I raised the spyglass, meaning to direct it toward the desert. But my arm had other ideas and aimed it north, at Bamarre castle. I held my breath and then began to breathe again. The gray pennant did not fly. Meryl was holding her own!
She was in bed, leaning against her pillows and staring out her window. I wondered if she had any hope I’d find the cure.
I lowered my spyglass and set the rings where I guessed Vollys would be. She was believed to be the oldest dragon in Bamarre, and I reasoned that she was more likely than the others to know the cure for the Gray Death.
The desert was a place of huge boulders and low sandstone cliffs. My eyes sought anything living, but the landscape was barren. I kept scanning until I saw smoke curl around a tall boulder. I followed the thread of smoke to a cave in a sandstone cliff. I turned the last ring on the spyglass, and there was Vollys, sleeping in front of her lair.
She wasn’t what I expected. She didn’t sprawl in slumber. Her wings were tucked in neatly, and she lay curled into herself, with her long head resting on one of her front legs. I had seen the castle cats at home sleep just that way hundreds of times.
While I watched, she opened one eye and looked my way. I felt skewered in her gaze, even though she was too far away to see me. Her eyeball was clear and glittery and faceted as a diamond. Her gaze, cold and clever, was probably directed at a poor desert snake.
But perhaps she did see me. Dragons knew things. Perhaps they saw things. Perhaps she saw my intentions and my fear and now knew about me and Meryl.
The eye closed, but I no longer had confidence in her sleep. If I went to her, I was convinced, she’d be awake to receive me.
I reset the spyglass to find the dragon Kih. There. The lair, with a jumble of bones piled outside, but no Kih, and no Kih nearby. He was probably away hunting.
I put on my magic boots, although my hands were trembling and I could barely tie the laces. I straightened up and raised the spyglass once more to check my direction.
There was Kih, landing before his lair, wings beating, front legs bearing the bloody carcass of a horse. His snout was stained and dripping red.
I swayed and almost took a step. Weak-kneed, I sat. If he had delayed a few minutes, we would have arrived at the same moment.
I raised the spyglass once again and searched for Jafe.
Another empty lair—no, not empty. A tail extended from the mouth of the cave, and I made out the shadowy shape of the dragon within. The tail thumped the ground, then twitched left to right. Jafe wasn’t sound asleep either.
I looked again at Vollys. Both eyes were closed, but one back leg was scratching her side. I didn’t dare go to her.
I tried to think of another plan, but I couldn’t think of anything, except that I was hungry. So I changed my boots and took out the tablecloth. As I ate, I kept pausing to look in on the dragons. I watched Kih drag the carcass into his lair. Jafe remained inside his cave, and Vollys continued her restless slumber.
I finished my meal. “Good tablecl—”
A shadow moved across the lake. I looked up.
Seven gryphons flew noiselessly toward me. I reached for my magic boots, but it was too late. They were above me, diving at me, cackling and screeching. I pulled Blood-biter from my sack.
I stepped away from the tablecloth so I’d have room to swing the sword. New dishes began to appear—roasts, loaves of bread, heaping platters—as if to greet new guests.
The gryphons descended on the food. They didn’t even glance my way.
They began feeding before their feet even touched the tablecloth. Droplets of gravy spewed into the air, pitchers were overturned, dishes were knocked to the ground and pounced on. The creatures screeched as they ate, and they shoved and pecked each other to reach what they wanted. Sometimes they drew their fellows’ blood and supped on it along with everything else.
They stank of sweat and rotting food. Their lions’ hides were crisscrossed with oozing welts and black scars, and their eagles’ feathers were sparse, with rust-brown skin showing through.
For a few minutes I was too stunned to think. Then I woke up. I didn’t know how long the tablecloth could keep producing food, and when it stopped, the gryphons would attack me. I reached for my sack so I could don the magic boots and leave. But as soon as I moved, a gryphon came at me. I drew back from the sack, and it returned to its meal. I tried again, and this time two creatures came at me.
I was to be their dessert. I stood still, clutching Blood-biter, trying to think of something to do. I was going to die here. Rhys would search for me, and he’d find my skeleton picked clean.
More and more dishes appeared. The gryphons settled down to steady eating and no longer shoved each other or cried out. The afternoon passed. The tablecloth never flagged.
The day was almost done when the first gryphon fell off the tablecloth. The monster wheezed, and its sides heaved. Then it made a gurgling sound and died with its mouth and eyes open. It had gorged itself to death.
Its brethren didn’t stop eating, and in the next ten minutes another gryphon fell and died.
In half an hour they were all dead.
I stepped over the bodies to get to the tablecloth, which was piled high with gnawed bones and broken crockery. “Good tablecloth . . .” My voice broke. “Thank you, thank you for saving my life.” Two new dishes arrived, a tureen of stew and a chocolate cake. I began again. “Good tablecloth, I thank thee for a fine meal.”
The new food and the remains of the old popped out of sight. I patted the tablecloth, folded it, and tucked it into my sack. Then I moved away from the dead monsters. When I was far enough to escape their stench, I took out my spyglass and trained it on the desert.
Vollys had left her lair. This was my chance.
I heard something above me, the beating of wings. More gryphons?
But it was just two vultures, circling overhead, dark shapes against the sunset. Another in the distance was coming to join them.
I turned back to my spyglass. I wanted to see Meryl once more before I left for the desert.
A gray pennant flew from the highest tower.
Chapter Nineteen
* * *
I FOUND MERYL’S BEDCHAMBER. Father was at her bedside, reading from Homely Truths. Bella was weeping, and Milton was drawing the curtains closed. For a sickening moment I thought Meryl had already died, but then I saw her fingers on the counterpane curl and uncurl.
It was the sleep. Nine days of sleep, three of fever, and then . . . death.
I lowered the spyglass. I was crying too hard to see.
More vultures had arrived. There were a dozen or more, gobbling and gabbling.
I had to go home. I had to be there, had to touch Meryl, kiss her forehead. I had to cry with Bella, had to ask Milton what he knew. I’d stay only a few minutes. Vollys could wait that long.
I heard squawks and a frenzied beating of wings. I looked around. The birds were leaving, in a great uprush of flapping and feathers. I wondered why. Then I saw—
A dragon, swooping down over the lake, coming this way.
Had it seen me? It wasn’t flaming. I reached into my sack for my magic boots.
It landed and wrapped its tail around me so tightly that I could barely draw breath. Its scales were searing hot.
Bells clanged. Deep bells, high bells, light trilling bells. I saw the dragon’s face. It was laughing.
I looked away, looked at the sky, at the blossomy trees. My eyes wouldn’t focus. Terror kept them sliding past that huge lizard face. I made swimming motions with my arms and shuffled my feet, trying to walk although I was trapped.
The dragon laughed on. Then it spoke. Its voice was metallic and nasal. “I am Vollys. I am so glad to meet you. I meet humans in odd circumstances, and this may be the oddest of all. What is your name, maiden?”
I tried, but I couldn’t speak. I coughed, but no words came. I opened my mouth. I shaped the words I am Princess Adelina, but no sound emerged.
&
nbsp; “I will be disappointed if you do not talk to me, but perhaps you will be more at your ease when I bring you home.”
Home! Home to her lair—and me in my ordinary boots.
“Now I hope you will excuse me. I came here to dine. Finding you is an extra treat.” The bells of her laughter started again, but shorter and lighter this time. “Watch carefully, love. Dragons are the only beings who can cook their food as they eat it.”
She began to drag me toward the gryphon carcasses. I grabbed my sack as I passed it, and she let me.
“Observe. I shall use a hot flame because it is unwise to eat gryphon unless the flesh is well cooked.” She breathed in deeply and exhaled a stream of fire.
Smoke burned my throat.
In a few minutes she swallowed her flame. “Cooked to a turn.” She stuck her snout into the gryphon and tore into it. Flames licked around her cheek.
When she opened the gryphon’s stomach and saw its contents, she turned my way. “Do you mean for me to die of gluttony too? Very clever, setting a trap for them and then using them as a trap for me.” She wagged her head. “You intrigue me, little one.”
She went back to the carcass. Soon the first gryphon was bare bones. She began on another. Dusk turned to night while she ate.
Her tail never loosened its grip, and her scales never cooled. I became desperately thirsty.
I tried to think of some way to save myself, but my mind skittered here and there. I remembered my magic boots, but I couldn’t put them on, and even if I could, I’d never be able to pull the dragon as I had the ogre. Vollys was as tall and wide as a cottage and three times as long.
The moon rose. The stars came out, and the air turned chill. My head and my toes almost froze, while my torso almost melted. Vollys finished the second gryphon and started on the third. I escaped my fright by falling asleep.
I dreamed of drinking flagon upon flagon of sweet water and being thirsty after every drink. I dreamed of being home in bed, but my legs were under too many blankets. I dreamed of the friend who had repaired my injured arm. He said, “Endure, brave mouse. Your end—”
I was dragged one way and then, sharply, the other.
“Wake up, my dear.”
My feet scraped the ground, and my neck almost snapped when she flipped her tail from side to side. I bleated in fear.
“Good. You are awake. I am finished here, and we can go home. First we will stop at that pretty lake. You will drink your fill, and then I will.”
The tail held me awkwardly over the water, sometimes dunking my whole head and sometimes raising me too high to drink. I choked and sputtered and drank.
Steam rose when Vollys lapped up the water. An hour or more passed while she drank half the lake. As she did, I began to be able to think. I might have a chance to escape while she slept off her meal. I could ask her about the cure as soon as we arrived, and then, while she slept, I could slip on my magic boots and depart.
At last she finished. She raised her head and said, “It is my great pleasure, little one, to introduce you to the delights of flying.”
She pushed off with her tail. One moment I was upright, and the next I hurtled along sideways, hanging on to my sack with both hands, knowing that if I lost it, I’d lose everything.
The earth and stars swung sickeningly by, and I hung upside down. Only the tail’s suffocating grip kept me from falling.
We rose, much higher than Rhys had flown. The lake below shrank to no bigger than a teacup. My stomach heaved, and I retched. Vomit spilled onto the tail and into the sky. Yet I still kept my hold on the sack.
Then the tail steadied with me upright and remained so for the rest of the journey. Twice Vollys flew over villages. I could make out lamps burning in a few windows. I wept with yearning to be inside a house, in a bed, with nothing more than the wind’s whistle to frighten me.
After an eternity Vollys came down in front of the lair I’d seen in my spyglass. She released me, and I stumbled and almost fell.
“Step inside, my dear, where you can warm yourself in front of my cozy fire.” She laughed, and those bells clanged again.
I began to run. It was useless, but I didn’t think of that. Her tail caught me and deposited me back at the cave’s entrance.
“You are being tiresome, little one.”
She prodded me with her tail, and I stumbled into the dark cave. The stench almost overcame me. Dragon stench—hot and stale and metallic, so strong and pressing I might have been inside the rock, breathing rock.
Vollys’s bulk filled the entrance, extinguishing the moonlight. I backed away from her, stumbled, and fell onto something soft. I jumped up again, afraid of what it might be.
She followed me in. She flamed, and I thought my heart would explode in fright. But it was only a small flame, which she used to light lamps atop several tall torchères.
The lair was beautiful. It was a single chamber, large enough to accommodate three dragons or more, and so high that its ceiling was lost in shadow. By the candleglow I saw that the rock walls were burnished a deep gold. Across from the cave’s opening a thin stream of water ran down the rock and collected in a small, shallow pool.
Starting a few feet from the water’s edge, the ground was covered with layers of rugs and tapestries. I had fallen back on a pile of velvet cushions. I put my sack down next to the pile. More cushions were scattered here and there. To the right of the pool sat a dozen or more large chests, some open, some shut, and some shut and padlocked. Curio cabinets and two broad wardrobes lined the walls. Except for one, which stood empty, the cabinets were filled with treasure: one entirely with silver stirrup cups, another with jeweled tiaras, and another with weapons—long swords, falchions, poniards, pikes, halberds, maces—some of silver, some of gold.
“Not what you expected, I imagine. One of my guests was a carpenter.” Vollys yawned. “He came as a soldier with a company of his mates, but he remained as my guest and companion, and I discovered what an artist he was.” She chuckled, a light clanging. “His remains remain with me to this day.
“Now, little one, you must speak to me. I am beginning to feel slighted.”
She waited.
I swallowed. I tried to speak and brought out only a squeak.
“Perhaps you need encouragement.” She exhaled a fireball.
Chapter Twenty
* * *
MY TATTERED SKIRTS caught fire, and I screamed. Vollys spat and put out the blaze. “Ah, you have a voice.”
I bit back another scream. Half my skirts were cinders, through which I saw bright-red skin. My left thigh roared with pain.
“Now speak.”
“When will you kill me?”
Vollys wagged her head. “That is not a fit subject for conversation between us. It cannot be very interesting even to you. Come. Suppose you were safe at home, wherever that may be. Even there your life might have only a few more minutes to run.”
I held off another yelp of pain.
“But at home would you waste time speculating about your death? You would not. I do not, and I am no more immortal than you are.” She yawned again. “Speak of something else.”
I couldn’t think of anything. I couldn’t think of words even. But words came. I blurted out, “What is the cure for the Gray Death?”
Her bells clanged. “A question for a question—what had you to do with the death of seven gryphons?”
I couldn’t think what to tell and what to hide. The pain in my thigh was agonizing. “Um . . . nothing. I live nearby.”
“You are lying, and so shall I—the cure for the Gray Death is a swallow of milk.” She made a clucking sound. “Enough. I am too tired to trade nonsense with you. I hope you will be more sensible when I awaken.”
Sleep, I prayed, and let me get away. I gathered up my tattered skirts and tried to cover my naked, scorched thigh.
She went on. “I will sleep, and you may too, but I will sleep longer. If you are hungry, there is food, traveler’s fare, in th
at trunk.” She pointed at a chest.
I made myself concentrate on what she was saying, although my mind kept sliding away.
“And you may pick out a gown from this wardrobe.” She pointed again. “When I awaken, little one, I suggest you answer my questions candidly, since I will discover the truth anyway. I also suggest that you think of a way to amuse me. It is the only payment I expect for my hospitality.”
She began to back out of the cave, and for a moment I thought she might leave entirely. “Everyone hopes to depart while I sleep, but I always shut the door tight.” She placed herself halfway in the cave and halfway out, so that she filled the entrance. She closed her eyes. “I am the door.”
I couldn’t escape. I lowered myself onto the cushions and huddled there, rocking myself.
Every few minutes one of her eyes would open a slit. I wanted to take out my moily herbs in hopes they would ease my pain, but I didn’t want her to see them.
The pain grew so insistent that I had to do something. I limped to the pool at the back of the cave. At least I could bathe my leg. The pool water was warm, but the trickle running down the rock was almost cold. I sat so that the water flowed over my thigh. It helped, but the pain was still terrible.
Eventually my eyes closed, and I escaped again into sleep.
It was a restless slumber. I felt the pain all the while, only slightly muted, and all the while I knew I should be awake—planning, doing, preparing—but I couldn’t rouse myself.
Finally I woke up. I stood. The pain returned at full force, and I almost cried out. It was day outside. I could tell because Vollys’s back and sides were outlined in light where they touched the lair’s entrance.
She was truly asleep. Her eyelids no longer fluttered, and the skin of her cheek sagged over her lip. Her breathing was deep and even.
Just in case, though, I faced away from her to unpin the pouch of moily herb from my shift. I sucked on a flower, and the pain receded, although it crouched a short way off, ready to pounce again. I wondered if the herb would do some good if it touched the burn. I took another flower and pinned the pouch to my shift again. Then I passed the flower gently over my thigh.