Because your vengeance is dragon-vengeance as well. He paused. I waited, but he gave me no more than that. As dragons, I cannot bear you there. Only as a ship can I transport you that far. So we all go, together, to take the vengeance that is owed to us. And then we will be free, to become what we were always meant to be.
Slowly, I became aware that Paragon’s lizard lips were not shaping those words. I heard him and I knew the sense of his words. He was replying as much to my thoughts as he was my words. It was like the Skill and it was like the Wit, but it was neither. I lifted my hands slowly from the railing.
I know you now. There is no avoiding me if I wish to speak to you. But right now, I will say only this. Do not thwart her will in this, or mine. To Clerres we go, to make an end to those who tormented her and stole her child. And then we return to Kelsingra that I may become dragons. Go now. Fetch what she sent you for. Reassure Brashen and Althea as much as you can.
That last he said as if he were asking me to be sure his cats were fed while he was away. How could he feel so little for them?
Would you rather I hated the ones I have served as a slave?
I slammed my walls up tight. Could he truly reach into my mind whenever he wished? What sort of vengeance did he imagine we would take? If we found Bee alive, and wished to take her and flee immediately, would he oppose us? I pushed such questions aside. Perhaps for now I needed to know only that he would take us to Clerres.
I went to Amber’s small cabin. It was dark but I refused to go back for a lantern. My pack was wedged into a corner under the bunk. I found it by touch and dragged it out past the bundles of Amber’s and Spark’s clothing that had somehow expanded to fill every available space. I dug for the dream journal and as I did so my fingers brushed the fabric that had wrapped the Silver I’d been given by Rapskal. A small betrayal that she had gone through my pack and found it, but I was becoming accustomed to her small betrayals. Yet as I angrily pushed the fabric aside to remove the book, I felt the heavy glass tubes the general had given me. Slowly I withdrew the bundle, opened it and held up the tubes. Early starlight had begun to venture in the tiny window and the substance in the glass answered it with an unearthly gleam. The Silver within still did its slow dance. Both were full to the brim, stoppered and sealed as they had been when Rapskal put them in my hands. Liquid magic. The Skill in pure form, independent of human or dragon blood. I tipped the tubes again and watched the slow crawl within the glass. I wondered how much Amber had given Paragon. Was this enough to fulfil his transformation? If he became recalcitrant or dangerous, could this be the bribe I offered? Precious stuff. Dangerous stuff.
I rewrapped the bundle and thrust it deep into the pack again. I’d misjudged Amber. Somehow she had obtained Silver and concealed it from me. Just as I concealed what I had from her. To think that perhaps I was as deceptive to her as she was to me only made me angry. I wished she would go away and that …
And that the Fool would come back? The peculiarity of my thought suddenly spun me round and round. There was no avoiding the admission that my interactions with Amber were vastly different to what I thought and felt about the Fool. I wanted to rattle my head like a dog shaking off water, but knew it would be useless. I tucked Bee’s book securely under my arm, and shoved my pack well back in its place.
‘You took your time,’ Brashen observed as I re-entered the stateroom. I noticed that Clef had joined us. He wasn’t seated at the table, but hunched on a low stool in the corner, a mug of liquor in his hands. The look he gave me was not friendly. I didn’t feel particularly friendly either. Doubtless he had seen me speaking with Paragon and come to tell Brashen.
‘I stopped to talk to Paragon,’ I admitted.
Brashen’s jaw muscles bunched and Althea straightened as if she would spring at me. I held up a cautioning hand. ‘He confirmed his bargain with Amber. And implied that he and other dragons might have reasons of their own for wishing us well on our quest.’ I looked at Amber. ‘I’d like to know what those are. And I’d like to know how you got Silver when Reyn and Malta specifically refused your request for some.’
Althea made a small sound of shock. Brashen grew very still.
‘I didn’t steal it,’ she said in a low voice. I waited. She took a breath. ‘It was given to me, very privately, by someone who knew that it could bring down great trouble if other people knew about it. I’d rather not say exactly who that was.’ She folded her lips primly.
‘As if we’d care,’ Althea grumbled sarcastically. ‘Show us your “proof” that your child is alive. That you have not destroyed our lives for nothing.’ It was obvious that any sympathy she’d ever felt toward us had been burned away. I could scarcely blame her and yet I felt a rising fury to hear her speak so of Bee.
I set the book carefully on the table and sat down with my arms to either side of it. No one was going to touch it but me. I forced my voice to an even tone and addressed Amber. ‘What, exactly, did you wish me to read from this book?’
I think she knew how close I was to irrational fury. I was at her mercy, and the mercy of these strangers and their unreliable ship, and they were demanding that I ‘prove’ to them that my child was special enough to deserve to be rescued from people who delighted in torture. If there had been any sort of a ‘shore’ to the river, I would have immediately demanded to be put upon it and walked away from all of them.
‘Please read the dream where the two-headed person gives you a vial of ink to drink. And you shake off pieces of wood and become two dragons. I think that one will be the clearest to all of us here.’
I was very still for a moment. More than once, I had accused the Fool of ‘interpreting’ his dream predictions with hindsight, tailoring them to fit what actually happened. But this, at least, did strike me as starkly clear. I paged through Bee’s dream journal until I found it. For a moment, I looked at the illustration she had created. A gloved hand held aloft a little glass vial. In the background, I reached for it with eager hands. There were glints of blue in the eyes she had given me. She had tinted the ‘ink’ within the vial yellow and grey. It was not silver but I understood it was meant to be. Slowly I read her words aloud and then turned the book and offered the illustration to Althea and Brashen. Althea scowled at it and Brashen leaned back and crossed his arms on his chest.
‘How do we know that you didn’t write that out last night?’ Brashen demanded.
It was a stupid question and he knew it. But I answered it. ‘One of us is blind and therefore unable to write or draw. And if you suspect me, I have no brushes and inks of a quality to do this, nor the talent for illustration.’ I gently fanned the pages of Bee’s book. ‘And there are many pages of dreams and illustrations that follow this one.’