Dragonwitch (6 page)

“I don't know. Probably the child for whom this rhyme was originally written. Or someone from another tale I don't recall.”

Another silence. Leta felt her limbs shaking with pent-up frustration, shame, anger she dared not express. She wanted to tear the page in two, to fling it from her, to run from the library and never return. She had never felt more foolish or useless. Daughter of an earl, intended for marriage to a man who scorned her, for childbirth, for death, for dullness worse than death. Tears stung her eyes, and her heart beat a furious pulse. She opened her mouth to say something she hadn't yet thought out, something cutting.

But the Chronicler's voice broke the silence. “What have they been telling you?”

Leta started and looked up at him, saw the expression on his face, and quickly looked away again. Her own anger melted in sudden trembling. “I beg your pardon?” she whispered.

“What have they been telling you?” he repeated.

“About what, Chronicler?”

“About yourself.” His voice was like a wasp's sting, swift but leaving behind a lingering pain. “What have they convinced you that you are?”

Leta opened her mouth, but no words came. Her whole body felt colder than the river's icy flow.

“Let me guess,” the Chronicler persisted. “They've told you that you have no mind. That you are less than a man because your body is not shaped like his.”

A roaring blush spread up Leta's neck and flooded her face—a flush of embarrassment that he should dare mention a woman's body and of shame at the truth he spoke.

The Chronicler slid from his stool and slowly crossed the room. “They've told you that the outer shape of you determines the inner shape of your spirit. And you, foolish,
foolish
girl, have believed them! You make yourself less than you could be and hide instead.”

He stood before her now, his head tilted to meet her gaze. She wanted to look away but dared not. How angry he was, with an anger that frightened her for she could not quite understand it. His frame shook with the potency of his feeling, and his hands were fists.

“You've believed them,” he said, his voice an accusation. “You've let yourself be made into something you were never meant to be. Tell me—tell me, Leta!—have you not longed all your life to prove them wrong?”

“Our woman's lot,”
said the voice of her mother in her head.

“Insipid thing,”
Lady Mintha repeated.

But the Chronicler took her by the hand. Though his fingers were cold and ink stained, his grip was surprisingly strong. Leta tried to pull away, but he would not release her.

“Where is the maid who came to me,” he said, “and dared me to believe she could learn anything a man could learn? Where is she?”

The Wall was gone. Leta saw suddenly the whole of the Chronicler's heart and life exposed in dangerous vulnerability. And she knew that he sought an answer not only for her but also for himself. Her spirit lurched with a pain she could not name, reaching out to what she saw in his eyes. Somehow she thought she could give him the answer he needed. But she did not know what that answer might be.

Frightened, Leta closed her eyes, her final shield against those things she could not fathom.

For a moment, the Chronicler held on, studying the bowed face of the girl before him. Then he let go her hands and stepped back a pace or two, folding his arms. “Tell me what the rhyme means, m'lady,” he said.

She heard the return of the Wall. For the first time, its presence relieved her; she felt it cosseted her own spirit as much as his. But she also knew that it made for a restrictive fortress, more a prison cell than a protection.

She found her voice in little more than a breath. “I think it means that we will have a king. When Etanun's sword is found. When the House of Lights is opened once more.”

“Good enough.” The Chronicler's voice was as hard as his pumice stone, but it bore an edge of determination. “So who is the Smallman?”

Leta shook her head. It was heavy with unshed tears, but she knew now that she would not shed them. “Um. The Smallman is . . . is the future king. The one who will find the door to the House of Lights.”

“And the House of Lights? What is that?”

“The House that Akilun and Etanun built,” she said. “The last one, the one not burned by the Flame at Night.”

Here the Chronicler shook his head and returned to his own desk. He climbed up onto the stool, faced about, and folded his arms again. “Have you ever heard the word
metaphor
, m'lady?”

Leta shook her head.

“Metaphor,”
said he, “is the use of a symbol to represent an idea. Do you follow?”

Though she hated to, Leta shook her head again.

“No.” He grunted and shrugged his shoulders up to his ears, looking ceilingward. “Let me explain. The House of Lights doesn't exist. You understand that, don't you?”

Leta frowned but made no answer, so the Chronicler continued. “It is a symbol passed down through ages of oral tradition, via minstrels and songsters of generations past. A symbol of enlightenment, of understanding. The House of Lights is no literal house but a representation of the understanding humanity desires to attain in a dark and confusing universe.

“The Smallman, or Smallman King, as you have named him, is also a symbol. He is not a real person or, at least, not any
one
person. He represents mankind. Small-minded. Ignorant. Struggling to make sense of life. He is a figure created by bards long ago, searching always for this House of Lights, for enlightenment, and standing up to all foes who oppose him in this quest. When he succeeds at last,
‘the night will flame again.'
The darkness of ignorance will be driven out by the light of understanding.”

His voice was confident as he spoke. Here, in this realm of books and academic speculation, he held uncontested sway. Here he was stronger than any man of twice his height and double his breadth. Though the protective Wall remained firmly in place, a glimmer of light shone from beyond it, revealing the life that dwelled within.

“Do you see?” the Chronicler asked. “Even a child's nursery rhyme—so simple, so small—has much to offer those who will take the time to consider. Those willing to
think
.” He leaned forward on his stool now, and his face was eager, his eyes interested. “Now tell me, m'lady,” he said, “beyond the simple Faerie tale, beyond the stories you've been taught, what do you think it means?”

Leta stared at the book, seeing words she could read where only months before she would have seen nothing more than scratches in dark ink. Those words, those doorways to other worlds, to other times, beckoned to her, and she felt her heart begin to race. How she longed to use her mind as
she had never before used it! How she longed to run into places she had never believed possible for one such as herself!

“Are you afraid to answer?” the Chronicler asked.

Leta drew a deep breath. Then she nodded.

“Why?”

Even that was a dangerous question. Clutching the book in both hands, scarcely daring to raise her gaze from it, she said, “Because I don't think you'll like it.”

He snorted. “What does that matter? Think something; think something on your own. Not what
they
tell you to think or what
I
tell you to think. You are Leta of Aiven. I want to hear
your
thoughts, for they are neither mine nor anyone else's. Only yours. This makes them interesting.”

His words pierced the numbness she had felt since meeting Lady Mintha, since coming to Gaheris, since the moment her father had told her she would wed and did not consult her wishes on the matter. They pierced down to a warm, living part of her spirit that she had scarcely been aware existed.

Tell him what you think!
her rebellious side cried.
Tell him!

He'll believe you such a fool,
her practical side rejoined.

Tell him anyway! Tell him!

So she said, “I think you're wrong.”

Then she blushed and pressed a hand to her mouth. Never in her life had she dared to cross the will or opinions of anyone! The glory of freedom surged in her heart. Before she could stifle the words, she repeated, “I think you're wrong!”

The Chronicler laughed a genuine laugh, and the great stones of the Wall crumbled away in that sound. “Do you, now?” he said, his eyes sparkling with mirth and, wonderfully, interest. “Why is that?”

“I think . . .” Blood pounded so hard in Leta's head, she could scarcely get the words out. “I think the House of Lights is real. I think it stands somewhere in our own country, hidden until the time is ripe. I think the Smallman is a real person, and he will find Etanun's sword, and he will find the hidden door. He will open up the House of Lights so that we will hear the Sphere Songs again!”

“Silly superstition?” the Chronicler said, but it was less a rebuke than a suggestion for her to consider.

“Maybe,” she replied. “Maybe not. But I believe it.”

“What you believe cannot affect the truth of the matter.”

“Cannot the same be said for unbelief?”

Their eyes met. She saw appreciation written across his face. More than that, she saw what she thought might be pride. Gazing upon her, the Chronicler saw only something that pleased, that inspired.

“A good point, m'lady, and a fair one,” said he. “I will think on it.”

Her heart beat faster still, and Leta thought she might explode with the sudden power she felt tingling through her body. Let Lady Mintha say what she will! Let Alistair ignore her existence! Let her father force her into a marriage and treat her like bargaining baggage! She knew now what none of them knew.

She was Leta. And she had a mind all her own.

“I disagree with you, you know,” said the Chronicler, still smiling.

“And I disagree with you,” Leta replied, full of the joy of contradiction.

T
HE
T
WELVE
ARRIVED
SOON
AFTER
.
They are Cren Cru's servants, his slaves, perhaps his worshippers. They passed through our gates uninvited, breaking barriers that should have been impassable. But once the Mound appears, who can stop him or his work? His Twelve marched into our land, the tramping feet echoing on our unwalked streets, and the Sky People flew into their towers and hid from those blood-cold gazes. Each warrior carried with him—or her, for I saw females in their number—a sharp, bronze stone. They arranged these in a circle around the Mound. The stones glittered in the daylight until the sun himself must have shuddered at the sight.

Cren Cru was come indeed. And when he made his demands, Etalpalli trembled.

Through the Wood Between walked a Faerie who wore the form of a cat and who didn't give a whisker's twitch whether anyone believed in his existence or not.

This was the prevailing attitude among fey folk, truth be known. Amid all their philosophical contemplations, many mortals overlooked the fact that Faeries, on the whole, were just as happy to be disbelieved in as believed in.

An attitude of disbelief was easy enough to encourage in this age, when men of letters were few and libraries sparse. Faeries were by and large dismissed as imaginative fancies brought on by deeply instilled superstition and possibly a bit of distilled spirits. And the cat was just as happy to encourage this sort of dismissal. On the whole, a healthy disbelief in Faerie and all the folk who lived there made his life easier.

He padded confidently, tail high and ears perked, down a certain Path in the Wood Between, which grew in the strange, predominantly timeless stretch of existence separating the Far World from the Near. Indeed, the more the cat trod the various byways beneath the trees' long shadows, the more he suspected the Wood was not really a wood at all, but itself a living consciousness, or possibly many consciousnesses all bundled into one. Some of those were pleasant enough sorts. More were cheeky devils, and the rest downright wicked.

The Wood would turn a person round and flip him inside out if given half a chance. This the cat knew for certain.

But as long as one walked a Path—a known, safe Path belonging to a known, safe master—there was little the Wood could do to interfere.

So the cat remained firmly upon his particular Path, scarcely looking to the right or to the left. The Wood was always shifting around him in any case, and he did not expect to see familiar landmarks, or at least not in familiar places. That boulder shaped like a rabbit's head, for instance, had been a good mile or two back up the way when he'd been here last. And that tree, which last time had been split right down the middle as though by a bolt of lightning, was mostly mended now, the trunk knitting itself back together with threads of green ivy and pins of stout branches.

Landmarks were of little use to the cat. He was interested only in the gates.

He approached one of these now. To any mortal eye, it would look like nothing more than a thick cluster of bamboo standing in the middle of a fir grove. The firs were newcomers; the bamboo, however, remained ever in place.

The cat sniffed at it, his pink nose twitching delicately. Then he put out a paw and touched one of the slender green stalks. It swayed under that slight pressure but sprang firmly back into place when the cat removed his paw.

“Good,” said the cat. “Still locked.”

Just as he'd expected it to be.

He continued on his way.

There were several hundred such gates to be checked on this patrol through the Wood Between; soft places, so to speak, in the fabric of reality. Places where those of the Far World could all too easily slip into the Near, wreaking havoc on mortal disbelief in Faerie tales and magic. Thus they must be locked, and those locks must be carefully guarded. So the cat followed the Path of his liege lord.

Sometimes it still surprised him.

For one thing, he'd never much cared for mortals and their problems. Immortal himself, he had spent countless ages of cheerful existence never once considering those who lived beyond the Between in the time-bound realm.

And yet here he was. A knight. A defender of the weak, as it were. A minister of truth, advocate of justice, and who knew what other nonsense no self-respecting cat ever wanted to be!

The cat shook his whiskers as he continued his trek. The Path opened up before him with each step, and the trees and ferns and underbrush drew back to make way. He tested another gate and another after that. All locked. All safe.

The fact was he could no longer claim to be entirely indifferent to mortals.

“Dragons blast it,” he muttered. “I warned you, didn't I, Eanrin? Get involved, and you'll find yourself caring. Then there's no end to the mischief!” He flattened his ears at this thought. He could blame no one but himself for his present circumstances. He had chosen this lot. Or he thought he had. Often he felt a little unclear on that score.

Often he felt that knighthood had been chosen for him against all his best efforts.

A certain smell tugged at the cat's nose. Or rather, not a smell but an
unknown sensation whispering to an unknown sense, earnest and quiet and dangerous.

At first the cat ignored it. But within a few more paces, it had strengthened until his nose twitched and his tail flicked and his whole cattish being could no longer deny what he was sensing. He could only hope he was mistaken.

“But when has
that
ever happened?” he asked himself with typical feline shortness of memory.

He turned and, stepping carefully, pursued a small Path that opened off his regular track. Very soon he found what he'd expected.

“Light of Lumé,” he growled, then sighed heavily. “Not another one.”

Before him lay a circle of white stones that shone out brightly against a bed of dark moss. Even a mortal might have recognized it for a Faerie Circle.

The cat recognized a new gate beginning to open.

From this position, he could not tell exactly where in the Near World it opened to. It could be anywhere. It wasn't completely formed yet, he knew that much for certain. And if precautions were taken, it might never fully form.

One way or another, it would have to be added to his regular patrol. An unguarded gate was dangerous.

“Where do you lead, I wonder?” the cat mused, sniffing each of the circling stones in turn. Then he hissed and drew back sharply, his nose filled with the aroma of caorann berries. They littered the ground around the Faerie Circle, dozens of them squashed and stamped flat among the stones so that the moss was stained with their juices. No caorann trees grew in this vicinity that the cat could recall. Which meant someone had carried the berries here.

Caorann trees were known for one chief quality: their ability to unravel enchantments.

The perfume of the berries was very light, but once it entered the nostrils, it didn't easily let go. The cat sat for a while, grooming his face as though he could somehow push the smell out of his nose with one white paw. As he groomed, he thought.

Someone had been working enchantments here. Someone whose smell was now hidden by the caorann. Everyone knew that Knights of the Farthest
Shore patrolled this particular stretch of the Wood, and someone wanted to disguise nefarious doings.

The cat finished grooming and sat quite still, his paws placed delicately before him, his plume of a tail sweeping gently back and forth. His eyes were mostly closed so that one might assume he dozed, but the thin membrane of his third eyelid remained open as he studied the setting from behind long, cattish lashes.

He came to a sudden decision and stood. Trotting back to his regular Path, he hurried on to the closest gate. This appeared to mortal eyes like a pair of young trees with unusually large and twisted roots twining together in vegetal affection.

With a slight shiver of his whiskers, the cat stepped between these two trees and into another world.

It was colder than he expected. And he stood in icy water.

“Dragon's teeth!” snarled the cat and leapt back, scrambling up from the river's edge into the brush lining the bank beyond. It had been some time since last he'd passed into this corner of the Near World. The river had been low in its bed then. Now it was swollen, the warmth of summer bringing rushing thaw down from the mountains.

The cat climbed into the shelter of a grove of aspen trees and gazed out across the river, catching his bearings. He recognized the stern face of Gaheris Castle above the tall cliff across the river. A likely enough focus for secret Faerie plots. But from this vantage, the cat could see no sign of a gate opening. He'd have to venture deeper.

Picking his way downriver, following its flow, the cat reached a place where large boulders offered a crossing. To most looking on, there would seem little point in taking this daring bridge, for the stone cliff on which Gaheris stood rose sheer and forbidding on the opposite shore.

But the cat had been this way once or twice, and he knew more than a few secrets. He sprang from boulder to boulder, surefooted even as the fur on his spine stood up like a crest for dread of the rushing water beneath him.

On the far side, nearly hidden behind a stone, was a cave entrance.

The cat slipped inside easily enough; his golden eyes flared with their own bright light, like two small suns in the damp darkness. Water from the river ran into the cave, not deep but still freezing. A convenient ledge provided the cat with a dry route for the first stretch of this journey, however, and only near the end was he obliged to spring down into the water.

A stone stairway rose into the darkness, cut from the cliff itself. Up this the cat ran, higher and higher until he left the cold of underground behind and entered the cold of man-laid stone. His sensitive nose caught the many smells of mortals going about their daily lives within the castle, unaware of his presence within the secret passage behind the walls.

It always surprised him how strongly mortals smelled of oncoming death. How strange it must be to live governed by so short a span of existence! But this stink of death was stronger than expected, and a suspicion began to form in the cat's mind.

He came at last to the top of the stair and faced a heavy, locked door. Not an iron lock, thank the Lights Above! He could not manipulate iron. But brass would bow to his will.

The cat took a different form and worked on the lock such influence as Faeries have. He heard the catch give way and carefully pushed the door aside.

The smell of near death nearly overwhelmed him.

A fire burned in the darkened room, casting all in reddish glow, for little daylight found its way through the east windows this late in the day. On the wall hung a heavy tapestry depicting a scene from the Legend of the Brothers Ashiun, complete with the House of Lights and the swirling fires of the dragon, though the dragon itself had been omitted. Equally heavy curtains embellished with flowers and vines and fantastical creatures surrounded an enormous, four-poster bed.

Behind the bed-curtains someone breathed raw, unwilling breaths.

The tapestry on the wall shifted, and the cat slinked out from behind it. The clunk of a door shutting was muffled by the heavy fabric, and no one was listening for it in any case. The cat crept quietly up to the bed, his pink nose delicately sniffing out the scents of mastery, of lordship, of strength swiftly slipping.

The lord of the castle was dying.

“Interesting,” the cat whispered.

But it wasn't a complete explanation for what he sensed, so he hastened on his way, slipping quietly from Earl Ferox's sick chamber into the passage beyond. He moved through Gaheris as though he owned it, and neither servants nor members of the household questioned his right to be there. A lady in rich garments drew back her skirts a little at the sight of him but otherwise left him to his business.