The Fire Dragon (54 page)

The silver brightened into white. The current flexed and rolled. Walking on its brilliant wave came a figure, an old man with dark skin, who was carrying an apple in one hand. Even though his astral form looked nothing like the man she once had loved, she recognized him instantly.

“Aderyn!”

“I am. You were right and I was wrong, my love, all those years ago. The Guardians were always part of my Wyrd.”

He threw back his head and laughed, then held out his free hand to the child Evandar had become. The child
reached out and clasped it just as a flash of golden light broke over them and swept them away. For a moment Dalla saw or thought she saw figures, great beings made of light who were coming to meet the child and the old man in a pouring of the Light that seemed to flow from the very heart of the universe. On one last ripple of laughter they all vanished, though the Light remained.

“It is over!” Dallandra cried out. “It is beginning!”

In answer came three great knocks, solemn, slow, pounding and rolling over her like waves, tossing her, tumbling her, sending her swooping down and down.

She woke to find herself stiff and aching, still lying on the plaza with Niffa still at her post nearby, though dawn was rising in the east. Jahdo was pacing back and forth nearby.

“Did you see them?” Dalla's voice croaked from a parched throat. “The dragons?”

Niffa nodded in silent amazement.

“The black and the silver?” Jahdo sheathed the knife, then knelt beside her. “I did. Where be Rhodry?”

“You saw him.”

Niffa stared, then began to shake her head from side to side in a no, over and over. Dalla grabbed her apprentice's arm and hauled herself up to a sitting position.

“He did it to save the town. There was no saying him nay.”

Niffa shuddered profoundly.

“It do be a hard thing to believe,” Jahdo said. “It—ye gods, what am I, what are we all to think?”

“Think of him as dead. In a way it's true. The Rhodry you knew is dead, and his long melancholy's all over at last, just as he wanted.”

“And what of Evandar? The same?”

She hesitated for a long moment, thinking, then smiled though her eyes brimmed tears.

“He's not. In fact, I'd say that for the first time in his long ages of existing, he's truly alive. Now help me up. I've got to have some water, and I've got to have it now.”

D
allandra refused to leave Cerr Cawnen until she knew that Verrarc would mend. Even more than her death, Raena's treachery had sucked the life out of him. He slept late of a morning and went early to bed, his servants told Dallandra. When he left the house, it was only to walk to the ruined temple and sit by the door, as if he expected Raena to come out to rejoin him. He would stay until the middle of the night, then creep back when the servants were asleep.

“The thing is,” Dallandra told Niffa, “he has a certain knack for the dweomer. When Raena was working her spells, he could sense their evil, but blindly. Deep down he knew somewhat was wrong, even if he didn't understand what he was perceiving.”

“And what was that?” Niffa said.

“She was draining his life-stuff to get power for her workings.”

“Ai!” Niffa laid a hand at her throat. “That be an evil way to treat him who loved her so much.”

“It was, though not the worst of her evils. Although, I don't know whether to lay the evils she brought to Dun Cengarn at her door or not, frankly. Alshandra stood behind them all.”

They were sitting on the flank of Citadel, taking the sun on a wooden bench beside the path. From their perch Dallandra could see over grey rooftops to the lake and the town below, then beyond the walls to the water meadows, lush and green, laced with sparkling lines of water.

“There be one thing I have no understanding of still,” Niffa said. “Why the Horsekin did steal Raena's corpse.”

“I don't know either,” Dallandra said, “but I wouldn't fret about it.”

“What if they should find some way to bring her back to life?”

“They can't. When I scryed I found no trace of her etheric double. She must have shattered it deliberately when she realized she was dead. Don't forget, she was expecting Alshandra to come and take her to some marvelous country.”

“For that I almost pity her.”

“Me too. Almost.”

Dallandra found the solution to this riddle when she went to the Gel da'Thae camp to bid farewell to Zatcheka. Her men were laughing and talking as they loaded up the mules with big canvas packs and saddled the riding horses. The two women walked down to the lakeshore and stood watching the sun dance on slow waves, while they talked of this and that.

“You know,” Dallandra said finally, “mayhap you could answer a question for me. In all the confusion after Rhodry broke Raena's neck, Kral and his men took her body and fled with it. Is there some rite that Horsekin work over their dead?”

“You might call it that.” Zatcheka smiled with a flash of pointed teeth. “They do eat them.”

“They what?”

“They do believe that by eating the dead person's flesh, they keep that person with them always. Otherwise, they say, the dead person will wander alone and lost.”

“It makes a certain sense, truly. Do they cook them first?”

“They do, and the preparation of that meal and its serving are solemn things, taking a good three days to perform. I do know this because once, many hundreds of years ago, my people did the same. Now we bury our dead.”

“And what made you change?”

“Ranadar's curse.” Zatcheka looked away, troubled. “If you mind not that I speak of such things.”

“Not in the least. Truly, I'm hoping that one day a bard of my people will be able to talk with one of yours. If they
could put together what they know of the Great Burning, maybe we could at last understand it. I know Carra would love to—” Dallandra stopped, caught by a sudden thought. “Oh ye gods. If one person died of that plague, and then the others ate—oh by the Dark Sun herself!”

“That be exactly what I did mean.” Zatcheka shuddered, as if she were suddenly cold. “It were a horrible contagion, or so the old tales tell us.”

“No doubt!”

“But I do admire your thought, that our bards should meet. Now that we have allied ourselves, Cerr Cawnen would be a grand site for that meeting, I should think.”

“So it is. And I hope that we shall meet again as well, you and I.”

“You do have my word on that.” Zatcheka smiled briefly. “One way or other, we will meet again.”

That evening, when Dallandra and Niffa visited her family, they found Verrarc sitting at Dera's table. His face was waxy pale, and his hands shook, but he was eating a thick chunk of bread, the first solid food he'd taken in days. Dera smiled over him as proudly as if he'd been a fractious baby newly calmed.

“And a good eve to you,” Verrarc said to them. “I did come here tonight to see if Jahdo were willing to become my apprentice.”

“Well, that would be a grand opportunity.” Dallandra glanced at Dera. “What do you think of it?”

“It would ache my heart to have our Jahdo gone again so soon,” Dera said. “But it would ache even worse watching a bright lad like him spend his life in killing rats.”

“So I thought, too,” Verrarc said. “I do hope that Lael agrees.”

“He will,” Niffa put in. “He be not the sort of man who hogs his children's lives.”

At that, Verrarc actually smiled. Good, Dallandra thought. He'll recover.

On the morrow Prince Daralanteriel led his followers out of Cerr Cawnen on the south-running road. Soon they left the water meadows behind and travelled through fields
as lush as velvet with the burgeoning grain. Although Carra rode beside her husband at first, toward midmorning she turned her horse out of line and fell in between Dallandra and Niffa. Elessario slept comfortably, bound to her back with a new kind of leather sling, an invention of Jahdo's aunt, Sirri.

“I'm confused about somewhat,” Carra said. “We're going to Cannobaen, right? The lady of the dun there, Rhodda. You said she was Rhodry's kin?”

“His daughter, in fact.”

“That means Rhodry must have been noble-born.”

“He was that. And I'll ask you to help me keep a secret. His kin think he died many a year ago.”

Carra considered this for a long moment. “Let me guess,” she said finally. “Many years ago Gwerbret Aberwyn got himself killed hunting, but they never found his body. And his name was Rhodry Maelwaedd.”

“You are clever!” Dallandra said, laughing. “But keep it to yourself, will you? At least in Cannobaen. The People know the truth.”

“I will, never fear.”

“You know, I just realized somewhat. You and Lady Rhodda will have much in common. When Evandar decided to have Salamander brought to Cannobaen, he may well have been doing you a favor as well.”

“Really? Why?”

“Lady Rhodda is a scholar, and a famous one among the Westfolk.”

Carra turned her head to stare at her, then smiled, her eyes suddenly wide and bright, as if she'd opened an ordinary sack and found it stuffed with gold. “A scholar,” she whispered. “A real scholar and a woman both?”

“She is, though her townsfolk don't know what to make of it.”

“I don't suppose they do. How long will it take us to get there?”

“Weeks, alas. We don't have Evandar's dweomer with us any more.”

“That's true. Do you miss him, Dalla?”

“Of course.” Dallandra paused, feeling the bitter truth of it. “I'll doubtless miss him for the rest of my life.”

Some weeks after the travelling show left Myleton, Ebañy had a nightmare so strange that it woke Marka. In her own dream she heard him yelling words in some incomprehensible language. They grew louder, she felt something nudge her side, and all at once she found herself sitting up, wide-awake. There was just enough dawnlight in the tent for her to see Ebañy. He'd rolled off their sleeping mat and now lay facedown on the floor cloth. He was talking, still in the unknown tongue, but quietly, whimpering now and again. When she leaned over and laid a hand on his shoulder, he woke, flopping over onto his back. For a long moment he merely stared at her; then he sat up, rubbing his face.

“Are you all right?” she murmured.

“Yes, I suppose.” He let his hands fall into his lap. “In the dream I saw terrible things. I can't even remember them now. Monsters, I think they were, in some kind of swamp. But just as I thought I was doomed, someone gave me a message.”

“Do you remember it?”

“Go to Luvilae. That's what they said. Go to Luvilae.”

“Who were they?”

“I don't know. I just don't know.”

All that morning Ebañy brooded, saying not a word to anyone. Finally, Marka asked him what was wrong, but he told her only that he was thinking about his dream.

“We should go to Luvilae,” Ebañy said. “If the rest of the troupe doesn't care to go, well, I'll go alone.”

“They generally do follow where you lead,” Marka said. “But let's tell them and see what they say. It's time for the noon meal anyway.”

Luvilae was the southernmost town on Zama Parae, the southernmost island in the archipelago, a trip that would take them weeks. At first the players grumbled and wondered why they were going out so far, where the profit was slender for a big show like theirs, but along the way they did so well and saved so much coin that in the end they were glad they'd
decided to indulge Ebañy. The morning before they reached Luvilae, in fact, Vinto and Keeta counted up the proceeds, all smiles, while the others gathered around to watch.

“We don't need a copper more to get back to the north safely,” Keeta announced. “And I think Luvilae will toss us more than a copper, don't you?”

The entire troupe cheered. Marka waved her friend over as the rest hurried to strike camp for the day's journey.

“I can't tell you how glad I am to hear that,” Marka said.

“Your man's never let us go hungry yet. But I can't help wondering if he's told you why we're doing this.”