The Dragon's Lair

  "I don't see anything," Ven said. He unbuttoned his shirt pocket, careful not to let anything fall out, and pulled out his jack-rule. He extended the far-seeing lens and looked through it.

  Beneath the rolling gray and white clouds of ash and smoke he could make out many small figures in the distance. They were wearing what appeared to be straw hats like Tuck, the king, and the farmers of Westland wore to keep the sun off their faces. In each of their hands were dry cornstalks, at the tip of which Ven could see a tiny flame burning. They seemed to be setting fire to the grass at the base of the ground.

  "What are those Gwadd doing?" he asked Tuck.

  "They are clearing the natural brush of the fields by burning it," the Lirin forester replied. "It's a fast, though not always smart, way to turn scrub into plantable soil. But those aren't Gwadd—they're humans."

  Ven glanced over at Amariel. She was humming to herself. "Relax," he whispered to her.

  The merrow blinked. "Why? Do I seem nervous?"

  Ven stared at her. "Actually—no," he admitted. "Did you hear what Tuck said? Those people are humans."

  "Yes, I heard him."

  The hairs on the back of Ven's neck started to prickle. "And that doesn't worry you?"

  Amariel shrugged.

  "What's the matter with humans?" Ida demanded crossly.

  Saeli held up her hand.

  "Don't belong here," she whispered. "Where—where are the Gwadd?"

  Silence fell over the wagon, until nothing could be heard but the clopping of the horses' hooves as they danced in place, the squeaking of the wheels and the rattling of the boards.

  "What do you mean, Saeli?" Char asked finally. "Are ya sayin' the Gwadd are missin'?"

  The little girl peered into the distance, then nodded sadly.

  "Maybe they're inside the buildings, eating noon-meal?" Clem offered hopefully.

  Saeli shook her head.

  "Buildings too big," she said in her strange voice. "Gwadd would never feel comfortable in them."

  "Oh dear," Clem whispered to Ven. "Where are the Gwadd? Where's Saeli's family?"

  "I have no idea," Ven said. "But whatever is happening here, I'm not liking it."

  The Lirin forester clicked to the horses.

  "Let's go find out what's going on here," Tuck said. The children settled down in the back in a nervous silence and stared over the side of the wagon as it descended the swale into the valley below.

  As the farm grew closer, the buildings seemed to grow larger. The rows of corn went on for miles, standing pale and straight against the sun.

  Just as they came to the floor of the valley, the door of one of the houses in the center of the pasturelands opened, and a pleasant-looking human man came out, smiling. He waved to the wagon, then approached it in a friendly manner.

  "Hullo, folks!" he said merrily. "The name's Clovis. How can I help you all today?"

  "Hello," said Ven. "We're looking for the Gwadd—but we don't see any. Are these not the Gwaddlands?"

  Clovis looked surprised.

  "Goodness, no," he said. "There haven't been Gwadd here in a very long time, years, at least."

  "Where did they go?" Char demanded. "What happened to 'em?"

  The man's pleasant smile faded a bit.

  "I've no idea," he said shortly. "This is a human settlement now. I've never even seen a Gwadd. I don't even know what one looks like."

  "It's a lovely place you have here," said Clemency quickly before either boy could speak again. "Perfectly tended—and very pretty."

  Clovis's smile returned.

  "Thank you so much," he said, sounding pleased. "We work very hard to keep it shining. Would you like a tour?"

  "Absolutely," said Clem quickly. "But I think I'm going to stay here and nap a bit, if nobody minds." She stretched lazily and then pulled the horse blanket up over her shoulders, hiding Saeli beneath it as well.

  Char and Ven immediately understood.

  "Thank you very much," Ven added. "We'd love to see this pretty place. Come on, mates, let's take the tour."

  Char and Ida got out of the wagon, followed a moment later by Ven and Amariel. They fell in line behind Clovis, who took them proudly around the pastures that were each perfectly planted in the vegetable assigned to them, without so much as a wildflower growing out of place. He walked them along the long rows of spectacular corn, each stalk the same size as all the others around it. He let them stop and offered them a drink at a sparkling stream, which they politely declined, took them around to the Fairy Forts, the tall, leafy trees that upon closer inspection seemed to be braided with razor wire through their branches.

  "Why are they called Fairy Forts?" Char wondered aloud.

  "Oh, when we cleared each field we left a single tree to serve as home to the fairies that live in that field," Clovis said, running his hand proudly across the tops of the stalks and smoothing out the cornsilk in each of them. "The presence of the fairies brings luck and good fortune to the field."

  "That's interesting," said Ven.

  "It's really just an old superstition," said Clovis. "Of course there are no such things as fairies."

  "How I wish that was true," Char whispered to Ven.

  "They use razor wire to keep the nonexistent fairies in," Ven whispered back. "This place scares me."

  "Would you like to see the cows?" Clovis asked Amariel sweetly. Amariel looked at Ven in confusion. Ven nodded quickly, so Amariel did as well. "Good," Clovis said. "The cow houses are back here."

  "Cow houses?" Ida muttered under her breath.

  "Wire in trees," said Char. "Don't think too hard about it—you'll hurt your head."

  They followed Clovis into a stand of long white buildings with small, rectangular windows. Inside each of the buildings

  were many black and white spotted cows side by side in pens, quietly chewing their cud or chomping hay. Ida wrinkled up her nose at the smell and hurried to the other end of the building past Clovis and out the door.

  "Are you thirsty?" Clovis asked as they came outside near a large shelf on which many bright metal milk cans were standing.

  "A little," Ven admitted.

  "Ah! Well, I have just the thing for you, then," said Clovis. He took five gleaming mugs off the shelf, unscrewed the top of a milk can and poured the silky white contents into each of them.

  "Drink up," he said, taking one and doing so.

  The children looked at each other, then each took a drink.

  It's hard to explain how it tasted. It wasn't bad, really, but there was something just not right about it. It was not too sour, or too sweet, it was just, well, wrong.

  They placed their empty mugs on the shelf next to Clovis's. "Sun's going down," Clovis said, shielding his eyes. "We'll be having supper soon and turning in for the night. Where are you young folks heading?"

  "We're never sure," said Char.

  Clovis nodded. "Well, if you're looking for a place to stay for the night, you are more than welcome in the bunkhouse here. Supper's good and filling, and the price is right—you just have to help with the washing afterward. You kids aren't allergic to good, honest work, are you?"

  "Not at all, sir," said Ven.

  "Define 'honest,' " said Ida.

  "Thank you for the invitation," said Char quickly. "We'd love ta stay." He shot Ida a vicious glance.

  "Why don't you go get your friends in the wagon?" Clovis suggested. "I'll show you the dining hall and the bunkhouse. You can get something to eat and make yourselves comfortable."

  "Did you notice the spots on those cows?" Char asked Ven under his breath as they headed back to the wagon. "They were all exactly the same," Char said. "Not a little bit, but exactly, as if it were the same cow, over and over."

  "What do you think about this place, Tuck?" they asked the forester when they returned to the wagon.

  "Do you think it's evil?" Ven added.

  The forester exhaled. He looked around the farm from west to east, then shook his head. br />
  "Can't say for sure, but I don't think so," he said. "There's something wrong here, as Saeli said, but I have no idea what it is. It's not the sort of place Lirinved would stay—but that doesn't make it evil."

  "What do you think happened to the Gwadd?" Clemency asked.

  The forester shook his head. "I don't know, but we can keep looking. It won't hurt if we are heading north to the Nain lands anyway."

  They had their fill of a generous supper, once again noting the while the corn was beautiful, it was paler and duller tasting than they were used to. Clemency even took some out to Saeli, who was still hiding in the wagon, but the little girl shook her head violently and refused all food.

  After they had finished washing up they snuck Saeli and the keekee into the bunkhouse with them, hiding them in Clemency's pack, and settled down for the night. The bunks were comfortable and clean, and Ven fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.

  His dreams were grand and warm. He was on the deck of the Angelia, the ship that his father had built and he had accidentally sunk trying to fend off a Fire Pirate attack. But now the ship was whole again, and all the crew alive and well. He sat on a barrel with them amidships and ate delicious apple fritters and sang thrilling sea chanteys until morning crept in at the window, spilling a beam of dusty light onto the floor.

  He had finally gotten a good night's sleep.

  It was the last he would have for a while.

  15

  The Hidden Valley

  THE NEXT MORNING THE CHILDREN AND TUCK SAID A PLEASANT IF nervous farewell to Clovis, got back in the wagon, ready to continue northward toward the lands of the Nain.

  "Are you certain you wouldn't like to stay and work?" Clovis asked, disappointed. "We have all the land west to the Great River, and a good deal of the Wide Meadows to the east. It's a pleasant life, it really is."

  "Thank you, but no," said Clemency. "We really must be on our way, but we do appreciate your hospitality."

  "Come back anytime," Clovis said as they got into the wagon.

  "Excuse me—by any chance, have you heard anything about a dragon in these parts?" Ven asked as Tuck took his seat on the wagon board.

  "Don't be ridiculous." Clovis said. "There are no dragons—it's just superstition."

  "Well, thank you anyway."

  Once they had departed, they slowed and consulted Saeli, who was pale and wan.

  "Where to now?" Tuck asked Ven. "Shall we head for the foothills of the High Reaches?"

  The companions nodded except for Saeli, who shook her head violently.

  "What do you want to do instead, Saeli?" Ven asked gently. "I know you must be very upset, but Clovis didn't think there had been Gwadd around here for years. Are you certain this is the place your family came from?"

  Saeli nodded grimly.

  "The Wide Meadows might be an easy place to mistake," Char added. "How many miles of highgrass did we plow through that all looked the same? Maybe our compass is off, maybe we are just missin' it by a few miles."

  The little girl shook her head.

  "You might not know this, having lived your whole life on the sea, Char, but when you grow up in a place where your family farms, you never forget that land," Clemency said. "Especially the Gwadd. I came from a town near the source of the Great River, but my family got to know a lot of Gwadd as they portaged their grain, their fruits and vegetables downriver. They're the ones who taught me to speak to and see the Spice Folk, by the way. There is no mistaking it when they live in a place—they are a gentle people who love the land, and it shows. If Saeli says this is where her family once lived, I'm sure she's right."

  "Then what should we do?" Ven asked sadly.

  Saeli thought for a moment, then pointed to the ground. Tuck slowed the horses to a halt. The Gwadd girl got out of the back of the wagon, followed by the others. She stared at the highgrass, concentrating.

  After a few moments, it seemed to Ven that the grass was beginning to wither, or at least to shrink back into the earth. As Saeli continued to concentrate, he was certain of it.

  A large, kidney-shaped area of the grass all but disappeared, leaving nothing but a barely green stain on the ground. Then, before their eyes, it began to reappear, but in various heights, showing hills and swales, hummocks and pits.

  In the far west of the grass-map a wide swath of forget-me-nots swelled forth from the ground and burst into vibrant blue, painting a ribbon that ran north-south in tiny blossoms.

  "What is that, Saeli?" Clemency asked.

  Saeli continued to concentrate. "Great River," she whispered.

  Ven looked to the west, then to the north, calibrating the boundaries.

  "She's drawing a map," he said aloud, mostly to Amariel, Char and Ida. Tuck was already watching intently.

  The areas that had appeared to be pits a moment before swelled with blue myrtle, taking on the resemblance of ponds. Ven looked east and saw one large one in the middle of a nearby meadow that closely matched its counterpart on the map. He kept watching, fascinated, as Saeli continued to call forth flowers and grasses in shades of blue, yellow, silver and green indicating copses of trees, wagon paths, and streams.

  Finally, some tiny sprigs of heather emerged, tucked away beneath taller green grass that appeared to be a hillside. It looked like a soft purple shadow dotted here and there with tiny dabs of brightly colored wildflowers that Ven could not place a meaning to. He looked to the north, where a hill crested toward the morning sky, and saw that the topography looked exactly the same.

  "Is that this hill?" he asked Saeli.

  The Gwadd girl nodded excitedly.

  Ven pointed to the purple shadow. "And what's this?"

  Saeli stared north at the hillside.

  "Hidden Valley," she whispered.

  "There's a hidden valley in the lee of that hillside?" Tuck asked.

  Saeli nodded again.

  "Do you want to look for your family there?"

  Yet another nod.

  "It's on the way north to the foothills where the Nain settlements are," said Tuck. "We can head in that direction and see if we can find it."

  The children piled back in the wagon as the highgrass grew rapidly again, blotting out any sign that the map had ever been there.

  The journey now was less quiet, less reserved. Saeli seemed hopeful, almost happy, but Amariel was strangely silent. She sat in the back of the wagon and stared out behind her at the wake they were making in the highgrass.

  By noon-meal they were in the shadow of the hillside, so they did not stop to eat, but passed apples and carrots around the wagon, sharing them with Tuck and the horses.

  "So Ven, what's the chance that Clovis is right?" Char asked as they cleaned up the apple cores and carrot tops. "Maybe it is just superstition. Is it possible that the fires didn't come from a dragon at all, but from these bloody idiots burnin' the brush to clear out the farmland?"

  "That's possible," Ven admitted. "I hope you're right. That might make the Nain problem a lot easier to solve for the king—too easy, I bet."

  "Yeah, prolly," Char agreed.

  Tuck cleared his throat. "I think we're at the edge of the purple shadow, are we not, Saeli?"

  Ven turned to look at the Gwadd girl. Her tiny, heart-shaped face was shining, and the long, caramel-colored braid that hung down her back bobbed excitedly in agreement.

  "Can we get there by wagon?"

  Saeli shook her head.

  Tuck sighed and let the horses bring the cart to a slow stop.

  "All right, then," he said. "Anyone staying behind, or shall I shelter them?"

  Ven looked around. The other children were shaking their heads, indicating they wanted to come, all except the merrow. She was staring placidly at the sky, as if she were thinking.

  "Amariel? Are you coming?" he asked.

  "I'd be happy to."

  "Well, that's a change," sneered Ida. "You ain't been happy to do anything the entire time we've been away."

&nb
sp; "Leave her alone," Ven said. He stood up and made his way to the back of the wagon, opened the gate, and held out his hand to the merrow. She allowed him to help her down from the wagon.

  "Thank you," she said as she stepped into the grass.

  "Whoa," said Char. "Are you sure she's all right, Ven?" Char had stopped trying to help her down even before they crossed the Great River, because Amariel had threatened to bite him.

  Without thinking, Ven's hand went to his shirt pocket. He felt for and found the outlines of the Black Ivory sleeve and the jack-rule, heard the slight rustle of a handkerchief, then nodded, relieved.

  "She's fine," he said, helping Saeli out of the wagon next. "Who else is coming?"

  Clem, Char, and Ida climbed down. They followed Tuck and Saeli on an almost invisible path down the windward face of the hillside into its lee, the place where the wind did not touch.

  The path Saeli was following switched back and forth in both east and west directions, crossing with other grassy paths that had Ven completely confused by the time they got to a fork in the pathway. He glanced down at Saeli and saw that the greengold high grass had subtly changed color to a soft purple, due to the heather that was now mixed into it. This must be the purple shadow she drew for us in flowers, he realized.

  Finally, Saeli stopped directly at a place in the hillside that was overgrown completely with ivy. She knocked in the air as if she were knocking on a door.

  The ivy shriveled before their eyes, looking now like a hanging curtain.

  Saeli drew the curtain back, smiling, and held it open for her friends to enter.

  One by one, they stepped through. As he did, Ven caught his breath.

  Below them stretched a beautiful, lush valley dotted with bright patches of wildflowers in every possible color. The air beyond the ivy curtain was sweet, as if it had rained recently, and the perfume of flowers hung heavy in it. Trees, both great and small, grew randomly throughout the rich green grasslands. A silver-blue river trickled through the valley, sparkling and laughing as it went.

  A shaft of afternoon sunlight filtered down from above, giving the little valley a drowsy feel.