The belly of the Wyrm? I stared at the man. But it wasn’t until I noticed his toolbox on the table that I recognized him. The carpenter. The one who had noted the bruising around Nico’s ankles.
“… and coughed and coughed until it coughed him right back up and onto dry land. A little the worse for wear, of course, but no more so than he could get up and walk away. After seven days in the belly of the beast!”
It was Nico’s story he was telling, I suddenly realized. Or nearly so. With a great deal of exaggeration. Lies, even. But it made the story all the better, and people liked a good adventure. They cheered for the carpenter, and bought him another beer. And even the mean old innkeeper seemed to be in a better mood and gave me both bread and cheese and sausage for my three copper marks.
When I got back, Nico and Sezuan were still in midfight. I interrupted them.
“Nico,” I said. “Were you in the belly of the Wyrm? Did it spit you back out?”
“Who told you that?” he said, looking amazed. “If she had eaten me, I hardly think I would have been sitting here, do you?”
“But all those cuts… you look as if you’ve been bitten. By something very large.”
“They’re from the rocks, Dina. They are like fangs, in places.”
An odd disappointment spread through my stomach. I like fairy tales as much as the next person. Particularly those with a happy ending. And if he really had escaped from the belly of the Wyrm, then perhaps he could accomplish other fantastical and impossible things. Like the one he was so determined to do: to get everyone out of the Sagisburg till not one single prisoner, one single child, one single cowed and damaged soul was left.
But it had all been lies and make-believe. The Wyrm had not spat Nico back up. And this adventure did not seem headed for a happy ending.
It was no use.
It was hopeless.
They destroy you from the inside, Nico had said. Until there is no will or hope or dream left inside you.
No fairy tale.
At that moment, it was as if I heard something inside. A few notes. The beginnings of a melody.
“May I have the flute a moment?” I asked Sezuan.
He broke off in the middle of a pointed remark to Nico and looked at me in surprise. But he didn’t ask me any questions, didn’t ask why. He just drew the flute from his belt and passed it to me.
I raised the flute and tried to shape the notes I had heard in my head. I pursed my lips and blew steadily but not too hard, the way my father had taught me. The melody began, lightly, like a breath of wind, a whisper… and I didn’t know how it ended.
I stopped.
Both Nico and Sezuan were staring at me.
“What was that?” asked Nico.
I couldn’t quite explain. “I think—I think it is a fairy tale. Or a dream.” I passed the flute back to Sezuan. “You know. You know how to do it.”
“Dina—”
“You can do it. You can get them all out. With the right dream.”
For one short moment, Sezuan looked completely frozen. Horrified, I think.
“Dina, it’s not—How many people are there in that castle? Hundreds. I can’t do that!”
“If you did it just a few at a time? Papa, can you? Don’t you think you can?”
Something went through him. Through his entire body. Something I had said? He looked at Nico, and then at me.
“Is this what you want, Dina?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head slowly, but not in refusal. It was just a disbelieving headshake, as if he couldn’t quite credit what he was about to say.
“Well, then,” he said, with a faint smile, “we shall have to try, I suppose. Since it is my daughter’s wish.”
DINA
The Moonshine Bridge
It was a warm night. The moon was full and yellow as a buttercup. There was almost no wind, and the air was full of bugs from the lake, and bats hunting them. Every once in a while, one of them would streak by, so close that one could hear the dry rustle of wings without feathers.
It was a good thing we had slept a little earlier in the day, and for a few hours before we left.
“We have to do it in darkness,” my father had said. “I am going to need all the help I can get.”
Shortly before midnight, we were standing at the edge of the dragon pit, across from the big black gates of the Sagisburg. As it was night, the drawbridge was up, and we couldn’t get any closer. There were guards over there, and they were awake. We could see dark forms moving behind the parapets, and in the two embrasures above the gate, torches were burning. It looked uncanny, as if the gates were a black maw and the torches two burning eyes.
Sezuan raised the flute.
He began with the notes I had heard inside. They drifted along on the moonbeams, across the darkened pit at our feet. I thought of spider silk, the first fine thread in a web, a thin and shining silken bridge floating between heaven and earth, then catching hold on the other side.
A bridge. A bridge across the pit, a bridge for angels and spirits, spun from mist and melody, from evening haze and night dew. Oh, to be able to walk such a bridge. To set one’s foot on its silver pure moonshine arch, to cross from one world into another, and see what was on the other side. To walk waking into dreamland and look around. There was a yearning to that song, deep as dreams.
The drawbridge was down. The moonshine bridge was real, a solid ramp of timber and iron, strangely commonplace but built to bear the weight of men. And a man was standing on it, a man in armor and helmet, with the Draconis double dragon on his chest. His eyes were full of dreams and moonlight, and he walked as if his feet barely touched the ground.
“That takes care of the bridge,” said my father hoarsely. “Let us see what we can do, once we get a little closer.”
I was almost afraid to set foot on the drawbridge, as if it might suddenly dissolve back into moonshine and spider silk and melody. It didn’t. And our steps sounded quite ordinary against the bridge timbers. But the armored man stared right through us as we passed him, as if the bridge he was crossing was a different one, in quite another place.
The gate was half open. Nico and I pushed it wide. And as Sezuan began to play again, softly and dreamily, we entered the dark castle.
The notes drifted across the damp cobbles of the courtyard. Up the jutting ramparts, pale in the moonlight. Through open doors, and closed ones. Through windows. Through gates. They touched sleeping kitchen maids and stable lads asleep in the hay. They played lazily with dozing guards, and touched the children’s cots in the House of Teaching like a half-forgotten caress. Even the prisoners in their damp holes heard them and stirred, so their chains rattled. Perhaps even Prince Arthos listened. Who knows? But in that old, chilled heart no dreams would have found room to grow.
Sezuan played as the moon rose in the sky and began to set again. He played as the stars grew sharply bright above the mountain, and then began to fade. When the lake breeze crept over the walls just before dawn, the flute was hardly more than a whisper. But still he played on. While the bats returned to their cave, folding their night wings. While the thrush began his morning song. While the sky paled and the first blush of day touched the edge of the clouds. And only when the sun touched the castle spires themselves did he stop. His lips were so dry they had split and were bleeding down his chin. And as the last note died away, he dropped in a heap in front of the door to the House of Teaching, looking like a man who would never rise again.
“Water, please,” he whispered.
I looked around uneasily. There had to be better places than here, in the first rays of the morning sun, right on the threshold of the Educators’ own lair. IN EVERY THING A LESSON, it said, in huge shouting letters right above our heads, and it looked more like a threat than a promise. But when I saw how pale he was and how his lips were bleeding, all I could think of was to get him the drink he asked for. I ran across the courtyard in front of the House of Teaching and i
nto the next yard, where I remembered seeing a pump.
A man came out of the building behind me, and I jerked in alarm. But he barely looked at me, nodded vaguely, and began to walk toward the castle gates. He had no shirt on, and in his hair there were still a few pieces of straw from the bedding.
A second later, a thin boy, his hair cropped close to his skull, came darting along the wall. He looked left and right, then ran across the yard and out of the gate.
A door slammed. Out came a broad, dark-haired woman holding a small girl by the hand. Then a balding man in a butcher’s apron. Two guards, without their helmets and armor. Two more short-haired boys from the House of Teaching. A silently weeping man in a black velvet waistcoat. A kitchen maid with a starched cap and a face that was flushed with excitement.
Every last one of them headed for the gates and the drawbridge. And no one tried to stop them.
“It’s working,” I whispered to myself. “It’s working!”
And then I ran back to my father, water sloshing in the bucket, splashing my skirt. Four more people passed me before I got there, one of them another guard who had thrown off his armor.
Nico was kneeling on the cobbles, supporting Sezuan in his arms.
“It’s working,” I said joyously. “They are all leaving! And no one is stopping them.”
My father’s eyes were closed, and his face was pale as death. Nico had tried to dab the blood away with his sleeve, but it kept seeping from the split lower lip.
“I don’t know if he can hear you,” he told me quietly. “But try and see if he will drink the water.”
All at once, I was cold and scared all over again.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Nico. “Perhaps he is just worn out. Building bridges from moonlight and spinning dreams for hundreds of people… I suppose he has a right to be a little tired.”
I cupped a little water in my hand and held it to my father’s lips. His eyelids twitched, and he drank the water greedily. Encouraged, I gave him another handful, and another.
Behind us, the great doors of the House of Teaching opened a crack, and five short-haired children, two girls and three boys, slipped through and ran for it, barelegged and in nightshirts.
“We have to move,” Nico said. “If we could find a place where he can lie down, out of harm’s way… there is still much to do. Locked doors and shackles don’t unlock themselves.”
I knew he was right. And I grew more and more anxious, both that something was really wrong with my father and that someone would find us, someone who had not taken Sezuan’s dreams to heart. Sezuan had warned us that the flute did not affect everyone the same way.
“Can you carry him?” I asked.
“I suppose I can,” said Nico. “But not too far. Let’s try over there.”
He nodded toward a building on the other side of the courtyard, with a white door, two tall windows, and a small belfry. I took the bucket, and Nico lifted Sezuan into his arms and carried him the short distance to the white door.
It was a chapel. All of one end was covered in pictures, most of them of Saint Magda, and the floor had tombstones embedded in it, with names and holy words and the double circle of Saint Magda, which always reminded me a bit of my own Shamer’s signet. Along three of the walls were galleries where the finer folk could sit, raised above the common herd. But it must have been a fair long while since anybody had sat here. Dust coated the dark benches in a thick layer, and there was a damp and empty smell of cobwebs and cold stone walls.
I brushed the dust off one bench with my sleeve.
“Here,” I told Nico. “At least he won’t have to lie on the floor.”
Nico settled Sezuan on the bench. My father looked so lifeless that it hurt me to look at him.
“I have to go,” said Nico. “I have to try and find Davin. Stay here, Dina. This is as safe a place as any.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to leave my father, and Nico knew his way around the castle much better than I. It was the only sensible plan. All the same, I had to bite my lip to stop myself from asking him not to leave me.
He slipped through the white door and closed it. I sat by my father’s side getting colder and colder. I made him drink a little more, and drank a little water myself. He just kept lying there with his eyes shut, even though he didn’t look like someone who was sleeping.
I had no cloth, not even a kerchief, so I dipped a fold of my skirt in the bucket and carefully wiped the blood away from his split lip. Had it stopped bleeding now, or was there still some fresh blood coming? Why wouldn’t he open his eyes? It was so odd sitting here watching over him, instead of the other way around. I remembered how he had stroked my hair, once, singing to me to chase the nightmares away.
The flute, I suddenly thought. Where was the flute?
It wasn’t in his belt; he must have dropped it when he fell. And we had left it lying there, Nico and I, as if it didn’t matter.
I had to get it. If it was still there!
Outside in the courtyard there were people still drifting past, a steady trickle of children, women, and men all heading for the gates. I crossed the other way, to the door of the House of Teaching.
It was there. It was still there.
Tenderly I picked it up and blew a few tentative notes, the same ones that had started everything. It sounded all right. Nothing broken, then. Clutching the flute in both hands, I hurried back to the chapel.
My father was still lying on the bench, slackly, his eyes closed. I touched his hand. His fingertips were bloody, too, I noticed. He had played the skin off them.
Suddenly the white door opened. I ducked automatically, which was as well, because it wasn’t Nico standing there, it was a stranger. A stranger in a black cloak, with a close-fitting black hood over his head.
He took only one step inside the chapel.
“Come out,” he said. “I know you are here, girl. I saw you.”
My heart was pounding. This was an Educator, I realized.
He took another step forward. If he walked much farther, he would see us, Sezuan and me both. I cast a wild look at my father’s face, but there were still no signs of life, and no signs that he might be about to help me or himself. So I got up, flute in hand, and stepped into the aisle.
“Here I am, Master,” I said. “What do you want with me?”
He halted.
“A child,” he said softly, as if he couldn’t believe his own eyes. “A mere child.”
Behind him I saw three more robed figures appear, as black-clad as he was. My stomach contracted. What could I do against four Educators of the kind that gave Nico nightmares?
“Was it you?” he said. “Did you do this?”
“Do what?”
He pointed at the flute with one black finger. Even his hands were black, covered by sleek tight-fitting gloves.
“Corrupt the very air with that thing! Fill human minds and souls with sick dreams that it may take years to cleanse.”
I was careful not to look at Sezuan. Instead I opened my eyes a little wider and tried to look stupid and childish.
“I was just playing,” I said, trying to sound like Melli. “Want to hear?” I raised the flute.
“No!”
Catching any expression on his strangely smooth and hard face was difficult. But I was fairly certain that what I heard in his voice was fear.
Was he afraid of me?
Without taking his eyes off me he rapped out a string of orders to the other three Educators. “Lock the door from outside. Hero and Pellio, you keep guard. Aidan, you must go and find the Prince and as many guards as you can scrape together. Tell them to stuff something in their ears: rags, tufts of wool, anything. Hurry! I shall see to it that she does no further damage meanwhile.”
“But Master Vardo—” one of them began.
“Do as I say!”
The other Educator bowed his head and made no further protest. He and the oth
er two withdrew from the chapel. The white door closed, and I heard the rattle of the lock. And then I was alone with Master Vardo.
He took another step forward.
“Give me the flute,” he said, as if he were talking to a dog that had made off with a shoe.
I shook my head. “If you move any closer,” I said, “I’ll start playing.”
He stopped. I lowered the flute a little. But how long would it be before he tried again? How long would it be before he discovered that it was Sezuan and not me who had played his gates open and set dreams in the minds of all the Prince’s men?
DINA
The Flute Player’s Gift
A sunbeam from the tall windows was creeping slowly across the benches between Master Vardo and me. Dust danced thickly in the light. It made my nose tickle just to look at it. One eye kept watering, and I let go of the flute for a moment to rub it.
“You are tired,” said Master Vardo gently. “It has been a long night for you. And the flute is heavy. Your arms must be getting tired, too.”
Why did he have to say that? Now it felt as if the flute was made of lead—and my arms as well.
“I have no wish to hurt you,” he said. “You are just a child. It is not your fault that you have been led astray, but that flute is evil. An evil instrument, my child, that hazes the minds of men and makes them see dangerous visions. Put it down.”
I felt so tired and confused. It was true that the flute made people see things. Things that weren’t there, things that didn’t exist at all.
“Stop it,” I whispered. “Please stop talking like that.”
“It is not your fault,” he said persuasively. “You cannot help it. And you will not be punished, I promise.”
My arms were shaking, as if I had no strength left at all. I rubbed my eye again. If only he would shut up. His words seeped into you, like the time Mama had poured a salve into my ear because I had an earache. Sticky. Stinging. Too warm.
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