Ivory Lyre (24 page)

He climbed in silence while his troops
secured their boat, for they had just crossed the sea from Igness.
When he came up over the top of the cliff, black Starpounder
keened, then bugled and reared up over the lone figure. Colewolf
raised a hand to him, then leaped to his back, and Starpounder rose
skyward.

Kiri watched them, choked with joy. She
looked at Teb and swallowed back tears. Starpounder circled the
mountain bugling as if his strident voice was plenty to speak for
both of them, bard and dragon.

Much later, when the dragons and their bards
filled the sky, Gram rode behind Kiri, excited as a child. They
circled Dacia, swept over Edain and Bukla and the small islands of
the archipelago, then dropped down to the sea cliffs that guarded
the gate of Gardel-Cloor. The moment the dragons settled, the gate
flung open and a little boy ran out, limping hardly at all, and
climbed the cliff to them. Teb reached down from Seastrider’s back
and pulled Marshy up before him, tucking the child’s legs into the
white harness, and Seastrider swept aloft.

Out over the sea, Marshy sang alone, his
voice given power by the dragons and by the bards who, in silence,
joined him. Marshy touched each child in the war-ravaged city, made
each know special things. He brought the last of the children out
of hiding, many who knew nothing but darkness. They came running
now, the child-slaves dragging their chains, swarming into
Gardel-Cloor, following for the first time not cruel masters but a
far greater power.

Chapter
21

The minute he was on the ground Teb grabbed
Camery and squeezed her so hard she yelped. Then he held her away,
and they really looked at each other for the first time. She was as
tall as he. Her face was smeared with dirt and her bright hair
tangled, but her grin was the same, that green-eyed devilish smile.
The little girl was still there beneath the strength of a woman and
soldier, and the awakened power of a bard. She looked him over and
touched the scar on his arm.

“What did that? The scar has twisted your
birthmark—the dragon’s mark.”

“Sivich’s soldiers cut me when they took me
captive.”

“Garit helped you escape from them, he told
me.”

“They caught me again outside a fox den at
the back of Nison-Serth.”

“Then how did you get away?”

“The dragons’ mother released me from the
dragon trap Sivich built to catch her. I was the bait. The otters
found me with a broken leg and unconscious, and dragged me onto a
raft and took me to Nightpool.”

She touched his face where a scar marked his
chin. “And that? I want to know everything that has happened to
you.”

He grinned. “I was climbing the sea cliff. A
wave made me slip—the sea hydrus was chasing me.”

Her eyes widened. She looked down the sea
cliff where they stood, at the crashing waves. “So much to learn
about you, Teb. So much to tell each other.”

Above them on the cliff the dragons had
settled among the rocks, twined around one another. The gate of
Gardel-Cloor stood ajar. They could hear the tangle of voices
inside and the laughter of children who had not laughed for a very
long time.

“Camery, I think Mama is alive.”

Her eyes widened, not in surprise but in
recognition. “I have believed that for a long time. I thought I
only wanted to believe it. Tell me . . .”

“She is a bard, did you guess that? She went
to search for her own dragon—her second, for the one she paired
with originally was killed.”

“Where is she?”

“Do you know the Castle of Doors?”

“Oh . . . yes.” Camery swallowed,
and pressed her fist to her mouth. “She went. . .
through? Into . . .”

“Into other worlds. She went searching for
Dawncloud, but Dawncloud was here all the time, was fast asleep in
Tendreth Slew, so they didn’t sense each other. It was Dawncloud
who saved me, who is mother of our four.”

“But where is Dawncloud now?”

“She went after Mama. But it’s a long story;
let’s save some for later. Garit is down there. I caught a glimpse
of him.”

They went along the cliff, then down and
across stones wet with sea spray, and in through the carved stone
gates of Gardel-Cloor. Garit grabbed Teb in a great hug, nearly
crushing him, and Camery swept up little Marshy, who ran shouting
to her, and whirled him around the great cave, in and out among the
shouting children. Teb was surprised to find himself as tall as
Garit; Garit had always seemed as huge as the red-maned bull that
gave him his nickname. He smelled of horses and leather, and his
smile was just as comforting as always. He pummeled Teb and shook
him.

“So our Kiri was right. Prince Tebmund of
Thedria
was
to be trusted, in spite of consorting with the
king.”

“Did she say that?”

“She knew she shouldn’t trust you so soon,
in spite of her feelings. Your strange, perceptive horses upset
her.”

They looked toward Kiri and Colewolf sitting
quietly together, her head on his shoulder and his arm around her.
They might have been quite alone, even though dozens of children
crowded the cave and bands of rebel fighters kept arriving.

Men and women had begun to remove the
children’s chains and tend their wounds, and a bathing tub of
seawater was heating over a fire, the smoke rising up through a
smoke hole. At the back of the fire several haunches were roasting,
the smell of crisp meat filling Gardel-Cloor. The great cats
wandered among the children, some licking wounds and some curled
down among the napping little ones, couching small heads and
warming their thin little bodies. And there were foxes. Teb stood
staring. Five pale foxes gathered with the great cats, and one old
otter.

“Yes, foxes.” Garit laughed. “And does the
otter make you feel at home? The big fox is Hexet of Kipa. Go and
greet them while I help tend to the children; then we’ll catch up,
have a good talk. I have a thousand questions.”

Teb went to sit on a low stone before the
animals; he wanted to gather them all in a big hug but wouldn’t
embarrass them. Just to see foxes again and to see the dark,
laughing face of an otter was wonderful. It was only a moment until
they were all introduced, and Hexet was telling him that Brux, of
the fox colony at Nison-Serth, was his cousin. Brux had helped to
save Teb when he escaped the first time from Sivich. And the old
otter, Lebekk, knew many at Nightpool, for he had traveled five
times to that island.

“I know Thakkur well, and know what he has
done for the resistance. Ever since you left Nightpool, Tebriel, he
has sent cadres of young armed and trained otters up the coast to
help the human rebels in any way they could. At Baylentha, when
Ebis the Black put down a second uprising, it was the otters,
working in team with Ebis’s agents, who discovered the source of
the infiltrators and trapped them in their own fishing boats and
sank them.”

Teb felt a surge of pride in Thakkur so
strong he had to swallow several times and could not speak. Thakkur
had done it, had made the Nightpool otters into an effective army.
He had trained the otters for battle, had taught them to use
weapons—despite the loud complaining by Nightpool’s handful of
troublemakers.

“And it was Thakkur’s otters at Vouchen
Vek,” Hexet said, “who trained the otter colony there and helped
them steal weapons. You were one of them, Lebekk. You were
there.”

“Yes,” Lebekk said, his dark, sleek coat
catching the firelight. “With the human rebels, we laid siege to
Fekthen and Thiondor, sank their supply boats, and starved the dark
troops. We fed the captives secretly and freed them, and they
killed their dark masters. Though I think they had other incentives
as well. I believe the dragon song touched them there, that visions
came to them.”

Teb stayed with Lebekk and the foxes a long
time, taking pleasure in their eager talk and simple well-being.
Then when two great cats challenged them to a game, he left them.
The meat was nearly cooked, the cave redolent of the smoky juices,
and his stomach rumbled with hunger. He saw more soldiers arriving
bloody and torn, having tended first to their tired horses. Now
their own wounds were treated and they were fed and made
comfortable. Teb found Camery, and they filled their plates with
the good roasted meat and roots and flat bread, then found a little
alcove where they could sit alone. Here he told her all that had
happened to him, from the morning he was led away from the palace
tied on his horse. Garit had told her part of it, how he and young
Lervey and the old cook, Pakkna, and Hibben of the twisted hand had
slipped out of Sivich’s camp at midnight, stealing Teb away.

“Pakkna and Lervey are with the troops in
Branthen,” she said. “Hibben travels across Akemada secretly
rallying troops. But tell me again how Sivich captured you.”

“As the foxes helped me escape Nison-Serth
out a small back entrance, the winged jackals discovered us and
attacked. Then Sivich’s soldiers were on us. They threw me across a
horse—I think that’s when my ribs were broken—then rode all night
for Baylentha. There they put me in a huge cage made of whole
felled trees and barge chain, meaning to capture Dawncloud.” He
smiled. “But it was Dawncloud who freed me.”

He told her how, after four years in the
otter colony, he had gone to search for the black hydrus, knowing
he must kill it, or it would destroy him. It had captured him and
taken him to the drowned city across the open sea. It tried to
twist his mind so he would use his bard powers for the dark. “It
meant for me to force Seastrider to do the same. But I stabbed it
at last, and then the dragons came and finished it.

“All the rooms above water in that place
were filled only with barnacles and sea moss. But there was one
apartment in a tall tower that had furnishings—a bed, a chair,
clothes, Mama’s red dress, and her diary. Merlther Brish’s sailboat
was tied below waiting for her. But it was her diary that led
Dawncloud there and, because she sensed what was in it, led her to
the Castle of Doors.”

“And you saw Dawncloud go through,” she
said, studying his face, “into . . . who knows what kind
of world. And Mama is there . . . somewhere.”

He took her hand. “She will come back. They
both will. Now tell me how Garit rescued you. I know he took you to
the house of the brewer, where you left your diary for me to
find.”

She told him the details of her escape, and
how she and Garit came to Dacia to the underground, then about her
years as servant in the house of Vurbane. Teb could tell she left
much unsaid.

“They weren’t pleasant years. I didn’t think
at first I could do such a thing, spy as a servant, be obedient to
that dark household. Vurbane is—” She shook her head, her eyes
filled with pain. “But I found I could do it. And if I was
miserable in some ways, I felt strong inside and . . .
well, smug, maybe,” she said, laughing, “when I got the information
out.” She smiled and shook her head. “You won’t guess what creature
helped me, came to the palace at night to take my messages.”

“An owl,” he said, laughing. “Was it Red
Unat?”

She stared at him. “How did you know his
name? Yes, old cranky Red Unat. How . . . ?”

“He came to Nightpool. I asked him to search
for you. He went to the tower, then to the house of the brewer. But
you had already gone. He brought me your diary. But if he was
helping you in Ekthuma, why didn’t he tell you about me? Or bring
the news to me that you were safe? He knew your name, he
. . . Well,” Teb said, “but he had never seen you. Still
. . .”

“I was called Summer, there. He had no
reason to connect me with you. Oh, if he had, if we’d found each
other sooner . . .”

“Yes. Well, but it turned out all
right.”

“It was Red Unat who warned me when
Vurbane’s troops came to the marketplace to arrest me.”

“Yes. I took supper with Vurbane and the
dark leaders in Sardira’s palace. Vurbane spoke of a great owl, and
I guessed it might be Red Unat.” Teb took her hand. “I don’t like
to think about your years with Vurbane. He is . . .”

“Yes. But it’s over.” She looked at him
squarely. “Vurbane is dead.” Her words said all that was needed.
They looked at each other, each seeing something of the person the
other had become.

When they left their private corner, they
joined the others, gathered to tell tales of personal victories and
defeats that brought them all closer. Everyone had a tale, and
evening came on with the entire company still lost in stories. But
it was the last tale that filled the bards with excitement. It was
this bard vision that would map their days to come and could mean
the beginning of final victory over the dark invaders.

Teb had stood the Ivory Lyre of Bayzun on a
stone shelf high enough for all to see, the glancing light from the
waves through the open gate playing over it. When Colewolf rose
from where he sat among the bards, all voices hushed. He went to
the lyre and laid his hand on it. No one stirred. As he stood
looking at the gathered crowd of humans and animals, a tale began
to spin out in silence, making pictures as the dragon song had
done. The power of the lyre gave him the power of vision, where for
so long he had been mute.

He told a tale of other dragons, of a clutch
of new, young dragons somewhere across the western sea.

The tale had been told to Colewolf by a
rebel recruit out of Birrig. He had come recently across the vast
ocean from the other side of Tirror. There he had sailed beside a
tall island peak and stared up to see a dragon lair. He had tied
his boat and climbed, to find a lair made of heavy oak trees, with
the remains of freshly killed sheep and a shark, and the shells of
dragon eggs still caught among the logs.