The Book of Fire (5 page)

“I’m smiling. I’m fine.” She hadn’t told them what they’d woken her from.

Doritt clucked. “You slept for two days straight before that.”

“Please? I know Linden means well, but I’m not a child anymore. Just some little bit of news?” She couldn’t bring herself to actually ask about Baron Köthen. If he were dead, she knew she’d burst into tears like a child, when she more properly ought to be celebrating. “What about Hal?”

“Hal is well, at last report,” offered Raven. “We’ll all tell all at dinner. There’s a lot of your news we haven’t heard either.”

Erde sighed. She’d hoped for news as a distraction as much as anything else. She didn’t feel so giddy anymore, and probably she should tell them why. She glanced over her shoulder at the sky. Billowy gray clouds were massing over the valley’s northern end, above the sprawling farmstead
that nestled there. She could almost see a material darkness sifting down like ash to smother all cheer, all life within.

“Sometimes . . .” she began finally. In the quiet, even her murmur sounded like a shout. “Sometimes I can hear him, you know . . . Brother Guillemo . . . in my dreams. Like he’s speaking to me.”

Raven’s glance was sharp. “Really? Have you told Rose?”

“I’ve hardly seen Rose! I’ve been sleeping so much! I was so tired! I’ve been . . .!” She was shaken by the sudden anxiety that gripped her, but she couldn’t make herself admit to them that she’d dreamed the hell-priest right there in Deep Moor. If he could find her so easily in her dreams, could he locate her in life?

“Well, then,” Raven advised, “you can tell her soon as we get back to the house.”

“I will. I promise.”

In unspoken agreement, the three women quickened their pace. With memories of mad—or maybe not so mad—Brother Guillemo dogging Erde’s thoughts, the pristine snow and crisp chill were not so inviting anymore. Instead, a longing gripped her for the sweet tall grasses and wild-flowers of the summer meadows, of the Deep Moor she’d known not even a month ago. She’d felt safer then, even though she’d been in the greatest possible peril. And now, Deep Moor was threatened, too. Not just by the weather, but by the homing eye of the hell-priest. She’d promised herself to act like an adult, even more than they expected her to, but she must have shuddered or made some small sound of distress, for Raven curled an arm about her shoulders and gave her a gentle hug.

“Never fear, sweeting. A lot of good minds and hearts are working on this problem. We’ll think of something.”

Erde nodded dutifully. Before this morning, she had believed that the women of Deep Moor could stand against the hell-priest, against anything. Now she was not so sure.

The Grove loomed ahead like a ruined cathedral. The bare branches of its encircling oaks reached up like burned timbers grabbing at the sky. The thick, dark trunks curved in even ranks like the charred piers of a fallen apse. Erde scolded herself for the childish thinking that had let her hope to find this stand of sacred oaks still green and heavy
with summer, with the warm sighing of leaves and birdsong. But the leaves lay buried beneath the snow and the birds were stilled. She moved among the huge, knotted trunks in a daze, as if she’d lost something precious. She wished the dragon were there. His very existence was a comfort. Erde knew she could never completely lose hope, as long as there were dragons in the world.

In the center of the Grove lay a pond no bigger than a cottage and as smoothly circular as the face of the full moon. Erde had suspected there was Power in this pond the first time she laid eyes on it. Now she was sure. The shallow crystalline water glimmered softly, without a trace of ice. All around its perfect silver arc, the snow pulled back, as if out of respect, revealing a brief but cheering fringe of green.

Raven and Doritt led the pony to the bank and began to unpack the load. Doritt untied the two big sheaves of hay and spread them out beside the water. Raven cleared patches of snow, then handed out sacks of fruit and grain to scatter on the ground.

“Hope this’ll hold ’em,” Doritt muttered.

“Oh, tut,” Raven reproved cheerfully. “There’s plenty more for a while.”

“As long as it’s the
usual
while.”

“We’ve lived through long winters before.”

“Not winters that started in early September.”

“We have stores for a year.
You
always insist on it.” Raven emptied her last sack with a flourish, then whistled up into the barren branches. A sudden flutter of wings broke the silence, and small flocks of birds whirled in to settle among the seed. Off among the trees, Erde saw the deer waiting. And then something else caught her eye.

“Raven, Doritt, look . . . on the other side of the pond. See that odd bunch of sticks?” The sticks formed a tall but neatly rounded pile, very like something she’d seen before. “Doesn’t it look like . . .?”

“Windfall,” said Doritt. “No, too neat. Someone’s brush pile.”

“No one would be cutting wood in the Grove,” Raven countered.

Then Erde remembered. “I know! It’s . . .”

“Like a beaver lodge,” Raven murmured. “Hmmm.”

“Oh, my,” said Doritt. “Could it be . . . do you suppose . . .?”

“Got to be.”

The two women dropped their empty sacks and hurried around the pond. Erde followed close behind. The pile was larger than it had seemed from across the water, but much smaller and more hastily thrown-together than the one she’d seen before, on the quiet shore of a lake. No soft moss climbed these walls and no comforting smoke coiled up from the center of the roof. Raven circled around to the far side.

“Aha!” she exclaimed, and stepped forward briskly to knock on a crude wood-plank door set among the twigs.

“He won’t answer, you know,” offered Erde faintly, drawing on her own brief experience, now intensely recalled.

Raven smiled and knocked again. “He will for me.”

Erde thought this rather overconfident, even for Raven. “Hal practically had to beat the door down.”

Raven grinned. “That’s always been Hal’s problem.”

“What’s he doing here is the real question.” Doritt leaned in worriedly to peer at the door.

“Exactly what we’re going to find out.” Raven knocked a third time, no louder than the first. “Are you there, Gerrasch? Open up, dear soul—you have visitors!”

A wild rustling and grunting erupted inside, making the stick pile shudder. Erde took a long step backward. The plank door cracked open. In the narrow darkness, she saw a familiar pair of beady eyes above a shiny damp nose.

“About time!” the darkness growled.

Raven trilled her musical laugh. “Well, now, sweet, if you neglect to announce your arrival, you can’t expect your welcome to be spectacular and timely!”

Doritt leaned farther into the doorway. “Hallo, Gerrasch, old thing. What brings you all this way?”

“Cold. Cold cold cold cold.”

“Is it warmer here, then, than out there?” Raven raised an eyebrow at her companions.

“Yes. No. No food, no food. Hungry. A big snow coming.”

“You came to the right place—we’ve food enough to share.”

“Big
big
snow. Scared.”

“What? You? In your cozy lakeside burrow?” Raven crouched to bring her nose level with the beady eyes. “Scared of a little snow?”

“No! No, no. Listen! Men. Horses. Burned my house. No home. All gone.”

“Men burned your house?” The women traded glances. Erde recalled that dark and smoky hovel, hidden in the curl of a brush-choked cove, crammed to its twiggy rafters with jars and bottles and herbs and . . . well,
stuff
. How awful for him to lose all those years of collecting.

“What men?” asked Doritt.

But Erde shuddered, remembering a terrified woman tied to a stake in a far-off market town. She didn’t need to ask what men. Who else was going around burning everything in sight?

“Guillemo,” muttered Raven darkly.

“Want to burn
me
!” The planks creaked and swung inward. A furry, long-nailed hand gripped the doorframe, then Gerrasch’s shaggy, rag-draped bulk filled the opening and Erde recalled why she’d first thought he was some kind of gigantic beaver. “Want to burn me!”

“Poor creature!” murmured Raven.

“Burn us all if he could,” Doritt remarked. “How’d you get away?”

Gerrasch’s bright eyes, until now fixed entirely on Raven, shifted to the older woman with a crafty squint. “Run run. Scurry. Around, around, cover trail, around around more, cover trail, around around . . . come here.”

Raven laughed and patted his hand. “Clever thing! Brave old soul! Well, you’re safe here.”

“No!” Gerrasch shook his mane until the whole stick pile trembled. “Not safe! No one safe!”

“For a while at least.”

The creature took a breath, sighed. “Yes.”

But Doritt’s mouth tightened. “How long, do you think?”

Erde shivered. What Doritt was really asking, no one could answer: how long could they keep Deep Moor hidden from outside eyes, now that the priest’s forces ranged the land so widely? One misplaced confidence, one single soldier of the wrong stripe stumbling upon their secret path—that
was all it would take to bring the hell-priest’s armies down on top of them. And then there was her dream. What if the hell-priest could follow her here? Gerrasch’s glance slid away again. He let it round an entire circuit of the Grove before returning to settle it for the first time squarely on Erde.

She smiled at him wanly. “Hello, Gerrasch. Remember me?”

He gasped. “It speaks!” Then he cracked a huge grin.

Erde grinned with him. It was impossible not to. “Yes, my voice is back. You were right—there was a word stuck in my throat. It was somebody’s name, a friend I thought had died horribly.”

Gerrasch blinked at her, sobering, then leaned forward to lay one stubby finger gently across her throat. “Yes. Ludolph.”

Raven sucked in a breath. “Ha.”

“No . . .” replied Erde carefully. “That was not his name.”

“Yes.”

“No, Gerrasch, it was . . .”

“Ludolph!” Gerrasch insisted, then he smiled again, dazzlingly. “Will be.”

“Ludolph?” murmured Doritt. “The dead prince?”

“The not-dead prince.” Raven chuckled.

“He’s saying Rainer is Ludolph?”

“He wouldn’t be the first person.”

Doritt clucked. “Oh, how would he know about such things!”

“You have your ways, don’t you, Gerrasch? And won’t our Hal be delighted to hear you agreeing with him for once!”

Erde pondered her own ambivalent response to this news. Did she even care anymore if Rainer was the King’s lost heir? He was lost to her already. Besides, she had more important responsibilities now. And as if this thought was some kind of signal, Gerrasch stepped forward suddenly, his nose lifted in the direction of the farmstead. At the same moment came the familiar soft explosion in Erde’s head that heralded the dragon’s return. Her heart reached out joyously to welcome him.

“They’re back!” she exulted. “They’re back!”

Gerrasch’s nose worked furiously. “Two! Oh, two. Two two two!”

Raven nodded. “Yes, clever thing. Our Earth has found himself a sister. A beautiful blue sister!”

Doritt’s eyes narrowed. “How did he know?”

Erde didn’t care. The dragons were back! Now she could celebrate in earnest. “Yes, a sister! Her name is Water. You’ll like her, Gerrasch! You can go swimming together!” She tugged at Raven’s sleeve. “Come, let’s go back!”

Raven chortled. “Gerrasch hates swimming. Absolutely has to live by water, but never goes in.”

“Come on! Hurry! Let’s all go!”

“Right,” said Doritt. “Come on, Gerrasch. Gather up anything you need, and we’ll load it on the pony.”

Gerrasch raised both hands, exposing his soft pink palms. “No. No no. Big storm.”

“Yes, so you don’t want to stay out here alone, do you? You’d be much safer at the farm.”

“No no no.” He backed into the shadow of his doorway. “New house. I like it.”

“It’ll blow apart in the first gust, Gerrasch!”

“Will not!”

Doritt took a step after him. “Of course it will! You could have a nice warm spot in the barn . . .”

In the barn with the dragon, Erde realized. Probably Gerrasch did, too.

“No!” He withdrew his head entirely and slammed the door.

“You are so rude!” Doritt yelled after him.

Raven touched her arm. “You’ve made him anxious, dear. You can’t pressure him. You know how he is. Let him do as he likes.”

“But . . .”

“He’ll be as safe in the Grove as anywhere. He knows that. That’s why he came here.”

“It could be the dragons,” said Erde. “He didn’t want to meet Earth before either. But he knew, didn’t he . . . he sensed their return almost before I did.”

“He’s connected with them in some way,” guessed Raven. “As he is to many things.”

Indeed, Erde noted. Connected in some way she didn’t understand. She must be sure to ask the dragon about it.
Certainly it was no mystery to her why the hell-priest wanted to burn this odd creature. She herself was unsure if Gerrasch was man or animal, or some uncanny combination of the two, and Brother Guillemo feared anything that smacked of a power he couldn’t control or comprehend. She put aside her impatience to be with the dragon long enough to lean close to cracks in the plank door. “Maybe later, if the weather holds, I’ll bring them out to visit you. Would that be all right?”

No reply from inside the stick pile. Erde glanced back at Raven and Doritt, then shrugged and let her dragon’s return fill her mind entirely.