Rose Red bared her teeth and slapped him.
Though her hand touched his face for only a moment, it burned all the way through her glove and on down through her skin, to the bone. Pain shot through her arm, up her neck, and into her head. But she was angry now.
“You killed her! You demon! Why did you go and do that? You have no quarrel with her. It was meanness; it was evil! Monster!” Rose Red knew she sounded like a child, screaming in his face. She didn’t care. She clutched her burned hand to her chest and yelled so that her voice rang through the Eldest’s House, disturbing the half-light and shadows. “I know who the real mountain monster was all along. You plague people’s dreams, you plague their hearts, you leave them frightened upon their pillows in the small hours of darkness, and they’re terrified to even live. No wonder they poured all that hatred on me. You made me an outcast. You did! If not for my old dad and Beana—”
Her voice broke there. An overwhelming loneliness swept across Rose Red, leaving her panting and empty as she glared up at the Dragon.
He handed her the veil. “Put this on, princess. You are not ready to walk without it in this place. Not until you let me kiss you.”
“I ain’t never goin’ to let you kiss me.” But her voice was a whisper, barely audible.
“You think not,” said the Dragon. “However, I won the game.” He leaned down. He was so tall that he had to bend nearly double to bring his face level with hers. Rose Red found herself desperately wishing for even the slim protection of her veil between them, and she twisted it in both hands.
“My darling,” said he, “you are in my world now. I warned you, didn’t I? ‘Return to me, or I will come for you,’ I said. Well, I’ve come for you now, and you are mine.”
Rose Red stared into his black eyes, into the fires deep inside. She would scorch in them, she knew. With an effort, she turned away.
And the Name sprang to her mouth. She did not speak it, but it rested there on her tongue, ready. Its presence, even unspoken, filled her heart, relieved her spirit, and she breathed fresh air once more.
When she opened her eyes, the Dragon was gone.
She stood in the smoke of the hallway. The queen was dead. The House was haunted. The moment of peace was come and gone. But the memory of it lingered. Even as Rose Red knelt and covered her face with the veil to hide her weeping, she clung to that moment. She would not let herself think of her failure. She would not allow herself to imagine Leo’s sorrow when he returned and learned of his mother’s fate. There were others who still needed her—the Eldest, Foxbrush, Daylily, and the other sad captives waiting for her in the kitchen. She could not lead them out of the House. The Dragon would kill them; she knew that now. But she could care for them and feed them and do her best to relieve their suffering. For the Dragon’s poison had no effect on her, at least, none that she could feel. So she would care for the prisoners, as much a prisoner as they, and wait for Leo’s return.
For he would return and slay the Dragon. She knew he would.
At last Rose Red dried her tears and started back for the kitchen. At least she would not yet have to explain the queen’s death to the others. In their poisoned state they would not comprehend.
The half-light never altered. When Rose Red entered the kitchen, it looked exactly as she had left it, dim and melancholy. The despair on the prisoners’ faces was increased by the shadows settling into the hollows of their cheeks. She went to the Eldest first, gently taking his hand. He did not notice her. The tears had dried on his face, once so stern and strong, now withered into that of an old man. His eyes sought the window, though the smoke swirled too heavily against the glass to allow any view of the outside world. They were cut off from other worlds entirely, floating somewhere in a dark limbo.
Rose Red shuddered at this thought. She murmured comforting words to King Hawkeye that she did not think he heard, then moved on to the next prisoner. She came at length to Foxbrush, who sat bolt upright in his chair near the large kitchen fireplace. He looked strange to Rose Red with his hair unoiled and sticking up about his face. He bore a strong resemblance to his cousin, especially at this moment with his normally squinting eyes opened as wide as they would go, staring, staring. . . .
Staring at what? Rose Red turned to follow his gaze. One of the kitchen doors stood ajar, revealing a narrow passage that, Rose Red knew, eventually took one to a small breakfast room where the queen had liked to sit most mornings. Foxbrush stared at it with something between terror and rapt fascination.
“Sir Foxbrush,” Rose Red whispered, touching his cheek with one finger. “You all right, there?”
He did not move. Rose Red poked him again and waved her hand before his eyes. Not even a blink. Rose Red gulped and turned back to the door. Perhaps he stood just beyond. Terrorizing these poor prisoners with his presence. As though his poisons weren’t torment enough! She set her jaw and marched to the door, flinging it wide.
A half-lit passage, empty, lay beyond.
Rose Red narrowed her eyes at Foxbrush. “There ain’t nothin’ here, Sir Foxbrush,” she said. “You’re safe with me—Silent Lady!” She gasped and pressed a hand to her chest, whirling back to look down the hall.
For she realized that Daylily was not in the kitchen.
“Silent Lady shield us,” Rose Red whispered, then hastened down the hall, one hand pressed against the wall to guide her in that awful half-light, her burned hand clutched to her chest as though she could somehow still her racing heart. Not Daylily too! Not her master’s beautiful betrothed! He’d already lost his mother today . . . she could not allow him to lose his lady! She must find her. How could she have been such an idiot as to allow Daylily to accompany her here? She should have shown more will and stood up to her, should have disobeyed orders for the lady’s sake. It wasn’t in Rose Red’s nature to disobey, but what excuse was that now? She should have known the poison would affect even the baron’s daughter! For all her beauty, for all her strength, she was only mortal.
The breakfast room was empty, but the far door stood open. Rose Red went through it, paused a moment in the passage beyond, uncertain which direction Daylily would have taken. Then her heart sank to her stomach, and she thought she would be sick.
For she knew exactly where Daylily had gone.
She could not help it. Her pace slowed despite all her efforts to hurry. Fear grabbed her by the shoulders and struggled to hold her back. “I’m doin’ what he wants,” she told herself. “I shouldn’t go; it’s just what he wants me to do! I should go back, care for the others, give her up for lost. Leo will understand. Or if he don’t . . .”
Even as she tried to convince herself, she knew she would not succeed. Though everything in her spirit warned her away, Rose Red continued doggedly forward until she came at last to that narrow pass where she had found Daylily and Foxbrush (was that only minutes ago? It felt like hours, or days) standing before a door that led to a servants’ stair.
The door she had shut with such force.
The door that was now open again.
It gaped like jaws, and there was no stairway spiraling up. Instead, a tunnel lay beyond the door, a tunnel leading down, down, into darkness. As Rose Red stood in that doorway, her hands clutching the frame, she thought she heard a trickle of water, a stream, deep inside.
It was the mouth of the mountain monster’s cave. Here, in the Eldest’s House. A stench like death rose up to meet her.
“Silent Lady,” she whispered. “Silent Lady!”
She bowed her head and shuddered as she drew another long breath of that stench. Never, in all her life, had she been more alone than she was now, standing at Death’s own door.
How long Rose Red stood no one could have said. But the only observer in that household, watching from the darkest shadows, knew full well what she would eventually do, no matter how long it took her to reach the decision. He knew; and when she passed through the doorway and vanished into the darkness of that cave, he smiled. Fire gle
amed in his mouth.
1
THE NEAR WORLD
OF ALL THE KENNEL BOYS working for the Duke of Shippening in Capaneus City, one was most likely to be plucked from his regular duties and transferred to the serving staff should a position need filling. This had something to do with his appearance (which was pleasant in a boyish sort of way), much to do with his manners (which were better than the duke’s), and something to do with his knowledge of a household servant’s tasks, unusual in one who worked with dogs.
The first time he had volunteered to wait at table, the head butler had laughed a bitter sort of laugh. The head butler was a man of some taste and culture, well aware that his master the duke wouldn’t have cared two straws whether a dog-boy served his ale or not. To what a state the Duchy of Shippening had fallen! No better than the days when barbarian thanes had roared drunkenly at table and thrown bones to the hounds underfoot.
But the lad had insisted on giving a demonstration of his abilities, and the butler was pleased to note that, though stiff and unnatural in his movements, he did indeed know the basic requirements of the work.
Thus Lionheart did not spend his entire life exercising the duke’s hounds and cleaning out their kennels. Some evenings, he stood with his back to the wall in the duke’s fine dining hall, assisting guests as needed.
One fine evening, Lionheart cleaned himself up after a day in the kennels, bending over a tiny basin and working without the aid of a mirror. His quarters, which he shared with three other men of the same occupation, were located behind the stables and beside the kennels, where the baying of the duke’s hunting hounds could wake the dead at any hour of the day or night. It was not the ideal situation for sprucing up in preparation for housework. Not that the duke would notice if a serving boy’s cravat was crooked. But the butler would.
Lionheart slicked down his hair with water and comb (which was intended for use on the hounds’ coats, but he was in no position to complain). Pennies. That was all this job was worth . . . pennies. Barely enough to live on. So this was freedom, then. This was a life without expectations or restraints.
But a man must eat. To eat, he must work. To work, he must not be too proud. Especially when he was a dark-skinned foreigner in exile. Ultimately, this job at the kennels paid better than other work available in Capaneus City—he wasn’t starved. But he would need money if he was to travel, if he was to learn.
If he was to discover how dragons may be slain.
Lionheart paused in the task of taming his hair, pressing his fingers into his scalp. He’d like to push that thought right out of his head. How could he hope to discover that secret? Trapped here, no better than a kenneled hound himself, working day in and day out just to feed himself. Already months had flown by, faster than he would have thought possible, and he had traveled no farther than Capaneus.
The Duchy of Shippening was separated from Southlands by the Chiara Bay and a thin isthmus. Lionheart had walked that isthmus, escaping the barriers of the Dragon’s prison, and entered freedom. At least, the sort of freedom that is to be found in a city like Capaneus. The freedom to be mugged within moments of foolishly showing one’s purse. The freedom to be beaten and left in a gutter. The freedom to crawl from the gutter again and beg for work wherever one could find it, thanking the Lights Above for the menial position of kennel boy for the duke.
Lionheart found himself more captive than ever: captive to his duty, equally captive to his inability to fulfill it.
Tell me what you want.
He didn’t know what he wanted, but it wasn’t this.
“Look out now, chappies.” One of the kennel boys who shared the tiny room with Leo sprawled on his pallet bunk, lazily chewing a straw. He rolled over suddenly, spat out the straw, and pointed out the door. Leo turned to look where he indicated. “The duke’s Fool has got out. Look at ’im! Strangest joke of a fellow you ever did see.”
Lionheart had to agree. One rarely saw the poor Fool outside the duke’s house. But there he was, wandering around the side of the stables and approaching the kennel, taking hesitant steps. His neck was long for his body, and it craned about as he looked here and there.
“Think he’s gone and lost hisself?” asked one of the other kennel boys, just returned from running a pack and reeking of sweat and slobber. He wiped a dirty hand down his face, shaking his head. “He ain’t supposed to leave the house, is he?”
“Well, go fetch him back, then,” said the first boy.
“I ain’t goin’ near him! He’s madder than a sack of starved ship rats.”
“All the more reason to not let him near the dogs.”
“You go catch him!”
Lionheart put up both hands. “It’s all right, fellows. I’ll get him.”
He stepped from their shack of a room out into the yard. “Loons of a feather,” one kennel boy said, and the other nodded and tapped his forehead.
Lionheart eyed the duke’s Fool. Having rounded that side of the stables, the poor man had caught sight of the dog kennels, and these apparently frightened him. In any case, he’d pressed his back against the stable wall and closed his eyes, and his lips moved soundlessly. He certainly appeared mad, but Lionheart didn’t, in that moment, fear him. Perhaps he should have. But since he’d stared down the Dragon’s burning throat, one simple madman held little terror for him.
This Fool was a strange person, though. He was abnormally thin, too thin, really, to continue living. His jester’s garb of brilliant colors sagged on his frame; yet his wrists, though tiny and more delicate than a woman’s, were not emaciated and bony. He was an albino, whiter than snow, and rather beautiful in a way.
It was a wonder to see the man so near. Years ago, when Lionheart was a boy, the Duke of Shippening had sent this very same Fool to the Eldest’s House to perform. What a marvel he’d been then, so merry in his brilliant colors, so strange with his white face and white hair. One would never have thought that he could be sad or frightened . . . though, in retrospect, Lionheart realized that he’d been quite mad. As a child, Lionheart had seen only the fun, heard only the laughter, and marveled at the feats and skills the madman had demonstrated.
Lionheart’s fingers itched with remembrance of his own juggling days. Once upon a time, he’d thought to become a jester himself. He’d planned to run away from home, from the crown, from Southlands, and take up the merry life of a performer.
Well, he’d certainly run away now. But things never turned out like one envisioned as a child.
The Fool appeared unaware of Lionheart’s approach. He continued murmuring to himself, and Lionheart realized as he neared that the Fool was speaking words, although not in a language Lionheart knew. Upon the few occasions he’d served at the duke’s table, Lionheart had seen the Fool perform. But then his voice had been animated, and his eyes bright and lively as he bounded about the room. Now the voice was low, soft, and full of heartache.
“Els jine aesda-o soran!”
It wasn’t gibberish. Lionheart thought that, with different ears, he might understand what the Fool said, even without knowledge of the language. It was more like music than language anyway. Like a wood thrush’s song.
“Aaade-o Ilmaan!”
Lionheart licked his lips. The poor Fool, his face turned a little away, looked so distressed in his madness. Lionheart wondered what he could say to comfort him. This must be how his insanity took him sometimes, these wild words, this incomprehensible fear.
Something gleamed about the Fool’s throat, an iron ring such as criminals wore when chained to a post. A necklace, maybe, but a strange one with that jester’s motley.
Suddenly the Fool no longer spoke gibberish. Lionheart, who was now fairly near, distinctly heard him say in the same singsong voice, but in a language he knew, “If I but knew my fault!”
And here the Fool’s eyes opened. They were very large and very wet, like clearest water. Shining but without color. They focused on Lionheart. There were never such sad eyes befo
re in all the world.
“I blessed your name, O you who sit enthroned beyond the Highlands.”
“Um,” said Lionheart. “Are you supposed to be out here, old chap?”
The Fool stopped singing but did not shift those sorrowful eyes from Lionheart’s face. At last he said in a voice as liquid as his eyes, “She has you in her hand.”
Lionheart blinked. “Come again?”
“The Lady.”
“What lady?”
“The Lady of Dreams.” The Fool clenched fists with fingers abnormally long. Now that Lionheart really looked at them, he saw that each finger sported an extra joint. What a hideous mutation! “I pity you more than I pity myself.”
“Um,” said Lionheart again. He was uncertain of the approach one should take when addressing a madman. Was he likely to turn aggressive at any moment? He appeared docile, but those were the ones to watch for, weren’t they? “I don’t think you’re supposed to be out here.” He wondered if he dared take the poor Fool by the arm.
“No,” said the Fool softly. “I’m not supposed to be out here in the world beyond. It is very hot. I will burn.”
“Which means you should come back inside,” Lionheart agreed. “You will sunburn with that fair skin of yours, won’t you? Come.” He beckoned gently. The madman gazed long at Lionheart’s hand, then bowed his head and moved as directed, back around the corner of the stables. He started muttering to himself again in that strange tongue that, though beautiful, gave Lionheart the shivers. Lionheart tried to cover it up with soothing sounds such as, “There, there,” which were entirely inadequate.
Suddenly the madman turned to Lionheart and said, “What has she promised you?”
“What do you mean?” Lionheart asked.
“The Lady. Death’s sister. What has she promised to give you?”
Lionheart tried to smile but found it difficult. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s get you inside—”
“What do you want more than anything in the world?”
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