Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits (32 page)

I glanced at my brother. Tell me about the brawls, and about grace, I thought, but I didn't say it. ʺYeah,ʺ I said again. ʺThanks.ʺ

ʺIf your brother calls you Tinhead, what do you call him?ʺ

ʺGeezer,ʺ I said.

Eled laughed.

ʺHis sisters call
him
Ogre,ʺ said Dag. ʺDyla told me. She's the one graduated from here.ʺ

ʺAnd I keep forgetting to grind her bones for my bread,ʺ said Eled. ʺFamilies—who needs 'em?ʺ

As I followed Dag it seemed to me his shoulders were squarer than usual. We went into a slightly less huge building and climbed a lot of stairs, all of our feet making funny noises on the tiles. We had wood floors at home, and Dad's workshop was packed earth. ʺThis is mine,ʺ Dag said on about the ninety-fifth landing, and pushed open a door. I fell in after him, gasping. ʺYou can have the bottom bunk in case Sippy wants to join you.ʺ Dag didn't even sit down, and he wasn't breathing hard. He dumped his pack on the upper bunk and looked at me. ʺI'm going to go see Hereyta. D'you want to come?ʺ

I was sure I should let him greet her in private, but I rolled up instantly off the bed where I had flopped and said yes. It wasn't even anything to do with not wanting to be left behind in a really strange place and wondering what I would say if anyone knocked on the door looking for Dag. I wanted to meet Hereyta.

The dragon
hsa
were on the far side of the training fields which meant a long hike, although the training fields went on and on and on out to either side of us a lot farther yet than what we were walking across. I wondered if a piece of this ground was used for First Flight or if it happened somewhere else entirely. Dragons have tremendously powerful wings to get themselves off the ground at all, and they really lash 'em. And gods help any mere paltry human caught in the backdraft. So maybe the First Flight field, where there would be a whole lot of dragons stirring up storm winds, was some special separate place. In which case I wouldn't see it. Whatever it was like in Eled's granddad's day.

Nobody knows if dragons really can spout fire any more, or whether that's all a complete myth (like whether or not foogits ever had a working third eye), or if over several thousand years of selective breeding humans have managed to get rid of the fire-spouting (in which case we'll be in a lot of trouble if we have a nasty-tempered throwback some day. The myths include whole countries burning if they get a big enough dragon mad at them). Dragons spit a little fire at you no more often than a horse tries to kick you. Which is to say if you treat your dragon nicely you're fine. Or that's the standard line. It's different though because horses are twitchier animals generally; they're prey. Dragons aren't. They can afford to have a look and a think before they do anything about it; nobody's going to bite them on the back of the neck and then tear out their entrails. And domestic dragons have been bred for good temper for a long time. People do get burned, but it's rare, and when it happens it's a huge story and it's told all over the country and everyone's horrified and there's always an investigation because the presumption is the human did something wrong.

But dragons still smell of fire. It's a hot, charred smell, and when you smell it for the first time it's pretty scary, even if it's only one of the little ones carrying freight, and even when it's the other side of the jammed-with-smells fairground from where you are and behind the long series of warehouses there. It's scarier yet when you're walking toward a whole
hsa
full of them. I can't begin to imagine who the first human was who decided to try and tame one. It's like who thought of trying to eat a cawgilly for the first time? They sure don't look like they'd be good to eat and they smell bad too, raw, even after you've got rid of the scent glands. But at least a cawgilly isn't as big as a mountain. Also they run away if they see you coming after them, like a wild horse does. And there's no fire involved.

I kept reminding myself that not only were these tame dragons I was walking toward but this was the Academy, and furthermore I was with my brother who was a First Flighter at the Academy. What was really interesting though is that Sippy, who'd spent most of the last ten days skulking and cowering, wasn't. When we first set off he had made an attempt to run a few circles around us, since he had the space to do it in for the first time in several days, but he was still too full of food and had to give it up. He trotted along behind, panting rather, but then he picked up and trotted past us, with his head and ears up and his tail straight out behind with the guard hairs on it raised, which in foogit language means, ʺHmm, what's this?ʺ If he'd been frightened or worried the guard hairs would run backwards the full length up his spine, eventually up to his topknot, which would have bushed out (or tried to) like a sort of extreme mane. Among other things this exposes the third eye, if there is one, and I'd never seen Sippy in that much of a strop, although I'm told a big male foogit ready for battle isn't funny any more.

And then I smelled the dragons too, but it made me want to slow down, not speed up.

They're properly called
hsa
but they're often slangily just called barns, Dag told me, and they're huge enough to look at, but huger still from inside, because they're dug into the ground and the hillsides as well. The Academy was where it was because there was this huge flat plain with these sudden hills leaping up at its edge, and the hills are mazes of underground caverns. A mountain over your head keeps the temperature down, and a lot of dragons all rubbing up against each other generate a lot of heat. Supposedly wild dragons lived there once, before the beginning of time. It's been the Academy
hsa
since there was an Academy, and there are pretty much only folk tales about the time before the Academy existed. But even so people had been riding and breeding dragons for riding a long, long time before anyone thought of establishing an Academy about it.

I'd never been there before of course. None of our family had except Dag. I don't know if he remembered what it had been like for him the very first time—but it was the dragons themselves that had made him change his mind about staying at the Academy, and maybe the
wham
had happened while he was walking across this field just like I was. Maybe, if he thought about me at all, and I wouldn't've blamed him if he didn't, he only thought that I was potty about animals too and that I'd have the same reaction to the dragons that he did so he didn't have to worry or think about me, except maybe how lucky I was that I was going to meet, really meet, a dragon, which almost nobody outside the academy system ever does. There are handlers at all the regular commercial stations, but they only handle whatever the dragon is carrying. The only person the dragon pays attention to is the rider—the partner. And that's true several times over in the army.

I felt myself starting to walk stiffly, like I had approaching the Academy gates. But this was worse. I fixed my eyes on Sippy's happy, interested tail a few paces in front of me, and told myself that if my foogit could do it, so could I.

There was a beyond-enormous door in front of us. The funny thing was it was built like an ordinary double stable door, and the top halves were open. Any of the four quarters was big enough to be the roof of our house with some left over. When you got close enough you saw there was an ordinary human-sized door cut into the right-hand bottom half. I didn't mean to giggle but I did, although it sounded more like I was being stabbed than laughing. Dag said at once, ʺI know. But dragons don't like draughts. It makes them restless. So we keep the bottoms closed all year, and the tops closed in the winter.ʺ

Sippy squeezed through the little people door with me and I took hold of his topknot on the far side to keep him near me. Holding an ear isn't fair for long; it's just for when you really need him to pay attention. His topknot was nice and long and I could get a good grip and he could still turn his head.

There was the rustle of vastness all around us. It took an effort of will to look up from the top of Sippy's head. I looked up. There was a sharp slope down from the doors and then a
big
empty sandy space just beyond that. It was pretty scuffed up but at the same time you knew it got raked all the time, and there were the rakes, leaning on either side of the doors. The piece at the bottom with teeth was about as wide as I am tall, and the length of the handles was twice that. Beyond the sandy space it was too far away and dark to see clearly, but that's where the rustling came from.

Dag set off at once down a corridor. We were still mostly above ground and there were windows here although they were over our heads, and the corridor slanted downwards. Pretty soon it was more shadows than light, and then the lanterns began, sitting in niches in the walls (the first ones low enough for mere humans to fill and trim and light them; then when the second overhead rank began there also started to be the occasional ladder hung against the wall). Every so often there was a wide gap in the walls—a gigantic doorway—with its own shadows and its own flickering light. And its own hot charred smell.

We met the occasional other human. I recognised the cadet uniform, but there was another uniform too. One of the men in the other uniform stopped as we came toward him. ʺ
Singla
Dag, honoured sir,ʺ he began. ʺYou sand-for-brains chucklehead, Dag, don't you know enough to climb back into your uniform before you come to the
hsa
? I won't report you, but there are plenty who will.ʺ

ʺI forgot,ʺ said Dag, humbly for Dag.

ʺI believe you, or I'd send you back. I still should send you back. If you hear anyone coming, hide behind a dragon, will you?ʺ

ʺYes,
Hlorgla
Dorgin,ʺ said Dag, still humble.

ʺMmph,ʺ said Dorgin, and looked at me. ʺYou must be one of his brothers,ʺ he said.

ʺI—er—yes, sir,ʺ I said.

ʺYou look like him,ʺ said Dorgin.

ʺNo, sir,ʺ I said.

Dorgin smiled suddenly. ʺYou'll grow into those feet,ʺ he said. ʺI've seen dragons like you. Keep your brother in order, will you? I wonder what else I should be telling you, besides don't let him go to the
hsa
out of uniform?ʺ He gave Dag another glare and walked on.

ʺThat was Dorgin,ʺ said Dag unnecessarily.

ʺHave we met anyone who's going to report you?ʺ I said.

ʺI don't think so,ʺ said Dag, whose mind was obviously leaving this uninteresting topic.

ʺYou wouldn't want to tell me what Fistagh looks like?ʺ I said innocently.

Dag gave me a sharp look and then laughed, although the laugh was almost as sharp as the look. ʺI'll hide behind a dragon like Dorgin said, okay?ʺ

After a lot more corridors and a lot farther going down, we came to another big sandy space. There was a fire burning in a stone-ringed fire pit in the centre of it. The smoke rose cleanly and straight up, and I looked up to see where it was going, but the ceiling, assuming there was a ceiling, was again lost in darkness, along with the chimney-hole. Dag made a curious humming, crooning noise. It wasn't very loud and I don't think it was just the creepiness of the surroundings that would have made me take special notice of almost anything, but it was a very attention-catching sound.

And an immense heap of darkness at the edge of the firelight uncurled itself, and made a crooning noise in return. This sound was no louder than Dag's had been, but it could no more have been made by a human chest than a human could fly. It was like the echo of an earthquake. I was surprised the earth didn't tremble underfoot. Sippy, however, was trembling like seven earthquakes, and he made no attempt to get away from my now-convulsive grip on his crest, but I thought the trembling was more excitement than fear. I was trembling too, but I wouldn't want to say it was mostly excitement.

We stood still as Dag went toward the humming blackness. Against the firelight I could see what I guessed was a head and neck untwist itself from the top of the mound, and arch down toward Dag. Dag reached a hand up toward it; it was like a leaf trying to pat a forest.

But the forest liked it. The hum dropped down a few more earth-shaking notes and the gigantic spade-shaped head—which I could now just make out in the twilight—came to a halt within human arm's length of Dag's hand. I thought dizzily of the sensation of a gnat landing on your skin; you could just about feel it if you were paying attention. And dragons must have thick skin. Maybe not on their noses. I hoped dragons didn't blow through their nostrils the way foogits did.

Dag left his hand on the dragon's nose and turned his head toward me. ʺCome say hello. She knows you're here and that you came with me. But it's polite to greet her yourself.ʺ