Dragonborn (24 page)

“Why is he so important?”

She looked through the window, slender and tall like the one in her own room.

“Flaxfield was a great wizard,” she said. “He was our greatest
enemy. When he died, I should have been free of here. Because of the boy, I'm still a prisoner.”

“They still talk about Flaxfield at the College,” said Smedge. “But he's dead now.”

“Come to the window,” she said. “All that he had, all his strength and power, is with the boy now.”

Smedge remembered the clumsy apprentice who had caused such trouble in the College.

“Him?”

“He doesn't even know it himself,” she said.

“What about the girl, Tamrin?”

“Watch her,” she said. “When the weather breaks, you will go back. She is connected to him. We don't know how. But she is important. Keep watching her. If he is still lost, she will lead us to him.”

“She hates me,” said Smedge. “She won't tell me anything.”

“Then you must find another way with her. Understand?”

She left him then. The breath of the night wind brushed his face.

Out of sight, covered by the rim of the forest, Megatorine looked at the castle and saw the outline of the boy framed in the window.

The drear and naked branches arched above him, the melancholy, long roar of the wind in the trees. The snow stretched on forever.

“Time to go under,” he said. “He'll keep till spring.”

…

As the days passed, Sam grew stronger. They left the house sometimes, walking to the end of the road. Then, with the wolf following them, as far as the edge of town, and then to the fields beyond. Sam hobbled, his legs bent, back crooked, his shoulders hunched. The illness had damaged him badly. Progress anywhere was slow, but he could walk a long way now.

Then the night came when the wolf returned with snow in its fur. Sam and December went to the window and saw the soft flakes settling on the dark streets.

“It will soon be time for us to go,” said December.

“This is the worst weather for a journey,” said Sam.

“Which is why we must go soon,” she said. “Do you think they are not still looking for you?”

The wolf moved closer to Sam. The boy stroked him absently.

“Where are we going?”

December stirred the fire and settled the pot on the stove.

“That is your decision to make,” she said.

“I used to dream that I was flying,” he said.

December ladled a rich soup into bowls and cut slices of bread.

“We will travel by night,” she told him.

“Why are they looking for me?”

“It will be cold, but safer in the dark.”

“I miss Flaxfield,” said Sam. “It was all right till he died. I was safe then. No one was looking for me.”

“They have been looking for you all your life,” said December. “You just didn't know.”

Sam ate his soup, dipping the bread into it, spooning it to his mouth silently.

“Flaxfield hid you well,” she said.

“Why are they looking for me?”

December smiled. Sam was used to her smiles now, the thin lips, and he saw nothing strange in them.

“I thought you were looking for me,” he said, looking away.

“I was.”

“Why?”

“Not to hurt you.”

“Did you know Flaxfield?”

“In a way,” she said.

The wolf walked to the door and sat with his back to it.

“Where are we going?” asked Sam.

“You must decide.”

Sam looked over his shoulder at the tapestry.

“Is that a real place?”

He pointed to the inn.

“It is.”

“Then we'll go there.”

December took his dish. She washed it, put it away in the cupboard, covered the fire, and blew out the lamp.

“Get your cloak,” she said.

Sam was drowsy after the meal; he stared at her.

“We're going now.”

“Why?”

“I have been waiting for you to tell me where we are going. Now I know.”

Ash pursed her lips and swept her hand across the embers of a fire she had lit on the slate floor of her room. She swore. The folds of her gray dress were spread around her. A beetle scratched its way over her foot. She leaned forward, picked it up, and put it to her lips without thinking. She crunched it, sucked the soft pulp from inside, licked it clean, then dropped the empty husk into the remains of the fire.

Smedge pressed his elbows to his sides and looked away.

“I don't understand it,” she said. She wiped her forehead, leaving an ash-gray stripe over her eyes. “Look.”

Smedge couldn't interpret the magic the fire had produced for her.

“There are three of them,” said Ash. “The girl has disappeared. The dragon has disappeared, and the boy is in three places.”

“That can't be right,” said Smedge.

Ash wheeled around.

“Of course it isn't right,” she screamed.

Smedge's face exploded into a fountain of fire. Ash clicked her tongue in irritation. She let the fire burn for a few moments, watching Smedge flail his hands helplessly at the flames and hearing his screams, then she blew softly in his direction. The fire snuffed out in a second. Smedge was unharmed, but shaking from the pain and shock.

“I know it can't be right,” she said slowly. “But it is. No girl. No dragon. Three apprentice boys. What can we do now? How can I find him in three places?”

She paced the room.

“Not there. Not there. There and there and there.” She mumbled. She wrapped the gray robe around her face and pulled it tight.

“There. Not there. Not there. There. How?”

Smedge slipped out of the room, leaving her half-sobbing the questions to herself.

of Sam's lips. He had trouble keeping his mouth shut tight when he was making an effort.

Sam's crooked legs, his bent back, his pained steps slowed them down.

Hunched forward, he was too short for his cloak. It dragged behind him, slowing him more. The snow melted into it and weighed it down. His bag, which he had hauled on his shoulders all the way from Flaxfield's to the College and then on again to the mines, rolled off his rounded back, so he clutched it instead in his arms. December had tried to take it from him, to help. He snarled at her, and the smoke, which dribbled most of the time from his nostrils or the sides of his mouth, billowed out, hot, the gray giltedged.

They spoke little. Sam crept relentlessly on, ignoring the pain in his legs and back. He looked sideways often at December and saw her look away, pretending not to notice.

At night December used just a little magic to make two spaces for them where they could sleep, dry and warm, usually under trees, but sometimes in a ditch, diverting the sluggish green water away from them, covering them instead with fragrant air and soft, summer breezes.

She slept a little apart from Sam, who always slept with his arms around the wolf, his head lying on the gray fur.

It was at night, when he thought December was asleep, that Sam tried to cast a small spell.

He had done this twice in the house before they left. Once, to make the fire burn brighter when he was cold. Nothing happened. Then, he tried to give Tremmort a headache, out of spite, but the boy was bright as brass and Sam sulked.

He thought that once they were away from the mines it would be all right. He cast a searching spell, to see the road ahead of them for the next day. Nothing happened. He closed his eyes, expecting to see the road, the turns and hills, any dangerous banks or icy slopes. Nothing.

The next night, snug in the safety of December's spell, he attempted to clear a space in the clouds so that he could ask the stars what to do. The clouds spread in all directions, unmoved by his spell.

He clutched the bag to him harder than ever, fumbled inside it, and fell asleep.

A day came when they woke and the road was not there. The snow had fallen so heavily that all was covered.

December could have walked on, treading lightly over the
fine snow, hardly disturbing it. But Sam's steps were laborious, heavy. He sank with each step.

“I'll stay here,” he said.

“You'll die here if you stay. Come on.”

He was not many steps from death. His face was gray, his body shrunken. When he looked at December he saw her clearly. Looking into the distance he saw further than eyes could see.

And all the time now, like claws, his fingers scrabbled inside the bag. Was it there? Had he lost the notebook? It was there.

The wolf had been running in circles, its paws just breaking the snow. Now it leaped, landed, and ran without even denting the surface.

It stopped, turned its head, and, its long tongue lolling out, seemed to laugh at them.

“The hedgerow,” said December.

The snow was only a thin crust on the top of the thick hedgerow. It made a path they could walk on.

“We don't have much time,” said December. “Look at the sky.”

Low, gray clouds, full of more snow, spread over their heads like a tent.

Had Sam been able to cast a searching spell, he would have seen Eloise and Axestone, staring up at the same gray sky many miles away.

“Five more miles,” said Eloise.

“Or ten,” he answered. “Who knows for sure?”

“Or ten,” she agreed.

“There's only one way to find out.”

They trudged through the snow, wishing that magic could ease their way.

“Do you know what's happening to him?” asked Eloise.

“He's very sick.”

“Will he make it?”

Axestone shrugged.

“The winters are getting colder,” said Eloise. “I've never seen snow like this before.”

“The world is shifting,” he said. “Magic is different. Everything changes.”

“We need him to live,” she said.

“I'm doing what I can. There's one hope left. But it means he will not get to us until the spring.”

They walked a long way in silence. Eloise covered her face with her shawl to protect her from the driving wind, the sharp cold. Axestone let the wind cut his face. He was as one not there. Eloise left him to his work.

They turned a corner. Trees that had blocked the view of the road ahead were on their left now, and they could see, a mile or more away, a small group of houses, an inn, and smoke rising from the chimney pots.

“We're here,” said Eloise.

The sky began to release the snow that had weighed the clouds all day. Axestone lifted the hood of his cloak.

“And here we stay,” he said. “Longer than we would like.”

Eloise agreed that the wait would be hard, but as she pushed open the door of the inn and saw inside, she was glad to be there.

A fire blazed in the hearth, its glow lighting the glaze on the blue and white plates on the shelves. The copper pans gleamed. Armchairs opened their hands to receive them. Five oak tables with oak chairs around them stood ready to support tureens of soup, platters of roast meats, dishes of turnips and cabbage, mugs of beer and wine, pastries and puddings. The stone floor was as clean as quartz.

“Welcome,” said a soft voice.

They greeted with hugs, as old friends do.

“It will be a long winter,” said Eloise.

“He is nearly there,” said Axestone. “Nearly safe.”

He looked around the cosy room.

“But not as well-provided as us. There is still hardship ahead for him.”

“Hardship enough to kill,” said Eloise.

The wolf had disappeared far ahead of them, leaving its tracks in the snow to mark the line of the hedgerow.

Sam's knees were drenched where he dragged them, bent-legged and painful. His hands were never still, stroking the cover of his notebook. His finger ends picked at the metal clasp, making a crisscross of tiny cuts. His lips moved constantly. He no longer tried to hide from December his attempts to make a spell, any
spell. He wondered if it was worth staying alive any longer, whether he would ever recover enough to be any use. It would be better to die alone in the snow.

She put her hand under his arm, leading him. He had shaken her off before. This time he allowed it. Stumbling, half-blind from the glare of the snow, he muttered and fumbled in his bag. When the wolf returned, he did not see it. Did not see the pitched roof of the cottage, the thin smoke from the chimney, the drifts of snow against the walls that half hid it from all view. Did not know that the little food the crofter and his wife had stored for the winter was scarcely enough for two of them, certainly not for four. Did not know that they did not even hesitate to offer their hospitality, though they knew it would put their own lives at risk, that they would rather starve together than send this frightening woman and the mad boy out into the snow to die.

He slept for most of the time they spent there. December cooked and cleaned to earn their keep. At first the woman begged her to be sparing with their small supply of food, to make it last as long as possible. After ten days, perhaps twelve, the woman noticed that the cheese in the larder never grew less. The bacon joint never grew smaller. The pile of logs in the wood store by the fireplace never seemed to need replenishing. The crock of flour was as full as ever, the milk in the churn as fresh, the butter as wholesome and not rancid.

She whispered this to her husband, just before they fell asleep.

“Leave it be,” he advised.

“I'm frightened of her,” she said.

“That face would frighten anyone,” he agreed. “But we are eating well, and we are warm. If she stays, then we will see the winter through safely, and that's more than I would have thought a week or two ago. Go to sleep.”

“But what about that boy?”

“He'll die here, and we'll bury him in the spring,” he said, “when the ground's soft enough to dig.”

They slept well.