The risk was minimized in part because we were not, in fact, going to hunt a dragon. Tom and I suspected that the spate of men doing so would bring on an equal (if not larger) spate of government officials or soldiers trying to put a stop to the practice; and our desire to avoid prison, which I have already mentioned, argued in favor of keeping our noses clean of anything worse than ink.
We therefore set out armed only with field glasses and notebooks. We did not carry a single gun between ourselves, nor any knife longer than a hand’s span. If accosted, we could say with perfect honesty that we had not the means to kill a dragon, much less the desire.
For this side expedition, our company consisted only of myself, Tom, Elizalde, and Khüen, our guide. I was not entirely convinced of our safety, and if arrest should happen, I did not want it to catch my son or his long-suffering governess in its net. We intended to be gone for approximately three weeks, during which time the Basilisk would go about its other duties, meeting us back in Va Hing in mid-Ventis.
Those of you who have read the earlier volumes of my memoirs may notice an oddity here. Of the four in our group, I was the only woman. The same had been true in Vystrana, but my husband was with me then; in Eriga, I had Natalie as my companion, excepting only when I was separated from her by the events at the Great Cataract. Never before had I deliberately gone gallivanting off without any kind of chaperon for my virtue.
It was not my wisest decision. Though I could not know it at the time (our mail being most irregular; it had to await us where we might arrive soon, or else chase us from port to port), the letters and reports I had written about our time in Namiquitlan had excited comment back home.
Ever since I went to Bayembe, rumours of loose behaviour had dogged my steps, particularly where my interactions with Tom were concerned. I was, after all, on a first-name basis with the man, and there were some who could not conceive that we might simply be friends and professional colleagues. (Or, I think, that any woman might be in such a relationship with any man.) I had learned to shrug off these whispers, largely because I lacked any viable alternative: insisting on their groundless absurdity only encouraged those who wished to think the worst of me.
But meat loses its savour after it has been chewed for long enough, and so various gossips had begun to link me with every man who crossed my path for more than five minutes. At home, that had been the assorted gentlemen who attended my Athemer gatherings; now that I was on this expedition, Dione Aekinitos had been drawn into the net. And so, it transpired, had Suhail.
I had written too effusively of him in my reports to the Winfield Courier—though perhaps any effusiveness was too much, where a strange man was concerned. That, in combination with some of my letters to various correspondents, had planted the notion that our interactions in Namiquitlan were something less than innocent. When I wrote to the Winfield Courier about my trip to the interior of Yelang, I did not think to conceal the fact that my companions consisted of Tom (my supposed long-term lover), Elizalde (a sailor and therefore salacious), and Khüen (who, as a foreigner, provided an exotic spice to the whole ménage). Primed by tales of my supposed fling with a handsome Akhian traveller, the scandal-sheets back home were quick to declare me now fallen beyond all hope of redemption.
I knew nothing of this as we journeyed away from the coast. We were not headed into wilderness; where Yelang extends its control, it also extends its highways, which are excellently maintained. We stayed in roadside inns or, when those ran out, the houses of hospitable locals. At all times I had a room of my own, or else shared with other women. Not once did I share with Tom or the others, whatever the rumours later claimed. But I was unmarried and unchaperoned, and that was more than enough.
We did not originally intend to travel so far into the interior. Khüen meant to bring us to a place much closer, where we could spend two weeks or so in observation before returning to Va Hing and the Basilisk. But when we came there, the village headman told us, with much regret, that there were no dragons to be found in the vicinity. He recommended a neighbouring town, a day’s journey farther inland. There we met with much the same story, and so onward, until we were nearly at the end of our rope: if we went any deeper into Yelang, we would not return to Va Hing in time.
Tom and I could guess the cause of our difficulty. We assured Khüen, over and over, that we did not blame him for the failure to find dragons; it was not his fault that others had already denuded the countryside. Each time we heard yet again that there were no dragons there, however, I grew more sick at heart. I felt terribly adrift, more than a week’s journey into a land where I spoke scarcely two dozen words of the language, with evidence all around me that dragons were being exterminated for their bones. If I could have wished myself back home in Falchester, the entire expedition of the Basilisk canceled, I might have done it.
But I could not, and so I pressed onward. We were at the foot of the An Kang mountains, and on their slopes, the locals assured us, dragons could be found. “Two more days,” I said to Tom.
He inhaled, looking apprehensive. “We’ll be late coming back.”
“Aekinitos might be late himself,” I said. “Winds and weather are not fully predictable. And he will not begrudge us a few days, not when the alternative is to have wasted this entire effort.” So I hoped, at least; but I did not let my doubts show.
Tom did not want our side trip to end in failure any more than I did. “Two more days,” he said, and we went on.
* * *
I am grateful we travelled two days farther into the interior, not only for what I learned of Yelangese dragons, but for the other things I learned along the way—though at the time I was not grateful at all.
First I should speak of the dragons. What we found there in the mountains were two of the broad type the Yelangese call ti lêng or “earth dragons” (as contrasted with the tien lêng or “celestial dragons,” which can fly). There is debate even now about the precise classification of that breed; I will not delve into the specifics of that debate here, but merely note that the locals termed these particular creatures tê lêng, which in Yelangese writing includes a component that likens them to mountain demons. If I were to call them “mountain demon dragons,” though, it would give you entirely the wrong impression of their nature. I shall therefore leave it at tê lêng, on the grounds that those of you who know enough of Yelangese writing to know the reference also know not to read too much into the term.
They are not demonic in the slightest, save insofar as they are majestic and dangerous creatures, which gives them a supernatural aura in the eyes of the humans who encounter them. Their scales shade beautifully from grey to black in wavering stripes, which makes for excellent camouflage in the mountain rivers where they spend much of their time. (Many Yelangese dragons are either aquatic or amphibious.) Like most of their kind, they possess long, whisker-like tendrils on the snout, not unlike those found on sea-serpents, and a shorter fringe beneath the jaw; but unlike most, they have no horns—those being a particular characteristic of the Dajin branch of the draconic tree.
One other thing distinguished them from the rest of their kind: the two we found were a mated pair. I can say this with certainty because we came upon them mating—a rare sight, as they are long-lived creatures and do not breed frequently. I was perhaps more elated by this good fortune than is proper to admit; once again, I fear I shall give my editor the vapors by discussing such matters outside a purely scholarly context (where the more distant phrasing can lend a veneer of respectability to the otherwise prurient-seeming habit of a naturalist spying on other creatures’ intimate lives). But it was a tremendous sight: they danced in the midst of a river, twining about one another’s bodies, occasionally rising into the air in a manner not unlike that of the sea-serpent which had attacked us. Upon being asked, the locals confirmed that the two shared the river and had mated together before, with their successful offpsring migrating elsewhere in search of homes. Dragons are often solitary; when t
hey are not, they most often form sibling bands, or juveniles stay for a time with one parent after they are mature enough to survive on their own. Tê lêng are one of the few breeds known to mate for life.
That discovery first elated me, but as we observed the dragons afterward, it made me melancholy. In part this is because I was thinking of the absence of dragons we had encountered on the way here. I cannot pretend, however, that my mood was entirely scientific in origin.
The mating put my mind on offspring, which caused me to miss my son. We had made great strides since those early days in which I could hardly bear to look at Jake, let alone take an interest in his upbringing; and as I had hoped, this journey was bringing us closer still (albeit not without some difficulties along the way). I hoped he was enjoying himself in Va Hing, and not disobeying Abby too much.
But more than that, I found myself envying the dragons before me.
The words look absurd as I write them out. I admire dragons and have made them my life’s work, but I have never wanted to be one. (These were not even flying dragons, whom I might have envied for their wings.) Watching the two tê lêng sunning themselves on the riverbank to dry, though, I was struck by the companionship they shared—or rather that I imagined them sharing. It is not as if they were reading the latest scholarly journal together, or doing anything else I associated with the domestic harmony of marriage. But they were mated, and according to the villagers had been so for many years. I had that briefly, and then I had lost it. Whether I would ever have it again … at the time, I could not say.
Perhaps it is just as well that we could not stay for long. Tom and I had already pressed too far in coming here; we could not risk angering the captain by going completely off the leash. Even if we had allocated weeks in which to study the tê lêng, however, we would not have gotten the chance.
* * *
“Someone’s coming,” Tom said, as I searched for a good path up a rocky face.
“Elizalde?” I asked, for we had left him behind in the village with Khüen while we gallivanted about after dragons.
Tom did not answer immediately. When he did, the tension in his voice stopped me mid-search. “Yes. But he isn’t alone.”
It took me a moment to turn myself about, lest my precarious footing slip out from under me. Once that maneuver was complete, however, I saw why Tom’s voice had gone tight. There was a group of nearly a dozen men headed our way, and while our sailor-interpreter was among them, the rest wore the high-collared uniforms of Yelangese soldiers.
“We haven’t done anything wrong,” I said to Tom, but it came out apprehensive. We had not done anything wrong—that we knew of. In a foreign country, though, it is easy to step awry, simply out of ignorance. And pleading innocence on those grounds does not always find a sympathetic ear.
Whatever conversation we were about to have, it would not be helped by being conducted atop a slope of scree that threatened to go out from underfoot if one inhaled too vigorously. Tom and I picked our way to flatter ground, and by the time we got there, Elizalde and the soldiers had reached us. “What’s going on?” Tom asked.
Elizalde’s answer was simultaneous with the soldiers’ actions: two of them came forward and dragged our packs from our backs, unceremoniously emptying them onto the ground. “They want to know what we’re doing here. They haven’t said it, but I think they think you’re here to hunt dragons.”
In a way, it was almost a relief. This was a difficulty I had imagined before, rather than one which took me by surprise. “They can see for themselves,” I said, trying not to sound too bitter as the soldiers picked through our notebooks and other gear. “We have no weapons of any sort.”
They saw, but it did not seem to impress them. One of them snapped a command at Elizalde, who translated. “He wants to see your papers.”
These we carried in our pockets. Tom and I produced the visas we had bought at such expense and handed them to one of the soldiers, who gave them to the man I supposed was his captain. This fellow looked them over, then tossed them to the ground in annoyance. A second command to Elizalde produced confusion; our interpreter engaged in brief discourse with him. Then he said, “He wants to see your papers for the dragons.”
I frowned in puzzlement. “Our notebooks? There, on the ground.”
Even as I said it, I suspected that was not what he meant. There was a delay, however, when Tom—not wanting to see our investment go blowing off into mountainous oblivion—moved to collect the visas; this provoked some shouting, and only when that was done was Elizalde able to say, “I think he means a permit.”
“A permit to study dragons? No one told me we needed such a thing.” Under other circumstances, it might have occurred to me to wonder whether this was the sort of trick used in bureaucracies the world over, telling the ignorant visitor that he needs to pay for some document the bureaucrat has just made up. These circumstances were specific, though, and my thoughts went elsewhere. I straightened and looked the captain in the eye. “He means a permit to kill them. Doesn’t he.”
The man did not like me staring him down. Or perhaps he spoke some Scirling; I have done it myself, pretending to know nothing of a language so as to eavesdrop on the conversation of others. (It is not polite, but at times it is necessary.) He began a rapid battery of questions, filtered through Elizalde, probing into our purpose and our past; it was all we could do not to inadvertently admit that we had to bribe a functionary in order to enter the country at all.
It might not have made any difference if we had admitted it. The end result was much the same: we were permitted to collect our belongings, then marched downslope to the village, where we gathered Khüen and our remaining gear. We were, the captain made it clear, to return immediately to Va Hing, not pausing or detouring along the way.
And we might have gone quietly, were it not for one thing.
As we prepared to leave, I saw three of the soldiers talking to the village elder who had originally directed us toward the dragons. His gestures now were the same: pointing up the slope, then his hand curving to indicate a bend in the river. The three men nodded and shouldered their rifles, then set out with purposeful strides.
“Isabella,” Tom said in warning, but by then I had already launched myself toward the captain.
It did not matter to me that the man likely did not speak Scirling; the words burst out of me regardless. “That’s what you came here for, isn’t it? To kill those dragons! Are you the ones who laid waste to the countryside below? Now you will come up here and slaughter this pair—”
At this point Tom caught up with me. Eschewing propriety, he flung one arm around my waist and stopped my forward charge, catching my wrist with his free hand when I fought against his grip. I think he tried to say calming words, too, but I did not hear them over my own shouts. “They just mated, you fool! The female is likely pregnant. If you kill her, there won’t be any new generation; you’re burning the forest down just to get a few logs. You can’t shoot them, you can’t!”
I will not relate the rest of my words. Few of them were polite; some were the unfortunate byproduct of months spent in the company of sailors, whose language can be as colourful as advertised. Tom dragged me away bodily while Elizalde and Khüen fell over themselves with apologies; no doubt they had visions of my tirade ending in the lot of us being shot. What the captain said to them, I do not know, for Tom quick-marched me out of the village, not even bringing our packs with us, trusting the other pair to collect what we had left behind.
Which they did, and then we went back to Va Hing.
I would like to tell you that I came up with some clever plan for protecting the tê lêng against the soldiers who had come to kill them. I would not kill the soldiers myself, and my attempts to persuade them (if I may use the verb loosely) had failed—but perhaps I might have found a way to scare the dragons off, at least for long enough that their hunters would give up the hunt.
But I did not. I tried; I racked my brains for an
y method that might suffice. Unfortunately, this was not Vystrana or Mouleen. I had not spent long enough in this locale to know the terrain, nor even the habits of the dragons themselves in any great detail. None of the information that might have given me a chance of success was in my possession. I was a stranger here and a foreigner; and I had a son waiting for me in Va Hing, who needed me to come back to him, rather than being arrested in a foreign country—or shot.
Some of you reading this memoir may think me a hypocrite for my rage. After all, had Tom and I not killed dragons in the course of our research? It was not long since I had sat astride the corpse of a sea-serpent, wet to the knee in water bloodied by its death. But I thought then, as I do now, that there is a great deal of difference between shooting one or two animals for the purpose of better understanding their live cousins, and hunting many for profit. The one makes it more possible for humans and dragons to live in harmony. The other … I had seen the first fruits of that already.
We went in silence for the rest of that day. When we stopped for the evening, Tom said, “Soldiers. Are they doing this on their own time, for money? Or is this something the Yelangese government is backing?”
“I thought dragons were supposed to be protected by the government,” I said.
He shook his head, baffled. “So did I.”
Against my better judgment, I turned to look back in the direction of the mountains—where, I feared, one or both tê lêng already lay dead. “Give me the jungles of Mouleen again,” I said. “I had rather face wild beasts and diseases than the perils of civilization.”