Blood of Dragons - Страница 31

‘Thank you.’ The two words were almost more than Malta could manage. Her body was still flushed from a hot bath and her hair was damp on her shoulders. They had been the only inhabitants of the dragon baths. Malta vaguely appreciated that at any other time she would have been awed by the immense chamber with the distant ceilings and the magic of the hot flowing water. But sorrow and weariness had driven all wonder from her heart. In a daze, she had rubbed days of salty sweat from her body. The hot water had drained away the aches from her bones, but also the last of her stubborn strength.

Alise had been so kind as to hold the wailing Phron while Malta bathed and washed her hair. He was quiet now in her arms, but Malta could feel that his little body was slack with weariness, not sleepy and content. He had cried himself out in Alise’s arms and come back to his mother as limp as a rag doll. He had seemed to be asleep when she had gently lowered his little body into the water. But his eyes had opened at its embrace, and she had been pleased to see him stretch out in the steaming bath and wave his little arms and legs about in it. He had patted the water’s surface and looked first startled and then pleased at the splashes he made. She had smiled to see him behave so much like an ordinary child. But as the coloured scales on his body had flushed and then deepened in hue, she had known a wave of uneasiness. ‘Something is happening to him!’

‘That happened to the keepers, too,’ Alise had assured her. She had waited at the edge of the immense tub, a drying cloth open and ready to receive the baby. Malta had smiled up at her. The Bingtown woman had not changed nearly as much as the other members of the expedition. It took a discerning eye to notice the scaling behind her eyebrows and on the backs of her hands. Her words still held the intonation of the scholar. ‘The hot water made the dragons grow quite a bit and seemed to ease their aching. We could literally see the colours spreading on their wings and then deepening. They stretched, and their bodies seemed to take on a new alignment. And they grew, some startlingly. Tinder went from pale lavender to a deep purple with gold tracery. Spit had always had a rather stubby tail. Now it seems the appropriate length for his body. After a day or two of access to the water and warmth, almost all the dragons could take flight from the ground. And now, of course, they all can. The keepers experienced similar changes: brighter colours, lengthening limbs. Thymara’s wings are astonishing now.’

‘Wings?’

The older woman nodded. ‘Wings. And Sylve may be growing a crest on her brow.’

‘Did I change?’ Malta had asked her immediately.

‘Well, you seem to shimmer more brightly to me. But perhaps that is a question better asked of your husband, who knows best how you usually look.’

Politeness ruled Alise. She would not say what Malta knew was true. She had been so unkempt from her constant vigilance over little Ephron during the journey that Alise could not tell if the changes in her scaling were merely that she was clean now, or if her dragon characteristics had advanced. Malta found she didn’t care and smiled wearily. Look what it had taken to erode girlish vanity, she thought to herself. Merely threaten my son’s life and none of it mattered any more.

She looked down into his little face. He was silent but not asleep. His face did not look like the face of any baby she had ever seen before. His little mouth was pinched up as if he were in pain, and his breath whispered through his narrow nostrils. She tried to see him impartially; was he an ugly child, doomed to be rejected by other children as he grew? She had found she could not tell. He was Ephron, her little boy, and his differences were part of who he was, not points to be compared with others. With a forefinger, Malta had traced the fine scaling that outlined his brows, and he closed his eyes. She had handed him to Alise who wrapped him in the waiting towel, while she waded wearily out of the water.

Her skin had dried quickly in the warm chamber, and Alise had supplied her with an Elderling gown of shimmering pink. The gleaming colour reminded Malta of the inside of a conch shell. At another time, she would have longed to see herself in a mirror, to admire the supple fall of the soft fabric. But at the pool’s edge all she had wanted was her child back in her arms.

Now she stared numbly down the hall of closed and opened doors. Choices, some she might make and others closed forever to her. How did one ever know how one small choice might forever change the course of one’s life?

‘Let me show you a chamber I think you’ll like and settle you there for the night. In the morning, after you’ve rested, if you don’t like it, you can change it.’

Malta realized that she hadn’t moved nor spoken in several minutes. Had she fallen asleep standing up? ‘Please,’ she said faintly, and did not mind when Alise took her arm and guided her down the hall. It was a relief to be away from the keepers’ noisy and joyous welcome. When they had introduced themselves, several had seemed stunned. ‘The King and the Queen of the Elderlings!’ someone had whispered.

Malta had shaken her head, but it had not seemed to affect their awe. They had pelted them with hundreds of questions and Reyn, knowing her exhaustion, had tried to answer them. The girls had seemed entranced by her baby and even the boys had come to look on him in amazement.

‘Like Greft,’ one of them had exclaimed as he stared at her boy. A taller keeper on the verge of manhood had bade him hush and pulled the scarlet-scaled boy aside. Reyn had read her anguished look and drawn the keepers off, while suggesting strongly that Alise help her find a place to bathe and rest. Now here she was, barely able to make sense of things as the evening drew to a close. She had come all this way, hoping to be greeted by dragons. None had appeared. Now all she wanted was Reyn back, wanted her little family close at hand again.

At the end of the hall Alise escorted her through a door that swung wide at her touch. The room had been dark but it lit as they entered, gaining sourceless light slowly until a warm glow suffused the room. There was no hearth, Malta noticed with dismay, and almost as if Alise heard her, she said, ‘The rooms stay comfortably warm. We don’t know how. The chairs and the beds soften as you sit on them, and we don’t know how that works either. There is still so much to learn about Kelsingra. There is no bedding either. Perhaps the Elderlings had no need for it when the rooms stayed warm. Some of the closets had clothing in them, and a few of the shelves and cupboards held personal items. Some things were of obvious use, such as brushes and necklaces, and others we didn’t understand at all. I’ve urged all the keepers to leave non-essential items in place until we can learn more. But,’ a small sigh, ‘they do not listen to me very well. Jerd is the worst, treasure-hunting from building to building and amassing more jewellery than one woman could wear in a lifetime, with no thought as to where it came from or who wore it before her. Goblets made of gold, as if we had wine worthy of them. A mirror that shows what it should have reflected the moment before, so she can examine the back of her head. And useful items as well. A pot that warms whatever is put into it. Stockings with sturdy soles that adjust to the wearer’s foot … Oh. I’m sorry. I’m chattering away while you stand there. Come. This room only has a table and chairs, as if for a gathering of people, as you can see. But here is a bedchamber, and those other two doors also go to bedchambers. As soon as you sit down on one of the beds, it will start to soften to your form.’

Malta nodded dumbly. ‘Reyn?’ she asked wearily, and Alise promised, ‘I’ll see that he knows where you are. You are exhausted, my dear. Go to bed right away, for the sake of your child, if not yourself.’

Alise patted the bed and Malta carefully set Phron down on it. He squirmed and with a sinking heart, she knew he was going to wail again. Then, as the bed softened around his tiny form, his cross expression eased. As she watched him, his eyes sagged slowly closed. Reflexively, she leaned down, putting her cheek and ear near to his face, to assure herself he was breathing. She so wanted to follow him into slumber, but not yet. Not yet. A sad smile twisted her mouth as she recalled how her own mother had always seen to her children’s needs before she allowed herself to rest.

‘His things,’ she said, turning to Alise. ‘Will my trunks be brought here? There is a blue case that has all Phron’s things in it, his extra napkins, his little robes and soft blankets …’ She let her voice trail away as she wondered what was wrong with her, to be so stupid as to leave such things behind. She could not seem to focus her thoughts; her mind seemed to buzz with a thousand half-remembered ideas …

‘Malta!’ Alise’s voice was almost sharp and the Bingtown woman gave her elbow a gentle shake. ‘This city is full of Elderling memories. This building does not seem to be as heavy with them as some, but still, it is easy to let your mind drift here and lose track of what you were thinking and doing. Will you be all right sleeping here tonight? Do you think you should return to the ship?’

The moment Alise mentioned it, Malta recognized it for what it was. Memory-stone, full of stored lives and thoughts. She squinted her eyes tight and opened them again. ‘I’ll be fine, now that I’m aware of it. I’ve been around it before. The first time was when I went into the buried part of Trehaug, to try to find Tintaglia and plead with her to leave Reyn alone.’