“Even Mr. Thu is not certain there was another specimen in the col. He saw it through field glasses, not in person.”
Meaning that I might go all that way, moving heaven and earth to do so, only to have nothing to show for it at the end. I rose and paced my study, as I so often did—to the point that my carpet had a distinctly worn track in it. “My scholarly contributions of late…” I sighed. “I feel like I haven’t done anything.”
This took Suhail aback. “But the Fraternity’s work in Qurrat—your correspondence with the dragon-breeders in Bayembe—”
“Is all letters, letters, letters. Sitting on my posterior in this room, applying my brain to things, but not applying my spirit. And how much of my time is eaten up by other affairs? Patronage, public speaking, advice to others. It’s all very useful, I’m sure.” I meant the words to be sincere, but they came out scathing. My shoulders sagged. “I haven’t been out in the field since we discovered the Watchers’ Heart. I could go somewhere—Otholé, perhaps—but what would I do there? What question would I be answering, beyond some basic study of dragons not yet examined?”
Suhail rose and stopped me mid-stride, his hands on my arms. “Isabella. Why this doubt? It has never disappointed you to do basic study before.” He smiled, trying to coax a similar lightness from me. “Sometimes I think there is nothing in the world you love better than to describe some characteristic or behaviour never before set down in print.”
I had no answer for that. I could not explain the restlessness within me, the feeling that I must do something tremendous or my time would be wasted. Was it simply that I had grown so accustomed to making spectacular discoveries that the thought of doing the work of an ordinary scientist was tiresome to me? Dear heaven: if so, then I would have to go ice my head until the swelling went down. I had already been more fortunate than most scientists are in their entire lives.
Then the truth became clear to me. Without even thinking, I pulled free of Suhail’s hands, turning away to resume my pacing.
“Isabella.” His voice was very quiet, but no less fervent for that. “Tell me.”
I could not face him while I said this—but it must be said. I fixed my gaze upon the wall map, pocked with symbols and notes marking dragon breeds and Draconean ruins. Addressing the map, I said, “I think I am jealous.”
Silence fell. Then he said, “Of me?”
His tone was disbelieving, as well it might be. “I do not begrudge you your work,” I said hastily, my hands twisting themselves into knots. “Never think I am jealous of that—indeed, it is one of the things I love best about you. But…”
I could not go on. Suhail finished the sentence for me. “But I have been making great advances in my field, while you sit here and answer letters.”
“You have been honoured for your advances,” I said. The sudden bitterness that coloured my words was not for him; it was for myself, and the realization that I had at last found the true core of what troubled me so. “Your lecture at Caffrey Hall was conducted outside the chambers of the Society of Linguists not because they would not have you, but because you chose to share your work with a broader audience. But the Philosophers’ Colloquium will not have me. And they never will.”
Unless I went on making discoveries so great, even that pack of hide-bound, close-minded sticks in the mud had to acknowledge them. At the time I would never have phrased it that way in public, but that was how I had come to think of them. And yet, despite my scorn… yes, I still wished to join their number.
This time I did not pull away. Suhail wrapped his arms around me and laid his cheek upon my hair. He asked no further questions; he only murmured, “Then God willing, we will find a way.”
After that night, not a day went by that we did not pursue our goal of reaching the Mrtyahaima. I obtained a better map, tacked it to my wall, and began studying the topography of the region as obsessively as any mountaineer. Could we make our way along the range itself, from some starting point farther north? Not if I wished to arrive at my destination any time in the next ten years, Mr. Thu assured me. Perhaps I might approach from the west after all; I could dodge those Yelangese troops and come at the col from the far side. Nevermind that Mr. Thu had not the slightest notion what the terrain on the Khavtlek side looked like, and undertaking such an expedition would likely be suicidal. I was not so desperate as to gamble myself upon so slender a chance; but I was determined that I should not dismiss any possibility out of hand, however unlikely it might seem at first glance.
Which is, I suppose, why the answer came at the dinner table one night, when my son Jake was home from Merritford for a visit.
I had of course explained the entire situation to him, and introduced him to Mr. Thu. Jake’s first impulse, naturally, was to insist that I must take him along. “There is no sea for thousands of kilometers,” I reminded him as we sat down to dinner. Though he had scarcely begun at university, Jake had already made clear his intention to study the oceans as his life’s work: our voyage aboard the Basilisk had left a stronger mark on him than I ever could have predicted.
“I’ll find a way to rub along,” he said, with a melodramatic sigh. “But the Mrtyahaima! How many people ever have an opportunity to go there?”
“One fewer than you are hoping.”
Jake grinned. “You know that only encourages me to find a way.”
“You are too large to fit into her baggage,” Suhail pointed out. “I don’t think you can sneak aboard without her noticing.”
“Besides,” I said, “we still haven’t the slightest idea how we will get there.” My own sigh was more full of discouragement than melodrama. “At the rate this is going, by the time I have a plan, you will have attained your majority. And then I will not be able to stop you.”
Although Jake might not go so far as to sneak after us, he was quite serious about finding a way—for us, if not for himself. He said, “Have you asked Uncle Andrew?”
Much to the surprise of my family, the youngest of my brothers was still in the army. It was not his passion in life, but it gave him purpose and direction—and, dare I say, discipline—which was more than he had ever found on his own. “I have written to him, but he is only a captain. He cannot order the army into Tser-nga to clear a path for us.”
Jake brooded over this as the footman brought out the soup course. Suhail and I began eating, but Jake only fiddled with his spoon. Since he ordinarily devoured his food almost before his dish touched the table, I found this worrisome. Before I could ask, though, he burst out with a sudden, uproarious laugh. “A path through Tser-nga, no. So you should go over!”
My spoon slid gently from my fingers and vanished up to the tip of its handle in my soup bowl. I did not attempt to retrieve it, staring blindly into the liquid.
Go over.
“Pardon me,” I said. Abandoning my soup, with my son and my husband grinning after me, I went to write a letter.
My relationship with the military authorities of Scirland has always been a contentious one. I unwittingly undermined them in Bayembe, but aided them in Keonga; with Tom’s assistance I strong-armed my way into a job posting they did not want to give me, but then redeemed myself with the discoveries in the Labyrinth of Drakes and the principle of developmental lability. I was instrumental in Scirland gaining knowledge of dragonbone preservation; lost that secret to foreign powers; funded the early research into synthesis; then inspired a man to spill the results as widely as he could. To say they detested me would be an overstatment… but to say they liked me would be false.