Master of Dragons by Margaret Weis Read Free Book Online Page A

so as to escape
their notice, and hurried past them as swiftly as possible. He was glad, now,
he had not called for help.
    He considered what
to do with the child. He could take her to the healers in the Abbey, but the
Abbey was a long way off and he was too tired to walk such a distance. Besides,
the Houses of the Healers would be filled to overflowing. His own home was
nearby. He would take the child there first, make her comfortable, and let his
wife examine her injuries. Then together, he and Rosa could decide what to do
with her.
    Anton’s home was
larger than the single-room dwellings generally found in Dragonkeep. This was
not because he was wealthier than the rest of the people. There were no such
distinctions in the city of the dragon. Dwelling places were doled out by the
Blessed based on certain considerations—number of inhabitants in the home, the
type of work done by the inhabitants, etc. Rosa had her loom at home and Anton’s
smithy shop was attached to the dwelling, so the dwelling had to be large
enough to accommodate tools and equipment for both of them.
    Anton opened the
door, which was never locked, with his shoulder and backed inside the house,
taking care not to hit the girl’s head on the door frame. Rosa was slumped over
the dinner table, having her cry.
    “Give me a hand
here, Wife,” he said, closing the door with his foot as he indicated the child
in his arms. “She’s hurt bad, I think, but she’s alive.”
    Rosa lifted her
tear-stained face. She was in her mid-fifties, with the deft, callused hands of
one who has been sitting at the loom most of her life. Slender and small-boned,
she barely came to her husband’s chest. Anton was not very tall, but he was
big-shouldered and massive, with powerful arms and legs. Rosa had a way of
tilting her head to one side whenever she was considering anything, and Anton
had a lumbering good nature about him, so that their friends nicknamed them affectionately
Bird and Bear. Her amazed stare gave way to motherly compassion.
    “Lay her on our
Magda’s bed,” Rosa told her husband. “Then go fetch more water.”
    She had questions,
Anton could see that, but she would not ask them until the child was warm and made
comfortable. When he returned from the well, he found the girl tucked in bed,
her face washed clean of blood and dirt, and a wet cloth on her forehead.
    “How is she?” he
asked anxiously, pouring the water into the kettle and then stirring up the
fire beneath it.
    “She’ll do for the
time being,” Rosa answered cautiously. “Once I cleaned the wound, I found that
it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. She’s lost a lot of blood, though.”
    “Will she come
around?”
    “One never knows
with a head wound, but I think she should be fine. Her sleep seems to be a
healing one, not the bad sort from which you never wake.”
    Anton went to look
at the girl. He regarded her thoughtfully, as Rosa waited for the water to heat
so she could continue cleaning and dressing the wound. The girl had long black
hair that straggled, unkempt and uncombed, over her shoulders. She lay quite
still, did not groan or toss or twitch. She did, indeed, appear to be
slumbering peacefully. Anton shook his head and his frown deepened.
    “Where did you
find her, Husband? Where are her parents? Not . . . dead?” Rosa asked, suddenly
fearful.
    “She was alone in
an abandoned building,” said Anton, seating himself with a sigh at the table.
He rubbed his shoulders and stretched his aching back muscles. “No sign that anyone
else lived there. The building was close to what must have been the heart of
the blast.”
    “Truly?” Rosa was
amazed. She glanced back the child. “She is lucky to have escaped with such
minor wounds.”
    “Lucky,” Anton
repeated with meaningful emphasis. “I think it was more than luck.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “She lay in the
middle of a heap of debris. Heavy beams fell around her. None fell on top of
her.”
    “You think she