Song of the Beast

by Carol Berg

  Davyn and the prince emerged from behind the boulder pile, where flying shards of broken rock and scalding spray had forced them to take shelter, and gaped at the empty lakebed. Narim stood at the edge, stunned, appalled, disbelieving. “They’ll never be able to speak with us again,” he said. “They’ll grow wilder, farther from us.”

  Aidan spoke softly from atop his boulder perch. “They’ll never again be slaves to anyone, humans or Elhim. Without the lake water to tempt them, they won’t return here. The water was the difference, you know, the reason you were able to bind them in the first place. It wasn’t just the jenica you put in it to keep them still. Whatever element of the water enabled them to understand our speech also enabled the binding of the bloodstones. That’s why the Riders could never bind a dragon to a new stone.”

  Narim’s grief was bitter. “Only the one in five hundred years, those like you, will ever hear their voices.”

  “You needn’t fear. I’ll pay the price for this as well.”

  I wasn’t sure exactly what he was talking about; we would all pay for this night’s work. The world would pay.

  “What about the springs?” said Davyn. “Isn’t there still a risk?”

  “Keep watching,” said Aidan.

  After a while, the lone dragon spread its wings and glided from the clifftop, spiraling down into the fog-filled valley. A blast of white-hot fire blossomed from the deeps. When the fire receded, the dragon soared upward, returning to its distant perch. The bottom of the valley had been melted into a smooth shelf of rock, the springs irredeemably buried.

  Narim sank to his knees and buried his head in his hands. How does one face the ruin of dreams carried for half a thousand years? Despite all, my heart wept for him.

  Chapter 35

  The prince convened a hasty trial for Narim. He took evidence from Davyn and from the Elhim who were a part of Narim’s plot. I could not remain silent, which meant, unfortunately, that I could no longer stay out of sight. So I stepped out of my niche, brushed past MacAllister without acknowledging him, and told the prince I wished to speak.

  Prince Donal listened carefully to my tale of Narim’s tender care for me. I told him how all the Elhim, including the conspirators, had risked the safety of their sanctuary to take me in. I gave no other evidence. Whatever I knew of Narim’s crimes—and my own—I left to others to tell.

  The prince already knew MacAllister’s mind, and only asked if he wished to add anything. MacAllister declined. Weak and foolish, as always. Even if he took no satisfaction in vengeance, how could he not see the rightness of punishment? We must pay for our deeds. Surely the prince would understand that.

  I wandered over to the edge of the abyss and peered down on the scorched rocks and dried mud that were all that remained of the lake of fire, waiting to hear the verdict—to hear if my name would be listed among the condemned. After a sober deliberation, the prince announced that Narim would not hang, but that he and his Elhim conspirators would be exiled from Elyria for as long as they might live. Gods, Aidan and his cousin were two of a kind. Naive. Stupid. Who would ever be able to tell if an Elhim wandering the roads of Elyria was Narim or some other?

  But the prince called forward one of his aides, his scribe who was charged with marking the wrists of those sworn to the prince’s service. While three soldiers held Narim still, the man used his needles and ink to mark, not a wrist, but Narim’s forehead with an X, and beside it the prince’s own mark. “Wear this mark of infamy forever, Elhim, and be grateful to my cousin and Mistress Lara that you yet breathe. Never was sin healed by betrayal, and never was good built upon the abused honor of a warrior. Begone from my father’s kingdom, and never tread its paths again.” The other conspirators were marked in the same fashion.

  Narim and the exiles left that afternoon. Ten Elyrian soldiers accompanied the Elhim, both to protect them from assault along their way to the Elyrian border and to make sure they crossed it. My oldest friend did not speak to me before he left and did not acknowledge the hand I offered. My name had not been mentioned in the prince’s judgment.

  Though anxious to take his place at his father’s side, Prince Donal planned to remain at Cir Nakai overnight to see to his men. Many were wounded; all of them needed sleep after five days of hard riding and the ferocious action at Cor Neuill. Many had lost their gear in the fight. The prince gratefully accepted Davyn’s offer to retrieve the food, blankets, and other supplies worth salvaging that he had found in the ruined Elhim home caverns.

  I needed gear, too. The desire to escape consumed me. Aidan knew everything now: I had known Narim planned to reenslave the dragons, and I had known Aidan would have to die. I could no longer pretend that my crimes were only those of a bitter child. Well and good. The temptation to keep up the deception would have been so great as to drive me mad. But I could not tolerate his looking at me, now he understood that I was as ugly inside as out.

  As Davyn and a few of the soldiers set out on the shore path, I heard Aidan. “Did you see where Lara’s gone?”

  “The woman keeps disappearing,” said the prince. “I want to speak with her, too. Recruit her, if she’s willing. With what I’ve seen and heard ... we could use her skills for what’s to come.”

  As they talked, I slipped around behind the two Senai and joined Davyn on the shoreline path. I asked if he could spare a few days’ rations and a blanket or two. “I need to be away from here. Today if possible.”

  “Whatever we have is yours,” he said. “You’ve no need to ask.”

  As we hurried down the shore, a voice called after me. “We need to talk, Lara.”

  I called back over my shoulder. “We have nothing to say.” Then I fixed my eyes on Davyn’s back and put one foot in front of the other.

  Davyn and I returned from the burned-out caverns just after dusk. The retrieval work had taken much longer than we’d thought, and all my plans for leaving this damnable valley before nightfall were confounded. We rejoined the prince and his men, who were roasting rabbits and birds over small cookfires, the soldiers casting nervous glances westward. No dragons were in sight. As he devoured his share of the meal, the laughing prince reported that, after an afternoon of listening to him babble like a five-year-old, Aidan had fallen asleep atop the boulder. The Elyrians retired to the caves early, anticipating an early start the next morning.

  After my week in Garn MacEachern’s dungeon in Cor Neuill, I couldn’t bear to be anywhere but under the stars. So I settled beside a rock at the edge of the abyss, well out of the circle of firelight, wishing I dared walk away in the dark. My pack was beside me, loaded with food and water, ready to leave at first light. I would just have to stay out of sight until then.

  Sometime near midnight, Aidan climbed down from his perch. He yawned and rubbed the dark stubble on his head as if to rid himself of a year’s cobwebs. Davyn offered him tea and the food that had been set aside for him. As had happened earlier, the Senai’s answer was indecipherable. Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, he tried again. “Thank you,” he said on his the third attempt. “I’m as hollow as Cir Nakai.”

  “Will I see you in the morning?” asked Davyn. “The prince leaves at dawn.”

  “I’ll be awake. If not, throw a rock at me.”

  “Will you accept his protection and come with us? The world will be a dangerous place for the one who has undone the power of the Ridemark.”

  Aidan drank his tea and shook his head. “Not for a while. I’ve things to do first.”

  “We own a part of each other’s lives, Aidan MacAllister,” said the Elhim. “And I’ve had enough grieving.”

  “We’ll see what comes about. What of you? Are you going to watch over my young cousin the way you’ve watched over me?”

  “He told you he’d asked me to stay with him?”

  “It could be a very good thing for the Elhim—and for Donal—and for you. There’s so much healing to be done, and plenty more wounds to be suffered before we can begin, I�
��m afraid.”

  “I’ll consider it.” The Elhim glanced my way. “We must all consider what will heal our hearts. But for now I’m off to examine the underside of my blankets. Good night, Aidan.”

  “Good night, my friend.” The Senai was left alone, idly poking at the fire and drinking the tea Davyn had given him. He didn’t seem to have noticed me in the dark. Good.

  I forced myself to look at the sealed basin of the springs, the stars, the sand and shingle, anything lest he feel my eyes on him.

  My strategy didn’t work. “We need to talk.” He had moved as quickly and quietly as a fox and now stood over me, his face unreadable in the dark.

  “You keep saying that, but mostly when you’re drugged or mad or half-asleep. I don’t think there’s much to say.” Gods, why would he not leave me alone?

  He sat down cross-legged in front of me, unsmiling, his brow creased. “Roelan wants me to go with them.”

  “With the dragons? Go where?” I could not pretend indifference.

  “Wherever they go. Deeper into the Carag Huim. Beyond the mountains to the lands where they once lived.”

  “You’ll fly. ...” The words crept out unbidden.

  “No. I suppose I’ll just slog after them on foot. I’ll never fly.”

  “But you sent him to rescue the prince.” My words sounded childish, leaving me wanting to bite my tongue. I hated the way he made me feel—this unsettling confusion, as if I would fall off the edge of the world, if I took one more step.

  “Donal didn’t ride. Roelan carried him in his hand. But even if Roelan was willing, I couldn’t do it, any more than I could put a harness on Davyn.” Holy gods, he was apologizing to me! What was wrong with him?

  I struggled to keep to mundane matters. “How will you live? What will you do?”

  “I don’t know. They won’t let me starve. But Roelan is the only one who can communicate with me right now. The others are wild, lost. They need me to help them remember what they were. To help them shape words again until they can do it on their own.”

  “There’s no lake to make it easier.”

  He nodded. “The consequence of their safety. I didn’t have much time to choose.” He was quiet for a long time after that, but I could feel the words gathering behind his silence, needing only a nudge to spill out.

  “And you’re going to do it?”

  “It is my gift.” Such simple words to carry the fullness of a man’s soul. He allowed me to see all of what he felt, the things I would expect—joy, wonder, acceptance— and, on the edges, other things—resignation, sadness, and...

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “I don’t know how long I can do it and remain myself. When I speak with Roelan, even for a short time as I did today ... Just now it took me three tries to say ‘I’m hungry.’ ”

  “I noticed.”

  “And this.” He touched my hand and a fountain of sparks flew upward into the night. “I don’t know what I am, and I don’t know what I’ll become. I’m terrified, because I’ve found a wonder that is far beyond gods and music and dragons ... and I don’t want to lose you.” His dark eyes reached out to gather me in. “You are the wholeness of life, Lara, marvelous, holy, human life, filled with love and pain, joy and sorrow, courage and honor, beauty and scars. If I could be with you ... touch all this that you are ... then I won’t forget. I don’t know where I’m going or for how long, only that I want you to come with me.”

  Blind, stupid Senai fool! Who did he think I was? My “honor” had sent him to Mazadine ... mutilated him. My “courage” had gotten his friends killed. I jumped to my feet—trapped on this shore by the failing moonlight, unable to untangle the jumbled mess that was threatening to burst my head and rip me apart, unable to speak anything of sense. I had no gift of music or words. “No,” I blurted out. “You’re a crippled madman who plans to live with monsters. I have better things to do.”

  He didn’t argue, didn’t ask why, didn’t display what hurt he might have felt from my ugly jibe. Only smiled sadly as he moved around and took my place, leaning against my rock. “Ah, Lara, what are you afraid of?”

  For a while I paced up and down the strip of sand and the rocky berm, cursing the night and my muddled head, the touch of fire that lingered on my hand, and my inability to understand the panic that filled me every time I thought of Aidan. At last I went back to retrieve my pack, so I could wait somewhere else and bolt at the first glimmer of morning.

  The Senai watched me. “This is not the end,” he said softly as I left him. “You heard Davyn; we own a part of each other’s life. I’ll not give up my share of yours that easily, even if I have to come back and ask you again in the language of dragons.”

  While the silver stars wheeled overhead, I forced myself to go to sleep at the mouth of the caves beyond the great boulder.

  I woke to the sound of Aidan singing. He sat atop his rock, his eyes closed, white flames dancing about his head and his hands, and as I stood behind Davyn and Donal and the gaping Elyrians, watching and listening, his voice rose in a song of such haunting beauty that my skin crept over my bones. His face was a portrait of bliss as he sang the music of his heart, while on the clifftops across the gaping emptiness of Cir Nakai, a dark shape, glinting copper in the sunrise, sat and listened.

  The abyss yawned beside me. I shouldered my pack and walked away.

  Chapter 36

  The movement of the upper airs whispers coming storm.

  Though the days grow longer, we yearn for winter sleep so long denied us.

  My sister Methys flew this day in the morning lands, soaring dawnward, joyful.

  Aidan’s song hath already loosed her melody.

  Soon, Methys will shape her own song.

  Yet my own, my beloved, doth grieve.

  When his words fall silent, I hear it still.

  I tell him, “Do not sorrow.

  The dayfires burn and fade.

  Comes the day soon when all my brothers and sisters will sing with thee.

  My sisters weep for younglings lost, and so have wandered deep.

  But, even so, thy giving brings them wholeness. Soon. Soon.

  And Jodar and my brothers have tasted too much human blood.

  But the passing season will sate their unholy hunger, and, truly, their being doth move already with your teaching.

  Thy songs are true, Aidan, beloved.

  With every turning of the light, thy power grows.”

  He says his sorrowing is for his own kind, so lost, so weary, in the changing of the world.

  But when enough seasons pass, they, too, will hear his songs and understand.

  Never in all its turnings hath the world seen what my beloved will become.

  Yet still there is more....

  Ah, beloved, dost thou think I cannot see thy heart?

  One alone art thou. So alone. Bound to earth. Bound to me by thy ever-giving.

  Thy being incomplete ...

  I will not see thee in such pain.

  Fly, old Roelan. Set right this unbalancing. . . .

  LARA

  Chapter 37

  Three days out from Cir Nakai—or what was left of it—and I was sitting beside a small fire melting snow to drink. My little blaze was scarcely a smudge in the vastness of the night—a clear and viciously cold night, considering it was almost summer. I needed to get down lower.

  I poked at the sluggish fire. Not much to burn up here so high. The brush was soggy with the warmer days melting off the snow cover. It was good to be alone. To have time to clear my head of this confusion and uncertainty that had dogged me all spring. Sons and daughters of the Ridemark were not supposed to be confused.

  Soon I’d have no time to wallow in maudlin regrets. War was coming, a different kind of war than those living in the world had ever known. Swords and spears and arrows only. Human against human. I knew a man in Camarthan who could remove the Ridemark from my wrist. Best get it done before people started looking.


  After the first flurry of vengeance between our own people, the true onslaught would come. As summer cleared the passes in the mountains ringing Elyria and the civilized kingdoms, the news would travel to the wild men in the vast reaches of the world beyond the mountains: the dragons were gone back into the west. The men would come down the rivers in their flat-prowed boats, wearing fur robes and horned masks and tattooed faces. They would come over land on their horses, wearing curved swords and ivory earrings and shrilling throaty cries.

  An experienced scout would be useful. One who knew her way around a sword and could predict the ways of dispossessed Dragon Riders even more so. I would find the prince and let him know I was available if he wanted. Donal was a prince worth serving. Davyn had seen it. I had seen it, too, but my pigheaded nature would not allow me to admit it in front of so many. Not in front of Aidan. Not with confusion and pride and guilt standing in my way. Now Aidan was gone off with his dragons, following the demands of duty, of his gift, of his heart....

  Stop it! Think of something else. On every step these past three days, my thoughts kept flitting to Aidan, threatening to throw me back into confusion. Those things he’d said ... all nonsense. I couldn’t bear to be near the man. That’s what I’d not been able to tell him. The sight of his horrid hands made me shrivel inside and live in the imagination of his torment. Did he think a lifetime of guilt and deception could be wiped out instantly? How could I tell him that I had seen his face as he sang to Roelan and knew I had no place in such mystery? Seeing him like that, bathed in the fire of the gods ... Stop it.

  Only one thing I’d not been able to resolve in these few days. Aidan’s question kept pricking at me. What was I afraid of?

  The dull flames began to jump and flare hotter; my hair whipped loose and into my eyes. A wind rising ... a warm wind ... The smell ... Uneasy, I glanced over my shoulder. Daughters of fire! I jumped up, gawking at the dark shape that blotted out half the sky.