Eleanor rested her palms on my face. “Agawin, brave boy, listen to me. A hundred years ago, what you are saying might have been possible. But there are too many tales now of dragons being cruelly mistreated by men. Galen will not come to your aid. He will flame you as readily as he would burn Voss. All the creature wants is to die in peace.”
“It can die when Grella is safe,” I said. “What peace will it have with Voss on its trail?”
I moved for the door but she blocked me again.
“Very well. If I cannot stop you, let me tell you what little I know about dragons and give you two things that might help you in your quest.” She walked to the wall and pulled down a tapestry. It showed a truly magnificent dragon, as monstrous and terrifying as it was stunning. “This is Grella’s favorite. She says it is a queen.”
A female. The fiercest of all dragonkind. On the bottom of the tapestry the girl had stitched a name. Gawaine. “How does she know this beast?”
Eleanor lifted her shoulders. “She claims they are real in her mind. They come to her on the wings of time. I’ve never known what she means by that, but perhaps this queen will be a charm to Galen. Take it. Keep it near to your heart. Pray that it brings you strength.”
“And the second thing?”
She walked to the fireplace and reached for the bow. She fetched arrows as well in a sling for my shoulder. “The swiftest way to Kasgerden is through the Skoga forest. But you must swear to me you will not enter that place.”
“Voss has cleared it of skogkatts,” I said. But the moment those words were out of my mouth my new sense of being questioned their validity. After the deceit in the motested, why should I believe any of Hilde’s claims?
“Use the edge of the forest as a guide,” Eleanor said. “Keep it on your right hand and it will eventually lead you to a pathway up the mountain. The peak is well hidden till the final climb, but by the time you see its point against a clear sky, the dragon will know you are there.
“If you travel without sleep, you will reach the first trees by morning. After that, you have no more than two days to catch up with Voss. A dying dragon likes to wait until the moon is fully round before it commits itself to Gaia. The moon is almost at that stage. Voss will strike when the dragon is at its weakest, shortly before it closes its eye. My guess is they have taken Grella to calm it.”
“With her lullaby?”
“Yes. She will be of no use to them when it’s done.”
“I’ll find her,” I said as a tear began to bloom in Eleanor’s eye.
I turned and lifted the door latch.
“Wait,” she said. “One more thing.” She hurried back to the fireside again and opened a small, decorative box, the kind women used for personal things. She returned, rubbing her fingers in a pot of waxy lotion. She pushed back the sleeve of my robe and rubbed some into my wrist.
It had already disappeared into my skin before I asked her, “What is this?”
“A scent.”
She saw my gaze narrow.
“Don’t worry. It will not give you away to Voss. Only a Taan could detect it. It will last for three days. If you should get close enough to Grella, she will recognize it and know that help is at hand.”
With that, she kissed my head and let me go.
I ran at a steady pace all night, guided by the moon and the shape of the mountain. Beyond the borders of the settlement the farmlands divided into fields of crops or open grassland grazed by sheep. I followed the paths the Taan had made, crossing the earth like a silent wave, flowing forward but never pulling back. For every steep hill there was a gentle valley. For every wayward bend another course that ran true. Even when the river curled its tail across me I was able to meet it at its shallowest point and skip across the boulders that sat up in its bed. And when the rain came to soften and puddle the ground I was nimble across it, too swift to be stopped. Yolen would have been proud of me.
But he would have been puzzled, too. Yes, I was young and able-bodied and naturally adapted to the land we inhabited, but I was a boy with limited endurance. How, he would have asked, could I have run until dawn?
The answer lay back in Brunne’s krofft. As my feet beat their rhythm against the earth, I began to feel that I was not alone. Whatever had attached itself to my mind was cleverly adjusting the potential of my body to keep my heart pumping and my lungs filled with air. All I had to do was focus my intent. The forest, by morning, I kept saying to myself. And my “companion” strived to accomplish the task. Only if I tried to think too much did my muscles start to burn and my knees begin to ache.
But I had to know what Brunne had passed to me. So, as the morning light approached and the trees began to come within hailing distance, I dipped a little deeper into my mind. This is what I learned.
“What are you?” I asked.
My right thigh twinged, but only for a moment.
We are Fain, they said. I felt them in my head like a gentle breeze. Like a cloud of twinkling stars. Alive.
“Are you my enemy?”
No.
“Then why are you inside me? What do you want?”
We seek the fire of the dragon, they said.
“You are hunting fraas?”
No. We would be one with the beast.
“To kill it?”
To die with it and live again.
This sent my thoughts into a rapid spin and I felt the sharp taste of exhaustion in my mouth. The creatures said, You must concentrate, Agawin. You must follow your intent.
I looked up at the mountain and remembered my quest. Grella. Voss. Galen the dragon. With each of these thoughts, a fresh burst of energy surged through my body. “Show yourself,” I said.
We cannot, said the Fain. We have no form except that we inhabit. When we are bound to your form, men call themselves “Premen.” We were Brunne. Now we are Agawin. We can roam freely if we wish.
“I am Premen now?”
Yes.
My heart thumped against my chest. Premen. What would Yolen make of that?
“Where are you from? Are you even of this world?”
My rhythm picked up. I was smoother now. The Fain swarmed in and out of my memories. We were like you once.
“A boy?”
Human. We evolved and detached. We are thought without form.
The first tall spikes of the forest loomed up. I adjusted my course to keep them on my right.
We are consciousness, pure.
“Then why have you attached again — to Brunne and to me?”
Why not, in fact, attach to the dragon?
Although my thought was simply that — a thought, the Fain beings read it with ease. We seek illumination, but the dragon’s fire alone is not enough. The human form must also be present.
And what would be the result, I wondered, when men and Fain and dragon came together?
Their reply was swift. Perfection, they said.
Sunlight flickered across the land. I was scurrying upward now, over a bed of bald earth and shale. To the east, nestled in the hollow of the hills, I could see the great lake of Varlusshandaan gleaming like a frozen eye. Farther north ran the wild reindeer herds that dragons of old had poached from sometimes. Was that another reason Galen was here? I listened for his roar but heard nothing other than my constant footfalls. The only sense truly alive in me was smell. In the clarity of morning the pine resin was so fresh it made my nostrils dance. At any other time I would have been lifted up like a feather. For there was nothing to touch the raw beauty of the stone and the swathes of green earth that served it — and the pines. This was Kasgerden in all its glory. But all I could think of as I finally stopped running and rested my hand against the first tall tree was the object of my journey, the warrior Voss. Brunne’s words were coming back like whispers. Voss is in the grip of a shadow. It wields him, not the other way about. Bending double I said to the Fain, “Do you speak through Voss as well?”
They buzzed and circled around my mind. Voss is tain
ted, they said. There is Fain within him. A dark form. The Ix.
And there, all hopes of perfection burst. So there were beings, just as powerful as the Fain, that would use dragons and unicorns and innocent humans in the pursuit of evil?
We must triumph, said the Fain.
“That we must,” as Rune might have said. That we must.
Tiredness had swamped my body by now. But I moved on, following the edge of the forest, this time keeping to a walking pace and taking water at regular intervals. I could see what Eleanor had meant about this trail. The general curve of the trees would bring me to the rockiest side of Kasgerden; already I could see its famous gray scarps. But the slope here, though it still required climbing, was the choice of the novice. I had once heard Yolen say that this approach was like “scaling a giant who had laid his hand, palm up, on the ground.” For a nimble boy, aided by the Fain, it would be easy. But it would not be quick.
And the lure of the trees was profound. The pines had stood for many thousands of years, their secrets as dense as their thickening number. Sensing my desire to test the maze, the Fain counseled that to travel through the trees was quicker but the likelihood of going astray very great. Then there were the skogkatts, of course. Even supposing there was only one wildkatt for every two hundred trees, that would still be a multitude for Voss to have cleared. Something told me the katts were in there still. Maybe looking back at me. Waiting. Keen.
I put aside any thoughts of temptation. But as I adjusted my bow against my shoulder I saw something that changed my mind. A strand of blue thread was clinging to the bark of a nearby tree. I snatched it up.
Horses have entered the forest, said the Fain.
I looked at the bracken. I had never learned how to track a horse; I had never had any reason to. A hunting man, one of the Horste, perhaps, might have deduced from the breakage of twigs that the pattern could only have been made by hooves. But what I saw among the needles was not a row of prints but a small trail of horse dung, relatively fresh. Voss and his men had been here.
I stepped into the forest. The Fain inside me buzzed.
“Help me look for more thread,” I whispered. If they had gone through on foot, maybe Grella had left a trail. The Fain, I could tell, were wary of the venture. Nevertheless, I felt a slight pinch in my eyes and the light in the forest seemed a little less dim. Straightaway, I spotted another piece of thread, ten trees farther in, positioned about waist height off the ground. I crept forward and took it. The same blue as before. Clever, clever Grella.
The forest breathed. A needle fell and made me look up. High above, in the few chinks of blue I could see, the points of the trees were ticking to the west. Suddenly, the bracken rustled. I quickly stepped back. My footfall made a crunch that could have been heard a small field away, but the bow was off my shoulder and loaded and ready. I had aimed at every possible gap in the trees before I realized the “rustlers” were only mice.
I closed on them, still tensing the bow. When they saw me, they scattered in all directions. Some seemed to leap from a shadowy hole at the base of a tree. As I drew near, I saw that the hole was an open carcass, festering and partly eaten away. An arrow was lodged between a set of dried ribs. The skull was stripped and the eyes removed. What was left of this unfortunate creature was covered in matted, blood-stained fur. It was a skogkatt. Several hours dead.
I lowered my bow and put the arrow back. So there was some truth in the motested story. Voss had been here, killing the katts on his shortcut to the dragon. And Grella, in her way, had recorded it.
Now I felt impelled to follow their path. So I hunted the markers with greater enthusiasm, but much less caution. And I learned two things about Voss in the process: that he was brutal — but above all, cunning.
I came upon three more threads and another dead katt before the trail spilled me into a small clearing, just a circular patch of ground no greater in width than Yolen’s cave. I saw another thread on the far side of the circle and ran to pick it off. There was more, clinging to the neighboring tree. I picked it and saw another next to that. And another next to that. I turned and looked around the clearing.
There was blue on every tree.
My heart thumped.
The first skogkatt scuttled down a pine to my left, moving so fast he seemed almost weightless. His brown fur blended so well with the forest that all I could target was the sound of his claws. As I raised my bow, he spiraled around the dark side of the tree. My arrow whistled with murderous intent, nicking the bark and skewing away tamely without tasting blood. By then, the scratch of their claws was everywhere. At least one katt to every tree. And in the gaps at ground level, deadly green stars. A sea of eyes moving toward me. I was doomed.
Lay down your bow, said the Fain.
I was afraid to. I clung to it. Turning like a madman. Target to target. “Can we outrun them?”
Unlikely.
“Climb?”
They are tree dwellers, Agawin.
And the ground would be unforgiving if I fell.
Withdraw your weapon. They may show you mercy.
And kill me quickly? Without hindrance — or mess?
I rested my aim on the leading katt. It was three times the size of any other I had seen. Brown, as most of the skogkatts were, with streaks of black running through his thick fur. His ears were tufted, in the way of some owls. The intense green eyes were exquisitely savage. As he squatted down, ready to spring at me, I could have put an arrow right between those eyes. One last act of cruel defiance. But I went the way of the Fain instead. I fired my arrow into the ground.
Noble. But pointless.
The attack came, not from the front, but from a katt I could not see, to my rear. The Fain, which seemed to have awareness in all directions, warned me and I turned to meet the creature as he leaped. He wasn’t heavy, but the shock of the impact made me stumble backward. I fell to the forest floor, using the arch of the bow as a shield. A paw flashed forward, eager to shred any part of my face. Several times I felt the draft as his claws passed my throat. If I had been in any doubt about the sharpness of those hooks I had only to look at my weakened bowstring, shredded at one end to a spider line. The katt hissed and showed me his fangs. They were as terrifying as anything I’d imagined on a dragon. I knew I could not hold this creature off for long. But as he lunged once again I saw a slim chance to gain an advantage. I moved the bow and let the katt’s head poke between the arch and the string. The stink of raw meat from his gullet was foul, but in less than the time it took to blink I had the string around the katt’s neck, looped in a twist. I paid for my courage with a claw that ripped a stream of hot blood from my arm. But as I pulled on both sides of the bowstring, snapping it, the creature squealed and I was able to roll with him. I had the skogkatt on his back and I could strangle him at will. The other katts knew it. They stopped their advance.
“I wish you no harm!” I cried out. “But I have no desire to die here today!”
The katt grizzled in fury and kicked a leg. I tightened my grip. The skogkatt gurgled and rested his body in surrender. The other skogkatts, I noticed, exchanged hurt glances.
They are intelligent, said the Fain.
“What does that mean?” I hissed. In the short time I’d had these beings in my head I had come to know how to be irritated by them. Were they my ally or just interested spectators? That question seemed to have been fearfully answered when, in the next instant, my mind went blank and I realized the Fain had gone.
But they had not deserted me. I saw one of the skogkatts throwing his head from side to side and leaping about as if all his fleas had bitten at once. The spectacle lasted just a few moments. Then with a sudden zing of awareness, I felt the Fain come back.
They recognize your victory. They do not wish to see a sacrifice. The katt you are holding down is a favorite. His mate was killed by Voss. This is why he alone attacked. Hold up your wrist. The one without the blood.
“Why?”
Let them scent Grella.
The Taan lotion. I did as commanded and waved my wrist. My arm tingled and I sensed that the Fain had loosened Eleanor’s potion right across the clearing. Every skogkatt nose began to twitch. “I seek this girl!” I shouted. “Where is this girl?”
The katts sniffed on.
They do not understand your words, said the Fain, but your intent is mixed with the auma of the scent. They know now that you are not like Voss.
But there was a better way to prove it. I glanced down at the ailing skogkatt and released him.
The skogkatt jumped to his feet with more energy than I would have credited. He, too, had got the scent from Taan in its nostrils. As more of his companions swarmed to him to gratefully rub cheeks, the skogkatt looked me up and down and burbled at me.
“Can we speak to him?” I asked the Fain.
We will adapt your voice, they said.
I felt movement in the muscles of my throat.
Speak again, said the Fain. Tell them who you are.
“I am Agawin,” I said to the katts, though it sounded to my ears like a meaningless rasp.
Every one of them pricked their tufted ears. Dozens of green eyes grew in size. A rare and rather beautiful sight.
The katt I had battled with padded forward. He tilted his head and observed me carefully. Then he switched his gaze to my arm and ran his tongue all along the wound. He cleared the blood, but left a trail of syrupy fluid behind.
Do not cleanse it, said the Fain. There are healing qualities in his saliva. This is a mark of respect.
“I am Tryst,” said the katt. He raised a proud head. “You fought well — for a human child.”
But I was more than a child. I was Premen now. Human and Fain, commingled together. I felt the Fain swarming around my wound. Examining. Learning. Spectating again. The entire scratch was burning like fury. Even so, I resisted the temptation to wipe it. “I was betrayed, as you were. We are not enemies.”
I heard the skogkatts growling one name: “Voss.”