Page 58 of Time's Fool

She did not grab the variety of broomsticks that were also shoved into the little cleft, and which Kit raised an eyebrow at.

“To getaway quickly, should the need arise,” she explained, making him feel not a whit less conflicted.

But she only plopped down, as fearlessly as if on the edge of a stream, and laughed at him again. And pulled him down onto the cushions beside her, which were more comfortable than they looked. Kit nonetheless found himself clutching the stone below him with a grip hard enough to eat into it slightly.

“I’m wearing scarlet,” he reminded her, when she raised an eyebrow. “Which must be visible to a blind man against the gray stone of these cliffs. Should one of those things see—”

She shook her head. “They won’t. There’s a spell bubble over this area, making it look like just another part of the rock. You’re safer here than up top, where there’s nothing to hide you.”

Kit thought about that. And about the once in a lifetime chance that he had before him. And about the woman at his side, who had given it to him.

He slowly relaxed back against the stone.

“But if you need something to fortify your will . . .” Gillian said, and produced a flask.

Kit eyed it unhappily, as it smelled like the purple liquor of death that the little men had been making. But he took it anyway. And, yes, he thought, gasping a moment later, same stuff.

“They should distill it,” he told her, handing it back. “Might give it a kick.”

She grinned saucily at him and took a swig. It had no apparent effect. Other than to flush her already rosy cheeks a bit more.

“You’re not human,” he said, and she snuggled up against him, her, soft, warm body a contrast to the cold stone.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“T’was meant as one.” Kit put his arm around her, and marveled at how well she fit. As if she’d always been meant to go there, with the hollow fashioned just for her. He tucked his singed cloak about them both, and the little ledge almost turned cozy.

“They look like great birds, don’t you think?” she asked, after a moment, watching the gamboling dragons.

“They do not look like birds.”

She laughed. “No, I suppose not.”

Kit wasn’t sure what they looked like. Except for a childhood dream come true, as he had been fascinated by dragons his whole life. He had grown up across the street from a cathedral decorated with them, both in its stonework and in the depictions that showed up in the margins of its stained glass. He drank in a pub named after them, where a creaky old metal sign swung outside, showing a green variety that in no way matched the reality. And he served a queen with a dragon as one of her heraldic symbols.

He’d even authored a play about a man who had sold his soul to the devil for superhuman privileges, one of which was dragon riding. Faustus had been a fool, but damned if that perk couldn’t have tempted a saint. And Kit had never claimed to be one of those.

“I don’t think riding dragons is something that one does,” Gillian said, when he told her. “Not and live to tell about it.”

“No, I suppose not.” Kit couldn’t keep a slight wistfulness out of his voice. The real thing was far beyond his imaginings: beautiful, graceful, and savage beyond belief. And like a madman, it only made him want to get closer.

“There was an old farmer,” he told her, after a moment. “Years ago, when I was a boy. He’d come into the family’s shop to pick up a pair of boots that he’d left for repair. I wasn’t apprenticed to my father; I was already in school. But I knew enough to hand out finished jobs and take the money. And to listen to people talk, especially those who lived too far out to come into town very often.

“He was one such, acting as if all the words he couldn’t say had pent up in him during those weeks or months, until he was fair bursting with them. I didn’t mind. It was a slow day, and I had nothing better to do. Particularly when he saw another pair of boots, a special order from a young buck who’d asked for a dragon to be embossed on the sides, and decided that he had a story to tell.”

“About a dragon?” Gillian looked skeptical, but Kit nodded.

“He told me that, when he was my age, some locals had found the skeleton of such a beast whilst working in a quarry. They’d chipped away at a boulder until half of the cliffside suddenly fell away. And there it was, clear as day, like something out of legend. Said you could see every rib, even the great bones of the tail.”

“Why have I never heard of this?” Gillian asked, her brow wrinkling. “I would think it would be newsworthy enough!”

“It would have been, had they told anyone. But after they gaped at it for a while, they decided to cover it back up with a landslide and speak of it no more. Afraid that it would curse them if they disturbed it.

“I looked where the man had said it was, or thereabouts, as many years had passed by then and his memory was hazy. Yet the spot eluded me. I had almost decided that he was a liar, or merely trying to amuse a young, bored boy with some outlandish tale. But then I found something, years later, on that same walk—”

“The skeleton?” She sat up abruptly.

“No, better.” He pulled the item in question out of his neckline, strung on a fine gold chain. He’d had it encased in a frame of gold, too, some years ago, so as not to further damage it. As a result, the image remained worn and scratched, as it had been when he’d first seen it, but identifiable.

---