In the Labyrinth of Drakes (18 page)

“But it doesn't.” Andrew climbed to his feet, knocking dust and pebbles from his palms. “I can see your thoughts drifting, a dozen times a day. Besides—it doesn't have to be one or the other.”

I felt weary, as if I were ten years older than my brother, instead of a year his junior. “Yes, it does. You and I are not held to the same standards, Andrew. People will forgive a slip, a weakness, a minor personal folly—when it comes from a man. They may click their tongues at you, even gossip about your behaviour … but at worst, it will only reflect on
you.

“If I misstep, it goes far beyond me. Errors on my part are proof that women are unsuited to professional work; they are evidence that the Crown should never have assigned a woman to this post. My flaws are not merely my own. And so I cannot permit myself to indulge in anything that might validate the assumptions people have already formed—about me, and all my sex.”

Andrew scowled and kicked at a small stone, which ricocheted off into the dust. “Bollocks. Sorry, Isabella, my language—you aren't like other women. People know that.”

“Ah, yes,” I said ironically. “I have made myself exceptional. It is a wonderful game, is it not? Because I am exceptional, anything I achieve does not reflect on my sex, for of course I am not like them. Strange, though, how that division seems to vanish when we are speaking instead of my shortcomings. Then I am a woman, like any other.”

I had never seen my brother look so uncomfortable. The last time we had been in the same country, I would never have said such things. I did not even know what provoked me to say them now: sibling trust, the constant irritations I had suffered in Qurrat, or—yes—my wish that Suhail had not gone away. I had not even spoken this angrily to Tom, who knew more of my feelings on the matter than anyone save Natalie.

Andrew retreated from the awkwardness by returning to our original topic. “Suhail, though. I saw his face, when he was packing up to go back. I think you hurt him, Isabella.”

Now it was my turn to flinch from his words. But fortune smiled upon me: at that moment a scraping sound drifted on the desert wind, and I turned to see the drake at the mouth of her lair.

She yawned prodigiously and lay down just beyond the edge of the shade, basking in the sun's warmth. Her scales brightened gold where the breeze wisped dust away, and her broad ruff rose from time to time, catching the air and, I thought, cooling her slightly, by means of the blood vessels that laced its underside, akin to those on her wings. Apart from that movement, she was so still that a fox ran near her jaws; she was not yet hungry, for she let it pass with no more comment than one opened eye.

None of this was especially noteworthy, but observing it ended my conversation with Andrew. He said nothing further then, nor when he and I returned to the camp, leaving Tom to keep watch until dark.

As my readers may well imagine, though, his words stuck under my skin like burrs. Had I done wrong by Suhail? I had only meant to assure him that we would not perish if left alone for a time … but reviewing my words, I saw how they could be interpreted in quite another light. From that perspective, I sounded ungrateful and cold, eager to be rid of him at last.

Surely he did not think that—not when I was so grateful for his aid. And not after I had given him the rubbing of the Cataract Stone. I blushed to remember what Andrew had said regarding that, but clung to the thought nonetheless. Although calling it a love note was a great overstatement, I would not deny it was a token of friendship. Suhail had understood that, had he not?

Without him present to ask, I could only speculate. And, of course, plan what I might say when he returned.

In the meanwhile, I had my work; and it kept me very busy indeed.

*   *   *

When desert drakes rise to mate, they must signal to one another their readiness to entertain callers of the opposite sex. This is accomplished in dramatic fashion, by the female ascending to the peak of the tallest hill, dune, or rock formation she can find and roaring in a powerful voice that, it seemed to me, must carry to the farthest edges of the desert. She accompanies this with many gouts of flame; and for this reason, the display customarily takes place just before dawn, when her flame will be visible at a great distance.

Male drakes who wish to present themselves for her consideration travel to this location and array themselves around the base of her perch. They make a great presentation of their ruffs and wings, stretching both as far as they can go so as to make themselves appear large; they are of course smaller than their female counterpart, and a male who is too dainty will rarely win the attention of his lady-love.

The female, having attracted her suitors, will snarl and breathe flame at those she finds unacceptable. I am told, though I did not witness it with my own eyes, that a particularly stalwart male may weather this abuse and keep his place; but most who are thus spurned will depart, leaving behind three or so that have gained her favour. These are the dragons who participate in the mating flight itself.

With a great sweep of her wings, the female leaps into the air. Her suitors follow, but as they start without the advantage of height, it takes them longer to become airborne. This gives the female a respectable lead, and she uses it shamelessly, wheeling and soaring above the desert floor. Here a smaller male may sometimes fare better than expected, if he is especially nimble. But a drake who relies on such tactics must succeed quickly, or not at all; otherwise the flight becomes a contest of endurance, and his larger brethren will win out. They maneuver for position in the sky, lashing out at one another as circumstance requires or allows. It is not uncommon for a male to be wounded in this struggle, and to quit the field on account of his injuries. This happened in the very first flight we observed, and the beast in question was not able to hunt for some time afterward. I suspect he did not survive the summer, for a drake that does not feed well in the wet season will lack the bodily resources to last when food becomes scarce.

This drama enters its third and final act when one of the males succeeds in attaining a position above the female. Now he may attempt to stoop upon her; she ordinarily permits this, though I did see one female drive off her would-be paramour in no uncertain terms. (I can only speculate as to why, and none of my guesses are terribly scientific.) Here there is a countervailing pressure against the desire of a female to seek out a large mate: she must sustain them both in gliding flight while the copulation takes place. This is a brief matter, but the strain upon her must be enormous, and more than one flight has ended in failure because the participants had to separate early to avoid crashing.

The airborne stage of the process poses quite a challenge for the landbound audience. Drakes have been known to travel kilometers while conducting their aerial dance, and often the only good perch from which to observe is the one upon which the female began her display. Tom and I opted for a more active approach, which is to say: we threw ourselves into the saddle and set out to see just what Akhian horses were capable of.

Our mounts responded magnificently. On more than one occasion I was charging hell-for-leather after the drakes as they soared away, only to wheel my mare about on her hindquarters when they came swooping back in my direction. At any time other than during a mating flight, Tom and I would have made irresistible bait, easy prey for a drake to claw up or burn to a crisp. But all their attention is on the dance; and so we raced madly about beneath them, crying out observations to one another that often became lost in the roaring.

M
ATING
F
LIGHT

This was exhausting work, and by the time the flight ended I would gladly have collapsed in the nearest bit of shade—but I could not stop there. The most vital data was yet to come.

Andrew had been waiting in the shelter of a small cliff, safely distant from where the female made her initial display. Tom and I rode to his side, and I dismounted at a trot—a stunt I had not tried since I was fifteen, but I did not want to lose a single moment. Our camels were already kneeling in the sand, and lurched to their feet almost before we were in the saddles. For rapid changes of direction at speed, horses were the most effective choice; but only camels could do what we needed now.

We set off with al-Jelidah, first at a gallop (to make up the ground we had lost), then slowing to the pacing gait the camels could maintain for an extended period of time. The drake coasted ahead of us, sometimes ascending or making leisurely sweeps from side to side, looking for a good nesting ground. The sun climbed high overhead, and I had not had a drink of water in hours. But ahead of us the land rose steadily, and I whacked my camel with my stick, urging her up the slope.

Just as I reached the crest, al-Jelidah's borrowed camel surged forward to join mine. As soon as he came within range, he leaned forward to seize the halter, pulling me up short. “What are you doing?” I exclaimed.

He gestured ahead, and spoke a word I did not know.

This has happened to me more times than I can count, in the course of my travels. I had a list in my head of possible translations: dangerous, forbidden, cursed, and so forth. But Tom, pulling his camel to a halt on the other side of me, said, “Isabella, remember the map.”

Our pursuit of the drake had gotten me entirely turned around. I had to work to recall the geography of the area, and every second I delayed, our quarry's lead grew. The sun was no help, being too high overhead to provide much sense of direction. But when I turned to the ground ahead of me, I saw that it was increasingly broken; and then I remembered.

I stood at the edge of the Labyrinth of Drakes.

This is a curious geological formation, nestled at the base of the Qedem mountain range. Millennia of floods from the higher peaks have carved the sandstone into a maze of canyons and gullies, some of them exceedingly narrow, so that one seems to be riding through a corridor without a roof. There are oases within it, but little space to farm, and no one lives there today.

Thousands of years ago, of course, it was quite different.

The Draconean ruins there are famous, and have been since they were rediscovered by the Haggadi outlaw Yoel ben Tamir while he was fleeing from his pursuers. Whether they constituted a city or merely a ritual site was a matter of long-standing scholarly debate. Giorgis Argyropolous, the Nichaean antiquarian who made the first comprehensive survey of the place, gave fanciful names to each of the structures he found, and termed many of them temples; those appellations have endured, even though in most instances there is not a shred of evidence to support them. It is the natural response of the human imagination, when confronted by the silent, monumental remnants of the past: we assume that surely they were special, that the awe we feel is a sign of their hallowed nature.

That these ruins remained lost for so long is a testament to the hazards of the region. It is not safe to wander long in the Labyrinth: apart from the predators that lurk within, there are rock slides, and one may easily become lost in the winding passages. Furthermore, during the winter and spring there is great risk of sudden floods from storms at higher elevations, which can easily drown the unwary. In ancient times it is thought the Draconeans maintained dams which reduced this risk by channeling the flow in a controlled manner to where it was needed—but these are long gone. The peril of the Labyrinth remains.

Perilous or not, that was our drake's destination. “We have to watch her nesting behaviour,” I said, trying to pull my camel free of al-Jelidah's grip. “And take measurements once she is gone—temperature, the depth in the ground—”

Al-Jelidah cut the air with his free hand. “No.”

Tom chivvied his camel until it came around to stand in front of mine. She snapped her teeth at Tom's mount, as if to express my own mood. “There will be other flights, Isabella,” Tom said. “And drakes who nest somewhere we aren't liable to drown.”

I gestured at the canyons ahead. “They're bone dry!”

“At the moment, to be sure. But how much has it rained in the mountains recently?” We did not know the answer to that … which was part of the problem. “The water could be on you in a heartbeat. And how are you going to chase her, when she can fly over the things you have to ride around? I know you aren't afraid of risk—but this would be a damned stupid way to get killed.”

A damned stupid way to get killed
might have described any number of incidents in my life, had my luck been only a little different. Tom's steady gaze, though, reined in my impulse to give a defiant answer. A past history of reckless decisions did not oblige me to behave recklessly every time the opportunity arose. He would not mock me for showing caution; I had no reputation to maintain here.

And
that
thought—the notion of what other people might say—robbed me of all my momentum. Had my increasing notoriety gone that thoroughly to my head? The account I had written of my travels on the
Basilisk,
the speaking engagements I had taken after my return … despite my intentions, they had often skewed toward the sensational, rather than the scientific. A headlong charge into the Labyrinth of Drakes would have made a splendid story to tell. But my purpose here was not to increase my fame as an adventuress; it was to study dragons, not merely for the benefit of natural history, but for the future well-being of my nation. Risking my life, in a situation where I stood very little hope of success, would do nothing to further that goal.