Birth of the Firebringer

by Meredith Ann Pierce

  Jan realized he had leaned far forward over the rosehips even as the wyvern had moved back out of their vapor. His face, his throat and nostrils tingled. A trembling began in the center of his limbs, made him feel at once weak and utterly unbendable, rooted to the stone. The sensation spread to his chest and ribs.

  His senses were growing very acute suddenly. Before, he had not noticed the sound of fire. Now it fascinated him—a thick hissing, almost a thrum, like sea surf, a slow, arresting roar. He began to distinguish licks of color in the flames, greens and reds, pale violets. They flickered and danced.

  Behind him he heard the three heads of the wyvern arguing.

  “Why have you told him our secrets, of fire?” That was the second head, impatient but controlled.

  “No matter.” The central head, softly. “He’s no more than a prit, a child. And he’ll have no time to make use of what we’ve given him, even if he understood. . . .”

  “And why the rosehips?” the little head cut in. “Their influence is always uncertain. They may put him in such a stupor he’ll be no use to us at all.”

  “What choice had we?” the great head snapped. “We are out of time. And how was I to know he would be strong enough to throw off a wordspell? Only the fire seems to have any power over him.”

  “I say pounce on him now and be done,” the third head muttered.

  “Patience. We’ve other plans for him.”

  Jan did not mind their words. He knew he ought to, somehow, but he could not manage it. The wyvern’s voices remained a faintly distracting background noise.

  “Hist, be still.” That was the second head again. “He’s not quite under yet.”

  Under what? Jan wondered briefly, and could not care. He had the feeling that he must watch, watch very carefully now, as if this were the most important lesson of his life and he must memorize it all the first time, for it would not come again.

  Yet at the same time he was vaguely aware that presently he must act. Watching the fire was important, surpassingly important, but it would end soon. He mulled over what he might be expected to do then, and had not a clue. No matter. A plan would come to him, or not, just as it chose. Things were moving so slowly now. There was time enough.

  “I say slay him,” the third head hissed. The thin, sharp sound of its voice fizzed on the air. “Our eggs are but a day or two from hatching; perhaps only hours. Red meat to nourish our little prits—and meat improves with age.”

  Jan admired the glow of the charring rosehips. They did not seem to burn. Winter eggs, he thought. Little poison-prits. Heirs to the king that would have no heirs. What had Lynex done, all these hundreds of years? Pashed all the eggs of his mates to bits before their hatching.

  “Fah.” The wyvern’s second head scoffed at the third. “If we killed this unicorn now, I can well guess where the greater part of the flesh would go—down your greedy gullet.”

  “Only a little,” the little head sniffed. “What could be spared. The winter has been long. I’m ravenous.”

  The second head did not reply. Jan listened without interest. The fire was absorbing his whole attention. But he had begun to feel that time was starting to slip away. He sought to rouse himself from the torpor now creeping over his limbs, tried to lift his head away from the heat, but the vapors were making him slow. His limbs refused to move. He made to speak—how slowly the words formed in his mind.

  “Is this. . . .” He had to pause, draw a breath heavy with smoke. His throat burned. “Is this the only fire the wyverns have?” He could not seem to turn his head. The words did nothing to lift the spell.

  “Yes,” the wyvern’s central head replied, raising its voice, “save for the king’s. He keeps his own small torch with him. The king, you see, must never sleep.” She laughed, mocking. “And he thinks to keep himself safe from my magic that way. But his puny brand does not make half the flame my firebowl does.”

  Jan felt himself falling back into the fire, felt it consuming his thoughts. He had scarcely been able to drag his mind away to listen to the white wyrm’s reply. Behind him, the heads were arguing, hissing and snapping.

  “Fool, would you undo all that we have worked for? Once we have taken the prince of the unicorns and his band, there will be plenty of red meat—for our hatchlings and your greedy mouth as well.” A simper, a smile. “I shall see that the king gives us this one, though, this little dark one specifically. Only the best meat for my prits.”

  He knew then that his time truly was out. But his muscles were melting, his head drooping, chin bowed to his chest. The heat grew fierce. His body prickled with sweat. An updraft from the coals lifted his forelock, flinging it back gently from his brow. He closed his eyes.

  Even with his eyes closed, it seemed he could still see the flames—see into them as in a dream; looking deeper and deeper, merging more and more into their changing dance. Searching for something. Searching as others had been searching—for him.

  He came aware then, in a twinge that was not sufficient to wake him, that others had been searching for him, many others of his band. But that was hours ago. Now there were only two. Two searching above ground, below ground. It was all the same.

  “Just a few moments more,” the great head was murmuring, “and the rosehips will make him a slave to our command.”

  Jan’s nose was now well back from the lip of the bowl, below the rising smoke. The air he breathed felt cooler, more clean. His senses seemed to be clearing. The heat upon the rest of his face intensified. He laid his ears back along his skull.

  His thoughts had grown dim. He felt his horn’s tip touch the far rim of the bowl, and realized distantly that bright flame must be licking its long, spiral shaft. He felt no pain, only heat like the sun. The white wyrm’s triple laugh echoed, sounding oddly faint and farther than it should have. Jan’s consciousness was ebbing, his ears muffled in wool, his limbs slipping away.

  “Not long now,” the wyvern was murmuring. “See how he faints over the flame.”

  Jan came to himself suddenly at a soft, crackling hiss. The scent of singed hair filled his nostrils. He felt a sharp pain across his brow and realized as he started up that his forehead had touched the curved lip of the bowl, his heated sweat turning to steam. The pain made him suddenly aware of himself again, gave him the use of his limbs. He heard the wyvern sliding toward him across the crystal floor.

  It came to him then, all in a breath, what must happen now. The wet, stained wall above the firebowl gleamed, the pearly, translucent pocket in its stone catching the firelight like a gryphon’s eye. It seemed to glow. Beneath the wyvern’s subtle, pervasive sweetness, beneath the pungency of rosehips and flame, the scent of water had grown suddenly strong.

  Without another moment’s thought, he sprang forward, rearing, bracing his forehooves on the altar’s edge. The branches in the bowl of fire had died again to coals, the blackened rosehips crumbled to ash. Jan champed his teeth, clenching shut his eyes against the updrafts of heat, and brought his horn down in a hard blow against the wall above the fire.

  “Hold!” cried one of the wyvern’s heads. Another cried, “What does he do?”

  The thin stone shattered like an old seashell. Chips of crystal flew. Jan felt bits striking against his forehead, his closed eyelids. The point of his horn struck the hard stone at the back of the crescent pool.

  “Stop!” the wyvern shouted. “Are you mad?” He heard the soft scratch of her belly scales upon the floor.

  Jan opened his eyes and shied to one side as water rushed from the breached cistern. The hot coals below sizzled, overwhelmed. White licks of fire leapt roofward, vanishing, as bits of twig and dead embers rode the surge, washing over the rim of the firedish and spilling to the floor. The rest swirled sluggishly about the bowl.

  The chamber stood all at once in smoky dimness. The white wyrm gave a triple shriek. Jan turned his head. She sat transfixed, her pale form indistinct in the sudden gloom. Her voices rang out again, strangled.

&
nbsp; “What have you done?” cried the central head; and the second, “He has killed the god! All our magic, all our power—gone.” The third head shouted, “Murderer!”

  The wyvern lunged. Jan sprang away, his limbs still giddy from the rosehips’ breath. The wyvern missed him by two paces—then he realized it was not he she had sprung at. She darted to the altar, searching frantically among the sodden twigs. But the fire was dead past saving. Her three heads turned on him like goshawks. He made out the glinting of her cut-jewel eyes.

  Too late he realized he had missed his chance—he should have fled while she had been distracted. Jan found himself in a corner, one wall crowding against his flank. The white wyrm reared before him, her whiskers bristled, her gill ruffs spread. Her necks stretched wide; her pale jaws gaped. Her teeth like broken birds’ bones gleamed.

  Jan squared himself to fight.

  Poison

  16

  Jan faced the wyvern across the narrow space, her body poised, her eyes colorless in the hazy dimness. His blood felt slow and heavy from the rosehips’ breath. She snapped at him. He dodged, the wall crowding his flank. The wyvern smiled, her rosy, double tongues darting among her needle teeth. The fingers of her foreclaws twitched.

  “Oh, did you think to thwart me, Aljan?” she whispered. The chamber echoed in the dark. “Then you misjudged. So my fire is gone, and my magic, too. But I am angry now, Aljan.” Her heads hissed, sizzling. “And there was always more to me than magic.”

  He was lost. He knew it. He had neither the size nor the strength to defeat her, and she had him cornered. But he would fight. He was a warrior, the prince-son of the unicorns, and he meant to go down fighting. There would be no songs to mark his death; and none of his people would even know. But he had saved Korr and the others of the band. It was noon—they were safe out of the hills by now, and none of the rest of it mattered.

  Above him the wyvern loomed. She came toward him slowly. Then suddenly behind her, beyond the entry to the chamber, Jan heard a scrabbling of earth and a wild, high shrill. The note was echoed by another—the battle whistle of a warrior. The white wyrm started, snapping around. Jan heard a clatter of hooves on the crystal floor. The wyvern reared, recoiling, as a form—two forms—glanced through the well of light.

  He caught glimpses then of rose and black, of dusty yellow shading into gray. He heard the snort of breath and the sound of struggle. The mist of rosehips rose in his mind, and he was a long time recognizing Tek and Dagg.

  They were fighting in and out of the suncurtain now. He saw his shoulder-friend lunge, miss, and lunge again. The wyvern’s long, sinewy necks darted, teasing them. Her jewel eyes glinted. Tek reared, panting, but could not seem to land a blow. The wyvern dodged, her hide throwing off brilliant flashes in the sunlight: blue-green, amber, yellow, mauve.

  “The light,” Jan heard himself crying, and his voice sounded different—deeper?—or as if there were another voice in it besides his own. “Drive her into the shade,” he cried. “These wyverns have no eyes to pierce the dark.”

  One of the wyvern’s heads turned, her whiskers bristling, her nostrils flared, and struck at him. Jan shied, circling the shaft of light. He came around and faced the wyrm. Tek and Dagg had forced her out of the sunlight. Her back now pressed the wall.

  Dagg stumbled. Jan saw him lose his footing on the crystal floor. The wyvern lunged, snarling, and struck him a glancing blow with one badgerlike forepaw. Dagg rolled, scrambling to his feet, then suddenly lunged and caught the wyrm’s smallest head by the throat. The wyvern shrieked. On the other side, Jan glimpsed Tek fastening into the second head’s ruff. The central face rose over Jan.

  “Well, little darkling.” She was hard-pressed, but she mocked him still. Her claws took powerful sweeps at Tek and Dagg. “So it is only you and I now, again.”

  Her breath came short, though her eyes were jeering. The smallest head continued to shriek.

  “Your friends fight well—but even if they kill both my little heads, you will still have me to deal with.”

  From the tail of her eye, Jan glimpsed the whipping and coiling of the wyvern’s necks. Tek and Dagg were being shaken, their forehooves lifted from the ground.

  “Yield to me. You cannot win.” The wyvern held her main head high, just out of reach. She laughed. “Betray your friends—now, Aljan, before I shake them off.”

  The smoke of rosehips still mingled in his blood. Despite himself, Jan felt her wordspell taking hold again. Her cut-jewel eyes had fixed on him. Pale, with an inner fire they shone, marvelously, malevolently inviting. And he knew that she was lying; yet it didn’t seem to matter. Jan felt himself growing lost.

  “Yield, little princeling. Yield,” she whispered, moving toward him. “Help me to slay your friends. Even these two will be of use to me against my king. And if the prince of the unicorns is lost to me this year—well, perhaps you will stay with me, and we will try another spring.”

  Her hollow voice was sweet, soothing. Jan stumbled away from her, and she shook her head.

  “Do you think to fly?” She laughed. “You cannot escape. The world’s a Circle, Aljan. You will always come back to me in the end. Come. You know that in a moment you will come....”

  Then something slipped underneath Jan’s heel. He felt it give like rotten fruit. A sweet stench filled his nose, and his heel felt suddenly wet and warm. He lost his footing on the slickness, falling. More shells gave under him, cutting his flank. He had stumbled amid the bed of eggs. The realization came to him as he struggled up. Gray globes crowded about his legs.

  “My eggs!” the wyvern shrieked. “You fool. Come away. You will breach them!”

  She writhed then, fighting toward him. Tek and Dagg held on, bracing to hold her back. Jan kicked at the eggs encircling him, tripping his limbs—he could get no footing. He plunged, trampling, but could not get free. The ground here was a shallow dish, and new eggs rolled constantly about him.

  “Stop!” cried the wyrm. “You have killed my fire. Leave me my eggs.”

  She shook herself, furiously. Tek lost her grip and was thrown. The white wyrm staggered Dagg with a blow. He dropped her head; his legs folded. Jan hardly marked it. He stood astonished, the sick-sweet savor choking him. All about him lay fragments of egg. Broken shell ground underneath his heels. His legs were wet to hock and knee. Only one egg remained unbreached. The wyvern lunged for it. Jan sprang between her and the egg.

  “Let me have it,” screamed the wyrm. “What good is it to you?”

  “Wyverns!” Jan thundered back at her, and it was his new voice again, resonant and strong. “I know your kind to the marrow of the bone—for you have been in my head for a long time now, uninvited guest. Did you think I would not know the things that tempt a wyvern?”

  He felt the egg against his fetlock and kicked it very gently—not enough to breach it, only enough to make it roll. He kicked it again, carefully, backing toward the near wall and keeping his eye on the white wyrm the whole time; for a stratagem had come to him.

  The wyvern slithered after him. Beyond her in the dimness he saw Tek getting unsteadily to her feet, Dagg shaking his head as though stunned. Jan came up against the wall behind the wyvern’s nest, and held the egg between his hind heel and the stone.

  “Give it to me,” the wyvern said.

  “What will it buy me if I do?” Jan asked her, quietly. His limbs trembled and he was breathing hard; but despite it all, he felt strangely light-headed—for he had her, had her in his teeth now like a pard, and that sure sense of his power made him flush. He met the wyvern’s eye. “What will your last egg buy?”

  The wyvern watched him, shifting uneasily. Her third head flopped weakly, whimpering. Her second head gasped, bleeding from the gills.

  “Name what you would have,” the wyrm queen spat. “Your freedom. Your companions’ lives—your father’s life. Give me the egg, and I will say nothing, will not raise the alarm till you are clear of these dens.”

  “I did n
ot come here of my own will,” murmured Jan. A quiet rage was filling him. The egg felt smooth and fragile beneath his heel. “You brought me here with a spell of fire. All my life you have troubled me, till the wild mare had to sing away my dreams, the good ones with the bad. . . .”

  The wyvern strained, writhing. Her fingers clawed her belly scales. “You have had your vengeance, and more,” she cried. “My fire, my golden god is gone. All my little prits but one. Leave me that. Only that. And go.”

  Jan shook his head. He could not trust her. He felt the slight give of the shell beneath his hoof. The wyvern’s breath hissed, trembling. The prince’s son snorted. “The word of a wyvern is as good as a lie.”

  “How might I pursue you or give the alarm?” the wyvern demanded. “I must hide the egg before it hatches. With only one left, I dare not risk discovery. The king must never. . . .” She broke off angrily. “Give it to me. You must. Give it to me now.”

  Jan stood three-legged, eyeing her. Behind her, Dagg had gotten to his feet. Head up, Tek glanced at him, at Jan, at the wyrm. Her hoof dug a shallow scratch on the crystalline floor. Jan motioned her back from the wyvern queen.

  “You might have spared yourself,” he said, “if only you had let me be. Your eggs, your fire would still be yours. I did not ask to come here.”

  The wyvern hissed. Behind, Tek was moving too slowly.

  “Tek, Dagg, get to the entryway.”

  The young warrior glanced at Dagg. Still he stood, shaking his head.

  “Now,” barked Jan.

  Tek turned to Dagg and shouldered him. They circled toward the entry. The wyrm’s heads turned, watching them, her eyes blazing. Jan took his heel from the egg and moved aside. Tek and Dagg were at the door.

  “The egg is yours,” Jan told her, halfway to the entry now himself. “Take it and use it as you will against your king. I am a unicorn. The games of wyrms are nothing to me.”

  The wyvern’s heads snapped back around. Her main head’s eyes bored into his. Those of her second fixed on the egg. She drew breath fiercely. “Godkiller,” she muttered at him. “Hoofed monster. Murderer.”