Recalling that Raskelf mirror-signal, I retorted with a tinge of sarcasm, “Thanks.”
The Kerymgjer caves lie in the flank of the first spur north from Lynghyrne, a blue roan bulge under the Helkent’s vermilion heights: as Beryx said, a perfect spy-post on the pass. We could see the cave mouth from well back. A trail of scorched and broken timber led up to its long, low black gash, a thread of black smoke spiraled idly above.
In the thin shade of a rosewood clump the guide halted. The escort exchanged looks that changed to blatant relief when I said, “Not you.” Ants ran among the dusty stones, morvallin yarked over the crest. Climbing to earth, I said with spurious bravado, “Hold that till I come back.” Gave them the horse, donned my robe, and took my harp.
The climb seemed endless. My boots turned on loose stones, my robe snagged on broken trees, the morvallin mocked me, I was hot and sweaty and enraged with fear as well as feeling utterly ridiculous. Harran the master harper, wearing his best feathers to be fried: what a song I’ll make, I thought. And that fetched a bubble of silly laughter that recalled the phalanxmen marching to Coed Wrock. It also steadied me. I reached the cave lip in good order, if not good heart.
The Green Pool Caves are as famous as Deve Astar for the clear beryl of their great meandering subterranean lakes and the frosty ringed and knotted columns of their stalactites: they are also wet, dank, labyrinthine, and dark. I paused on the brink, reluctant to play hide and seek with a dragon in there, and as I paused, from the darkness came a drowsy flare of rose-pink flame.
It lit the whole outer cave, big as a banquet hall, roofed it in rose crystal and floored it in rose-flushed chrysoprase, so for a moment I could think of nothing else. Then I noticed Hawge itself.
It lay curved around the lake, tail vanishing into shadow, crested back casting a serrated isle of darkness on the glowing mere, head just below me on the cavern floor. The fireglow caught the huge, facetted, lidless eyes and made them twinkle like my talisman, threw out the bulging nostrils, the half-raised upper lip, the cavernous maw. On the ground between the nostrils, like a pearl before a swine, answering with its own fire to the dragon-light, lay Maerdrigg’s maerian.
You may record among the Sky-lords’ wonders that I did not have to clear my throat. Nor did my voice stick. I said, “Hawge.”
The upper lip twitched. The immense, rasping whisper responded.
I said, “You bade me make a song.”
When it did not reply, I sat on the first rock bulge and began.
Every harper hopes that one song above all will outlast him, and that song is mine. There was much work and more struggle in its making, but it runs fluently as all good work should, sounding simple until you try to play it, exploiting all a harp’s potential and the whole range of a voice. More notably, its sense is ambiguous. The dragon is so mighty that the men are dwarfed, foolish, puny things. From the dragon’s viewpoint, splendidly true. Yet they persist in their insanity to the bitter end. From the dragon’s view, justifiable homicide; stark courage, from the men’s. Truth can be pitiable or valorous. It all depends which way you look.
The cave resounded to the final chord. Hawge breathed, a long, ocean draw. Water tinkled, far away. Accustomed to the twilight, I saw other things on the cave floor. The buttery glow of gold, a silver cup, probably some town’s Ilien chalice. The fire-patterned haft of Gjarr’s axe.
Fear can be a fine inspiration. I sang my answer, painting Everran’s waste. If I did not manage the fires so well as Zarrar, it was a harrowing picture that emerged, an uprooted population, many crippled, more ruined, the wreck of agriculture, the peril of trade. An entire country turned upside-down.
Hawge breathed peacefully in the darkness.
You cannot bargain in song. “Hawge,” I began, “if the country were whole there would be more food for you. And if it were brought here you would not have to go out—leaving your jewels alone.”
That was a lucky shot. Hawge’s eyes kindled. A tongue of fire shot past my nose and with a grind like crossed steel the dragon whispered,
“Assuredly.” I tried not to cough in the smoke. “And you should guard it. A bargain would be helpful to us both.”
Hawge sank its chin into silence. At length I ventured, “How much—food—would you want?”
After another minute or so, Hawge named its terms.
“Men are not included,” I said in a hurry. “We do not grow them like the rest.”
The eyes twirled slowly, leering up at me. It was openly laughing now. I wondered if it knew the exact contents of the Treasury. It would not have surprised me to hear it had read the Treasurer’s mind.
“Very well,” I said recklessly. Whatever it wants, Beryx had said, and I had already haggled once. “Thirty cattle, ten sheep, ten ingots. Salt, and a horse every second month.”
Hawge blew a long smoke ring and added,
Trying not to be sick, I got to my feet, and answered, “They will be sent.”
Turning its head a little, the dragon blew another idle jet of flame. Its light shimmered on the lake, cut out the shadow in impenetrable black, glistened gold and silver on the immense mailed side whose every scale was big as a phalanxman’s shield, glinted up the drooping spines, and turned the wing ridges to folds of thick black silk. The whole became a creature of magic that was resplendent, sumptuous. I had a crazy urge to go down and fondle it.
With an even crazier impulse I am quite definite was not mine, I said, “My lord is mightier than any army. What weapon could master such a lord?”
Then my heart leapt up between my eyes and I tried frantically to recall any cover within reach before the dragon leapt. Useless, I thought. It would sear or smash the hiding-place as well. I stood pathetically on the cave brink in my seven-colored robe, and Hawge gazed up at me, two globes of facetted green light with the maerian shining below them like a third, evilly mocking eye.
* * * * *
“We cannot do it,” said the Treasurer. “We can not do it!” He actually slammed a palm on his beloved ledger. “Not ten ingots a year comes in from Gebria and Stirianlase together! Not eight ingots a year comes in as fees and tribute! And with Stiriand burnt there’ll be only half a vintage, and Saeverran and Findarre and Pensal have to be rebuilt, and there are the pensions and the refugees and we can’t sell the oil! I tell you, my lord, your fool envoy has—”
A left hand with a plain gold seal ring cracked down on the parchment and stopped the rest in his throat.
“That treaty was made by a brave man,” Beryx spoke so softly it was pure menace, “in peril of his life. If you think you can drive a better bargain I recommend you try!”
Deciding to be ignorant of all but the Treasurer’s words, trying not to let my chest swell, I stepped into the Treasury, asking, “What can’t we do?”
“We can,” the king retorted with fierce crispness before the Treasurer could speak. “We must. What’s in hand here now?”
The old man blinked up at him, cowed but resentful. “Thirty ingots,” he muttered. “That has to feed the refugees and rebuild towns and—”
“Sell the gems. Use that for Everran.” As the Treasurer’s lank white hair bristled in horror, he went on grimly, “That buys us three months. Harran, come and tell me about it. Everything you thought. Everything it said. Everything you thought it said. Anything at all.”
He listened, coiled and tense. At Hawge’s stipulation of, “alive,” he gave a curt nod. “It’s
thought of poison. Rot it! Go on.” But at the final exchange he leant right out of his chair and made me repeat it again and again.
“Not been forged.” He sprang up and began to stride the audience hall as if he went on air. “Not been forged. By the Four, Harran, that would have been worth forty ingots a month!”
I shuddered. Hating to be a gloom-tongue, I said, “Lord, I think it’s—no more than the truth.”
“Bah!” He spun in a crimson swirl. “You forget your own lessons as well as your lore! Tell the truth two ways and now can’t read it yourself. If the weapon’s not yet forged it may be there isn’t one, but it also means such a weapon’s possible. It can be forged! And what does your lore say about dragons’ vanity? It made you ask so it could boast, and it showed its weakness in the boast. Harran, I beg to return your compliment. It’s you who is the fool!”
“But if there were such a weapon,” I wailed, “how do we find it, when it hasn’t been made?”
“Three months.” He paused, vibrating with urgency. “In any case, Everran could never pay it alone for long... We’ll go to the Confederacy. We want help to pay the dragon. And we’ll search for the weapon as well.” He looked at my face. “For the Four’s love, Harran! At least it is a hope!”
Chapter V
When the king said, “Harran, I’m not a good word-smith: you’d better come along,” it surprised me far less than finding he meant to begin in Holym, and northern Holym at that, which meant riding clean across Everran to the great border pass where Kemreswash heads. And like the rest of the palace, I most assuredly did not expect the king of Everran to set out with a harper and a pair of horse-handlers as his entire entourage. But he was adamant enough to out-shout Inyx, and I did not know all his purposes at the time.
The road north was painful. Beryx had not ridden before, and we began on the highway where the Guard had passed so merrily, thence entering the Raskelf, so mangled by Hawge. Empty sheep camps, burnt hillsides, hospital camps everywhere: and Beryx visited every one.
Across the Helken the road swung west into my own austere land, which as with all long-delayed homecomings was the same and not the same. The people I knew were changed, the places misremembered, and if the yeldtar still splashed crimson under the silver hethel leaves they now minded me of unsold oil. Beryx watched, and said nothing. To perception he added tact.
But in Stiriand we entered the oldest desolation of all. Nothing could have been more pathetic than Findtar and Pensal’s blackened ruins crumbling in the summer glare amid acre upon acre of ruined vines. Pentyr’s entire deme was the same. I was thankful to reach Dun Stiriand’s sullen red fort, perched in its border-eyrie above the muddy stream of Kemreswash.
The Stirian governor had been summoned by mirror-signal from his keep, which is also a depot for the gold-washers who make a wild and risky living from the border streams, and Beryx told him flatly that their license fees would have to rise and their barter rate fall. “I have a dragon,” he said, “asking ten ingots a month.” When the governor flung up his hands, he added, “Tell them to visit Pentyr Resh.”
A week more found us on the saddle between the Helkents’ flaming red abutment and the delicate gray spines of the Histhira range, with Holym filling the eye to north, west, and south. Its long, rolling prospect of summer-browned and silvered plains was broken by stands of staring white helliens, tall black coastal elonds, and the short twisted trees named riendel for their lovely white and scarlet-filamented flowers, but there was not a town in sight.
While I wondered about directions, Beryx took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Let’s begin,” he said.
* * * * *
Holym is called cattle-land with reason: save a few mines near the Mellyngthir delta marshes, and some sheep running along the Quarred border, the cattle own it all. Nor do they keep a few head on each farm as in Everran. The Holym cattle are numbered by tens of thousands, they live wild on holdings big as a Resh, they are worked with horses by men who set small value on their necks, and they are not our short hairy red breed but huge smooth-skinned whites, blacks, yellows, and brindles, with horns long as bows and temperaments to match. The towns comprise a few houses along streets widened to handle such herds, and in place of markets there are stockyards tall as houses: moreover, the cattle jump out of them. This I have seen.
Instead of kings, Holym has an annual Council in the capital Holymlase, to which every Resh elects a delegate. It is supposed to voice the people’s will to the biennially elected consul. The real ruler lives permanently in Holymlase, supposedly to fulfill the consul’s commands, and is called the Scribe. But there is a schism in Holym politics, chiefly over border dealings with sheep lords from Quarred. One party supports free trade and an open border, the other insists Holym should be reserved to cattle alone. Those favoring trade are called Open, those against are the Closed. Add to this schism that all Holmyx prefer tending cattle to assemblies, that the council delegates are usually ignorant of all but their own Resh, and that Holym continually suffers violent floods or extravagant droughts, and you see why it is nicknamed the quiet Confederate.
A month or so before the Council gathered we reached the first town, Savel, an Open Resh. Its collection of wooden houses is built on stilts along streets the cattle had churned to deep red dust. Assembly day was also sale day, and since no Holmyx cares who buys his cattle, the town was bursting with sleek Estarians, haughty Quarreders, bellowing Hazyx, wild-eyed Holmyx, and wilder-eyed Holmyx cattle bellowing loudest of all.
With no time for a state visit’s formalities, Beryx had sent a message to Holymlase, but Holmyx rarely heed government announcements, and nobody had the slightest idea who we were. Luckily a harper and two body servants are a good deal easier to bivouac with the drovers by the stockyard than a royal entourage.
The assembly meets at the back of the tavern, just beyond earshot of the beer: northern Holym does not drink wine. The Assembly Ruand was pleased to see us, but unfortunately, all but three cattle lords were busy with buyers, or even busier with a drought. After an hour or so the Ruand apologetically told Beryx, “We don’t have an assembly quota. Would you want to begin now, and we could open assembly when they come along?”
Beryx looked at the audience. One was asleep, one looking over his shoulder at the beer, and the third haggling with a Quarred buyer. He looked at me. I sighed, and unwrapped my harp.
One must admit Holmyx are good listeners. When I finished the battle-song, the entire tavern was breathing on my neck, with some of the merrier fighting each other in lieu of Hawge. By the time I finished the plaint of Everran’s ruin, half Savel was weeping in its beer and the assembly was ramping to assist us. Three lords each pledged a hundred cattle that summer, the delegate would support us at Council, we were offered a variety of beds and an undrinkable quantity of beer. I thought I saw why Beryx had begun in the north.
The next town, Caistax, was a Closed Resh. It had a big assembly, but when the herald tallied seventy I realized he had counted dogs and children too. Beryx’s speech earned loud applause, and the Council delegate was entrusted with several motions urging Holym to do this or that, but nobody offered cattle, and nobody mentioned gold. When we asked about notable weapons, one kind soul did offer us his cattle-dog: “Takes ’em by the nose and they follow ’im anywhere.”
This mute string merely made Beryx shrug. “We’ll find it by chance,” he said. “In the songs, they always do.”
In a month we covered most of northern Holym, amassing promises of Council support, pledges of over a thousand cattle, no miraculous weapons, and no hope of gold. We reached Holymlase bronzed as drovers, accomplished beer-drinkers, with Beryx managing a horse as if he had ridden one-handed all his life. One thing I liked about Holym was that nobody seemed to notice either his arm or his scar.
Holymlase straddles the Mellyngthir and Histhira river junction, a big town full of splendid white town houses and less splendid mining depots, stockyards, and slaughterhouses w
hich stink to the sky, pierced by a long line of wharves. It is busy, fast-moving, and violent, which comes of miners, drovers, and sailors mixed in taverns that sell wine as well as beer. The Council would meet that new moon. Looking back on our northern tour, I entered the chamber full of hope.
I never knew cattle were such problems to keep or to sell. For two days the Council droned over wild dogs, red fever, lung-rot, iniquitous Confederate and slaughterhouse buyers, drovers wanting higher wages, and shippers who charged exorbitant freights. The third day, when all the Council was hung over and two thirds of it asleep, the consul called, “the Everran delegate.”
Gauging his audience’s patience, Beryx offered a summary of Hawge’s deeds, a tally of its demands, and a bald request for help. “Everran cannot raise the cattle, let alone the gold. If we do not, the dragon will ruin us. Then it will move on the other Confederates.”
Some delegates favored sending cattle. One thought they might spare “a gold ingot, at least.” Several woke up. Then a Closed delegate jumped up with a passionate opposition to any government action, right down to accepting Everran immigrants. This roused the Open party. Southern delegates began to rumble about “leases” and “export-balance.” In the midst of it, the Scribe rose to speak.
First he gave a recital of Holmyx finances at such low pitch and high speed that he lost most of the Council on the spot. I gathered there were fifty ingots in hand and three hundred due, but then we modulated into a tale of desperately needy government projects and more desperate government expenses, after which Holym was not merely living on credit but head over ears in debt. There followed an elucidation of the Confederacy pact which left me in the dark as well. Finally he moved to dragons, which were not covered by any clause of the pact, not being famine, pestilence, corsairs, or floods. It was unsure they could cross mountains. And, most clinching argument, there had never been one before.
At this Beryx rose and said clearly, “Their favorite food is cattle. Everran’s are running out.”
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