The Dragon Keeper
Page 116

“But where is it? Where is Kelsingra?” Malta’s low anxious voice cut through Alise’s lecture.
Slowly the Bingtown woman turned to look at the Elderling. “I cannot tell you that with any precision. As far as I know, no map of the areas that we now call the Rain Wilds has ever been recovered. But from the written descriptions we have, I can say with certainty that it was substantially upriver of both Trehaug and Cassarick. We do have descriptions of the lush meadowlands that surrounded the city and provided good grazing for both domesticated cattle and wild game. The dragons feasted freely on both, and it was considered their right to do so. But such open rolling meadows do not fit with the jungled Rain Wilds that we know. Nor does the description of the river. According to the scrolls, the river that ran past Kelsingra was deep, and during flood times, it was swift running and treacherous. The illustrations in the scrolls and here on this tapestry clearly show keeled sailing vessels both approaching the city and tying up at its docks. There are trade vessels of considerable size already moored there. Again, these images do not fit with the Rain Wild River as we know it now. So, we can speculate that either the river has changed, a fact that is obviously true given the buried ruins that have been unearthed here, or we can wonder if there existed another, different river, a tributary or one that is perhaps merged now with our Rain Wild River, that originally fronted Kelsingra.”
She ran out of breath and words at the same time. She turned away from the tapestry and back to her audience. Malta’s face was a mixture of triumph and misery. The brushy-haired Rain Wild woman at the table was nodding her head vigorously. “Excellent!” she exclaimed before anyone else could speak. “We are indebted to you, madam. The black dragon has spoken of this Kelsingra as the best possible destination for the dragons. They have dropped hints to us that it was a major Elderling city. But up to now, we lacked confirmation of its existence. You offer us not only the physical evidence of the tapestry, but your scholarly opinion that such a place did, and possibly still does, exist. We could not ask for better news, any of us!”
“I could,” Malta asserted flatly. “I could ask for a map that would clearly show us where the city once existed in relation to the two Elderling cities that we have already located.” She flicked her fingers as if in annoyance, and the light globes scattered like startled cats. She moved to one of the tiers of benches and slowly sank down onto it. She suddenly appeared not only merely human but very tired. “We have failed them so badly. We gave a promise to Tintaglia and we began by doing the best we could for them. Slowly we let our standards fall, and the last two years have just been a nightmare. So many of them have died.”
“Without our help, all of them would have died. Without our help, most of them would never have cocooned, let alone hatched.” Trader Polsk presented the fact simply.
“Without us cutting them up into planks to build ships, more of them might have survived to hatch during that quake,” Malta retorted.
“If there had not been liveships, would you have been there at all?” Alise dared to interject the question. Malta appeared to be mired in despair, but Alise felt a growing excitement. The most wonderful idea she had ever imagined was slowly unfolding in her mind. She hardly dared state it. She teetered on dread that they might refuse her and terror that they might accept her offer. She tried to keep her voice steady as she asked, “How soon must the dragons be moved?”
“The sooner the better,” Trader Polsk replied. She ran both her hands through her brush of gray hair, standing it up like a dragon’s crest. “Delay can only make it worse for all of us, including the dragons. If it were possible for them to leave tomorrow, that is what I would choose.”
“Yet I have come all the way from Bingtown just for the purpose of studying these dragons and possibly conversing with them,” Alise objected.
“You will find them little inclined to conversation,” Malta said drearily. “Even if you had come months ago, it would have been so. They have ancestral memories of the dragons they should have been. Much as I hate to admit it, Trader Polsk is right. They are and have been miserable where they are. I have done my best to visit them often, and I know the hardships that have been created for those who tried to keep faithfully the terms of our bargain with Tintaglia. I am not blind to those things. I just wish it could have a better ending. I wish that I could go with them and see them safely settled in some better place. But I cannot.”
She sounded so defeated that Alise wondered if the Elderling woman were ill. But then she set her hands to her belly in the unmistakable gesture of a woman who is with child and sets that child’s well-being above all in her life. It was like the last piece of a puzzle falling into place. The circumstances were exactly right for her; if it was not fate, it was close enough.