Dragonbards

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  When the sun moved and put them in shadow, he stirred and held her away to look at her. “Maybe . . . maybe you’re right. Maybe I should listen more to where my anger comes from.”

  “Just . . . just don’t turn away from us.”

  “I want . . . suddenly I want to go down to Mama’s garden. It’s . . . where I remember her best.”

  He led her out of the bright room and down a back way and out to a high wall. The gate in it was stuck or locked. He climbed it finally by the crossbars and opened it from inside.

  It was the tangled, wild garden she had seen from the sky. Rosebushes and one giant flame tree grew up the walls, so thick she could hardly see the bricks.

  There were small fruit trees let run wild, smothered in grass and flowers. A stone bench before the flame tree was grown over with low branches of its red blooms. Teb pushed them away and drew her down beside him.

  He showed her Meriden sitting on the stone bench with the two small children—himself and Camery. The vision of Teb was fuzzy, a feeling more than a figure. He showed Meriden tucking him into bed, singing a strange little song to him, showed her holding court with their father, surrounded by officials. He made a vision of a family supper alone in the high chamber, and of court suppers in the great hall. He showed Meriden galloping her mare across the meadows playing tag with the children, laughing when their ponies caught her. Kiri felt undone by the visions, so private and warm, and important to him. Scenes tumbled one atop the other as the children grew older, until the morning they stood at the gate watching their mother ride away, not to return to them. When the last scene faded, Teb’s arms were around her. She held him, shaken with the loss that seven-year-old Teb had felt.

  He put her away from him at last, and took Meriden’s diary from his pack. He leafed through it, and began to read to her from scattered passages. He read until the sun left the garden, and he had reached the last written page, with just one short entry at the top.

  “This is the last entry I will make. I am in the sunken city, and I leave the diary here. I will go through the Door now, into other worlds—to find the dragon,and to seek the source of the dark, and perhaps learn how to defeat it. I love you, my children. I love you, my dear king.”

  As they stared at each other, Kiri knew the supple forming of his thoughts, felt feelings and images unfolding in a pattern that suddenly shocked her. Suddenly she knew the decision he had made—it struck across her mind sharply. She looked at him, terrified.

  “I must go, Kiri. I must search for her—I’ve known that for a long time. She means to draw Quazelzeg to her through the Doors; she calls him to her. She . . . perhaps she cannot fight him alone.”

  “But you must not go there alone. I—”

  “No! This I must do alone—not out of pride, believe me. Only one bard must go there. You—the rest—must remain . . . to battle Quazelzeg with all the strength you have among you. To . . . to battle for me, from this side.”

  They held each other, their minds joined, the urgency of his commitment filling them. But her fear for him—and his own fear—blew like a dark curtain between them.

  “Yes, I’m afraid,” he said softly. “But it’s time—to face Quazelzeg. I must do this, Kiri.”

  When they drew apart, and he reached to close Meriden’s diary, his face went white. A new entry shone where, moments before, the page had been half blank.

  It was in the same bold black stroke. It was Meriden’s writing.

  The Castle of Doors is carved into the mountains of Aquervell. Now that I have come through, I know better the nature of the Doors and of the Castle. Some of the rooms are caves; some are built of stone. But they are without number, and each room has a Door leading to a world, and the worlds, too, are without number.

  A vision filled their minds of mountains thrusting up scoured by fitful winds, and ridges snaking away broken by caverns and man-made bastions. The scene shifted and changed, disappearing beyond fogs and coming close and sharp as time shifted. Only the center held steady, a stone vortex of angled roofs and towers growing from mountain ridges. The image held them, the power of the Castle of Doors held them.

  “Maybe only there,” Teb said, “lies the power to defeat Quazelzeg and the unliving.” They bent over the page together and read silently.

  I sense the increasing power of the dark. And I feel the power of the Graven Light. I know both powers grow stronger, confronting each other with relentless and steady intent. If I can draw Quazelzeg here, away from Tirror, I think I can destroy him. I must try. My powers are stronger now.

  Take care, Tebriel. I know that you will come searching for me. I cannot prevent that. And I need you—but not before you are ready. Take care—that the dark within you does not triumph.

  They sat stricken, touching the page. Meriden knew too well what fevers swept his mind—knew, as Thakkur knew. Thakkur’s warnings filled him, too. Take care, Tebriel, when you journey into Sharden. You are not invulnerable. Do not do this alone. Thakkur’s voice was as clear as Meriden’s, as if both were there with him, watching him.

  Yet in this one thing, Teb knew, Thakkur was wrong. He must do this alone, no one else must go from Tirror. He looked at Kiri, torn between Thakkur’s wisdom, the threat to Tirror, and his mother’s need. Meriden must not face Quazelzeg alone. Perhaps she had done all she could to draw Quazelzeg away from Tirror, perhaps she needed him desperately now.

  Certainly the other bards did not need him—with the dark, traitorous winds that swept him, he was the weakest among them.

  This thought alone should have held him back, should have made him turn away from confronting Quazelzeg and endangering Meriden. But it did not. It only fired his determination to conquer that weakness—by facing the greatest challenge he could face. By defeating Quazelzeg and saving Meriden—by saving Tirror. Thakkur’s whisper, Do not let your pride lead you, went unheeded.

  Kiri, shaken with fear, moved into his arms and pressed her face against him. She held him tight, willing him to stay. He pulled away and cupped her face in his hands.

  “I mean to go at once. Seastrider and I must go alone.”

  “You must not. That is what you must not do. That is exactly what Thakkur warned you about. Oh, please, you must not face the dark alone. Please, Teb. Face Quazelzeg within the love and strength of all of us together. We will all go together, battle him together. Not alone. Not—”

  His flaring anger silenced her. “If you care for me, if you know me and care for me, you know I must do this alone.” He reached to remove the lyre.

  “No!” she shouted. “No! If you must go alone, then you must take the lyre!” Her fear and anger were terrible. “You will not go into Sharden without it!” She stood defying him until he dropped the lyre back against his tunic.

  As he turned away, she stood looking after him filled with the one consolation, that the lyre would give him strength.

  Chapter 24

  Within Quazelzeg’s eastern palace there is a door made of gold that can open by a warping of time and place into the Castle of Doors— just as the door in the sunken city did. Yet only if our own power falters does Quazelzeg hold certain control over his private gold door.

  *

  Teb and Seastrider left well before it was light. His thoughts were filled with what lay ahead, but filled, too, with Thakkur’s dark eyes watching him. He had so strong a sense of Thakkur that the white otter might almost have been with him. His mind echoed Thakkur’s warnings of danger and foolish pride—and of the foolishness of battling the dark alone. Thakkur’s voice rode with him for a long way, unsettling him, nearly making him turn back. But then Thakkur’s more positive words came. I have absolute faith in you, Tebriel—in your goodness. . . .

  When thoughts of Thakkur faded, the wind rushed empty around Teb. Alone on the wind, bard and dragon remained silent, winging north toward Aquervell and the city of Sharden.

  *

  It took Kiri hours to go to sleep. She tossed on her straw pallet,
trying not to wake Camery. Her fear for Teb was a blackness that would not leave her. She knew that when she woke in the morning, Teb and Seastrider would be gone—alone. When finally she did sleep, she dreamed a vision so real she thought she and Teb had returned to Nightpool.

  She dreamed that Seastrider and Windcaller dropped onto the sea beside Nightpool, and all around them otters came hurrying out of caves, shouting and hah-hahing in greeting. She dreamed that she and Teb followed Thakkur and Hanni into the sacred cave amid a press of eager, fishy-smelling otters. There, Thakkur turned and looked at her with such powerful concern and said, “I can give you this, I can give Tebriel this, though it pains me.”

  She dreamed that the clamshell had brightened, and when the vision came, all who watched were caught in the black emptiness between worlds. She saw the ivory lyre lying alone, across ancient white bones. She saw Quazelzeg moving through dark worlds following a shadow she could not make out, and she screamed with fear for Teb. She awoke sweating and cold.

  In his palace at Aquervell, Quazelzeg followed Meriden in vision, meaning to turn her back to Tirror, where his power over her would be greatest. She kept retreating, glancing back at him, laughing as she slipped in and out of shifting dimensions beside the white dragon. He did not like her mockery; he did not like the insolent turn of her head. She thought that she led him, that she had drawn him through again. But this was only a vision. He would follow her thus until she fled from him into evils she had not dreamed; then she would beg for his help.

  A river lay ahead. Meriden and the dragon flew across it. Rivers contained creatures friendly to him, and he stepped in. When slimy hands reached, he smiled. This was, after all, only vision. But the creatures clutched at him. When he pushed them away, their mouths sucked at his hands and arms, burning like fire. He turned, puzzled—she had drawn him through against his will. He brought his power to drive the creatures back, to free himself. But Meriden and the dragon stood before him.

  Behind them opened a Door into a cave, and in the cave shone the giant white skeleton of a dragon. Its tall ribs curved up in an arch, and its empty eye sockets held shadows that shifted and threatened him—as if Bayzun’s spirit lived. Meriden smiled coldly.

  “The spirit of Bayzun will defeat you,” she said softly “The Ivory Lyre of Bayzun will defeat you.”

  Quazelzeg backed away, willed himself away from her; with a terrible effort he willed himself back into his palace.

  He stood there shaken.

  This moment made an end to games. The woman must be disposed of. He shouted for Shevek. The captain came running.

  “I expect to be in Sharden by tomorrow night. I do not relish a long ride. Find a fast ship.”

  Shevek nodded.

  Quazelzeg smiled. In Sharden his powers would increase. In Sharden he could step through at his own choosing, by the power of the gold Door, and move on within the Castle of Doors readily, to find Meriden. Soon Tebriel would arrive in Sharden, and the spells Quazelzeg had planted within the bard—and the bard’s own weakness—would feed his own power further.

  *

  Kiri woke to sunlight in her face. Camery’s bed was empty. She lay seeing the dream. Was it a dream? Or, as she slept, had Thakkur given her a vision? Her thoughts were filled with the shadows of dark worlds and with Quazelzeg’s pale, evil face; and with the shock of the ivory lyre lying abandoned across ancient bones. Waking fully, she remembered that Teb would be gone from Auric now, winging over far continents, and she buried her face in her pillow.

  At last she rose, washed from the basin of cold water Camery had left, and dressed. She did not feel hungry. She went down the stone flights, thinking only of Teb.

  The main hall was crowded with folk packing bundles, wrapping food, mending and oiling harness and boots. The courtyard was the same, as people prepared to journey north. Teb’s desire to hurry northward had flamed through the palace, filling everyone with the need to follow him.

  Camery came to join her.

  “He wasn’t ready,” Kiri said. “He isn’t ready to face Quazelzeg.”

  “No one is completely ready to do that, Kiri. But now, all of Tirror will follow him, to confront those on Aquervell.” Cannery’s green eyes were filled with resolve. “It is time. Teb has made it so. And perhaps our mother has, too.”

  Within an hour, the bards and dragons were in the sky, lifting above banks of gray cloud. Below, the march north had begun, flowing out of Auric’s palace and villages, and from the palace at Ratnisbon, gathering more strength as it moved north. Perhaps no one could put logic to this sudden swelling movement, but already it was inevitable and fierce. The dragonbards meant to free all who might join it.

  Camery and Marshy moved to the west, bringing song and freedom to the outer islands. Colewolf and Aven followed to the east, touching the larger countries. Kiri and Darba and the two riderless dragonlings moved up through the center of the island mass. Below them the marching numbers swelled as the bards and dragons freed more and more of Turor’s peoples, waking slaves in a sudden all-out attack on the remaining pockets of darkness. Those slaves turned on their masters and killed them. Everywhere, they were joined by the speaking animals. Off the eastern coast, otters flashed through the green waters, led by the two white otters, moving resolutely and unswervingly north.

  Thakkur forged on, grimly cleaving through the sea’s swells. He had done all he could. His love was with Teb, his caring and his deep prayers. He felt certain that they approached the last battle, and he knew a dread he did not speak of, a private sadness.

  Chapter 25

  As Sharden fell from a city of vivid life to a prison of despair, so all Tirror now follows.

  *

  Teb and Seastrider crossed over the last islands just at dusk and made for the Aquervell shore, dropping low over cadacus fields that grew along the coast. The city of Sharden rose beyond the fields, a tangle of close, narrow streets running at all angles and crowded with shacks and stone mansions pushing against one another. The city was built along and over three rivers, its seventeen bridges each crusted with houses and shops divided by a narrow cobbled lane. On a hill apart from Sharden stood Quazelzeg’s castle, a fortress of dark-gray stone.

  Sharden had once been the jewel of Tirror. It was the center where all craftsmen had come to study, to trade, to celebrate and feast. The shops had been filled with wares wrought half with skill and half with magic cloth of gold reflecting distant visions, kettles of copper that could brew an ambrosia of healing, bridles that could immediately gentle the wildest colt. That magic was gone now; the city was a morass of dirty streets and bawdy houses and drug dens and theaters where a night’s entertainment watching unspeakable tortures could be had for the price of a new victim—a child or small animal.

  Seastrider circled high above the clouds until nighttime. When they could not be seen, she dropped down to a rocky hill beyond palace and city, where she could lie hidden among jutting boulders. From here Teb could see the palace and the guards pacing atop its wall.

  He ate a simple supper of dried meat and bread, wondering if he should slip into the palace when most of its inhabitants slept, to find the gold Door. Perhaps that would be the easiest way through into the Castle of Doors. There were two such Doors, far from the Castle of Doors but opening into it by spells. Meriden had gone through the other Door, in the sunken city, to move through warping space into the Castle of Doors and so into other worlds. If Meriden had been able to move through that Door, surely he and Seastrider could enter through this one.

  The other way would be to fly north over the mountains until they saw the castle as they had seen it in Meriden’s vision—but the gold Door was so near. Surely he could get to it unseen when the palace slept.

  “And how would I get into the palace, Tebriel? How would I squeeze myself into palace chambers, to reach the gold Door? No, Tebriel. Not possible. We must go over the mountains.”

  “Yes, all right,” he said, keeping his own counsel. “Bu
t tonight we must rest. It was a long journey from Auric. You flew against heavy winds.” Strangely, now that he was here, he was not ready. Something held him back. He wondered if Meriden’s will held him . . . not before you are ready. Take care. . . .

  Seastrider looked at him uneasily. Yet if he wanted sleep, so be it. She curled down between the boulders, to rest and keep watch. He lay down against her.

  He could hear, from the city, the faint sounds of horses and wagons, doors slamming, and scattered shouts. When it grew late, the shouts increased, mixed with harsh music. The city drew him, with its tangle of narrow streets and of different peoples. He turned over, away from it, and at last he slept.

  He woke to far, raucous laughter and the terrified screams of a child. He sat up and didn’t sleep any more.

  Near to midnight, a coach arrived at the palace from the east, its six horses gleaming with sweat in the torchlight. Soldiers snapped to attention, and servants backed away in deference as a tall, hunched figure stepped out—a figure that struck terror into Teb.

  As he watched Quazelzeg enter the palace, Teb’s urgency to go through the Doors faltered again. By the time the palace quieted and lamps were snuffed, he had worked himself into a turmoil of doubt.

  Quite late, he began to see snatches of vision.

  He saw Meriden. All around her swirled dimensions ever changing—meadow, wood, hellfire, stars, swamp, blackness. He saw a cave that was a dragon’s tomb, the giant white skeleton looming, and, afraid, he turned away from it. He wandered through shifting worlds stumbling and confused.

  But slowly the confusion left him. The hunger that Quazelzeg had planted through drugs and mind warping grew bold. He began to lust for the drugs, to need them, and to hunger for the powers the drugs would give him.