The Dragon Keeper
And so he had shown her the “city,” though Cassarick scarcely merited the word. It was a lively town, still young and raw and growing. She was sure now that Captain Leftrin had deliberately chosen to give her the most adventurous tour possible. It began with a dizzying ride up in a basket lift. They entered it and shut the flimsy door securely. Then Leftrin tugged on a line and far overhead, she heard the tinkle of a small bell. “Now wait for them to ballast it,” he told her, and she stood, heart thumping with excitement. After a wait, the compartment gave a lurch and then rose slowly and steadily into the air. The device they rode up in was built of light yet sturdy materials and was so small that they had to stand with their bodies nearly touching. Alise stood looking out over the rim of the basket but could not help but be aware of Leftrin’s stout body just behind hers. Midway in their journey, they met the lift tender coming down in the opposing basket. He stood amid a stack of ballast stone, and by a means she couldn’t see, he halted both baskets in midjourney for Leftrin to pay the lift fee. Once the man was satisfied, he continued down while their basket continued to rise. The view was astonishing. They traveled past thick branches with footpaths on top of them, past rows of houses dangling like ornaments from tree limbs, past rickety bridges and little basket trolleys whizzing past them on lines that reminded her of the washing line at home. When they finally arrived at their destination and the lift tender’s assistant halted their flight, they were so high in the trees that stray beams of bright yellow sunlight filtered down through the thick foliage. The attendant opened the lift door and Alise stepped out onto a narrow balcony affixed to a heavy tree limb. She looked over the edge, gasped, and then nearly shrieked when Leftrin took a sudden and firm grip on her arm. “That’s a good way to get dizzy, your first time up a trunk,” he warned her. He guided her along a narrow footpath that ran along the thick branch, back toward the trunk of the tree.
She tried to be casual as she set both her hands to the coarse bark of the trunk. She wanted to hug the tree, but it would have been like trying to hug a wall. The flora and the foliage here in the Rain Wilds were on so immense a scale that they seemed more like geographical features than botanical ones. To Leftrin’s credit, he hadn’t said a word while she caught her breath and found her dignity. When she turned back to face him, he smiled in a way that was friendly, not teasing, and said, “I believe there’s a very nice little tea and cake shop this way.”
Captain Leftrin was a rough man, almost coarse. Handsome he was not, nor particularly groomed, nor even educated. He didn’t care that he spilled his tea in his saucer, and when he laughed, he threw back his head and roared, and every customer in the shop turned to stare at him. It embarrassed Alise. Yet in his company, she felt more like a woman than she had in years, perhaps in her whole life. And that was the thought that made her realize that she had been behaving as if she were not only single, but not accountable to anyone else but herself. The shock of that thought made her catch her breath, and in the next instant she recalled that this sort of misadventure was exactly why Hest had sent Sedric to chaperone her and protect her good name. His good name, she belatedly thought. This was what Sedric had been trying to warn her about. She hastily finished her tea and then sat almost fidgeting as Leftrin slowly enjoyed his.
“I’m afraid I should get back to the Sedric and explain to him the change in plans. I don’t think he’s going to be happy with it,” she said, and suddenly the understatement of that rattled inside her. Sedric had been miserable spending only a few days on the Tarman. How would he react to the news that she’d volunteered herself to be part of the expedition, a trip that would certainly take days and possibly weeks? Would he forbid it?