A Keeper’s Tale: The Story of Tomkin and the Dragon Read online

  The golden dragon called to Vorath in his mind, calling him to follow as she staggered through the window and plummeted out of the castle. Vorath slid forward, his head as tall as a man’s waist. He hissed, and shot a small stream of fire at the knight. The men spread out around him, holding their swords warily. He wanted to rend them, destroy them with fang and claw and fury.

  Around him the beams crossing the ceiling groaned. Fire licked up the walls. A stone above a burning tapestry cracked in the heat.

  His mother’s call, weak as it was, pulled at him through the window. He turned, spread his wings, and shot after her, sliding into the cool night air.

  Ahead of him, she flew low, laboring over the hills to the east until her wings shuddered and she plummeted into a valley.

  Vorath let out another scream, this one torn from deep within himself, so full of fury and loss, it ripped something from his very core.

  The memory of the golden dragon sinking into the dark crevice faded.

  Tomkin blinked and found himself facing Vorath, the creature’s jaws inches from his face.

  What do I want? Vorath’s voice was deadly quiet. I want revenge.

  The terror that rose in Tomkin squeezed his heart until he thought it might burst. He fell back a step from Vorath’s gaze.

  He wasn’t just trapped in this castle. Even if he could escape, he was doomed. There was no way to win, no way to play the hero. Vorath wanted him dead—him and everyone he loved. That’s all there was. The dragon wanted nothing but destruction.

  Tomkin felt the dragon’s scale bite into his palm as he squeezed it, unbending. Even one single scale was too strong for him. He took in the enormity of the beast, the expanse of scales glowing like embers in the dying firelight. His own body was so negligible that a flick of the dragon’s claw would snuff him out.

  Tomkin could do nothing. It would be easier to shove Colbreth Castle off the cliff than to affect the dragon in any way.

  He fell back another step and his shoulder bumped into Mags where she stood, shrunk in on herself.

  Vorath’s breath came out in a furious blast of air. Get out of my hall.

  Tomkin shoved the scale into his pocket, and using the sword as a crutch, grabbed Mag’s hand, pulling her away from the dragon. She turned wide eyes on him, her face mirroring what he felt. He tugged her toward the door leading to rooms along the back wall, where the lake sat against the castle wall.

  Tomkin turned his back on the dragon and Mags ducked under his arm. He wasn’t sure whether she was offering support or hiding, but he leaned on her, using the solid feel of her to steady himself.

  They took a step toward the door, then another. The weight of Vorath’s gaze on his back was palpable.

  He ducked his head next to Mags’ ear. “Are you ok?”

  She didn’t answer, just walked toward the door with her face set in a determined scowl. But she was pale and her arm, wound around his back, quivered. He squeezed her shoulders, but felt his own arm tremble.

  The door to the kitchens sat in the far left corner of the great hall. It took ages to reach it. When they did, Mags reached for the door handle. With a loud creak the door pushed opened and they both flinched at the noise. Mags glanced back at Vorath. Tomkin followed her gaze.

  The table had burned low, glowing a deep red and leaving most of the room in darkness. The last of the light glinted off Vorath’s scales. Ripples of shadowed red flowed across the darkness, turning the dragon into a mountain of living coals. Bright as death.

  Out the gaping windows, through what was left of the storm, the hint of a moon rose over the eastern hills.

  Mags’ body began to shake harder. Tomkin pushed on her shoulder, turning her away from the sight of the dragon and stepping them into the doorway. The light from the great hall illuminated just enough past them to show stairs descending into darkness. Mags held back at the sight.

  “C’mon,” Tomkin whispered, “we’ll find a way out.”

  Mags let out a burst of breath, a laugh tinged with terror. She reached over and pushed the door shut behind them, dropping everything into blackness.

  “No, we won’t.”

  Part III

  It didn’t matter whether Tomkin was heroic or not.

  There was no room for a hero in this story.

  * * *

  -From Keeper Mikal’s retelling

  of Tomkin and the Dragon

  17

  They stood in the darkness for a moment, not moving. What were they going to do now? Mags was right, they weren’t going to find a way out. And even if they did, what would that matter? Even if they could escape, before they could reach Marshwell, it was going to be destroyed.

  “Stay here,” Mags said, wiggling out from under Tomkin’s arm and disappearing into the darkness.

  He grabbed for her, but felt nothing but air.

  “Where are you going?” He leaned on the sword, hoping he was keeping his balance as well as he thought he was. The beginning of the stairs had been very close. The way his day was going, if he fell down the stairs, he’d probably end up impaling himself on the sword.

  “To find us some light.”

  He heard her rustle forward and down.

  The darkness of the hall sat there like something dead, or decaying. It wasn’t in the smell. The hall smelled of stale spices and dampness. It was in the feel of the air. Or maybe it was in Tomkin’s mind. Vorath had allowed them to come here because there was nothing to find. They were just wasting time until morning.

  He saw a flash of light illuminate Mags’ face. Then another. The third time, the flame stayed lit, tiny and dim. Mags leaned down and blew gently. Within a couple of breaths, Tomkin could see the stairs enough to begin to descend them. On the floor in front of where she knelt was a small wad of fabric burning quickly. Mags tucked a small flint into a pocket of her dress.

  Slowly, one hand on the stone wall for balance, Tomkin moved to where she was. The walls and the floor remained reasonably still.

  Mags pulled a torch out of a ring on the wall and touched the end to the burning fabric.

  “You have flint?” Tomkin asked. “What other useful things do you have?”

  She gave him an annoyed look. “You didn’t bring flint?”

  Tomkin began to shake his head, but the aching made him stop.

  She rolled her eyes and slid back under his arm, steadying him. Holding the torch in front of them, she started down the hallway. “Honestly, did you put any thought into this plan of yours? Or did you just grab the first impractical weapon you could find and race off unprepared? Did you bring any food? Or water?”

  “Yes, I brought food and water,” Tomkin snapped. “It was in my boat. Which your dragon friend burned and sank.”

  “He’s not my friend,” she said quietly, her shoulders stiffening under his arm.

  The torchlight flickered on the walls, causing as much shadow as light.

  A twinge of guilt worked its way through Tomkin’s irritation. “Sorry.”

  Silence stretched between them. Tomkin was tired of fighting with her, tired of saying things to make her mad.

  “I was serious before,” he said, trying to make his voice friendly, “when I said you should go to the Scale Mountains. There are all sorts of deserted forts and keeps scattered throughout the Scales. No one claims them because none of the duchies over there are wealthy enough to want the expense of keeping them up. You’d be far away from Greentree, and with a little searching you could find a nice one that didn’t need too much work. Between you and Wink, you could make something amazing.”

  Mags gave him a sidelong glance.

  “And if you’re dead set on living in one with a dragon, you might find one of those, too….”

  She jabbed her hip out at him and he stumbled. But she held him up and a smile curled the edges of her mouth. The hallway they were in stretched on, unbroken, until the end where three doors were tucked close together. One straight ahead of them and one on each wa
ll.

  Mags slipped out from under Tomkin’s arm to open the one on the left, revealing a small, moldy closet. Across the hall, the other door opened into a storeroom that was narrow but long, running to the right for a good way. Tomkin walked over to one of the arrow-slit windows. He climbed onto the box below it, surprised when the world didn’t spin at all. Fresh, cool air blew past his face.

  Outside the window the rain had stopped and the clouds were sailing past like the tattered remains of a battle flag. Bits of starlight flashed in the gaps. The top of the cliff across from him was lit by moonlight. The sliver of world he could see below the window was pitch-black.

  “Give me the torch.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” she snapped.

  Tomkin took a deep breath, then turned around and gave her a deep bow. “May I please have the torch, sweet Mags?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him but passed the torch. He turned and held it out the window. Beneath him, about the level of the floor of the storeroom, slivers of torchlight glittered back up at him.

  “The lake is right against the castle here.” He peered to his right, trying to see where the water ended, but could make out nothing in the darkness.

  He turned around to catch Mags shuddering. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not going out on a lake. We need to find a way out that doesn’t involve water.”

  Tomkin bit back the first thing that came to mind to say to her. Then the second.

  He forced his voice to be patient. “There isn’t another way out. From the south wall of the castle there are rotting, broken steps winding down the cliff to a dock on the river. There’s no way out of there without a boat, and Vorath sank mine. The east and north walls have sheer drops to the river. This western wall is our only hope. There’s not much room between the castle wall and the cliff that rises above us, so the lake can’t be very big. And it’s only over on this end of the castle.

  “From the bailey I saw a flat field behind the wall. There was a path that came from the lake and went all the way up the cliff. If we can get to the top, we’re free.”

  Mags shook her head in a fast, twitchy way. “I’m not going on any water.” Her voice sounded brittle. She stood in the flickering torchlight with her arms wrapped around herself tightly.

  Tomkin climbed off the box, using the sword as a crutch. He walked up to her and handed her the torch. The fresh air at the window had done wonders for his head and the world felt stable. He put his arm around her shoulder anyway and steered her back out of the room. “Let’s not worry about how we’re going to escape until we find out if it’s even possible.”

  “It’s not,” Mags said. “Vorath wouldn’t have let us down here if it was.”

  Tomkin’s heart dropped a little at her words. He’d been pushing that thought away from his mind. “Maybe Vorath doesn’t know what’s here. How could he? He’s too big to fit.”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s looked at the western wall to see if there’s a door back there,” Mags said. She pushed his arm off her shoulder and cracked open the last door.

  A hissing noise slipped out. She froze and looked at Tomkin with wide eyes. When the noise didn’t change, she pulled the door open the rest of the way. The sound grew richer and deeper, a sort of loud shushing.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  Tomkin shook his head. Whatever it was, it sounded far away.

  Their torchlight illuminated the near end of a kitchen. It felt chilly and cavernous, and it smelled damp.

  A long, sagging table ran down the middle of the room. Counters, shelves, and more counters, lined both walls. The right-hand wall of the kitchen was broken by another arrow-slit window and the gaping mouth of an oven.

  Tomkin’s bare arm felt chilled. The room was humid, cold, and cave-like. He could smell the damp, plant smell of the lake and their footsteps echoed hollowly. Next to the door were shelves holding moldy towels, a stack of metal bowls, and a pile of torches. Mags gave a little hoot and grabbed a torch.

  She lit it and handed it to Tomkin. He started down one side of the room while Mags walked down the other. The kitchen was a mess. No one must have been here since the night Granduncle Horace had chased away that dragon—Vorath’s mother.

  No wonder Vorath wanted this place. Horace hadn’t known he’d killed the beast. Everyone thought he’d just wounded it and driven it off. His ballads would grow after Tomkin got back and told the whole story.

  If Tomkin got back.

  He felt a cold breeze from deeper in the room. The shushing noise came from that direction, so Tomkin held his torch high and walked closer. On the other side of the saggy table, Mags stayed with him.

  His torchlight had just reached the back wall when Mags gave a little shriek and stumbled back. The floor ahead of Tomkin glittered. He stepped closer.

  It was water.

  Cut into the floor against the back wall of the kitchen was a channel, wider than Tomkin was tall. Black water rushed out from a tunnel on his right, and into darkness to his left. It was water from the lake, diverted through the castle, and it was the roar of the waterfall outside they’d been hearing.

  It was brilliant, really, to have the fresh lake water run through the kitchen. If he’d thought about it, he would already have known it happened. After all, from the river below he’d seen a waterfall land behind the castle, and another flow out of a small arch in the front. There hadn’t been this much water, though. The little channel must be swollen from the storm.

  The remains of a wooden fence ran along the channel, but it had rotted long ago and now hung on one good post. Tomkin walked to the edge of the water, ignoring Mags’ whimper, and peered upstream through the short tunnel, which must lead to the lake. At the far end of the tunnel, the torchlight glinted off rusted metal bars.

  “I need more light!” he said to Mags.

  She nodded, her eyes wide and fixed on the water. She backed away a few steps, before turning to run back for more torches. She returned, along the same side of the room as Tomkin, clutching as many torches as she could hold. They stuck them in pitchers, vases, sconces, anything they could find to hold them.

  With all the torches lit, the surface of the water glimmered as it rushed past, throwing golden reflections on the ceilings and walls. Like the room had filled with golden fairies, flittering about too quickly to see.

  He turned to say as much to Mags, but she had retreated from the water and sank into a ball, hugging her knees and staring at the water.

  Tomkin put his sword on the table and grabbed a long, wooden pole leaning against the end of the cabinets. There was an iron ring fixed to the wall where the tunnel began. Tomkin gave it an experimental tug, and it held firm. Holding the ring in one hand and the pole in the other, he leaned out over the channel and reached the pole upstream toward the grate.

  He did his best to ignore the whimpering sound from Mags.

  The pole was unwieldy, but Tomkin managed to bang it against the grate, resulting in a dull but solid-sounding noise. His heart sank. The rust hadn’t compromised the grate enough to damage it. It was still unyielding metal.

  The end of the pole dipped into the water and wrenched against his grip. Tomkin fought to lift it back out, but the water slammed the end of the pole into the far wall and ripped it out of his hand. In a breath, it rushed down the channel and disappeared into the darkness.

  Tomkin held his torch out over the water and looked downstream. No metal grate sat at that end, just a gaping hole. Tomkin’s hand tightened on the ring. Anything that fell in this water would be swept out the front of the castle and fall onto the rocks along the river a hundred feet below.

  18

  Tomkin stood at the corner of the wall and looked down the tunnel toward the lake. Along the edge of the water, a metal rod was attached to the stone wall like a railing. Holding the iron ring again, he leaned out over the water.

  “Will you please stop doing that!” Mags hissed.

  Tom
kin ignored her and held his torch as far into the tunnel as he could. Halfway down, the railing turned and disappeared into a dark recess. Past that, the tunnel continued, with the railing, all the way to the metal grate. He pulled himself back into the kitchen. Mags gripped the table with white knuckles.

  Tomkin gave her a little smile and patted the kitchen wall. “There’s a room along the channel, right behind this wall.”

  Three cabinets back from the channel he found a large door he had taken for a pantry. When he pulled it open, his torch lit up a little stone alcove off the channel, full of gently swirling water. He was standing on a little stone dock. In front of him, two steps led down to the water.

  And floating in the water was a little boat.

  “Mags!” he called to her, trying to keep his voice low enough that the rushing noise of the water would mask it if the dragon were listening. “This must have been how they brought supplies into the kitchen!” He moved down the steps. The little boat filled almost the entire surface of the water.

  “It’s clever, don’t you think?” He glanced back over his shoulder and saw just the top of Mags’ head sticking around the corner.

  “Oh stop it,” he said. “This water is barely moving. Come in here.”

  Mags stepped around the corner, and stepped down one step, leaning close to the wall. She shook her head.

  Tomkin almost snapped at her, until he noticed her torch wavering in her shaking hand. “Okay,” he said, trying to make his voice kinder. “If you’re not going to come all the way in, will you please grab a couple more torches? There are sconces in here and it would be nice to see better.”

  She nodded and hurried back out. Tomkin’s torchlight filtered to the flagstone bottom of the alcove. The water wasn’t deep here, maybe only up to his waist. The boat was small but deep, with its sides coming up well above the water line. It was tied to a peg on the wall.

  The metal railing Tomkin had seen from the kitchen ran into this room, anchored to the wall above the waterline, and then ran back out along the channel toward the metal grate. He pulled on the railing to see if the years had weakened it, but it was firmly attached.