Dragonslayer: A Novel (20 page)

Tyrian cleared his throat. "If I could suggest, Your Majesty ..."

"Yes, Tyrian."

"Imprisonment. In the dungeon. And then, if there is to be an extraordinary Lottery, perhaps our young
sorcerer
should accompany the Chosen into the Blight." Tyrian was grinning with anticipation. "I myself would be most happy to see that he arrives safely there."

"And what," Casiodorus suggested maliciously, caressing the amulet in his palm, "what if Vermithrax is really dead?"

"Your Majesty, with the greatest respect, that is unthinkable." Galen was surprised to see that Tyrian was shocked. He spoke with the same kind of hushed piety that Galen had heard before in Christians when they were not preaching. "You know, Your Majesty, the
Codex Dracorum
confirms that the dragons shall be immortal, that they shall five forever in Urland and in the lands beyond."

"And you know, Tyrian, that dragons are
not
immortal. Why, in your very lifetime
two
have been slain, one in Cantware and one in Anwick."

"There is anarchy in those places now. Chaos!"

"Yes, but the point is that
dragons die. Vermithrax
can die. It may even now be dead."

Tyrian's head shook almost imperceptibly on his thick neck. "Dragons perhaps, but with respect, Your Majesty, not the
last
dragon. That would make nonsense of the
Codex."

Casiodorus regarded him balefully, envying the complacent simplicity of his reasoning. He wished that he himself could have such faith, such a blunt imagination that could not anticipate a transmutation of dragons back into the plasm from which they had emerged. He sighed. "In any case, Tyrian, I am certain now that Vermithrax is not dead."

Tyrian nodded. "You have had a sign, sir?"

"Yes."

"Good. I knew it would come."

"While we arrange the Lottery, lock this fellow up. Later we'll decide what to do with him."

"Yes, sir."

"Not in the dungeon, though, Tyrian. He'll get sick and die there. He is an . . . unusual boy. Keep him alive."

So Galen became a prisoner. He was not treated harshly; on the contrary, the room to which he was taken was more comfortable than his cell at Cragganmore. There was a chair with a back and arms, a washstand with a fresh jug of water, and a clever device by which some of that water could be warmed in a basin over a brazier. Here too was a tiny ground-level window into the courtyard.

For three days Galen saw no one but a skulking turnkey who brought him gruel and refused to answer all questions. He left food and went away. Galen ate nothing and paced until he was exhausted. On the first night, just as sleep was claiming him, the bed trembled! He could not have sworn that the trembling was sensed by his real body and not by the body in his beginning dream; but if he had been startled awake that instant he would have said yes, the bedframe had moved enough to cause its rawhide thongs to creak, and beneath the bedframe the floor had trembled, and beneath the floor the castle walls . . .

Several times that day it was repeated, each time more strongly, until, by dusk on the second night, the tremors had become sufficiently powerful to shake mortar from the crevasses of the walls.

"Let me out!" Galen shouted pounding the door. "It's an earthquake! Let me out!"

He clamored at the door and the window until he was hoarse, but no one came. He pried at the window bars until his knuckles were raw. He even tried to recall the Charm of the Second Degree of Transposition which he had once seen Ulrich use to soar through the wall of his conjuring chamber and land safely beyond the moat; but nothing happened, and Galen cursed himself that he had not learned better what the old sorcerer had tried to teach him.

With dusk, however, the tremors gradually subsided, and he drifted into a fitful sleep thai was permeated by the odor of dragon and shot through with visions so ghastly that he awoke in the cool dawn bathed in sweat. "Vermithrax!" he said.

He leapt up and ran to the window just as a fresh tremor rocked the floor beneath him. He was about to shout out into the dawn when a remarkable sight stopped him. A girl clothed all in white had appeared in the garden. She was surrounded by white animals. Galen blinked. So still were they that he thought at first they were statues that for some bizarre ornamental reason had been placed there overnight, but then he noticed tiny movements— the flicking of a white donkey's tail, the slow, subtle arching of a cat's back, the turning, from the pear tree of a white bird's head toward him. Galen blinked again, and squinted. "Gringe? Gringe!"

The bird detached itself from the tree and in two lazy wing beats perched on the window ledge close enough that his wing

brushed Galen's outstretched hand. "Gringe! Gringe, you've got to help me find a way out. You've got to help me escape."

The raven gave no sign that he had heard, except for a slight inclination of the head.

"Gringe, please! Can you get me out? Can you . . . steal a key?"

The raven slowly shook his head. Something very much like a child's laugh sounded in his throat.

"Well, can you get that lady to help me?
Please,
Gringe!"

The raven considered. Galen held his breath and then released it in a sigh of relief as the raven left the ledge and drifted back across the courtyard. In a moment, Elspeth stood and came toward the window of Galen's room. She was strikingly beautiful, tall and slim, moving with a sinuous grace. Her hair was pale blonde, swaying with the movement of her body, her white gown luminous. She kept her eyes cast down until she had knelt beside the window; when she looked up, he saw that her eyes were not the Saxon blue he had expected, but were brown, a strange, softer brown than any eyes he had ever seen, so soft that he thought she might have been blinded in a way that allowed anyone to look straight into the simplicity of her soul.

"I am Elspeth," she said.

"I am Galen. Are you ... do you live here?"

She nodded. "I am Casiodorus's daughter." Again she waited, and there was a long moment during which they regarded one another placidly, like calm animals. And then another tremor came.

"Elspeth, your father put me here. Can you let me out? It's important. The dragon . . ."

"They hate my father," she said, frowning.

"Wh. . .who?"

"Everyone. All Urlanders. His subjects. Do you hate him?"

Galen shook his head. "No. I don't know him . . . And I'm not an Urlander. But Tyrian . . ."

"Tyrian!" Her eyes hardened. "Tyrian's different!"

"Yes. Well, anyway, he did have Tyrian lock me up."

"Why?" It was a child's innocent inquiry.

"Because I caused a landslide in the Blight. I blocked Vermithrax's cave. I... I thought I killed it."

"Did you? Did you kill it?"

Galen stared at her. Had she not felt the trembling? "I ... I don't think so," he said.

Galen wakes Ulrich from trance

Galen, Valerian and Ulrich examining dragon scalcs

Tyrian prepares to stab Ulrich

On the road to Urland, Galen performs tricks with Hodge's pack

First young maiden being led to her doom

The maiden is menaced by dragon's claw