Her thin body was as hard and bony as a boy’s, but she made him forget that. She made him forget everything, except that tonight he was free from pain and sorrow, tonight he lay with a woman who desired him, no matter what her reason. He remembered lost pleasure, lost joy, lost youth, only yesterday…until yesterday became tomorrow.
In the morning he woke, in pain, alone and fully clothed, aching on the hard ground. Nothing…He opened his eyes and saw her standing at the fire, stirring a kettle. A dream—? The cruel betrayal that was reality returned tenfold.
They ate together in a silence that was sullen on his part, and inscrutable on hers. After last night it seemed obvious to him that she was older than she looked—as obvious as the way he himself had changed from boy to old man in a span of months. And he felt an in-substantiality about her that he had not noticed before, an elusiveness that might only have been an echo of his dream. “I dreamed, last night…”
“I know.” She climbed to her feet, cutting him off, combing her snarled hair back with her fingers. “You dream loudly.” Her face was closed.
He felt a frown settle between his eyes again. “I have a long climb. I’d better get started.” He pushed himself up and moved stiffly toward the doorway. The old hag still had not returned.
“Not that way,” the girl said abruptly. “This way.” She pointed as he turned back, toward the cleft in the rock.
He stood still. “That will take me to the dragon?”
“Only part way. But it’s easier by half. I’ll show you.” She jerked a brand out of the fire and started into the maw of darkness.
He went after her with only a moment’s uncertainty. He had lived in fear for too long; if he was afraid to follow this witch-girl into her Goddess’s womb, then he would never have the courage to challenge the Storm King.
The low-ceilinged cleft angled steeply upward, a natural tube formed millennia ago by congealing lava. The girl began to climb confidently, as though she trusted some guardian power to place her hands and feet surely—a power he could not depend on as he followed her up the shaft. The dim light of day snuffed out behind him, leaving only her torch to guide them through utter blackness, over rock that was alternately rough enough to flay the skin from his hands and slick enough to give him no purchase at all. The tunnel twisted like a worm, widening, narrowing, steepening, folding back on itself in an agony of contortion. His body protested its own agony as he dragged it up handholds in a sheer rock face, twisted it, wrenched it, battered it against the unyielding stone. The acrid smoke from the girl’s torch stung his eyes and clogged his lungs; but it never seemed to slow her own tireless motion, and she took no pity on his weakness. Only the knowledge of the distance he had come kept him from demanding that they turn back; he could not believe that this could possibly be an easier way than climbing the outside of the mountain. It began to seem to him that he had been climbing through this foul blackness for all of eternity, that this was another dream like his dream last night, but one that would never end.
The girl chanted softly to herself now; he could just hear her above his own labored breathing. He wondered jealously if she was drawing strength from the very stone around them, the body of the Earth. He could feel no pulse in the cold heart of the rock; and yet after yesterday he did not doubt its presence, even wondering if the Earth sapped his own strength with preternatural malevolence. I am a man, I will be king! he thought defiantly. And the way grew steeper, and his hands bled.
“Wait—!” He gasped out the word at last, as his feet went out from under him again and he barely saved himself from sliding back down the tunnel. “I can’t go on.”
The girl, crouched on a level spot above him, looked back and down at him and ground out the torch. His grunt of protest became a grunt of surprise as he saw her silhouetted against a growing gray-brightness. She disappeared from his view; the brightness dimmed and then strengthened.
He heaved himself up and over the final bend in the wormhole, into a space large enough to stand in if he had had the strength. He crawled forward hungrily into the brightness at the cave mouth, found the girl kneeling there, her face raised to the light. He welcomed the fresh air into his lungs, cold and cleansing; looked past her—and down.
They were dizzyingly high on the mountain’s side, above the tree-line, above a sheer unscalable face of stone. A fast-falling torrent of water roared on their left, plunging out and down the cliff-face. The sun winked at him from the cloud-wreathed heights; its angle told him they had climbed for the better part of the day. He looked over at the girl.
“You’re lucky,” she said, without looking back at him. Before he could even laugh at the grotesque irony of the statement she raised her hand, pointing on up the mountainside. “The Storm King sleeps—another storm is past. I saw the rainbow break this sunrise.”
He felt a surge of strength and hope, absorbed the indifferent blessing of the Holy Sun. “How long will it sleep?”
“Two more days, perhaps. You won’t reach its den before night. Sleep here, and climb again tomorrow.”
“And then?” He looked toward her expectantly.
She shrugged.
“I paid you well,” not certain in what coin, anymore. “I want a fair return! How do I pen the beast?”
Her hand tightened around the crystal pendant hanging against her tunic. She glanced back into the cave mouth. “There are many waters flowing from the heights. One of them might be diverted to fall past the entrance of its lair.”
“A waterfall? I might as well hold up a rose and expect it to cower!”
“Power always has its price; as the Old One said.” She looked directly at him at last. “The storm rests here in mortal form—the form of the dragon. And like all mortals, it suffers. Its strength lies in the scales that cover its skin. The rain washes them away—the storm is agony to the stormbringer. They fall like jewels, they catch the light as they fall, like a trail of rainbow. It’s the only rainbow anyone here has ever seen…a sign of hope, because it means an end to the storm; but a curse, too, because the storm will always return, endlessly.”
“Then I could have it at my mercy…” He heard nothing else.
“Yes. If you can make the Earth move to your will.” Her voice was flat.
His hands tightened. “I have enough hate in me for that.”
“And what will you demand, to ease it?” She glanced at him again, and back at the sky. “The dragon is defiling this sacred place; it should be driven out. You could become a hero to my people, if you forced the dragon to go away—a god. They need a god who can do them some good…”
He felt her somehow still watching him, measuring his response, even though she had looked away. “I came here to solve my problem, not yours. I want my own kingdom, not a kingdom of mud-men. I need the dragon’s power—I didn’t come here to drive that away.”
The girl said nothing, still staring at the sky.
“It’s a simple thing for you to move the waters—why haven’t you driven the dragon away yourself, then?” His voice rasped in his parched throat, sharp with unrecognized guilt.
“I’m Nothing. I have no power—the Old One holds my soul.” She looked down at the crystal.
“Then why won’t the Old One do it?”
“She hates, too. She hates what our people have become under the new gods, your gods. That’s why she won’t.”
“I’d think it would give her great pleasure to prove the impotence of the new gods.” His mouth stretched sourly.
“She wants to die in the Earth’s time, not tomorrow.” The girl folded her arms, and her own mouth twisted.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand that…why you didn’t destroy our soldiers, our priests, with your magic?”
“The Earth moves slowly to our bidding, because She is eternal. An arrow is small—but it moves swiftly.”
He laughed once, appreciatively. “I understand.”
“There’s a cairn of stones over there.” She nodded
back into the darkness. “Food is under it.” He realized that this must have been a place of refuge for the women in times of persecution. “The rest is up to you.” She turned, merging abruptly into the shadows.
“Wait!” he called, surprising himself. “You must be tired.”
She shook her head, a deeper shadow against darkness.
“Stay with me—until morning.” It was not quite a demand, not quite a question.
“Why?” He thought he saw her eyes catch light and reflect it back at him, like a wild thing’s.
Because I had a dream. He did not say it, did not say anything else.
“Our debts have balanced.” She moved slightly, and something landed on the ground at his feet: his dagger. The hilt was pockmarked with empty jewel settings; stripped clean. He leaned down to pick it up. When he straightened again she was gone.
“You need a light—!” He called after her again.
Her voice came back to him, from a great distance: “May you get what you deserve!” And then silence, except for the roaring of the falls.
He ate, wondering whether her last words were a benediction or a curse. He slept, and the dreams that came to him were filled with the roaring of dragons.
With the light of a new day he began to climb again, following the urgent river upward toward its source that lay hidden in the waiting crown of clouds. He remembered his own crown, and lost himself in memories of the past and future, hardly aware of the harsh sobbing of his breath, of flesh and sinew strained past a sane man’s endurance. Once he had been the spoiled child of privilege, his father’s only son—living in the world’s eye, his every whim a command. Now he was as much Nothing as the witch-girl far down the mountain. But he would live the way he had again, his every wish granted, his power absolute—he would live that way again, if he had to climb to the gates of heaven to win back his birthright.
The hours passed, endlessly, inevitably, and all he knew was that slowly, slowly, the sky lowered above him. At last the cold, moist edge of clouds enfolded his burning body, drawing him into another world of gray mist and gray silences; black, glistening surfaces of rock; the white sound of the cataract rushing down from even higher above. Drizzling fog shrouded the distances any way he turned, and he realized that he did not know where in this layer of cloud the dragon’s den lay. He had assumed that it would be obvious, he had trusted the girl to tell him all he needed to know…Why had he trusted her? That pagan slut—his hand gripped the rough hilt of his dagger; dropped away, trembling with fatigue. He began to climb again, keeping the sound of falling water nearby for want of any other guide. The light grew vaguer and more diffuse, until the darkness falling in the outer world penetrated the fog world and the haze of his exhaustion. He lay down at last, unable to go on, and slept beneath the shelter of an overhang of rock.
He woke stupefied by daylight. The air held a strange acridness that hurt his throat, that he could not identify. The air seemed almost to crackle; his hair ruffled, although there was no wind. He pushed himself up. He knew this feeling now: a storm was coming. A storm coming…a storm, here? Suddenly, fully awake, he turned on his knees, peering deeper beneath the overhang that sheltered him. And in the light of dawn he could see that it was not a simple overhang, but another opening into the mountain’s side—a wider, greater one, whose depths the day could not fathom. But far down in the blackness a flickering of unnatural light showed. His hair rose in the electric breeze, he felt his skin prickle. Yes…yes! A small cry escaped him. He had found it! Without even knowing it, he had slept in the mouth of the dragon’s lair all night. Habit brought a thanks to the gods to his lips, until he remembered—He muttered a thank you to the Earth beneath him before he climbed to his feet. A brilliant flash silhouetted him; a rumble like distant thunder made the ground vibrate, and he froze. Was the dragon waking—?
But there was no further disturbance, and he breathed again. Two days, the girl had told him, the dragon might sleep. And now he had reached his final trial, the penning of the beast. Away to his right he could hear the cataract’s endless song. But would there be enough water in it to block the dragon’s exit? Would that be enough to keep it prisoner, or would it strike him down in lightning and thunder, and sweep his body from the heights with torrents of rain?…Could he even move one droplet of water, here and now? Or would he find that all the thousand doubts that gnawed inside him were not only useless but pointless?
He shook it off, moving out and down the mist-dim slope to view the cave mouth and the river tumbling past it. A thin stream of water already trickled down the face of the opening, but the main flow was diverted by a folded knot of lava. If he could twist the water’s course and hold it, for just long enough…
He climbed the barren face of stone at the far side of the cave mouth until he stood above it, confronting the sinuous steel and flashing white of the thing he must move. It seemed almost alive, and he felt weary, defeated, utterly insignificant at the sight of it. But the mountain on which he stood was a greater thing than even the river, and he knew that within it lay power great enough to change the water’s course. But he was the conduit, his will must tap and bend the force that he had felt stir in him two days ago.
He braced his legs apart, gathered strength into himself, trying to recall the feel of magic moving in him. He recited the spell-words, the focus for the willing of power—and felt nothing. He recited the words again, putting all his concentration behind them. Again nothing. The Earth lay silent and inert beneath his feet.
Anger rose in him, at the Earth’s disdain, and against the strange women who served Her—the jealous, demanding anger that had opened him to power before. And this time he did feel the power stir in him, sluggishly, feebly. But there was no sign of any change in the water’s course. He threw all his conscious will toward change, change, change—but still the Earth’s power faltered and mocked him. He let go of the ritual words at last, felt the tingling promise of energy die, having burned away all his own strength.
He sat down on the wet stone, listened to the river roar with laughter. He had been so sure that when he got here the force of his need would be strong enough…I have enough hate in me, he had told the girl. But he wasn’t reaching it now. Not the real hatred that had carried him so far beyond the limits of his strength and experience. He began to concentrate on that hatred, and the reasons behind it: the loss, the pain, the hardship and fear…
His father had been a great ruler over the lands that his ancestors had conquered. And he had loved his queen, Lassan-din’s mother. But when she died, his unhealing grief had turned him ruthless and iron-willed. He had become a despot, capricious, cruel, never giving an inch of his power to another man—even his spoiled and insecure son. Disease had left him wasted and witless in the end. And Lassan-din, barely come to manhood, had been helpless, unable to block his jealous uncle’s treachery. He had been attacked by his own guard as he prayed in the temple (In the temple—his mouth pulled back), and maimed, barely escaping with his life, to find that his entire world had come to an end. He had become a hunted fugitive in his own land, friendless, trusting no one—forced to lie and steal and grovel to survive. He had eaten scraps thrown out to dogs and lain on hard stones in the rain, while the festering wound in his back kept him from any rest…
Reliving each day, each moment, of his suffering and humiliation, he felt his rage and his hunger for revenge grow hotter. The Earth hated this usurper of Her holy place, the girl had said…but no more than he hated the usurper of his throne. He climbed to his feet again, every muscle on fire, and held out his hands. He shouted the incantation aloud, as though it could carry all the way to his homeland. His homeland: he would see it again, make it his own again—
The power entered him as the final word left his mouth, paralyzing every nerve, stopping even the breath in his throat. Fear and elation were swept up together into the maelstrom of his emotions, and power exploded like a sun behind his eyes. But through the fiery haze that blinde
d him, he could still see the water heave up from its bed—a steely wall crowned with white, crumbling over and down on itself. It swept toward him, a terrifying cataclysm, until he thought that he would be drowned in the rushing flood. But it passed him by where he stood, plunging on over the outcropping roof of the cave below. Eddies of foam swirled around his feet, soaking his stained leggings.
The power left him like the water’s surge falling away. He took a deep breath, and another, backing out of the flood. His body moved sluggishly; drained, abandoned, an empty husk. But his mind was full with triumph and rejoicing.
The ground beneath his feet shuddered, jarring his elation, dropping him giddily back into reality. He pressed his head with his hands as pain filled his senses, a madness crowding out coherent thought—a pain that was not his own.
(Water…!) Not a plea, but outrage and confusion, a horror of being trapped in a flood of molten fire. The dragon. He realized suddenly what had invaded his mind; realized that he had never stopped to wonder how a storm might communicate with a man: not by human speech, but by stranger, more elemental means. Water from the fall he had created must be seeping into its lair…His face twisted with satisfaction. “Dragon!” He called it with his mind and his voice together.
(Who calls? Who tortures me? Who fouls my lair? Show yourself, slave!)
“Show yourself to me, Storm King! Come out of your cave and destroy me—if you can!” The wildness of his challenge was tinged with terror.
The dragon’s fury filled his head until he thought that it would burst; the ground shook beneath his feet. But the rage turned to frustration and died, as though the gates of liquid iron had bottled it up with its possessor. He gulped air, holding his body together with an effort of will. The voice of the dragon pushed aside his thoughts again, trampled them underfoot; but he knew that it could not reach him, and he endured without weakening.
A Dragon-Lover's Treasury of the Fantastic Page 11
