Three
The Fair Again
The fair was very different in the afternoon than it had been that morning. Intermittent clouds hid the sun and the air that had been crisp and invigorating in the morning was now chill and damp. Even the mud seemed deeper.
All of which could have been her imagination, Moira admitted, but there were other changes which clearly were not.
The crowds of gawkers were gone, leaving only the fair workers, merchants and here and there a knot of guardsmen, armed and alert. There was less shouting and no laughter as people struggled to get their goods unloaded and their tents up.
None of which mattered to the children. Ian and Caitlin went whooping and shouting among the booths, avoiding most of the uninteresting mud puddles and seeming to be everywhere at once. Fluffy trotted along with them, head high like a show dog in the ring. Shauna puffed along behind, calling out admonishments and generally trying to keep them under control. June floated along near Ian, close and silent as always.
It would have been a perfectly normal scene, Moira thought, if June didn’t keep one hand always on her knife.
She dug Jerry in the ribs with her elbow. “Smile,” she commanded out of the side of her mouth. Then, putting on her best beauty-pageant smile, she and Jerry began to stroll among the booths. Moira paused frequently to admire goods on display or to chat with someone she knew. Jerry contented himself with smiling until his jaw ached and responding to any pleasantries directed to him.
Ian and Caitlin were disappointed at the pace, especially since June and Shauna would not let them get too far ahead of the others. Still they managed to find all sorts of interesting things to look at and interesting questions to ask. They even cajoled a chestnut vendor into blowing up his fire to roast some nuts for them.
They had gone perhaps halfway down the main aisle when Shamus, the captain of the castle’s guards, separated himself from a knot of his men and came over to greet them.
“A pleasure to see you, My Lady,” he said loudly as he smiled and bowed. His eyes never stopped moving.
Moira nodded to the guard captain. “Good afternoon, Shamus,” she said equally loudly. “Oh, I would not have missed it.”
The guardsman took her hand as if to kiss it and used that as an excuse to move closer.
“Thanks for coming,” he muttered. “The whole place is nervous as a bunch of half-wild dragons. Want an escort?”
Moira dimpled as if she had been paid a compliment. “It would ruin the effect,” she said without moving her lips.
Shamus bowed as if taking his leave. “Need anything, just sing out.” With that he turned and strolled away as if he had not a care in the world. Moira noticed his sword was loose in its sheath.
What with one thing and another it took them the better part of two hours to tour the fairgrounds. Moira stopped and chatted with everyone she knew even casually and Jerry thought he’d never get his jaw unclenched. Even when Fluffy knocked over a pile of baskets with a careless twitch of his tail, Moira managed to turn the gaffe into a social triumph, getting down on her knees to help the stall owner gather up her spilled merchandise and talking gaily all the while.
By the time the group turned back toward the castle the mood in the fairgrounds had lightened perceptibly. Ian had fallen asleep on Shauna’s shoulder with Fluffy s leash still clutched tight in his fist. Caitlin was chattering away, but she was content to walk alongside her mother instead of scampering everywhere.
The older members of the party were doing no better.
“My feet hurt,” Jerry said as they picked their way up the muddy main aisle back toward the town gate.
Moira smiled at him. “It was in a good cause, My Lord. Thank you for coming.”
Something in the way she said it made Jerry look at her more closely. “You’re really wiped, aren’t you?”
A vagrant breeze drew a lock of coppery hair over the hedge witch’s cheek, emphasizing the paleness of her skin. “I am rather tired, but very content.” She sighed.
“You’d better rest up tonight if you want to be in shape for the ceremony tomorrow.”
The breeze turned suddenly chilly and Moira shivered and drew her green wool cloak closer around her. “I will,” she promised. “Just now nothing sounds so good as a hot bath and a warm bed.”
“Momma, I’m cold.” Caitlin pressed herself closer to Shauna.
“That’s what you get for not wearing so much as a cloak, like I told you to.” Then she hugged her daughter close against the cold wind. “Never you mind. We’ll be home soon enough.”
Jerry shivered and pulled his cloak tighter. “I wish I’d brought something heavier. This wind’s picking up.”
Even Fluffy seemed to notice the wind. The dragon lowered his neck and turned his head to shelter from the full force behind Shauna’s bulk. Ian stirred and whimpered on Shauna’s shoulder.
Moira looked at the tents beginning to flap against their ropes and squinted her eyes against the sting of windborne dirt. “Perhaps we had better rest a few minutes inside the city gate,” she said. “I think I need to sit down.”
Jerry raised his voice to be heard over the wind. “We’re only halfway there. Want to rest in one of the pavilions?”
“Let us go on. It is only a few hundred paces.”
They had reached the spot in the center of the fairgrounds where the main ways crossed. Here the aisles widened out into an impromptu square and the wind tore at them as they stepped out of the relative shelter of the narrower ways.
It tore and howled at them, kicking up dirt and debris until they could hardly see the far side of the square. The wind moaned through the tent ropes and made the canvas boom until it sounded like a chorus of lost souls. Jerry put his head down and pushed forward against the wind, clutching Moira’s arm to help her along.
He felt Moira stiffen and slow in spite of his efforts to help her along. “Jerry . . .” she began, and he looked up.
There were things in the wind. At first Jerry thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but they seemed to grow darker and more solid as he watched. Then they were black clouds within a lighter cloud, indistinct forms that grew and writhed as they moved toward him.
They had no arms, but they seemed to reach out to clutch. They had no heads, but they seemed to fasten their attention on Jerry and Moira with the intentness of a hunting eagle. They had no mouths, but their voices seemed to call out for them, eagerly, hungrily. Moira whimpered and shrank back against Jerry’s shoulder as the things drew close.
Jerry stepped in front and threw up his hands in a warding spell. A foggy tentacle lashed out to touch him and he collapsed like a sack of meal.
In the excitement, Ian dropped Fluffy’s leash. With a wheep of dragonish rage the young dragon lumbered into the fray, tail lashing left and right, upsetting tables and knocking down a pavilion. He snapped at the cloud things but his jaws closed on nothing at all with the sound of a rifle shot.
“Wiz!” Moira screamed.
And Wiz was there. Cloakless, hatless, bootless, his wizard’s staff clutched before him in both hands. He looked around wide-eyed, then leaped over his friend’s prostrate body to put himself between the shadows and Moira, but he did not let the things touch him. Instead he raised his staff, shouting a magic word as he did so.
Wiz swung his staff overhead in a mighty bash. There was an eye-searing burst of purple fire as magic met magic and an ear-piercing peal of thunder as the thing disintegrated. Without hesitating he lashed out again and another monster disappeared with the same flash and roar. Again and again Wiz laid about him at the encircling fog things. Behind him Bal-Simba popped into the square.
With an inarticulate roar the big wizard charged into the battle. Behind him wizard after wizard popped into existence as the Mighty of the North rallied to protect their own. The square echoed and flashed with the blasts of magic.
Wiz tried to reach Moira but Fluffy was in his way. So he put his back against the dragon and struck out furiously at the things in the whirlwind.
And then it was over.
As suddenly as they had come the things were gone. The wind dropped to nothing, the air cleared and only wizards and their allies were left in the open space.
Wiz looked around. Two of the wizards rushed to where Jerry lay senseless on the ground. The others stood or milled around, alert for their enemy. Pressed up against the tents, Shauna stood with Ian and Caitlin gathered behind her skirts. June stood next to her, knife drawn, nostrils flared, and showing white all the way around her pupils like a frightened animal. She only relaxed when Danny rushed to her side.
The only person Wiz couldn’t see was the person he wanted to see most.
“Moira?” Wiz called. “Moira!”
“Here darling.”
Wiz turned to the sound of the voice, but Moira wasn’t there. Only Fluffy, leaning drunkenly against a post.
“Moira?” Wiz looked around wildly.
“I feel funny,” came Moira’s voice again. “So dizzy.”
Wiz’s jaw dropped. The voice was coming from Flurry, the little red dragon.
“Oh my God!”