by Carol Berg
I had come up with the scheme in my sleep. Night-mares of prisons, of Devlin and Lara and all those who were going to die because the dragons flew free, had led my thoughts inevitably to the youth who lay captive in the dragon lair of Gondar. Devlin’s son. The moment the Gondari dragons were released, Donal would be dead, for the Gondari would think it Devlin’s doing. With Roelan’s help I was going to get Donal out. “Can I depend on you and Tarwyl to help?”
“We’ll do anything you ask. Count on it. But there’s something else going on. ...” His voice trailed away, and his fingers drummed insistently on Narim’s journal. He was wrestling with himself again, and only with difficulty did he come out with anything. “Aidan, you’ve got to convince Narim about the dragons. He’s been poking around in Nien’hak. I—”
Footsteps in the lane in front of the shop and a soft knocking interrupted Davyn, and he jumped up to answer. I stood behind him while he unlatched the door. As he pulled it open he stepped backward, bumping into me. I felt the journal being pressed into my hands. Once I had it, he guided my fingers to a place he had marked.
“Kells! I didn’t expect to see you before daylight,” he said to the Elhim who walked in. “Is everything all right?”
“Just came for my cloak,” said the new arrival, eyeing me with interest. “Summer never feels warm enough in Aberthain.”
The journal was stuffed in the waist of my breeches underneath my rumpled shirt. Davyn introduced me as the Dragon Speaker, then offered to get me cider from Mervil’s barrel.
“I think I just need to get a bit more sleep. I promise I’ll talk to Narim before I go.” I padded back into the living quarters of the house, sat on my blankets, and pulled out the journal. Davyn had marked a maplike drawing labeled Nien’hak and a number of lists: one of Elhim names, one of various equipment like barrows, shovels, and hammers, and another that looked to be a record of place names—Vallior, Aberswyl, Camarthan among them—each with a number beside it. None of it made sense. I needed better light to decipher the fine handwriting, so I slipped the journal under the tangle of blankets. I wanted to set my own plan in motion first.
For an hour I lay on my pallet collecting words. They had to be right for each of the three listeners. By the time I was satisfied, the house was still again, and I went prowling for pen and paper and light.
A frustrating half hour in Mervil’s larder with my finds and I had produced two barely readable notes. One was for Devlin, entreating him to meet me alone on the Gondari border at sundown two days hence. I called on his promise to do me any service in his power and did everything I could to assure him of my good intentions. I would ask Davyn to carry it to my cousin.
The second note was for Lara. I could not face death again without leaving some trace of what she had meant to me. I smoothed the paper folds and imagined her strong, capable hands opening it and her clear blue eyes reading it. The imagining eased the dull ache in my gut just a little. I would entrust that one to the dogged Tarwyl, who, through some cousin or friend, would find a way for Lara to read it if she yet breathed the air of the world. For the moment both letters went into my pocket.
The third message was going to be more difficult to deliver. But I sat in the earth-walled room off Mervil’s kitchen among his turnips and onions, his bags of flour and dangling sausages, closed my eyes, and banished the world. With every skill I could muster, with every sense at my command, I called Roelan. To my astonishment, his voice was with me faster than my mind could comprehend it, as if he had been sitting on a shelf above my head awaiting my call.
It is an interesting challenge to discuss geography with a dragon. Twenty years had passed since I’d visited Gondar. Translating everything I remembered into a flyer’s view twisted my mind into knots. After a great deal of image shifting and word exploration, I concluded that Roelan had not yet freed his brothers and sisters in Gondar—a relief, since it meant that Donal was likely still alive. Once we had settled on the place, the rest was easy. Roelan would find the human held captive with his kin and “bear him gently to the smooth-complected hill beside the roving water”—Za’Fidiel on the Gondari border, perhaps three leagues from where Devlin was encamped.
“I would not lead thee into harm, my brother,” I said, trying to express my fear and thanks and caution. “Never will I ask it.”
Through pain and crushing horror hast thou served my need.
Giving ever.
Thou art my heart, Aidan, beloved, and I will hear thy songs again.
“Would that I could sing for you. ...” Even as I spoke, our contact was broken, but I knelt on the earthen floor trembling with its lingering power.
“So it has come to pass,” said a voice much closer than the dragon’s. “You have found your heart again, and your dragon has found his. Did I not tell you it would be so?”
“Narim.”
“Do you realize that your body burns white as you speak to him? A longer conversation and Mervil’s turnips would be cooked. You must be quite a sight at night.” The Elhim stood in the doorway, leaning against the wooden frame, almost quivering with his edgy humor.
“The dragons will not harm the Elhim.”
“How do you know?”
“Think of how you know you need sleep, or how you know when a storm is coming, or how you know when Davyn is troubled. I wish I could explain all this better, show you how it is with them. The dragons have no concept of vengeance. They won’t touch any Elhim ... nor will I.”
Narim relaxed into a more thoughtful wariness, his eyes flicking to my face and away again. “Ah, I see.” He leaned against the doorframe, fidgeting idly with something he’d pulled from his pocket. “So perhaps the answer is not that you are incapable of commanding the dragons to the lake, but that you choose not ... because of things you have learned, deeds long past and terrible in their appearance.”
“No. I meant what I told Davyn and Tarwyl. This joining, this mystery that’s happened to me, I understand it no better than I understand why the moon hangs in the sky or what it is made of. I don’t know what I’ve become, but I know what I am not. I am not a living bloodstone. I cannot command him.”
“Not even to save Lara? You know what they’ll—”
“If dragons were guarding her, I would beg Roelan to set her free. But the clan won’t trust the dragons now. They’ll have ten Riders around her every moment, and Roelan would have to kill them all to get her away. I cannot ask him to kill, Narim. Even then, she’d likely be dead at the clan’s first glimpse of an uncontrolled dragon. In the best case, negotiation will get her back. If that fails, then it must be stealth and hand-to-hand fighting.”
He was only testing. He had known what I would answer. Nodding his head slightly and blowing a long, silent sigh through pursed lips, he stopped fidgeting with the object in his hand and folded his arms. “Then I suppose you must help me fill out the last pages of my journal. Tell me, in these times when you are ‘linked’ to Roelan ... he feels your joy and sorrows as you feel his. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And does he know where you are when he speaks to you—your physical location?”
It was an odd question. Intriguing. “I’m not sure. The visions show me where he is. But his voice is so strong, and mine ... I don’t know. Distance plays no part. It’s always very quick. ...” I thought back to the experiences of my youth, and smiled as I recalled the songs Roelan and I had created together, always reflecting the place where I was. “Yes. I think he does know. He sees where I am before I tell him.”
That was the wrong answer.
I was still on my knees on the dirt floor of the larder, and as Narim gazed down at me with sorrow, he flicked his hand behind him. Before I could comprehend the meaning of his gesture, Kells and two more Elhim I didn’t know grabbed my arms and head, holding me immobile while Narim emptied a vial of bitter, oily liquid down my throat. Sparks flew as I fought to spit it out, but Narim held my mouth and nose closed until I could do not
hing but swallow it. It gave me some momentary satisfaction that all four of them nursed scorched fingers afterward. They left me in a heap on the floor.
“Was half my life not enough?” I said when I’d done with coughing and choking and gotten up again as far as my knees. “And don’t tell me how sorry you are.”
“Ah, Aidan, but I am. If there were any other way ... For Lara’s sake if naught else. But you’re too good at what you do, and too naive. You’ve one more service to perform, and then—”
“—you’ll finish what you started.” The room was starting to weave in and out of focus. The candlelight grew bright, then receded to a pinpoint so fast I fell over trying to keep it in view.
“Yes, I will. I started this long before you were born. I cannot risk history repeating itself for some simplistic, misguided notion of justice. There’s too much treachery in the world. Too much hatred. Too much vengeance. Did you see what the Riders did to Tarwyl? What is to stop them doing the same thing to the rest of us?” He crouched down in front of me and his pale aspect reflected such single-minded determination that his words disturbed me far beyond the matter of my own death. “No human will ever again control a dragon. And not one more Elhim will die for a five-hundred-year-old sin. We are on the verge of annihilation, Aidan. I’ll not permit it.”
My tongue was already thick. “You sent me to prison for seventeen years, and I never knew why. Now you say I have to die when I’ve done everything you want. This time you’ve got to give me a reason. You misjudged so many things then. You might be doing it again. I need”—a wave of nausea left my skin clammy, but with no strength to heave up whatever poison he’d given me—“I need to know.”
“I was not wrong. You would never have heard Keldar or Roelan or been able to speak with them if you had not lived the seven years of silence. And I’m not wrong now. You just wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me. For once. For the gods’ sake, try me.”
“I promise you’ll know before you die. Now, Aidan, show me what you’ve written while you were hiding in here. I can’t have you giving anyone a head start on us. Spreading chaos is our only protection right now.”
One of the Elhim started digging in my pockets, but I slapped his hand away—or rather slapped the air where his hand seemed to be—and clumsily scrambled backward through the dirt until I was slumped in the corner. “I’ll have no stranger’s eyes on it,” I mumbled. “Narim, at least you care ... for one human ...” Speaking was becoming difficult, especially when I had to concentrate on my pocket, trying to persuade my awkward fingers to detect which note was which. I prayed I’d chosen correctly, as I drew out the folded paper and threw it onto the dirt a hand’s breadth—or was it half a league?—from my foot.
Narim snatched up the note, read it, and folded it again with a great sigh. “By the One, Aidan, I do wish things could be different. We will save her. And I’ll see she gets this.”
I would have to be happy with his assurance, for my tongue would no longer function to ask him how he planned to rescue Lara. By the time the three Elhim carried my limp body to my bed—Narim was kind enough to have them roll me onto my stomach—my thoughts were as hard to catch as minnows in a stream. The poison burning in my belly demanded I sleep, but I dared not. Surely whatever sense I yet claimed would be lost if I succumbed.
“Saddle the horses,” Narim told his henchmen. “We need to get away before Davyn wakes.”
“Davyn can’t stop it, Narim,” said Kells. “Why don’t you just tell him?”
“No. Not until it’s done, and he can see the rightness of it.”
So Narim had enough of a conscience that he couldn’t explain himself to his dearest friend, his decent, honorable friend who would most certainly disapprove of killing me. But Davyn would never see the rightness in killing me, so they must be talking about something else. Curse all conspirators, what were they planning?
The minnows swam around in my head, a particularly large one reminding me that the annoying rectangular lump poking into my stomach most likely contained the very clues that might help me understand it. Why hadn’t I taken the time to read the damnable journal? Nien’hak ... what was it? Where had I heard the word before? And why did it bother Davyn so? I couldn’t concentrate. The minnows teased at the murky edges of my mind. One kept reminding me that I had to warn Devlin. Whatever happened to me was no matter. Davyn could tell Devlin our story, but the Elhim would need my letter to get a hearing from my cousin.
As the night slowly shifted into gray morning, I began the monumental task of moving my right hand—the one that lay somewhere in the same distant realm as my thigh—toward my pocket. It seemed to take two hours. I kept forgetting what I was doing, losing control of my hand so that it lay on the blanket like dead meat. When at last it reached my pocket, I had to convince it to extract the letter and ... do what? I was as tired as if I’d moved Amrhyn from the Carag Huim to an entirely different mountain range.
Wake up, Davyn! I wanted to scream it out. But my tongue was dead, and Kells and Narim returned before I saw any sign of my friend.
Narim crouched over me and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve had word from one of Davyn’s runners. Lara is as yet untouched,” he said, somehow sure that I would hear him. “MacEachern is at Cor Neuill, so they’ve taken her to meet him. If we’re quick and you help me, we’ll have her back before they can harm her.”
I had no time to take comfort in his assurance. Desperately I crumpled the letter in my hand as they stood me up—my knees about as useful as soggy dumplings—and half walked, half dragged me into the stableyard. The motion got me all jumbled up again, and I wasn’t even sure who was who.
“By the gods, Narim, what’s going on? What’s happened to Aidan?” Someone was standing across the gulf of the stableyard.
A minnow swam by my eyes in the circling world. It mouthed words at me and insisted I repeat them, but I couldn’t do it. Just felt seasick.
“He’s been in contact with the dragon again, and it’s about done him in. He almost set fire to the house. Says he doesn’t dare speak with Roelan in that fashion again, but he’ll come to the lake and try it the easier way. So I didn’t have to do much convincing after all.”
“But what about—” The speaker stopped himself abruptly, and a face that was not a minnow appeared in front of my own. It had blond hair falling over one of its unfishy gray eyes. “Aidan, are you all right? Are you sure? What about the things you wanted to do before going to the lake?”
Narim urged Kells and me toward the horses. “I don’t think he can answer you. We’ll take—”
I lurched forward out of Kells’s hands and lunged for the worried face, mustering all the words I could find and willing them to my useless tongue, trying to make them loud enough that someone could hear. “Roelan ... understands. Elhim always do ... everything ... I ask. I count ... on it.”
Hands dragged me off of him.
“Don’t worry, Davyn. We’ll take good care of him.”
While Kells and his cohorts draped me on a horse, I caught a glimpse of a puzzled Davyn standing alone in the stableyard. I squinted to see if he held a crumpled paper in his hand, but he swam out of sight too quickly. But my hands were empty when they tied them around the horse’s neck so I wouldn’t fall off, and with only such precarious security did I set out on the journey to the lake of fire.
DONAL
Chapter 32
As I was growing up, I never thought it strange that my best friend was a legend. An heir to a throne is never sure of his friends—a lesson learned when I was five and a playmate stabbed me with a poisoned dagger. It was in the three weeks I was confined to bed recovering, alone because all my playmates were banished or executed, that I was introduced to my father’s cousin—my cousin—Aidan MacAllister.
My nurse first spoke of him as I continued to make her life miserable with my incessant complaining: my stomach hurt, my head hurt, my bandages itched, I was bored, I hated broth, I w
anted to go riding, why wouldn’t anyone come to play with me, and why couldn’t I do whatever I wanted. “It’s the gods’ own wrath on my poor head that they took Aidan MacAllister from the world,” she said, after threatening to tie me to the bed if I would not be still, as my father’s physicians had commanded. “He’s the only one ever made you civil. Had you singing like a nightingale, he did, on a day when you had me in worse misery even than this.”
Of course I demanded to hear the story, especially when she plopped her hand over her mouth and cursed herself for mentioning a name my father the king misliked hearing. “Well, His Majesty never forbid the gifts to be here,” she said. “I’ve even seen him stare at ’em himself as if maybe the answer to the mystery was in ’em. So he couldn’t mind too much me saying who it was gave’em to you.”
Such words did nothing to cool my new fever. I was very persistent.
So she told me of my anointing day, and from a high shelf she pulled down a bell, a flute, a drum, and a painted music box. “He sent you these in the years before he disappeared.” I was fascinated and made her tell me more while I watched the tiny mechanical soldiers march around in a circle as the music box played its tune. So I learned of Aidan MacAllister, beloved of the gods, a musician who could transform the hearts of men, my father’s cousin who had vanished from the earth when he was but one and twenty.
To hear one has a relative on such terms with gods is a profound experience for a five-year-old, and I would not rest until I learned everything that any servant, groom, chamberlain, or tutor could tell me. Everyone older than ten had a story about him. For half a year, I pestered them ... until the day I asked my father if he knew where his cousin had gone. “You were his only family and his king. Didn’t he tell you?”