39

Descendants and Dissever

Wings spread wide, Candle soared higher and higher in bemused wonderment. She careened through the sky with more enthusiasm than grace, laughing as she rode the currents that spiralled and twisted through the air. The sun sank into the western sea and the moon rose to the east, bathing the landscape in a soft, luminous blue light. The towering piles of clouds were frosted with silver as she burst through their wet mass, blinking the moisture out of her eyes. It was cold, but her new body did not seem to mind and the exhilaration of flight filled her blood with lightning. Even the scent of the starlit air was intoxicating. Her nostrils flared as she gulped in great gelid breathes of ozone and frost. Jotham was a black shadow ghosting ahead of her. Together they flew for miles, skimming the coast, gliding high over unfamiliar mountains.

Eventually, Candle's shoulders began to ache and her belly began to rumble, reminding her it had been a very long time since she had eaten.

What do dragons eat? She asked Jotham, with some trepidation.

Whatever we want, he said. She felt, rather than heard the laughter in his voice, But I can recommend a fresh, salty supper.

She followed Jotham out across the great southern ocean, and he taught her how to catch the massive fish that fed in the warm current there. Out of sight of land, they spent an enjoyable half-hour diving in and out of the glittering sea and catching large fish. They took their catch back to a rocky ledge that overlooked the great bay to eat their fill. It was, as Jotham had promised, delicious.

They were somewhere to the east of Jelling the Tinkers, Candle thought, although she wasn't sure. The mountain slopes behind them were windswept and desolate. Far over the waters of the bay, she could just make out the mountains of the Roseland Peninsula. They were usually hidden behind the bulk of the Old Man and she eyed the unfamiliar ridgelines with interest. To their right, the Guardians and the Enchantments rose in the predawn mist. They looked strange from this angle. Everything looked strange, she thought, with a grin, glancing down at her black scales - strange but better.

Tuna is good, Jotham was saying, pulling her attention back to the present, but giant squid is the most delicious. Just don't hunt them until you are confident in your skills. Or I am there to help. They will rip the flesh off your bones if you get them at the wrong angle. Worth the risk, but you need to be careful. Don't bite off more than you can chew. He laughed again, at his own joke and spat out a fishbone the size of a human forearm. Then he said more seriously - Most of the time you will be the biggest creature in the water. Just keep an eye out for the Krake. If you see so much as a single tree-sized tentacle get out of the water.

Krake? Asked Candle, her blue slit eyes widening like a cat's.

You'll know it if you see it: boiling waters, silver mantle, that sort of thing.

I'll be sure to leave it alone.

They sat together on the deserted mountainside and watched the stars sink into the sea, their bellies full. Candle lay back against the rock. Her spine seemed to curve easily in this form, and she wrapped her long, elegant tail around herself, resting her head on her forearms.

I don't want to change back, she said, not ever.

It's easy, said Jotham, and suddenly he was a man again. "You just have to want to be a human again," he said in his human voice. It sounded strange to Candle's ears now, after hearing his voice directly in her mind.

But I don't want to be human again, she said. Why would I?

"It's just as easy to change back into your real form," he said, and once again he was the magnificent black dragon, looking down at her with merry golden eyes. You just need saltwater to initiate the change. In time you will be able to change with a just a thought.

Saltwater?

He nodded.

Are you sure? She asked. Amusement rippled across his features.

Of course.

All the same, Candle fell asleep in her scales, there on that rocky ledge on the deserted mountainside above the sea. She slept deeply and dreamed of flying, but when she awoke, she awoke cold and in her human body again. She looked down at her torn cotton shirt, fear clutching at her with spidery fingers. Had it all been a strange fever dream? She relaxed a little as she saw the great black dragon watching the waves in the predawn light. At least Jotham was real.

"Did I dream that I was a dragon?" she asked, getting up and stretching. Her shoulders felt a little sore, as if she had overused the muscles there. Her eyes drifted to the enormous bones of the fish they had eaten the night before. It had happened; she hadn't imagined it. She went to sit beside Jotham, her legs dangling over the rock. Noticing her shiver, Jotham changed back into a man and produced a blanket, and handed it to her. She wrapped it around herself, gratefully.

"I think you are a dragon that dreams it is sometimes a human."

"What - what happened?" she asked, tucking her chin into the blanket. "How did that happen? I don't understand? How am I a dragon?"

Jotham's hair was sticking up on end as he sat back down on the ledge. Candle had never seen him so cheerful, but then she felt pretty cheerful herself.

"It's good to have someone to talk to," he said, to her surprise. "And someone to fly with. It's been a very long time."

"I've never really had anyone to talk to," said Candle.

"What about those humans on the mountain top," he said, looking at her sideways. "You seemed to talk to them a lot."

"How do you know about them?" she said in surprise. Then she remembered that it had been Jotham who had set on the path to Gwavas in the first place. Her stomach twisted - thinking about the Ancestor’s Own was still painful. She wondered what her team was doing and whether any of them were missing her.

"Watching is what I do," he said, rather smugly, flicking a fragment of fishbone into the sea with long fingers. "I see most of what goes on in my mountains."

"Your mountains?"

"My mountains," he said firmly. "Make no mistake, they are my mountains." He looked over to the west a little anxiously. In the far distance, the Enchantments were just visible, like blunted teeth rising out of the bones of the earth. "I must be getting back soon. I've been away too long."

"Those people...the Ancestor’s Own..." said Candle, "I can't go back. They think I am a barbarian spy...because of the colour of my eyes. They don't want me around."

"Humans put too much store on that sort of thing," Jotham said disapprovingly. "They are all the same species. More or less."

"But how do you know for sure," she said, choosing her words with great care, so as not to activate the geas. "Wights have blue eyes and when humans sacrifice to a demon," she said, "their eyes turn blue, and their hair turns white." It was so vague as to be almost useless. Meanwhile, Jotham surveyed her, his own, golden eyes intense. He seemed to be aware that she was trying to convey more than was obvious with her words.

"Your eyes are blue because of your barbarian heritage," he said at last, and she could see he was puzzled. "They are not the same blue as the undead."

"I know that," she said, frustrated. "I mean, I hope that it is true. But how are you so sure I have barbarian blood?" she asked. She realised she wanted it to be true, desperately. It was better to know that her mother was a barbarian than to think she was demon-possessed, or soulless. Or that she was somehow part wight or worse. That had always been her darkest fear, a fear so terrifying she had buried it deep.

"I can tell from the smell of your blood," he said. "The humans you call barbarians smell different from the indigenous kind. They smell of pine forests, of snow, of frost, and of smoke. I can smell all sorts of interesting things in their blood and I can tell they have travelled a great distance to get here. Dragon blood, on the other hand, is much better - it’s living lightning - salt and electricity." He inhaled deeply, sniffing at her and she swatted him away, indignantly. "And then there's also the local human blood swimming around in there. The kind of human that loves broccoli florets with a side of incredibly dull poetry."

Candle's knees felt a little weak with relief.

"Thank the Night," she exhaled and lay back against the rock. The ledge felt a lot bigger when she was in her human body. After a while she sat up again, unable to relax. She had too many questions. "This dragon thing, being able to turn into a dragon. You say it's because we share an Ancestor? We are related? Are you human then?"

"No!" he said, stretching out on the rock. "I am not a human!"

"Are you a Revenant?"

"I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that word."

"Are you undead? Are you a lesser demon? Or any kind of demon? Are you from the Night Nation?"

He was silent, and Candle waited, gripping the edge of her blanket with tight knuckled anticipation. She wasn't sure she cared what he said. It might be foolish, but she liked him. She felt comfortable around him. He was one of the few people she had met who hadn't let her down. So far.

"I’m from the Night Nation," he said, and her stomach lurched unpleasantly, "but I’m certainly not undead or a demon, as I understand the terms."

They stared at each other.

"But I thought only the dead lived in the Night Nation - and spirits?"

"The dead do live there, but other ...things live there as well." He pointed to himself. "A case in point."

"Do humans live there?"

"Not anymore."

"But they used to?"

"Not exactly." He paused, searching for the words. "How can I explain? Mmm... So long ago, before the Dissever, the Night Nation didn't exist. Everything was together - human, spirit, dragon, the dead and the living. We were all there, together, on the same plane, occupying the same space."

"The Dissever," she said, rolling the strange word around on her tongue. "What does that mean? What happened?"

"Humans were dying out," he said, "There was a war, a terrible, vicious war. To prevent the destruction of the human race, the world was ...separated ...sundered. Dissevered. The Twilight Nation and the Night Nation were created to protect you."

"What did we need protecting from?"

"From the dead," said Jotham, his eyes serious, "from my kind, and from others like us who saw humans merely as prey."

Candle swallowed.

"I'm not old enough to remember the war," said Jotham, "I was born in the Night Nation shortly after the Dissever." She looked at him, carefully, taking in the brown unlined skin, and his shiny, black hair.

"So just how old are you?"

"What an impertinent question!" he said, his feral smile, never gone for long, appearing once more on his lips. He leaned back and closed his eyes. "But since your curiosity this morning seems to be insatiable, and you will no doubt badger me to death if I don't tell you - I am old," he cracked open one amused golden eye, "but not as old as you might think. Time passes differently in the Night Nation."

"It does?"

"Here, many centuries have passed since the Dissever, you talk about it as if it was a myth. No one remembers the particulars. There, when I left, it had been only a few score years and it was still living memory. I have been in the Twilight Nation for no more than a few hundred or so years, more than a few of which I spent in that God's forsaken cave..."

"A few hundred years...." Candle repeated in disbelief.

"I told you the truth when I said you are but a child," he said, smiling, "and that you’re young and naive. You are altogether too trusting, although I'm glad for my sake that you were. It is good to have family around again. Even though I'm going to need a long nap after this conversation."

He yawned pointedly.

"So... why did you leave the Night Nation?"

His brow furrowed once more and a shadow settled on his face.

"My older sister, who I loved dearly, fell in love with a human," he said. "She chose to stay in the human Nation with him and their children after the Gates closed. This caused a lot of ...unhappiness in our clan. Many felt that she was debasing herself through her association with a human. I disagreed and followed her to the Twilight Nation a mere ten years after she left. When I arrived here, she was centuries dead, and her children's children had forgotten they could fly."

A tear glinted in his eye. Candle leaned over to squeeze his hand but didn't quite dare. Instead, she asked "What was her name? Your sister, I mean?"

"Jowanet of the Black Dawn, Du Bora in your tongue."

His eyes softened, and Candle wondered if he was picturing her in his mind.

"I have Du Bora's amongst my Ancestors," she said wonderingly.

"As, I suspect, does most of the Eastern Reaches," said Jotham, his mood lifting like a mist in the sun. He stretched his arms wide. "She had many children, and they had many more. So, technically, I'm your great uncle many times removed, and I should call you niece rather than cousin."

"So the castles on the mountain tops - that's why the Ancient Ancestors build so high," said Candle, her mind reeling. "Who needs a moongate when you can fly?"

"Many of their predators could also fly. The castles were a necessity. Most of those ruins were built before the Dissever."

"Predators?" she said, with a shiver.

"As I said, the Nations were split to ensure the survival of the human race. There are more than just wights that lust for human blood, and as I've said many times before, humans are ridiculously fragile. But sleep easy and do not worry. The gates are guarded and locked. The Night Nation is held in check. Nothing can come through."

"What about demons?"

"They are only here," said Jotham, "because humans invite them. Humans are both fragile and foolish."

Candle watched the play of the dawn light of the water as she turned over all this new information in her mind. It was a lot to process. She sat up suddenly. "So other people...can they turn into dragons too?"

"Of course - if they share our ancestors," said Jotham, "and if you can get them into the sea. I've been trying to convince one of you for ages...but you're the first one who's actually gone in."

"But, surely not all humans..?"

"Oh no," he said, "not all. Not your barbarian brethren, they have their own magic which I don't know much about. And not the pale ones to the west, the ones you call Teurek. But quite a lot of the ones around here share our Ancestor. That's why I sent you to them; I thought you should be with family."

Candle snorted at the idea that she would be happier with family and her mind drifted, unwillingly, to her parents. She had not thought about them for a while now. She had been happier for it, although she missed her sister. What would Ishbel think if she could see Candle now? She would probably be horrified, Candle decided.

She understood now why her parents disliked the sight of her. She understood now why her blue eyes were such an embarrassment. The sophisticated and powerful Lady Enys was a barbarian from the far north, and Candle's very presence was a constant reminder that could not be hidden. If she had been able to speak to her Ancestors, to work glamour and hide her eyes, maybe her mother would have felt differently. But her father - her father's bloodline also hid a secret.

"So you are telling me," she said slowly, "that if I could get them in the sea, my father, brother and sister would turn into dragons?"

"Yes."

Candle shuddered. The thought of a dragon Rasmus was too hideous to contemplate. Her thoughts moved on to her teammates at Dawn Watch. Who among them might share dragonblood? Dawn Watch would be a fine place to live - if they could fly. Her smile dropped as she contemplated the possibility of Moloch and the Mester in command of a dragon army. Fingers of ice tickled her spine. Whatever happened, she needed to keep this a secret from Rasmus, and from the Mester - from anyone who might tell them. She would have to keep the knowledge to herself.

"Why did we forget?" she asked, throwing a pebble into the waves. "Why did we forget we are dragons?" She thought about the carving of the dragon that represented Havi above the entrance of the Keep at Gwavas. That was the only dragon she had seen anywhere. Although actually, now she came to think of it, there might have been serpents carved around the chimney breast at Dawn Watch. It was strange, she thought. The Ancestors were so venerated, their names and stories lovingly told down through the generations. How could such an important fact just be disregarded?

"I'm not entirely sure," said Jotham, frowning. "I wasn't here. I do know that the war that split the world was both bloody and violent. Thousands died, and thousands more were injured. Your human Ancestors valued their peace, as do your current rulers. Perhaps they rejected their dragon selves out of some misguided attempt to embrace peace? To disavow the violence?"

"Perhaps."

The day was dawning and it was pleasant watching the stars wink out one by one as the sun rose behind them. They stared out across the waves in companionable silence. Candle felt surprisingly calm about it all now she had had some time to think. A whole new world was laid out before her, so big and vast she could hardly stand it. Her worries felt smaller somehow. Her prayers had been answered, and by an Ancestor she had never knew existed. Thank you, Jowanet of the Black Dawn, she thought. She could go anywhere she wanted. She was no longer small and helpless. Well, as long as she stayed close to the sea, but that wouldn’t be too difficult. Her thoughts drifted back to Jotham and his long, strange life. She thought of the moment she had met him, in that dark cave and who had put him there.

"What about your - your lover," she asked daringly, after a few moments, "the one who bound you in that cave. Is she still alive?" She bit her lip as Jotham's face settled into anger. Why had she asked such a personal question?

"Yes," he said shortly. "She lives. We are not on speaking terms." He looked down at Candle and his face cleared. "I'm sorry, little one, don't be afraid. Her crimes are not yours." He sighed, eyes on the horizon. "She always did what she thought was best. She still does. She thought I was dangerous. She's right of course. I am. Her mistake was thinking that I was a danger to her or those she cared about."

Candle wanted to ask more but wasn't quite brave enough. Instead, she too stared out at sea. It was calm as a millpond, for the wind had dropped with the gloaming. In the distance, something large crashed into the waves and was gone before Candle could see what it was. A whale perhaps, she thought, or a giant squid, or perhaps it was Jotham's Krake.

"We were always taught that the sea was deadly and full of monsters," she said, after a while.

"It is," said Jotham, "and now you know you are one of them."

Candle felt a large smile spread across her face.

They both lay there for a while, side by side, lost in their own thoughts.

"So all it takes to change is saltwater?"

"Yes," said Jotham. "Although it won't work if you are touching iron. Remember that."

They watched the sky change from purple to blue. The last star winked out and a puff of wind lifted her hair. Candle sat up, on one elbow.

"So... you said dragons have their own magic?"

"Did I?" He looked down at her eager face, raised one long-suffering eyebrow and sighed. "Do you want me to teach you some?"