The Dragon Revenant

by Katharine Kerr

  “Forgive me for startling you, girl, but you’re safe now. As far as I can tell, we’re rescuing you from something or somebody.”

  “Oh? Well, then, thank you and all that, but ye gods!” Yawning and rubbing her eyes she sat up, looked around, and found their camp full of armed men. “How did I sleep through all of this?”

  “I was wondering that myself, to tell you the truth. Have you been drugged?”

  “No, not at all.”

  Yet when she started to stand, she felt so dizzy and sick that she had a brief moment of wondering if Nevyn had given her some sort of sleeping draught. Since she couldn’t remember drinking one, she could only assume that her clumsy and desperate dweomer-working of the day before had left her dangerously exhausted. The soldier—she still wasn’t sure if he were captor or rescuer—gallantly caught her elbow and steadied her.

  “Your grandfather’s over there, talking with the officers. He must be an important man, huh?”

  “Very important.” She ran hasty fingers through her hair to smooth it down. “Where’s Rhodry?”

  “The black-haired barbarian? With the officers. Are you going to be able to ride?”

  “Of course. Where are we going?”

  “As far as I can tell, we’re escorting you down to Indila and the archon’s law courts. Except for your grandfather and you, everyone’s under arrest.”

  With so many riders, horses, and foot soldiers along, the march down to Indila took three days. Since the officers had decided that Jill and Nevyn were victims, while everyone else was a criminal, she had no chance to speak to Rhodry or Salamander during the journey, not so much as a simple “Good morning.” Even from a distance, though, she could see that Rhodry was wrapped in one of his black moods, and she didn’t envy Salamander the job of cheering him out of it. Finally, some two hours before sunset on the third day, they reached Indila and found a surprising welcome. Although Jill was afraid that Rhodry and his men would be marched off to prison, instead the archon himself was waiting at the gates with a token escort of city guards, and with him was Elaeno, wearing all the fine clothes and gold jewelry that were his due as the owner and master of a merchant ship.

  “I contacted him when we were first arrested, you see,” Nevyn murmured in Deverrian. “He has influence in the islands, after all, and I decided that he might as well use it.”

  That influence combined with Nevyn’s various official letters worked a dweomer of their own. Instead of the archon’s prison they were escorted to a splendid inn down near the harbor—quite conveniently near Elaeno’s ship, in fact—and told that the expense would be borne by the state, because they were possible criminals under investigation, and the prison was very small—a line of reasoning that ignored the inconvenient fact that the supposed criminals were being quartered with their supposed victims. There was nothing feigned, however, about the city guards who stood in fours at every door and pairs at every window, nor were the innkeeper’s bitter complaints an idle masquerade. That very evening, as well, the archon’s personal scribe appeared to summon Nevyn and Elaeno for a conference with various officials. Jill walked downstairs with them to the walled courtyard around the inn.

  “Will you be hiring an advocate, too?” Jill said.

  “We will,” Nevyn said. “But only for show. Don’t look so alarmed, child. Things are going our way, whether it looks like it or not.”

  “If you say so. It’s just hard to believe we’re truly safe, and everything’s all over.”

  “Oh, I didn’t say that! We’ve got to get home, for one thing, and for another, I’ve got to see if there’s anything I can do about Rhodry’s memory.”

  Jill had been so sure that Nevyn could cure Rhodry as a matter of course that she felt as stunned as if he’d slapped her. He cast an anxious glance over his shoulder at the secretary, impatient in the doorway.

  “We’ll talk later—I’ve got to go right now. But Jill, I did try to warn you.”

  “You did, truly. I’m sorry.”

  After the guards escorted them out to the street, she went back to the common room of the inn, where oil lamps flickered, flashing points of light off the tiled floor and painted walls. At a table in one corner Rhodry and Salamander were playing dice while Gwin and the men from the warband stood round and watched, wine cups in hand. In time, she supposed, Rhodry could relearn most of what he needed to know, such as the names of the important men in his rhan and a working knowledge of common law. But something valuable beyond words would still be missing, the extravagant capacity for life and feeling that had always made him as attractive as a roaring fire on an icy night. Although she would still love him, his subjects were going to find him curiously changed and perhaps disappointing. He’s going to need me at his elbow all the time, she thought, and with the thought she felt as though a cold hand clenched her heart. If she were going to continue her dweomer studies, she would need time to herself—hours upon hours of time, and all of it alone. If. She had to continue. She knew it better than she’d ever known anything, that if she stopped studying the dweomer now, her soul would shrivel into something dead and ugly within her just from her own bitterness at being forced to lay her studies aside. She loved the dweomer as much as Rhodry, or was it more? That simple little word seemed to burn in her mind. Until that moment she’d never thought that she could love anything more than Rhodry, her wonderful handsome Rhodry who needed her so badly now. I’ll never leave him, she thought, never! And yet she knew that she could never leave the dweomer behind, either, not now, not after she had at last found her heart’s true craft.

  Although Nevyn was dreading the official visit to the archon’s palace, His Excellency, whose name was Gurtha, entertained them so lavishly that it was obvious, without a direct word being said, that he felt they’d done all Bardek a favor by firing Tondalo’s villa. By the time they could make their escape from the feasting, drinking, and music, the waxing moon was hanging low in the sky. Although Nevyn normally slept no more than a few hours a night, he fell into bed as soon as he got to his chamber and stayed there until the noon sun came glaring in through the cracks round the shutters.

  It was Jill, in fact, who woke him with a timid tap at his door. When he called out a drowsy “Come in,” she did just that, carrying a tray with a plate of warm soft flatbread and a wooden tankard.

  “Ale! They’ve got ale here, Nevyn. It’s not very good, but it’s ale.”

  “Splendid! Hand it over, and my humble thanks.”

  The ale was weak and oddly sweet both, but as Jill said, at least it was brewed from barley rather than grapes. He sipped it slowly, making it last, while he nibbled at the bread. After Jill threw open the shutters to let in the warm spring air and sunlight, she sat down cross-legged on a pile of cushions.

  “I’ve been putting some hard thought into what’s wrong with Rhodry,” she said. “He’s told me things that you and Salamander might not know.”

  “Ah, I thought he would.”

  “But it doesn’t match up with what you and Salamander have told me. Salamander, in particular, thought he’d never recover, but here he’s actually gotten back a good many memories all on his own.”

  “What?” Nevyn felt his first real hope. “Tell me everything he said—Rhodry, I mean. Certainly not Salamander; we don’t have a whole fortnight to waste.”

  “Well, first of all, there was his name. Baruma gave him a false name, but Rhodry remembered his own in a dream—a drugged dream, actually, he said, because the Hawks tried to poison him. And then, when Salamander and I finally caught up with him, Salamander tried ensorceling him and telling him that he’d remember who I was when the sun came up the next morning, and by the gods, he did. And then just a few days ago, after he killed Baruma, he remembered Aberwyn and Rhys and what his mother looks like—or used to look like, I should say, because the way he described her Lovyan sounded about thirty years old.”

  “Splendid! Oh, truly splendid! This drugged dream? Did he tell you about it?”<
br />
  “It was somewhat about dancing in a ring with three other people around a fire that turned into a dragon.”

  “Red or black dragon?”

  “Red. Docs it matter?”

  “It does, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that the beast wasn’t black. White would have been best, but red will do well enough.”

  “Nevyn, you think there’s hope, don’t you? I can hear it in your voice.”

  “Well, I do, but let’s pray to every god that I’m not wrong. Baruma must have been a fumbling apprentice at this hideous line of work. Now, it stands to reason that, when Rhodry killed the man who’d ensorceled him, he’d free a certain amount of energy and heal a small amount of damage, but he never should have recovered any memories at all while Baruma was still alive.”

  “Baruma was no fool or amateur.” Jill’s voice went cold and flat. “Gwin made that clear. He was known for breaking people down. That’s probably why the Old One sent him.”

  “No doubt. I’m sorry you have to think about these terrible things, child.”

  “Why? If I don’t face them now, I’ll be thinking about them every day I’m married to him.”

  “Just so, and my apologies. But I don’t—oh, of course! Ye gods, I should have seen this before! I think we can assume that Baruma never knew that Rhodry’s half elven.”

  “That would make a difference?”

  “A very great difference indeed. But I’m not promising anything. For all I know, I still won’t be able to heal him. But why don’t you just hunt up His Grace and tell him I want to see him? It’s time we tried to clean up this wretched mess.”

  It was some minutes before Rhodry came in, and Nevyn knew that something was wrong immediately, just from the arrogant set to his shoulders and the grim look about his mouth. It was the first time that Nevyn quite simply had had the leisure to realize that Rhodry neither remembered nor trusted him. He felt as hurt as a father with an ingrate son, even though rationally he knew that Baruma’s ensorcelments were to blame.

  “Rhodry, I can help you if you let me.”

  “So Jill said. Why wouldn’t I let you?”

  “I don’t know. Why, indeed?”

  “No reason at all.”

  “Indeed?”

  Rhodry shrugged and paced over to the window. In the strong sunlight he looked impossibly weary, as if he’d aged ten years instead of one since he’d left Deverry, and dark circles shadowed his eyes.

  “I first met you when you were about eight years old,” Nevyn said. “I doubt if you remember. And then once when you were about sixteen, you were very ill of a fever, and I cured you—just with herbcraft, though, not dweomer.”

  “I don’t remember that either.”

  “Of course not. All I’m saying is this, that if you did remember, you’d trust me more.”

  “Who says I don’t trust you now?”

  Nevyn merely looked at him. In a moment Rhodry turned from the window, strode to the door, hesitated, then turned back and leaned against it.

  “Jill’s going to many me.”

  “Of course, she is. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  He shrugged again and looked down at the floor.

  “It’s the dweomer you’re jealous of, you young dolt! Not me or Salamander either!”

  When Rhodry blushed scarlet, for a moment Nevyn thought he was going to turn and bolt, but he looked up instead and even managed to force out a crooked smile.

  “Well, maybe so.” For one last moment Rhodry hesitated on the edge of leaving; then he let out his breath in a sharp sigh. “Can you heal me, Nevyn?”

  “I can’t, but I can help you heal yourself. I’ve been thinking, lad, about Baruma’s botched job. His ensorcelment’s unwinding itself, and with time, who knows? It might unwind all the way and disappear.”

  “I don’t have a cursed lot of time, not if I’m going to rule in Aberwyn.”

  “Just so. And even if his magic was flawed, Baruma left you scarred, sure enough. What did he do to you?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t want to remember.”

  “I can’t!” Rhodry looked up in a flare of rage.

  “Indeed? Then you’ll never reclaim the rest of your life. Baruma planted a hedge of thorns in your mind. You’ve got to break through it and trample it down.”

  “I can’t, I tell you!”

  “You’re afraid of remembering all that pain. I don’t blame you, mind. I’d be afraid myself.”

  The rage in his eyes turned murderous.

  “It’s the honor of the thing, Rhodry lad. Are you going to let him win this battle?”

  “I’d rather die.”

  “Ah. I thought so.” Nevyn held out his hand. “Come sit down, lad. I’ll be here with you every step of the way.”

  After Rhodry went up to Nevyn’s chamber, Jill tried waiting in the common room, but the noise and the laughter, the simple sight of Rhodry’s men enjoying themselves over dice games and Salamander’s tall tales, drove her outside to the relative silence of the inn yard. When she wandered up to the front gate, the guards warned her not to go into the streets without an escort, all in the friendliest possible way, but she wanted to scream at them—no doubt she could take care of herself in a strange city better than they could. She went back to the little garden provided for the guests and sat down on a bench in the shade of one of the innkeeper’s ancestors while she wondered what Nevyn was doing to Rhodry or if indeed there was anything he could do. In the silence it seemed she could hear them talking or at least receive the impression of words. Although she went as still as a hunted hare to listen, the meaning escaped her, but she could sense feelings, waves of emotion that quite clearly came from outside herself: pain and bitterness, an overwhelming terror, and more pain, the shadows of an excruciating physical agony. Once it seemed she heard Rhodry sobbing like a child, and it took all her will for her to stay where she was and not go running up to Nevyn’s chamber to interfere, and all to spare herself as much as Rhodry. Finally she remembered her lessons; in her mind she drew the circle of protection and sealed it with pentagrams. Once she had it visualized outside and around her, the whispers and the pain-shadows stopped.

  With a sigh of relief she looked up to find Perryn staring at her from some twenty feet away, lurking—or so she thought of it—between a pair of eucalyptus trees.

  “What do you want, you sniveling little stoat?”

  “Er, ah, well, um …”

  Out with it, or I’ll slit your throat.

  “Jill, I’m sorry! That’s aU.”

  She found that she had risen, and that she was holding her silver dagger. Only the memory of her promise to Nevyn made her sheath it and sit down again.

  “I never meant to hurt you,” Perryn wailed. “I loved you.”

  “Horseshit! Listen, stoat-face. Do you know why you’re still alive? Nevyn ordered me to leave you alone. Otherwise I’d kill you. Understand me?”

  With one last wail like a haunt at dawn, Perryn turned and fled, running—as far as she could see—for the refuge of the stables and his beloved horses. She felt her rage as fire, beating to the sky, lapping at her magic circle and threatening to break through. With a wrench of will she called it back and re-imaged the pentagrams to fence it round. Once the circle held firm again, she could realize that she was no longer afraid of Perryn but of what she would do to him if she let herself go. She saw the change as the most satisfying gift she’d been given in years.

  For an hour or so more Jill stayed in the relative privacy of the garden. Although she tried to do her dweomer-exercises, she was quite simply too distracted; every few minutes found her wondering about Rhodry. Finally she went back to the common room, where Salamander was entertaining the crowd, even the sullen innkeep, by telling one of his bawdy stories while he juggled eggs and oranges. Although most people would have thought him heartless, Jill could tell from the very brightness of his chatter that he was worried sick about his broth
er. She sat down in a corner and watched him without truly listening while her mind wandered to Rhodry and Nevyn. Since she’d broken her circle, she could feel their minds working, but the pain had subsided, leaving a bitter emptiness. As the afternoon dragged on, she would at times pick up other flashes of emotion or hear the ghosts of words, but their intensity subsided until at last, when the sun was low and the innkeep busy trimming wicks for his lamps, they vanished altogether.

  After one last jest Salamander left his audience. He fetched a flagon of wine and two cups, then sat down beside her with an exaggerated sigh. Jill poured for both of them.

  “Is the Great Krysello weary?”

  “Oh, do hold your tongue, beauteous barbarian handmaiden. After the things Nevyn said to me I never want to hear that name again.” But he did flash a grin. “But it was a splendid show, wasn’t it?”

  “It was, truly. I miss it, in a way.”

  “So do I. Ah well, it’s back to the humble gerthddyn’s trade for the likes of me.” He saluted her with the cup, then drank deep. “I wonder what Nevyn’s doing up there. By the Lord of Hell’s furred behind, it’s taking forever.”

  “I think the worst is over. I could sort of feel things happening, but they’ve stopped.”

  “Sort of? Things? Well, I probably don’t want to know more.”

  “I don’t think we do, truly.”