EQUILAN, LAKE ENTHIAL

Aleatha was immediately sorry she’d joined the women. Fear is a contagious disease and the parlor stank of it. The men were probably every bit as frightened as the women but they were maintaining a bold front—if not for themselves, at least for each other. The women were not only able to indulge their terror, they were expected to. Even fear, however, has socially defined limits.

The dowager—Lord Durndrun’s mother and reigning mistress of the house since her son was not yet married—had the priority on hysteria. She was the eldest, the highest in status, and it was her house. No one else present, therefore, had the right to be as panic-stricken as the dowager. (A mere duke’s wife, who had fainted in a corner, was being ostracized.)

The dowager lay prostrate on a couch, her maid weeping at her side and applying various restoratives—bathing the dowager’s temples in lavender water, dabbing tincture of rose on the dowager’s ample bosom, which was heaving and fluttering as she sought vainly to catch her breath.

“Oh ... oh ... oh!” she gasped, clutching her heart.

The various wives of the guests hovered about her, wringing their hands, occasionally grasping each other with stifled sobs. Their fear was inspirational to their children, who had previously been mildly curious, but who were now wailing in concert and getting under everyone’s feet.

“Oh ... oh ... oh!” wheezed the dowager, turning slightly blue.

“Slap her,” suggested Aleatha coolly.

The maid seemed tempted, but the wives managed to emerge from their panic long enough to look shocked. Aleatha, shrugging, turned away and walked toward the tall windows that doubled as doors and opened out onto the spacious porch overlooking the lake. Behind her, the dowager’s spasms appeared to be easing. Perhaps she had heard Aleatha’s suggestion and seen the twitching hand of her maid.

“There’s been no sound in the last few minutes,” gasped an earl’s wife. “Perhaps it’s over.”

An uneasy silence met the comment. It wasn’t over. Aleatha knew it and every woman in the room knew it. For the moment, it was quiet, but it was a heavy, horrible quiet that made Aleatha long for the dowager’s wailing. The women shrank together, the children whimpered.

The rumbling struck again. The house shook alarmingly. Chairs skittered across the floor, small ornaments fell off tables and crashed on impact. Those who could, hung onto something; those who couldn’t, stumbled and fell. From her vantage point at the window, Aleatha saw the green, scaly body rise up from the lake.

Fortunately, none of the women in the room behind her noticed the creature. Aleatha bit her lips to keep from crying out. Then it was gone—so swiftly that she wondered if she had seen something real or something bred of her fear.

The rumbling ceased. The men were running toward the house, her brother in the lead. Aleatha flung open the doors and dashed down the broad staircase.

“Paithan! What was it?” She caught hold of the sleeve of his coat.

“A dragon, I’m afraid, Thea,” answered her brother.

“What will happen to us?”

Paithan considered. “We’ll all die, I should imagine.”

“It’s not fair!” Aleatha raved, stamping her foot.

“No, I suppose not.” Paithan considered this a rather odd view of the desperate situation, but he patted his sister’s hand soothingly. “Look, Thea, you’re not going to go off like those others in there, are you? Hysteria’s not becoming.”

Aleatha put her hands to her cheeks, felt her skin flushed and hot. He’s right, she thought. I must look a fright. Drawing a deep breath, she forced herself to relax, smoothed her hair, and rearranged the disheveled folds of her dress. The surging blood drained from her cheeks.

“What should we do?” she asked in a steady voice.

“We’re going to arm ourselves. Orn knows it’s hopeless, but at least we can hold the monster off for a short time.”

“What about the queen’s guards?”

Across the lake, the palace regiment could be seen turning out, the men dashing to their posts.

“They’re guarding Her Majesty, Thea. They can’t leave the palace. Here’s an idea, you take the other women and the children down to the cellar—”

“No! I won’t die like a rat in a hole!”

Paithan looked at his sister closely, measuring her courage. “Aleatha, there is something you can do. Someone has to go into the city and alert the army. We can’t spare any of the men, and none of the other women here are fit to travel. It’ll be dangerous. The fastest way is the carriage and if this beast gets past us—”

Aleatha envisioned clearly the dragon’s huge head rising up, thrashing about, snapping the cables that held the carriage high above the ground. She pictured the plummeting fall. ...

She pictured herself locked up in a dark, stuffy cellar with the dowager.

“I’ll go.” Aleatha gathered up her skirts.

“Wait, Thea! Listen. Don’t try to go down into the city proper. You’d get lost. Make for the guard post on the var side. The carriages’ll take you partway and then you’ll have to walk, but you can see it from the first junction. It’s a lookout built in the branches of a karabeth tree. Tell them—”

“Paithan!” Lord Durndrun came running out of the house, railbow and quiver in hand. He pointed. “Who the devil is that walking around down there by the lake? Didn’t we bring everyone up here with us?”

“I thought so.” Paithan stared, squinting. The sunlight off the water was blinding, it was difficult to see. Yet, sure enough, he could make out a figure moving about down by the water’s edge. “Hand me that railbow. I’ll go. We could have easily lost someone in the confusion.”

“Down ... down there ... with the dragon?” The lord stared at Paithan in amazement.

Much as he did everything else in his life, Paithan had volunteered without thinking. But before he could announce that he’d suddenly remembered a previous engagement, Lord Durndrun was pressing the bow in the young elf’s hands and murmuring something about a medal of valor. Posthumous, no doubt.

“Paithan!” Aleatha caught hold of him.

The elf took his sister’s hand in his, squeezed it, then transferred it to Lord Durndrun’s. “Aleatha has offered to go and bring the Shadowguard[12] to our rescue.”

“Brave heart!” murmured Lord Durndrun, kissing the hand that was cold as ice. “Brave soul.” He gazed at Aleatha in fervent admiration.

“Not braver than those of you staying behind, My Lord. I feel like I’m running away.” Aleatha drew a deep breath, gave her brother a cool glance. “Take care of yourself, Pait.”

“You, too, Thea,”

Arming himself, Paithan headed down toward the lake at a run.

Aleatha watched him go, a horrible, smothering feeling in her breast—a feeling she had experienced once before, the night her mother died.

“Mistress Aleatha, let me escort you.” Lord Durndrun kept hold of her hand.

“No, My Lord. That’s nonsense!” Aleatha answered sharply. Her stomach twisted, bowels clenched. Why had Paithan gone? Why had he left her? She wanted only to escape from this horrid place. “You’re needed here.”

“Aleatha! You are so brave, so beautiful!” Lord Durndrun clasped her close, his arms around her waist, his lips on her hand. “If, by some miracle, we escape this monster, I want you to marry me!”

Aleatha started, jolted from her fear. Lord Durndrun was one of the highest ranking elves at court, one of the wealthiest elves in Equilan. He had always been polite to her, but cool and withdrawn. Paithan had been kind enough to inform her that the lord thought her “too wild, her behavior improper.” Apparently, he had changed his mind.

“My Lord! Please, I must go!” Aleatha struggled, not very hard, to break the grip of the arm around her waist.

“I know. I will not stop your courageous act! Promise me you’ll be mine, if we survive.”

Aleatha ceased her struggles, shyly lowered the purple eyes. “These are dreadful circumstances, My Lord. We are not ourselves. Should we survive, I could not hold your lordship to such a promise. But”—she drew nearer him, whispering—“I do promise your lordship that I will listen if you want to ask the question again.”

Breaking free, Aleatha sank in a low courtesy, turned and ran swiftly, gracefully across the moss lawn toward the carriage house. She knew he was following her with his eyes.

I have him. I will be Lady Durndrun—supplanting the dowager as first handmaiden to the queen.

Aleatha smiled to herself as she sped across the moss, holding her skirts high to avoid tripping. The dowager’d had hysterics over a dragon. Wait until she heard this news! Her only son, nephew of Her Majesty, joined in marriage with Aleatha Quindiniar, wealthy trollop. It would be the scandal of the year.

Now, pray the blessed Mother, we just live through this!

Paithan made his way down across the sloping lawn toward the lake. The ground began to rumble again, and he paused to glance about hastily, searching for any signs of the dragon. But the rolling ceased almost as soon as it had started, and the young elf took off again.

He wondered at himself, wondered at his courage. He was skilled in the use of the railbow, but the puny weapon would hardly help him against a dragon. Orn’s blood! What am I doing down here? After some serious consideration, given while he was skulking behind a bush to get a better view, he decided it wasn’t courage at all. Nothing more than curiosity. It had always landed his family in trouble.

Whoever the person was wandering down around the lake’s edge, he was beginning to puzzle Paithan immensely. He could see now that it was a man and that he didn’t belong to their party. He didn’t even belong to their race! It was a human—an elderly one, to judge by appearances: an old man with long white hair straggling down his back and a long white beard straggling down his front. He was dressed in long, bedraggled mouse-colored robes. A conical, shabby hat with a broken point teetered uncertainly on his head. And he seemed—most incredibly—to have just stepped out of the lake! Standing on the shoreline, oblivious to the danger, the old man was wringing water out of his beard, peering into the lake, and muttering to himself.

“Someone’s slave, probably,” said Paithan. “Got muddled and wandered off. Can’t think why anyone would keep a slave as old and decrepit as that, though. Hey, there! Old man!” Paithan threw caution to Orn and careened down the hill.

The old man paid no attention. Picking up a long, wooden walking staff that had clearly seen better days, he began poking around the water!

Paithan could almost see the scaly body writhing up from the depths of the blue lake. His chest constricted, his lungs burned. “No! Old man! Father,” he shouted, switching to human, which he spoke fluently, using the standard form of human address to any elderly male. “Father! Come away from there! Father!”

“Eh?” The old man turned, peering at Paithan with vague eyes. “Sonny? Is that you, boy?” He dropped the staff and flung wide his arms, the motion sending him staggering. “Come to my breast, Sonny! Come to your papa!”

Paithan tried to halt his own forward momentum in time to catch hold of the old man, toddling precariously on the shore. But the elf slipped in the wet grass, slid to his knees, and the old man, arms swinging wildly, toppled backward into the lake, landing with a splash.

Slavering jaws, lunging out of the water, snapping them both in two ... Paithan plunged in after the old man, caught hold of him by something—perhaps his beard, perhaps a mouse-colored sleeve—and dragged him, sputtering and blowing, to the shore. “Damn fine way for a son to treat his aged parent!” The old man glared at Paithan. “Knocking me into the lake!”

“I’m not your son. Fa— I mean, sir. And it was an accident.” Paithan tugged the old man along, pulling him up the hillside. “Now, we really should get away from here! There’s a dragon—”

The old man came to a dead stop. Paithan, caught off balance, almost fell over. He jerked on the thin arm, to get the old man moving again, but it was like trying to budge a wortle tree.

“Not without my hat,” said the old man.

“To Orn with your hat!” Paithan ground his teeth. He looked fearfully back into the lake, expecting at any moment to see the water start to boil. “You doddering idiot! There’s a drag—” He turned back to the old man, stared, then said in exasperation, “Your hat’s on your head!”

“Don’t lie to me, Sonny,” said the old man peevishly. He leaned down and picked up his staff, and the hat slipped over his eyes. “Struck blind, by god!” he said in awed tones, stretching out groping hands.

“It’s your hat!” Paithan leaped forward, grabbed the old man’s hat and yanked it off his head. “Hat! Hat!” he cried, waving it in front of the old man’s face.

“That’s not mine,” said the old man, staring at it suspiciously. “You’ve switched hats on me. Mine was in much better condition—”

“Come on!” cried Paithan, righting back a crazed desire to laugh.

“My staff!” shrieked the old man, planting his feet firmly, refusing to move.

Paithan toyed with the idea of leaving the old man to take root in the moss if he wanted, but the elf couldn’t watch a dragon devour anyone—even a human. Running back, Paithan retrieved the staff, stuck it in the old man’s hand, and began to pull him toward the house.

The elf feared the old human might have difficulty making it back, for the way was long and uphill. Paithan heard the breath begin to whistle in his own lungs and his legs ached with the strain. But the old man appeared to have incredible stamina; he tottered along gamely, his staff thumping holes in the moss.

“I say, I think something’s following us!” cried the old man, suddenly.

“There is?” Paithan whirled around.

“Where?” The old man swung his staff, narrowly missing knocking down Paithan. “I’ll get him, by the gods—”

“Stop! It’s all right!” The elf caught hold of the wildly swinging staff. “There’s nothing there. I thought you said ... something was following us.”

“Well, if there isn’t why in the name of all that’s holy are you making me run up this confounded hill?”

“Because there’s a dragon in the la—”

“The lake!” The old man’s beard bristled, his bushy eyebrows stuck out in all directions. “So that’s where he is! He dunked me in there deliberately!” The old man raised a clenched hand, shook his fist at the air in the direction of the water. “I’ll fix you, you overgrown mud worm! Come out! Come out where I can get a look at you!” Dropping his staff, the old man began rolling up the sleeves of his sodden robes. “I’m ready. Yes, sirree-bob, I’m gonna cast a spell this time that’ll knock out your eyeballs!”

“Wait a minute!” Paithan felt the sweat begin to chill on his body. “Are you saying, old man, that this dragon’s ... yours?”

“Mine! Of course, you’re mine, aren’t you, you slithering excuse for a reptile?”

“You mean, the dragon’s under your control?” Paithan began to breathe more easily. “You must be a wizard.”

“Must I?” The old man appeared highly startled at the news.

“You have to be a wizard and a powerful one at that to control a dragon.”

“Well ... er ... you see, Sonny.” The old man began to stroke his beard in some embarrassment. “That’s sort of a question between us—the dragon and me.”

“What’s a question?” Paithan felt his stomach muscles begin to tighten.

“Er—who’s in control. Not that I have any doubts, mind you! It’s the—uh—dragon who keeps forgetting.”

I was right. The old man’s insane. I’ve got a dragon and an insane human on my hands. But what in Mother Peytin’s holy name was this old fool doing in the lake?

“Where are you, you elongated toad?” The wizard continued to shout. “Come out! It’s no use hiding! I’ll find you—”

A shrill scream cut through the tirade.

“Aleatha!” cried Paithan, turning, staring up the hill.

The scream ended in a strangled choke.

“Thea, I’m coming!” The elf broke loose of his momentary paralysis and tore for the house.

“Hey, Sonny!” shouted the old man, glaring after him, arms akimbo. “Where do you think you’re going with my hat?”