In the Labyrinth of Drakes by Marie Brennan Read Free Book Online

could work in the evening if necessary. That done, I immersed myself once more in the records; and there I remained until Tom came in at last.
    He must have poked his head in the door some time before; his polite cough had the sound of a man who has been waiting for the room’s occupant to notice him without prompting. “Oh!” I said, putting my pencil in the latest diary as a marker and closing it. “I’m so sorry. Good heavens, is it that late already?” The light in the office had dimmed quite a lot, though I had not noticed it except to tilt the pages toward the window.
    â€œThere were a lot of formalities,” Tom said feelingly. “Though it wasn’t all a waste of time. I take it this room out front is meant for a secretary?”
    â€œFor Lieutenant Marton, unless we replace him. He asked if I wished to have a second office set up elsewhere in the building. For me, of course, though he did not say it.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose, wondering if my headache meant I should look into getting spectacles. “I, er, may have said I would ask you if you wanted one. People are used to coming here; I do not like the thought of being shuffled off to some dusty corner where I can be ignored.”
    â€œQuite right.” Tom came and perched on the edge of the desk, there being nowhere else to sit save the chair I currently occupied. “This room is big enough for us both; we’re neither of us likely to fill it up with elephant tusks and Erigan masks. We can start out sharing it, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll move elsewhere.”
    I gave him a look of wordless gratitude. My eagerness to head off Marton’s condescension had provoked me into taking advantage of my greater social status over Tom, which I ordinarily took care to avoid. Besides, it was he, not I, who was a Colloquium Fellow. If either of us was to have the main office here, it ought to be him.
    Tom gestured at the piles of books on the shelves behind me. “What have you learned?”
    â€œQuite a bit,” I said, “alternately discouraging and frustrating. Were it not for this scarf, I might have torn half my hair out by now.”
    (Before I continue onward, I must issue an apology. There is no way I could conceal our predecessor’s identity; it is a matter of public record who originally held the Akhian post, and many people remember his name. I fear that what I am about to say may border on the libellous, though, for I cannot tell this tale without being openly critical of Lord Tavenor’s work. I may only hope to mitigate it by also saying that I have a great deal of respect for the man, and indeed his work—flaws and all—was the foundation upon which Tom and I built our own efforts. Without him, I do not know how we might have proceeded. Nonetheless, I am sorry.)
    Tom waited while I opened my notebook and found the necessary pages. “The eggs,” I said, “are delivered to Qurrat by the Aritat—the sheikh’s people. But it isn’t systematic: when they find a clutch of eggs, they collect them, regardless of their developmental stage. This means Lord Tavenor received everything from new-laid eggs to ones about to hatch.” Indeed, one of them had hatched in transit, causing no little trouble for the tribesmen.
    My description provoked a wince from Tom. “That explains one of the juveniles I saw, then. It was clearly not in sound health.”
    â€œIt likely explains several of them, though ill health may not have been as obvious in the others.” Our knowledge of dragon development was still scant in those days, but everyone with even a rudimentary awareness of the subject knew that dragon eggs were notoriously sensitive to handling. Transit from the desert to this compound had caused many to spontaneously abort, and those which did not often hatched bad specimens. The earlier in their incubation they were moved, the worse the