by Carol Berg
“He was a mad old man,” I said. “He was dying. You can’t endure a dragon’s fire and speak anything of sense.”
My words hung weakly in the air. MacAllister stared at me unblinking until I had to turn away.
“Come on,” I said, starting down the passage toward the lake. “ Let’s find a place to spend the night. I’ll tell you more of Iskendar and his plots and his hatred of Narim, and you can tell me what you think you learned from the kai.” He followed without argument. How could anyone be so naive?
We had counted no more than fifteen bodies in the ruin. No way to tell how many more Elhim had been completely consumed in the attack, but the tracks on the lakeshore told us that many—most of them, perhaps—had escaped. Narim had escaped, I had no doubt.
We made camp in a sheltered cove a quarter of the way around the lake, where there was a broad stretch of sand. MacAllister fell onto the sand without speaking and was asleep before I could get my pack off my back. I made a fire, cooked barley soup, and sat leaning against the rocks, wondering what in the name of Vanir the fire-tamer I was doing.
Glaring sunlight scorched my eyes, forcing me awake. My back ached. I was still sitting up, and flies were gorging themselves on my untouched soup that had spilled into the sand. MacAllister was kneeling by the lake bathing his face and head. I considered pretending I was still asleep—perhaps for an entire day or until the Senai tired of waiting and took his inconvenient questions away. I had no reason to stay with a madman who believed he spoke to beasts.
As I watched him through the slits of my eyes, he removed his shirt and dipped it in the lake, then squeezed it out and spread it on a rock in the sun. In all the weeks of our sharing my hut, even on the night we left him hanging for the wolves, I had never gotten a good look at his back. When I saw my clansmen’s work, it was as well I had eaten none of my soup the night before. MacAllister came away from the lake, dried his face and hair with the hem of his cloak, and stretched out on the sand on his stomach.
Only after an hour, when he had put his shirt back on and poked up the fire, did I let my eyes come open. I felt dirty. Shamed. But to a man or woman of the Ridemark, a life debt is a chain that binds beyond reason, beyond decency. I had no choices.
“I’ve seen more tracks up a gully on the other side of the lake,” he said when he saw me stirring. “I think most of the Elhim got away. They must have heeded your warning beacon. Now, tell me. ...” His face was expectant. His questions had not been washed away with the previous day’s filth. Best to attack, lest I end up in a position with no escape.
“Iskendar and Nyura and their circle had not left Cor Talaith in a hundred fifty years and swore they never would. It’s their own fault they got caught here.”
“I don’t understand what Iskendar was trying to tell me. He spoke of plots ... of destroying everyone. What is Narim hiding?”
“Narim has been trying to protect you from Iskendar and the others. That’s why he had to be so brutal, so secretive, why he had to stand back while you fell into despair. All those weeks he stayed away from you for guilt at not telling you of his hopes. If you didn’t believe you were dead, then Iskendar wouldn’t either. But for some reason, the old crows decided you were still a threat. Something Nyura told you one morning out by the bridge. Narim didn’t know exactly what was said. ...”
At last I had told MacAllister something he didn’t know. “About Donal,” he said. “Nyura told me that my cousin Donal was a prisoner of the Gondari.”
“Well, whatever you said on that day made them believe you were not ... incapable ... as they wanted you to be. They were afraid of you. They had to be sure you wouldn’t try to help, and when they came to believe you would ...”
“... they decided to kill me. I understood that already.”
“Exactly. So Narim sent you to stay with me.”
“So what was Iskendar talking about? What Narim found ... his plan ... betrayal ...”
I picked at a hard lump of bread I’d pulled from my pack, and it crumbled in my hand. “Narim allowed you to go into Cor Neuill even though he knew there was a risk you would be recognized. He had to see what happened when you were near the dragons. And then he brought you to Cor Talaith to save your life. There’s plenty of guilt to go around, and Iskendar wanted to make sure you felt it. It was my fault that Desmond suspected the Elhim. It was your fault that his suspicions were confirmed. As soon as Desmond knew you were here, Cor Talaith was doomed.”
“I shouldn’t have come.”
“Narim knew you would never agree to stay here if you suspected what might happen. That’s why he hid it from you. That was his secret. So in a way Iskendar was right. Narim betrayed you by letting you go into such danger. By lying to you. He betrayed the Elhim by allowing you to come here when he knew the likely consequences.”
“Death Bringer ... Why did he say that I would destroy us all?”
“What do you think would happen if the dragons were taken away—freed? Wars of vengeance. Invasion—barbarians pouring over the mountains. Iskendar believed a human wouldn’t think of the consequences. But mainly Iskendar hated Narim. He held Narim responsible for this attack, and even as he died he wanted revenge. There’s no surer way to defeat Narim’s purpose than to make you mistrust him.”
“How can I trust him?” He ran his fingers through his dark hair. “Lies, secrets, deception ... you’ve not given me much to work with.”
That was certainly true. I wasn’t good at this word twisting. “You can either believe the one who tried to kill you or believe the ones who saved your life. Narim wishes you no ill. He and Davyn and Tarwyl and the others have risked everything to protect you. I’ll swear it on whatever you choose. By my honor as a daughter of the Ridemark, I’ll swear it.”
I did not look away as the Senai stared at me, weighing my truth. Everything I’d said was truth. Just not all of the truth. But I was no Udema shopkeeper who could not meet the tax collector’s eyes as I fingered my skimmed-off tally in my pocket. I didn’t know whether he believed me or just decided there was no purpose in asking me any more, for he gathered up his meager provisions and jerked his head toward the track that led up the ridge beyond the lake of fire. I stuffed my food bag back into my pack and took out after him.
After half an hour of hard climbing, MacAllister broke his silence. “How old is Narim?”
I was surprised at the question, so surprised I couldn’t think of a convenient lie. So I revealed what Narim would rather have kept secret. “Older than you can imagine.”
“It was Narim who poisoned the lake and enslaved the dragons, wasn’t it? All those years ago. He had studied the dragons, and he was clever, and he figured out how to do it, thinking he was saving his people.”
“He was only sixteen. An infant by Elhim standards. They were desperate. He never meant it to be forever.”
I was ready to bring out all the arguments Narim had concocted over the years to explain what he had done, but I didn’t need them. MacAllister nodded his head and kept walking. “Whatever Narim’s guilt, it doesn’t matter. We all have our guilts. You can tell him I’ll do whatever I can.”
One more time I named him a weakling fool. But only in the front of my mind.
The day seared our eyes with its brightness, the drifts of dirty, ice-crusted snow scattered across the lower slopes of the Carag Huim receding even as we passed.
MacAllister was quiet as we walked. His face was hard, his shoulders tight, and I had to double-step to keep up with him. What was he thinking? He replied to my inane comments about the path and the terrain and the weather with the fewest possible words.
We stopped at midday to eat and rest, and I decided we’d best get clear on our plans before we came to settled lands. “Since this kai didn’t tell you what to do next, we’ll have to find Narim.”
MacAllister looked up in surprise. “Oh, but he did tell me.”
“The dragon? It spoke to you?”
“Yes. Certainly.”<
br />
“The journal said they formed words—a variety of sounds that made a language—like men and Elhim do. I heard nothing like that.”
MacAllister frowned thoughtfully. “It’s hard to describe. You’re right; it was nothing like the journal said. I spoke as we practiced ... I asked what I had to do to set the others free, but his answer ... it was certainly not words as we think of them.” His wonder at his own telling erased the dour expression he had worn since Cor Talaith. “It’s just been so long ... he’s so wild ... his words have become mere patterns of tone and inflection. Only slight resemblance to speech. More like music. I had to shape the sounds into words myself, so I missed a great deal, I think.”
Easy to guess that his madness would take the form of music. He was so calm and sure of himself ... and it was all so stupid. I jabbed my knife into a slab of hard cheese and almost sliced off my finger. “What did he answer, then? Did he tell you a magic spell? Or perhaps he says you must ask each dragon politely what’s needed to set it free?”
“No.” His gloved fingers fumbled idly with a dried apple while his mind went back to that fetid cavern. “He knew all about what happened when I was in prison, as I grew ... weak ... and Roelan grew wild. He seemed to know I couldn’t sing again, though that part was confusing, and he kept saying something like ‘let the desert loose the wind.’ He said I must ‘find my own’—that I must hunt down his ‘brother bent with the sadness of the world.’ I think he means me to find Roelan.”
“It would make sense, would it not? Since you were such close friends.”
MacAllister laughed, an exasperated, hopeless laugh, but filled with good humor. “It might make sense to a dragon, but he didn’t tell me how to identify Roelan, or how to speak to him without the lake water, or what he meant when he said I had to become Roelan’s ‘third wing.’ ”
Shock had me on my feet. “Become his—” I choked before saying the words. No one outside the Ridemark was to hear them. No one. If any clansman spoke them carelessly, even in his own tent, his tongue would be severed instantly by his wife or his children or his parents.
“You know what it means,” said the singer softly, watching me stuff the cheese and my waterskin into my pack and throw the bag over my shoulder.
“You mustn’t say those words ever again. If any clansman heard you, it would be far worse than what you’ve suffered already ... and for me, too. They would think I told you. Damnation! Forget them.” I started down the path again. If I could have run from him, I would have done it.
He caught up with me quickly. “You’ve not said them. Keldar did, and I have, and if you tell me what they mean, I won’t have to say them again. If you don’t tell me, then all this is wasted.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I think I do.”
“It’s part of a ritual—the most sacred, the most secret of all the Ridemark rituals. It’s worse than death to betray the words. I can’t do it. I won’t.”
He stopped me, forcing me to look at him, at his dark eyes that had once been filled with holy visions ... at the mangled hands that rested so heavily on my shoulder. “I have lived worse than death, and my feet still walk the earth. You’ve done the same. You’ve forsworn your vengeance ... and I know what that means to one of the Ridemark. You’ve saved my life at the cost of your own redemption and your everlasting guilt, because you’ve sworn to do as Narim asks. You know he would insist that you tell me.”
Had Narim been with us, I would have broken his neck. I wanted to spit out the gall in my mouth. “It is the rite performed after a Rider dies, when a new Rider is mated to the kai and its bloodstone.”
“And the words?”
“The kai is surrounded by Riders with bloodstones. It is controlled and goaded to fury until it spews out its deadliest fire, white-hot fire that can melt stone and incinerate an entire forest in one breath. The words—the seven invocations—are said when the chosen Rider takes the dekai’cet—the bloodstone that has been forever bound to that dragon—and he walks into the fire, taking control of the kai, becoming one with it so that his will becomes the will of the beast, and his body burns with the inner fire of the beast, and the beast will bow down when he steps close and allow him to ride. Does that please you? Are you satisfied?”
Understanding dawned on his face ... and resignation. I wanted to hit him, curse him, anything to make that expression go away. He hitched his pack higher on his back and walked down the trail. I followed after, sick at heart, wanting to forget the conversation, to pretend I had never spoken. But I could not.
“You must understand that it’s impossible. You don’t have Roelan’s dekai’cet, and there’s no possibility, absolutely no possible way, for you to get it. You can command a dragon with any bloodstone, but to join with it, to step into its fire, you must have the dekai’cet, the one that has been bound to it since the beginning, since the Elhim first controlled them. We’ve never been able to bind a second stone to a dragon, whether we have its dekai’cet or not. The rite never works for a second stone. So you can’t do it.”
“I won’t need a bloodstone.”
“Of course you need a bloodstone. Without its protection, you’d burn. You’d—”
“The absence of the bloodstone must be the key to setting them free. To create the bond ... to become one ... without the stone. He said I must go as a youngling. In nakedness, he said, but I knew he wasn’t referring to clothes. He doesn’t understand clothes.”
By the time I recovered enough wit to close my mouth and follow him, his long legs had reached the bottom of the slope, and he had disappeared through a rocky tunnel that led into the wild western lands of Catania, toward Cor Neuill and the other dragon camps in Elyria and beyond, in search of the beast he had believed was his god.
Chapter 22
“Why don’t the blasted twits come back?” I threw my sword onto the dirt floor and it skidded into the stone firepit, no doubt nicking the exquisitely perfect edge I’d just spent most of a day giving it. “How long can it take to get a look at four dragons?”
“I don’t particularly like the waiting,” said the singer quietly, “but I can’t say I’d rather be poking around a dragon camp myself just now.”
“You—”
“I know. I’m a sniveling coward not worthy of being called a man.” Aidan MacAllister sat in the corner of the grimy hovel, his face expressionless, his hands quiet in his lap, exactly where he’d put himself that morning.
“How can you sit there and do nothing for eight hours on end? You’re driving me mad.”
He’d said not a word until I’d spoken to him. He’d not moved, not occupied himself with anything I could see, yet his eyes had stayed open, staring into nothing. It was infuriating. While I could think of nothing but climbing to the top of the sod roof and screaming at every Ridemark clansman in Elyria to come and fight me, the Senai sat on the damp, filthy floor as calm as an old granny.
“Practice,” he said. “I wouldn’t recommend the schooling though.”
“Pitiful,” I snapped, and for the fiftieth time that day I stepped outside the door of the hut into the rutted dung pit that passed for a road. I peered into the distance, watching for any Elhim approaching the cluster of hovels the locals called the village of Wyefedd. It was far too much of a name for the five filthy shacks and the half-burned “stable”—a lean-to that had housed no beast but rats for at least ten years. For one who had been born in a palace, MacAllister certainly knew more about the nastiest places in the kingdom to bed down than any Rider would ever guess.
Wyefedd lay just north of Vallior, outside the small dragon camp of Fandine, which housed dragons and Riders who had been injured in battle. Since leaving the mountains of the Carag Huim, we had been working our way toward Vallior and the large dragon camps of central Elyria, staying on back roads, avoiding cities and people and the persistent Ridemark patrols. Since there was no reason to believe “his” kai, the one he named Roelan, was any more likel
y to be there than at Cor Marag, or L’Clavor, or Aberthain, or in any of the twenty other dragon camps throughout the kingdom, MacAllister decided that we would visit Cor Neuill last. Though it was the first Ridemark encampment we passed, the singer’s sneaking visit with the leather merchant would ensure that it was closely watched.
We traveled at night. During the day we slept out in stables or sheds or sometimes in sleazy inns where a whisper to the landlord would get you a room that no royal guardsman or Ridemark officer would ever be allowed to find.
“I thought you were welcomed everywhere, fed and lodged without having to pay,” I’d said to MacAllister one morning as we lay down in a deserted, sod-roofed shack next to an abandoned coal pit. “How do you know about these vile places?”
“Because those who lived in these circumstances had the same claim on me as the high commander of the Ridemark.”
The Senai would answer whatever I asked of him, but no longer anything beyond it. Everything had changed since the cursed Iskendar had planted his vile seeds. Though no less gently spoken, Aidan MacAllister had closed himself up again. I believed he would name me his ally, but it was clear he no longer trusted me. Fair enough.
We had found Davyn and Tarwyl on the Vallior road ten days after leaving Cor Talaith. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say they found us. On a sultry dawn as we approached the turnoff to Grimroth Lair, our first dragon camp, we narrowly escaped running into a roadblock that had sprung up in the night. As we lay panting in a dry hedgerow, caked with dust and sweat after a half-league sprint down a wagon road, I told the Senai for the hundredth time that we needed to find Narim. “He’ll know what to do. He’s had enough years to think about every possibility. Even if we get to a camp with our heads intact, how do you propose to get inside? One slip will have you back in your cell.”
MacAllister shook his head. “I can’t wait for Narim to decide what bit of his plan to reveal to me today. He started me on this venture, but I’m the one who has to finish it.”