“The dragon?”
“You know who I mean. Tintaglia. She appears small at first, as a lizard or a bee, and then becomes larger until you vanquish her.”
“Oh. Her.” She knit her brow. “She only comes when you do. I thought she was a part of your dream.”
“No. She's not a part of anyone's dream. She's as real as you and me.” It suddenly disturbed me that Nettle had not perceived that. Had our dream conversations exposed her to a greater danger than I knew?
“Who is she, then, when she is awake?”
“I told you. She's a dragon.”
“There's no such thing as dragons,” she declared with a laugh, shocking me into momentary silence.
“You don't believe in dragons? Then who saved the Six Duchies from the Red Ship raiders?”
“Soldiers and sailors, mostly, I suppose. It hardly matters anyway, does it? It happened so long ago.”
“It matters a great deal to some of us,” I muttered. “Especially to the ones who were there.”
“I'm sure it does. Yet I've noticed that few if any can tell a straight tale of exactly what happened to save the Six Duchies. Just that they saw the dragons in the distance and that the next thing they knew, the Red Ships were sinking or broken. And the dragons were almost out of sight.”
“Dragons have a strange effect upon people's memories,” I explained to her. “They . . . they seem to absorb them as they pass over people. Like a cloth wiping up spilled beer.”
She grinned up at me. “So, if that's true, why doesn't Tintaglia have that effect on us? How is it we can remember her being in our dreams?”
I held up a warning hand. “Let's not use her name anymore. I've no wish to encounter her again. As to why we can remember her, well, I think it is because she comes to us as a dream creature rather than in the flesh. Or it could be that she does not take our memories because she is a creature of flesh and blood, instead of . . .”
I recalled to whom I was speaking and halted. I was telling her too much. If I did not guard my tongue, soon I'd be telling her about Skill-carving dragons from memory stone, and how those creatures were the Elderlings of tale and song.
“Go on,” she urged me. “If Tintaglia is not of flesh and blood, then what else could she be? And why does she always ask us about a black dragon? Are you going to say that he is real, too?”
“I don't know,” I said cautiously. “I don't even know if he exists at all. Let's not talk of that, just now.” I had felt nervous ever since she had mentioned Tintaglia's name. The word seemed to shimmer in the air, as betraying as the smoke from a cook fire.
But if there was any truth to the old summoning magic of a name, we were spared that night. I bade her farewell. Somehow, in leaving her dream I reentered my old nightmare. The sliding pebbles of the steep slope promptly rolled away under my feet. I was falling, falling to my death. I heard Nettle's outflung cry of “Change it to flying, Shadow Wolf! Make it a flying dream instead,” but I did not know how to heed her. Instead, I jerked upright in my narrow cot in the barracks.
Morning was near, and most of the beds were filled now. Yet there was still a small time left for sleep. I tried to find it, but could not, and arose earlier than usual. None of my fellows were stirring. I put on my new uniform, and spent some time trying to persuade my hair to stay out of my face. I had shorn it for grief at Nighteyes' death, and it had not yet grown enough to stay bound back in a warrior's tail. I tied it back into a ridiculous stub, knowing it would soon pull free to hang about my face and brow.
I went to the guardroom and ate heartily of a lavish breakfast the kitchens had prepared for us. I knew I was bidding farewell to land food for a time, and availed myself of hot meat, fresh bread, and porridge with honey and cream. Meals on the ship would depend on the weather, and most of it would be salted, dried, and plainly cooked. If the water were rough and the cook judged fire too dangerous, we'd get cold food and hard bread. The prospect did not cheer me.
I returned to the barracks to find most of the guard stirring to wakefulness. I watched the rest of the men-at-arms don their blue tunics and complain about the weight of wool cloaks on a warm spring day. Chade had never admitted it, but there were a half-dozen of our company who, I suspected, were as much spies as guardsmen. There was a quiet watchfulness about them that made me think they saw more than they seemed to.
Riddle, a youngster of about twenty, was most emphatically not. He was as excited as I was jaded. A dozen times he consulted his mirror, paying particular attention to a rather new mustache. He was the one who insisted on loaning me pomade for my hair, saying he could not allow me to set forth on such an important day looking like a shaggy-haired farmer. He himself, dressed for display and seated on his bunk, tapped his feet impatiently on the floor and kept up a constant stream of chatter, everything from teasing me about the ornate hilt on my sword to demanding whether I knew if it was true that dragons could be slain only with an arrow to the eye. His loose energy was as annoying as a pacing dog. I was relieved when Longwick, our newly appointed captain, tersely ordered us to form up outside.