As Tolar had commanded, Zaehr paused to take a quick trace item from each of the corpses she could reach—a scrap of cloth, a lock of hair. She carried a few strips of fresh linen in her pouch; she dabbed one on the silver blood of the dragon and rubbed another against a thick scale.
She pressed forward, working her way deeper into the ruined ship. She could hear voices shouting outside the vessel—officers of the Sharn Watch, a Lyrandar salvage team, healers from House Jorasco. The watch was working to push the public back while the House forces extinguished the fires and brought their own teams into the ship. There wouldn’t be much work for the Jorasco healers. Between the impact of the crash, the two explosions, and the crushing bulk of the dragon itself, Zaehr had yet to find anyone who could possibly be revived. During her childhood in the depths and her time with Tolar, Zaehr had seen many horrible things, but finding three young girls crushed against a doorframe… what sort of person would set such horror in motion?
She found the center of the first blast—a large dining hall. The walls were covered with ash, and a number of the blackened corpses had been blown apart before being crushed by the dragon. Zaehr found the remnants of a giant owl, most likely a merchant from Dura or a windchasing champion; she plucked a few feathers from one scorched wing. After searching for trace objects on the other corpses, she scoured the room for remnants of the airship that had struck it, then turned her attention to the dragon. Only the muscular neck remained, rammed through the wall leading to the bow of the ship. Zaehr pulled herself along the serpentine neck, squeezing through the smashed gap.
She had a strong stomach. She had spent her first years in filth and had just examined a score of corpses, but what she saw next brought bile to her throat, and it took all her will to keep from retching.
Soon enough the ship was crawling with Lyrandar salvagers, and Zaehr made her way back to the square. She planned to disappear into the shadows, but a skycoach was waiting for her, the steersman carrying a parchment with Tolar’s crest. Normally Zaehr loved riding in the air, but after the fall of the Pride, she felt a momentary trepidation at stepping aboard the flying boat. But it wasn’t in her nature to argue with Tolar. Once she was aboard, the skycoach rose into the air, winding through the massive towers of Sharn and finally bringing Zaehr to the luxurious residential district of Oak Towers. The buildings on this level of Sharn were inspired by elven architecture, with rounded, curving walls and intricate engraving. Most were built from densewood—a form of lumber with the strength and durability of stone.
Tolar was waiting in a small park filled with bloodvines and gray oaks, and Zaehr quickly relayed the highlights of her investigation. Tolar led her down a road cobbled with disks of densewood as they spoke.
“Precisely what I expected,” Tolar said when Zaehr told him the story.
“You expected the head to be missing?” Climbing along the neck, Zaehr had actually dug one hand into the charred flesh of the beast’s stump.
“Missing or at least severely damaged,” Tolar said. He was favoring his left leg and placing much of his weight on a gnarled cane. Apparently the morning’s excitement had taken its toll, but Zaehr had other concerns.
“Explain,” she said. Finding the seared stump of the neck had sent a chill through her. The dragon’s head must have been ten feet long. How could something like that simply vanish? She’d half-expected to find some sort of terrible head-eating beast lurking in the wreckage, but she’d seen nothing of the sort.
“When the dragon burst through the hull of the ship, there was no sign of motion in its limbs that could not be explained by the wind and fall. Such an experience would be extremely uncomfortable for the creature in any case. The logical explanation was that the dragon had been concealed on the ship in the form of a smaller creature and that this magical effect was broken upon its death… as is typical of such transformations.”
“But—” Zaehr knew it was a mistake the moment she opened her mouth. Tolar hated interruptions, and she could sense his frustration in a half-dozen ways—the tightlipped scowl, the lines on his forehead, the sour smell no human would have noticed. She bit her lip even as Tolar silenced her with a sharp wave of his hand.
“I had an excellent view of the creature during those first moments, and there were no signs of mortal injury that I could see—minor burns and scrapes most likely caused by bursting through the hull of the ship. Therefore, the killing blow had to have struck an area of the body that was hidden from view.” He paused, glancing back at her for the first time in the conversation. “Now, I believe you had a question?”
“Yes, but… the, head was gone. How does something so large just vanish?”
“You’re not thinking on the proper scale,” Tolar replied. She could sense his slight disappointment and felt a touch of shame. “When the attack came, the dragon was in the form of another creature—most likely, a human, elf, or half-elf. The injury came while she was in this shape.”
Zaehr opened her mouth to speak but bit back the question. One interruption was bad enough.
“I suspect that she was standing close to the breach in the hull during first explosion,” Tolar said. “I already mentioned the minor burns. However, her head—barely the size of yours, I imagine—must have been exposed to the full force of the blast. You said the stump of the neck was charred.”
Zaehr nodded.
“So the head was blown apart. Most likely pieces remain, but they would have been scattered during the expansion of the rest of the body—I suspect a few curious children will go home with dragon’s teeth tonight.”
“You said she.”
“Yes?” Tolar said. “You didn’t notice?”
Zaehr blinked. “Well, I…” She shook her head. “It was a dragon! A myth! How am I supposed to tell the difference between girls and boys?”
“Dragons are living creatures, Zaehr. And that means that they eat, sleep—and breed.”
Zaehr held up her hands “Until today, I thought dragons were just something cartographers put on maps to justify the regions they were too lazy to explore. I’ve never considered the idea of where little dragons come from. And you’re not the least bit surprised to find a dragon in Sharn?”
“Of course not. Sharn is the largest city in Khorvaire—possibly the largest in the modern age. It’s a center for trade, diplomacy, and all manner of intrigue. If a dragon is going to move among humanity, do you suppose it would live on a farm? Clearly the creature was here to monitor events in Sharn.”
“But why?”
Tolar rubbed his short beard, fingering the streaks of red. “The Library of Korranberg has an excellent draconic studies department. The latest research indicates that while dragons are mortal, they can live for thousands of years. Now look at the last five thousand years of history. Humanity has gone from a state of savagery to dominating two continents. Your race didn’t even exist back then. The younger races must move very quickly from the perspective of a dragon. It’s hardly surprising that they should wish to study events from within… or, I suppose, to control them.”
“But… if power is what they want, why not just use force? You didn’t get as close to that thing as I did, but I wouldn’t try fighting it if it was alive!”
Tolar stopped walking. He turned to her and put a hand on her shoulder, staring down into her eyes. Whenever he looked at her that way, Zaehr always remembered their first meeting in the sewers so many years ago—that absolute confidence that had caused her to hold her attack, the determination that had drawn her up into the civilized world.