Dragonborn (19 page)

A sigh of satisfaction held the small room for a second; then, with a hollow clap, two men handed planks of wood over the heads of the crowd. Hands went up, passing them forward. The body of Bearrock was lifted onto them. The crush of men parted and Bearrock was borne through the space, out into the darkness and the star-sharp night.

was Tremmort, then his mother, holding his sister's hand. The three of them walked, heads high, looking straight ahead. The men followed, the oldest first, then in order by age, which left Brakewood last. Sam held back. Now that he had finished the preparations for Bearrock he felt dizzy. His head hurt, a pain that started somewhere in the center of his forehead and spread all down the left side of his face and into his teeth.

He watched the procession wind its way into the night. Knowing that he had not yet finished, he followed.

The crowd parted to allow the procession to move forward. As they left the house behind them, music started. Sam had never heard music, more than a single voice singing or a pennywhistle from a shepherd come for a remedy for the bloats.

It was a single fiddle at first, low and slow and sad. Bearrock's body moved down the slope, further into the town. The crowd
turned itself into a line of followers, not tidily two abreast, but sometimes three, sometimes a small group, families together, sometimes a single person choosing a space around himself. They waited for the leaders to pass before joining in, so every eye regarded Sam as he passed, every face asked the same question. Some whispered to themselves, and he caught the same word over and over again, “December,” and a shaking of the head.

The single fiddle was joined by another. Their voices sang different notes, but they blended like butter and sugar in the bowl, each bringing something new, something needed.

Doors opened and closed, discharging people from their rooms.

The men at the front stopped, moved aside in turn, and gave their burden to others. They stepped away, rubbing their shoulders. The planks weighed more than the heavy man they supported.

Sam saw that Brakewood had stepped forward to take his share of the weight, but had been firmly kept aside. Tremmort was too small to carry. The planks would have tilted to one corner. He still led the followers.

The men rested the planks on a stone ledge beneath a clock tower. They stepped back, and a semicircle formed around the bier.

The fiddlers were joined by a drummer. The drum in his arms, a shallow circle stretched with goat skin, was struck with a short stick. The drum shared the weight of the solemnity of the fiddles, and it took to itself some of the sadness.

It was Sam's first real music, and he heard in it a magic of its own, like wizard magic, but more elusive. He wanted to walk into the tunes.

The crowd shifted and surged. Sam found that its momentum had carried him to the very front, and he stood now between Tremmort and his mother.

The music closed in on itself. The crowd waited. To Sam's left a gap appeared in the crush of bodies. Four roffles walked through and went straight to the front. Just as all attention was fixed on the roffles, the crowd parted, a noise of whispering broke into the magic of the music, and the most frightening woman Sam had ever seen stepped into the space.

with a dragon's sorrow. He had lost him to the roffle. He had lost him to the College and could not go in, would not go in after him. After hollowed-out nights and thirsty days he set his face to the path they had taken and he swept with silent wings to Flaxfield's house.

The back door was open. The windows were flung wide. He slipped through and found himself face to face with Flaxfold.

“Hello, Starback,” she said. “You can stay, but you have to hide yourself. This house stinks, and it's filthy. There's rotting food and no air. And there's a stinking wizard asleep outside Flaxfield's study.”

She swept the kitchen floor, gathered up rotting food from the table and put it in a sack to take out for the pigs. Starback didn't help. Dragons don't do housework. He went to see who the stinking wizard was. It was Caleb, the young, arrogant one from Flaxfield's Finishing. He slept like spite.

Starback watched him till Flaxfold returned. She woke Caleb and led him downstairs. Caleb looked at her with blank eyes, saying nothing. Flaxfold sat him at the table and put food in front of him. His arms rested on the grained wood.

She cut a corner of buttered bread, spooned on some egg, and held it to his face. He opened his mouth, chewed, and swallowed with some effort. He made no move to take more. Flaxfold cut another piece of bread, added egg, fed him again. She put a mug of milk to his lips, to help him swallow. Milk spilled down his chin. Caleb put his hand up to steady the mug and winced as it touched. Flaxfold turned his hand over in hers and saw that it was marked with raised blisters where he had burned it. His other hand was the same.

“I'll see to them later,” she said.

He stared at her, as though he had just noticed she was there. He shivered.

It was a slow business. Flaxfold fed him until the food was finished and the mug empty. He showed neither pleasure in eating nor any resistance to her.

When all was done, she led him to a deep chair in front of the fire and covered him with a blanket. He fell asleep immediately.

The sun burned off the early mist. The range breathed out black heat. The kitchen relaxed into a rhythm of work under Flaxfold's hands. Caleb did not stir as she returned it back to its customary calm and order. Only one unpleasant reminder persisted, a smell. But as that came from Caleb himself, there was nothing she could do till he woke.

She made her way to the study and examined the door. Starback followed her, with a dragon's silent tread. The beautiful oak was now marked with deep gouges where Caleb had attacked it with an ax. It was scorched and blackened.

Flaxfold traced her finger over the burn marks. Had Caleb tried to burn it down? Or had he tried more magic to open it and been driven back by fire from the sealing spell? She pressed the palm of her hand against the surface. The wood was cool and composed. It had been the battlefield of a war of magic between Caleb and the sealing spell. It had withstood iron and spells and had held firm, keeping its secrets. And now it was wounded, scarred.

Flaxfold found wax and oil and a fresh cloth. She smoothed the oil into the scorched scars. She rubbed wax into the deep wounds of the ax marks. She sang soft and slow as she worked, a song of forests and of green shade, a song of sun on leaves and wind high in the branches.

The door began to gleam with ancient light. When she was done, there was no sign that it had ever been marked. Flaxfold smiled. The iron handle was unchanged. It had burned Caleb's hands when he wrenched at it, trying to force the door open. The fire had saved it from attack, and it hung, strong and round as ever. Flaxfold put her hand to it, turned it, opened the door, and went in. Starback smiled, slipped through a window, and was gone.

of the planks that held Bearrock. All music stopped. Tremmort pointed to the woman, and his mother looked in her direction. She beckoned her over. The woman shook her head, stared at them, moved her head a little and stared at Sam.

Sam had seen the effects of the world on faces that called at Flaxfield's door. He had seen what time and steel and sun and sorrow could do to a face, the wounds and the wear.

He had never seen a face like this one.

The skin was stretched tight, like the goatskin of the drum they had followed. Shiny, smooth, mostly, but puckered here and there, as though drawn tight by a tailor's thread. And she had no lips, like a snake.

Sam could not turn his eyes away. Her face fascinated him, as he had been captivated the first time he had seen a sheep's skull, half-decayed in a field, the flesh and bone equally presented, the gums, the teeth, the lips, the horror tongue.

She met his gaze, then, as though to make sure he did not miss anything, she lifted her arms, put back the scarf that covered her head. He saw that her hair was half-gone in patches, and that her scalp showed through.

Tremmort called to her. “December. We're ready.”

Without taking her eyes from Sam, she shook her head.

The roffles had been watching this. Now, the one nearest to Sam stepped forward, took his hand, and led him to the still figure of the corpse.

“You are to do this,” he said to Sam.

A discontented sound rose from the crowd. Brakewood tried to pull Sam back, and Tremmort said to his mother, “It shouldn't be him. Tell December to do it.”

“Please,” said Greenrose to Sam. “Please finish.”

Sam remembered Eloise by the riverside at Flaxfield's Finishing. Holding his staff for support, he said the words. As he began, a sigh breathed out from the crowd. The waiting was over. The Finishing was beginning. The words said, the roffles lifted the planks and carried Bearrock away. Sam and Tremmort, Greenrose and the girl followed, the crowd next. Sam wondered whether the woman, December, came too, but he did not turn to look. A fiddle found new notes, then the others joined in. The music moved their feet and their hearts.

Leaving the town, they passed a meadow, and here the others stayed. The roffles were much stronger than they looked, needing no help on the path. Sam's hunger had turned into a
humming inside his head, a pain in his chest, a taste of wax in his mouth. Greater than the hunger was his fear of where they were going. He could see ahead of them the stunted turrets of the mine machinery, smell the fresh slag, piled into heaps. They were taking Bearrock back to the mines, and Sam would have to go into that depth and darkness, where magic is twisted. He would open the door to the Finished World.

The woman they called December walked apart from the crowd, but never far off.

She had been looking for Sam. A week ago, more, she had left the town and taken the road to Flaxfield's. If he was leaving the wizard, then the roads that led to the old man's house were the roads that Sam must take to get away.

December had tried magic to find Sam first. All her spells folded back in on themselves. They confused more than they explained.

And so she set off, looking for roads and trails. She kept far from Flaxfield's house, but looked always toward it. She had all but given up when the stars talked to her about Canterstock. It was the last place she would have expected. She was far from Canterstock and needed to pass back through her hometown and the mines to get there.

The magic was restless now, hot and agitated. She felt it growing annoyed with her. It was like pushing her tongue against a tender tooth, or eating something too hot. As long as she was
careful it didn't hurt, but if she pushed or troubled it too much the pain flared up, stabbing at her. It was more than she dared to do to use it to get to the College. She would have to walk.

She was road-racked, dirty, and hungry. It would be better to take an extra hour and go home and eat and change. She would make faster progress.

The town was dark and busy. Nights were usually quiet in mining towns. The men worked hard and needed sleep. She joined the crowd, knowing there was a new death, blaming herself for making them wait for the Finishing, but puzzled, too; there should be no gathering tonight until she had finished the preparations.

She engineered her way through the press of bodies and emerged into the cleared space. And there he was.

“Isn't that the way?” she said to herself. “You make a week's journey to look for something, and it was coming to you all the time.”

Greenrose beckoned to her to come forward and perform the Finishing for Bearrock. December shook her head and stared at Sam, waiting to see what he would do, what he was made of. He was nervous, but he did it well. When they left the town square she followed, keeping Sam always in her sight. Now that she had him, she would not let him go. He was nearly hers, but she would have to play him carefully. He would not come to her of his own free will. She walked apart from the crowd, but never far off.

Ash surveyed the woods and land around the castle. Figures approached. A man on horseback, his face darker than the surrounding night, and an older man, stooped, silent. She clawed the stone of the window ledge, her nails breaking off and starting immediately to regrow.

“In you come,” she whispered. “In you come.”

The older man first, then, without seeing him, the one on horseback, were swallowed by the castle gate.

She half turned to receive them, turned back and saw, gray against the night, shapes bounding clear of the trees, tongues wet, teeth bared. The wolves slowed, grouped, lifted their heads to the moon, and howled.

Ash hurried away, and, in her haste, she missed the other man and the wizard-way he waited for the wolves. She missed the woman, moonlight glistening on the shawl around her head.
She hurried away to darkness and the deep passages and her guests.

None of them saw the shape of the dragon circling overhead. No one noticed the glint of moonlight on his scales, the shadow of his wings against the sky.

Starback was a very old dragon. He had flown these skies before even Flaxfield was a boy, and that was many years ago. Starback remembered when Megantople, the fat roffle, toured around the fairs, charging people a penny a time to see him. He remembered when the College at Canterstock was a new place. He remembered the magic that had been learned there, when the students were more careful of the craft. He remembered this castle, the Palace of Boolat.

But Starback had been away. Some of the time he had slept. Some of the time he had lived in a distant country, where news of this place never reached. Some of the time he had fought, because dragons, even Green and Blues, need to fight sometimes. He had returned for Sam.