“Blame them or not, the situation cannot go on. The diggers at Cassarick have refused to try to do any more work there while the dragons are loose. They’re a hazard. They have no respect for humans. They’ve had problems with dragons following the workers down into the excavations, and knocking loose the blocking and supports. One worker was chased. Some people say that the dragon wanted to eat him, others that he provoked the dragon, and still others that the dragon was after the food he was carrying. It all comes down to the same thing. The dragons are both a danger and a nuisance to the people who have moved to Cassarick to develop the digs there. And there have been a series of incidents involving the dead. At a recent funeral, a family was committing a grandmother’s body to the river. They let the river take the bound corpse, and as they were casting the wreaths and flowers out onto the river, a blue dragon waded out, seized the body, and ran off into the forest with it. The family gave chase, but couldn’t catch up with it. None of the dragons will admit it happened, but the family is virtually certain that their grandmother’s body was devoured by a dragon. And, of course, the worry is that while they may begin by sating their appetites with our dead, it may not be long before they eat the living.”

Thymara sat in shocked silence. Finally she said quietly, “I suppose they are not what I thought dragons would be. It’s disappointing to know that they are no more than animals.”

Her father shook his head. “Worse than the lowest beasts, my dear, if what we are hearing is true. Dragons can speak and reason. For them to sink to those sorts of things is inexcusable. Unless they are deranged. Or simple.”

Thymara unwillingly dragged out her memories of the hatch. “They did not seem healthy when they emerged from their cocoons. Perhaps their minds are as badly formed as their bodies.”

“Perhaps.” Her father sighed. “Reality is often unkind to legends. Or perhaps, in the distant past, dragons were intelligent and noble. Or perhaps we have looked at the images the Elderlings left us and decided to imagine them as other than they really were. Still, I have to agree with you. I think I am as disappointed as you are, to find them such low beasts.”

After a time she asked, “But what does any of this have to do with me?”

“Well, Gedder and Sindy only had the bones of it, but after much debate, the Council has decided on the obvious. The dragons must be moved away from Cassarick. Selden the Elderling has spoken of a place far upriver, a place where dragons and Elderlings once lived side by side, with plentiful hunting and elegant palaces and gardens . . . well . . . it all sounds to me like a tale of a place that might have existed long ago, when both Trehaug and Cassarick were aboveground. Several years ago, he proposed an expedition to search for it. No one rose to the bait at the time. Well, who can say that it is not all sunken and buried in a swamp now? But the Council has chosen to believe it is not; evidently the young dragons have vague memories of it themselves, and some have spoken of it longingly. There are even rumors that it was the capital city of the Elderlings, and that their treasure houses were there. Of course, that has piqued quite a bit of interest. The Council wishes the dragons to leave and go there to live. The dragons have agreed to go, but only if they are accompanied by humans who will hunt for them and assist them on the journey. And so, in their wisdom, the Council has cast about for folk it considers expendable. And that is the ‘offer’ that has been made for you, for you to be a dragon tender and herd them upriver to a place that possibly no longer exists, and that definitely has never been seen by any Rain Wilder.” He snorted. “It will be a thankless, dangerous, and futile task. All know that for days both upriver and down, the area under the great trees is endless swamp, bog, and slough. If there were a great city, our scouts would have found it long ago. I don’t know if it’s a mirage of riches that greed makes us seek, or exile for the dragons under the pretense of sending them to a refuge.”

Her father had become more and more outraged as he spoke. As he did when agitated, he had taken so many puffs on his pipe that Thymara felt she sat in a cloud of sweet tobacco smoke. When he fell silent at last, she turned her head to glance back at him. His eyes were faintly luminescent in the darkness. Her own, she knew, glowed a strong blue, yet another mark of her deformity. She held his gaze as she said quietly, “I think I’d like to go, Father.”

“Don’t be silly, child! I doubt that any such place still exists. As for making a perilous trip upriver past any charts we have, in the company of hungry dragons and hired hunters and treasure seekers, well, there can be no good end to such an errand. Why would you want to go? Because of things your mother has said? Because no matter what she says about you or to you, I will always—”