The Dragon Revenant

by Katharine Kerr

  She was, of course, quite right. Since she knew her mother’s house so well, she discovered the hiding place immediately. The ceiling was laced together from woven wicker panels, daubed with cheap plaster and whitewashed; right at the joining of ceiling and wall one panel sagged. As a child she’d hidden coppers and other treasures she’d picked up from the streets between that sag and the thatch, and there she found Merryc’s saddlebags. For a long time, though, she was afraid to touch them. She fussed around, setting the second trap and baiting both with the bacon rinds, looking continually out the window to keep watch for the lodger, and then finally summoning her courage. It would be foolish, she decided, to go to all this trouble and then not even have a look.

  When she tried, however, to slide the pair of leather bags out of the cache, they stuck. It felt exactly like someone was on the other end and pulling them back. She yelped, stifled the scream with both hands crammed over her mouth, and nearly ran from the room there and then, telling herself that, after all, now she knew the worst. Still, if she were going to carry out, her plan, she needed better proof of Merryc’s sorcererhood than one bewitchment that might just turn out to be a bent nail snagging a seam. This time she carefully slid her hand along the bags, found the bone toggle that held the flap closed, and unwound the tie without trying to remove the saddlebags at all. Her ploy worked; she could slip her hand all the way into the bag. She took one last nervous look out the window, then went fishing in Merryc’s gear.

  She could feel perfectly ordinary things at first—socks, an awl for mending leatherwork such as a peddler might need for his pack on the road, a bag of small coins—then her fingers struck a metal disk that had the greasy feel of lead. Merely touching it made her feel uneasy; when she drew it out, she nearly screamed again. It was hanging from a leather strap, so that it had a clear top and bottom, and graved on it was the upside-down pentagram, the star of evil. She shoved it back in, then bolted from the room, clattering down the wooden stairs and out, running full-tilt to the public well so she could wash her hands in the open trough, over and over again even though the water was cold and she had no soap.

  By the time she felt clean enough, it was growing dark. Glomer hurried back to the tavern and the light and warmth of her mother’s fire.

  “And where have you been?” Sama said.

  “Setting rat traps, Mam.”

  “Well, my thanks, my sweet. I’ve heard them rustling about for days now.”

  Glomer tried to smile and knelt down at the hearth to lay the bakestones into the embers. Merryc returned not five minutes later, striding through the tavern on his way to the stairs up.

  “Oh, Merryc?” Sama called out. “We’ve had to put traps for the rats upstairs. Be careful you don’t spring them.”

  “I will, then. This winter weather seems to drive them inside.”

  “It does, truly, it does.”

  Even so, Glomer spent all evening in a state of nerves, wondering if he would notice that someone had touched his hidden saddlebags, but he never said a word to her.

  In the morning she was faced with the most difficult part of her plan. As soon as her mother’s back was turned, she left the tavern room, grabbed her old, patched cloak from upstairs, and slipped out the back alley without anyone seeing her. Once she reached the main streets, she slowed to a steady walk and made her way uphill to the gwerbret’s dun. There she hesitated one last time, because men stood on guard, pacing back and forth in the open gateway.

  “You, lass!” one of them called. “What do you want?”

  Although she badly wanted to bolt, she made herself go over and drop him a curtsey.

  “Please, sir, I’m a friend of Nonna’s, who works in the kitchen, and her mother asked me to take her a message.”

  “Oh, well and good, then. Go on through. See the main broch? The kitchen hut’s all the way round back, by the well.”

  Her heart was pounding like a galloping horse as she walked into the ward. Although she’d been by the gates and peered inside many a time, never before had she actually been allowed in. Yet in a way, the dun was disappointing, not much more than an extension of the city with its clutter of huts and sheds, the hurrying servants and the chickens and hogs in pens. She had a hard time locating the cookhouse, but by asking for Nonna she eventually found herself at the back door of the great hall, where, standing in the curve of the wall, her friend was polishing tankards with a rag. The great hall, with its slate floors, enormous hearths, and carved tables, did a better job of living up to her expectations, and for a moment she merely goggled at all the finery. Then Nonna saw her and came hurrying over.

  “What are you doing here? Is somewhat wrong at home?”

  “It’s not, but, Nonna, please help me. Do you remember that peddler who’s lodging with us? He’s an evil sorcerer. I’ve seen proof. I was thinking maybe that the man named Nevyn that you’re always talking about would—”

  “Oh, he’s not going to have time for the likes of you!”

  “Well, what about the captain then?”

  “I’m not going to waste his time on your wild tales.”

  “But if you took me to meet Cullyn, you’d have a chance to speak with him yourself, wouldn’t you?”

  The bribe was irresistible. Nonna giggled, glanced round the hall, then slipped her arm through Glomer’s.

  “Come along. He’s just sitting down at table.”

  The sight of Cullyn, tall and fierce with his scar-slashed face, was almost enough to freeze Glomer’s tongue in her head, but she managed to drop him a respectable curtsey while Nonna introduced her as a friend from down in town. Cullyn slewed round in his chair and scowled at her.

  “Out with it, lass. What brings you to me?”

  “My mam runs a tavern, sir, and there’s this man lodging with us. He says he’s a peddler, but he’s really a sorcerer. I found a piece of jewelry in his saddlebags with the star of evil graved upon it when I was setting rattraps in his chamber.”

  As soon as she’d blurted it out, she felt like a fool, babbling of sorcerers to such an important man, but Cullyn whistled sharply under his breath.

  “Oh, did you now? Come along with me, lass. We’d best go straight to Nevyn. Nonna, my thanks. Go back to your work.”

  Blushing and envious, Nonna did just that as Glomer followed the captain from the great hall and into a side tower. As they climbed up and up a spiraling iron staircase, Glomer was staring at all the tapestries hanging on the stone walls and the elaborately cast silver sconces—never in her life had she seen so many fine things in one place. Finally they came to a landing and a wooden door. When Cullyn knocked, it was opened by an old man whose piercing ice-blue eyes and bristling eyebrows raised in a frozen glare made the captain seem as sweet and gentle as a little lamb.

  “What is it now?” he snarled. “Oh, my apologies, Cullyn. I thought it was one of the pages. They’ve been interrupting my work all blasted morning. What have we here?”

  “A lass with an interesting tale, my lord. I think me you’d best hear it.”

  Nevyn ushered them inside to his reception chamber and insisted that Glomer sit in a cushioned chair by the window while he took a plain chair opposite her and Cullyn stood by the door. Since she’d never been up so high in her life, the view out and down to the harbor made her feel dizzy, and she kept her gaze firmly inside after one quick look. She started with Merryc’s arrival, told them about the Widow Dacra’s sure test for sorcery, and finished up with her discovering the lead disk in his gear.

  “I know it was wrong of me to go through his things, my lords, but I was so frightened. I don’t know why he got my wind up so badly, my lords, but he just did, and here were me and Mam all alone with him and all.”

  “Oh, you did the right thing, lass,” Nevyn said. “No doubt about that. Captain, go fetch a couple of your lads and meet us down by the front gate, will you? I think we’d best take this Merryc under arrest.”

  “He really is an evil sorcerer?�
� Glomer squeaked.

  “He is. What’s this?” Nevyn smiled at her. “You didn’t truly believe it yourself before now, did you?”

  She shook her head no and realized that she felt very weak and strange inside. Nevyn poured a swallow of mead into a goblet from a pitcher on the table and insisted she choke the fiery stuff down. Once she stopped coughing, she felt much better.

  “Very well, lass. You take me and the captain to your mother’s tavern, and then leave the rest to us. I’ll see you get a reward for your sharp eyes, too.”

  “Oh please, my lord.” Here was the crux of her plan, and Glomer arranged a humble smile. “All I’d truly want for a reward is a job here in the dun. I’m good at waiting on tables and washing pots and suchlike.”

  “Indeed? Well then, I’ve no doubt I can get you one. Now let’s go put our stoat of a sorcerer into his cage.”

  On his way out, Cullyn stopped by the armory and got a pair of stout leather thongs, then went on to the great hall and rounded up Amyr and Praedd, who’d been dicing for straws over their morning tankards of ale. He took them down to the main gates, where Nevyn and the lass from town were already waiting.

  “We want this to be quiet, like,” the old man said. “If you can manage it anyway, captain.”

  “Oh, I think we can trick him, my lord. A peddler, is he? Everyone knows they’re the first ones suspected if somewhat’s been stolen.” He turned to the girl. “Think he’ll be in your tavern when we get there?”

  “He should be. My mam always serves a meal about now.”

  When they reached the street of the Three Swans, Cullyn left the girl with Nevyn by the public well, then sent Praedd, a strong and beefy sort, round to the tavern’s back door while he and Amyr walked in the front. There was a fair amount of custom in the smokey room: a tableful of sailors drinking by the door, a couple of longshoremen eating bread and bacon by the hearth and jesting with a gray-haired woman who already looked drawn and pale with exhaustion, here an hour before noon. At a table by himself was the man who fit the description that Glomer had given. As soon as he saw two of the regent’s men come in the front door, the fellow got up and started for the back—only to find it filled with Praedd, who clamped his massive hands onto the fellow’s shoulders and held him while the captain made his way over. The longshoremen snickered and the sailors all leaned forward to get a better look.

  “Come along, lad,” Cullyn said. “A merchant over on the street of goldsmiths says someone walked off with some trinkets of his.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me,” Merryc snarled. “I know a stranger always gets blamed for every cursed thing that goes wrong, but I didn’t take anything from anyone.”

  “I’ll just be asking you a few questions. Come along nice and peaceful like, and you’ll be back here by dinnertime.”

  Merryc allowed himself to be shoved out the back door. Although he snarled and swore when Cullyn bound his hands behind his back, he did little else to put up a fuss, at least at first.

  “All right, Amyr. Go fetch Nevyn, and then go upstairs with the old man to get this fellow’s gear.”

  Merryc howled and threw himself to one side, kicking out, desperately trying to twist free of Pratdd’s hands, writhing and squeaking like a rat in a terrier’s jaws until Cullyn drew his sword, reversed it, and knocked him hard over the head with the hilt. Praedd laid the unconscious man down on the ground and knelt to bind his ankles together.

  “When you’re done, go ask those longshoremen if they want to earn a couple of coppers,” Cullyn said. “Cursed if I’ll carry this little bastard back to the dun.”

  The longshoremen were indeed willing, and once Nevyn and Amyr had retrieved the prisoner’s belongings, they all set off to carry the sorcerer to justice. Since they collected curious children on the way, and a gaggle of adult loiterers too, it was in something of a festive parade that Merryc was marched into the gwerbret’s dun and dumped into a stout cell in the gaol out back of the broch. Nevyn paid off the longshoremen, sent the children on their way with them, then knelt down on the dirty straw beside their prize.

  “I hope I didn’t hit him too hard,” Cullyn said.

  “Oh, he’ll live to stand his trial. Fetch me a bucket of well water, will you?”

  As soon as the water hit his face, the prisoner began to moan and flop from side to side, but when he opened his eyes to find Nevyn leaning over him, he went dead-still, staring at the old man like the proverbial rabbit at a ferret.

  I think me you know who I am, Nevyn said with a grim little smile. “Good. You can bargain with me, lad. Everything you know for your life.”

  Merryc smiled briefly and looked away to stare up at the ceiling.

  “I keep my word, lad.”

  “I know that, and no doubt you would spare me—to rot in the gwerbret’s gaol until my own guild came to kill me. Even if you let me go free, they’d hunt me down sooner or later. Always running, always waiting for the feel of the knife—what kind of a life is that? And it’s the only one you can offer me.”

  “And what if we find ways to make you talk anyway?”

  “Oh, and do you expect me to believe you’d lay one hot iron on me? You? The mincing milksop Master of the Aethyr? You don’t have the guts, old man, and you know it.”

  Cullyn swore aloud at hearing Nevyn addressed so disrespectfully, but the old man merely smiled, a sad and rueful twist of his mouth.

  “I don’t, at that.” Nevyn sat back on his heels and considered the bound man. “But it’s a true pity that you can’t understand why.”

  “Guild, he said?” Cullyn broke in. “What’s he talking about?”

  “Assassins. Come now, you must have heard a whisper or two about the Hawks of Bardek when you were a silver dagger.”

  “Well, so I did. Then he’s right enough, my lord. He doesn’t have a candleflame’s chance in the three hells.”

  “Oh, I agree. It just aches my heart, that’s all.” The old man got up, dusting off the knees of his brigga. “I need to go talk to the tieryn. Leave Praedd and Amyr here on guard, will you?”

  “I will. Have you gotten a chance to look through his gear yet?”

  “Just the merest peek—but that was enough to hang him.”

  Before they left the cell, Cullyn untied the prisoner, and they left Merryc sitting slumped in one corner, his head on his knees like a naughty child. Nevyn wasn’t content with simply barring the door from the outside; he insisted that the gaoler bring out one of his rare and precious padlocks and chain the bar to the staples. Then the old man took Praedd and Amyr aside.

  “Now whatever you do, don’t look him in the face, lads. He’ll try to make you do it. He’ll probably taunt you at first, then maybe pretend he’s sick or dying, but ignore him. If by some odd chance he does die, well, he’s spared us the time spent hanging him, so well and good, say I. When it comes time to give him food and water, fetch me before you open the cell. You’ll have to, actually—I purloined the key when the gaoler’s back was turned.”

  “My lord?” Amyr said. “What’ll happen if we look at him?”

  “He’ll try to ensorcel you, of course.”

  Amyr’s lips parted in an “oh,” but no sound came.

  While Nevyn went back to the broch to find the regent, Cullyn shooed the last of the loiterers out of the ward and sent the servants back about their business, too, but he did allow Glomer to wait in the kitchen hut with Nonna. It’s too bad, he thought, that Nonna doesn’t have half her friend’s common sense and a quarter of her wits—enough to leave a man like me alone, anyway. Since he wasn’t blind, he knew perfectly well that the lass was flirting with him for all she was worth. He decided to have a word with Cook later and ask her to put an end to it, then started back to the great hall.

  “Cullyn, Cullyn!” It was Tevylla, running across the ward with her skirts hiked up like a farm lass. “Rhodda’s gone off somewhere!”

  “Ye gods! When?”

  “Just now. She was playing with her
grandmother when Nevyn came in, and the poor child was so incensed that our lady went off with him that she dashed out the door before I half realized what was happening. I’ve got every page and serving lass in the dun searching the broch for her, but I’ll wager she went outside. She always does head for the open air when somewhat’s troubling her.”

  “So she does. The stables are a good wager. She loves the horses.”

  Yet as they were hurrying across the ward, it occurred to Cullyn that Rhodda had once been the object of the dark dweomer’s attack, and that they had a dark dweomerman in the dun.

  “Come on! This way!”

  He set off at a trot with her running to keep up as they dodged through the huts and sheds in the crowded ward. Just as they turned round the armory by the gaol, they saw Amyr rushing out to meet them.

  “Captain! We’ve got to fetch Nevyn. Somewhat truly weird is happening.”

  “Nevyn’s in the chamber of justice with the tieryn,” Tevylla said, panting a little. “Hurry, lad!”

  Merryc’s cell was at the end of a narrow corridor. As Cullyn ran down, he could see Praedd, cursing and writhing and swatting at the air as if he were being attacked by huge and invisible wasps. The padlock and its chain were jingling furiously, slipping this way and that on the bar but not, of course, ever coming free, hedged by the staples as they were.

  “Old Nevyn’s a farsighted man,” Cullyn remarked. Almost in spite of himself he was remembering the time when Jill was a tiny lass and used to prattle about seeing the Wildfolk. If nothing else, he decided, it was worth a try. “All right, Praedd, I’m here. Hang on a bit.”

  Cullyn set his hands on his hips and glared at the air right by the lad’s head.

  “Stop that all of you right now, or Nevyn’s going to be as mad as mad, and so will I.”