The Castle in the Attic (13 page)

For the rest of the afternoon, William plodded steadily up the road against a constant stream of people going the other way. He kept his head down to avoid the curious stares and the warnings to turn around. He couldn't help overhearing other snatches of conversations that disturbed him.

“What did he do to the man?”

“Turned him to lead. I saw it with my very eyes. Same as he does to everyone.”

“And the boy too?”

“The boy too. The soldiers picked them both up and carried them away.”

“There's no use staying here anymore. He was the one we were waiting for, and he's been destroyed just like all the others.”

“It's a terrible thing.” This last remark was greeted with low murmurs of assent.

William put his hands over his ears. They couldn't mean the Silver Knight. If he let himself believe that, he would lie down in the middle of the road and give up. So he took the thought right out of his mind and left it sitting there on the side of the road.

William arrived in the vicinity of the castle just as the sun was setting. Even before he reached the castle itself, he knew he was getting close because the land was becoming more and more parched. The houses looked abandoned, and the last people he passed were driving their small herds of scrawny goats and pigs along ahead of them. William could practically count the animals' ribs.

“You don't want to go that way,” an old woman called out to him. “You'd do best to turn around and come with us. We're all leaving.”

William begged for a little water and continued on his way despite their urgings.

In the distance, the sky was a dull gray color, and large pieces of ash floated past him on the hot breezes. William came around the last corner, and there stood the castle, towering above him at the top of a rise. He could see the soldiers patrolling the upper battlements, so he ducked behind a tree. The site had been well
chosen, a rocky hill with a path that curled back and forth until it reached the top. A tower stood at each corner, and arrow windows dotted the exterior walls in a random pattern. A single black pennant flew from the corner of one tower. William pulled out his binoculars and focused in on the main gate.

The dragon, a brownish-green, scaly creature, prowled in front of the double wooden doors, endlessly turning on himself so that the occasional bursts of flame from his mouth barely missed his tail. As William watched, the dragon spied a bird that had flown too close, and he shot his tongue of flame high into the sky. The bird dropped like a stone.

William shuddered. He stood without moving, remembering the time he had picked up the waffle iron without a potholder. The pain of the burn was with him for days afterward. But he could put down the waffle iron. Once he started walking toward the dragon, there would be no turning back.

William put away the binoculars and began to look around quickly for a place to spend the night. The heat that the dragon discharged into the air had withered away much of the undergrowth. Finally, he found shelter under some lower bushes a short distance from the road.

He couldn't eat. The sight of the dragon had taken away his appetite. He lay curled under the bushes,
listening to the occasional crackling of the dry undergrowth. No bird sang, no night-prowling animal called out. He felt very small and very much alone.

“The noises of the dark forest were better than this,” he said out loud. The sound of his own voice reminded him that he had himself, after all.

He talked to Mrs. Phillips even though she wasn't there. “Are you weaving the story? Have you seen the forest and the apple-tree man? I guess the dragon is just beginning to appear on the tapestry. If I don't succeed, does it mean you won't know where to put the needle next?” The thought silenced him for a moment. “Oh, please, help me,” he whispered to the night. There was no answer.

The heat woke William before daybreak. He took a couple of bites of bread and set off for the castle. When he stopped to look through the binoculars, he could see the soldiers jabbering to one another and pointing down at him, but no arrows were sent his way, no jars of boiling oil were tipped over the walls. He had to laugh at his own foolishness. When you had a dragon guarding the gates, what need was there for crossbows and oil?

The heat became gradually more intense. He longed to strip off his tunic, but it didn't seem wise to approach a dragon in a shirt and leggings. He stopped and leaned
on the last tree to pull himself together.

He was terrified. The palms of his hands were wet and clammy from nerves, not the dragon's heat. The dragon had stopped his pacing. He lifted his green head and sniffed the air. Out rolled his tongue, an immense carpet of red that furled into the sky and back into the black hole of his mouth.

William stood, staring. He turned his back on the dreadful scene and began to walk away down the road. “I'm sorry,” he said to nobody. “I can't do it. I'm too small and afraid.” But he had not gone far before his steps slowed and stopped. He turned and looked again at the dragon. “Mrs. Phillips,” he whispered, “are you listening? What weapon do I use for this?” He held himself as still as possible, half hoping to hear her soft voice in his ear, but nothing came to him.

He put his hand into his pouch and ran his fingers over the binoculars, a last bit of bread, the recorder. Pulling out the wooden instrument, he put it up to his lips and blew a single clear note. The music had soothed the wild pounding of his heart before. Maybe it would work again.

He actually felt relieved when he stepped away from the tree and faced the beast head on. The dragon looked stunned by the arrival of this rather small, not very well armed opponent, and he held his fire while sizing him up. William drew out his dagger with one
hand and put the recorder back to his lips.

He began to play “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and started forward, one foot after the other, his eyes at last locked with the dragon's. When the first blast of fire hit him, the flames seemed to separate and coil around him. Four more steps and his wooden recorder grew hot to the touch.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
. The eyes of the dragon grew larger like enormous mirrors. In their reflection, William could see his image replaced by the crater of an erupting volcano. Just when the circle of fire was large enough to swallow him up, the picture in the dragon's eyes changed again. Now William was forced to watch a house burning. People were leaning out of the top windows, screaming for help. He was desperate to shield his eyes from the look of misery and terror on their faces, but in the midst of the tumult he heard the music, still winding its way out of his recorder.
His truth is marching on
.

Another curling blast of fire combined with a roar of anguished fury filled the air. William began to falter. He longed to look away, to lose himself in the great immensity of an ocean or the cool sweep of the sky above them, but the words of the apple-tree man rang in his ears: “Keep telling yourself they are only illusions.”

The scene in the dragon's eyes changed again, and
this one was the worst. It showed Mrs. Phillips sitting in her bedroom by the fire working on her needlepoint. She didn't see the spark that landed on her robe, but William did. “Watch out,” he screamed, pulling the recorder from his mouth, but she couldn't hear him. By the time she saw the small flames, it was too late, and he had to watch her beating at them with her hands, trying to shield her face as they climbed like living snakes up her tunic.
The music, William
, a voice said inside his head. He put the recorder back to his lips and played again.
We have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps
.

He took three more faltering steps into the center of hell. The dragon's eyes went black, and William felt his hand brush against the rough scales of the beast's hide. He reached up with his dagger and plunged it in the direction of the right thigh. Nothing. Air. The noise of the dragon's roar was deafening, and William staggered back. He flung out his arm and struck one more time. At last, the dagger found flesh and was slowly pulled from his hand as the beast fell over on to his side in a heap of green scales. William sank to his knees in the dirt and let the recorder drop from his mouth.

Neither of them moved for a moment. In the silence and the settling dust, William could hear the high clear note of a bird's song. He closed his eyes and waited
for the pounding in his chest to subside. Then he forced himself to look once more into the dragon's eyes.

This time there were no scenes of fiery horror but only the terrified and lonely eyes of the cat imprisoned inside this grotesque green body. There was no blood. There was not even a wound. The dragon was not lying there in pain.

“Come on, now, you must get up,” William said. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

The dragon began to struggle, moving his legs about under him in useless, scrabbling circles. His forelegs were much shorter than his back ones, so it was hard for him to get them all organized underneath him. William went around on the other side and pushed hard, which got the dragon balanced again. Slowly he righted himself and stood up. He hung his head down with a sniff and pretended to be inspecting the dusty road.

“Don't be like that,” William said. “You put up a good fight. Now I need your help. We don't want the wizard to know that you're in my power. You've got to keep standing here and guarding the gates as if nothing has happened.”

The dragon looked up hopefully. He opened his mouth and spat a bit of flame to the side.

“That's right,” William said with a smile. “A puff here or there, but you're not to hurt anybody who
approaches the castle gates. Do you understand?”

The dragon nodded and took up his old position. William glanced at the ramparts. The soldiers were clustered together, whispering and pointing at him fearfully. When they saw him looking up, they fell silent. William waved and then, with an exaggerated gesture, put his finger to his lips. He knew he was taking a chance, but if the wizard's soldiers had been pressed unfairly into his service, they might keep the secret of the dragon.

He retrieved his dagger from where it lay in the dust and hid it under his tunic. Then he marched across the drawbridge right up to the door and knocked loudly three times.

William heard the crank of the windlass as the portcullis was raised. The heavy wooden doors were pushed slowly open by two soldiers, who marched across in front of him without raising their eyes to meet his. A third soldier stood waiting for him, lance at the ready.

“Your business, sir?” he said.

“I've heard the wizard is seeking a fool for his amusement. I've come to apply for the position,” William said loudly, his voice echoing throughout the empty courtyard. Here and there he spied faces peeking out at him from behind the great stone columns, but when they caught him looking at them, they withdrew.

The guard signaled that William was to follow him. They took the first door that led off the courtyard and turned their way down an endless spiral of stairs that seemed to lead into the center of the earth. The stairs
were lit by smoking torches that left long black marks on the stone walls above them. For the first time since he'd come through the forest, William felt cold. He was glad he had not shed his tunic in the heat. The guard did not look back to see if he was still following but kept up a steady pace down the curling stone steps. At last, when William began to grow dizzy from the downward twisting and the acrid smell of the torches, they came out into a small room.

“Wait here,” the guard said. He knocked once and then twice more at a wooden door, which was opened almost immediately and then slammed shut behind him. William was left standing by himself, but in less than a minute the door opened a crack. A bony hand reached out and beckoned him inside. He entered a large hallway dimly lit by two torches on either side of a high-backed carved chair.

“Step forward, fool,” thundered the figure seated on the chair.

William did as he was told. He found himself face to face with an old man, dressed in a silver robe with a hood. They studied each other in silence. Lines creased the man's forehead, and his gray hair lay across the shiny skin of his head in thin, matted strands. His right shoulder twitched constantly as if it were jerking up to swat a fly off his ear. His eyes made William
shiver. They darted about, never resting for too long on any one object. They were the eyes of a hunted man who understood that danger could come from any quarter. They missed nothing.

“I am Alastor,” the man announced. “Your name, fool?”

“Muggins,” William replied. It was the first word that came into his head, the name of a clown he'd once seen in the circus.

“What can you do?” the wizard asked, leaning forward to look more closely at his face.

“I am an acrobat, sir. I can play the recorder. I can tell riddles.” William stopped as the wizard made an impatient gesture at him.