“I thought not.” She reached beneath her pillow, and brought out a golden brooch shaped like a full-blown rose. It had been a gift from her husband on their wedding night. “Never mind. Here. Take this to my husband. Tell him I am unhurt, the babe also. Tell him to come swiftly to bring me home!”
In Dragon Keep, Iyadur Atani’s mood grew grimmer, and more remote. Martun Hal’s threats obsessed him: he imagined his wife alone, cold, hungry, confined to darkness, perhaps hurt. His appetite vanished; he ceased to eat, or nearly so.
At night he paced the castle corridors, silent as a ghost, cloakless despite the winter cold, his eyes like white flame. His soldiers and his servants began to fear him. One by one, they left the castle.
But some, resolute and loyal, remained. Among them was Bran the archer, now captain of the archery wing, since Jarko, the former captain, had disappeared one moonless December night. When a strange woman appeared among them, claiming to bear a message to Iyadur Atani from his captive wife, it was to Bran the guards brought her.
He recognized her. Leading her to Iyadur Atani’s chamber, he pounded on the closed door. It door opened. Iyadur Atani stood framed in the doorway. His face was gaunt.
Madelene held out the golden brooch.
Iyadur Atani knew it at once. The grief and rage and fear that had filled him for four months eased a little. Lifting the brooch from Madelene’s palm, he touched it to his lips.
“Be welcome,” he said. “Tell me how Joanna is. Is she well?”
“She bade me say that she is, my lord.”
“And—the babe?”
“It thrives. It is your child, my lord. Your lady charged me to say that, and to tell you that no matter what rumors you might have heard, neither Martun Hal nor any of his men has touched her. She begs you to please, come quickly to succor her, for she is desperate to be home.”
“Can you visit her easily?”
“I can.”
“Then return to her, of your kindness. Tell her I love her. Tell her not to despair.”
“She will not despair,” Madelene said. “Despair is not in her nature. But I have another message for you. This one is from my queen.” She meant the matriarch of the Red Hawks, Jamis Delamico. “She said to tell you, where force will not prevail, seek magic. She says; go west, to Lake Urai. Find the sorcerer who lives beside the lake, and ask him how to get your wife back.”
Iyadur Atani said, “I did not know there were still sorcerers in the west.”
“There is one. The common folk know him as Viksa. But that is not his true name, my queen says.”
“And does your queen know the true name of this reclusive wizard?” For everyone knows that unless you know a sorcerer’s true name, he or she will not even speak with you.
“She does,” said Madelene. She leaned toward the dragon-lord, and whispered in his ear. “And she told me to tell you, be careful when you deal with him. For he is sly, and what he intends he to do, he does not always reveal. But what he says he will do, he will do.”
“Thank you,” Iyadur Atani said, and he smiled, for the first time in a long time. “Cousin, I am in your debt.” He told Bran to see to her comfort, and to provide her with whatever she needed, food, a bath, a place to sleep. Summoning his servants, he asked them to bring him a meal, and wine.
Then he called his officers together. “I am leaving,” he said. “You must defend my people, and hold the borders against outlaws and incursions. If you need help, ask for aid from Mako or Derrenhold.”
“How long will you be gone, my lord?” they asked him.
“I do not know.”
Then he flew to Galva.
“I should have come before,” he said. “I am sorry.” He assured Olivia that despite her captivity, Joanna was well, and unharmed. “I go now to get her,” he said. “When I return, I shall bring her with me.”
Issho, the southeastern province of Ryoka, is a rugged place. Though not so grim as Ippa, it has none of the gentle domesticated peace of Nakase. Its plains are colder than those of Nakase, and its rivers are wilder. The greatest of those rivers is the Endor. It starts in the north, beneath that peak which men call the Lookout, Mirrin, and pours ceaselessly south, cutting like a knife through Issho’s open spaces to the border where Chuyo and Issho and Nakase meet.
It ends in Lake Urai. Lake Urai is vast, and even on a fair day, the water is not blue, but pewter-grey. In winter, it does not freeze. Contrary winds swirl about it; at dawn and at twilight grey mist obscures its contours, and at all times the chill bright water lies quiescent, untroubled by even the most violent wind. The land about it is sparsely inhabited. Its people are a hardy, silent folk, not particularly friendly to strangers. They respect the lake, and do not willingly discuss its secrets. When the tall, fair-haired stranger appeared among them, having come, so he said, from Ippa, they were happy to prepare his food and take his money, but were inclined to answer his questions evasively, or not at all.
The lake is as you see it. The wizard of the lake? Never heard of him.
But the stranger was persistent. He took a room at The Red Deer in Jen, hired a horse—oddly, he seemed to have arrived without one—and roamed about the lake. The weather did not seem to trouble him. “We have winter in my country.” His clothes were plain, but clearly of the highest quality, and beneath his quiet manner there was iron.
“His eyes are different,” the innkeeper’s wife said. “He’s looking for a wizard. Maybe he’s one himself, in disguise.”
One grey March afternoon, when the lake lay shrouded in mist, Iyadur Atani came upon a figure sitting on a rock beside a small fire. It was dressed in rags, and held what appeared to be a fishing pole.
The dragon-lord dismounted. Tying his horse to a tall reed, he walked toward the fisherman. As he approached, the hunched figure turned. Beneath the ragged hood he glimpsed white hair, and a visage so old and wrinkled that he could not tell if he was facing a man or a woman.
“Good day,” he said. The ancient being nodded. “My name is Iyadur Atani. Men call me the Silver Dragon. I am looking for a wizard.”
The ancient one shook its head, and gestured, as if to say, Leave me alone. Iyadur Atani crouched.
“Old One, I don’t believe you are as you appear,” he said in a conversational tone. “I believe you are the one I seek. If you are indeed—” and then he said the name that Madelene of the Red Hawks had whispered in his ear—“I beg you to help me. For I have come a long way to look for you.”
An aged hand swept the hood aside. Dark grey eyes stared out of a withered, wrinkled face.
A feeble voice said, “Who told you my name?”
“A friend.”
“Huh. Whoever it was is no friend of mine. For what does the Silver Dragon need a wizard?”
“If you are truly wise,” Iyadur Atani said, “you know.”
The sorcerer laughed softly. The hunched figure straightened. The rags became a silken gown with glittering jewels at its hem and throat. Instead of an old man, the dragon-lord faced a man in his prime, of princely bearing, with luminous chestnut hair and eyes the color of a summer storm. The fishing pole became a tall staff. Its crook was carved like a serpent’s head. The sorcerer pointed the staff at the ground, and said three words.
A doorway seemed to open in the stony hillside. Joanna Torneo Atani stood within it. She wore furs, and was visibly pregnant.
“Joanna!” The dragon-lord reached for her. But his hands gripped empty air.
“Illusion,” said the sorcerer known as Viksa. “A simple spell, but effective, don’t you think? You are correct, my lord. I know you lost your wife. I assume you want her back. Tell me, why do you not lead your war band to Serrenhold and rescue her?”
“Martun Hal will kill her if I do that.”
“I see.”
“Will you help me?”
“Perhaps,” said the sorcerer. The serpent in his staff turned its head to stare at the dragon-lord. Its eyes were rubies. “What will you pay
me if I help you?”
“I have gold.”
Viksa yawned. “I have no interest in gold.”
“Jewels,” said the dragon-lord, “fine clothing, a horse to bear you wherever you might choose to go, a castle of your own to dwell in…”
“I have no use for those.”
“Name your price, and I will pay it,” Iyadur Atani said steadily. “I reserve only the life of my wife and my child.”
“But not your own?” Viksa cocked his head. “You intrigue me. Indeed, you move me. I accept your offer, my lord. I will help you rescue your wife from Serrenhold. I shall teach you a spell, a very simple spell, I assure you. When you speak it, you will be able to hide within a shadow. In that way you may pass into Serrenhold unseen.”
“And its price?”
Viksa smiled. “In payment, I will take—you. Not your life, but your service. It has been many years since I had someone to hunt for me, cook for me, build my fire, and launder my clothes. It will amuse me to have a dragon as my servant.”
“For how long would I owe you service?”
“As long as I wish it.”
“That seems unfair.”
The wizard shrugged.
“When would this service start?”
The wizard shrugged again. “It may be next month, or next year. Or it may be twenty years from now. Have we an agreement?”
Iyadur Atani considered. He did not like this wizard. But he could see no other way to get his wife back.
“We have,” he said. “Teach me the spell.”
So Viksa the sorcerer taught Iyadur Atani the spell which would enable him to hide within a shadow. It was not a difficult spell. Iyadur Atani rode his hired horse back to The Red Deer and paid the innkeeper what remained on his bill. Then he walked into the bare field beside the inn, and became the Silver Dragon. As the innkeeper and his wife watched open-mouthed, he circled the inn once, and then sped north.
“A dragon!” the innkeeper’s wife said, with intense satisfaction. “I wonder if he found the sorcerer. See, I told you his eyes were odd.” The innkeeper agreed. Then he went up to the room Iyadur Atani had occupied, and searched carefully in every cranny, in case the dragon-lord had chanced to leave some gold behind.
Now it was in Iyadur Atani’s mind to fly immediately to Serrenhold Castle. But, remembering Martun Hal’s threats, he did not. He flew to a point just south of Serrenhold’s southern border. And there, in a nondescript village, he bought a horse, a shaggy brown gelding. From there he proceeded to Serrenhold Castle. It was not so tedious a journey as he had thought it would be. The prickly stunted pine trees that grew along the slopes of the wind-swept hills showed new green along their branches. Birds sang. Foxes loped across the hills, hunting mice and quail and the occasional stray chicken. The journey took six days. At dawn on the seventh day, Iyadur Atani fed the brown gelding and left him in a farmer’s yard. It was a fine spring morning. The sky was cloudless; the sun brilliant; the shadows sharp-edged as steel. Thorn-crowned hawthorn bushes lined the road to Serrenhold Castle. Their shadows webbed the ground. A wagon filled with lumber lumbered toward the castle. Its shadow rolled beneath it.
“Wizard,” the dragon-lord said to the empty sky, “if you have played me false, I will find you, wherever you try to hide, and eat your heart.”
In her prison in the tower, Joanna Torneo Atani walked from one side of her chamber to the other. Her hair had grown long again: it fell around her shoulders. Her belly was round and high under the soft thick drape of her gown. The coming of spring had made her restless. She had asked to be allowed to walk on the ramparts, but this Martun Hal had refused.
Below her window, the castle seethed like a cauldron. The place was never still; the smells and sounds of war continued day and night. The air was thick with soot. Soldiers drilled in the courtyard. Martun Hal was planning an attack on Ege diCorsini. He had told her all about it, including his intention to destroy Galva. I will burn it to the ground. I will kill your uncle and take your mother prisoner, he had said. Or perhaps not. Perhaps I will just have her killed.
She glanced toward the patch of sky that was her window. If Madelene would only come, she could get word to Galva, or to her uncle in Derrenhold… But Madelene would not come in daylight, it was too dangerous.
She heard a hinge creak. The door to the outer chamber opened. “My lady,” Big Kate called. She bustled in, bearing a tray. It held soup, bread, and a dish of thin sour pickles. “I brought your lunch.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Kate said, troubled, “My lady, you have to eat. For the baby.”
“Leave it,” Joanna said. “I will eat.” Kate set the tray on the table, and left.
Joanna nibbled at a pickle. She rubbed her back, which ached. The baby’s heel thudded against the inside of her womb. “My precious, my little one, be still,” she said. For it was her greatest fear that her babe, Iyadur Atani’s child, might in its haste to be born arrive early, before her husband arrived to rescue them. That he would come, despite Martun Hal’s threats, she had no doubt. “Be still.”
Silently, Iyadur Atani materialized from the shadows.
“Joanna,” he said. He put his arms about her. She reached her hands up. Her fingertips brushed his face. She leaned against him, trembling.
She whispered into his shirt, “How did you…?”
“Magic.” He touched the high mound of her belly. “Are you well? Have they mistreated you?”
“I am very well. The babe is well.” She seized his hand and pressed his palm over the mound. The baby kicked strongly. “Do you feel?”
“Yes.” Iyadur Atani stroked her hair. A scarlet cloak with an ornate gold border hung on a peg. He reached for it, and wrapped it about her. “Now, my love, we go. Shut your eyes, and keep them shut until I tell you to open them.” He bent, and lifted her into his arms. Her heart thundered against his chest.
She breathed into his ear, “I am sorry. I am heavy.”
“You weigh nothing,” he said. His human shape dissolved. The walls of the tower shuddered and burst apart. Blocks of stone and splintered planks of wood toppled into the courtyard. Women screamed. Arching his great neck, the Silver Dragon spread his wings and rose into the sky. The soldiers on the ramparts threw their spears at him, and fled. Joanna heard the screaming and felt the hot wind. The scent of burning filled her nostrils. She knew what must have happened. But the arms about her were her husband’s, and human. She did not know how this could be, yet it was. Eyes tight shut, she buried her face against her husband’s shoulder.
Martun Hal stood with a courier in the castle hall. The crash of stone and the screaming interrupted him. A violent gust of heat swept through the room. The windows of the hall shattered. Racing from the hall, he looked up, and saw the dragon circling. His men crouched, sobbing in fear. Consumed with rage, he looked about for a bow, a spear, a rock… Finally he drew his sword.
“Damn you!” he shouted impotently at his adversary.
Then the walls of his castle melted beneath a white-hot rain.
In Derrenhold, Ege diCorsini was, wearily, reluctantly, preparing for war. He did not want to fight Martun Hal, but he would, of course, if troops from Serrenhold took one step across his border. That an attack would be mounted he had no doubt. His spies had told him to expect it. Jamis of the Hawks had sent her daughters to warn him.
Part of his weariness was a fatigue of the spirit. This is my fault. I should have killed him when I had the opportunity. Ferris was right. The other part of his weariness was physical. He was tired much of the time, and none of the tonics or herbal concoctions that the physicians prescribed seemed to help. His heart raced oddly. He could not sleep. Sometimes in the night he wondered if the Old One sleeping underground had dreamed of him. When the Old One dreams of you, you die. But he did not want to die and leave his domain and its people in danger, and so he planned a war, knowing all the while that he might die in the middle of it.
“My lord,�
� a servant said, “you have visitors.”
“Send them in,” Ege diCorsini said. “No, wait.” The physicians had said he needed to move about. Rising wearily, he went into the hall.
He found there his niece Joanna, big with child, and with her, her flame-haired, flame-eyed husband. A strong smell of burning hung about their clothes.
Ege diCorsini drew a long breath. He kissed Joanna on both cheeks. “I will let your mother know that you are safe.”
“She needs to rest,” Iyadur Atani said.
“I do not need to rest. I have been doing absolutely nothing for the last six months. I need to go home,” Joanna said astringently. “Only I do not wish to ride. Uncle, would you lend us a litter, and some steady beasts to draw it?”
“You may have anything I have,” Ege diCorsini said. And for a moment he was not tired at all.
Couriers galloped throughout Ippa, bearing the news: Martun Hal was dead; Serrenhold Castle was ash, or nearly so. The threat of war was—after twenty years—truly over. Martun Hal’s captains—most of them—had died with him. Those still alive hid, hoping to save their skins.
Two weeks after the rescue and the burning of Serrenhold, Ege diCorsini died.
In May, with her mother and sisters at her side, Joanna gave birth to a son. The baby had flame-colored hair and eyes like his father’s. He was named Avahir. A year and a half later, a second son was born to Joanna Torneo Atani. He had dark hair, and eyes like his mother’s. He was named Jon. Like the man whose name he bore, Jon Atani had a sweet disposition and a loving heart. He adored his brother, and Avahir loved his younger brother fiercely. Their loyalty to each other made their parents very happy.
Thirteen years almost to the day from the burning of Serrenhold, on a bright spring morning, a man dressed richly as a prince, carrying a white birch staff, appeared at the front gate of Atani Castle and requested audience with the dragon-lord. He refused to enter, or even to give his name, saying only, “Tell him the fisherman has come for his catch.”
Wings of Fire Page 49
