With a casualness I didn't feel, I observed, “I didn't sleep well last night. Bad dreams. But doubtless you had Nettle for company, and soothing dreams to welcome you.”

“Nah.” He pulled off his mitten to scratch his nose, and then spent a few moments putting it back on. “Bad dreams were everywhere last night,” he observed darkly. “Nettle couldn't change them. When I called her, she just told me, ‘Come away from there, don't look at that.' But I couldn't, because they were everywhere. I walked and walked and walked through the snow, but the dreams just kept coming up to me and looking at me.” He took off his mitten and poked thoughtfully at his nose. “One had maggots in his nose. Like boogies, but wriggly. It made me think I had maggots in my nose.”

“No, Thick, your nose is fine. Don't think about it. Come, let's walk around and see what everyone else is doing.”

We were among the first to be ready to depart. I was anxious to be on the move, for the clear sky had filled with low clouds. The wind was damp, and the prospect of either snow or rain was daunting to me. The others seemed to be taking a very long time to get ready, even though Peottre prowled through the camp casting anxious looks at the sky and beseeching us to get an early start. Thick began to complain of being too tired to hike and too bound up with layers of clothing. To distract him, I took him with me to watch the Fool take down his tent. Swift was already there, helping him. The lad's pack, quiver, and bow were neatly stacked to one side as he followed the Fool's instructions for dismantling the wooden poles that had supported the tent's airy fabric. I noted in passing that the peculiar arrow I had seen him holding the day before was now in his quiver.

The tent collapsed swiftly. The poles disassembled into pieces no longer than a good arrow. I had thought his little oil pot for his fire was heavy clay, but when I picked it up out of curiosity, it felt light and almost porous. The airy coverlets crushed down into a bundle the size of a small cushion. When all had been stowed, the Fool's pack was sizable and probably heavier than mine, even with Thick's belongings in it. Nevertheless, he shouldered into its harness and hefted it onto his back without a grunt. Never before had I seen a camp so neatly and swiftly stowed, and my admiration for Elderling skill at devising such things increased.

“The Elderlings made such marvelous things, and then they vanished. I've always wondered what made an end of them.” I was not trying to start a conversation so much as distract Thick. He was rubbing at his nose again.

“When the dragons perished, the Elderlings perished with them. The one could not exist without the other.” The Fool spoke as if he observed that leaves were green and the sky blue, as if that were a fact everyone accepted.

Before I could comment on that astonishing statement, Thick dropped his hand from his nose and asked, “What's an Elderling?”

“No one really knows,” I told him, and then the look on the Fool's face stopped me. He looked as if he would burst with it if I didn't give him a chance to tell. I wondered when he had acquired the knowledge and why he chose now to share it. Swift, sensing excitement, drew closer.

“The Elderlings were an old people, Thick. Old not just in how long ago they prospered, but old in how many years they numbered to a life. I suspect that for some of them, memory reached back beyond even the long spans of their own lives, back into the lives of their forebears.”

Thick's brow was furrowed as he endeavored to understand. Swift was already enraptured in the tale. I interrupted. “Do you know these things, or do you guess?”

He pondered this for a moment. “I am as sure of these things as I can be, without either an Elderling or a dragon to consult.”

Now it was my turn to look puzzled. “A dragon? Why would you consult a dragon about the Elderlings?”

“They are . . . intertwined.” The Fool appeared to choose his word carefully. “In all I have read or heard, we never find one without the other. It seems that they create one another, or are necessary to one another's being somehow. I cannot explain it, I can only observe it.”

“So, if you succeed in bringing back the dragons, you restore the Elderlings as well?” I asked recklessly.

“Perhaps.” He smiled uncertainly. “I don't know. But I do not think it would be an evil thing if that happened.”

And that was as much talk as we had time for. Peottre had returned and he wanted us on the move as swiftly as possible. The Prince called for Thick, and we hurried to him. Chade sent me a brief scowl. What was that long conversation about?