Days of Air and Darkness

by Katharine Kerr

  “If I had the chance to kill Horsekin, I wouldn’t want to leave. Blood and vengeance would keep me warm.”

  Rhodry got up, put more wood on the fire, then sat cross-legged by her head and facing her. She yawned, curling her enormous tongue cat-fashion, then laid her head on her paws and watched him with a glittery eye. More and more, he hated thinking that such a beautiful creature lived as a slave.

  “I hear your old enemy appeared in town today,” Rhodry said.

  “Evandar, you mean? That oozing slug, that pink and hairy creature of slime and shame! I hate the very sound of his name, and he’s cursed lucky he knows mine.”

  “Indeed? You know, there’s somewhat I’ve always wanted to ask you. How did he learn it, anyway?”

  Arzosah arched her neck in a rattle of scales.

  “He tricked me, the fiend, that scum of three worlds!”

  “Well, I figured that. I merely wondered how he could have bested someone as clever as you.”

  She relaxed, lowering her head and allowing him to scratch behind her eye-ridge.

  “It was a riddling game,” she said at last. “He offered me the ring for a prize, you see, if I won, and I could smell the dweomer on the silver. It intrigued me, wondering what the ring might do if I owned it. And he flattered me, saying that he wished to learn new riddles from a master of riddles, and everyone knew that Wyrmkind produced the greatest riddlemasters of all. Indeed, say I, and what prize will you want if I lose? Oh, come now, says he, there’s no chance of that. Like a dolt, I thought no more about it.”

  “And you lost?”

  “The contest? Not at all, not at all—that’s how clever the swine was. First I asked a riddle, then he, and each time we answered the other, back and forth, all even, like, for hours and hours, while I could smell the dweomer like the best perfume in the world. Finally, he failed at one, or looking back on it, I’ll wager the oozing slug pretended to fail. If I answered his next, then the ring would be mine.”

  She curled a paw and studied her talons for a long moment.

  “And?” Rhodry said.

  “By then I wanted that ring so badly it was like lust. It was hot, truly, so hot in the sun that I felt all watery. We were sitting on a rocky ledge, you see, very high up it was, and ever so lovely and warm. That must have been it, the sun and the dweomer-lust together.” She looked up, her jet-black lips drawn back from her fangs. “So he asked his last riddle, and like a fool, I blurted out the answer before I could stop to think.”

  “The answer was your name?”

  “It was.” She tossed back her head and hissed like a thousand cats. “In a black, black night, two copper moons sail above a cavern filled with flashing blades, and this night can fly and hunt the forest glades, far and wide resounds its fame, what, oh what, is the black night’s name? And I answered him! He laughed, Dragonmaster, he mocked me, there on the high ridge. I had one last moment of freedom, before he should say my name aloud, so I flicked a claw to knock him from the ridge and send him spinning down to his death, but he was gone, just gone, vanished by his slimy oozing excuse for dweomer. I leapt into the air and flew, for days I flew, this way and that, trying to smell out the ring and find him that way, but never could I sniff a trace of him.”

  Rhodry glanced at the silver band glittering on his finger.

  “This should have been your prize.”

  “It should. He cheated me out of my name and my prize both. Which is why I say he’s as lucky as a fiend can be, to know my name, or I’d have eaten him long before this.”

  “Tell me somewhat honestly.” Rhodry held up his hand and flashed reflected light from the ring. “If this ring should be lost, would you be able to take your revenge on Evandar?”

  “Alas, I could not, because he knows the name, and on his tongue the name alone has all the power that any being would need. The ring was for you, because you’re but an elf and a man both, and the name alone wouldn’t have given you the power to enslave me.”

  “I see.”

  For a long time, Rhodry stared into the fire, wondering at himself for the strange idea that was forming in his mind.

  “Master?” she said at last. “What’s so wrong? You look sad.”

  “I was remembering a time long ago, when I served as a slave in a far-off country. A rich woman owned me, and though she was kind, I was still her slave.”

  “I never knew that. How did you get free?”

  “My brother came and found me, then bought my freedom.”

  “Ah. It’s a fine thing to have kin like that.”

  “It is, truly. I haven’t seen him in years and years, but I hope he’s well, wherever he may be.”

  He considered for a moment longer, then slipped the ring off to hold it up twixt thumb and forefinger. Puzzled, she raised her head and swung it his way, to watch him with both eyes.

  “If this ring were lost,” he said, “would you kill me?”

  “Never, and I swear that upon the ring. I’ve come to respect you, Rhodry Dragonmaster, with all my heart. You would have made a fine dragon, I think, if your Wyrd had allowed it.”

  He laughed with a toss of his head.

  “But if it were lost, you’d fly off, never to return?”

  She hesitated, cocking her head, rustling her crest.

  “Once I would have said yes and without thinking twice,” she said. “But now I have the strangest feeling round my heart.”

  “Indeed? What?”

  “A wondering if I’d go, because it would sadden me to be gone as much as it would please me to be free. Why are you asking me this? Is it just to torment me, slave as I am?”

  “Never.” Rhodry smiled briefly. “Here.”

  He tossed the ring straight up in the air as far as he could. Glittering, it flew up into the darkness, then tumbled back down into the pool of firelight. Arzosah swung her massive head its way and snapped—gulped and swallowed. The ring was gone.

  “There, you have your prize at last. Go free, my well-loved friend, if you want, or stay if you want. It’s your choice now, not mine.”

  Arzosah clambered to her feet in a long glitter of body, shook herself twice, stretched her wings out and out, roofing over the fire and casting vast shadows, but all the while she stared at him. For a moment, she crouched on the edge of flight, started to speak, thought better of it, and shook her wings. Rhodry merely waited, smiling. All at once, she folded her wings back, turned round in a half-circle, and lay down again with her other side toward the fire.

  “Well, my back does get so cold,” she remarked. “You’re a clever man.”

  “Am I now? Why?”

  “I shan’t answer that, because you know cursed well.” She flopped her head onto her extended paws and sighed. “You called me well-loved. Is that true?”

  “It is.”

  Arzosah rumbled for a moment, then swung her head his way.

  “I’ll fly with you a fair while more, then. Truly, Rhodry—nah nah nah, I shan’t call you that anymore, because it’s a name from the language of men. Rori you shall be, Rori Dragonfriend.”

  “My lady, never have I had a title that pleased me as much.”

  “Good. Now, here, I’ll have to fly home before the first snow, but I promise you this: in the spring, I’ll return. You have my sworn word on that.”

  And not for one moment did he doubt that she would keep it.

  EPILOGUE

  The Rhiddaer, 1117

  POPULUS

  A figure of most mixed import, which does color its character with those omens falling near it upon our map, but in general, it does signify good rather than evil, for when the people come together, there is feasting and merriment. In one thing only does it bode ill, matters of dweomer and secret things, for such have no part in the pleasures of public life. Thus, when it falls into the Land of Salt, this figure does bode evil most foul

  —The Omenbook of Gwarn,

  Loremaster

  CERR CAWNEN LAY LIKE a turquoise in th
e midst of a world of white. The high mountains to the north stood shrouded in clouds. In the rolling farmlands to the south, only the roofs and chimneys of the houses poked up, feathered with wood smoke, through the first heavy snow. The water meadows surrounding the town lay frozen in a lace of silver. Behind the stone ring of town walls, Loc Vaed stretched unfrozen, from its long green shallows out to blue deeper water and the central rock of Citadel, where the public buildings and the houses of the few wealthy families stood. The rest of the town huddled in the shallows: a jumble and welter of houses and shops all perched on pilings or crannogs, joined by little bridges to one another in the rough equivalent of city blocks, which in turn bristled with jetties and rickety stairs leading down to the stretches of open water between them. Fed by volcanic springs as it was, the lake would stay clear all winter, shrouded under mists and steam where the heat from the water hit the chilly air.

  With the harvest in and safely stowed in Citadel’s public granaries, the town had time for celebrations. Soon Admi, Chief Speaker of the town and head of the Council of Five, would be marrying off his daughter to the son of a merchant house. The two grand families would be throwing a public feast; they’d brought musicians in from every village around. Up on Citadel, another family was also considering plans, though these would be a fair bit less splendid.

  “It were best we wait till the feasting be done,” Dera said to her daughter. “We don’t want your wedding to be lost, like.”

  “Oh here, Mam!” Niffa said with a laugh. “And who would be noticing the ratter’s lass’s wedding anyway?”

  “We do have friends in this town. It be needful for us to set things up right, like, for the celebrating. At the dark time of the year, the folk will be glad of a nice occasion, they will.”

  Niffa smiled, surrendering. There never was any stopping Dera once she got an idea in her head.

  “So now,” Dera said. “I’ll have your Da just stop by and tell Demet’s da, like, of the plans.”

  “I can go tell Demet.”

  “Now hush! It be needful to do things right, and the fathers, they be the ones to discuss it, like, now that we’ve made the decisions.” Dera paused for a wicked grin. “Men do like that, lass, the thinking that they’ve decided a thing. You remember that once you’re married.”

  “Well and good, then, Mam.”

  Dera let her smile fade and turned away, looking into the hearth where a fire crackled to keep off the damp. In the last few months, she’d aged. The wrinkles round her blue eyes ran deep, now, and gray stained her yellow hair.

  “It be our Jahdo you be thinking of, bain’t?” Niffa said.

  “It is. Ah, ye gods, I wonder if he still draws breath, wherever he may be.”

  “Mam, if he were to die, I’d know it. I swear I would.”

  Dera nodded agreement, then stared into the fire, as if she, too, could see the salamanders leaping and darting among the flames. At times, Niffa wondered if her mother really could see the Wildfolk as she could but denied it for some stubborn reason of her own. There was no doubt that people did laugh at you, if you blundered and let them know what you could see. Of course, when it was a death you foretold, the laughing stopped. Niffa had learned early to hold her tongue about such omens with everyone but her mother. With a vast sigh, Dera got up from the bench.

  “I’ll just go fetch your Da. At least we’ve got the wedding to look forward to.”

  Niffa took the chance to slip out, grabbing her hooded cloak from the row of nails by the door. The ratters lived in two rooms attached to the public granaries, theirs by a written right going back as far as anyone could remember, provided that they and their ferrets “did work with all due diligence” to trap and kill the rats come for the grain. To get out, Niffa had to squeeze down a narrow corridor, then climb down a ladder to the alley running between the granaries, squat stone buildings clinging halfway up Citadel’s hill. Soon she would be leaving Citadel, going over to the crannog house where her betrothed lived with his family, the weavers. She would have to learn to spin, she supposed, and how to handle cloth instead of ferrets.

  “I’ve got to marry someone.”

  She startled herself by speaking aloud, glanced round furtively, but there on the edge of twilight no one walked nearby. Every day that her wedding grew closer, her heart ached more and more. She loved Demet, she supposed, and she knew she was lucky to be allowed to marry a man she honestly did care for. I wish I could have gone with that Gel da’Thae bard instead of Jahdo, she thought. I wish I could see what lies off to the east, or to the south, or even off to the west, Gel da’Thae or no Gel da’Thae. Not that there was the slightest chance of her ever traveling, of course, not the slightest chance in the world.

  Down at the shore stood a rickety wooden jetty, beaded with coracles. These little round boats belonged to everyone and no one; Niffa helped herself to the nearest. She laid her cloak on the thwart and rowed across the steamy lake to tie up at another jetty, then made a haphazard way to the actual shore, climbing from house to house and deck to deck until she gained solid ground. When she looked up, she could see lanterns bobbing up top the city wall. The town militia kept a perpetual guard, even in winter.

  She climbed up a ladder to the catwalks and eventually found Demet, her betrothed, over the east gate of the city. He was a blond lad, tall and on the beefy side, with a ready grin and pleasant blue eyes. He was grinning now, as he held his lantern up to see his visitor.

  “And what be you doing, up on the walls? Going to join the militia?”

  She laughed, laying a hand on his arm.

  “I come with bad news, truly. Mam wants our wedding to wait till round the darkest day.”

  Demet swore, turning away and setting the lantern down in a niche on the wall proper.

  “I did hope you’d be mine a bit sooner than that,” he growled.

  “And so did I.”

  He sighed, leaning on folded arms on the top of the wall. She could just reach to do the same. Out across the snowy dark, the moon was rising, full and pale against the winter stars.

  “Here!” Demet said abruptly. “There be someone out there!”

  Sure enough, when she followed his point she could see a figure, all wrapped in a cloak, judging from the silhouette, making a slow way through the snow toward the city. Demet hailed his sergeant, who came striding along to look.

  “Well, now, it be needful to keep the gates shut, but whoever that may be, he’ll freeze if he spends the night out there.” The sergeant paused, chewing on his mustaches. “Well, now. I’m not sure what be best to do.”

  The guards consulted, arguing back and forth, calling down to an officer on the ground, while the figure walked closer and closer. Niffa suddenly felt a profound dread, a sick terror, as if she’d bitten into a piece of meat and tasted poison. Whoever that figure was, it meant nothing but harm to Cerr Cawnen. She wanted to cry out, to warn against opening the gate, to announce that better this creature freeze to death now and spare them all harm, but the words would not come, and who would be listening to the ratters’ lass, anyway?

  She pressed back against the wall as the officer in charge came bustling up the ladder, followed by Verrarc, the youngest member of the Council of Five. Bundled up in a cloak of the finest blue wool, trimmed with embroidered flowers round the hood, the councilman stood just about Demet’s height, and he was as blond, too, though more slender. When he glanced Niffa’s way with a polite nod, she shrank back and refused to look at him.

  The officer grabbed the lantern and leaned over the wall just as the cloaked figure reached the gates.

  “Who goes?” he bellowed.

  “Oh, ye gods, have mercy!” It was a woman’s voice, drifting up faint. “Let me in, I pray you. I’ve not eaten for days.”

  “Raena!” Verrarc called out. “It that really you?”

  “It is, Verro. Oh please, have mercy!”

  In a flood of orders, the councilman sent guards down to open the gates, then followe
d, smiling in the light of his lantern. Demet stayed with Niffa, who was waiting till the excitement died below to climb down. He glanced her wray and rolled his eyes heavenward.

  “So, her people must have turned her out,” Demet said. “Sent her back to her lover, did they? I wonder if she’ll be any more faithful to him than she was to her husband?”

  Even though Niffa knew the story of Raena and Verrarc’s old scandal as well as he did—after all, everyone in the town had talked of naught else, two years past—it took her a moment to figure out what he meant. The woman at the gates brought with her such a stink of bad omens that Niffa simply couldn’t identify her with something as human as the councilman’s adulterous love affair. Yet when she climbed down and saw the woman, she recognized her, even though Raena’s long black hair was all matted and dirty, and she was no longer as fleshy as Niffa had been remembering. Thin and somehow shrunken, she clung to Verrarc’s arm as he helped her hobble across the rough ground.

  “She did have a bad time of it, then,” Demet murmured, “if she did walk here from her people’s farm up by Penli. That be a fair long journey.”

  Niffa stopped herself just in time from blurting out a sudden truth—that’s not where she did come from, she’s been elsewhere. She knew it even as she could never have said how she knew, just as she knew, in spite of herself, that letting Raena into Cerr Cawnen was like clutching a rat to your breast. She looked up and found the moon, but as she watched, it sailed behind torn clouds and turned them to dirty fire.

  And in the Lands, Evandar went to the silver river to free his brother from the oak, only to find tree and the soul within both gone. Where the oak had stood lay a raven’s feather, blue-black and three feet long, left behind, no doubt, to mock him.

  “So,” he said aloud. “Our little friend has found herself a new god, has she? Now this will be a nuisance and a half!”

  GLOSSARY

  ABER (Deverrian) A river mouth, an estuary.

  ALAR (Elvish) A group of elves, who may or may not be blood kin, who choose to travel together for some indefinite period of time.