The Dragon's Lair (32 page)

"Oh,
please
," groaned Ida as Clemency reached into her pocket for her handkerchief. She unfolded it neatly and raised it to her nose, then suddenly pulled away, a look of surprise on her face.

"What's this?" she asked, her brow furrowed.

She opened the handkerchief wider.

Within its folds was a fragile circle of what looked like red lace, encrusted with tiny white pearls.

Ven's face went slack with delight.

"Her cap! Amariel's cap! You found it!"

"This is it?
This
is what you were looking for?"

Ven held out his hand, and Clemency put the handkerchief carefully into it.

"This is it!" he said, his voice shaking with joy. "I can't believe you found it!"

Clemency's face was as red as the cap, and she was about to cry. "I can't believe I had it in the first place. I only have one handkerchief, and I haven't had reason to cry or blow my nose, so I didn't even think to look in it. I didn't think a cap would look like this, anyway. I probably wouldn't even have recognized it if I
did
look."

"Actually, that's my handkerchief," Ven said. "I thought it might have fallen out of the wagon during the fire in the fields. But how did you get it?"

"No," Clem insisted, "it's mine. I picked it up on the wagon floor just after I used it to bandage Char's head when the ravens attacked. I thought the red cap was a blood stain."

"Bleah," said Ida.

"Nope," said Char, pulling a stained handkerchief out of his pocket. "I didn't think you wanted this one back. Sorry, Ven. When we were searching our knapsacks and the wagon, I guess we never thought to look on
ourselves
."

"I feel terrible," Clem whispered, fighting back tears as Ven put the handkerchief back in his pocket with great care and buttoned it. "I don't really have a good reason why I didn't look harder, Ven. I guess—I suppose I was just jealous of all the attention you were paying to Amariel. If I'd known what she was, it never would have bothered me—I'm sure I would have tried to help her feel comfortable in the dry world, too. But I didn't know she was a
merrow
, I thought she was just a snotty rich girl with a tattered ballgown and a bad attitude. I feel terrible, I really do—and I'm so, so sorry." The tears won the battle and began rolling down her cheeks.

Ven passed her his clean handkerchief, smiling.

"I hope—you—can forgive—me, Ven," Clem went on, hiccupping in between words. "But I understand if you won't."

Ven laughed. "Of course I will, Clem. It was an honest mistake." He looked at Amariel, who was quietly humming to herself. "Once she gets back to her old form,
she
probably won't, but we'll work on that."

"First we gotta work on gettin' her back," said Char.

"I'm driving straight to the pier once we get to Westland," Tuck said casually from the wagon board. Once again, all the children in the back jumped.

True to his word, the Lirin forester kept the horses in steady canter, choosing the easiest and fastest paths and roadways back to the Great River. Ven used the jack-rule from a distance and saw that the ravens were gone from the northern bridge closest to the Inn, so they crossed there. They stopped long enough to leave the cookies Mrs. Snodgrass had given them for the trolls on the rocky bank, still in their parchment wrapper, and then traveled relentlessly west toward Kingston.

While the others dozed, Ven took Garson's advice and wrote a letter to his family. Rather than it being a goodbye, though, he began to chronicle some of the most important things he had learned in the course of his journey east of the river. He had just begun to explain the most critical realization when the Crossroads Inn came into sight in the distance. Quickly he tucked the letter into the depths of his journal to finish later.

It was several hours before dawn when they finally approached the Inn, and they could see a long line of supply wagons offloading goods. Felitza and Nick were outside with Mrs. Snodgrass, ferrying in sacks and bushel baskets. Char and Ven looked at each other, rubbed their shoulders in sympathy for their friends, and smiled.

When they were almost to the crossroads, two streaks of fur leapt into the wagon.

"Yikes!" sputtered Ven as they landed on Amariel's lap. "Murphy! What the
heck
?"

"Didn't you miss us?" the orange tabby asked, puzzled.

"Uh—not really," Ven admitted.

"Hmmm. Not a good answer, I'd say. What would you say, Leo?"

The brown cat coughed. "Leo."

Ven's mouth dropped open. "That's very good," he said. "Did McLean teach you that?" The cat nodded. "Oh. Well, congratulations."

"She's up to four words already," said Murphy proudly.

"She?" asked Ven. "She who?"

Murphy rolled his eyes. "Leo."

"Leo's a girl?"

Murphy sauntered over to Ven and leaned in close.

"Leonora is her real name, but she hates it," he whispered confidentially.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

The orange tabby pursed his lips, an expression that looked very strange on a cat face.

"You were a little busy," he said. He sauntered back to Amariel and climbed into her lap again.

Mrs. Snodgrass was shouting orders to the drivers when the cart with the children and the cats pulled up alongside the Inn.

"Three more sacks of oats, please, Bill." She looked up from her clipboard. "And what are you deliverin'—oh! Oh, my! Look who's here! Well, welcome home, loves! How was your visit to Saeli's family?"

"Wonderful," Ven said. "She decided to stay for a while." He leaned out of the wagon and kissed Mrs. Snodgrass on the cheek. The portly lady blushed, then smiled.

"Well, what's gotten into you, Young Master Polypheme? Whatever it is, I like it!"

"Sense, finally, perhaps," Ven replied.

"Neh," said Ida.

"But whatever it is, I have to take it with me to town right away," he continued as Murphy and Leo climbed off Amariel's lap, stretched, and leapt out the wagon. "Thank you for being so wonderful to me, Mrs. Snodgrass. I really do appreciate it."

The innkeeper's smile faded slightly.

"Why? Where are ya goin' now?"

"Just to the pier," Ven said as Tuck prepared to go again.

"Oh, good! Because I do believe the Captain may make port today," said Mrs. Snodgrass. "He'll be happy to see you."

Ven smiled bravely. "I hope so."

"We'll be back soon, Mrs. Snodgrass," Clem said. "But we have to go now. Anything you need from town?"

"No—what I need is comin' on his own, thank you. See you in a bit, children." The innkeeper went back to her deliveries.

Ven waved to Nick and Felitza, then turned to Char as the wagon began rolling toward Kingston.

"Don't you want to get out—go say hello?" He nodded toward the kitchen maid.

Char sighed. "I do—but I'll go later. Right now, we all feel there's nothin' more important than gettin' both you and Amariel to the dock."

"Perhaps you might want to rethink that, Ven," Tuck said. "That gentleman with the parsnips looks like he could use a hand with those sacks." He nodded toward the door of the kitchen, where a tall man stood, wearing a straw hat and a grin.

"The king!" Ven exclaimed, then clapped a hand over his mouth as if to call the words back. He grabbed his knapsack and hurried into the Inn.

"That was subtle," called Ida as he ran through the back door.

Ven caught up with King Vandemere in the kitchen. "How did you know when I was coming home?"

"In the tallest tower of Castle Elysian there is a telescope," the king replied, looking around the Inn again in wonder. "It belongs to my chief Vizier, Graal, who has been away for quite a while. It can see
very
far. I've taken to looking through it each morning and evening whenever I can, and last night I saw you on your way toward the bridge. So I timed my arrival to coincide with yours."

"Is it an odd, twisty sort of telescope?" Ven asked as he led the king hurriedly into the main room to the hearth.

"As a matter of fact, it is," King Vandemere said. "How did you know?"

"It's a popular style among the many kings I know," said Ven, chuckling.

On the hearth McLean was quietly singing to himself. The Singer looked up and bowed as the king came near.

"Scat," McLean said to the air. It swirled amid a good deal of sniffing and spluttering as the Spice Folk, clearly offended, huffily left the hearth. "Hello, Ven—welcome home."

"Thank you. Will you do me a favor, McLean? It's important."

"If I can."

"I need to be able to give this gentleman my report—and I need to do it quickly." It almost seemed like the handkerchief was itching in his pocket. "Without anyone else hearing."

The Singer nodded. He took out his strangely shaped stringed instrument and began to play, conjuring up a tune that seemed to blot out all other sound in the room.

Ven turned to the disguised king.

"Do I have a tale for you." he said. "I only wish I had longer to tell it."

27
Kiran Berries,
the Exodus, and the Day
the Sun Overslept

I tried as hard as I could to capture Scarnag's voice as I told the king his story, but gave up quickly. There was no way a human or Nain voice could duplicate all the sounds, the hisses and growls and the deep music in a dragon's voice. The dragon book he gave me—the one with the words—says that dragons have no larynx, the voice-box that people have that lets them speak. Instead they use the wind, a little like Singers do, to make the sound of what they want to say
.

I gave McLean permission to listen in on the story, because I thought he would understand it better than anyone else could. I remembered what Scarnag said about how once it was told, it would be like a bell that was rung, staying in the place that it was told forever
.

I couldn't think of a better place than the Crossroads Inn to tell it
.

Y
OU WANT TO KNOW WHAT CAN TURN WISDOM TO THE DESIRE
to be a scourge, Nain?

There is but one answer: One day, the sun slept late.

That may make no sense to you. I'm sure you have never heard of a time when the sun did not come up in the morning. It is not something you ever think about, is it, Nain? Perhaps as you go about your life you wonder
when
the sun will come up, or whether the clouds will hide it when it does. But I imagine it never occurs to you to wonder
if
the sun will come up, does it?

Every being with a mind has something called Great Truths, whether he knows it or not. Great Truths are things we believe in without question, like knowing the sun will come up every morning. We ask ourselves
when
it will, not
if
it will. But if one day the sun were to sleep late, and leave the world in darkness until the next day, do you think anyone would ever take its rising for granted again?

It would only take one time for all of humanity to begin to question, to worry, to wonder if the sun was going to do it again. Right now it's something you believe without thinking about, isn't it? It's something you trust. That's the true meaning of trust, Nain—something you believe in completely without having to think about it.

So what happens when trust is betrayed?

But not just any trust—trust so deep that it is part of who you are. The betrayal has to be so immense that it is not only enough to change your name, it changes everything you believe about yourself.

You want to know what happened to Ganrax. I cannot tell you the tale as if it happened to me, because the being to whom it happened is long dead, as I told you truthfully when you first entered my library. So instead I will tell it to you from a distance, because that is how I see it. The distance of years, the distance of pain.

Ganrax, the young wyrmling you speak of, never knew any of his own kind, not even the one who gave him life. From the time of his hatching he was raised among your kind, not his own. Fed by hand, nursed when ill, comforted when frightened, kept warm near the fires within their mountainous lands when he was cold. The Nain were the only family he knew, and to dragons nothing is more important than family.

You have said the Nain believe this as well. Let me tell you why I know that is not true.

More than feeding and raising the young dragon, the most important task in his upbringing that the Nain tended to was his education. Dragons hoard knowledge. They think of it as treasure. So when the Nain gave the young one an unlimited supply of history and lore, science and stories, maps and globes and books, he felt more loved, more cherished than you could ever imagine. He saw these creatures with whom he shared the earth, who gave him food, warmth, comfort and, most important, knowledge, as his family. He trusted them the way you trust the sun to come up in the morning.

There was one more thing that the Nain gave the young dragon, something that he loved almost as much as he loved learning. You know of the kiran berry? Perhaps not, as you are upworld Nain. But those who live within the earth know it well. The kiran berry is a tart, hard little fruit, red like a blood ruby. Its skin is sour, but if one is patient enough to get past it, the flesh deep inside it is sweet as honey. The berries have a deep taste of earth about them. They grow on spidery bushes beneath the ground, in caves and tunnels where the sun never reaches. They are a favorite, therefore, of creatures who live in such places, like the Nain—and dragons. Being a youngling, Ganrax loved kiran berries the way you or one of your human friends might love sweets. The Nain who raised him gave them to him as treats and as rewards for learning something well or behaving properly. Whenever the dragon child and his Nain family went for walks in the deep and winding tunnels of earth, the Nain would always bring along a pocketful of kiran berries to keep him from straying too far from the path. Ganrax was fascinated with the world around him, and often would scamper away to explore new wonders he saw. The Nain would bring his interest back by tempting and rewarding him with kiran berries.