Maurynna sat still as death for Lark’s next words.
“But he called himself Taren Olmeins.”
After Lark went back inside to start the evening meal, Maurynna sat lost in thought. She couldn’t bear to be the one to tell Raven. Bad enough that the man he’d called friend at one time was a traitor, but to have helped a kinslayer … .
No, she wouldn’t tell him. Not yet. Not until they were well clear of Jehanglan, else he’d worry every moment when doom was to fall. Perhaps when they were home in Dragonskeep, she’d tell him.
Dragonskeep … She shivered. Oh, gods—Dragonskeep had given hearth-room to a kinslayer. Were the gods even now planning revenge upon her home?
Avert, avert, avert!
She ate little that evening, and went early to bed, pleading a headache.
Forty-eight
“There’s going to be a celebration for you two tonight,” Lark announced at breakfast the next morning. “It’s not often we get visitors.”
Maurynna, feeling better after a night’s sleep, said, “Truly? How kind! What kind of celebration?”
“The usual feasting and dancing,” Shima replied. “But first, while Raven is still seeing to your horses, Zhantse wants to speak with you before you go to the celebration. I’m to take you to him; he’ll be waiting for us in the desert near the foot of the mountain called Zunest’sha’sho. It means the Lonely One.”
“I see,” Maurynna said, quietly. This is where I find out why Morlen insisted I go.
She wished the day was over already.
“Any news?” Linden asked as Jekkanadar entered their tent again.
“Nothing much. There have been some battles, but it seems it’s mostly quick sorties in and out.”
Linden nodded. It was a kind of warfare he was familiar with.
“Have you … ?” Jekkanadar waved a hand.
“Felt anything of Maurynna? No,” he answered grimly, and let his mind empty again to see if he could feel her.
Nothing, as always. He kept trying; he had to believe she was still alive.
It had been an ordeal to convince Raven that he didn’t need to go with her.
“One of us needs to go early to the feast,” she insisted. “We can’t both be late; that would be an insult.”
At last he’d capitulated, though with no good grace. Maurynna saw him set off with Lark and Keru, Shima’s sister.
Now she rode behind Shima through a landscape made more alien than ever by moonlight. She looked around and shivered as they wound a way through gullies and past rocks that towered over her head.
Then Shima led her through a narrow passage that opened into a wide, flat gully. A man stood on the far side of a campfire.
At first Maurynna thought the man facing them was old, but still hale and hearty. Then she realized that he was probably younger by a decade or two than Otter, his lined and weathered face making him seem much older. By his side stood Miune. The waterdragon’s feelers quivered at the sight of her.
“Hello, Miune—I’m happy to see you again,” she said.
A feeler waved happily.
She dismounted and left Shima to remove Boreal’s tack. Standing on the opposite side of the flames, she said in Jehangli, the only language they would have in common, “I greet you, Zhantse.”
The seamed face smiled. “As I greet you, Maurynna Kyrissaean. Shall we sit by the fire?”
She nodded, and sat. In a short while, Shima joined them. For a time, no one spoke.
The desert night was cold; Maurynna was glad for both the fire and her cloak. The Tah’nehsieh men wore the thick, woven wraps that she had learned were called jelah. She thought they looked like narrow blankets split down the front.
“There is an ancient prophecy, its words handed down from Seer to Seer of the Tah’nehsieh, the People of the Red Desert,” Zhantse said, breaking the silence. “My master had it of his master before him, and so on, even before the dawning of the Phoenix Kingdom. Jalla, it was, who Dreamed the words in the long ago.”
The shaman’s eyes closed; in the flickering light of the fire he looked like a wise and ancient tortoise. “All listen! For these are the words of his Seeing,” he chanted.
The shaman’s voice suddenly deepened, and the next words rolled out like the thunder that had rumbled among the distant mountains all evening.
“‘The blade of the north is the key. Give it human hands to guide it, dragon spirit to drive it. Only then shall what is bound, be unbound.’”
The red firelight played over Zhantse’s wrinkled face; he looked at each of them in turn. “For many, many years no one understood what those words meant, not even Jalla. He died never knowing what his Seeing meant. What was the ‘blade of the north,’ and what was it the key to? How were human and dragon to work so together? While our kinds were not enemies, such a thing was unheard of.”
“And now you think you know,” Maurynna said, surprised at how calm her voice sounded. It was a calmness she did not feel inside.
“Yes,” Zhantse replied. “The first piece of the puzzle came long ago when two northern dragons found their way to this land.” He nodded at the waterdragon. “Miune? Here it is your tale, I think.”
*Thee truly wish this, shaman?* Miune’s eyes shone.
“I do, Miune. I bid you speak,” Zhantse said.
Shaman and dragon locked gazes; then Zhantse held out a hand. Miune brushed the waiting fingers with the tip of one feeler and nodded.
*Yes, this is my part of the tale, the coming of the northern dragons; my parents told me of it. * The young dragon raised his head and tucked his forelegs a little more tightly beneath him.
“Your pardon, Miune,” Maurynna said, “but this is a thing that’s confused me for some time. You said once before that your parents … disappeared before you were born. So how could they have told you … ?”
*They sang to me when I was still in the egg. It is the way of my kind; our songs are powerful. I heard them and although I did not understand then, I remembered and understood later. If I listen very hard, sometimes I can still hear them singing in the cave they—and now I—live in. The rocks remember.* Miune looked down and his mindvoice grew soft. *Sometimes the songs are very beautiful but sad, like the fading of autumn into winter. But most bring joy. Those are like the singing of a stream over stone. Those are my favorites.
*But listen and I will tell thee what my parents told me. When they first came, one of the winged dragons of the north carried a bundle that he did not speak of, nor did he open it. It lay in a corner of the cave he took to live in. My parents did not ask about it. They simply made both dragons welcome. After a time, he spoke to them of the life he had led before, and he showed them the few keepsakes he’d kept from that time.
*They were amazed, for he said that he had lived as a man, that in his young years he had not even known what he was. But a great grief had come upon his human form and that part of him determined to leave this life, to seek the one who went before. So the dragon told them, saying that his human half slept deeply and would soon slip away.*
“What was his name?” Maurynna asked at the same time Shima demanded, “What was in the bundle? Wretch, you never spoke of this to me,” and tugged a feeler.
*Ouch! Thee are the wretch, Shima, for that hurt. Thee must blame Zhantse’s kind; it is a great secret of the shamans and I promised long and long ago never to speak of it, lest some mischiefmaker seek to thwart Jalla’s Seeing.* To Maurynna he said, *His name was Dharm Varleran, and he died later in a storm. Does this mean aught to thee?*
“So Dharm and Pirakos were together,” she mused aloud. “Miune—what was in the bundle? Is it still secret?”
A fine thing it would be if even she—if indeed she was the one spoken of in the prophecy—could not be told. The gods would laugh long and hard at that. Such jests delighted them too much so, she thought sourly.
For a space of time Miune lay silent, motionless save for the slight quivering of his feelers. Th
en he stretched one feeler out to her and brushed her hand.
*It is time,* he said in a tone that brooked no argument. *We go to the Lonely One.* He heaved himself to his feet and marched away.
So quickly and unexpectedly did the waterdragon move that Maurynna and the others were caught by surprise. They scrambled to their feet. Both men picked up torches and thrust them into the fire. When the torches caught, they started after Miune.
Maurynna found herself walking behind Zhantse and ahead of Shima as they followed the youngling dragon through the moonlit gully without speaking. A hauntin g tune in a wailing, minor key ghosted through her mind. It fit so well with the eerie, barren landscape around her that at first she didn’t notice it was there. When she did, gooseflesh prickled her arms as she wondered where it came from; she felt as though she walked along some border in the dream world where the weight of a sigh would tilt the scales between nightmare and enchantment.
Then she realized that it was Miune she heard in her mind. Could this be one of the songs his parents had sung to him when he was still in the egg? If she listened very hard, there were words shimmering on the edge of her mind. She almost had them … .
Instead, she stubbed her toe on a rock and stumbled. A tiny bat flitted past her as if mocking her with its airy grace. Maurynna ruefully decided she’d best pay attention to the winding path or risk landing flat on her face. The flickering light of the torches threw confusing shadows on the trail; she wished she dared send up a ball or three of coldfire.
Then they were climbing out of the gully and up the slope of Zunest’sha’sho, the Lonely One.
Revelation made her stumble again. “Oh my gods,” she breathed. “‘The Lonely One.’”
So this is where Dharm Varleran buried his sorrow—for a time. Then he died and Pirakos fell into a hell beyond imagining.
The thought made her shiver. She whispered over her shoulder to Shima, “Have you been here before?”
He closed the distance between them. “No. I’m merely a spirit drummer; this is a matter for shamans.”
She looked up at the rock towering above them. “Do we go to the top?” Her legs felt tired even thinking about it.
Shima laughed softly. “No, thank the Spirits. This much I do know: what we seek is kept in a cave not very far from here.”
He sounded so guilty that she looked over her shoulder. “Oh?”
The younger Tah’nehsieh flashed her a wry grin. “It’s forbidden to come to this place, but it’s also a boy’s dare to follow the shamans as far as you can when they travel here. I was lucky; I was never found out. My friend Teira couldn’t sit for days after he was caught, his father was so angry,” he whispered.
The trail grew sharply steeper, and the humans in the party waited as Miune huffed and waddled and sometimes backslid his way along it until it became level again. Then it was the turn of the two-foots.
It was not as bad as Maurynna, still a sailor at heart, feared it would be; her new Dragonlord strength made all the difference. The men seemed not to notice the climb. Perhaps, Maurynna thought, they were so used to this rough country that a few hundred feet up or down made little difference to them.
Then the path was level once more. They followed Miune closely as the trail clung to the side of the towering rock. There was a breeze up here; it carried the night scents of the desert to Maurynna: the still-hot smell of dust, a delicate fragrance of flowers that hid from the searing heat of the sun and showed themselves only to Sister Moon and the creatures of the night.
*In here.*
The words came a bare instant before the waterdragon turned sharply to the left and disappeared with a flick of his tail. Zhantse followed.
When Maurynna’s turn came, she found that the trail led to a wide crack in the rock face. One side of the opening jutted out further than the other and curved in slightly. She guessed that, from below, it would look like merely a fold in the rock.
Curious, Maurynna stepped into the opening. Wide as it was, she thought that Miune must have had some difficulty slipping through; the youngling dragon would not be able to come here much longer.
Then she realized that, after this night, he might well have no reason to come here anymore. The “key” would be gone—and she would be the keeper of it. The thought froze her feet to the ground.
Somehow Zhantse must have sensed her hesitation, though he mistook the reason for it. The shaman turned and said, “Come. A little more and the way opens out.”
Then he looked beyond her and spoke to Shima in their own language, a question, by the sound of it. It seemed to Maurynna that there was a note of concern beneath the quick words. But whatever those fears were, they appeared to be laid to rest by Shima’s cheerful reply, for while Zhantse’s skeptical expression seemed to say, “On your head be it,” the shaman nodded and went on.
And what was that about? she wondered as she made her way deeper into the mountain. She glanced back over her shoulder at Shima. His face betrayed no fearful secrets; he merely looked intent on picking a safe way along the uneven floor.
No answers there, then. She continued on, one hand slipping along the wall. Her gaze strayed above her head and she noticed that the walls and ceiling of the tunnel were black with soot. How many generations of shamans have come this way, she mused, over how—
Before she could complete the thought, she entered a large stone chamber. After only a few steps, she had to stop. The walls and ceiling were painted, an explosion of bright, intricate designs that, she swore, moved whenever her eyes settled on any one. A wave of vertigo washed over her.
“Good gods!” she exclaimed, and dropped her gaze in self-defense. The floor, she was relieved to see, was the dull red of the mother rock.
When she looked up once more, either the designs had decided to behave, or her eyes had adjusted, for the rapid swirling stopped. Still, the chamber was not a comfortable place. A quick look around told her it was empty save for a stack of fresh torches and wall brackets to hold them. She fixed her eyes on Miune and Zhantse standing together by another, much narrower, exit on the far side of the chamber.
Shima’s startled, “Hwah!” from behind her reassured her she was not the only one affected. He stumbled as he thrust the torch he carried into the nearest bracket.
“Were you not with us,” Zhantse said, gesturing with his free hand first to Miune and then himself, “you would even now be lying on the ground, certain you were going mad. And if you did not leave quickly enough, it would become so. For beyond here are things that are not for all to see.”
“That which the dragon brought?” Shima asked.
“And other things,” replied Zhantse evenly. His dark-eyed gaze snapped to his drummer like a sword coming to point.
“I understand, master,” Shima said, humbly. “No word will I speak of this.”
*Good, else I should have to thump thee.* Miune sounded only a little disappointed that he was not to have revenge for the tugging of his feeler.
“From here I must go alone,” Zhantse said. “No one but a shaman or Miune may go beyond this point, and he’s now too large to attempt this passage.”
Maurynna watched as the shaman laid a hand on one side of the mysterious opening and chanted softly, his head bowed. In answer there came a hum like the whisper of wind through harp strings. When it died away again, Zhantse entered the passage, his voice rising and falling in the chant. She saw the light from his torch and heard him for a time; then, abruptly, both ended as if the shaman had stepped out of this world and was beyond all perception.
In this strange land, mayhap he did. A shiver ran down Maurynna’s spine at the thought.
*He will be some time,* Miune said as he crossed the chamber. *There are places where he must pray and offer the sacred pollens he carries. The waterdragon settled to the floor.
Shima joined him. Maurynna held back a sigh and sat down. This room made her twitchy; she wanted the night sky above her once more.
No one
spoke. And as the silence grew, Maurynna became more and more aware of the magic imbued in the stone around her. It itched. But she could no more scratch inside her head than she could walk across the sea. So she set her teeth and willed herself to endure.
Raven clapped in time with the drummers as he sat with Lark and her neighbors, watching the two lines of dancers weave intricate patterns around each other. Their stamping feet raised puffs of dust, shrouding the great bonfire in a haze of red, even as their song spiraled up to the stars.
Song and dance came to an end in a final, triumphant “Hyah!” The dancers halted, laughing and catching their breath. But the drummers had little mercy; with a challenge that Raven recognized by tone if not words, the lead drummer beat out a fast, complicated rhythm. The others joined in.
The rhythm put Raven in mind of one he’d learned for his role for the troupe. One thought led to another; he stood up, swaying slightly.
Surprised, he thought, Whoa! Best take care, boy. That mesta is more potent than it tastes!
Lark looked up at him, eyebrows raised in question.
“There are others who’d like to dance, I’m thinking,” was all the explanation he gave her along with a grin. He turned his back on the leaping bonfire and set off into the darkness.
The magic thrummed in her bones now and felt like sand fleas inside her skin. She wanted to run away. Instead, Maurynna pulled her cloak a little closer and hunched into a ball. Something dug into the side of her face; her fingers went to it to see what—
Her cloak pin. Or, rather, Rani’s cloak pin. Maurynna locked her fingers around it and the little vixen pressed into her palm, solid and comforting. It brought back thoughts of Linden. She wrapped herself in that remembering; it kept the magic around her at bay—at least a little. She could endure now.
So of course at that moment, Zhantse returned. Maurynna rubbed the vixen’s nose with her thumb and raised her head.
Now she would find out what Dharm Varleran had left for her. Worse yet, now she would find out just what she would have to do.
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