The Tree of Water (30 page)

So in mentioning his lack of one now, I knew the dragon was speaking to his deepest and ugliest fear.

And I finally understood what it meant to have power over someone by having possession of his name.

Because at that moment, if Lancel had told Char's heart to stop beating, it would have.

Ven.

A tickle of thrum vibrated on his forehead, almost too weak to have noticed.

But Ven recognized it immediately.

Amariel?
He turned to the shaking sea horse. Neither of the other boys appeared to have heard it. The merrow remained broken and motionless in the curl of Teel's tail.

You've—forgotten
. The words formed with painful slowness in his head.
Don't—forget
.

What?
Ven asked as quietly as he could.
What have I forgotten?

The thrum seemed to puff against his brain like the tiny seeds of a dandelion caught by the wind, then dissolved in the vastness of the sea.

Black—Ivory.

It took a long moment for Ven to catch the words in the drift. Then his head began to burn, not with curiosity, but with memory.

The scale,
he thought.
The scale!

The reason he had thought to seek out a sea dragon in the first place.

Lancel was growing impatient with the hippocampus, who was hovering as close as he could to Ven and Char.

“For badness' sake, Teel,
get out of the way
,” he demanded. “You are not an actual dragon, you know. Sparing you is my custom and a courtesy, not a requirement. We may be distantly related, but that won't keep even you safe if you continue to defy me. Family connections never win out over supper. Now, last chance. Move, or you'll be the salad course of my meal.”

The blue-green hippocampus stopped shaking. He hung in the drift, motionless. A little of his color drained from his hide, but otherwise he did not move.

The great beast sighed. More steam rushed forth out of his nose, making them scurry out of the way again.

“Very well,” Lancel said. “Hold still, please. I like it when my food is evenly done. And a nice, crispy skin is a rare delicacy in the Deep.”

Ven was fumbling around in his pocket. He ran his finger over the sharp edge of the dragon scale in the Black Ivory sleeve.

“Wait one moment, if you please,” he thought desperately. “I believe you will want to see this.”

“I doubt it.” The sea dragon inhaled, sucking a great deal of the drift in as he did.

Ven struggled to remain upright and to hold on to the Black Ivory sleeve as his feet, like those of Coreon and Char, were pulled forward in the drift.

With shaking hands, he pulled out the scale on which the image and runes of Frothta had been inscribed.

The card from Madame Sharra's deck glowed with an eerie light similar to that of the stone of elemental air.

Only golden.

The sea dragon stopped. He held his breath.

“I've come all this way to return this to you,” Ven said.

Lancel turned his head to the side. “Hold it up so I can see it better,” he said.

Ven held the scale aloft, his fingers clenched tightly.

The beast's blazing blue eyes narrowed. He stared at the ancient dragon scale while the boys held their breath.

Then he chuckled.

It was an ugly laugh, a laugh that rumbled through the sea, shaking the ships in his collection until the sails and flags on their masts flapped as if in a high wind and causing the ships' wheels to spin violently.

“You think
that i
nterests me?” he said, a nasty note creeping into his thrum. “A fortune teller's scale? I gave one just like it to your ancestors ages ago. There are five of them in my collection, rescued from the sea into which they had fallen. I have no need of that. It's like, well, like the clipping from one of your toenails, Son of Earth.”

Ven could only remain frozen, his hand aloft in the drift, stunned.

“Well, this has all been very amusing, but my stomach is growling,” the dragon said. “If it's of any comfort to you, Ven, your race would be glad to know that you ended your days as fuel for the fire gems in my belly. Your life would not have been a total waste, at least in the eyes of the Nain, if they knew what had happened to you. Your friends, on the other hand, will disappear into the ashes, and no one will remember their names—especially
you
, Char. It's ironic that what you were called in life describes your death perfectly. Farewell.”

The drift shook as he inhaled again.

Ven's eyes darted about as he tried desperately to pry loose the memory that had been looming near the edge of his consciousness.

Finally, just as the dragon reared back, it was there.

“Wait!” he shouted. “Wait! I do know something
you
don't—something about your collection. And I'm the only person in the whole world who knows it!”

 

32

A Risky Negotiation

The sea dragon drew himself up to an even greater height. His horned head was crowned in the darkness of the Twilight Realm above him.

“That's a lie,” he said, but his tone was uncertain, as if he could feel the truth in Ven's thrum. “I know the name of every ship, and have counted every coin, every shiny
pebble
in my hoard. It's my life's work. To suggest you know anything about it that I do not is insulting. I think I will eat you raw instead of roasting you first.”

“You know I am telling the truth, because you have my name,” Ven said. He was guessing, but something in the dragon's eyes made him believe he was right. “You can feel the truth in my thrum, or you would not have stopped your fiery breath. You know I do not lie, and it worries you. It
should
worry you, because if you kill me, you will never know what I know.”

“And what is it you claim to know?”

Ven pointed at the row of figureheads, to the bruised statue of the smiling woman with the dark hair and the flowing blue sleeves.

“I know her name,” he said.

The dragon smirked.

“She has no name,” he said. “She is like your friend Char in that regard, unnamed. Everything in my hoard speaks to me—and when I asked her name, she did not know it. It was sad.”

“That's because her ship was never christened,” Ven continued. “It was being inspected when Fire Pirates attacked, and then, well, I did something foolish to drive them away, and blew up their ship, and hers, in the process.” He could feel the dragon's eyes upon him, and it made him shiver. “But I know what the ship was to be named—I even carved the name into a piece of driftwood from the wreck before it sank. But she has a name, even if she doesn't know it. And if you kill me, well, I will take the knowledge of that name with me. So you will never completely own your collection, because there will be one small piece that I had, that you never will.”

The eyes in the head atop the towering green-black neck gleamed at him for a moment, considering. Then the neck descended, swinging the immense head down until it was directly in front of Ven.

“All right,” Lancel said quietly, but with deadly threat. “I'll bite. What is it?”

The smell of acrid smoke filled Ven's lungs, making them burn. Though it took every ounce of his courage, he managed to shake his head.

“With respect. Lancel, I have a friend who is a dragon, and though you may think me a fool, I know at least a little bit of dragons' ways. I need to have your word that you agree to my terms first.”

The glowing eyes glared at him, the brightness making his own sting with pain.

“What are your terms?” the dragon asked. Each word had a bite to it.

Ven steadied himself. He looked at the vast hoard of treasure and broken ships rotting quietly on the ocean floor. It seemed to stretch on for miles.
Keep your head about you,
he thought to himself. “Well, first, obviously, you need to agree to grant us safe passage out of your realm.”

“That's easy enough,” said Lancel. His thrum was smooth and agreeable. “Tell me her name.”

Ven shook his head.

“Not yet. I know how dragons can twist words to mean what they want them to mean. So it would have to be more than just a casual agreement, but an ironclad oath to the Earth that you will never do anything to harm me and these friends of mine—including the hippocampus—in any way,
ever
. I need to be sure you are agreeing to let us go and never try to take revenge on us in the future—which to a dragon can mean a heartbeat after you have what you want.”

The dragon's eyes narrowed to glowing slits.

“Don't toy with me,” the beast said. The threat in the pounding thrum was unmistakable.

“Believe me, I'm not,” said Ven. “I just want to make certain we have a clear understanding.”

“Hmm. In that case, how's this?”

The drift around them swirled violently as an immense claw, a talon as black as the sea had been, swept out from behind the reef of ship bones and, before any of them could breathe, pinned Char to the sandy bottom of the sea by the throat.

“Let
me
be clear, Ven,” said Lancel. “You will tell me the name, or you will watch your unnamed friend be run through with my talon and bleed to death before your next breath. Is that clear enough?”

Ven exhaled, willing himself to be calm.

On board the
Serelinda
, the sailors are always busy by day. There is a shift that is busy all night as well. But when the wind dies down for a while and there is little to do, they often turn to games of cards.

There is one game in particular that they like to play, a game called by many inappropriate names, but Char and I call it Malarkey, a human word for
nonsense
. It's a game where the players do not show their cards until the end, but tell the other players what they have in their hands—sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not, but you have to be able to bluff convincingly when you're not holding many good cards.

I'd say at this moment I am only holding one.

“That's malarkey,” Ven said. His thrum was steady. “If I tell you without your oath, he's dead anyway, as we all are. Do you want to hear the rest of my terms?”

From beneath the sea dragon's enormous talon, Char shuddered but said nothing.

The cold eyes stared at him in silence. Then, finally, the beast spoke again.

“Tell me.”

“I want you to answer three questions, truthfully and completely. They will not compromise your power, or harm you in any way. Since dragons know things no one else does, I don't want to miss this chance to satisfy my curiosity.”

The sea was filled with a harsh, chuckling thrum.

“You know what they say about curiosity, don't you, Ven?”

“That it killed the cat?”

“I've always heard that it sinks a ship—and since I hoard sunken ships, that makes me rather fond of the curiosity of humans. And other land-livers. Well, this has been amusing, but it's growing dull. If I were to just kill you, then you will no longer know her name, now, will you?”

“That's right,” Ven admitted. “I no longer will. But if you kill me, you will
never
know it. At least I will have had it for a little while. Let's trade. I am willing to give you her name and
forget
it, if you will guarantee our safety and tell me what I want to know.”

A gleam of interest made the huge eyes glow even more brightly.

“What is it that you want to know?”

Ven thought hard, trying to see the questions as if they were moves on a chessboard, as his father had taught him when making a business deal. He finally decided that he had nothing to lose by asking his most important question first.

“How can I save Amariel?”

The dragon snorted.

“Predictable. Well, I can certainly tell you that—but I suspect it's not the question that is
really
bedeviling you, Son of Earth. If your friend were not injured, what would you have asked me?”

Against his will, Ven's curiosity rose until it tickled the hairs on his head floating in the heavy water of the Twilight Realm. He tried to keep the words in check, but they fought their way out of his mouth in spite of himself.

“How can I find Frothta, the Tree of Water?”

The giant beast threw back his horned head and laughed. The floor of the ocean shook, rattling the mountains of coins and causing the broken ships to pitch about as if on the waves of the surface above. The line of wheels spun crazily and the carefully displayed figureheads trembled as if they were alive.

And terrified.

“We have a bargain, Son of Earth. But you will not like the answer.”

 

33

A Bargain Struck and Fulfilled

“Whatever that answer is, I will accept it, as long as it is the truth,” Ven said.

“Very well,” said the sea dragon. “I agree to your terms.”

“Not to be offensive, but would you please just say what those terms are, and take the oath?”

The giant sea serpent sighed comically.

“Whoever taught you the art of negotiation must have had some skill at it. All right.” Lancel lifted his giant talon from Char's throat, then reached over with it to the figurehead display and wrapped it around the damaged statue of the smiling woman with the closed eyes and the watery sleeves. He set it directly in front of Ven. “In return for the knowledge of the name of this figurehead, which you will forfeit forever, I swear to bring no harm to you, Char, Coreon, Amariel, and Teel, and to answer three of your questions truthfully, to the best of my ability. There. Satisfied? The answer had best be
yes
.”