Boomer. What a stupid, troglike name. She shifted uneasily on the seat, resettling the hatchling next to her, curling her arm around its back, enjoying its dozy thrum. She sent it a gold-colored chuckle that looked a great deal like reeds waving in a soft wind.
"Comfy, girl?" Boomer asked, scratching up under his bandana.
"Mmmm."
"You can nod off if you want."
"No thanks." Her answer didn't encourage any more questions, and for a long time he didn't ask any.
All the way, in fact, to The Rokk.
***
WHEN THEY CAME at last to the outskirts of the city, Akki sat up straight. As always, the sight of the great walls struck her with awe. In her heart. Or her stomach. She wasn't sure which.
Stone towers, like dragon wings, stretched out on either side of the main structure. Her usual response to spotting The Rokk had been to laugh. This time she just sighed.
"Quite a thing," Boomer ventured. "Never seen it afore, I bet."
She turned and said sharply, "Oh, I've seen it often enough. Even worked here for a while."
He nodded, as if understanding. "Bag girl!"
"Not." Her voice held contempt that she hadn't meant. After all, her own mother had been a bag girl. Had died in a baggerie. And Kkarina, too, had started in a baggerie before turning to cooking. Being a bag girl was an honest profession. She rephrased and softened her answer. "Not a bag girl. A student doctor."
Boomer laughed. "Of course." He obviously didn't believe it. "And that's a waste."
Now that they were in sight of the city, Akki suddenly felt a need to set him straight. If he threw her out here, she could walk—even carrying both the satchel and the hatchling—and be there inside of an hour.
" Of course, you pig. Nothing wasted about me. I was an apprentice doctor and working with one of the finest research doctors on the planet. Her name is Dr. Henkky. Maybe you've heard of her?"
He shrugged noncommittally.
Akki continued. "I'm not one of your pretty girls, Boomer whatever-your-real-name-is. And my father, Master Sarkkhan, owned the nursery where you picked me up."
So much for remaining anonymous.
Immediately she regretted having said anything at all. He could sell that information, could pass it on to ... to ... She had no idea who might want to know, but suddenly sure she should have remained nameless. In his own way, Golden had told them both that before he'd left them at the nursery.
To her astonishment, Boomer began to laugh, full-throated, head back. For a moment she was afraid they'd go off the road. But it would only mean getting stuck in sand, nothing dangerous.
When he finally stopped laughing, he slashed the back of his arm across his eyes as if to wipe away tears. "Oh my, it's lucky you didn't have a stinger with you, Akki. I'd be a dead man already. Deader than a drakk shot out of a tree."
The voice was suddenly sweeter, the pronunciation more precise, more familiar, less ... less Boomer. And he'd called her Akki, not Akkinata. That was when she remembered how he loved disguises. Fake mustaches. Fake scars.
"Golden?"
He grinned. She realized that the black tooth was beginning to shred.
"Golden!"
He tore off the bandana and the fake hair. Stripped the padded gloves from his hands. Took out the strange lenses from his eyes, which were now the calculating river blue she remembered. "Akki, you need to control your urge to give answers where no questions are asked," he said, his face now serious. "What happened to the girl who managed to infiltrate a rebel cell in disguise?"
"She killed her father and dozens of other people and dragons, lived in a cave for a year with a sweet friend, and barely made it home. That's what happened to her."
"Well," he drawled, "that could change a person, I suppose."
She exhaled in exasperation. "I almost drove off with the truck, you know. When you leaped out to—"
"I was ready for that maneuver and wasn't a bit worried. Unless you knew how to turn on the engine without the key." He grinned at her, and despite the black and peeling front tooth, she knew him now. His hands were sweaty from their long stay in the bulky gloves, but they were hardly the meaty, hairy, nail-bitten, filthy things she'd imagined.
Golden seemed to think a minute, then added, "Though it's a fine skill, hot-wiring a car, and I'll teach it to you someday."
She slammed her left fist into his arm. "Golden! But why?"
"To see if you were ready for this."
"For 'this'?"
"This adventure, for lack of a better word. This plan of mine."
" Your plan? It's my plan!"
He laughed, then suddenly looked serious. "What plan?"
"To ... to ... to—" She couldn't tell him, not about the trogs, not about her new abilities. She took a deep breath. "To study to be a doctor and a vet."
He didn't look entirely convinced.
To get him off the scent, she said, "But what plan of yours brought you to the nursery?"
"Well, I was going to come to get you and Jakkin to help me save the senate. Hadn't actually planned when to do it. Any day now. Then Kay sent me a note with one of the food truckers saying that you wanted a ride into The Rokk. Well, it was a sign and much too good to pass up. I didn't want her or Likkarn to know it was me, though. Too many questions, too many people knowing my business. Though now I'll have to come back another time to get Jakkin."
She was totally confused. "Save the senate from—who exactly?"
"From the new ragtag voters, ex-bonders and ex-rebels who haven't a clue as to how the country can be run or should be run, who will vote for the one who promises them free chikkar or a new job or brings on the bag girls. They want entertainment, not governance."
She understood now. "You want us to help save your senate seat."
He nodded, grinning.
"And what do you have in mind for Jakkin and me to do?"
He pulled over to the side of the road, stopped the truck, turned to her, and said with great earnestness, "You're to tell them about what the rebels did, their plans, how they fooled you, how they—"
She was stunned. "How about how you put me in danger, how you set in motion the events that made Jakkin and me carry a bomb into Rokk Major, which killed my father and—"
He put his hand toward her but when the dragon hissed, he drew it back. "You were our only hope to infiltrate that cell, Akki. They sussed out all our other operatives, were killing them off one by one. We never thought they'd trust you that soon with a bomb. Fewmets, girl, we didn't even know that they actually had bombs. We just wanted to learn their plans."
"We?"
"Your father, several of the senators, me."
"Ah—the plot sickens, as my father used to say."
He laughed. "Thicken or sicken, the plot still needs your help."
Suddenly she was as furious with him as she'd been with Jakkin. Maybe more so. Boys and their games! "Couldn't you have just flown to the nursery in the copter and asked if Jakkin and I wanted to be your mouthpieces? Given us the choice? Though who in her right mind would have thought you'd be good at being straightforward and honest?"
He bristled. "I'm a senator. And ..."
"Not to be trusted."
He laughed. "That too, I suppose." Turning his head toward her, he said, "Think, Akki."
She said slowly, "Last time you asked for my help, I was almost killed. And my father was. Part of your peaceful revolution, was it?"
"Think some more, Akki." Now he was looking straight ahead.
"Damn you, Golden. 'No more masters, no more slaves,' you said, and we believed you."
"And haven't I delivered?"
"With how many deaths tacked to your door?"
"What's done is over." She could tell he didn't say it lightly. His jawline, even padded by something in his mouth, stiffened as he spoke.
But she wouldn't let him off that easily. Putting a hand on the wheel, she said, "You always did prefer making a game of th
ings. Well, I am done with helping you. Dead and dying people and dragons are no game. Next time ask me in a straightforward manner. No lying, no deceit. Maybe I'll join you, maybe I won't. But you have to promise it will be done in the light, not in the dark."
He was no longer smiling. Sticking the bandana back on, rearranging the long black wig, he put the lenses back in his eyes and drove into the city without stopping. And without promising anything.
12
JAKKIN SPENT the rest of the sun-drenched day with the Heart's Blood's five. Never a quiet place when dragons were around, the oasis also hummed with the pick-buzz of insects. Jakkin swatted at them occasionally when they came close, but they were not biters. They preferred the clusters of burnwort to the sheen of perspiration on his skin.
However, the dragons, already full of wort, were ready for play. Forgetting the insects, Jakkin gave the brood his complete attention. He began by romping with them in the water and letting them churn up the bottom of the spring with their strong feet. Then they lay down contentedly, bubbling in the mud. Their sendings were predictably golden with pops of color.
When they were done with their baths, he played catch-me-catch-you, though of course the dragons always caught him. The triplets—Trisss, Trisssha, and Trissskkette—were especially good at this game, figuring out where he was by some sort of mental trisection. They conversed through a series of high-pitched twitterings, so different from the full-throated roars of other dragons, and their sendings were the same: sputters and spatters of colors almost impossible to read. They were always gentle with Jakkin, though accidents did happen. Trisss, especially, bumped into him more than once. His right arm would be black-and-blue in the morning, but as all dragon masters knew: No bruise, no love.
Now was the time to test their fires. Dragons grew into their ability to flame and they were surely old enough now.
He called to Sssargon in a sending filled with red shafts of light. "Give me fire!"
Sssargon had lain down after the game and now stood reluctantly. Smoke billowed in two thin lines from his nose slits as if he couldn't be bothered to flame.
"Fire!" Jakkin sent again.
The thin lines of smoke fattened a bit, then thinned out again. Sssargon shook his head and lay down.
Jakkin just laughed. Sssargon was rarely one to do anything on command.
He turned to Sssasha, and even before he asked for it, she shot a polite little flame across the narrowest end of the pool. When she abruptly stopped, tiny pieces of ash floated down, looking as if there were bugs congregating on the water.
"Brilliant!" he sent to her, with red skyrockets bursting, though her flame had been just a small controlled burst, nothing brilliant about it at all.
The triplets didn't even bother to answer him, but continued their high twitterings, as if telling a private joke about him.
Jakkin shrugged. Now that he'd made up his mind about the secret, there'd be plenty of time for real training. In fact, all the time in the world.
Finally the dragons all lay down, and Jakkin lay next to them. Because he had no wire brush to clean them with, he burnished their feathery scales with sand. As he worked the sand across the individual scales, he crooned to the dragons one at a time. Then, taking off his shirt, he polished each dragon from tail to nostril slits. First Sssargon, of course, because he demanded it. His running commentary made Jakkin laugh. Then Sssasha, because she never would have asked to be next. And finally, the triplets, until each one thrummed contentedly. The thrumming slipped and slid through their sendings—blue and green ribbons that perfectly reflected the oasis stream.
At last, night came creeping in across the sandy dunes, casting shadows under the water like silent, dark fish. Jakkin put his shirt back on, not caring that it stank of dragon, that it was filthy with mud and sand, that it had been shredded in places by dragon scales. He bedded the dragons down around him and sang them to sleep with an old nursery lullaby.
Hush and sleep,
Your fires keep,
Your dreams are deep,
So hush.
Night is here,
Dark-After near,
But never fear,
So hush.
Sssargon fell asleep almost at once, the membranous second eyelid shuttering across his black eyes. His rest was punctuated with great houghing snores that gusted sand up and around his body. Even asleep, his mind was noisy.
Sssasha settled much more quietly, her body slowing, ears fluttering back and forth, back and forth, the only sign that she was deeply asleep. The sound of her breathing was steady, gentle. Unlike her brother's mind, hers was a silent landscape of rolling hills.
The triplets curled around one another and their breaths made little syncopated popping noises, rather like a strange musical band. It was astonishing that they didn't wake one another. Perhaps it was because they had always slept together, breathed together, even—as far as Jakkin could tell—held the same thoughts, though those thoughts were often unreadable.
He gazed at them all with great affection. Offspring of his beloved red dragon, he couldn't look at them without thinking of her. And of her death—though he pushed that thought away the moment it came to him.
Despite all the noise they made, the sleeping dragons barely stirred. But watching them, Jakkin realized that he was tired, too. In fact, he was exhausted. His right arm ached. Even more, he had to return to the nursery before Dark-After's cold settled in. Just in case Likkarn was watching for him again.
Standing up quietly, he stretched and yawned. Then he turned and tiptoed away from the oasis so as not to wake the sleeping dragons. Though probably it would take an explosion to do that! he told himself.
When he was far enough away so he couldn't possibly disturb them, he headed off over the dunes at a run. Wait till I tell Akki about today. And about the secret. He was sure it would lift her spirits, as it had lifted his. At the least it would be an apology between them, without getting into whose fault the argument had been.
As Jakkin waded back through the weir, the cold water turning his thighs to ice, he saw that Akka—the second moon—was all but caught up with her older brother, Akkhan. When they came to the horizon side by side, Dark-After would spill its four-hour bone-chill everywhere.
He had only a little time left to get to the nursery. Shaking his head, he whispered the old bonder prayer, "Slow, Akka, slow, give me time to go."
As Akka's front rim touched her brother's back, a shadow crossed her. It was a dark, sinuous shape flying in a straight trajectory and heading for Sukker's Marsh. There was no mistaking the creature's long snakelike head.
"Drakk!" Shuddering, Jakkin spit out the name. It left a sour taste in his mouth. "Damned dead-eyed egg sucker."
Like any nursery worker, he hated drakks. One alone could destroy a complete nest of dragon's eggs. And there was never just one drakk. They lived in colonies high up in the spikka trees. The only thing they were good at was destruction. An adult male drakk could rip off a dragon hatchling's leg with a single swift movement of its razored talons, or eviscerate the hatchling, eating the poor thing from the inside out as it lay dying. Even the youngest drakk could puncture the tough shell of a dragon's egg, sucking out the contents in less than a minute.
Austar would be well rid of them. But they were hard to find, harder to kill.
"Drakk." He spat the word out again.
He wasn't worried about Heart's Blood's brood asleep in the oasis. They were yearlings, and even the smallest of the triplets was three or four times the size of an adult drakk, more than a match for it. Especially since they now had flames.
But for a nurseryman, there was nothing good to be said about drakks. They were a disaster from start to finish. There were hatchlings in the incubarn. And hens ready to lay their eggs. And drakks meant danger for all of them. He would have to let the other nursery folk know. He'd have to tell Likkarn. Tomorrow they'd be hunting drakks for sure. Jakkin shuddered. Hunting drakks was a deadly,
dangerous business. And worm's drool—the smell!
Passing the incubarn, Jakkin barely heard the pipping sounds of dragonlings inside, sounds that would certainly draw in the drakk. He tested the doors, making sure they were all shut tight. Windows, too. After that, he had no other thought than to spread the word.
When he opened the door of the bondhouse, the angry buzz inside told him that the nursery was already on the alert. A huddle of men in the dining room were hunched over a large map. Likkarn was pointing at a spot on it, jabbing his finger angrily, while the men nodded and talked at the same time.
Slakk came toward Jakkin, a bundle of bedclothes over his arms and a stinger slung across his back. He was dressed in boots and hunting leathers.
"I'm off to the incubarn," he informed Jakkin dourly. "Want to come?" He held the door open. "Errikkin's in bed pretending to sleep. He can't stand the buggers. As if the rest of us loved them. Everyone else will be there, though."
"The incubarn stall windows and doors seem tight," Jakkin told him. "I already checked."
"Can't be too careful. Drakk can slip through a fewmetty bunghole."
Jakkin agreed. "Drakk can slip through anything larger than their heads." He touched the blood score on his cheek. "I want to talk to Akki first, then I'll meet you there." He went past Slakk to the door into the women's corridor.
"Akki? But she's gone." Slakk's tone made it sound as if this were somehow Jakkin's fault.
Jakkin turned back. "Gone? What do you mean, she's gone? We've only just got here. We haven't been home a week. Gone where?" Though he could guess. His heart seemed to take an extra, stuttering beat in his chest. He was sure Slakk wasn't lying. Slakk's eyes got round and big when he told a lie.
Slakk shrugged. "She grabbed a ride with a big truck going to The Rokk. Driver was tough-looking. Had stayed here overnight. In the big house. Like a visitor. Shaggy black hair. Deep scar." His hand described a hole like a well. "Kay supposedly knew him, or had asked him to come. Or something like that. But I wouldn't have gone anywhere with him. And I'm not a girl."