Northern Storm ac-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  ‘Those are Chazen gems,’ Risala retorted.

  ‘Stolen by wild men?’ Dev queried, dark eyes wide in pretended surprise. ‘Hoarded by a dragon? Surely Chazen has no use for jewels so tainted with ill luck and enchantment?’

  ‘Enough.’ Kheda thrust his swords securely through his doubled belt and pointed towards a narrow game trail. ‘Get into the trees. Velindre!’

  The blonde magewoman hurried across the shore as fat drops of rain thudded on the ground. ‘The heart of the storm’s nearly here.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kheda curtly.

  ‘How?’ Velindre slowed as the tangled knot trees blunted the knife edge of the wind. ‘How did you know today, of all days, was going to bring such a tempest? The skies have been clear for the last few days, the seas calm.’

  ‘As they so often are before a run of wild weather. How did I know it would come today?’ Kheda checked to be sure Dev wasn’t getting too far ahead before explaining. ‘The pattern of the tide told me that this morning. As for knowing it’s nearly here, well, just listen.’

  They stood motionless as the knot trees rocked around them, muting the sound of the surf crashing against the shore. Contorted grey branches rasped across one another, the slap and rattle of their stubby fleshy leaves quite unlike the rushing turmoil of the ironwoods and tandra trees growing inland where the salt water never encroached, no matter how high the seas rose. Gouts of rain came and went, the abrupt showers mere playthings of the winds.

  Velindre shook her head. ‘What am I listening for?’

  ‘What you’re not hearing.’ Kheda walked along the path, Risala at his heels. ‘The loals weren’t singing at dawn but the mean lizards have been fighting among themselves all morning.’ He quickened his pace to catch up with Dev. Now they’ve gone quiet as well. And no birds sing.’

  ‘Every fisherman and islander knows how to read these signs,’ Risala added. ‘They’ll all be ashore and sheltering in steep, deep valleys or hidden caves.’

  ‘Let’s hope that’s fortuitous,’ Kheda agreed. No one will see the dragon killed with magic, if we finally manage to slay this cursed beast.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ murmured Risala. Do you mean you hope we slay the beast or that you hope we do it undiscovered in the act of suborning magic? Or both? It’s much the same, isn’t it?

  With the tall trees all around, the path was sheltered from the worst of the rain now pouring down steadily, heavily. Kheda could smell the moisture running down the grooved trunks of the ironwoods, channelled along the kinked fronds of the tandra-tree leaves. For the moment, the rain was sinking into the damp leaf litter and the thirsty seeds. It wouldn’t be long before the torrents falling from the sky would overwhelm the sodden earth and seek their own course across the cluttered forest floor. Then this hollowed path would become a stream, the bare earth underfoot slick and treacherous. Kheda increased his pace.

  Velindre was pressing close behind the two of them. ‘All these signs and portents to do with the weather, are they all recorded?’

  ‘Of course.’ The wizard woman’s ignorance astounded Kheda. ‘How else can we reach for the future with one hand if we don’t hold fast to the past with the other?’

  ‘How far back do these records go?’ The blonde woman in her creased zamorin clothes strode along with him. ‘And these changes in the tides and the ways the birds and animals behave, they would be portents of what you call the earthly compass? It’s just the heavenly compass that’s stargazing?’

  ‘Ignorant superstition, you mean?’ Kheda stopped so suddenly that Risala bumped into him and Velindre had to pull herself up short. ‘Dev explained all your northern attitudes to our lore. Have you realised yet just why we hold your magic in such contempt? Did your reading on your voyage explain that?’ His anger rose with a recklessness to equal the storm winds shaking the trees all around. ‘You know nothing of the world that surrounds you and you care still less. How can you northerners hope to choose the best path for your future when you are so wilfully ignorant of the signs laid out all around you? You wizards are still worse, heedless of the violence your magic does to the natural order of things. You twist the very fabric of the seas and the skies and the land to suit your own whims, never mind that you are corrupting and destroying everything that the past has written into the present to guide you.’

  ‘What are you arguing about now?’ Dev had stopped where a scatter of boulders had rolled down from some hidden crag and held back the ironwoods and lilla trees to leave an irregular clearing. Nothing,’ retorted Velindre, indignation darkening the tan on her cheekbones.

  Risala looked past Kheda to the barbarian mage. ‘How close are we to the dragon’s lair?’ Dev jerked his head along the trail. Not far.’

  ‘Good. We don’t have time to waste.’ Velindre squinted up at the sky where racing squalls of darker hue were banding the pewter grey that had hung over them since morning. Not if I’m to raise a cloud dragon from the height of this storm.’

  She pushed past Kheda and strode along the path, her cotton-clad legs long and lithe. Dev hastened to stay ahead of her. Risala walked close to Kheda. He kept a wary eye on the forest all around. Lilla trees creaked ominously, torn leaves whipped away before they could fall to the ground. Whole sprays heavy enough to defy the winds came tumbling along the path to whip around their ankles before being snatched by a gust and tossed into the undergrowth. The wind chilled Kheda and the rain soaked them both to the skin, even in the shelter of the trees. The sky overhead rapidly darkened to the colour of twilight. Kheda kept one hand on a sword hilt, straining his ears to try to pick out any hint of a maddened animal above the sounds of the storm-tossed forest. Are you reading the signs aright? The signs of the tempest, certainly. Those are unmistakable. What of the higher portents? What of the heavenly compass and the stars that have been hidden by cloud every night since that first failure to rid the domain of this beast? But the stars are still there, even if we cannot see them. The heavenly jewels continue their dance around the heavenly compass.

  The Sea Serpent has just moved to the arc of marriage where the Diamond that is the warlord’s talisman rides. I have no idea what to make of that. But the Pearl is directly across the compass, where the Sailfish swims in the arc of life. That should be a good omen, as the Sailfish rise to greet the moon and fishermen catch the weightiest females just as it wanes.

  The Greater Moon is in the next reach of the sky, where we look for portents of wealth and material success, and there’s the Hoe, promising rewards to those who strive for land and family. In the furthest reaches of the sky, the Sapphire rides there as well, unmoving for year after year. Does that promise daylight and clarity in such a conjunction? According to these wizards, the Sapphire is the gem of the cloud dragon. Could it be possible that the heavens are showing me that this abomination will lead us to success?

  What of the Ruby, if that’s the gem of this fire dragon, this true creature of wild elemental magic? That still rides in the arc of travel, hardly a surprise given that the creature had to come from somewhere. What has the Horned Fish to do with the beast? That’s a strange creature, warm-blooded and suckling its young in the midst of the cold ocean. Does that show me the dragon has travelled out of its allotted place in its journey here? Hardly something I need telling. The ivory I found on my own journey, that I carved into a dragon’s tail, that came from a horned fish. What does that mean?

  He paused in his speculation to negotiate a fallen tree and kept a wary eye on a stand of towering ironwoods creaking and swaying wildly as they fought with the storm assailing them from all sides. There must be something more to the Ruby since the Amethyst lies straight across the compass, where the Canthira Tree spreads its branches and where portents for those close as blood, be they friends or not, can be found. Amethyst for calm and new ideas, new beginnings, with the Canthira Tree that is the first to recover after fire has devastated a forest, whose seeds do not sprout unless they have been through fire. Is that hope f
or the future to set against this dragon’s destruction?

  The Pearl and the Opal are the talisman gems against dragons. If the moons mark the dragon’s head, what lies at its tail? For the Pearl, it’s the Diamond, along with the Sea Serpent. Is that what I have become? A hidden darkness to bring peril and death?

  Death itself lies opposite the Opal, in that reach of the sky where the Net embraces such omens, along with portents of inheritance. But there are no significant stars or jewels in that arc of the sky.

  What will any of this mean if one of us has our brains dashed out by a falling branch? That will be a plain enough portent: one of utter disaster.

  Kheda abandoned such fruitless speculation as the sound of falling water ahead echoed above the rising clamour of the storm. The two wizards stood where the path ended abruptly at the lip of a deeply carved gorge. The rocks were dark and mossy with the return of the rains and the vivid white foam of the cataract splashed noisily below. Spray drifted up to coat the thick ferns of the gorge’s side in a fine mist. ‘It’s in one of those caves, isn’t it?’ Risala wiped rain from her eyes as she stared at a riven cliff face rising out of the tangle of forest on the far side.

  Unbothered by her soaking clothes, Velindre studied the pewter-coloured rock pierced with an array of black caverns. ‘This is a curious place for a fire dragon to choose to lair.’

  ‘Want to lay a wager on which cave?’ Dev suggested with a hint of malice glistening on his wet face. ‘If you’re feeling confident enough to encroach on my element.’

  ‘The merest mageborn tied to water and overwhelmed by that waterfall would feel the fire being drawn to this place,’Velindre commented with interest, ‘antipathy in their affinity notwithstanding.’ She looked up at the wind-tossed trees craning over the edge of the gorge, the crease between her brows deepening as she considered this new puzzle.

  ‘Is the dragon in the cave?’ Risala asked apprehensively beside Kheda. The warlord put his hand on his sword hilt.

  And just what use is a blade going to be?

  No, but it can get here in the blink of an eye if it wants to.’ Dev grinned. ‘And it’ll want to, once I get my hands on its hoard. Grabbing any thing’s stones gets its attention.’ He laughed uproariously at his own joke.

  Kheda took the opportunity to quench his thirst from a water skin he had slung over one shoulder and then offered it to Risala. ‘You’re feeling the dragon’s magic, are you, Dev? Like you did before?’

  ‘What?’ The bald mage looked a little bemused. No, not as such, now that you mention it.’

  ‘We can’t wait.’ As Velindre spoke, a crack of thunder split the dark clouds overhead. ‘Go on then, Dev. Go and start kicking its stones.’

  ‘How do we cross the gorge?’ Risala peered into the broken chasm. Mere moments in the open rain had plastered her black hair flat to her head.

  Kheda looked downstream. ‘There’s a bridge.’

  ‘What?’ Velindre broke off from studying the clouds to look. ‘Why?’

  ‘Who cares?’ Dev was already moving cautiously towards it. ‘It’s what we need.’

  Kheda hesitated before following him, ignoring the stinging, chilling rain. ‘These caves would be places for meditation and seeking portents. Velindre, where are you going to work your magic? Can you do it under cover?’

  No,’ the magewoman replied shortly. ‘I’ll stay here.’ She stared up at the sky and her blonde, short-cropped hair bristled with faint blue light.

  ‘Will you stay with her?’ Kheda looked at Risala. ‘I don’t want you with us, if me and Dev bring down this dragon’s wrath on our heads by looting its hoard.’

  Risala nodded jerkily. ‘I suppose it’s as safe as anywhere with her.’

  Kheda stepped close and took her hand, kissing her softly on one cheek. ‘If the dragon turns on her, knock her out,’ he whispered into her ear. A tendril of her sodden hair was cold against his face. ‘If it has no magic to follow, it may not find her. Then leave her to whatever her own fate may be and save yourself. Someone has to take word back to Itrac if we are lost.’

  ‘You’ll tell her of your victory yourself.’ Risala twisted to kiss him full on the lips with brief, sweet longing.

  ‘How you saved Chazen.’

  ‘Come on!’ yelled Dev, now down at the flimsy bridge. ‘We’ve a lot to do before you two can start celebrating!’

  ‘Try to find some shelter.’ Kheda tore himself away and went after Dev as fast as he could across the wet and treacherous rocks.

  The mage was already testing the narrow bridge, a swaying structure of ropes woven from hairy vines and floored with crudely sliced lengths of hakali bark. ‘Wait,’ Kheda shouted.

  ‘If I fall, I’ll fly.’ Dev shrugged. ‘We want to bring the dragon here anyway, don’t we?’

  ‘There are footprints.’ Kheda knelt where smudges in a patch of bare earth had caught his eyes. ‘I’m beginning to wonder who built this bridge. It doesn’t look like Daish work’

  ‘So it’s Chazen work,’ Dev called, irritated. ‘How would you know it? You’ve never been hunting in these forests, have you?’

  The bald mage made his way cautiously across the vertiginous bridge to the narrow ledge of open ground between the gorge and the cliff face with its dark, blank caves.

  ‘Come on!’ He beckoned to Kheda, yelling above the fury of the storm. ‘If it holds me, it’ll hold you. Are we going to do this or not?’

  Kheda hurried across the bridge, feeling it flex and swing beneath his feet. His speed carried him over before his balance deserted him and he staggered to a halt beside Dev. ‘Which cave is it?’

  ‘Here.’ But Dev was looking back over the chasm rather than at the rock face.

  Kheda looked, too, to see Velindre bathed in a nimbus of dark-blue light, a point of blazing sapphire between her two hands. The clouds above swirled into a spiral storm, black and riven with lightning. The whirlwind extended its murderous claw down towards the mage-woman but her magic reached up and seized it, drawing all the might of the turbulent gale into a column of blue brilliance edged with rainbows. ‘She’s really getting the knack of that,’ Dev breathed, his tone a curious mixture of envy and admiration. ‘She better had show me the trick of it when we’re done here.’

  ‘Then let’s get done here,’ snapped Kheda. ‘Which cave?’

  ‘This one.’ Dev disappeared into a sloping angular entrance.

  Kheda followed, and within fewer steps than he had anticipated, the sound and fury of the storm outside were a muted memory. The cave floor was dusty and hard underfoot, smudged with wet footprints. The walls of the tapering cleft disappeared over his head into a black crack that didn’t even offer the reassurance of solidity. He ducked instinctively. He could smell dry stone and damp cotton as his wet clothes seemed to press in on him like the enfolding walls.

  Turning a corner into darkness, Dev raised a hand full of bright magelight and Kheda followed to see a cavern opening outwards on either hand. The walls were ancient ripples of water-carved rock, with rounded corners opening on to further passages that sank away into unseen depths. On one side a tunnel entrance raised up higher than Kheda’s head had broken through to throw down a shattered scree. The roof was a black mystery high above, strung with pale curtains of living rock painted with muted blues and browns. Spines rose up to meet them, trailing curious patterns across the undulating floor and casting impenetrable, sharp-edged shadows.

  It wasn’t just Dev’s magelight showing them this scene. In the middle of the cavern, a fiery glow burned on a bed of sparkling jewels, drifts of sapphire, emerald, diamond and even amber, so rarely found in the Archipelago. Red-gold and radiant, a single rounded ruby of unimaginable size shone in the centre, lit from within with fiery magic and filling the cave with uncanny, brassy light. The air was warm, Kheda realised, and it would be warmer still close to the dragon’s creation.

  How did the beast meld all those gems together into that?

  Why did it do that?


  ‘That’s . . Kheda stumbled over the unfamiliar notion. ‘Is that what the dragon is using to focus its magic?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dev said softly. He stood, his hand upraised. The mageborn flame in his palm was lengthening, thinning, drawn through the air towards the great jewel until it narrowed to invisibility. ‘And guess what else?’ He laughed. ‘It’s an egg. Well I never. I wonder if Velindre knows this, or Azazir.’

  ‘What?’ Even as Kheda sought to deny the notion, he looked again and saw that Dev was right. The ruby sphere was unmistakably flattened and tapered as if some bird or lizard had laid it. The glow at its heart was the same living flame that burned in the fire dragon’s eyes. He even thought he could see a miniature dragon outlined within it. Then he blinked and the image was gone, only a memory smudged across his vision

  ‘Then we have to smash it before it hatches.’ His mind still reeling at the impossibility of all this, Kheda looked around the vast cave. There was no sign of daylight penetrating the surrounding darkness to indicate any other entrance. An odd thought occurred to him. ‘How did a dragon that size get in here?’ As he glanced back at the narrow passage to be quite sure it was too small for the beast, movement caught his eye. Dev!’

  The warlord barely had time to draw his swords before the wild man was on him. As it was, Kheda’s backward step betrayed him as he tripped on some stony ridge. The wild man swung a stone-studded club at his head and Kheda barely drove the blow aside before he fell heavily.

  ‘Here, you bastard, eat this!’ Dev threw a blazing handful of fire at the savage. The flame flared scarlet and scorched through the air like an arrow. It didn’t reach the painted wild man, however, veering wildly awry to arc back across the cave and disappear into the shimmering light surrounding the ruby egg instead.

  ‘Piss on that!’

  As Dev cursed behind him, Kheda tried to scramble to his feet, but the savage swung his club again, knocking the warlord’s leading sword out of his hand and numbing his fingers. The blade went skittering away to be lost in shadow.