Dragon and Phoenix

by Joanne Bertin

  A distant flicker of motion beyond Maurynna’s shoulder caught his eye. For a moment he couldn’t believe what he saw; then, Idiot—who else would it be? he said to himself. He began laughing.

  Maurynna drew back a little as if she thought him mad and it was contagious. She did not, he noticed, let go of his tunic. “What,” she began, then looked over her shoulder.

  “Trust Lleld,” Linden said with a grin, “to be the first to get the news.”

  Maurynna watched, barely containing her burning anger as Linden awkwardly peeled off his tunic and presented his injured back for Lleld’s inspection. She should be the one doing this for him, not Lleld, not any other Dragonlord, not even any truedragon. Damn Kyrissaean for this latest insult.

  She winced in sympathy at the painful slowness of his movements. Gods, but he must have wrenched every muscle in his back and shoulders to be moving like that. And how did he do it? That he wouldn’t tell her did nothing to mend her ill temper or ease her throbbing head.

  Well and well, that must mean it was some pretty bit of idiocy he knew deserved a tongue-lashing. Or even a belaying pin to the side of the head, she thought sourly. Just as a reminder not to do whatever it was again.

  Whatever he did, he did it for you, part of her mind chided. She squirmed at the thought. Morlen must have mindcalled him.

  Lleld finished her inspection of the deep scrape down Linden’s back. That, she said, was stupid, Linden. You know better than to jump from there.

  So he’d told Lleld what he’d done and not her? Her sympathy took wings. Maurynna promised herself the pleasure of keelhauling Linden if she ever got him on board a ship.

  “Just get on with it, will you?” Linden growled over his shoulder.

  For the first time Maurynna heard a dragon laugh, a deep houf, houf, houf punctuated by tendrils of smoke from Lleld’s nostrils. Then Lleld opened her mouth; blue-green flames rushed over teeth like daggers and bathed Linden in their Healing fire.

  When she was done, Linden stretched. From his look of relief Maurynna knew that the Healing had taken; there was not even a mark showing where the scrape had gouged the fair skin.

  I’m not a Dragonlord, Maurynna thought, blinking back sudden tears. Not really. All I have are the “little magics.” What good are heat spells and coldfire? So what if I can stick my hand in a roaring fire and not get burned? I can’t Change, I can’t fly, I can’t Heal my soultwin myself. If Lleld hadn’t come—

  She pushed to her feet. I’m nothing but a fraud.

  Morlen’s words came back to her; she shook her head in bitter disbelief. How could I, the least of the Dragonlords, the “little one,” be important to truedragons?

  Desperation overcame her. She bowed her head and willed herself to Change.

  Taren poured himself another goblet of the Pelnaran wine that Sirl had so thoughtfully left for him. If he’d known he’d have to face truedragons, he would have refused to leave Jehanglan! He gulped half the wine down.

  Yet it seemed his fears that they could “see” into a man’s soul were without cause. They had believed him just as the Dragonlords had, just as that fool boy had.

  Still, he’d best keep to his plan of isolating himself as much as possible. A blasted curse this illness might be, but exaggerating it gave him an excuse to play the hermit.

  A fit of shivering took him and he grimaced. Not that it was it all a sham; his blood was too thin now for these mountains. He took another sip and swore.

  What if the cursed truedragons did go to Jehanglan?

  Maurynna rode back down the mountain, sick and shaking. Instead of Changing, she’d only succeeded in enraging Kyrissaean further; her draconic half had lashed out in fury. The pain had been too much; Maurynna had fainted.

  Now she clung to the saddle, certain that only the care Boreal took of her kept her from falling off. Boreal insisted on frequent rests; how he knew each time she felt ready to faint, she didn’t understand. She was just glad he did.

  Linden,

  watching over her from the air, landed, Changed, and helped her down yet again. She sprawled on the grass, gasping. “How does Boreal know?”

  Linden said, “He feels it in the way you sit him. Even from above I can see you slump just before he stops. Are you certain you don’t want me to walk beside you?”

  She shook her head and wished she hadn’t. Suddenly the world doubled in front of her eyes; she shut them. “Don’t be silly; not with those boots. Your feet would be a mass of blisters by the time we got back. Besides, Lleld should have gotten home by now and sent Shan on his way.”

  “Then why don’t we stay here until he does reach us? You’re dead white, love.” He knelt beside her and gently stroked her forehead. “I could try to ease you by taking some of this onto myself. But I don’t dare; I don’t know what Kyrissaean would do at my interference.” His voice was a tangle of frustration and worry. “But promise me that you won’t try Changing again. Not until we know why Kyrissaean behaves as she does.”

  Damn Kyrissaean anyway, Maurynna thought. Linden waited so long and look what he gets as a soultwin: a sorry excuse for a Dragonlord no matter what Morlen says. “I promise.” The words were bitter and hard in her mouth.

  If she thought about it any more she’d cry. “I hope Shan gets here soon,” she said to change the subject.

  Nor was it long before the big black stallion cantered up the trail. He stopped before them, snorting, and snuffled Maurynna. Next he touched noses with Boreal; a moment passed and Shan snorted once more, seemingly satisfied with whatever had passed between them.

  “Ready?” Linden asked.

  “Ready enough,” Maurynna said. “The rest helped, but by all the gods, I just want to lie down in my own bed.”

  Linden helped her into the saddle and vaulted onto Shan’s bare back. The sight of him seated comfortably atop the big stallion brought back memories of riding behind him in Cassori barely more than two months ago; it seemed like another lifetime. A time before she knew she was Linden’s soultwin, before she knew she was a Dragonlord.

  Shan danced up beside her. Linden smiled, and she knew he was remembering that ride as well. “If you get too dizzy,” he said, “we can ride double on Shan again.”

  “I can do it,” Maurynna said. Silently she vowed she would ride into Dragonskeep without help.

  “Where are they?” Raven snapped. “Haven’t you heard anything yet?”

  “No,” Otter said. “Not yet.” And that worried him.

  Raven swore and slammed a fist into his other palm. “You can mindspeak Linden Rathan, can’t you? So why don’t you?”

  “Because, first, I can’t really mindspeak him. The most I can do is concentrate very hard if I wish to speak mind-to-mind with him and hope he ‘feels’ it; and I can only do that much because we’ve been friends for so long. I also have to be relatively close to him,” Otter said in exasperation. “And secondly, have you considered that distracting him might prove dangerous? We don’t know what’s happening, after all.”

  “Just so,” Raven said. There was a note in his voice that Otter didn’t like. “We don’t know.”

  It took all the willpower Maurynna had to keep her vow. More than once she nearly gave in, but the thought of the Lady’s reaction kept her in the saddle. It was bad enough being confined to the Keep like some delicate hothouse flower; let word reach the Lady that she was too ill to ride—and why—and the Lady would no doubt order her to their rooms. And that, Maurynna knew, she could not stand.

  Still, when they finally reached the Keep, Maurynna’s head ached so badly she could not open her eyes; the light hurt, sounds were much too loud and hammered at her skull, and her sense of smell was far too acute, even for a Dragonlord.

  Linden helped her down. She sagged against him, unable to protest when he picked her up and carried her off, leaving the Llysanyins to the grooms. She closed her eyes and clutched the neck of his tunic to anchor herself as the world spun around her.

 
Sudden coolness and a dimness she could sense even through closed eyelids told Maurynna they were inside the castle of Dragonskeep. She counted the stairways as Linden climbed them: one, two—she sighed with relief as they reached the third. Almost there. Then—

  “Rynna!”

  The call was desperate—and far too loud. Maurynna was certain Raven’s voice had shattered her skull. She couldn’t stop a whimper of pain.

  “Rynna—what’s wrong?”

  Linden growled, “Get out of the way, boy. Can’t you see she’s ill?”

  Raven snapped back, “Of course I see that. But what’s wrong with her? I have a right to know. You never said before you threw yourself out of my window.”

  The words took a moment to penetrate the shroud of pain in her head. Linden had done what? He could have died! No wonder he wouldn’t tell her before.

  She opened her eyes. She caught a glimpse of Raven’s salt white face glaring at Linden, heard Linden’s wordless snarl of anger; then the world danced before her and she was certain she would be sick.

  “Raven—go away,” she managed to say. All she wanted was her bed. All else had to wait—even explaining to Linden in no uncertain terms that he was never to do anything like that again or she’d kill him herself. She swallowed hard, eyes squeezed shut once more, and her stomach, thank all the gods, stayed in its proper place.

  A gasp, then retreating footsteps. Once more Linden strode upward, then down the hall to their rooms. He laid her on the bed. When she tried to sit up, groping blindly at her boots, he said, “Let me do that.”

  Maurynna fell back against the pillows as he tugged her boots off. “Windows,” she whispered, covering her eyes with her hands.

  “The light hurts?”

  “Yes.” She heard him pull the window hangings into place; the sudden darkness was blessed relief. “Thank you.”

  She felt him sit down on the bed.

  “I’ve mindcalled Fiaran,” he said softly. “You remember him, don’t you? He’s the Keep’s Simpler. I described your symptoms and he’s making up an infusion for the pain. He’ll be here soon, love. Try to rest until then.”

  “I will.” She let her mind drift, refusing to acknowledge the pain, hoping it would go away. The encounter on the stairs came back to her.

  I have the right to know, Raven had said as if he were her soultwin, not Linden.

  She considered that. No, Raven, you don’t have the right. You’re a friend—my best friend—but Linden is the other half of me. I wish you would understand that.

  Raven—go away.

  She’d ordered him away.

  Raven still couldn’t believe it. Ordered him away as if he meant nothing, as if all the years of their friendship had never been. As if she didn’t care that he loved her.

  It was all that bastard Linden Rathan’s fault. It had to be. She’d only known the Dragonlord for a few months; how could that so completely take the place of a nearly lifelong friendship?

  His great-uncle’s words tried to come back to him: they were given to each other by the gods more than six hundred years ago. He pushed them away. Pushed away all his great-uncle had ever told him about soultwins, what it meant, even while deep inside he knew its truth.

  He strode down the hall in a white-hot rage. As he surged around a corner, he nearly ran into Otter deep in conversation with a slender, brown-haired young man. The stranger turned a mildly surprised face to him.

  Raven took the man for one of the few truehuman servants in the Keep until his great-uncle said, “Kief Shaeldar, may I present my grandnephew, Raven Redhawkson?”

  Raven nearly choked in surprise even as he bowed low. This was one of the Dragonlord judges who had settled the regency debate in Cassori? The man looked as meek as a merchant’s clerk. Then Raven noticed the six-fingered hands.

  And there was something else that surprised Raven, though he could not ask his great-uncle in the presence of a Dragonlord.

  “Ah,” said Kief Shaeldar. “You’re the one who brought Taren to us, aren’t you?” When Raven nodded, the Dragonlord continued dryly, “I’m not certain whether to thank you or not for that; I, for one, have had rather enough excitement lately.”

  Raven thought back to the night before. As soon as he’d been taken to his great-uncle, he’d insisted on hearing from Otter the entire story of Maurynna’s adventures in Cassori. It had taken until near dawn.

  And knowing now what he did, he could well understand this Dragonlord’s understated preference for a bit of quiet. He almost forgot his anger in appreciation of Kief Shaeldar’s wry comment.

  Raven grinned. “My apologies, Your Grace, but I couldn’t think what else to do with him.”

  Kief Shaeldar laughed. “A fair hit. I suppose he is our problem, isn’t he, seeing that we’re intermediaries between truehuman and truedragon. Now I must be off. Good day, gentlemen.”

  Otter bowed as the Dragonlord took his leave; Raven followed suit. When they were alone, Raven said, “I noticed you called him by both of his names. I thought you were friends with him.”

  “On friendly terms, yes, but not close, though I’ve called him just “Kief” in extreme situations. We’re not friends as I am with Linden, Lleld, Jekkanadar, and a few of the others. Remember, the doubled name—human and dragon—is as much of a title as ‘Dragonlord’ or ‘Your Grace.’ I would never presume to address another Dragonlord by a human name alone unless he or she gave me permission. Rynna, of course, is an exception; we were friends before her Change.”

  Raven screwed up his face in thought. “After breakfast today, both Lleld Kemberaene and Jekkanadar Surael gave me permission to use their human names.”

  “I’m not surprised; they’re both like Linden, very easygoing with truehumans,” Otter said. There was a look of speculation in his eyes.

  Raven met that look. “Linden Rathan didn’t.”

  Otter’s eyebrows went up. “Why should he? You were certainly less than gracious to him, my fine lad. No, my boy, that right you’re going to have to earn. Are you going back to the rooms?”

  Raven, who had planned to do just that, said, “No.”

  “Good luck that I ran into you, then. I was going to wait there for you.”

  “Why?”

  “To tell you that all was well with Maurynna. Aside from a violent headache, she seems well enough.”

  Raven gaped at him. “How did you know?” he demanded.

  “Linden just mindcalled me, of course,” Otter said in surprise. “Didn’t you think he would? He knew we were concerned for her as well.”

  Raven’s fury returned. So Linden Rathan had mindcalled his great-uncle to reassure Otter, but had never thought of him? And didn’t he consider one Raven Redhawkson good enough to use his human name alone?

  Damn Linden Rathan anyway.

  “How thoughtful of him.” Raven pushed past his great-uncle. He called back, “I’m off to see how Taren is faring. I don’t know when I’ll be back to the rooms.”

  Linden drew the square of fabric from the bowl of cool water and wrung it dry, then handed it to Fiaran. The Simpler took it, expertly folded it into thirds, then laid it across Maurynna’s forehead.

  “There,” said Fiaran. “How does that feel?”

  “Good,” Maurynna whispered. “Thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome. Now try to sleep.” The portly Simpler rose from his seat on the edge of the bed and beckoned Linden to one side. “I’ve done all I can for now,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll leave the infusions with you. You know which are which?”

  “Yes,” Linden said; then, just to be certain, “The flask with the blue glaze is for pain; no more than five drops in wine every three or four candlemarks. The green is if she begins vomiting again.”

  “Just so. She’ll not want to eat much for a day or two, I’ll wager, and be warned that it would be best if you ate elsewhere. I’ve known the smell of food to turn someone’s stomach when they’ve a sick headache like this. But if she’l
l drink it, hot broth would be good for her. Oh, and keep the room dim; that seems to help. And now I’m off. I’ll stop in again in a few candlemarks, if you like.”

  As he walked the Simpler to the door, Linden said, “I would appreciate it, Fiaran. Have you any idea how long … ?”

  “This will last? Not really. This is one of the worst attacks of this kind that I’ve ever seen. Give her a few days, though, and she should be right as rain.” The Simpler paused in the doorway, frowning thoughtfully. “Though why rain should be right or wrong, I’ve no idea. I shall return later, Linden.”

  Linden shut the door behind Fiaran and smiled.

  Tsiaa fluttered around her like a distracted hen, fussing over the poultice she had ready and didn’t dare apply. Resting comfortably among the pillows of her bed, Shei-Luin watched, amused, as her maid wavered back and forth, torn between the need to tend to the swollen hand and fear of the man who held it cradled in his own.

  At last Tsiaa took a deep breath and quavered, “Phoenix Lord …”

  Xiane looked up. Tsiaa showed him the poultice.

  The Phoenix Lord of the Skies stared blankly at her for a moment, his mouth hanging open like an idiot schoolboy’s, before saying, “Oh!” and jumping to his feet. He laid down Shei-Luin’s hand with a gentleness she hadn’t thought him capable of and moved aside. Tsiaa bent to her work.

  Xiane turned to the door. Murohshei sprang to open it lest the emperor sully himself with such petty labor. And, Shei-Luin suspected, to get Xiane out of here that much sooner so that they all might relax.

  The emperor paused in the open doorway, regarding her. His long face held a seriousness that Shei-Luin had never seen before.

  Phoenix! she thought in astonishment. For once, Xiane looks like an emperor!

  “I know what you did,” he said quietly. “And I will not forget it, Precious Flower.”