“After that, I was kept chained as a palace slave for five years. Camery was kept locked in the tower.
“But when Sivich learned that a dragon had been seen on Tirror, he decided to capture it, using me as bait. He knew I was a bard though I myself did not know. He saw the dragon mark on my arm. He thought the dragon would come to me. He built a gigantic cage of felled trees and barge chain and chained me inside it.”
The dwarfs had pushed close around Teb, to hear the tale.
“I escaped in the midst of battle between Sivich and the rebel leader, Ebis the Black. The dragon herself burned the chains that held me. A soldier pulled me up onto his horse, but his horse was shot and fell on us. The soldier was killed, my leg was broken, and I got a blow on the head.
“I lay in the marsh unconscious until two roving otters found me. They took me on a raft around the coast, to Nightpool. They set my leg and doctored me when I nearly died from fever. They were very patient, as patient as otters can be. I could remember nothing, not even my name.”
“They are good folk,” King Flam repeated. “I imagine they taught you many of their ways.”
“They taught me to dive deep and long and bring up abalone,” Teb said, smiling. “They taught me many secrets of the sea and many ways that I value.
“They taught me to eat raw fish, too,” he said, laughing. “Your roasting rabbit smells better.” He took the weight of the gruel pot from a dwarf and looked around the cave. “There is a strength in this cave, King Flam. A sense of protection and peace.”
King Flam nodded. “There are three sanctuaries on this continent, Prince Tebriel. This one is Mund-Ardref.”
Once, before the dark unliving invaded Tirror, the cave sanctuaries had been meeting places that brought humans and dwarfs and the speaking animals together in an easy, loving companionship. On the walls of many of the sanctuaries were pictures of the speaking foxes and otters and wolves, the great cats and the speaking owls, and the unicorns—for unicorns had roamed Tirror then, practicing a gentle, healing magic. The dark had driven them all out. It had destroyed the comradery of the sanctuaries and disrupted the nations of speaking animals, so that they hid themselves. Humans had grown sour and afraid, and some had grown obedient to the dark.
There were no pictures in Mund-Ardref, but the walls were carved into shelves crowded with clay bowls and jugs, and into alcoves that held small beds cozy with bright weavings and thick blankets and pillows. The tables and stools were simply made, from stone. It was a comfortable place.
But it was the ceiling that interested Teb. The cave’s ceiling curved upward and caught the firelight in a deep metallic glow shot with streaks like silver.
“The roof is iron,” King Flam said. “You puzzle over it, and rightly. It is not iron of our world, Prince Tebriel, but comes from some world none of us has ever seen. It is iron that fell into this mountain, crashing down out of the sky thousands of years ago.”
Teb’s mind touched the knowledge. All history was a part of the bard knowledge, though some was muddled, now, by the dark’s powers. He tried very hard, rejecting visions, seeking others, until he could see the world of Tirror before there was life on it. It was a mass of molten stone, with the fires of other worlds blasting into it. He saw a fireball fall onto the mountains of Yoorthed and lodge there. He could see the cave that washed out beneath the iron over centuries.
“The iron has power,” King Flam said. “It keeps the dark from us; they do not enter here. We have—”
Marshy’s cry stopped the king short.
The dragonling had begun to paw the air. Her eyelids moved. Her nostrils flared. She scented Marshy. He remained very still. She reached out to him.
The dragonling opened her eyes. They were as green as sunlit sea.
Child and dragon stared at each other, their recognition ancient and powerful.
Teb took Kiri’s hand and they moved away with Flam and the dwarfs, leaving the child and dragonling alone. The cave darkened as two big heads thrust in to see the baby awake. Seastrider’s breath huffed through the cave in smoky whiffs; Windcaller murmured softly; then they withdrew into the snow, their eyes slitted with pleasure.
A feast had been laid out: roast rabbits, broiled mushrooms and roots, a mild amber wine, warm bread, and a fruit called payan that grew in the warm marsh near the volcano. Kiri fixed a bowl for Marshy, but he hardly noticed it. He looked up at Kiri, his face all alight with wonder. “Her name is Iceflower.”
Kiri hugged him. “She’s lovely, Marshy.” The young dragon nuzzled Kiri’s hand. Iceflower’s face was finely sculptured. The pearly hues of her scales caught the colors of the fire. Marshy’s eyes were filled with dreams that now, for the first time, could come true. Kiri kissed him on the forehead and turned away, putting aside her own disquiet.
The food smelled wonderful. She supposed she would feel better once she’d eaten. But she couldn’t get her mind from the dragonlings—was one of those young creatures meant to be her own? She tried to touch the dragonlings in thought as they moved across Yoorthed’s winds, tried hard to sense that subtle bonding that would mark one special dragon. Her thoughts came back to her empty.
She tried to sense her father and Camery, too, but there was no hint of the two bards. Fear for them chilled her—though she knew it was the enemy doing this, the power of the dark clouding their silent speech. She shook her head, tried to marshal her thoughts, and went to sit with Teb.
As they ate, Teb and Kiri told the dwarfs all they could about the war. On the smaller continents, where Teb and the dragons had been able to bring the past alive, slaves had awakened and remembered their own worth, and had risen to kill their dark masters. But that was only on the small continents. Teb and the dragons, alone, had not been a large enough force to take on the big continents where kings had been mind twisted or replaced. Now that Teb had found the other bards, and now that there would be more dragons, their band would have formidable power—but against a formidable enemy.
“If . . .” Kiri began, then stopped, her voice drowned by the thundering voices of dragons. Bards and dwarfs, jumped up and pushed through the cave door into the moonlight.
The night was filled with dragons, rearing and careening as they greeted each other. Nightraider and Starpounder towered blacker than the sky, in a sparring greeting with Seastrider and Windcaller. Crowding around the big dragons were four strapping dragonlings, three dark males and a female.
From inside the cave came a faint, coughing roar, and Iceflower stumbled out behind the dwarfs, with Marshy beside her. The four dragonlings gawked at her and at the little boy.
“Your bard . . .”
“You found your bard.”
“Small . . . he’s so small.”
“Young . . .”
The dragonlings began to nose at Marshy and sniff him all over.
“You’re alive,” said the white sister, nosing at Iceflower. “We’re very glad you’re alive.”
“Not dead like Snowlake,” said the blue-black dragon.
“I nearly was,” said Iceflower.
“We searched for you,” said the red-black. “We had no sense of you. The dark . . .”
“They were still searching when we found them,” Camery said.
“Iceflower was drugged,” Teb said. “A drugged seal.”
Camery reached to stroke the sick dragonling. “Did the dark mean to kill you, young one? Or did it mean to capture you?”
“I suspect to capture and train her,” Teb said, filled with sharp memory of the time when the dark tried to warp his own mind to their evil way.
Camery touched Teb’s cheek and hugged him.
“Did you see any ships?” he said.
“No. The dragonlings saw ships near the otters’ bay at Cekus some weeks ago and felt the terrible power of the dark.”
“Maybe we can send Quazelzeg’s ships to the bottom for the sharks,” Teb said, “before we leave this land.”
Kiri had moved away, by h
erself. Teb watched her, feeling sharply her disappointment that none of the dragonlings was for her. He followed her and took her hand, and she leaned her forehead against his shoulder.
“There will be other dragons, Kiri.”
“Where? There are no other dragons.”
He lifted her chin. “Once, you thought there were no dragons on Tirror.”
“But . . .”
“There will be other dragons.” He put his arms around her. She eased against him, her spirit filled with sadness, needing him, needing his comforting.
“There will be other dragons. Somewhere, a dragon is calling to you. Don’t you sense it?”
“I sense it. And I’m always disappointed.” She buried her face against his shoulder.
Chapter 6
The unliving take nourishment from our suffering. It is thus that the dark grows strong. They are the dark opposite of human, and all evil feeds them, while all joy and love incites their wrath. They can die, these un-men, as we die. But they can never touch the Graven Light.
*
On the continent of Aquervell, deep in Quazelzeg’s fort-castle, two generals and twelve captains met with their leader in the skull chamber, a windowless stone room deep beneath the earth. The chamber was lighted by candles made of human fat. The walls were damp, the air heavy. Of the fourteen, six were un-men, true creatures of the unliving. Eight were humans warped to the ways of the dark. Only in the eyes of the humans could be seen the defeat they had taken at Dacia.
Quazelzeg watched the group without expression, seeing every flick of an eyelid, every movement of hand and turn of head. He was a tall, heavy figure who seemed not made to bend, with pale, tight skin over his heavy-boned face.
“I expect, Captain Vighert, that the present expedition is going better than the last. Better than your expedition.”
A nerve at the side of Vighert’s left eye twitched.
“I do not want another dragon killed.” Quazelzeg studied Vighert. “I want them captured. I would not want this to happen again. I plan to use these dragons. You would know that, Vighert, if you paid attention. These dragons are very important. Do you understand me?”
Vighert nodded, stiff and reluctant.
The child slaves along the wall watched the men with blank faces, hiding whatever emotion might be left in them. As Quazelzeg moved around the room, he shoved a dark-haired child out of his way. She fell and did not rise until his back was turned.
“Soon these dragons will belong to us, Vighert. They will bring our visions, our truth, to Tirror’s masses.” Quazelzeg smiled, a mirthless stretching of his pale mouth. “And then, gentlemen, we will hold Tirror as powerfully as we hold these slaves.” He took up a stick and hit the dark-haired child across the face, for rising before he gave permission. She knelt and kissed his boots. The fingers of a red-haired boy trembled.
“Then we will be their ancestors, gentlemen. We will be the ancestors of all Tirror, and they will understand that our pleasures with them are a privilege—that terror is a rare privilege!”
The dark-haired girl and the redheaded boy did not look up, but something subtle passed across their faces. Quazelzeg did not see; he was watching Vighert. He returned to humiliating the captain. “Let us hope that those now on Yoorthed—and Captain Shevek, who is about to go there—are more skilled at capturing dragons than you were, Captain Vighert.”
Vighert’s face seemed to fold in on itself. Shevek’s pock-scarred face looked colorless. The pulse in his neck pounded.
Quazelzeg fixed his eyes on the four who would accompany Shevek. “The dragons are to be chained. Their wings are to be clipped. I want their mouths chained shut so they can’t use fire to cut their bonds. I want them drugged and tamed and obedient. Now, does someone wish to express an opposing opinion on the best way to handle young dragons?”
No one did.
“Once the dragons are captive, gentlemen, we will train them with the two bard children.”
Vighert said, “No one knows if these children have the skills.”
“Of course they have the skills. They have the blood. Both have the mark of the bard.” He beckoned the dark-haired girl to him. A tiny brown, three-clawed print marked the inside of her left thigh. He parted the boy’s red hair so his neck shone white, and pointed to the same birthmark. “They have the power. With these two, we will create a new history for Tirror—a history that will become more narcotic than cadacus in its power.
“And if this Tebriel and his tribe come here searching . . .” A chilling smile stretched Quazelzeg’s face. “If they are drawn here by our powers, we will welcome them.
“For then, gentlemen, we will have all the bards we could want.”
“How,” said a voice from the second row, a small man with stringy hair tangled across the shoulders of his yellow tunic, “how do you keep a dragon captive?”
“In the caves, of course, Captain Flackel. In the marble caves. No dragon can melt marble.”
Flackel stared. “Sivich tried to put a dragon in a cage.”
“They tried to trap it in a cage, Flackel. You can’t trap a grown dragon; you have to capture it in other ways. For instance, with the help of my new pets. Then you put it in the cage. A cage it cannot melt.”
“It was this Tebriel,” said Captain Flackel, “that they used for bait in that trap. He escaped from it.”
Quazelzeg gave Flackel a deeply irritated look. “When I capture Tebriel, Captain Flackel, he will not escape. Unless, of course, I wish him to do so.”
Chapter 7
The seers among the speaking animals were rare and wonderful. I fear there are no more animal seers left on Tirror; I fear the dark has murdered them. I weep that my own children will never know the friendship of such a one.
*
It was the night after the dragonlings were found that two of them discovered the dark ship lying hidden in the marsh to the south, and Teb sensed the captive animal chained there.
The bards had lingered at Stilvoke Cave, waiting for Iceflower to grow stronger. The dragons fished for salmon for the dwarfs to roast; bards, dragons, and dwarfs spent the evening around a campfire built under the cold stars, swapping tales. The dragonlings told how their mother had died, and how, in a last act of closeness with her, they had named themselves in the time-old ritual.
Rockdrumlin had chosen his name for a hill formed by ice glaciers. Red-black Firemont took his name from Yoorthed’s smoking volcanoes.
The three females found their names in the icy mountains, Iceflower and Snowblitz—and Snowlake, who had been killed in the marsh.
Bluepiper chose his name from the blue snowbird that pecked for worms among the ice floes, its song like the breaking of crystal.
Late in the evening, Teb sensed something amiss, but no one else did. He could not put a direction or shape to it, and as he puzzled over it, it was gone.
Not until well past midnight did the dwarf folk slip off to their sleeping alcoves. The bards and Iceflower stretched out beside the fire. Outside, in the cold night, the other dragons bedded down close together and slept. But Firemont and Bluepiper woke very soon, sensing what Teb had sensed.
They went to investigate. They circled over the ice mountains, puzzled by the pressing sense of terror, and of cruelty, then headed south. They circled the volcano, their nostrils filled with the smell of sulfur that clung around the smoking mountain. The warm swamp lay beyond, sulking in its own heavy steam. They approached it, shivering with the evil they felt there.
They came storming back to Stilvoke Cave just at dawn, wild with shouting.
“There’s a ship in the swamp,” bellowed Firemont.
“It stinks of dark warriors,” cried Bluepiper.
“If you yell any louder,” Teb growled, coming awake, “they’ll have set sail before we reach them.”
The dragonlings lowered their voices, eyeing Teb with respect.
The bards dressed quickly. Teb convinced Marshy to stay in the cave with Iceflowe
r. The rest were soon winging south in the icy dawn, the four bards yawning, trying to come awake, checking again for swords, pulling their hoods around their ears. Kiri looked, sleepily, across the frozen air at Teb. Already a rime of ice crystals covered her hood and the escaping wisps of her hair. Below them, the white mountains caught light from the sun still hidden beyond the sea, the volcano’s face stained by the sun’s fire. Beyond shone the marsh, its brilliant green shocking against the endless white.
The ship is hidden beneath the trees, said Bluepiper. They circled low. The oaks spread a protective leafy roof over the steaming waters.
Yes, there, cried Seastrider. There . . .
They could see, beneath the moss-hung trees, part of the ship’s bow. They could sense the dark warriors and could sense a terrified captive. Their minds were filled with its silent cry for help.
Someone small, Kiri said, someone young. She looked across the wind at Teb.
Teb’s face had gone white. His pulse pounded. He could sense the small creature clearly and was filled with its pain and fear. He could see the small body trussed tightly, its broad tail bound to its side, its webbed feet wrapped so tight they were numb. He knew that the otter had no real hope that anyone would hear its silent calls. He gripped his sword as Seastrider dove.
As she flew just above the deck, Teb slid off. Seastrider banked away between the trees. The air was warm and heavy, the deck wet and slick. Starpounder swept down, and Colewolf dropped off beside Teb. It was still night in the tree-covered marsh, the ship too dark for them to see much. They could not sense a guard. The could feel the otter’s pain, and they knew something else about it. . . .
Suddenly a shout—hatches were flung open, lamps blazed. They ducked behind a cabin as half-dressed soldiers poured up out of the hold. Weapons gleamed in the light of swinging lanterns. Teb slipped on the wet deck, recovered, blocking swords with his blade. Four came at him. He lost sight of Colewolf, was backed against the rail.
Dragonbards Page 3
