down quietly somewhere and make a home for myself. That’s all I want, a home; I don’t want any adventures. I’m going back.”
“I’m going on,” Peren said quietly.
“You’re sure?”
He nodded.
Tobas nodded acceptance. “All right. We’ll go in the morning, then, you to the east and I to the west.”
That settled, the conversation died away, and they retired early, Tobas sleeping in the wizard’s bed, Peren sleeping on a blanket in the Great Hall.
CHAPTER 19
Hauling the tapestry was more work than he had anticipated; he had forgotten how much up and down there was to the road back to Dwomor Keep. He was also unsure of the best route; until the foursome had split up on the fourth of Harvest they had been zigzagging about almost at random, looking for the dragon. He had estimated that he would have been able to get back to the castle in four days, unburdened, but the tapestry cut the distance he covered each day by at least half.
The first night found him scarcely to the edge of the magically dead area; he worked Thrindle’s Combustion three times before he got a campfire lit.
The second day he covered slightly more ground, but watched with concern as the sky clouded over. He hoped that the tapestry would not be harmed by rain; when he settled for the night, he slept uncovered, using his blanket to protect his prize instead of himself, draping his pack over the end the blanket could not reach.
As he had expected, rain began falling around midnight, building from a slow sprinkle to a steady drizzle.
The third day he struggled onward, desperately trying to keep the tapestry dry and out of the mud, and far more concerned with finding shelter than with traveling any great distance. At last, around midafternoon, he found a broad overhanging rock ledge protruding from a steep hillside. He crawled under it, pushing the tapestry as far in as he could.
He remained there that night and all through the next day, waiting out the rain; his supply of dried beef gave out, leaving him nothing but raisins and one very stale biscuit.
The thirteenth of Harvest dawned gray and dim, but without rain, and Tobas decided to risk moving on. The skies cleared as the day wore on, and he made good time; he was fairly sure when he made camp that night that he had passed the point where he and the others had encountered the dragon. He judged that to be half a mile or so north or northeast of where he finally stopped.
He finished off his last provisions and awoke ravenously hungry on the morning of the fourteenth. Water was easily found in the wake of the rain, in pools on rocks as well as in streams, but food was not so readily come by.
He did find some nuts, which he cooked with Thrindle’s Combustion and ate from the shell; that helped slightly. He considered hiding the tapestry somewhere and coming back for it later, so as to conserve his strength, but decided against it; he was fairly sure he was nearing civilization, if Dwomor could be considered civilized, and was afraid some wanderer, such as a dragon hunter, might discover it.
He had not yet dared to unroll it and see whether its magic might manifest itself; he did not want to try that alone and unprotected in the mountains, out in the open air.
Around midafternoon he came across a ruined cottage; something had smashed in the door, the windows were gone, and there were scorch marks on the slate roof, but it was basically intact. Tobas wondered at the slate roof, but a look around at the stony ground helped explain that; thatch would not be readily found here. He wondered, then, why the cottage’s builder had wanted his domicile in so barren a spot.
He had no good explanation for that, but he could and did guess at why it was broken and empty; the dragon had undoubtedly eaten the inhabitants, or at any rate had tried to. That heavy, fireproof slate roof might have saved their lives.
And whether it had or not, they might have left some food; he hauled the tapestry inside, dropped it on the floor of the main room, and began exploring the kitchen cupboards.
They were all distressingly empty, in fact, they gave every sign of having been intentionally and systematically stripped bare. Tobas guessed that the cottage’s owners had been besieged for a time and had then gathered up supplies and fled. He wondered whether they had made it to the castle safely.
Then he wondered whether the castle was really safe.
That was silly, he told himself; if the dragon had been unable to smash this little cottage to the ground, what could it do against a fortress like Dwomor Keep?
He sat down in a convenient straight-back chair and stared at the tapestry, his stomach growling. He did not feel up to hauling the heavy thing any farther before nightfall, and this cottage seemed comfortable enough; he decided to stay until morning.
As he was leaning back, wondering what sort of spells he should trade the tapestry for, he heard a noise outside, as of something large moving about. He sat up.
Could that be dragon hunters, he asked himself, or perhaps the cottage’s owners coming back? He peered out a window.
It was neither; the dragon itself was perched on the top of a nearby hill, gazing out across the surrounding countryside. Tobas stepped back quickly.
He hadn’t expected that. The beast had not seen him, he was certain, but it was now quite definite that he would not be leaving this cottage for at least a few hours. If the dragon noticed him, he might never leave it alive at all. Worried and distracted, he started back for his chair and tripped over the rolled-up tapestry.
He caught himself before he fell, then turned and looked at his prize. Was there, he asked himself, a chance that he could carry out the task he had originally signed up for and somehow kill the dragon? Might there be some way he could use the tapestry’s magic, if it had any?
Well, he told himself, he obviously wouldn’t be doing anything else for a while, so he might as well look the thing over. He glanced up at the cottage wall and found a likely spot.
The place had not been designed for tapestries, of course; but with a little effort, he managed to wedge the tapestry rod diagonally across one corner, supported on one end by a step-back in the chimney and on the other by a gap betwixt a rafter and the wooden plate that topped the stone wall and anchored the tie beams.
Once he was satisfied that it was securely in place, he began unfurling the tapestry; the rod was wedged too tightly to turn freely, so instead he was forced to drag the fabric up over the top time after time and let it drop back behind.
Finally it hung down freely, brightly lit by the rays of the setting sun pouring in through one of the western windows, and Tobas looked at it with renewed interest — the scene it depicted was so very weird! That ghastly lighting, the strange rocks, the empty areas beyond the castle, whoever had designed it had quite an imagination, Tobas thought, even without considering the castle itself, with its bizarre architecture and hideous carvings.
He reached out to brush the cloth smooth. To his astonishment, he saw his hand go right through, into the picture. The baleful red-purple seemed to leap up around him.
The magic was obviously working; he knew that instantly. This was no oracle or conjuring device, but a magical portal.
He pulled his hand back, shaken, but then realized with a shock that red-purple light still colored his fingertips.
A hot wind blew across his face from somewhere, hot and dry and like nothing that he had felt in the hills of Dwomor; when he raised his eyes to the castle, he saw an indisputably solid and three-dimensional castle, not a mere picture.
He knew then that, without meaning to, he had stepped through the tapestry.
But by all the gods, to where!
He had not realized when he reached out his hand that he might be doing something dangerous, but he cursed himself now for not seeing the obvious perils of touching the picture; he had had no idea what lay beyond.
