Dragon's Boy (8 page)

Each night of the return trip, Artos dreamed about the dragon's cave, with its entrance staring down from the tor like the empty eye socket of a long-dead beast. It hadn't been a happy dream, a dream about fathers. It had been a horrible, repeating nightmare, and he was afraid of what it meant.

They arrived home to find that Sir Ector had returned before them, sick with the gout as Lady Marion had foretold. He was sitting by the great hearthfire with his right foot wrapped in toweling and elevated on a stool. He was unhappy and distracted by pain, unable to greet them with any warmth.

The castle was busy with unpackings and there was such a bustling about that
Beau Regarde
felt, for a little while at least, like a truly great manor house. Of course that meant that no one paid much attention to the boys.

Having been outside, having seen the tournament at Shapwick and the wool fair at Woolvington, having passed large inns and other castles, Artos understood for the first time what a really small place Sir Ector's castle was. And the peculiar thing about
that
knowledge was that he knew, at the same time, how much he treasured
Beau Regarde
for its very smallness, for its ordinariness, for its familiarity. It was the one thought that pierced through his misery. All the traveling, all the wild tales he'd told, all the sights he'd seen, made him happier to be here—at home.

The boys helped unpack their bags of presents and carted them up to Lady Marion's rooms. She, in turn, fed them wine and hot milk and cakes: little buttered breads, buns sticky with sugared icing, and cakes shot full of poppyseeds.

Her minstrel, a handsome boy except for his wandering left eye, sang a number of songs while they ate. They were all familiar to Artos—he'd learned them from the dragon. He hummed along quietly, but he ate nothing. His stomach suddenly hurt.

It was well past sundown before Lady Marion finished thanking them and let them go at last.

“Let's play at draughts,” Cai said.

“Artos can tell us a story while we play,” Bed suggested.

Lancot added, “Better yet, let's teach Artos to play.”

But he brushed their suggestions aside and ran down the stairs. When they called after, he ignored them and only the startled ends of their voices followed him.

He hammered on the gate, closed since sundown, until the guards lifted the great latch and pushed the gates apart just enough to let him slip through. Then he raced across the moat bridge, where muddy lumps in the water were the only signs of life.

As he ran into the deepening dark, down the familiar path, he held his hand over his heart, cradling the two pieces of cake he'd slipped inside his tunic. He hadn't time to spare to beg stew from Mag, even though he wouldn't have begrudged her a kiss now. Not if it made her happy. He hoped the seed cakes would please the dragon. He didn't think for a moment that the dragon had actually starved to death without his poor offering of stew. That dragon had existed for many years before Artos had appeared by happy accident in its cave. No—it wasn't the size of the stew but the fact of it. Just as it wasn't the jewel under the cup but the fact that the onlooker believed it had been put there.

He stubbed his toe on the second outcropping because of the dark, hard enough to force a small mewing sound from between his lips, though the blow hadn't hurt as much as Cai's wand at his throat. Only he hadn't been expecting his toe to be stubbed and he
had
expected Cai to do exactly as he'd done with the wand.

When he started up the tor, he found the path slippery and that made climbing difficult, especially with one hand over his tunic to keep the cakes from falling out.

He got to the mouth of the cave at last and was relieved to hear heavy, ragged breathing echoing off the wall; relieved, that is, until he realized it was only the sound of his own panting.

“Dragon!” he cried out, his voice a sudden broken misery.
What if the dragon really had counted on the stew? What if the dragon were starving? What if the dragon were dead?
“Dragon!”

F
OR A LONG, HORRIBLE
moment the cave was silent, an awful, palpable, black silence. Then there was a small moan and an even smaller glow, like dying embers that have been breathed upon just one last time.

“Is that you, my son?” The voice was scarcely a whisper, so quiet the walls could not find enough substance to echo.

“Yes, dragon,” Artos said, horribly relieved. “It's me.”

“It is
I
,” the dragon corrected feebly. “Did you…did you bring me any stew?”

“Only two seed cakes.”

“I like seed cakes.”

“Then I'll bring them over to you.”

“Nooooooooooo.” The sound held only the faintest memory of that old, powerful voice.

But Artos had already started toward the back of the cave, one hand cradling the cakes against his chest, the other well in front to guide himself around the treacherous overhanging rocks. He was halfway there when he stumbled against something and fell heavily to his knees. Feeling around, he touched a long, metallic, curved blade.

Fearing the worst, he cried out, “A sword! Oh, dragon, has someone else been here? Has someone killed you?” His mind pictured Bedvere bumbling about in the dark, blade in hand, though he knew that Bed had been along with him on the journey. Perhaps one of the guards, or even Sir Ector himself on the hunt, had stumbled across the cave, though he knew in his heart the guards never chanced the peat bogs and the hunt had taken place west of Nethy in the deep forest, not across the fen so close to
Beau Regarde
.

Before the dragon could answer, Artos' hand traveled farther along the blade to its strange metallic base. It didn't feel like a sword at all. It felt like…

His hands told him what his eyes could not; his mouth spoke what his heart did not want to hear.

“The dragon's foot.”

He leaped over the metal construct and scrambled across a small rocky wall. Behind it, in the glow of a brazier, lay an old man on a straw bed. Near him were tables containing beakers full of colored liquids—amber, rose, green, and gold. From the gold a small, steady stream of clouds issued forth. On the near wall was a maze of strange toothed wheels locked one onto the other, with polished wooden handles at either end. On the far wall was a great door, carved with strange runes. By the old man's head was an open-mouthed cylinder with a long tubing attached, snaking all the way down to an opening in the wall.

The old man raised himself wearily onto one arm and tried to set his mouth into a welcoming smile.

“Pendragon,” he said, though a tremor in his yellowish lips betrayed him and slurred the syllables. “Son.”

“Old Linn?” Artos was suddenly shaking with anger. The dragon, so powerful, so dangerous, so all-wise—his secret father, his teacher, his friend—was
this
? On
this
he'd expended his fear, his faith, his…his love? If anyone ever found out, he'd be a joke. And what kind of wisdom had he gotten if its fount was a feeble, dying spring? He felt sick.

“You are a cheat. A
pismire.
A
chinch
.” The boyish swears rose easily to his lips.

The apothecary forced himself into a sitting position, his robes falling open to display knobby legs with prominent veins running from knee to ankle like old, meandering blue rivers. In a late attempt at dignity, he clutched the two sides of the robe together and began to speak quickly, before Artos' anger had time to set into rigid hate.

“Listen, boy. There was once a mighty king who would know Truth and so he put on a beggar's robe and traveled all over the world in his search.”

His voice was quieter than the dragon's had ever been, of course, but the rhythms were the same. Artos cursed himself that he'd never noticed. Yet, without willing it, he was pulled into the old man's tale.

“The king looked along the seacoasts and in the quiet farm dales,” Old Linn continued. “He went into the country of lakes and across the sandy deserts. He went into the uninhabited forests and through the noisy towns, seeking Truth. And at last, one dark night, in a small cave atop a high tor, he found her.
Truth.
Truth was a wizened old woman with but a single tooth left in her head. Her eyes were cloudy and her hair greasy, lank strands. But when she called him into her cave, her voice was low and lyrical and pure and that was how he knew he'd found Truth at last.”

Artos nodded, caught himself, tried to recapture his hot anger, and stirred uneasily.

The old man went on. “He stayed with Truth a year and a day. A year and a day learning all she had to teach. And when his time was done, he said, ‘My Lady, Truth, I must go back to my own kingdom now and serve my own people as I have served you. For a king is but his land's servant. Still, I would do something for you in exchange for all you have given me.'” Old Linn hesitated and the silence grew between them until it was almost a wall.

“Well?” Artos said at last.

The old man was silent.

“Well—what did she answer? You can't stop a story there.”

Old Linn was careful not to smile. Gently he said, “She told him: When you speak of me, tell your people that I am young and beautiful.'”

For a long moment Artos said nothing. Then he barked out a short, hollow laugh. “Another cheat. So much for the truth!”

Old Linn patted the mattress next to him, an invitation Artos ignored. “Tell me, Artos Pendragon, would you have listened these seven months to an old apothecary with a tendency to fits? A man you were convinced hated you? A man without discernible power or potency?”

Artos shrugged.

“Or would you listen only to a dragon, fiery, fierce, fair-minded, strong, full of arcane and extraordinary wisdoms who—quite possibly—liked you for yourself alone? Quite possibly loved you as a son?
Pendragon
.”

“You didn't tell me the truth,” Artos said. “And that's the whole of it.”

There was a moment of silence. Then the old man said, “I didn't lie. You
are
the dragon's son.”

A
RTOS TOOK A GOOD
look at the sick old man and cried out in pain, in anger, in disbelief, and in despair. “Noooooooooo.”

The words were still echoing off the cavern walls when he ran out and down the darkened path, heedless of the rocks in his way. He stumbled off into the marshy cushions of moorland, startling a swan that rose white and mute from a pool of standing water.

He found himself suddenly knee deep in that same pool, surrounded by duckweed and water mint, his mind as muddy as the pond.

How could Old Linn be my father? My father should be a strong, fair-minded knight, not a…a…
He remembered the words the old man had used:
An old apothecary with a tendency to fits.
Without thinking, he put his hand on the bag, feeling the ring roll around beneath his fingers.
And won't they all laugh at me
—
Cai, Lancot, Bed. Fathered by an old man. A secretive old man. A crazy old man. A lying old man.

His feet had begun to go numb in the cold water, and he edged toward the clumps of water violets rimming the pool. Tangling his hands in the vegetation, he hauled himself up and out, onto some sort of strange wooden pathway.

He knew what it was, one of the Old Paths. He'd heard of the lake folk who'd
walked the ancient planks
but had never actually seen any remains before.

Taking his boots off and dumping out the water in them, he sat for a long time thinking about the ancient folk, the ones who'd built the walkways all across the fens. They'd known so much—and now their knowledge was gone. Only bits and pieces—like the walkways—remained.

And their stories,
he suddenly reminded himself because he was, at the core, an honest boy.
Stories the dragon had told him. The dragon. Old Linn.
He made a face.

At last he pulled the wet boots back on, stood, and looked around. It was fully night. The moon was directly overhead. How long had he been sitting out on the moors? One shouldn't stay here all night. There were the peat hags to worry about, of course. And the faeries, though they dwelled mostly on the High Tor. And the cold. But there was no dragon, he knew that now. There was only a feeble old man.

He stared up at the moon. It was trembly and yellow faced and he could make out eyes, a nose, a slash of mouth. It reminded him of Old Linn.
Merlinnus
, Lady Marion had called him. He hated the old man for what he'd done. For lying about the dragon. Yet he
hadn't
lied about the wisdoms. Not really. Artos sighed.

For it had been the wisdom that had gotten him his sword. And the wisdom that had won him his new friends. And the wisdom that had helped him understand Olwen's condition. And Mag's.

Why,
he thought suddenly,
without that wisdom I'd be no better than a bulky, unruly, illiterate boy.
He smiled ruefully, remembering when that had, in fact, been all he'd wanted to be.

He stretched and then, carefully, walked back along the remnants of the wooden pathway and found the place where he'd stumbled away from his old path. It was well marked by moonlight. His feet had a bit of feeling in them again, which made him acutely aware of just how uncomfortable wet boots could be. The cake had mashed itself against the inside of his shirt. He wondered what it would taste like now. Setting his mouth in a line, he turned toward the cave.

He knew he could just go back to the castle, dusting out the cake crumbs for the moat tortoise or Boadie and her pups. He could settle down in his featherbed and forget the old man lying yellow-mouthed in the cave. But if the dragon had taught him one wisdom, it had to be this:
Bring gravy every day and confront your worst fear.
Well, he didn't have any gravy, but he still had a whole lot of unspoken fears: of being laughed at, of being made a fool, of having a man like Old Linn as a father.