Dragonswood (18 page)

The fey had cut a black stone stairway beside the falls. The going was steep, the steps slick with water, but a hand-carved wooden rail went alongside. I climbed until my chest ached, cupped some water from a little side pool where a rock shelf jutted out, and drank. It was early November, not yet winter, but a few icicles hung thin as reeds from the ledge.

I found a small alcove near the top where I might sit away from the swirling mist. I watched a spider spinning her web across the entryway. The mist hung in droplets from her silk, each drop seemed to catch fire as the wisps sped past.

Onadon already had marriage plans in mind. How was that any different from the blacksmith who eyed me like his raw metal he could shape by force? Was one father’s magic much different than the other’s mallet?
I am not property.

I touched a droplet on the web and let it gather like a small, clear pearl on my fingertip. The fall’s roar was thunderous and deep. The will-o’-the-wisps’ high-pitched laughs sounded like bells as they dared one another to fly closer to the spray.

What if I said no? I’d seen Onadon’s cold look when I’d asked that. If I didn’t do his will, would my father reject me?

If I agreed to his plan, I’d be closer to Garth. I pictured him sitting in the filthy straw of the jail cell, knees up and back pressed against the wall, his hands dangling empty in the dark before him.

Was Garth warm this night, or chill? Could he see the sky through the dungeon bars?

We’d looked at the sky through the study window. He’d shown me the necklace and said it was his mother’s. How could he lie about such a thing? Had he lied about everything? Was he not a woodsman at all? Did he really know the royal family?

Garth was a man of corners and secrets, but I’d kept secrets from him too. I’d never told him the truth about my fire-sight, nor mentioned who I was after I’d learned I was half fey. Both of us had lied.

Would Garth have abandoned me if he discovered I lied to him? He’d seen me dressed as a leper, hungry and stinking in a cave. He’d known me as a costumed criminal on the run, even known I’d betrayed my friends to the witch hunter, yet he’d not judged me harshly. Might there be more of his story I didn’t yet know? Should I judge and condemn him without knowing all?

Even if he was a thief, he was my thief.

I could not push him away anymore.

Chapter Twenty-eight

T
HE NEXT DAY
, as Onadon had said, we rode bareback through Dragonswood, he on the black mare he called Lady, and I on the sorrel, Gideon. I was unused to riding bareback, so I held handfuls of Gideon’s mane while trying to assume a dignified composure. I suspected Onadon knew my discomfort and was amused.

We’d ridden silently, skirting Morgesh Mountain, going eastward toward the sea. Anon I left off concentrating so hard on the horse and peered at Onadon, trying to read his face. I was nearly beheaded for it. Gideon sped under a low branch, forcing me to duck. I felt a sharp pull on my scalp as the branch snarled a goodly hunk of hair.

“Mind!” I shouted, yanking the sorrel’s mane. He shook his head, affronted at my grip. I did not loosen it. I could not.

Onadon pulled over and waited for me to catch up. “You have an answer for me, Tess?” he asked.

“I do.”

I’d not tell my father why I’d chosen to agree to his plans. Poppy was welcome to win Prince Arden. She’d be a beautiful queen, both thoughtful and kind. For my part I’d join the fairy delegation as a means to get inside Pendragon Castle so I could locate Garth and free him if I could.

“I’ll go with you, Father.”

“Good girl.” Onadon turned Lady and cantered down a grassy knoll.

I followed, disappointed, milking the words
good
and
girl
for all their worth and finding them dry—he’d said them with little feeling. Even so, I’d seek Garth’s cell as I’d found Tom’s. I had no wish to join him as an outlaw, but what if I convinced Garth or Bash to give the treasure back?

If he and the dragon Ore returned the king’s treasure as secretly as they’d taken it to begin with, he’d not have to live on the run from the law. I’d seen a strong man at the hunting lodge, a learned man who could read and write (a thing even most guildsmen in Harrowton could not do). He had skills enough to start a new life. A life with me? I could not count on that, but a good life anyway, and a free one.

I ran my hand along Gideon’s muscled neck. “One thing troubles me, Father. I’ve heard Lord Sackmoore’s niece, Lady Adela, is often at court. She accused me of witchcraft. She’ll burn me if she catches me.”

“Lady Adela won’t be an impediment, Tess. The Gray Knight will keep her away.”

“How do you know that?”

“Believe me. It is true.”

My father began to whistle happily. The sound haunted me. I’d set about to trick my father, a powerful fey man. What happened to girls who tried to trick fairies? Nothing good, I suspected.

He expects you to carry out his plan.

I’m his daughter. He won’t hurt me.

You’ve not yet seen him when he’s angry.

I was familiar with my stepfather’s rages, what of Onadon’s? I gripped Gideon’s mane a little too tightly. The horse drew his ears back in annoyance.

A
FTER A BRIEF
rest, Father said, “We need to move with more speed. Are you ready for a little magic?”

“What sort of magic?” I asked, excited and wary both.

“Just some aid for our mounts, Tess.” Helping me up on Gideon, he said, “Hang on to his mane and keep your head low. You’ll be all right.”

I had no time to ask what he meant to do before the horses took off again. The rough ride became smooth as glass. The trees around us blurred. I tried to look down to see if Gideon’s hooves touched the earth and could only see more brown blur below.

Riding thus, we reached a little clearing at the edge of Dragonswood in no time. There was a lake just inland from the sea with a dense green isle at its center. I’d heard of an enchanted lake with the isle God’s Eye in the middle. “Is that Lake Ailleann?”

“The same,” answered Onadon, riding ahead.

I stared at God’s Eye, where Merlin had stayed to study wizardry more than six hundred years ago. Merlin came here as a young man when our island was as wild as its name, a magic place with dragons and fey folk, Euit tribes, and a few magicians. In later years when England used it as a prison colony, the ancient magic was driven underground. Queen Rosalind and King Kye built the sanctuary walls hoping to restore some of the lost magic, though the native Euits were all but gone.

God’s Eye was thick with evergreens, but I saw a few maples shedding leaves near a dark rocky hill that stood out black as a pupil.

“We visit God’s Eye,” Onadon said. “There is someone I want you to meet.” Hopping down, he gently turned Lady’s head toward a bough, and pointed. By this the mare seemed tethered to the branch, though he had no rope. She nibbled the grass amiably, used to invisible tethers, I supposed. Helping me down from my sorrel, my father used this same magic to hold Gideon in place.

How would it be to point to a tree or bush and bind my mount with no true binding other than my will? Did my father have such power over men? If I had that fairy power, I could bind the jailors right up when I went after Garth.

“Might I learn to do that?”

“Do what?”

“Bind animals in place.”
Or people.

“Why?”

I did not answer.

Onadon said, “We walk from here.”

“Who are we meeting, Father?”

“You’ll see.”

I kept up with Onadon’s stride, my limbs awkward, my eyes sandy from a sleepless night. The hills were empty but for a shepherd boy and his flock. Halfway to the lake, Onadon stretched out a finger, picked a sheep from the boy’s herd as he had picked his trout, and lo, the sheep crept off from the rest.

Anon we met the stray sheep standing mud-deep in the rushes. How he’d walked to the lakeside so quickly was a mystery, but then, he’d come by magic. At water’s edge, Onadon shrouded us with mist. A rowboat answered Onadon’s “come hither” finger the way the sheep had.

My father climbed inside, sat on the bench in the stern, and took up oars. I clambered in after the sheep, wetting both slippers and gown, though I’d tried to keep them clean. The sheep stood between us, spreading his legs wide and bleating so pitifully I felt sorry for him till he nearly overturned us, at which time I slapped his rump.

“Why bring him?” I asked once we were ashore.

Onadon only beckoned again. Were we to dine on this fat, scraggly woolen creature? My stomach was already in protest of this, though I was hungry enough. The sheep came away at last, mud-coated and sandy-legged, his top half white and bottom brown and dripping as a rain cloud.

We zigzagged through trees. The land was so densely green we had to work our way like fleas across a hairy dog. God’s Eye had not looked overlarge from shore, but seemed to grow the more we walked. Midges overtook us, and flies. I waved both arms about. It did no good. After endless walking, we reached the rocky hill. I would have missed the cave altogether if Onadon hadn’t walked right in. For a moment I thought he’d vanished.

I entered also, though I like to think I was not as docile as the sheep. If the dark inside annoyed me, the stench was worse. Couldn’t Onadon smell it? Did the fey man have a nose?

Pinching my nose, I used the other hand to feel along the wall. Deeper in, a faint glow appeared and guided us. The putrid smell came also from there.

“Lord Kahlil,” said Onadon. A flame leaped out. In the single flare, I saw a great dragon’s head rising from its resting place on his outstretched claws. The wrinkled lids drooped over large, sleepy eyes that were pink-streaked where they were not copper.

“Onadon, the once fey king.” His voice was lower than the female dragon’s, crackling and roaring like fire in the blacksmith’s forge. Lord Kahlil coughed a cloud of smoke, then yawned, exposing teeth sharp as javelins, though much yellower. Three teeth were missing from the red and swollen gums. If a dragon can live over a thousand years, this one had already lived well beyond his nine hundred and ninety-ninth.

Spewing another flame, the dragon lit a fire between us where logs were piled up on the floor. Like the smaller dragon, Ore, much of his body hid in the recesses of the deep cave so that even with the firelight, I could not see all of him. But when I spied the jagged scar down his neck, I knew he was the dragon I’d first seen from a pine tree, the one who’d rescued me and later Tanya. Up close he seemed too weak to perform such feats, but then, he’d only just been sleeping.

Onadon went down on one knee, bowing to the dragonlord. I knelt as much in greeting as in thanks. This old one had saved my life.

“I see you have brought a sacrifice,” said Lord Kahlil.

Sacrifice? My skin iced, but only for a moment. Looking back, Onadon beckoned to the sheep. The creature baaed and stumbled unwillingly toward the dragon. I was halfway to my feet when Lord Kahlil crushed the sheep in his claws, then stripped his wool quicker than a shepherd shears. Skewering his kill on one of his talons, he flame-roasted it and popped it into his mouth.

I stared at the pile of wool at the dragon’s feet. Not a single drop of blood was on it. My knees wobbled. The beast still relished his meal, chewing noisily. I studied his high ridged back, very long and thin with age or disease or both. I also met the source of the rank smell. Yellowing scales hung here and there between the healthier green scales along his sides. Many hung by fibrous strands from his bony frame. Dried blood traced their edges.

Lord Kahlil scratched his side with his back leg; one scale tore off and drifted leaf-like to the stone floor. I noticed then a goodly number of shed scales littering the floor around his feet.

The dragon swallowed his meal. “My hunter has not come these past weeks.”

Onadon said, “I should have brought you fresh meat sooner, my lord.” He added a log to the fire. “I will send you a hunter until you’re well.”

Lord Kahlil smacked his jaws in agreement.

Until you’re well? Was the skin disease so bad? Then I remembered the dragon had a burned wing.

Lord Kahlil picked his teeth with a talon. “King Elixis already visited here with Poppy. He boasted of her stirring beauty and sexual allure. He was certain she’d charm the future king. I took his word on this. Our eyes do not judge human or fey beauty. You are all worm-like to us, if you pardon my saying so.”

I remembered Garth saying dragons thought us ugly. To them Princess Augusta was most beautiful of all with her face scales and dragon eyes.

“Elixis is right about Poppy,” Onadon said. “She’ll attract any human male, but I say there should be two contenders. More chances to win the future king’s heart that way.” He nudged me to step forward. “Tess also came to the outskirts of DunGarrow on her own as was agreed. Drawn by her fey blood, she arrived only two days after Poppy.”

Father had already mentioned that half-fey girls had to come on their own. If not for that, this dragon could have flown me to DunGarrow the first time he spied me in the tree.

How different that would have been. I’d have skipped my trial, had no witch hunter at my heels. Poppy might have stayed at home and never gone north herself, living alone and unhappy with her father, or been forced into a marriage she did not want. And Meg would still be crammed in with her small family above Old Weaver’s shop instead of ruling her own kitchen at the lodge.

We’d been through a deal, yet strange as it was, I saw both Poppy and Meg were happier now than they’d ever been in Harrowton. And if the dragon had sped me straight to DunGarrow that first night, I would have never met Garth. Much as I was still angry with him for lying to me, to us all, I couldn’t imagine never having met him.

Wandering thoughts had kept me from my father’s conversation. I picked up the thread again.

“. . . not just the fire-sight, Tess can read and write. The girl is cunning.”

“Cunning?” I glared at Onadon. Was this flattery or insult? The dragon coughed or laughed, I couldn’t tell which. The sound was alarmingly loud.

“King Elixis did not bring me a sacrifice,” the dragon said.

The sheep was a point in Onadon’s favor. The hint of a smile visited my father’s face. Lord Kahlil whipped his head around to chew under his right wing so violently it started to bleed.

“It looks worse, my lord,” said Onadon. “Aisling made more salve.” He pulled a jar from his waist pouch. “Go on, Tess,” he said, handing it to me.

“Sir?”

Lord Kahlil blinked down at us, a torn scale hanging from his teeth.

“Open it,” Onadon urged.

The greenish balm inside had a vaporous scent that made my eyes water. There was pine in it, and mint, and some sweet flower. The powerful smell was not an ill one. The dragon’s nostrils flared, sniffing the fumes.

“Rub it on the raw places,” said Onadon. “It will ease his itch.”

I was speechless, but went to the scored spot below the right wing.

“Not where it bleeds, Tess,” my father hissed. I jumped back. Of course, a bloody wound would sting with such strong ointment. I’d been too nervous to think of it. I would be more cautious. Jar in hand, I inched along to a withered scale. Father had not forced me, which is to say I was not compelled by point of finger. I had stepped up on my own.

Grandfather once had an old hound named Padrick, whose vile skin disease made his fur fall off in hunks. The wrinkled balding spots itched the poor hound fiercely. He scratched and stank like this dragon. I’d salved his sores many a time, so it was Padrick I thought of as I tread the fallen dragon scales carpeting the dusty floor. Some sloughed scales were dingy yellow, but many were a healthy green or brighter golden chest scales, not fallen from disease but shed in season.

All dragons shed as they grow. Long ago Princess Rosalind made a gown of shed pip scales, and gathered more hatchling scales to write on, making herself a book.
If I had a book made of dragon scales, I’d draw in it
. The book she made when she was forced to live alone with the dragons on Dragon’s Keep was under glass now at Pendragon Castle. I might see it myself soon.

The thick, cool ointment spread evenly over Lord Kahlil’s raw spots. I was careful at first, fearing it might sting even here, and was ready to jump back, perhaps even run, but Lord Kahlil let out a long sigh of pleasure, and that encouraged me. The salve’s scent overcame the rotten smell, and that pleased me also.