فصل 10

10.

In Which a Witch Finds a Door, and a Memory, Too

Xan turned her back on the swamp and followed the trail up the slope, toward the crater where the volcano had opened its face to the sky so long ago. The trail had been fashioned with large, flat rocks, inlaid into the ground, and fitted so close to one another that the seam between them could hardly let in a piece of paper.

It had been years since Xan last walked this trail. Centuries, really. She shivered. Everything looked so different. And yet . . . not.

There had been a circle of stones in the courtyard of the castle, once upon a time. They had surrounded the central, older Tower like sentinels, and the castle had wrapped around the whole of it like a snake eating its tail. But the Tower was gone now (though Xan had no idea where) and the castle was rubble, and the stones had been toppled by the volcano, or swallowed up by the earthquake, or crumbled by fire and water and time. Now there was only one, and it was difficult to find. Tall grasses surrounded it like a thick curtain, and ivy clung to its face. Xan spent well over half a day just trying to find it, and once she did, it was a full hour of hard labor just to dislodge the lattice of persistent ivy.

When she got down to the stone itself, she was disappointed. There were words carved into the flat of the stone. A simple message on each side. Zosimos himself had carved it, long ago. He had carved it for her, when she was still a child.

“Don’t forget,” it said on one side of the stone.

“I mean it,” it said on the other.

Don’t forget what?

You mean what, Zosimos?

She wasn’t sure. Despite the spottiness of her memories, one thing she did remember was his tendency toward the obscure. And his assumption that because vague words and insinuations were clear enough for him, they must be perfectly comprehensible to all.

And after all these years, Xan remembered how annoying she had found it then.

“Confound that man,” she said.

She approached the stone and leaned her forehead against the deeply carved words, as if the stone might be Zosimos himself.

“Oh, Zosimos,” she said, feeling a surge of emotion that she hadn’t felt in nearly five centuries. “I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten. I didn’t mean to, but—”

The surge of magic hit her like a falling boulder, knocking her backward. She landed with a thud on her creaking hips. She stared at the stone, openmouthed.

The stone is enmagicked! she thought to herself. Of course!

And she looked up at the stone just as a seam appeared down the middle and the two sides swung inward, like great stone doors.

Not like stone doors, Xan thought. They are stone doors.

The shape of the stone still stood like a doorway against the blue sky, but the entrance itself opened into a very dim corridor where a set of stone steps disappeared into the dark.

And in a flash, Xan remembered that day. She was thirteen years old and terribly impressed with her own witchy cleverness. And her teacher—once so strong and powerful—was fading by the day.

“Be careful of your sorrow,” he had said. He was so old then. Impossibly old. He was all angles and bones and papery skin, like a cricket. “Your sorrow is dangerous. Don’t forget that she is still about.” And so Xan had swallowed her sorrow. And her memories, too. She buried both so deep that she would never find them. Or so she thought.

But now she remembered the castle—she remembered! Its crumbly strangeness. Its nonsensical corridors. And the people who lived in the castle—not just the wizards and scholars, but the cooks and scribes and assistants as well. She remembered how they scattered into the forest when the volcano erupted. She remembered how she put protective spells on each of them—well, each of them but one—and prayed to the stars that each spell would hold as they ran. She remembered how Zosimos hid the castle within each stone in the circle. Each stone was a door. “Same castle, different doors. Don’t forget. I mean it.”

“I won’t forget,” she said at thirteen.

“You will surely forget, Xan. Have you not met yourself?” He was so old then. How did he get so old? He had practically withered to dust. “But not to worry. I have built that into the spell. Now if you don’t mind, my dear. I have treasured knowing you, and lamented knowing you, and found myself laughing in spite of myself each day we were together. But that is all past now, and you and I must part. I have many thousands of people to protect from that blasted volcano, and I do hope you’ll make sure they are ever so thankful, won’t you dear?” He shook his head sadly. “What am I saying? Of course you won’t.” And he and the Simply Enormous Dragon disappeared into the smoke and plunged themselves into the heart of the mountain, stopping the eruption, forcing the volcano into a restless sleep.

And both were gone forever.

Xan never did anything to protect his memory, or to explain what he had done.

Indeed, within a year, she could barely remember him. It never occurred to her to find it strange—the part of her that would have found it strange was on the other side of the curtain. Lost in the fog.

She peered into the gloom of the hidden castle. Her old bones ached, and her mind raced.

Why had her memories hidden themselves from her? And why had Zosimos hidden the castle?

She didn’t know, but she was certain where she would find the answer. She knocked her staff against the ground three times, until it produced enough light to illuminate the dark. And she walked into the stone.