Guile of Dragons, A

by James Enge

  Rain under the mountains! He guessed that the cold walls and ceiling of the Arches were sweating in the hot moist air and that the drops were returning as rain. Not so wonderful, when you thought about it. But it still seemed wonderful as he watched it fall. Rain under the mountains. It was like a portent.

  Slowly, reluctantly, he directed his eyes toward the source of the dim light. It was a ragged hole in the wall of living rock, which seemed almost to have been gnawed. Its threshold was concealed under the black water. Beyond it lay the source of the red light, the heat, the poisonous reek that troubled this once peacefully dead place. It spoke to him as he hesitated.

  Come forward. Come now. I command you.

  He had already decided to go forward. But suddenly the dread of a dragonspell came over him. Would he even know if one took hold of him? Almeijn apparently had never known.

  He moved forward. He had been sent; he had already decided. (But was this how it had happened to Almeijn?) He moved toward the rough circle of dim red light.

  Saijok Mahr smiled the long lipless smile of wrath when he saw the pride-sickening little animal they had sent against him. He considered killing it for that reason alone as it sloshed through the hole in the wall. But a feeling peculiar to dragons stayed him, sterch: a kind of affection for himself. This creature’s advent was proof that his gamble in sending that other creature on to Thrymhaiam was still paying off. Perhaps he could use this one as he had that one. . . .

  That one had already paid off, very satisfyingly. (Khûn tenadh! The game of power! There was nothing like it.) He had known of his success when Vild Kharum came, howling and crawling, before the gate to his den.

  A creature had escaped, Vild had moaned. The Softclaws at Thrymhaiam had been warned. The guile had been compelled to show itself while hunting the creature down, had failed anyway. It must have passed through Runhaiar. Vild “suspected” Saijok.

  “Suspected” him! How he had laughed!

  “Suspect me, then!” Saijok had replied. “And when you feel claws in your eyes and teeth in your throat you can ‘suspect’ me, then, too! Come inside my den, Vild, and I will lay your suspicions to rest. It must be terrible to be so afraid.”

  “Come out!” Vild had snarled. “Come out, worm, and challenge me so!”

  “Kruma kharum,” he sneered then, “lord of lords! I still have scars between my wings from the last time I challenged you . . . scars you never made. Your slaves are with you, now, I know. They’d tear my wings off before I could reach you. But I haven’t given up. You have something that’s mine.”

  No insult could be more deadly. Vild had barked at his door for hours and gone away hoarse. Saijok Mahr gloried in the memory as he lay, half-submerged, in the deep end of the pool.

  He kept an eye on the creature as it sloshed forward at the shallow end. He could not do so without noticing that the pool was almost deep enough for him to drink again. After his last sleep he had almost drunk enough to drown his thirst. . . . Almost, almost. That was long ago. Now his thirst tormented him, almost unbearably. Almost, almost. But he would not drink again until it was time, though he lay half-buried in water. He could subordinate his desires to his needs, serving them both ruthlessly. That was what made him a master of his kind.

  He watched the creature as it found the gray corpse of the mandrake floating in the pool. That amused him, even as the memory hurt him, and he let it continue. He knew the creature would think the body was one of its own kind. The mistake was natural: for the corpse was vaguely manlike in shape, and Saijok had mauled it badly in killing it.

  The creature turned the body over in the water. He watched the newcomer suddenly recoil from the blunt snout and heavy platelike scales of the corpse. With pride he noted that the dead mandrake would have grown into a likely dragon, had there been time. That was precisely why he’d had to kill it, of course. . . .

  Time to speak. He reveled in the fine calculations of this game, khûn tenadh, the game of power. This was not even a particularly difficult problem—although, like a master, he took pleasure in every exercise of his skill. He had presented enough marvels to astonish and bewilder a better mind than this creature could possibly have. The main thing now was to speak first. If it spoke first, he would have to answer, and even if he answered by destroying it (which Saijok did not intend to do) the creature would have won a kind of victory. The cardinal rule of the game of power (of which the rest were merely variations) was: allow your enemy no victories, only concealed or open defeats.

  He raised himself from the dark glittering water in a cloud of steam.

  “You came at my command,” he said, with some benevolence. “You have learned your first lesson well.”

  You have trespassed against the Guard, it said dimly, then something else, then, Summoner Earno.

  Saijok threw back his head and laughed, letting fire trail from his jaws. He was disturbed and intrigued. He had heard of Earno Dragonkiller. He knew, of course, that a summoner and a set of Guardians was part of the hoard of Vild Kharum. If he could obtain a summoner of his own, and a dragonkiller at that, he might use it as a stake to tempt Vild into a real and final challenge . . . without his slave-guards, winner take all.

  He saw the creature eyeing his collar of power. He was pleased and surprised. But it was a drawback as well. If the creature had seen members of the guile, he knew they all wore collars.

  It was saying something— . . . challenge of the summoner Earno. No member of the guile may stay my embassy.

  He snarled. “I am Saijok Mahr; I am no member but master of the Ghân guiles.” Then an idea took him and he laughed. It emerged, complete to the last wriggle, in his mind. Vild Kharum was as good as dead. “Yet I will allow you to pass,” he continued. “You will be my envoy to the guile.”

  The creature raised its face in defiance, as Saijok had guessed it would, and he caught its eye. And the thing was done; the dragonspell was placed.

  Except . . . it was not. Saijok fixed the thing’s eye with a fire-bright glance and waited for that moment, that pause, that snap that was like biting through bone. Yet it never came.

  As the echoes of the creature’s shouted defiance faded away, Saijok shifted thoughtfully in the pool and pondered the creature. The dragonspell seemed to surround it like a dark red cloud. He found the phenomenon interesting. It more than made up for his failure in placing the spell. Let this creature go to Vild and deliver his challenge; let Vild see the strange effect and wonder at the powers of Saijok Mahr.

  He laughed. “Go now!” he said, gesturing with a foreclaw. “Take the tunnel yonder.”

  The creature said something. Saijok paid no attention to the words, but he tasted insolence in the tone. So he said, “You are my ambassador whether you will it or not.” He laughed again; fire and steam floated through the chamber. When they began to dissipate the creature was gone.

  Saijok was content. Then his thirst overpowered him and he lowered his snout to drink.

  Morlock crouched, gasping, in the rough tunnel beyond the dragon’s den.

  You are my ambassador whether you will it or not! Each word had seemed to make the stones tremble. But perhaps that was just the spell working.

  “You looked in its eyes! You looked in its eyes!” he raged at himself uselessly. For a few moments he had been sure it would kill him. Now it did not need to, though. And that was worse. His mind felt free and might even be so . . . except as the dragon wished it. There was a taste of venom in his mouth; he turned his head and spat.

  He sat down and put both hands over his face. He felt the same; he felt no control on him. He remembered everything that had happened (or so it seemed). Would that be so, if the dragon had placed a spell?

  There was another thing the dragon might have meant, he realized. Morlock’s mere presence in Haukrull might mean something to the other dragons there, he realized. If Saijok controlled the ways through the Runhaiar, and the guile was aware of this . . . The fact that he had let a thain pass m
ight mean something. It might be a gesture of defiance or a token of alliance. That did not matter. What mattered was that he might be as free as he felt; he might not be under control.

  He was unpleasantly aware that these thoughts might be symptoms, not a disproof, of the spell working within him. But he could not turn back because of doubt. Perhaps the spell (if there was a spell . . . he hated thinking like this) was meant to take effect back in Thrymhaiam. Better, in that case, that he go forward and perhaps die in Haukrull. And if he was not under a spell . . . he had already learned much; he would surely learn more in the valley.

  He got to his feet and went down the tunnel, which seemed to be the passage of an underground river recently gone dry. Presently he felt a draft of cold clean air and looked up. He saw nothing, but reaching up, he felt a passage leading straight up from the roof of the tunnel. Perhaps it had been a well when the tunnel was a river. His hands could not tell him whether it was made or was a natural formation. But it was a way out.

  Lifting himself up into the empty well, he managed to inchworm up it, as if it were a chimney in a rock-cliff. Finally his hands, reaching up, spread out on a surface of dry sandy earth. He drew himself out of the well. Free air flowed over him in the bluish darkness.

  As blind with weariness as with the dark, he drew his cape about him and lay down. A single doubt clung to him: that dragons might see him as he slept. But he shook loose from the thought and there was no other.

  When he awoke he found he was in a narrow cave with a sandy floor. The cracklike opening of the cave was blindingly bright. Morlock ate the last of the flatbread in his pack as he was waiting for his eyes to grow used to the light. Then he rose to his feet and, leaving the empty pack and the Runhaiar behind, he stepped out into the light.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Challenge

  The summoner Earno woke to find the Eldest of Theorn Clan sitting beside his bed. He sat up, somewhat apprehensively. “I happened to be here last night,” he explained, “so I settled down rather than return to my rooms.”

  “I know why you were here, Summoner,” said Tyr. “I’ve come to apologize for my cold welcome to you.”

  “There have been many misunderstandings,” Earno said slowly. “None of them seems to matter now.”

  “No,” the Eldest agreed, “now that we have something really important to worry about.” He stood. “Would you be wanting breakfast?”

  Earno rose also. He’d slept in his clothes, with his mantle drawn about him; before that he’d had a long working night. “Not yet, thank you,” he replied. “I should see how matters are prospering here.”

  “Here” was the Healing Chambers of Thrymhaiam. Earno had been there, almost since the first attack on Thrymhaiam two nights ago. He had spent most of those hours treating those bound in dragonspell.

  “How are matters on the outside?” he asked the Eldest.

  “There have been many deaths,” the Eldest said grimly. “The huntress and farmer clans over Thrymhaiam have suffered the most. But the dragons have not launched an all-out attack since the first night. We have been sending messages to the Other Ilk throughout the hold. It is hard to say whether any have gotten through. None have yet returned.”

  “What have you lost?” Earno asked.

  “In looting? Some. Not very much. They kill rather than steal. Yes, they’ve shown a kind of discipline. . . .”

  How bad that was neither of them needed to say.

  Tyr accompanied Earno on his rounds. Earno had no skill with wounds that was greater than that of the dwarvish healers, who were an efficient if pitiless lot. Vyrlaeth, in particular, was having a fine time: whenever he met Earno he mentioned with sinister delight how many bodies (living and dead) he had been privileged to cut into with skin-saw and bone-chisel. Earno, in contrast, treated only the poisoned and spellbound. There were many of these, though.

  “The poisoned are simple enough,” Earno explained. “A purge will clear them of venom, at least enough to keep them from dying. They can recover from the rest, given time.”

  “And they take a long time to die, in any case,” Tyr remarked. “I have seen enough of it this fall. The skin and muscles contract, until they can neither move nor breathe. Then the joints snap and they are torn to shreds by their own bones. It is terrible to think that we might have saved our Rangan traders, and many of the Other Ilk as well, by simply . . . well, sticking a finger down their throats. . . .”

  Most of the poisoned dwarves had been dosed and given into the care of their families. This was too dangerous a method with the spellbound, though: it was impossible to know what commands had been laid upon them until the spell was loosed. Also, the spellbound could pass their compulsion to others like a plague, by means of the dragonlight lingering in their eyes. They were kept in the Healing Chambers—along with those who tended them.

  The summoner and the Eldest arrived at the first patient.

  “Ah, Vendas,” Tyr said. “I knew his father well. Has he improved, do you think?”

  Earno inspected the dwarf’s stiff motionless face, the eyes clenched shut like fists. “No,” he finally answered the Eldest. “He hasn’t. I am concerned about this dwarf. A command may have been laid upon him. He was a hunter?”

  “Yes, one of the few males. His companions were all slain; he alone was left alive and unwounded.”

  “He should be separated from these others and a guard placed on him, one who knows the dangers.”

  “Very well.”

  The next patient was Deor.

  “That herbal goo of yours,” he told Earno, “gave me really foul dreams.”

  Earno smiled tentatively. “No,” he replied, “it merely released them. And I’m glad to hear it.” He passed a mirror before the young dwarf’s eyes, watching his reaction, and nodded. “You are dismissed, Deor syr Theorn; the spell is loosed.”

  “I never felt spellbound, you know. Just a little strange.”

  “There was no command laid upon you. I guess you looked into a dragon’s eyes last night, when they struck at the workers around Southgate-ruin.”

  “Well, I did. Just for a moment.”

  “Last night you wouldn’t admit it.”

  “Wouldn’t I?” Deor looked surprised, then disturbed. “That’s true!”

  “Don’t worry. There never was any real danger. A spell unfocused by a command simply fades with time. But until it has faded it makes one liable to suggestion.”

  “Eh. That was how you got me to drink that stuff.”

  Tyr laughed. They were about to move on when Deor said, “Is there any news about Morlock?”

  “No,” said Tyr.

  “Ah, well. He can have only just reached Haukrull by now.”

  After the rest of the victims were examined, and most of them released, Earno walked with Tyr to his chambers to have breakfast.

  “It is a good thing you were here,” Tyr told him. “Our dragonlore is out of date, and much of it has been lost. Even in my youth it was considered a useless and somewhat morbid study. No one of us would have recognized the threat of spells.”

  Earno didn’t wish to say how the idea had come to him. So he said, “I thought some still studied the subject for its own interest.”

  “There are always antiquarians. I sent a few to you yesterday, when I heard what you were doing. I hope they didn’t get in the way.”

  “They were helpful. Without them I would never have known an infusion of maijarra leaves could loose the spell.”

  “Helpful, were they? Frankly, I’m surprised. I spent half the night, or maybe it just seemed that long, arguing with one of them. He had a notion that dragons were actually extinct. That was . . . before. You understand. Now he insists that the dragons we face today are a different breed than those we fought ages past in the Longest War.”

  “Um. Interesting.”

  “But useless. The definition of an antiquarian.”

  Earno shook his head. “They say you are an antiquarian yours
elf, Eldest Tyr.”

  “They just mean I’m old. But I’m not useless, not yet.”

  They arrived at the corridor leading to the Eldest’s chambers. Tyr pulled open a door and waved Earno in. “Just wait in here a moment, until I’ve seen about breakfast. It’ll be nothing fancy, mind you. The feasts are over for Thrymhaiam, for a season.” Then he left.

  In the room where Earno found himself there were workbenches, where restless dwarves could work with their hands while they waited to see the Eldest. This amused Earno (he would have preferred a pitcher of warm water, a basin, and a dish of soap), but he recognized the compliment it implied. He wondered if Tyr actually expected him to while away the time by polishing a few stones he might (but did not) have in his pocket, or by cutting glass for mirrors.

  This last bench drew his eye, though. He went to it and found a few scraps of mirror. He raised one and looked into his own eyes.

  Yes. The flash of deep bright red was still there. He had hoped it would be gone by now. He was sure, he was almost sure, that the dragonspell had not been focused by a command. Perhaps looking into the eyes of so many spellbound had reinforced his own spell. It was unfortunate.

  Perhaps he should take some of the maijarra infusion. But maijarra trees were rare in these parts. (The tree had been extinct on Thrymhaiam for centuries, although, ironically, it was extremely common in Haukrull, beyond the Haukr mountains, where the dragons now reigned.) He, as a summoner, had many other ways of countering the spell. Best to leave the herbs for those who had none.

  He was uneasily aware of the danger, that his reluctance to take this most direct step toward lifting the spell might be an effect of the spell itself. But he also knew that, for the moment, he himself was in control and that the spell would only grow weaker in time, since it had not, could not have been fixed by a command. His wild suspicions and fears seemed to have passed with Morlock into the darkness under the mountains. For now, the danger was no danger. He heard Tyr approaching and hastily put the mirror fragment down.