Alice came awake suddenly, in the shocked where-am-I? awareness of a strange bed. The room was almost dark, with just a hint of light around the shutter, and the rattling of that shutter had wakened her. The weather had broken; she sensed a strong wind gusting outside and the dampness of rain. Unfamiliar scents of spice or potpourri added to the strangeness, and someone very close to her ear was breathing in a measured half-snoring rhythm. There was a man in her bed.
Then her memory awoke also and began supplying answers. She was in Boydlar Rancher's house in Jurgslope, the foothills of Jurgwall, and the man on the other side of the bolster was Jumbo Watson. Valian peasantry were always willing to offer hospitality to wayfarers, and Jumbo was not above using his charisma to obtain the best. The best in this case was Boydlar's own feather bed, for although Boydlar had a large rambling house, he had an even larger rambling' family to fill it. Jumbo, always the gentleman, had announced that he would roll up in a blanket on the floor. Alice had told him to put the blanket between them, and she would trust him to behave himself. So here she was, bundling with a man she had met only a week ago.
Her affair with Terry had gone even faster, but that had been a wartime emergency. Jumbo Watson was not a terrified, doomed boy. Gentleman or not, he had taken more than his share of the covers. She pulled gently. He snorted, but in a moment he was snuffling regularly again.
Boards creaked overhead. Something mooed or lowed in the distance. The Boydlar family would be astir at dawn, she supposed, but there was no reason why she should not go back to sleep for an hour or so.
A week ago she had been hiding in her hermitage in the flats of Norfolk. Now she was roaming the ranges of another world on the back of a dragon. And loving it! Miss Pimm had been absolutely right. This impossible adventure had jolted Alice Pearson right out of her depression. If that rain she could smell was going to hang around—from the look of the clouds at sunset, Jumbo had predicted that it would—then future days might not be quite so much fun as the last few. But a little damp wouldn't kill her, whereas Norfolk might well have driven her loopy.
Jumbo rolled over. She could not have found a better guide or traveling companion than Jumbo. She wished she knew how old he was. He seemed about twenty-five and yet he told tales of Uncle Cam, who would be almost eighty if he were still alive. She wondered if Edward looked his age now. Trying to imagine the expression on his face when she turned up to meet him, Alice went back to sleep.
Breakfast was served in a huge, stone-flagged kitchen that could have belonged to any prosperous rural family in Europe. Kettles simmered on the great hob, metal pans hung gleaming on the walls, and the Rancher family swarmed in and out: husky workers, frail old crones, wet-mouthed toddlers. Things that looked like cats snuffled under the table like dogs. Boydlar's wife—named Ospita or Uspitha or thereabouts—was a red-faced, cloud-shaped woman, who seemed to be everywhere at once, tending children, dropping loaded platters on the table, pushing reluctant adolescents out the door to attend to chores, and talking all the time very loudly, mostly to Jumbo.
Alice understood less than nothing of what was said. On the first night of their journey, Jumbo had tried to pass her off as his sister from Fithvale, which was a long way away. That ploy had not worked very well, because everyone in the Vales spoke at least a few words of Joalian. Since then she had been his sister who had been deprived of speech by a sickness, and whom he was taking to the temple of Padlopan in Niol to be healed. So Alice communicated in gestures and everyone was duly sympathetic.
Three children were chased out. Two more appeared, followed by Boydlar himself, all wet and pink from the weather, with his scanty hair hanging in streaks. Ospita made a comment; he laughed and riposted, setting his listeners laughing louder. It was an idyllic scene of rural domesticity. Whatever the evils of the Pentatheon, this section of the Valian peasantry seemed happy and prosperous, and a great deal healthier than any working-class family back in England's city slums. No world wars troubled them, no clamoring traffic or industrial strikes. If she had to spend the rest of her days in rural solitude, she would prefer the Vales to Norfolk.
The food she had been given was delicious, even if it did seem to be the illegitimate offspring of an omelette and a meat pie. It was also four times as much as she could eat. While she was forcing down a few last mouthfuls in an effort not to insult her hostess too much, there came a stamping of boots outside. The door flew open to admit a swirl of wind and rain, plus a tallish young man in a leather cloak and hat. The usual jovial greetings flowed to and fro. Then he removed his hat, shaking the rain from it.
Alice realized she was staring and looked down at her food hastily, only to discover that her appetite had gone completely. The unintelligible conversation eddied around her without pause, so her rudeness had either not been noticed or was being ignored. The newcomer seemed to be conveying some news to Jumbo, speaking in a slurred gabble. Her eyes kept stealing furtive glances. She should have known that every Eden had its serpents—the young man was missing half his face, his left arm, and most of his shoulder too. In a nightmare leer, his mouth reached back to where his ear should have been, showing teeth and parts of his skull. The injury was not recent, but it was very horrible. Not high explosives, not machinery . . . The only explanation she could imagine was some sort of wild beast, some monster like the bears and wolves that Europe had killed off centuries ago.
What you gain on the swings, you lose on the roundabouts.
* * *
Clouds had settled in around the Boydlar house, reducing the ranch buildings to faint ghosts and the scenery to nothing at all. The rain was a steady fine drizzle but not as cold as it looked. Migraine and Apocalypse, who preferred their water solid, were belching and burping in disgust. They set off at a moderate run, but a mile or so along the trail, as soon as they were safely out of sight of their former hosts, Jumbo called a halt for talk.
"You going to be warm enough?"
"I shall be both warm and dry," Alice assured him from within her voluminous furs. "I cannot guarantee that I shall not smell abominably, though."
He laughed. "A hazard of the road, my lady! That one-armed chappie was Ospita's nephew, and he brought news. Your cousin was in Niolvale two days ago, with a large following. Thought to be heading for Lospass."
Alice released a long breath. She was surprised how welcome that news was, how much she had secretly dreaded news of another kind. "Then we should meet up with him tomorrow?"
"We should meet up with him this afternoon, I'd say. Jurgvale's quite narrow. Yes, easily."
"Good!" Nevertheless, Alice wondered how Edward was going to react. She would have to explain right away that she had not come to meddle.
Jumbo was eying her quizzically. He must guess what she was thinking. "Right oh? Ready to zomph?"
"Yes . . . no. One thing. What happened to that poor boy?"
"Which—Oh, Korilar? From the look of him, I'd say he'd had a very narrow escape from a mithiar."
"What's a mithiar?"
"Well, that's the Joalian name. Don't know the local term." Jumbo pulled a face. "If you can imagine a ten-stone tarantula, or a black panther with saber teeth and six legs, you'll be getting close. We call them jugulars. They attack on sight—grab you with their claws and tear you to bits."
Alice glanced around at the fog. "You never mentioned those before, Mr. Watson."
"They're not very common," he said solemnly. "I've never spoken with a man who's met one, except possibly Korilar just now."
She distrusted the twinkle in his eye. "I can guess why not. Have you spoken with people who met one later?" She realized she was inviting him to display his humor. Jumbo had a very good sense of humor and knew it. The fastest way to a man's heart was always through his vanity, but why was she playing up to him like this? She had caught herself at it several times yesterday.
"Of course. Seriously, you don't see jugulars very often—and never for long."
"Only when they spring at you?"
"No, only when they spring at other people!" Jumbo laughed and shouted to the dragons to zomph.