Dag glanced at me. ʺThey’re supposed to read the signs and so on. The Academy won’t take you if the Seers find against you. And the Seers read for First Flight.ʺ
ʺMaybe we should try wizards,ʺ said Eled.
We were getting near what even I could guess had to be the Academy gates. We had crossed what must have been the oldest part of the town, where there were lumpy, bulgy, much-mended walls which ran in all directions and sometimes they made sense and sometimes they didn’t. But the way we were going now was getting more open and less crowded. I hadn’t realised I’d been breathing shallowly till I started breathing normally again. All those buildings and people really lean on you. The problem was that as soon as I took a few deep breaths I was zinging all over with a different kind of tension. I didn’t remember when the wall had changed from an ordinary town wall to something else, but as we neared the huge gates—big enough, I guessed, for two dragons to go through together, although it seemed kind of unlikely they’d want to—it was obvious that the wall that led up to it was anything but ordinary. There were pillars built into it at intervals, and the mended places were a lot neater, and it was twice as high, which presumably meant it was twice as thick.
My mind went blank and I started walking jerkily, like my legs were trying to turn me around and run me away, which they probably were, but I was too scared even to think about that. There was a guard at the gate although the gates were open. The wall there was twice as wide as I was tall. ʺClear skies,ʺ Eled said to the guard affably.
ʺAnd to you,ʺ replied the guard. His gaze lingered on me and Sippy, but he didn’t say anything. I was still on the other side of Eled from Dag. Eled put his hand on my shoulder and pointed with the other, saying, ʺThat way.ʺ I’m sure the guard thought my presence was his fault. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or embarrassed.
Sippy and I got some funny looks and both Dag and Eled said ʺclear skiesʺ or ʺheyʺ to what seemed to me to be a lot of people but probably wasn’t. The food halls were nearly big enough for dragons, and nearly empty, or maybe they just seemed that way because of their size. Eled evidently was hungry and Dag and I should have been but weren’t, and Sippy got most of ours. When we left the halls Sippy staggered after us, obviously wishing he could lie down somewhere and sleep it off.
We stopped just outside. ʺYou’re going to go see Ansilika,ʺ said Dag. ʺShe’s always anxious before a First.ʺ
ʺTrust you to know that,ʺ said Eled. ʺYes. I would’ve come back early anyway but maybe I came back a little earlier still because I knew she’d be worrying. Probably about me. ‘Can that great oaf stay in the saddle on the day or will he dishonour his family’s proud name?’ But I’ll see you there later.ʺ
ʺYes,ʺ said Dag. ʺAnd Ansilika won’t let you fall off. You’d have to jump. I’ll see where to stow all of us and then I’ll be along too.ʺ He turned away and I glanced at Eled before I followed. I knew I should say something but ʺmy open-handed thanks, excellent sir,ʺ which would probably have been the correct form, or anything else along those lines, felt like it would sound the opposite.
ʺSee you,ʺ said Eled.
ʺYeah,ʺ I said courteously.
He hesitated. ʺIf you want to know something about anything around here, you can always ask me. Dag’s maybe a little obsessed with dragons.ʺ
I glanced at my brother. Tell me about the brawls, and about grace, I thought, but I didn’t say it. ʺYeah,ʺ I said again. ʺThanks.ʺ
ʺIf your brother calls you Tinhead, what do you call him?ʺ
ʺGeezer,ʺ I said.
Eled laughed.
ʺHis sisters call him Ogre,ʺ said Dag. ʺDyla told me. She’s the one graduated from here.ʺ
ʺAnd I keep forgetting to grind her bones for my bread,ʺ said Eled. ʺFamilies—who needs ’em?ʺ
As I followed Dag it seemed to me his shoulders were squarer than usual. We went into a slightly less huge building and climbed a lot of stairs, all of our feet making funny noises on the tiles. We had wood floors at home, and Dad’s workshop was packed earth. ʺThis is mine,ʺ Dag said on about the ninety-fifth landing, and pushed open a door. I fell in after him, gasping. ʺYou can have the bottom bunk in case Sippy wants to join you.ʺ Dag didn’t even sit down, and he wasn’t breathing hard. He dumped his pack on the upper bunk and looked at me. ʺI’m going to go see Hereyta. D’you want to come?ʺ
I was sure I should let him greet her in private, but I rolled up instantly off the bed where I had flopped and said yes. It wasn’t even anything to do with not wanting to be left behind in a really strange place and wondering what I would say if anyone knocked on the door looking for Dag. I wanted to meet Hereyta.
The dragon hsa were on the far side of the training fields which meant a long hike, although the training fields went on and on and on out to either side of us a lot farther yet than what we were walking across. I wondered if a piece of this ground was used for First Flight or if it happened somewhere else entirely. Dragons have tremendously powerful wings to get themselves off the ground at all, and they really lash ’em. And gods help any mere paltry human caught in the backdraft. So maybe the First Flight field, where there would be a whole lot of dragons stirring up storm winds, was some special separate place. In which case I wouldn’t see it. Whatever it was like in Eled’s granddad’s day.
Nobody knows if dragons really can spout fire any more, or whether that’s all a complete myth (like whether or not foogits ever had a working third eye), or if over several thousand years of selective breeding humans have managed to get rid of the fire-spouting (in which case we’ll be in a lot of trouble if we have a nasty-tempered throwback some day. The myths include whole countries burning if they get a big enough dragon mad at them). Dragons spit a little fire at you no more often than a horse tries to kick you. Which is to say if you treat your dragon nicely you’re fine. Or that’s the standard line. It’s different though because horses are twitchier animals generally; they’re prey. Dragons aren’t. They can afford to have a look and a think before they do anything about it; nobody’s going to bite them on the back of the neck and then tear out their entrails. And domestic dragons have been bred for good temper for a long time. People do get burned, but it’s rare, and when it happens it’s a huge story and it’s told all over the country and everyone’s horrified and there’s always an investigation because the presumption is the human did something wrong.
But dragons still smell of fire. It’s a hot, charred smell, and when you smell it for the first time it’s pretty scary, even if it’s only one of the little ones carrying freight, and even when it’s the other side of the jammed-with-smells fairground from where you are and behind the long series of warehouses there. It’s scarier yet when you’re walking toward a whole hsa full of them. I can’t begin to imagine who the first human was who decided to try and tame one. It’s like who thought of trying to eat a cawgilly for the first time? They sure don’t look like they’d be good to eat and they smell bad too, raw, even after you’ve got rid of the scent glands. But at least a cawgilly isn’t as big as a mountain. Also they run away if they see you coming after them, like a wild horse does. And there’s no fire involved.
I kept reminding myself that not only were these tame dragons I was walking toward but this was the Academy, and furthermore I was with my brother who was a First Flighter at the Academy. What was really interesting though is that Sippy, who’d spent most of the last ten days skulking and cowering, wasn’t. When we first set off he had made an attempt to run a few circles around us, since he had the space to do it in for the first time in several days, but he was still too full of food and had to give it up. He trotted along behind, panting rather, but then he picked up and trotted past us, with his head and ears up and his tail straight out behind with the guard hairs on it raised, which in foogit language means, ʺHmm, what’s this?ʺ If he’d been frightened or worried the guard hairs would run backwards the full length up his spine, eventually up to his topknot, which would have bushed out (or tried to) like a sort of extreme mane. Among other things this exposes the third eye, if there is one, and I’d never seen Sippy in that much of a strop, although I’m told a big male foogit ready for battle isn’t funny any more.