Dragon's Bane
Page 34
"Maybe." Gareth shrugged. "I didn't think of it then—
a lot of the unpopularity of the gnomes started then,
because of that stipulation. But they said Zyeme specif-
ically, because she had..." He fished in his compendious,
ballad-trained memory for the exact wording. "... 'defiled
a holy thing.'"
"No idea what it was?"
The prince shook his head. Like John, he looked drawn
and tired, his shirt a fluttering ruin of dirt and spark holes,
his face sparkling faintly with an almost-invisible adoles-
cent stubble. Trey, sitting beside him, looked little better.
272
Barbara Humbly
With her typical practicality, she had carried a comb in
her reticule and had combed out her hair, so that it hung
past her hips in crinkled swaths, the smooth sheen of its
fantastic colors softened to a stippling of snow white and
violet, like the pelt of some fabulous beast against the
matted nap of Gareth's cloak.
'"Defiled a holy thing." Jenny repeated thoughtfully.
"It isn't how Mab put it. She said that she had poisoned
the heart of the Deep—but the heart of the Deep is a
place, rather than an object."
"Is it?" said John curiously. _
"Of course. I've been there." The silence of it whis- f
pered along her memory. "But as for what Zyeme wants..."
"You're a witch, Jen," said John. "What do you want?"
Gareth looked shocked at the comparison, but Jenny
only thought for a moment, then said, "Power. Magic.
The key to magic is magic. My greatest desire, to which
I would sacrifice all things else, is to increase my skills."
"But she's already the strongest sorceress in the land,"
Trey protested.
"Not according to Mab."
"I suppose there were gnome wizards in the Deep
stronger," John said interestedly. "If there hadn't been,
she wouldn't have needed to summon Morkeleb."
She did not summon me! The dragon's tail lashed again,
like a great cat's. She could not. Her power is not that
great.
"Somebody's is," John remarked. "Before you wiped
out the Deep and the mages in it, the gnomes were strong
enough to keep Zyerne out. But they all perished, or at
least all the strong ones did..."
"No," Jenny said. "That's what has puzzled me. Mab
said that she herself was stronger than Zyeme at some
time in the past. That means that either Mab grew weaker,
or Zyeme stronger."
"Could Mab's power have been weakened in some way
Dragonsbane 273
when Morkeleb showed up?" John glanced up at the
dragon. "Would that be possible? That your magic would
lessen someone else's?"
/ know nothing of the magic of humans, nor yet of the
magic of gnomes, the dragon replied. Yet among us, there
is no taking away of another's magic. It is like taking
away another's thoughts from him, and leaving him with
none.
"That's another thing," Jenny said, folding her arms
about her drawn-up knees. "When I met Zyerne yesterday
... My powers have grown, but I should not have been
able to defeat her as I did. She is shapestrong—she should
have far more strength than I did." She glanced over at
Gareth. "But she didn't shift shape."
"But she can," the boy protested. "I've seen her."
"Lately?" asked John suddenly.
Gareth and Trey looked at one another.
"Since the coming of the dragon? Or, to put it another
way, since she hasn't been able to enter the Deep?"
"But either way, it's inconceivable," Jenny insisted.
"Power isn't something that's contingent upon any place
or thing, any more than knowledge is. Zyeme's power
couldn't have weakened any more than Mab's could.
Power is within you—here, or in Bel, or in the Winter-
lands, or wherever you are. It is something you learn,
something you develop. AH power must be paid for..."
"Except that it's never looked as if Zyeme had paid
for hers," John said. His glance went from Jenny to the
dragon and back. "You said the magic of the gnomes is
different. Is there a way she could have stolen power,
Jen? That she could be using something she's no right to?
I'm thinking how you said she doesn't know about Lim-
itations—obviously, since she summoned a dragon she
can't get ridof..."
She did not summon me!
"She seems to think she did," John pointed out. "At
274 Barbara Hambly
least she's kept saying how she was the one who kicked
the gnomes out of the Deep. But mostly I'm thinking
about the wrinkles on her face."
"But she doesn't have any wrinkles," Trey objected,
disconcerted at this lightning change of topic.
"Exactly. Why doesn't she? Every mage I've known—
Mab, who isn't that old as gnomes go, old Caerdinn, that
crazy little wander-mage who used to come through the
Winterlands, and you, Jen—the marks of power are
printed on their faces. Though it hasn't aged you," he
added quickly, with a concern for her vanity that made
Jenny smile.
"You are right," she said slowly. "Now that you speak
of it, I don't think I've ever encountered a mage that—
that sweet-looking. Maybe that's what first troubled me.
And Mab said something about Zyeme stealing secrets.
Zyeme herself said that when she is able to get into the
Deep, she'll have the power to destroy us all." She
frowned, some other thought tugging at her mind. "But
it doesn't make sense. If you think she could have gained
her powers by studying arts possessed by the gnomes—
by breaking into and reading the books of their deeper
magic—you're wrong. I searched through the Places of
Healing in quest of just such books, and found none."
"That's a bit odd in itself, isn't it?" John mused. "But
when you said power isn't contingent on any thing, any
more than knowledge is—knowledge can be stored in a
book. Is there any way power can be stored? Can a mage
use another mage's power?"
Jenny shrugged. "Oh, yes. Power can be accumulated
by breadth as well as by depth; several mages can focus
their power together and direct it toward a single spell
that lies beyond their separate strengths. It can be done
by chanting, meditating, dancing..." She broke off, as
the vision rose once more to her mind—the vision of the
Dragonsbane 275
heart of the Deep. "Dancing..." she repeated softly, then
shook her head. "But in any case, the power is controlled
by those who raise it."
"Is it?" asked John. "Because in Polyborus it says..."
Morkeleb cut him off. But if she were forbidden the
Deep, Zyerne could have been nowhere near it when the
power was raised that sent this yearning unto me and
called me back. Nor, indeed, could she have been near
the Deep to conjure the dreams that first brought me here.
And no other mages would have combined to raise that
power.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you!" John broke in.
"In Dotys—or Polyborus' Analects—or maybe it's the
Elucidus Lapidarus..."
"What?" demanded Jenny, well aware that John was
perfectly capable of fishing for the source of reference for
ten minutes in the jackdaw-nest of his memory.
"Dotys—or Polyborus—says that it used to be rumored
that mages could use a certain type of stone for a power-
sink. They could call power into it, generation after gen-
eration, sometimes, or they could combine—and I think
he mentioned dancing—and when they needed great power,
forthe defense of their realm or defeat ofadragonorareally
powerful devil, they could call power out of it."
They looked at one another in silence—witch and
prince, maiden and warrior and dragon.
John went on, "I think what the gnomes were guard-
ing—what lies in the heart of the Deep—is a power sink."
"The Stone," Jenny said, knowing it for truth. "They
swear 'by the Stone' or 'by the Stone in the heart of the
Deep.' Even Zyeme does. In my vision, they were danc-
ing around it."
John's voice was soft in the velvety darkness. "And
in that case, all Zyeme would have needed to steal was
the key to unlock it. If she was apprenticed in the Places
of Healing near there, that wouldn't have been hard."
276 Barbara Hmnbty
"If she's mentally in contact with it, she could use it
somewhat, even at a distance," Jenny said. "I felt it, when
I struggled with her—some power I have never felt. Not
living, like Morkeleb—but strong because it is dead and
does not care what it does. It must be the source of all
her strength, for shapechanging and for the curse she sent
to the gnomes, the curse that brought you here from the
north, Morkeleb."
"A curse that's still holding good whether she wants
it to or not." John's spectacles flashed in the starlight as
he grinned. "But she must not be able to wield it accu-
rately at a distance, even as Miss Mab can't use it against
her. It would explain why she's so wild not to let them
get even a chance of going back."
So what thenf demanded Morkeleb grimly. Did your
estimable Dotys, your wise Polyborus, speak of a way to
combat the magic of these stones?
"Well," John said, a faint grin of genuine amusement
touching the comers of his mouth, "that was the whole
point of my coming south, you see. My copy of the Elu-
cidus Lapidarus isn't complete. Almost nothing in my
library is. It's why I agreed to become a Dragonsbane for
the King's hire in the first place—because we need books,
we need knowledge. I'm as much a scholar as I can be,
but it isn't easy."
With the size of a human brain, it would not be Mor-
keleb snapped, irrationally losing his temper. You are no
more scholar than you are Dragonsbane!
"But I never claimed to be," John protested. "It's just
there's all these ballads, see..."
The jet claws rattled again on the pavement. Jenny,
exasperated with them both, began, "I really am going to
let him eat you this time..."
Trey put in hastily, "Could you use the Stone yourself,
Lady Jenny? Use it against Zyerne?"
Dragonsbane 277
"Of course!" Gareth bounced like a schoolboy on the
hard step. "That's it! Fight fire with fire."
Jenny was silent. She felt their eyes upon her—Trey's,
Gareth's, John's, the crystal gaze of the dragon turned
down at her from above. The thought of the power stirred
in her mind like lust—Zyeme's power. The key to magic
is magic...
She saw the worry in John's eyes and knew what her
own expression must look like. It sobered her. "What are
you thinking?"
He shook his head. "I don't know, love."
He meant that he would not stand in the way of any
decision she made. Correctly interpreting his look, she
said gently, "I would not misuse the power, John. I would
not become like Zyeme."
His voice was pitched to her ears alone. "Can you
know that?"
She started to reply, then stilled herself. Shrill and clear
she heard Miss Mab's voice saying. She took the secrets
of those greater than she, defiled them, tainted them,
poisoned the very heart of the Deep ... She remembered,
too, that sense of perverted power that had sparkled in
the lamplight around Zyerne and the luckless Bond, and
how the touch of the dragon's mind had changed her.
"No," she said at last. "I cannot know. And it would
be stupid of me to meddle with something so powerful
without knowing its dangers, even if I could figure out
the key by myself."
"But," Gareth protested, "it's our only chance of
defeating Zyeme! They'll be back—you know they will!
We can't stay holed up here forever."
"Could we learn enough about the Stone for you to
circumvent its powers somehow?" Trey suggested. "Would
there be a copy of the Whatsus Howeverus you talked
about in the Palace library?"
Gareth shrugged. His scholarship might extend to seven
278 Barbara Humbly
minor variants of the ballad of the Wariady and the Red
Worm of Weldervale, but it was a broken reed insofar as
obscure encyclopedists went.
"There would be one at Halnath, though, wouldn't
there?" Jenny said. "And if it didn't contain the infor-
mation, there are gnomes there who might know."
"If they'd tell." John propped himself gingerly a little
higher against the granite of the gate pillar, the few por-
tions of his shirt not darkened with bloodstains very white
in the rising moonlight against the metallic glints of his
doublet. "Dromar's lot wouldn't even admit it existed.
They've had enough of humans controlling the Stone, and
I can't say as I blame them. But whatever happens," he
added, as the others subsided from their enthusiasm into
dismal reflection once more, "our next move had better
be to get out of here. As our hero says, you know Bond
and the King's troops will be back. The only place we
can go is Halnath, and maybe not there. How tight are
the siege lines. Gar?"
"Tight," Gareth said gloomily. "Halnath is built on a
series of cliffs—the lower town, the upper town, the Uni-
versity, and the Citadel above that, and the only way in
is through the lower town. Spies have tried to sneak in
over the cliffs on the mountain side of the city and have
fallen to their deaths." He readjusted his cracked spec-
tacles. "And besides," he went on, "Zyerne knows as
well as we do that Halnath is the only place we can go."
"Pox." John glanced over at Jenny, where she sat against
the alien curves of the dragon's complicated shoulder
bones. "For something that was never any of our business
to begin with, this is looking worse and worse."
"I could go," Trey ventured. "The troops
would be
least likely to recognize me. I could tell Polycarp..."
"They'd never let you through," John said. "Don't think
Zyeme doesn't know you're here, Trey; and don't think
she'd let you off because you're Bond's sister or that Bond
Dragonsbane 279
would risk Zyeme so much as pouting at him to get you
off. Zyerne can't afford even one of us returning to the
gnomes with word the dragon's left the Deep."
That, Morkeleb said thinly, is precisely our problem.
The dragon has NOT left the Deep. Nor will he, until this
Zyerne is destroyed. And I will not remain here docile,
to watch the gnomes carrying on their petty trafficking
with my gold.
"Your gold?" John raised an eyebrow. With a swift
gesture of her mind Jenny stilled Morkeleb again.
Nor would they allow it, she said, for the dragon alone.
It would only be a matter of time until their distrust of
you mastered them, and they tried to slay you. No—you
must be freed.
Freed! The voice within her mind was acrid as the
stench of vinegar. Freed to be turned like a beggar onto
the roads? The dragon swung his head away, the long
scales of his mane clashing softly, like the searingly thin
notes of a wind chime. You have done this to me, wizard
woman! Before your mind touched mine I was not bound
to this place...