‘I’ll come with you, then.’
‘There isn’t room. Stay here and rest. I’ll tell you what I find.’
He looked torn between weariness and curiosity. Then the Fool lowered his pack to the floor and opened it. As he gave me the lantern-box, he said, ‘I have two more pieces of bread. Shall we eat them now?’
‘Go ahead. I’ll have mine when I come back.’ Even the mention of food made my mouth suddenly water. Thick came suddenly into my mind. Had he Skilled to Chade and Dutiful, or did he sit woefully awaiting our return? Had he remained safe on the sled, or had it, too, followed us down in the crush of snow? I pushed the useless questions away. The Fool handed me the little box and I opened it, releasing its peculiar green light.
‘Don’t be long,’ he cautioned me as I entered the tunnel. ‘I want to know what you find there.’
The tunnel was not tall enough to stand in. I crawled along it, pushing the box of light before me. The blue light of the gallery faded behind me and soon I travelled only in a pale green light that echoed weirdly in the mirroring ice. The reek of dragon slowly grew until I tasted him as much as smelled him. It strongly recalled the stink of garter snakes when as a curious boy I had captured and handled them. The tunnel became narrower as I went, as if whoever had dug it had been so intent on reaching the dragon that they could not be bothered to keep it a uniform size.
It ended in a wall of dragon, tiled with gleaming black scales, the smallest as large as my spread hand. A neat row of tools rested on a roll of leather on the floor ice before it. Various blades, mallets, drills and metal picks were there. Two tools, blades broken or blunted, had been discarded. I held the Elderling light closer to the dragon, my gorge rising as I confirmed my suspicion. Someone had crawled along this tunnel to the beast’s side, and then attempted to burrow into his heart.
It looked as if his plated scales had defeated the attacks. Some of them were scored, but it looked as if none of the metal implements had managed to penetrate the flesh beneath. A sort of metal wedge was still in place, driven under the overlapping black scales to lift them and create a vulnerable place. I held the light closer. The lifted scales revealed a second layer of creamy scales beneath them, overlapping in a pattern perpendicular to the first layer. A pick like an ice pick had been shoved in under one creamy scale. It had penetrated the leathery hide beneath, but no blood or fluid flowed. I judged that it had been like driving a blade into a horse’s hoof. Nonetheless, the sneaking cruelty of such an attack disgusted me.
The dragon lived. Someone had burrowed in here like a maggot, trying to hack a way into his heart while he was held immobile.
I appreciated the density of his natural armour when it took all my strength to pull the pick from his flesh. I had to hammer sideways at the wedge to get it out of him. The instant it fell free, the scales in that area rippled and writhed and closed up. For a moment, my Wit-sense of his life surged. Then, just as abruptly, it vanished. The scaled wall of flesh before me might have been something pieced together from metal. I hesitated, and then boldly ran a hand over the layered scales. I could not even get a fingernail under the ridged edge of one, so tightly did they clamp, one over another. They were cold too, cold as the ice that encased him.
I gathered the evil tools into their roll of leather and took them with me as I retreated. I had to crawl backwards; there was no room to turn around. By the time I reached the gallery, I was sweating, and the reptilian stink of dragon was making me ill.
I found the Fool sound asleep at the end of the gallery closest to the dragon’s hidden head. He was seated, his knees drawn up to his chest and his golden head drooped over them. His loosened hair veiled his face. Exhaustion had overcome his curiosity. I sat down on the floor by him and leaned back against the icy wall. In his sleep, he muttered something and shifted closer to lean his weight against me. I sighed and let him be. I wondered why the dragon’s assailant hadn’t chosen to tunnel into the wall here, closer to the creature’s head. Had he feared that even viced in ice, the dragon would have found a way to defend himself?
I looked up at the icy ceiling above me. It was a deep bottomless blue, like staring into deep water. Somewhere up there, I promised myself, Prince Dutiful dug alongside his Wit-coterie. I wondered what thickness of ice separated him from us. How long would the Fool and I have to sit here before we heard and then saw the progress of their shovels? An age, I decided. I could hear no sound of shovels or voice, saw no flawing of ice giving way to their efforts. They might as well have been on the other side of the world.
I shifted closer to the Fool. His body trapped my warmth on that side of me. I was so terribly tired and hungry. With one of my new weapons, I chiselled a bit of ice from the wall and sucked on it for water. I put the Elderling light-box back in the Fool’s pack. I found the piece of bread he had left me and ate it. It was very good and very small. Then I rested my head on top of the Fool’s and closed my eyes for a moment. I suppose we slept.
My own shivering wakened me. I felt as if my bones were trying to rattle themselves out of their sockets. It hurt to unfold myself. The Fool slowly slid down to lie on the ice as I beat my arms and stamped my feet, trying to find feeling in them again. I knelt beside him and pawed at him with hands that were too stiff to work well. He was an awful colour. When he groaned softly, I sighed with relief. ‘Get up,’ I told him. I kept my voice down, cursing us for having slept so foolishly in such an exposed place. If anyone had come up those stairs, they would have found us unaware and cornered. ‘Come on. We have to move. We still have to find a way out of here.’
He whimpered and curled up more tightly. I prodded at him, feeling both anger and despair. ‘We can’t give up now. Get up, Fool. We have to go on.’
‘Please.’ He breathed the word. ‘A quiet death. A slide into it.’
‘No. Get up.’
He opened his eyes. Something in my face must have told him I would not leave him in peace. He unfolded himself, as stiff and wooden as the puppets he had once carved. He held his hands up before him and looked at them stupidly. ‘I can’t feel them.’
‘Get up and moving. They’ll come back to life.’
He sighed. ‘It was such a good dream. I dreamed that we both died here and it was all over. There was nothing more we could do, and everyone agreed that we had tried and it wasn’t really our fault. They spoke kindly of us.’ He opened his eyes wider. ‘How did you stand up?’
‘I don’t know. Just do it.’ I did not feel patient.