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“Because I don't think I was asleep when it happened. I was trying to do the Skill-walking. Fi— Tom says it was easiest for him to bridge over to it from a light sleep. So I was in my bed, trying to be asleep but not too asleep, while reaching out with the Skill. And then I felt it.”

“What?” Chade asked.Advertisement

“I felt it looking for me. With its great big whirly silver eyes.” Thick was the one who answered.

“Yes,” the Prince confirmed slowly.

My heart sank.

“I don't understand,” Chade said irritably. “Start at the beginning and report it properly.” This was addressed to Dutiful. I understood the double prong of Chade's anger. Once again, the three of them had attempted an exercise, and both Thick and Dutiful had experienced some success while Chade had failed. Underscoring that was the mention of a dragon. There had been too many mentions of dragons lately: a frozen dragon for Dutiful to unearth and behead, the dragons the Bingtown contingent had bragged about (supposedly at the beck and call of the Bingtown Traders), and now a dragon intruding into our Skill-exercise. We knew far too little about any of them. We dared not dismiss them as legends and lies; too well we recalled the stone dragons that had rallied to the Six Duchies' defense sixteen years ago, yet we knew little about any of them.

“There's scarcely enough to report it,” Dutiful replied. He took a breath, and despite his own words, began in the orderly way in which Chade had schooled both of us. “I had retired to my chambers, exactly as if I were going to sleep for the night. I was in my bed. There was a low fire in the hearth, and I was watching it, unfocusing my mind in a way that I hoped would invite sleep and yet leave me aware enough to reach out with the Skill. Twice I dozed off. Each time, I roused myself and tried to approach the exercise again. The third time, I tried reversing the process. I reached out with the Skill, held myself in readiness, and then tried to sink down into sleep.” He cleared his throat and looked around at us. “Then I felt something big. Really big.” He looked at me. “Like that time on the beach.”

Thick was following the tale with his jaw ajar and his small round eyes bunched with thought. “A big fat blue lizard,” he hazarded.

“No, Thick.” Dutiful patiently kept his voice soft. “Not at first. At first, there was just this immense . . . presence. And I longed to go toward it, and yet I feared to go toward it. Not because of any deliberate threat from it. On the contrary, it seemed . . . infinitely benign. Restful and safe. I was afraid to touch it for fear that . . . I'd lose any desire to come back. It seemed like the end of something. An edge, or a place where something different begins. No. Like something that lives in a place where something different begins.” The Prince's voice trickled away.

“I don't understand. Talk sense,” Chade demanded.

“It's as much sense as you can apply to it,” I interceded quietly. “I know the sort of being, or feeling, or place, that the Prince is speaking about. I've encountered such, a time or two. Once, one helped us. But I had the feeling that one was an exception. Perhaps another one of them might have absorbed us and not even noticed. It's an incredibly attractive force, Chade. Warm and accepting, gentle as a mother's love.”

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The Prince frowned slightly and shook his head. “This one was strong. Protective and wise. Like a father,” said Dutiful.

I held my tongue. I had long ago decided that those forces presented to us whatever it was that we most hungered for. My mother had given me up when I was very small. Dutiful had never known his father. Such things leave large gaps in a man.

“Why haven't you spoken of this before?” Chade asked testily.

Why, indeed? Because that encounter had seemed too personal to share. But now I excused myself, saying, “Because you would only have said to me what you just said. Talk sense. It's a phenomenon I can't explain. Perhaps even what I've said is just my rationalization of what I experienced. Recounting a dream; that's what it is like. Trying to make a story out of a series of events that defy logic.”

Chade subsided, but he did not look content. I resigned myself to being wrung for more facts, thoughts, and impressions later.

“I want to tell about the big lizard,” Thick observed sullenly to no one at all. He had reached a point at which he sometimes enjoyed being the center of attention. Obviously he felt that the Prince's tale had stolen his stage.

“Go ahead, Thick. You tell what you dreamed, and then I'll tell what I did.” The Prince ceded him all attention. pqdm.com