The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet (50 page)

“No apologies needed.”

“If not for the dragon . . .”

“If not for the dragon, you’d be dead of a sword thrust, in my service. And I would have lost my good right hand.”

“Well . . .” Hal looks down again to study his palms, clean this time, at least visibly. “It’s not all madness, you know. And I really do believe I’ve found some answers.”

“No one doubts you, dear knight!” Erde leans toward him, her hand on his arm. “Tell us! That is, if you’re feeling well enough.”

Her eager concern and the warm cup of wine that Wender thrusts into his fist are all the encouragement the old soldier requires. He takes a long swig, then sets the cup aside. “You recall, my girl, way back when we pondered the meaning of the answers that odd fellow Gerrasch gave us?”

Erde nods. “You’d think him all the odder if you could see him now.”

Hal looks stunned. “You’ve
seen
him? I thought he’d died, or gone away. Where did you see him?”

“When is actually the question, my knight. Very far in the future, where he has become . . . almost a man, but still very much Gerrasch. You’d recognize him. He is Air’s dragon guide.”

“Ahhhhhhh. No wonder! A sort of . . . immortal, is he?”

“A halfling creature. Part man, part dragon-stuff.”

Hal’s stare goes inward for a moment, contemplating this new miracle. “But, remember, when we asked what the Purpose was, he said, ‘to fix what’s broken’?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I know now what’s broken.”

Erde is too concerned for his delicate health to simply declare this mystery already solved, that it’s the Earth itself that’s broken, and the question is how to fix it. Nor is this the time to describe to him just how broken. Can these men, for whom disaster means a really bad winter, ever comprehend the devastation that Rose intuited, outside the White City? Instead, she refills his wine cup and hands it to him, putting on her listening expression, while inside she battles with the dragon’s impatience as well as her own. Now that Hal is healed to the best of his abilities, Earth wants to get back to the Grove, and it’s hard for her to disagree with him. “Tell me your theory, good knight.”

“It’s all in the book, if only I’d read more carefully, though the understanding is a bit buried by metaphor, perhaps so that it would not fall into the wrong hands. For it is, you see, rather heretical.”

“My whole life is heretical, Sir Hal. After all, I consort with dragons.”

“Indeed you do.” He smiles. “Lucky girl. Anyhow, according to my study, the world was not created by God
directly, as it says in the Bible, but by elemental dragons. Four dragons: Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. Whether they be His creatures or not is, I believe, an article of faith.”

“Yes, of course.” Erde accepts the wine cup that Wender has poured for her. Perhaps sipping it will help her to greater calm.

“When these four created the world, the tale goes, it was in perfect balance. All the elements of Nature in harmony, like musical notes. Then the dragons’ work was finished, and they retired to the various depths of the world to sleep. This much was easy to put together, once I accepted its heretical message.” He glances at the cup in his hand as if surprised to find it there, and takes a sip. “Then I came to the question of why the dragons waked at all. It seemed obvious that something must have gone wrong.”

“Yes. Something has ‘broken.’”

“Well, what do you get when you ‘break’ a perfect balance?” Hal regards her owlishly over the rim of his wine cup.

Erde frowns gently. “I don’t know. A mess? Like broken eggs?”

“Anarchy,” chimes in Wender, with a sweeping gesture around the tent.

“Imbalance,” says the king, with certitude.

“Right as rain, my liege!” Hal exclaims. “Acute as always. You have Nature out of balance. Freakish storms, flood, and drought, the seasons off their cycle. So the dragons’ obvious Purpose is to restore that balance.”

This is still old news to Erde, though she sees it a bit differently when expressed in Hal’s language. “But how, dear sir, how? Isn’t that really the question?”

“Of course, importunate child! I’m just getting to that!”

Erde subsides with her wine cup warming her lips. Outside, the wind shakes the heavy canvas of the pavilion so that the tent poles sway. Rainer drops into the chair on Hal’s other side, listening expectantly.

“In order to know the cure, as the healers say, one must know the cause. What is the
cause
of this imbalance?” Hal gazes around the small circle of faces as though he was a tutor testing their aptitude. “What presence in the world most often works against the laws of Nature?”

“Evil,” Erde declares.

“True, true. But evil in what form? Be careful, now. The evil that’s done may not always be present in the
intent
.” He eyes them again. “Come, come! You’ve all of you suffered at its hand!”

“War?” suggest Wender.

“The Church,” Erde murmurs.

The young king shifts in his chair, recrossing his long legs. “It’s men you speak of, isn’t it?”

“Surely, it is!” the old knight crows. “Allow me to kneel to you yet again, Sire, and offer my sword in your service!”

Rainer flushes, not angry but visibly annoyed. “There are faster ways than guessing games to get at the heart of a matter, my knight.”

Hal nods, unrepentant. “Indeed there are, but indulge an old retainer a moment longer. If, as you so astutely surmise, it is men who create the imbalance, it is men who must be corrected.” Now when he looks around, he’s greeted with glum silence. “Ah. I see you perceive the dilemma.”

“People have been trying to do that since the year One.”

“And before!” exclaims Hal, as if the notion offers him great satisfaction.

“But surely men are part of Nature,” Kurt Wender protests.

Hal shakes his shaggy head. “Set above the rest of Creation, according to the Book. The natural world is intended for his use and sustenance. But in return, man is pledged to act as steward of these resources, to protect Nature, and sustain her. Somewhere along the line, the bargain was forgotten.”

He sits back to take another long pull at his wine cup, then collects a hunk of cheese from the platter beside his knee. “Now, here’s where I begin to fly off into the ethereal heights of wild speculation. Think of it from the point of view of bridge building or barn raising. Any balanced structure will have some natural flex to keep it from snapping in the gales, or in ice heaves in the winter. So at first, the depredations of man come and go without dire effect. Contemplating this one day, it occurred to me that if I were the master builder of the ‘bridge’ of Nature, I’d try to build in some sort of signal that would raise the alarm if the bridge was about to fail. Let’s say such a signal exists, and it woke the dragons . . .” He leans forward, his eyes alight.
“. . . at the point when the balance tipped too far for the natural flex to be able to restore it.”

Erde feels a small implosion of insight inside her head. She’s unsure if it’s hers, or the dragon’s, or both. “But that would be now . . . or, just a while ago, when . . .”

“Yes. When you found Lord Earth, and not long after, I found you.”

“It’s
now
,” Erde repeats, aware that her attack of insight is still in process. “Oh!” She grabs her head as if her growing comprehension might split it apart. “That’s why Air called us back to the Grove! That’s where the balance tipped, and it’s going on right now! It’s Brother Guillemo cutting down the trees!”

“Among other things.” Hal nods, gone suddenly solemn. “Guillemo isn’t the cause himself, so much as its final incarnation.”

“Guillemo!” Erde stares at him, wide-eyed. “The dragons are coming, Air and Water and their guides. Earth and I will go, too. To the Grove. What will we do there?”

“Teach the race of men to honor their bargain, or destroy them. Those seem to be the only possible options.”

Captain Wender shakes his head at such grandiose imaginings. Erde can see him wondering if the old knight’s mind is once again wandering. “We can’t do away with the one man, never mind the whole race of ’em!”

She sees it come over them, all three of them, as visible as the shadow of a cloud over sunlight. Their shoulders slump as if choreographed together. Their mouths and brows turn gently down.

Hal says, “True enough. The hell-priest’s magic has protected him damnably well.” He squints at his book-laden camp desk and a hint of his former confusion returns to his eyes. “I was looking for some sort of countermeasure. It’s as if he reached out and corrupted my search.”

“Can’t kill the bastard,” Wender mutters. “Begging your pardon, milady.”

“But how can it be,” Erde asks, “that you have him surrounded and still cannot finish him?”

“Our forces are demoralized,” Rainer admits, “both men and knights, by weather and hunger and disease. We’ve had victories everywhere else, but this siege has proved, well, intractable.”

Hal adds glumly, “And as long as Guillemo lives, many will believe in him.”

“The men are afraid for their souls,” offers Wender.

“In a way,” continues Rainer, the rationalist, “Guillemo’s turned the trees against us. We have the advantage of numbers, but you can’t send an army in there. There’s no room to fight. The men get picked off from above before they’re a horse’s length into the trees.”

“But we have to stop him! He’s destroying the Grove!”

Hal glances up suddenly, remembering. “Did you say Air called you to the Grove? Have you found all four dragons, then? There are four, as I said?”

“Yes, dear knight. Though we have yet to win Fire to our cause. Yet we are summoned, all of us, so sometime soon—Lord Earth and I are unsure of the timing—Brother Guillemo will have surprise visitors.”

The men exchange glances.

“An unusual opportunity,” notes Rainer.

“The perfect time for a fresh offensive,” Wender agrees.

“But perhaps the dragons will not need our help,” Hal observes.

“Do not say so!” Erde exclaims. “All help is welcome and necessary!”

Wender drops his chin into his palms and rests his elbows on his knees. “It’ll take some time to get the men ready . . .”

Rainer rises from his chair and wanders away, stretching his long back. “The barons always resist fighting in this weather.”

“Again?” Erde is unable to restrain herself further. She leaps up from her chair. “Listen to you all! For shame! Will you give up so easily?” The men blink at her and glance away, and she knows they’re ashamed for her breach of etiquette. It’s not her place, as a young girl, to be scolding her elders, or advising seasoned fighting men, or for that matter, berating her king. But she sees no one else around willing to do it, and something must be done to stir them out of their gloom!

She tries to moderate her voice, and keep her whirling arms under more ladylike control. “I’d think Fra Guill has put a spell on you, but I don’t believe in such spells, not anymore! Cease your search for magic, good knight. There
is no magic but dragon magic, the magic of the elements that made the world. If you seek to understand the success of the hell-priest, look no further. It’s right here, in this camp, in this tent, in your own hearts! Your true enemy is despair! Your men won’t fight because they have no faith that they can win. They and you—now, don’t deny it! I can see it in your eyes—believe that evil is the stronger force, and therefore the hell-priest triumphs!”

“Little sister, little sister,” Rainer chides. “You are as always passionate in your ideals. But real life is not so simple.”

“No, listen!” Is it treason, she wonders briefly, to argue with your king? “Sometimes we must
make
it simple! Sometimes we must speak in absolutes! Rainer . . . your pardon, I mean, Sire . . . you think me naïve, and perhaps I am, though not nearly so as I was when you saw me last. I have seen how ‘real life’ wears down the great Ideals: with this excuse, that pragmatic consideration, the several ‘necessary’ concessions. Soon, the clean and noble marble edifice is worn and weary, crumbling at the edges so that all manner of petty evils and cynicisms enter unheeded through the cracks!”

She pauses, breathless, and the discomfort on their faces nearly stalls her momentum. She’s embarrassing herself in front of them, her mentor and the young man she once thought she loved. No matter! She must finish what she’s begun. “Well, all that may be ‘real’ and day-to-day, and we must live with it. And perhaps the smaller evils will most often triumph. But this is not day-to-day, and the greater evil cannot be allowed to triumph! Good must win, or the world will not survive!”

She faces the young king, who regards her stony-faced. “My liege! Go to your barons and your captains! Inspire them with your faith and vigor! If we believe, they’ll believe!”

“And you, dear Sir Hal, whose tireless conviction in the rightness of dragons saved our Quest from early disaster . . . I know the winter has been desperate and long, and the battle endless, but surely you’ll not give up when that end is now in sight?”

Then, all of a sudden, she’s out of words. The last drop has poured out of the wine jug. She feels as if she’s run a
long foot race, and has no idea if she’s lost or won. She sits down again, and lapsing into silence, she wraps her arms around herself and gently rocks. The men are silent, too, and for a while they all sit listening to the wind howl and the snow rattle against the canvas. Captain Wender sips his wine. Hal stares morosely into his upturned palms as if hoping to read his fortune. Rainer stares off into the shadow at the corners of the tent, probably wrestling with the weight of his new responsibilities.

Finally, he stirs. “Can you say with any accuracy when the other dragons will arrive?”

Erde can see the brilliance of her smile reflected in the men’s eyes. “Not when it will happen, Sire, but surely we will know the exact moment when it
is
happening. If we are ready. . . .”

“Then we’ll be ready.” The king rises, and Wender with him, drawn upward by respect and the strength of the younger man’s returned resolve. “Wender, alert the captains, rouse the men and the knights. Drag the barons from their beds if need be.”