ʺI don’t know,ʺ I said, desperately, knowing that I had to say something, and knowing they weren’t going to leave it at that. I looked back at the original old guy and I knew, suddenly, that the on-stage part had been a lot shorter than planned, because the old guy knew I couldn’t stand it. I told myself that he only cared because of Hereyta and the Firespace—and I thought, well, why not?—but then I also knew it wasn’t true. He wasn’t just some old guy that everybody has to obey, trying to make me obey too. I remembered the affectionate look I’d seen on his face yesterday, looking at his cadets. Maybe he was used to the weight of the world on his shoulders, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel it, that he didn’t have to remember, sometimes, to stand like he had a broomstick up his coat. He understood what he was asking me to carry, and he’d help me if he could.
Except he couldn’t. ʺI don’t know,ʺ I said again, knowing that it wasn’t just they weren’t going to leave it at that, they couldn’t. If I were in their place I couldn’t leave it either. But there still wasn’t anything I could tell them. I’d taken my header off Hereyta because I was following Sippy. That had just happened. I thought about when I’d taken Arac’s place in Sippy’s three-way game, and the way the other two had looked at me afterward. And then I thought about standing up, when we had to get back out of the Firespace again, and pointing, and how it had been that way, it had been how we could get out. But that wasn’t anything anyone could use—it wasn’t like ʺmash up some delor leaf and pour boiling water over it and drink it.ʺ
You just do it, Ralas had told me, long ago, and when I said, Do what? she’d laughed and said, It. It.
The head old guy—I don’t know how to explain this—he was staring at me just as intently as the rest of the old guys, but he was doing it softer somehow. Him and Carn, if it was Carn. I thought, I’d tell you if I could, and the old guy’s expression changed briefly, as if he’d heard.
He said, ʺErn. Believe me. It doesn’t just happen. The Academy has been here for eight hundred years and no dragon who has lost an eye has ever crossed into the Firespace again. Or if they have there’s no record, and there would be a record. Or rather, the only hint of a record is from the tale of Erzaglia and Sorabulyar, which I told you about yesterday, and which you, interestingly, had heard of, although it’s an old obscure tale that no one tells any more. We don’t teach it at the Academy.ʺ He added gently, ʺErn. I can see how much you hate this. But think about how important this is to us, to our dragons—to all dragons, maybe—to Hereyta.ʺ
I could feel my face getting hot. That was unfair.
ʺNo, it’s not unfair,ʺ said the old guy as if I’d said it aloud. ʺI love Hereyta myself. She was the leader of the king’s guard for twenty years, did Dag tell you that? The king loved her too. I’ve hated seeing her crippled. Seeing her carry her authority—as she does still carry her authority—among the other dragons, when she can no longer Fly.ʺ
I could see Carn shift in his chair, and heard him sigh, a scratchy sigh from his damaged throat.
ʺI’m willing to believe,ʺ the old guy went on, ʺthat perhaps it’s something about her specialness, her uniqueness, that made it possible, what happened; that it also has to do with her being partnered with a cadet whose empathy with dragons is so extraordinary that he was jumped a year. We only have about one jumper a decade at the Academy. But I also know, as sure as dragons Fly, that it wouldn’t have happened without you and Sippy. I can’t believe it’s all just a peculiar accident that the only two-eyed dragon who’s entered the Firespace in any history we know went there while carrying a young man and his foogit. Ern. Think. Try.ʺ
And I did try. I closed my eyes and—Sippy having emerged from under the chair and put his head in my lap—buried both hands in his topknot and thought as hard as I could about those few moments after Hereyta leaped up from the ordinary earth and her wings beat us up and up and up in a spiral into the sky. And Sippy struggling out of his harness and out of my arms—and I still didn’t understand how that happened; I know I’m clumsy so I’m really careful—and over the edge of Hereyta’s wing. And how I went after him . . . and the heavy floosh of the air as I dove and the sort of counter-floosh as Hereyta plunged after us, veering up under us again in a way wholly incredible . . .
. . . wholly incredible . . .
. . . like the sudden wash of heat and the pink haloes around the trees on a clear cool autumn afternoon. . . .
I was suddenly staggering against Hereyta’s side, her wing, I had my arms around Sippy, we were supposed to be dead (or about to be dead) and we weren’t, but then how had any of this happened, starting with Ralas telling Dag to take Sippy and me with him. . . .
I could remember the pink trees, hearing Setyep and Dag comment on the bizarre breath of summer wind, knowing I wasn’t imagining it, knowing that it was something the two dragons and Sippy had done among them—but it was remembering like you might remember watching your wizard stop someone from bleeding to death. They could do it, you couldn’t. When it happened to you you were just standing there saying, Huh? What?
But thinking about wizards made me remember Ralas. Ralas who was here. What was Ralas doing here? It seemed as unlikely as Sippy and me flying on a dragon. Or a two-eyed dragon getting into the Firespace.
As if this was my answer I said to Ralas, ʺWhat are you doing here?ʺ
Ralas smiled her funny, wry smile and I realised how glad I was to see her, whatever she was doing here, and however much it was her fault that I was here. ʺMay I speak?ʺ she said to the old guy.
ʺI invite you to do so,ʺ he said courteously.
ʺErn has been my apprentice these three years,ʺ she began and I burst out, suddenly completely unaware of anything else, where I was or what was going on, anything but the words she’d just said: ʺYour apprentice? I’d die to be your apprentice! I’m not your apprentice!ʺ
There was a tiny pause. Dag shifted in his chair. Ralas turned to look at me. I had never seen her disconcerted, but she was disconcerted now. ʺErn? Of course you are. I settled with your parents right after your twelfth birthday. . . .ʺ Her voice tailed off. She must have seen it in my face that this was completely news to me. She blinked once or twice and I could see her mind going back to what had happened. ʺYour mother was worried about tying you so young, that’s true, even though as the third son you might be expected to be apprenticed to a wizard. But I pointed out that you were already interested in the work and that I wasn’t merely willing to have you but wanted you as well. And that since you were already trying to learn as much as you could, why not let you? Why not accept that you’d chosen your path and begin to help you along it?ʺ
I shook my head again, but the shaking just seemed to make my head hurt. Sippy moved his head on my knee as if to say, What’s wrong? Can I help?
ʺYour mother,ʺ Ralas went on slowly, ʺas a stipulation to their agreement, said that the apprenticeship was to remain secret, and part-time only, till you turned sixteen. I agreed to this. It meant I could begin teaching you, which was all that mattered to me; and I did not see that anyone needed to know beyond those of us involved. It never occurred to me that when your mother said the apprenticeship should remain secret that she meant it should remain secret from you too.ʺ