The Dragon Revenant

by Katharine Kerr

  “Why are roses a peculiar omen?” Jill said.

  “Well, my lady Alaena gave me a trinket. I wonder if I brought it along?” Rhodry picked up his saddlebags, which were lying beside him on the ground, and rummaged through until he found a silver pin in the shape of a single rose. “It’s dwarven silver, just like this ring and the silver daggers. It turned up in the Wylinth marketplace.”

  “Stranger and stranger,” Salamander said. “They could have been made by the same hand, or at least the same workshop. Anyway, a long time ago a mysterious stranger gave our father that ring and said it was for one of his sons. Assorted divinations have awarded it to you. I was trying to find you to hand it over when you got yourself abducted.”

  Rhodry was staring at the ring in utter bewilderment.

  “Do we have other brothers?” he said at last.

  “One, a full-blooded elf, he is, and then we have a sister who’s fully elven, and it’s too bad she’s our kin, because she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, well, present company excepted of course.”

  “No need to flatter,” Jill said, smiling. “I’d never pretend that I could ever be as lovely as an elven woman.”

  “You’re certainly as lovely as most, but they all envy our Mellario. And you, younger brother, had three brothers on your mother’s side of the family. Two are dead for certain, alas, and the third, your elder, has most probably ridden through the gates of the Otherlands by now, because when last I heard, he’d suffered a very bad fall from his horse. If I remember correctly, the poor beast rolled on him, too.”

  “Well, that aches my heart.” Rhodry did look distressed. “If I live to reach Aberwyn, I’ll provide for his widow, of course.”

  “That’s good of you, my love,” Jill broke in. “But you know, you actually rather hated your brother Rhys. He certainly hated you. He’s the one who exiled you in the first place.”

  “Truly? Ah, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell! You-can’t know how blasted strange this is, hearing bits and pieces of my life like they were gossip about some other man! Here, elder brother. You’re a sorcerer, and a cursed good one, too. Can’t you do somewhat to mend my mind?”

  “I can’t, though nothing has ever ached my heart more than my incompetence, inability, and sheer lack of knowledge at this juncture.” Salamander arranged a bright smile. “But fear not! We shall eventually take you to a healer of enormous art and repute back in Eldidd, a dweomerman who makes my tricks look like … well, like the silly tricks they are. He’ll heal you right up for sure.”

  “You’re lying.” Rhodry’s voice was perfectly level. “There’s naught that can be done. That’s the truth of it, isn’t it?”

  Salamander started to speak, then merely looked away with a long sigh. Rhodry got up with a defiant toss of his head.

  “Let’s get on the road. If you’re both so sure there’s enemies behind us, I for one don’t want to sit here babbling and wait for them. Let’s hope I remember how to use that new sword you bought me. Cursed if I’ll let Jill do all our fighting.”

  Jill caught her breath in a little grunt.

  “What is it?” Rhodry said.

  “I just remembered the sword you used to carry. It had a dragon worked round for a hand-guard, and your mother’s husband gave it to you, thinking you were his son.”

  “Well then, maybe it’s better off lost. Elder brother, I’ll pay you back the cost of the new one when we reach Aberwyn.”

  “You may not, because I’m giving it to you as a gift. Never before in my life have I felt so keenly that two swords are better than one.”

  When Gwin and his men left Wylinth, Pirrallo led them down a false trail to the south for several days. Even though they never met anyone who’d seen or heard of the wizard, the toad kept insisting he was right until Gwin finally told him that either they retraced their steps or he’d send him straight to Hell to meet the Clawed Ones that very night. Even though he cursed and blustered, Pirrallo finally gave the order to turn around and head north. Since Krysello had spent time performing in the various towns he’d visited, however, their little caravan caught up with his eventually, reaching Albara just a few hours behind him. When they made camp in the public ground provided for merchants, there was no sign of the wizard. In fact, they had the place pretty much to themselves, although the food and wine sellers who came out from the city to hawk their wares not only had heard about Krysello, but knew that he was staying in the city’s only high-class inn. As Gwin bought supplies, he discovered that the wizard had announced a show for that very evening.

  “It’s supposed to be a real marvel, or so I’ve heard,” the fruit seller remarked. “He does it with incenses and powders, but it’s all very convincing.”

  “Oh, we’ll come into town to have a look at that,” Gwin said, smiling. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  When they went into town to see the show, Gwin wore a pair of tall riding boots that laced up the front, a style influenced by but not copied from the barbarians, and cut loose to leave enough room inside for a very thin, very narrow steel dagger. He carried one in each boot. The night was cool and brilliantly clear, the stars glowing steadily, the moon an icy crescent. Even though the marketplace was half deserted, there was a good-sized crowd huddled below the terrace where the wizard Krysello was scheduled to perform, with his incense braziers and red-and-gold drapes already in place. As Gwin and Pirrallo found a spot off to one side, they heard people talking about the show in excited whispers. Some local merchants who’d seen the barbarians over in Pardidion or down in Ronaton had brought descriptions of this “magic” home with them. One of them was standing to Gwin’s left, a fat man in a red cloak, his hands flashing with rings as he gestured and bellowed at a skinny woman dressed in layers of rich silk.

  Pirrallo nudged Gwin in the ribs in an infuriating way and whispered, speaking in the Orystinnian dialect, which would be hard to understand here in Albara.

  “We may not be able to get close to them in this press.”

  “Shouldn’t even try, this first night.” Gwin answered in the same. “All I want to do is follow them back to their inn and see where they’re staying.”

  “That’s probably a good idea.”

  “Only probably?”

  “I’m the one who makes the final decisions now, remember. You’re very good at your line of work, but after what happened in Deblis …”

  Pirrallo actually smiled. Gwin found it amazing, that the toad would be stupid enough to keep baiting one of the best assassins in the islands. It occurred to him then that perhaps the Hawkmaster was testing Pirrallo’s competence as much as anyone’s. Though the thought was intriguing, he had no time to develop it, because the wizard and his two barbarians were strolling out onto the terrace. When the crowd pressed close and clapped in anticipation, Krysello bowed with a flamboyant wave of one hand, and the girl curtsied with the bright grin of a hardened performer, but Rhodry merely stood toward the rear and glowered, as if he felt the whole thing a humiliation. Seeing him again tore at Gwin’s heart.

  “Welcome, welcome, oh exalted folk of Bardek, to my humble and unworthy display of barbarian marvels.” Krysello bowed again before he went on. “Let me say first that I’ve heard crass and contemptible gossip, slanders all of it, stating that I perform my wizardry with chemicals, black wires, powders, hidden patches of glue, and other kinds of vile and vulgar trickery, unfit for your glorious eyes to behold. No, no, no, a hundred times no! Everything you will see tonight is true magic, barbarian witch sorcery as taught in the wild mountains of Deverry.”

  When the crowd giggled, Krysello bowed, grinning.

  “He oozes sincerity, doesn’t he?” Pirrallo muttered. “The man’s a splendid showman.”

  Gwin merely shrugged; marketplace entertainments meant nothing to him. Yet, when Krysello pointed with a flourish at one of the braziers, which burst into a tower of gold fire, Gwin caught his breath just as loudly as the rest of the crowd.

/>   “Brimstone,” said the fat merchant to his wife. “You can tell by the color.”

  Pirrallo nodded a smug agreement as the other brazier bubbled over with yellow smoke and flickering red flames. All at once the wizard burst into a strange wailing song in some language that Gwin didn’t recognize—he suspected it was simple nonsense—and began to juggle knotted silk scarves, which turned rigid in midair and flapped like birds overhead before settling back into his hands. This time the fat man prattled of the aforementioned black wires. As the song ended, the scarves disappeared, and Krysello flung both hands over his head to point at the sky.

  “Behold the marvels of the far north!”

  Some ten feet above him an enormous blue flower of flame burst into existence and floated briefly before dissipating. With an awestruck gasp, the crowd surged, packing tightly together. Gwin could feel the fat man’s elbow poking his ribs and restrained an impulse to turn and hit him. Again the wizard flung up his hands; enormous sheets of gold-and-red fire exploded and rippled. Yet the crowd missed an important part of the show, because all at once, as flower after flower of light appeared in the midst of the flames, Wildfolk erupted into manifestation, sylphs darting back and forth, gnomes dancing and grinning all over the stage, and of course the salamanders, leaping and frolicking in the fires and rainbows that swirled around the wizard. Lightning shot; thunder rumbled; the crowd gasped and shrieked as the wizard sang and leapt about the stage, sporting with the Wildfolk as he worked his marvels. When Gwin caught Pirrallo’s eye, the toad mouthed some words; even though it was impossible to hear, Gwin could guess what he was saying. Real magic. This has to be real magic. There in the sweaty press Gwin felt himself turn ice-cold.

  The forces of the Light were right in front of them, dancing and singing and playing the utter fool, playing it so well that they’d followed this showman for weeks and never once wondered who he might be. As the brilliant colors swept across and dyed the faces of the crowd, Gwin felt his mind racing, turning this way and that like the twisting gold winds on stage as he desperately tried to work out a plan. Beside him Pirrallo was snaking like the contemptible toad he was. All at once the stage fell quiet and empty; Krysello made a languid bow and announced that he was too weary to go on. Laughing and calling out, the crowd dug deep in pouch and pocket and sent a silver rain of coins rattling onto the stage. While the barbarian girl picked them up, the wizard stood to one side, wiping his face on a rag and drinking out of a waterskin.

  “Do you understand what this means?” Pirrallo hissed.

  “What do you think I am, as blind as this stinking herd around us? I can see spirits as well as you do. You can forget using your pitiful little magicks on this man. Leave him to me and cold steel.”

  “Don’t you insult my powers, you slave-born dog! But we’re not doing anything until I contact the master. As soon as we get back to camp, I’ll call him through the black mirror and make a report. He might want to come himself.”

  Gwin said nothing, but he was thinking that the toad-coward was probably right. Howling with laughter Krysello came prancing back to the center of the stage and flung up his arms in a shower of silver sparks. With little yelps of delight the crowd urged him on as he filled the air with plumes of orange-and-blue smoke, all glowy from within. Gwin looked round and saw Rhodry sitting near the red drapes at the rear of the terrace. Although in the shifting colored light reading his expression was difficult, he seemed to be smiling a little as he watched the barbarian girl. All at once Gwin realized who she must be, Rhodry’s woman from Deverry, Jill, he thought her name was. So she’d traveled all this way to find her man, only to die when the Hawks claimed their prize again.

  He didn’t really want to think about what was going to happen to Rhodry once the Hawkmaster got his hands on him, whether Gwin turned him over or their guild leader came to get him himself, but of course, it was impossible not to think about it. Gwin supposed that he’d have to do some of the torturing himself, just to prove himself to the master and the guild. For the briefest of moments he felt paralyzed by revulsion; then all at once, he moved. Somehow he felt that he stood beside himself and watched as his leg jerked up ever so slightly, his hand reached down ever so unobtrusively, and the long dagger sprang into his fingers. On stage Krysello made a triple rainbow that suddenly twisted itself into the figure of a dragon. As everyone sighed and stared, Gwin raised the dagger and slid it between Pirrallo’s ribs, right into the heart. He had it out again and sheathed before a thin trickle of blood even seeped through his victim’s tunic.

  In the packed crowd Pirrallo stayed standing, his head flopped a little back as if he stared at the dragon coiling in the sky. With a twist of his hips Gwin stepped back; the fat man automatically moved sideways to take his place and to prop up, all unconsciously, a corpse. With muttered apologies and servile ducks of his head Gwin made his way through the crowd until at last he was free, out in the nearly deserted marketplace. At first he strolled casually away; then, when he was back in dark streets, he trotted along, but not too fast, as if he were only a slave on an errand. The main road out to the public campground rose steadily, so that by the time he cleared the gates he could look back and see, at some distance down the hill, the glowing flower of Krysello’s fires far behind him.

  Out on the open road he slowed to a walk, strode along and thought of absolutely nothing at all until he saw the campfire of their fake caravan ahead of him. Only then did he truly realize what he’d done. Why he’d done it was still a deeper mystery to him than any dweomer, but he knew he’d have to come up with some sort of story fast.

  “There you are,” Vandar called out. “Where’s Pirrallo?”

  “Dead. I killed him.”

  “You what?” Brinonno leapt to his feet.

  “Killed him. Knifed him, actually.” Gwin paused, letting out his breath in a long sigh and rubbing his face with both hands. “The dog was lapping up wine at the show, and his tongue got loose. By the stinking feet of the Clawed Ones! There were archon’s men all over the marketplace! What if they’d heard him sneering and bragging, saying that once this job was done, he’d have the three of us under his knife? He was supposed to give the Hawkmaster his report on us tonight, and I knew it was going to be bad, so I killed him.”

  They stared at him, simply stared for a long moment of shock.

  “I’ll take a horse and head off on my own. Are you going to try to stop me? Or you can come after me if you dare. Track me down, turn me in, and get a little glory from the guild—if you can.”

  “Don’t talk like an imbecile!” Vandar snapped. “You could kill us both half-asleep, and we all know it.”

  “The question is why we aren’t dead already,” Brinonno said. “You’re carrying two daggers.”

  Gwin laughed, but he stayed on guard.

  “If you want to come into this scheme with me, I could use your help. Between the three of us we can take Rhodry on the road and strike ourselves a real bargain.”

  “How?” Vandar said. “I can’t see the Hawkmaster deigning to talk to traitors.”

  “Who’s talking about the Hawkmaster? There’s more than one faction in the Brotherhood, isn’t there?”

  “So there is.” Brinonno laughed, one sharp bark like a startled fox. “All right, I’ll join you.”

  “Me, too,” Vandar said. “And you know why you can trust us? Because we don’t have any real choice, do we? If we don’t find someone to take us on, we’re going to die slowly ai the hands of the guild no matter what we do.”

  “You’re exactly right.” Gwin felt himself smiling, as lightheaded as a drunk. “And let’s pray to all the demons in Hel] that I can think of some clever way to get in touch with the Hawkmaster’s enemies, or the Clawed Ones will be eating our souls for dinner soon enough.”

  Working as fast as they could, they packed up their gear, roped together their stock, and headed north out of Albara that very night, before the archon’s men could identify Pirrallo’s corpse an
d come asking his so-called servants questions. Since the only road through town ran east and west, and since Krysello had come from the east, Gwin knew what route the wizard would have to take. Although he was new to this part of the island, he was sure that sooner or later, he’d find a good spot for an ambush. Of course, now that he knew that this Krysello was exactly what he claimed to be—a true magician—he would have to think up some subtle plan. With only two men to help him, he wasn’t about to simply charge into the middle of the road and yell, “Stand and deliver” at a dweomermaster.

  As to what he’d do with Rhodry once he had him, well, he’d think of some bargain that would protect the captive as well as the captors. It occurred to him, too, that they might not have to go looking for other factions of the Dark Brotherhood. It could well be that such factions were already looking for them.

  Far away, up in the mountains to the north, the Old One divined that some random factor had changed his plans. He was working in his Temple of Time that night, studying the symbols that he’d constructed on the twelfth floor, the most recent addition to the structure and the one that reflected his plan to destroy Nevyn. This temple was a curious thing. Although the imagery had acquired a certain dweomer over the years, at root it was only a conscious mental structure akin to the memory palaces used routinely by merchants and civil servants all over the islands. At the top of an imaginary hill he’d built in his mind a tall, square tower, made of white stone. One side was in full sunlight, to represent the knowable past and present; the other, in moonlight, to represent the less-than-knowable future. After years of work, the mental images were so well developed that he had only to think of the tower to see it whole and invariable; after equally long years of practice at mental concentration, he could walk in and look round as if it were a real building.

  There were four entrances, and in the center was a spiral staircase of fifty-two steps that led to twelve levels, where each wall had seven windows. On the twelfth floor he’d placed symbolic statues and objects that would indicate how the winds of Fate and the Future were affecting his complicated scheme, just as a weathercock on a farmer’s barn is an indicator of the wind and thus, at times, of changes in the weather. Since his long-range goal was the destruction of the elven race, he’d put four statues of elves round the staircase, two men and two women. He was hoping to see them begin to age or sicken, but so far they’d stayed stubbornly healthy and young. There were times, in fact, when he caught them laughing at him.