The Dragon of Despair

by Jane Lindskold

  "I mean, we can't hope to pass over there, can we?"

  Elise frowned.

  "We may need to, cousin. In any case, even if we do not disguise ourselves, learning New Kelvinese language gives us an amazing advantage in any circumstance. The New Kelvinese are not accustomed to foreigners who can understand their language. They tend to speak about us to our faces, trusting in the language barrier to hide their meaning."

  Edlin saw humor in this and grinned.

  "But we would understand them, what? I say, what fun! And maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to be able to speak the stuff anyhow. I mean, what if we need directions or something?"

  Elise didn't comment further, pleased enough that Edlin was willing to add to the couple dozen memorized words and phrases he'd acquired the winter before.

  She turned her attention to Wendee Jay. Full-figured, with rich dark blond hair that Elise secretly envied, Wendee was a fascinating personùespecially to Elise, who had made few friends outside of Hawk Haven's nobility and "better" families until the previous year.

  A former actress, Wendee was now a full-time retainer with Duchess Kestrel, a patronage she had accepted because of the security it offered her immediate familyùtwo daughters and her mother, who cared for the girls when Wendee needed to travel on the duchess's business.

  Wendee was something Elise had never before metùa divorced woman who didn't even pretend she had anything to be ashamed about. Indeed, her opinion was she would have been far more worthy of censure if she had stayed in her destructive marriage.

  Duchess Kestrel had been far too clever to restrict this free-spirited woman to boring routine and when Firekeeper had come to winter in the North Woods, the duchess had offered Wendee the challenge of serving as the wolf-woman's personal attendant. Wendee had courage and enthusiasm enough for threeùjust the things needed by a personal attendant who was going to face the duty of forcing Firekeeper into her despised formal attire.

  Wendee Jay provided no problem when it came to learning the New Kelvinese language. She already possessed a fairly large vocabulary, acquired when performing New Kelvinese dramas, for which there was an enthusiastic audience in northern Hawk Haven. Mostly the plays were performed in translation, but the translators always left in a seasoning of the New Kelvinese language. From that basis, Wendee had gone on to build her command of the language, both through study and on occasional trips into New Kelvin.

  The problem was that Wendee needed to unlearn much of what she knew. The dramas, in some cases hundreds of years old and dating to the days when the Old Country still ruled, were filled with archaic terminology and idioms. These, mingled with the market argot Wendee had rapidly acquired during their last stay in New Kelvin, led to some unforgettable combinations that left Grateful Peaceùthough long trained to impassivityùwith a smile twitching his thin lips.

  However, Wendee was ahead of Elise when it came to adapting her body language and intuitively grasping the reasons for certain gestures or mannerisms. In matters of custom, New Kelvin was so traditional as to be nearly stagnant. The working classes reserved these formal manners for holidays, but the ruling classes at all times mimicked behaviors passed down for generations.

  "I shall admit," Peace said once, "that those very plays Goody Wendee has committed to memory areùin their unadulterated formùsources for protocol. They are deferred to when such matters are not covered in the traditional works on manners."

  Wendee nodded. "I thought so. There was a part in one of the more modern worksùButterfly Meets the Glass Traderùthat seemed to hint at just that."

  Peace nodded agreement, but Elise thought it was unlikely that he was familiar with modern New Kelvinese drama. Surely the ruling classùin which he had been preeminentùreserved their interest for the antique plays.

  Later Elise would find that she was both right and wrong in this assumption. The ruling class did tend to favor the older works, but Grateful Peace had been a very special person in that elite group. As the Dragon's Eyeùone of the exalted group of advisors known as the Dragon's ThreeùPeace had been responsible for watching anything and everything that might affect the stability of the government he served.

  Since the Dragon Speaker could be voted down by the Primes, the Dragon's Eye was alert to those things that revealed the mood of the country and its people. Dramas, with their ability to sway hearts even more than minds, were key and Peace had been very much and very secretly a patron of the theater.

  So the days passed, full and busy. Even when amply distracted, Elise found herself hoping for news of Firekeeper and Derianùthough it was still too early, even by King Tedric's odd estimate. And she watched for someone else, too.

  Jared Surcliffe had not arrived, though the duchess had expected him to reach the Norwood estate at around the same time as had Elise's party. Not even a note came and Elise found herself worriedùunduly, she tried to tell herself. Nevertheless, she had to restrain herself from running to the window every time hooves sounded in the yard or from rooting through her letters looking for a certain hand and a certain seal.

  Elise wondered what was keeping Doc away, worried that despite their seeming accord upon parting last winter maybe he was avoiding her.

  FIREKEEPER, DERIAN, and the mountain horses made the trip to Eagle's Nest in what, if anyone had been measuring, would have been considered record time. However, Derian was far too worn out from riding dawn to dusk, from attending to the needs of his stringùnot to mention staying alert for signs that Firekeeper's impatience was going to transform into abandonmentùto notice just how many sunrises and sunsets had passed.

  Firekeeper, never much of one for keeping time, only felt the pressure to get somewhere faster than she possibly could. This was a relatively new sensation and one she did not like at all. There were nights when, lying awake on the fringes of Derian's latest encampment and invigorated by the coolness that came with the dark, she fought back the urge to get up and go just a bit farther.

  When the wolf-woman slept, she dreamed of her impatience. She wondered how the situation was developing between the new Bardenville and her pack. She wondered if the wolves had already begun their campaign of unwelcome. She wondered if the humans realized there was intelligent malice behind the eating of their crops and trampling of their fields. She wondered if anyone had died.

  She hoped that if anyone had died, that someone was human.

  This last would have greatly shocked Derian, who, without knowing quite as much as Firekeeper did about the situation, entertained similar musings. While he sympathized with the Beasts, his was an abstract sympathy born mostly of his fondness for Firekeeper and her friends.

  The human colonists, among whom he had lived and worked for all those days, were real to him. Derian hoped Firekeeper could work out something that would enable Ewen and his settlers to come to terms with the Beasts. He never really thought that the Beasts would win and drive the humans away.

  After all, throughout human history, humans had always won. Sometimes lots of humans died to attain the victory, but they always won. It was just the way things were.

  Derian never thought about the logic behind this assumption, just as he never thought about just how limited was his grasp of human history. In destroying the books left by the Old Country rulers of the former colony of Gildcrest, Zorana the Great and her followers had destroyed a great deal more. Even for one like himself who had seen things that most would dismiss as myth, it was hard to abandon gut-level assumptions. The thing about gut-level assumptions is that you don't think about them.

  Firekeeper and Derian separated one evening, with Derian headed for a post-house a day's ride outside the city. Derian had sent a message ahead by one of the king's fast post-riders Blind Seer happened to get wind ofùand stop.

  Brock and old Toad should be at the post-house to meet Derian. Colby would also know about the mules ahead of time, a matter that Derian had mulled over, weighed, and considered, deciding it was better to give Colby time to thin
k than to have to tell his father what he'd done to his face.

  Derian had done many brave things in the last year or soùsome of them even heroicùbut he'd still rather climb a rope ladder into a pirates' den than face the uncertainty of his father's wrath at the loss of two good mules.

  Disregarding the gathering darkness, Firekeeper cut north and east across the fieldsùdoing her best to remember not to trample the young plants that were greening the cultivated plots. She rested occasionally, but didn't bother with sleep, pressing on with the relentlessness of water spilling over a dam.

  By midmorning, when Derian was jogging down the road with Brock and Toad, being reassured once again that Colby wasn't going to have his ears over the mulesùthough it might be a good thing that Derian could count on Earl Kestrel's patronage for the occasional suit of new clothesùFirekeeper was crossing the almost impassable ravine west of the castle, hauling Blind Seer up after her, the wolf complaining about the uncomfortable rope harness, then trotting across the semi-wild hunting preserve.

  No one saw them but a gamekeeper who wisely went about his business. Once they were in the more formal gardens, several gardeners shouted greetings, but only Elation, soaring overhead, replied.

  The head cook was just rising from her morning cup of tea and plate of biscuitsùwell earned after preparing breakfast for the hundred or so full-time inhabitants of the castleùand was considering where to start with the midday meal.

  Firekeeper trotted through the kitchen door, mud-smeared and tired, grabbed half a loaf of bread off the sideboard, and, Blind Seer at her heels, headed up the servants' stairs to the next floor.

  "Lady Blysse has come back," the cook said to a rather pale scullery maid who had all but dropped her bucket when the wolf came through the door. "The king'll be pleased. He's been asking every morning if anyone's seen her."

  "Yes, m'm."

  The maid, new to the castle and only acquainted by rumor with its odder denizens, hurried out and poured her bucket onto the compost bin, then leaned against a wall until her hands stopped trembling.

  In the kitchen, the cook gave the orders that would start preparation of the next major meal. She herself went into the cool room and pulled out the roast from the night before. There had been some rare pieces near the center, and she suspected that someone would be ringing for a tray. There should even be a bone.

  FIREKEEPER WAS LUCKY. The king was not only willing to see her, he was immediately available, the meeting he was supposed to be in that morning having been canceled on account of several of the counselors having severe colds. The Royal Physician had insisted that the king was not to be exposed to such.

  "So," Tedric said, accepting Firekeeper's embrace with a pat on her back, "Sapphire and Shad are attending for me. It's rather delightful in a way. I never much cared for routine business. Now it's laudatory for me to let someone else deal with it."

  Firekeeper didn't understand words like "laudatory," but she had a fair idea of what routine business was and shared the king's distaste for it. She settled onto the floor, looking up at him.

  "Now, Firekeeper," the king said, leaning back in his chair and raising a tall glass of something that smelled of crushed strawberries to his lips. "What is the emergency?"

  The wolf-woman didn't bother to ask how he knew her business was urgent. The old man was wise, and even a fool would know that she wouldn't come before him unwashed and weary from the trail without reason.

  "It is your people," she said. "Some have gone west of the Iron Mountains."

  King Tedric nodded.

  "I suspected something like that. Go on."

  "My people do not like this," Firekeeper continued, wondering what signs the old king had used to know that his people were dispersing. "They will hurt your people if they stay. I come to beg…"

  If Tedric had been a One, she would have literally done so, pressing her belly to the ground and fawning. She settled for pressing her hands together and looking up pleadingly.

  "I come to beg that you make them come back."

  "You do?" he said. "They're far away. How can I do that?"

  "Not too far away," she said, "for some of your people to go. Derian could show them where."

  "I may have other uses for Derian," the king said mysteriously. "You are right. I could send some of my troops to order these people back. Tell me what you saw there."

  Firekeeper did so, beginning with the traces along the trail, moving through their first meeting with Ewen Brooks, and how the colonists had given them cautious welcome. From there she went into the composition of the group. Derian would have been surprised how much she had noticed, how much detail absorbed and committed to memory.

  Partway into her account, a tray laden with meat and bread and cheeses along with a pitcher of chilled well-water came up from the kitchen. Firekeeper set to, trying to remember to talk as she ateùa thing alien to her wolfish nature. For once, however, she had a driving impulse in her as fierce as her hunger, and Blind Seer got the majority of the cook's offerings.

  King Tedric asked few questions, but those he did ask drew out details Firekeeper would have neglected. She told him about how Ewen Brooks considered himself heir to Barden's dream, about the hunger in his eyes when he described how close he had come to being part of that earlier expedition. How he had fed those dreams for ten long years.

  "And I am to blame," she ended sourly, "for if I had not lived, if I had not come from west lands, then there be no tinder for his flint. Ewen would dream and dream, but never would he go west."

  "That is possible," the king agreed, "though not definite. However, it is certain that he would not have found so many eager followers if they had not felt they were relatively safe."

  "But they are not!" she cried. "They are not! The Beasts will not keep their staying. You must make the humans leave or the Beasts will make themùand many may die."

  "Many humans," King Tedric asked, "or many Beasts?"

  "Many both," Firekeeper replied levelly, "but I think more humans. There are more Beasts and that is their land."

  "Then why are you worried?" the king asked. "Surely, a few Beasts dead is a small price to regain their land."

  "Human counting," she said, "not mine. If my mother die or my father, then that is too many already. Yet they would die to keep their pups from dying."

  "A willing sacrifice," the king said. "Yet I sense this possibility of loss is not what troubles you so."

  Firekeeper nodded, wiping her greasy fingers on her trouser leg and sinking back from the well-stripped tray.

  "I think if these die, it might not be the end," she said.

  "I could decree that humans not cross the mountains again," the king said.

  "But can you stop the Beasts from crossing?" she asked. "I think not. If the hunting fire rises in the Beasts, I am not thinking they will stop at the few in Bardenville. Some already…"

  She was frustrated by her lack of words, but Tedric was patient.

  "This is important," she said, "and to be kept secret."

  "I shall," the king promised.

  Firekeeper asked for no more solemn promise. How could she enforce it if the king chose to break his word? She wouldn't kill him. In any case, killing him would only worsen the situation.

  "Some Beasts," she said, "hate being only west. They want back east, too."

  Tedric cocked an eyebrow.

  "Back?"

  "Back."

  It took her a long time and much retracing of her thoughts, but Firekeeper found the words to explain the complicated history and politics that made many of the Beasts feel that the time had come to drive humans from the land.

  Several times she thought she would have been wiser to wait for Derian to arrive, to have schooled her steps to his so that his tongue and greater powers of speech would have been hers to use. Yet she felt this was her petitionùher plea that the humans give the Beasts no incentive to follow the way of their more fanatical fellows.

  Tedr
ic listened, speaking only to ask for clarification. When Firekeeper finished, he frowned.

  "This is a serious matter," he said, "and not one to be settled lightly. Go. Get some sleep, have a wash. I will have the staff warned of your return."

  "Some see me already," Firekeeper said, almost apologetically.

  "Even so," the king replied. "There are those who are reassured to know the wolf is a guest."

  Firekeeper rose a trace unsteadily.

  "And you will do as I say?" she asked.

  "I will think on it," the king replied.

  And from the firmness of his tone, Firekeeper knew she had no choice but to wait.

  WHEN HE ARRIVED home that evening, Derian learned why his father hadn't been more upset over the mules. Derian had barely finished greeting his mother and sister when Vernita handed him a folded sheet of heavy writing paper. It was addressed to The Family of Counselor Derian and bore the royal seal.

  "The king has sent a message," Vernita reported, trying hard to sound businesslike rather than impressed and almost succeeding, "requesting that you notify the castle upon your return so that a meeting with you can be arranged."

  Derian blinked, then nodded. He wondered if there had been further developments in the Melina situation. He knew that if there had been, the letter wouldn't say. Perhaps he was worrying too much. For all he knew, the king might want the common opinion on possible names for Sapphire's impending baby.

  Vernita was continuing, the rapidity of her speech an indication that she was slightly nervous.

  "When we got your letter saying where you were and asking to have someone meet you, I sent a message to the castle saying when we expected you. This came today."

  She held out another letter, this one addressed to Counselor Derian and still sealed.

  Derian accepted it and paused before opening it to give Vernita a hug, noting as he did so a few strands of grey among the vibrant red of her hair. It made him feel oddly old.