The stillness of the dark water was suddenly broken by the ripples of a moving vee that drew closer and revealed the point to be Smoothie’s head. She climbed out of the pool, sleek as ever, but with a look of dissatisfaction on her face.
“I need to be changed back soon!” she said. “This body is terrible for swimming! I could barely catch two eels and a stupid blind fish that was as slow as … as a toad!”
“I’ll do my best,” said Anya soothingly.
“Please stay out of the water now,” said the Wizard. “We must let it settle while I arrange the lights.”
She raised her hand, and the ring on her middle finger flashed brightly. It was answered by a thin flame on the far side of the pool, which slowly gathered strength to reveal itself as a tall candle in an iron candelabra.
“Abra candelabra,” said the Wizard, chuckling to herself. She winked at Anya. “Doesn’t mean anything. I just like saying that.”
The Wizard raised her hand again and the ring flashed. Another candle sprang alight. The Wizard’s hand glided through the air, moving as if she was conducting an orchestra, and more candle flames answered.
With the extra light, Anya could see the extent of the pool. It wasn’t quite as big as she had thought, perhaps fifty feet wide and thirty feet long. It was ringed with a dozen iron candelabras, each of which could hold five candles, but the Wizard wasn’t lighting all of them. She was making a selection, judging the play of light and shadow.
“Almost there,” said the Wizard. “Anya, stand in front of me here, on the silver scale.”
Anya looked down at the strange white stone. There was indeed a silver scale there, like a fish’s, but much larger, bigger than Anya’s outstretched hand.
“Last of the dragon’s scales,” said the Wizard. “The pool lies in his eye socket, and we are standing on his cheekbone.”
“This white stone,” said Anya. “It’s dragon bone?”
“Indeed,” answered the Wizard. “Our hall is bounded by his great ribs, the bathhouse lies under the phalanges of his right wing, and so on. We stand within the bodily remains of the last of the great dragons, Karrazin the Bright, and we honor him and his gift.
“It’s polite to repeat that last part,” added the Wizard in a stage whisper. “Bit of a ritual, dragons never being entirely gone, as it were.”
“We honor him and his gift!” Anya said quickly, followed a beat later by Ardent, Shrub, and Smoothie. The princess looked around as she spoke the words, wondering what the Wizard meant about dragons never being entirely gone. They were standing on his bare dead skull, after all, which seemed pretty conclusive as far as she was concerned.
“Stand on the scale,” repeated the Wizard. “If I’ve got the light right, the pool will show you three things. Something then, something now, and something that may yet come to be.”
Anya gingerly stood on the scale. It felt warm under her feet, even through her fleece-lined slippers.
“How does it work?” she asked.
“Shhh,” said the Wizard. “I’ll tell you later. It is about to begin. Look into the pool!”
Anya looked at the pool. It was still dark, the twinkling reflections of the candle flames not enough to lighten the deep blackness of the water. But as she kept her eyes fixed, it seemed to her the candles burned higher, their light spreading and joining, the surface of the pool slowly becoming brighter … and brighter still. Anya had to squint, and then shield her eyes with her hand. She would have looked away but the Wizard was behind her, suddenly gripping her head with strong fingers. The princess cried out, tears filled her eyes, and even as her cry of hurt and fear echoed through the cave, she saw three things.
The first, a vision from long ago. The hall at home in Trallonia Castle, but a warmer, more comfortable place than it was in Anya’s present time. The tapestries on the walls were clean and bright, and there were carpets on the floor, not just rough flagstones. It was winter, or late autumn, for all the fires were lit, and the big one was roaring. In front of that fire, Tanitha was telling a story to a small mound of wriggling puppies … and a human child. A little girl in a violet robe trimmed with rabbit fur.
A very young Anya, perhaps three years old.
“The Dog with the Wonderful Nose,” said Tanitha. From her tone, it was the ritual announcement of a story. All the puppies barked in excitement, and ceased most of their wriggling. Little Anya clapped her hands. It was obviously a favorite story, or a favorite character.
“The Dog with the Wonderful Nose had a truly extraordinary nose,” said Tanitha. “She could tell from the smell on a footprint how tall a man was, and what he was wearing. She could smell an onion bulb growing underground from a dozen paces off. She could even smell what was going to happen if the wind was blowing the right way. Well, one day the Dog with the Wonderful Nose was padding along, mindful of her own past business and that of others, when—”
The reflecting pool flashed, bright as the sun.
Anya blinked, dislodging the tears that had formed from seeing a happier time, when both her parents had still been alive. Through the rainbow prism of her tears, she saw the next vision form, showing something that was happening right now.
A group of women was gathered together in a big tent. At least at first it looked like a big tent, before Anya saw that it was actually a huge piece of canvas stretched between four tall standing stones, tied on fairly haphazardly with rope. Through one open corner she could see the sun setting through patchy rain clouds, which suggested that this was happening right now.
The women were engaged in setting up a field kitchen. Some were putting out cooking utensils along a trestle table, others unpacking pots and pans and ladles and skewers and big forks, while others sharpened dozens of different knives, while more sorted and arranged boxes, canisters, and net bags of ingredients.