The tension drained out of Bardon’s neck and shoulders. He wasn’t sure if it was Regidor’s ready apology that caused him to relax or the fact that Kale also became frustrated with the meech dragon’s occasional high-handed manner.
“Um.” Regidor uncharacteristically hesitated. “Would you like to outline our course of action?”
Bardon laughed. “Now you’re deferring to my leadership?”
Regidor nodded. “Belatedly.”
“Oh, Reg, Kale has taught you to do contrite very well.”
The meech dragon chortled and managed to look even more sheepish.
Bardon studied the activity below and then crossed to the back of the corner turret. “We’ll go down this side and meet by the garden wall. We can follow that with reasonable cover until we are within striking distance of the guards around Bromptotterpindosset. He doesn’t look injured and should be able to travel. When we get closer and see what the setup looks like from the ground, mindspeak to him and tell him what is about to happen.
“Hopefully, your sudden appearance will give us enough time to free him and escape through the front gate. You can hold them within the enclosure easily enough to give me time to get him some distance away. Then fly to join us, and we’ll determine if any further diversionary tactic is needed. Any questions or suggestions?”
Regidor’s pointed teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “You did that quite well, Squire. Are you sure you don’t have what is needed to become a knight?”
Bardon sighed and ran the fingers of one hand through his hair. “This is merely delineating a course of action.”
“This,” said Regidor, “is exactly what a knight does.”
Bardon hopped up to sit on the turret wall and threw a leg over. “I’m climbing down these vines. Good-bye.”
Regidor released his wings from the tight folds he kept them in as they lay against his back. The air blew Bardon’s hair away from his face.
“And I will fly. A lot less work.”
Bardon nodded and lowered himself over the edge. Regidor took to the air and glided noiselessly into the back courtyard.
The squire put his foot on a branch, testing it. Finding it strong enough to support his weight, he began a cautious, step-by-step climb down the side of the castle. Halfway down he placed his foot on a branch that seemed to melt under his weight. He moved over to assess another branch. This vine would not bear his weight either.
Bother. I’ll have to inch back again. If I move more in this direction, I’ll be in sight of the grawligs’ little party.
He went up a ways and then scooted over the weak spot.
“Having a problem?”
Yes, Reg. Can you see the vines from where you are?
“Of course,” he answered. “I’m wondering why you are dancing around in that one spot. The vines are thick and sturdy there.”
They give under my weight.
“Odd. They shouldn’t. Put your foot on one and push it down. I’ll watch.”
Bardon reached with his foot, found a branch, and shifted his weight. This vine felt thick beneath the sole of his boot. It had given a little, but Bardon decided to trust it. Still clinging to the vines next to his chest with both hands, he moved the other foot to follow the first.
“Careful, Squire. There’s something underneath.”
That something wrapped around both ankles and jerked. The vines dissolved in his hands, and Bardon slid into a hole in the wall. An explosion of lights told him he’d entered a gateway. Pressure built up in his lungs too fast to grab a last breath to hold on to. Usually, the sensation of going through a gateway was horizontal, a matter of a few steps, and the traveler determined when those steps were taken. This gateway opened up like the top of a well. Bardon did not walk, he fell. He did not travel a few steps, but down a long tunnel of variegated lights. The atmosphere stuck to him and slowed his descent. The lights dimmed, and he hit the side of the passageway. He realized the shaft had changed direction and now descended as a slope. He began to roll. The flashing lights returned right before Bardon tumbled out onto a planking of a cygnot tree.
Spread out, facedown on the firm weave of branches, he closed his eyes and enjoyed breathing.
A voice from above him brought his eyes wide open.
“Bardon, what are you doing here?”
43
KALE
Kale swung down from one layer of the planking in Bedderman’s Bog and sat cross-legged on the next.
“What do you think, Pat?” she said to a small brown minor dragon no bigger than a kitten. “Can it be fixed?”
The little dragon chewed thoughtfully on some bug he had captured and eyed the portal. She listened with her mind to the dragon’s assessment of the damaged gateway. Her eyes widened. “Eight or nine thousand years old? Maybe Fenworth made it in his youth. Of course, he claims to be older than that, but I don’t believe it. I think it’s part of his confusion.” She leaned back against the thick trunk of a cygnot tree. “This is such a boring assignment.” She picked up a notebook and made an entry. First she marked the location of this gateway on a map of The Bogs, then numbered it. “Number fifty-six, approximate age eight to nine thousand years.” She tapped her pen on the page. “You know Fen isn’t going to accept such a broad estimation. Oh, I wish Reg were here. He would have this figured out in a trice.”
Kale scooted closer to the opening and studied the fibers with which the gateway had been woven. She didn’t touch them because they were actually made of a material similar to light. She preferred not to be shocked. And, she didn’t want to accidentally fall through.
The task assigned her was to locate and catalog every gateway in The Bogs. It was a tedious chore, and sadly, she saw the necessity.
Fenworth was dying. Not a painful or difficult death, but as he put it, the end of this life and the beginning of the new. Once he had quit this world and stepped into the presence of Wulder, he would no longer be able to assist Kale. And he was leaving The Bogs to Kale. She would be its mistress and must be familiar with all its properties.
“This looks like the pattern woven in the Pordactic Period, and the strength of the fibers backs that up. I’ll put down eight thousand, five hundred, twenty-five years. And as to the weaver of the gateway, it was not Fenworth. Fen believes in simplicity, unless it’s his stay-at-home robes. Those are elaborate and beautiful.”
She glanced down at her attire, black leggings, a smock shirt in a dull green, and, of course, her moonbeam cape. With a grin, she concentrated on the plain pants until they blossomed into loose-fitting silk trousers, shimmering in peacock colors. Her floppy blouse she changed into a fitted blue tunic embroidered with threads of gold. Under the tunic, she now wore a dazzling white long-sleeved shirt with sapphire snaps at the throat and wrists. Still not satisfied, she rearranged the embroidery on the tunic into a scene including a white palace, strutting peacocks, and dragons flying over her shoulder and across her back. She left the moonbeam cape alone.
A second minor dragon scampered out of the hanging moss. He chittered and flew to a branch of leaves above Kale’s head. She looked up and smiled. “Hello, Gymn. Your tummy full?”
The green dragon smacked his lips and stretched out in a patch of sun filtering through the dense leaves above.
Kale turned back to her examination of the weave. “Strot. I think it was Strot who made this gateway.” She tilted her head. “That’s peculiar, though. Why would Strot be here in The Bogs making a portal? This clearly is the initial entry.” She wrote her identification in the notebook and tapped the pen against her chin. “Now, where does it go? These broken strands would indicate north, and they were quite long, weren’t they, Pat? Now they’re so frayed and tangled, it’s hard to know what to think.” The brown dragon scrambled among the leaves. She put the pen and notebook down on the floor and faced the gateway squarely.
“Let’s fix this, Pat. Maybe while we’re weaving, we can determine the location of the other side.”
/> The little brown dragon dropped the collection of tiny beetles he had in his forefeet and flew to Kale’s shoulder. With the help of the fix-it dragon, she used her knowledge of wizardry to gather together the broken strands, form new matching strands, and work them into a smooth frame for the gateway.
“My,” she said as she finished and let out a heavy sigh. “That covered quite a distance. All the way up to the Northern Reach. And the exit at the other end was most peculiar. Where’s Filia?”
Almost immediately, a small, rosy pink dragon appeared from within the foliage. The creature looked far more delicate than Pat. Her pale wings, filigreed with silver and gold lines, were almost transparent. “Filia, do you remember anything about the Wizard Strot?…A mountain wizard. Yes, I remember that too…Murdered by Risto? Oh no, I don’t think I knew that.”
Kale again studied the gateway. “Two things I detect about this gateway, friends. The first is that it proceeds vertically instead of horizontally. Second, there is a device at the other side that literally pulls in anything that comes too close to the entrance.” She tapped her pen again on her chin. “To what purpose would that be?”
She closed the book, stuck the pen in a pocket along its spine, and shoved them into a hollow in her cape.
“Now, where is everybody? It’s time to go home. I’ll ask Librettowit what he knows of this gateway and Strot.”
Pat had again gathered a meal. He reluctantly released the drummerbug he’d been about to devour and followed Kale.
“Metta? Ardeo?” she called.
A purple and a gray dragon came through the planking from the cygnot floor below.
“Dibl? Dibl! Wouldn’t you know he’d be the last to come?” She walked to the tree trunk, gave a little jump, latched on to the hole in the flooring above, and pulled herself onto the next layer. Her stylish pants caught on a twig. Annoyed, she carefully unhooked the cloth so it would not tear, and stood up.
“Dibl, where are you?”
The yellow and orange dragon swooped down from the branches above and ruffled her short curly hair. “Oh, cease your antics, you naughty little beast.” She laughed but stopped short when she heard a thump from the landing below.
Dropping to her knees, she peered through the hole. In front of the gateway, a halfling stretched out on his stomach. She knew those pointed ears and coal black hair.
“Bardon, what are you doing here?”
44
JOINING FORCES
Bardon pulled his face out of the planking and looked up, trying to locate Kale. “Where are you?”
“Up here.”
He rolled over on his side and peered into the woven branches above him.
Kale giggled. “Here.”
He shifted his gaze, following the bright sound of her voice, and spotted her face upside down with curls bouncing around her ears.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You look kind of stunned. Did you whack your head coming through that crazy gateway?”
She disappeared for a moment, then her legs came through the opening. The colorful material of a wild pair of bloomers fluttered as she swung for a second and then dropped to the floor. A stream of dragons followed her, all small, all chittering wildly in their excitement.
Bardon pushed himself to a sitting position as Kale sprang across the planking to his side.
“Are you hurt?” she asked. She crouched next to him and touched his arm.
“No.”
“Where did you come from?”
“A castle in the Northern Reach.”
“Strot’s castle.” Kale nodded vigorously and then looked to one of the dragons, a pink one. “Filia agrees that’s the most probable conclusion.”
Bardon sat up straighter and inched away from Kale’s hovering presence. “Filia, what does that mean?”
“She loves life and is interested in everything, therefore she collects tidbits of information. Her knowledge comes in very handy.”
Kale noticed Bardon was staring at her and frowned at him. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“You’re different.”
“I’m three years older.”
“What are you wearing?”
Kale stood up suddenly. “What kind of question is that? I’m wearing clothes.”
Bardon struggled to his feet and faced her. “Yes, but what kind of an outfit is that for traipsing around The Bogs?”
“It is a very becoming outfit.” She slammed her fists against her waist and stood with her feet apart. “It declares my flamboyant personality. It is functional and flattering at the same time.”
Dibl swooped between the two glaring faces and landed on Bardon’s head. The squire flapped a hand at the small yellow and orange dragon perched in his hair. Dibl fluttered upward and settled back down on his crown. To preserve his dignity, Bardon refused to flap at the minor dragon again.
Kale’s wide-set hazel eyes shifted up to look at Dibl and then refocused on Bardon’s face.
An image of the two of them standing almost nose to nose, glowering and fuming, flitted through Bardon’s thoughts. He also envisioned the ridiculous dragon pulling with tiny talons on his black hair, and next his mind’s eye focused on the peacocks parading around the hem of Kale’s outrageous tunic.
He knew Dibl projected the images to him. The minor dragon had a keen sense of the ridiculous and loved sharing his humor. Bardon smiled.
Kale smiled, too, and giggled. Her clenched hands relaxed, and she let them drop from her hips. But a moment later, she crossed her arms over her chest and looked at Bardon, speculatively. “What are you doing, falling out of old gateways, acting dazed, and…”
“Asking stupid questions?” Bardon held both hands up, palms forward. “I apologize for the inappropriate comments about your beautiful ensemble. I’m dazed because this is the last place I expected to be and also the last place I need to be. Although it is very good to see you again.”
He paused and jerked a thumb at the portal behind him. “And, before I fell through that ramshackle gateway, Regidor and I were about to rescue a tumanhofer.”
“Regidor is with you?”
“Yes, he joined the quest.”
“Quest?” She crossed one leg in front of the other and gracefully lowered herself to sit on the cygnot flooring. “Let’s talk, Bardon.”
“I really have to get back, Kale.”
“I may be able to help you with that. Pat and I just repaired that gateway, and you tore some of the strands when you came shooting out. Right now it would be a bit dangerous to plunge back in.”
Bardon sighed and sat down. “I suppose you want to know all about the quest.”
“Uh-huh.” The five other minor dragons landed on Kale and settled in as if they, too, wished to hear this tale.
“This is going to be a quick version, Kale, because I really have to get back to help rescue Bromptotterpindosset.”
“You said something similar to that before. If you don’t repeat yourself, you will be much more efficient in the telling of this story.”
Rather than being annoyed, Bardon found himself grinning at the beautiful o’rant girl before him.
Is this joy the influence of the humor dragon on my head or the pleasure of seeing Kale again?
“Let’s say both, and hurry along with this quest tale.”
It’s rude to read my mind without engaging in conversation.
Kale laughed out loud. “Yes, it is, and it feels so good to be linked with you again, Bardon.” Her expression settled into one of intense mischief, eyes gleaming, dimples in her cheeks. “And it’s good to know you think I’m beautiful. You’d be surprised how rarely I hear such a compliment.”
Your most constant companions are Wizard Fenworth, Wizard Cam, Librettowit, Taylaminkadot, and Toopka. Bardon mockingly scratched his head. No, I’m not surprised.
She laughed, and the precious sound reminded the young squire how much he’d missed this comrade.
“The story,” said B
ardon, aloud and firmly.
His companion nodded. “Yes, the story.”
“My sabbatical was interrupted by two emerlindian women, Granny Kye and N’Rae. They’re searching for knights entrapped in a sleeping spell rendered by Risto. The spell must be refreshed before the Wizards’ Plume crosses under the Eye of the North, or the knights will die.”
“We noted the Wizards’ Plume rising. How long do you think you have before it passes under the Eye?”
“Regidor and the mapmaker have been debating about that. Does it mean when it first touches the perpendicular or when it has completely passed under? Hopefully, there will be more clues in the castle.”
“Who are these knights?”
“Granny Kye and N’Rae believe one of the knights is N’Rae’s father and Granny Kye’s son. We’ve found the knights in an abandoned castle. But grawligs have captured our mapmaker and may eat him if I don’t return promptly.”
He stood, and Kale did, too, with dragons taking flight as she moved.
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
“You can’t just come along, Kale. You have responsibilities here.”
“I’m a wizard now, and I can do what I please.”
Bardon cocked an eyebrow at her.
“I am a wizard, Bardon, even if I am not in the class of Regidor. But who could be? Wizard Cam is very well pleased with my progress. Wizard Fenworth thinks I could surpass even Regidor if I just applied myself. Mother says that when she was his apprentice, Fenworth had unreasonable expectations for her as well.”
She looked pleadingly at her friend. “Bardon, I’m so bored here in The Bogs. Regidor has always been able to come and go as he wishes, but I have many more restraints upon me.” She made a face and used a voice that sounded remarkably like the old wizard in charge of her education. “‘You’re a female and likely to get into trouble.’ Ha! Regidor tells me some of the scrapes he gets into. They should chain him to the castle.”
She rubbed Filia’s back, who had landed on her shoulder. “I’ll send a message to Fenworth’s castle so they’ll know where I’ve gone. And I’ll return tomorrow, after we have freed your tumanhofer mapmaker and lifted the sleeping spell.”