by Carol Berg
After a close call that sent me headfirst into a herd pen full of sheep and another that flattened me into a far too shallow slot in the cliff wall, I reached the narrow road that led out of the lair. No one was left to guard it. As I followed the four clansmen into the city and merged into the sleepy streams of people heading out on their day’s business, time took up its familiar course again, and the dawn broke on a world forever changed.
Chapter 31
I could get nowhere near Lara. By the time I threaded my way through the busy streets of Aberswyl to the Ridemark encampment outside the city gates, the clan had closed in upon itself. Grim-faced, heavily armed Ridemark guards encircled the camp that was already being dismantled, turning away puzzled carters and laborers with no explanation. Men and older children were hauling down tents and loading mules and wagons. Women were stuffing smaller children in with the baggage or strapping them on their backs. There were no shouts, no disorder, only instant obedience to their commander’s orders. No dragons lived in Aberthain any longer, and the Riders would be gone before anyone else discovered it.
What would the people of Aberthain do when they realized that their pride, the bulwark of their kingdom’s defense, was no more? What would happen when the Maldovans, the traditional enemies of the Aberthani, discovered that Renald was bereft of dragons? As I hurried toward Mervil’s shop to retrieve a horse to follow the clan, I watched people going innocently about their business, oblivious of what was to come. The safety of one race could not be built upon the enslavement of another, yet the change was going to be dreadful. Civil war. Revenge. Chaos. Invasion. What had I done?
Lost in such uncomfortable musings, I entered a morning market just coming alive, noisy with fishmongers and farmers hawking their wares, with the bleating, grunting, and squawking of beasts, with strident voices of women and traders hunting bargains. A cloth merchant was hanging colorful lengths of silk and linen that flapped in the breeze. A tinker banged his pots to attract commerce. I was perhaps halfway across the marketplace when the glaring sunshine of the day winked out like a great eyelid had shut upon it. People, buildings, merchandise, noise—all vanished, and I was caught up in a blaze of white light and a flood of sensations akin to the relief of the first water after a desert march or the exaltation of a mountaintop after a day’s long climb.
To the morning lands where the fires of day take
flight,
where the cries of brothers tear.
Sisters, bound to torment, rage.
Lift them, unbind them, sing them upward.
Thy giving is ever, beloved. Glory to you ever.
Roelan. My perception of his towering anger and his indescribable joy and gratitude vanished almost as quickly as it had come, a hammer blow that left me a dizzy island in the sea of unknowing Aberthani. The daylight seemed pale and insubstantial after the dragon’s touch, the colors of the marketplace washed-out, the noises thin and meaningless. Passersby cast curious glances my way, and I realized how odd I must look standing stupidly in the middle of the marketplace with no hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes. And I had no gloves to hide my hands. I pulled up the hood of my cloak and hid my hands in the pockets of the cloak alongside Narim’s journal and my mother’s pearls. I hurried through the square and into narrower streets.
The clamor of hammers and saws greeted me as I turned into Mervil’s lane. At least five Elhim were making repairs to the front of the tailor’s shop. The splintered wall looked as if it had been kicked in by a dragon. None of the Elhim seemed at all familiar—or rather all of them did, but in no particular way. Though there were only a few other people abroad in the lane, I was cautious, strolling past the shop, then slipping through the alleyway that would take me to the back of it. I considered simply riding off with one of the horses in Mervil’s stable. I knew the kindly tailor would not grudge it. Yet, in view of the heavy damage to the shop, I could not leave without inquiring after my friends.
An Elhim came out of the house and was picking over a stack of thin wood strips when he caught sight of me and straightened up again. “Who are you? What are you doing sneaking around?”
“Is Mervil here?” I said. “I’ve a job for him.”
The Elhim examined me carefully as he started gathering up a load of strips. “Mervil is dead. His cousin Finaldo has inherited the business, but he won’t be taking on work for a few days until these repairs are done.”
“Mervil dead? Vanir’s fires, no!”
“What do you care as long as there’s another tailor to serve you?”
Something about the Elhim’s tone held my dismay and anger at bay.
“I care a great deal. Mervil was my friend,” I said.
“A friend of yours?” The gray eyes looked skeptical as he took in my odd appearance. “How so? Finaldo would be interested to hear it.”
Interesting. He was not grieving. He was listening and watching ... for Finaldo, Mervil’s cousin and a tailor, too. The Elhim were very good at losing themselves when times grew difficult. I decided to test my theory before I shouldered a new guilt.
“A good friend. Would you tell Finaldo or whoever in the house might be taking an interest that I’d like to pay what I owe, then? It looks like he needs the income.” Into the astonished Elhim’s hand, I dropped my mother’s pearls. He dropped his wood strips and stared at the jewels and my hands. “I’ll wait here by the stable,” I said.
In no more than three heartbeats Davyn ran out of the door holding the pearls, only to stop short at the sight of me, the eager smile falling off his face. “Who are you?” he demanded harshly. “Where did you get these?” An Elhim who looked remarkably like Mervil, but probably answered to the name Finaldo, was at his shoulder, and a bandaged Tarwyl hobbled out slowly after.
I hadn’t imagined they wouldn’t recognize me. “Eskonia, the first time,” I said. “My mother’s jewel safe, the second. Then a lady’s feet. My pocket, this last.”
“Aidan?” Davyn’s face blossomed into delight tempered with wonder; then he laughed and hurried over to grab my hands. But to our mutual discomfiting, sparks crackled and flew upward from our touch. The Elhim cried out and fell back, his outstretched hands red and blistered, his face stunned. “By the One!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I had no idea. ...” My hands tingled strangely, and thin, blue smoke drifted away on the morning air. “Are you all right?”
I stepped closer to see the damage, but the Elhim backed away from me, glancing upward nervously as if expecting a dragon to be perched on Mervil’s chimney like a pigeon. “Only singed,” he said. Then his voice dropped to a whisper. “What’s happened to you? Are you a Rider, then?”
It grieved me beyond all expectations to see Davyn step away. Awe and mystery can place an untenable burden on friendship. “I don’t know,” I said. “I ought to be dead.”
I tried to tell them everything at once, in the pitifully inadequate words that I could muster to describe such extraordinary events. Once I was inside the shop with a mug of wine in my hand, exhaustion muddled my telling, so that I wasn’t sure I made anything clear except that Roelan was free and Lara in danger. “They’ll be taking her to Garn MacEachern—they’ll not dare do otherwise—but I don’t know where he is. So I need to follow the clan as they move out.”
Davyn spoke softly, his eyes wide. “Will you call down the dragons to make them free her?” He really believed it might be so. After all of it even Davyn didn’t understand.
“No.” I tried to explain that I had no idea if I would ever hear Roelan again. What I did know was that the clan would not relinquish Lara while one Rider yet lived, and no matter what befell in our strange relationship, never could I ask Roelan to kill for me. Even for Lara I could not ask it. “... so I can’t.”
“Then there’s nothing to be done as yet,” he said. “The clan won’t exchange her for you—I see in your face that you intend it. They’d only kill you, too. From their point of view, you’ve done your worst, and unless y
ou can undo it, vengeance will be their only satisfaction.”
I closed my eyes, wishing desperately that I could disagree with him.
“Come, my friend.” Davyn’s kindness transcended awe, and gingerly he laid a hand on my shoulder. No sparks flew. “It takes no holy gift to see that you need food and rest. I’ll send out word, and we’ll find out where the high commander lies. Until then, take this comfort: She believes you dead, so she’ll feel free to tell them everything they want to know. And when she hears that the dragons are free, she’ll know you won. That will sustain her.”
I was not eased. Not even a god could sustain one through Ridemark vengeance.
While the Elhim dispatched an unending stream of blond, gray-eyed messengers to track the movements of the clan, I sat by Mervil’s hearth and ate what food was put before me. I did not feel connected to any of it, no matter how much I tried to listen. I pulled out Narim’s journal, anxious to unravel his plotting, but my head ached and the fine scrawling blurred in front of my eyes. All I could see was Lara at the Udema wedding party, her hair unbound, laughing at my foolishness. All I could feel was the weight of her head on my chest.
Even as I held that image and cherished it, the world flicked out again. The talk and the incessant hammering, the shop and the gathering clouds of noonday outside its windows disappeared in the space of a heartbeat. My vision was filled with sky and brilliant sunlight and rolling clouds beneath me like a gray ocean. The voice of Roelan pounded in me like my own blood gone wild.
What sorrowing is there when Jodar flies?
When Rhyodan, Noth, Lypho, and Vanim soar through the dawning airs?
When Phellar, Nanda, Melliar tread the winds and sing their waking?
I would lift thee to the heights, Aidan, beloved, where the cold burning of the night meets the colors of the day fire.
Thy sorrowing lies heavy on my wings.
Of all beings in the universe, Roelan understood helplessness. He grieved with me as I shaped the words, of how the one I cared for most in the world, the one who had opened the way for me to wake him, was taken into captivity very like that he had known.
Cruel is the hand that harms the one who completes thy being.
Tell us how to unbind her.
If ought of my working might free her from this harm, but speak the word to set my course.
I was humbled and overwhelmed with his offer. But there was nothing to be done. The clan would be waiting with bloodstones, dragon whips, and poison-tipped spears for just such a move. I could not ask it. And even if they could not harm Roelan, they would kill Lara. I shared Roelan’s rejoicing that more of his brothers and sisters flew free, and soon afterward his vision faded into the light of Mervil’s hearth fire and the untidy mess of the tailor shop.
The Elhim were silent, staring at me and at Narim’s journal that had fallen from my hand, its pages intact, but its leather cover brown and curled, a wisp of stinking smoke rising from it. They were bursting with unspoken questions, but I could form no human words to tell what I had seen and heard, so I just shook my head. I was desperate for sleep. They led me to a pallet on the floor. My sleep was plagued with dreams of Goryx, licking his lips and blinking his bright eyes as he was given Lara.
The house was dark and silent. I was perishingly thirsty and sat up on the pallet rubbing my head until I could think where I was and where I might find something to drink. Waking and sense were accompanied by a dream-wrought conviction that I must be on my way with the daylight to find Devlin and warn him. Only he among all the kings and princes in Elyria and her neighboring kingdoms had the strength and resources to hold order once the dragons were free. And that would be the case only if he were ready. I had to make him listen and understand what was coming, lest the havoc I had wrought come down too hard on the people who had least to do with it—the very ones who had suffered most from the savage dragon wars. Once the news spread throughout the land, the wars of vengeance would begin. Once the word spread outside our borders, the wild men would come.
And another idea had emerged from my dreaming. If I gave Devlin warning, he might be grateful enough to help me. ...
Someone had kindly removed my boots, so I moved silently through the house. I could not stomach the thought of wine or ale, and thought to go out to the cider barrel Mervil kept cool in a shed near the stable. But the door to the stableyard was jammed or locked. I could find no way to get it open without creating a commotion. Too parched to be discouraged, I padded through the tailor’s workroom to the newly rebuilt front door, only to find Davyn sitting propped against it, reading Narim’s scorched journal in the light of a single candle.
“Learning anything interesting?” I said quietly. I had no idea where Mervil’s helpful friends might be sleeping.
Davyn started and whipped the book behind him, peering into the midnight to see who I was. “Aidan!” He dropped his voice immediately. “Are you all right? What are you doing awake?” I assumed it was his possession of the private journal that gave him such an aura of guilt ... or perhaps knowledge of the journal’s secrets.
“I was considering going out,” I said. “But the back door is jammed.”
“Go where? It’s the middle of the night.”
“Does it matter?”
“You shouldn’t—I wouldn’t—Of course it matters.” His voice limped off like a lame dog. “You can’t.”
“What do you mean I can’t?”
Davyn glanced about, then pressed his finger to his lips and motioned me to the floor beside him. Exquisitely nervous, I sat down. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Not at all.” His slender forefinger tapped rapidly on the journal.
I waited, thinking I’d get a clearer answer once Davyn had settled whatever argument he was waging with himself.
“Narim’s come. While you were asleep.”
“Ah.” I settled back against a mountain of rolls of cloth. “And Narim doesn’t want me out getting a drink of cider?”
“Cider? Oh.” Davyn rubbed his gray eyes and shook his head. “When Narim got word that you and Lara were making the attempt, he’d already been awake for more than a day. Then he rode fourteen hours straight to get here. He had to sleep, but he wanted to make sure you didn’t leave the house before he talked to you.” The Elhim ran his slender fingers through his blond curls, clearly troubled. “I thought nothing of it. But then he sent Mervil, Tarwyl, and Jaque to another house, and wanted me to go with them. I said I’d rather stay here in case you needed me. He agreed, but certainly wasn’t happy about it. Then I saw him remove the keys from the rear door and bar the windows. There’s no one here save him and you and me. But Rorick and Kells are watching the street. Watching for you ...”
“And these things bother you?” They certainly bothered me.
“Narim has been my dearest friend since I was young—two hundred years, Aidan. He is everything of goodness. Devotion. Friendship. Honor. Whatever of decency you see in me, he has nurtured. He—”
“I disagree.”
The lock of blond hair hung over gray eyes filled with distress, but not shock. “So you read this?” He turned the journal over in his hands and stared at it as if it were a poisonous spider.
“Only enough to know who murdered my friends and stole my life.”
“I didn’t know, Aidan. On the name of the One I’ll swear, neither Tarwyl nor Mervil nor I—”
“I never thought it. So what bothers Narim now? I’ve done what he wanted. The dragons fly free.”
“When Narim arrived, we told him everything you’d said and about the changes we saw in you. Though I knew he’d be heartsick about Lara, I thought he would take satisfaction in your accomplishment. But he was frantic when he heard that you weren’t in control of the dragons and sending them on to the lake. He’s afraid, Aidan. He believes they’re going to destroy the Elhim.”
“They won’t.”
“He says he can’t be sure until they go to the lake and drink
the water, so he can talk to them himself.”
“They’ll go to the lake when it’s time, and they’ll speak when they’re ready, and maybe humans and Elhim will be able to understand their words and maybe we won’t, but killing intelligent beings is the last thing they want. They despise it. They don’t understand it. They never have.”
Davyn frowned and fluttered the pages of the journal nervously. “Maybe you can convince him.” He didn’t sound confident. “He wants you to go to the lake with him and make the dragons come there. That’s why he didn’t want you to leave. He’s crazed with it. I’ve never seen him like this.”
“He’s got to understand that I can’t force them to do anything. But he doesn’t need to worry. If Roelan speaks to me again, I’ll find out if they’re coming to the lake. And I’ll come myself. Willingly. Just not yet. I’ve some things to do first. Critical things ...”
The Elhim looked up curiously. “What things?”
I told him of my certainty that I had to warn Devlin, and of the fragile possibility that had emerged from the consideration. I hoped to persuade my cousin to save Lara.
The Ridemark produced powerful warriors, but without their dragons they would be no match for Devlin or any of his stronger allies. If the clansmen were to survive, they would have to seek an alliance, and from that need might come the leverage to pry Lara from their hands. MacEachern would never turn Lara over to the Elhim, and his hatred would allow no accommodation with me, but he might exchange her for Devlin’s protection.
“Holy fire, Aidan, to speak to the king is suicide! He’ll have your head for treason.”
“He may very well, but I don’t think so. Devlin takes his responsibilities very seriously. He’ll be furious and horrified, but he’ll come to see that I’ve given him a chance to control his own power ... and to prepare. It’s all I can do. If I can make everything happen as I want, I don’t think he’ll refuse. The first thing I have to do is convince him to meet with me.”