced to him, made a sound that might have been intended
for human ears. It was muttered beneath his breath, a Tresson word
Myranda didn’t recognize.

“Hold your tongue,” hissed Valaamus.

“What did he say?” Myranda asked.

“It is a very old word,” Deacon said. “It
means fertile soil. Or the material used to fertilize it. I
believe, in context, he was suggesting that something you’d said
was untrue.”

“My apologies, Duchess. Grustim is a soldier.
He is not as refined in his interactions as the rest of the
delegation,” Valaamus said.

“I’m not offended, Ambassador. But I
am
curious. What prompted such a remark?” Myranda asked.

“Answer the duchess,” Valaamus ordered.

The Dragon Rider stepped down from his mount.
“You say your dragon has been with you since her birth,” he said.
He spoke Varden, but with a less practiced diction than the
ambassador. “A female mountain dragon of that size would be at
least ninety years old. She’s nearly as large as Garr, and Garr was
hatched before the war.”

“Garr is your dragon?” Deacon said. “It
thought it was named—”

“The breeders have their name and I have
mine. He is Garr, and he is one hundred and sixty years old.”

“Myn is only about two years old,” Myranda
said.

Grustim barely managed to prevent himself
from repeating his earlier outburst. “She is
not
two years
old, Madam Duchess. You are mistaken.”

Myn cast a hard glare in his direction. She
clearly did not appreciate what he had to say or the tone with
which he was saying it.

Grustim continued, “I will prove it to you.”
He turned to his mount, uttering a guttural command. The dragon
lowered its head, tipping its horns toward him. “Here, on the
horns. Dragons shed their skin once per growth season. The scales
leave a mark and stain the horn a bit. Come, look. Learn something
about the beast you ride.”

Myranda and Deacon stepped closer, Garr not
even acknowledging them. Grustim pointed to a very faint dip in the
surface of the deep-green horn, and a slight discoloration. It ran
around the circumference, and Myranda never would have spotted it
if not directed, but once she knew what to look for, she found
dozens more along the length of the horn.

“Now go find them on your mount and learn how
old she really is,” Grustim said.

“Come here Myn, let’s see your horns,”
Myranda said.

“Fascinating…” Deacon said, looking over
Garr’s horns. “In all of my dealings with dragons I’ve never
noticed this…”

Grustim issued another order, and the dragon
raised his head again. Myn marched over and tried to lower her head
for inspection without taking her eyes off Grustim or Garr. Myranda
ran her fingers along the length, but she found no hint of the
rings until she reached the very tip, where there was a pair of
them about a finger’s width apart.

“Here, you see?” Myranda said. “There are
two.”

The Dragon Rider stepped doubtfully forward,
but Myn pulled her head back by the same amount. He made a sound of
irritation and stepped forward again, and again she pulled away.
When he stepped forward again, there was a sudden flurry of motion
and an angry rumble from both dragons. The humans turned to find
Myn’s tail trapped under Garr’s forepaw. Based on the awkward
position of the tail, it seemed clear now that she’d been luring
Grustim into position for a good, hard lash with her tail and Garr
had put a stop to it.

“Myn, what’s gotten into you?” Myranda
said.

She tried to tug her tail free, but Garr
refused to release it, and the pair once again rumbled a threat to
one another. The Dragon Rider grunted an order, and after a moment
more, Garr shifted his weight to release Myn’s tail.

“Now behave yourself and let him see,” Myn
said sternly.

The dragon huffed in annoyance but held
still. Grustim stepped forward and gazed at the horn. Not satisfied
with what he saw, he ran his fingers over it with increasing
confusion and disbelief.

“I don’t understand it. Even if you had
sanded the horn there would be
some
sign… And it certainly
hasn’t been sanded… These two at the end are proper. Perhaps a bit
close to one another, but proper. Where are the rest?”

Myn pulled her head back and thumped it to
the ground beside Myranda.

“No, Myn. No scratches. You didn’t behave
yourself,” Myranda said, crossing her arms. She turned to Grustim.
“We thought we lost her once. She was still smaller than me at the
time. In a battle with some of the D’Karon creatures, she fell
through the ice. I tried to save her but I was too late. We had to
flee, and much as it pained me we couldn’t take her remains with
us. Some time later I was to fight a terrible beast as punishment
for my refusal to submit to the D’Karon after being captured by
them.
Myn
turned out to be the beast. She was alive, and she
had grown. I don’t know if it was the work of the D’Karon or some
other force, but that’s how she came to be this size.”

“Grustim, I want you to apologize to the
duchess immediately,” Valaamus ordered. “And after the completion
of your duties, you shall receive a formal reprimand.”

“That really isn’t necessary. It is hardly
the sort of circumstance he could have predicted,” Myranda
said.

“It doesn’t matter. The goal of this tour is
to foster trust between our people, and Grustim is a soldier. He
should have discipline and the capacity to follow orders.” Valaamus
allowed himself a single irritated sigh. “Duke, Duchess, may I
present to you the officers’ memorial. The flame within this shrine
represents the resolve we have to carry with us the memory of these
fine men. The ivy represents the tenacity of the Tresson spirit,
clinging even to sheer stone and in time breaking it to dust. The
copper symbols are invocations for luck, strength, wisdom, and
courage. Each stone is carved with the names of thirty-six officers
who served at least five years before falling.”

Myranda bowed her head in quiet observance of
the lives lost. “We have a similar monument in my city. It lists
the names of those who fell in the Kenvard Massacre. The fallen
deserve to be remembered.”

“I hope one day that you might grant me the
honor of a visit, and may no new names be added to either in our
lifetimes. Now please, let us retire to the cabin for a meal and
some business before we rest for tomorrow.”