The Dragon Revenant

by Katharine Kerr

  “He might find out.”

  “Now, now, I …” Nevyn hesitated, thinking hard, trying to remember something that Perryn had once mentioned about himself. “Here, lad, after you met up with Rhodry, you started following Jill again. How did you know where she’d gone?”

  “It’s just this thing I can do. Like, er, like charming horses. I can just do it.”

  “Very well, but what is it that you’re doing?”

  “Finding somewhat that I love, like a home or my cousin or Jill. It’s this feeling. When I’m pointed the right way, I feel splendid, and when I’m pointed the wrong way, I feel rotten at heart.”

  “Do you now? You know, this could come in very handy indeed. Tell you what, lad, you can sail with me after aU.”

  “Sail?” Perryn’s voice rose to a squeak. “In a ship? All the way to Cerrmor?”

  “Just that.”

  “I can’t do that. I’ll be sick the whole beastly way. I’d rather face Cullyn than be seasick again, truly I would.”

  “Too bad. You were the one who was just talking about restitution, weren’t you? And you’ll get used to the motion after a while.”

  Out of simple mercy Nevyn omitted telling him their real destination. Bardek lay many more days of sailing away than Cerrmor did.

  When the day of departure finally came, it dawned utterly windless. Since Nevyn had no desire to call the wind on shore where all of Aberwyn could watch him, Elaeno badgered the harbormaster into providing a crew of longshoremen and yelled at the gwerbret’s fleetmaster till he allowed the Bardekian to press a couple of galleys into service as tugs. From somewhere these harried officials found plenty of ropes as thick as a man’s arm and poles the same. Once they had the necessary equipment, the Bardekian’s first mate took over and showed everyone how to link the merchantman to the galleys. Elaeno and Nevyn got out of the way and stood on the stern deck of his ship, the Harban Datzolan, which translates out, more or less, to the Guaranteed Profit.

  “I don’t know why they’re carrying on so,” Elaeno remarked to Nevyn. “Every harbor in Bardek has tugs and suchlike for days like this. You can often pick up a bit of breeze out on the open sea when it’s still as death in harbor.”

  “Indeed? Well, I’m afraid I know very little about ships and sailing.”

  “You don’t need to. You get me the wind, and I’ll get us to Surtinna. By the way, I’ve got Perryn tied up down in the hold. Once we’re well out of port, I’ll release him, but I didn’t want him jumping overboard at the last minute.”

  Oars flashing, the improvised tugs headed out, the ropes groaning and creaking as they tightened, and the heavy merchantman began to move as the longshore crew shoved it away from the pier with their poles. Nevyn settled himself on a couple of crates in the bow and looked up at the top of the mast, where the blue-and-silver dragon pennant of the gwerbrets of Aberwyn hung flaccid in the windless cold. Elaeno stood casually in front of him, effectively shielding him with his vast bulk while he gave orders to his first mate. Nevyn shut out the sound of their voices and gathered himself, calling in his mind on the Kings of Air as he let himself sink into a state close to trance. Up on the mast the pennant stirred and fluttered as they came, announcing that they remembered their promise to the Master of the Aethyr. Elaeno glanced up, then yelled at the men on the towropes to get ready to throw them clear. Nevyn imaged the flaming pentagram and placed it far astern. Now, he thought, let the wind come!

  With a roar and a whistle the squall rushed out, a channel of wind not more than thirty feet wide, streaming over the sea and striping the water dark as it ran. With a slap it hit the sails, and the ship bounded forward like a kicked dog.

  “Throw those ropes!” Elaeno bellowed. “Get ‘em clear, or we’ll be dragging the cursed tugs to Bardek with us!”

  The men heaved the ropes clear just as the ship raced between the two galleys and burst free of the harbor. Except for Elaeno, every man on board was utterly silent, staring at their arrow-straight wake or glancing furtively round as if they were afraid to look each other in the eye. In a storm of foul curses Elaeno bellowed orders and got them moving, some rushing aloft to trim the sails, others below to shift ballast and cargo. After making a few adjustments to the wind’s direction and speed, Nevyn got up and stretched. Far behind, Eldidd was already fading to a smear on the horizon.

  “By the Holy Stars themselves,” the first mate whispered. “I’ve never seen a wind like this before.”

  “Savor it,” Elaeno said. “Doubtless you never will again.”

  For days the storm clouds had lain like sheared fleeces over the Surtinna foothills. Even when it wasn’t actually raining, a thick mist shrouded the view and clung to the wet cloaks of the Great if Utterly Glum Krysello and his sneezing band of barbarians while the wind blew steadily, so cold that Jill assumed that it must be snowing up in the high mountains. The one good thing she could say about the weather was that being miserable was keeping her mind off the Hawks. The entire world seemed to have shrunk to the constant struggle to keep moving through wet and cold. Since they were off the road the footing was next to impossible—trails that were deep mud or grassy hillsides so saturated that the sod split like overripe fruit under the horses’ hooves. At times a horse would fall, and its panic would spread through the long line of stock. Calming them again would waste precious time, until Jill was ready to simply turn the entire herd loose to fend for itself. Oddly enough, to her way of thinking, it was always Salamander who insisted they keep all the horses with them for as long as possible.

  The nights’ camps brought no real rest or respite. It was another struggle to find decent grazing for the horses and to keep the humans’ meager provisions dry. Lighting a fire was out of the question, even with Salamander’s dweomer; not only would the light announce their presence to possible enemies, but there was quite simply no dry wood. At night no one could sleep properly in wet blankets; there was no natural shelter except for the tangled and thorny underbrush or the occasional stand of boulders. They all began talking less and less, since every word seemed to come out as a snarl or a snap that set off an argument.

  Through it all Jill kept a strict watch on Gwin, even though his devotion to Rhodry was so doglike that it turned her stomach. Late one afternoon, as she and Salamander were tethering out the riding horses together out of earshot of the others, Jill brought up her suspicions.

  “Even if he doesn’t mean to betray us, how do I know the Hawks aren’t still using him? Couldn’t they make some sort of link with his mind and just follow him like a beacon?”

  “They could, but they haven’t, my dubious dove. I scrutinized him most thoroughly and found naught.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Certain? Certain, positive, convinced, and quite quite sure.” He paused in his work to look her over with shrewd eyes. “Jealous, are you?”

  “Just what do you mean, you rotten elf?”

  “Just what I said. Everywhere our Rhodry goes, there’s’ Gwin, gazing at him fondly and hanging on his every word and smile like a lover. And there’s Rhodry, who may or may not be flattered—but he doesn’t ask him to stop.”

  For a moment Jill felt like hitting him, just for pointing out what she’d been trying not to see.

  “I’d be jealous, too, if I were you,” Salamander went on, somewhat hastily. “I’m not belittling you, mind. But here, my sagacious sparrow, ponder this. It’s not Rhodry that Gwin’s in love with, but his own salvation. Ye gods, think of how he must feel! For the first time in his life, he has hope, he has a future, he has honor … of course he’s englamored. But he can’t understand that—Hawks are not trained in the subtleties of the mind, after all—so he gives our Rhodry all the credit and worships him.”

  “Well, truly, I see your point. But …”

  “It gripes your soul anyhow? Please don’t throw that peg at me, my turtledove. It’ll leave an ugly bruise.”

  With the sixth dawn, the sun finally broke through the cl
ouds. As the mist rolled back, they could see that not only did the trail they’d been following peter out into a ravine, but also that the archon’s road lay only half-a-mile downhill and to the west of their camp. After a brief argument, Jill agreed that they’d better take the road and make some speed. Just at noon the sky began to clear before a south-running wind. Although everyone’s mood began to clear along with it, and Jill was as glad as anyone at the prospect of getting dry, still she felt uneasy without their water-shield around them. When she trotted her horse up to the head of the line next to Salamander, she found him anxious as well.

  “I’d hoped we could hide in the rain until we reached Pastedion, my turtledove, but such, alas, is not the case.”

  “How close do you think our enemies are?”

  For an answer he merely shrugged. Although the hills rose steep on their left hand, the road was winding level here along the hp of a canyon to their right. Some fifty yards down she could see the rush of white water among the trees.

  “We’ll reach Pastedion on the morrow,” Salamander said abruptly. “If we reach it, that is. I feel danger like a stink around us.”

  “So do I. I was thinking, if we could work with Gwin, maybe we could scry our enemies out.”

  “I like that ‘we,’ my most magical magpie. Well, perhaps we could, but truly, I rather dread the idea. Opening a link to Gwin’s charming little mind will not be the most pleasant of experiences.”

  “Neither would dying at the hands of the Hawks.”

  “Um, well, truly. How clearly and succinctly you put things! We’ll see if we can talk him into it.”

  “Well and good, then. We should stop for the noon meal soon and rest the horses. The poor beasts have been through an ordeal of their own this past eightnight or so.”

  “True spoken, but I want to make another mile or so before we stop.” Salamander looked profoundly sly. “There’s somewhat I want you to see.”

  They were traveling here through a huge, V-shaped valley, with the river churning at the bottom point of the V and their road clinging to the left side, about halfway up the hills. After some minutes Jill heard an odd sound ahead, like the buzzing of an enormous swarm of bees, which slowly grew louder and louder as they rode until it resolved itself into the pour of a waterfall. The road made one last twist and came, all of a sudden, clear of the V-shaped valley to end on a flat stretch of ground, the top of a cliff, while farther down on their right hand the canyon it had been bordering merely ended, as abruptly as if a giant had cut the cliff with a spade. Laced with rainbows the waterfall roared and thundered, plunging straight down thousands of feet to a long open valley far below. With a whoop that was half-fear, half-delight, Jill flung up her hand for a halt. Snorting and milling, the exhausted stock came to a stop and at last stood quiet enough to let Rhodry and Gwin ride up beside her. When she twisted round in the saddle, she could see half a hill behind her, the dome sliced through as if by that hypothetical giant’s knife. Across the valley, partly hidden by mists, rose its counterpart, sliced just as cleanly into another steep cliff. Beyond that hill she could see mountains rising into white-glinting peaks that marched off to the horizon.

  “What made this valley?” she screamed at Salamander. “Dweomer?”

  “Don’t know.” He yelled back. “The Wildfolk say ice did it, lots and lots of ice years and years ago, but that’s impossible.”

  Screeching at each other over the thundering water-noise, they dismounted and rationed out the last of the grain to the riding mounts and pack animals while the extra horses had to make do with scruffy grass. Frightened though she was of possible pursuit, Jill decided that they simply had to give the stock a rest, because the only way down the cliff was a switchbacked trail, not more than four feet wide, hacked—and roughly—into the living rock. She hated thinking of the government slaves who’d been forced to cut that trail; some, no doubt, had died in the making.

  Munching on a chunk of stale flatbread she walked over to the waterfall and stared down at the veil of mist floating as much as falling down to the valley floor. It fed the continuation of the north-south river they’d been following, which joined another, winding roughly east to west. The valley itself ran along this second river for miles—she could see neither end of it—and while there were trees clustered all along the rivers, the rest of the valley floor seemed to be the usual Bardekian grassland. At the moment, though, the grass was greening from the roots up, so that it seemed gold gauze lay over green silk all across the valley, and the trees were rain-washed glossy, like malachite beads in the sun. In a moment Salamander came over to join her. He pointed down at the trail and grinned.

  “Hope you’re not afraid of heights!” he yelled.

  She shook her head no to save her voice.

  “Come with me,” he went on at the same high volume. “Somewhat else to show you.”

  Back where the road emerged from the hills, the shoulder sloped gradually enough to allow them to scrabble up the shrubby grade and climb partway up the hill. As they moved slowly round to the valley view, they also angled away from the falls sufficiently to hear themselves talk again.

  “Actually I wanted a private word with you,” Salamander said.

  “I assumed that. Is Gwin cutting up rough about working with us?”

  “I’m afraid so. Apparently he sees surrendering his will, even for the briefest of moments, as a grave defeat and insult. He’s not accusing us of insulting him, mind—rationally he knows he should help—but he finds the idea so revolting that I doubt if he’ll be able to do it.”

  “That’s torn it, then! We’ll have to rely on the Wildfolk. They’ve been good about warning us so far.”

  “Relying on the Wildfolk, my petite partridge, is one of the better ways to suffer a bitter disappointment.”

  “Oh, of course, but there’s naught else to do.”

  “Well, unfortunately, there is somewhat else, but I say unfortunate because it’s incredibly dangerous.” By then the steep climb was making him pant a little. “To me, that is, who’s the one who’d be doing it if we do it at all.”

  “Scrying in a trance?”

  “Worse than that. Flying. Like Aderyn.”

  “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “Well, I just barely learned. That’s what makes it so dangerous.”

  “Without you the rest of us are doomed. This is no time for cheap heroics.”

  “Exactly what I’d hoped you’d say.”

  They shared a grin and saved their breath for the climb. At last they came to the crest, some five hundred feet above the cliff edge, and could look down the long valley to the west. Jill swore aloud at still another marvel lying there, a lake about a mile across and so achingly blue that it looked like a piece of sky trapped among the trees. It was also circular, so perfectly so that again she thought of government slaves. Salamander waved an arm in its direction and assumed his portentous wizard’s voice.

  “Behold the Navel of the World.”

  “Ye gods, is that what the Bardekians call it? Why did they go to all the trouble to dig a pond like that?”

  “They didn’t. It’s been here forever, or so the priests tell me. The Wildfolk say it was made by a huge stone that fell out of the sky after the aforementioned ice carved the valley. That’s what I mean about trusting the Wildfolk, my turtle-dove, or spirits in general. They mean well, but they have no wits. If they don’t know the truth about somewhat, they’ll make up a fantastic story just because they want to help their friends so badly.”

  “I see. Well, dogs don’t have any wits either, but they bark loud enough when someone’s at your gate.”

  “Now that is true spoken, and a sign of hope. And, as you say, there’s not a lot else we can do. When we’re making camp tonight, you and I shall ask our little friends to keep watch for us.”

  “If we live to reach the valley floor. That trail frightens me.”

  “I’ve ridden down it before, actually. You’ve got t
o trust the horses. They want to live as badly as we do, and they’re the ones with sure feet.”

  “If you say so. And where’s Pastedion?”

  “Just beyond the lake. If it weren’t so misty you could make it out, so we’re not too far from sanctuary. Unless we want to lame and founder these horses, once we reach the valley floor they’re going to have to take their leisure like lords for the rest of the day.”

  After a few minutes more rest they set out, Jill riding at the head of the line, Rhodry next, then Gwin, and finally Salamander, taking the rear—and the dust that would make seeing difficult—because he knew the trail. Although Jill had to coax her horse onto the trail, once he started he settled down, as if in his dull equine way he realized that he’d be better off getting it over with, and the extra stock that she was leading came along steadily after him. The trail turned out to be a scant three feet wide except at the switchbacks, where it widened like the scour of a river’s bends to about eight feet across, just barely room enough for a clever horse to turn himself round. Occasionally the cliff face bulged out, forcing her to lie along her horse’s neck as they squeezed past, because leaning out and away would have been a dangerous maneuver indeed. Yet, so long as she didn’t look down over the edge, she found the going much easier than she’d expected.

  At the bottom, where the trail widened into a proper road, heading off to join the river, there was a tall slab of stone covered with Bardekian writing. Jill went some yards past it, then paused her horses and turned in the saddle to watch the others, an understandable impulse that was something of a mistake. When she saw Rhodry coming down, with his horse apparently crawling like a fly on the cliff face, she felt honestly faint, sick to her stomach, and light-headed as she clung to her saddle peak and wondered what had ever possessed her to make a ride like that. She didn’t look again until all three of the men were safe and Rhodry was beside her.

  “I couldn’t watch when you were riding down, my love,” he said. “But doing it myself wasn’t so bad.”