Instantly the blisters closed up and shrank away. The skin was still red, but the pain was barely a whisper. Oh, thank you, Milton.
Vollys moaned softly, and I froze. But she just shifted into the pose I had seen in the spyglass. There was her ear hole, below a fold of scales, and there was a patch of pink belly showing a few inches above the ground. Someone more fearless than I could pull out Blood-biter and stab her.
Someone more foolhardy, I realized. A cabinet full of weapons stood in plain sight. She would never sleep if she were in danger. She’d probably be awake the second my hand touched Blood-biter.
I dared to take out my spyglass. Vollys didn’t stir. I trained it on Bamarre castle. Meryl was smiling in her sleep, and I hoped her dreams were sweet. She had eight more days of sleep, counting today. Then the fever.
At least I was with a dragon. Perhaps I could persuade Vollys to tell me the cure to the Gray Death, if she knew it. I’d worry about escape once I learned the cure.
I decided to eat something to keep my strength up. I would have liked to use my magic tablecloth, but I didn’t know what Vollys would do if she woke and saw it.
I went to the chest she had said held food. A black spider crawled across the lid. It was big, with long probing legs. I stood still, clenching my teeth to keep from screaming.
The spider stopped crawling. It might have seen me. It might be poisonous. It might spring on me.
I told myself that it didn’t care about me. It was probably only interested in grubs and flies. I couldn’t calm myself, though. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
It began to crawl again. If it crawled away, I would be tormented, knowing it was somewhere, but not knowing where. I had to do something.
It reached the edge of the chest and began to climb down the side. When it got down, it would slip under a carpet and be gone.
I raised my hand to kill it, but I couldn’t make myself touch it. I tore a swatch off my ruined skirt. I’d make the spider climb on the cloth, and then I’d carry the horrible creature to the cave entrance and force it to crawl out.
But my hand shook too much.
Then, through my misery, I realized how absurd this was, my terror at a spider with a dragon sleeping nearby. I had to smile, and that steadied me. I balled the cloth and pounded it into the hideous black body.
It was dead. I had killed it.
Now that it was dead, I knew it had meant me no harm. My fear of spiders evaporated. I would try not to destroy an innocent life again.
I opened the chest. Everything was wrapped in damask napkins. Brown crackers were in one and dried meats in another. I ate a few of the crackers, which were stale. I didn’t touch the meat. Vollys might consider it a fine joke to feed her current guest a meal of the last one.
I fetched my sack from the pile of cushions. I felt safer when I held it. The seven-league boots were still my best chance of escape.
But what if she went through my sack and found them! I had to hide them. I looked around wildly.
I could put them in the food chest, under the napkins. No, she might rummage in there for food for me.
Another chest? Not an open one. It might be open because she used it often. I went to a closed chest and lifted the lid. It was filled with skulls and bones. I shut the cover quickly.
She could awaken at any second. I spun around, searching with my eyes. The curio cabinets were useless—everything in them was in plain sight. The wardrobes? I ran to one, my steps muffled by the layers of carpet. Yes, I could thrust the boots to the back, behind the gowns. But I hesitated. If she suspected me, Vollys would certainly search the wardrobes.
I stepped away—and noticed something. The rock wall curved, and the back of the wardrobe was straight. There wasn’t much room, but there was some. I carried the sack to the wardrobe and stuffed the boots behind it.
They were as safe as I could make them. Now I had to stay alive long enough to use them.
After hiding the boots, I slept too. I woke to worry, mostly about Meryl, but also about how to entertain Vollys and what to tell her of my story. I’d have to tell her something about me. I could tell her about my quest, because I’d already asked about the cure, but I had no idea what else was safe.
Finally I decided to tell the truth, or I’d get tangled in a web of lies, and she would find me out.
I felt calmer after deciding, and all at once I was ravenous. Since I was going to reveal the magic tablecloth anyway, I asked it for a meal. As I ate, my eyes rested idly on the cloth’s elaborate embroidery. Then I stared fixedly. Embroidery! Perhaps I had my own way to entertain a dragon.
After I ate, I lifted away layers of rug at my feet till the ground was exposed. Using Blood-biter, I began to draw by scratching into the packed sand that was the cave’s floor. When I was done, I replaced the rugs as carefully as I could. From then on I avoided stepping there.
I established my place within the lair only a few feet away. The spot was near the rock wall and as far as I could be from Vollys. There I set my sack, there I arranged a mound of cushions, and there I ate and slept.
During that first day of Vollys’s slumber I bathed in the pool near the back of the cave. Then I chose a gown from the wardrobe she had pointed out to me. If I escaped—when I escaped—it would be best if my gown were more than tatters.
Most of the gowns were made for noblewomen or royalty. The bodice of one was set with rubies, and the train of another was sprinkled with emeralds. But I wanted more modest attire that wouldn’t get in the way if I had to move quickly.
After a long search I found something simple. The tan skirt closed with a wide sash, and the brown bodice had sleeves that ended at my elbows, a blessing in the steamy lair. The skirt and bodice fit me well enough, and when I donned them I felt safer, just because I was dressed.
I often used my spyglass to gaze at Meryl. Her face looked thinner, and I wondered if she was eating anything. I saw Milton raise her up to change her bedclothes, but I never saw him feed her.
For hours I watched, watched her shift from her side to her stomach and back again, watched her frown in her sleep, watched her smile.
I wished I had never asked her to delay her adventures until I married. It was my fault that she hadn’t yet slain a gryphon or fought an ogre. It would be my fault if she never did.
Chapter Twenty-one
* * *
SOMETIMES I USED THE spyglass to look in on Rhys at the sorcerers’ citadel. The first time I did so, I found a hundred or more sorcerers in a vast circular chamber that had no ceiling. It was night, but the stars shone uncommonly bright and illuminated their upturned faces.
Some faces were dark, some light, some male, some female. All were framed by dark, wavy hair and white collars over dark-blue mantles. The sorcerers’ arms were all at their sides, palms forward. Their lips all moved as they sang or chanted.
I thought I’d never be able to find Rhys, but then I caught a flash of red. There he was, a rosebud peeking out of his collar.
On one occasion I saw him drift through a garden with another sorcerer, and I wondered if that was Orne, lecturing on the dangers of marriage.
On another occasion I saw Rhys lean over a bowl of water. He blew on it, and it turned cloudy. He blew again, and the water clarified. He dipped his finger in, stirred once, and a fat orange fish swam in the bowl. He stirred again, and the fish swam through a forest of green plants.
When I was saddest and most frightened, I put the spyglass aside and sought solace by reading Drualt. The lamps, which never ran out of oil, provided enough light to read by. The poem’s words seemed more powerful here than in my bedchamber at home, for Drualt had been a prisoner too.
It had happened when he was a lad and visited evil King Eldred’s court in the kingdom of Tyor. After Eldred failed to kill him by guile, the king threw him into a dungeon deep below Tyor castle.
The dungeon walls were stone,
Hard as an ogre’s head.
Its floor was dir
t,
Soft as milady’s powder.
Drualt burrowed,
His belt buckle for a shovel,
Singing all the while,
“Dig or die, dig or die.
Lucky am I to own
A plucky silver buckle.”
Drualt the laugher
Laughed and sang,
“Lucky plucky buckle,
Plucky lucky buckle.”
And, laughing more,
“Buckle plucky lucky.”
Laughing loud, he sang
Till his tongue
Turned topsy-turvy
And he could sing no more
For laughing.
I wasn’t yet brave enough to laugh, but I smiled. As though she sensed my pleasure, Vollys grumbled in her sleep. My smile retreated in fear, but then—
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder, a large hand, imparting cheer and a vast reserve of courage. I whirled around and saw nothing more than the lamplight dancing merrily on the rock walls.
Dancing merrily?
The air in the cave shuddered as if in a spasm of laughter. Not Vollys’s clanging-bell laughter, but true human laughter, as welcome as sunshine after weeks of rain—as welcome as reaching home after an eternity of danger.
Then the hand was gone, and the laugh ended. The lamplight flickered on the rock walls. It didn’t dance. Had Rhys brought me the moment of cheer, or had some happy spirit? I hoped it was Rhys. But whatever the source, I was comforted.
Vollys slept through three of Meryl’s eleven remaining days. I was wild with impatience, but still I was afraid to rouse the dragon.
When she finally awoke, I was asleep, sprawled across my pile of cushions. She woke me by blowing a stream of smoke at me, stinking and wickedly hot. I sat up and waved my arms to clear away the smoke. My eyes streamed and my throat burned, and my terror returned.
“Something is different,” she said. “You did something while I was asleep. What was it?”
Did she mean the boots? “I d-did nothing.” I coughed. “I t-took a gown and—”
“Not the gown. Something else.” She sniffed the air and raked the cave with her eyes. “Hmm . . .” She lumbered to the wardrobe the boots were hidden behind and opened it. She shifted the gowns inside. Then she straightened up and closed the doors.
“Little one . . .” She advanced toward me.
I stood and backed away a step.
Her voice sweetened. “We must not quarrel. I will discover whatever you’ve done. You needn’t confess. I may even be pleased if you’ve been clever.”
She couldn’t discover the boots! What would I do? “It will teach me more about you, which is what I want most.” She stopped and sat a little way from me. “Now you must tell me how you came to be on a hillside with a flock of dead gryphons. Tell me, or I will be angry.”
I wet my lips, opened them, pushed out air, but no sound.
I saw fire between her teeth, and her tail switched. She breathed in. In a second she’d flame at me.
“You are frightening me.” My voice was a raspy whisper. “If . . .” I swallowed. “If . . . if you wish me to talk”—my voice gained strength—“you must not frighten me so much. I can’t talk when I think you’re about to set me ablaze. But burning me to death will amuse you for only a moment.” I was amazed at my bravery. “It will be better for us both if you swallow your flame.”
She did! She swallowed the flame, and her bells started clanging again. She was laughing.
I felt so relieved, I even felt safe enough to breathe deeply. With the lair’s entry clear, the air was better than any I’d taken in since I was brought here. It was day again.
Sitting up, Vollys reminded me of councillor Lord Tully’s pet dachshund. Floppet had short legs too, and when he sat up, they stuck straight out and looked comical, just as Vollys’s did—although I was far from laughing.
“I thought you would interest me, little one, and I was right. I shall reward you. Do you see that empty cabinet?” She pointed. “It is yours. You may take something from one of my cabinets and put it in yours. Go ahead. Pick something.”
This was peculiar. I gathered my courage again. “If you wish to give me a gift, then tell me the cure for the Gray Death and let me go.”
“Perhaps I will. Later. But now you must choose something for your own. You will have your own hoard within mine. It will make you feel at home to have things that belong to you. Now choose.” I heard fire crackle in the back of her throat.
I walked from cabinet to cabinet. I hated to imagine in what agony they’d died, the former owners of Vollys’s hoard. Some of them must have put great store in their share of this treasure. It made my flesh crawl to think of it.
One object was an ivory carving of a maiden playing a harp. The harp was made of gold, inset with sapphires. By contrast, the maiden was unadorned, wearing a simple gown and a simple cap. Only her fingers touching the harp were tipped with diamonds. Her expression was rapt—she was joy in music made visible.
Another object was a silver chalice onto which a hunting scene had been etched. In the scene three archers and their barking hounds held an ogre at bay.
A third object was a jade pig with merry amber eyes, a smiling mouth, a barrel belly, and garlands of jewel-encrusted flowers around its neck.
I wanted none of them. My temporary ownership was a sham and an insult to the dead. I picked the plainest thing I found, an empty wooden box inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I moved it to one of the shelves she said were mine. “Thank you.”
“An interesting choice, little princess.”
I suppose I looked startled, because her bells clanged again.
“Oh, I knew you were royal, or noble at least, when I saw you in that gown. Servants and farmers always choose apparel encrusted with gems. May as well die rich as poor, they think. Now show me what you have in your sack.”
What would she do when she saw Blood-biter? My hand trembled as I drew it out.
She did nothing and said nothing. When the sack was empty, she told me to put everything on the shelves of my cabinet. “I hope you will share the bounty of your tablecloth with me.”
“Of course.”
“Now tell me your tale, and do not lie.”
I lost my voice again for a moment, but then I breathed deeply and began. “I am Princess Adelina, but I am called Addie. . . .” I told her about Meryl’s illness and my search for the cure for the Gray Death. Vollys asked where the special things in my sack had come from. I said that everything except the maps had been left to Meryl and me by our dead mother. I feared that mentioning Rhys and Bella might endanger them. I said that the maps had come from our library.
“I know the queen died, but your poltroon of a father, King Lionel, still lives. He let you go on this mission? He wants two daughters dead?” The fire was back in her voice. “Do not lie to me, little princess.”
“N-no. I ran away. But I left him a note that I believe convinced him not to try to fetch me back.” I told her about The Book of Homely Truths. I quoted the saying I’d included in my note, and a few others.
She loved the sayings. Her bells rang on and on when I said, “Poverty means more to the poor than to the rich. Wealth means more to the rich than to the poor.” In gratitude, she made me take another gift for my hoard. When I ran out of homilies, she began to invent her own.
“What about this? ‘The impetuous man is overtaken by his desires.’ It would be a fine Homely Truth, no?”
“Very fine,” I said.
She laughed delightedly. “Or ‘Food for thought requires a mind with teeth.’ What I adore about the best of them is that they almost mean something.” She laughed for a minute longer. Then she raised her head and sniffed.
“It comes to me.” She continued to sniff. “Now I know what you did while I was asleep.” She went to the back of the wardrobe and pulled out the seven-league boots. “No one has ever found such an excellent hiding place before.”
She lumbered
to the cave entrance, reached above it, and lifted down a ring of keys. She opened her largest chest and locked the boots inside. Then she returned the keys to the ledge above the entrance—about thirty feet above my head.
Chapter Twenty-two
* * *
LOSING THE BOOTS meant the end of me. “You might as well kill me now,” I said. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was already dead, although I still breathed.
“Ah, little princess, I’m enjoying myself too much to hurt you.” She dreamed up five more Truths and laughed over each one.
When she finally stopped chuckling, she lowered herself onto her belly and extended her neck across the cave until her snout was inches from the hem of my gown. Her eyes were level with my shoulder. I had to meet them, couldn’t avoid them. Her gaze was hot and intense.
She spoke in a whisper. “Believe me when I say I want you to stay a long time with me. I am sad when I am alone. My unhappiest hours are after I have destroyed a guest. I have never forgotten any of you. I have remembered my first guest for over seven hundred years. He had a short life breathing the air, but a long life in memory.”
I nodded and forced myself not to back away. We stared at each other.
I whispered back, “I believe you.”
She looked away from me at last. “I never lie to my guests. Think how silly it would be to lie—as silly as lying to these bones.” She gestured at an open chest. “Now tell me how you will entertain me.” She picked up a bone, stroked it, and placed it back in the chest.
I stammered, “I c-can’t amuse you with talk. B-but perhaps . . . I am a good . . .” I went to the spot where I had drawn on the ground and folded away the rugs. My lines were still there, but faint. I retraced them with my fingers. “I took the liberty . . . While you were sleeping, I—”