The rockfolk roused suddenly, their snores cut off in an instant. Their eyes opened; they sat up and stared at him.
“Why are you here?” asked the leader. “Why did you come back before you had finished?”
“I brought you what you asked for,” Ker said. He nudged the wrapped bundle with his foot.
“You could not have gone so far so fast—” the dwarf broke off, staring now at the bundle. He muttered in his own language, and two of the others approached, one drawing a thick leather bag from his pack and opening its mouth. The first unwrapped the bundle gingerly, and revealed the same egg-shaped rocks, the same shards. He reached out, touched them, turned them over. Then he glared at Ker. “How did you do this?”
“Do what?”
“They’re dead. They’re all dead. What did you do to them?”
“I did nothing,” Ker said. He couldn’t see any difference in the rocks and shards, but the dwarves clearly did.
“These can’t be the same… you could not have traveled so fast…”
“It was the dragon,” Ker said. They all stared at him now. “It—gave me a walking stick. It helped me.”
Now they stared at the walking stick, and the thick growth of new leaves on the tree overhead.
“You talked to a dragon and it helped you? It brought you eggs to carry?”
“No.” His head ached now, sudden as if someone had hit him again. “Let me tell you—”
“Go ahead.”
He told it as well as he could and they listened without interruption, though some of them muttered softly in their own tongue. When he finished, with “And then you woke up,” the questions began. What was the dragon’s name, and how big, and what color, and what had it done with Tam and the villagers and Lin? Ker said “I don’t know” over and over.
“You cannot know so little,” the dwarf said. “You were there! You say you saw these things, and yet—”
“Don’t bully him,” his mother said. “You’re as bad as Tam, you lot.” She glowered at them, and to Ker’s surprise they gave way. “What would he know of dragons? Do you think they give their names away to anyone?”
“Rarely,” drawled a new voice. Ker twisted around to see the same elegant man lounging on the slope above, a stalk of sweetgrass in his mouth. The dwarves drew into a huddle, eyes wide. The man lifted one shapely eyebrow. “Frightened, stonebrethren? Lost something? It would have been wise, would it not, to have told me before I heard it from others? Before I had to reveal myself, to undo the harm that came from that loss?”
One of the dwarves burst into speech in their tongue, but the man held up a hand. “Be courteous; these human folk have not your language nor mine. Speak as they can hear.”
“We weren’t sure,” the dwarf said. “Not at first. We thought—”
“You hoped you could retrieve what you lost before I learned of it, is that not true?”
“Yes.” The dwarf scuffed one boot against another.
“So this human—this idiot, this fool, I believe you called him—has proved more wise than you, has he not? He, not you, retrieved the lost. You sent him to do it, knowing it was perilous—”
“It was his fault in the first place,” muttered one of the dwarves.
“You accuse him of thievery?” the man said. “You think he slit the carrybag and filched the eggs in the first place?”
“Well… no. Probably not.” The dwarf looked down, hunching his shoulders.
“You know they seek life,” the man said. “My kind always do. Whoever carried them grew careless, I have no doubt: drank deep and slept, as you slept today, or set the carrybag on sharp rock, and so they fell free, to be found by something or someone they could use.” He sighed. “I should remember that ages are long for you, stonebrethren, and a trust passed from generation to generation can be a trust weakened.”
“We didn’t mean—” began the first dwarf, but his voice trailed away as the man looked at him.
“Intentions…” the man said slowly. Then he looked at Ker’s mother. “Madam, what does a mother say about intentions?”
“Meaning to never mended a wall,” Ker’s mother said. “Not meaning to drop it never patched a pitcher.”
“So wise a lady,” the man said. “This must be your son.” Now he looked at Ker, and it seemed that behind his mild brown eyes red flames danced.
“He’s a good boy,” she said.
“He’s an interesting man,” the man said, in a tone of mild correction. “He may become wise one day. We shall see.” Now he looked at Ker. “What of you? What do you see in all this?”
Ker’s throat tightened, but he forced words past the tightness. “You are not a man,” he said.
That elegant figure laughed. “True and true: what then, am I?”
“A dragon.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps merely the shape a dragon sends to talk to those who cannot bear the sight of dragons. For if the shape be the thing, then this shape of man cannot be a dragon, nor—” The man was gone; words hung in the air as the light condensed once more and a very visible dragon sprawled on the trail above, its head lying aslant on the slope to the dell. “Nor can this be a man’s shape. But if some essence, not the shape, be the thing, then either the man’s shape or some other could be dragon.”
“Lord dragon,” one of the dwarves said, coming forward past Ker. Ker noticed that he was paler than usual. “If you permit us—”
“I do not,” said the dragon. “Be still, rockbrethren; we will talk hereafter.” There was in that a chill threat. Ker and the dwarf both shivered, but the dragon was looking at Ker. “You remember we talked of wisdom… what would a wise being say of these who lost somewhat of value held in trust and did not warn the owner that it was lost?”
“You ask me to judge them?” Ker said. He glanced at the dwarves, now standing motionless as if the command to be still had turned them to stone.
“I ask your opinion only,” the dragon said. “I am capable of judgment; it is my gift.”
“I do not know the ways of rockfolk,” Ker began. The dragon’s eye kindled, and he went on hastily. “But these had cause to hate and distrust us—me and my mother—and instead they listened and did not harm us.”
“You bear their bruises on your face,” the dragon commented.
Ker shrugged. “I bear them no malice for it,” he said. “They were frightened; they thought I might have stolen those things they sought, and that danger would come of it.”
“They sent you into danger,” the dragon said.
“Yes, but—” The dwarves’ reasons now seemed like excuses, as he’d first thought. Even so he wanted no part of vengeance. “They did not force me; when I thought of Lin I wanted to go.”
“To save a friend.”
More than a friend, but he did not think the dragon would care for a correction. “Yes. And these dwarves were trying to make right what had gone wrong. They wanted to restore what was lost. I think they are honest, but too frightened—of you, I suppose—”
“Oh, yes, I am frightening…” The dragon rolled its head and inspected its own length. A cloud of steam gushed from its mouth, warm and moist, smelling of baked apples. “And so fear is their excuse, is that what you would say? But you… you were not frightened enough to give me what you were not sure was mine. Are you then braver than the rockbrethren?”
“No,” Ker said instantly. “I’m—I was scared. I am scared. But I had to do it anyway.”
“Hmmmm.” That vibrated in the rocks beneath their feet; the trees trembled. “So, you make no judgment against them for the harm they did to you, by loosing such dangers on you and your people, and then by striking you, and then by sending you into danger?”