The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet

by Marjorie B. Kellogg

  The dragon screams, his tail carving the air like a giant’s scimitar. Flame spews across the seamed and broken granite but dies at Köthen’s feet. The hot wind ruffles his hair. The men cry out from their shadowed refuge. Köthen doesn’t stir.

  Spare him, my Fire, and I will not desert you, ever. If you kill him, you kill me also.

  Fire’s rage and incredulity burn through her like a fever.

  MY FAITHFUL DESERT ME! MY ARMIES SPLIT AND SCATTER! MY FORTRESS IS TAKEN! AND NOW YOU . . . AGAIN? GIVE ME A REASON I SHOULD SPARE HIM!

  What good is reason, my Fire, at the end of the world?

  NO! TELL ME! WHY THIS ONE?

  Let your own standard apply. Spare him because he is worthy. Because he is not weak. Spare him because he is what you would have been, had you been human. Because he taught me that love is possible only between equals, and that to love you, I must cease to fear you.

  Paia feels the molten light of the dragon’s rage fade just slightly. Köthen waits, puzzled and wary. Why doesn’t it attack, this enemy he does not comprehend? But Paia thinks that man and dragon actually understand each other very well. She’d like to be able to explain it to him, how they are alike. How loving the dragon does not mean loving him less. How she is a creature of Destiny, and must follow its call. With no language between them, it would be a daunting task. With a language, it would be heartbreaking. Paia is grateful to be spared the pain. Köthen stands defiant on his rock, a brave man facing down a dragon. The absurdity of it makes her love him all the more. He’ll never know she’s saved his life. He doesn’t know she’s there.

  In her heart, Paia bids the soldier good-bye, and wishes him well.

  Come, my Fire. There’s no place for us here.

  His swift agreement leaves her feeling dizzy and confused.

  YOU’RE RIGHT! THERE ARE OTHER PLACES. BETTER PLACES! WHERE MY SERVANTS ARE STILL LOYAL! WHERE THEY’LL WELCOME AND WORSHIP US! LEADERS OF MEN WHO’VE NOT YET LOST THEIR FAITH IN THEIR GOD!

  But that’s not what . . .

  AND THERE WE’LL RAISE A REAL ARMY AND BRING IT HERE TO CHASE THIS FAINTHEARTED BAND OF MARAUDERS BACK INTO THE HILLS THEY SPRANG FROM!

  And keep on fighting and fighting? When will it ever stop?

  STOP? Inside his pause, a returning echo of exhaustion. A longing or despair. IN THE END, BELOVED, EVERYTHING WILL STOP. AT LAST. THE CYCLE WILL BE ENDED. UNTIL THEN, WE MUST PERSEVERE. PREPARE YOURSELF, MY PRIESTESS, FOR ANOTHER JOURNEY!

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Snow blows up again, mixed with needles of sleet, and Captain Wender bellows for a horse. One of the chastened boys materializes from behind a stack of firewood. “A horse for milady!”

  Erde lays a hand on his muddied sleeve. “No, Captain, we should not wait. I can walk perfectly well. I’ve walked this far, after all. The dragon will follow as soon as we’ve made room for him.”

  “As you wish.” The captain peers at her to be sure, but he’s anxious enough not to stand on ceremony. “Hot water, then, lad. And clean cloths, if you can find any!” He sends the boy packing with a gesture, and offers her his arm. “If you will allow me. It isn’t far.”

  Erde is relieved that he sets a stiff pace. She’d be dragging him along herself if he felt it necessary to observe a more ladylike stride. “Are you fighting in the king’s name now, Captain?”

  Wender grips her elbow to guide her past a crowd milling around the chirurgeon’s tent. The moans from behind the stained canvas make Erde shudder and quicken her step. The dragon could do much good here, though it would exhaust him desperately. And where would food be found to fuel the recovery of his strength?

  “I serve the Knight now, as my father did before me,” Wender replies solemnly.

  She glances up at his stern, ruddy face. A weathered face, weary but without complaint, though frost rimes his mustache and his eyes are slitted against the biting snow. “I didn’t know.”

  Wender nods. “I was apprenticed at the armory at Weisstrasse when my young lord of Köthen came to squire in the Knight’s household. Being just a few years older, I was assigned to look after the boy, keep his horse, spar with him in the training yard, back him up in fights. The usual sort of thing.” Conversation with a lady is clearly not the captain’s favorite exercise. He seems glad for a subject he can pursue without discomfort. “But we were . . . a good match, you might say. And his lordship was still young when he was called home to assume his title. The Knight judged he could use some backup while the power issues were being sorted out. So I came to Castle Köthen. And I stayed.”

  “An excellent match, indeed,” says Erde politely, while her mind’s eye fills with the dark dream-vision she’d had, little more than a month ago, of Baron Köthen, Wender, and the bloodied body of the murdered prince. A month for her, perhaps, but not for Wender.

  The captain paces in silence for a moment, then asks humbly, “Can you offer any news of his lordship, milady?”

  “Oh, forgive me! Of course you will be wondering! The Baron is well, Captain.” She will not mention how changed Köthen is, or how he’d refused her plea to return with her to Deep Moor, alas too late. “He’s fighting the dragons’ battles now.”

  One small portion of Wender’s anxiety seems relieved by this knowledge. “The Knight will be glad to hear it. And so . . . we are nearly there.”

  Ahead, smoke rises damply from a large cook fire, canopied against the snow. Men huddle close around it, while their horses stamp in the cold. Several canvas-draped wagons stand like a barricade between the fire and a faded red pavilion set a bit apart. The pavilion is larger than the tents clustered on the other side of the cook fire, but shows no other sign of luxury.

  Erde expects to find men hurrying about, servants or healers caring for the wounded knight. But the door flap hangs flat and still, and silence lies like a pall around the pavilion. Perhaps the knight’s retainers are respecting his slumber, but Erde senses something chillier than that. As they pass the cook fire, Wender calls to some of the gathered men. They mutter, and answer him as sullenly as the boys, but a few leave their place at the fire to do his bidding. Erde shivers, watching them approach. Their hands and faces are chapped raw, their postures lank and suspicious. Brusquely, the captain orders them to clear the area in front of the red pavilion.

  “It’s fear keeps them away, milady,” he tells her, correctly reading her questioning glance.

  “Of sickness?”

  “Of him, milady. When the battle turns, they blame him now. He’s . . .”

  “He’s what?” Disfigured? Delirious? Can it be the captain was not exaggerating? Is the dear old knight really dying?

  “Well, you will see for yourself.” He strides to the flap, then hesitates. “Your pardon, milady. Let me go in first and prepare him.”

  “Captain, let us not delay! I’d rather . . .”

  “A moment only, milady.” Wender ducks through the loose canvas as if intent on concealing the pavilion’s interior from all eyes. Shivering now from cold as well as dismay, Erde gathers her woolen layers about her against the snow and icy wind, and reports all she’s seen and learned to the dragon, waiting far out in the drifted meadow.

  Wender soon reappears as promised, but remains at the door, blocking the way. “Milady, you will find him . . . most changed.”

  “Of course, Captain. He is weak from the wound, I suppose. Is there fever?” This, of course, would be the worst: the wound inflamed.

  “Fever, yes, and more.” Still, he hesitates. “Even before the wound.”

  “Surely I’ll not be in any danger?” she demands in a shocked whisper.

  Wender’s gruff face twists, with doubt or caution. Or it could simply be grief, Erde decides. Without further comment, he steps aside, gathering the limp canvas in one hand for her to pass.

  After the bleak gray of the snowy afternoon, Erde expects a greater darkness inside. Instead, her gloom-adjusted eyes are stunned by the glare of a score of lanterns, oil lamps, and candles,
arrayed about the interior of the pavilion as if for some saint’s day celebration. Their many points of light are misted by smoke from the braziers set at the corners. Squinting into the brightness, Erde doesn’t see the knight at first. She see books, piles of books, as well as loose sheaths of parchment and the rolled scrolls of vellum maps, piled on rickety camp tables, spilling out of trunks, scattered across the muddied rugs that only partially cover the frozen meadow grasses matting the ground.

  “Has he brought his entire library?” she exclaims.

  “Most of it.” Wender has come in behind her and closed the flap, pulling it tight against invading wind and snow, and prying glances.

  “My lord? Sir Hal?” Erde looks for a sickbed and finds it—rumpled, mud-stained, bloodstained, and . . . empty, but for a litter of books and occultish charts. “Are you here?”

  “He’s here.”

  She thinks Wender’s tone is very dire. She steps farther in, her eyes adjusting to the flickering, smoky light. She sees motion among the candle flames, and then, a stooped old man, thin past all reason, his gray hair unkempt, his chin ragged with bristles, totters toward her with an armload of leather-bound tomes.

  “Is that you, girl?”

  She knows the voice only because she expects to hear it. But it was never so cracked and wheezy. He was never . . .

  “Yes, it’s me.” She is numbed to a whisper.

  “Good! Kurt told me you’d come back.”

  She clears her throat and tries again. “Yes. I’m back.”

  “Well, I’ve got one of you at least! And not a moment too soon!” He dumps the books onto an unoccupied corner of the nearest table and stands breathing hard. When he seems more confident of his balance, he snatches the top book off the stack and shakes it at her like a fist. “Come! You must help me call the others! There’s not a moment to lose!”

  Wender murmurs, “He won’t sit still even long enough to let me shave him.”

  Surely this is some imposter! Where is her tall, stern, red-leathered knight? Erde cannot comprehend how a man so strong and vital could have aged so greatly in so short a time. Could the injury alone be responsible? Didn’t the captain say he was wounded but a day ago? She notes the flush of fever on his cheek and in his eyes. His skin is stretched taut, as if from a wasting sickness, or from the denial of constant and agonizing pain. Beneath the masking scents of burning tallow and charcoal, Erde detects the sour-sweet odor of decay. She turns wide, horrified eyes back to Wender.

  “Oh, Captain, go bid your men to hurry, I beg you! I’ll be all right here with him.”

  Wender nods briskly, and ducks out.

  Erde turns back to the knight with the most encouraging smile she can muster. He has thrown the book down where a small cleared space is ringed with the golden cylinders of altar candles. He props himself against the table and leans in to study the pages. His arms quiver with the effort, and he bends so low that she fears his scrawl of untrimmed hair will catch in the circle of leaping flames. He appears to have forgotten her entirely.

  “Sir Hal?”

  Without looking up, he beckons her over impatiently, as if she’s been away but a minute, not the several months that she calculates have actually passed. Winter should have been gone long ago, but she knows from Raven that it went on and on. How long actually? She must remember to ask the captain. Weather so freakish cannot provide a reliable calendar.

  “Come, child! Look!”

  As Erde approaches, the musty stench grows sharper. He is wearing a rumpled but clean tunic—the captain has managed that much, at least—but the right side, across his shoulder blade and down along his ribs, is damply stained: rouge, yellow, russet. Erde struggles for composure, and a steady stomach.

  “Look here!” Hal insists. His finger trembles on a brightly illuminated page. “See here where it says . . . well, the translation is clumsy, but this passage . . .” He shoves several smaller books aside, reaching for an older, tattered volume stuffed with torn strips of parchment. He fumbles with the markers. “Where is it? Where?”

  “My lord, you needn’t tell me now. . . .”

  “No, we must . . . Here! Here it is! The same, you see? The very same passage reoccurs, encapsulated within this earlier text!” He holds the ragged little book out for her perusal. Every inch of margin is crammed with his carefully inked annotations.

  Erde nods weakly. His bright mad grin has brought her to the verge of tears. “What does it say, good knight?”

  “Listen!” He brings the page up close to his eyes, then peers aside at her apologetically. “My own translation, you understand. An improvement, but . . . well.” He turns back, clearing his throat and squinting to read his notes. “’In the beginning, four mighty dragons’ . . . four, my girl! You hear that? It speaks of them. It must be them! It goes on, ‘. . . raised of elemental energies, were put to work . . .’” He stops to cough and ends up gasping for breath.

  “No more, dear knight, I beg you! You will kill yourself with this!”

  “But the text breaks off there! It’s a fragment only!” He turns to her with crazed intensity. “A damned illusive fragment! But then, I found . . .” He fumbles again among the many books, but his fingers seem to have lost the will to grasp. He gives up and leans against the tabletop, shuddering and heaving.

  “Dearest Sir Hal, you are not well!” Now Erde cannot keep the horror from her voice. “Has the chirurgeon seen to your wound?”

  He waves his hand, a jerky half-controlled motion. “Yes, yes. A fool. I called for Linden, but . . .” He frowns, having lost his train of thought. “A fool! He’d have me drugged on my couch if I let him!”

  “With good reason! You’re sorely hurt and should be resting!”

  “No time for that, girl! No time!” He reaches for another book. “It’s here somewhere, and I shall find it.”

  “What is?”

  “Did they tell you? The hell-priest is in the Grove. Cursed be the day I took that devil into my household!” He drops the book convulsively and grips his head with both hands. “Aiii, I am to blame! I am to blame! The priest is in the Grove and we cannot pry him out!”

  “You are not to blame,” she protests, but uselessly, for he isn’t listening.

  His hands fall back to rustle among the books and papers. “It’s his damned black magic, of course. Like he’s done with the weather. Somehow the Grove’s own magic has been subdued. I’ve been searching for a proper conjure to lend it strength, but you will help me find it. Now that you and Lord Earth are here, we shall . . .” He looks up, and then wildly around the tent, his whole body sagging in a seizure of doubt. “He is here, isn’t he?”

  Erde nearly rushes to catch his fall. “He is, dear knight! He surely is, and the first task he must undertake is to make you well again! Then we shall worry about the hell-priest.” She moves closer, to take his arm and lead him from the distraction of his books. He tries to wave her away, but there is no strength in him. His wrist is as frail as a willow twig beneath his fevered skin. He shudders as if her touch is agony.

  “No time, no time! The answer is here! I had it, almost, and then . . .!” He coughs, a dire rattle clogging his throat.

  Erde panics. “Captain Wender!” Hal’s face is rigid with suppressed pain. “Captain! Will you come, please?” She sees that the knight’s every breath is an effort, a battle won. She cannot imagine what’s keeping him upright. She will not ask what answer he seeks so desperately, for he will try to tell her and only wreck himself further. “Please, dear Hal, time for answers when you are well! The dragon will be here soon. Let him see to you, or there’ll be no time for you at all!”

  “Milady?” Wender appears at the tent flap, then hurries in to help her support the old man’s lanky, sagging frame. He grabs up a soft and thickly woven blanket and drapes it over Hal’s stooped shoulders like a cloak.

  Hal struggles within the enveloping folds. “No! Leave me! My work is not done! I’m so close, Kurt! Let me go!”

&n
bsp; “Good, my lord,” Wender murmurs. “Behave yourself now.”

  “Will you not come out and greet the dragon?” Erde asks brightly.

  The fever-glaze in Hal’s eyes clears long enough to let a ray of his old joy and awe shine through. “The dragon! Yes! He will know! Wender! My sword!”

  “No need for that, my lord.”

  “My sword, I say! I must make my obeisance!”

  Wender sighs. Balancing the knight on one arm, he reaches behind him for the sword hung by sheath and belt on a tent pole. Erde catches just a glimpse of the familiar dragon-shaped hilt before Wender presses it to Hal’s chest, then wraps sword, sheath, and knight up soundly in the woolen blanket. “We’ve cleared as large a space as we’re likely to get, milady. I’m hoping it will do.”

  “It will have to, Captain. Let us hurry! I’ll go outside and call the dragon now.” She stays a moment to stroke Hal’s bruised hand. “Soon, dear knight. Soon all will be well.”

  “Soon all will be over,” Hal mutters.

  “Not at all! You mustn’t say so. It’s only the fever bringing you to such madness and despair!”

  “And a good thing, too,” he continues. “It’s the only way. The texts are very clear in that regard.” He begins to cough again, so racked by it this time that his mouth is stained with blood.

  Wender gently wipes it away with a corner of the blanket, while Erde turns her glance away. “You go ahead, milady. Go call in your magic beast.”

  Outside, Erde steals a moment to compose herself, to brush away the tears she’s allowed herself only once she’s turned her back, to breathe in air—no matter how icy cold—that’s free of smoke and the rank stink of infection. The wind has died, and the snow falls more gently, like a caress rather than a punishment.

  Oh, dragon! Just when I think I’ve known every sadness possible!

  DO NOT DESPAIR.

  Never! Not while you are here. They’ve made room for you. Will you join us? You are sorely needed!

  She gazes across the rutted stretch of field in front of the tent. Wender has ordered the supply wagons drawn aside, and several of the smaller tents and lean-tos moved farther down the line. Word of a happening has obviously been passed through the camp. A sullen throng of infantrymen and squires has gathered around the perimeter to speculate and stare. Erde does not feel particularly welcomed. She has never called the dragon into a crowd of strangers before, except at Erfurt, to snatch Margit from the stake. The men have brought their pikes and crossbows, she notes, but these are soldiers, after all, and they are at war. It is their duty to be armed. Swallowing her dread, Erde images the trampled field, the tents and all the onlookers, clearly and in precise detail.