“I’m fine!” Dumery repeated.
“Well, I’ll let you tell her that, then.” Thetheran stepped aside, and Dumery saw that the door of the shop on Wizard Street led into the front hall of his home in Shiphaven. “Go on in, she’s waiting,” Thetheran urged him.
Reluctantly, Dumery obeyed; he stepped into the corridor, and Faléa emerged from the parlor to greet him.
“Dumery!” she said. “Is it really you?”
“It’s me,” Dumery said a little doubtfully, “but is that you?”
“Of course it is!” Faléa replied. “Or at least... I don’t know. I don’t understand all this magic. It doesn’t matter. All that matters-Dumery, where are you?”
“I’m on a cattle barge,” Dumery said.
“A what?”
“A cattle barge,” he explained. “You know, a big flat-bottomed boat with a lot of cows and steers on it.”
“What are you doingthere?” Faléa demanded.
“Well...” Dumery wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. For one thing, he wasn’t entirely certain whether he was talking to his mother, or Thetheran, or himself. He knew he was dreaming, but he didn’t know any way to be sure that it was a magical dream sent by the wizard and not just his own imagination running amok.
And if it was really a magical sending, did that mean that he was talking to his mother, or to Thetheran? He had no idea how such things worked.
“I’m going to be an apprentice,” he said.
His mother blinked at him, startled.
“On a cattle barge?” she asked.
“Well, that’s how I’m getting there. I met a man in Westgate Market, and arranged to meet him in Sardiron, and I didn’t have time to tell you before I had to leave.”
The possibility that Thetheran had some mystical means of telling truth from falsehood in this dream occurred to him, a trifle belatedly. If the wizarddid have such a spell...
Well, he wouldn’t worry about that.
“What kind of an apprenticeship?” Faléa asked.
Dumery hesitated. “Well, dealing in exotic goods, mostly,” he said.
“You need to go toSardiron for that? Couldn’t your father have found you something here in Ethshar?”
“I wanted to do it on my own!” Dumery burst out.
“Oh,” his mother said. “Oh, well, I suppose...” Her voice trailed off, but then she gathered her wits and said, “You be careful! Are you safe? Is everything all right? You tell me about this man!”
Dumery sighed. “I’m fine, Mother,” he said. “Really, I am. I’m perfectly safe. I didn’t have the fare for the fancy riverboat, so I’m working my way north on a cattle barge, and the crewmen are treating me well, and I have plenty to eat and a good place to sleep.” This was not, perhaps, the exact and literal truth, but it was close enough. “I’m going to meet this man in Sardiron and sign on as his apprentice, and I’ll send you a letter telling you all about it as soon as I can.”
“What man?” Faléa demanded. “Who is he? What’s his name? Where did you meet him?”
“He didn’t tell me his name-he said he wanted to keep it a secret until I’d earned it.” Dumery had considered making up a name, but had caught himself at the last moment; if and when he reallydid sign up as the dragon-hunter’s apprentice, he didn’t want to have an awkward lie to explain. He continued, “I met him at the Dragon’s Tail, and he offered me an apprenticeship if I could prove myself by meeting him on... on the Blue Docks in Sardiron of the Waters in a sixnight.”
Dumery hoped that this impromptu lie would hold up-he had no idea if therewere any “Blue Docks” in Sardiron, or whether his mother would know one way or the other. As far as he knew, she had never been to Sardiron-but he was a bit startled to realize that he didn’t really know much of anything about her past, even though she was his own mother.Had she ever been to Sardiron?
Either she hadn’t, or there really was such a place as the Blue Docks, because she was somewhat mollified by his tale.
“All right,” she said, “but you be careful, and take care of yourself!”
She turned, and was gone; her abrupt disappearance reminded Dumery that this was all a dream.
He looked about, wondering what would happen next, and as he did Thetheran stepped out of nowhere.
The mage told Dumery, “Well, lad, I’ve done what your parents paid me to do, so I’ll let you get on with your regular night’s sleep now. In case you aren’t sure this dream is really a wizard’s sending-well, I can’t give you any proof, but I think you’ll find you’ll remember it more easily and more clearly than a natural dream. I hope that you’ll send a letter if and when you can, and save your parents the expense of doing this again-I don’t particularly enjoy staying up this late working complicated spells just to talk to an inconsiderate young man who runs off without any warning. Good night, Dumery of Shiphaven, and I hope your other dreams will be pleasant.”
Then the mage’s image popped like a soap bubble and vanished, taking with it the corridor and everything else, and Dumery woke up, to find himself staring stupidly at the hind end of a steer, faintly visible in the diffuse light from the watch-lantern on the foredeck.
Chapter Fourteen
Faléa stared at the packed dirt of the street as she walked, shading her eyes from the morning sun. “I don’t like it,” she said.
“Don’t like what?” Doran asked. “Arena Street?”
“No,” Faléa replied, without rancor. “I don’t like it that Dumery’s on that barge-if that’s really where he is.”
“That’s where hesaid he was,” Doran pointed out. “Why would he lie?”
“That was where thedream said he was, anyway.”
Doran looked at his wife, puzzled. “Do you think the wizard was trying to trick you? That there was something wrong with the dream?”
“No,” Faléa said. “Or maybe. Or... I don’t know. I just don’t like it.”
“Well,” Doran said, trying to sound determined and cheerful, as if everything was satisfactorily settled, “I can’t say I do, either, but if that’s what Dumery wants to do...”
“Butis it?” Faléa asked. “There’s something wrong here. That man he says he met-whowas that? Why would he arrange to meet Dumery in Sardiron, instead of accompanying him along the way?”
“I don’t know,” Doran said. “I suppose to see if the boy can follow instructions and handle himself alone.”
“But it’s dangerous,” Faléa said. “And making the boy do something like that before even starting an apprenticeship, isn’t that awfully severe?”
“Well, yes,” Doran admitted. “I’d have to say it is.”
“And this place he’s meeting him in Sardiron, what’s it like? Is it safe? Maybe if we knew more about it...”
“Well, then, what did the boy say about it? You didn’t mention that. I’ve been to Sardiron-remember, when you were pregnant with Derath, and I didn’t want to be away too long, so instead of the regular run to Tintallion I went up the river to Sardiron, and it took just as long as Tintallion would have, and I didn’t get back until two days before he was born?”
“I remember that,” Faléa agreed. “Was that Sardiron? I thought it was Shan.”
“No, it was Sardiron. Strange place. Cold. Very damp.”
“Oh. Do you know the Blue Docks, then?”
“Blue Docks?” Doran puzzled for a moment, then abruptly stopped walking.
Startled, Faléa stopped, as well.
“There aren’t any ’Blue Docks’ in Sardiron of the Waters,” Doran told her.