Ivory Lyre (25 page)

Teb saw Kiri’s eyes alight with excitement,
saw Marshy’s face transformed, and knew that the same dream gripped
them both. Maybe their dragonmates were among the newly hatched
clutch. He caught Camery’s glance and saw her nod, saw the eager
look between Colewolf and Kiri, felt the sense of excitement that
gripped the four dragons on the cliff above. They would go there,
to the coast of frozen Yoorthed.

That night Teb tried to sleep in a small
cave off the large one and could not. He rose at last and left the
caves, to find Seastrider sleeping soundly, dreaming, stretched out
between boulders. She woke and moved around to make a place for
him, and he settled down with his back against her, the sea wind
cool in his face. He was just dozing off when he saw Camery come
up, silhouetted against the thin moonlight, and go to settle down
beside Nightraider. The big dragon blew a warm breath against her
back with a huffing sound. Teb heard Camery sigh as if very
contented.

“Colewolf sleeps beside Starpounder,”
Seastrider told him. “And Kiri and Marshy are curled together,
there, between Windcaller’s forefeet. We are all here, Tebriel.
Rest now, for soon we search for dragons—baby dragons.”

“Yes. And for Quazelzeg, on the dark
continent.”

“Do you remember once, Tebriel, you told me
of predictions that the white otter of Nightpool made, the night
before you left there?”

“That I would ride the winds of Tirror.
We’ve done that, all right. That I would . . . travel to
mountains far to the north, and go among wonderful creatures
there.”

“And what else?”

“That I would know pain. That there was a
street in Sharden’s city narrow and mean, that there is danger
there, and it reeks of pain. Thakkur had said, ‘Take care, Tebriel,
when you journey into Sharden.”

“Sharden lies at the center of the dark
continent, Tebriel. But I am with you now. We are all together
now.”

He slept at last, restlessly, dreaming not
of the dark continent but of baby dragons, of a cadre of dragons
and bards so large and powerful it could drown the dark with its
song. He woke at first light to see Kiri standing out on the edge
of the cliff staring down at the sea. He went out to her. They
stood watching as the four dragons fished far out over the waves,
diving with folded wings, then leaping into the sky carrying shark
that, this morning, they ate on the wing, their spirits too high
even to come ashore. He saw the yearning in Kiri’s face, for a
dragon to whom to belong.

“If there is another clutch of dragons,” he
said, “your mate could be among them.”

“But how long will it take to find them? I
won’t be with you, I won’t know . . .”

“Of course you’ll be with us.”

“But—”

“Do you think we’d leave a bard behind? Do
you think your father would leave you?”

“It’s his job, to be where he’s needed.”

“Not without you, not anymore. It’s your job
to be with us.”

She didn’t say anything. After a while he
turned her chin to him and saw her tears. He wiped them from her
cheeks. She looked at him, so deep into his eyes. Then she smiled.
They turned together to stare out at the sea. The dragons were
returning, sweeping so low to the water that their wind beat the
sea into waves.

“We will need harness,” he said.

“There is soft leather among the supplies.”
She licked a last tear from her upper lip and turned to race down
the cliff.

He found Camery and they went down into the
caves to prepare for their journey. He hated good-byes. He wished
he would not soon have to say them, that there never had to be a
good-bye.

Garit said, “We will move into the castle,
Tebriel. We will open the windows and whitewash the walls, take
down all that velvet. It can be our garrison, a meeting place for a
new Dacian council, a fine stable for young riders, room enough for
every child who cares to come. And a room for you, Tebriel, kept
for your use alone.”

“Then I have two rooms of my own to come
back to, for there is my cave at Nightpool. One day there’ll be a
third, when we win back the Palace of Auric.”

“When you win back the Palace of Auric
. . . I would like to be with you on that mission.”

“Then so you shall,” he said, and could
imagine that palace whole again, clean, filled with color and
sunlight, with his mother there and with dragons in Auric’s skies
and on the meadows.

It took two days to make harness, sharpen
weapons, and prepare themselves. On the morning of the third day
they were ready, and all along the shore above Gardel-Cloor and in
the city streets folk gathered, cheering as the dragons leaped
skyward.

They banked on the wind. The shadows of
their wings washed across upturned faces. The war in Dacia was
finished, the un-men gone from this island continent. It was time
to touch other shores where the dark still ruled. Seastrider
climbed straight up with powerful wings. Teb touched the strings of
the lyre. Its voice rang out alone, powerful and true. Nothing was
impossible; all dreams could be made real if they strove fiercely
enough. Seastrider lifted fast into cloud, and Teb saw Kiri and
Marshy laughing up at him from between Windcaller’s pale wings.
Then the two black dragons sped by him racing, Camery and Colewolf
leaning flat to their necks.

High above cloud, the dragons settled to a
steady pace and headed northwest toward the wide sea and unfamiliar
lands, to search for new young dragons.

#

Shirley Rousseau Murphy grew up in southern
California, riding and showing the horses her father trained. She
attended the San Francisco Art institute and later worked as
an interior designer while her husband attended USC. “When Pat
finished school, I promptly quit my job and began to exhibit
paintings and welded metal sculpture in the West Coast juried
shows.” Her work could also be seen in many traveling shows in the
western States and Mexico. “When we moved to Panama for a
four-year tour in Pat’s position with the U.S. Courts, I put away
the paints and welding torches, and began to write.” After leaving
Panama they lived in Oregon, Atlanta, and northern Georgia before
returning to California, where they now live by the sea.

Besides the Dragonbards Trilogy, Murphy
wrote sixteen children's books and a young adult fantasy quintet
before turning to adult fantasy with
The Catsworld Portal
and the Joe Grey cat mystery series, which so far includes sixteen
novels and for which she is now best known. She is the winner of
five Dixie Council of Authors and Journalists Author of the Year
awards—two of them for
Nightpool
and
The Ivory
Lyre
—plus eight Muse Medallion awards from the national Cat
Writers Association.

Dragonbards Trilogy, Book 1:
Nightpoo
l

Dragonbards Trilogy, Book 1. As dark raiders
invade the world of Tirror, a singing dragon awakens from her long
slumber, searching for the human who can vanquish the forces of
evil—Tebriel, son of the murdered king. Teb has found refuge in
Nightpool, a colony of talking otters. But a creature of the Dark
is also seeking him, and the battle to which he is drawn will
decide Tirror’s future.

Dragonbards Trilogy, Book 3:
The
Dragonbards

Dragonbards Trilogy, Book 3. Only the
dragonbards and their singing dragons have the power to unite the
people and animals of Tirror into an army that can break the Dark’s
hypnotic hold over the world. Before their leader Tebriel can
challenge the hordes gathering for the final battle, he must
confront the dark lord Quazelzeg face to face in the Castle of
Doors, a warp of time and space.

An omnibus containing the first two books of
the five originally published as the Children of Ynell series. In
most regions of Ere to be a Seer, gifted with telepathic and
visionary powers, means death—or does it? For some it may mean an
even worse fate: destruction of their minds and enslavement by the
dark powers determined to conquer the world. In
Ring of
Fire
, Zephy and the goatherd Thorn are dismayed to discover
that they themselves are Seers, but once they know, they are driven
to escape from the repressive city of their birth and rescue
others, many of them children, who have been captured and
imprisoned by its attackers. Only the discovery of one shard of a
mysterious runestone offers hope that they can succeed. In
The
Wolf Bell
, set in an earlier time, the child Seer Ramad seeks
the runestone itself with the aid of an ancient bell that enables
him to control and communicate with the thinking wolves of the
mountains, who become his friends. But will they be a match for his
enemies, the evil Seers of Pelli, who are determined to control
Ramad’s mind and through him, to obtain the stone for their own
dark purpose?

An omnibus containing the last three novels
of the five originally published as the Children of Ynell
series—
The Castle of Hape, Caves of Fire and Ice
, and
The
Joining of the Stone
—which tell of the adult lives of the
characters in
The Shattered Stone
. As a child Ramad of the
Wolves had sought the potent Runestone of Eresu that could save his
world from the dark, only to have it shatter at the moment it came
into his hands. Now as a man, leader of his fellow Seers in their
war against the dark powers, he knows it is up to him to find and
rejoin the shards before evil Seers can do so. Following his true
love Telien into far reaches of Time, he is followed in turn by the
Seer Skeelie, who also loves him. The quest to make the stone whole
again demands the commitment not only of Ramad but of others,
ultimately including his son, for only far forward in Time can the
final battle against the dark forces be fought.