Days of Air and Darkness

by Katharine Kerr

  That morning, since he was shut out of the main city and thus any councils of war that might have been taking place, there was nothing for him to do but fume, pacing back and forth in his quarters up in the gatehouse or wandering through the old watchtower. He found himself wishing that Alshandra’s peculiar creatures would come back and give him a fight, but apparently their experience with the iron-filled gatehouse had scared them off. Finally, he went down to the riverbank and the dragon’s company. In the hot morning sun, Arzosah stretched out and lazed, turning from one side to the other as if she were meat on a spit, browning by a fire. To give himself something to do, Rhodry groomed her as he would have done a horse. With handfuls of oiled rags from the gatehouse storeroom, he rubbed her down till every scale gleamed, while she stretched and rumbled in the sun.

  “Revenge will come when it comes,” she remarked. “A dragon lives many a long year, while the Horsekin live but few.”

  “My heart longs to make them live even fewer,” Rhodry snapped. “I’m sick as I can be of all this delay.”

  Later that afternoon, he did receive some news, when Garin came down from the city. Rhodry looked up to see him hurrying down the long stairs and strolled across the grass to meet him by the river.

  “One of the women passed along a message this morning,” Garin said. “Seems like someone did a little scrying. There’s been an attack on Cengarn, but it was beaten back easy enough.”

  Rhodry stopped walking and swung round to face him.

  “When was this?”

  “Two days past, round noon or so. They couldn’t tell me much about it, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “All this wretched dweomer! Well, it comes in handy, every now and then. Too bad our enemies have it as well.”

  For a long moment they stood looking up, but nothing moved in the cloudless sky, not natural bird or shape-changer.

  Rhodry saw no sign of the raven woman all day, but that night she invaded his dreams. Once before a woman—or to be precise, a female spirit in that case—had taken over his dreams. Although it was years past, he remembered it well enough to recognize the sensation when it happened again. He was having an ordinary dream, where he walked along the shore of Haen Marn’s lake with Angmar, neither of them speaking, merely delighting in each other’s company like the dragon in her sun. At one point, he bent down to pick up a stone from the shore, and when he straightened up, she was gone. He ran this way and that, hunting all over the island, which suddenly turned into Dun Aberwyn, as places will do in dreams. He ended up in the garden behind the main broch, where stood the fountain with the marble dragon.

  Sitting on a bench, framed by roses, the raven woman was waiting for him. She reminded him of Mallona, though younger and somehow coarser, with raven-dark hair and lovely eyes, but her mouth was too full, her neck too thick, and her smile too sly. She had blunt heavy fingers, too, peasant’s hands, he found himself thinking, folded over some shiny object hidden in her lap.

  “Well met, Rhodry Maelwaedd,” she said. “Is it that you know who I be?”

  “I don’t know your name, if that’s what you mean, but I think me we’ve met before.”

  “We have at that. It does surprise me that you remember.”

  “I’m more surprised you do, frankly.”

  “My Goddess, she does show me many a hidden thing. There be power upon her beyond your imagining.”

  He merely shrugged, glancing round. The walls of the brochs seemed to have closed in round the garden, penning them in with no gate or door. A low ceiling blocked out the sky as the garden turned into a chamber with a single chair and a woman’s riding gear scattered on the straw-strewn floor. She rose, laughing, her hands still clutched tight over her mysterious holding.

  “Never will you escape from here,” she snapped. “You did trap me once, and now I’ve trapped you.”

  “Indeed? I’m bound to wake up sooner or later.”

  She tossed her head up, her eyes narrowing in rage. Rhodry laughed, making her a mocking sort of bow.

  “What did you think? That I wouldn’t know I was dreaming? That I’d believe in you and your wretched little spells?”

  She cursed in cold fury, then began to chant in some language that he’d never heard. With her right hand, she began to sketch a strange pattern in the air, while in her left she held out a little glass vial, gleaming with silver light. Out of sheer reflex, Rhodry slapped at her arm with a wide sweep of motion. His hand seemed to pass right through her flesh, but the vial fell spinning to the ground and shattered.

  He was wide awake, sitting up in his blankets in the gatehouse and sopping with cold sweat. He got up, swearing with every foul oath he could muster, ran both hands through his damp hair, and staggered over to a window. Out to the east, the sky was just beginning to lighten. He leaned onto the sill until the sun rose to banish the dark. With one last shudder, he turned back, picked up his brigga from the floor, and pulled them on, then reached for his shirt and saw something gleaming on the stone, a curved fragment of silvery glass.

  “Oh, horseshit and a pile of it!” Rhodry whispered.

  He hunkered down and inspected the floor, but he found only that one piece. Even in the brightening sun, it seemed to glow with its own private light. And what would she have done with that vial, he wondered, trapped his soul the way witches were said to do in the old tales? Or was it merely poisoned? He found his sword belt, started to draw his silver dagger, then reconsidered. He had another knife as well, a crude bronze blade bound to a wooden handle, which Dallandra had given him a long while ago. He drew that from its crumbling sheath and slid the point under the fragment to pick it up for a closer look, but the moment the bronze touched the silver glass, the fragment puffed up, hissed, began to steam, and with an evil smell boiled away like a drop of water on a hot griddle stone.

  Rhodry was too stunned to cry out or swear. He sat back on his heels and stared at the knife point. When he risked touching it, the metal felt cool and hard, just as it always did. Jill had told him once that this particular knife had great dweomer upon it; she’d said something about it existing in several worlds at once, but since he hadn’t understood what she’d told him, he’d forgotten exactly how it might do so. From now on, he decided, he’d sleep with that knife in his hand.

  After he finished dressing, he went outside to the park land and called Arzosah down from her high perch. She flopped ungracefully into the dew-damp grass next to him and yawned, shaking her wings.

  “I don’t suppose you saw or heard any ravens flying over last night,” Rhodry said.

  “What? Of course not. Ravens don’t fly at night.” She yawned again, then caught herself. “Oh. You mean that raven. I did not, and truly, I would have, because it was chilly and damp up there, Dragonmaster, and I did not sleep well at all.”

  “If you didn’t sleep all day, you’d sleep better at night.”

  She flounced her wings and curled her upper lip to expose one long fang. Rhodry held the ring up with a gleam of sunlight.

  “We’re going to go flying,” he said. “I want a look round. If she was working dweomer last night, she has to be round here somewhere.”

  “What? She did what?”

  While he tied on her rope harness, Rhodry told the dragon about his “dream.” She immediately agreed with his interpretation.

  “No ordinary dream at all! She drew your soul out of your body, all right, and I’ll just wager she was trying to trap it, there in that world where sorcerers work their magic. I’ve never seen anything like that peculiar stuff the vial was made of, but I’m sure it was dweomer. Ych! This is awful! If she manages to trap you, then she’ll get the ring, and serving her would be loathsome. I’d hate it.” She stamped her front feet. “Hate it, hate it, hate it!”

  “Then you’d best help me track her down, hadn’t you?”

  They flew for a long time that morning, until the sun was halfway twixt horizon and zenith. They swooped up high over Lin S
err’s plateau and saw tiny figures below them, the dwarven burial party working at one of the burnt farms, then circled back, drifting on the air currents over the hills and currents to the south and east of the dwarvehold. They never saw the raven, though it was possible that in her woman’s form she lay hidden in the cover of the deep forest. Finally, when the sun was sending long shadows from the west, Rhodry gave it up as a bad job and went back to Lin Serr. They landed by the river, where he untied her harness.

  “What are you going to do?” she said. “You’ve got to sleep some time.”

  “True spoken. I don’t know, actually. I might go find Garin and ask him to see what dwarvehold’s womenfolk have to say about this.”

  “Good idea. May I go hunt, Master? I spied some nice fat deer down in the hills.”

  “Very well. Just come straight back here to eat them.”

  “And if I find the raven, I’ll eat her. I think she knows it, too.”

  After she flew off, Rhodry coiled the harness and carried it back to the gatehouse. He’d grown so used to thinking of iron as a protection that he was paying little attention to much of anything as he climbed the stairs, but of course, it was only Alshandra’s and Evandar’s people who couldn’t abide the presence of that metal. When he walked into his chamber, the raven woman was waiting for him. Stark naked, her long black hair draped over one shoulder, she was standing in the curve of the wall twixt two windows. From the disarray of his blankets and gear, he could guess that she’d been rummaging through everything he owned.

  “You’re bold as brass, aren’t you?” he snapped.

  She laughed, then looked full into his face, caught his gaze with hers, and held it with dweomer. Her stare seemed to pierce his eyes and impale his very soul, so that for a moment he couldn’t frame a single thought. He felt the slap of her mind as a physical blow, making him stagger. With a wrench of will, he looked away and tossed the bundle of ropes he carried straight at her. Although they fell short, she yelped and jumped back—all the time he needed. He drew the bronze knife in a smooth motion and charged. Shrieking, she dodged to one side. He barely missed, would have stabbed her with his next lunge, but his own ruse tripped him. He caught a foot in the ropes and stumbled just enough to let her duck past.

  “You bastard of a silver dagger!” She leapt up to the window ledge. “You’ve not seen the end of this.”

  She flung herself out the window. Spitting every foul oath he knew, Rhodry shook the rope from his foot and rushed to the ledge. When he looked down, he expected to see a corpse spattered on the grass below, but instead the raven flew, swooping up past the window with a harsh cry, For a long time, he leaned onto the sill and watched as she flapped off, flying hard and steadily back south toward Cengarn.

  It was about an hour after dawn of the next day that Lord Tren, walking at the edge of the captain’s camp, saw the raven flying home on slow wings. He stopped and watched her circle once over the army, which greeted her with cheers and upraised arms. She never flew directly over the city itself, he noticed; he supposed that she feared a lucky arrow shot from the defenders. Flapping once, then settling into a long glide, she came to earth not far from him at the open door of her tent, so like a real bird, hopping a little, shaking her wings, but so huge, that he shuddered. When servants rushed out to chase him away from the high priestess’s presence, he was glad to go.

  Yet that night, after she’d granted Hir-li an audience, Raena, the name by which the men knew the high priestess, had Tren summoned. He followed a perfumed maidservant’s lantern through the dark camp to the high priestess’s tent, a particularly large one and set well apart from the others. In the night, it glowed softly from light within. At the tent flap stood two human eunuchs with long spears. The servant held the lantern high with one hand and pulled back the flap with the other.

  “If the captain would enter?”

  Tren ducked his head and stepped in, straightening up in a pale silver glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, as if light clung to the very walls and tent poles. Not far from the entrance, in the midst of this moon gleam, Raena sat on a chair made of curved wood and linen slings. Behind her he could see chests, a bed, various weapons and clothes, lying scattered on a carpet of red and gold. At her feet sat a thick leather cushion. She snapped her fingers and pointed.

  “You may sit.”

  “Her Holiness is very kind.”

  Tren sat. She was wearing a long tunic, all embroidered with Horsekin-style designs in red and gold, and her long dark hair plumed back from her brow in Horsekin fashion, too, braided with charms and trinkets. Her short, almost stubby hands lay in her lap, unmoving as she considered him.

  “Hir-li did tell me this noon that one of your men committed blasphemy.”

  “He did, Your Holiness. He was put to death for it.”

  Raena nodded once, as if considering what he’d said, then nodded again, and again, and again, her head bobbing back and forth, her body swaying with the motion, forward, back, forward, back, while Tren stared gape-mouthed. With one last plunge, she bent double, her head face-down in her lap. He half-rose, wondering if he should call for the servants. All at once she sat up, but with a strange sinuous motion, as if a rope were attached between her shoulder blades to pull her torso up. At the last moment, her head snapped up as well. She sat back in her chair, but another soul looked out from her eyes, and an alien smile curved her mouth. When she spoke, her voice rang hollow and booming.

  “Lord Tren! I speak to you through the mouth of my priestess.”

  Abruptly cold, Tren slid off the cushions and knelt to lift trembling hands to his Goddess, truly made flesh for this little while. She laughed in a long cackling peal and raised her hands to return his salute.

  “Do you wish the death of your brother’s killer?” The voice pealed like bronze. “Do you crave his blood?”

  “I do, O Beloved One, with all my soul.”

  “The priestess will give you what you need to bring him down as he flies. She, too, wishes this man’s death, as do I.”

  Tren was stunned—as he flew? Did she mean to say that this Rhodry, this misbegotten silver dagger, was another shape-changer?

  “But if you receive this gift, you will have bound yourself to serve me and to slay my enemies, no matter who they may be, no matter how it might ache your heart. You must kill in my name. Do you hear me? Kill. I want blood. You must kill.”

  He started to speak, but Raena’s head flopped first back, then forward. She gurgled, drooling, spitting, her body wrenching in the chair, then twisting back. Tren leapt to his feet and grabbed the writhing woman just as the chair threatened to tip and dump her upon the ground. When her head flopped onto his shoulder, he felt warm drool seeping through his shirt. Was she choking to death? He had never felt more helpless.

  He scooped her up and carried her to the bed, then laid her down face forward, grabbing blankets and wadding them up to stuff under her neck and chest. She lay so still that he risked putting his hand along the side of her face. Although she felt chilly, she was warm enough for life.

  “Raena?” Tren whispered. “Your Holiness?”

  He would have bellowed for servants, but he feared that she’d be mortified to be seen this way. He certainly would have been. All at once, she raised her head and stared at him.

  “Water?” Her voice cracked, but it was her own voice.

  Tren got up, glanced round, and found a clay pitcher and a wooden cup. He had to support her while she drank, both hands wrapped round the cup like a little child.

  “The Goddess demands a great deal from her priestess, I see.”

  She nodded and held out the cup for more water. He poured, then slipped his arm under her shoulders again to hold her up.

  “My thanks.” Her voice rasped. “Be you mindful of the great honor she did pay you?”

  “Very much so, Your Holiness. Shall I call your maidservants in?”

  She shook her head no, handed him the empty cup, a
nd sat up, sighing, pushing her mane of hair back from her face with both hands.

  “See you there that long chest at the back of the tent?” she said. “Open it. The gift she did promise you be wrapped in red cloth.”

  Tren did as he was told and found, wrapped in reddish-brown linen, an elven longbow and a quiver of arrows. He stood, measuring the long yew staff—just a few inches shorter than he was and with a good strong pull. Tucked in the quiver’s mouth were a pair of bow strings. Raena swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat looking at him.

  “Do you ken the using of such a thing?”

  “I do, Your Holiness. There’s more than a little blood of the Westfolk in my clan’s veins.”

  “Oh, I’m well aware of that.” She smiled briefly. “But do you remember what she said? If you do take that bow, it will be needful for you to kill at my order.”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I know not.” She tilted her head a little to one side. “Yet an omen did come to me, saying that you might stay your hand from the task I would put you.”

  “Your Holiness, I assure you. I’m the Goddess’s man, heart and soul.”

  She started to speak, shrugging, yawning, then flopping back onto the bed, stretching her arms out over her head with a long sigh.

  “Er, Your Holiness seems tired. I should leave her.”

  “Not just yet.” She smiled at him. “When the Goddess takes me over, she leaves me hungry. Come lie down.”

  Her tunic, hiked up round her thighs, stuck to her fleshy body with sweat. He stood for a moment considering her and wishing she looked less like a farmwife, lying in the haystack after a hard day tending pigs. Yet it had been a long time since he’d had a woman, and besides, scorning this one could prove dangerous. He sat down beside her and kissed her on the mouth. She laughed and threw one leg round his waist. The sex had something of the farm about it, too, at least to Tren’s way of thinking, short, rough, and noisy. When they were done, she rolled away from him and yawned.