his side to laugh sweetly at his story of a foolish courtship before he’d met her. She schooled her face to a calm expression; she knew she could not manage to smile pleasantly yet, and she walked with a measured step back to her chair. She sat down and took up her cooling cup of tea. “Are you certain that you would not like me to freshen your tea for you?”
“Absolutely certain,” he replied brusquely. The beast. He wasn’t going to let her find refuge in polite small talk. She took a sip from her own cup to cover the flash of anger she felt toward him.
He twisted in his seat, retrieving a leather satchel from behind it. “I have a contact in the Rain Wilds. He’s a liveship captain who sails up there frequently. You know about the excavations at Cassarick. When they first found the buried city there, they were quite elated. They thought it would be like Trehaug was, with miles of tunnels to excavate and treasures to be found in chamber after chamber. But whatever disaster buried the Elderling cities was far harsher to Cassarick. The chambers had collapsed rather than merely filling with sand or mud. As of yet, little of anything has been found intact. But a few items were.”
He opened the satchel. His brief introduction had focused all her attention on the satchel. Trehaug was the major city of the Rain Wilds, built high in the trees in the swampland. But below it the Rain Wild Traders had found and plundered an ancient buried Elderling city. Similar mound formations at Cassarick near the serpents’ cocooning beach had seemed to promise a similar buried treasure city. Little had been heard since the trumpeting of the discovery, but that was not unexpected or unusual. The Rain Wild Traders were a short-spoken lot, keeping their secrets close even from their Bingtown kin. Her heart sank at Hest’s news. She had dreamed of them uncovering a library or at least a trove of scrolls and art. In her dreams, she had been there, lingering after the dragon hatch, and she had imagined herself saying, “Well, I’ve studied everything I could lay my hands on from Trehaug. I can’t translate all of this, but there are words I can pick out. Give me six months, and perhaps I’ll have something for you.” They would have been dazzled by her knowledge and grateful to her. The Rain Wild Traders would have recognized her worth; a translated scroll was worth hundreds of times the value of an undeciphered one, not just in terms of knowledge but in trade appraisal. She would have stayed on in the Rain Wilds, and been valued there. So she had imagined it a hundred times in her darkened room at night. On a summer afternoon, here in the parlor, her dream faded to a child’s self-indulgent imagining. It had, she thought again, all been a dream built of vanity and cobwebs.
“How sad,” she managed to say in an appropriate voice. “I knew there were such high hopes when rumors of a second buried city first surfaced.”
He nodded, his dark head bent over the buckles of the satchel. She watched his fingers work the strap through the metal and at last pull it free. “They did find one room with scrolls and such in it. The lower half of the room had silted in; I understand they are making efforts to salvage what they can of the scrolls that were buried, but the river water can be acid. However, there was one tall case in there, and six of the scrolls on the upper shelves were behind glass, in tubes made perhaps from horn and tightly stoppered. They were not perfectly preserved, but they did survive. Two seem to be plans for a ship. One has many illustrations of plants. Two others are possibly plans for a building. And the last one is here. For you.”
She could not speak. He had taken from the satchel a fat horn cylinder and she found herself wondering what sort of a beast had furnished such an immense and gleaming black horn. With a twist, he freed a wooden stopper from it, and then coaxed forth the contents. The scroll he drew
“Absolutely certain,” he replied brusquely. The beast. He wasn’t going to let her find refuge in polite small talk. She took a sip from her own cup to cover the flash of anger she felt toward him.
He twisted in his seat, retrieving a leather satchel from behind it. “I have a contact in the Rain Wilds. He’s a liveship captain who sails up there frequently. You know about the excavations at Cassarick. When they first found the buried city there, they were quite elated. They thought it would be like Trehaug was, with miles of tunnels to excavate and treasures to be found in chamber after chamber. But whatever disaster buried the Elderling cities was far harsher to Cassarick. The chambers had collapsed rather than merely filling with sand or mud. As of yet, little of anything has been found intact. But a few items were.”
He opened the satchel. His brief introduction had focused all her attention on the satchel. Trehaug was the major city of the Rain Wilds, built high in the trees in the swampland. But below it the Rain Wild Traders had found and plundered an ancient buried Elderling city. Similar mound formations at Cassarick near the serpents’ cocooning beach had seemed to promise a similar buried treasure city. Little had been heard since the trumpeting of the discovery, but that was not unexpected or unusual. The Rain Wild Traders were a short-spoken lot, keeping their secrets close even from their Bingtown kin. Her heart sank at Hest’s news. She had dreamed of them uncovering a library or at least a trove of scrolls and art. In her dreams, she had been there, lingering after the dragon hatch, and she had imagined herself saying, “Well, I’ve studied everything I could lay my hands on from Trehaug. I can’t translate all of this, but there are words I can pick out. Give me six months, and perhaps I’ll have something for you.” They would have been dazzled by her knowledge and grateful to her. The Rain Wild Traders would have recognized her worth; a translated scroll was worth hundreds of times the value of an undeciphered one, not just in terms of knowledge but in trade appraisal. She would have stayed on in the Rain Wilds, and been valued there. So she had imagined it a hundred times in her darkened room at night. On a summer afternoon, here in the parlor, her dream faded to a child’s self-indulgent imagining. It had, she thought again, all been a dream built of vanity and cobwebs.
“How sad,” she managed to say in an appropriate voice. “I knew there were such high hopes when rumors of a second buried city first surfaced.”
He nodded, his dark head bent over the buckles of the satchel. She watched his fingers work the strap through the metal and at last pull it free. “They did find one room with scrolls and such in it. The lower half of the room had silted in; I understand they are making efforts to salvage what they can of the scrolls that were buried, but the river water can be acid. However, there was one tall case in there, and six of the scrolls on the upper shelves were behind glass, in tubes made perhaps from horn and tightly stoppered. They were not perfectly preserved, but they did survive. Two seem to be plans for a ship. One has many illustrations of plants. Two others are possibly plans for a building. And the last one is here. For you.”
She could not speak. He had taken from the satchel a fat horn cylinder and she found herself wondering what sort of a beast had furnished such an immense and gleaming black horn. With a twist, he freed a wooden stopper from it, and then coaxed forth the contents. The scroll he drew
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