Daughter of Dragons

Chapter 1-4

She complied. The thick brown fluid burned her fingers, and the chunk-thing burned her mouth, so she spit everything back into the pot without a second thought. Sure that he was testing her, she then hissed, “Not food.”

His astonished look pleased her. Clearly, he had not been expecting her to be so astute. Eager to continue, she then pointed to the next curiosity. “Who?”

“Bed,” Pieter replied, and then scowled at his uninvited guest. “And speaking of which, it’s time for me to turn in. You know, sleep.” He folded his hands against his cheek and closed his eyes. “You’re welcome to stay here for the night, but I’ve only got one bed, and it’s mine.”

To his relief, she showed no interest in contesting his claim, but simply curled up in front of the fire. “Sleep,” she hissed at him. To his ears, it sounded like a command.

Muttering at her seemingly endless supply of nerve, he got up and shut the door. But it didn’t fit quite right in the jamb anymore; and the wind came shrilling in through the resulting cracks. His scowl deepened. He was never going to be able to sleep with that racket in his ears! He glanced at Lathwi, fully expecting her to apologize for the damage she had wrought. To his profound annoyance, she was already fast asleep.

G

A clap of thunder rattled the cabin, shaking Pieter from his slumber. His mood, already rancid from a fitful night’s sleep, spoiled even further as he glanced toward the hearth. Lathwi was still there, softly snoring into the floorboards. The wetness which gleamed on her mail told him that she had been out and back at least once already. He grumbled at her sneakiness, then slung himself out of bed and went outside to relieve himself. Afterward, he tramped over to a nearby shed to tend to his mule.

When he returned, all sopping from the rain, Lathwi was awake. She greeted him with an unnerving grin, then pointed at the door.

“Who?”

“Save your questions for later!” he snapped, as he wrung the water from his beard. “I’ve got more important things to do right now.”

Although she did not understand the sounds, she knew by his tone that he was not ready to begin the lesson yet. That did not bother her—Taziem had taught her how to be patient. She curled herself back into a comfortable ball to watch and wait. Meanwhile, Pieter stirred the fire’s dying embers with a blackened rod and fed it a handful of sticks. Then he took the kettle full of awful not-food outside and came back with sweet-smelling water. Later, when the water started to boil, he scooped a portion of it into a wooden bowl and sprinkled desiccated grass over its surface. The rising steam turned suddenly fragrant. He sniffed at these vapours for a moment, then lifted the bowl to his mouth and supped loudly. When he finally set the bowl down again, he smacked his lips and then favoured her with a smile.

“Ahhh, much better,” he declared. “Nothing drives the rain from your blood like a bowl of hot tea.”

She interpreted this sudden change in his tone as a cue to resume the lesson and so pointed at the door.

“Who?”

For one stunned moment, all he could do was gape at her. Then he shook his head, conceding defeat, and said, “What the hell. It’s as good a way to spend a rainy day as any other.”

“Who?”

Her puzzled frown, comical in its intensity, unravelled the last half-buried threads of his resentment. “Door,” he told her. “You’re pointing at a door.”

The day passed, uneventful except for the rain and wind and the rate at which Lathwi learned to speak. For each new word that Pieter taught her, two others came tumbling out of her memory already ripe with meaning. The flood of knowledge excited her. She waited eagerly for a chance to show it off.

Her chance came that night, when Pieter pressed a hand to his breastbone and said, “I am a man. What are you?”

Without hesitation, she thumped her chest and replied, “I dragon.”

His snort of amusement was not the reaction she had been expecting.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lathwi,” he said. “You’re not a dragon, you’re a woman.” As she tucked the correction away for future reference, he added, “But I must admit that I’ve never met a woman quite like you. Do you come from a warrior clan?”

“Who warrior?”

“A person who fights in wars for a living. A soldier,” he said. Then, noting the frown that was prelude to another ‘who?’, he tried to simplify his explanation. “Someone big and strong, someone skilled with weapons like the sword and pike—“

She understood ‘big’ and ‘strong’ and knew that neither word applied to her. “I not warrior,” she said, cutting his definition short. “I small. Weak.”

His eyes turned suddenly round. “You? Small? Who told you that?”

“Mother say.”

“Dreamer! If she considers you small, then I’d hate to see what she looks like.”

“Say again?”

“Never mind,” he said, and then pushed himself to his feet. “It’s getting late. I’m going to take one last piss and then hit the sack.”

“Who?”

“Sleep, Lathwi. When I get back, I’m going to bed.”

This time, she understood: the lesson was over for now. She banished her disappointment with a shrug, then curled up in front of the hearth to review that which she had already learned. But the fire was down to a clutch of sullen embers now, and could not compete with the chill that was skating in through the cracks in the door. She got up and went over to the woodpile. There, she picked out the biggest hunk of wood she could find and hefted it into the fireplace.

At that very moment, Pieter came strolling back into the cabin. His jaw dropped. The hair above his eyes jumped up.

“Are you out of your mind?” he growled, closing the gap between them in three excited strides. “That’s too much wood for that tiny fire! The embers will smother and then—”

With a whoosh, the log ignited. An instant later, it began to burn with cheerful enthusiasm. Pieter blinked back an overabundance of disbelief, then turned to gape at Lathwi. She did not seem the least bit surprised.

“That’s not supposed to happen,” he sputtered. “Did you do something to make it do that?”

She shrugged. “I Call Fire. Fire come.”

“The fire came when you called it?”

His confusion puzzled her. How else was she supposed to bring fire into this world if not by summoning it? She could not breath it into existence like Taziem and her tanglemates could, but she knew its secret Name and could invoke it when there was need. So long as there was something nearby for it to eat, it did not mind answering her Call. Was he testing her again? Or was it possible that he did not know the power of Names?

“You no can call fire?” she asked.

“No,” he replied, slightly wild-eyed now. “When I want a fire, I make it with flint and tinder.”

The words meant nothing to her. She tried to think, to come up with a reason as to why he should be so unhappy, but the wind kept distracting her with its whistle. She invoked its Name to get its attention, then asked it to go away. The sudden silence was gratifying.

“You did that, too, didn’t you?” he accused.

“You no can?” she asked. He answered her with a shake of his head.

She was amazed. Even the dimmest dragons knew the Names of Wind and Fire; and brighter dragons knew many more. Names were everywhere—all one had to do to learn them was listen. But, she reminded herself, Pieter was different. If he could not hear mind-speak, then he could not be rightly expected to hear fire or water, either. She wondered if the problem came from not-hearing or not-listening; and if Pieter was the only human so afflicted. Whether he was or not, though, it seemed like a most dismal way to go through life. She curled up by the now-crackling fire to further contemplate the matter.

Pieter, too, was lost in thought, but he was not nearly as philosophical. He was desperately trying to figure out a way to get rid of Lathwi. He didn’t want a sorceress hanging around his house, conjuring up fire and The-Dreamer-only-knew what else. That was one of the reasons he had left the city of his birth so long ago. He wanted normal. He wanted safe.

And he wanted Lathwi gone.

But how to get her out of here? He could not just kick her out—fears of supernatural retaliation aside, he simply lacked the muscle for the job. And murder was out, too, for despite his solitary lifestyle, he was a civilized man. His thoughts drifted back to the city of his birth. Lathwi might like it there, he thought then. His aunt certainly did, and she was a sorceress. Liselle might even welcome the company of one of her own kind. Or, if nothing else, she would know where to send Lathwi next.

He decided then: he would take Lathwi to Compara. The journey would be time-consuming and inconvenient, but where sorcery was concerned, there were far worse prices to pay.