CHAPTER 1
Dragon quest
‘I wish to acquire a dragon.’
‘Did you have a particular dragon in mind,’ said Trav, ‘or will any old dragon do?’
‘Why?’ Carl of Thrales sounded suspicious. ‘Do you know of any dragons?’
‘No.’
Carl’s eyes raked him up and down as though having second thoughts, while Trav stood looking back at him. Carl was in his mid-twenties, and had inherited the kingdom of Ser six months ago on the death of his father; he had an air of sleek confidence, lolling as he was on his ornate gilded throne. A smooth face, a slight curve of the mouth and arched eyebrows gave him a calm superior air. Mouth and eyes, looked at separately, seemed to be smiling; taken together they were not.
Apparently shelving doubts raised by the unkempt appearance of the man in front of him, he said, ‘Zander, you come highly recommended. I’ve been assured you are discreet, or I wouldn’t have sent for you.’
‘Silent as the grave, drunk or sober is my motto.’
Carl gave him another dubious look.
‘You can rely on my discretion,’ Trav added. Katrin used to complain he never knew when to be serious. If he didn’t shut up he’d talk himself out of this job. She would have told him to wear something smarter, too. She’d probably have been right. Still, the guy wasn’t hiring him for his dress sense.
‘You work alone?’
‘Yes.’ Trav had tried employing people, and concluded it was not worth the hassle. He knew he could rely on himself.
‘Do you have any experience of dragons?’
‘Does anyone? There haven’t been dragons round here since my grandfather’s day. Like everyone else, I heard they were used in the battle for Tarragon.’
Carl considered, then seemed to make up his mind. He leaned forward. ‘There’s a dragon at present living in a cave in the mountains on the border. I want it. I want you to find it, and bring it here.’
‘Supposing it doesn’t want to come?’
‘I have heard it said dragons are rational animals, and in that case I give you full authority to offer it anything it asks for.’
‘Anything at all?’
Carl smiled. ‘Anything at all. But I leave the details to you. I just want you to get it, whatever that takes. I don’t care how you do it.’
‘Tricky job. Those caves are pretty inaccessible, and there’s a hell of a lot of them. And the one thing everyone knows about dragons is they’re big and breathe fire. How much are you paying?’
‘What are you asking?’
Trav did a fast calculation. Super-rich ruler of Ser, a prosperous little country; dangerous and unprecedented assignment; his own record of under-charging. Go for it. He said as casually as possible,
‘Forty thousand ducats.’
‘Very well,’ Carl of Thrales agreed, without turning a hair.
Damn, should have asked for double. ‘Half in advance.’
Carl smiled again, but not a friendly smile. ‘Now you ask too much. Do you think I am not to be trusted?’
‘I don’t think anything. I don’t know you.’
‘You’ll get your money on delivery of the dragon. Take it or leave it.’
‘Without an advance it’s fifty thousand.’
Carl’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then his features resumed their former serene expression.
‘It’s a deal, Zander.’
Trav walked out of the palace trying to limit the smile that wanted to spread itself all over his face. He would have punched the air and whooped, but for the numerous Palace Guards he was passing. Yes, he’d done it…for the first time he was positive he was charging enough. And Carl of Thrales could certainly afford it. Trav had never been anywhere so elaborately and richly decorated as the room he’d just left. It was all new, too, must have been done after Carl’s father died. Fifty thousand ducats…real money at last.
Trav had a long-standing problem with money. He did not have enough of it. He was a hard worker, and had been in turn a bounty hunter, an arms smuggler to would-be rebels, and a spectacularly insubordinate and therefore unsuccessful mercenary. These jobs had kept him alive, but that was all. Now he had found his metier working solo as a professional risk-taker, a trouble-shooter, a solver of problems. He excelled at it, and was never short of work. One satisfied customer handed him on to another.
But however promising the deal the profits remained modest. Quoting a price when each job was different was not easy; Trav had a regrettable tendency to underestimate the costs. Fearing to lose the work if he charged too much, he usually ended up charging too little. Now and then he actually lost money on a job. It was one of the things Katrin used to nag him about; one of the reasons she’d left him.
It was no accident she was now married to a wealthy merchant, whom she obviously thought made a better father for Kit. When Trav insisted on paying towards their son’s upkeep, Katrin had laughed.
‘Keep your money, I’m sure you need it more than we do. Lysle sees that we want for nothing.’
In spite of this, on each visit to Kit, he gave Katrin a bag of coins that she would immediately lay down somewhere. The last time he’d been, he saw the money he’d brought the time before, still sitting where she had put it weeks ago.
Thinking about Katrin had made Trav’s smile fade. He didn’t want to think about her. He put their failed relationship firmly to the back of his mind, and started to plan the dragon hunt.
Trav inched his way up the rock face, dusty and sweat-streaked, his fingers clinging to impossibly small crevices, on his way to the forty-third cave. He had been climbing since dawn, and was beginning to wish he hadn’t counted them. Trav believed in early starts, and besides, he didn’t know if dragons stuck to the same cave, so he needed to finish the task in one day. He did not want to complete his cave-by-cave search, only to find the creature had moved overnight to one he had already checked out, meaning he had to start all over again. Every now and then the unwelcome thought recurred that he had only got Carl’s word for it that there was a dragon here at all. Nobody in the nearest villages had mentioned it, when he’d asked casual-seeming questions about the mountains and what was up there.
Trav levered himself over the edge into the cave. At first glance it looked to be as empty as all the others, but he sat and leaned against the wall having a breather and waiting for his eyes to get used to the dim light at the back of the cave. Some of the caves went back into the rock a long way, and he was thorough. He had fifty thousand reasons to be thorough. He knew he had not missed the dragon so far, and that was the way he wanted to keep it.
Feeling thirsty, he got out his water bottle and had a drink. As his eyes adjusted he noticed something metallic-looking shining on the floor at the black back of the cave. He went over to investigate, thinking of treasure. Gold, he thought, but what is it? He had never seen anything quite like it, and he was not sure what it was supposed to be; some ancient artefact, he guessed, beautifully made and perfectly preserved. In the near dark he could not tell if it was metal or carved and gilded wood. Putting out his hand, he touched it. It was warm. It twitched away from his touch. It was the end of a dragon’s tail.
He jumped back, his heartbeat accelerating.
A small voice said, ‘Go away now and I won’t breathe fire over you.’
Trav looked around him until he located the dragon’s head up by the cave ceiling, just visible over the top of the rock it was hiding behind. Big golden eyes were watching him from fifteen feet away. Well within roasting range, Trav imagined.
‘Uh, could we just talk about this for a minute before you do something hasty you might regret…’ Trav edged backwards. ‘I’d rather not go just yet, because there’s something that maybe you would want to hear about. I came to put a proposition to you. You never know, you might be interested in it. Let me introduce myself, my name is Trav Zander. Trav short for Travis. No one calls me Travis, though. Well, my girlfriend did, but only when she was annoyed with me. So she called me Travis quite a lot…we’ve split up now. Probably just as well. You don’t want to hear about that, though. Why don’t you come out from behind there? You look a bit squashed. Then we could talk.’
The dragon concentrated, and came to a decision. ‘I’m coming out now, but remember I can breathe fire any time I want to. I’m very good at fire-breathing.’
The dragon backed out of its hiding place. Trav thought it big, not knowing the size an adult dragon attained. This one was only half grown, and attractive; Trav was somehow positive it was a female. Her scales were almost translucent, like golden glass; she glowed in the gloom of the cave. Her shape was light and elegant with many pleasing curves. Once emerged into the larger space, she turned round and focused on Trav. Then she put her head right down to his level and looked closer. She shut her eyes and opened them again, intent on Trav. Her breath was warm and pleasantly savoury.
‘Hi,’ said Trav. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Seraphine.’
‘That’s a nice name.’
The dragon hesitated, then said, ‘It’s not the name I started with. I chose it. The man who reared me called me Goldie. When I flew away I wanted a better name.’
‘Why did you fly away?’ Talking was good. The dragon wouldn’t breathe fire while it was talking. Probably.
‘He was going to sell me, I think. I wasn’t sure I’d like where I was going. I thought I’d go and find some other dragons.’
‘Did you find some?’
‘No. I’ve got to think where to look.’
‘I’ve heard where there are some dragons. The Hundred Knights have got three. Maybe we could make a deal.’
‘What sort of a deal?’ Seraphine curled up comfortably on the floor of the cave and put her head on one side. Trav was warming to her. He sat down too, by the edge of the cave with a panoramic view of country and sky behind him. She was a nice intelligent little dragon, and he’d never expected her to be so friendly. It surprised him how easy it was to read the expressions passing over her face, though it was so different from a human’s. He wouldn’t mind having a dragon like her; in fact he wished he had found her on his own instead of as Carl’s agent. A dragon might be useful in his line of work.
Trav started the negotiations. One of the reasons he had satisfied customers was his integrity. He believed every party to a deal should know all the facts, or it wouldn’t stick. In his time he had brokered a lot of deals. He told Seraphine about Carl of Thrales sending him to get her. He even told her about the fifty thousand ducats.
‘Who is Carl of Thrales?’
‘He’s the ruler of Ser. I don’t know much about him, he only took over recently. I come from Kimber myself. Carl’s father got hold of the country by staging a military coup twenty years ago. He was pretty good as unelected rulers go, had a reputation as a man of his word, hard but fair.’
‘Why does Carl of Thrales need me?’
‘He didn’t tell me, but I guess he wants to start a Dragon Battalion of his own. How do you feel about being a warrior dragon? He said to offer you what you wanted. What do you want?’
Seraphine considered. ‘First I would have to meet Carl of Thrales to see if I liked him.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘And if I liked him, then before I worked for him, I would want you to take me to meet the other dragons you spoke of.’
‘I’m sure that could be arranged.’
‘Also I want you to stay with me.’
‘Why?’
‘I would like it.’
‘I expect Carl’s got some guy of his own lined up to take care of you. And I don’t know that I want to work for him full time.’
Seraphine’s expression became stubborn. ‘Then neither do I. I’d rather work with you.’
Trav, though flattered and tempted, had not forgotten the fifty thousand ducats, or his reputation for doing what he had said he would do. He had an agreement with Carl. A compromise was called for.
‘Supposing he would agree to you working for him part time, say alternate weeks or three weeks out of four? If he wants you as a fighting dragon I don’t see he’d need you there every day. Then I’d have time for my own stuff, and you could help me if you wanted to.’
‘What if he agreed then wouldn’t let me go?’
‘How could he do that? If he wants you to work for him he can’t keep you chained up. You’re a dragon – you could always fly away.’
Seraphine nodded.
‘Then, if he agrees, we have a deal?’
‘Yes,’ said the dragon, ‘but there is something I should tell you. I was lying before. I can’t breathe fire, I’m too young. I will when I’m bigger.’
‘No one’s perfect.’ Trav grinned. ‘I can’t breathe fire myself.’
The journey back to Carl’s palace in Ravendor, Ser’s capital, was much quicker than Trav’s journey to the caves, because the dragon gave him a lift on her back. Trav felt precarious; her scales, each the size of Kit’s hand, overlapped smoothly, forming a slippery surface. He sat between two of the central spines, which was not very comfortable. But he was staggered by how fast the trip was, flying straight as an arrow’s flight. It would be worth keeping a dragon just as a mode of transport.
They neared Carl of Thrales’ palace, and Trav told Seraphine to land in a formal walled garden immediately outside. She flew lower, level with the tree tops, then raised her head and beat her wings more vertically to slow down. Trav wasn’t expecting this; he grabbed her round the neck to avoid slipping off; her back feet landed, followed by her front feet, and Trav made an inelegant and unexpected descent on to the grass, upright but not quite sure how he got there.
Seraphine and Trav waited a minute while the palace windows filled with watching heads, then a guard came and led them under an archway through a court and into a large room. The big double doors closed behind them with a muted booming sound. Trav began to have misgivings. Carl entered, followed as he always seemed to be by an excessive number of guards. His eyes glowed when he saw Seraphine. He turned to the captain of the Palace Guard by his side and spoke to him.
Seraphine moved closer to Trav. She nudged Trav insistently, and looked at him round-eyed.
‘I don’t like him,’ she whispered.
‘You haven’t met him yet! He might grow on you.’
‘I don’t like him. I don’t want to work for him.’
‘Are you sure about that? You’re not going to change your mind?’
‘No. I don’t like him, and I never will like him. I don’t like it here. Can we go?’
‘That could be difficult. We shouldn’t have come inside.’ The guards had spread out round the walls while they were talking. ‘Just agree with what I say. The first chance we get, we’ll fly away.’
Carl approached and Trav introduced him.
‘Seraphine, this is Carl of Thrales. Thrales, this is Seraphine.’
‘Welcome to Ser, Seraphine,’ said Carl.
He beckoned to some of his men. ‘Take the dragon to its quarters.’ He turned to leave the room, saying to Trav, ‘Come with me.’
Trav followed him through the doorway. ‘Hold on a minute. Seraphine has come here like you wanted, but she has one or two requirements she’d like to discuss. You need to make sure you’re both happy with the deal.’
Carl raised his eyebrows. ‘You are exceeding your brief, Zander. I hired you to bring the dragon here, not to act as its lawyer.’
‘You told me to offer the dragon what it asked. You haven’t heard what that is yet.’
‘No, I told you to bring the dragon here by offering what it asked. There is a difference. There’s no need for you to be involved further.’ He nodded at two guards who came and seized Trav’s arms and removed his weapons. Carl continued,
‘You made the same mistake with the fifty thousand ducats, I’m afraid. Again, it was just an inducement to get what I wanted. Now I’ve got the dragon, expendable is the word that comes to mind to describe you. Superfluous, that’s another one. Redundant, surplus to requirements, that’s what you are, Zander.’ Carl was enjoying himself. ‘Do you know, I really can’t think of any reason why I should want your services in the future sufficiently to hand over such a large sum now. A tiny fraction of that amount will keep you in bread and water in my dungeons for as long as you last. Far more cost effective, I think you’ll agree. Or, and this might be an even better idea, I could have you killed. Now that wouldn’t cost me anything at all.’
‘Release me, Carl, you lying devious scheming bastard, or the dragon will torch you and all your guards.’
Carl smirked. ‘Unlike you, Zander, I do know about dragons. I’ve done my research. This little specimen is not nearly full-grown. She won’t be breathing fire any time soon. But what makes you so sure she’d leap to your defence?’ He gazed thoughtfully at Trav. ‘I think I’ll send you to prison after all, keep my options open a little longer. Just in case I come up with a use for you. That’s the nice thing about power. I can do anything I want. Absolutely anything.’
He snapped his fingers, and Trav was taken away.
Carl went to his library. His father had been a keen reader and collector of books, an enthusiasm he had failed to pass on to his son, but one glass-fronted locked bookcase on a wall apart from the others was exclusively Carl’s. In it was a small collection of volumes, among the oldest and shabbiest in the library, that Carl had gone to some trouble to procure. He took out a key and opened the case, running his finger along the titles:
Fogwatt’s Guide to Rare Beasts
Nicholas Campion’s Compendium of Four-footed and Winged Creatures
The Natural History of Large Reptiles
By Wing and Fire, a Dragon Master’s Story
A Dragon from the Egg: how to hatch, rear and bond with your own dragon by Sir Piers Tytherton
The Dragon Keeper’s Guide: a Manual of Dragon Lore
Wyncham’s The Compleat Dragon Master
Carl took out the last three books, and sat down in a comfortable chair by the window to find the information he needed. He suspected something inconvenient and irreversible had happened with regard to his dragon and Zander, and wanted to check whether he was right.
Ah…the first book he opened, on the title page of Sir Piers Tytherton’s guide; there it was, a prominently placed disclaimer:
‘Let it be remember’d by He that readeth this my Booke, (though indeed ‘tis without Rival for Excellent Counsel), the Man chooseth not the Dragon: ‘tis the Dragon which maketh his choice of Master, as his Heart ordains, and oft times his Preference is beyond the Wit of Man to comprehend. No Money return’d.’
Carl closed ‘A Dragon from the Egg’ and flicked through the other two. They said much the same thing, at greater length. He put the books away and stood for a while, deep in thought.