In fact, I know nothing about any of them, he told himself. Not Balakk or Likkarn or ... Even though he'd lived most of his life among them, they were strangers. He knew the dragons better.
What he did know, however, was that there were always three or four burial boxes kept in a back room of the stud barn. It was an open secret within the nursery, and no one spoke of it for fear of bringing down disaster. "Do not call the Dark Angel, for he will come" was a nursery saying.
But disaster has come, anyway. Jakkin was beginning to think that he was a curse set among them. How could he have considered this place home?
Look at all that had happened because of his presence at the nursery—his mother dead, Sarkkhan dead, Heart's Blood dead, Likkarn partially blinded—old news. And now Arakk dead, Slakk hurt, Errikkin crazy, Akki gone.
All somehow my fault.
Put that bluntly, it sounded stupid. Crazy. Clearly he hadn't killed anybody, but all those things had happened in part or in whole because of him.
All somehow my fault?
He couldn't shake the feeling that there was some truth in that. He tried to sort it out as he walked behind the six men carrying the box to the burial ground. They set the box under the gray-green weeping wilkkin trees.
All somehow my fault?
Jakkin stared down at the deep hole where the box would soon be lowered. He could find no answers there.
He remembered how after his mother had been buried, he'd spent long hours sitting by her grave, calling to her, thinking that if he could just say the right words, she'd return. Kkarina had found him there, a stunned five-year-old. She told him that his parents were in a long, unbroken sleep, and worked with him to make a stone for his mother's grave. It had Mummy on the top, but below it her name, Main. Her free name. She'd been known in the nursery as Makki, because even though she'd been born free, she'd put herself and her young son in bond in order that they might live.
Live. He snorted like a young dragon. She hadn't lived, but died of a broken heart soon after bringing them both to safety, leaving him at the nursery alone and in bond.
After a time, of course, he'd stopped visiting the grave. Except on feast days, or days he and Kkarina picnicked in the graveyard. Or when, as now, he trailed after a new burial. He'd all but forgotten what his mother looked like, how soft her voice was.
There's still apart of me that thinks I can call the dead back with the right words. He hadn't known the right words for his father or mother, or for Sarkkhan, or for Heart's Blood.
If I don't have the right words for those I love the most, how can I possibly know the right words for Arakk, who I hardly knew?
Suddenly everyone around him broke into song, a hymn that Jakkin had learned from his mother, or maybe Kkarina. He sang along with them, which made him feel a little better, as if borrowing words from the old song could serve when he had none.
Oh, God, who sends the double moons,
Who spreads the singing sand,
Take pity on your children here
Upon the bonded land.
For we have been but late in jail,
Our lives not ours to give,
Still with your grace we will arise
And learn once more to live.
He looked down at the red earth, thinking how much it looked like blood. How so much of Austar was blood beneath his feet: human blood and dragon's blood and drakk blood combined. His eyes filled with tears and he breathed slowly, deeply. But he was a man now, so of course he didn't cry.
19
THAT NIGHT, long after everyone was asleep, but well before Dark-After, Jakkin crept back out to the incubarn once more. He had a leather bag filled with sweet wikki fruit, and a drinking pouch tied to his belt. Opening the creaky door, he went in, standing for a moment to drink in the musky smell. Now the sharp, awful drakk odor was gone and it was all dragon stink again, a familiar smell, and one he loved.
Dragons were so simple. He understood them. And now that he could speak to them mind-to-mind, he could know all their secrets as well.
But humans ... well, they were much too complicated. He hardly understood his own feelings. Of course he didn't really believe he was a curse, the cause of all that had gone wrong at the nursery. But for the moment, watching Arakk's coffin being lowered into its grave, he'd been sure of it.
And then there was Akki. His smile was crooked as he thought of her. Everything came back to Akki. From the first moment he'd really been aware of her, him lying in the hospice bed and she his nurse, till their last quarrel, over ... He couldn't even remember what the quarrel had been about. It didn't matter. Without Akki, he had no reason to stay at the nursery. He would go to The Rokk and try to convince her that they only needed to keep the secret. If Akki was determined to solve the problem of the dragons' gift, then they'd do it together.
After I get some sleep. He was exhausted from the drakk hunt, the burial, the roil of emotions. The few hours he'd slept in his bed, while Errikkin snored in the bunk above, hadn't helped. A few more hours of sleep, this time surrounded by dragons, and he'd be all right again.
Walking slowly into the incubarn, Jakkin listened in on the dreams of all the dragons. The hens' minds were full of slow, pink clouds; the hatchlings all atwitter with bouncy blobs of color. He dipped in and out of their night thoughts.
Auricle, being neither mother nor hatchling, had a clearer mind: cool and somehow soothing. Jakkin went into her stall and plopped down by her side. He adjusted his back against her great pale flank and was asleep within minutes.
***
WHEN HE AWOKE, it was fully Dark-After. He could sense it, the tendrils of cold finding ways into the barn, through small pores in the stone and wood. But the heating system worked well enough, and the dragons added their own warmth.
Jakkin got up, careful not to wake Auricle or any of the others, and left the barn. Predictably, the door squalled, both opening and closing. He should have oiled it when he'd had the chance.
No lights went on in the bondhouse, and Jakkin moved swiftly around the side of the barn.
Once there, he dashed to the weir, then splashed across and headed to the oasis. There was hardly a sound; not even the insects were awake. Overhead the sky was a deep blue shot through with ribbons of purple. It could be read as dangerous, or exhilarating. Jakkin sighed. The rest of the nursery folk would see only the danger, not the beauty. They didn't have dragon eyes.
"Sssargon!" he called aloud when he was finally close to the oasis. "Sssasha! We're going to find Akki. Now." He hoped they were still there, sending a tentacle of color in red, the color of their shared blood. "Come. Come."
For a long moment he heard nothing. Cold crawled across his shoulders. The brilliant sky was still.
And then suddenly he heard the flexing of great wings. A mumble of color crowded into his head. The dragons were beginning to wake: Sssasha first, next her brother, and finally the triplets. They stood, stretched, looked around with eyes that could pierce the dark. They crowded around him, pushing at him with their great keeled chests. Poking into his mind, they sent him rainbows.
"Akki ... Akki ... Akki," they called, picking up his conviction, until his head was a riot of color—first greens and blues like rivers crossing the Austar sands, and then their signature colors of red and rose.
"Yes, Akki," Jakkin crooned to them, caressing their heads, the scales cool under his probing fingers.
The dragons all knew, as he did, that they had but four hours of Dark-After to make a good start without the interruptions of men. Four hours before the nursery folk realized that Jakkin—like Akki—was gone. Four hours till they began to wonder how and where Jakkin was going, till Likkarn figured it out, sent someone after him.
It was suddenly, brilliantly clear that Likkarn wanted Jakkin and Akki separated. He didn't know why Likkarn felt this way—but he knew absolutely it was so.
The five dragons leaped into the air, their wings fanning whirlwinds in the sand, deviling wi
nds that erased some of Jakkin's tracks.
"Good, good," he sang to them.
"Sssargon goesss, Sssargon sailsss, Sssargon soarsss," came the big dragon's voice in Jakkin's head, as if Sssargon were the only one in flight. Typical!
The other dragons said nothing, sent nothing, but Jakkin could hear the flapping of their heavy wings while they searched for a current. Then one by one they each found a road in the sky where they could finally soar silently above the dunes.
Hunching his shoulders, he began to walk. Not back toward the nursery, not toward the road, but across the great sweeping dunes, heading first north and then east. To the city. To The Rokk, some 300 kilometers away. Above him the twin moons showed the way, chasing one another across the night sky.
"Be my eyes and ears," he told the five dragons, and one by one they called out their assent in colorful sendings.
Sssargon circled back, his wings stirring up even more cold. Jakkin could feel it like a wind against his ears, his neck, his spine, but it was not so cold that he had to find shelter.
Four hours. That would give him a good start on Akki's trail. He needed to get away from the oasis, from the nursery. Then he could catch a truck somewhere along the road once Dark-After was done and the sun shone down full force.
Jakkin watched as the five dragons spread out against the deep blue, looking like moving mountains.
"Thou beauties!" he called, his sending a conflagration of fireworks: sparks of red, blue, and blinding white. As his sending blasted toward them, Jakkin wished as never before that he, too, could fly. Wished he could sit on Sssargon's back, wrap his legs around that mighty body, and soar. But anyone who tried any such foolishness would have the inside of his thighs slashed to ribbons by the dragon's sharp scales, scales that moved whenever the dragon moved, sliding across one another in sharp precision. Besides, any dragon, its flight muscles cramped by a rider, would likely tumble down into the pitiless sand.
"I fly with the wings of my mind!" he cried aloud. "My brother, my sisters, I am with you." Even to himself he sounded crazed. But he wasn't mad. He was determined ... determined to find Akki, talk sense into her, and bring her home.
This time the five dragons answered him with comforting sendings: clouds and streams and—from Sssasha—a small sunburst. Then they banked and were gone from sight, winging away toward the horizon.
It was time to put his head down and simply trudge along the sand. Jakkin counted on the dragons to warn him of any problems ahead or behind, but he would need to keep his own ears sharp as well.
There was little on Austar that could hurt a human at night besides the cold. Drakks never attacked men, unless the men were climbing trees or poking at their nests. Most feral dragons would be asleep at this time, or so he hoped. Dragons were mostly creatures of the daylight, not nocturnal, not like drakks. And ferals attacked only when provoked. He understood that now. His father had died trying to train a feral in the sands. The feral had not been amused. An angry feral, an unarmed man ... Jakkin shook his head. What had his father been thinking? Why not just live at a nursery and work with the dragons there?
Stopping for a moment, Jakkin realized that all he could hear was the hearty growling voice of Sssargon in his head. "Sssargon sailsss. Sssargon looksss. Sssargon staysss awake."
"Thank you, Sssargon," he called back, knowing that the dragon would take such thanks as his rightful due. He even sent a spray of fireworks. Sssargon liked fireworks, the louder and brighter, the better.
Of course all five of the dragons would stay awake this night, the other four needing neither his thanks nor his permission. But he sent them each a lovely picture of a boy in the dark, surrounded by his own red aura, the exact color of their mother, Heart's Blood. They would understand and be pleased that he took the time to send it.
He himself wouldn't sleep until the early dawn, and then only for about an hour. Walking would keep him warm enough in the cold of Dark-After. He sang one of the old nursery marching tunes, to keep himself awake and moving.
Wings abeating, cold arising,
Time is fleeting, dark disguising,
Onward flying on the course,
Death-defying dragon-saurs.
Wings aflapping, moons are setting,
No more napping, time forgetting,
Set for landing with great force
Together banding dragon-saurs.
Wing-to-wing with scale and feather,
Fire-breathing, all together
Heading toward the common source,
Sun and moon and dragon-saurs.
And it worked. For a while.
20
NOW JAKKIN could feel a slightly warmer river of wind across his back. It was time for a quick nap. He found a tree—not tall and spindly like the spikkas, but something less grand. He didn't know what it was called. It had an outline that reminded him of Kkarina, being as round as it was tall. The leaves each had four broad fingers, fanned out like an open hand. There was a hollow in the dark trunk, and he curled into it to sleep.
While he slept, the brood landed on the sand near him and crept close. The triplets fell asleep instantly, wrapped around one another like scaly spoons. Sssargon slept standing, on watch. But Sssasha moved as near to Jakkin's tree as she could, slipping under the lowest branches and creating a radiating warmth with her body, a warmth that covered him like a blanket. He wasn't awake enough to realize why he was warm, but he smiled in his sleep.
When the sun climbed above the horizon, Sssargon shook himself all over and sent a message to his siblings and Jakkin. "Sssargon wakesss. Sssargon readiesss. Sssargon fliesss." Pumping his mighty wings, which caused the sand to eddy all around him, he leaped into the air.
The triplets woke at his sending, but slowly, twittering to one another.
Stepping back from the tree with a lightness that was extraordinary given her bulk, Sssasha bent her great neck to check what was behind her. Satisfied, she stepped back, then nudged the sleeping boy before blasting him with a cascade of yellow bubbles.
"Come," she sent. "Come."
Jakkin woke with a start, popped the bubbles. Sat up. Hit his head on the inside of the tree's hollow, and cried out, "Fewmets! Fewmets! Fewmets!" His sending was large, dark, and stinking, just like fewmets. He'd been dreaming about a cave and a sending, a dark vine, a pillar of light. And dreaming about something else.
"Fewmets!" he said again, remembering.
Sssasha and the triplets laughed.
Rubbing his head ruefully, Jakkin emerged from his sleeping quarters. "Couldn't one of you have reminded me I was in a tree?" He looked up at the sky, saying aloud, "How long did I sleep? Is it late?"
Sssasha sent him a dark horizon line with a red sun hovering a tiny space above.
Standing, Jakkin looked around. It was barely day. His eyes were full of grit, his mouth felt as if he'd been eating dirty sandals, his head ached as much from the awful dream as from the bang on his temple. "But at least I haven't overslept." He laughed a bit ruefully, the chuckle turning into dancing dust motes that he sent to the dragons, who chuckled in return, though they were laughing because he was laughing, not because they understood the joke.
Humor is tough enough among humans and almost impossible across species, he thought.
He checked where the sun was rising, over the long low outline of the dunes with rolling hills beyond. It would be another hour yet before full daylight. He turned and pointed toward the northwest.
That way. It was not as flat as the sand to the east. In fact, farther along there were hills, rolling and stubbled with a kind of green fuzz, like a short bad haircut. And behind the fuzzy hills, the winding Narrakka River, contained within vertical cliffs. And then—the mountains.
Mountains! Brooding shadows that reminded him of drakk hunched in the nest, ready to kill anything that came near. Jakkin shivered thinking of the mountains and the foothills honeycombed with caves where the wild trogs lived, where danger waited at every turning
. But even while he shivered, another part of him ached with longing for the places where he and Akki had lived together happily, peacefully, for a year.
Sssargon sent a loud, blood-red waterfall that washed over them both. "No mountainsss! No!"
"Of course not," Jakkin said, all the while smoothing the red waterfall away until it was a cool blue and white. "We have no need to go back into the mountains."
And they didn't. All they needed to do was to find a truck barreling along the road, a road that should be just past the sands and right before the rise of the cliffs that contained the river. Then Jakkin could ride to The Rokk and the dragons could follow the snaking road from above. "Find me a truck, my beauties. Fly up. Fair wind."
Obeying him, Sssasha pumped her wings and rose, slowly, stately, till she was even with her brother. The triplets fairly leaped into the air, almost crashing against one another, their twittering voices cascading through Jakkin's mind.
Once again Jakkin wished that he, too, could fly. But it was feet not wings for him. Another few miles and they should be at a crossroads. That's where he'd have his best chance of finding a ride.
As Jakkin suspected, the road lay ahead with the hills on one side, the flat desert on the other. The flying dragons kept sending him colorful maps that frequently overlapped and were often contradictory. So Jakkin climbed a hillock, then hunkered down to gaze at the snaking gray road far below.
"We can wait here until a truck comes," he said aloud, sending a picture of a boy on a hilltop, resting. "Wake me for the truck." Then he curled beside a gray-green bush that had small spikes of new growth, and began to drift off.
The world was quiet around him. No sound on the road yet. The birds strangely still. Sleep came quickly, grabbed him by the neck and wouldn't let him go.
***
HE DREAMED of flying over the hills, over the mountains, touching down before a cave. A cave he recognized, with a knot of intertwining branches of caught-ums making a screen over the entrance. He put his hand out carefully, to open the door and—