Dragon's Bane

by Dragon's Bane (lit)

  stickily on the upturned palm of one blistered hand. Jenny

  felt her whole body one open wound of grief.

  We change what we touch, she thought. Why had she

  let him change her? She had been happy, alone with her

  magic. The key to magic is magic—she should have held

  to that from the start. She had known even then that he

  was a man who would give his life to help others, even

  others not his own.

  If he had waited for Zyeme...

  She pushed the thought away with bitter violence,

  knowing Zyeme's magic could have saved him. All day

  she had wanted to weep, not only with grief, but with

  anger at herself for all the choices of the past.

  Thin and plaintive as a child's, Gareth's voice broke

  into her circle of stumbling self-hate. "Isn't there anything

  that you can do?"

  "I have done what I can," she replied wearily. "I have

  washed his wounds and stitched them shut, laid spells of

  healing upon them. The dragon's blood is a poison in his

  veins, and he has lost too much blood of his own."

  "But surely there's something..." In the brief gleam

  of the fire, she could see that he had been weeping. Her

  own soul felt cold now and drained as John's flesh.

  "You have asked me that seven times since it grew

  Dragonsbane 191

  dark," she said. "This is beyond my skills—beyond the

  medicines that I have—beyond my magic."

  She tried to tell herself that, even had she not loved

  him, even had she not given up the time she could have

  spent studying, it would still have been so.

  Would she have been able to save him, if she had not

  given him all those hours; if she had spent all those early

  mornings meditating among the stones in the solitude of

  the hilltop instead of lying talking in his bed?

  Or would she only have been a little bleaker, a little

  madder—a little more like the worst side of herself—a

  little more like Caerdinn?

  She did not know, and the hurt of that was almost as

  bad as the hurt of suspecting that she did know.

  But she had only her own small powers—spells worked

  one rune at a time, patiently, in the smallest increments

  of thought. She slowed and calmed her mind, as she did

  when she worked magic, and realized she could not cure

  him. What then could she do for him? What had Mab

  said, when she had spoken of healing?

  She ran her hands through her long hair, shifting the

  weight of it from her face and neck. Her shoulders hurt

  with cramp; she had not slept in two nights, and her body

  ached.

  "The most we can do now is keep heating stones in

  the fire to put around him," she said at last. "We must

  keep him warm."

  Gareth swallowed and wiped his nose. "Just that?"

  "For now, yes. If he seems a little stronger in the mom-

  ing, we may be able to move him." But she knew in her

  heart that he would not live until morning. Like a whis-

  pering echo, the vision in the water bowl returned to her,

  a bitter nightmare of failed hope.

  Hesitantly, Gareth offered, "There are physicians up

  at Halnath. Polycarp, for one."

  "And an army around its walls." Her voice sounded

  192 Barbara Hambly

  very cold to her own ears. "If he's still alive in the morning

  ... I didn't want you to risk putting yourself once again

  where Zyeme might reach you, but in the morning, I think

  you should take Battlehammer and ride back to Bel."

  Gareth looked frightened at the mention of Zyeme's

  name and at the thought of possibly facing her alone, but

  he nodded. Jenny was interested to note, in some detached

  portion of her tired soul, that, having sought all his life

  for heroism, while Gareth might now flinch from it, he

  did not flee.

  She went on, "Go to the house of the gnomes and fetch

  Miss Mab here. The medicines of the gnomes may be

  locked away in the Deep, but..." Her voice trailed off.

  Then she repeated softly, "The medicines of the gnomes."

  Like pins and needles in a numbed limb, the hurt of

  hope renewed as a sudden wash of agony. She whispered,

  "Gareth, where are John's maps?"

  Gareth blinked at her uncomprehendingly, too preoc-

  cupied for the moment with his own fears of Zyerne to

  realize what she was getting at. Then he gave a start, and

  hope flooded into his face, and he let out a whoop that

  could have been heard in Bel. 'The Places of Healing!"

  he cried, and threw his arms around her, sweeping her

  off her feet. "I knew it!" he shouted, with all his old forlorn

  cockiness. "I knew you could think of something! You

  can..."

  "You don't know anything of the kind." She fought

  free of him, angry at him for expressing what was already

  surging through her veins like a swig of cheap brandy.

  She brushed past him and almost ran to John's side, while

  Gareth, gamboling like a large puppy, began to ransack

  the camp for the maps.

  If there was anything worse than the pain of despair,

  she thought, it was the pain of hope. At least despair is

  restful. Her own heart was hammering as she brushed

  aside the russet hair from John's forehead, almost black-

  Dragonsbane 193

  looking now against the bloodless flesh. Her mind was

  racing ahead, ticking off the remedies Mab had spoken

  of: distillations to slow and strengthen the thready heart-

  beat; salves to promote the healing of the flesh; and phil-

  ters to counteract poison and give him back the blood he

  had lost. There would be spell-books, too, she thought,

  hidden in the Places of Healing, words with which to bind

  the soul to the flesh, until the flesh itself could recover.

  She could find them, she told herself desperately, she

  must. But the knowledge of what was at stake lay on her

  heart like stones. For a moment she felt so tired that she

  almost wished for his death, because it would require no

  further striving from her and threaten her with no further

  failure.

  Holding his icy hands, she slid for a moment into the

  outer fringes of the healing trance and whispered to him

  by his inner name. But it was as if she called at the head

  of a descending trail along which he had long since

  passed—there was no answer.

  But there was something else. In her trance she heard

  it, a soft touch of sound that twisted her heart with fright—

  the slur of scales on rock, the shiver of alien music.

  Her eyes opened; she found herself shaking and cold.

  The dragon was alive.

  "Jenny?" Gareth came nattering over to her side, his

  hands full of creased bits of dirty papyrus. "I found them,

  but—but the Places of Healing aren't on them." His eyes

  were filled with worry behind the cracked, crazy specs.

  "I've looked..."

  Jenny took them from his hand with fingers that shook.

  In the firelight she could make out passages, caverns,

  rivers, all marked in Drom
ar's strong, runic hand, and the

  blank spots, unmarked and unlabeled. The affair of the

  gnomes.

  Anger wrenched at her, and she threw the maps from

  her. "Damn Dromar and his secrets," she whispered

  194 Barbara Hambly

  viciously. "Of course the Places of Healing are the heart

  of the Deep that they all swear by!"

  "But—" Gareth stammered weakly. "Can you—can

  you find them anyway?"

  Fury welled up in her, of hope thwarted, first by fear

  and now by one gnome's stubbornness, like molten rock

  pouring through the cracks of exhaustion in her soul. "In

  those warrens?" she demanded. For a moment anger,

  weariness, and the knowledge of the dragon claimed her,

  tearing at her so that she could have screamed and called

  down the lightning to rive apart the earth.

  As Zyeme did, she told herself, fighting for calm. She

  closed her fists, one around the other, and pressed her

  lips against them, willing the rage and the fear to pass;

  and when they passed, there was nothing left. It was as

  if the unvoiced scream had burned everything out of her

  and left only a well of dark and unnatural calm, a universe

  deep.

  Gareth was still looking at her, his eyes pleading. She

  said quietly, "Maybe. Mab spoke of the way. I may be

  able to reason it out." Mab had also said that one false

  step would condemn her to a death by starvation, wan-

  dering in darkness.

  Like an answer, she knew at once what John would

  have said to that—God's Grandmother, Jen, the dra-

  gon'11 eat you before you get a chance to starve.

  Trust John, she thought, to make me laugh at a time

  like this.

  She got to her feet, chilled to the bone and feeling a

  hundred years old, and walked to the packs once more.

  Gareth trailed along after her, hugging his crimson cloak

  about himself for warmth and chattering on about one

  thing and another; locked in that strange stasis of calm,

  Jenny scarcely heard.

  It was only as she slung her big satchel about her shoul-

  der and picked up her halberd that he seemed to feel her

  Dragonsbane 195

  silence. "Jenny," he said doubtfully, catching the edge of

  her plaid. "Jenny—the dragon is dead, isn't it? I mean,

  the poison did work, didn't it? It must have, if you were

  able to get John out of there..."

  "No," Jenny said quietly. She wondered a little at the

  weird silence within her; she had felt more fear listening

  for the Whisperers in the Woods ofWyr than she did now.

  She started to move off toward the darkness of the shadow-

  drowned ruins. Gareth ran around in front of her and

  caught her by the arms.

  "But—that is—how long..."

  She shook her head. 'Too long, almost certainly." She

  put her hand on his wrist to move him aside. Having made

  up her mind what she must do, she wanted it over with,

  though she knew she would never succeed.

  Gareth swallowed hard, his thin face working in the

  low ruby light of the fire. "I—I'll go," he volunteered

  shakily. "Tell me what I should look for, and I..."

  For an instant, laughter threatened to crack all her

  hard-won resolve—not laughter at him, but at the wan

  gallantry that impelled him, like the hero of a ballad, to

  take her place. But he would not have understood how

  she loved him for the offer, absurd as it was; and if she

  began to laugh she would cry, and that weakness she knew

  she could not now afford. So she only stood on her toes

  and pulled his shoulders down so that she could kiss his

  soft, thin cheek. "Thank you, Gareth," she murmured.

  "But I can see in the darkness, and you cannot, and I

  know what I seek."

  "Really," he persisted, torn visibly between relief at

  her refusal, awareness that she was in fact far better suited

  than he for the task, a lifetime of chivalric precept, and

  a very real desire to protect her from harm.

  "No," she said gently. "Just see that John stays warm.

  If I don't come back..." Her voice faltered at the knowl-

  edge of what lay before her—the death by the dragon, or

  196 Barbara Humbly

  the death within the maze. She forced strength into her

  words. "Do what seems best to you, but don't try to move

  him too soon."

  The admonition was futile, and she knew it. She tried

  to remember Mab's words regarding the lightless laby-

  rinths of the Deep and they slid from her mind like a

  fistful of water, leaving only the recollection of the shining

  wheels of diamond that were the dragon's watching eyes.

  But she had to reassure Gareth; and while John breathed,

  she knew she could never have remained in camp.

  She squeezed Gareth's hand and withdrew from him.

  Hitching her plaids higher on her shoulder, she turned

  toward the shadowy trails through the Vale and the dark

  bulk of Nast Wall that loomed against a sullen and pitchy

  sky. Her final glimpse of John was of the last glow of the

  dying fire that outlined the shape of his nose and lips

  against the darkness.

  Long before she reached the Great Gates of the Deep,

  Jenny was aware of the singing. As she crossed the frost-

  skimmed stones of the ruins, bled of all their daytime

  color by the feeble wash of the moonlight, she felt it—a

  hunger, a yearning, and a terrifying beauty, far beyond

  her comprehension. It intruded into her careful piecing-

  together of those fragmentary memories of Mab's remarks

  about the Places of Healing, broke even into her fears for

  John. It seemed to float around her in the air, and yet she

  knew that it could only be heard by her; it shivered in

  her bones, down to her very finger ends. When she stood

  in the Gates with the blackness of the Market Hall lying

  before her and her own shadow a diffuse smudge on the

  scuffed and blood-gummed refuse of the floor, it was almost

  overwhelming.

  There was no sound to it, but its rhythm called her

  blood. Braided images that she could neither completely

  sense nor wholly understand twisted through her con-

  Dragonsbane 197

  sciousness—knots of memory, of starry darkness that

  sunlight had never seen, of the joyous exhaustion of phys-

  ical love whose modes and motives were strange to her,

  and of mathematics and curious relationships between

  things that she had never known were akin. It was stronger

  and very different from the singing that had filled the gully

  when the Golden Dragon ofWyr lay gasping its last. There

  was a piled strength in it of years lived fully and of patterns

  comprehended across unknowable gulfs of time.

  The dragon was invisible in the darkness. She heard

  the soft scrape of his scales and guessed him to be lying

  across the inner doors of the Market Hall, that led to the

  Grand Passage and so into the Deep. Then the silver lamps

  of his eyes opened and seemed to glow softly in the

&n
bsp; reflected moonlight, and in her mind the singing flowed

  and intensified its colors into the vortex of a white core.

  In that core words formed.

  Have you come seeking medicines, wizard woman? Or

  is that weapon you carry simply what you have deluded

  yourself into thinking sufficient to finish what your poi-

  sons do too slowly for your convenience'!

  The words were almost pictures, music and patterns

  shaped as much by her own soul as by his. They would

  hurt, she thought, if allowed to sink too deeply.

  "I have come seeking medicines," she replied, her voice

  reverberating against the fluted dripstone of the toothed

  ceiling. "The power of the Places of Healing was every-

  where renowned."

  This I knew. There was a knot of gnomes that held out

  in the place where they took au the wounded. The door

  was low, but I could reach through it like a wolf raiding

  a bury of rabbits. I fed upon them for many days, until

  they were all gone. They had the wherewithal to make

  poisons there, too. They poisoned the carrion, as if they

  did not think that I could see the death that tainted the

  meat. This will be the place that you seek.

  198 Barbara Hambly

  Because he spoke partially in pictures, she glimpsed

  also the dark ways into the place, like a half-remembered

  dream in her mind. Her hope stirred, and she fixed the

  pictures in her thoughts—tiny fragments, but perhaps

  enough to serve.

  With her wizard's sight she could distinguish him now,