The Dragon Lord (33 page)

“I should have spared him,” the wizard said at last, “because by then his death was needless. Too late to save my son. Too late to bring him back. But I killed: in rage, in grief… in vengeance. Because I had the power to do it, there, then, at once—and because I wanted to, more than anything else in all the world.”

“There’s nothing wrong with vengeance, Gemmel. Look at Aldric. Look at what he did—and with your help.”

“Oh yes, with my help. And with what motive? Why did I do all this?” There was a dreadful bitterness in Gemmel’s voice, a shame and self-loathing which to Dewan had no business there. “I had my reasons. I always have
my
reasons long planted and long in growing. But now they’re coming to full flower and I’m afraid the price will be too high. I’m afraid I’ll lose my son again.” Gemmel took a deep breath and held it, then let it slowly out and smiled and shook his head. “And no, Dewan, you’re wrong. Because there’s everything wrong with vengeance—at least, for me. It can only be forgiven if it’s right, if it’s expected, if it’s the proper thing to do. The Alban High Speech has seven different words for ‘revenge,’ did you know that? Seven words, each with its own proper circumstance for correct usage. The taking of revenge is an Alban’s heritage, Dewan. It isn’t mine; never has been. I was wrong to do it. It cost me my… my honor. And Ymareth knows.”

“Ymareth? Was that why—”

“Yes. Why it holds me in amused contempt—for being less than those to whom I was and should have remained superior. You heard it. I am no longer Dragon-lord. Ymareth respects only honor—an intangible thing which cannot be bought or forced; a fragile thing which must be earned and held, no matter what the price of its holding. I lost mine fifty years ago; I haven’t regained it yet.”

“Oh, I… Dragon-lord I understand,” Dewan managed at last, “for all that it’s one of
Woydach
Etzel’s titles too.” Gemmel glanced towards him, raising an eyebrow, but said nothing more—plainly waiting for the rest of the question, because what Dewan was trying to say had to be a question. And it was. “But what about… What about—
Maker
?”

The wizard smiled. “Another title. Concise; descriptive; accurate. And true.”

“
True
!” Anticipating something, being absolutely sure of it, was not at all the same as having it confirmed. “Then you
made
... ?”

“Yes.”

Dewan had promised himself that he would do nothing foolish, nothing which might compromise the carefully cherished dignity which gave him a screen to hide behind. So he didn’t spring to his feet, nor did his mouth drop open, nor did he swear. But slowly, very slowly in keeping with that dignity, his right hand moved to touch himself over the heart and above each eye in the old Teshirin blessing. “Father, Mother, Maiden,” he whispered, “be between myself and harm, now and always.” He kissed the palm and closed the fist and only then said, “But why would you make a dragon?” in a voice whose steadiness surprised even himself.

“Because I wanted to.” The laconic answer paused on an upward tone, so that Dewan stayed quite still and perfectly quiet and waited for the rest. “And because it was appropriate, and because I could.”

“Appropriate?” the Vreijek prompted, speaking as a man might walk when all beneath his feet was made of blown glass and tolerance.

“There are world—... Places where armed guards are right and proper, and places for high walls; places for fences made of wire with fangs like roses, and for wires with—with lightning running through them. And there are places for threads of light hotter than the sun in summer, threads that can cut and kill. But here… Here I
wanted
to have a dragon.” Paying no mind to the burn-blisters already mottling his fingers, Gemmel gestured at the fire and it flared up more fiercely still. “Not just to guard gold—you’ve seen the Cavern on Techaur, of course?”

Dewan nodded. There had been far more than gold in it, but he doubted now that Gemmel meant silks or costly perfumes or any of the other things that he, Dewan ar Korentin, would have thought worth guarding against theft.

“Then you’ll know what I mean when I say that anyone not
sent
there with specific instructions would probably steal whatever took their fancy. Or try to.”

Again the Vreijek nodded. Dewan could remember his own hands and those of Tehal Kyrin, reaching out as though of their own volition to touch, to hold, to lift—and perhaps to take. Only Aldric’s cry of warning had stopped them; and later events had shown what would have happened had they completed the attempted theft. He did not know, and did not ask, how Ymareth the dragon had been made, quite well aware within himself that he would neither understand nor really want to know. Dewan knew quite enough already to know he wished to hear no more.

That was not to say his education stopped there and then, for as Aldric had warned him—five, six, seven months ago?—with a slightly drunken grin of good-fellowship, once started on a topic of conversation Gemmel Errekren would pursue it until either it was explained to his own absolute satisfaction or, more usually, his audience rose in rebellion to silence him or leave. Right at the moment, Dewan decided that his own wisest course was to sit quietly and listen.

“What can a person do to control something,” Gemmel said, “when its power is such that even the possibility of its falling into the wrong hands is an unthinkable nightmare?”

For all that the question sounded merely rhetorical, Gemmel paused so long that it seemed he was waiting for an answer, an opinion, a guess. For something. Dewan provided one, and even then his quietly ventured, “Secrecy?” was more to end the dragging silence than because he thought he might be right.

Gemmel shook his head in a jerky way that was more emergence from a dream than denial—but denial it was, all the same. “Not secrecy. That seldom works. Few things can be kept a secret for long. Either the secret is discovered independently, or it’s betrayed by spies and traitors, or by idealists who think equality of information should be restored. And throughout the course of history, Dewan, such great secrets have usually been weapons of one kind or another—ways to kill, not ways to cure. One country learns how to heal a terrible disease, and they give the knowledge to all; let that same country discover how to reduce a city ten times the size of Egisburg to dust and cinders in a single flash of light, and they try to keep it to themselves. Fear, do you think? Or shame? No matter. Not once such countries start to think of success in war not as ‘win’ or ‘lose,’ but in terms of what number of dead will prove acceptable. Acceptable, Dewan, not intolerable…”

Gemmel gazed for a long time into the dance of flames, as if seeing something else entirely in the incandescent shift of embers and the crawl of sparks. Then he looked up again. “The Albans place great store by honor,” he said. “And no, I’m not patronising you, Dewan. You’re not Alban, not even by marriage, so I can say things to you that I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—say to Aldric. Honor—call it the extent to which a person can be trusted—is a measure of that person’s worth. Of their personal ability—their power, if you like—to keep things safe. An oath, a promise, a secret; even a piece of gossip. But such power can be directed out as well as held in. As magic. A person of much honor is also a person with the capability—and no more than the capability, mind you—for considerable magical skill. But in Alba, the concept of honor has developed in such a way that using magic is no longer consistent with the reputation of an honorable man.”

“Which is why Rynert has sent Aldric to do his dirty work!” concluded Dewan savagely. “Because one way or the other, no one will think the worse of him!”-

Gemmel applauded, making that simple gesture of striking his hands together something laden with irony. “Well done!” he said. “Except that Aldric’s capability is because of, rather than a lack of, what Rynert the King is pleased to define as honor.”

“And Ymareth recognises it.”

AH the sardonic humor disappeared from Gemmel’s face and Dewan wished that he had kept his mouth shut. “Yes,” the wizard said, and all the old bitterness was back. “I instilled a respect for honor in Ymareth when I made it. Not a respect for me, myself, the Maker, but for—. For what I was. I knew that
then
nobody could take the dragon from me. Because I had given it intelligence, the ability to judge and to reason. That was why cu Ruruc couldn’t—” He bit the words off short and blinked, but he knew that Dewan was watching him.

“Gemmel,” the Vreijek said, and he spoke very softly now, as if trying not to give offence. Or fright. “Gemmel, there’s a time and a place for all things. This is the time and place for truth. Total truth. Nothing hidden. What I think already, what I guess, is likely far, far worse than anything you could tell me, and look—” he spread both arms wide, shoulder-height, and in the heavy furs he wore over his armor he looked more like some big, friendly bear than ever before, “—I still have my sanity. If I was going to go mad, don’t you think I would have done so long ago? I doubt that you told Aldric any of this; but credit him with wisdom and an open mind at least. After four years of your tuition, maybe… ? So. All of it. And on
my
honor, if you can trust such a thing given by not even an Alban-by-marriage, what you say will go no further without your leave.”

There was another silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire—and by another small sound which at first Dewan could not place. Suspicious, he laid hand to sword-hilt and scanned the clearing’s perimeter for intruders; then turned very slowly back to Gemmel. Because the old man was crying.

Dewan ar Korentin was a military man and a king’s bodyguard, a good drinking companion—but not someone overly familiar with emotion. For that reason, and they both knew it, he had never been a particularly good husband to Lyseun his wife. All the love in their marriage had been one-sided and at times he was glad they had no children. But not now. Now he wished they had had as many as his own parents, for then he might have had some inkling of what to do. Gemmel was crying, yes—but not as old folk will, or like a child. Instead he wept like a young soldier Dewan had once had in his command, years ago in Drakkesborg, who had committed some offence—the details were forgotten now, but it was nothing important: against a barrack-mate, probably, petty theft or a discovered lie—and instead of the small penalty his crime carried he had been wholly, unconditionally and unexpectedly forgiven for it. Dewan could only do now as he had done then; he sat quietly, neither offering useless sympathy nor, equally rude, ostentatiously pretending that nothing was amiss. He simply watched, and waited, and said and did nothing, but was there all the time—a burly, amiable-if-needed presence who took no offence and gave support merely by that.

At last—only a matter of a few minutes—Gemmel sniffed vigorously like a man suffering a drizzly winter cold and nothing more, then scrubbed his face with both hands and rammed their knuckles into his eye-sockets hard enough to bruise. “Thank you,
Eldheisart
ar Korentin,” he said, not looking at Dewan’s face.

“You know how to laugh as well,” Dewan said, and left the rest of the proverb incomplete.
No one should laugh until they know how to cry
. It was Valhollan, something he remembered from talking to Aldric’s lady: Tehal Kyrin. A lady who should never have been sent away, he thought. Had I known then what I know now of Rynert-King, I would never have agreed to it. More— I would have opposed it to the limit that my place allowed. Beyond. But that page is written.
And rewritten;
it was a notion which gave birth to a thin smile, but notion and smile were born for himself alone.

“Yes,” said Gemmel, “I know how to laugh. But not honestly—only at the foolishness of this world, or at the simplicity of humankind—” and no matter what he had said, Dewan felt something curdle inside him at the way the wizard chose his phrasing, “or at my own cleverness. I thought I was so very clever, Dewan—so cunning, to use the king’s wishes for my own ends. Remember those messages I locked into Aldric’s head before he left Cerdor for the Empire? Support, and aid, and all those other things. Well, they weren’t alone. I put something there for myself as well.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be telling me this,” Dewan said nervously.

“All of it, you said. So: all of it. You saw the Grand Warlord when you served with the Bodyguard in Drakkesborg, yes?”

“Yes. Many times—”

“And close? Near enough to see well?”

“Yes! But what has that to do with—”

“Patience. Listen: learn. He wears different uniforms for different ceremonies; of course he does, I’ve checked and I know he does. But one thing never changes; you must have noticed the one piece of regalia which never leaves him, the one kept closer even than an Alban keeps his
tsepan
?”

Dewan
had
noticed; though his facial muscles were under full control and did not so much as twitch, Gemmel saw the involuntary dilation of his pupils in the fireglow and nodded as if the Vreijek had agreed on oath in writing.

“
En sh’Va’t’Chaall”
The Drusalan words came out on an exhalation of gray vapor, seen as much as heard, and Gemmel nodded once again.

“As you say: the Jewel of Green-and-Gold Ice. A cumbersome name. Where does Etzel wear it?”

“At his throat—it clips as a centerpiece onto whatever collar of office he might require. But why ask? You’ve seen it yourself—haven’t you… ?”

“No. Not for… a long time, and then not as a piece of jewellery. But I’ll describe it for you and you can tell me if I’m right. And then I’ll tell you what it really is.”

“What it
really
... ?”

“Oh yes. Because it’s not a gemstone. And never was. It’s a million times more valuable than that, especially to me.” Gemmel’s hands sketched a quick outline on the air. “Oblong, about so by so—one by one-half palms—and two fingers thick. Transparent, but tinted slightly by the green at its core and the mesh of gold filaments sur-rounding that core. Three of its edges thick with gold studs, like sunken beads. And cold enough to take the skin off an unwary hand.”