I had not real­ized how much the quiet in­ter­lude had soothed my spir­its un­til we came in sight of the black pil­lar guard­ing the mouth of the quarry. It seemed more omin­ous than ever, like some dark scold­ing fin­ger lif­ted to warn me that, in­deed, this might be the lull but the storm was com­ing. I gave a small shud­der as I passed it. My Skill-sens­it­iv­ity seemed to be grow­ing again. The pil­lar ra­di­ated con­trolled power al­lur­ingly. Al­most against my will, I stopped to study the char­ac­ters in­cised on it.

  ‘Fitz? Are you com­ing?’ Kettricken called back to me, and only then did I real­ize how long I had been gawk­ing. I hastened to catch up with them, and re­joined them just as they were passing the girl on a dragon.

  I had de­lib­er­ately avoided that spot since the Fool had touched her. Now I glanced up guiltily to where the sil­ver fin­ger­print still shone against her flaw­less skin. ‘Who were you, and why did you make such a sad carving?’ I asked her. But her stone eyes only looked at me plead­ingly above her tear-specked cheeks.

  ‘Maybe she could not fin­ish her dragon,’ Kettricken spec­u­lated. ‘See how its hind feet and tail are still trapped in the stone? Maybe that’s why it’s so sad.’

  ‘She must have carved it sad to be­gin with, don’t you see? Whether or not she fin­ished it, the up­per por­tion would be the same.’

  Kettricken looked at me in amuse­ment. ‘You still don’t be­lieve that Ver­ity’s dragon will fly when it is fin­ished? I do. Of course, I have very little else to be­lieve in any more. Very little.’

  I had been go­ing to tell her I thought it a min­strel’s tale for a child, but her fi­nal words shut my mouth.

  Back at the dragon, I bound my broom to­gether and went at my sweep­ing with a ven­geance. The sun was high in a bright blue sky with a light and pleas­ant breeze. It was al­to­gether a lovely day and for a time I for­got all else in my simple chore. Kettricken un­loaded her fire­wood and soon left to get more. Nighteyes fol­lowed at her heels, and I no­ticed with ap­proval that Starling and the Fool hastened after her with carry-sacks of their own. With the rock chips and dust cleared away from the dragon, I could see more of the pro­gress Ver­ity and Kettle had made. The black stone of the dragon’s back was so shiny it al­most re­flec­ted the blue of the sky. I ob­served as much to Ver­ity, not really ex­pect­ing an an­swer. His mind and heart were fo­cused en­tirely on the dragon. On all other top­ics his mind seemed vague and wan­der­ing, but when he spoke to me of his dragon and the fash­ion­ing of it he was very much King Ver­ity.

  A few mo­ments later, he rocked back on his heels from his crouch be­side the dragon’s foot. He stood and ran a sil­ver hand tent­at­ively over the dragon’s back. I caught my breath, for in the wake of his hand there was sud­denly col­our. A rich tur­quoise, with every scale edged in sil­ver, fol­lowed the sweep of Ver­ity’s fin­ger. The hue shimmered there for an in­stant, then faded. Ver­ity made a small sound of sat­is­fac­tion. ‘When the dragon is full, the col­our will stay,’ he told me. Without think­ing, I reached a hand to­ward the dragon, but Ver­ity ab­ruptly shouldered me aside. ‘Don’t touch him,’ he warned me, al­most jeal­ously. He must have seen the shock on my face, for he looked rue­ful. ‘It’s not safe for you to touch him any more, Fitz. He is too …’ His voice trailed off, and his eyes went afar in search of a word. Then he ap­par­ently for­got all about me, for he crouched back to his work on the creature’s foot.

  There is noth­ing like be­ing treated like a child to pro­voke one to act that way. I fin­ished the last of my sweep­ing, set my broom aside, and wandered off. I was not overly sur­prised when I found my­self star­ing up at the girl on a dragon again. I had come to think of the statue as ‘Girl-on-a-Dragon’, for they did not seem like sep­ar­ate en­tit­ies to me. Once more I climbed up on the dais be­side her, once more I felt the swirl­ing of her Wit-life. It lif­ted like fog and reached to­ward me hun­grily. So much en­trapped misery. ‘There is noth­ing I can do for you,’ I told her sadly, and al­most felt that she re­spon­ded to my words. It was too sad­den­ing to re­main close to her for long. But as I clambered down, I no­ticed that which alarmed me. Around one of the dragon’s hind feet, someone had been chis­elling at the mir­ing stone. I stooped down for a closer in­spec­tion. The chips and dust had been cleared from the cut, but the edges of it were new and sharp. The Fool, I told my­self, was truly without cau­tion. I stood with the in­ten­tion of seek­ing him out im­me­di­ately.

  FitzChiv­alry. Re­turn to me at once, please.

  I sighed to my­self. Prob­ably more stone chips to sweep. For this I must be away from Molly, while she fended for her­self. As I walked back to the dragon, I in­dulged my­self in for­bid­den thoughts of her. I wondered if they had found a place to shel­ter, and how badly Burrich was hurt. They had fled with little more than the clothes on their backs. How would they sur­vive? Or had Regal’s men at­tacked them again? Had they dragged her and the baby off to Trade­ford? Did Burrich lie dead in the dirt some­where?

  Do you truly be­lieve that could hap­pen and you not know of it? Be­sides. She seemed more than cap­able of caring for her­self and the child. And Burrich for that mat­ter. Stop think­ing of them. And stop in­dul­ging in self-pity. I have a task for you.

  I re­turned to the dragon and picked up my broom. I had been sweep­ing for some minutes be­fore Ver­ity seemed to no­tice me. ‘Ah, Fitz, there you are.’ He stood, stretched, arch­ing his back to take the ache out of it. ‘Come with me.’

  I fol­lowed him down to the camp­fire where he busied him­self for a mo­ment by put­ting wa­ter to heat. He picked up a piece of the dry-cooked meat, looked at it, and said sadly, ‘What I would not give for one piece of Sara’s fresh bread. Oh, well.’ He turned to me. ‘Sit down, Fitz, I want to talk to you. I’ve been giv­ing much thought to all you told me, and I’ve an er­rand for you.’

  I sat down slowly on a stone by the fire, shak­ing my head to my­self. One mo­ment he made no sense at all to me; the next he soun­ded just like the man who had been my mentor for so long. He gave me no time to mull my thoughts.

  ‘Fitz, you vis­ited the place of the dragons, on your way here. You told me that you and the wolf sensed life in them. Wit-life, you called it. And that one, Realder’s dragon, seemed al­most to awaken when you called him by name.’

  ‘I get the same sense of life from the girl on the dragon, in the quarry,’ I agreed with him.

  Ver­ity shook his head sadly. ‘Poor thing, noth­ing can be done for her, I fear. She per­sis­ted in try­ing to keep her hu­man shape, and thus she held back from filling her dragon. There she is and likely to re­main for all time. I have taken to heart her warn­ing; at least her er­ror has done that much good. When I fill the dragon, I shall hold noth­ing back. It would be a poor end­ing, would it not, to have come so far and sac­ri­ficed so much, to end only with a mired dragon? That mis­take, at least, I shall not make.’ He bit off a chunk of the dry meat and chewed it thought­fully.

  I kept si­lent. He had lost me again. Some­times all I could do was wait un­til his own thoughts brought him back to some topic where he made sense. I no­ticed he had a new smudge of sil­ver at the top of his brow, as if he had un­think­ingly wiped sweat away. He swal­lowed. ‘Are there any tea-herbs left?’ he asked, and then ad­ded, ‘I want you to re­turn to the dragons. I want you to see if you can use your Wit with your Skill to awaken them. When I was there, try as I might, I could de­tect no life in any of them. I feared they had slumbered too long, and starved them­selves to death, feed­ing only on their own dreams un­til noth­ing was left.’

  Starling had left a hand­ful of wil­ted nettles and mint. I gingerly coaxed them into a pot then spilled the heated wa­ter over them. While they steeped, I sor­ted my thoughts.

  ‘You want me to use the Wit and Skill to awake the dragon statues. How?’

  Ver­ity shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Des­pite all Kestrel has told me, there are still great gaps in my know­ledge of the Skill. When Ga­len stole So­li­city’s books, and ceased all train­ing for Chiv­alry and me, it was a mas­ter stroke against us. I still keep com­ing back to that. Did he even then plot to se­cure the throne for his half-brother, or was he merely greedy for power? We will never know.’

  I spoke then of a thing I had never be­fore voiced. ‘There is some­thing I do not un­der­stand. Kettle says that your killing Car­rod with the Skill left you in­jured your­self. Yet you drained Ga­len, and seemed to suf­fer noth­ing from it. Nor did Se­rene and Justin seem to take ill from drain­ing the King.’

  ‘Drain­ing off an­other’s Skill is not the same as killing one with a blast of Skill.’ He gave a brief snort of bit­ter laughter. ‘Hav­ing done both, I well know the dif­fer­ence. In the end, Ga­len chose to die rather than sur­render all his power to me. I sus­pect that my father made the same choice. I also sus­pect that he did so to keep from them the know­ledge of where I was. What secrets Ga­len died pro­tect­ing, we now have an ink­ling.’ He looked at the meat in his hand, set it aside. ‘But what con­cerns us now is wak­ing the El­d­er­ings. You look about us and see a lovely day, Fitz. I see fair seas and a clean wind to bring Red Ships to our shores. While I chip and scrape and la­bour, Six Duch­ies folk die or are Forged. Not to men­tion that Regal’s troops harry and burn the Moun­tain vil­lages along the bor­der. My own queen’s father rides to battle to pro­tect his folk from my brother’s armies. How that rankles within me! Could you rouse the dragons to their de­fence, they could take flight now.’

  ‘I am re­luct­ant to un­der­take a task when I do not know just what it de­mands,’ I began, but Ver­ity stopped me with a grin.

  ‘It seems to me that just yes­ter­day that was what you were beg­ging to do, FitzChiv­alry.’

  He had me. ‘Nighteyes and I will set out to­mor­row morn­ing,’ I offered.

  He frowned at me. ‘I see no reason to delay. It is no long jour­ney for you, but merely a step through the pil­lar. But the wolf can­not pass through the stone. He will have to stay here. And I would that you went now.’

  He told me so calmly to go without my wolf. I would sooner have gone stark na­ked. ‘Now? As in im­me­di­ately?’

  ‘Why not? You can be there in a mat­ter of minutes. See what you can do. If you are suc­cess­ful, I shall know it. If not, come back to us to­night, through the pil­lar. We will have lost noth­ing by try­ing.’

  ‘Do you think the co­terie is no longer a danger?’

  ‘They are no greater a danger to you there than here. Now go.’

  ‘Should I wait for the oth­ers to re­turn and let them know where I have gone?’

  ‘I will tell them my­self. FitzChiv­alry. Will you do this thing for me?’

  There could be only one an­swer to such a ques­tion. ‘I will. I go now.’ I hes­it­ated a fi­nal time. ‘I am not sure how to use the pil­lar.’

  ‘It is no more com­plic­ated than a door, Fitz. Place your hand on it, and it draws on the Skill within you. Here, this sym­bol.’ He sketched with a fin­ger in the dust. ‘That is the one for the place of the dragons. Simply put your hand on it and walk through. This,’ an­other sketch in the dust, ‘is the sign for the quarry. It will bring you back here.’ He lif­ted his dark eyes to re­gard me stead­ily. Was there a test in those eyes?

  ‘I shall be back this even­ing,’ I prom­ised him.

  ‘Good. Luck ride with you,’ he told me.

  And that was it. I rose and left the fire be­hind me, walk­ing to­ward the pil­lar. I passed Girl-on-a-Dragon and tried not to be dis­trac­ted by her. Some­where off in the woods, the oth­ers were gath­er­ing fire­wood while Nighteyes ranged all around them.

  Are you really go­ing without me?

  I shall not be gone long, my brother.

  Shall I come back and wait for you by the pil­lar?

  No, watch over the Queen for me, if you would.

  With pleas­ure. She shot a bird for me today.

  I sensed his ad­mir­a­tion and sin­cer­ity. What finer thing than a bitch who kills ef­fi­ciently?

  A bitch who shares well.

  See that you save some for me, as well.

  You can have the fish, he as­sured me mag­nan­im­ously.

  I looked up at the black pil­lar that now loomed be­fore me. There was the sym­bol. As simple as a door, Ver­ity had said. Touch the sym­bol and pass through. Per­haps. But my stom­ach was full of but­ter­flies and it was all I could do to lift my hand and press it to the shin­ing black stone. My palm met the sym­bol and I felt a cold tug of Skill. I stepped through.

  I went from bright sun­light to cool dap­pling shade. I stepped away from the tall black pil­lar and onto deeply grassed earth. The air was heavy with mois­ture and plant smells. Branches that had been beaded with leaf buds the last time I had been here were now lush with fo­liage. A chorus of in­sects and frogs greeted me. The forest around me swarmed with life. After the empty si­lence of the quarry, it was al­most over­whelm­ing. I stood for a time, just ad­just­ing to it.

  Cau­tiously I lowered my Skill walls and reached war­ily out. Save for the pil­lar be­hind me, I had no sense of Skill in use. I re­laxed a bit. Per­haps Ver­ity’s blast­ing of Car­rod had done more than he real­ized. Per­haps they feared to chal­lenge him dir­ec­tly now. I warmed my­self with that thought as I set off through the lux­uri­ant growth.

  I was soon soaked to the knee. It was not that there was wa­ter un­der­foot, but that the ri­ot­ous growth of grasses and reeds that I waded through were laden with mois­ture. Over­head twin­ing vines and hanging leaves dripped. I did not mind. It seemed re­fresh­ing after the bare stone and dust of the quarry. What had been a rudi­ment­ary path­way the last time we were here was now a nar­row cor­ridor through lean­ing, sprawl­ing plant-life. I came to a shal­low gurg­ling stream, and took a hand­ful of pep­pery cress from it to nibble as I walked. I prom­ised I would take some back to camp with me come night­fall, and then re­called my­self to my mis­sion. Dragons. Where were the dragons?

  They had not moved, though green­ery grew taller around them than it had been. I spot­ted a light­ning-blas­ted stump I re­membered, and from there found Realder’s dragon. I had already de­cided he might be the most prom­ising one to start with, for I had def­in­itely felt a strong Wit-life in him. As if it could make some dif­fer­ence, I took a few minutes to clear him of vines and wet, cling­ing grasses. As I did so, one thing struck me. The way the sleep­ing creature was sprawled upon the earth fol­lowed the con­tour of the ground be­neath him. It did not look like a statue carved and then set in place here. It looked like a liv­ing creature that had flung it­self down to rest and never moved again.

  I tried to force be­lief on my­self. These were the very Eld­er­lings that rose to King Wis­dom’s call. They flew like great birds to the coast and there they de­feated the Raid­ers and drove them from our shores. From the skies they fell on the ships, driv­ing the crews mad with ter­ror or over­set­ting the ships with the great wind from their wings. And they would again, could we but wake them.

  ‘I shall try,’ I said aloud, and then re­peated, ‘I shall wake them,’ and sought to have no doubt in my voice. I walked slowly about Realder’s dragon, try­ing to de­cide how to be­gin. From the wedge-shaped rep­tilian head to the barbed tail, this was one stone dragon that was all of the stuff of le­gend. I reached an ad­mir­ing hand to run it over the gleam­ing scales. I could sense the Wit curl­ing lazily through it like smoke. I willed my­self to be­lieve in the life in it. Could any artist have con­trived so per­fect a ren­der­ing? There were knobs of bone at the apex of its wings, sim­ilar to those on a gander. I did not doubt that it could clout a man down with it. The barbs of its tail were still sharp and nasty. I could ima­gine it lash­ing through rig­ging or row­ers, shear­ing, sli­cing, snag­ging. ‘Realder,’ I cried aloud to it. ‘Realder!’

  I felt no re­sponse. Not a stir­ring of Skill, not even much dif­fer­ence in its Wit. Well, I told my­self I had not ex­pec­ted it to be that easy. In the next few hours, I tried every way I could ima­gine to wake that beast. I pressed my face to its scaly cheek, and ques­ted into that stone as deeply as I could probe. I got less re­sponse from it than an earth­worm would have given me. I stretched my body out be­side that cold stone liz­ard, and willed my­self to one­ness with it. I sought to bond with that lazy stir­ring of Wit within it. I ra­di­ated af­fec­tion to­ward it. I com­man­ded it strenu­ously. Eda help me, I even sought to threaten it with dire con­se­quences if it did not arise to obey my com­mand. It all availed me noth­ing. I began to clutch at straws. I re­called the Fool to it. Noth­ing. I reached back for the Skill-dream the Fool and I had shared. I brought into my mind every de­tail of the wo­man in the rooster crown that I could re­call. I offered her to the dragon. There was no re­sponse. I tried ba­sic things. Ver­ity said per­haps they had starved. I visu­al­ized pools of cool, sweet wa­ter, fat, sil­very fish there for the de­vour­ing. I Skill-visu­al­ized Realder’s dragon be­ing de­voured by a greater one, and offered it that pic­ture. No re­sponse.

  I ven­tured to reach for my king. If there is life in these stones, it is too small and sunken for me to reach.