Days of Air and Darkness

by Katharine Kerr

  AERIAL BATTLE

  Arzosah roared and dropped, down and down in a rush of wind that tore at Rhodry’s clothes and tried to grab him from her back. He clung to the straps, his hands stinging and aching from the effort. Just as he felt he was bound to be torn off and sent falling, the dragon leveled with a huge roar, answered from below by the screams of horses and riders alike. Rhodry risked sitting up and leaning to the side to look down. Horses were plunging through one of the gaps, trampling the spearmen as they surrendered to an orgy of herd fear no matter how hard their riders yelled and beat at them with quirts and the flat of blades. Rhodry started to laugh, then swore as something sped by his face.

  “Arrow!” he screamed. “They’ve got archers! Climb!”

  BY KATHARINE KERR

  Her novels of Deverry and the Westlands

  DAGGERSPELL

  DARKSPELL

  THE BRISTLING WOOD

  THE DRAGON REVENANT

  A TIME OF EXILE

  A TIME OF OMENS

  DAYS OF BLOOD AND FIRE

  DAYS OF AIR AND DARKNESS

  THE RED WYVERN

  THE BLACK RAVEN

  Her works of science fiction

  POLAR CITY BLUES

  RESURRECTION

  For my aunt,

  Beatrice Regina McClellan

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  “Round up the usual suspects …”

  Many thanks to Alis Rasmussen, Mark Kreighbaum, Elizabeth Pomada, and Howard Kerr, for invaluable advice and support.

  CONTENTS

  A Note on the Pronunciation of Deverry Words

  I. Prologue—Albus

  II. Past—Conjunctio

  III. Present, Rising—Fortuna Minor

  IV. Present, Falling—Tristitia

  V. Future—Cauda Draconis

  VI. Epilogue—Populus

  A Note on

  the Pronunciation of

  Deverry Words

  The language spoken in Deverry, which we might well call Neo-Gaulish, is a member of the P-Celtic family. Although closely related to Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, it is by no means identical to any of these actual languages and should never be taken as such.

  Vowels are divided by Deverry scribes into two classes: noble and common. Nobles have two pronunciations; commons, one.

  A as in father when long; a shorter version of the same sound, as in far, when short.

  O as in bone when long; as in pot when short.

  W as the oo in spook when long; as in roof when short.

  Y as the i in machine when long; as the e in butter when short.’

  E as in pen.

  I as in pin.

  U as in pun.

  Vowels are generally long in stressed syllables; short in unstressed. Y is the primary exception to this rule. When it appears as the last letter of a word, it is always long whether that syllable is stressed or not.

  Diphthongs generally have one consistent pronunciation.

  AE as the a in mane.

  AI as in aisle.

  AU as the ow in how.

  EO as a combination of eh and oh.

  EW as in Welsh, a combination of eh and oo.

  IE as in pier.

  OE as the oy in boy.

  UI as the North Welsh wy, a combination of oo and ee. Note that OI is never a diphthong, but is two distinct sounds, as in carnoic (KAR-noh-ik).

  Consonants are mostly the same as in English, with these exceptions:

  C is always hard as in cat.

  G is always hard as in get.

  DD is the voiced th as in thin or breath, but the voicing is more pronounced than in English. It is opposed to TH, the unvoiced sound as in th or breathe. (This is the sound that the Greeks called the Celtic tau.)

  R is heavily rolled.

  RH is a voiceless R, approximately pronounced as if it were spelled hr in Deverry proper. In Eldidd, the sound is fast becoming indistinguishable from R.

  DW, GW, and TW are single sounds, as in Gwendolen or twit.

  Y is never a consonant.

  I before a vowel at the beginning of a word is consonantal, as it is in the plural ending -ion, pronounced yawn.

  Doubled consonants are both sounded clearly, unlike in English. Note, however, that DD is a single letter, not a doubled consonant.

  Accent is generally on the penultimate syllable, but compound words and place names are often an exception to this rule.

  I have used this system of transcription for the Bardekian, Dwarvish, and Elvish alphabets as well as the Deverrian, which is, of course, based upon the Greek rather than the Roman model. As faithful readers of this series know, my decision to use this simple approach rather than the full scholarly apparatus developed at the University of Aberwyn has been roundly attacked of late in the academic press. Such readers will be glad to hear that the lawsuit against those attackers, in particular a certain Elvish professor of Elvish, filed on my behalf by my publishers, is proceeding nicely through the courts in Aberwyn, where in due time it will reach the gwerbret’s malover and be resolved, once and for all, and in our favor, or so I may hope.

  PROLOGUE

  The Northlands, 1116

  ALBUS

  The opposite of Rubeus in all things, thus generally an omen for good. Yet when it falls into the House of Lead, pertaining to matters of war, it does signify days of air and darkness, and an evil upon the land.

  —The Omenbook of Gwarn,

  Loremaster

  UNDER A STARRY NIGHT two men and a dragon camped by a river. Though the wind blew warm, the men had built a fire for light, and the great wyrm laid her head as close to it as she dared. The rest of her glittering body and folded wings stretched away into shadow. Well over twenty feet long, not counting the tail curled round her haunches, the greenish-black dragon kept raising her head to look about her and sniff the summer wind. On the opposite side of the fire sat a young man of the Mountain People, though he was tall for one of them at five-and-a-half feet. He had high dwarven cheekbones and a flat nose, narrow eyes, shadowed under heavy dwarven brows, and his hair was a brown close to black, as was his close-cropped beard. Every time the dragon went on guard, he would start up, then mutter a curse under his breath and sit again.

  “Rori?” he said finally. “What be troubling the beast?”

  Rhodry Maelwaedd stopped his restless pacing and walked back into the pool of firelight. He was well over six-feet-tall but built straight from shoulder to hip, and his raven-dark hair and cornflower blue eyes marked him for an Eldidd man, even though that province lay hundreds of miles to the south, all the way across the far-flung kingdom of Deverry. Weather-beaten, grizzled, Rhodry was still a handsome man, and he looked human enough—at first glance, anyway.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s a pity you never learned the Elvish tongue, Enj. It’s the only thing she speaks.”

  “And where would I have come across elves, all the way up here? Well, before I met you, anyway.”

  “True spoken.” Rhodry turned to the dragon and began speaking in the language of his father’s people. “What’s wrong? Do you smell trouble on the wind?”

  “What? No, not yet, anyway.” The dragon’s voice rumbled and growled like a turning millstone. “But I like to keep a bit of a guard.”

  “Sensible enough, and my thanks.”

  She rippled her long wings, then rested her head on her coppery-green paws, though she kept an eye open to watch him. On the third finger of his right hand, Rhodry wore a silver ring, a flat band inscribed on the outside with a design of roses and on the inside, with her true name.

  “Naught’s wrong.” Rhodry sat down on the ground a few feet from Enj and spoke in the rough patois of Deverrian and the mountain tong
ue that they both could understand. “She’s just troubled, like we are.”

  “It’s been a miserable bad day, truly.”

  Rhodry laughed, a high mad chortle of a berserker’s howl that made Enj wince and the dragon raise her head to hiss like a thousand cats.

  “You must admit, Enj old lad, that you’ve a fine gift for understatement. You’ve lost home and kin both, and I’ve lost a woman I loved with all my heart and soul, and what do you call it? A miserable bad day. Well, truly, it was that, I suppose.”

  “My apologies, then!” Enj snarled like the dragon. “But ye gods, what do you expect me to do? Orate like one of your wretched bards?”

  Rhodry wiped his grin away.

  “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

  The two men stared at each other for a long moment; then Enj held out his hand. Rhodry shook it. His mouth set hard against mourning, Enj returned to watching flames dance along logs.

  Rhodry’s heavy sword belt lay beside him on the ground. He pulled a dagger free of its sheath and began riddling with it, polishing the narrow blade on his sleeve, holding it up to catch the light. When he flicked it with a thumbnail, the blade rang like silver, though it was as hard as steel. The dragon’s coppery eye followed every glint.

  Their camp lay in a broad valley where a river flowed through scattered pines and high grass. All round rose the mountains of the Roof of the World, in those days untrod and unsettled by either dwarf or man. Framing the valley, hills climbed, dark with trees, while beyond them rose the high peaks, their perpetual snow gleaming a faint silver in the light from the overarching stars. Down from the foothills, the night wind brought them the sound of wolves howling on the hunt. Arzosah raised her massive head to listen.

  “They’re moving away from us,” she remarked. “I do wish you’d sheathe that knife, Rori. It’s driving me daft, watching you play with it.”

  He smiled and closed one broad hand round its hilt.

  “You know,” she went on, “if you need someone to hate, you could blame Evandar. I do.”

  “For what? The vanishing of Haen Marn?”

  “Nah, nah, nah. What do I care about your stupid island? It wasn’t my home. I blame him for the troubling of me.”

  “I should have known.” Rhodry translated this exchange for the puzzled Enj, then turned back to her. “Well, if he hadn’t given me this little ring, you’d be all nice and snug, sure enough, lolling round in your fire mountain and chewing on a cow bone or two.”

  “Don’t mock! It’s bad enough you’ve enslaved me. Don’t mock me, too.”

  “Watch your courtesies when you speak to me.”

  She whined, rolling an enormous copper eye to the stars. He held up his hand to catch the firelight on the ring.

  “My apologies,” she said. “You’re a harsh man, Rhodry Dragonmaster.”

  “I intend to stay that way and stay alive.”

  She whined again, flopping her head onto her paws. He glanced at Enj to find him utterly expressionless.

  “We should turn in,” Rhodry said. “Think you can sleep?”

  “Not without dreaming. Let’s let the fire burn awhile.”

  “Very well.” He looked at the dragon, who was quietly snarling to herself. “Still thinking of Evandar?”

  “Yes. If ever I find him again, I’m going to eat him. Munch crunch gobble gone.”

  “A fine sentiment, but I’m afraid you can’t really eat him. He doesn’t have a real body, not one made out of meat, I mean, like you and me.”

  “Just like him! The final cheat of all!”

  “A spiteful beast, isn’t she?”

  The voice came out of the dark beyond the fire. His dagger in hand, Rhodry scrambled to his feet as a figure strolled toward them. A silver glow like moonlight hung in the air round him so that they could see him clearly, a tall fellow, slender, dressed in a long green tunic and buckskin trousers. His hair was the bright yellow of daffodils, his lips were the red of sour cherries, and his eyes were an unnatural turquoise blue, bright as gemstones. Yet the strangest thing of all were his ears, long and delicately pointed, furled tight like a fern in spring.

  “Evandar!” Rhodry hissed.

  The dragon slapped her tail upon the ground with a dull boom like an avalanche. He could hear her scuffling to her feet behind him.

  “The very one.” Evandar made him a bow, then raised one hand to point a long and slender finger at the dragon. “Arzosah Sothy Lorezohaz! Remember that I know your name.”

  She snarled, opening her mouth wide, but she held her place. Enj crouched by the fire and stared at their visitor.

  “What brings you here?” With a nod Enj’s way to include him, Rhodry spoke in the Deverrian patois.

  “A warning for you,” Evandar said in the same. “Are you heading south?”

  “We are. Cengarn’s under siege. Did you know that?”

  “Of course. I know everything that’s worth knowing about this war, Rhodry Maelwaedd.”

  “Oh, do you now? Then where’s the relieving army? We’ll be looking to join up with it.”

  “Go to Lin Serr first. Garin and his troop of axmen haven’t left yet.”

  “What? I’d have thought them long gone.”

  “There’s an obstacle in their way.” Evandar flashed him a grin. “A small army’s tramping round the countryside. Horsekin.”

  Enj winced and swore.

  “The filthy bastards!” Rhodry said, half-laughing. “I want a chance at killing me a few.”

  “You’ll get it,” Evandar said. “But stay on guard while you’re flying south, because there’s some peculiar birds who soar between worlds, and I think me one of them means you harm.”

  “Shape-changers!”

  Evandar smiled, briefly.

  “It’s the raven I’d watch out for. A bird of ill omen, always, but particularly ill-omened is the raven I have in mind. You’re wearing some sort of talisman of hiding, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “I thought so. No doubt your enemies are having a fair bit of trouble scrying you out, and so they’ll have to come look for you in the flesh. Be careful, very careful. The raven woman’s as dangerous as they come.”

  “We’ll keep alert, then, and my thanks. Answer me somewhat, will you?”

  “Probably not, but you can ask. I only set riddles. I don’t answer them for naught.”

  The dragon swung her head his way and growled. Oho! Rhodry thought.

  “All right, then,” Rhodry said aloud. “Why would you come to warn me? I don’t recall ever doing anything for you, and yet you’ve helped me a good many times now.”

  “I don’t know. It’s a riddle I’ve set for myself, a riddle as new and shiny as a gold coin, and here I never meant to do such a thing.” Evandar tilted his head a little to one side, suddenly solemn, and yet it seemed that he was acting the role of a man thinking rather than truly thinking something through. “I suppose there’s only one thing the answer could be.”

  “And that is?”

  Evandar laid a hand along the side of Rhodry’s face, then kissed him full on the mouth. His hand felt oddly cool, more like silk than flesh, but the kiss was warm enough. Rhodry could neither move nor think till Evandar released him.

  “That could be it, indeed.” Evandar took one step back and vanished, suddenly and utterly gone, without so much as the flicker of a shadow.

  Rhodry raised his hand and touched the dagger to his mouth, stood there narrow-eyed and speechless while Enj goggled and Arzosah made the long rumbling noise that did her for a laugh. Rhodry turned on her with a snarl.

  “Oh, stop your cackling, Wyrm! Why didn’t you tell me you could speak the language of men?”

  “You never asked, Dragonmaster.” She stopped rumbling, but he suspected her of doing whatever it was dragons did when they smirked. “So. Evandar isn’t real flesh and blood, is he? I never would have guessed it.”

  “I said hold your tongue!” Rhodry flung his hand up to make the r
ing flash. She whined and crouched like a kicked dog. “Oh, my apologies. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”

  “A harsh man, but a just one.” She relaxed with a toss of her massive head. “I could be enslaved by worse.”

  There remained Enj. It took Rhodry a long moment to make himself look his friend in the face.

  “That wretched wyrm,” Enj said, “pretending she couldn’t understand a word I said, making you babble back and forth like an ambassador!”

  Rhodry let out his breath in a sigh. The matter, he knew, would stay closed between them from now on. He sat down again and leaned back against his bedroll.

  “And what or who is this Evandar fellow?” Enj said.

  “I’m not truly sure. He has the ears and eyes of a full-blooded elf, but I’ve been told by sorcerers that he’s naught of the sort. Riddles, indeed!” Rhodry spat into the fire. “They say he’s some kind of spirit who’s never been born, and that he lives in some kind of magical country that lies beyond the world, not that it’s floating in the air or suchlike—just ‘beyond,’ they say. None of it makes a bit of sense to me, curse them all! But Evandar’s got dweomer, all right, the way other men have blood running in their veins.”

  The dragon clacked her fangs in a sound that, he suspected, did duty as a snicker.

  “Indeed?” Enj considered for a long while. “Do you think he’d know where Haen Marn’s gone off to?”

  “I’ve no idea, but I suspect that if anyone does, it’d be him. Maybe I’ll get a chance to ask him.” Rhodry shot the dragon a murderous glance. “And no smart remarks from you.”

  Arzosah curled her paw and contemplated her claws, but he could have sworn she was smiling.

  After a few hours’ troubled sleep, they woke at dawn. Arzosah clambered to her feet and stretched her wings, throwing huge shadows over the entire campsite, then folded them back and waddled down to the river to drink, which took a while because she lapped water like a cat rather than sucking like a cow. The men sat by the ash of their dead fire and shared stale flatbread and a strip of venison jerky.