Fool's Fate Part 34

But his thoughts were interrupted abruptly by Dutiful bursting into the tent. "They've gone! I can't find them anywhere!"

"Containers to put the powder in?" Chade demanded single-mindedly. "What, all gone?"

"No! The Narcheska and Peottre! They are gone, their beds left empty. I do not think they returned to them after we spoke last night. I think they left then and if they did-"

"Then there is only one place they could have gone." Despite Chade's earlier a.s.surances that it didn't matter, he was now scowling and poking at the piles of more finely ground powder. "They went to the Pale Woman. And told her that Fitz had come back to us, and that we now knew the true stakes of the game." He suddenly scowled. "And we spoke of Web's gull in front of them, and Tintaglia coming here. They will have told her. She will now know of our thoughts of her, and what our vulnerabilities are. The Pale Woman will know that if she wishes to move against us, she must act swiftly. Our only recourse is to be even swifter than she is. We must get that dragon out of the ice."

"But why would Elliania and Peottre do that? Why would they turn on us, when they knew I was willing to kill the dragon for them?" The Prince was agonized.

"I don't know." Chade was implacable. "But it's safest for us to a.s.sume treachery, to a.s.sume that everything we spoke of last night is now being told to the Pale Woman. And we must now see how that leaves us vulnerable."

"But it's all changed since last night! Last night, Fitz and I plotted to do her bidding, to give way to her will. Why go to the Pale Woman to tell her that, why not wait until the deed was done?" Dutiful scowled. "When they left us last night, Peottre did not look like a man about to cower before an enemy."

"I don't know." Chade's concentration didn't waver. "Make the piles only this size when the powder is this fine, Fitz." Then, "I don't know, Dutiful. But it is my duty to a.s.sume that they mean you harm, and try to think of what move we could make to forestall them." With a sc.r.a.per, he corrected one of my piles. "After the dragon is freed," he added, almost to himself. He lifted his eyes back to Dutiful. "We still need those containers."

"I'll get them," the boy replied faintly.

"Good. Set the girl and Peottre out of your mind for a time. If they slipped away last night, they are long gone, and too far away for us to be able to do anything about it. Let us deal with the crisis at hand, and then move on to the next one."

Dutiful nodded distractedly and left. My heart was heavy for him. "Do you really believe they went to report to her?"

"Perhaps. But I don't think so. As I told Dutiful, we must a.s.sume the worst, and there draw our lines of defense. And our best defense may be to free the dragon that you have wakened." He knit his brows, pondering it, but then seemed to find his piles of powder more interesting. "We will think more on it when Icefyre is freed."

I feared that Tintaglia's command had sunk deep into his mind. I wanted to believe Chade was thinking clearly, but I was not confident of it.

Longwick came first with the kettles, and then Dutiful with the containers of varying sizes. As soon as he had what he wanted, Chade sent them back to the excavation site, with orders to be sure the six holes he had ordered dug alongside the dragon were progressing. I wondered if he merely intended to keep the Prince busy. Chade seemed very picky to me as he sorted through the containers, first selecting the vessels to hold the powder, making sure of the tightness of the stoppers or lids, and then matching them to their firepots. I offered to help him but he refused. "Eventually, I will devise the perfect container for my powder. It must be one that will yield to fire, but not too swiftly, for whoever sets fire to it must have time to move away. It should be tight enough to keep out moisture, if the powder is to be safely stored in it. And it must be one that can be filled cleanly, with no residual powder clinging to the outside. Eventually, I will fashion a better way to ignite it . . ."

He was now completely focused on what he was doing, a master still puzzling out his new invention, unwilling to trust it to his journeyman's hands. I withdrew from him a small way, sitting on Dutiful's pallet next to a silent Burrich. He seemed deep in his own thoughts. I still felt a terrible sense of urgency, a desire for it all to be over. I could not decide if Tintaglia had imprinted me with a command, or if it was my agony over the Fool. I could not keep my thoughts from turning to him. I tried not to wonder what he might be enduring, or if he was past enduring anything. The dragon's touch seemed to have restored my Skill, yet when I groped for my silk-thin Skill-bond with the Fool, I could not feel him. It frightened me. "I'm doing what you wanted me to do," I promised the Fool quietly. "I'll try to get the dragon free."

Chade, absorbed in his sorting and loading of the powder vessels, did not appear to hear me, but Burrich did. Perhaps it is as they say, that his fading sight had sharpened his other senses. He set his hand to my shoulder. Perhaps if Web had never spoken of it, I would never have noticed it. But he was right. I felt Burrich's calm flow into me. It was not his thoughts that reached me, but a sense of connection with his being. It did not match the strength of a Wit-bond between man and animal, and yet it was there. He spoke quietly. "You've been doing that for a long time, boy. Doing what others wanted you to do. Taking on tasks no one else wanted." It was a statement, not a judgment.

"So did you."

He was quiet a moment. Then, "Yes. That's true. Like a dog that needs a master, I believe someone once told me."

The cutting words I had once flung at him now brought bitter smiles to both of us. "Perhaps that has been true for me as well," I admitted.

We both sat still and silent for a time, finding a moment of respite in the eye of the storm all around us. Outside, I could hear the m.u.f.fled noises of the working men. Their voices came distantly through the cold. I heard the dull ring of metal tools against ice, and the deeper thuds of chunks of ice flung into the wooden-bottomed sleds. Closer to hand, Chade muttered to himself and sc.r.a.ped his powder into precise loads. I felt for the dragon, and he was there, but my Wit-sense of him was dimmed as if he conserved his strength and now would do no more for himself than remain alive and await rescue. Burrich's hand was still on my shoulder. I suddenly suspected that, just as I did, he quested out toward the dragon.

"What will you do about Swift?" I asked Burrich, before I was even aware I was going to speak.

Burrich spoke almost casually. "I'll take my son home. Try to raise him to be an upright man."

"You mean, not to use his Wit."

Burrich made a noise that might have been an a.s.sent or a request to drop the topic. I couldn't.

"Burrich, all those years in the stables, all your gift for healing and calming and training animals. Was that the Wit? Did you have a bond with Vixen?"

He took his time answering me. Then, he gave me a question instead. "What you are really asking me is, did I do one thing and demand another of you?"

"Yes."

He sighed. "Fitz. I've been a drunk. It was nothing I ever wished to see you or my sons become. I've given in to other appet.i.tes, knowing well that no good could come of it. I am a man, and human. But that doesn't mean that I would condone or encourage those things in my boys. Would you? Kettricken told me that you had a foster son. I was glad to hear that you had not been entirely alone. But did raising him not teach you something about yourself? That the faults you find abhorrent in yourself are even more horrifying when you see your son manifest them?"

He had summed it up too neatly. But I still took him round to the jump again, asking him, "Did you use the Wit when you were Stablemaster?"

He took a breath and said shortly, "I chose not to." I thought that was all he would say, but a short time later, he cleared his throat and said, "But it is as Nighteyes said long ago. I could choose not to reply, but I could not choose to be deaf to them. I know what the hounds called me. I've even heard it from your own lips. Heart of the Pack. I knew what they called me and I was aware of their . . . regard for me. I could not conceal from them that I was aware of them, when they cried back to me of the joy of the hunt as they gave tongue to the chase. I shared that joy, and they knew it.

"Long ago, you told me you did not choose Nighteyes. That he chose you and bonded to you and gave you little choice in the matter. So it was with Vixen and me. She was a sickly pup, the runt of an otherwise hearty litter. But she had . . . something about her. Tenacity. And a mind to find a way around every obstacle. It was not to her mother that she whimpered when her brothers pushed her aside from the nipple, but to me. What was I to do? Pretend I could not hear her plea for a fair share, for a chance at life? So, I saw that she had a chance at the milk. But by the time she was large enough to fend for herself, she had attached herself to me. And in time, I admit, I came to rely on her."

On some level, I had known it. I don't know why I wanted him to admit it. "Then you did forbid me what you yourself did."

"I suppose I did."

"Have you any idea how unhappy you made me?"

He didn't flinch. "About as unhappy as you made me when you didn't obey me. But, then, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Doubtless you never forbade anything to your Hap that you yourself were guilty of. And I'm sure he always listens to your wisdom." He was very good. The sarcasm was there only if I looked for it.

That silenced me, for a time. But there was still one more question. "But why, Burrich? Why did you, why do you still so despise the Wit? Web, a man I much admire, sees no harm or danger in his magic. How could your own magic disgust you?"

He smoothed his hair back from his face and then rubbed his eyes. He spoke reluctantly. "Ah, Fitz, it's a long, old tale. My grandmother, when she discovered I had the taint, was horrified. Her father had it. And when he was faced with the choice of saving his wife and small children from slavers or getting his Wit-partner out of a burning stable, he chose his Wit-partner. And because of that, slavers took them. My great-grandmother lived a short, miserable time after that. My grandmother said she was a very beautiful woman. There are few worse traits for a slave to have. Her masters used her and her mistresses abused her out of jealousy. My grandmother and her two sisters witnessed it all. And grew up as slaves, used and abused. Because the man who should have made his primary bond to his wife instead chose a horse over her and his children."

"One man, Burrich. One man making a bad decision. Or who knows what went through his head. Did he think that if he got to the horse, it could carry his wife and children to safety? Or help him battle the slavers? We can't know. But he was only one man. That seems a small foundation upon which to condemn all the Wit."

He exhaled a short breath through his nose. "Fitz. His decision condemned three generations of his family. It did not seem small to anyone who bore that burden. And my grandmother feared that if I were allowed to go on as I had begun, I would do the same. Find an animal, bond to it, and put it above all other considerations. And after she died, for a time, she was right. I did exactly that. As did you. Have you never looked at your own life and said, 'Take the Wit away, and what changes?' Think on it. If Nosey had not come between you and me, would not we have been closer when you were a boy? If you had not bonded to Smithy, would you have done better with your Skill-lessons? If Nighteyes had not been in your life, could Regal have found excuse to condemn you?"

For a moment, I was stymied. Then I replied, "But if the Wit had not been held a shameful thing, none of that would have been true. If you had spoken of it as Old Blood and taught me why I must not bond, if the Wit had been held in esteem as the Skill is, then all would have been well."

His face darkened with rising blood, and for a moment I glimpsed Burrich's old temper. Then, with a patience that only time could have taught him, he said quietly, "Fitz. It is a thing I was taught from the time my grandmother first discovered the taint in me. The Wit is shameful magic, and it shames a man to practice it. Now, you talk of people who practice it openly and find no disgrace in it. Well, I have heard of places where men marry their sisters and have children, where women go about with their b.r.e.a.s.t.s showing, where it is not accounted shameful to discard your mate simply because her youth has faded. Yet, would you teach your children that these behaviors are good? Or would you teach them to live as you yourself were taught?"

Chade startled me when he spoke. "There are unspoken rules to every society. Most of us never question them. But surely, Burrich, you must have at some time wondered about what you were taught. Did you never decide that you would determine for yourself if the magic was worth having?"

Burrich turned to regard Chade with his clouded eyes. What did he see? A shape, a shadow, or only his Wit-sense of the old man?

"I always knew it was worth having, Lord Chade. But I was an adult, and I knew the cost of it. Your prince out there; what price would he have to pay for his useful, worthwhile magic if it became known that he was Witted? You deny he has it to shield him from hatred and prejudice. Do you fault me that I tried to shield Chivalry's son?"

Chade looked down at the work of his hands and didn't answer. He had finished. Six containers, everything from flasks to saltboxes, were filled with his explosive powder and resting in kettles or pots. "I'm ready," he said. He lifted his gaze to me and smiled a strange smile. "Let's go and free the dragon."

I could not read his green eyes. I could not decide if he truly intended to free the dragon from the ice or meant to blast it to pieces. Perhaps he himself didn't know. But as if his resolve were contagious, I suddenly felt tight with the need to end this.

"How dangerous is this?" Burrich asked.

"Just as dangerous as it was last night," Chade replied testily.

Burrich put out a hand and ran his fingertips lightly across the pots. "Not six times as dangerous?" he asked. "How will you do it? Will one man set them all, or six?"

Chade thought a moment. "Six men, each to get a kettle fire going. And then Fitz, to go down the line putting the containers in each pot."

I nodded to the wisdom of that. Six men each judging their own time to put the powder in and flee might end up running into one another. "I'll do it."

I carried three of the pots and Chade carried the other three. Burrich brought the sack of fuel and a smaller kettle of coals from the guards' h.o.a.rded night fire. The day seemed very bright to me as we walked up the hill. It was warm, for that place, and the sun glinted off the glistening ice. As we walked up the hill together, Burrich asked me, "Are you sure Nettle is safe now? I do not understand the risk she took, but it seems to have frightened all of you."

I swallowed and admitted my guilt. "I asked her to go into the dragon's dream and wake him. Her strongest Skill-talent is the manipulation of dreams. I never paused to consider that it might be dangerous, that the dreams of a dragon might be a far different challenge than the dreams of a man."

"Yet still she went?" There was quiet pride in Burrich's voice.

"Yes, she did. Because I asked her. I'm ashamed that I risked her."

He was silent for several strides then said, "So. She knows you, and knows you well enough to trust you. For how long?"

"I'm not sure. It's a hard thing to explain, Burrich." I felt a flush rise but forced myself to speak on. "I used to . . . look in on you. Not often. Only when it got so . . . It was wrong of me."

His silence was long. Then he said, "That must have been a special torment for you. For the most part, we have been happy."

I took a deep breath. "Yes. It was. Yet I never realized I was involving Nettle to do it. She was my . . . I don't know, my focus point, I suppose. After a time, she became aware of me. She knew me through her dreams of me, as a, as a wolf-man." I halted, fl.u.s.tered.

Burrich almost kept the amus.e.m.e.nt out of his voice as he said, "Well. That accounts for some very odd nightmares, when she was small."

"I didn't know I was doing it. Then, after a time, I became aware of her. In my dreams. We talked there, in the dream worlds she made. It took me a while to realize that she was manifesting the Skill, in a way I'd never seen it used before her. But I never . . . She doesn't, that is, she doesn't know-" And suddenly I couldn't go any further. My throat had crushed the words unsaid.

"I know. If you had told her I wasn't her father, I'd have known."

I nodded wordlessly. It was strange to see how he would perceive such a telling. I thought only of telling her who her father was; Burrich saw it as telling her who was not her father.

He cleared his throat and changed the subject. "She will have to be taught how to manage her magic, or the Skill can steal her mind. I know that is so, from what Chivalry taught me of it."

"Nettle should be taught," I conceded. "It has become dangerous for her to go further without being taught. But she will, if we don't intervene. She must be taught."

"By you?" he asked quickly.

"By someone," I amended. And there we left it. I listened to the sound of tools crunching into snow and ice and the ever-present whooshing of the wind over the glacier. It was like a strange music, one interspersed with the upraised voices of the workers as they exhorted one another. But when we arrived at the lip of the ice quarry, work ceased almost immediately.

Chade stood at the edge of our excavation and spoke to them all, explaining his exploding powder and what he intended to do with it. I felt oddly apart from all of it. I looked from face to uplifted face, seeing concern on Web's and intrigue on c.o.c.kle's. Some of the men reverted to being boys immediately, with boyish enthusiasm for testing the unknown. Chade went down the ramp with his kettles and I followed with mine. He inspected the holes that Dutiful and Longwick had caused to be dug. One he wanted deepened and another he declined, requesting that a new hole be dug close to the mouth of the caved-in tunnel. All would be in a row, along the deepest fractures that the dragon had made in the ice. Here Chade judged the ice to be weakest and that the powder would have the most efficacy. He chose six men to build the fires in the pots, and Burrich walked slowly down the line of them, giving each kindling and fuel and coals from his fire kettle. Then Chade sent him out of the pit. Chade remained, moving slowly from firepot to firepot, making sure that each was set well in its hole in the ice and that the fire would have a deep foundation of coals for the powder vessels to nestle into. Several times as his chosen men were kindling the fires in their pots, he repeated how these were actually rather small doses of the powder, not enough to do harm to the dragon, only enough to further crack the ice around him so that we might move it more swiftly.

Each man stood as he judged that his pot was burning well enough. In each case, Chade moved down the line, added more fuel, and then sent the man up to stand with the others at the edge of the excavation. Each container of powder was left sitting on the ice, two spans away from the fire. When Chade and I alone remained in the hole, he came to me and spoke quietly. "I will join the others at the edge of the pit. When I nod to you, move swiftly down the kettles. Drop each container of powder into the kettle that matches it. Then come quickly to join me. It will take some little time for the fire to burn through to the powder, but I judge it best that you do not linger here."

"And I."

He paused as if he would say something more, then shook his head wordlessly at me. I wondered again if his will warred with his action. Then I watched him climb up the ramp and join the row of men standing at the edge of the pit looking down at me. It struck me that the walls that had first divided us were gone. Hetgurders, guardsmen, and Wit coterie mingled. Burrich stood beside Chade. Swift was next to Web. Civil's Wit-cat was belly down on the ice, peering down at me curiously.

I took a deep breath, walked to the end of the row, and lifted the first powder vessel. I dropped it into the first burning kettle and sparks flew up around it. The second likewise; the third landed badly and had to be nudged deeper into the flames. I heard the watchers mutter as I did so. The fourth was easy. The fifth stuck to the ice and it seemed to take a year before it gave way to my tugging. Its lid came loose as it did so, and a small quant.i.ty of powder leaped from the mouth of it. I put the top back on and brushed it clean. As I set it into its firepot, the flames licked eagerly at the powder-smeared side, sparking and burning white. I reminded myself that quite a lot of time had elapsed before Chade's original flask had exploded in my fireplace. The sixth was as easy as the first, and then I gave in to my impulse and burst into a run. I fled up the ramp and joined the others on the edge of the pit. The fifth pot suddenly burst into a fountaining roar of flames, sparks, and sulfurous fumes. I heard gasps of amazement and fear from the watchers, but as I gained the lip of the pit, the leaping white fire grew less and subsided. The pot that had held it cracked loudly and we heard a hiss as melted water met fire.

When I reached Chade's side, he was shaking his head. "That is one wasted," he said tersely. "El's b.a.l.l.s! I wish I'd had more time to test the powder and devise the right sort of container for it. But again, consider how the flame traveled up the powder to reach the main dose of it. Could we use that? I had believed that the powder had to be inside a vessel for it to-"

And then the first explosion went off. It wasn't in the first pot. I think it was the second, that perhaps that container had burned through more swiftly. It was hard to tell, for as shards and lumps of ice burst up from the floor of the pit and rained down around us, one of the other pots, or perhaps two, burst simultaneously.

The second blast was much louder than the first, deafening me. I had never experienced anything like it. The very air seemed to slap my skin and my ears felt as if they had been boxed. Fine ice stung my face. I blinked, thinking I'd been blinded, but it was a mist of impossibly fine snow hanging in the air.

Around me, men were yelling, deep-voiced cries of anger and dismay, as they retreated from the lip of the pit. Civil's terrified cat bolted past me, his master in frantic pursuit. From the buried dragon, I felt a wave of outrage. We're trying to free you! We're trying to free you! I Skilled at him, but felt no response. Beside me, Burrich gripped my shoulder and stared about frantically, his face twisted with panic. I Skilled at him, but felt no response. Beside me, Burrich gripped my shoulder and stared about frantically, his face twisted with panic.

I seized Burrich's arm to guide him back from the lip of the pit but he twisted free of me, crying, "Swift! Where is my son?" as the next explosion slapped the earth against our feet. I found myself driven to my knees and Burrich p.r.o.ne beside me. The air was thick with drifting crystalline ice, and Burrich choked and spat and shouted out, "Swift! Swift, where are you, boy?"

"I'm here, Papa!" the boy cried out, and he came bounding to us through the hanging fog, hurtling into Burrich's embrace. His eyes were huge.

"Thank Eda, you're safe! Stay close by me, now. d.a.m.n my eyes. Fitz, what is happening? I expected flame and sparks and smoke, not this! What has that madman done?"

"It's like a log bursting apart in the fire, Burrich, no more than that. The powder has burst, breaking the ice that surrounded it. I did not think it would be like this, but it's over now. Be calm." But even as I spoke the words, seeking to rea.s.sure myself as much as him, the earth heaved a second time under our feet. At the same moment, I felt a furious mental onslaught.

You will pay, you puny treacherous grubs! Your blood will be shed, a bucket for every loosened scale on his flesh. I come! Tintaglia's wrath is upon you! All of you will die!

"We're trying to help him, not harm him!" I flung the words wide, voice, Wit, and Skill. She made no reply. I flung the words wide, voice, Wit, and Skill. She made no reply.

But as I blinked the clinging mist of ice from my lashes and peered down into the pit, something stirred there. The settling flurry of ice crystals concealed it, but within that haze, something dark bucked and heaved, showing above the settling mist like a breaching whale. I heard the squeal and crack of breaking ice, and a smell came to me, a stench of trapped and scabrous flesh, a reptilian stench. I scrabbled to my feet and then ventured closer to the edge of the pit, peering down.

A slow and mammoth struggle was taking place down there. Parts of the dragon's emaciated back were exposed. His tail humped and twitched, almost a separate creature as it strove to free its lashing tip from the ice. One immense hind leg was free, the overgrown claws of the long-captive dragon scoring deep gashes in the ice as it strove to free the rest of his body. Then a wing unfolded, clumps of ice flung wide as it lifted like the tattered canvas of a derelict ship. It flapped desperately, and the waft of unhealthy animal gagged me. Icefyre struggled there, his head and neck still encased in ice. As the mist of ice crystals settled, the humans straggled back to the edge of the pit and stared down, some gawking, some transfixed with horror. Chade's face was a picture. I could not decide if his awe was for the destruction his powder had wrought or for the size of the creature he had partially bared.

Burrich spoke first. "That poor beast." He lifted both his hands, the fingers wide, and pushed gently at the air before him. So often I had seen him gesture as he approached an uneasy horse. Now I wondered if quelling calm emanated from his hands. He raised his voice suddenly. "He needs our help. Shovels and picks, but I want you all to go carefully. It would be as easy to harm him now as to help him. Don't encourage him to struggle." One hand clamped onto Swift's shoulder, and the other stretched out a little before him as he stumbled toward the edge of the pit. "Easy, easy down there," he was already calling, and his words, freighted with soothing Wit, were for the dragon. "We're coming. Still your struggles, you'll only hurt yourself. Or us. Be easy now. We'll help you."

Again, I was aware of the flow of comfort that went with those words. The dragon too seemed affected by them. Or perhaps it was exhaustion that made his struggles slow and then cease.

"Mind the edge of the pit, man. The ramp is this way. Swift, guide your father down there. We'll need him." Web's brow was bleeding from a glancing blow from a chunk of flung ice. He strode past us, unmindful of his own hurt, shovel in hand. For the first time, I became aware that the blast had injured some of us. One Hetgurd man was down, unconscious in the snow, blood trickling from his nose and ears. One of his fellows knelt by him in bewilderment. Civil had caught his hissing cat and held him in an awkward hug, trying to calm the struggling animal. I looked around for Dutiful, and saw him already hurrying down the ramp toward the trapped dragon, using a pry bar as a stave as he descended. The floor of the pit had been broken, reminding me of ice floes on a restless sea.

"My prince! Be careful! He may be dangerous!" Chade bellowed after him, and then he went hastening down the ramp and into the pit. Witted and unWitted alike converged on the trapped creature and began removing the loosened chunks of ice. It was hazardous, for the dragon continued to buck and heave as he struggled to free himself.

The stench was terrible. Starvation and dormant snake fouled the air. Burrich seemed unfazed by it as he stepped forward and then set his hands calmingly on the creature's black and scaly hide. "Be easy. Let us clear away the loosened ice before you struggle any more. Breaking a wing now will not help you."

He stilled. It was not Skill but Wit that carried to me the dragon's panicky suffocation. I sensed Icefyre's attention was focused elsewhere now, and suspected that he communicated with Tintaglia. I hoped he would tell her that we were trying to help him.

"We need to get his head free. He can't get enough air to struggle," Burrich told me as I came closer.

"I know. I feel it, too." I tried not to smirk as I added, "I am Witted, you know."

I had not realized that Swift would overhear me. Perhaps, because my ears were still ringing, I had spoken more loudly than I thought. But he stared at me, avid and intent. "Then you are are FitzChivalry, the Witted b.a.s.t.a.r.d. And it's true that my father raised you in the stables?" There was a strange lilt in his voice, as if he had suddenly discovered a link to fame and legend in his own family. I suppose he had, but I did not think it was healthy. FitzChivalry, the Witted b.a.s.t.a.r.d. And it's true that my father raised you in the stables?" There was a strange lilt in his voice, as if he had suddenly discovered a link to fame and legend in his own family. I suppose he had, but I did not think it was healthy.

"We'll discuss it later," Burrich and I said at almost the same instant. Swift gaped at us and then gave a strangled laugh.

"Clear that loose ice from around his left shoulder," Web called as he strode by, and men hastened to obey him, Swift among them.

But Web halted beside us, pick in hand. A sharp motion of his hand halted Swift beside him. Quietly he observed to Burrich, "Later will not wait forever, for either of you. A time will come when both of you will have to explain yourselves to this lad." Yet his words were not a rebuke, and I almost thought that a small smile played across his face when he spoke to us. He bowed to Burrich and went on, "Forgive me if I offend. I know that your sight is failing you, but your shoulders and back still look strong. If your son guided you, you could be most useful helping to pull the sleds full of ice chunks away from the worksite. Would you help us, Burrich?"

I thought Burrich would refuse. I knew he still wished to avoid Web and all he stood for. But the request had been made courteously, and it was a way in which Burrich could be genuinely helpful. I could guess how it chafed him to stand by a trapped animal while others labored to free him. Web's offer was also putting Swift right at Burrich's side, under his paternal authority. I saw Burrich make a difficult compromise. He spoke, not to Web, but to Swift, saying, "Guide me to the sled, lad, and let's put our backs into it."

I was left standing alone as Swift and Burrich, father and son, departed to do Web's bidding. I watched them take up the hauling lines alongside Civil and c.o.c.kle. They leaned into their work, and despite Burrich's bad leg, his brawn was much the greatest there. The laden sled moved steadily up the ramp and out of the pit. It had been neatly done, that throwing together of them, and I think Burrich welcomed it as much as Swift did not. Did Web try to mend the rift between them, even as he sought to mellow Burrich's att.i.tude toward the Wit?

I was still pondering the permutations of that when the final blast went off.

I now believe that the little kettle I had carelessly left burning when I retreated from the dragon's head had continued to burn. Did it eventually ignite the hides it rested upon, spreading fire to the oil flask and to the powder container? Or had the flask of oil spilled when the earlier, smaller blasts overset it on the hides near the powder and kettle? I have spent far too much time wondering about such useless questions.