Doom of the Dragon (36 page)

Owl Mother open the door a crack, peered out and then opened it wide. Wulfe darted inside and Owl Mother shut the door after him.

“Were you followed?” she asked.

Wulfe shook his head. The sleek curls were all awry, once more a tangled mess. He was missing one sleeve of his fine silk shirt and the other was ripped at the elbow. He sniffed the air.

“Food! Good. I'm hungry.”

Skylan put down his sword and hurried back to the stool and was seated there when Owl Mother and Wulfe returned. Wulfe saw the meat and, grabbing pieces in both hands, began to eat ravenously. Owl Mother gave Skylan a baleful look and he had the feeling she knew he had been spying on her.

“What happened?” Owl Mother asked Wulfe.

“I went back to the tower and let the wizard find me. Then I let him chase me around for a little while, then I let him catch me,” he mumbled between mouthfuls. “I told him that a chimera had attacked me and my mother and that we'd been separated and then the One Eyes started chasing me and I ran into the tower for safety. He was annoyed. He told me to tell my people to stay out of the Realm of Fire because it was too dangerous, even for fae folk. He was going to take me somewhere, but I broke loose. That's how I tore my shirt. It itches anyway.”

Wulfe grabbed some bread and stuffed it in his mouth.

“What did this wizard look like?” Owl Mother asked.

Wulfe chewed bread, swallowed, then said, “He was skinny and tall—taller than Skylan. And he had a face like a frog.”

Wulfe scrunched up his lips. Owl Mother looked grim.

“Baldev,” she said.

Skylan waited for her to continue, wondering who she meant, but she sat hunched in her chair in silence, staring at the dying embers of the fire. He looked at the two marks the fork had made on his hand, still visible, still stinging. He shoved away his plate, as did Farinn and Aylaen. Wulfe ate until Owl Mother stood up, marched over to the table, and whisked away the food while he was still chewing.

Wulfe yelped in protest. A look from Owl Mother silenced him. Going over to the bed, he pulled off a blanket, dragged it to the grate, turned around on it three times, and went to sleep.

“I can help wash up,” Aylaen offered, reaching for the pitcher.

“No need,” said Owl Mother, and with a wave of her hand, the food, the platter, the forks, and the pitcher vanished.

Aylaen gave a start and edged closer to Skylan. He put his arm around her.

“You came here for the fifth spiritbone,” Owl Mother said.

Skylan was startled by her statement, but he saw no reason to deny it.

“The Cyclopes told us the Stormlords plan to give it to Raegar,” he said. “I came to reason with them.”

“Cyclopes,” Owl Mother muttered. “A notion's not safe inside your own skull when they're around.”

“Please tell us what is wrong, Owl Mother,” Aylaen said.

Owl Mother glanced at the boy asleep on the floor. He growled in his sleep, his feet paddling the air.

“The threads of our wyrds have led us to this point. Gods and men, the threads wrap around us, bind us tight.”

Owl Mother pressed her lips together. “We Stormlords did
not
plan to give the spiritbone to Raegar. Not all of us.”

She gazed, frowning, into the fire.

“Just one—the traitor.”

Owl Mother walked over to the bed. “My old bones need rest. Dawn will come too soon this day. You lot can sleep on the floor. You'll find blankets in that chest over there. There's water to wash up.”

Skylan had so many questions, he didn't know which to ask first. Before he could ask any, Owl Mother walked off.

She motioned to a sea chest and a pitcher and basin standing on the floor, none of which had been there only moments before. Lying on her back on the bed, she dragged the bedcovers up to her chin, folded her hands over her chest, and closed her eyes.

Skylan and the others stared at her in astonishment.

“How could she say something like that and then just go to sleep!” Skylan demanded, glaring at the slumbering old woman, who had now started to snore.

“Hush!” Aylaen whispered. “She'll hear you.”

“I hope she does,” Skylan muttered, but he said the words beneath his breath. Aylaen yawned and slumped against him. He smoothed her hair and kissed her. “You are exhausted. You and Farinn get some sleep. I'll keep watch.”

“What about you?” Aylaen asked, yawning again.

“I'm not tired,” Skylan said. “I need to think.”

Farinn and Aylaen took blankets from the chest and spread them on the floor. The blankets had been folded away with sprigs of dried lavender; their fragrance filled the room. They bathed as best they could, what Aylaen termed a “lick and a promise.”

Skylan settled himself in a straight-backed wooden chair. Owl Mother's chair by the grate was the most comfortable, but when he tried to sit there, he could feel her watching him, even through closed eyelids.

Farinn sprawled on the floor and was almost immediately asleep. Aylaen was wakeful. She lay on her side, her cheek pillowed on her hand, gazing into the darkness. Her expression was solemn, grave. Skylan wondered what she was seeing, what she was thinking about. She shifted her gaze to him.

“I love you so much,” she said softly. “Remember that. Always.”

He thought this an unchancy thing to say; almost as if she had spoken bad luck words. He felt chilled and so he made a jest of it.

“I am not likely to forget it,” he said. “For you will remind me of it daily.”

Aylaen smiled and closed her eyes.

The night was eerily quiet, or would have been but for Owl Mother's snoring. Skylan was restless, uneasy. He tried to make sense of what had happened, but all he could hear, over and over, was:

Gods and men, the threads wrap around us, bind us tight.

 

CHAPTER

30

Skylan woke from a doze with a stiff neck and an aching back. Faint sunlight crept beneath the tapestry. The others were still asleep. He stretched and the wooden chair made a loud creaking sound, causing Aylaen to stir.

Fearing he would wake her, Skylan left the chair and crossed the floor, moving quietly. Going to the archway curtained off by the tapestry, he stepped into the room, letting the tapestry fall behind him.

Dim, soft light filtered through curtains as sheer as if they had been woven by spiders. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling and a basket stood on a low window seat. The herbs were dry to the point of crumbling to dust and their fragrance was faint, ghostly, giving him the impression that they had been hanging there a long time.

Skylan walked over to the window seat. The basket contained old, faded rose petals. He drew aside the curtains.

The window itself was a marvel to him, for it was made of myriad small panes of crystal cut in the shape of diamonds, bound together with lead. He looked out on what was presumably Tsa Kerestra, the Kingdom Above, and stared, amazed and confounded.

Dela Eden had claimed the kingdom's beauty stole the breath. She had described lofty silver spires rising out of the storm clouds and he had pictured castles floating among the mist and fog.

What he saw was a forest of ancient trees spreading their boughs protectively over small dwellings with thatched roofs and the same lead-paned windows. Ivy covered the walls, roses climbed to the eaves. Lilies slept, their heads bowed, waiting for the sun. There were no streets, only rustic paths that led from house to house, worn by friends coming to visit.

“Dela Eden was right,” he said to himself. “This land is very beautiful. It reminds me of home, and I don't know why.”

The forests and verdant grass and lush flowers of Tsa Kerestra did not in the least resemble the rugged shores of Vindraholm, where waves crashed among the rocks and crops struggled to survive in the stony ground. Perhaps it seemed familiar because he felt a sense of restful ease, as he always felt when he returned home after a long voyage.

Skylan let the curtains fall.

“Tsa Kerestra is beautiful, but it is wrong, all wrong,” he muttered.

Something poked him sharply in the back. He had not heard a sound and he whipped around to find Owl Mother standing behind him.

“Don't sneak up on me like that!” Skylan said. He could feel his heart pounding.

Owl Mother chuckled. “Well, what do you two think of the place?” she asked, giving him a shrewd look.

“I was wondering how clouds grow flowers,” Skylan replied, meeting her gaze.

Owl Mother pursed her thin lips. “You're not as stupid as you look.”

Shoving aside the basket of rose petals, she sat down in the window seat and made Skylan sit down. She snapped her fingers and a peach appeared in her wrinkled hand. Owl Mother split the peach in two and dug the pit out with her gnarled fingers.

“I'm not hungry,” said Skylan.

“I didn't tell you to eat it, did I?” she snapped.

She handed one half of the peach to Skylan.

“Realm of Stone,” she said. “This half is the Realm of Fire.”

She balanced the pit on the palm of her hand. “The pit in the center is Tsa Kerestra.”

“A peach pit,” said Skylan.

“Think of it this way.” Owl Mother opened the curtains a crack, to let in more light, then conjured up a piece of charcoal and used it to draw a circle on the floor.

“This circle is the Realm of Fire.”

She drew another circle so that it overlapped with the first, then tapped the new circle. “This is the Realm of Stone.”

Using the charcoal, she colored in the area where the two circles overlapped to form an oval.

“This is Tsa Kerestra. Not the Kingdom Above so much as the Kingdom In Between.”

The circles and the oval made about as much sense to Skylan as Acronis's squiggly-lined maps.

“The city is on the ground,” he said, frowning at the drawing.

“On the ground in our realm, which floats in the clouds in your realm,” said Owl Mother.

Skylan looked out at the clear, peaceful sky, just beginning to brighten. “But where is the storm? The silver spires? I saw them.”

“You saw what you wanted to see,” said Owl Mother. She paused, then said quietly, “The clouds are like a wall around the city, a moat to keep out our foes.”

“But why do you hide?” Skylan asked. “With all this magical power…”

“You were in our world,” said Owl Mother. “You saw the ruins of what was once a beautiful city. But our world was ruled by cruel men who delighted in killing. Our ancestors had to escape or they feared we would perish. Some of the daring followed the dragons through the portal to the Realm of Stone. Our people could have lived there, but it was already populated by savage beings: humans, ogres, and Cyclopes. We foresaw endless trouble, wars and more killing. With the help of the Great Dragon Ilyrion, our people formed their own realm—between the other two. We could live in peace with no one the wiser.

“Then came Torval and his rampaging gods. He killed Ilyrion and claimed the world, and discovered our realm. We made a pact with Vindrash. She promised to keep our secret and we promised to leave the world in peace. She gave us the spiritbone as a show of good faith. Then came the stranger gods and with that an end to our so-called peaceful way of life.”

“Life seems peaceful enough here,” said Skylan with a glance through the curtains.

“The life of a sparrow in a cage seems peaceful enough! But would you want it?” Owl Mother asked with a snort of disgust. “We are humans, like you, but because we can boil an egg with our minds we think we are better. We knew Torval and the other gods were neglecting the world, keeping careless watch. That wasn't our concern.”

Owl Mother shrugged. “Vindrash hid the power of creation out of fear. The world was dying for the lack, yet still we did nothing.”

“Is that why you came to live with us?” Skylan asked.

“There were some of us who wanted to live
in
the world, not above it,” said Owl Mother. “We moved out to form a new kingdom, Tsa Terestra. The Kingdom Below. And some of us traveled farther than that.”

“Why?” asked Skylan.

“The arrival of Aelon and the Gods of Raj. Torval dropped the hammer on that one. Poor blighter. He never thought some god would do to him what he did to Ilyrion. I needed to speak to Vindrash and to the dragons. The Gods of Raj were not a threat. They had their hands full trying to keep the ogres and the Cyclopes from cutting each other's throats. But Aelon, the Faceless God, was a different kettle of fish. He came poking and prying and snooping about and it wasn't long before he discovered the truth about Tsa Kerestra. He was sweet as honey dripping from the comb when he came to us, asking for ‘tribute,' saying it would be a shame if he was forced to destroy our peaceful way of life.

“Aelon was powerful. The so-called wise agreed to pay him. Anything to be left alone. Of course, Aelon lied and sent his spies to discover the secret of the stormholds.”

“What are the secrets to the stormholds?” Skylan asked. “What do they do?”

“They are the gates that allow us to travel between realms. Those of us who live in the Kingdom Below come to visit friends and family. All of us must periodically return to our place of origin, the Realm of Fire, to replenish our magic.”

“I saw the great stone globe hanging in midair,” said Skylan. “How does it work?”

“The seneschal lowers the globe and the gate opens,” said Owl Mother. “Oh, it's much more complicated than that, having to do with all manner of magic hoopla and folderol. But that's what it boils down to.”

Skylan frowned. “And so Aelon's spies discovered the secret and now Raegar knows how to lower the globe and open the gate.”

Owl Mother snorted and began to rub out the drawing of the realms with the toe of her shoe. “Even if he knows the secret, he isn't a wizard. He can't work the magic.”