“Yes,” said Seastrider. “Yes. But you will not go alone.”
He stared at her. What nonsense was this? He had always known that when the time came, he must go into the cities alone. “What do you plan to do?” he asked her, touching her great silver cheek. “Walk the roads pretending to be my war-horse?”
“Yes,” she said. “I will do that.”
Teb wished she could. It wasn’t a moment for joking.
“I will shape-shift. We have spoken of it before. It is not impossible.”
“But you said it was unreliable, with the powers of the dark so strong. Even if you could make shape-shifting magic strong enough to counter the dark, it could be dangerous. You said you might not be able to change back.”
“With practice, Tebriel, we will manage. Nothing in this life is without danger.”
“And what do you mean by we?”
“One saddle horse and three to follow you.” Seastrider stretched out over the lip of the nest, her wings spread on the wind so she hung motionless in the sky. Then she turned and curled down into a tight circle. Suddenly she vanished.
In her place reared a dazzling white mare, her neck bowed and her green eyes blazing. Teb stood gaping.
Then Starpounder disappeared, and where the blue-black dragon had coiled there wheeled a snorting blue-black stallion. Then Nightraider, two stallions and a mare now, and then Windcaller. So two and two they were, their eyes flashing with powerful magic.
“How can you do that?” Teb said, caught in wonder. “How can your bodies compress so? How . . . ?”
We do not compress, Seastrider managed to tell him. Our bodies are caught in another dimension. What you see of us is the stuff of magic, of the shape-shifting spell, and not real.
Teb touched her shoulder and neck, and wove his fingers in her mane. She felt very real to him, warm and silken, with the wild, sweet smell of a good horse. He put his hand on her back. She stayed steady. He tightened his hand in her mane and with a sudden thrust leaped across her back and swung astride. She stood quivering and snorting; then she reared and pawed in a battle stance, so he had to grip tight with his knees. She galloped in a small circle, leaping logs, then stood quiet, sweating.
Will I do? she asked demurely.
“Oh, yes. Only . . . you are too beautiful. All of you are. You will attract too much attention.”
Seastrider lowered her head and looked at him with wry teasing that made him laugh. We cannot help being beautiful, Tebriel. Dragons are the most beautiful creatures alive, and so we have become beautiful horses. They had no false modesty, these dragons.
Teb sighed. “Not only will you make me more conspicuous,” he said, “but the armies of the dark would like very much to have such mounts as you. What will you do if they try to steal you?”
When she did not answer, he grew annoyed. He knew her silences. “What kind of plan are you cooking? Do you want to be stolen? But what good—”
Not stolen, Tebriel. You will travel as a horse trader, and we will be your wares. Such fine mounts as we should give you entree into any palace on Tirror.
“And may I ask where I have secured such horses? And what you mean to do if someone buys you? What—”
Seastrider’s look silenced him. You will call yourself a prince from the far southern land of Thedria, which lies beyond the vast expanse of sea and has no commerce with these lands. The dark knows little of that place, I think, for we have sensed no evil from that far continent. You will steal appropriate clothes for a prince, and you will enter the strongholds of the dark in style. And, she said, tossing her head, if we are bought, Tebriel, no matter. No stable or fence or stone prison can hold us.
“Well,” he said. “Well. . . all right. But how have I come to these continents? By rowboat over the wild seas hauling four horses?”
By seagoing barge, to barter your horses for gold. You are the Prince of the Horsemasters of Thedria.
She had it all worked out. Teb pointed out to her civilly that he had not intended to go among palaces but to slip quietly into the cities among the common folk, where he could gather information unnoticed by the dark rulers. If it was all the same to Seastrider, he did not want to make himself an object of immediate observation for the dark.
But if you are an object of great interest to the dark, Tebriel, do you not think the underground will be watching you even more closely? Do you not think they will be more than anxious to learn about you, and to learn which side you might favor, this very rich and mysterious prince? It will be much easier to let the underground soldiers come to you, Tebriel, than to try to search them out in strange cities.
Teb sighed again and said no more. The horses disappeared and the dragons were there, still staring in that annoying way. He stared back at them crossly, then turned away to ready his pack.
He wrapped his mother’s diary in oilskins, with a few other valuables he would not take, and hid them between tree trunks in the wall of the nest. He would take the large packet that contained the white leather from which he had cut Seastrider’s harness, and the awl he had used to fashion it. He would need more thread. He slipped the gold coins into his pocket, gifts from the otter nation. With gold he could steal clothes, yet leave payment.
He knew where they would go—they had discussed it several times: Dacia, which lay far to the north above a tangle of island nations. Neutral Dacia. They had swung low on the night wind near to it more than once, and always they could sense the powers of the dark there. Yet the dark did not rule Dacia. He didn’t understand how this could be, how that country had remained neutral. Both dark and resistance forces were strong on Dacia. He didn’t know what had kept the dark from possessing that country totally, for the small continent provided good cover for the dark forces. From that base, the unliving could attack Edain and Bukla and the tiny island nations of the Benaynne Archipelago.
Surely the resistance had a strong spy network and ways to steal food and weapons from the dark armies. Perhaps the strength of the resistance alone was what kept Dacia free, though Teb felt there might be a stronger force at work. He would be very interested to learn why Dacia was not beaten back by the dark, yet had not driven it out. Dacia would be a likely place to find Garit, and maybe Camery, a good place to join the rebels in any case.
The truly free countries were very aggressive in destroying the unliving, for most humans felt only terror of the wraithlike creatures. The very mention of the leader Quazelzeg made warriors burn with hatred.
The slave makers sucked on the suffering of humans as a leech will suck human blood. Fear in humans strengthened the un-men, and pain in humans and animals was as heady as wine to them. They would devise any means to increase and lengthen such suffering.
But if Ebis the Black had driven them out, and had kept his land free, so could others. Teb and the dragons had gone twice to Ratnisbon, to sing the past alive for Ebis’s people. Ebis understood that people needed that knowledge of Tirror’s past, of their own pasts; otherwise they had no memory, no knowledge of themselves, and no notion of who they really were or what choices they had in life. Ebis’s people wanted to make their own choices and would not allow the dark to rob them of that freedom.
The dragon song kept freedom alive in people’s minds, stirring their fury against the smothering and consuming dark. That was what it must do for all of Tirror. There were more bards; there had to be. Perhaps, somewhere, there were more dragons. The old power, where bard could speak to bard or dragon over distances, was all muddled and frayed by the dark. Teb caught only glimpses of battles. He knew there was little communication remaining among the resistance forces, human or animal. This, too, Teb and the dragons meant to change. Meanwhile, they would be in the thick of it in Dacia, and would learn more.
They waited until dark before taking to the sky, moving on the silent wind over the small island nations. It was near to midnight when Teb chose a likely-looking fishing town from which to steal his new clothes.
They came down along the c
ave-ridden cliffs of Bukla and, because black Nightraider would not be seen so easily, it was he who turned himself into a horse and carried Teb up the cliffs to the prosperous little town.
Teb jimmied a shop door with little trouble. He chose his clothes with care by the shielded light of one lantern taken from the shop desk. He selected three changes of the most elegant tunics and dark leggings, a pair of fine boots, and a red cape that stirred memories, for its color. These were clothes meant to impress, suited to a rich prince, not to his personal preference. He found buckles, heavy linen thread, and some felted horsehair padding for a saddle in the shop’s workroom, and packed it all into a linen bag. He left ample gold in exchange, and locked the door behind him.
They spent three days on a small rock island while Teb fashioned the four halters, a saddle, and saddlebags of the white leather. Then on the fourth night the dragons made for the northerly and deserted shore of Dacia, north of the city, some five miles from the black palace that loomed against the stars.
Chapter 3
The Palace of Dacia was built directly into the mountain, so its deepest chambers were the mountain’s own stony caves. The sheer black palace walls, carved and ornate, looked down on the country’s one city, their arrow slits watching the teeming streets like thin, appraising eyes. The city climbed up so abruptly to meet the palace that the stone huts stood jumbled nearly on top of one another, straw-thatched roofs shouldering against the doorsteps above.
It was early evening now, the sun gone behind the mountain. The palace’s heavy shadow spread down across the tangled city, reaching to swallow more and more houses and lanes as suppertime drew near. The smell of the city was of boiled mutton and cabbage and of animal dung and crowded humanity. Men were coming home from the wharves and fields and pouring out of taverns. Women shuffled pots on cookstoves and shouted at squalling babies.
Kiri stood in her own darkened doorway, listening.
She glanced back inside once, where her grandmother dozed on the cot, her thin body angled under the frayed quilt, her veined hands clasped together.
Kiri watched Gram with tenderness, then turned to make her way up the darker side of the cobbled street, deeper into the shadow of the palace. She was fourteen, thin, sun-browned, her brown hair tucked up under a green cap. She was dressed in the green homespun tunic of a page. She wore a sharpened kitchen knife hidden beneath the tunic, couched comfortably against her thigh. As she climbed, the city spread itself out below her. She could see the first early squares of candlelight, and the occasional brighter glow of an oil lamp in some privileged household—Kiri took note of which houses. There, the baker was burning oil, where he had not in nearly a month. What had he been up to, to curry favor with the king? And the tanner, also—two bright lamps in his windows.
There was a look about Kiri that was difficult to define, though she tried her best to look unremarkable. Her two tunics were purposely worn and shabby, her hair dulled by rubbing dust into her comb, her expression spiritless and unrevealing. But beneath the seeming dullness was a spark as free and wild as a mountain deer, hidden as best she could hide it. The clean chiseling of her face and the challenging, longing look in her dark eyes did not belong to the kind of drudge she pretended to be. It was a joy at night to strip out of her confining cap and brush her hair clean and talk with Gram in the privacy of their cottage, to hear Gram’s tales before the cookfire, and laugh, and not have to look so solemn and stupid.
Gram’s tales were sometimes about Kiri’s father, who once had been horsemaster to the king. It was a prestigious position. The horsemaster of any kingdom on Tirror was a most important person and responsible in good part for the strength of that country’s armies. Now Kiri’s father had gone away. He was not Gram’s son; Gram was Kiri’s mother’s mother. But Gram respected him. Neither Gram nor Kiri spoke about the thing that had been done to him. Kiri missed him. She did not miss her mother, who had been dead since Kiri was two. She had died of the plague that Kiri and her father had escaped, though everyone around them had been sick. Kiri didn’t know why this was except maybe it was because of the special talent that she and her father shared. It made her sad to think that because Mama had not shared this gift she had died. It was after Mama died that Gram came to live with them and look after Kiri.
The Queen of Dacia had also had the plague, though she didn’t die of it. She was made crippled and weak, and so ill the king shut her away in a private chamber. She might as well have been dead, for all most folk spoke or cared about her; certainly not the king. He had bedded with Kiri’s cousin Accacia until some mysterious event put a stop to that.
Now as she climbed the narrow cobbled street, Kiri kept her eyes cast down, watching the city under her lashes. Suddenly she heard horses and commotion. She raced to where she could see the main approach to the palace gates. She saw a slim man on a white mount. He was elegantly dressed in a red cape and gold tunic.
He rode with easy grace the shying, sidestepping war-horse. Three other horses followed him, mincing, tossing their heads, but held lightly on thin leads. He appeared far too regal and too wealthy to be traveling this land alone, and with four of the most wonderful horses Kiri had ever imagined, horses that surely had not come from Dacia or any of the surrounding countries.
They were taller than Dacian horses, for one thing, and slimmer of leg. They carried themselves with a balance and grace that no Dacian horse could match. Their necks and shoulders were dark with sweat and their legs spattered with mud from the road as if they had had a long journey. But still they were dancing and bowing their necks, their tails switching with high spirits and challenge.
When Kiri reached the small palace gate that led to the servants’ quarters, she paused to watch the rider enter the main gate ahead. First she heard the creak of the gatekeeper’s small door, then words exchanged that she could not make out. She could see figures stirring inside the courtyard. The great gates clanged open and the horses’ hooves rang on the cobbles. When rider and horses had disappeared inside, there was more conversation muffled by the wall. Kiri waited until the gate had been closed and the gatekeeper gone back into his cottage; then she climbed the palace wall in deep shadow, her bare feet knowing the toeholds.
She slipped over the top between the iron spikes like a sparrow hopping between spears, scraping her arm only once as she eased down the other side. Who was this elegant rider, to come alone to Sardira’s palace with such horses? The voices inside the courtyard had challenged him, and then had gone soft and smooth as syrup. What was his business? No one traveled on any business these days that did not have to do with the wars.
Kiri moved silently through a narrow passage to the back door of the servants’ quarters, then inside. Half a dozen women looked up dully from where they were scrubbing clothes. They never remarked on her comings and goings or even noticed them, so muddled had their minds become with the nightly rations of drugged liquor. She went quickly through the dim room to the inner hall that led to the courtyard, and along this toward the tangle of voices, pressing close to the damp stone walls. She could hear the traveler giving directions for stabling his horses. He sounded young. She stood in deep shadow where she could see out into the cobbled yard.
He was young, not much older than she, a slim, tanned boy with high cheekbones and dark hair tied back neatly, and dark eyes. And what strange directions he was giving. A triple ration of oats—well, that was all right. But no rubdown or grooming? And the stall doors to be left wide open, the horses unfettered so they could roam at will?
“But there are no fences,” the king’s steward said. “Surely you don’t mean . . . ?”
“They will not leave,” the young man said, with an impatient scowl at the steward.
“I can’t be responsible for such a thing.” The steward stood stolidly, his square face sour with this challenge to his good sense. No one left horses to roam free and expected them not to stray.
“The horses are not to be tethered or confined
. They will not tolerate confinement. They will be here when I want them.”
The horses did seem nervous within the confinement of the courtyard. They moved and shifted close around the young man and kept glancing up past the top of the high stone wall toward the freedom beyond, as if it would not take much for them to leap that eight-foot stone barrier and be gone. Kiri had no doubt they could leap it, these tall, finely muscled creatures. She thought the slim white halters they wore would hardly hold them if they were to rear or pull back. And the saddle mare wore no bit in her mouth.
This lad was a very skilled horseman if he had trained these mounts himself. She could see that they loved him, that they remained steady only because he was there with them. What would they do in the stable, with strange grooms? Kiri stood watching the beautiful animals hungrily, just as Papa would have done. Oh, Papa would covet these horses. Papa . . . she bit her lip and pushed thoughts of Papa to the back of her mind, and studied the rider more carefully.
A white leather thong, like the leather of the halters, tied back his smooth dark hair. His face looked strong and, Kiri thought, honest. His red cape was of soft, fine wool. His tunic was gold with red trim over dark-brown leggings. His boots were made by a master craftsman.
He removed the saddlebags and the mare’s saddle deftly—such a thin saddle, little more than a white leather pad—and caressed her neck and ears as if he were loath to send her with the grooms who had come into the courtyard. As they led the horses away, the mare looked back at the lad.
When they passed Kiri, all four horses twitched their ears in her direction. The nearer stallion gazed directly at her, directly into her eyes. His look froze her so that she stood dumb, staring as they passed on out of the yard.
She stood still long after the horses had gone and the young man had left the courtyard accompanied by the king’s marshal, in the direction of the great hall. Her mind, her whole being, seemed frozen with the stallion’s deep, searching look.
Ivory Lyre Page 2