“Perhaps I can buy her out of the rest.”

“I’ll ask a heavy price of affection from Lada, before I let her go,” Ragwrist said, raising an eyebrow.

Lada frowned suspiciously. “How dare—!”

“Hear him out!” Dsossa said.

“I want but two concessions. I demand first that you mind your grandfather in matters of education and deportment, for both you and your son,” Ragwrist said. He winked at Dsossa, and Wistala noticed that she and Rainfall were holding hands under the table. “Secondly, I demand that you accept Dsossa as your grandmother, for she has said she also wishes to quit my circus. Much thanks that I get!”

“I promise,” Lada said, kissing her grandfather’s hand and then Dsossa’s cheek.

“Oh, how will I make up two such losses?” Ragwrist asked.

“Marlil’s as good a rider as I, and her bosoms are still high and full,” Dsossa said. “I’m sick of the stench of gargant-vents, and would rather smell hay and horse feed.”

“Fallen bosoms or no, count yourself lucky that you’ve not employed with the long-scrub under that point,” Lada said. “Gargants have a sense of humor about when they answer nature’s call. I would rather shovel up after the dragon.”

Chapter 20

Second Moon of the Winter Solstice, Res 480

Beloved Father,

I hope you can read the hand of my apprentice. She has a lovely voice, and I often think she should be singing rather than learning to be a fortune-teller, but what the Air Spirit gave her in voice—I know as a good Hypatian you tut-tut dragon cosmology, but it is the belief of my sires and it abides with me—dutiful Earth forgot to place in her hand.

I pray you, Dsossa, Lada, and Rayg are well. I hope the volume of the history of Ghorghars did not go astray. The bookbinders should cover the gilding on the page edges somehow. Does Dsossa still risk her neck at the road wall on her hunter? How is the new Mod Lada handling her duties?

I am now too big to ride in a house cart without folding myself in halves. Brok tried building one of greater length but the axles wore so on the turns, they were continually breaking off wheels. He believes craftsmen of the Diadem could supply us with a flatbed, but Ragwrist moans at the expense, and besides I am large enough to hang a banner on, so I go down the road ahead of the gargants announcing the circus in words and pictures.

Speaking of Ragwrist, the dwarves of the Wheel of Fire have written him again asking for my services to be “sold” to their council, as though I am a slave to be bid for in a market square. He shows me the letters, laughs, and then politely declines, though he keeps threatening to accept the Hypat Arena guild’s offer whenever I complain about the quality of the fowl and fish he buys.

I have little news to tell you save that which you’ve already no doubt heard: your old friend Heloise of the Imperial Library is dead. They asked me to attend a special ceremony for her (as a curiosity, I supposed) at the small Library Hall in Vinde, and as we had only just left it, Ragwrist gave me leave to go with only a few words of regret. I earn his purse and my stomach enough coin each year. After the ceremonies, some of the Librarians warned me about the fortune-telling. They think it reflects badly on my title. I promised them to give up the name “Oracle” soon . . . for reasons I’ll explain below. I caught up to the circus with some deal of bother with the river dwarves and took the first opportunity to write.

I am weary of fortune-telling. My heart was never really in it; I dispensed more advice such as I saw things rather than prophesy. Sometimes my heart would be so grieved by the stories I heard, I gave away my own small store of coin, but that led to every beggar in Hypatia showing up outside the tent, or so it seemed to the circus. Odd that I should be talented in guessing other races’ minds, but there you have it. One improvises to survive. How else could a dragon see the cities of Hypat in such celebration and safety? For this I thank your foresight, in knowing that eventually I’d want mental diversions and new experiences. I love every road, river, and shore of Hypat, but I fear I must leave it within a year or two.

There are tiny bulges running my back now, elf-father, and they will swell and I shall have my wings and the ability to go wherever there is wind. I have promises to keep and I will go when they come despite the mawkish lamentations of Ragwrist, who, having heard my dictation, has just popped his head in and offered his regards. But don’t worry, I shall still fly back to Mossbell every three or four years at least and prove that I am alive. I hope to sell the place back to dear Rayg (is he still raiding Jessup’s honeycombs?) one day if his wit continues to so impress you.

We are readying to go back on the Old North Road again, so you should expect us in springtime.

Traveling in hope,

Tala

The Old Guard assembled again in that easy spring, and for the last time, as they had other years under similarly disposed stars.

The party dined in the receiving hall that Wistala might fit, and the youngest Lessup girl who once so feared Wistala darted back and forth with trays beneath her neck with giggles to her sister. Rainfall, who scooted about the house on a wheeled chair made by a journey-man dwarvish artisan, worked the big back wheels with his arms as he circled the table, pouring wine for all despite the gentle imprecations of Yeo Forstrel, who was trying to out-Rainfall Rainfall in courtesy and decorum.

The party adjourned for the Green Dragon Inn, now at one end of a semicircle of a full dozen homes and establishments, from whose narrow windows song carried up and down the road. The post had expanded into a full news-case, with glass, and a special window had been added to the front of the inn to handle letters for Mossbell’s tenants, artisans, and a handful of professionals owning houses along the road who liked Rainfall’s manners and easy terms.

Wistala, as was the custom, called out the inn’s evening company and then stood under the sign and raised herself up a little so that she could touch nose to the weathered board, and all put lips to glass after a glad cry.

Jessup kept his son at the tap and his daughters with the mugs. He now wore a coat with gold buttons, thanks to the sales of his brewery-mead to taverns in Quarryness and Sack Harbor and beyond.

The next day the circus moved on to the common at Quarryness. Wistala promised to return to the quiet of Mossbell in the evening across the twin hills, home to Dsossa’s two herds of horses, though as the day progressed, she wondered if the throngs who’d descended on the town to see the show would keep all performing late. After her customary appearance to old Sobyor, who’d grown fatter than she knew humans could achieve, she spent the day letting her apprentice “interpret” the dragon’s impressions of the seekers.

Many of the seekers asked their questions in Parl with a barbarous northern accent.

But eventually the crowds trickled off.

As she passed up the road on the way to Mossbell, sniffing the early-summer countryside on a fitful wind, she noticed a blue firework burning atop the eastern of the twin hills. Did Mossbell’s shepherds and horseherds signal to each other in some manner? Fireworks, as she knew well from Ragwrist’s moanings, even blue signal flares, cost a good deal of money, for only specialists, usually dwarves, could accurately mix the ingredients—

Signal flares?

Hearts hammering, she left the road and cut cross-country to more quickly reach the house, troubled by the strange lights against the night sky. When she finally broke through the last line of the back woods and looked out over the garden—full of beanpoles and tomato vines and fragrant with basil and peppermint—and saw the house at peace, she ceased her headlong, bush-tearing charge.

Worried for nothing. Were you expecting flames from the library skylight?

She still slipped cautiously around to the front, smelling and listening, and pulled on the bell.

Dsossa herself, with Forstrel behind, answered the door. She wore an ordinary housecoat; he still had on a button shirt and polished shoes even at the late hour.

“Our fortunate dragon! We’d given you up.”

“It was a rare day at the circus,” Wistala said. “Is all well here?”

“I’m sorry, but we’ve dined already. We did save scraps, and Rainfall is still up. We’re having a digestive gruel and infusions—would you join us in that?”

“You mistake my meaning. There aren’t strangers or barbarians or anyone dining tonight?” Wistala asked.

Dsossa and Forstrel exchanged glances and shrugs. “What are you fearful of? Don’t tell me you’ve had a premonition.”

“The only auspices I read glowed upon the twin hills. Someone burns fireworks on your property.”

Dsossa came out from the door and walked around the side of the house. “I see nothing now. Why would shepherds do something like that?”

Forstrel disappeared into the house with a quick step, and the wind died down. There was a vague murmur to the east.

“Hoofbeats?” Wistala asked.

“I hear nothing,” Dsossa said.

“You should return to the house,” Wistala said.

“No. I hear them,” she said, her hand at her throat. “There are no roads to the east—that land is nothing but thickets and gullies.”