The Book of Fire (4 page)

Or perhaps the soldiers ahead were some of Baron Köthen’s own men, gone renegade from the priest’s army out of loyalty to their lord. But that hope died in the flash of steel across the closing distance, as the knights converged into defense formation. Erde understood that Baron Köthen’s charge was an attack. What was the man doing? He would be cut to pieces, without a doubt. And still Köthen drove the gray toward them.

Enemy or no, Erde did not wish him dead. In fact, the idea filled her with a surprising dread. She imagined again that, through the dream, she could speak to him, and she begged him to turn aside. She knew he was a brave man, but she had not thought him reckless. Why would he charge willingly into such overwhelming odds? Had he been driven into this trap by the men behind him?

But then those riders’ desperate shouts came to her more clearly, particularly the one voice that had seemed so familiar. They’d been calling him back, and now gave up their shouting to ride as hard as they could. Erde heard their horses coming, faster than before, or was it only that she hoped so for them to catch up? Surely they were too far behind to be able to save him. She pleaded with Köthen to be sensible, to slow down at least, to wait for the others. Dream-wraith that she was, she still could feel the anger in him, heating him like a fever. He was too full of blood-rage to hear her or to listen to reason. Or perhaps he did hear, for once she saw his head jerk when she spoke, as if shaking off a fly. But he neither stopped nor slowed. And glancing ahead, Erde saw why. In their shifting protective dance, the mounted knights drew briefly aside, revealing the man at the center of their formation: the hell-priest himself.

Guillemo. Her nemesis. Stocky and dark, and with his once wild beard now trimmed to obsessiveness, he looked
almost ordinary. His white monk’s hood was thrown back from his mailed head as he barked orders to his men and raised his short, southern sword as if it were a processional cross. His big horse gleamed as pure and white as the snow around him, or the frozen river beyond. But, oh, what a danger, to think Guillemo either pure or ordinary! Erde’s blood ran as cold as that ice-bound river. The snake-eyed priest was staring straight at her, his full red mouth curled in a sly smile of welcome.

So, witch. We meet again.

His voice, right there in her head as she slept. Deep, rich, insinuating. Erde was horrified by how surely he homed in on her. No casting about this time, no sniffing the air. He saw her, as surely as if she were a visible presence in his world. He could speak in her mind.

She recoiled from the fierce beam of his stare as if from a blow and pulled herself inward as if she could become infinitesimal and so escape him. Or conceal herself behind Baron Köthen’s head, safe in the warmth beside his ear. But Köthen was barreling full-tilt toward his own destruction, his mind empty of everything but rage and revenge.

The horses behind did seem to be nearing. Erde thought to distract him in some way, if only to slow him down until his allies could catch up, before the big gray burst into the midst of twenty well-armed knights. Forgetting the disembodiment of her dream state, Erde wrapped both invisible hands around Köthen’s bridle arm and hauled back hard. His head jerked up. He tossed a sidelong glance behind him and shook his elbow as if to free it from a thorn branch. But there was no branch. Encouraged, Erde hauled back on him again, with all the strength she could imagine. Köthen’s eyes rolled sideways, widening in confusion and a touch of fear. The gray horse sensed his fear and missed a step, slowing, nearly stumbling. Erde counted the seconds gained.

But ahead of them, she saw the hell-priest grin.

He fears you, witch girl! Remember, he is only a man, without understanding. Whereas
 . . .

NO!

She screamed it with all her dream-strength, drowning out his poisonous murmur. As much as Baron Köthen drew her, the hell-priest repulsed and terrified her. At first, she’d
assumed he was only after her to burn her at the stake. Now it was clear that he wanted something else. His ability to find her in the dream world was frightening enough. If he ever found her again in the real world . . . Erde’s only thoughts were of escape. Her entire being contracted in denial, a vast implosion toward the infinitely small. As her consciousness faded, it occurred to her that anything, even death, would be preferable.

And then someone was shaking her gently awake.

A woman’s voice said, low and calm, “Erde? Come back to us. Come back to us, sweeting.”

“I’ve been trying that for ten minutes!” said another, not nearly as collected as the first. “Ever since I heard her cry out! Look! She’s not even breathing!”

“Shhh. She’s breathing. Help me raise her up a little.”

From the verge of the infinite, Erde heard the women’s voices like a faraway whisper, carried on the wind. The priest was after her, searching, but she knew these voices. These voices meant safety. Moments from the edge, she veered away and sped homeward toward them.

The snow began falling on their way across the meadows, even before the storm clouds closed in. Big crystalline flakes floating down like autumn leaves. Erde tilted her chin to let their weightless ice melt on her tongue. Even the snow of Deep Moor tasted sweet. She’d never thought snow could be so welcome.

But welcome only because familiar, she reminded herself. Welcome to her as proof that she was
home
. Not so welcome to the two women walking beside her or to anyone in Deep Moor, or even to the laden pony that trudged along behind. Erde wished she could race about kicking up drifts and making snow angels as she might have done months ago when she was still a child in her father’s castle. Snow angels were a proper way to celebrate. She thought she restrained herself out of respect for Raven and Doritt,
but in truth, after the events of the early morning, her heart wasn’t in it. Gratitude and relief were the best she could manage. But even that offended the taller woman’s gloom.

“It’s all right for you,” Doritt grumped, winding her knitted scarf one more turn around her long neck. Erde would swear Doritt was taller than she remembered. But surely she was too old to be still growing? Perhaps it was her chin-to-ankle-length coat, snugged around her sturdy frame like a woolen shroud. Or perhaps, her man-sized leather-and-canvas boots.

“Why just for me?” With Erde’s every step, the white layers exploded upward in powdery gusts, reminding her of baking day in the castle kitchens. At that thought, she felt a surge of guilty joy.

“Snows all the time where you come from.”

“At Tor Alte? It does not. At least, it didn’t used to.” Erde wasn’t sure what things were like at Tor Alte lately, and she wouldn’t ever want to be caught in a falsehood.

“Bet it’s snowing right now.” Doritt glanced behind to check on the pony’s progress. His load of hay and grain and dried fruit was rather precariously balanced on his shaggy, narrow back.

“In the winter, it snowed a lot.”

“But it isn’t winter yet,” Doritt noted grimly.

Erde fell silent. She knew Doritt’s concern was not so much the snow itself, but the fact that it was snowing now, only three weeks into September. But she was more worried about the dragons, gone back on an errand of mercy to that hot land she’d so recently returned from, that alien place that made her grateful for snow in September. However bad it was here, it was worse there, and she wished they’d hurry up and come home. She wanted so to talk to them about her dream.

“Doritt doesn’t think snow was meant to be enjoyed,” said Raven.

“Not true! Everything in its place is just fine with me.”

But Raven’s eyes were merry. Erde felt her spirits rise again just looking at her, in her usual feathery blue, layered against the cold, and her dark unfettered hair netted with snowflakes like some kind of woodland queen. Erde always marveled, looking at Raven. If she could choose to look like anyone in the world, it would be Raven, no doubt of it.

“Now,” said Raven, “you promised to tell us what it was like where the dragon took you.”

“It was hot!” Erde allowed herself a little dance step between them, of joy and relief and affection. “Truly! Hot as a smithy’s forge! And smelly. The sun beat down on us all day! And you couldn’t drink any of the water.”

“Why not?”

“N’Doch said it would make us sick. And to make matters worse, he insisted on boiling whatever we drank! Can you believe it?”

“That’s what my mother taught me to do with bad water,” said Doritt.

“Really? Why?”

Raven laughed. “Because her own mother did it, I’ll bet, and her mother’s mother before her. Women’s wisdom.”

Erde made a face. “Well, I hate drinking hot water. I was thirsty the whole time! Couldn’t even wear clothes!”

Doritt’s eyebrows peaked. “No clothes?”

“Well, you know . . . not proper ones.”

“No wonder you turned up so suddenly in your shift!”

Raven’s laugh was so warm and musical that Erde was sure she heard it echo around the entire valley, bouncing off the pine-studded hillsides, tangling in the bare branches of the maples and birches, skating along the winding course of the ice-choked river. But the river reminded her of the dream again. To banish its shadow, she grabbed Raven’s hands and whirled her around, arms outstretched, to make her laugh some more. Together they sketched a circuit of merry pirouettes around tall Doritt as she forged doggedly ahead, refusing to crack a smile.

Erde flung her arms wide in a whirling embrace of sky, moor, and mountains. “I’m so glad to be home!”

And saying it somehow made it so. This was home now, Deep Moor, this magical, hidden valley. Not Tor Alte, the castle of her birth, home of Baron Josef von Alte, her father. Poor deluded man. Interesting that she could finally think of him without a wince, that she could even imagine meeting him face-to-face. Perhaps this was because she finally understood that home didn’t have to be where you came from. It could be where you felt you belonged. Or perhaps it was because, after all she’d seen, in this her fifteenth year, she’d begun to learn how to forgive. She
twirled Raven around again, head thrown back in joy. “Hooommmme!”

“Well, you’ve certainly come out of yourself since we’ve known you,” remarked Doritt, not unkindly.

Erde slowed, relaxed her hold on Raven’s hands. “Have I?”

Doritt rolled her eyes.

“Oh, yes.” Raven reached to tousle Erde’s thick, short-cropped hair. “Such a sober young thing when you first came to us.”

“I had a lot to be sober about.”

“You still do,” replied Doritt. “We all do.”

“Oh, again! Mistress Grim!”

But Raven’s retort was halfhearted, and Doritt’s reminder hung in the air like smoke, bringing a momentary silence. Erde’s thoughts strayed back to the dream these women had shaken her out of just hours before. It occurred to her that she didn’t yet know if Adolphus of Köthen was dead or alive.

“Isn’t it time to talk about the war?” she asked. “I wish you’d tell me the news and how things have been going!”

Raven squeezed her shoulder. “Linden insists you’re to be rested and smiling again before we start loading you down with all our problems. Look at how hard you were sleeping this morning!”