Those powers, he thought with sudden understanding, were powers he could use to drive the dark out, not to help it—if he was clever.
If he was canny, he could outsmart Quazelzeg. With the powers the drugs gave him—powers Quazelzeg had meant him to use for the dark—he could defeat the un-man. With those terrible powers he had touched when he lay in Quazelzeg’s palace, he could control Tirror and control everyone in it. And then, instead of helping the unliving, he would force every soul upon Tirror to rise against the unliving and drive the dark out.
How simple. And how foolproof. He had only to make Quazelzeg think he had turned to the dark.
When he had such power, he would permit only goodness upon Tirror. Hadn’t Thakkur himself said, I have—faith in you, Tebriel—in your goodness, in your ultimate good sense.
His need to control was different from Quazelzeg’s greed for control. He, Tebriel, wanted only to save Tirror. He needed the drugs to strengthen his powers—he would take of the powers of the unliving and join them with his own powers, and thus make himself invincible.
He would save Tirror.
He would find drugs easily in Sharden, on any street corner. He was completely caught in the brilliance of his plan, when suddenly Seastrider struck him across the face, knocking him backward. He stared at her, shocked.
“He steals your soul, Tebriel! He takes your soul from you!”
“He does nothing of the kind! What’s the matter with you?”
“He is sending visions to destroy you! He is drawing your mind into the darkness!”
“His thoughts are not touching me! Leave me alone!”
Seastrider reared over him. Her power hit him like a storm; her eyes blazed as she sought to destroy Quazelzeg’s hold. She breathed out fire and cuffed him, and drove him up the hill farther from the city and palace. He could not use a sword against her any more than he could thrust it through his own body. She cornered him among boulders. He fought her with his bard powers, defying her with a fury he had never imagined he would feel for her. But for every movement he made, she bested him. She would not let him leave the hill.
In the small hours, when he saw he could not win, he pretended to falter. He rolled into his blanket and made a skillful vision of sleep.
Seastrider did not sleep. Each time he glanced up, she was watching him.
*
Across the continents the pilgrimage was now a strong army marching steadily north. Slaves had become soldiers. The cats and wolves and otters and foxes hunted food for the humans and shared the children’s beds to warm them. No one was turned away; all had a right to confront the dark on Aquervell.
But the unliving, too, marched north.
*
Quazelzeg was not yet ready for Teb to enter the Castle of Doors. Deftly he wove visions for Tebriel through the power he held over him, renewing the black chambers of confusion that he had erected in Tebriel’s mind and renewing the bard’s drug hunger.
The twisted visions sucked at Teb in grand vistas of power, so he hardly remembered that he and the bards together—or even he and Meriden—might already possess the power to draw the unliving away from Tirror and destroy them. He clung to the grander plan. He fought his confusion sometimes, sweating and trapped in the consuming pit of Quazelzeg’s will. But more often he followed the dark dream. Day came, then night again. He made no move to set out for the mountains. Seastrider did not sleep but watched him steadily. She would not allow him to leave the hill. When dark soldiers skirted the base of the hill, Seastrider drove them off, raging at Teb to fight them.
Teb would not. He turned away from her, nursing his own thoughts. For two days he dreamed his grand dream and longed for the power-strengthening drugs, and waited for Seastrider to sleep. He did nothing to help Meriden.
Late on the second night, when Seastrider could no longer keep awake, when she dozed in spite of a terrible effort of will, Teb moved away from her down the dark, rocky hill. The craving drew him powerfully. If, in some dark recess of his mind, it terrified him, too, he ignored that. The black desire pulled him on, toward the night sounds of Sharden.
Sharden’s streets were narrow, rubbish-strewn, and dim. He stumbled through them eagerly. The city smelled of stale food and animal dung . . . and drugs. Ahead of him, shouting crowds had gathered for some brutal entertainment. Teb hurried to them, drawn by the scent of cadacus.
He found cadacus easily, all he wanted, and licked it from dirty spoons like any drug-ridden creature. Folk watched him, interested. When he was well drugged, they moved in and began to shove and caress him. But when two men ripped his tunic open, he clutched the exposed lyre, shocked into sense—and terror. His tormentors paused, staring at the lyre. Drug-crazy men and women surrounded him, reaching for it.
He backed away from them, protecting the lyre drunkenly. The horde pressed close. He struck the lyre’s strings into harsh music to drive them back. Its power stopped them; they stood shivering and gaping.
But when he turned away, they followed. He fled, reeling, through narrow rubbled streets, using the lyre’s music to drive them back. But as he ran, the lyre suddenly fell silent. The dark hordes gained on him. Thakkur’s warning rang in his head—and a sudden, sick dismay overcame him.
It was thus Seastrider found him, pursued by a lusting rabble through alleys. She dove, tearing down walls to get at him, breaking buildings and driving men back against shattered timbers and into distant streets. He stood watching her sweep toward him and was filled with love for her—and with shame.
She dragged him up into the sky, carried him back to the hill, and dropped him on his blanket. She stood staring down at him, her long green eyes cold with disgust.
“What is your excuse tonight, Tebriel? You were not chained to a table tonight. You were not force-fed cadacus tonight.
“This night’s stupidity was your own doing! Tonight, you used the magical powers of the lyre, which were meant to save our world—you used them to save yourself! To save your own hide from the terrible results of your stupid, blundering weakness!”
He stared up at her, flayed raw by her fury. She didn’t need to be so violent when he felt this sick.
“Why have you come here to Aquervell? Do you remember that, Tebriel?”
“What makes you so angry?”
“You do. Your stupidity does. Your weakness makes me retch with disgust.”
He wanted to slap her. “What do you mean to do about it?”
“It is not what 1 will do about it. It is what you will do. What do you mean to do, Tebriel?”
He looked at her coldly. But he realized, with sick shame, that only Seastrider’s anger kept him from sinking completely under Quazelzeg’s power. When she changed suddenly from anger, and her eyes became dark with hurt, he stared at her, shaken. Her voice became softer and incredibly sad.
“Do you know, Tebriel, how difficult it is for me to rage at you thus? Do you know how it tears at me? I want to comfort you. I want only to curl around you and warm and comfort you.”
He stared at her uneasily—this wasn’t fair.
“The drug hunger possesses you, and I cannot fight it. Kindness cannot fight it. Kindness can only weaken you.”
He started to speak, but her look stopped him.
“Only you can fight this, Tebriel. Only you can defeat it. I cannot.” Her look was the saddest he had ever seen. “If you do not fight it—and win—you will destroy us both. And you will destroy Meriden.”
He felt shame so sharp he could not look at her.
He knew what he must do—now, before he could falter again. He trembled with terror of Quazelzeg and of the dark worlds, and of how the dark might reach him beyond that barrier. But Meriden struggled alone to draw the dark away from Tirror and to stop a larger invasion. He must go there at once, to help her, before his courage failed altogether.
It did not occur to him to wonder why, when Quazelzeg could mold his mind so readily, he still felt driven to go into those distant w
orlds to help Meriden. Whatever occurred to Seastrider she kept to herself. Perhaps her wisdom told her that not until the challenge was faced could he be free.
As dawn began to lighten the sky, Teb made ready in a dull silence born of drug sickness. Seastrider was quiet. But once he was mounted, she leaped powerfully into the slate-gray sky, pulled fast above the concealing clouds, and swept north.
Chapter 26
Within the Doors, time and distance are as nothing. One can be as close as a breath and as far away as forever. I pray to the Graven Light to help us. I think it is the only power that can.
*
Quazelzeg’s chambers in the palace at Sharden were crusted with jewels stolen from a thousand worlds, his furniture covered with gold leaf and inlaid with platinum, his carpets woven of rare silks and human hair. In the small hours before dawn, he stood among the rich furnishings locked in vision.
He watched Tebriel and his dragon wing north toward the Castle of Doors, and he smiled. The bard had fought a ridiculously heroic battle within himself— and was caught as surely as a fox is caught in a trap.
Young Tebriel wanted to help his mother. How very touching. Oh, yes, the link between mother and son was strong. But Tebriel’s midnight journey into Sharden and his obedience to the dark powers had weakened both of them. Afterward, it had been easy to drive Meriden back when she appeared to him again. She had retreated quickly. Yes, young Tebriel had strengthened the dark’s powers considerably.
Quazelzeg was satisfied that now Meriden no longer had the power to pull him through into other worlds. Now he would enter only as he chose. Very soon, she would no longer hold any barrier against the hordes he would call into Tirror.
It was not easy to bring the dark creatures through; it had not been easy to bring the vamvipers. It took great concentration to master them and draw them from endless worlds. With Meriden and her interference, it was even more difficult.
But she would not hold them back much longer. Through Tebriel, a rent had been torn in the power she had laid down. Soon a wraith or incubus would slip through, and her power would be further weakened. One barrier down, and the dark creatures would break all barriers and swarm into the city. Then Tirror would be his completely. Not even the lyre could fight such an army.
Meantime, managed skillfully, mother and son could be played against each other.
It was fortunate that last night Tebriel had used the lyre. Now it would take some time for the lyre to replenish its magic.
Meriden’s words echoed unpleasantly. The Ivory Lyre . . . will defeat you. The spirit of Bayzun will defeat you. . . .
But that would not happen now. The lyre was silent. And very soon the lyre would belong to him, would belong to the world of the dark.
*
Teb and Seastrider flew through a dawn as gray and desolate as winter. They recalled the vision of the Castle of Doors and scanned the deep mountain ravines and tall peaks, which became wilder as they moved north. But not until late afternoon did they see the familiar tangle of shifting domes and ridges crowded around the center. Seastrider dropped low to wing down shadowed chasms, seeking a way in.
They followed winding ravines and twisting ridges. Flying back and forth, they circled towers, searching, until they nearly lost hope of finding a way in. But suddenly, as they soared through a shaft of bright sun, Seastrider swerved through a black slit between mountains.
Blackness swallowed them; they spun, sucked down.
Valleys dropped below them miles deep, only to turn into peaks thrusting miles high. Caves and tunnels twisted into uncounted rooms that vanished, to be replaced by others. Seas became deserts; the sky darkened into night and suddenly burned with day again. Winds whipped at them and lifted and dropped them, and were gone. As the world around them shifted, Teb’s nerve failed. How could they find Meriden here?
How could any invasion of dark creatures be discovered, and held back, in this nightmare?
As flotillas of boats pushed across the strait toward Sharden’s city, the eight dragons, too, crossed the last stretch of sea. They passed over palace and city and dropped down among giant boulders on the rocky hill. They knew that Teb and Seastrider had been there on the hill and that they had gone. Kiri was cold with terror for Teb, close to panic, and held steady only by the strength of the others. They watched from among the boulders as the armies of light pulled their boats onto the shore and gathered across Sharden’s hills. There were dark troops camped around the palace. The power of the dark reached out and kindled terror in the rebels and animals, but so powerful was the rebels’ commitment that no one thought to turn back. Scattered campfires sprang up as folk made hasty meals.
*
Seastrider flew on through streaming light and through blackness, searching the stone twistings and echoing spaces. Neither she nor Teb knew how they would find Meriden, but they shouted her name. Their cries were swallowed by the vast spaces. Was there anything to hear them? Seastrider leaped chasms and sped down twisting tunnels between shifting walls that opened suddenly into emptiness or closed before them in barriers of stone.
As they fled through endless worlds, they knew that the armies of light had attacked Quazelzeg’s palace, flanked by the diving dragons. They saw the soldiers of the unliving crouched in masses along the palace wall. As time shifted, the cries of the battle echoed down otherworld chambers. Winter and summer met them and were lost; worlds fell away and other worlds loomed; and visions of the battle followed them.
How long they forged ahead, they couldn’t guess. They knew only that Tirror was caught in a terrible and decisive war, and that still they had no clue how to stop it—how to drive back the dark, how to prevent more dark creatures from pouring through, how to find Meriden. Teb’s mind was nearly drowned in confusion, when he began to hear Meriden’s voice echoing down vast distances. . . .
Tebriel . . .
Seastrider swerved toward it.
Tebriel . . .
They swerved again and dove through tunneled chambers.
The grave, Tebriel—find the grave of Bayzun. Find the cave where Bayzun lies in death. . . .
They twisted and sped like hounds, following Meriden’s echoing shout.
Bayzun’s cave . . .
Suddenly Seastrider banked and slipped across the wind into a gigantic well of air circled by steep mountain walls.
The chasm was so deep they could not see the bottom, only mist. A far, small hole of sky shone above them. The well was washed by winds that lifted and played like churning waters. In the side of a mountain yawned a cave. Something white gleamed deep inside. Seastrider banked to it.
Inside the cave loomed the white skeleton of the great dragon, sire of all Tirror’s dragons. The arch of his white ribs melted away into darkness, supporting the thick white spine, then letting it down to snake its twisting way alone. The heavy white head faced them, its black empty eye sockets seeming filled with power. Seastrider snorted with a wild awe, planted her feet on the thin ledge, and folded her wings in a gesture of deference. Teb slid down and approached the skeleton. Neither his gaze nor Seastrider’s left the dark shadows of those hollow eyes.
This was why they had come.
Teb slipped the lyre from inside his tunic.
As if in answer to his gesture, he heard Meriden cry, Yes, give the lyre to Bayzun.
This was why she had led him here.
Bayzun’s great feet stood solidly, one with the claws torn away. From these had the lyre been carved. Teb knelt. He knew with a calm certainty that if the lyre was returned to the bones of Bayzun, the lyre’s power would become immense.
Yes, give him the lyre, Tebriel.
But as he reached to place the lyre before Bayzun, Seastrider swung her head and pushed him aside. “Wait.”
He glared at her, startled.
Meriden’s voice was insistent. Give Bayzun the lyre, Teb. There is little time—our soldiers are losing. Listen to your bard knowledge. Bayzun is the grandfather of all d
ragons. If you lay the lyre at Bayzun’s feet, the power will come.
“Is that bard knowledge, Tebriel?” Seastrider said. “Is that Meriden’s voice?”
He stared at her. “Of course!”
But now Meriden shouted, Do not part with it! Do not give it!
Teb stood up, confused, and stared around him, clutching the lyre.
Make the Ivory Lyre speak, Tebriel. But do not give it. Bring Bayzun’s power alive with its song.
Which was Meriden?
Which was the dark?
One voice was false—but how clearly it imitated hers.
Yet surely he had only to make one simple gesture, had only to lay the lyre at Bayzun’s feet, and he could resurrect the lyre’s power. There was no evil in Bayzun, only the power of the light.
Do not let the lyre from your hand! the voice cried.
He looked at Seastrider, sick with uncertainty.
Lay the lyre at the feet of Bayzun, Tebriel. Do not play it now, in this place. Give the lyre to Bayzun. . . .
Surely that was Meriden.
Make the lyre speak, Teb, do not give it. Sing Bayzun alive, sing his power alive.
The voices dueling inside his head dizzied him. He plucked one string so hard the little lyre shook. . . .
But it was silent.
He stared at it, shocked into choking dismay. He had used its strength too recently, to save himself in the drug dens of Sharden.
They needed the lyre now, more than Tirror had ever needed it. Shame held him. Terror held him.
You must renew its strength, Tebriel—at the feet of Bayzun.
Yes. Yes. That was Meriden’s voice.
Chapter 27
Cries of battle echoed through the cave. Teb saw visions of animals falling and arrows piercing the diving dragons. He saw Snowblitz thrashing with a bleeding wing and saw the dark unliving striding among the fallen, tasting gore, swinging their swords and laughing. He tried to bring power with his own voice, with song. Sweating, choking, he could hardly use his cracking voice. The lyre remained silent.
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