Köthen went entirely still. Erde could see he was suddenly and exquisitely aware of the trap that yawned before him, reeking of brimstone and the black smoke of the stake. If he told the truth, his earnest sacrilege would be for naught. Poor Carl would have only an excommunicant’s grave in unconsecrated ground. To deny the deed would mean lying to a priest, God’s representative on Earth, and there were a dozen men present who might not be so willing as he was. A moment later, Köthen relaxed. Either he’d found an opening, or he was simply brave enough to fake it.
“Since when is it unlawful to bring a King’s son home for burial?”
“You wish me to believe that you found him like this? With the devil’s own sign cut into his mortal flesh?”
“What? Where?”
Guillemo pointed. “There!”
No sane man, nor an honest one, would have traced out a pentacle among the crisscrossed wounds on the Prince’s chest.
“I don’t see . . .” began Köthen. He turned to Wender. “Do you see . . . ?”
“Of course he doesn’t, for foul magic has hidden it, from all but a wary and knowing eye!” Guillemo met Köthen’s furious stare for the length of a breath, the gleam in his own eyes already victorious. Then he rounded on the nearest man, the frightened one who’d brought him the waterskin. “You, my son, for the salvation of your immortal soul! You tell me what’s gone on here! What terrible unholiness has this godless man led you to commit?” Without looking, the priest raised his arm and pointed at Köthen.
“This is nonsense, Guillemo,” scoffed the baron, but Erde could see he knew it wasn’t. “We have more important tasks in front of us.”
The priest turned, his head high, shoulders flung back. His eyes seemed to have found their former life, and filled the hollows below his dark brows with flash and danger. “My lord of Köthen! What could be more important than a man’s immortal soul?”
Just lie to the man, Erde pleaded desperately. Had she been there in reality, she would have flung herself at Köthen whatever the peril, and begged him not to pursue this futile debate. Like his mentor Hal before him, he refused to believe that the craft inspired by lunacy could win out over the craft inspired by reason. But Erde was sure that he’d soon learn, as Hal had, how easily men are swayed by superstition and terror.
Wender had apparently reached the same conclusion. From the moment the debate was joined, he’d begun to ease himself backward through the cluster of men. Now he moved casually along the outside as if trying for a clearer view of the action, grasping certain elbows, prodding certain backs as he worked his way around the circle. He got concealed nods in return, and those men, four, six, seven of them, keeping the rest of the onlookers between them and the long line of white-robes across the clearing, backed off slightly and quietly readied their weapons. Their eyes strayed to Hoch, who would give the order. When Erde looked for Wender again, he was gone. Slipped off into the woods, she guessed, to alert the hidden reinforcements.
Meanwhile, Köthen was saying, “Nothing is more important, good Brother, unless it be the bringing of peace and order to the land, so that its people have time and security enough to tend properly to their spiritual well-being!”
Guillemo rolled his eyes and groaned as if hearing the worst sort of blasphemy. “Oh, dear Savior! Forgive the day your loyal servant agreed to an alliance with this unbeliever!”
“You go too far, priest! How dare you question my faith?”
“Who better to question it than a man of God?”
Köthen spread his hands and turned to the men around him, seeking a show of their support, a sign that they knew where Fra Guill’s posturing was leading and would have none of it. Erde felt a moment’s pity for him. Hal had said that men’s willingness to follow him was Köthen’s greatest strength. He’d risen to power on their loyalty and support. When he searched their faces now and saw loyalty ebbing away, as she did, he would know he had lost them, and losing them, had perhaps lost everything.
But would the realization be enough? Or would he keep flailing away at the priest’s apparently invincible juggernaut of unreason? She must tell him to forget reason, forget honor! Tell him he must back out of the trap while he still had a chance, for once closed, it would open again only as the flames rose up around him at the witches’ stake!
She could tell him. She was there, at his ear. . . .
—. . . Run, my lord baron! . . . you must save yourself! . . .
Köthen shook his head, a negating shudder.
—. . . Listen to me! You must flee! . . .
He brushed the air dismissively with his hand.
Guillemo gasped and pointed. “Ah! See! See how the Dark One speaks to him even now! But you cannot put off Satan so easily, can you, my lord baron, as if you were swatting a fly!” He lifted both arms and bellowed, “O, down on your knees, Adolphus of Köthen! Confess to the Lord your vile sins of trafficking! Throw yourself on His mercy, for it is infinite!”
Köthen was breathing in the tight, measured way of a man readying himself for desperate action. His gaze remained fixed on the priest, though Erde was sure he’d rather be scanning the dark woods for help and rescue.
—. . . Dolph, behind you! Your man is behind you! . . .
She had little strength left for this urgent speaking across centuries. She gathered herself for one last try.
—. . . Now, Dolph! Run! Or I swear, HE WILL BURN YOU! . . .
Guillemo froze, both arms still raised toward the cold night sky. “What?” he whispered.
And Erde learned that she had not lost all bodily sensation in her dream-state: She distinctly felt her blood run cold.
He took a step toward Köthen. “What do I hear?”
“You hear nothing!” Köthen snapped.
“Do not deny it!” Guillemo hissed. “She is here!”
This time Köthen did not have to feign bewilderment. “What ‘she’? There is no ‘she’ here.”
The priest edged another step closer, sniffing like a dog on a scent. His blazing eyes searching the air around Köthen’s head. He seemed to have forgotten the rapt audience he’d been playing to so fervently a moment before, but the sudden change in him only frightened his listeners more. Erde noticed to her horror that, deep in their hollows, his eyes were the same green-gold as the eyes of a snake.
“Is it possible,” he murmured to Köthen, “that you do not know?”
“Know what, priest?”
“The witch-girl. She speaks to you. It’s her voice you hear in the night sounds. . . .”
Köthen’s nostrils flared. “No. . . .”
“It is.” Guillemo moved closer, within a pace. “What does she say to you?” He slithered sideways, circling, his voice pitched low and far too earthy for a cleric. “You hear, witch? He minds you not. Come, speak to one who’s worthy of you!”
Erde shrank from him in panic, as his aura invaded her dream space.
—Wake! I must wake! Dragon, help me!
—He cannot, witch.
The hell-priest’s mouth had not moved. His voice was in her head.
—And you never shall wake. . . .
—I will! I will!
But there was smoke twined in his hair and tiny flames danced around his body, and his green-gold eyes pinned her like prey. He was the hell-priest and he was not. He was something more, something Other. He would swallow her, eat her alive, he would snuff her, smother her, he would . . .
—HELP ME!
She grabbed for Köthen and felt the hot shock of contact. He felt it, too, and moved at last, jerking himself aside as if to confront the one who’d touched his shoulder. But his hand by instinct stayed to his sword hilt, and Guillemo sprang back, bellowing.
“To me! Ho, to me, knights of God! We are under attack!”
The Other in Erde’s head lost hold. Her dream-self shot off like a stone from a catapult, careening away, away, toward blackest emptiness, toward the void. But just before the void, something caught and held
her, something soft and strong and infinite. And a voice spoke to her, as light and as large as the stirring of air.
—He cannot help you, but I can. . . .
And then she was ever so gently repulsed from the edge of the darkness and sent back toward the light, drifting slowly. She could not propel herself back to the clearing. She hadn’t the strength. She could only float helplessly and watch from a distance as . . .
Hoch’s order rang out. Köthen’s head turned to the sound of horses behind him just before the charge of the white-robes drowned it out. He drew his sword and with infinite trust in his lieutenant, backed off in the direction of Wender’s approach. Hoch’s men were already halfway to their horses, preparing to meet the charge. A few of the remaining soldiers got hold of themselves and backed away with Köthen, leveling their own weapons at those who remained undecided.
Köthen yelled to the stragglers, “Come on, think, you fools! Since when does a madman speak for God? Come now, while you can! He’ll show you no more mercy than he’s shown me!”
The priest raced in among them, screeching hellfire. Most of them broke and ran, terrified. Hoch drew his horsemen up in a line between his baron and the priest, and the white-robes were almost upon them when Wender swooped down out of the woods with a big gray horse in tow and lifted Köthen bodily into its saddle.
“Two to one’s my count,” he shouted over the clash of steel and hooves and leather. “Do you wish to fight another day?”
“I do, indeed,” Köthen rasped, reining in his horse so that it danced and circled. “I’ve been fool enough for one night! Get the men out of here!”
Wender signaled Hoch to pull the men off and retreat.
“Wait!” Köthen yelled. “We must see to the Prince!”
Wender snatched at the gray horse’s bridle before Köthen could turn back. “Already seen to.” He pointed as two men raced past, one with Carl’s swaddled body slung over his horse’s shoulders. “Quick, my lord! He’ll have them after us!”
“Only for show. I’m more useful to him now as a living threat of witchcraft than a dead one!” Köthen urged his horse forward anyway. “Wender!”
“My lord baron?”
“Name your reward!”
They were moving away from her now, a dozen men low over their horses’ necks, ducking branches, fleeing through the dark woods faster than Erde, in her weakness, could follow.
“A speedy escape, my lord!” called Wender, “And after that, the hell-priest’s head.”
“That you’ll have to stand in line for. But I’ll use my influence, if I have any left!”
Their voices were fading. She wanted to go with them, to share in the euphoric bravado of the escape, to know that they were safe. But she only drifted. . . .
“But first we shall deliver this sad Prince to his father.”
Even this did not catch Wender by surprise. “Aye, my lord, we shall.”
And then she heard only the thudding of hooves as they faded beyond her hearing entirely, and beyond her consciousness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Waking up was a surprise, almost as if she hadn’t expected to. But she had to be awake, or she wouldn’t have been so painfully aware of her body. She was as weak as a newborn and ached in every joint, as if she’d been put on the rack. She was lying facedown with her limbs sprawled as if she’d fallen or been tossed down from a height. She flexed her hands. Her fingers clutched something prickly-soft. She managed to turn her head and lift it slightly. She was lying on grass.
Grass! For one joyous moment, she thought she had ended up at Deep Moor. But this grass was much too short. Tiny even blades, each one the exact copy of the next, and entirely without scent. Unnatural. She pressed weakly against the ground and it gave a little like ground should. But it released no rich, dark smell of loam, no bright sweet-green pungency of a sunny valley mead.
Erde struggled to pull herself up. When she called for the dragon and got no response, she knew exactly where she was. No, not exactly. She knew where she was . . . she just wasn’t sure where that was.
Just sitting up left her breathless. She remembered the dream, every moment, and recalled how this weakness had come upon her, how every word she had murmured in Baron Köthen’s ear was like breathing her life’s blood into the wind. She fell back on one elbow and looked around: perfect green lawn stretching as far as she could see, endless receding ranks of the smooth-trunked trees that N’Doch had called “cloned.”
How ever did I get here? she wondered.
She pondered her catapult journey to the edge of the void, and decided that not all of her travel had been a dream-state illusion. Just like she had actually touched Baron Köthen’s shoulder. That had been real, certainly. She could recall the sensation as if it was imprinted on her fingertips: the silky feel of the tabard sliding over the hard mail beneath, the smoothly jointed links close-textured like her grandmother’s beaded purse, and warm from the heat of Köthen’s body.
Erde blushed, thinking of him. She missed him already. It was absurd. It was ridiculous. How had she allowed this to happen? She knew that young girls were meant to be romantic, but this was worse than falling in love with Rainer even though she’d thought he was dead. At least Rainer was only nineteen. Köthen was at least thirty, he barely knew she existed and he lived a thousand years away. She’d never even had a conversation with him. The one time she’d met him in person, she’d still lacked her voice. Perhaps she was merely homesick. The raw dangers of 913 were at least more comprehensible than the mysteries and complications of 2013. She hoped that when she grew up, she’d finally become sensible enough to fall in love with someone she could actually spend some time with.
Meanwhile, here she was in Lealé’s “Dream Haven.” That she had come from a dream to here warranted thinking about. She wished the dragon were there to discuss it with her. She wondered how much time had passed while she’d been dream-shifted to her home time, and was anybody likely to be looking for her yet?
What she needed to do was get up right away, if she could manage, and find the doorway to Lealé’s little room. Then she could follow the passageway back to the house. Standing up was difficult, but not impossible, though once she got there, her balance was unreliable. She was, she realized, enormously thirsty. Hungry, too, although eating would require far too much energy. She staggered a little, turning step by step to scan the odd forest in all directions for a sign of where the door might be.
When she’d completed her circle—though it was hard to tell exactly, with identical views at every angle, if she really was back where she’d started—she steadied her balance and thought she had better try it again. At her next sideways turn, she let out a small shriek of surprise. A small table stood in front of her, right there on the grass where she was sure there had been no table before. It was a delicate sort of table, with a single carved central pedestal and a short, lace-trimmed square of snowy linen covering its top. Not at all the sort of object she would have missed the first time around, especially as it contained a clear glass pitcher full of water, a plate of lemon slices, and a dainty glass tumbler, all set out on an oval tray of finest silver.
Erde stared. Having just come from 913, the world of the hell-priest, she wondered if this was some sort of a trap. N’Doch, she recalled, never drank water unless he knew where it had come from. But she had a feeling about this water . . . a good feeling. A feeling that emanated from the forest around her, as if someone was whispering in her ear—as she had whispered in Köthen’s—that she mustn’t worry, everything was perfectly all right . . . at least for now.
But if it wasn’t a trap, it could still be an illusion. She was questioning reality now the way N’Doch questioned the safety of anything he put in his mouth: by habit. In the world of her growing up, reality had not been in question. Everything was real, even witches, magic, and dragons, all things that N’Doch’s world had decided not to believe in. Lately, even she had questions about witches, having
been labeled one herself, and most of what she called magic, Master Djawara called “science.” The only thing she was really sure of was dragons.
So to prove that the water was real, she drank it. She felt a lot better for it afterward. Almost up to putting her mind to the problem of not having seen even a hint of a door, or anything but trees, the same tree, over and over and over again.
* * *
When they get past all the sleepers, most of them up and about by now, N’Doch and the apparition head straight for the odd little park. It’s the only place he’s seen so far that might be big enough to hold a dragon. He can feel the big guy in his head, but not so clear as he can when the girl’s around. He’s a little worried that she’s fallen asleep and they’re letting her, even with this thing about, like, going in to her dreams. But they’re the dragons, he figures. They gotta know what they’re talking about.
They walk along slow, so’s not to alert one of the “flappers.” This is how he thinks of Glory’s henchmen in their flowing white gowns. He’s teaching the apparition how to saunter, how to do it with authority, so you don’t get bothered on the streets by just anyone thinking you might look like a mark. The kid’s not real good at it yet. Sauntering doesn’t really suit its dragon nature. But N’Doch thinks it’s worth a try anyway.
At the edge of the park, the apparition stops along the gravel path and stares into the trees like it was reading a book.
“What?” asks N’Doch. He figures it’s okay to talk aloud out here, with no one around to listen. He doubts if the big bankroll’s likely to be bugging the woods.
The apparition points toward a corner of the park, where the trees are the thickest. N’Doch looks, then shrugs.
—Look carefully.
N’Doch sighs and looks again. And then he notices that, everywhere else, he can see the far surrounding wall through the straight smooth trunks. In that one corner, he can’t. The trees must be thicker there, he thinks, though he sees no change in their spacing.
—I’m going in there.
“Sure, okay. Let’s go.”
The Book of Water Page 26