The Fire Dragon (25 page)

“This is the price.”

Speaking tore another cough from her lungs. She staggered over to her bed and fell onto it, facedown, to cough and spit until the blanket lay stained red under her. When she tried to sit up, she fell back. Wildfolk manifested around her, reaching out with worried hands as they swarmed around her bed.

“Get Nevyn,” she whispered.

When they disappeared, she fainted, her face half-buried in the pillow. It seemed to her that she was floating down a river on a little boat, drifting far from shore toward the sea. Yet on the bank someone was calling to her.

“Lilli!” Nevyn's voice, and Nevyn himself, banging on the door. “Lilli, for the love of the gods! Let me in!”

“I can't—” She tried to call out, but the coughing rose and threatened to drown her.

By an act of sheer will she managed to roll to the side of the bed and stand up, but as she turned toward the door, she fell to her knees. Coughing racked her. She heard him swearing; then all at once the heavy bar across the door slid up, wiggling free of the staple. Gnomes and sylphs were clutching and shoving the thing, until at last it leapt up and fell free onto the floor. Nevyn slammed the door open and rushed in. On her knees Lilli could only stare up at him while blood ran down her chin. He looked at the bloodstained tablet, then back to her.

“You didn't,” Nevyn said.

“I had to! My clan—I had to.”

The old man nodded, slowly, deliberately while tears glistened in his eyes.

“Let's get you into a proper sickbed,” Nevyn said at last. “I'll pull you through yet.”

She tried to smile but failed. She could feel her death gnawing at her lungs like a beast desperate in a cage.

For three days Nevyn battled to save Lilli's life, but she slid farther and farther away from him. He knew long before the end came that he'd never win, but he kept on trying to fight consumption with herbs, poultices, and warmed blankets.

“It's like trying to fight an army with sticks,” Nevyn said. “But ye gods, how can I surrender?”

Maddyn nodded. They were standing at Lilli's bedside while she slept openmouthed and propped up on bloodstained pillows. Old blood blotched the handful of rags lying beside her as well.

“Is she bleeding to death?” Maddyn whispered.

“She is. And in a way, she's drowning.”

“Ah gods. She's so blasted young. I wish it were me. What use am I, a worn-out rider with naught to live for? Better it were me!”

“Oh hold your tongue. This is no time for self-pity, bard.”

Maddyn winced and turned away. Nevyn sat down on the edge of the bed and opened his dweomer sight. Her aura looked like wisps of mist clinging to her body.

Long past midnight, Nevyn sat alone at Lilli's bedside. He had hung silver balls of dweomer light around the chamber, but all at once, the room turned oddly dark, as if some lord of shadows had entered and scattered gloom with a careless wave of a hand. Or some lady—the spirit appeared at the foot of Lilli's bed, all draped in black but still wearing her likeness of Lilli's mother, Merodda. Fortunately Lilli lay unconscious on her heap of pillows and could not see.

“What do you want?” Nevyn snapped.

“My daughter,” the spirit said. “Let me have my daughter.”

“She's not yours, and you're not her mother.”

“I shall wait for her all the same, when she crosses over.”

Her words raked him like cold claws.

“You shan't,” Nevyn said, “because I shall travel with her, and if you try to meddle, I'll blast you with a fire that will burn you to the marrow of your soul.”

“You boast, old man, and naught more.” She flounced her black robes and smirked at him.

All of Nevyn's rage at the prince, at Lilli's illness, at Merodda and her wretched curse tablet rose up and turned him for that moment into a berserker worse than any warrior. He snapped out a word of power, then raised his arms over his head. He felt the rage materialize as red fire, surging and seething.

“Begone, you fetid bitch!”

With a snap of his wrists he brought his arms down and blasted her with the red fire. Like a cataract it broke over her, foaming like boiling blood. She screamed, staggered, screamed and screamed again as she spun and tossed on the burning torrent.

“Begone!”

With one last howl of agony, she disappeared. Still shaking with rage Nevyn opened his dweomer sight—no trace of her.

“Nevyn?” Lilli's voice choked, a bare whisper.

He spun around and saw her trying to sit up. He perched on the bed next to her and put his arm around her shoulders while she coughed, spitting up more blood, bright and fresh.

“Can't breathe,” she gasped, then died in his arms.

Maddyn heard the news early the next morning. When he and Owaen went to the great hall for breakfast, they saw Lilli's maidservant, Clodda, sitting in the ashes of the servants' cold hearth and sobbing, her apron over her face.

“Ah horseshit!” Owaen muttered. “That's a bad omen for our Lilli.”

“The worst,” Maddyn said. “The poor little lass.” “Just so. I'll wager old Nevyn's all torn up about it.” “No doubt. I'll have to compose her a death song. She was a warrior in her way.”

Although Maddyn saw naught of Nevyn all that day, the news went round the dun, that Lady Lillorigga had finally died of her consumption. Toward sunset, to get a little peace and quiet in which to think, Maddyn climbed up the catwalks to the top of the dun's inner wall. He wedged himself between a pair of merlons and looked down at the sprawling disorder of the brochs and walls, wards and ruins, sheds, huts, and pigsties. That wondrous day back in Pyrdon, when the silver daggers had hailed the young Prince Maryn as the true king, none of them had ever dreamt that royal splendor would look like a heap of charcoal scattered among sticks. None of them had ever dreamt how many of them would die, either, he supposed, though they'd all made a brave show of talking about the likelihood.

In the west the sun was sinking in a clear sky. Overhead the dome of heaven shone a painfully bright blue, while below the ward lay already in shadow. Maddyn watched servants walking back and forth, bringing food and firewood to the great hall. In a moment or two the prince himself walked out of the great hall. He moved slowly, as if his grief had turned the air to something nearly solid, and aimlessly. He started toward the stables, then turned back, hesitated at the door of the hall, walked in the other direction, hesitated again, then suddenly strode off round toward the back of the dun. Maddyn lost sight of him among the sheds and clutter.

The morrow came with more rain and a low dark sky. Despite the weather, Prince Maryn decreed that Lilli's body should lie in the sacred grove near his wife's grave. This time there would be no splendid procession, though the prince did accompany her in the ride across town to
the temple hill. Nevyn debated, then decided against going, simply because Maryn's grief for his mistress was so much more sincere than that for his wife. There are some things, he told himself, that a man shouldn't watch.

Some while after the small cortege left the gates, Nevyn returned to his tower room. The afternoon seemed so gloomy that he lit a pair of candles as much for company as for light. He was sitting at his table, trying to compose a letter to Tieryn Anasyn, when he heard voices on the stairs.

“Who is it?” Nevyn called out. “I'm busy.”

The door opened anyway, and Otho marched in, followed by Maddyn, who was carrying a basket of bread.

“We heard you'd not eaten today.” Maddyn set the basket down.

“True spoken,” Nevyn said. “My thanks.”

“And we need you to settle a quarrel,” Maddyn went on. “About those red stones the princess gave our smith here. I say he should return them to the prince.”

“And why should I?” Otho snapped. “Her wretched swine of a husband doesn't deserve fine stones like that.”

“It's not a matter of deserving,” Maddyn said. “It's a matter of rightfully owning.”

“He's right,” Nevyn broke in. “They belong to her children now.”

Otho glowered but said nothing.

“Give them over.” Nevyn held out his hand.

Otho made a sound like a dog's growl, but he untied the pouch at his belt, fished in it with two fingers, and handed at last the two small rubies, square cut, over to Nevyn.

“You wretched meddler!” Otho snarled at Maddyn. “Bad cess to you!”

“Come now,” Nevyn said. “Is it truly the rubies that are vexing you so badly?”

“Well.” Otho paused, considering. “It's them, somewhat, but truly, if this slime-hearted silver dagger had stayed away from our lady, she'd be alive now.”

Maddyn winced and turned dead-white. Nevyn got up, ready to intervene.

“And I warn you somewhat, Maddo lad,” Otho went on. “No one hates as well as the Mountain Folk. I don't care how long it may be till we meet again. I'll recognize you and I'll remember.”

“Otho!” Nevyn snapped. “For the love of the gods, think what you're saying! Think what you're doing to yourself!”

“What, my lord? Binding one of your cursed chains of Wyrd?”

“Just that, and ye gods, you could at least be putting the blame where it belongs.”

“Indeed, my lord? On our prince?”

Nevyn said nothing. Otho tore his dagger gaze away from Maddyn.

“You're right enough, Lord Nevyn,” the dwarf said. “And I'll just be leaving his court. There's naught to keep me here a day longer.”

When he left the chamber Otho slammed the door so hard that the candlesticks on the table bounced in a scatter of scorching wax. Nevyn caught them just in time to prevent the half-finished letter from going up in flames. His arms crossed tight over his chest, Maddyn watched him.

“Do you blame me?” Maddyn said at last.

“What for? Loving a woman honorably and from your distance?”

“I never should have taken her gifts.”

“Why not? Royalty shower trinkets upon their favorites all the time. Her feelings would have been hurt had you turned them down.”

Maddyn nodded, then strode to the window to slap his palms against the sill and lean out into the rain.

“I used to be the prince's man heart and soul, but no more.” He seemed to be talking to the rising moon as much as to Nevyn. “I can't stand it, the thought of her—”

“No more can I. I'll be leaving court myself as soon as I can, though I'll take a more gracious leave than Otho's. Ride with me if you like. In the spring, Maryn
will have to ride west to do battle with the king of Eldidd. We'll accompany him, and then just slip away from the army.”

Maddyn turned back into the room, then perched on the window sill to consider Nevyn for a long moment.

“Slip away?” Maddyn said at last. “And where shall we go then?”

“Ever have a fancy to see Bardek? I've come to realize that their physicians know a great deal more than ours, or certainly more than I do. Besides—” Nevyn heard his own voice tremble and forced it steady. “Besides, I need to get far far away, where Maryn won't hear of me and my doings.”

“The prince was like a son to you. This all must burn like poison.”

“It does. And the worst part is thinking that I should have done somewhat to prevent it.”

“Ah by the hells, Nevyn! You're only a dweomermas-ter, not a god!”

Nevyn stared, then suddenly laughed, a bitter creaky noise.

“True spoken, bard. Well, then. Shall we ride west together in the spring?”

“We shall. Here's somewhat I never thought I'd ever say: I'll be cursed glad to leave the king and his court behind me once and for all.”

Nevyn nodded in sad agreement, but he knew a thing he could never tell Maddyn. While they could ride away from Maryn and his court in this life, neither of them would be so easily free of the souls involved in this tragedy, not for many a long lifetime ahead.

In 863, King Maryn died. The chirurgeons, who wanted his legend to end with a worthy death, stated that an old wound, never properly healed, had burst open. The tale baffled those who knew him, because thanks to his dweomer luck Maryn had never received a wound in all his long years of battle. But over time these witnesses died themselves, of course, leaving the bards free to put the lie
into their songs and the priests to copy it into their chronicles.

In truth, a consumption of the lungs killed Maryn. All unwittingly Lilli had poisoned him when they'd lain in each other's arms—her disease the instrument of her mother's curse fulfilled.