Malta was outraged instantly. “Reyn, we are talking about my father. I cannot wait for my mother to talk to your mother. If he is to be rescued, we must act now.”

He felt emasculated. “Malta. I have no power to help you directly. I am a younger son, with three older siblings.”

She stamped her foot angrily. “I don't believe you. If you care for me at all, you will help me.”

She sounded just like the dragon, he thought in sudden dismay.

It was a dangerous thought to have in a dream-box setting. The earth suddenly trembled under their feet. A second, harder shudder followed the first. Malta clutched at a tree to keep from falling. “What was that?” she demanded.

“An earthquake,” he replied calmly. They were common enough in Trehaug. The suspended city swayed with the living trees that supported it and took little harm. The quakes, however, often did great damage to the excavation work. He wondered if this were a real earthquake pushing its way into the dream, or an imagined one.

“I know what a quake is.” Malta sounded annoyed with him. “The whole Cursed Shore is prey to them. I meant that sound.”

“Sound?” he asked uneasily.

“Like scrabbling and scratching. Don't you hear it?”

He heard it all the time. Waking and sleeping, the sound of the dragon's claws working feebly against its tomb haunted him. “You can hear it, too?” He was astounded. He had learned to ignore what he had always been told was his imagination.

Before he could reply, everything began to change. The colors of the forest suddenly grew bright and new. There was a strong fragrance of ripening fruit on the warm breeze. The texture of the mosses underfoot became coarser, while the path suddenly sparkled in sunlight. The blue of the sky deepened. This was no longer Reyn's memory of a tapestry. Someone else was adding to the dream-box vision, and he did not think it was Malta.

When thunderclouds began to boil up along the horizon, he was certain of it. He glanced up fearfully as the rising winds sent ripe fruit plummeting from the trees. One spattered into seeds and pulp right by Malta's feet. The rich smell of its spilled nectar was decadent.

“Malta. We should part now. Tell your mother that . . .”

Lightning cracked the sky overhead. Thunder followed instantaneously. Reyn felt his hair stand on end and a peculiar smell rode the wind. Malta cowered low and pointed wordlessly up at the sky. The erratic winds lashed her hair wildly and pressed her nightdress up against her body.

A dragon hovered above the trees. The powerful beat of her wings spurred the winds. Even the cloud-dimmed light of the sun could not diminish her glory. She was iridescent. Colors chased one another over her silver body and wings. Her eyes were copper. “I have the power,” she declared. Her voice split the sky. The branch of a nearby tree cracked and fell heavily to the earth. “Free me and I will aid you. I promise you this.” Her wings lifted her to the sky where she turned a slow, dazzling loop. Her long serpentine tail lashed the sky behind her.

Rain began suddenly to fall, a torrent that drenched the humans. Malta fled shivering to the shelter of Reyn's arms and cloak. He put his arm around her. Even in the shadow of the hovering dragon, he was aware of the warmth of her skin through the damp cloth of her nightdress. From beneath his cloak, Malta squinted up at the beast. “Who are you?” she cried loudly. “What do you want?”

The dragon threw back her head and roared her laughter. She swept past them and rose again into the sky. “Who am I? Do I look so foolish as to gift you with my name? No. You will not come to control me that way. As to what I want ... a trade. My freedom, in exchange for this ship you mention, and if your father is still aboard it, his life. What say you? An easy trade, is it not? A life for a life?”

Malta looked to Reyn. “Is she real? Can she help us?”

Reyn stared up at the dragon above them. She beat her wings heavily as she rose into the storm-torn sky. Up and up she rose, growing smaller with distance. She shone like a star against the dark gray clouds. “She's real. But she can't help us.”

“Why not? She is immense! She can fly! Couldn't she just go to where the ship is and . . .”

“And what? Destroy the ship to kill the pirates? Possibly, if you truly thought that was wise. Possibly, if she were truly free and flying. But she isn't. She is only showing herself to us, in this dream, as she imagines herself to be.”

“How is she really?”

Reyn abruptly realized how close he had come to a very dangerous topic. “She's trapped, far beneath the earth, where no one can free her.” He took her arm and hurried her down the path, to where he had willed a sturdy little cottage into existence. He opened the door and Malta darted inside gratefully. He followed her, shutting the door behind them. A small fire illuminated the simple little room. Malta gathered up her hair in a bundle and squeezed the water from it. She turned back to him, raindrops still glistening on her face. The firelight danced in her eyes.