The Whim of the Dragon (26 page)

“Hey!” said Patrick. “Laura, you’re breaking my ribs. What’s the problem?”

“It seems a long way down,” said Laura.

Fence was silent, but Laura could feel his troubled look. She shut her eyes and tried to think of nothing.
Give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name,
said somebody. Laura held very still, and the voice said nothing more.

It
was
a long way down to the valley; they descended the slope very slowly in a series of switchbacks. The road got better; Laura wondered if, among their other crimes, the people of Feren had neglected the roads around their town. Then she wondered where this thought had come from. Princess Laura, perhaps. They descended into the valley and rode between the rows of towering hills. The day grew warm, and cool again. There was a great noise of birds, and the sun disappeared behind the hills on their left.

“Are we
there
yet?” said Ellen, in a pseudo-whine.

“Just fifteen minutes,” called Patrick; and they both laughed.

Then Ellen said in a heartfelt tone, “I’m starving.”

“Good grief, if you’re starving, Laura must have died of hunger an hour ago,” said Patrick.

Laura felt that this remark did not deserve the dignity of an answer. She was surprised not to be hungry. Maybe Princess Laura was above such things as food.
Dost thou think,
said the distant voice,
that because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?

“They’ll feed us well in Heathwill Castle,” said Fence.

“Oh, yeah?” said Patrick. “What’s to keep the shape-changers from taking our dinner the way they took our horses?”

“Shape-changers,” said Matthew, from behind them, “eat the air, promise-cramm’d.”

The distant voice said,
You cannot feed capons so.

“They knew me not at Feren,” said Fence, “but at the Library they will; their arts are very great.”

“Heh,” said Patrick.

They rode on up the valley. Eventually it broadened out before them, and in the blue twilight they saw a tower on a hill. It looked grim, with its thick walls and dry moat, its stingy arrow-slits and toothy crenellations. But there was something wrong with the crenellations. Laura saw as they drew nearer that each one was topped with a large earthenware pot full of flowers. She supposed one could tip them off onto the heads of enemies.

“What!” said Ellen. “Somebody’s yelling poetry.”

“Saying what?” said Matthew.

“ ‘When wasteful war shall statues overturn,’ ” said Ellen, rather wildly, “‘and broils root out the work of masonry, nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn the living record of your memory.’ ”

“That’s a building spell,” said Fence. “It is no matter—but I knew not thou hadst the ear for sorcery.”

He broke off abruptly; remembering, Laura supposed, that Princess Ellen might not have had such an ear but there was no telling what Ellen Carroll had.
Lord,
said her own private voice,
we know what we are, but know not what we may be.

Nobody challenged them from the tower. The road bent eastward; a stream crossed its path, and they clattered over a wide stone bridge. Laura heard water running, louder than the stream, and saw a river on their right. Soon there loomed ahead of them in the growing dusk the glimmer of a very high circular wall. As they rode closer Laura saw that within that wall, on its riverward side, was another higher one, and within that, in the middle of the river itself, a higher still; and within that, one last wall, highest of all. Laura thought that the question “Are we there yet?” might have a variety of answers.

“Which gate?” said Fence.

“The market, since we come so late,” said Celia.

They rode up to the first wall, and were admitted by a couple of guards who merely looked them over without comment and then stood aside. They rode into the second town Laura had seen here. Everything seemed to be made of stone: little stone huts with thatched roofs, high stone houses with roofs of slate and red tile, stone walls enclosing gardens and fountains, stone benches, stone statues, stone pillars standing about with no visible purpose, stone pillars with stone lanterns on them. People were coming with torches and lighting these as they passed. They rode slowly past one cross-street and five or six houses, and into a wide square. Suddenly the air smelled of overripe fruit, and spoiled vegetables, and frying, and spices. Laura had a vague impression of striped awnings rolled up, and shuttered windows.

They rode on through the empty square, past more houses, and took the first right turn that offered itself. And there was the second wall. It belonged to what looked like a miniature castle, with a gatehouse and corner towers. Light shone through all the arrow-slits, and there were no flowers on the crenellations. A woman in shirt of mail came out to them, holding a torch. She looked surprisedly at Celia.

“My lady, I thought I saw you yesternight,” she said.

“You were the more deceived,” said Celia.

“Saw you me also?” said Fence.

“Oh, aye, and all thy crew,” the guard said, gesturing at the rest of the party.

“Did they swear aright?” said Fence.

“Oh, aye.”

“They might mean harm to us, Fence, and none to Heathwill Library,” said Celia.

“Well,” said the woman, “can you swear aright?”

“I do swear by the mercy granted to Shan and the three precepts of Belaparthalion,” said Fence, “that neither I nor any of my train come with the will or the power to do harm to Heathwill Library, its members, or those whom it doth protect.”

“That’s more than they could do,” she said; “I had to speak it to ’em.” She looked again at Celia. “You did say that you’d forgot all civil discourse, being so long in a barbarous land.”

“An you stop now, I can forgive,” said Fence, rather sharply. “May we go our ways?”

“Heartily,” she said.

They were challenged, as they came out the other side of the gatehouse, by two more guards, who accepted their account of themselves amiably enough, but took issue with Fence’s desire to ride the horses further. There was plenty of room, they said, here in the Refuge Close; and Heathwill Castle’s stables were crowded.

“Who’s here?” said Fence.

“I couldn’t say,” said one guard, in a sour tone that Laura thought was directed not at Fence, but at those about whom he couldn’t say.

Fence seemed disposed to argue, but Matthew touched his arm and he was silent. They dismounted, and handed over the horses to the guards, and were given a handcart for their luggage. Somebody came out of the darkness to pull it for them. Laura was too stiff and sleepy to pay much heed. They had to wait while a great deal of grinding and clattering went on: the drawbridge being let down. They walked across it, over the dark-sliding, fresh-smelling river, and came to the next wall. This one was so high it disappeared into the darkness. Another gate, four guards, their voices cautious and Fence’s patient.

“I thought as much!” exclaimed one of the guards.

“But they did take the oath,” said Fence.

“Well, in that case the quarrel’s yours,” said the guard, “but I take it ill that we should be so trifled with you. Do you send for us an they confound you.”

They were allowed into a torchlit, oddly shaped courtyard inside which loomed the highest wall of all, a great blocky building just like an apartment complex, dotted with squares of yellow light. They went along its length to a far door, and up a narrow stair, and into a large, square room, blessedly warm, with a table, and chairs, and a bewildering clutter of objects on every available flat surface. A fair-haired man in yellow sat writing at the far side of the table. His moving elbow was going to knock a stack of books into his inkwell any moment, thought Laura, and she woke up a little.

The man who had pulled their handcart and guided them up the stairs tapped on the frame of the door, and cleared his throat, and finally shouted, “My lord!”

The man at the desk looked up, and smiled, and stopped smiling to lay down his pen. “Fence?” he said.

“This time for sure,” said Patrick.

“So I believe,” said Fence.

The fair man stood up. “Well, we must sift these matters. But for the moment, welcome,” he said, “to Heathwill Library.”

As they filed into the room, Ellen caught Laura by the sleeve. “That’s him!” she said. “That’s Michaelmas!”

The voice, very close now, so close that for a moment Laura thought it belonged to the fair man, spoke pleasantly. It said,
Up, lass: when the journey’s over / There’ll be time enough to sleep.
And then it said,
Welcome indeed, to Heathwill Library.

I
T was the fourth day of the journey south. Ted was tired. He had not had enough rest since they started, what with setting up camps, and tearing them down; and Randolph’s being in a hurry without saying why; and the toll taken by perplexing a conversations. It was a good thing the setting sun was shining in his eyes, or he would be asleep where he sat and the perspicacious horse would be plotting its revenge.

Ted sat up with a start, and the perspicacious horse twitched and stretched its neck hopefully. West. Why were they riding west? The road went south. The domains of the Dragon King were south of the Hidden Land—weren’t they? The army of the Hidden Land had traveled south to fight the Dragon King, but its aim had been to get out of its own territory, not necessarily to get into the Dragon King’s. Maybe the Dragon King’s domains were west, and he had missed a crossroads, being so sleepy.

“Ruth?” he called.

Ruth, a little ahead of him, looked inquiringly over her shoulder and then slowed her horse until they were riding abreast. She looked tired and pale herself. This morning, when she could have been helping them strike camp, she had wrestled her crazy hair into a knot at the back of her head and crammed somebody’s straw hat over it. It made her look older and a little silly. Nor could Ted see the point of the arrangement; the weather was cooler than it had been the day before. He tried to remember how Lady Ruth had looked in the land of the dead. He thought she had worn her hair down, but couldn’t be sure.

“What do you want?” said Ruth, patiently. Well, at least that wasn’t a reaction of Lady Ruth.

“Why are we riding west?” said Ted.

Ruth smiled faintly. “Andrew says it’s misdirection disguised as sorcery.”

“I suppose that means it really is sorcery.”

“Probably. He says Randolph is doing it, though; I wasn’t sure Randolph was allowed to do sorcery anymore.”

“This does seem more serious than making the rain stop.”

Behind them, Stephen and Dittany were involved in some discussion that created a great deal of laughter. Ahead of them, Randolph rode alone, his hood up and his shoulders tired; ahead of him, Andrew and Julian were talking earnestly, while the breeze blew their hair about; and ahead of them, Jerome rode by himself, and rather faster. Ted realized that the character of the plain had changed. The grasses were shorter, and the land went up and down like a sine wave. It was all scattered with clumps of trees and gleams of water. And on the far edge, below the reddening sun, where yesterday the flat land had met the flat sky, there was a tiny, irregular line of purple.

“Ruth. Mountains.”

“I saw them yesterday,” said Ruth.

“This may be the way to the Gray Lake, but isn’t it taking us the long way around for the Dragon King?”

“They said the Gray Lake was on the way.”

“Well,” said Ted, dubiously, “I guess what sorcery is getting us into, sorcery can get us out of.”

“Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards,” said Ruth, sepulchrally.

“Cut it out. We
are
the affairs of wizards.”

“What a very uncomfortable thought,” said Ruth.

“You ought to be used to it by now.”

“Well, there are affairs and affairs.”

Oh, thought Ted. “Andrew,” he said, firmly, “is not a wizard.”

“I wish,” said Ruth, suddenly sounding furious, “that I could get blasted Lady Ruth to come into the front of my mind. She knows what Andrew is.”

“Randolph and I wanted to ask you about that,” said Ted. “Come on.” He asked the mare to catch up with Randolph’s horse, which pleased her, and then held her to Randolph’s slow pace, which she didn’t like at all.

Ruth rode up between them. “Since I’m to be interrogated,” she said.

Randolph shook his hood back, and Ted saw Ruth smile at him. Randolph didn’t smile back. He was getting a tan from all this traveling in the sun, so he no longer looked so white and strained; but he still had hollows under his eyes.
Oh heavy burden!
cooed the voice in Ted’s mind, unkind and ironic.
Oh my offense is rank, it smells to heaven.

“Shut
up
!” said Ruth.

Ted and Randolph stared at her, Randolph in simple bewilderment and Ted with uncomfortable surmise.

“I’m sorry,” said Ruth. “The one who isn’t Lady Ruth is acting up. Smells to heaven indeed!”

“You’re hearing
my
back-of-the-head voice,” said Ted.

“Leave the voices,” said Randolph, patiently. “You did but look upon me and have a like thought. Your blood, your training, your—” He stopped.

“Exactly,” said Ted. “Wrong blood, no training. So why?”

“The whispers of your others confound me,” said Randolph. “But those neutral voices that take a chance word in your thoughts and expound on it as sorcerer to his apprentice—those our proximity to the Gray Lake doth explain.”

“But why can we hear them, without the blood or the training?” said Ted.

“You have the ear for sorcery,” said Randolph. “Anyone can have it, though few untrained could hear those voices at this distance from their abiding.”

“Did Edward and Lady Ruth have it?” said Ted.

“Aye, both.”