The Fire Dragon

by Katharine Kerr

  All at once Bellyra heard the strange echo of voices. Where were they? She paused, heard men's voices at the bottom of the stairs, and sobbed once. The servants must have seen her after all. She kicked off her noisy clogs and hurried on, gasping for breath, sweating even in the cold, faster and faster on burning legs and feet. At last she burst free of the stairwell and found herself on the narrow parapet.

  Down below in the dark ward, so far below that they looked like flowers of light, torches bloomed. She heard yells, saw men rushing to the tower, heard from behind her another set of yells to match them. She stepped to the edge and expected to feel fear, but when she looked down, she saw not the ward of Dun Deverry but her little garden back in Cerrmor, bright and sunny with summer. All she had to do was step forward and she would fall into summer. She could see this now, so high above the world and the doings of men.

  “Lyrra! Don't!” It was Maryn's voice, loud behind her. “Stop!”

  She turned and saw him at the top of the stairs, dressed only in a pair of brigga, reaching out to her with naked arms. He's not really there, she told herself. You're seeing things. With that she spun around and took the last step into night. For the briefest of moments she heard him screaming, but the wind grabbed her and washed his voice away. Down and down—it seemed to her that she fell forever, but darkness rose up with a sword of stone and stabbed her. There was pain, and then only the darkness, wailing around her with Maryn's voice.

  Half-naked in the rain the prince knelt on the ground and cradled his dead wife in his arms. In the light of the lanterns that servants were holding, Nevyn could see the blood from her smashed face running down his chest and arms, but the prince seemed not to notice, any more than his eyes seemed to see.

  “Why?” Maryn whispered. “Why would she do this?”

  Nevyn felt his patience shatter. “Because you were sending her away,” he snapped. “Right in the midst of her birthing madness, you sent her away.”

  “It was only for a little while,” Maryn said. “I told her that.”

  “Ye gods! There are times when you're as stupid as mud.” Nevyn got up and towered over him. “Think, Marro! Not that it'll do any good. Now.”

  He was the only man in the kingdom who could address the prince that way and live. The servants gasped and drew back a few steps, as if they feared lightning would strike Nevyn where he stood and they along with him. Maryn flinched and returned his gaze to Bellyra's body.

  “I would have recalled her,” Maryn said. “Truly I would have. I told her so.”

  Nevyn restrained himself from calling the prince a murderer. Instead he stepped back and let Maryn's men rush forward to tend him. Owaen threw himself down to a kneel next to his liege, and servants followed.

  Nevyn strode across the ward, which was filling with servants and courtiers both, all talking, some weeping. In the darkness he stepped into a nook between two of Dun Deverry's random walls, sat down on the wet ground, and slipped into trance almost before his weight had completely settled. He summoned his body of light, joined to his midriff by a silver cord. First he imagined what it would be like to see out of its eyes; then with the ease of long practice he was indeed looking out of them.

  The rainy ward smouldered with silver fire, or so it seemed from his viewpoint on the etheric plane, great columns of mist and drifts of smoke that were both naught more than the elemental force and effluent of the water in the physical ward below. Although none of the outpourings was strong enough to threaten his body of light with harm, they did make it very hard for Nevyn to see. In among the swirling water veils he could pick out the glowing auras of the people clustering around Bellyra's body, but nothing as frail as her etheric form. He rose up some twenty feet above the ground, then drifted over to the cluster of auras, pulsing yellow and red, stippled with dark grief. Inside each one he could see, dimly, the body of the person who wore it.

  Bellyra's etheric double would be somewhere near her corpse, he figured, or near Maryn, who was kneeling next to it. The prince's aura wrapped tightly around him, a pale gold throb of light, as if he were frightened or puzzled. When Nevyn dropped down closer, he could see something much like a woman's shadow, fluttering around him. Its hands beat at Maryn's head and shoulders, as if it were trying to touch his warm flesh.

  Nevyn sent out a thought, which sounded on this plane as words. “Bellyra, Your Highness! Where are you? It's me, Nevyn!”

  In the drifting shadow a pale light shone, a strange ice-blue. Nevyn headed toward it, calling again. All at once her simulacrum appeared. The shadow thickened into the shape of a naked woman, her head thrown back, her arms flailing in panic. Nevyn swooped down and steadied himself in front of her.

  “It is you!” Her thought voice wavered and threatened to disappear. “I thought I was dead.”

  “You are. Come with me. Let's get away from all this wretchedness.”

  Like a frightened child she grabbed at his hands, but hers passed right through them. She spun around and disappeared into a column of water-force, and for a moment he thought he'd lost her.

  “Lyrra, come back!”

  He raced after her and finally saw her drifting in midair, high above the dun. He flew up and joined her.

  “Am I a ghost?” Bellyra's thoughts came to him on a wave of fear. “Must I stay here forever? Oh gods, forgive me! I thought death would end it. I thought I'd be free.”

  “You will be,” Nevyn said. “You're not a haunt. Do what I say.”

  “Leave Maryn?” She tossed her head this way and that with a swirl of spectral hair. “Leave Maryn?”

  “You must! And in truth, you already have. Look down.”

  Far below them the dun appeared in the silver mists as dark lumps of stone, dead things heaped up like charcoal near a smelter. Little puffs of light, the auras of those living persons in the ward, hurried back and forth.

  “You have a choice,” Nevyn said. “You may stay here for some few days in misery and pain, desperately regretting what you've done, trying to make Maryn hear you, or you can come with me and go on.”

  “Go where?”

  “To rest and peace.”

  For a moment the spirit danced back and forth in the mists. When she steadied herself, the form took on more detail. Bellyra's eyes seemed to look out of the pale blue face.

  “Very well,” she said. “Of course. Show me.”

  “Follow me. Don't try to touch me. Just follow me.”

  “I will.”

  With one hand he sketched a sigil into the air. Before them a pale lavender slit opened in the dark and swirling mists, like a cut through the rind of a fruit that reveals a different-colored flesh beneath. When Nevyn waved his hand, the slit peeled back and revealed itself as a gate.

  “Come with me,” he repeated, then flung himself through.

  In a tunnel of midnight indigo a purple wind swirled around him. He glanced back and saw Bellyra's shade close behind him.

  “Courage!” he called out.

  Behind them the gate twisted and sealed itself shut. Her shade spun into the air, caught suddenly by the wind. Although she screamed and flailed, the wind bellied her form out like a sail and drove her onward, whipping her past Nevyn. He called out a reassurance and gave himself over to the wind. They fell, flew, climbed, sailed—all these at once on the violet wind—past images, faces, stars, words, animals, sigils—while the wind howled with a thousand voices, all incomprehensible. Fast, faster—until suddenly they burst out into yet another world, this one quiet and pale, where death-white flowers nodded in a lavender light.

  Bellyra's soul had changed its form. As a naked child she waited for him on the banks of a white river, where something much like water yet more like mist purled and slid past in silence. The child was looking around her in gape-mouthed surprise.

  “Here you'll have to go on alone,” Nevyn said. “You must cross that river.”

  “I understand.” The child turned her face up and studied him for a moment. “Farewel
l, Nevyn. Will we meet again?”

  “We will.”

  “Will I meet Maryn again?”

  “Perhaps. That's not for me to say. I rather hope you don't.”

  With a sad nod of her head she stepped into the white water. Nevyn saw the white mists rise to cover her—then felt a wave of pain, breaking over him like fire. The scene swirled around his head like a shape painted on clouds, then disappeared. He felt himself falling, too fast, too hard, into the darkness of his body. He felt someone's hands on his face.

  “It's Lord Nevyn!” a voice was saying. “The old man's fainted or suchlike.”

  Every muscle of his body ached. His heart was pounding hard. Nevyn opened his eyes to the blinding light of a double lantern, held up in a manservant's hand. Other voices called out, footsteps came running.

  “I'm all right,” Nevyn said. His voice rasped in a sore throat. “I'm all right. Help me up!”

  The servant handed the lantern to someone in the shadows behind him, then held out both hands. Nevyn grabbed them and let the boy haul him up, then leaned against the wall to catch his breath.

  “It's a terrible sad thing,” the servant said. “Losing our lady.” He burst into sobs and stood helplessly, letting the tears run.

  “So it is,” Nevyn said. “I was quite overcome.”

  Nevyn glanced around and saw Maryn still kneeling by Bellyra's body. Someone had brought a wide plank, and it looked as if two men were about to lift Bellyra onto it. Nevyn's entire experience in the Otherlands had taken but a few brief moments, as time runs in the world of men.

  “Do you need help, my lord?” the servant said.

  “I don't, but my thanks. I see my apprentice there, anyway.”

  In the doorway to a great hall turned bright with torchlight Lilli stood clutching the doorjamb as if she were afraid of fainting herself. Nevyn hurried over to her, as fast as he could, at any rate, with his bruised body. Lilli looked up at him, tried to speak, and failed.

  “It's not your fault in the least,” Nevyn snapped. “I know what you're thinking.”

  She shook her head in a mute no, then turned and ran across the great hall. Nevyn stepped inside and watched her climbing the staircase round the far side. No doubt she was going to throw herself on her bed and weep. She'd feel better for it, too, and he envied her. Later he would go up to see how she fared, but at the moment, he realized, he would be of no use to anyone, since he could barely calm himself.

  • • •

  Maddyn heard the news from Owaen. He woke from a sound sleep just as his fellow captain came running into the barracks with a candle lantern in his hand.

  “Maddo?” Owaen sounded hesitant—an odd thing in itself. “Uh, Maddo, you'd best get up and dress.”

  “Why? What's happened?”

  With a long sigh Owaen sat down on the bunk opposite. The lantern light threw dapples of shadow over his face. Maddyn sat up and threw the blankets back.

  “What is it, Owaen? For the love of the gods, tell me!”

  “The princess is dead. She threw herself down from the leaning tower.”

  The shadows danced as Owaen's hand trembled. With an oath he bent down and set the lantern on the floor. Maddyn could only stare at him.

  “It's a ghastly thing,” Owaen said finally. “Uh, mayhap you'd best—I mean, Nevyn—ah horseshit and a tub of piss, too! I don't know what to say.”

  “No more do I,” Maddyn whispered.

  As he got up, Maddyn felt nothing at all, no surprise, no grief, nothing. He dressed, he buckled on his belt, he put on his boots, and felt nothing. All around him Wildfolk materialized, grey gnomes, mostly, who sucked on their fingers while they stared with solemn eyes.

  “Maddo?” Owaen said. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course not,” Maddyn said. “I'll just be off to find Nevyn.”

  At the mention of Nevyn, the Wildfolk disappeared. Maddyn picked up the candle lantern and took it with him when he left the barracks.

  Outside the rain had stopped. When he looked up he could see a tear in the clouds and a glitter of stars for one brief moment; then the wind closed over the brightness. Like her life, he thought. A bright moment, and then it was gone. All at once he could no longer stand. He dropped to his knees, set the lantern down on the cobbles, threw back his head, and howled. It wasn't keening, really, just a howl, more rage than grief—he felt it rock him back and forth as he howled, over and over, without a true word in it.

  Dimly he heard a voice, calling his name—a man's voice, Nevyn. The old man knelt and grabbed him by the shoulders.

  “Stop it!” Nevyn shook him like a child. “Stop it, Maddo!”

  Eventually, Maddyn did. By the lantern light he stared openmouthed at the old man. “Did you hear me?” he said at last.

  “The Wildfolk fetched me. Come with me. I don't want the prince to see you in this state.”

  “Curse the prince!”

  “Don't tempt me! Now get up off this wretched wet ground, and let's go up to the women's hall. Her women will have washed her body by now. No one's going to dare begrudge you entry there tonight.”

  “I don't want—”

  “Don't argue!” Nevyn grabbed him by the arm with surprising strength. “Let us go, bard. Now.”

  In the women's hall candles blazed. The dead thing that once had been Bellyra lay on a trestle table of the sort women set up for finishing bed hangings, and indeed, under her lay a half-finished panel of embroidered red wyverns. She wore only a white shift, clinging to her body here and there with damp. At her head Elyssa stood brushing her lady's hair, her face white and set. She never looked up once.

  “You know, Maddo,” Elyssa said, “I wish to every god that you and she had ridden off together. I would have helped you leave with my blessings.”

  Maddyn tried to speak, but his mouth had gone as dry as cold ash in a hearth. Dimly he was aware of someone weeping nearby. He glanced round, expecting to see a servant. In the curve of the wall Lady Degwa sat on the floor. She was curled up, knees to chest, her arms wrapped tight around herself, and she rocked like a terrified child, back and forth as she wept.

  “I never meant,” she was whispering. “I never meant harm.”

  Maddyn ignored her and walked over to the improvised bier. Bellyra's face—he stared, shaking, at what was left of her beauty, smashed against stone, purple and red, raw like meat.

  “I'll lay a bit of silk over her,” Elyssa whispered. “For the burial.”

  Maddyn nodded and turned away. He had meant to kiss her farewell, but her injuries had made it impossible, a last injustice that made him swear aloud. For a long time he stood staring at the floor, thinking of very little, listening as Degwa wept and Nevyn and Elyssa talked of the children and what must be done to help the lads deal with losing their mother. Finally, he heard a door open behind him. The talk stopped, though Degwa wept the louder. He knew that the prince must have entered even before he turned round to see Maryn, standing bewildered by his wife's dead body.

  The prince was unarmed with his back turned. Maddyn felt his hand touch his silver dagger of its own will. Madness rose in his throat like a howl; madness blinded his eyes with a red mist. He could draw, step forward, stab, avenge. The word vengeance throbbed in his blood. Vengeance—and then what? He would have broken every vow he'd sworn to Prince Maryn, shattered the last bit of his honor and ground it underfoot. I'll not, he told himself. The thought seemed to clear his vision, and he could see Nevyn, watching him calmly but for the rise of one bristling eyebrow.

  Maryn spun around, his arms held a little out to each side, as if he'd just realized that Maddyn stood behind him. Maddyn forced himself to kneel as the courtesy to his sworn lord demanded.

  “Get up,” Maryn snarled. “For gods' sake, don't kneel to me tonight. I'm not worthy of it.”

  Unable to speak, Maddyn nodded and rose. For a long moment they looked at each other, bard and prince; then Maddyn bowed, turned, and strode out of the hall. He trotted dow
n the corridor, clattered down the stairway, and rushed out into the damp night air where at last, it seemed, he could breathe.

  All night Lilli lay awake, terrified that Maryn would come to her. If he wanted comfort, what would she say to him? He never opened her door, and toward dawn she fell asleep at last and dreamt of being an exile again. Once again she rode into Cerrmor and stood in the sunny ward, but this time it was the princess who walked up to her and smiled in welcome. She woke in tears, dragged herself up, and dressed. She crept downstairs, afraid at every turn that she'd see Maryn, but the great hall stretched out silent in the grey light. A few servants were just rising from their beds in the straw by the hearths. They ignored her as she hurried outside.

  The storm had broken, and brilliant sunshine glittered on the freshly washed cobbles. The blue sky above seemed like some insult to Bellyra, as if the sun himself should have been mourning her. Lilli ran into the shelter of Nevyn's tower and puffed up the stairs. His chamber stood open, and he himself sat on the windowsill.

  “I thought you might come here early,” Nevyn said. “Did you talk with Maryn last night?”

  Lilli shook her head and sat down, panting for breath, on the chair. Nevyn leaned forward in concern.

  “You look decidedly unwell.”

  “I am. I hardly slept.”

  “No doubt. I didn't either. This is a horrible thing.”

  With one last gasp, Lilli got her breath back. “And it's my fault,” Lilli said. “At least partly.”

  “It's not,” Nevyn snapped. “It's to no one's shame, not even Maryn's, though I must admit I'm feeling very ill disposed toward him this morning.”

  “You don't understand. He was going to send her to Cerrmor because of me. I mean, because I ended the thing between us.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  “And he grew furious and decided to send her away, where you'd not worry about her?”