Blood of Dragons

Those who had stayed behind were gathered around the Silver well, former slaves as well as keepers. The slaves still kept their own company, but were beginning to take an interest in the keepers’ daily tasks. Carson had been trying to convey to them that if they wanted to share the keepers’ food, then they had to share the work as well. Thymara was not completely certain that they understood that. But all of them had begun to look less haggard and cowed. When asked to help, they did, but so far none of them had volunteered. They had debated keeping the Silver and the gauntlets secret from them, but in the end they had decided to not worry about it. To whom could they tell the secrets of Kelsingra? ‘If we knew what the secrets really were,’ Carson had added dourly.

In the absence of the dragons, Carson had declared that they had to devise an effective cap for the Silver reservoir. He and Harrikin had hunted the hills for downed trees and had the good fortune to find the trunk of a substantial oak. All had laboured to cut and shape the slabs of timber that they had fashioned into a well cover. It was rough, little more than a rectangle of wood that fit over the well mouth. As it was, it might keep anyone from falling into the well, but it would do little more than that. It was Carson’s hope that Thymara might be able to shape it into a securely fitting cap.

A bucket of Silver, drawn from the well, waited on the paving stones before her. ‘I suppose I just put on the gauntlets, dip my hands into the Silver and then …’ She looked all around at the others. ‘Has anyone ever found a memory of anyone working Silver? Seen them at work?’

‘I’ve seen people wearing Silver gloves, still gleaming. But I didn’t really see what they were doing. They were crouched down by a statue, looking at the base of it and talking as I walked by. In the memory,’ Alum added, as if to explain.

Thymara slowly began to draw on a gauntlet.

‘What if it leaks?’ Tats demanded wildly. ‘What if it soaks through? What if there’s something about this that we don’t understand, something that hurts her or kills her?’

She spoke patiently. ‘I tested them earlier. In water. Not a drop got in.’

‘But that’s not water in that bucket!’

‘I know.’ She had both gauntlets on now. She flexed her hands and felt the pull of the supple leather against them. For only a moment, she considered that she was wearing someone else’s skin on her hands. A dragon’s, certainly, but had not he or she thought and spoken just as clearly as a human? How would she feel about someone else wearing her skin as gloves? She stared at her green-gloved hands for a moment and then shook her head. ‘I’m going to try it,’ she said, as if any of them had doubted it.

The Silver in the wooden bucket swirled sluggishly. No one had jostled it. It had not ceased its restless motion since Carson had slowly lowered the bucket into the stuff, poked it with a long stick to make it tip, and then gingerly hauled it up again. He had held it by a length of dry rope to allow every droplet of Silver to drip back into the well before setting it beside the well mouth on the paving stones. They had all gathered around it, to watch the slow undulation of the liquid within.

‘Is it possible it’s actually alive?’ Tats had asked.

No one had tried to answer. And no one had touched the bucket since, but still the stuff moved, coiling within itself, silver, white, grey, a fine thread of black, moving like liquid snakes tangled with one another.

Slowly, being very careful not to splash, Thymara pushed her right hand into the bucket of Silver. She went no more than fingertip deep and then drew her hands out. For a moment, the Silver clung smoothly. Then it began to pull away from the glove in droplets. She held her hand over the bucket and there was silence as they watched the Silver droplets fall.

‘Do you feel anything?’ Tats asked tensely.

‘Just heaviness. Like a wet glove.’

She moved her fingers, flexing them slowly, and the droplets ceased falling and spread evenly over the gauntlet. Thymara caught her breath as they began to spread upward, toward the cuff, but they stopped at the wrist, forming a perfectly straight line there.

‘Umh.’ Carson had squatted down beside her to stare at her hand over the bucket. ‘Wonder how they made it do that? Stop instead of spreading all the way up to your arm.’

‘Enough experiment for one day?’ Tats suggested.

Thymara shook her head slowly. ‘Stand back. I’m going to move over and touch the wood.’

As she slowly straightened and then took the two steps toward the completed well cover, the gathered observers moved in a circle around her. She turned her hand slowly as she went, palm up, then back up, then palm up, keeping the Silver evenly spread.

‘Is that something you remember to do?’ Carson asked her, and she replied tightly, ‘I don’t know. It just feels like the way to do it. To keep it from dripping off.’