The lack of conversation gave Owen time to think. On the road he had been ready to return to Norisle, but his blurted admission to Catherine had relieved pressure that had been building in his chest. He really didn't want to leave Mystria. He really had nothing back in Norisle, but here, in the land of his father, he had a future.
He recalled Mr. Wattling accusing him of being a Mystrian. At that time he'd taken it as a grand affront, but now, he would find it high praise. While no Mystrians would see him as one, they would come to accept him as one. The reverse, no matter how great the service one performed for the Crown, would never be true in Norisle.
The words I spoke to Catherine came from my heart. Owen smiled as they sped over the unspoiled landscape. Can a man live with his heart an ocean away?
Their horses lathered thickly and flagging, they rode straight through the yard to the wurmrest. Owen leaped from the saddle and glanced at Baker, who sat listlessly near the wurmrest's door. He looked up as Owen approached, his eyes red, dark circles beneath them and his complexion sallow.
Owen dropped to a knee. 'What's happened, Mr. Baker?'
The wurmwright shrugged. 'I don't really know. He was fine, just fine, last evening. He ate. He swam, he came back in. Nothing unusual and then…' Baker opened the wurmrest. 'He's dying.'
Owen preceded the Prince and his wurmwright into the stable. The stench staggered him. Not only did it wreak of wurm-a cloying, musky scent that lodged deep in the sinuses and started them weeping-but heat blasted him. The heat radiated from the wurm, rising so sharply that every step closer felt as if he were walking into an inferno.
The wurm, or what Owen had to presume was the wurm, lay nestled inside a fat, twenty-foot-long cocoon spun of black and red silk, with hints of gold, reflecting the colors of the creature beneath it. The silk alone would be worth a fortune, but it came with a high price. The cocoon would kill the wurm, though slight movement suggested Mugwump hadn't died yet. Owen took this as a good sign.
Owen leaned on the railing. 'I've never seen a molt like this. The scales are outside, as if the cocoon grew beneath the wurm's flesh and exfoliated them.'
The Prince nodded. 'Normally a cocoon's fibers grow over the scales?'
'Yes. You cut the wurm out of the cocoon, then help him shed.' Owen pointed at the far side of the wurmrest. 'Baker, what's that?'
'His tail, sir. He chewed it off.' As long as the cocoon itself, the tail had already begun to putrefy, contributing to the fierce odor. 'I wanted to drag it out, but it's too hot for me to get it.'
Vlad grabbed Owen's upper arm. 'I have pruning hooks. We might be able to cut him free. Do you think we should do that? Can we save him?'
A lump rose in Owen's throat. He clasped the man by both shoulders and swallowed past it. 'I don't know, Highness. I've never seen colored silk. I've never seen shed scales nor a chewed-off tail. I've never heard of a wurm having a fever. Fact is, he's breathing. If we interfere…'
Vlad glanced down at the wurm, then nodded. 'Right, right, of course. Fever means metabolism. Same with breathing. Part of a natural process. It must be something natural. I need to make some notes.'
'Good idea.' Owen pointed to the tail. 'I'll see if we can drag it out.'
'Rope and tackle might help.'
'I think I can find it, Highness.'
Vlad gave him a wan smile. 'I am sorry for intruding on your reunion with your wife, Captain. I'm very glad you're here.'
'As am I.'
'And congratulations on your child.'
Owen beamed. 'Thank you. Of recent times I've seen a lot of death. Having life brought into the world will be good. And since I want my child to be able to swim with a wurm, we'll make sure Mugwump lives, too.'
The Prince's smile broadened. 'Your children shall ride, Captain. This I promise you.'
Between the three of them, Owen, Nathaniel, and Baker were able to get some rope around the severed tail and drag it out of the wurmrest. Owen's guess that it was the source of the stink had been right. Nathaniel wanted to burn it. Baker suggested burying it. The Prince insisted on dissecting it, which he did using the aforementioned pruning hook and a highway-man's mask heavily laden with oil of eucalyptus.
Though the dissection did not thrill Owen, it kept Vlad busy. He would cut open a portion of the tail, make sketches of what he saw, then weigh flesh and bone before separating them. He noted that fish did not take the wurmflesh for bait and that birds seem reluctant to pick at it. Based on tracks they found the next morning, neither wolverine nor bear had difficulty eating the meat, and by the second day a family of raccoons waited in the woods for that day's dissection to end.
Vlad did make some interesting discoveries. In one of the tail bones he found an old arrowhead entirely encrusted with bone. 'I checked Mugwump's history and in 1162, at the battle of Verindan, an arrow penetrated his tail. They could not dig it out, so they snapped it off.'
Nathaniel and Baker took the wurmskin and set about cleaning and tanning it. The fact that Vlad was able to discover a variety of new things appeared to keep his anxiety at bay, and this made the waiting more endurable.
Princess Gisella did her best to make everyone feel at ease, especially Catherine. Owen's wife had taken to bed for two days after the rough coach ride from Temperance. Gisella waited upon her as if a servant. Owen apologized profusely to her Highness, but Gisella simply smiled and promised to care for her as Owen was caring for Mugwump.
On the third day, the Prince came to relieve Owen. 'I believe, Captain, I know why this molt is different from others.'
'Yes, Highness?'
'Mugwump made the cocoon very quickly-in less than five hours. That requires a great deal of energy. Mugwump does many things differently from wurms on Norisle or the Continent. He consumes a variety of flora and fauna that are unknown on the other side of the ocean. I am certain that has contributed to his health and his colors being so bright. But he's been doing that for fifty years, without this sort of molt. So I looked for something else, some way he might have gotten access to energy.'
The Prince's expression tightened. 'I think it comes down to his eating pasmortes.'
Owen's eyes narrowed. 'You're suggesting he consumed the magickal energy in them?'
'It's just a theory and yet, when du Malphias destroyed the magick, Mugwump vomited back corpses and showed no more interest in anything that had been pasmorte. He stored that energy up and then when back here, in his lair, feeling safe, he entered a molt.'
For the next week and a half things settled into a routine. Owen, the Prince, and Baker divided the day into three watches. One of them was with Mugwump at all times, with Dunsby and Count von Metternin helping out as needed. Nathaniel hunted and fished, as well as continued to process the wurmleather and bones, happy with the distance between himself and the cocoon.
On the twenty-fifth of September, surprise visitors arrived on the river. Msitazi, still wearing Owen's jacket, accompanied by Kamiskwa and William, beached the canoe. After greetings and introductions-Msitazi doing Owen the great honor of offering to buy Catherine, that being an honor his wife neither understood or liked-William fetched a package from the canoe. Unwrapping it, he proudly bore one of the wurmscales filled with a small fortune of salt mixed with bear grease into a thick paste.
The Prince accepted the gift. 'What is this?'
Msitazi chuckled. 'It is for Mugwump. It is to celebrate his birth.'
'I fear I don't understand, Chief Msitazi.'
The older man dispatched William to fetch one of the scales from the wurm's tail. The chief squatted and planted the scale on the ground upside down. The inside shined with a wavy mineral rainbow akin to mother of pearl. The Altashee oriented the attachment point toward the north.
Msitazi pointed to a dark dot near the southern edge of the scale. 'This marks his birth.' His finger traveled over to the western side of the scale and tapped a small, thorn-like projection. 'This is his nativity bump. When the sun sets, and its shadow touches the dot, it is his day of birth.'
'I find your idea intriguing, sir, but the date of Mugwump's hatching was in April, many centuries ago.'
The Altashee chuckled. 'You are born once of your mother, and again born a man. If a man is lucky, he is again born into wisdom. If this is true of men, why is it not true of Mugwump?'
