The Book of Earth (48 page)

“Milady? Are you well?”

“He’s here,” she croaked. “Get ready.”

His grin was transfiguring. “And I’d thought I was hearing things . . .”

Erde gave Earth an internal nod. In the torchlit barn, where the shadows leaped about them like a legion of demons, the soldiers were terrified to find themselves suddenly grasping at air.

T
heir arrival was as smooth as silk, dead center in the farmhouse clearing. A circle of women awaited them.

Margit blinked, saw where she was, and then the dragon in front of her. “Oh wonderful!” she cried. Then her knees buckled. She sank to the ground in exhaustion and relief, and began to weep the tears she had not been able to all the time she’d been expecting to die. The twins raced to her side and the three of them rocked and wept, while the other women gathered around them.

Rose pulled away first. She hugged Erde quickly, then pressed herself into Hal’s arms. “When he turned up alone, I thought . . . I was sure . . . I couldn’t SEE you anywhere!”

Hal stroked her hair, kissed her temples. “There, there, Rosie. There, there.”

Separated from Erde by Earth’s stubby tail, Rainer pulled himself slowly to his feet and gazed about him with the alert but jaded air of a man who’s seen too much in his short life already to be astonished by anything. He’d carried the sword with him but dropped it on arrival, upon finding himself so suddenly translated. Erde restrained the impulse to throw herself at him, weeping her own tears of relief and joy. Her father’s harsh rejection had made her self-conscious about her altered appearance. She considered ducking quickly into the farmhouse. Surely Raven or Linden could lend her a proper dress to wear. But by then it was too late. He’d spotted her standing at the dragon’s side, and was staring at her guardedly. So she approached him with all the self-possession she could muster, picking up the fallen sword from the grass as she passed. Where to
start? There was so much to tell, so many lessons learned and crises passed. She wanted him to hear it all, to know everything at once. And so she said nothing. The wonder of her voice returning seemed petty and uninteresting compared to the miracle of seeing him alive again. When they were face-to-face, she handed the sword to him, hilt-first.

For a moment, he just looked at her. Then he ran his tongue quickly across his lips. “I hadn’t heard that name in a long while.”

She smiled ruefully. “It’s not been so long, really.”

“What happened to your hair?”

“Oh, I . . . cut it.”

“You look really different.”

“So do you.” Less of a boy, more of a man. She hadn’t really thought of him as a boy before, though now she could see that he had been. Not anymore.

Gingerly, he took the sword. “How did it get here?”

He sounded merely curious, as if there was nothing much more important to talk about. Probably he didn’t know where to start either. She decided to let him set the pace. She matched his casual tone. “I thought I might need a weapon when I left Tor Alte, and there it was . . .”

“You left with . . .” Now his jaw tightened. “. . . your father?”

“Not exactly. I ran away.”

“Ah.” He gazed past her into an immense distance, then gestured at the dragon. “He’s yours, isn’t he.”

“It’s more like I’m his. His name is Earth.”

“Earth. Hmmm. Where did you find him?”

“He found me, in the caves above the castle.” She felt the need to boast. “He made the earthquake that saved us. He brought us here.”

Rainer nodded, impressed as she had wanted him to be. “So Alla was right, little sister. She told me you were destined for something strange and wonderful.”

Little sister.
He had never called her that, even when they were children together. Erde heard the distance in his voice and took a half-step backward as if he’d pushed her. No warmer welcome? Not even a hug for her? How could so much change so fast? She vowed not to pressure him. It was her impulsive gesture that had gotten them in trouble
to begin with, those few months ago that seemed like years. “How did you escape from the priest and my father?”

“Alla. Didn’t she tell you?”

“Alla’s dead. She didn’t have time to tell me anything.”

“Dead? How?” For the first time, he looked shaken.

“Took her own life, before they could put her to the stake.”

“Oh, no. Poor old woman. Well, you know she’d be proud of you. She had the Power in her, too.”

The Power? Was that what he saw, looking at her from so far away? “I thought . . . I couldn’t speak. I thought you’d been killed.”

“You did? Well, I’m sorry, I . . .” He shook his head without looking at her. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to worry.”

What did you think I’d do?
she nearly screamed at him. Impassive. That’s what he was, as if he’d felt too much and gone numb from it. Erde remembered what that was like. “My father said you were dead.”

“Your father!” Now a shadow of rage bloomed in Rainer’s eyes. “He would, if only to save his face. Lucky for me, he even convinced the priest. If Fra Guill had known who the Friend really was, he’d have reached out and squashed me like a bug!”

Erde doubted that. She was losing faith in the priest’s supernormal powers. Except his predictions. But she didn’t want to talk about Fra Guill, and she didn’t want to talk about her father. She wanted her moment of joyous reunion. She thought she deserved it, after all she’d been through. She thought they both deserved it. Perhaps Rainer was just waiting for permission. Erde remembered the shyness that had come upon him as she’d begun to mature. She reached to touch his arm, to bridge the gap, and then having gone that far, felt her own restraints slipping. If changes had happened, it was time to admit to them. She was a grown woman, and not answerable to her father anymore. She threw caution to the winds and hurled herself into Rainer’s arms. “I thought you were dead and you’re alive, you’re alive! It’s such a miracle!”

He caught her awkwardly. She could tell he was working hard not to recoil. Willfully, she misunderstood and hugged
him harder. He reached behind and grabbed her wrists, bringing her arms around between them, pushing them apart.

“Oh, it’s all right!” she giggled. “We’re in Deep Moor! Nobody here is going to mind at all!”

“Well. Even so.” He eased her away from him and stepped back. “You know, I . . . it’s been a while, you know? A lot has happened. I never meant to . . .”

Indeed. Finally she began to understand how it was.

She felt a calm settle over her, like a protective veil. She recalled the very moment of hearing that he’d been killed, how the ice had formed in her heart and the grief had lodged in her throat. How she’d carried that grief and guilt with her into exile until she couldn’t bear the burden of it any longer, and one day, had simply abandoned it along with all memory of the event, so that she could get along with her life. She could see now that Rainer would never understand any of this. The fateful kiss in the halls of her father’s castle had been a lark to him, a curiosity, a dare. The great love she’d fantasized about and broken her heart over was exactly that: a tale spun of her own heated girlish imaginings. Somewhere deep within her was a sigh that was going to shake her very being when she got around to it. For now, it would have to wait. There was her promise to the dragon to consider. Surprising herself with her own poise, Erde turned away, beckoning to him over her shoulder. “Come, meet my new friends.”

Hal met them coming, with Rose on his arm. He swooped up Erde’s hand and kissed it victoriously. “A bit close for comfort, milady, but well done anyway!” He bowed to Rainer. “Heinrich von Engle.”

Erde eyed him sideways. What happened to just plain Hal Engle? She felt politics closing in on her.

Rainer shook the hand offered him. “Rainer of Duchen. I’m honored, my lord baron. The name of Weisstrasse is spoken often among those loyal to the king.”

Hal looked gratified. “We’ll have a lot to talk about on that subject.”

Rainer nodded. Erde saw how he aligned himself instantly with the knight. She pressed close to him. “Hal found me in the woods—Oh. Is it all right? May I call you Hal?”

“Milady, now that you’ve your voice again, you can call me anything you please.”

“Hal saved my life, Rainer, and the dragon’s, too. We were starving!” Erde thought her voice sounded disappointingly thin and childish, as if it hadn’t yet caught up with her new self. Nothing had really changed. She was still just the little girl he grew up with. And now she could hear the dragon in her head, reminding her of her promise and his own impatience. “Rainer is my dear, dear friend. We grew up together.”

“A Friend indeed, and a more than interesting coincidence.” Hal had his own agenda. He eased his lady forward. “May I present Rose of Deep Moor.”

Rainer bowed to Rose, who was studying his face as if there were paragraphs written there.

“What d’you think, Rosie?” asked Hal.

“Possible, Heinrich. Now that I see him, I’ll have to say it’s possible.”

Rainer smiled in puzzled inquiry, and Erde decided what was most changed about him: on the surface, he retained all his former habits of interest and concern but there was no substance to them. Of who or what he had become, behind that pleasant manner, he gave no indication.

Hal was not so guarded. “We wish to ask you, lad, what you know of your parentage.”

Rainer’s chin lifted in surprise, his first real sign of discomfiture. “You’ve heard the rumors, then, even here.”

“We have,” said Rose. Her rich voice brought Rainer’s attention around to her. “Are they true?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember back that far.”

Hal wanted a more definitive answer. “If your claim could be proved legitimate, with what you’ve already done for the people . . .”

“My lord baron, I make no such claim. The intent of my campaign was only to stop the priest’s evil from destroying others as it nearly destroyed me.”

“But if you did make a claim . . . if you could . . . the people would flock to you, and to your . . . to the king, if they could know his heir was no traitorous weak tool of the barons like Prince Carl. I knew the man who escorted young Prince Ludolf into hiding, a King’s Knight like myself. He was from Duchen.”

Rainer was silent a moment. He glanced at Rose, and when she smiled at him warmly, looked away. “Well. I can only say what the old woman told me just before I fled Tor Alte . . .”

“You mean Alla?” Erde gripped his elbow eagerly. She hadn’t been able to talk about Alla since losing her, and needed to. “What did Alla tell you? Oh, don’t you miss her, Rainer? I miss her so much!”

“Easy, lass, easy,” Hal drew her back, jovial but firm, to Rainer’s evident relief. “It’s a joy your voice is back, but do let the man speak.”

Rose intervened. “The man will speak, Heinrich, when he’s had some rest and sustenance. All of you, in fact. Come inside first, and then we’ll talk.”

The other women were helping Margit into the house. Rose took Hal’s elbow and urged him after them. Rainer followed a few paces, then stopped to glance over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”

Erde had not moved. “I’ll just stay with Earth a while.”

He either did not hear or avoided her invitation. “See you later, then.”

“Yes. Later.” But she knew already that she wouldn’t.

She watched him walk away across the velvet grass, into the farmhouse where the lamps were being lit and pots were clanging in the kitchen, where animated conversation had already begun. They would talk long into the night about the king and the barons and their various armies and strengths and strategic positions. And Hal would start making plans for how to use the dragon to get the throne back into the hands of its rightful owner.

But the dragon had his own mission to fulfill, and therefore, so did she. Erde gazed at the empty darkening porch for a long long time, feeling that sigh still deep inside her, unable to be sighed. Then she turned to the dragon.

His great head rested on his claws, the very image of ageless patience. He could have been carved of stone, but for the fires of eternity burning in his golden eyes. He blinked at her gravely.

—
Thank you, Dragon, for saving my friends.

You’re welcome. Is it my time now?

—
It’s your time. What do we do?

Follow the Call.

There was no hesitation in him, no doubt. No talk of Mage Cities and Mage-Queens. Only pure hard purpose. She felt the dragon brooch warming beneath her shirt. Hal would be sorry to be left behind, but he had his own business to attend to.

—
We should go now, before they can stop us. Is it far? You know which way to go?

I will take us there.

—
You mean, take us? It’s someplace you’ve been before?

Only in our dreams.

—
Our dreams? But . . .

I must! I am called! Are you ready?

Erde laid her hand on the hard curve of the dragon’s snout and thought of Rainer’s receding back. There went one dream that would never be fulfilled. “Yes. I am ready,” she replied aloud.