about ready to believe anything. And I suppose it would
be foolish to get rid of the dragon before so many of the
gnomes have left the Realm—or some reason can be found
for getting rid of the rest of 'em—that they can't reoccupy
their stronghold, if so be it happened someone else wanted
the place, that is."
There was a moment's silence. Jenny could see the
light slither quickly along the silk facing ofZyeme's sleeve,
Dragonsbane 165
where her small hand clenched it in anger, leaving a print
of wrinkles like the track of invisible thoughts. "These
are matters of high polity, Dragonsbane. It is nothing to
you, after all. I tell you, be patient and wait until I tell
you it is time for us to ride together to the Deep, you and
1.1 promise that you shall not be cheated of this slaying."
She stepped close to him again, and the diamonds on
her hands threw little spits of fire against the dullness of
leather and plaid.
"No," Aversin said, his voice low. "Nor shall you be
cheated of the Deep, after I've done your butchering for
you. You summoned the dragon, didn't you?"
"No." The word was brittle as the snap of a frost-killed
twig. "Of course not."
"Didn't you, love? Then it's gie lucky for you that it
came along just when it did, when you were wanting a
power base free of the King, in case he tired of you or
died; not to speak of all that gold."
Jenny felt the scorch of her wrath like an invisible
explosion across the garden, even as Zyerne raised her
hand. Jenny's throat closed on a cry of fear and warning,
knowing she could never have moved in time to help and
could not have stood against the younger woman's magic,
if she did; Aversin, his back to the stone of the arch, could
only throw his arm before his eyes as the white fire snaked
from Zyeme's hand. The hissing crackle of it in the air
was like lightning; the blaze of it, so white it seemed edged
in violet, seared over every stone chink and moss tuft in
the pavement and outlined each separate, waxy petal of
the winter roses in colorless glare. In its aftermath, the
air burned with the smell of ozone and scorched leaves.
After a long moment, John raised his face from his
protecting arms. Even across the garden. Jenny could see
he was shaking; her own knees were so weak from shock
and fear she felt she could have collapsed, except for her
166 Barbara Hambly
greater fear of Zyeme; and she cursed her own lack of
power. John, standing before Zyeme, did not move.
It was Zyeme who spoke, her voice dripping with
triumph. "You get above yourself, Dragonsbane. I'm not
that snaggle-haired trollop of yours, that you can speak
to me with impunity. I am a true sorceress."
Aversin said nothing, but carefully removed his spec-
tacles and wiped his eyes. Then he replaced them and
regarded her silently in the dim light of the garden lamp.
"I am a true sorceress," she repeated softly. She held
out her hands to him, the small fingers plucking at his
sleeves, and a husky note crept into her sweet voice. "And
who says our alliance must be so truculent, Dragonsbane?
You need not spend your time here tugging with impa-
tience to be gone. I can make the wait pleasant."
As her delicate hands touched his face, however, Aver-
sin caught the fragile wrists, forcing her away at arm's
length. For an instant they stood so, facing one another,
the silence absolute but for the racing draw of their breath.
Her eyes were fixed upon his, probing at his mind. Jenny
knew, the same way she had probed at Gareth's earlier,
seeking some key of consent.
With a curse she twisted free of his grip. "So," she
whispered. "That raddled bitch can at least get her rutting-
spells right, can she? With her looks, she'd have to. But
let me tell you this, Dragonsbane. When you ride to meet
the dragon, like it or not, it will be me who rides with
you, not her. You shall need my aid, and you shall ride
forth when I say so, when I tell the King to give you
leave, and not before. So learn a little of the civilized art
of patience, my barbarian—for without my aid against
Morkeleb, you shall surely die."
She stepped away from him and passed under the lamp-
lit arch, reaching out to take the light with her as she
went. In its honeyed brightness her face looked as gentle
and guileless as that of a girl of seventeen, unmarked
Dragonsbane 167
by rage or perversion, pettiness or spite. John remained
where he was, watching her go, sweat beading his face
like a mist of diamonds, motionless save where he rubbed
the thin, sharp flashburns on his hands.
A moment later, the window behind him glowed into
soft life- Through the fretted screen of scented shrubs and
vine that twined its filigreed lattice. Jenny got a glimpse
of the room beyond. She had an impression of half-seen
frescoes on the walls, of expensive vessels of gold and
silver, and of the glint of bullion embroidery thickly edging
the hangings of the bed. A man lay in the bed, moving
feebly in some restless dream, his gold hair faded and
colorless where it lay in disorder over the embroidered
pillows. His face was sunken and devoid of life, like the
face of a man whom a vampire has kissed.
"It would serve her right if you left tonight!" Gareth
stormed. "Rode back north and left her to deal with her
own miserable worm, if she wanted it so badly!"
He swung around to pace the big chamber of the guest
house again, so furious he could barely splutter. In his
anger, he seemed to have forgotten his own fear of Zyeme
and his desire for protection against her, forgotten his
long quest to the Winterlands and his desperation to have
it succeed. From her seat in the window. Jenny watched
him fulminate, her own face outwardly calm but her mind
racing.
John looked up from tinkering with the keys of the
hurdy-gurdy. "It wouldn't do, my hero," he said quietly.
"However and whyever it got here, the dragon's here now.
As Zyeme said, the people hereabouts are no concern of
mine, but I can't be riding off and leaving them to the
dragon. Leaving out the gnomes, there's the spring plant-
ing to be thought of."
The boy stopped in his pacing, staring at him. "Hunh?"
John shrugged, his fingers stilling on the pegs. "The
168 Barbara Hambly
harvest's gone," he pointed out. "If the dragon's still abroad
in the land in the spring, there'll be no crop, and then,
my hero, you'll see real starvation in this town."
Gareth was silent. It was something he had never
thought of. Jenny guessed. He had clearly never gone
short of food in his life.
"Besides," John went on, "unless the gnomes can reoc-
cupy the Deep pretty quick, Zyeme will destroy them
here, a
s Dromar said, and your friend Polycarp in the
Citadel as well. For all Dromar's hedging about keeping
us out of the heart of the Deep, the gnomes have done
for us what they can; and the way I see it, Polycarp saved
your life, or at least kept you from ending up like your
father, so deep under Zyeme's spells he can't tell one
week from the next. No, the dragon's got to be killed."
"But that's just it," Gareth argued. "If you kill the
dragon, she'll be free to take over the Deep, and then the
Citadel will fall because they'll be able to attack it from
the rear." He looked worriedly over at Jenny. "Could she
have summoned the dragon?"
Jenny was silent, thinking about that terrible power
she had felt in the garden, and the dreadful, perverted
lour of it in the lamplit room at Zyeme's hunting lodge.
She said, "I don't know. It's the first time I've heard of
human magic being able to touch a dragon—but then,
Zyeme derives her magic from the gnomes. I have never
heard of such a thing..."
"Cock by its feet, horse by its home..." repeated John.
"Could she be holding the dragon by his name? She knows
it, right enough."
Jenny shook her head. "Morkeleb is only the name
men give it, the way they call Azwylcartusherands Dro-
mar, and Taseldwyn Mab. If she'd had his true name, his
essence, she could send him away again; and she obviously
can't, or she would have killed you in the garden tonight."
She hitched her shawl up over her shoulders, a thin
Dragonsbane 169
and glittering spiderweb of South Islands silk, the thick
masses of her hair lying over it like a second shawl. Cold
seemed to breathe through the window at her back.
Gareth went back to pacing, his hands shoved in the
pockets of the old leather hunting breeches he'd put on
to go burgling.
"But she didn't know its name, did she?"
"No," replied Jenny. "And in that case..." She paused,
then frowned, dismissing the thought.
"What?" John wanted to know, catching the doubt in
her voice.
"No," she repeated. "It's inconceivable that at her level
of power she wouldn't have been taught Limitations. It's
the first thing anyone learns." And seeing Gareth's incom-
prehension, she explained. "It's one of the things that
takes me so long when I weave spells. You have to limit
the effect of any spell. If you call rain, you must specify
a certain heaviness, so as not to flood the countryside. If
you call a curse of destruction upon someone or some-
thing, you have to set Limitations so that their destruction
doesn't come in a generalized catastrophe that wipes out
your own house and goods. Magic is very prodigal in its
effects. Limitations are among the earliest things a mage
is taught."
"Even among the gnomes?" Gareth asked. "You said
their magic is different."
"It is taught differently—transmitted differently. There
are things Mab has said that I do not understand and things
that she refuses to tell me about how their power is formed.
But it is still magic. Mab knows the Limitations—from
what she has told me, I gather they are more important
in the night below the ground. If she studied among the
gnomes, Zyeme would have to have learned about them."
John threw back his head and laughed in genuine
amusement. "Gaw, it must be rotting her!" He chuckled.
"Think of it, Jen. She wants to get rid of the gnomes, so
170 Barbara Hambly
she calls down a generalized every-worst-curse she can
think of upon them—and gets a dragon she can't get rid
of! It's gie beautiful!"
"It's 'gie' frivolous," Jenny retorted.
"No wonder she threw fire at me! She must be that
furious just thinking about it!" His eyes were dancing
under his singed brows.
"It just isn't possible," Jenny insisted, in the cool voice
she used to call their sons back from skylarking. Then,
more seriously, "She can't have gotten to that degree of
power untaught, John. It's impossible. All power must be
paid for, somehow."
"But it's the sort of thing that would happen if it hadn't
been, isn't it?"
Jenny didn't reply. For a long time she stared out the
window at the dark shape of the battlements, visible
beneath the chilly autumn stars. "I don't know," she said
at last, stroking the spiderweb fringes other gauze shawl.
"She has so much power. It's inconceivable that she hasn't
paid for it in some fashion. The key to magic is magic.
She has had all time and all power to study it fully. And
yet..." She paused, identifying at last her own feelings
toward what Zyeme was and did. "I thought that someone
who had achieved that level of power would be different."
"Ah," John said softly. Across the room, their eyes
met. "But don't think that what she's done with her
achievement has betrayed your striving, love. For it hasn't.
It's only betrayed her own."
Jenny sighed, reflecting once again on John's uncanny
ability to touch the heart of any problem, then smiled a
little at herself; and they traded a kiss in a glance.
Gareth said quietly, "But what are we going to do? The
dragon has to be destroyed; and, if you destroy it, you'll
be playing right into her hands."
A smile flicked across John's face, a glimpse of the
bespectacled schoolboy peeking out from behind the com-
Dragonsbane 171
plex barricades raised by the hardships of the Winteriands
and his father's embittered domination. Jenny felt his eyes
on her again—the tip of one thick reddish brow and the
question in the bright glance. After ten years, they had
grown used to speaking without words.
A qualm of fear passed over her, though she knew he
was right. After a moment, she drew her breath in another
sigh and nodded.
"Good." John's impish smile widened, like that of a
boy intent on doing mischief, and he rubbed his hands
briskly. He turned to Gareth. "Get your socks packed,
my hero. We leave for the Deep tonight."
CHAPTER IX
"STOP."
Puzzled, Gareth and John drew rein on either side of
Jenny, who sat Moon Horse where she had halted her in
the middle of the leaf-drifted track. All around them the
foothills of Nast Wall were deathly silent, save for the
trickle of wind through the charred trunks of what had
once been woods to either side of the road and the faint
jingle of brass as Osprey tugged at his leading-rein and
Clivy began foraging prosaically in the sedges of the ditch-
side. Lower down the hills, the woods were still whole,
denuded by coming winter rather than fire; under the
pewter-gray trunks of the beeches, the rust-colored
underbrush lay thick. Here it was only a tangle of brittle
stems, ready to crumble at a touch. Half-hidden in the
weeds near the scorched pavi
ng stones of the road were
the blackened bones of fugitives from the dragon's first
attack, mixed with shattered cooking vessels and the sil-
ver coins that had been dropped in flight. The coins lay
in the mud still. No one had ventured this close to the
ruined town to retrieve them.
Up ahead in the weak sunlight of winter, the remains
172
Dragonsbane 173
of the first houses of Deeping could be seen. According
to Gareth the place had never been walled. The road ran
into the town under the archway below the broken clock
tower.
For a long while Jenny sat listening in silence, turning
her head this way and that. Neither of the men spoke—
indeed, ever since they had slipped out of the Palace in
the small hours before dawn, Jenny had been acutely
conscious of John's growing silence. She glanced across
at him now, where he sat withdrawn into himself on his
riding horse Cow, and remembered for the dozenth time
that day Zyeme's words—that without her assistance,
neither he nor Jenny would be capable of meeting the
dragon Morkeleb.
Beyond a doubt John was remembering them, too.
"Gareth," Jenny said at last, her voice little more than
a whisper, "is there another way into the town? Some
place in the town that is farther from the Gates of the
Deep than we are now?"
Gareth frowned. "Why?"
Jenny shook her head, not certain herself why she had
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