Alys Clare - Land of the Silver Dragon

Morcar! So he hadn’t yet left Aelf Fen.

Despite the fact that I was already prepared to believe in Hrype’s shielding powers — Gurdyman had a very persuasive way with him — all the same, it was good to know that Edild had a flesh-and-blood protector too.

In the morning, I woke refreshed and ready to work. Gurdyman had retired to his crypt the previous evening, and I knew he would be down there all night. He tells me he does sleep — he has a cot and blankets always set ready — but I have my doubts. He has a capacity for concentration that astounds me, and is able to keep going, without a break for food, drink or rest, for a length of time that one would have thought unendurable.

He had instructed me to come and find him when I was up, dressed and fed, and accordingly, once I had tidied away the remains of my breakfast, I trotted off through the house, heading towards the door that opens on to the alley, and, just before it on the left, the twisting passage leading to the steps down to the crypt.

The passage wasn’t there. Where the arched entrance normally was, I found myself face to face with a blank wall. I stopped in amazement, totally confounded. Stupidly I put my hands up, feeling along the stonework, as if my fingers could find what my eyes could not see. What had happened? Where was the passage? Oh, dear Lord, where was Gurdyman? Had he somehow walled himself up in his crypt, destined to remain in that dark, deep, windowless place till he slowly starved to death?

I banged against the wall, fighting panic, listening for the hollow sound that would indicate an empty space on the far side. Nothing. I banged again, feeling a frantic sob rise in my throat. I drew a deep breath, preparing to shout, to scream.

There was a sharp click, and as if by magic the outline of a door appeared in the stones. The door opened, and Gurdyman’s smiling face came into view. He swung the door fully open, pinning it back somehow so that it was no longer visible. He had put it, I guessed, in its usual position. Observant as I pride myself on being, I had never noticed it before.

He must have seen that I’d been alarmed, which is putting it mildly. He said, his face straightening, ‘I’m sorry, child. I did not mean to frighten you.’ His smile crept back. ‘Did you think I had performed some powerful magic, Lassair? Some spell that made a door, doorway and passage vanish as if they had never been?’

Since it was exactly what I had thought, I made no reply.

He took pity on me, emerging from the arch of the doorway and coming to stand beside me. ‘Magic spells can achieve many things, child,’ he said gently. ‘Making doorways disappear as if they had never been is not one of them, or, if it is, it’s magic beyond anything I have ever heard of.’ He patted me on the shoulder. ‘You’re quite pale,’ he observed. ‘You really were frightened, weren’t you?’

I wondered if I should tell him the truth, and decided there was no reason not to. ‘I thought you’d somehow shut yourself in down there, with no means of escape,’ I muttered. ‘I was terrified because I thought it was up to me to get you out, and I had no idea how to do it.’

There was dead silence. Then he said, ‘It would have distressed you, then, if old Gurdyman had carelessly managed to bring about his own demise?’

He was trying not to smile, but I saw no humour whatsoever in the situation. Rounding on him, tears pricking behind my eyelids, I cried, ‘ Of course it would have distressed me! I really, really like you!’

It was a silly thing to say; the sort of thing a child would blurt out. I was already framing an apology, but then I caught the fleeting expression in his blue eyes.

He was touched. Very touched.

I wondered how long it was since anyone had told him they cared for him.

We were both embarrassed now. He was the first to recover. Taking my arm, he stepped back into the entrance to the passage and said briskly, ‘See, child, how the door is fastened, flat against the wall? You don’t notice it unless you know it’s there.’ He undid the restraint, closing the door again, with us on the crypt side. ‘Now, from the other side it is as you just saw it: invisible. It is made of stout, thick oak, as you can see, and its outer side is covered with a thin facing of the same stones that form the wall. It blends in , do you see? And it can only be opened from this side.’ He demonstrated.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘I can see how very effective it is, but why is it necessary?’

He frowned in concentration, as if the answer to my question needed thought. Then he said, ‘Do you remember, Lassair, that I once told you this old house of mine holds many secrets?’ I nodded; it’s something not easy to forget, if you’re actually living in the house in question. ‘You will, I am sure, have noticed the peculiar layout.’

‘You mean the way the crypt isn’t actually beneath the house?’

‘Exactly,’ he said, beaming. ‘I thought you’d have spotted that,’ he muttered. ‘I cannot claim to have designed that feature myself,’ he went on, ‘for the house and its neighbours had stood here for many lifetimes before I took up residence. However, there came a moment when the opportunity arose for me to — ah — acquire the crypt beneath the house to our right — ’ he waved his arm to indicate — ‘and I did not hesitate. That dwelling was then temporarily vacant, and I was able to ensure it remained so while the modifications were carried out. My house, as you no doubt realize, fits in between its neighbours like a serpent weaving its way between rocks.’

It was not a description I liked — not for this house I’d come to love — and, besides, I was not primarily concerned with the how ; what I was still burning to know was why . ‘So, you created access to a secret crypt that can be totally hidden from within your house,’ I summarized. ‘For what purpose?’

He looked slightly impatient. ‘Why do you think, Lassair? You have been with me down there in the crypt; you have observed me working. Can you not see why it might be necessary to hide both the crypt and the work?’

I could; of course I could. ‘And also the wi- the person doing the work,’ I added quietly. I’d almost said wizard , but I wasn’t at all sure he’d like the epithet. Not on my lips, anyway, although I had heard him refer to himself thus, usually with a self-mocking smile.

‘Quite so,’ he murmured. He glanced at me, looked away and then met my eyes again. I guessed he was unsure about whether to say what was on his mind. Eventually he did. ‘There have been times when I have offended people,’ he said, with obvious reluctance. ‘On occasions, men of power have resented my … er, things I have done.’ I opened my mouth to ask what sort of things, but he hurried on, not allowing me to speak. ‘It has proved useful, on more than one occasion, to have a safe place in which to hide while the storm wore itself out above me.’ Suddenly he grabbed my arm, turned me round, hurried me back along the passage and said, ‘But we have spent quite long enough on the secrets of my house, Lassair. It is time to get to work!’

Gurdyman never acts without a reason. It was only later that I wondered why he had chosen that particular morning to show me his house’s hiding place.

We settled in the little courtyard, sitting either side of a trestle table on which Gurdyman proceeded to spread a huge sheet of parchment. Fairly soon I recognized what was inscribed on it, although the work was a great deal more advanced than when I had seen it before. Now, the surface was covered in blocks of small, neat lettering and tiny, vivid pictures, illustrating dwellings, palaces, churches, trees, flowers, rivers, and even, on a big expanse covered with ripples that I assumed to be the sea, a ship with a square sail and an imaginative sea monster blowing a huge spout of water from its mouth.