Before she could say anything, two balls of fire shot like comets through the swamp, the light flashing on small lumps of fur occupying the branches until Copperwise dropped her kill and snatched one of the creatures from a tree. “Dessert,” she said.
Verity had introduced them to the concept of dessert, one of her favorite civilized customs. Not that there were cake, pies, or pastries of any sort available in the cave, but saving the best bits for last illustrated the concept in theory, even if it never got practiced by the greedy young dragons.
“No, don’t!” she said.
“Why not?” Toby asked. “I thought they’d never get here.”
“It’s a little kitty,” Verity said. “They’re all kitties, see? Someone must have abandoned them here in the swamp thinking they would die, but apparently the hunting has been good enough to sustain them. Poor dears, they’re just frightened and cold and probably feel betrayed by whoever did this to them.”
Copperwise reluctantly released the cat she clutched and it sprang away into the darkness, closely followed by a flood of other felines. The eyes and tail-vines vanished from the trees.
“That took care of them,” Toby said. “Now, if you could please have your friends make us a fire?”
Not only was he cold, but he hoped Taz would see the fire and use it to find them. With those mad dragon-hunters about, he was very worried about her.
It was a good thing they had dragons to count on for flame, because everything they could have used for fuel was extremely damp. Verity had grown used to cooking with dragon-fire and managed to roast pieces of meat for herself and Toby once the dragons had gobbled everything else, cooking it on the way down, presumably.
The flame was intermittent, but warming, and Loveday and Copperwise thoughtfully alternated providing heat. The steaming outer layers of clothing began to dry out and once those were dry, inner layers could be removed and dried with some degree of decorum. Boots had to be elevated upside down over sticks driven into the ground.
None of their actions went unobserved. Once the dragons were occupied cooking and heating and having their heads scratched, rings of golden eyes ornamented the darkness at the edge of the light.
Verity was very fond of cats and wanted to lure one in with a treat, but was afraid she wouldn’t be able to prevent the dragons from hurting it.
The cats didn’t feel threatening as they had before. They were curious, but kept a wary distance.
“I wonder how they came to be here,” she said.
“I suppose they could be some breed of small wildcat,” Toby suggested. “You sometimes see feral colonies around Queenston in the ruins that haven’t been built over or down by the docks, but this swamp seems quite remote from anything that might draw them all here.”
Copperwise suddenly reached out and grabbed two of the cats, who fought, then cried. Verity flew at her pupil, yelling at her, attacking her, trying to get her to release the cats. Loveday rushed to her twin’s defense, but Toby jumped between them, shouting a command he’d used to make Taz stop. The twins, with expressions more deeply offended than any even Sophronia could muster, puffed off into the night, dropping the cats on the way.
“Oh, no,” Verity cried. “Come back! I’m sorry, really!”
“They’ll probably get over it,” Toby said. “Taz took offense easily when she was a baby, but she always got over it. She knows I love her and yours will know, too.” But Verity could tell by the first headache she’d had all winter (since dragons, whatever other faults they had, were very truthful) he was only trying to make her feel better.
“I hope they don’t come back till we’re out of the cats’ woods,” she said.
“At least they waited until we’d eaten and our clothes were mostly dry,” Toby said practically. “But we’re in for a dark cold night, unless Taz finds us soon. Once she does, the others might come back, either from curiosity or to defend their territory—that would be you.”
“I’ve hurt their feelings and they’re just babies,” she said. “But dragons as companions are an acquired taste and I’ve always been f-fond of c-cats.” She wept so hard she was afraid she’d never stop.
Since she’d recovered from the balloon accident and grieved for the death of her father, she had kept moving forward, from trying to clear Toby and breaking him out of the dungeon, and the train trip with Ephemera, she had kept usefully occupied. At Wormroost, she was so far from home and in such interesting surroundings with such congenial and often amusing company that she was almost happy.
The train journey had likewise kept her stimulated with new vistas flowing past the windows and Ephemera’s shells in her ears. Even being abducted for sacrificial purposes had made her merely angry, and in the cave, figuring out how to survive had been diverting as well.
Loveday and Copperwise had depended on her, once they stopped trying to incinerate her with their baby flames, and after a while they had all taken care of each other and learned together. They could be annoying, but once they began to communicate, each was patient with the other—and her—in a most un-dragonlike fashion. She supposed she could see why they might be offended that she had taken the part of what they considered prey. They had yet to make the distinction between prey animals and friend animals and when she thought about it, she had no idea how to explain it to them.
Toby consolingly patted her shoulder then began busily rubbing two soggy sticks together.
A paw attached to a dim furry form and shining eyes reached out from the shadows to rest on her knee.
She tried to pat the cat’s head, and the paw on her knee grew very sharp claws that dug through her almost-dry woolen pants and tattered skirt.
“Ouch!” she said, the pain adding indignation to her grief, though she realized that one did not remind a cat of what one had done for it, one simply asked how one might once more serve the cat. Even the cat belonging to the cook outranked the daughter of the house, at least in the cat’s estimation.
It retracted the claws, sat back on its haunches, looked into her eyes and moved its mouth, though no sound emerged. Its friends were not as reticent however. Three more pairs of bright eyes joined it and these were accompanied by mews, almost drowned out by a renewed chorus of yowling from the surrounding multitudes.
The one that had first addressed her walked two paces away from her and looked back over its shoulder.
“It wants us to follow,” Verity told Toby.
“Possibly. Or they were just waiting until the dragons left to pounce upon us en masse and devour us.”
Verity rose slowly to her feet and gave him a withering look.
The committee of cats scampered away, but paused after a few steps to make sure she saw them.
She moved forward. Behind her, Toby rose and followed.
With nothing but the cats’ eyes to guide them, they picked their way through the swamp.
“Careful,” he said. “They’re smaller and lighter than we are. Ground that will hold one of them won’t…”
“I know, I know,” she said. Her foot slipped sideways and she quickly retrieved it and set it in front of the other one. The nearest cat looked back impatiently.
She wasn’t sure when the lights appeared, much like the cats’ eyes, seemingly disembodied by the dark, the lights floated and bobbed alongside them. She was too busy watching the cats’ eyes to notice the catless lights until they bounced slightly ahead of them and then a pair on each side switched sides, temporarily illuminating the cats’ fur and tails, the lights themselves were just that. Lights. There were no bodies, no strings, no mirrors, no creature, or device of any kind to cause them.
She stopped and Toby ran into her back. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Didn’t you see that?” she asked, pointing, though she couldn’t see the end of her finger and was sure he couldn’t either.
“What?”
“Those!” she said. “Lights. Right there. About three feet above our heads and off to eac
h side.”
“Maybe your dragons have returned?” he suggested. Then, apparently having looked, said, “Oh, I see. Those aren’t dragons. They’re not anything, In fact, don’t look at them.”
“Why not?”
“They’re swamp lights is what they are. Some say they’re marsh gas.”
“They don’t look like any kind of gas. It’s not as if there’s a flame.”
“True, but that’s the scientific explanation I’ve heard. The old story, as I’ve heard tell, is that they’re spirits of the dead trying to lead you into the quicksand to join them.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, staring at the lights, fascinated in spite of herself. Where did they want her to go? Were they really spirits? Was there some message she was supposed to receive? Some right she was supposed to wrong? Some final business she was supposed to finish for them? Turning, she lifted her foot and was rewarded by claws sinking into her thigh, pulling her forward onto the path. “The cats are not impressed.”
“Well,” he said. “They’re cats.”
“Very well, kitty,” she said to the area around her feet. “Sorry. You have my full attention.”
The lights zipped ahead, bobbing around over the cats’ heads, reminding her of Loveday when Copperwise was getting all the attention. “Watch me! Watch me!”
Again, they distracted her so that she lost track of the cat eyes until suddenly she ran into a soft pile of felines and a great collection of cat eyes like a puddle of topazes at the bottom of—she put her hand out—yes, a stone. Possibly a wall.
Unearthly caterwauling arose from the clowder crowded before her and as one, the cats attacked the wall, clawing and pawing, meowing, yowling, and growling.
“Whatever this is, they don’t like it,” she said.
“Obviously,” Toby agreed. “What do you suppose? Is something in there?”
“They seem to think we can be of assistance,” she said.
“Yes, otherwise they wouldn’t bother with us,” he replied.
She edged forward, gently so as not to step on paws or tails or other more substantial cat parts, and put both hands on the stone. It sat there, exactly as she expected stone to do. The cats turned their golden eyes on her, with a will more collective than she had ever believed cats capable of exerting.
“Give us a hand here, will you? I can’t budge it.”
He waded through cats and felt around until his fingers curled over the edges of the stone, then tried to put his back into it. He heaved, but it didn’t move. She added her weight to his, but it didn’t budge.
“Maybe there’s a trick to it,” he said.
“Perhaps we should wait for daylight.”
The cats mewed and paced and twined and lashed their tails in agitation. Every time after that when the two humans stopped trying to move the stone, the cats cried and focused big wide cat eyes on them until they returned to attempting to move the stone.
The harder they worked at it, the less they heard from the cats, until at last, as they gave the last heroic shove either of them had left, and heard a faint creak as the boulder budged ever so slightly, all of the cats sat behind them, watching expectantly as they worked. One cat had been sitting on top of the stone as if supervising, but suddenly it hissed and jumped down, as a noxious stench seeped through the hairline crack between boulder and hillside.
“What do you think?” Toby asked. “One more shove?”
Although she was almost certain they would not like what they found, Verity nodded, then said, “Right.”
The cats inched imperceptibly backward.
Chapter 27
Travels with Taz
Somewhere among the Archives was a quote about riding a tiger. That sounded comfortable compared to riding on a seat made from a dragon’s claws, but even that was infinitely better than travel without the dragon. Taz was a lovely creature and Ephemera felt sure her new friend had nothing to do with the death of Verity’s father.
Taz kept asking Ephemera if she was flying too fast or too slowly and if the wind of her passing was causing Ephemera to grow colder and if the seat was too lumpy.
They slalomed back and forth across the east face of the mountain, and at the top of a cliff dropping sharply from a high plateau, heard the roar of the water growing ever louder as they descended.
“Ah, there it is,” Ephemera told Taz. The rescuers would no doubt continue to concentrate their efforts on the east face, seeking Vitia, who must surely be wearying of flying in circles emitting heart rending or knickers soiling cries, depending on one’s attitude.
The herder’s path spiraled widdershins up from the north face and around the peak, so Taz had flown beneath the high trail leading to the crater on the east side. The search party missed them altogether. This was exactly as Ephemera expected. She knew that while she had been climbing that steep trail, looking hundreds of feet below her was the last thing she’d wanted to do.
Taz coasted down the mountain with her wings folded against her body so her passenger got the full brunt of the wind. Ephemera dare not hold onto her hat or pull her hood back over her head because she was holding tightly to the dragon’s forelegs. Beside them, the waterfall tumbled into the frothing river below and without perceptible change in posture, the young dragon unfurled her wings and allowed her body to flow smoothly into an upright position, flying more deliberately and slowly along the river bank.
They reached a place where the ground was seared, all snow melted well away from it, and twigs had been thrust into the mud. Ephemera dismounted and examined the area. The bank was broken and trampled, and a half-cooked haunch of deer lay discarded, uneaten, to one side.
They could not have been here very long and it wasn’t yet full dark. Why had they not remained, unless perhaps they had moved to a less exposed spot? And why not take their meat with them?
Taz suddenly gave a low hiss and took off into the trees. When she returned, she looked alarmed. “The hatchlings left the boy and that girl,” Taz reported. “They should not have done that.”
“No,” Ephemera agreed, “That’s not good. Perhaps they went hunting, but then, I suppose if that were the case, the deer haunch wouldn’t be here. Young dragons can better protect themselves in the woods than young humans, so let’s follow the footprints, if you can light the way, please, Taz. No, wait, no need for you to waste your flame that way. I’ll make a torch. I can use some of that venison fat.”
This she did, using one of her petticoats to wrap around the stick. Voluminous skirts had their uses. Concealing one while at toilet in inconveniently open places, concealing a petticoat’s worth of bandages, wadding, and other useful items, and concealing inner pockets were among them.
After rubbing the petticoat strips into the deer fat, liquefied from its rapidly freezing state by Taz, who also made sure the venison didn’t go to waste, Ephemera wrapped the rags around the end of a sturdy branch and Taz ignited it. The torch’s flame was smellier and smokier than Taz’s flame, but served to illuminate the ground so that she could follow the footsteps, a task that became increasingly tricky as they continued. This was complicated because the torch kept falling apart, the burning fabric unwinding and streaming down in front of her since she actually had no way to secure it to the stick.
By the time the torch burnt to ash and Taz flamed up again to light their way, they found themselves within a sizable marsh with dripping moss and tall grasses and ferns, and things slithering around the ankles of Ephemera’s boots. Twice her foot slipped from the path and Taz grabbed her, once by the back of the neck and once, missing, by her braid which had come undone, adding the stink of singed hair to the general marshy-moldiness.
“This is an unco place, young wurm,” she told Taz, using the ancient word for uncanny, unnatural, and well, creepy. “If the young ones are here, they may be in deep trouble. Out of the dragon’s lair into the swamp sort of thing?”
Then a sniff brought her a more familiar odor—the scent of cat pee.
Not long after that, she saw the first of the cats, huddled on the trails and in the trees, watching them and hissing warnings.
Taz hissed back and the cats scattered. Before long, however, individual pairs of golden eyes stared back at them from beyond flame-range. Not that Ephemera was about to allow any carnage among the kitties, but it was interesting that their fear appeared to be of a purely practical kind, removing themselves from immediate danger, not just a general scarpering off because the world had been taken suddenly scary.
Ephemera did what she always did when in need of soothing for herself or others, and sang an old tune. Its name escaped her. Hard thing for an archivist to have these occasional memory lapses.
When one of the cats mewed up at her it reminded her of an obscure bit of folklore she’d gathered about a place called The Mewing Marshes. She tried to recall all of it and was sure she hadn’t brought that particular shell, if indeed she had ever had a recording of the tale. What she did recall was that it was not a nice story, cats notwithstanding.
“We must hurry, Taz,” she told the dragon, though truly she would have preferred that Taz turn around and hurry in the opposite direction.
The Prison of Mages
Using a sturdy branch as a lever, Verity and Toby finally moved the rock free to reveal an actual door, carved into the stone and bound with iron.
“All that shoving for nothing,” Toby said disgustedly. “I don’t know what’s kept in there, but it’s not dragons. They’d melt that iron.”
“Where are Loveday and Copperwise now that I need them?” Verity asked. “They aren’t at maximum temperature yet, being so young, but they could make pretty short work of this, I think.”
Meanwhile the cats were trying, scratching at the heavy wood and yowling their heads off.
“Not long before they’ll be through it,” Toby said. “I wonder what’s in there.”
“I hope it’s not rats,” Verity said.
The Dragon, the Witch, and the Railroad Page 24