“Education is usually a product of wealth.”
“Well, don’t you sound high and mighty all the sudden.”
“Just wondering, and passing the time with idle talk.”
“Well, pass some time thinking about this. You don’t exactly speak like the usual occupant of these cells, either.”
“We teach our young to read, write, and to think on their own.”
“Including history?”
“Yes,” Raymer said.
“I’d like to hear about your history someday when I have spare time.”
“Why?”
“History is written by those who either win wars or those who have an agenda. I’d enjoy finding the differences between the truth and what you’ve. Now, after this stimulating conversating I’m going to take a nap.”
“Conversating is not a word.”
Raymer settled down with his back against his favorite spot on the cell wall, one where the rough stone didn’t hurt his back so much as he listened to Quint chuckle.
Quint continued, “I said it. You understood it. Therefore, we were conversating, and I declare it is now a word.”
Raymer shrugged. He had lost another argument. His thoughts shifted to a few days earlier. A brief sighting of the foppish young new Dungeon Master had given Raymer glimmers of hope, without any specifics as to why. At least, it gave him something new to dwell upon, always a welcome thing in an unending session of boring days.
The young man who had recently been appointed to the position was the fourth son of a powerful nobleman. For his first appearance in the lower dungeon, he had worn a blue brocade vest and matching jacket over a ruffled light blue shirt instead of the leathers most wore. He held a kerchief to his nose that was perfumed so heavily Raymer still detected traces of the scent two days later.
However, any change in the daily routine was cause for hope, or for devising new plans to escape, most that wouldn’t work, but the presence of the self-important peacock might be somehow be exploited. Raymer stood and squatted, bending his knees slowly until his buttocks touched his heels. Then he stood. He repeated the process, counting slowly until he reached a hundred.
As a reward for himself, he moved to the wall below the tiny window of his cell. A jump allowed him to reach high enough to grasp two of the three bars on the window, and he lifted himself until his chin rested on the sill. Little had changed since his last look.
He could see a portion of the trader’s market and people coming and going, each with a story that he’d never know. To survive the dungeons, you had to be thankful for what you had, the little things. Watching the parade of sellers, buyers, jugglers, acrobats, singers, dancers, and thieves while hanging from the window bars was his daily entertainment. When his arms tired, the show ended.
Above the dungeon spread the king’s Summer Palace, a smaller version of the Great Hall. It was constructed on a sloping outcrop of granite at the base of the Singing Hills. The slope of the granite allowed three stories of elaborate chambers, dining halls, and ballrooms.
The dungeon had been cut from the sloping granite at the lowest part of the base. Because of the slope, the dungeon was slightly below ground level. One wall had windows. Some of them were in cells. The dungeon had been an afterthought and built haphazard, almost four hundred years earlier. Most prisoners of the normal variety were held in the Great Hall, King Ember’s primary residence. But the need for a location to hold a select few discrete prisoners, usually political in nature, had caused the Summer Palace to be modified.
An open carriage, lavishly decorated and white painted wheels passed by on the road running beside the trader’s market. It had to be one of the King’s own, Raymer decided.. Sitting inside the carriage on the rear seat facing forward was a young man with wild, untamed brown hair, wearing a fancy green blouse and matching silk vest of the same shade. Tears streaked his cheeks. Cases of leather luggage were piled and tied haphazardly on the empty seats. As the carriage reached the gates, the driver flicked the whip on the flank of the beautiful black horse. The horse lifted his head and picked up speed. The carriage disappeared down the same road Raymer longed to travel. He lowered himself to the floor and rubbed sore arms.
The boy in the carriage had worn expensive clothing. A liveried driver sat atop. Raymer decided the youth was being sent away to an expensive school during the height of ball season, so he cried at all the parties he’d miss. Life is not about what you have, but what you wish. A matter of perspective. Want to trade places?
As a mental exercise, Raymer made up three distinctly different stories for why the boy in green was crying, each complete with back stories of families, friends, and why he was being sent off. None of them held a grain of truth, but it kept his mind active in circumstances that demanded he either exercise his mind as he did his body—or die a mindless prisoner in a dank cell located in a foreign land.
Raymer’s day would come and when it did he’d be ready to run like that black horse pulling the fancy carriage. Right out of the castle gates and into the wilds at the foot of the Raging Mountains that were his home. He started to run in place again, lifting his knees high and landing on his toes. As he tired, he picked up the tempo, pushing himself. He pushed until he fell exhausted onto the filthy, moldy straw that was his pallet.
He closed his eyes, seeing the snowcapped peak of Bear Mountain in his imagination. At the bottom of the south slope was a pass his father described as the entrance; a split or a crevasse in the solid granite that was all but invisible until you were there standing directly in front of it. Following that would lead you to a high mountain valley. There he would hopefully find more of the Dragon Clan, and perhaps woman to share his life.
Raymer wore the image of a red dragon on his back, a birthmark all of the dragon clan were born with. His image depicted a half-turned dragon that covered him shoulder to shoulder, the image minutely detailed.
His back began to tingle, then itch, instantly drawing his attention. The itch turned to pinpricks nearing pain. He sat up in his dirty straw bed and leaped up to grab the bars of his window, again. He pulled himself up until he could see outside, his eyes raised to the sky.
A massive red dragon was flying slowly over, its head swaying back and forth as if looking for something. I’m here. Raymer closed his eyes in concentration, trying to contact the dragon with his mind and repeated, “I’m here.”
Dragons are not very intelligent, but the old stories said they sometimes obey commands from those with the mark of the dragon on their backs. Raymer had never experienced a dragon doing what he wanted, but he had no doubt their lives intertwined in ways he didn’t yet understand. The tingles and the sharp pains of a nearby black dragon assured him of the dragon's presence. He believed the dragon was aware of him, as well, but in fact, he had no evidence to back up that belief. Between the falling tears, he watched the sky.
The dragon flew on.
Raymer shifted his thoughts to what he did know about dragons. A dragon fights with teeth, claws, and a black tar-like substance called spit. Dragon Spit is similar to that of some spitting snakes. It blinded opponents, but it also dissolved flesh and most anything else it touched, and if an open flame was nearby, the substance erupted into flame in a burst of energy, giving substance to the tales that dragons breathed fire.
Remembering back to when he was very young, Raymer had considered carrying a container of the dragon acid with him. He realized he could throw it at an enemy and have a weapon far stronger than any arrow or club. The idea was that when the container broke the vile substance would dissolve anything, it splashed on and touched, including people. If he could toss a beaker or jar of it near a flame, the resulting flash of fire would slow an army. He thought it was one of his better ideas until he mentioned it to his father.