Harrowing the Dragon

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “Why did you leave Daghian?”

  “I followed something one winter through the Daghian marshes. A cothone, played like a promise of passion and wonder beyond the mists, out of the hills of Jazi… All I found here were sheep bells.” She smiled a little, crooked smile.

  “But you didn’t leave Jazi.”

  “No. I became their Bard. How could I have left them? I am their promise of wonder. Of hope.” She studied Cresce, the uncertainty in her eyes easing a little. “You are beginning to understand me. I am not terrible. I am just—torn.”

  “Like Hroi Tuel.”

  Lelia nodded. “Hroi. Afraid to hope in visions. One day, he’ll leave Jazi. But I don’t know if he will ever find peace, in or out of Jazi.”

  “Who played—who played the cothone I heard in the marshes last autumn?”

  Lelia was silent. She reached out suddenly, put her hand on Cresce’s wrist. “Believe me.” Her voice was low, timbre-less as a distant horn. “I didn’t.”

  Cresce drew breath soundlessly. She sat with her head bowed, gazing down at the valley below. “If Sere stays with you, the Lords of Daghian will come to get him.”

  “You stop them.”

  “Will I be able to? If you—if you leave Jazi—”

  “I can’t leave.”

  “If you leave, will you be content in Daghian?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then why did you call Sere! Why did you give him hope?”

  “Sere knows me.” She curled the soft wool in her long fingers. “He was very angry with me, last night. I told him exactly what I’ve told you. The truth.”

  “Do you love him?”

  She sighed. “If I could turn into a bird, fly into a winter twilight… I love Sere as I love Jazi. As much as I am able. He knows that. He sees me clearly. And I’m not a woman in a mist. I am his wife, and the mother of his son. I am Bard of Jazi, the good fortune of Jazi. All these things bind me. But only because I choose to be bound.”

  Cresce was silent. The Bard’s face held, she thought suddenly, all the names of the pipes of the cothone. The longing, the mourning, the calling, the passion, the warning… She raised her hand suddenly, touched its beauty, and at the touch, remembered its danger.

  “I’m free,” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why,” she cried out, rising, “do I have to keep telling myself that?”

  Cresce roamed through the hills all day long. At evening, she returned to the Bard’s house. Hroi Tuel, escorting the last of the visitors down from the hills, dropped from his horse to her side. She did not speak to him.

  He said, “An hour before dawn, the Bard will wake. She’ll play the sun’s rising at the edge of Forever field. The villagers and guests will gather in a great circle around the field. The cothone will be played from sunrise to sunrise. The Daghian Lord will be killed if he sets one foot out of this house.”

  She went into the house without looking at him. In her room, she found Sere gazing out through the thin shaft of window at the barren field. She stared helplessly at his back, wondering if he was imprisoning himself out of love for a woman or as a penance for Hekar Pass. She went to his side, stood as close to him as she could without touching him. His eyes met hers; he brushed her cheek gently.

  “I’ll miss you, Bard.”

  “You’ll die here. You’ll hear nothing but sheep bells, and they’ll find a reason to kill you.”

  “No one ever died of listening to sheep bells.”

  “I would.”

  “You stop my brothers from coming.” His eyes bored into hers harshly. “You can. Make them feel the truth. Or there will be more blood shed between Daghian, Jazi, and Hekar than in all the ballads you learned at Onon.”

  “Come home.”

  “No.”

  She left him. She took sheepskins, crossed the stream, and went to sit at the edge of Forever, facing east, so that she would see the sun rise through the great, dark arch. When the moon set she fell asleep. She woke at the first, dazzling shaft of light sweeping the mouth of the arch, called by the Bard of Jazi on the first pipe of the cothone, the pipe of joy.

  Arrows soared through the arch, tuned to the pipe. They turned into minute, hurling splinters of light before they fell earthward again. Women from the village carried great trays of food and wine to the crowd gathering around the field. They were talking, laughing; some of them sang to the sound of the cothone. Children, herdsmen, farmers, craftsmen, the visiting bards took places around the barren ground, sitting in a great circle while bowmen, to the strains of the ram’s horn, sent another blaze of arrows through the arch. Musicians gathered to one side of Cresce. She studied their instruments: painted drums of wood and hollow gourd, copper wind chimes, rows of bells strung on leather, horns, wooden flutes, the small hand pipes the men used to call their horses. The musicians were talking, eating; children surrounded them, tapping on the drums and the bells. Only the Bard ate nothing, and spoke to no one as she brought up the sun.

  When she sang the first Song of Changing Fortune, though, there was utter silence.

  It was a light, almost dreamlike song, accompanied by the bird-voices of hand-pipes, the wind-stroked chimes, and high, soft bells. The sun had loosed its grip of the hills; the Bard coaxed it higher until it hovered in the center of the archway. Her voice faded into the morning wind. Birds flashed, their wings on fire, across the face of the sun. There was a murmuring from the visitors. Then the Bard lifted the cothone, began to play the second pipe, the pipe of wonder.

  Cresce took wine, and some steamed, fruit-filled bread from one of the women. The swelling in her throat made it difficult to swallow at first. Lelia’s face seemed remote, peaceful, as if she had left her confusion and pain outside the barren circle. She would not sing again until noon, Cresce remembered. Noon, then twilight, midnight, and sunrise again, the first five of the hundred and one Songs of Changing Fortune. Cresce wondered if Sere could hear her voice. Then she realized someone was sitting beside her.

  She turned, wondering how long Hroi Tuel had been with her. He sat as still as the great bird on his shoulder, but she saw his eyes move from face to face around the circle. Once he said, his voice inflectionless, “She has brought up the sun; she will bring up the corn.” Then, later, he touched Cresce’s wrist. “There’s my father.”

  A big, black-haired man, dressed in a long, wheat-colored ceremonial robe, had seated himself on the other side of the musicians. One of the barefoot children crept up behind him, flung her arms around his neck, and he laughed. But a shadow settled into his eyes a moment later.

  Hroi said, regarding him, “He said I should have killed the Daghian Lord.” He spat suddenly on the ground. “Men of Daghian are not human. That’s what I have been taught. He would have been human enough in my dreams if I had killed him. But now he will stay in Jazi, and no one is permitted to touch him or speak to him. My father says he’ll bring misfortune. My father says the Bard brought you here so she could leave Jazi.”

  “I know.”

  He looked at her then, angry, tormented. “She is our good fortune. Lelia Daghian.” He spat again. Then, at her silence, he asked roughly, “What will you do?”

  “I am Bard of Daghian. I have nothing to do with the fortune of Jazi.”

  “There is no such thing as fortune. There is only a woman playing a cothone who hates Jazi.”

  “No,” Cresce said softly. “She is like you. Listen to her music. She could have walked out of Jazi at any time. But she chose to stay.”

  “She brought you.”

  “I won’t play. She took that risk.”

  “Then the man she loves will be a prisoner in Jazi, and the butchers of Daghian will come looking for him. There is no fortune. Only a woman playing a cothone.”

  “I’ll tell the Lords of Daghian the truth. There will be no war.”

  “What music will you give to Daghian that you refuse to give Jazi? Bard.”

  She was silent.
The Bard changed pipes, began a song on the pipe of laughter.

  At noon, Lelia sang to the sun overhead as she walked around the field, her shadow flickering out of its barrenness to touch the new grass pushing toward light on the plain. After her song, the Bard of Hekar began to play. His music was very simple and a little unsure, for he was not used to playing the cothone, but there was a lightness and enthusiasm in it that the Bard had inspired. She smiled across the circle at him, then sat down for the first time in six hours. The women brought her food and wine, but they did not speak to her. Cresce saw her glance once at the black house beneath the oak. The song of the Bard of Hekar ended; another visitor began to play. Cresce realized with surprise that it was one of her teachers from Onon. At mid-afternoon, Lelia began to play again. The musicians beat a wild, raucous dance to her music. The children whirled to it, while some of the old people stretched on the grass and napped. The women serving food disappeared; a little later the smells of roast lamb and wild boar wafted across the field.

  The Bard’s song at sunset was played on the fourth and fifth pipes: the pipes of longing and of love. Standing on the opposite side of the circle, she eased the brilliant sun into a bed of gold beyond the hills. Its rays touched her face again and again before it withdrew. The oak shadow flung over half the plain faded slowly; the tree loosed the light it had gathered into its boughs. Dusk left the plain in an uncertain, misty light. Then, as the first star appeared, the bowmen shot arrows of flaming pitch high, high toward the arch, trying to send them over it. Only one struck the lower edge of the arch; the others fell through it, sank, burning, into the bare earth. There was laughter, applause. Torches were lit in the grass. Lelia played the measure of a wild dance that was picked up by one of the visiting bards. The musicians shook the crowd awake with the lively beat of drums and flutes. Circles of dancers formed around the torches, whirling and laughing. The full moon began its slow arch above Jazi.

  Hroi Tuel, who had appeared and disappeared unexpectedly throughout the day, brought Cresce a plate of food, then vanished again. She sat picking at spiced lamb and pickled vegetables, watching the dancers winding in and out of the torches. Someone dropped down beside her in the shadows. She glanced up expecting Hroi’s taut, brooding face. She coughed a little, on a piece of pickled cabbage.

  Sere touched her briefly, then shifted back into the shadows. He waited until a woman carrying pitchers of wine had passed them. Then he said softly, “I was going mad in that house, trying to hear. I had to hear. They won’t notice me in the dark.”

  “Have you eaten?” She pushed her plate to him. “They’ll kill you if they recognize you.”

  “They won’t.” He wrapped lamb in hot bread, chewed it hungrily. “They forgot to feed me. Or maybe they didn’t forget. Have you played yet?”

  “No. I’m not going to.”

  He stopped chewing, stared at her. He swallowed. “Why? I want to hear what comes out of you and that cothone.”

  “I’m not playing.”

  He held her eyes, his own eyes narrowed, until she looked away. He put her plate down, gripped her wrist. Then a shadow rustled next to Cresce, and Sere seemed to blur into himself, shifting back into his sheepskin cloak. Hroi held out of a cup of wine to Cresce. Then he offered a piece of boar meat to the bird on his shoulder. Cresce, her mouth dry, her hands shaking, sipped wine silently, waiting for the hard, incredulous whip of his voice as he discovered Sere. But Hroi never spoke. Balanced on his haunches, his eyes unwinking, he looked like the hawk on his shoulder, its still eyes drenched with fire.

  The dance music began to die. The moon’s face hardened into a clear, unbearable beauty, and the Bard of Jazi played a warning on the sixth pipe. Another bard from Onon began playing with her, weaving a restless, minor melody through hers. Other warnings drifted through theirs, the dark music never quite harmonized, never quite chaotic, as if many different voices were trying to describe the same misfortune looming out of the night. Some voices drifted to silence; others took up the warning until it seemed to Cresce that every bard in the circle had played except for her. But there seemed no music in her, as if she had already heeded the Bard’s warning.

  Finally, all the cothones fell silent, except for Lelia’s. She had changed position again; she stood facing west, at the edge of the moon-shadow of the oak. Her face was in shadow; her music drifted into shadow. For a breath the night was soundless. Then, out of moonlight and shadow, came the deep, wild, passionate voice of the seventh pipe.

  Cresce felt her heart torn open suddenly, aching. The Bard seemed to know all their languages. She played Hroi’s tormented doubt, Sere’s anger and love. She played her own confusion of love and restlessness, the pride and beauty she had learned at Daghian, the sorrow and faith of Jazi. And out of all the tangle of their thoughts, she shaped something that ran at the edge of the fiery darkness like a dream: a glimpse of unbearable beauty that existed only to be hunted, never caught. Cresce’s hands closed on her own cothone. She kept them still, though the music seemed to gather in her bones. Her silence was a hard, painful knot in her throat. Visions of the great white stag, forever pursued, forever eluded, ran through her heart. She thought of Sere tracking it on foot through the marshes of Daghian; of his grandson at her left pursuing a dream of love; of Hroi Tuel at her right, desperate for an illusion of truth. And she realized then what endless, hopeless visions the Bard herself pursued to create for them their own visions of hope.

  She found herself on her feet, in silent salute to the Bard of Jazi. Tears burned in her eyes; her hands seemed frozen on her cothone. Music weltered soundlessly through her, compelled by a heritage of a barren field and a black spring night. But she stood still, forcing herself silent, until she realized slowly the barrenness of her own refusal to pursue the powerful, fleeting vision of her music.

  She lifted the eighth pipe to her mouth, understanding at last what it mourned. She waited until the Bard’s music died away. Then, with her first low note, she promised Hroi and Sere and the people of Jazi their visions, and the Bard of Jazi her freedom. She accompanied Lelia through the midnight Song of Fortune. Then she drew the night into her cothone, sent it out again, note by note, across the barren field. Pitching her music deep, she sent a slow, dark song into the arch that seemed to reach out of her bones, out of the roots beneath her, out of the life beneath the barren field, to pierce the silence locked within the arch of Forever.

  She stopped as abruptly as she had began, when the only sound left in her was the deep, ragged beat of her heart. She sat down, dropping the cothone. Slowly, someone else in the circle took up her song, and she closed her eyes, breathing deeply in relief, that she had tried and failed, and the silence surrounding the stars was still unbroken. Then she recognized the rich, husky, unearthly pipes of the cothone answering her.

  A wind swept across the plain, carrying echoes of a thousand pipes of joy and mourning. Something seemed to enter Cresce, touch her bones. She heard Hroi’s breath catch, then catch again. She swallowed dryly longing suddenly to play again, to stand with the night to its darkness and end, then bring the first touch of sunlight into Jazi. Then a voice out of the shadows cried out harshly, shattering the weave of music beyond the arch:

  “No!”

  Hroi was on his feet suddenly, the hawk beating on his shoulder. He pulled a torch out of the ground, swung it at the darkness, illuminating Sere as he flung himself back from the fire.

  “You,” Hroi breathed. “You.” There were tears running down his face. “You in Daghian were born listening for the voices of the dead in Jazi.”

  He hurled the torch at Sere’s face. Sere rolled; the torch caught the sheepskin at his back, set it blazing. He threw himself on his back, trying to smother the flames. Hroi, the hawk fluttering off his shoulder, lunged at Sere. Sere’s boot slammed into his breastbone, spun him off his feet. Sere straightened, slapping at his cloak. A fist coming out of the darkness cracked across his face and he fell, extinguishing the last of the
fire. Cresce, seeing the circle of men closing around him, felt a fury shake her like the bass voices of the cothone.

  “Stop it!” Her voice cracked like a reed. “I am the Bard of Jazi! You will not touch him!” She whirled at Hroi, who was starting to rise. “Stop it!” He froze. She looked down at Sere, struggling to his knees. “And you!” His face lifted; her voice cracked again. “Lord of Daghian! Go back to Daghian!”

  Lelia, shouldering past the men, went to his side. She tried to help him up; he shook her away, shouted at her, still on his knees, “What are you doing? You called Cresce Dami to take your place—You called us both—You nearly got me killed—You weren’t content in Daghian, you aren’t content here—”

  “I am not made to be content!” She was crying suddenly, still trying to help him, on her knees beside him.

  “Then what are you made for?”

  “To play the cothone. To know all its voices.” She put her arms around him, her voice muffled in charred sheepskin. “I have been faithful to Jazi. I will be that faithful to you. That much I know. That, I chose.”

  He was silent. His eyes went to Cresce; she saw the look in them that must have been in his grandfather’s when the beautiful animal changed shape before his eyes and then changed shape again. Cresce put her hands over her mouth, whispered to Sere, “You. Love her. She will sing the truth in Daghian.”

  She saw the tears in his own eyes. “I can’t let you do this. I can’t go back to Daghian leaving you here. You are the pride of Daghian. Your music will die here in the silence. Everything you learned at Onon will be lost.”

  “I didn’t have to play here,” she said softly. “I chose to.” She swallowed the fire in her throat. “Go home.” She looked at the Overlord of Jazi, staring at her in wonder at the edge of the circle of men. “I am Bard of Jazi, chosen by the dead of Jazi. You will permit him to leave in peace. Or I will cry over every cornfield in Jazi.”