There is only one way, Tebriel. Give the lyre to Bayzun. There it can regain its strength. Our armies are dying, Teb.
He had failed Tirror twice, failed them all. He must not fail now. He stood staring at Bayzun’s skeleton and could do nothing. Bayzun stared back at him, seeming engorged with eerie power.
Did not Bayzun command him to return the lyre? Why else was he here, but to return it? Again he knelt before the skeleton. What harm could come from Bayzun? He held out the lyre, reaching. . . .
But something stopped him, made him draw back. This was not the way. . . .
Thakkur’s words thundered in his memory. Do not underestimate Quazelzeg. . . .
He must trust nothing. To give the lyre from his grasp, in these endless and alien worlds, could risk everything. In one final, false step, he could give Quazelzeg and the dark a terrible power. Visions of the battle surged. He turned.
He saw Meriden astride her dragon, winging down the well of sky toward him.
But suddenly the dragon was gone. Meriden was falling, alone, falling through the endless cleft. . . falling . . . falling alone reaching out to him. Do not give the lyre. Dark winds tumbled her and flung her down chasms; boulders spun and bounced against her.
Quazelzeg’s voice exploded. “Give the lyre to Bayzun, and I will release her.”
“No!” she cried. “You will destroy everything!”
“Let her go!” Teb shouted. “I will NOT give the lyre! Release her!” But his voice choked with uncertainty.
Meriden was pulled through shifting winds and swept crashing into stone. She was pressed between stone walls so tight she was nearly crushed, could not lift her arms, stone crushing her cheek, twisting her body. . . .
“Give me the lyre!”
“I will NOT! Release her!” But he was shaking with terror for her.
Suddenly the rock exploded, throwing her into space again. Quazelzeg’s laugh was terrible, thundering echoing as she fell careening among pieces of the mountain. Visions of battle clashed around Meriden’s falling figure. The armies of light were pulling back. The whole of the universe seemed filled with the dark’s swelling power.
He must make the lyre speak. He must.
He tried, straining, and could not.
“Give the lyre! Save your mother! Save Tirror!”
Defeat filled him. He had no choice. He could not let her die—even for Tirror. He stared at Bayzun’s mutilated toes, from which the lyre had been carved.
“No, Teb! No!”
How could he help but give it? He reached out with the lyre. . . .
Quazelzeg appeared suddenly, blocking the skeleton, pulling the lyre from him. . . .
“No!” He struck Quazelzeg’s hands from the lyre, broke his grip with one sharp blow, knocked the un-man down as he jerked the lyre away. He shouted a bard’s song at Quazelzeg, wrought of all the pain and love in him. A terrible power of love rose out of him, a power he had nearly denied, love for Tirror, love for all the world he had nearly lost—love for his mother and what she was and for all those close to him. They would be nothing if Tirror were lost, they would all be lost, Meriden destroyed. In that moment of terrible understanding, his hands struck the strings again and the lyre sang out fierce and wild with love.
But in the moment that Quazelzeg had held the lyre, a rift had been torn between worlds. Quazelzeg’s laughter thundered. “Too late! Useless! Too late—the Doors are open now!” Teb saw the hordes pouring through onto the battlefield. A blood-faced shade scuttled through. A vulture with a woman’s eyes fled through. Too late. . . . The barrier had been torn. The dark hordes came rushing. Doors flung open across a thousand worlds and a black mass of monsters poured into Tirror, leaping onto the backs of the retreating armies, slashing at the horses’ legs. The lyre’s song rang out, and the attack faltered—but not enough. From every palace window and door, dark incubi and blood-licking demons crawled and flew, howling, reaching. The air was a tangle of screams and groans and stinks. Quazelzeg’s laughter thundered. ‘Too late, too late . . .” A young otter was stabbed, screaming. Monstrous vultures snatched up foxes and wolves.
“No!” Teb shouted. “No!” Not even the lyre was stopping them. “Bayzun!” he shouted. The lyre wailed. He prayed to the Graven Light, and he prayed to Bayzun. He slapped the silver strings with a love for Tirror that nearly tore him apart. The lyre’s voice rang so mightily he could feel it stinging his blood; suddenly it shouted a dragon’s raging bellow, and Teb shouted with it, “Bayzun!”
Bayzun’s skeleton vanished. The huge black dragon loomed over him, its breath blazing, its eyes like fire.
The voice of the lyre was Bayzun’s voice. The black dragon exploded past him out of the cave on immense wings, his red mouth open in a bull dragon’s bellow. Teb turned, playing the lyre with all the power in him, and Meriden was there astride Dawncloud, rocking on Bayzun’s wind beside the cave door.
“Now!” she cried. “Now . . .”
Teb leaped for Seastrider and felt Seastrider’s excitement, felt the closeness of the two dragons, mother and child. The lyre’s voice thundered as the dragons wheeled together up the cleft, following Bayzun. Where—where was a way through . . . ?
It was that moment, in vision, that Teb saw Thakkur fighting something dark and grinning, saw the white otter’s sword flash, saw him back the vampire-toothed demon away with snarling rage and drive his sword in; but too late—Teb cried out as Thakkur was struck from behind, as Thakkur fell. . . .
Thakkur . . .
And Teb could not reach him.
“There,” Meriden cried, pointing where a bright thin crack appeared in murky space. “There . . .” Bayzun was through. They plunged after him—and dropped into the sky above the battle.
Teb searched wildly for Thakkur. Bayzun dove, slashing at the unliving. Meriden’s sword flashed. Teb brought the lyre’s song ringing across the battle to drive the dark back. The lyre’s roar and Bayzun’s roar filled the wind. He saw the dark falter—and he searched for one small white figure amid the surging battle.
The dark fell back. Rebel warriors rose to storm palace walls. Monsters seething over parapets dropped down again into the courtyard, their screeching silenced.
Nightraider dove at a tangle of giant serpents; Camery slashed and cut at them. Ebis the Black rode down a screaming basilisk and cut its snake body to shreds. The great cats and wolves tore at the unliving. Dragons dove to burn. Marshy leaned down, clutching harness, to snatch up a wounded otter. The lyre’s song thundered across the battlefield, driving back the dark—but it was Bayzun who struck the coldest terror into the dark forces.
*
On a hilltop, Windcaller fought to drive warriors away from Kiri, who knelt, cradling Thakkur.
She had seen the hordes of dark monsters appear from nowhere, storming out of the palace. In that moment when defeat was certain, she had seen Thakkur fall. Windcaller had cut a swath through the attacking hordes, and Kiri had knelt over Thakkur in the little space Windcaller won. She held Thakkur’s body, trying to find a heartbeat. There was none. She rocked him, torn with grief for him, sick with despair.
Their world was dying, Tirror was dying. There would be nothing left but the dark. Teb was lost somewhere. Kiri’s stomach was twisted in knots. Thakkur’s poor torn body seemed an instrument of terrible prediction, mirroring the final and terrible end for them all.
Then something stirred her. Something summoned.
She heard the lyre crying out across the battle, silencing all cries with its fury. She saw the black dragon explode out of nothing, riderless and huge. She saw Seastrider . . . and Teb! She saw a white dragon she had never seen. A woman—Meriden!
The lyre thundered. The black dragon slaughtered. The rebel armies rallied, and the dark armies trembled and fell back as Kiri knelt on the battlefield, holding Thakkur and screaming with victory.
Teb saw her crouched before Windcaller, holding something white. He sped toward them, leaped down, and knelt besid
e Kiri praying that Thakkur was alive.
And knowing he was not.
Kiri and Teb cradled Thakkur between them, their eyes meeting in a storm of grief.
She smoothed Thakkur’s bloody white fur over his terrible wound. Teb pulled Kiri against his shoulder suddenly and fiercely, and held her tight, Thakkur couched in their circling arms.
When Teb rose at last, he held Thakkur gently. He turned away from Kiri to mount Seastrider. Kiri watched as they lifted away above the battle. She did not follow.
In the sky, Teb cradled Thakkur’s body inside his tunic, beneath the lyre. He stroked the lyre’s strings in a thundering dirge for Thakkur, its voice struck with grief and love. At its bright, ringing notes, the last of the dark hordes turned and fled into the palace. They pushed back through Quazelzeg’s golden Door, trampling each other, wraiths and incubi and monsters crowding through.
Among the dark warriors, only Quazelzeg paused.
When all the hordes had fled, Quazelzeg stood within the safety of the gold Door, burning with fury at what he had lost.
But there would be other worlds, other challenges. He turned to consider such worlds—his next quest.
He went white at what he saw.
He spun and tried to run, but light exploded around him, light so bright and consuming that the Door was lost in its brilliance. The light twisted Quazelzeg and sucked him in. He spun within its glow, screaming. . . .
Slowly he was consumed, by a light so powerful that it turned white the battlefield and the surrounding hills, and its clear brilliance burst like a nova across Tirror’s skies.
The terror of Quazelzeg’s scream remained long after his body was consumed. The light that took him was seen from Auric Palace in an exploding brilliance that cascaded across the sky; it was seen in Nightpool, where the few otters who had remained stared up in chittering wonder.
It turned the sky over Yoorthed so pale that the dwarfs ran out of the cave, shouting, “What is it?”
“Power,” King Flam said, staring at the shining sky. “What power?” a dwarf said, shivering. “Not the power of the dark,” King Flam cried, his voice thundering. He smiled at the gathered dwarfs.
“I would guess the battle has ended. This,” King Flam said, sighing with relief, “this is the greatest power—the power that holds us all.”
Chapter 28
The battlefield was still, every face turned toward the Graven Light. Not until that light faded did anyone speak, and then only in whispers.
“We did not kill Quazelzeg. . . .”
“The light . . .”
“The Graven Light. . .”
They moved at last, to kneel beside their wounded. They tended some wounded on the battlefield and carried the most grievously hurt to the palace. The voice of the lyre had stilled. The spirit of Bayzun was gone, back into the centuries. When the mortal dragons glided down to the palace, Seastrider, Windcaller, Nightraider and Starpounder crowded around their mother, bellowing and slapping their wings over her. They had been only dragonlings when Dawncloud had left them to search for Meriden. The bards slid down, laughing, amid the tangle of wings and sparring dragons. Teb turned away and went directly into the palace, carrying the body of Thakkur safe beneath his tunic.
Camery hugged her mother so hard Meriden gasped, laughing and hugging her back. They looked at each other silently, each seeing something of herself. Meriden touched Camery’s face, her hair.
“It’s still pale gold. I used to braid it all down your back. And when you rode, little wisps would come loose.”
“And when you washed it, I cried.”
Meriden laughed. “You had a tantrum, sometimes, when I washed your hair. Oh, you did cry. And—and when I went away,” Meriden said, “I cried. I had lost you—and Teb—and my true love.” She wept again, and they held each other for a long time.
*
Teb found tools in the palace and went alone across the hills to cut a straight oak. He hewed out a coffin for Thakkur and laid him in it, his whole being filled with grieving. He nailed on the lid and carried the coffin to the hill where he had first come with Seastrider. There he piled boulders around it until he could give Thakkur a proper burial. When he came down the hill, Meriden was waiting for him. He saw in her eyes clear knowledge of his pain.
Teb held her, needing her as if he were a child again. As they clung together, it might have been, again, that windy fall morning when he was small and she had held him and said good-bye.
He said, “I read your journal.”
“Yes.”
“How did you make the entries that . . . came later?”
Her eyes widened. “I . . . wasn’t sure I could. I hoped that maybe . . .” She shook her head, smiling.
“There are such powers beyond this world, Teb. I hoped . . . I wrote messages with spring water—on the ground, on stone walls, anywhere, because I was so lonely sometimes. As if writing words could link me to you. One message—the last message—I prayed that you would see that.”
She gave him a cool, steady look. “The diary pages I wrote when you were small—I was wrong not to tell you and Camery that you were dragonbards. I was as wrong as the unliving, who kept the true history from Tirror.”
“No. It was different. You meant to save us pain.”
“Not at all different. I took your own history from you. I did it to save you, but the result is the same.”
“You must not feel that. If anyone has been foolish, I have.”
She put her fingers over his lips and kissed his forehead. “Quazelzeg is dead. The force that we battled is gone. That’s all that matters. The power of the unliving is gone . . . from this world.” She took his face in her hands, and her green eyes were very alive.
“There are other bards, Teb. Beyond the Doors. So far away . . . lost out there. They could come home, find their way home now that the unliving are gone. There are other creatures also,” she said, “wanting to come through—to come home. Unicorns, Teb. And . . . there are dragons.”
“Dragons,” he said, his thoughts filled with Kiri’s longing.
“Dragons that search for their bards.” She studied his face, touched his thoughts, and smiled. “A dragon the color of seas, who yearns for a bard he says is of Tirror.”
Teb’s heart quickened.
“A dark-haired girl,” Meriden said. “He says she is called by the name of a bird.”
“A wren!” Teb shouted.
“Yes,” Meriden said, smiling.
He laughed out loud with pleasure. “The great cats call her Kiri wren—a love name.”
“The dragons will come,” she said. “The dragons will find their way—that dragon certainly will—and the bards will. But now . . .”
She turned, and when Teb looked, there were unicorns on the hill around them, moving delicately, their horns as bright as sun on water. They pushed around Meriden, nuzzling her. Their scent was like honey, their fine muscled bodies warm and silken to stroke. They nosed at Teb and rubbed their bright horns against his shoulder. But soon they began to move out onto the battlefield, to nose and touch the wounded, to heal where they could heal.
Teb and Meriden made their way to the palace. They knelt with Kiri and Camery over wounded soldiers and animals, to doctor their hurts. Mitta was there, washing away blood, applying poultices and sewing torn flesh. Hanni knew about Thakkur. He clung close to Mitta, helping her, his small face desolate with grief.
The wounded kept coming, hobbling or carried. The bards housed them in the palace courtyard and in the main hall, tearing down ornate draperies to make soft beds. Ebis and his soldiers made stretchers from palace furniture and brought in the most seriously injured, though Ebis himself limped from his wounds. Camery rebound his leg where the bandages were soaked with blood. She thought he should soak it with poultices, but he said he hadn’t time. He went back to the wounded again, and not long afterward he returned to the hall carrying Charkky, the little otter pressed against his black beard shiv
ering with pain.
“His shoulder is badly torn,” Ebis said, kneeling to lay Charkky on a blanket. The bards knelt around Charkky. Teb examined him as gently as he could. Charkky gritted his teeth when Camery cleaned the wound. Teb held Charkky’s paws while Camery pulled the torn flesh together and stitched it up. Even when the needle went in, Charkky tried his best not to yell. Instead he bit Teb hard on the thumb.
Afterward, he stared at Teb, chagrined.
“It’s all right,” Teb said. “You couldn’t help it.”
“I never dreamed in all my life I would bite you, Tebriel. Tease you, maybe, hold you under the water, but not bite you.” He looked around. “Where is Mikk?”
“Here,” Mikk said. “I came to find you. Hah! You look like a fine warrior in that bandage.” Mikk knelt and stared with concern into Charkky’s face. Hanni came to press against them. Mikk gathered up the little white otter and held him tight.
The palace hall grew crowded with the wounded, both human and animal. Kiri rose from doctoring a rebel soldier and stood watching Teb. She knew he grieved for Thakkur, and took his hand. They stood looking over the crowded hall. There was nothing she could say to ease his terrible remorse. He would never heal from it. She couldn’t change what had happened; she could only be there for him, be close to him.
When Teb turned away to help Colewolf with a wounded child, Kiri saw two cats carried in, limp and bleeding, and was riven with fear, again, for Elmmira. She went to search, though she had looked and looked across the battlefield for the tawny cat.
She and Windcaller scanned the body-strewn fields and hills. They saw Mmenimm, saw Aven and Marshy carrying in a fox and two owls. Windcaller circled, working farther away from the palace, until they saw a pale buff cat among the boats of the harbor. Kiri leaned down with relief to call to Elmmira.
The big cat was dragging an un-man from a sailing boat. Two captains lay on the shore. When Windcaller dropped down, Kiri saw the bloody claw marks slashed deep through their yellow tunics. She thought the one with the greasy hair was Captain Vighert. She slid down and went to look, but suddenly she felt weak and dizzy, as if everything was catching up with her. Elmmira came to her. Kiri knelt, to lean against Elmmira’s warm shoulder.
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