“Six thousand meters,” Suhail said, translating the unfamiliar numerals written above. “More or less. Assuming I’m converting the units properly.”
That elevation marked a high col or saddle between two peaks. If Mr. Thu was correct, the specimen had fallen several hundred meters down a nearly sheer face to the spot where he found it. “What makes you think it was up there originally?” Tom asked.
“It would not have remained frozen otherwise,” Mr. Thu said with certainty. “Down in the valley, it is very sheltered from wind, and can become quite hot. And besides…”
His hesitation could not have been more effective at piquing my interest had he deliberately calculated it for that purpose. “Besides?” I prompted him.
“I think,” he said, uncertainty dragging at his words, “there may have been another up above.”
FOUR
Routes to Tser-nga—Why I must go—Jake’s suggestion—Major-General Humboldt—Planning—Another for the mountains—Farewell to Jake
From the moment Mr. Thu said “another,” I believe my fate was set.
That Tser-nga was closed to outsiders was not enough to deter me; I had to go and see. “That site is barely within their territory at all,” I said every time someone protested. “I can skirt their borders almost entirely, if I travel up the Lerg-pa River—”
But everyone who knew the first thing about the region assured me I could not possibly do that. The river, though it may look appealing on paper, is apparently the next best thing to impassable in person. “Very well,” I said, “then I will come at it from the west—” But of course that meant Khavtlai, which meant Yelang. And no one was prepared to let me sneak into a country I had been formally deported from, with whom we were currently at war. Nor could I go through Tser-nga itself.
We were at an impasse.
“Just wait,” people said to me, over and over again. “In a few years, when the Aerial War is over and Tser-nga has opened its borders—”
They presumed, of course, that the Aerial War would conclude in favour of Scirland, instead of with the Yelangese occupying Tser-nga and barring my entry even more thoroughly than the locals had. They also presumed that the specimen Mr. Thu had seen (if indeed there was more than one) would still be there in a few years, unharmed by the intervening time, rather than tumbling to the valley below and rotting away as the first one had.
“However old that first one may have been,” Tom said, trying to reassure me, “it survived all this time. There’s no reason to assume the others will perish in a few short years.”
He was endeavouring to be optimistic, and so he did not say the rest of what we were both thinking: it has already been more than a year since Mr. Thu found the first one. It would be longer still before I got there, even if I went immediately. My chance might already be gone.
But I could not allow myself to believe that. I had to hold tight to possibility and move as rapidly as I could. At least then, if my hopes were dashed, I could tell myself I had done everything in my power.
How, though, to reach my destination?
My difficulties could have been worse. Had Mr. Thu found the specimen on the western side of the mountains, I would have needed to dodge Yelangese forces at every turn. But his expedition was unable to scout the Khavtlai edge of the Mrtyahaima satisfactorily; sickness in the district had turned them away, forcing them to seek an approach from the far side. And the area he indicated was so far removed from the Tser-zhag heartland that which nation controlled it depended on which map you consulted: some said Tser-nga, some Khavtlai and Yelang. Either way it was a mere fiction, for the mountains in between were uninhabited.
But never had such tempting bait been dangled in front of me, with so many obstacles between.
Suhail watched me chew on this problem for days. Then, one evening as we sat in my study, he said, “Please do not take this the wrong way. But … why are you so determined to go?”
Another man might have failed to understand the magnitude of my obsession with dragons, but not Suhail. He had come with me into the depths of the Jefi in summer; he knew that risking life and limb for knowledge was nothing new to me. His question carried a different implication. “You mean, why am I pursuing this so passionately, when there are other, easier goals I might more plausibly attain. Goals which would have a much better chance of furthering our knowledge of dragonkind.”
“Even Mr. Thu is not certain there was another specimen in the col. He saw it through field glasses, not in person.”
Meaning that I might go all that way, moving heaven and earth to do so, only to have nothing to show for it at the end. I rose and paced my study, as I so often did—to the point that my carpet had a distinctly worn track in it. “My scholarly contributions of late…” I sighed. “I feel like I haven’t done anything.”
This took Suhail aback. “But the Fraternity’s work in Qurrat—your correspondence with the dragon-breeders in Bayembe—”
“Is all letters, letters, letters. Sitting on my posterior in this room, applying my brain to things, but not applying my spirit. And how much of my time is eaten up by other affairs? Patronage, public speaking, advice to others. It’s all very useful, I’m sure.” I meant the words to be sincere, but they came out scathing. My shoulders sagged. “I haven’t been out in the field since we discovered the Watchers’ Heart. I could go somewhere—Otholé, perhaps—but what would I do there? What question would I be answering, beyond some basic study of dragons not yet examined?”
Suhail rose and stopped me mid-stride, his hands on my arms. “Isabella. Why this doubt? It has never disappointed you to do basic study before.” He smiled, trying to coax a similar lightness from me. “Sometimes I think there is nothing in the world you love better than to describe some characteristic or behaviour never before set down in print.”
I had no answer for that. I could not explain the restlessness within me, the feeling that I must do something tremendous or my time would be wasted. Was it simply that I had grown so accustomed to making spectacular discoveries that the thought of doing the work of an ordinary scientist was tiresome to me? Dear heaven: if so, then I would have to go ice my head until the swelling went down. I had already been more fortunate than most scientists are in their entire lives.
Then the truth became clear to me. Without even thinking, I pulled free of Suhail’s hands, turning away to resume my pacing.
“Isabella.” His voice was very quiet, but no less fervent for that. “Tell me.”
I could not face him while I said this—but it must be said. I fixed my gaze upon the wall map, pocked with symbols and notes marking dragon breeds and Draconean ruins. Addressing the map, I said, “I think I am jealous.”