Camba closed her dusky eyes; Ingar pressed his cheek against her head, his face slowly slipping into forgetfulness again.
I left them, already strategizing. His attempted mind-pearl seemed to restore him to himself for a short time. Camba clearly thought it might be helpful; there must be something we could do with it.
I’d left Abdo for last because I was scared to look for him. Maybe he was simply back in Porphyry; maybe he’d succeeded in making his mind water, as per his meditation book, and Jannoula could not compel him to move.
Or maybe he was dead. But surely not. Surely I would know.
His avatar, to my great surprise, wasn’t with the other grotesques. I looked under the sundial and the loaf-like shrubberies (lifting them out of the ground entirely, and setting them gingerly down), turned over the big leaves at the edge of Pandowdy’s swamp, and found him at last lying half submerged in a mud puddle, stiff as a stick and small as my pinkie. I took his tiny hands between my finger and thumb.
Then I was in the world, my vision-eye hovering in the evening sky above a wood. I knew this place: the edge of the Queenswood. The city shimmered to the southwest, torches illuminating the construction on the walls. Below me a road wound north toward Dewcomb’s Outpost, the mountains, General Zira’s encampment. I hovered at the point where forest met fens. Even in the twilight, the changing trees glowed gold. Leaves spun and danced on the breeze like pale nocturnal butterflies.
I saw no Abdo. I drifted lower, scanning the border between wood and wetland. The road bisected it at a right angle, and here at this almost-crossroads stood a little tumbledown shrine.
I approached the lonely shrine with my vision-eye. Inside, in the near dark, a small stone statue, roughly human-shaped, stood on a plinth. It had no features to speak of, no face, no hands. It wore a red apron edged in gold, the fabric faded and fraying.
Beneath the statue hung a plaque with an inscription:
When he lived, he killed and lied,
This Saint who lies submerged.
The ages passed, the monster died;
I ripen, I emerge.
I could not read the name of the Saint; it was obscured by moss.
In the darkest corner of the shrine, so still he might have been a second statue, Abdo sat cross-legged, his hands upon his knees and his eyes closed. Someone—woodcutters? travelers?—had taken him for a meditating pilgrim and left him bread and a dish of fruit and a cup of water. I nearly wept with relief; I wished I had arms to embrace him with.
Of course, that would have disturbed him. Even my gazing at him might break his concentration. But what was he doing? Disconnecting himself? Could Jannoula move him when he was like this? He’d been moved here from Porphyry, somehow, but he wasn’t in the city with the others.
I recalled the vision-dream again. Maybe Abdo had found a way to show me he’d escaped. But could he move without drawing her attention? Could he stop concentrating long enough to eat that bread and fruit? Did he ever sleep?
I wished I could have checked on Pende, but I had unfastened his mind-fire from my garden.
I will find the way to help you, friend, I whispered, terrified of distracting him, but needing to let him know that I saw him.
I may have imagined it, but the corner of his mouth quirked slightly into the shadow of a smile.
If the sun was setting over the marshland north of the city, it was setting on our camp. It was high time I got out of bed. Kiggs and I would be heading out once the moon set. I stretched stiff limbs, emerged from the tent, and went in search of the prince. I could hear dracomachists training in a field, so I turned that way.
And stopped short. A dragon sat in the field, his scales rusty in the sunset. I had spent the last month among full-sized dragons, and still the sight of one so close to my home struck fear into my bones.
This one only feigned hostility, taking on the new dracomachists six at a time. He feinted right and dodged left, evading fighters’ bristling polearms, then spit fire—a small jet, nothing like what he could have done. Fighters cartwheeled out of the way, evading the burn. The dragon extended his wings and beat them furiously; it was hard to take off flat-footed, but there was no way for him to get a running start with so many sharp implements aimed at his chest. He couldn’t take off vertically, either: one crafty dracomachist had sneaked up and pinned down his tail.
The other dracomachists stood around the field, watching. Sir Joshua Pender, whom I’d first met as Sir Maurizio’s fellow squire, paced back and forth, lecturing on what they were seeing, the mistakes being made. Prince Lucian Kiggs and Sir Maurizio leaned against the low stone boundary of the field, talking quietly. I approached them.
“I’m not glad of this war—far from it,” Maurizio was saying, “but still I am deeply moved, watching this. I’ve practiced this art since I was a child, and I took it on faith that the moves had purpose and were worth preserving.” He shook his head, awed. “Until Solann volunteered, I’d never seen our dracomachia used against a real dragon. I feel vaguely bad about finding it so beautiful.”
I’d reached the wall. Kiggs turned to look at me. “Did you get some rest?”
“Not enough,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “Did you know the Porphyrian ityasaari are here?”
His brows shot up. “I never saw them arrive. But does this mean … Jannoula succeeded in bringing all the half-dragons together?”
I thought “succeeded” was an uncharitable way of putting it, considering that I was the one who’d failed. I squinted against the sunset’s glare. “She dragged them here against their wills, but not quite all of them. She doesn’t have Abdo.”
Jannoula hadn’t brought Pandowdy in, either, now that I thought about it. Maybe she’d found him as repulsive as I had, or maybe she couldn’t move him. How was a limbless slug to get to Lavondaville under its own power?
Sir Maurizio was unbuckling a weapon from his waist; he wrapped the straps around the scabbard and handed the whole thing over to me. I drew the unassuming antler hilt, revealing a wickedly sharp dagger.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“Just in case,” said Maurizio, keeping his gaze affixed to the dracomachists in the distance. “I’m a military man, raised by knights since I was seven years old. I realize this tends to bias me toward a certain kind of solution, but I want you to have the option.”
“The option to kill her?” I asked, trying to hand the dagger back.
Sir Maurizio didn’t take it. He pointed up the meadow at a pair of dracomachists near the wall who were hitting each other with their fireproof gauntlets instead of listening to Sir Joshua’s lesson. “See those two?” said Sir Maurizio. “The tall one’s Bran; his brother’s farm was near our cave. The short one, Edgar, is really a lass. There are several female dracomachists here. We let them imagine they’ve fooled us; we can’t afford to turn able-bodied recruits away. Edgar is Sir Cuthberte’s grandniece, or some such. I’ve known her since she was a baby.”
I watched them horse around. They were no older than me.
“These are the people who will be dying,” said Maurizio quietly. “Make sure you weigh them on the scale of your considerations, won’t you? And keep your options open. That’s all I ask.”
There was nothing to do but nod solemnly and promise I would try.