The Dragon Revenant

by Katharine Kerr

  “Enough!” Nevyn caught her wrist from behind.

  “But, my lord! After what he did to me! I’ll kill him!”

  “You won’t, and because I say so. Naught that I could say would talk you out of it, so leave him alone because I order you to.”

  That she could accept—barely. She shook off’ the old man’s grip and strode over to Rhodry, who was standing at the head of his warband—she could think of the men no other way, now that he was with them—and watching her with a small, approving smile.

  “Do you remember that stinking little weasel?” she said.

  “Entirely too well. I caught him on the road, you know, after you’d left him. The gray gnome guided me right there, and I beat the demons out of his heart and hide and the filth out of his guts. It’s a lovely memory, that one.”

  “Why didn’t you kill him?”

  “I swore a vow that I wouldn’t.” Rhodry frowned, thinking hard. “I don’t remember why now, or what god presided. But a vow’s a vow.”

  “It is, truly. Well and good, then—I just wondered.”

  “As well you might. But here, my love, I’ve been aping a man with a memory, sure enough, but that doesn’t mean I have one. That old man, Galrion, the one you keep calling ‘no one? Who by all the hells is he?”

  She felt then as Perryn must have when her fist punched gut into backbone. All her despair came flooding back, a wondering if Rhodry would ever be well again, if he couldn’t even remember Nevyn.

  “A man you can trust with your life, and the greatest sorcerer in all Deverry, just for starters.” She managed to force out a reassuring smile. “I’ll tell you about his other talents later.”

  Since he agreed with Brother Merrano that the priests of Dalae-oh-contremo had endured enough armed barbarians within their walls, Nevyn sent Salamander, Perryn, and Praedd back to the temple to round up the gear and horses left behind, then took everyone else to an inn that Merrano recommended: a large, clean place run by a pious man and, better yet, surrounded by a high wall with iron spikes embedded in the plaster on top. This time of year, fortunately, they had the compound pretty much to themselves, and Jill, rather to Nevyn’s surprise, had an amazing amount of hard coin to give the innkeep to ensure that they would continue to do so.

  “Where did you get all that silver?”

  “Ah well.” Briefly she turned furtive. “We earned it, actually, but you’d best ask Salamander how.”

  “Very well, then. Here, Amyr! You and the rest of the men will be sleeping in what’s usually the common room upstairs. Get them settled, then stay out here to wait for Salamander and the others. Tell Perryn to sleep out in the stable with the horses. Don’t worry about him arguing—he’ll prefer it.”

  And he’ll be safer there, too, Nevyn thought somewhat grimly—from Jill, that is. When he’d brought Perryn along, he’d forgotten that Jill would be less than pleased to see the man she saw as a deliberate tormentor. While he understood her feelings, he also had no desire to see Perryn beaten to death right in front of him.

  Once Salamander returned, he, Jill, Rhodry, and Gwin all crowded into the tiny reception chamber of Nevyn’s suite and sat on the floor while Nevyn paced restlessly back and forth. Although he knew that they were all waiting for him to speak, he found it hard to begin, because they were expecting him to solve every problem while he knew exactly how tangled the situation had become. Finally he decided to begin with the easiest strand of this web to unwind and pointed at Gwin.

  “Who are you anyway, lad?”

  Licking nervous lips Gwin only looked at Rhodry.

  “He was a Hawk, my lord,” Rhodry said. “But he’s my man now, and I’ll vouch for him.”

  Nevyn turned to Gwin, caught his glance when the man tried to look away, and switched to the dweomer sight that could bore deep into a soul. For a moment other eyes flickered before his—blue and hard and cold, but at root somehow bewildered—and with the snatch of vision came the sound of a man crying, one who hadn’t mourned in years. Then it faded, leaving him puzzled and Gwin terrified, shrinking back into his corner of the tiny room, trying to speak but only mouthing soundless words.

  “I won’t hurt you, lad. If Rhodry says you’ve changed allegiance, then I’ll believe him.”

  Gwin swallowed heavily, sighed once, and found his voice.

  “I’ll tell you everything I know about the Hawks. I was only a journeyman, not a master, but everything I know, I’ll tell you gladly.”

  “Good. Later we’ll have a small private chat, you and I. Oh come now, don’t look so frightened. It’ll be a good bit easier than your initiation was, I’m sure.” Suddenly weary, Nevyn sat down on the edge of the miniature dais. “I can see that I need more information before I can make the hard decisions I have to make. Rhodry lad, let’s start with you. After that stupid Cerrgonney feud wound down, what happened? Why did you head for Cerrmor?”

  “I can’t tell you, my lord. I don’t remember. Oh, of course,-you don’t know yet. They took my memory away. I only remember bits and pieces of my life before they brought me to Bardek. A Hawk called Baruma—”

  “He’s no Hawk!” Gwin snapped. “A member of the cursed foul Dark Brotherhood, but no Hawk.”

  “Well and good, then,” Rhodry went on. “This slime-gut demon’s spawn called Baruma took me prisoner and broke my mind to pieces—as far as I can tell, anyway.”

  He said it so calmly that it took some moments for Nevyn to realize the significance of what he’d said. Then he swore, and all the rage he’d felt at the sight of the murdered priests boiled up again, as fresh and hot as the spew of a volcano.

  “Oh, have they now?” His voice came out as a burning whisper that made everyone in front of him shrink back. He took a deep breath and made himself speak in a more normal tone of voice. “Oh, did they? Then that tears it. That’s enough. I’ve taken all I’m going to take from these people. I’ll need all of your information before I can plan the attack, but I’ve made my decision. Once you’re all safely on your way to Eldidd, then I’m taking up the archon’s little commission and coming back here to wipe these scum off the face of the earth.”

  “Begging your pardon and all, my lord,” Rhodry said, and there was the steel of command in his voice. “But I’m not leaving until I’ve helped you do it. I swore a vow to kill Baruma, and kill him I will, even if I die for it and Aberwyn goes up in flames for the lack of me.”

  Nevyn opened his mouth to argue, then hesitated. With a ripple of dweomer-cold he realized that he was going to need help on this self-appointed mission. He also could recognize a waste of time when he saw one coming his way.

  “Very well, and I suppose none of the rest of you are going to run, either, no matter how long I argue with you. But remember, Rhodry lad. You may be Gwerbret Aberwyn, but I’m the Master of the Aethyr. This is my war, and I’m the cadvridoc. You ride at my orders or you don’t ride at all.”

  “Done, then. You have my pledged word.”

  It was getting on toward dawn before Nevyn slept that night. First he heard what Salamander, Jill, and Rhodry had to say about their time in Bardek; then he shooed everyone out and closeted himself with Gwin for hours. Although Gwin had never risen far in the hierarchy of the assassin’s guild—he had little talent for dweomer though a lot for killing—he had spent most of his life as a Hawk, ever since he’d stumbled onto the guild’s existence as a runaway slaveboy of ten. He knew names, and places, and secret signs and rituals; he’d overheard scraps of plans and details of feuds within the Brotherhood; he was also willing to spill every one of them, searching through every corner of his well-trained memory as he sat on the floor in Nevyn’s chamber. He had made his change of loyalties as ruthlessly and scrupulously as he would have carried out a mass murder before, yet Nevyn could see that the change had nothing to do with honor and precious little with moral principles. Gwin only knew that his whole life had been a tangle of suffering, and that his love for Rhodry, a feeling both blind and wise, was h
is one last chance to cut that tangle and win free. Nevyn was more than willing to use any weapon that would get anyone free of evil, just as he would never scorn a medicinal that would save a patient just because it didn’t happen to be mentioned in the best herbal s.

  “Now this is the most important thing of all,” Nevyn said finally. “Do you know where the Old One lives?”

  “I do and I don’t. They don’t tell lowly journeymen like me all the details, but I know he got that estate from the archons of Vardeth.”

  “Ye gods! It can’t be all that far away!”

  “Just that. You know, my lord, I keep thinking that he drew us here, like. That we’ve been thinking we’re as clever as clever, but all the time he’s been drawing us in like a spider that’s got a wrapped fly on a thread.”

  “You’ve been spending too much time around Salamander and his lurid imagination.”

  “Maybe. It’s just that you hear all these rumors about the Old One. Even my master back in Valanth used to say that half of what you heard couldn’t be true, but he didn’t know the false half from the real one. But then, the stinking Brotherhood never told us more than the bare bones of what we needed for a job.”

  “You know, I hadn’t realized just how much the Hawks hated the Brotherhood. Back in Deverry we always assumed you worked hand in hand.”

  “Only when we were paid to, my lord. They say that the Brotherhood founded the Hawks, hundreds of years ago, back when there was plague in the islands and everything was a proper mess and the archons were too frantic to worry about a dark lodge or two, but I don’t know if it’s true or not. If it is, they parted company soon enough.”

  “That was probably inevitable.”

  “Probably.” Gwin looked up, his eyes brimming pain. “My lord, can you cure Rhodry? Can you undo what that swine did to him?”

  Nevyn considered—briefly—telling some reassuring he.

  “I don’t know. I won’t know until I try, and I won’t be able to try until we’ve disposed of the Old One. I’ll need time, and I’ll need to concentrate. Wondering if assassins or evil dweomermen are going to drop out of the sky upon you tends to ruin a man’s ability to pay attention to his work.”

  Gwin smiled, a twitch of his mouth with no real humor in it.

  “Gwin, you must have seen what happened. I take it Baruma was mostly using physical pain to break down Rhodry’s defenses.”

  “He was, but he tried to use shame for a weapon, too. He started torturing Rhodry when we were still in Slaith, and all the pirates would stand around and watch. They thought it was a bit of fun to see just how much pain the silver dagger could take.” His voice was so conversational and ordinary that it was chilling. “They were laying wagers, you see, on how long he’d last.”

  “Was Rhodry aware of that?”

  “He was. He taunted them—ye gods, my lord! He had the guts to lie there and jest with them, telling them to wager high, because he was going to make them rich by outlasting anything Baruma could do to him. I think that’s when I fell—when I realized I—well, that I couldn’t stand what they were doing to him.” Gwin’s face turned bleak. “Baruma never did much torturing at once, an hour here and there throughout the day. He wanted Rhodry to think about what was going to happen to him, and he wanted his fun to last, too. But then I realized that the little pig-bugger was afraid of me. So I’d sit where he could see me and just stare at him, and he’d get so nervous that he’d make the sessions even shorter. Once we got on board ship and away from Slaith, he really began to sweat. After he’d broken Rhodry down, he wanted to go on entertaining himself, but I told him I’d kill him if he didn’t leave Rhodry alone. I wanted to kill him anyway, but the ship was crawling with pirates, and he was the one who was paying them. I want you to know that, my lord. I really would have killed him if I could have.”

  “I believe you.”

  “My thanks. If they’d killed me, they would have killed Rhodry, too, and so we wouldn’t have gained anything.” He looked away again. “Do you think I’m mad? Jill does.”

  “I think you’ve lived a life that would have driven most men mad, but that you’ve come to sanity’s gates.”

  “Fair enough. And it’s up to me whether or not I open them and go in?”

  “Just that. You learn fast, Gwin.”

  “It’s being around Rhodry, most like. Well, and all the dweomer round me, too.” This time when he smiled his eyes came alive, too. “If I can speak frankly, my lord? Hearing Jill and Salamander talk about you chilled my heart, because I’ve never seen power like theirs, but here they kept saying you were the real master.”

  “Flattering of them. So, you could see that Jill has power of her own?”

  “Who couldn’t, my lord? I mean, anyone who has a little knowledge would have to be blind to miss it. Like the way she ensouled that dweomer image of the wolf and sent it after Baruma—or did she tell you about that? It was a fair lovely trick, I thought, but Salamander didn’t seem all that pleased with her for doing it.”

  When he understood what Gwin meant, for a moment Nevyn couldn’t speak out of sheer hurt feelings. Here Jill was studying dweomer at last, and she’d never even told him! Gwin winced, taking his silence wrong.

  “I never meant to tell you somewhat Jill didn’t want known, my lord, truly I didn’t.”

  “It’s not that.” Nevyn grabbed his hurt with mental hands and shook it into submission. “It’s just that she did a truly dangerous thing. Salamander’s not much of a teacher, I’d say. What’s wrong, lad? You look distressed.”

  “I don’t understand how you run things, that’s all. Do you want me to inform on them?”

  “What? I don’t indeed! My apologies! I forgot how an idle question would sound to someone who used to be a Hawk. Here, I’ll take the matter up with Jill herself, but I’m not angry with her or with Salamander, and truly, what they may do or not is no affair of yours.”

  “My thanks. It ached my heart, wondering what I was supposed to say.”

  “No doubt. Here, you’d best get off to bed. I’ve kept you up late enough, haven’t I? If you remember anything else about your old lodge, you can always tell me in the morning.”

  In truth, of course, Nevyn wanted to be left alone with his hurt, which, though subdued, was alive and snarling in its chains. He was surprised and more than a little disappointed in himself, that he would feel like a jilted lover. It seemed to him that he’d spent hundreds of years preparing a splendid gift, some intricately carved and polished gem, say, only to have Salamander nip in and hand her a duplicate he’d picked up in a marketplace without even realizing its worth. Don’t be a fool! he told himself. What counts is the Light, not the servant who brings her to the Light. Yet he went to the window, threw open the shutters to the night, and stood looking out for a long time, watching the moon and thinking of little but his hiraedd.

  With a tap on the door Jill let herself into the chamber. He knew it was her even before he turned to see her, hastily dressed and yawning in the last guttering light from the oil lamps. When he tossed up one hand and made a ball of golden light, she blinked like a sleepy child.

  “You’re unhappy,” she said. “I just knew it, somehow. I meant to tell you about studying dweomer earlier, but there was no time.”

  When he felt tears stinging in his eyes, he cursed himself for a doddering old lackwit. She hurried over and laid one hand on his arm.

  “What’s so wrong?”

  “Oh naught, naught.”

  “You used to be better at lying.”

  “Humph, and that’s a nasty way to put it!” He cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes dry on his sleeve. “Forgive me, child. I know it’s empty vanity, but I always wanted to be the one who taught you about dweomer.”

  “Well, don’t you think you were? If I’d never known you, and Salamander came babbling to me about magical ensorcelments and suchlike, I would have laughed in his face—if I didn’t slap it for him. Ever since that first summer we met,
you’ve been trying to show me what I could have, if only I had the wit to want it. It took a horrible thing to make me look where you were pointing, but I finally have.”

  Hiraedd broke and shattered like a dropped jug. Although he considered the idiotic grin that he felt spreading on his face unworthy of them both, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

  “Truly?”

  “Truly. All Salamander’s done is give me the practices I needed and tell me a few principles and suchlike. I’m truly grateful to him, too, but you know, he’s a wretchedly scattered sort of teacher. Nevyn, you said once that I could always ask you for help. Did you mean that? Would you teach me more, when all this is over?”

  “Of course! Child, nothing would please me more than to teach you everything I’ve learned, to pass it on and keep it safe for the future, if naught else.” Even in his delight at this moment of triumph, so long postponed, he felt his duty pricking at him. “In fact, let’s start right now. What’s all this I hear about a dweomer-wolf?”

  Jill winced and looked hastily away to gather her excuses. They talked till dawn, going over every half-aware step she’d taken both in creating the wolf and destroying it until she saw every error she’d made, but although she did her share of squirming under his inquisition, her attention never wandered. Her mind had been forged into a formidable weapon indeed, he realized, to some extent by her natural talent but even more by her father’s harsh training in weapon craft and the dangerous life she’d led.

  Much later, in the middle of all the confusion of packing up to leave the city, it occurred to him, almost casually, that he’d finally fulfilled his vow. Soon, he would be free to die. He felt the dweomer-cold grip him like an evil spell as he wondered just how soon it would be.