The Whim of the Dragon

  “Andrew,” said Fence, having considered Ruth and apparently decided not to comment on her remark, “doth require that those accompanying him be prepared to depart four days hence.”

  “Oh, good,” said Ruth. “There’s an enormous Green Caves ceremony six days hence.”

  Fence frowned. “’Twere better not delay our speech to Meredith,” he said. “She’ll need one can take thy place.”

  “Give me today to poke around,” said Ruth, “and then you can tell her I’m resigning. I’m still in disgrace, you know, so the place she’ll have to fill won’t be very exalted.”

  Fence nodded. “Well,” he said. “Matthew and I will also make ready to depart four days hence. We must devise some means of exchanging news.” His glance brushed Randolph and moved to Ruth. “What training hast thou?” he said to her. “Canst read a message in the grasses, or the stones along thy way?”

  “Of a certainty I cannot,” said Ruth; she did not sound sorry.

  “No matter,” said Fence. “We will send by music. Laura, wilt thou bring thy flute?”

  “Yes,” said Laura, staring a little but seeming more pleased than otherwise.

  “Dost thou play also?” said Fence to Ruth.

  “Pretty well,” said Ruth. “On an ordinary flute.”

  “Excellent,” said Fence. “Celia, who goes north with us, will aid Laura, and before we depart also will instruct thee.”

  “On the subject of instruction,” said Celia, “we have brought somewhat. Edward, hand thy lady cousin the undermost book. ’Twere best she read it before the Green Caves are barred to her. Thou and Patrick will profit most from the scrolls and the blue books.”

  Ted slid the dusty volume from his stack and handed it down the table to Ruth. Its dark green cover was stamped in silver: The Book of the Seven Wizards. It sounded like something they would all have enjoyed reading, before they got into this mess.

  “Now,” said Fence. “If aught’s unclear to our visitors, let them ask us not to unmuddy them. And if aught’s unclear to you, Randolph, Celia, Matthew, ask now.”

  All of Ted’s relatives looked alarmed. He could at least postpone the inevitable. “Can you tell us,” he said, “the story of Shan?”

  “’Tis in the thicker blue book,” said Celia.

  So much for that.

  “Can you tell us,” said Celia, “of Andrew? This report of his spying mislikes me. What, as such, did he accomplish?”

  “Nothing,” said Ellen. “He was always thwarted.”

  “Was he so foolish, then?”

  “No,” said Ellen, “but he was wrong. He didn’t believe in magic.”

  “Which was a considerable handicap,” said Ruth dryly.

  “Fence,” said Matthew. “The antidote is hereby explained.”

  Celia said, “But how knew he one would kill the King?”

  “And who did so?” said Matthew, gloomily.

  Celia turned back to Ellen. “What hath Andrew yet to do?”

  “Nothing, I think,” said Ellen.

  “He betrayeth not this embassy?”

  “We don’t know,” said Ellen. “The embassy wasn’t in the game.”

  “How not?”

  Ted said quickly, “We ran out of time. It was September by then, and we had to go back to school.” It seemed to be the outsiders’ turn again, so he said, “What about Laura’s visions? They can’t really be a talent of her mother’s house.”

  “Did Princess Laura have visions?” said Laura.

  “She had dreams that would have grown so,” said Celia, “but was too young for visions.” She looked intently at Laura. “What age hast thou?”

  “Eleven,” said Laura.

  “The Lady Laura was but nine,” said Celia.

  Celia and Matthew looked at one another. Nobody said anything. Ted thought what a strain this must be for all of them, confronted with the lying doubles of children they knew in their minds, but surely not yet in their hearts, to be dead, and to have been dead for three months. Ted remembered Laura’s vision, that Claudia had buried the bodies in the cellar of the Secret House. But keep the wolf far thence, that’s foe to men, he thought, for with his nails he’ll dig them up again.

  Ted made a sharp movement, as if he had found a spider walking up his arm, and both Fence and Celia turned inquiring faces his way. “Fence,” he said, “Edward says to keep the wolf far thence, that’s foe to men, for with his nails he’ll dig them up again.”

  “That’s another spell of Shan’s,” said Fence.

  “But why’s it in the back of my head? Are Laura’s visions another manifestation of it?”

  “Have all of you this affliction? Hath Patrick?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Ted. “But it’s not words, with him. It’s muscle memory. All the prestidigitation.”

  “But not the bladework?” said Fence.

  “No. And Laura has the visions, but she can’t ride a horse.”

  “I don’t have much,” said Ellen. “The name of a flower, or knowing that the pies have bones in them.”

  “The devising of Melanie,” said Fence, “was that some dear to her, whom Shan had killed, should speak to his lightest thought, as do the unicorns in the places of their abiding.”

  “What’s Melanie got against us?” said Ellen.

  “Could Claudia have learned it from her?” said Ted.

  “Or from another,” said Fence. “Or it may be that, being so like your others, wearing their clothes, sleeping in their beds, answering to their names and observing all their ways with the very comment of your souls, that you be not found out, you are like enough to them that you hear them speaking. For sorcery makes nothing happen that may not happen left alone. It can turn a trickle to a sea; but there must first be a trickle.”

  “Your turn,” said Ellen.

  “In your game,” said Celia, “who did murder King William?”

  Ted’s whole interior recoiled like a snapped rubber band. Fence was actually managing to give Celia an admiring glance, as if to say he should have thought of that question himself. Randolph was extremely pale, but that wasn’t much of a change. Ellen looked thoroughly shocked, which would be good for her. Laura appeared to be going to say something, and Laura was not good at improvising.

  “It depended,” said Ted. This was just short of a lie; in the early days of the game, it had depended. “Sometimes,” said Ted, “it was Andrew; sometimes it was an evil castle magician that we got rid of later; and sometimes, when we got tired of the obvious, it was Randolph; and once it was Agatha, and—”

  “No profit there,” said Celia.

  “Well thought,” said Randolph, to the tabletop.

  “Our turn,” said Ellen, quickly. “Why didn’t breaking the Crystal of—”

  “What do you know about Claudia’s sorcery with the windows?” Ted overrode her loudly. It was, of course, too late. When people in the Hidden Land heard “breaking the Crystal,” there was only one interpretation they would give it.

  “Edward,” said Fence, in a less terrible voice than Ted had expected. “Tell the tale.”

  Ted felt put upon; why should he have to guess Patrick’s motives or, where he knew them, decide whether to betray them? But he told the story. The Crystal of Earth was no part of their original game, but Patrick had dreamed about it: a globe like a gigantic snowflake paperweight, which had a magic in it that, let loose, would destroy the Secret Country. Fence had confirmed this, more or less, by listing for them the three things that were dangerous to the Hidden Land: the Border Magic, the Crystal of Earth, the Whim of the Dragon. So on Midsummer’s Day, Patrick, infuriated by Fence’s taking from them the swords of Shan and Melanie, their only way home from this country, had decided that he would break the Crystal and set them all free. Ted had followed him to the North Tower, protesting. Patrick had broken the Crystal. And for the barest moment, they had seen home. Then they were back in a Secret Country none the worse for this wavering. They gathered all the colored fragments
up and hid them in Ruth’s room.

  Ted looked over at Fence’s intent face, and said, “There’s an awful lot Ruth didn’t think to tell you in that letter!”

  “Well, she was hard-pressed,” said Matthew.

  Fence said nothing, but only waited. Ted would have felt better if he had been angry. None of them looked angry. He supposed they were waiting for Patrick.

  “All right,” said Ted. “I noticed, during the Unicorn Hunt, that the ground in the Enchanted Forest sometimes feels like the magic swords—there’s that tingling. So I thought we should try standing there and changing things around, the way we used to do in the game. So I tried it, saying that Patrick and I had never practiced with the magical swords, and therefore you and Randolph took them not. And that didn’t work. But Laura said, ‘Let’s say Prince Patrick broke not the Crystal of Earth.’ And she felt the ground tingle. So we went back to Ruth’s room and looked in the towel; and all the fragments were gone. We went to the North Tower, and there was a floating globe, much larger than the one Patrick broke, and having inside it sparkles of all colors, but giving off a deep gold light like nothing I have seen. And that,” said Ted on the last of his breath, “is the tale of the Crystal of Earth.”

  “What appearance had the Forest, when this was done?” said Fence.

  “Very different from during the Hunt,” said Ted. “The hedge of roses had grown wild, and the stream was much deeper.”

  “But there were roses?” said Celia. “That was the true power of the unicorns, then, and not some meddling of Claudia’s.”

  “Okay, but why was what Patrick broke not the Crystal of Earth?” Even as he said the last few words, Ted realized what the answer was. “Because we were going to stand in the Enchanted Forest and say, ‘Let’s say Patrick broke not the Crystal of Earth,’ the Crystal of Earth wasn’t there for Patrick to break?”

  “What did he break?” said Laura. “Something happened when he did it.”

  “Now that may be some meddling of Claudia’s,” said Celia.

  Somebody rattled the door. Matthew got up and let Patrick in. Patrick was flushed, and his eyes gleamed. Ted realized that he was excited, not tired. The things that got Patrick excited were always either incomprehensible or troublesome.

  “Did it work?” said Ellen. “Where’s your watch?”

  “It worked,” said Patrick. “When I got back there, the watch said it was eight forty-five on June seventeenth. That’s when we left. But that’s not the half of it.” Patrick shoulde