2. The Request
Politics making Astra's life difficult...
Escape from Ice Mountain marks the start of an epic tale, one where a middle-aged fish-out-of-water librarian (and necromancer!) navigates love, betrayal, and the complexities of power as she struggles to embrace her destiny and uncover the mysteries of her own origins. Yes, there are dragons too! And also magical dogs. It’s gonna be awesome!
The main temple of the Western Ward was five stories tall and sunk deep into the mountainside. It was one of the oldest of the primary temples, supposedly built up thousands of years ago during the time of King Kasharat. That reflected glory shone brightly off the ultramarine blue paint of its walls and the many surfaces decorated with gold and precious stones. Astra clutched at her skirt, fearful of knocking over candles or precious treasures as she passed through the main chapel, which held the great Risen Arch over the throne, intricately carved from a massive block of red amber. Living her entire life surrounded by the greatest artistic and magical artifacts in the world had dulled Astra’s awe over the years, but the Risen Arch, centuries old and yet still glistening with reflections of the moonstones that lit the chamber, always made her hold her breath.
She slipped into one of the many hallways carved into the mountain, which led her deep into darkness. If it weren't for the moonstones set in sconces and casting an eerie, bluish light in the passageway, Astra would have been stumbling around in the dark despite her familiarity with the path.
The hall ended in a small cave, just as lavishly decorated as the main sanctuary, every wall and table holding irreplaceable treasures, each magnificent and unique. Some buzzed dully with their magic, some felt sharp as knives, but even the smallest paintings were splendid.
Naboch’s two temple dogs were near the door, their long limbs sprawled out gracelessly in their sleep and their ragged, ink-black fur fading into the dark. The only marker of their service to the doyen superior were the plain, black leather collars they wore. It was said that they were all black-furred and black-eyed because they were descended from fire dragons, which was of course ridiculous, but Astra could see why people believed it. The dogs were too fierce and too magical to be merely dogs, and it was known that, being soulless, they fed on magical power. She walked carefully around them, grateful that she was familiar enough a presence that they did not bother waking up. In the corner, a tall gilded statue of the half-fox, half-human goddess Mamum stood, facing west and watching the room with onyx eyes.
“Ah! You came.” Doyen Superior Naboch turned from where she had been hunched over a desk, writing something on parchment. The entire side of her hand was stained black with ink, which was something that always got Astra in trouble when it happened to her. The doyen superior clasped her hands together, as if surprised Astra would respond to the summons, which, to be fair, Astra had to concede was a valid concern given that she was not a disciple of Mamum anymore. Answering the call was too ingrained in her, though, from a lifetime of bending to the wills of the doyen superiors. She she wondered sometimes what would happen if she simply did not, for a change. Those were idle and pointless musings, she thought as she fell into the expected obeisance.
“I came,” she said, forcing a smile.
Naboch nodded. “Good.” While her skin was weathered and dusty, Naboch moved with the grace of a young woman. Like Zochur, her skin was as red as the clay they used to make the finest porcelain, but there the resemblance between the two ended. Naboch was rumored to have once been the daughter of a nobleman, and carried herself with that same self-confident entitlement that most nobility possessed, at least in Astra's limited experience. She was also beautiful, wearing her age and authority like a comfortable house coat, letting her responsibilities rest as easily upon her shoulders as the strands of pearls and lapis lazuli that hung from her braided hair under her head wrap. Astra envied her that ease.
“I live in service,” Astra recited the part of the novitiate pledge that was as much a part of her as Ice Mountain itself.
Naboch almost smiled at the offering of humility. “So that our hearts may beat forever,” she finished. Sighing, she moved away from her cramped desk and walked over to her lounging chair, which had always struck Astra as more of a throne than the actual throne in the temple's main sanctuary. Her habit was, technically, no different from Astra's or any nun in the monastery, with a long-sleeved, high neck dress moderately tailored at the chest and shoulders then falling into a wide bell shape, covered by a short, loose half-sleeved smock tied in the back. But it was set apart by the wide, rich, dark blue beaded hem of the russet red dress and the brightly embroidered silk smock. Astra, in contrast, was wearing the brighter blue of the North Ward from head to foot, the only thing setting her apart as a scholar being the vermilion ties of her smock and her deep red cloak. The wide, coarsely woven, cream-colored head wraps required of all nuns, in observance of the vow of humility that so few actually followed, were all they had in common.
Naboch paused as she passed by Astra, sniffing the air. “Sweet dumplings?”
Astra chuckled and set the basket down on a table before unlatching the top. “From Zochur.”
Naboch plucked a dumpling out like a cat, swift and merciless, before meandering over to her chair, petticoats swishing under the heavy canvas dress, taking the basket right out of Astra’s hand and setting it on her hip. She ate the dumpling slowly, then daintily licked her fingers.
“Appreciated. Thank you.” She snapped her fingers and the temple dogs sat up at attention. She tossed them each a bun before taking another for herself, leaving Astra to stand obediently and silently until Naboch finally looked at her again.
“I have called you here on official business, as Librarian of the Tiered Library in the North Ward.”
Astra nodded, the tension she had not realized she was holding in her shoulders bleeding out. Any doyen superior could request information from any library, as it was a courtesy offered been those of their ranks. An official request was something she had no concerns about, even if it was politically motivated, which it probably was. Those games, at least, were out of her orbit.
“Doyen Superior Dzrezor is looking for some particular information.” Naboch studied her face carefully, but even knowing that, Astra could not hide her flinch at the mention of his name. Naboch did not comment on her reaction, instead leaning back in her chair with her slippered feet resting on a velvet pillow to allow for her lack of height.
“Again? He sent one of his rangers to my library a few weeks ago, remember? You saw her there.” It had been a rare and unusually timed visit by the doyen superior, who had arrived not long after Dzrezor’s ranger had shown up. Astra had not thought about it much at the time, but she was beginning to have her own suspicions.
Naboch nodded, rubbing one of her large beaded bracelets. “This might be related to that.” She gave Astra a piercing look.
Astra wanted to ask flat out what the subject was, her curiosity building dangerously, but she kept her mouth shut by dint of long practice. Her curiosity was never welcome, outside of a library’s door. There was little love lost between Naboch and Dzrezor, who had both been in contention to be the Supreme Superior of the monastery at one point in the distant past, long before Astra was even born. They had both lost the vote and had been battling over it ever since, if gossip (Zochur) was to be believed.
She knew better than to ask about any other reason.
“Have you heard the rumblings from the south?”
Astra blinked at the non sequitur. “The snow dragons?”
“Maybe. They have been harassing travelers through the Bitter Pass, making it hard for traders to come through. Distant word has come that a few traders’ caravans have gone to re-take the northern sea route from the fire dragons, but if any have even gotten over the Golden Plateau, word hasn’t trickled down this far. It’s been getting steadily worse, though—for years, to hear some tell it. But more importantly, there have been some engagements between the Yosoi. Territory disputes, perhaps?”
The Yosoi were a people in the eastern ranges, tall and pale and violent. Many had thought that Astra was a bastard child of a Yosoi trader; most, in fact, still did. She knew they were not her people, though, and the few she had met terrified her. But she shook her head in response to the question.
“No. Nothing has changed much among the Yosoi kingdoms in generations. They are small and they fight each other, mountain clan against mountain clan, but they have never evidenced much aspiration to conquest. They have no reason to combine forces to attack the dragon holds in the southern ice lands. Even they know that would be suicide.”
“And you know all this, how?” Naboch tilted her head back, eyes on Astra.
Astra tried not to smile. “It is the mandate of my library to keep the histories and philosophies of the outside worlds. I collect more than books, but also copies of letters and treatises when they can be found.”
“I know,” Naboch smiled, her expression wicked and smug. “But Dzrezor has forgotten.”
That was the reason then, Astra figured. It was not a request to help Dzrezor, but Naboch asking Astra to help beat him at whatever game the superiors were locked in. The games were not so above her head as she had hoped. The politics of the superiors was too convoluted for Astra to follow, but where Zochur was like an older sibling, Naboch was like a mother—if a very stern mother—and that was always the direction her alliances would fall, and they both knew it. Likely even Astra’s own doyen superior in the North Ward knew it too. The only reason she had been pledged to Bu at all was because Naboch wanted her in the Tiered Library, as another piece on the ckut game board that was Qordashi politics.
“I take it you need me to find histories of the Yosoi and the snow dragons? I warn you, there are many. Most are long and boring epic poems, half of which do not even rhyme.”
“I was made to understand that their pronunciation differs?” Naboch offered, no more convinced than Astra. “But no, this is more recent than such romantic myths of war. This has to do with the snow dragons, not the Yosoi, who I think are merely…in the way? Or perhaps collateral damage.”
Astra crossed her arms, squinting into the corner of the room. “How do you hear of these things and I don't?”
“Because when you are not buried in your library, you are hiding in the retreat caves on the high ledges, breathing thin air and, I assume, praying.”
True enough, and Astra knew better than to argue. All the superiors had many eyes everywhere.
“Then what is it you need me to find?”
Naboch leaned forward. “The history of the snow dragons.”
“There is no history, not of any dragons. They just…are.” Astra held up her hands. “According to Nyoko the Elder, dragons do not write, and they cannot even speak. Their songs are no more understood than any birds’ of the lowlands. What do you hope that I will find?”
“They are not civilized beasts, true, but they make art, and they are smart. You cannot tell me they are any more unaware of themselves than we are of ourselves.” She looked directly at Astra like an accusation. “You more than most know that they think.”
Memories of flying, of terror and grief and awe, flooded Astra's mind, but she waved them away. “I do not mean to argue, Doyen Superior. I am just…confused.” She shrugged.
Naboch nodded and sighed again, giving way to the argument without conceding. “They are razing towns, digging under them with their claws, tearing buildings apart. They guard Bitter Pass, which they never have in living memory, and pluck apart caravans of goods. The traders say the dragons are not killing for pleasure or food, that people who die are merely in the way, at the wrong place at the wrong time. The dragons are without remorse, but they are not hunting either. They are simply destroying for the sake of destruction.”
Astra shook her head. “No.”
Naboch's eyebrows arched at the direct contradiction, causing Astra to hurry with her explanation. “I mean, Gracious Doyen Superior, that they don't do that. They never have. We live within sight of their holdings, if you go to the peak on a clear day. Never in the three thousand years of this monastery have they so much as flown by and toppled a potted plant, not even when the juveniles take their galespring. Qordashi is home to some of the greatest art and magical treasures in the world. If the dragons were simply greedy, they would have raided every temple here centuries ago.
“No. They are not destroying, they are…they are searching for something!” she finished triumphantly. “They hate to dig. There are no records of dragons using their talons for anything other than fighting and hunting. The breath of a snow dragon can shatter a man into frozen shards, so they simply freeze air and water around themselves when they need a den.” She shrugged. “Caves are for the dragons of Firestate, up far in the north, where it is hot and they need ways to retreat from the sun.”
“Snow dragons do not dig,” Naboch repeated thoughtfully. “You are certain?”
“I am certain: They do not dig. I have read treatises and letters describing them in many languages going back hundreds of years. I affirm what I know.” She followed with the gesture for truth, the drag of magic sparking in the air as confirmation.
Naboch nodded, her mouth twisting with a vicious smile. “They are looking for something.” She leaned back in her chair again, radiating smug satisfaction, and Astra knew exactly what the next words out of her mouth would be. “My Little Monk, you must find out for me what they looking for.”
The temple dogs stared at Astra implacably as she bowed her way out of the chamber, promises given.
WHAT are the snow dragons searching for?! Next installment pls!
The plot thickens and Astra is in the midst of it!