The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet (22 page)

She sees the healer, Linden, paler than the torn strips of muslin in her hands. She stumbles with exhaustion as she bends among the wounded. Against the central stone well, one of the redheaded twins, Margit’s daughters, sits rocking the other in her lap, weeping silently. In the deeper shadow of an old maple tree, two frail shrouded bundles lie side by side.

“Oh, Lily,” Erde whispers. “What has happened?”

But she already knows. She was there in the ruined farmstead. “Where’s Rose? Where’s Raven?”

“Raven is with Rose,” says Lily. “Come, I’ll take you.”

“Yes. No, wait! Let me call in the dragon. He can help. Remember how he saved N’Doch.”

Linden looks up in stunned relief as Earth’s great bronzy
bulk appears in an empty stretch of lawn. It hadn’t looked nearly big enough to Erde before she sent him the image, but either her eye didn’t measure well, or the space itself has expanded to suit. Erde hurries over and grasps Linden’s hands. The healer’s eyes are raw. She’s thin to the point of wasting. Her grip is still firm, yet Erde feels as if she’s holding the woman up by the strength of her own arms.

“Dear Linden, help has arrived. How long have you been without rest?”

“I hardly know anymore. This time, a few days, maybe more.” Linden’s voice is faint, as if she barely has breath to speak. Behind her, the weeping twin gently lays her sister down on the grass, and Erde understands the hard glint in Margit’s eyes, and why she stayed outside.

“We’ll hope it’s not too late,” she tells Linden. “It won’t be too late! Lord Earth will do all he can!”

Luther watches silently from the dragon’s side. Erde beckons him over. “This is Luther Williams. He’s seen some hard times, too. He can help carry the wounded, but he doesn’t speak our language. I’ll help, too, after I’ve seen Rose.”

“Yes. You must see Rose. I’m so glad you’re back.” Linden offers Luther her hand. His earnest and obvious compassion draws from her a wan smile of welcome. “Come with me, please.”

Luther nods and follows the healer briskly across the grass. He picks up the limp redheaded girl easily, and carries her to the dragon.

Erde whispers, “Please let it not be too late!”

“Amen,” murmurs Lily from beside her.

“Is Sir Hal with you, Lily?” The senior knight had been storm-bound at Deep Moor when she’d left it last. No, the time before last. Already her anguished brain is trying to deny the awful reality of her most recent visit. “And what about Captain Wender?”

“They were long gone, back to the war. Too bad, too. We could’ve used two more good fighters.”

“Long gone?”

Lily looks back at her oddly, then away. “Of course. No point in Hal sticking around once you’d relieved him of the problem of Baron Köthen. Oh, Kurt would’ve stayed, but
Hal piled on the pressure until he gave up and went with him.”

“Kurt?”

“Captain Wender.”

“Ah. Yes.” Erde would swear she detects a blush in the other woman’s wounded, weathered face. It seems, even in the midst of war and disaster, there is companionship to be found.
For everyone but me
. “Lily, how long has it been since I was last at Deep Moor?”

Lily frowns. “I don’t know. Long time.”

“No, really . . . how long would you say?”

“Months, at least. I’d say a whole winter, if we’d had anything but winter. You don’t remember?”

“It’s only been two weeks for me.”

Lily stares at her, struggling with this notion.

“Can I see Rose now?”

She follows Lily around the impromptu field hospital and through a blossom-laden arbor into the paved inner courtyard nestled within the half-timbered arms of the house. The welcoming house that in reality was no more than a blackened ruin. How wonderful to find the thick thatch intact, and the stone chimney unstained. And she is relieved beyond measure to discover Raven and Rose at the stone table under the old apple tree, both upright and apparently unharmed. What a serene and pretty picture they make, sitting in the dappled sun: Rose’s determined back and her short curls of russet and gray, Raven’s more youthful lilt, her lovely face of high contrasts, bright and soft, dark and light. There are early apples scattered on the table, one of them neatly cored and sectioned. Raven is at work on a second. Hastily, Erde brushes away tears of joy.

Raven looks up. With a cry, she drops her knife and apple. She leaps up, hands and long hair flying. “Erde! How wonderful! Is it really you?”

Erde notes her hesitation, her quick and worried glance at Lily.

Lily nods. “Seems to be, all right. She’s brought the dragon.”

“It is me, Raven, truly!” Erde rushes to embrace her. “Oh, it’s so dreadful what’s happened! I’m so glad you’re both alive!”

“If you call this being alive,” mutters Lily, hurrying away again. “I’m due back on watch. See you all at supper.”

Erde releases Raven and turns eagerly to greet Rose. But Rose is still sitting quietly. Her back is erect. Her strong gardener’s hands rest on the worn stone table, her fingers spread as if braced to rise, the sectioned apple untouched in front of her. Her warm brown eyes are open, but fixed on some far more distant point than the mosaic of the garden wall she faces.

“Rose? Rose, it’s me, Erde.”

“She won’t answer,” says Raven quietly.

Unheeding, Erde crouches at Rose’s side and takes one of her hands between both her own. She rubs it gently as if to relieve a chill. “Rose, I’ve brought the dragon. He’ll heal everyone he can!”

“I’m not even sure she hears us,” Raven says.

“But what’s the problem? She looks . . . well, tired, but . . . fine.”

“I know. But she isn’t.”

“Rose? Rose!” With a soft moan, Erde rises abruptly, spinning away in panic and despair. Raven catches her deftly and wraps her in a tight and calming embrace that lets her be a child again and sob out her great load of pent up sorrow and outrage.

“Oh, Raven, it’s all so awful! Everything is!”

“I know, sweetling, I know. We’ve all cried our hearts out, every one.”

Erde hasn’t wept so hard in many weeks, and she feels much better when she’s done with it and has caught her breath again. “So tell me, what’s wrong with her? How did she get this way?”

“Come. Settle for a while. You look as played out as the rest of us. I’m sure you’ve had to be very brave.” Raven hooks one arm about Erde’s waist and steers her toward a high backed wooden bench in a slice of sun falling on the courtyard wall. Potted herbs scent the air as they brush past. Raven drops wearily onto the wide seat. Shoving back her cloud of dark hair as if it were the cause of all her troubles, she tilts her face to the sun with a sigh. “At least it isn’t winter here. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be warm.”

“Lily says it’s been months since I saw you last.” In the
brighter light, Erde sees the bruises on Raven’s cheek, and the tightness of the skin across her jaw.

“An eternity of winter, sweetling. Then Deep Moor was attacked. If that hadn’t happened, we’d have all starved to death anyway.”

“There are a lot more of you than there were.”

“And fewer,” nods Raven sadly. “Between the blizzards and the deep freezes, women would stagger into the valley from the surrounding farms and villages, and beg our protection. Or Lily and Margit would find them, half frozen, fugitive from the soldiers’ foraging parties, and guide them to safety.” She pauses, then sighs. “Or so we thought. Bringing so many in is probably what betrayed us. The valley’s magic was spread too thin.”

“Did you know he was coming? Did you have any warning at all?”

Raven’s glance slides toward her, sideways. “You know, then. Did Lily tell you?”

“I was there.
He
was there. We went back to warn you . . . I told them we should . . . but we were too late. But, Raven, it’s not just the hell-priest we’re dealing with. The dragon Fire is behind him. That’s who we’re really fighting.”

“The renegade you were worried about?”

“Yes.” Later, she can explain how worry has escalated into terror.

“Ah. And then . . .?”

“The dogs found us and led us here.”

“Really?” Raven’s finely arched brows contract, as if mere thought is an effort. It pains Erde to see her looking so drawn and tired. “And do you have any idea where ‘here’ is?”

Erde offers what little she understands about the portals and Time and the white city outside the walls.

Raven shakes her head. “Between one step and another? To the future, just like that? Doritt will be glad to hear it. She’s convinced we’ve all died and gone to hell . . . or someplace like it. I said, don’t be silly. Just because we haven’t lived the way others do, doesn’t mean we deserve that.” She smiles faintly. For a moment, her eyes drift shut. Then she rouses herself with a cough. “But who could create these magic doorways?”

“I hadn’t thought of them as being created. More that they just . . . were.”

“Such devices are not the way of Nature, sweetling, as marvelous as she is. For one thing, there’s too much purpose implied by a portal that opens just when it’s needed.”

“And closes, too, when needed. I’d say it was dragon magic, but the dragons claim to know nothing of them. But they do say their sister Air is here, somewhere.”

“In this nightmare landscape? Then I’m sorry for her. But perhaps the portals are her work.”

Erde clasps her hands. “Of course! That must be it!” Then her face clouds again. “No, it can’t be. If she can make such portals, why didn’t she make one for herself and escape Lord Fire’s dungeon long ago?”

Raven gently brushes curls from Erde’s furrowed brow. “If she could, she would have, so we must accept that she can’t, and hope to learn why.”

Erde nods pensively. Gerrasch should be here instead. He’d understand it all so much better. “But now, please, tell me about Rose!”

“She’s . . . well, I guess the best way to say it is . . . she’s gone inside. As if she went into her room and locked the door.”

“But how? Why?”

“Utter exhaustion, is my guess.” Raven gazes sadly across the soft blooms of oregano and sage to where Rose sits unmoving at the table. “Let’s see, where do I start? With the attack? We did have some warning of it. Both Rose and Doritt sensed that a great evil was headed our way. We’d already planned an escape route into the Grove, with all the animals. There wasn’t much left to carry—our food stores were nearly gone and we’d shared out all our extra clothing with the refugees. But we were just so weak and tired . . . well, when the attack came, we didn’t quite make it to the Grove in time. Margit and Lily and the dogs drove off the first thin wave—Fra Guill hadn’t expected so stout a resistance from women! But we lost Esther then, very nearly lost Lily. We fled into the trees, and for a while, the trees kept the soldiers out. Then Guillemo himself turned up. He must have wanted us very badly.”

Erde shivers. “For the stake.”

“No doubt. The Grove’s good and ancient wardings
weren’t strong enough to hold up against the dark determination of the hell-priest. So in he comes. It was Rose who discovered the portal, and urged us through it. Ordered us, I should say, in the end. There were some who’d have rather stood and fought than walk through that inexplicable doorway.”

Raven lets her head loll against the carved bench back, and takes a deep ragged breath. A small, bright bird lights on a branch just past her reach and begins to sing. “And then we were in . . .that awful place out there.”

“The City?”

“City? A lifeless, terrible place to bear such a noble name. More like death or bad dreams. We arrived cut and battered, totally spent. The half that could walk carried the other half. One of our new women bled to death before Linden could save her. No food or water to be found. And then we were stalked by roaring phantoms and clanking giants. Through it all, Rose kept us going, moving, insistent that a safe place could be found, certain that something—some
one
—was guiding her there. We took all our hope from her. Our two oldest ran out of their life-spark and died, within a day of each other. We wrapped them and carried them with us, loath to abandon their poor starved bodies without burial in such an ungiving, soulless place.

“Finally, Rose decided that a Seeing might help her know our path more clearly. None of us had the presence of mind to advise against it. Rose always said it was foolish to undertake a Seeing from a state of exhaustion or despair. We were, she was, both. She went into her trance, and never came out of it. But when the rest of us looked up from the Circle, we were in that grim castle yard outside the gate, and the doorway into the garden was before us.”

“As if she . . .”

“Yes. Because it looks like Deep Moor, even feels like Deep Moor, but it isn’t.” Raven pats the warm stucco wall behind them. “There’s no house behind the facade. I think that, somehow, Rose made it happen, and the garden and courtyard were all she could manage before she gave out.”

“The garden? Is there . . .?”

“Food? Yes, and water—that’s the wonder of it. Edible. Delicious. We’re all getting well again, those of us who made it this far.” Raven sighs deeply, guiltily, toying with
the stained and shredded embroidery on her skirt. “Of course we were grateful. We can feed ourselves and the surviving animals, and nothing bothers us. But Rose . . . has been as you see her ever since. Occasionally her lips will move, as if she’s talking with someone. But it’s never with us. It’s as if we weren’t there. She won’t eat or drink, or even sleep. She’ll never get her strength back this way! I fear she’ll just fade away.”

“Rose, poor Rose!” Erde wraps her arms around her chest and rocks back and forth miserably. “The dragons will know what to do! We’ll ask them immediately!”

But then a glad cry rings out on the other side of the garden wall. Raven sits up. “Oh, listen! What a lovely sound! I haven’t heard laughter in a long, long while.”

Lily runs up through the arbor. “Come quickly! Come see!”

Raven’s eyes move to the still figure at the stone table.

“You go,” Erde says. “I’ll stay with Rose.”

She follows Raven to the end of the arbor. From there, she can keep an eye on Rose and also have a clear view down the bright green lawn. She sees the women gathering near the dragon’s crossed foreclaws, in the shadow of his huge head. As many as can walk or be assisted are huddled in excitement around Margit and her twins: three redheads, all three, alive and well, tearfully embracing.