Dragon Tide

In which the ancestor of a major recurring character goes a-voyaging.

“Dragon Tide” is definitely a prequel, I reckon, in nature and not just by accident of birth. It’s chronologically the earliest story of the Liaden Universe, but it’s not a good one to read first.

For one thing, if you expect the first story of a series to give an idea of what the series will be like, this story doesn’t do that. It’s told in an atypical mode, features a cast of characters we’ll never see again, and a setting that will be revisited only once, briefly, and then much changed.

For another thing, if you don’t know what’s coming after this, you’re missing out on part of the story, the way that in places it parallels or foreshadows events yet to come. I don’t know what I’d have made of this story if I’d come to it cold.

(I wonder if anyone ever has come to it cold? Some of the short stories debuted in general anthologies, but this one was a chapbook original; I don’t think it’s ever appeared in a book that wasn’t being pitched specifically at readers who were already Liaden fans.)

16 thoughts on “Dragon Tide

  1. Paul A. Post author

    Additional thoughts:

    I suspect this story of having strengths I’m not well equipped to appreciate. I’m not the kind of reader who goes in for worldbuilding as a thing in itself, and I would be interested to hear from you if you are, because this story certainly has a lot of worldbuilding. Also, the dragons make me wish I had a better visual imagination, because I get just enough out of the descriptions to think they’d be really stunning if I could see them properly.

  2. Jelala Alone

    Yeah, I agree it would be misleading to begin the series here. I enjoyed it, because I love the whole idea of sentient trees. As with Jela’s tree, Laar was already presaging the future. I suppose you are right to assume Laar is the ancestor to Jelaza Kazone.

  3. Paul A. Post author

    It’s not entirely assumption; there is actual evidence in the later novels. The big one is the scene in Local Custom where Shan’s father introduces him to the tree-and-dragon emblem of Clan Korval, and explains that the tree and the dragon both have names. The tree is of course Jelaza Kazone, and the dragon’s name (which I don’t recall being mentioned anywhere else) is Megelaar.

  4. Late to the Party

    Thoughts about trees and dragons:
    Unlike the many visuals the tree gives Jela of dragons which simply rely on a general cultural perception of what a dragon is to inform our imaginations, the dragons in this story are described. They have beaks, fur – not feathers or scales – “wing-‘branches”, which can grasp and hold a pod in flight, sounding like the adapted arms and hands of bat wings, and taloned rear legs which they use for fighting and grasping food. The wings of adult dragons are blue-and-gray striped, and the two individuals actually described are the same color and pattern.

    These dragons were likely extinct before Korval’s Tree, the last of the Sussdriads, ever sprouted. It would never have seen an actual dragon, but it thinks of dragons and presents Jela with images of a creature neither it nor probably even its immediate forebears had ever seen – dragons which are colored entirely one color, each dragon different from the other.

    Given the description of the trees’ doomed and desperate dash to the sea, each singular, surviving individual dying in order to move its seedpod forward, one wonders how such a racial memory would b e perpetuated.

  5. Othin

    I like the picture of the Dragon’s and Ssussdriad’s relationship and Dragon culture – also the describtion how they deal with crises like being uprooted and transported by earthquakes and tsunami and their outlook toward survival.

    @ Coloring: youth – green-gray comouflage, while adults – have iridescent wingstripes, e.g. blue and silver banded wingtips, their head, belly and talons have a distint color.

    I only found a describtion of Stregalaar’s adult coloring, which was second dragon? I had the impression, that a females wingstripes might have different colors than males. Also, the colors described could be destinctive for that groov, later generations or dragons from other places might have other color patterns. Especially considering that the Trees give pods for mating, which implies that they mess with the genepool.

    But I wonder at the of frailness of saplings without elders – Chenachyen hopes for roots of one of the elders to still live and recover, so the trees do not lose themselves.

  6. Othin

    @ danger of saplings to lose themselves without elders
    On second thought there is no reason for the trees not to perceive that weakness and breed themselves out of it. Jela’s tree surely was still a sapling and didn’t need no teaching of elder roots to retain its awareness. And it wasn’t the first tree to grow up alone.

    In fact the Ssussdriad of Korvals time seem to have no problem standing solitary, properly preferring this to growing in groves. Also their mental reach seems to have extended, monitoring all their Korval branches and allies. Jelaza Kazone certainly hadn’t any problem seeing Theo discover its old offspring on Dancer.

    Maybe the Ssussdriad found a way to transfer racial memory and awareness into their seeds, so that even the seedpods in statisboxes (on the Korval ships) were part of the Ssussdriad mental network.
    @ likeliness of Jelaza Kazone’s imagined dragons to the ones described in Dragon Tide.
    Jep, they are said to of a single color. But this could refer to the coloring of head, belly and taloned rear legs, omitting the gender specific coloring of their wings. There was hint (ok, just a tiny hint) that the female Chenachyen might have red – silver wingstripes.
    On the other hand, blue – silver wings seem to be good camouflage for costal hunters. Dragons coloring could have changed for hill and mountain terrain and other surroundings (adaption or the trees meddling with dragon gens).

  7. Jami

    I think the dragon must be Stegalaar, not Megelaar. Stegalaar is dragon, tree master, to Laar. But I know Local Custom says Megelaar. Maybe I need to read Dragon Tide again.

    Othin!
    I like your ideas of racial memory embedded in seedlings. It explains much. In addition, it’s also possible that Tree can sense baby tree’s arrival far away in Spiral Dancer because it created that sapling specifically for Dancer, knowing the great battle that was imminent. Probably gave it lots of info. Built a stronger than normal connection. (My assumption, not stated, but given Tree’s foresight and Cantra’s attention to detail, why not?) And that would help explain how Tree “visited with” Val Con and Miri on Lytaxin, in their sick room, if Clan Oreb’s tree can communicate with Jelaza K, through info sharing when a seedling. Aided by the Clutch turtles’ songs. Tree and Clutch share a quality, a green presence beneath space, in the ether. As I recall.

    I like these ideas. And think what it means for the strengthening of Surebleak security, to have 4 trees growing on it.

  8. Paul A. Post author

    Stregalaar is the dragon in “Dragon Tide”; Megelaar is the dragon on Korval’s coat of arms. I don’t think they’re meant to be the same dragon, but the implication of Megelaar’s name is that it’s the same tree, because this story establishes that the second part of a dragon’s name refers to the tree it’s associated with.

    Not literally the same tree, of course, because Korval’s tree isn’t old enough, but it carries memories from older trees that knew dragons, so perhaps in some sense it is the same person as the older tree whose memories it carries.

  9. Ed8r

    Could the Tree have survived many generations without its dragons? It seems the dragons cleaned it of little pests in the bark as well as root pests.

    I wonder how many generations the dragons lasted following this story? Did the Sheriekas kill off the dragons thinking that would be sufficient to bring an end to the Trees? I don’t know enough about environmental factors to even imagine the entire process of the planet dying. I suppose if water were gradually removed that would bring about the situation as Jela found it, generations later?

    (Sorry, this might fit better with the beginning of Crystal Soldier. Paul, you’re welcome to move it if you prefer.)

  10. Ed8r

    My second time through, I find I have a couple more thoughts to add. One is: what size are the dragons? Stregalaar describes himself as a smaller dragon and thinks about the seaflyers at “half his weight.” The behavior of these flocks of seaflyers perhaps could be compared to gannets: travel in flocks, spend time at sea, and dive for fish. So if we take gannets (5-9 lbs) as our model for the seaflyers, that would put Stregalaar at about the size of, for example, the American bald eagle, which weighs 8-10 lbs and has a wingspan of up to 11 feet. Of course a dragon is not a bird. I am not enough of a biologist to put together the facts and guess at how much larger the wingspan could be for wings built like bat wings rather than bird wings (or vice versa).

    Another thing I took note of this time through, is the tree dream that Stregalaar finds himself dreaming to the Tree rather than receiving from the Tree. In it he dreams of the Laar, pushed by tide and wind , a dream of the Laar growing into the side of a hill and of him, Stregalaar, carrying pods to mountains as tall as he could fly. This seems to be Stregalaar’s promise to the Laar, that he would ensure its ultimate survival. And, as we know, it does survive, making its own way back down the mountains toward the coast, clinging to life until Jela arrives to rescue it.

  11. Ed8r

    Just adding a comment to acknowledge my return for a re-reread before we receive Accepting the Lance in December.

    Strange and exotic when I first read it a year and a half ago, now it just feels warm and familiar, in spite of its catastrophic events. I kinda had trouble following it all the first time through, but now that it’s all settled, I enjoyed it considerably more.

    I am left with the feeling once again, that the Tree may actually be more important than all its current “branches with wings.” That is, that it’s really the Tree who is the center of the Liaden stories, and all the people are merely supporting cast in subplots.

  12. Othin

    Interesting view point

    That reminds me – have you ever heard of Pando (tree)? That is an about 80.000 years old groov or clonal colony of an individual male quaking aspen, occupying 43 hectares (106 acres) and weighting about 6,000,000 kilograms (6,600 short tons).

    If Tree has similar capacities – just think of it?

  13. Ed8r

    Yes, actually, I had heard of this Aspen. Of course our Tree seems to grow individuals rather than one interconnected mass, but still . . . interesting.

  14. Othin

    It’s been a while since I’ve read Dragontide, but I seem to remember that the single trees of the grove communicat and pass on memories through their roots.

    My point is that I don’t see growing individuals rather than one interconnected mass as an either or thing. Dragon tide left in me the impression that the groove does both. But the interconected mass thing properly to a lesser degree that this Aspen.

    Also notice where Laar stands. At the egde of the grove – pushed over to a risky patch at the edge of the see where it had to adapt to more salt and hadn’t a chance to put down it’s roots as deeply as the other members of the grove. So maybe Laar did survive and travel because he was less connected to the grove than all other trees there.

    On a related topic – Tree has two or more precisely three methods of communication.

    – Direct root comunication which is for other trees
    – dreaming at or thinking at or feeling at it’s dragons or people
    – showing emotion or its point by altering its surrounding like making light or warmth or cold
    – Seed pots – for it’s dragons. Yes I also count this as communication, even though it is communication on a biochemical level.

    But than one’s brain doesn’t need to get the message if one’s cells do. Just think of the calming effect of baby pheromons if parents carry their screaming infant and thusly put their noses right above the babes head which release them.

    Ok. that is four. 🙂

    And ho, isn’t it interesting that hevelin has had at least one seed pot – Norbears seem to be far better equiped to serve groming needs of trees – like delousing ect. So just maybe we now have a tree that also acepts norbears as protecting dragon. And who is better in finding allies than a norbear?

    And til now we have seen Jelaza Kazone only use the last three methods of cummunication, since there hasn’t been root-contact with other Ssussdriads. (In this case I’m not counting root contact with other plants, wich sureley exists and is also biochemical communication – since tree alters the “mere” plants it touches. I also don’t count the few days of root contact with the 3 saplings form the fallen log that are planted in Yulie Shapers far field and the island beside the to be Trealla Fantrol. – But if those 3 saplings are in any way different form Jelaza Kazone’s other children – we still have to see it.)

  15. Ed8r

    Nicely explicated, Othin. But I think you might have forgotten one of the methods of communication that the young Tree used in Crystal Soldier and Crystal Dragon. Young Tree deliberately rustles its leaves or at times even seems to bow.

    I don’t recall seeing it in later books, but then Jelaza Kazone is too large to move as freely as it did when it was with Jela and Cantra. Wait…didn’t the larger Tree sometimes seem to have a wind of its own? And after Ren Zel’s fight, it had lost a whole courtyard full of twigs and leaves.

    I haven’t tried to search out all the examples of this, but I do remember it happening, so you could add movement of trunk or leaves to your list.

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