It Gets Worse

Ninod was playing the harp. Leastways, she was plucking the strings wistfully, and such was the skill of the elven maker that the instrument sounded delightful whatever you did with it. Limpid notes fell off her fingers like raindrops. With half an ear she listened to the hushed conversation between the Seraphine and her husband.

“…all the guesthouses, but there is no trace of him. His escort was tracked as far as the Reed Marshes; he was not with them, and if they met up later, it would have been far from the city. So, we are not sure if he is still here. Miriel thinks he is gone.”

Hamûjil picked at his moustache. “I would not count on that. Someone might be hiding him.”

“One of our own people?” said Majani, appalled. “But what can we do about that? We cannot search all the houses in the town.”

“No, but we may not need to. Where exactly did Miriel say she saw him?”

“Right next to the jetty by the Tower of Knowledge. She thinks he had just got off a boat, and then he walked towards the baths. She tried to follow him, but the street was busy and she lost him.”

“That is too bad,” said Hamûjil. “Where is Miriel anyway?”

“Down at the museum. They have to rearrange some of the exhibits and I asked her to make sure all is done with care.”

“Majani.” Hamûjil sighed. “I understand that you are concerned about the artwork, but is that really the most urgent matter right now? You as good as promised me that Miriel would outwit the ambassador, but so far neither of you have come up with an inspired plan.”

“And neither have you. Anyway, if we –”

The sound of running feet was heard from the passage, and then the door was flung open.

“Archseraph! Archseraph, you must come! The library is on fire!”

Ninod left the harp, Majani jumped up, Hamûjil was already by the door; by the time they reached the stairs their following amounted already to a few dozen people, all shouting at cross-purposes. Out onto the plaza and up the avenue they ran, towards the Fifth Rung where a pillar of black smoke rose into the still air. People were streaming in from all sides, and when the seraphs arrived, there was already a bucket chain coming up from the canal. But the fire was on the third, the top floor, and hardly anyone had the nerve to walk into the burning building, so most of the buckets just ended up standing pointlessly on the pavement. Buckets seems to be in short supply, too, since the Fifth Rung was full of public buildings and few folk lived here. A middle-aged woman, the head librarian, ran back and forth yelling, “Do something! Somebody do something!”

“Is there a cistern?” Majani shouted into Hamûjil’s ear. Many large buildings in the city had wooden rainwater cisterns on the roof.

“If there is, how would we reach it?”

“Maybe with – look, there is Miriel!” Indeed, Miriel stood not far away beside some of the museum keepers, her hands clenched to her side. But before Majani could attract her attention, people started pointing upwards and cries of, “Lungi!” rose all around. Five, no, six dragons were approaching, Mûn with Pallando in the lead. He waved his hand showing that he wished to land, and the crowd moved outward to make space. The other dragons circled overhead.

“Why are you all just standing here?” roared Pallando. “Get those buckets inside!”

Those nearest the doors looked uneasy. Each seemed to wait for someone else to make the first move. Then Hamûjil seized a couple of buckets and marched into the building, and now others followed with cries of “Archseraph!” Pallando turned to Majani. “Lungi can carry buckets up, but we’ll have to break the windows. Axes or hammers would be best, but sturdy bits of wood will do.” They both looked around but nothing suitable caught their eye. Miriel now appeared next to Majani and was quickly told of their plight.

“There is a cabinet of ancient dwarf axes in the museum,” she said. “I’ll fetch some.”

Hamûjil returned to exchange his empty buckets for full ones. His silk tunic was peppered with tiny singed holes, but he was otherwise hale. “We can only get as far as the third floor landing,” he said. “We are drenching the stair in the hope the fire will not spread further down.” He gave Majani a reassuring smile and hastened back inside. From across the square, they saw the Mayor running up with a troupe of people carrying empty buckets. By the time they had joined the chain, Sâlian brought her dragon down beside Mûn.

“There is a cistern. If we could smash it…the fire has burned a hole into the roof…but I’d need an axe – oh, thank you.” She grabbed the dwarf battle axe Miriel proffered and then her dragon soared upwards.

Pallando took the remaining two axes Miriel had brought. “I was all I could carry,” she said, but he was already airborne. Majani shooed the crowd backwards so they would not be hit by falling glass. She flinched at the sound of the shattering windows. Smoke and sparks emerged, and then, to her horror, she saw a man appear between the ragged shards. She screamed to help him. A lungi passed close by the building and pulled the man out. Majani couldn’t see where he was brought to the ground, but a wave of movement passed through the crowd and she trusted he would be cared for.

Aiming a bucket of water through a half-broken window while in flight turned out to be not without challenges, and the lungi missed almost as often as they hit their mark. For a while it seemed as if the breaking of the windows had only fed the blaze with the inrush of air, but then a sound from up high, half roar, half hiss, signalled that Sâlian had succeeded in smashing the cistern. The deluge pouring through the hole in the roof must have put out the core of the fire, since soon Hamûjil came outside to tell them that only small pockets persisted. People now poured into the building eagerly, be it to help with the remaining effort or merely to gaze on the destruction.

“What a mess, though,” said Hamûjil. “What a terrible mess.” He stroked Majani’s hair as she cried. Right then, as if to mock them, a sudden downpour started.

-oOoOo-

Stark grey rocks pierced the grassy slope that fell steeply towards the little stream. It came down from the heights, already covered in snow, of the mountains to the north and tumbled into the valley more than two hundred fathoms below. The valley was fringed by another, much lower string of peaks, and far beyond those peaks lay the plains, and under a blanket of haze the inland sea. Up here, the autumn was far advanced, the rowans stripped of their berries, the ash and alder trees clinging feebly to their last few withered leaves. Immense firs were pummelled by the wind on the ridges, or clustering in the dells for mutual support. The grass was yellow and limp.

About a stone’s throw away from the stream was a thicket of hawthorn, brambles and nettles, plants that are not the most pleasant to the touch, but which nevertheless had been very welcome when they obligingly broke Jarin’s fall. She had lain stunned for a while and unsure of what had happened, but now she crawled out of the scrub, not without being stung and scratched on the way. Once clear of the thorny limbs and burning fingers, she took in her surroundings. She couldn’t understand how they had come so far up the mountains, but then the storm had been so very vicious and everything so very confusing. Wan might have been blown off further up, or further down, who knew. There was no sign of him, and when she began to call, there was no answer.

It must have rained at some point, because she was completely drenched, and shivering in the cold wind. She felt light-headed, and realised that her clothes were stained with wet blood in several places. One of her boots was missing, as was her scarf, but at least her pack remained on her back. When she tried to get up, black spots appeared in front of her eyes and she had to sit down. It began to rain again.

At first she panicked not to find her flute attached to her belt, but then she remembered that she had stored it in her pack. She rummaged around among her food supply and change of clothing. Her fingers touched a sharp edge, she pulled out the object – half the flute, snapped in the middle. She found the other piece and pointlessly held them together.  Broken, broken. So, she was utterly alone.

She cried, howled, hit the ground with her fists.

A sudden sense of being watched, or else some noise, made her look up. Not five yards away from her stood two hooded figures. Dwarves. She struggled to her feet.

“Kind sirs…help me…if it pleases you…”

The dwarves exchanged looks. “Looks like a Krâ, talks like a Kûzin,” said one in Kûzar, but more to the other dwarf than to Jarin.

“I’m a Kûzin,” said Jarin. “I’m…a lungi…lost…” She staggered. The other dwarf stepped forward and took her arm. “Come to warn…dwarves…”

“Warn us of what?” asked the first dwarf but the second dwarf, hooded in green, turned towards Jarin and reached out a hand to pull her up.

“You asked for help,” said the dwarf, with a softer voice but casting a meaningful glance at his fellow dwarf, “and we shall give you help, and then you can tell us. Look, can you walk that far?” He pointed and Jarin saw a little way ahead a wooden hut half hidden by conifers.

“I’ll try.”

Now the first dwarf came along to her other side, and between them they supported the stumbling Jarin. By the time they reached the hut, she felt ready to faint. The dwarves deposited her on a bench and lit a fire in an iron stove.

“You are exhausted,” said the dwarf with the green hood. “Sleep a little and we can talk later.”

“No, please…you must listen…the Krâ…”

“What about them?”

“They’ll attack Longhaven…to capture your ships.”

“How do you know that?”

“I heard them talk. Saw them march, too. They left Krandi…two days ago, I think.”

The other dwarf frowned.  “How can you be here if you were in Krandi two days ago?”

“I told you…I’m a lungi. But my dragon is gone and my flute is broken.” She opened her right hand, in which she was still clutching the broken pieces of the flute. The dwarves looked nonplussed.

“What is the meaning of this flute?” asked the dwarf with the green hood.

“To call the dragon. Please…warn your friends. I’m –”

She leaned over and retched onto the floor. “Sorry…so sorry…”

The dwarves whispered with each other, then one left the hut. The other, the one with the green hood, cleaned up the mess on the floor, then he sat down on a stool next to the bench and gingerly touched Jarin’s clothing.

“You should let me have a look at your wounds,” he said. But Jarin had fallen asleep or otherwise lost consciousness.

When she came to, she lay under a blanket with her head on her pack and the room was warm. The dwarf was busy at the stove, but when Jarin made a noise, he turned and came over, a steaming mug in his hand. “Here, drink this.”

Jarin sniffed, the smell was unfamiliar. “What is it?”

“Chamomile tea. I should introduce myself. I am Nara, daughter of Naluk, at your service.”

“Oh, you are – ” Sure, the dwarf’s face seemed a little softer than the other one’s. But my, what a splendid beard… Jarin realised she was staring and pulled herself together. “Jarin Dragonrider, daughter of Margig. Is this your home?”

“Goodness, no!” Nara laughed. “This is only a way shelter, for dwarves who are travelling. It was the closest place. My brother has gone to fetch help. We live in the Halls of Kamenogi, but you could not have walked that far. It’s nearly two hours.”

“I have heard of that, Kamenogi. The dwarf city on the mountain.”

“In the mountain.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry. Will your brother warn the people of Longhaven?”

“He will make sure someone does. But we are not as unprepared as you seem to think. Any Krâ host coming up the Shore Road should be spotted by our sentinels long before it reaches Longhaven.”

“Then I came for nothing?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Why did you come up here anyway? Why not go directly to Longhaven?”

“We were caught up in the storm. I fell off and then Wan was gone. I don’t know –” Jarin burst into tears. This appeared to be outlandish behaviour to Nara, because she looked embarrassed and walked over to the window. Jarin breathed deeply and wiped off her eyes.

“It was a big storm,” said Nara thoughtfully. “Even so, it carried you far, far off your trail. It is nearly sixty miles from here to the lakeshore, as the raven flies, and longer on land.”

“Then you can’t send a warning to them in time?”

“Oh, the raven will be there by tonight.”

Jarin screwed up her face in confusion. “Sorry, what raven? When you said as the raven flies, I thought you meant in a straight line.”

Now it was for Nara to look puzzled. “Of course the raven flies in a straight line, more or less. He doesn’t have to worry about rivers and mountain slopes. On land, the way is nearly twice as long.”

“Oh, I see, you are sending an actual raven. With a little letter tied to his foot, yes?”

“Of course not, why would we do that?”

“Well, how would the raven deliver the message?”

“He’ll tell them.”

Jarin sank back. “This is a wondrous land – talking ravens!”

“Says she who comes from the land of dragon riders.”

They both laughed.

“How come,” asked Jarin, “that you speak Kûzar so fluently?”

“There’s nothing unusual about that” replied Nara. “Our people learn languages with ease. Most of our folk can speak Kûzar and Krâin and the speech of the Hwenti. But not the speech of the Tree Women, which is secret, just as our own.”

“I speak only Kûzar and Krâin.”

“Yes, we took you for a Krâ until you started talking.”

“My grandparents were Krâ, but I have lived in Kûz all my life.”

Voices were now heard outside, and then the door opened and four dwarves entered. Seeing that Jarin was sitting up, they bowed and made their introductions. Ingu, son of Balud, at your service, Rhuna, daughter of Keini, Diri, son of Naluk, Tuli, son of Daz, at your service, at your service, at your service… Jarin gave her own name but doubted she would remember all of theirs. Was Nara’s brother called Diri or Keini?

“We brought a pony,” said one of them to Nara. “Do you think she is well enough to ride?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“I think I am well enough,” said Jarin. “But I have never sat a horse.”

“Surely a horse can’t be a problem for a dragon rider?”

“I have no way of knowing. Let me try.”

The pony was a gentle beast, patiently standing still while Jarin struggled into the saddle. She realised her left leg was stiff and hurting, and her head swam by the time she was finally mounted. It felt strangely exposed with no dragon’s neck and head looming up in front of her. Perhaps that was the reason for the blurry patches moving across her field of vision? Nara’s brother took the bridle and the company set off. It was no longer raining, and heavy fog wafted across the mountainside. The air smelled earthy and wild.

Uphill they went, over faded mountain meadows, past daunting crags and under towering pines. Jarin had slumped forward, hugging the pony’s neck as she was used to doing with Wan. Soon she fell into a half-sleep from which she only awoke when she heard the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves echoing around her. They had arrived in the Halls of Kamenogi.

-oOoOo-

The following day, Hamûjil left the palace early to survey the damage with the Mayor, the head librarian and the Captain of the Guards. It was early afternoon when he returned. Majani and her ladies were sitting in the room with the blue baldachin, which still hadn’t been fixed. Two of the younger women were entertaining the children by folding paper flowers. Hamûjil took his wife and the other ladies into a quiet corner.

“It could have been worse,” he began, “though it is bad enough. Fortunately nobody was badly hurt – the poor man who was trapped has only slight burns and some cuts from the glass. But the books!” His eyes teared up. Almost all the books on the third floor had perished. This was very painful, because the most precious books of Kûz had been kept there, and many of them were of elven make, acquired by the seraphs over generations. On the second floor, too, books had been damaged by the water, though some at least of these might be salvageable, if only by having their content copied. The first floor had escaped both fire and water. It held the bulk of the Kûzar books, sturdy, woodcut-printed volumes designed for lending.

“Much lore is lost to us,” said Hamûjil. “Though we may hope to recover some of it with the help of the elves. However, it gets worse. We believe this fire was no accident, but a wicked act of arson.”

Miriel blanched. “How could you know?”

“A few oil-drenched rags were found on the second floor. It looks like the arsonist was disturbed before he could light those. Since it was after closing time, he probably thought the building would be empty.”     

“But who would do such a thing?”

“Really, Ninod?” said Miriel with raised eyebrows. “Nobody springs to mind?”

“You mean that ambassador? I don’t see what good it would do him to burn down our library.”

“He is not trying to do good to himself; he is trying to do evil unto us,” replied Miriel and passed a bowl of pomegranate pips to the Archseraph. “To harm us, to scare us, that is his desire. Believe me, you who have lived all your life among good people have no notion of how the wicked think.”

“We must have more guards,” said Majani.

“My dear, I cannot conjure guards out of thin air,” replied Hamûjil. “Those we have are already doing long shifts. And there is no telling what he might target next – the palace, the Tower of Knowledge, the Houses… We really have to find him as quickly as possible.”

“But how can we do that? We have already tried.”

“Perhaps we will get some clue when we find out how he got into the building. The door was locked after all.” He frowned. “Say, was that pomegranate quite fresh? It tastes strange.” The women shrugged; none of them had eaten any of it. Suddenly, Hamûjil slumped forward and began to splutter. The women crowded round him, helplessly patting his back. Ninod shouted to fetch a healer. Hamûjil’s face turned green and he slipped off the chair onto the ground.