The Dragonbone Chair

by Tad Williams

  “Supper?!” Simon choked, spattering hippocras down his tunic. “With Prince Josua…?”

  “Yes, boy, that’s what I said. Supper. There’s nothing we can do right this instant, and I need to think. If you miss your supper, it will just raise a hue and cry—albeit a small one—and it will help to do just what we don’t want to do: attract attention. No, go now and eat supper…and between bites, keep your mouth shut, will you?”

  Mealtime seemed to pass as slowly as spring thaw. Wedged between loudly chewing scullions, his heart beating double time, Simon resisted the wild impulse to lash out and knock cups and crockery spinning to the rush-strewn floor. The conversation infuriated him with its irrelevance, and the shepherd’s pie that Judith had prepared especially for Belthainn Eve was as tasteless and unchewable in his mouth as wood.

  Rachel watched his fidgeting with displeasure from her seat at the head of the table. When Simon had sat still as long as he could and leaped up to make his excuses, she followed him to the door.

  “I’m sorry, Rachel, I’m in a hurry!” he said, hoping to stave off the lecture she seemed primed to deliver. “Doctor Morgenes has something very important he wants me to help him with. Please?”

  For a moment the Dragon looked as though she were going to get that fearful grip on his ear and bring him forcibly back to table, but something in his face or tone caught at her; for a moment she almost smiled.

  “All right, boy, just this once—but you thank Judith for that nice bit of pie before you go. She worked on it the whole afternoon.”

  Simon bolted over to Judith, pitched like a huge tent at her own table. Her plump cheeks colored prettily while he praised her exertions. As he hurried back to the door, Rachel leaned out and captured his sleeve. He stopped and turned, mouth already open to complain, but Rachel only said; “Now just calm yourself and be careful, you mooncalf boy. Nothing’s so important that you should kill yourself getting there.” She patted his arm and released him; he was through the door and gone as she watched.

  Simon had pulled on his vest and coat by the time he reached the well. Morgenes had not yet arrived, so he paced impatiently in the deeper shadow of the dining hall until a soft voice at his elbow made him start in surprise.

  “Sorry to make you wait, lad. Inch came by, and I had a devilish time convincing him that I didn’t need him after all.” The doctor pulled his hood forward, hiding his face.

  “How did you come up so quietly?” Simon asked, his whisper an imitation of the doctor’s.

  “I can still get about a little, Simon,” the doctor said in an injured tone. “I am old, but not yet moribund.”

  Simon did not know what “moribund” meant, but he caught the general idea. “Sorry,” he whispered.

  The two made their way silently down the dining room stairs and into the first storage room, where Morgenes produced a crystal sphere the size of a green apple. When he rubbed it, a small spark flickered into being at the center, gradually brightening until it limned the encircling casks and bundles with soft honey-colored light. Morgenes shrouded the nether half of it in his sleeve and held it before them as they paced carefully through the stacked dry goods.

  The hatchway was closed; Simon did not remember whether or not he had shut it himself in his mad dash out. They went down the ladder carefully, Simon leading, Morgenes above him casting about this way and that with the shining glove. Simon pointed out the closet where Pryrates had almost captured him. They passed on, down to the bottom floor.

  The lowermost room was as untenanted as before, but the door leading to the stone passageway was shut. Simon was almost positive that he had not done this, and told Morgenes so, but the little man just waved his hand and strode to the wall, finding the spot where the crack had been according to Simon’s directions. The doctor rubbed his hand in a circular movement across the wall, muttering something under his breath, but no crevice appeared. After Morgenes had squatted by the wall talking to himself for some time, Simon grew tired of bouncing from one foot to the other and crouched down at the doctor’s side.

  “Can’t you just say some magic and make it open?”

  “No!” Morgenes hissed. “A wise man never, I repeat, never uses the Art when he doesn’t need to—especially when dealing with another adept, like our Father Pryrates. We might as well sign my name to it.”

  As Simon sat back on his heels and scowled, the doctor placed his left hand flat in the middle of the area where the door had been; after a moment’s light palpation of the surface he hit it smartly with the heel of his right hand. The door popped open, pouring torchlight into the room. The doctor peeked through, then dropped his lampcrystal into the hem of his voluminous sleeve and pulled out a stitched leather bag.

  “Ah, Simon-lad,” he chuckled, quietly, “what a thief I would have made. It was not a ‘magic door’—only hidden by use of the Art. Come on, now!” They stepped through into the damp stone corridor.

  Their footfalls made syrupy echoes as they slipped and stepped down the walkway to the corridor’s end and the locked door. After a moment’s examination of the lock Morgenes stepped to the peephole and peered inside.

  “I think you’re right, lad,” he hissed. “Nuanni’s Shinbone! But I wish you weren’t.” He returned to the scrutiny of the lock. “Run up to the end of the corridor and keep an ear open, won’t you?”

  As Simon stood guard, Morgenes fished around in his leather bag, at last extracting a long, needle-thin blade set in a wooden handle. He waved it merrily at Simon.

  “Naraxi pig-sticker. Knew it would come in useful one day!”

  He tested it against the keyhole; it slid into the aperture with room to spare. He removed it and shook a tiny jar from his bag which he uncorked with his teeth. As Simon watched, fascinated, Morgenes upended the jar and poured a dark, sticky substance onto the needle blade, then quickly poked the tip back into the keyhole; it left glistening traces as it passed into the lock.

  Morgenes wiggled the pig-sticker for a moment, then stepped back and counted on his fingers. When he had talked both hands three times each, he grasped the slender handle and twisted. He grimaced and let go.

  “Come here, Simon. We need your strong young arms.”

  At the doctor’s direction Simon grasped the strange tool by the butt end and began to twist. For a moment his sweaty palms slipped on the polished wood; he tightened his grip, and after a short interval felt something catch inside the lock. An instant later he heard the bolt slide back. Morgenes nodded his head, and Simon shouldered the door open.

  The smoldering rushes in the wall socket threw only faint light. As Simon and the doctor approached they saw the shackled figure at the rear of the cell look up, and his eyes widen slowly, as if in some kind of recognition. His mouth worked, but only a scratchy huff of breath came out. The smell of wet, foul straw was overwhelming.

  “Oh…oh…my poor Prince Josua…” Morgenes said. As the doctor gave a quick inspection to Josua’s manacles, Simon could only look on, feeling as helpless to affect the rush of events as if he dreamed. The prince was achingly thin, and bearded like a roadsider doomcrier; the parts of his skin that showed through the miserable sacking were covered with red sores.

  Morgenes was whispering in Josua Lackhand’s ear. He had again produced his bag, and held in his hand a shallow pot, the sort that ladies kept for their lip-paint. Briskly rubbing something from the pot on first one palm, then the other, the little doctor once more looked over Josua’s restraints. Both arms were shackled to a massive iron ring in the wall, one manacled about the wrist, the handless other by a cuff about the prince’s thin upper arm.

  Morgenes finished smearing his hands and passed pot and bag to Simon. “Now be a good lad,” he said, “and cover your eyes. I traded a silkbound volume of Plesinnen Myrmenis—the only one north of Perdruin—for this muck. I just hope—Simon, do cover your eyes…”

  As the youth raised his hands he saw Morgenes reaching for the ring that bound the prince’s chains t
o the stone. An instant later a flash of light glared pinkly through Simon’s meshed fingers, accompanied by a crack like hammer on slate. When the youth looked again Prince Josua lay with his chains in a heap on the floor and Morgenes kneeled beside him, palms smoking. The wall-ring was blackened and twisted like a burnt bannock.

  “Faugh!” the doctor gasped, “I hope…I hope I…never have to do that again. Can you pick up the prince, Simon? I am very weak.”

  Josua rolled stiffly over and looked around. “I…think…I can…walk. Pryrates…gave me something.”

  “Nonsense.” Morgenes took a deep breath and climbed shakily to his feet. “Simon is a strong lad—come on, boy, don’t gape! Pick him up!”

  After some maneuvering Simon managed to wrap the hanging strands of Josua’s chains, still attached at wrist and arm, into a loop around the prince’s waist. Then, with Morgenes’ assistance, he somehow hoisted Josua up like a pickaback child. He stood and sucked in a great draught of air. For a moment he feared he could not bear up, but with a clumsy hop he moved Josua higher on his back and found that even with the added weight of the chains it was not impossible.

  “Wipe that silly smile off your face, Simon,” the doctor said, “we still have to get him up the ladder.”

  Somehow they managed—Simon grunting, almost weeping with the exertion, Josua pulling weakly at the rungs, Morgenes pushing behind and whispering encouragement. It was a long, nightmarish climb, but at last they reached the main storeroom. Morgenes scurried past as Simon leaned against a bale to rest, the prince still clinging to his back.

  “Somewhere, somewhere…” Morgenes muttered, pushing his way between the close-stacked goods. When he reached the southern wall of the room, shining his crystal before him, he began to search in earnest.

  “What…?” Simon started to ask, but the doctor silenced him with a gesture. As they watched Morgenes appear and disappear behind piles of barrels, Simon felt a delicate touch on his hair. The prince was patting gently at his head.

  “Real. Real!” Josua breathed. Simon felt something wet run down his neck.

  “Found it” came Morgenes’ hushed but triumphant cry. “Come along!” Simon rose, staggering a little, and carried the prince forward. The doctor was standing beside the blank stone wall, gesturing toward a pyramid of large casks. The lamp-crystal gave him the shadow of a looming giant.

  “Found what?” Simon adjusted the prince and stared. “Barrels?”

  “Indeed!” the doctor crackled. With a flourish he twisted the round rim of the topmost cask a half-turn. The whole side of the barrel swung open as if it were a door, revealing cavernous darkness beyond.

  Simon stared suspiciously. “What’s that?”

  “A passageway, you foolish boy.” Morgenes took his elbow and guided him toward the open-sided barrel, which stood scarcely more than chest-high. “This castle is honeycombed with such secret byways.”

  With a frown Simon stooped, peering at the black depths beyond. “In there?”

  Morgenes nodded. Simon, realizing he could not walk through, got down on his knees to inch inside, the prince riding his back as if he were a festival pony. “I didn’t know there were such passages in the storerooms,” he said, his voice echoing in the barrel. Morgenes leaned down to guide Josua’s head under the low entrance.

  “Simon, there are more things you don’t know than there are things that I do know. I despair of the imbalance. Now close your mouth and let’s hurry.”

  They were able to stand again on the far side: Morgenes’ crystal revealed a long, angled corridor, unremarkable but for a fabulous accumulation of dust.

  “Ah, Simon,” Morgenes said as they hurried along. “I only wish I had time to show you some of the rooms past which this hallway creeps—some were the chambers of a very great, very beautiful lady. She used this passage to keep her secret assignations.” The doctor looked up at Josua, whose face lay against Simon’s neck. “Sleeping, now,” Morgenes murmured. “All sleeping.”

  The corridor climbed and dipped, turning one way and another. They passed many doors, some whose locks were rusted shut, some whose handles were as shiny as a new fithing piece. Once they passed a series of small windows; in a brief glance Simon was startled to see the sentries on the western wall, silhouetted against the sky. The clouds were tinted a faint rose where the sun had gone.

  We must be above the dining hall, Simon marveled. When did we do all the climbing?

  They were stumbling in exhaustion when Morgenes finally stopped. There were no windows in this part of the winding corridor, only tapestries. Morgenes lifted one, revealing gray stone beneath.

  “Wrong tapestry,” the doctor panted, lifting the next one to reveal a door of rough wood. He laid his ear against it and listened for a moment, then pulled it open.

  “Hall of Records.” He gestured at the torchlit hallway beyond. “Only a few…hundred paces from my chambers…” When Simon and his passenger had come through, he let the door swing shut behind; it closed with an authoritative bump. Looking back, Simon could not distinguish it from other wooden panels that lined the corridor wall.

  There was only one last dash to be made in the open, a relatively rapid sprint from the easternmost door of the archive rooms, across the open commons. As they lurched across the shadowed grass, staying as close to the walls as they could without tripping through the ivy, Simon thought he saw a movement in the shadows of the wall across the yard: something large that shifted slightly as though to watch their passage, a familiar, stoop-shouldered form. But the light was dying fast and he could not be sure—it was only one more black spot moving before his eyes.

  He had a stitch in his side that felt as though someone had caught his rib with Ruben’s foundry-tongs. Morgenes, who had limped ahead, held the door open. Simon tottered through, carefully put his burden down, then pitched full-length on the cool flagstones, sweaty and breathless. The world spun about him in a giddy dance.

  “Here, your Highness, drink this—go on,” he heard Morgenes say. After some little while he opened his eyes and lifted himself on one elbow. Josua sat propped against the wall; Morgenes crouched over him holding a brown ceramic jug.

  “Better?” the doctor asked.

  The prince nodded weakly. “Stronger already. This liquor feels like what Pryrates gave me…but not so bitter. Said that I was weakening too fast…that they needed me tonight.”

  “Needed you? I don’t like the sound of that, not at all.” Morgenes brought the jug over to Simon. The drink was busy and sour to the taste, but warming. The doctor peered out the door, then dropped the bolt.

  “Tomorrow is Belthainn Day, the first of Maia,” he said. “Tonight is…tonight is a very bad night, my prince. Stoning Night, it is called.”

  Simon felt the doctor’s liquor burning pleasantly as it moved down to his stomach. The ache in his joints lessened, as though a twisted length of cloth had been slackened a turn or two. He sat up, feeling dizzy.

  “I find it ominous, their ‘needing’ you on such a night,” Morgenes repeated. “I fear worse things even than the imprisoning of the king’s brother.”

  “The imprisoning itself was bad enough for me.” A wry grimace stretched Josua’s gaunt features, then disappeared. Deep lines of sorrow took its place. “Morgenes,” he said a moment later, his voice cracking, “those…those whoreson bastards killed my men. They ambushed us.”

  The doctor raised his hand as though to grasp the prince’s shoulder, then put it awkwardly back down. “I’m sure, my lord, I’m sure. Do you know for certain whether your brother was responsible? Could it have been Pryrates acting alone?”

  Josua shook his head wearily. “I don’t know. The men who attacked us wore no insignia, and I never saw anyone but the priest once I was brought here…but it is astonishing to consider Pryrates doing such a thing without Elias.”

  “True.”

  “But why?! Why, damn them? I do not covet power—the reverse, if anything! You know that, Morgenes. Why sh
ould they do this?”

  “My prince, I am afraid I do not have the answers right this instant, but I must say this goes far toward confirming my suspicions about…other things. About…northern matters. Do you remember hearing of the white foxes?” Morgenes’ tone was significant, but the prince only cocked an eyebrow and said nothing. “Well, there is no time to spend talking of my fears at this moment. Our time is short, and we must attend to more immediate matters.”

  Morgenes helped Simon up from the floor, then went puttering off in search of something. The youth stood looking shyly at Prince Josua, who remained slumped against the wall, eyes closed. The doctor returned with a hammer, its head rounded by much use, and a chisel.

  “Strike off Josua’s chains, will you, lad? I have a few things left to attend to.” He scuttled off again.

  “Your Highness?” Simon said quietly, approaching the prince. Josua opened bleary eyes and stared first at the youth, then at the tools he carried. He nodded.

  Kneeling at the prince’s side he burst the lock on the band that encircled Josua’s right arm with a pair of sharp blows. As he moved round to the prince’s left, Josua opened his eyes again and laid a restraining hand on Simon’s arm.

  “Take only the chain from this side, young one.” A ghostly smile nickered across his face. “Leave me the shackle to remember my brother by. Leave me his band.” He displayed the puckered stump of his right wrist. “We have a sort of tally system, you see.”

  Simon, suddenly chilled, trembled as he braced Josua’s left forearm against the stone flags. With a single stroke he sliced through the chain, leaving the cuff of blackened iron above the hand.

  Morgenes appeared, carrying a bundle of dark clothing. “Come, Josua, we must hurry. It is almost an hour after dark, and who knows when they will go looking for you? I broke my lock-pick off in the door, but that will not long prevent them discovering your absence.”