The Dragon Keeper

  Since that day, two years ago, they’d seen him often. When her father could make work for him, he did, and Tats was always grateful for whatever they could spare. He was a handy fellow, even here in the high canopy where folk who had been born on the ground never ventured. Often enough, Thymara welcomed his company. She had few friends. The children who had socialized with her when she was small had long grown up, wedded, and commenced new lives as parents and partners. Thymara had been left behind in her strangely extended adolescence. It was oddly comforting to have found a friend who was as single as she was. She wondered why he wasn’t married or at least courting by now.

  Her thoughts had wandered. She only realized that her silence had grown long when he asked her, “Did you want to be alone tonight? I don’t intend to bother you. ”

  “No, you’re no bother, Tats. I was just taking some time to myself to think. ”

  “About what?” He settled himself more firmly on the branch.

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  “I’m considering my options for my future. Not that there are many. ” She managed a laugh.

  “No? Why not?”

  She looked at him, wondering if he were teasing. “Well, I’m sixteen years old and still living with my parents. No one’s ever made an offer for me and no one ever will. So, either I live with my parents until the end of my days, or I strike out on my own. I know something about hunting, and I know something about gathering. But what I mostly know about both of them is that if I try to go it alone with those as my only skills, I’m going to lead a skimpy life. In the Rain Wilds, it always seems to take at least two people in partnership, working hard, to keep skin and bone together. And I’m always going to be just one. ”

  Tats looked startled at her flood of words and a bit uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. “Why you think you’re always going to have to make it on your own?” More quietly he added, “You talk about living with your parents like it’s terrible. Me, I’d love to have a mother or a father to stay with. ” He gave a short laugh. “I can’t even imagine having both. ”

  “Living with my parents isn’t terrible,” she admitted. “Though sometimes, I know my mother wishes I weren’t around. Da is always good to me; he lets me know I’m welcome to stay for always. I suppose that when he brought me back home, he knew then that I’d probably be underfoot for the rest of my life. ”

  Tats knit his brows. His confused scowl made the spiderweb across his cheek crawl strangely. “Brought you back home? Where had you gone?”

  It was Thymara’s turn to feel awkward. She’d always supposed that everyone knew what she was and the story behind it. Any Rain Wilder would be able to tell just by looking at her. But Tats wasn’t Rain Wilds born, and she and her kind were not something the Rain Wilders spoke about to outsiders. Just as some of them never spoke to her or looked directly at her, so her existence was not a topic for casual conversation with outsiders. That Tats didn’t know meant that most people still considered him an outsider. He truly didn’t know. The newness of that thought stung her. She gritted her teeth in a strange smile and held up her hand to him. “Notice anything?”

  He leaned closer and peered at her hand. “You cracked one of your claws?”

  She choked on a laugh, and suddenly understood something about him that she never had before. He’d acted friendly toward her because he truly didn’t know better.

  “Tats, what you should notice is that I have claws. Not fingernails. Claws like a toad. Or a lizard. ” She sank them into the branch and drew them back toward her, leaving four stripes of torn bark. “Claws make me what I am. ”

  “I’ve seen lots of Rain Wild folk with claws. ”

  She stared at him. Then she said, “No, you haven’t. You’ve seen lots of folk with black nails. Even thick black nails. But not claws. Because when a baby is born with claws instead of fingernails, the parents and the midwife know what they have to do. And they do it. ”

  He hitched closer to her on the branch. “Do what?” he asked hoarsely.

  She looked away from his intent stare, into the interlacing branches that webbed the night. “Get rid of it. Put it somewhere, away from where people go. And leave it there. ”

  “To die?” He was shocked.

  “Yes, to die. Or be eaten by something, a tree cat or a big snake. ” She glanced back at him and found she couldn’t meet his horrified stare. It seemed accusing, and it made her feel ungrateful, as if she were being disloyal to talk about what happened to deformed children. “Sometimes they strangle the baby or smother it so it doesn’t suffer too long. And then they drop it in the river. It depends on the midwife, I guess. My midwife just put me out of the way; wedged me into a forking branch away from any path and hurried back to my mother, who was bleeding more than she should. ” She cleared her throat. Tats was staring at her, his mouth slightly ajar. For the first time, she noticed that one of his middle bottom teeth slightly leaned past its neighbor. She glanced away from her rapt listener.

  “The midwife didn’t know my father had followed her. I was not their first child, but I was the first one to be born alive. Da says he just couldn’t stand to let go of me, that he felt I deserved a chance. So he followed the midwife and he brought me back home, even though he knew a lot of people would say he was doing wrong. ”

  “Doing wrong? Why?”

  She looked back at him, wondering if he were teasing her. He had pale eyes, blue or gray depending on the time of day. But they never glowed. Not like hers. They looked at her without guile. His earnest look almost exasperated her. “Tats, how can you not know these things? You’ve lived in the Rain Wilds for, what, six years? A lot of Rain Wild children are born, well, touched by the Wilds. And as they grow, they become even more different. So, well, people had to draw the line somewhere. Because, if you’re too different when you’re first born, if you already have scales and claws, then who knows what you’ll grow to be? And if the ones like me married and had children, well, those children would likely be even less close to human when they were born, and might grow to be Sa knows what. ”

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  Tats took a deep breath and blew it out, shaking his head. “Thymara, you talk like you don’t think you’re human. ”

  “Well,” she said, and then stopped. For a time, she chased words around inside her mind. Maybe I’m not. Did she believe that? Of course not. Well, maybe not. What was she then, if not human? But if she was human, how could she have claws?

  Tats spoke again before she could find words. “You don’t look that much stranger to me than most of the folk in the Rain Wilds. I’ve seen people here with a lot more scales and fringe than you have. Not that it bothers me now. When I was little, when I first came here, you were a pretty scary bunch. Not anymore. Now you’re just, well, people who are marked. Just like Tattooed were marked. ”

  “Your owners marked you. To say you were a slave. ”

  He flashed white teeth at her in a grin that denied her words. “No. They marked me to try to make people believe they owned me. ”

  “I know, I know,” she said quickly. It was a difference that many of the former slaves insisted on. She didn’t understand why it was so important to them, but it obviously was. She was willing to let him explain it however he liked. “But my point is that someone did it to you. Before then, you were just like everyone else. But me, I was born this way. ” She turned her hand over and regarded her black claws curving in toward her palm. “Always different. Not fit for marriage. ” She lowered her voice and looked away from him as she added, “Not even fit to live. ”

  He didn’t reply to her words. Instead he said quietly, “Your ma just came out and looked up here at us. She’s still down there, staring at me. ” He shifted a tiny bit, ducking his shaggy head and bowing his shoulders in toward his narrow chest as if that would make him invisible. “She doesn’t like me, does she?”

  Thymara shrugged. “Right n
ow, it’s me that she really doesn’t like. We had a, well, a family disagreement earlier. My da and I came home from gathering, and my mother said that someone had made an offer for me. Not a marriage offer, but a work offer. So Da said I had work already and, well, she got angry and wouldn’t even say what the offer had been. ” She sprawled back on the branch and sighed. The Rain Wild night was deepening around them. Lamps were being kindled in the little dangling houses. As far as she could see, the scattered sparks of the upper reaches of Trehaug sparkled through the network of branches and leaves. She shifted onto her belly and looked down; there, the lights were thicker and brighter in the more prosperous sections of the tree-built city. The lamplighters were at work now, illuminating the bridges that spanned the trees like glittering necklaces strung through the forest. Almost every evening it seemed there were more lights. Six years ago there had been a flood of Tattooed to swell the populations of Trehaug and Cassarick. And since then more and more outsiders had come. She’d heard that the little trading villages downriver had grown as well.

  The light-sprinkled forest below was beautiful. And it was hers, yet it would never be hers. She gritted her teeth and spoke through them. “It’s frustrating. I’ve got few enough choices, and my mother is holding one back from me. ” She glanced up at the skinny boy who shared the branch with her.

  Tats’s grin, always startling in how it changed his face, suddenly broke through. “I know what your offer is. I think. ”

  “You know what?”

  “I know what the offer was. Because I heard about it, too. That was one of the reasons I came up here tonight, to ask you and your da what you both thought of it. Because you’ve seen more of the dragons than I have. ”

  She sat up so suddenly that Tats gasped. But Thymara knew she was in no danger of falling. “What was the offer?” she demanded.

  His face lit with enthusiasm. “Well, there was a fellow who was posting notices at every trunk market. He tacked one up and then read it to me. According to him, the Rain Wild Council is looking for workers, young, healthy workers, ‘with few attachments. ’ Meaning no family, he said. ” Tats paused suddenly in his excited telling. “So I guess that couldn’t be your offer, could it? Because you’ve got family. ”

  “Just tell,” Thymara demanded brusquely.

  “Well, here is the gist of it. The dragons are getting to be too much trouble over at Cassarick. They’ve done some bad stuff, scaring people and acting up, and the Council has decided they have to be moved. So they’re looking for people to move them away from Cassarick. They need people to herd them along and get food for them, that sort of thing. And resettle them, and keep them from coming back. ”

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  “Dragon keepers,” Thymara said softly. She looked away from Tats and tried to imagine what it would be like. From what she had seen of the dragons, they were not easily managed creatures. “I think it would be dangerous work. And that’s why they’re looking for orphans or people without family. So that no one complains when a dragon eats you. ”

  Tats squinted at her. “Seriously?”

  “Well . . . ”

  “Thymara!” Her mother’s sharp call broke the night. “It’s getting late. Come in. ”

  She was startled. Her mother seldom called her name in public, let alone desired her presence. “Why?” she called down to her. Perhaps her father had come home and wanted her. She couldn’t recall that her mother had ever called her back into the house.

  “Because it’s late. And I said so. Come inside. ”

  Tats eyes had widened. He spoke in a whisper. “I knew she didn’t like me. I’d better go, before I get you in trouble. ”

  “Tats, it’s nothing to do with you. I’m sure of it. You don’t have to go. She probably just has some chores for me. ” In truth, she had no idea why her mother would suddenly summon her back to the house. She knew she should probably go down to where their small dwelling swung gently from the branches that supported it. But she wasn’t inclined to go. When her father wasn’t home, the little rooms seemed uncomfortably small, filled with her mother’s disapproval. A sudden obstinacy, very unlike her usual subservience to her mother, suddenly filled her. She’d go, but not right away. After all, what could her mother do? She’d never come up on the flimsy branches where Thymara and Tats now perched. Her mother disdained even the tree-ways in this part of Trehaug. The Cricket Cages, as this district of tiny homes perched high in the upper reaches of the canopy was called, relied on lightweight bridges and fine trolley lines to ferry its populace from branch to branch. Her mother hated living in such a poor section of Trehaug, but the dangling cottages were affordable. Almost everything was cheaper up here in the higher reaches of the canopy.

  “Aren’t you going in?” Tats asked her quietly.

  “No,” she said decisively. “Not just yet. ”

  “What were you thinking about, just then?”

  She shrugged. “About how much everything has changed. ” She looked over the branch and down at the glittering lights of Trehaug. Their gleams were scattered and broken by the massive trunks and wide-reaching branches of the rain forest. “My family wasn’t always poor. Before I was born, when my parents were first married, they lived down there. Way down there. My father was the third son of a Rain Wild Trader. His family had a share of a claim in the old buried city, and they were fairly well-to-do. But then my grandfather died. My father has two older brothers. The eldest inherited the claim, and the next son had the knowledge of how best to manage it. But there really wasn’t enough there to support three families, and my father had to strike out on his own. Sometimes I think that made my mother bitter, even before I was born. I think she’d expected to live an easy life with pretty things and have handsome children who married well. ”

  A strange smile twisted her face. “One little detail, and it might have been different for everyone. I think that if my father had been the eldest son and inherited, someone would have offered to marry me by now, even if I had a tail like a monkey and squeaked like a tree rat. ”

  A bubble of laughter burst from Tats, startling her. After a moment, she joined in.

  “Would you have liked that life better than what you have now?” His question seemed genuine.

  She snorted at how silly he was. “Well, I liked it better when I was younger and we weren’t as poor as we are now. ”

  “Poor?”

  “You know. Hand to mouth. Living in the highest reaches of Trehaug where the branches are thin and the paths so narrow; we didn’t always live up here. ”

  “You don’t seem poor to me,” Tats protested.

  “Well. We’ve been richer. That’s for sure. ” Thymara’s mind roved back over her early childhood. They had lived well enough, then. “My da was a hunter back then, and a pretty good one. He did that for a time. And he hunted meat for the dragons for a while, until the Council stopped paying decent wages. That was when he decided to try being a grower. ”

  “A grower? Where? There’s no land you can plant in the Rain Wilds. ”

  “Not all food plants grow on land. That’s what he always says. Lots of the plants that we harvest for food actually grow in the canopy, in pockets of soil in the bends of the trunk, or with air roots, or as parasites on the trees. ” She tried to explain it to Tats, even though the idea of it always made her weary. Instead of wandering the branches, treetops, and byways of the Rain Wilds, taking meat as he saw it and gathering whatever the canopy offered, her father began to attempt to cultivate a section of the canopy. It was an old idea, but no one had ever been able to make the forest yield predictably for any length of time. But every now and then, someone like her father would think he had it figured out. He had brought together the various food plants and tried to persuade them to grow in the locations he had chosen rather than where Sa had sown them.

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  Her father was not the first to attem
pt it. Others had failed before him. He was merely more dogged, more determined than those who had previously failed. Some folks said that determination was a good thing. Her mother had once told her that it just meant that their family had lived in poverty for more years than the others who had tried and failed at the same experiment and quickly gone back to hunting and gathering. Their “gardening” took up a good amount of their time and yielded them less than their gathering, but her father persisted in it because he believed that one day it would pay off for them.

  “I could see that could be true about your da,” Tats said quietly. “My mother said that everything she cherished had been sacrificed for my father’s dream. Maybe it’s true. I don’t know. When I was little, and he was a gatherer all the time, we lived in four rooms, built so close to a trunk that they scarcely swayed even in storm winds. ”

  Those were the best houses in the Rain Wilds. The closer one lived to a trunk, the sturdier everything was, and the less wind and rain found them. The trunk markets were closer, and if one went down the trunks, there were taverns and playhouses. It was also true that there was less sunlight close to the trunk, but Thymara had always thought that a body could climb if she had a mind to feel sunlight and wind. The bridges and walkways that spanned the trees near their first home had been stoutly built, their guard walls tightly woven and kept in excellent repair. If she had to climb to find the sunlight, she also had the ability to go down and feel solid earth beneath her feet sometimes. She was never that enthused about those visits to the ground, but her mother had enjoyed them.

  “Why didn’t you like the ground? Seems the most natural place to live to me. I miss the ground. I miss just being able to run or walk and not be afraid of falling. ”

  Thymara shook her head. “I don’t think I could ever trust the ground. Here in the Rain Wilds, if you’re close to the ground, then you’re close to the river. And sooner or later, the river always rises. Sometimes so suddenly that there is no warning. Anything we build on the ground, we know it won’t last. Once, the river rose high enough to flood the old city. That was awful. A lot of workers were trapped and drowned. ” The wide relentless river frightened Thymara. She knew that seasonally it rose and flooded and that sometimes there had been sudden floods. The water was mildly acidic at the best of times; after quakes, it sometimes turned a deathly gray-white, and when it ran that color, it could mean a man’s death to fall into it, and those who had boats knew to hoist them from the water until the river returned to its usual color. Every moment she was on the ground, she dreaded that suddenly the river would rush up and devour her. Only when she was in the sturdy trees, high above the vagaries of the river and surrounding swamplands did she feel safe. It was a foolish fear, a child’s fear, but one that many Rain Wilders shared.