away.
‘I don’t understand. Talk sense,’ Chade demanded.
‘It’s as much sense as you can apply to it,’ I interceded quietly. ‘I know the sort of being, or feeling, or place that the Prince is speaking about. I’ve encountered such, a time or two. Once, one helped us. But I had the feeling that one was an exception. Perhaps another one of them might have absorbed us and not even noticed. It’s an incredibly attractive force, Chade. Warm and accepting, gentle as a mother’s love.’
The Prince frowned slightly and shook his head. ‘This one was strong. Protective and wise. Like a father,’ said Dutiful.
I held my tongue. I had long ago decided that those forces presented to us whatever it was that we most hungered for. My mother had given me up when I was very small. Dutiful had never known his father. Such things leave large gaps in a man.
‘Why haven’t you spoken of this before?’ Chade asked testily.
Why, indeed? Because that encounter had seemed too personal to share. But now I excused myself, saying, ‘Because you would only have said to me what you just said. Talk sense. It’s a phenomenon I can’t explain. Perhaps even what I’ve said is just my rationalization of what I experienced. Recounting a dream; that’s what it is like. Trying to make a story out of a series of events that defy logic.’
Chade subsided, but he did not look content. I resigned myself to being wrung for more facts, thoughts and impressions later.
‘I want to tell about the big lizard,’ Thick observed sullenly to no one at all. He had reached a point at which he sometimes enjoyed being the centre of attention. Obviously he felt that the Prince’s tale had stolen his stage.
‘Go ahead, Thick. You tell what you dreamed, and then I’ll tell what I did.’ The Prince ceded him all attention.
Chade sat back in his chair with a noisy sigh. I turned my attention to Thick and watched his face brighten. He gave a wiggle like a stroked puppy, squinted thoughtfully, and then in a painstaking imitation of how he had frequently heard Dutiful and me report to Chade, began his account. ‘I went to bed last night. And I had my red blanket. Then, Thick was being almost asleep, going into the music. Then, I knew Dutiful was there. Sometimes Thick follows him to dreams. He has lots of good dreams, girl dreams …’
Thick’s voice trailed off for a moment as he breathed through his open mouth, pondering.
The Prince looked acutely uncomfortable, but both Chade and I managed to retain blandly interested expressions.
Thick abruptly resumed his tale. ‘Then, I thought, where is he? Maybe it’s a game. He’s hiding from Thick. So I go, “Prince” and he goes, “be quiet”. So I am and Thick is small, and the music goes around and around me. Like hiding in the curtains. Then I peep, just a tiny peep. And it’s a big fat lizard, blue, blue like my shirt, but shiny when she moves, like the knives in the kitchen. Then she says, “come out, come out. We can play a game.” But Prince says, “sh, no, don’t” so I don’t, and then she gets mad and gets bigger. Her eyes go shiny and whirl round and round like that saucer I dropped. And then Thick thinks, “but she’s on the dream side. I’ll go on the other side.” So I made the music get bigger and I woke up. And there wasn’t a lizard but my red blanket was on the floor.’
He finished his telling with a great gasp, having run out of breath and looked from one of us to the other. I found myself giving Chade the tiniest of Skill-pokes. He glanced at me, but contrived to make it seem a chance thing. I felt tremendous pride in the old man when he said, ‘An excellent report, Thick. You’ve given me much to consider. Let us hear the Prince now and then I’ll see if I have any questions for you.’
Thick sat taller in his chair and his chest swelled with such pride that the fabric of his shirt strained across his round belly. His tongue still stuck out of his wide froggy grin, but his little eyes danced as he looked from Dutiful to me to be sure we had noticed his triumph. I wondered when impressing Chade had become so important to him, and then realized that this, too, was an imitation of his prince.
Dutiful wisely allowed Thick a moment or two to bask in our attention. ‘Thick has told you most of the story, but let me add a bit. I told you of a great presence. I was – well, not watching – I was experiencing her, or it I suppose, and being slowly drawn closer and closer. It wasn’t frightening. I knew it was dangerous, but it was hard to care that I might be absorbed and lost forever. It just didn’t seem to matter. Then the presence began to recede. I wanted to pursue it, but at that moment I became aware of something else watching me. And it did not feel so benign. My sensation was that while I’d been contemplating that presence, this other being had crept up on me.
‘I looked around and saw that I was at the edge of a milky river, on a very small clay beach. A great forest of immense trees stood at my back. They were taller than towers and shaded the day to dusk. I didn’t see anything else at first. Then I noticed a tiny creature, like a lizard, only plumper. It was on the wide leaf of a tree, watching me. Yet once I saw it, it began to grow. Or perhaps I shrank. I’m not sure. The forest grew bigger as well, until when the animal stepped down onto the clay, it was a dragon. Blue and silver, immense and beautiful. And she spoke to me, saying, “So. You’ve seen me. Well, I don’t care. But you will. You’re one of his. Tell me. What do you know of a black dragon?” Then, and this part was very odd, I couldn’t find myself. It was as if I had looked at her too hard and forgotten to remember that I existed. And then I decided I would be behind a tree, and I was.’
‘This doesn’t sound like the Skill,’ Chade interrupted irritably. ‘It sounds like a dream.’
‘Exactly. And so I dismissed it when I awoke. I knew I had Skilled briefly, but I thought that then sleep had crept upon me, and all that followed was a dream. So, in this dream, in the odd way that dreams have, Thick was suddenly with me. I didn’t know if he had seen the dragon, so I reached for him and told him to be quiet and hide from her. So we were hiding, and she became very angry, I think because she knew we were still there but hiding. Then suddenly Thick was gone. And it startled me so much that I opened my eyes.’ The Prince shrugged. ‘I was in my bedroom. I thought it had just been a very vivid dream.’
‘So it could have been, one that you and Thick shared,’ Chade replied. ‘I think we can leave this now and settle to our real business here.’
‘I think not,’ I said. Something in Chade’s easy dismissal warned me that the old man did not want us to speak of this but I was willing to sacrifice part of my secret to discover his. ‘I think the dragon is real. Moreover, I think we have heard of her before. Tintaglia, the Bingtown dragon. The one that masked boy spoke of.’
‘Selden Vestrit.’ Dutiful supplied his name quietly. ‘Can dragons Skill, then? Why would she demand to know what we knew of a black dragon? Does she mean Icefyre?’
‘Almost certainly she does. But that is the only one of your questions that I can answer.’ I turned reluctantly to face Chade’s scowl. ‘She has touched my dreams before. With the same demand, that I tell her what I knew of a black dragon and an island. She knows of our quest, most likely from the Bingtown contingent that came to invite us so cordially to their war with Chalced. But I think that she only knows as much as they did. That there is a dragon trapped in ice, and that Dutiful goes to slay him.’
Chade made a sound almost like a growl. ‘Then she’ll know the name of the island as well. Aslevjal. It is only a matter of time before she discovers where that is. The Bingtown Traders are famous for doing just that: trading. If they want a chart that shows the way to Aslevjal, they’ll obtain one.’
I spread my hands, displaying a calm I didn’t feel. ‘There is nothing we can do about that, Chade. We’ll have to deal with whatever develops.’
He pushed back his chair. ‘Well, I could deal with it better if I knew enough to expect it,’ he said. His voice rose as he did. He stalked to the window and stared out over the sea. Then he turned his head to glare at me over his shoulder. ‘What else have you not told me?’
Had