by Hilari Bell
The king’s laugh made Perryn wince. “A sword? Against that iron-skinned monster? Our sharpest blades barely nicked it. Our arrows bounced off as if it were made of granite, and it crushed us like beetles in our armor. And the cannon…” The king’s face twisted with grief. “When we fired the cannon, it took to the air and soared above us…as the snow fell and your mother died. A sword against that? You read too many books, boy.”
“But Father, if this is a way to kill the dragon—”
“Kill the dragon? I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up bargaining with the dragon, as the Norsemen do.”
“I would never do that. How can you—”
“Then you’d better learn to use a sword, boy, or you’ll wind up in their first group of sacrifices…once we’ve been conquered.”
“If we fulfill the prophecy and kill the dragon, Idris might become strong enough that we couldn’t be conquered! If—”
“If that dragon could be slain, I’d have done it. When I’m gone, the Norse will sweep through Idris like a scythe and all the seven kingdoms will be open to them. Idris is the shield, and if it falls, it will become an open gate.”
“But Father—”
“Stop bleating at me. There’ll be no more books for you. And I’ll teach you swordplay myself. You’ll be too busy for prophecies then. You may never be much of a man, still less a king, but I’ll make what I can of you.”
The bitterness on the king’s face echoed in Perryn’s heart, and he rose to his feet. “If you feel that way, then why did you bring me back when I was nine? You could have let me go.”
“I almost did. University. What a dainty thing to run away to. You should have been dreaming of adventure, of great battles. You’re fourteen now. You should be almost ready to be knighted. I’m the forty-fourth warrior-king of Idris, and you’ll be the forty-fifth. You, with your books and your specs, like an old granny. But you’re the only heir I’ve got. So you’ll be the forty-fifth warrior-king and not some worthless scholar.”
“But…” Tears rose in Perryn’s eyes and he forced them down. His father despised tears. “How can I make you listen?”
“By making me,” said the king. “Come on. Give it a try.”
He grabbed Perryn’s collar and rose unsteadily to his feet.
“Guard!” He dragged his son over to the door, hauling him upright when he staggered. “Guard!” The door swung open. “Take…oh, it’s you. Get him out of here, Cedric. He’s pestering me. Found some cow-flop prophecy about dragon slaying.”
He flung Perryn into Cedric’s grasp and closed the door.
But the prince’s enemies learned of the prophecy and sought to slay him.
2
CEDRIC MAINTAINED HIS BRUISING HOLD ON Perryn’s arm as he hauled him to his room, though Perryn knew better than to struggle. The master of arms pushed him inside and slammed the door behind him.
Perryn sat on his bed and curled his arms around his knees. Five years of work, wasted. He’d hoped for so long that if he found a way to slay the dragon, his father would recognize the value of his studies. Maybe even allow him to go south, to study in one of the universities. But now….
Defending Idris’ borders was his father’s duty, but killing the dragon was his obsession—and even that hadn’t been enough to overcome his prejudice against scholars! How could he be so blind? This prophecy gave them a chance to destroy the dragon. At least, in theory.
That was the problem. His father wasn’t open to theory; he would only accept proof. If Perryn could just prove it….
He looked for the scroll, but it wasn’t in his belt. Had Cedric taken it as he’d dragged Perryn along? Could he simply have dropped it? Perryn had a good memory for anything he read, but he’d still like to get it back.
He went to the door and pressed his ear against it. When the master of arms left, he could return to the library tower. In his excitement, he hadn’t even finished searching the chest. Demothar the alchemist said that you must never allow enthusiasm to impede critical thought. There might be more information.
Cedric was still in the hall, giving someone orders. A hammer? A bolt? The servant’s voice lifted in protest. He had no authority to put a bolt on the prince’s door.
Perryn raised a fist to pound on the wood, then let it fall. He might persuade the servant to refuse, but it would only get the man into trouble. Cedric was not above taking revenge on a servant when the king was gone, and his father usually left Cedric in charge. The summer campaign against the Norse would start as soon as the snow melted in the northern passes—probably just a few weeks from now.
Perryn went back to his bed, listening to the hammer blows that turned his room into a prison. Why would Cedric do this? Perryn wasn’t going anywhere. He had nowhere else to go.
Installing the bolt didn’t take long. After they left, Perryn tried the door—it didn’t budge. Had the king ordered this? Why? He’d proved the futility of running away five years ago—and the humiliation of being hauled back by the guards had smarted even more than his father’s thrashing.
The servants would bring Perryn’s meals, but what about his studies? He always left the books and scrolls in the library tower, ever since the day one of the maids had thrown out several piles of “dirty old papers.” As a result his room was perfectly proper for a prince—and bare and boring. It was in his study that Perryn really lived. Could the servants bring him the chest from the library tower? Probably not. Even if he could describe it clearly enough, Cedric or his father might hear of it. Either one of them was capable of ordering the contents burned. It was too risky. Besides, there was another way that might work.
Perryn went to the trunk at the foot of his bed and dug through his summer clothes until he found the Mirror of Idris. He lifted it carefully; it was startlingly heavy for something that was only a hand span across, and the glass between the twisting silver serpents was very old.
No one knew why the gods had departed the world, but they had, and now no man was born with the gift of wizardry. The magical creatures the gods had created survived and bred, but the magic made by men was different. Some people, Perryn knew, didn’t believe that magic existed anymore, but the Prince of Idris knew better.
Once, the kings of Idris had used this mirror to observe events from one end of the continent to the other. When it was new and strong it could speak with its own mind-voice, show the past, and even the near future. But it was wizard-made magic, not god-made, and like all things made by man, it weakened with time.
As generation succeeded generation, the mirror stopped revealing the future and the distant past. It spoke seldom. Then never. It could see no farther than Idris’ borders, but it still showed what it could to Idris’ kings—and to their heirs.
Perryn’s father had once used the mirror to keep an eye on his army’s clashes with the Norsemen on the border. It was beginning to function erratically, even then, but it was still useful most of the time. It had lain in a place of honor on the king’s council table.
For more than a month before Perryn’s mother died, it had showed nothing but sheets of roaring, tumbling snow.
Everyone knew that the mirror showed the kings of Idris what they needed to know, which wasn’t always what they’d asked for. But when the vision never seemed to change, Perryn’s father decided that the mirror had finally failed and ignored it.
When he returned from the dragon’s valley, without his wife, he told the servants to take the mirror away, that he never wanted to set eyes on it again.
Perryn had found it in the library tower. He’d tried to use the mirror, but it seemed that the effort of foretelling his mother’s death had drained all but the dregs of its power. Or maybe the problem was that Perryn was only a king’s heir, and an unworthy one, according to his father. Whatever the reason, the mirror had never showed Perryn a scene farther away than the fields around the castle, and it often functioned wildly, displaying a stabled mule when he asked it where his father was.
>
He seldom troubled it anymore, but this was too important not to try.
“Mirror of Idris, I am Perryndon, Prince of Idris, and I seek your aid.”
The mirror worked best if he spoke to it slowly and clearly.
A swirl of darkness washed through the glass, then it stopped reflecting Perryn’s face and settled into darkness. Perryn felt a prickle of excitement. The mirror was listening.
“Mirror, I have found a prophecy about slaying a dragon, made by Mardon the Magus. Can you show me anything else written about that prophecy, or about dragon slaying?”
Light flickered in the depths of the glass. Perryn tried not to hope too much. The last time he’d asked for documents about dragon slaying, he’d gotten an inventory of castle tapestries from the reign of Narin, the fourteenth king. Perhaps the mirror thought he’d needed that, but if he did, Perryn still didn’t know why.
The mirror flickered again, and a picture appeared. Perryn fought down a surge of disappointment. This was a document, shown from a distance, but it was being written as he watched, and the mirror had never shown Perryn anything more than a few days past, much less the future. Probably some court paperwork.
“Thank you for trying, but…wait.” The hand that held the pen was Cedric’s. Perryn recognized the long, big-knuckled fingers and crisscrossing scars. But Cedric was illiterate! How could he possibly…?
“Mirror, show me what he’s writing more closely.”
The image grew larger.
My Chieftain,
Something unexpected has happened and I must kill the boy.
I have kept him from learning anything about arms, and the soldiers will never follow him. The king drinks heavily and will probably not survive to grow old, even if you cannot take him in battle. Since all looked so promising, I saw no harm in letting the boy waste time in the library.
But he has found something. There is a prophecy, made by some past magus, of a dragon being slain by a bard using the Sword of Samhain. Those here do not respect magic as they should. We, who have lived in the shadow of dragons from the earliest times, know better. If all goes as we plan, their ignorance will be their downfall.
This sword was lost long ago, but magic often finds a way to raise itself. The boy is too weak willed to do anything on his own, but if he convinces his father to go looking for that sword, the dragon might be killed.
If Idris were prosperous and well manned, it would be almost impossible to conquer—it is proving hard enough, even with the dragon eating away their strength from within.
So I will kill the boy. It can be made to look like an accident.
Keep pushing the borders, my chieftain. Sooner or later the rotted tree will fall.
Cerdic of the Red Bear
The hands in the mirror concealed the letter under a loose floorboard and left it there. Perryn sat, staring at the board for a long time before he told the mirror to let the picture go. His hands were cold with fear, but for once they weren’t shaking. Indeed, he felt as if his whole body was frozen in place. At least his mind still worked.
He could go to his father. The letter was proof.
But by now the king would be too drunk to understand, much less to act. And Perryn didn’t have the letter—only his word for what he’d seen. His word against Cedric’s.
No, he couldn’t tell his father.
Still, he had to tell someone! A spy, a Norseman, in the king’s confidence, privy to all his plans. No wonder the war was going so badly! But who could he tell? The servants had no authority over the guardsmen, and Cedric—Cerdic?—did. Was there anyone who could help him? He’d had no friend in the castle besides the servants since old Ovis, his tutor, had died. And even if there was someone he might have appealed to, his door was bolted shut.
An accident. It could happen tonight. Right now! Perryn sprang to his feet and then sank back. No. Probably not till everyone was asleep. He had time to think.
He gazed out the window into the cold spring night. The clouds blew across the face of the waning moon, creating shadows that swept across the landscape. A perfect night to slip past the guards—if he dared.
…too weak willed to do anything on his own.
He could go south to one of the great universities. Become a scholar, as he had always wanted. He would be safe there. Unless the barbarians really could conquer the seven kingdoms, if Idris fell. With a traitor in their midst? When Idris fell.
This I have seen in a vision come to pass, and this I prophesy.
Perryn’s heart pounded. The wandering bard had been gone for only four or five days. He couldn’t be too hard to find, and even if he wasn’t a true bard he might know of others who were. As for the unicorn…
Alirian the teacher once wrote that discovering facts and piecing them into truth is a scholar’s job. A true bard, a unicorn, and the Sword of Samhain. If Perryn could piece these elements together, if he could actually make the prophecy come true, his father might respect him for what he was, instead of trying to make him into something he never could be.
Might. But if he did nothing, then nothing would change. Ever.
…too weak willed… Curse Cedric, and all his plots and opinions!
Perryn turned from the window and began making plans.
Prince Perryndon set forth in search of a true bard, wise and courageous. Weaker bards had fled south, to safer kingdoms, so only the greatest of bards remained in the land.
3
PERRYN TIED THE LAST TWO STRIPS OF BLANKET together and tugged at the knot. It should hold. The thick wool was very strong. He slung his satchel over his shoulder, then he went to the window and lowered his improvised rope quietly down the wall. The soft scrape of cloth against stone sounded loud to him, but the wind made enough noise to mask it—and hopefully louder sounds as well—from the guards who patrolled the parapet above him.
He climbed onto the windowsill and sat, looking at the ground. He wasn’t afraid of heights exactly, but it was a long way down. Perryn wrapped both hands around the blanket strip and slid off the windowsill.
As the cloth jerked tight under his weight, the knuckles of his right hand slammed against the wall, and Perryn gritted his teeth. His shoulder swung painfully into the stone. He was heavier than he’d expected, and the satchel added even more weight. The thick blanket strip was hard to hang on to. He didn’t dare look down, and not only from fear of the height. If his glasses fell and broke, it would stop him right here. He should have thought to take them off before starting down! Some scholar he was.
The brisk breeze turned him against the wall, making him sweat with nervousness. Perryn climbed slowly down his improvised rope. He stopped looking up to see how far he had come. He never looked down. Then his groping feet slipped off the end of the blanket, causing him to gasp, even as his hands clamped tight around the rope.
The ground was farther than he’d hoped. He tried to slide his hands down, but without the bracing grip of his feet, he could barely hold on. He pushed himself away from the wall and let go.
The drop was even farther than it looked—the earth slammed into his feet, then his knees, with bruising force. Perryn sat up and rubbed his elbow. Then he rose to his knees and pushed his spectacles back into place. The palms of his hands smarted and stung. His knuckles were bruised and his arms ached. But he was down!
A grin spread across his face, then he remembered—the mirror! He snatched up his satchel and scrambled to the base of the wall, fumbling the buckle open, groping hastily through the folds of his warmest cloak. His fingertips found the silver curve, then skimmed over the cool glass—not broken. Not even cracked. Perryn barely stifled his exclamation of relief in time.
He’d almost chosen to leave the heavy mirror behind, but it had served the kings of Idris faithfully for centuries and it had certainly proved useful tonight. With luck it might show Perryn documents from his library when he needed them, or allow him to watch his father and Cedric. If he could see what measures they took to fin
d him, he could avoid them, and if he could avoid them long enough…. His father might worry now, but that couldn’t be helped. He would have to earn his father’s belief, his trust, before he accused Cedric. And if the king worried, if he feared for Perryn’s safety, it might remind him that he had once loved his son, as well as the wife he had lost.
Yes, this was the right thing to do.
He repacked the satchel, which also contained the bread and cheese he’d been offered for dinner and the handful of coppers he was given each week to reward the servants. With careful management, it should be enough.
His father called the library a worthless waste of paper, brushing aside Perryn’s muttered arguments, but Perryn needed more information about the habits of unicorns and the location of the king’s tomb. Still, even if the mirror couldn’t help him, a true bard should know both those things.
Perryn waited for a cloud to hide the moon so he could run for the nearest clump of bushes, though he wasn’t really worried about the guards. Idris Castle was far from the Norse border. The guards looked at the sky, not down into the bushes, and in the darkness they listened for the sound of dragon wings.
Clouds covered the moon, and Perryn darted off. In a few minutes he would reach the trees. He thought of his mare, now dozing in her stall, but there was no way he could get a horse out of the stables without being caught. He would walk. Peasants walked from place to place all the time—surely a prince could do the same. There was a shortcut through the forest to the nearby village of Bramlin. If the bard had passed through there, someone might know where he went next.
Perryn was on his way.
