Dragon's Winter (16 page)

“Why was there need for a guard?”

“Even there, amid the terrible carnage and triumph of that momentous day, some of his creatures remained loyal to the Hollow One. Imorin feared they might attempt to free him, and indeed, they tried. But we repelled them, we Guardians.” The old man lifted his staff, and for a moment Senmet saw him, not as he was, but as he had been: wreathed in spells like armor, young and prideful, fierce as a lion.

“Imorin and Myrdis Ulief wove the spells to bind the Hollow One. Ankoku sleeps, unable to act, until he is summoned by a human mind.
But when he is summoned, he wakes.
And when they die, he sleeps again.” The shadows had begun to slither forward again. The old wizard pointed his staff. They hissed, and fell back. “Come, child. This is not a good place.”

Edging around the table, she followed him through the shadowy tunnel, and out into the hall. The change made her lungs hurt, as if she had come up too quickly from the depths of the sea. The shade of Hedruen Imorin had left his chair. Senmet glanced at Turgos. The old man shook his head. “They go where they will. I do not govern them.” He nodded at the chair. “Sit. You must be weary.” He laughed at her expression. “It is a real chair. Go on.”

She was weary: the white eagle had neither slept nor eaten on its journey. The pillows were soft and welcoming. Amber light blazed like a blessing through the tall windows. Neither its intensity nor its slant had changed since she had first entered the library. Time moved differently here. The whole great hall was magical; aloof, mysterious, sheltered in ways she could not see. It must have other rooms, she thought dreamily, an attic, a cellar, annexes, other hidden corners like the one in which she had found the shade of Henrik Lum. One could spend a lifetime here, studying, observing the shades who glided back and forth through the aisles, ferreting out the library’s secrets...

“Magister. Excuse me.” Turgos glanced up from his book. “Do you recognize this man?” She framed the pale- skinned, fair-haired image in the air.

“The dragon’s son,” he said promptly.

“Karadur Atani?”

For answer, he rose, disappeared among the shelves, and returned with a large, heavy book. It was finely bound in red leather. “Try chapter seven.”

The title of the volume was
Annals of the North.
It was filled with lists and names and descriptions of princes whose realms and reigns she had never heard of. She opened to chapter seven. It appeared to contain only genealogical charts. One was labeled “Atani.” It went on for several pages. She turned to the last page.
Kojiro Atani,
it said,
born Year one thousand seventy, married Hana Diamori Year one thousand eighty-seven. Year one thousand eighty-nine, the year of her death, Hana Diamori Atani had birthed twin sons, Karadur and Tenjiro.
“What does the gold lettering indicate?” Senmet asked.

“It marks the dragon-kindred,” Turgos said. A golden-eyed monkey swung down to chatter at him. He soothed it absently. “Karadur Atani is Dragon, and his brother is not. I remember him.”

“He was here?” Turgos nodded. “Is he a sorcerer?”

“He has a gift. That is not so unusual. There have been other dragon-mages. The changeling power itself is a kind of magery. Although he cannot call upon it as his older brother can, still, power runs in his blood. But had he possessed ten times the talent he does have, it would not have been enough to assuage his need. He did not want to be wizard, or warrior, or scholar, or anything he could have been.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to be Dragon.” The old man stroked the monkey’s fur. “Oh, yes, I remember him, although he never saw me. A neat lad, elegant, soft-spoken, glittery as a sunflower. And when he left, the darkness followed at his heels, grinning like a dog.”

Wer-light lit an empty, high-ceilinged chamber.
A nearly naked man crouched on the seat of an immense chair. The remnants of elegant clothing dangled like a beggar’s rags from his thin frame. A voice whispered in his mind:
You are the son of a dragon, the brother of a dragon. You have his power. Try again.
A dark shadow rippled along the man’s coiled body; he writhed as if in pain.

The compelling, commanding whisper said:
Fire is mutable; fire can be quenched. Your body shall be fashioned out of cold itself. Try. All you desire is within your grasp.

The man’s fingers clenched on the chair arms. He shuddered, and groaned. Sweat stood out in great drops on his pale fair face. “I can’t do it!”

You can do it
, the murmur in his head urged.
Let go of fear, let go of your body, that puny human thing; you have no more need of it. You shall have a new body, greater even than his. It will not need to eat, nor to sleep. It shall be immutable, indestructible. You shall have a new form, a new name...

The man in the chair screamed. A pallid slime oozed out of his skin. His tattered clothes fell into the mud. His body contracted, and then arched in agony as the glistening muck slowly dripped to cover him, forming a scaly integument. His arms and legs vanished beneath it, and it stretched, becoming thick and serpentine. It grew until it filled the chair with its coils.

The whisperer said,
Hail to Koriuji, the Cold Serpent, ruler of the north, emperor of winter. Welcome, Koriuji!

A human head rose grotesquely from the serpent’s body. It opened its mouth, displaying a viper’s fangs and a red, forked, flickering tongue. In its leprous-white face, its human eyes were black, staring, and mad. “Koriuji,” said the serpent, and its human-like mouth dilated in what might have been a smile. “Koriuji.” It giggled, and coiled languorously on its chair.

PART THREE

10

The snowdrifts were still high on frozen roads when the supply wains started rolling toward Dragon Keep. They came from Mako, from Ujo, from Lake Urai, from Derrinhold, from Averra, and from every cranny and corner of Dragon’s domain. They carried lumber, leather, canvas, and furs. They carried food for men and fodder for horses and mules. They carried timber for building, and timber for burning. They carried blankets, horse tack, rope, cedar for arrows, and behind the laden wagons came horses, from Erin diMako’s stables, from Mathol Ragnarin, and even from Ydo Talvela, across the border in far-off Issho. Word had gone out across Ippa to Nakase and Kameni and Issho:
Dragon Keep is buying horses. Dragon Keep rides to war in the spring.

Dragon Keep’s soldiers were everywhere that winter, watching for wargs, and keeping the roads clear for the wagons. Every able-bodied man was given a shovel. More than once, during the long winter, Wolf found himself working side by side with men from Sleeth and Chingura and from the Keep itself, shoveling the snow back from the frozen roadway, while down in the market square stolid oxen waited to resume their journey. Only the old and sick were spared the effort.

He wrote to Hawk:

Winter has been hard, with many storms. The wargs have killed nineteen people, but Dragon’s bowmen patrol the roads and fields, and have beaten back four attacks, maybe more. I have told Thea that we would be more than welcome in my mother’s house, but she refuses to consider it. To tell the truth, I would rather stay.

Dragon Keep rides to war in spring. The levy has gone out across the countryside, for men and horses, and since the last full moon, the wagons have not ceased to roll. Dragon has not named his enemy, but the talk across the domain says that Tenjiro Atani, Dragon’s wizard brother, has taken up residence in the north, and that it is he who is responsible for the wargs, and indeed, for all the miseries visited upon the domain since his disappearance, including the fierce weather, and poor hunting, and Gerain Jorgenson’s piles. Despite the whispers, I am sure that when Dragon takes his soldiers north this spring, their need will be not for magicians but for experienced warriors, and especially archers. Could you see your way clear to leave your shop, I know you would be very welcome.

At the beginning of March, when the snow finally started to melt, and the ice on the Estre to break, Tallis appeared at Wolf and Thea’s door. “Dragon sent me. He told me to tell you, now that the worst of the storms are past and the road is clear, he hopes to see you at the Keep.” He stretched his boots to the fire, grinning over his mug of steaming wine. They knew it was a command.

A week later, they set out for the Keep. A late snow had fallen that night; a dust of it lay still on unplowed fields, but the morning was clear and cloudless, with shadows sharp-edged as a sword’s point. They each bore a light pack. Thea’s held her heavy cloak, and food for Shem. Wolf’s held a tinderbox, some rope, and, well-wrapped, the dagger which had been Karadur Atani’s gift. It still needed a sheath, and on their way through Chingura, Wolf suggested, they could stop at Niall Cooley’s shop.

Shem, riding his father’s shoulders, was rapturous. To celebrate this day, Thea had dressed him in a pair of soft blue pants which fell to his ankles, and a shirt with blue embroidery and long bloused sleeves. He looked older than his years. His development startled Thea, but Wolf had reassured her. “Changeling children grow more quickly than other children.” Indeed, at sixteen months he had the size and quickness of a child of two. He walked everywhere, in a truculent stumbling run. Wolf wrote to Hawk:

Shem’s mobility is astonishing. He is always underfoot. He climbs: stairs, my leg, the woodpile. He is, as his name says, fearless, and has nearly tumbled into the river twice, in pursuit of sunlight on the water, or a half-glimpsed fish.

They passed a tall birch. Stripped of leaves, it swayed in the sunshine. Shem reached for it. “Boof!” he exclaimed. It was his favorite word. According to Thea, it meant beautiful. Bouncing joyfully, he wound his fists in Wolf’s hair.

“Ouch.” Reaching up, Wolf attempted to unwind his son’s pudgy fingers. It was useless. Thea giggled. “Boof!” Shem shouted at the blazing sky.

Chingura Market was crowded. Traders, travelers, carts and mules, were crammed into the little square. Keep soldiers armed with longbows stood in wary clumps, looking grim. Wolf hooked a box from a nearby stall. “Something’s happened. Sit. I’ll find out what it is.” He waved. “Toby!” One of the soldiers turned at the call.

Shem, enchanted by the confusion, wriggled in Thea’s arms. “Shem get down.”

“No,” Thea said. “You can’t get down, there are too many people.”

Shem’s small face screwed into a dangerous knot. “Shem get down,” he repeated.

Wolf returned to Thea’s side. “Three wargs were seen yesterday morning, circling the village walls. The soldiers charged them and drove them off, but the merchants are nervous. Dragon sent extra men to reassure them.”

Thea said, “Do you think the wargs are still—”

“No,” Wolf said firmly. “I think they are long gone.” He reached to pat his son’s head. “Why the red face?”

“He wants to get down.”

A wagon, laden with barrels filled with fish, halted beside them. Two men emerged from an alley, and started to unload the barrels. One tipped; a torrent of silver-scaled trout cascaded into the street. Distracted, Shem reached greedy hands toward the silver-scaled fish.

“Ish!” He started to sing, a soft dissonant composition with which he had lately begun to mark moments of particular joy. Entranced, Wolf watched his son.

Thea said softly, “Husband—do you still wish to stop at the leather-maker’s? If so, we should go. We mustn’t tarry.”

“No.” But it took a moment before he could take his attention from that small blissful countenance. Niall’s shop was on a side street. Outside, in the crowded street, three men were loading hides onto a wagon harnessed with two stolid-looking mules. Within the shop, Niall was talking to an apprentice.

“I know you,” he said to Thea. “You’re Ono’s niece, the weaver. You’re the southerner who married her. That’s a big fine lad you’ve got there. Here, youngling, play with this.” He produced a pliable scrap of bright red leather, which Shem seized in both hands.

“Down?” the boy said hopefully. Thea let him slide to the floor.

Niall said, “You live above Sleeth, don’t you? What brings you into town?” His gaze sharpened. “I made the sheath for that sword you’re wearing.”

“I know,” said Wolf. “We’re on our way to Dragon Keep. But I need a belt and sheath for this.” He took the dagger Karadur Atani had given him from his pack and unwrapped it. “Not for me. For her.”

Thea said, “But it’s yours!”

Wolf brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I have a sword, my love. And it was you who mostly cared for our refugee, not I.”

Niall held the narrow, elegant blade to the light. “This is fine, this work. Those are sapphires.” His eyes narrowed. “You know, I’ve seen this weapon before. In a boot.”

“It was a gift,” Wolf said.

“Ah,” said Niall, enlightened. “You’re the man found the steward’s son. I heard about that. All right, milady weaver, let’s see what your waist span needs. Stand here, please.” With a remarkably impersonal grip he turned Thea to be measured, as if she were a calf or a pig. “Calfskin for the belt, and red leather for the sheath. I will have it for you as soon as I can. It may be a while: I’ve got more work than I can handle. I’ve got a wagon out front with hides going to the Keep as soon as it’s loaded, and two journeymen on permanent loan at the castle, fitting saddles and harnesses and making packs and boots—”