Dragonwitch (30 page)

H
E
STRODE
INTO
MY
VISION
ONE
NIGHT
even as I reveled in the destruction of yet another House, high on a cold mountain. I sat amid the debris, fountaining my flame to the sky, when I heard that voice I knew so well calling to me.

“Dragon!”

I turned. I saw Etanun standing there with his sword upraised.

“Dragon,” he bellowed, and there was a fury of passion in his voice. “You will die for the death you have dealt!”

“And who will see to that?” I asked.

“I!” he replied. “I shall kill you now!”

“Kill me, then,” I replied, letting my fire spill forth.

We fought there on the scene of that destruction. And though my flame had never been hotter, it could not prevail against the brilliance of Halisa. I was foolish and I was angry, and I gave him an opening. Driven by rage, by vengeance, he drove that sword into my heart.

It was no more pain than I had already experienced twice at his hand. I scarcely cared even as I fell, crashing into the ruins of the House.

I died my first death.

Mouse and Alistair stood where Eanrin had left them beneath the shelter of an oak tree, which the cat-man had told them was “kindly enough, but don't tease it.”

With this warning, he had vanished, and the two of them stood, not speaking and carefully not looking at each other. They could feel shadows creeping along the forest floor, sliding smoothly over moss and stump and twig, reaching out to them. Not necessarily malicious, but curious like sniffing puppies, ready to growl or wag a tail at a moment's notice.

Alistair glanced toward the girl, who stood with her hands folded—an attitude of prayer, perhaps. Of all the otherworldly things surrounding him, he somehow felt that she was the most otherworldly of all, though she was as mortal as he.

He wondered suddenly if he would live long enough to know her.

The young lord clenched his teeth, his fine face suddenly vicious. Just then he would have liked to take up his sword and hurl himself into an enemy, any enemy, be it real or imaginary, so he could feel that he was alive, so he could feel that there was yet some purpose in his being.

He turned to Mouse, and though she did not look at him, the muscles in her cheek tightened and she was aware of his gaze.

“I know,” Alistair said, “I probably shouldn't say this.”

She did not turn or move.

“After all, it's hardly the time,” Alistair continued, “what with my family home overrun with monsters, my mother captured, possibly dead, and us wandering through other worlds that shouldn't exist. . . .”

His voice trailed away. He thought of the smoke above Gaheris. He thought of Lady Mintha, the last he'd seen her, her face pale with fury as she watched her dream for her child snatched away at a dying man's whim. He thought of the earls, his shame, and the face of his strange, small cousin.

He thought of his dream.

Mouse, stealing a glance, found that Alistair no longer looked at her but stared instead at his own feet. The scar beneath his torn shirt looked white and dreadful in the half-light.

“Yes, well,” Alistair finished at last, “when I think about it, it's not the time at all. Forget I said anything.”

The next moment, Eanrin came storming back, the Chronicler following, shamefaced. “Well, now that our fine little king has had a lovely stroll through the dulcet forest glades, shall we continue?” the cat-man snarled and stalked ahead, looking more like an affronted tom than ever, despite his human shape.

“Where did you go?” Mouse asked the Chronicler as the three of them fell into step behind Eanrin. She noted the dampness on his clothes and the water clinging to his hair.

He answered only with a shrug and a dismissive, “I fell behind.”

With this and no other excuse offered, the three mortals proceeded in silence.

Mouse kept her gazed fixed upon the small form of the Chronicler, determined he should not wander off again. She noticed how even in the midst of this company he kept himself aloof, as if he believed that he moved in his own separate world where none of the others could reach him. It was a false attitude. For all the outward show of armor, Mouse thought it covered little more than a tender heart, easily battered, easily broken.

She frowned. Had the scrubber misled her? Had she been wrong to believe that wizened, smelly old man to be the fabled Etanun? She thought of powerful Stoneye, reaching out to the great sword one moment, lying dead the next. And this little man, weak as a child, was supposed to do what Stoneye could not? He was supposed to carry the sword from the chamber, to bear it into the presence of the goddess? He would scarcely be able to budge it from the stone! It was too much.

But he was all the hope she had.

The Land Behind the Mountains was separated from the Between and the realms of Faerie by the many rivers that cut across its territory. The
last time he was there, Eanrin had recognized the magical quality of those rivers—a protective barrier set in place by someone concerned for the mortals dwelling within. But of course, there were always ways to get around such protections.

Now Eanrin felt the Near World close at hand.

He stopped and waited for the mortals to catch up. When they hesitated, he beckoned impatiently. “Come closer, little ones,” he said. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

“Well, there's you,” said Alistair, folding his arms and scowling at the cat-man.

Eanrin didn't respond. He turned to Mouse. “We're close to your world,” he said. “Do you see the gate?”

Mouse looked around. She saw nothing but Wood and more Wood. There was no sign of a break in the trees, no sign of a gorge. “There was a river where I came in,” she said.

“That's nice,” said Eanrin.

“No, I mean, shouldn't we be looking for a river now?” she persisted.

“Maybe,” the cat-man replied, shrugging. “This is the Between. A river might not always look like a river to you. I can smell your world, and I feel the barriers. But I cannot get us through, nor will I even be able to see the gate. That's part of the protection on your realm. Only one from the inside can lead folk of the Wood in. Otherwise, none of us will get past the rivers. Quite the effective deadbolt, when you think about it.”

“But . . . shouldn't we be looking for a river, then?”

Eanrin bit down hard on his tongue. He wasn't generally one to restrain his words. After all, he was a poet. But he drew a long breath and reminded himself that she was, after all, young, scarcely alive yet by immortal standards. “Look closely,” he said between his teeth. “Maybe you'll see your river.”

Mouse turned, as did the other two, searching the solemn gloom of the trees. Nearby was a place where green bracken grew knee-high. Anything could hide there, anything at all. Even . . .

Mouse darted forward. “Wait!” Alistair cried and started after her, but Eanrin put out a restraining hand. “No, let her be. She's safe enough, and it's up to her.”

Mouse waded into the ferns, stepping through the lacy green fronds. And suddenly she said, “I've found it. I've found the river!”

The others hastened to her side and looked where she parted the ferns, pointing. A small rivulet passed this way, dampening the ground as it flowed, silent as a stalking snake.

“Well done,” said Eanrin. “Quickly now. Lead the way.”

Mouse hastened along against the flow of the little stream, pushing aside ferns. The others followed, noticing how it seemed that the ferns moved with a gentle, flowing rhythm, though there was no breeze. Then they thought how remarkably the ferns, flowing together in indecipherable patterns along the forest floor, resembled water.

The next moment, without any apparent change taking place, they walked along the edge of a wide river. There was a break in the trees up ahead.

“Typical,” Eanrin said dismissively, though the others stared in surprise. “Rivers are all such crafty creatures; you never quite know where you stand with them.” He backed away from the water, keeping close behind Mouse.

Then they stood at the edge of the Wood, gazing out into the gorge but keeping to the shadows. For though the Wood was the stuff of other worlds, it felt familiar by comparison. Both Alistair and the Chronicler, come from a North Country winter, were struck with a wave of sultry heat, and the light of the sun overhead was dazzling after the gloom of the Between.

“There!” Mouse cried, pointing up the wall. “There is the path I followed down! It's narrow but not impossible, and I'm sure we can make our way up again.”

Alistair and the Chronicler exchanged glances, then turned to Eanrin, who was once more in cat form. “What did she say?” Alistair asked.

They had stepped from the Between into the Near World. Once more the barrier of language separated them as effectively as any wall.

“She says you have the ears of a monkey,” the cat said, and trotted after the girl, who was scrambling over river-splashed rocks in glad haste. “Hurry up, lads!”

So they climbed from the gorge. The heat of midday beat down upon them, and both Alistair and the Chronicler found the going hard. The Chronicler perhaps made better time, however, for the narrow path was
better suited to his short stature than to Alistair's long limbs. The cat sped ahead of all of them, slinking between their feet and hastening to the top, where he sat like a sentinel, looking out across the tablelands.

He remembered this country over which Amarok, the Wolf Lord, had pursued him. He recognized the line of mountains, hazy in the distance, which he knew ringed this land, trapping those within like so many rabbits in a snare. A mortal land, yet the sort of place that would draw malicious Faerie kind with irrepressible attraction. Fortunate for the mortals that the rivers had been set in place, cutting them off from the Far World as effectively as the mountains cut them off from their own kind.

But the Flame at Night had gotten through, and Eanrin could already see the scars of her work. The land on which he sat was dry as bone.

Mouse scrambled the last few feet out of the gorge and stood panting beside the cat, covered from head to toe in dust. “Look!” she said, pointing. “Do you see the Citadel Spire? Do you see the glow of the Flame?”

Like a lighthouse in the distance, a red fire burned above the horizon.

“Tell me, little Mouse,” Eanrin said quietly, “what has your goddess done to this land?”

Mouse swallowed with difficulty, for dust clogged her throat. “She has purified it,” she said at last, her voice full of conviction.

“Has she?” Eanrin had only ever been one place before that was burned so badly. He hated to say, even to think it. But it was true nonetheless. “I could believe I stood once more in Etalpalli.”

But Mouse did not know that name. She turned as first the Chronicler and then Alistair completed the long climb and stood panting, bent over, runnels of sweat cutting through the caked dirt on their faces.

“Well,” said the Chronicler when at last he'd caught his breath, “here we are. What now?”

Mouse couldn't understand him, so she turned to the cat instead. “Come, we must hurry.” And she started across the plain, her gaze fixed upon the red light of the tower as firmly as it had ever fixed upon the gleam of Cé Imral.

The cat hesitated. “Stay close to me,” he said to the other two. “We'll keep after her for the moment, but don't get out of my sight, do you hear?”

“What a dreadful place,” Alistair said, gazing with disgust at the plain around them. “How can anyone live here?”

“They can't,” said the cat. “They die here.”

The Chronicler shaded his eyes against the sun, staring in the direction Mouse was hastening. “Is that a storm cloud?” he asked.