In the next room six young Whites were at a table. Servants waited behind them. ‘Last night, they dreamed,’ Capra said quietly. ‘They will write down what they dreamed. Then the scribing servants will make copies, and each copy will be sorted into a category and placed with others similar to it. Perhaps they dreamed of candles. Or an acorn bobbing in a stream. Or the dream where one seizes a bee, and is surrounded by a hundred stinging bees.’ Her voice dropped. ‘Or of the Unexpected Son.’ She turned and looked down at me. Her smile stretched her lips flat. ‘Or a Destroyer. Over the last year, the occurrence of dreams about the Destroyer have greatly increased. That tells us that something happened, something we did not expect. Some event has made it more likely that a Destroyer exists and will come to us.’ She stretched her lips again. ‘Have you ever dreamed of the Destroyer?’
I dared not hold a complete silence. ‘I often have nightmares of how my home was destroyed by Dwalia and her luriks. Is that what you mean?’
‘No.’ That word was another mark against me. She led me out of the room. We paced that long hallway and ascended a stair to the next level. Here, the wood that panelled the halls was of a deeper colour. Massive wooden beams supported a ceiling painted with extravagant flowers. ‘This is our heart,’ Capra told me formally as she escorted me to a door and opened it.
This huge chamber was full of old scrolls and books. Racks lined every wall and reached all the way to the ceiling. I could not see across the room, for orderly ranks of tall shelves, all full of scrolls and large books formed a perimeter around the open centre of the room. In that open space, there were at least a dozen long tables. Scribes who seemed to have little or no characteristics of White heritage sat with pens and inkpots, comparing scrolls and papers and writing busily.
‘Here the dreams are studied. We know how many dreams mention candles. We know how long there have been dreams of serpents wielding swords. Dreams of Unexpected Sons, Destroyers and white horses, seashells and teacups, puppets and wolves and blue bucks.’ She smiled widely at me. ‘Some of these scrolls were written long ago. There is a tremendous amount of information here, and scrolls that go back scores of years, for a truly cataclysmic event might generate dreams dozens of years before it happens. We knew of the Blood Plague before it took its first victim. And before that? The mountain that burst into fire and flame, the earthquakes that levelled the Elderling cities and the great waves that destroyed their stranglehold on the world. Oh, yes, we knew those were coming. If they’d been a bit more useful to us, perhaps the Elderlings would have known them as well. But they preferred dragons to humanity. Their loss.’ So much vindictive satisfaction in her voice and words. She told me those things as if I should find them personally hurtful. Then she leaned down and said softly by my ear, ‘But not all dreams are here. Mine are in my tower. Known only to me. Last night, I dreamed I pulled up a little white flower by its roots. But the roots were flames and blades.’ She smiled. ‘I would have been wiser to cut that little flower off at the stem.’ She tilted her head. ‘Don’t you agree?’
She straightened abruptly. ‘Come,’ she said, and walked briskly out of the room. I hobbled after her, hating the sandals and the straps that bound them to my feet. The next room was identical to the one we had left. The scrolls, the scholars at work, lesser servants coming and going with arms full of paper or large ledgers. And a third room. I could stand it no more. I dropped down and untied the straps from my feet. I stood up, now carrying the sandals and my broken candle.
‘As you wish,’ Capra said disdainfully. ‘Perhaps in time you will become accustomed to wearing shoes and other civilized ways.’ She shrugged. ‘Or be sold to a household where shoes are not wasted on slaves.’
I could feel myself sinking in her estimation. I battled with myself. Did I admit to her I dreamed and claim a place among her students? Pretend I was stupid and only marginally civilized and hope to be a servant with a chance of escape? Escape to where and to what? I was an ocean away from my home. Wouldn’t I be wiser to make a place for myself here?
A different plan bubbled into my mind, the one I had kept hidden while we were on the ship coming here. I pushed it down, out of sight. I might not see Vindeliar, but I had no idea where he might be or if there were others like him. Think about being useful. Think of making a place for myself here. Smile. Pretend to want to be here forever, a part of the web they wove.
