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KING WILLIS IS IN HIS royal chamber when the news comes to him of his manservant’s return. He is indisposed, that much is true, but that does not mean he does not wish to hear of what the manservant found. So he rings the bell beside his bed, the one that leads directly to Garth’s room, and it takes the boy only minutes to reach him.
As soon as Garth enters his bedchambers, King Willis knows it is not with good news that the boy has returned. Garth stares at the floor.
“Well?” the king says. “Tell me, what did you find?”
Garth shakes his head. “I found nothing,” he says.
The king growls. “You found nothing?” he says. “How is it that you found nothing?”
“There is no house,” Garth says.
“There is no house,” King Willis says. “Tell me, how is it that there is no house, when Cook says there is a house?”
“I do not know,” Garth says. “Perhaps I should fetch Cook.”
“Yes,” King Willis says. “Perhaps you should.” It is quite clear that the king is not happy. Garth scuttles from the room and returns, moments later, with Cook, who has not yet put on her bear skin, for she, too, was waiting for the boy’s return.
“The boy has found nothing,” King Willis says. He is sitting in his bed. His stomach twists and turns, but he tries his best to ignore it. “Tell me how it is that the boy has found nothing.” He is looking at Cook.
She shuffles a large foot. “It is an invisible house,” Cook says.
“An invisible house,” King Willis says. “You sent the boy looking for an invisible house?” Garth looks at Cook, as if asking the very same thing.
“Children can often see what we cannot,” Cook says. “I thought, perhaps, he might see it.”
“But he is not a child,” King Willis says. He squints his eyes, but his eyesight is poor. So he simply says, “Or maybe he is.”
“No,” Garth says. “No, I am not a child.” He gives Cook a look, one that says, Please do not tell him, and Cook does not. King Willis does not notice what passes between the two.
Instead, the king turns to Cook. “Why did I not send you instead,” he says, “so that you might find the invisible house?”
“You would not have had supper,” she says. Her bushy eyebrows draw low over her dark eyes.
“Yes. Very well,” King Willis says. “Quite right.” He has nothing more to say, no other ideas, for his stomach, you see, is quite knotted up.
“Perhaps I might go in the morning,” Cook says.
“Yes,” the king says. “Yes. You will. After breakfast.”
“Very well, sire,” Cook says.
She will, in fact, go this very night. She will find nothing. The Enchantress, you see, has hidden her house from even shape shifters now. She saw the bear the first night. She could not risk a spy, for she has the treasure of Hazel, and she must make sure it all remains hidden until just the right moment.
If the king were to search for months, sending any person he might spare for the day, no one would find even a trace of the two houses, sitting in the woods, hiding the very children the king so desperately desires.
The king dismisses Garth and Cook to their beds, for it is very late.
No one sleeps this night.
***
ARTHUR is huddled up tight, trying to sleep on a rock, but his back is old, and he does not much like sleeping in such a position, for it is not really sleep at all, only dozing and waking and dozing and waking. He has felt the torture of every day, without his wife and children, and every night it is more pronounced, for there are no bodies to warm him inside this cave. There is no rest for him in this land. It is true that he had thought to fare better than this, when the dragons took him away, but the dragons are a difficult people, and he does not know in the slightest what he might do to walk on their good side.
And then, just as Arthur has drifted into another patch of light sleep, the shadow dragon Arthur saw the one and only time Zorag visited him, lands on the ledge. Arthur cannot remember his name, but the dragon does not hesitate to tell him.
“I am called Blindell,” he says. “We met two days past.”
“Yes,” Arthur says. “I remember.”
In the last two days, it has been random dragons delivering his food, keeping him “safe and comfortable,” they say in voices that sound anything but happy about this charge. And while Arthur is grateful that the dragons have taken it upon themselves to feed another person when most of them are starving themselves, he does not quite feel he has been kept safe and comfortable. His back hurts too badly to claim that. And he has asked each dragon if he might speak with Zorag again, yet Zorag has not come.
Arthur stands now, but it is slowly. The dragon notices.
“Humans are not used to sleeping on rock,” Blindell says.
“No,” Arthur says. “Though at least I am alive. I am grateful for that.”
The young dragon lets out a syncopated roar that must be a laugh. “Yes,” he says. “At least you are alive.” He looks at the cave where Arthur has been hidden these days past, and then he says, “I might be able to find something more comfortable than rock. So you might find some sleep.”
“That would be very kind,” Arthur says. He looks at Blindell with a face that exposes none of the distrust he feels for this dragon. And then he says, “And what would you have of me?” for Arthur knows as well as anyone that dragons like Blindell do nothing without something in return.
“The truth,” Blindell says. “That is all.”
“The truth about what?” Arthur says. His heart beats faster, though one would not be able to tell, from the blank look on his face, that he has anything at all to hide.
“The truth about the children and this war,” Blindell says.
Arthur spreads his hands. “I have told all I know,” Arthur says. “You were there.” He is speaking, of course, of the meeting he had with Zorag, when Blindell hung about in the shadows.
Blindell dips his head, as if nodding in dragon-speak. “I know,” he says. His voice is a rumble, higher pitched than Zorag’s. Though his eyes look playful, Arthur knows very well how dangerous a dragon like this one can be. He has heard them called Furies or some such, for they move in and out of rages like a day moves in and out of light. In their worst moments, they use their spikes, all along their back and at the end of their wings and atop their head, to run through men. “I wish to hear it again,” Blindell says.
“Very well,” Arthur says. He is a wise man, and he has seen the wild flicker of anger in Blindell’s eyes. He is not one to make a dragon like this one angry, for if he has any hope of living, he must live to please him. So he tells Blindell what the dragon wants to hear.
When Arthur is finished, Blindell says, “So you are really fighting for the children?”
“We are fighting to protect the children,” Arthur says. “And we are not really fighting at all. We are only running. Only...”
“You have lost your children now,” Blindell says.
“Yes,” Arthur says. “Yes, I have lost all the children.” He feels a deep sadness come over him. First his son and now is wife and daughter. He has no way of knowing whether they are alive or dead. He may never see them again, and this is something that can weigh heavily on a man. Though Arthur holds hope, he also knows reality. No man can survive a burning forest, and even if, by some miracle, they did, what would they do then? Where would they go for safety? Without him, would they be able to escape?
“You are concerned,” Blindell says, “that your children are dead.”
“They are not all my children,” Arthur says. “Although they were.” It is not so easy to explain how a man loves children who were not born to him. But Arthur felt responsible for these. He felt love for them.
“I understand,” Blindell says. “I was not Zorag’s child. But I am his.”
“Just so,” Arthur says.
“What if I told you they were still alive?” Blindell says.
“I would beg you all to let me go,” Arthur says. He does not even hesitate to say the words.
“And that answer would be no,” Blindell says. “My cousin has no intention of letting you go.”
“Then I would try to escape,” Arthur says. Sadness, followed by hope, followed by resolution, can often make a man quite bold. Arthur is, in fact, feeling reckless. He must escape if the children are alive, you see. He must protect them from the dangers that wait. He must not lose a single one of them.
“You would not escape,” Blindell says. “The dragons watch your every move.”
“But I must protect them,” Arthur says. “I would try at all costs.”
“They are protected for now,” Blindell says. He turns toward the dragon lands and lifts his head high, standing straight and enormous next to Arthur. Arthur must tilt his head all the way back to see the dragon’s face, and even then, he cannot see the eyes well enough to read them. Has the dragon just told him that his children are, in fact, safe? That they are, in fact, alive?
“So the children,” Arthur says. “They are alive?”
“They are alive,” Blindell says. “But there is still a war.”
“It is not a war so much,” Arthur says. “It is a search.”
Blindell turns on him, dropping his face to Arthur’s so that Arthur can see, clearly and distinctly, how fiery his red eyes can become. The dragon’s throat glows. Arthur ducks a bit. “There is a war,” Blindell says. “It began when the people of Fairendale stepped across our lands.” He lifts his head again, taking with it the danger of fire. Arthur stands straight once more. “My cousin just cannot see it.”
“Is it so important a war?” Arthur says, at the risk of getting swallowed up in a fire that still glows around Blindell’s throat.
Blindell does not say anything for a time. “These are the people who stole a village of children,” he says, finally. “You do not even know what they will do to those children. Do you?” He turns a sideways glance on Arthur. Arthur reads contempt in the dragon’s eyes.
Arthur shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I would hope they would let all the innocent children go.”
“But your son,” Blindell says. “What of him?”
Arthur shakes his head. “Sometimes one must sacrifice for the good of others,” he says.
“And how might you convince the good king that he should let the innocent children go?” Blindell says. “When they have run for so long. Is it not treason to run from the command of a king?”
Arthur does not answer. Blindell goes on. “Perhaps you will appeal to the king’s kindness. Perhaps you will ask nicely and he might agree. Perhaps you will offer your son and your daughter.”
No, Arthur would never do that.
“Men do not listen to reason,” Blindell says. “Not when it comes to power. Not when it comes to winning a war.” He bends down low, toward Arthur. The glow in his throat has faded. “Your king is exactly like his father before him. He will stop at nothing, not even the death of innocents, to get what he wants.”
Arthur looks into Blindell’s red eyes. They are full of hate and anger and something more. Yes. Something more. Sorrow.
“Men do not need war,” Arthur says. “Men need only to listen to one another.”
“You are a fool,” Blindell says. “I thought I could help you.”
This, of course, gives Arthur pause. What might Blindell do to help a peaceful man like Arthur? What might he propose? What might he orchestrate?
“How might you help me?” Arthur says. “You would help me escape?”
“I would help you find your children,” Blindell says. “I would help you save them. I would destroy the king and his men. There are many among the dragons who see it my way.” He moves his head off to the left. “Not my cousin’s.”
“Destruction is not the way,” Arthur says. “My children would not want the kingdom of Fairendale destroyed for their sake. It is their home, after all. I could not do it.”
Blindell glares at him, his eyes narrowed and glowing and, though the brightest red Arthur has ever seen, cold. They send a shiver down his aching back. “Then you all lose,” the dragon says and lifts toward the sky, his wings beating wind onto Arthur’s face.
Arthur is, once more, left alone. There is nothing more to do but lie down and try to sleep. So this is what he does, though there is no sleep waiting for him this night.
And if he were to look, he might very well see that there is someone else in this cave who does not sleep, someone who has been here all along, watching him, waiting, until the right time for stepping from shadows.