Elise felt like a complete idiot, but she continued shouting, "The Harvest Joy dance, Toriovico! Remember it? Dance!"
Toriovico's attack grew less forceful, his limbs jerking as if two sets of commands were warring for control of his muscles. Confronted with this much less effective assault, Blind Seer was no longer threatened. Elise was horrified to see the gigantic wolf drop back a few paces, then crouch and spring toward his opponent.
Her scream tore into audible shreds the words she had been trying to form, distorting them into an inarticulate cry that mingled warning and despair. Toriovico faltered in his internal battle, then brought his long-handled axe around in a too sloppy and too slow defense.
At that moment Blind Seer's leap carried him over the Healed One's axe, bringing the wolf to balance for a precarious moment on the curving rails of the bridge before he leapt down again, landing squarely on the chest of a man who, unseen from Elise's lower perspective, had been about to press his own attack.
The man fell, his head cracking solidly against the stone floor of the bridge, but another defender held the base of the bridge against the wolf's advance. In the cramped space Blind Seer could not gather the momentum to leap as he had before.
His new opponent held a long sword and shield. Behind him, a woman slowly rose from the side of the man Blind Seer had pushed into the river, readying her own long-handled spear.
Elise became aware of other developments as well.
Although Melina's attention had seemed entirely centered on Citrine and the continuation of whatever convoluted ritual they were working between them, the sorceress proved she had some awareness for what went on around her. As the battle grew violent enough that it might disturb even Citrine's fixed concentration, Melina raised her own voice, shouting her incantations loudly enough that distinct passages could be heard even where Elise stood.
Against the power of Melina's voice, Toriovico's attention was shifting. Once again, the Healed One raised his axe, his motions regaining some of their former grace and power as he turned toward Blind Seer's defenseless back.
Not seeing anything else to do, Elise raced forward. Grasping the haft of Toriovico's axe, she shouted in New Kelvinese:
"Dance, Toriovico! Dance! It's what you love. It's what you are. Dance!"
Only after she had spoken and felt his hazel green eyes focus on her did Elise feel strange about calling a foreign ruler by his first name. Yet she knew she'd done the right thing. She must reach his essential self and somehow she knew that deep inside Toriovico no more thought of himself as "the Healed One" than she thought of herself as "Lady Archer."
Even as she steeled herself to meet Toriovico's gaze and will him to win his internal battle, Elise felt a warm, strong presence next to her. She glanced to one side and there was Derian, pulling the axe from the Healed One's now unresisting hands.
"His Majesty doesn't seem quite sure," Derian said, trying the heft of the weapon and shoving past to help Blind Seer, "whose side he's on. Get him off this bridge."
Elise nodded, guiding the unresisting but strangely numb Toriovico off the span's curve and to the farther shore.
Edlin darted to intercept her.
"I say, Elise. What's wrong with Peace?"
The Illuminator had crossed to stand next to Firekeeper, his face so pale and strained with concentration that the tattoos stood out as if they'd been etched with green ink on bleached paper.
"I think he's trying magic," Elise answered. "Help Derian. Silence Melina. That's the best thing you can do to help him."
With a final worried glance at his mentor, Edlin did as Elise had ordered. Elise continued to guide the still unresisting Toriovico, stopping where Doc was neatly binding a very battered young woman, inspecting her wounds as he did so.
"Don't waste your gift on these," Elise told him bluntly. "We may need it to save others who have more right to it."
Doc looked unhappy, but nodded.
"This one's only bruised," he admitted, "but neither Derian or Edlin were gentle with her. The man I'm worried about is the one Blind Seer pushed into the river."
Elise shook her head, marveling at a nature so committed to healing that the fact that the man in question would have gutted Firekeeper and her wolf meant nothing now that the threat was ended. Oddly, Doc's skewed perspective did not annoy her as it might have in another, only warmed a part of her soul she hadn't known until then was cold.
"Help me with this man instead of worrying about one across the river." she suggested. "The Healed One seems trapped within Melina's control. I thought he was breaking free, but now I'm not certain."
"What was he doing when you thought he was breaking free?" Doc asked, for all the world as if he were diagnosing a more usual illness.
"I tried to get him to dance," Elise said. "I remembered he told us that was what broke the spell before."
Doc nodded, rising to his feet.
"That therapy seems more likely to succeed than anything I can offer. I'll see if I can help the others."
Unlike Elise or Edlin, Doc seemed able to sense that neither Firekeeper or Grateful Peace were in immediate danger. His attention was riveted by those battling on the bridge.
The fighting there was constricted by both the narrowness of the bridge and Blind Seer's bulk, but blood was flowing nonetheless. Making matters more difficult was that neither Edlin nor Derian wanted to do overmuch harm to their opponentsùnot knowing who they were or how they fit into the local hierarchyùwhile for their part those opponents were determined to do as much harm as possible.
This stalemate was broken all at once and in a manner that no one but Melina might have hopedùand certainly not in the manner she would have expected.
With a sound like ice breaking on a river, the far wall of the cavern cracked and shattered, showering the room with countless fragments of obsidian. Though her eyes squeezed shut on reflex, Elise felt blood well up from minuscule cuts on every piece of her exposed skin.
The clatter of weapon against weapon ceased as both sides dropped to the ground, seeking in vain protection against the hail of glass. The shrill shrieks and cries of panic that rose within every throat were swallowed lest an open mouth give entry to the obsidian shards.
Then, with a tinkling patter, the cutting rain ceased. Elise dared raise her head and open her eyes. The first thing she beheld before slick blood dimmed her vision was the vast bulk of the dragon, freed from its prison, poised sinuous against the farther wall. Its scales were black washed with red, taking color chameleon-like from its surroundings. Its eyes were amber, slitted like a cat's but as cold and hard as polished stones.
Carefully shaking her sleeve free of myriad shards of glass, Elise wiped the blood from her face. Near to her, she saw Toriovico doing the same and knew that shock had finished what dance had begun. The Healed One's gaze was alert and full of questions for which Elise did not have the answers.
Indeed, now that Elise's vision had cleared, she saw that the subterranean chamber had been severely altered.
The hot river had sunk to a trickle. The curved wall against which the dragon had first been outlined was completely shattered, creating a dark cave back into which the dragon's bulk uncoiled. The bridge on which battle had raged only moments before had snapped inward, spilling those who had stood upon its arch into the now empty riverbed. A weak howl echoed by a human cry gave Elise a slim hope that Derian and the others had survived.
Firekeeper and Peace stood near the now empty pool. No color had returned to the Illuminator's face, but somehow he looked more relaxed. Firekeeper was not. The wolf-woman was collapsed on one knee, her head hung low, her bloody features washed with tears.
Looking from Firekeeper to Peace, Elise's skin crawled as she realized something else. Peace was unmarked by the explosion that had ravaged the young woman who stood not an arm's length from him. What had he done to protect himself? Suspicion filled Elise and she glanced around for confirmation.
On the farther
bank, Citrine and Melina held much the same poses they had before, but like Elise their features were obscured by a sheen of still flowing blood. For a shocked moment Elise thought they might have been killed where they stood, so still did they stand. When Melina stirred, Elise half expected her body to topple forward in death.
Then, without even bothering to wipe the blood from her face, Melina took a few staggering steps toward the dragonùthe dragon, Elise now realized, that had been bound by Grateful Peace.
THIS WASN'T HAPPENING It couldn't be. Not after everything she'd done, after all the plans she'd made. Work hard and you'll get your way in the end. That's what her mother had said. That's what Melina's own experience had confirmed.
Somehow the only contingency Melina had never contemplated in all her plans, counterplans, and adaptation of plans was that in the end she wasn't going to get her way.
But now it seemed as if she wasn't. She had heard Grateful Peace reciting the words that bound the dragon to him. The Dragon of Despair had been bound, but it served her enemy. It shouldn't be possible, but it was.
All around the cavern the evidence was there. The survivors among her servitors were either surrendered or captured. Even Toriovico had somehow escaped her control. The dry riverbed that separated them was nothing to the gulf of horrified realization that she saw on his face.
Her enemies all seemed to have survived, though they were in rather bad shape, sanded and bloodied by flying glass or fallen among the ruins of the bridge. She felt a vague dissatisfaction when she realized that one man still stood uninjured.
Grateful Peace.
Melina puzzled over the wreck of her expectations, gazing up at the magnificence that was the Dragon of Despair. With a clarity like truth, Melina realized that there was something still left for her to do. It was so simple that she laughed aloud.
She could win. After all, now she knew the dragon's true name. To think that for a moment she had thought she could be defeated by a point of grammar!
Melina banished her earlier disappointment. First, eliminate Grateful Peace. Next, grab hold of the dragon. It was so easy. So simple.
She knew the dragon's name now. Despairing Dragon! What did it have to despair about? She'd give it reason for despair once she had ahold of it. She'd whip it into shape. Then the dragon would know that those long years of obsidian-locked sleep had held nothing to despair about. She'd show it…
A tug on Melina's sleeve slowed her forward progress just as she was stepping down the slope of what had once been a pool and was now only a mineral-encrusted sloping basin.
Melina glanced down, shaking blood from her face with an impatient gesture. The droplets splattered on the round-featured face looking up at her.
For a moment, Melina didn't recognize who this was, so like a distorted reflection of herself did it seemùa vision of herself cast onto nonexistent waters. Then she knew it.
Citrine.
"Mother?"
"Not now, dear. I'm busy."
She picked her way forward, across the level bottom of the pool. Bits of broken obsidian cut through the bottoms of her delicate embroidered slippers.
"Mother!"
Melina shook her sleeve from that annoyingly persistent grip. The fingers fell away but the voice persisted.
"You were feeding me to the dragon."
Melina had no time for niceties. There was the upward slope to consider, slick with obsidian flakes, some as fine as glass, others keen-edged as razors.
"I suppose you could see it that way, if you wished."
Melina pushed the child away, her gaze focusing on the one face in the room not hazed with blood. A dagger, very sharp, was one of the elements in the once beautiful costume Melina wore. She drew it now, seeing the steps to her success as clearly as if they were written on a page.
Grateful Peace. Can't kill him at once. Must hold him. Threaten him. Make him name you heir to the dragon upon his death. Then kill him.
It was so easy. So perfectly easy. She saw her way so clearly that she didn't even glance at the looming figure of the dragon.
It didn't move to prevent her, and Melina knew that Grateful Peace was afraid to use it, afraid of the cost.
She laughed to herself, shock fading, her own clear calculation returning.
It was going to be so easy.
THE PAIN FIREKEEPER FELT was like nothing she had ever experienced before, like nothing she had even imagined. Chunks of obsidian the size of fists had slammed into her torso, one narrowly missing her head. The tiny razor cuts covering bare arms, lower legs, neck, and face didn't hurt at first, making the burn and sting when blood flowed from them worse for being unexpected.
Yet her own pain was nothing to her shock when she saw that the bridge had collapsed carrying Blind Seer, Edlin, and Derian down into the bed of the river.
She howled in desperation and Blind Seer answered, his voice weak, but alive.
"Get us out of here!"
"I will," Firekeeper called, leaping to act and crumpling instantly as her bare foot was sliced by the myriad obsidian shards.
The razors buried themselves in her naked flesh and she fell onto one leather-protected knee. Tears flooded from her eyes as she realized she was afraid to move any further.
The frozen tableau that had held the others was broken as Melina stepped delicately down the slope. The woman's eyes were focused tightly on two thingsùthe dragon and Grateful Peace. Indeed, Firekeeper doubted she saw anything else. Certainly she did not seem to see Citrine, who followed her for a few steps, tugging at her, begging for attention.
Then the child fell back and Melina came on alone.
"Peace," Firekeeper said urgently. "Peace!"
The Illuminator did not stir.
A familiar voice within her head said, "He is yet with me, wolfling, unaware of what has happened without."
"Tell him!" Firekeeper demanded aloud.
"And extend my own captivity?" The dragon's laughter was cruel. "I think not. He has not ordered me to defend him. It was the Star Wizard's rule that saved him from the breaking of my prison, not my wish. Dream on, wolfling. I scent my freedom coming to me, carried to me by one I once feared."
In that instant, Firekeeper knew that none of them would survive if Melina killed Grateful Peace. Elise and Doc didn't seem to realize what danger still remained. They were hurrying to assist those trapped by the fallen bridge.
"And what could they do?" Firekeeper asked herself. "They are farther than I. Doc would resist doing harm because he does not understand the danger. Elise lacks the skill."
Her bloodied foot screamed at her to be reasonable, but Firekeeper was beyond reason. Even so, Melina was within stabbing reach of Grateful Peace before Firekeeper moved to intervene, not because the wolf-woman was being cunning, but because she dreaded the pain when at last she must move.
It was seeing that Melina's slippered feet left red stains whenever she stepped that gave Firekeeper courage.
Am I less brave than she?
And as she leapt forward, Firekeeper answered herself.
No. Only more sane.
Stumbling slightly, Firekeeper thrust herself between the oblivious Grateful Peace and the all-too-focused Melina. It was only then that Melina seemed to register the wolf-woman's presenceùand the hunting knife she held poised.
Striking like a snake, Melina feinted with her own blade, but Firekeeper knocked it easily from her hand. Then at last did Melina seem to realize her danger.
"No!" she cried, cringing. "I am unarmed!"
Firekeeper stared at the woman, remembering another time, another place. Then she raised her arm and her Fang bit deep, and tore into the elaborate pectoral on Melina's breast, biting through the metal and enamel as if it were tissue. Melina stared down at her chest and the dark heart's blood that welled from the ragged hole.
She sunk to her knees and looked up at Firekeeper.
"I would have so liked to see the Old World," Melina confided, and then she d
ied.
Not even Citrine, dropping her gem-studded headband as a grave offering on her mother's corpse, had tears to spare for Melina, once Consolor, once Lady, now nothing but cooling flesh.
Chapter XLI
TORIOVICO INSISTED THE HAWK HAVENESE REMAIN within Thendulla Lypella, in the Cloud Touching Spire itself.
"I can't risk you in the city proper," he explained, "not until this is cleared up and the rumors die down. I'll have all your property and livestock brought to you. In any case, all of you need waiting onùfar more labor than Goody Wendee deserves thrust upon her."
"We not prisoners?" Firekeeper asked from where she knelt near Blind Seer.
Neither wolf nor woman looked very strong. Blind Seer's fur was matted with blood from injuries sustained when the bridge collapsed. Firekeeper had ruined the soles of her feet. Even so, Toriovico didn't doubt that they would resist imprisonment.
"Not prisoners," Torio hastened to assure her. "You have done myself and my realm a great service. Let us serve you in return."
This seemed to make sense to Firekeeper, and she subsided.
"A question, Honored One," Derian Carter asked from where he was testing his own limbs and seeming surprised to find them sound.
"Yes?" Toriovico replied, vaguely amused by the young man's tone of conversational respect.
"How did you end up here?" Derian asked bluntly. "Last we spoke with you, you were free of Melina's influence."
"I don't know precisely," Torio admitted. "All I recall clearly is Melina coming in to see me. I remember thinking her attire was rather fantastic, even for her. Then everything sinks into a comfortable fog."
"Melina may have needed," Grateful Peace offered, "a certain number of people to help perform her ritual. Without you, she would have been one short. Perhaps in your eagerness not to let Melina know you had broken her hold, you accidently did something that enabled her to recapture you."
"That," Toriovico said, "is as good an explanation as any I can offerùbetter indeed. I wouldn't doubt Melina told me to forget what she was doing and, sadly, I have done so."
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