City of Dragons

On and on she walked; no two figures were alike. Here was a slender boy stepping up on an offered knee preparatory to mounting his partner’s shoulders. Here was a man with a flute set to his lips and three small carved black dogs at his feet, all on their hind legs and ready to dance to his tune. The next was a girl with her face and arms painted white, in a gown decorated with gilt to mimic golden thread. Gilded, too, was her crown of feathers and rooster heads, and in her hands a scepter that looked more like a feather duster. Beyond her were twin girls, as lithely muscled as ferrets and clad only in brief bright skirts and a twist of cloth that scarcely covered their breasts. The skin of their arms and bellies and legs was painted with extravagant curlicues of blue and red and gold. Alise paused before them, wondering if the designs had been tattooed on or if they had been painted afresh for each performance. She had no doubt that each carving represented a very real and individual member of an entertainment troupe that had once performed in this very theater.

Completing her slow circuit of the theater, she stood once more looking down on the stage. How did one document this? Or explain it? Why bother? A year from now, or two, every one of the statues would be gone, separated from their company and carted off to Bingtown to be sold to the highest bidder. She shook her head but could not clear it of the dismal thought. “I’m sorry,” she told them softly. “I’m so sorry.”

As she turned to leave she noticed a gleam of something on the floor. She scuffed her rag-wrapped boot across it, baring a silver strip as wide as her hand. She knelt down, pulling off her worn glove, and used her hand to brush the dust from it. But at the touch of her hand, the silvery strip sprang to life. Light raced away from her touch in all directions, ribbons of it emanating from where she stood, outlining the aisles and racing up the walls to frame the distant overhead window in a complicated knot of silvery gleaming light.

“Jidzin,” she said quietly, almost calmly. “I’ve seen this before, the metal that lights at a touch. There was a lot of it in Trehaug, once.” But she doubted it had been like this. This was completely intact and functional. She remained stooped, touching the strip and looking up in wonder at how the silver light woke the ancient hall to gaiety. Almost she expected the music that would announce the pause before the beginning of a performance.

Every hair stood up on her body as a ghostly music began to play. It was thin and distant but unmistakably cheery. A horn tootled merrily, and some string instrument pursued it, note for note. And then the statues began to move. Heads nodded in time to the music, the feather duster became a baton, the twin girls moved in unison, a step forward, a step back. Alise gave a sob of terror as they came to life. She tried to get to her feet and instead sat down flat. “No,” she whispered in an agony of fear.

But the statues came no closer. The music played and they moved, nodding time, waving hands gently, lips smiling but eyes unseeing. As she watched, the music faltered, the statues’ gestures became more hesitant and sporadic, and then, as the music broke and wavered unevenly, the statues shuddered to a halt. The music ceased and the silvery shining of the jidzin slowly failed. In moments, the only light in the great hall came once more from the distant overhead glass dome, and the statues fell to stillness.

Alise sat on the floor, rocking herself gently. “I saw it. It was real,” she assured herself. And knew as she spoke the words that she was the last person who would ever see this particular Elderling magic.

Outside, the rain had ceased. The wind was cold, but it was pushing the clouds clear of the sun, and the additional light was very welcome. Alise pulled her damp cloak closer, but the wind found every tear in it and fingered its way in to touch her with chill hands. She hurried along, then turned down a side street to escape the direct push of the wind. She startled when a raven gave a sudden disapproving caw and lifted from the eaves of a building to sweep away in flight. Here, if she walked close to the front of the buildings, she was sheltered and the weak sunlight even held a trace of warmth. She pulled her gloves back on as she walked. When was the last time she had felt warm all the way through? The answer came quickly: the night before Leftrin had left to return to Cassarick. She wondered where he was on the river and how the storms were affecting his passage. He had assured her that the trip downriver would be much swifter than the one upriver had been, and that the shallows that had slowed their passage and confounded them for days would no longer exist.

“All we’ll have to do is follow the strongest current downstream; there’s no trick to it. And if we have doubts, well, I’ll just let Tarman have his head, and he’ll find the way for us. Trust me. And if you cannot trust me, trust my ship! He has protected generation after generation of my family from this river.”