by Court Ellyn
“Leave your weapons with these kelion,” Brionyth commanded and started after the construct.
One of the scouts rounded up swords and daggers, axes and spears. Wincing in reluctance, Tarsyn handed over his rapier.
“A man should not adore his weapon,” the scout told him.
“A man should not be made to feel like a criminal when he’s done nothing wrong.”
The scout raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t you?” With a lift of his chin, he motioned the party to hurry along.
Across a grand plaza, a staircase as wide as a jousting field ascended to the palace. The doors were missing. The entrance now resembled a lax mouth. White marble no longer glowed in the sun but was streaked black with neglect. Fountains were dry and silent. The ruin brought to mind a maiden ravaged and left for dead.
Upon the bottom step, a man sat alone. The iron dragon curled up beside him like a faithful hound and laid its chin upon its paws. The purple light dimmed from its eyes.
Laral glanced at No’ak. The dwarf nodded and raised a hand, bidding him be patient.
Brionyth said nothing, not even to announce the visitors. Instead, she climbed a few steps and glared untrusting at the humans, like an eagle ready to swoop down and rend with its talons. Regal, she was. Cold and fierce.
In comparison, Lord Daryon was highly underwhelming. After all the tales, Laral had expected firestorms, quivering earth, a booming voice, and all the rest. His robe was the dull gray-brown of the mountainside and was fraying at the hems. His skin did not gleam like a pearl; his hair, tangled about his shoulders, was ordinary brown; his face was unremarkable. Lesha might call it fine; she seemed to go in for that chiseled, exotic look. A pile of gray sand at his feet occupied his attention. With a finger he traced a trapezoid and the jagged line of a lightning bolt. The drawing resembled the sigil on Laral’s surcoat.
“No’ak!” The abrupt summoning was as startling as a clap of thunder.
The dwarf stuck out his furry chin and tromped to the foot of the stair.
“Suspicion tells me you mean to take advantage of our friendship.” Daryon’s voice was deep and sonorous; he shared that with the Elarion at least.
“That’s what friends do when they’re in need,” the dwarf retorted.
“But you’re not in need, and what do I owe these strangers?”
Hope sank like a weight in lightless waters. Laral could have reached Sky Rock by now if he had taken the other road.
“Can they pay?” Daryon had yet to glance up from his artwork in the sand. His finger made tiny adjustments until the design was unmistakably Brengarra’s sigil.
No’ak motioned to Bjorni, who hefted the clanking bag of metal parts and laid it at Daryon’s feet. A tug upended the bag. Rusted plate, springs, cogs, broken bits of colored glass, bails of wire, odds and ends spilled out. At least, now, Daryon’s “currency” made sense. He rifled through the junk, examining each piece meticulously, and sorted them into two piles that made sense only to him. “You’ve brought me better,” he mumbled.
“Here’s a treasure,” No’ak said and dug a velvet pouch from his pocket.
A disk of clear glass, a hand-span wide, slipped into Daryon’s palm. A lens of some sort. He raised it to the sunlight and hummed approval.
Drys leaned against Laral’s shoulder and whispered, “Some friend, whose aid must be bought.”
Laral grinned appreciatively at his own friends who had followed him unasked into hell.
Daryon selected pieces from one of the junk piles, and with bits of wire he bound metal scraps to the lens. He took his time, deftly tinkering, shifting, twisting the pieces until he was satisfied. He was like a child at play. A child who regarded his guests as no more worth his time than the ants crawling past his toes. The insult was a bitter draft to swallow. Laral tried to convince himself to be curious instead, but he just didn’t give a damn. While this inhospitable snob tinkered with junk, Andy was suffering. Grit your teeth and keep your temper in check.
At last, Daryon raised the contraption. Seven fins surrounded the lens, like blades on a windmill. His hand released the device, and it spun into motion, suspended in midair. Kalla gasped. Drys grumbled profanities. Tarsyn chuckled, delighted. A gesture of Daryon’s fingers sent the device whizzing toward his visitors. With the yellow planks of the bridge fresh in mind, Laral stepped back. The device paused before Drys, hovered inches from his face. The lens likely magnified his features for Daryon’s inspection.
Now that he bothered to acknowledge his guests, Laral noticed the man’s eyes. They were a disturbing shade of green. Almost yellow. The color of sour apples, of acid. Years ago, Thorn had explained that Elarion did not have green eyes, but this shade wasn’t seen among humans either.
“Drys of Zeldanor,” Daryon said. “How much of you is baerdwin?”
Drys’s fists knotted up. He batted at the spinning lens. The device darted out of reach. Daryon didn’t apologize for offending his guest but waited for an answer. Cornered, Drys relented. “An eighth, I’m told. I’ve heard chatter of a great-grandmother and the dwarves of Ristencort.”
Kalla glanced at Laral, her eyebrows peaked. A stranger was able to pry loose what his closest friends couldn’t? Or perhaps, at last, Drys had decided dwarves were admirable folk.
“You have run from this truth all your life. Why?”
Tension gathered across Drys’s shoulders. Mind your temper, Laral wanted to tell him. His friend struck with words instead. “You live in a dead city. Why?”
Daryon laughed. It was a dry, mirthless laughter. “Because I refuse to forget. You refuse to remember.”
“Aye, and my mother would say neither are healthy.”
That seemed to strike a chord. Daryon clenched his jaw in thoughtful silence, then glared down at the lightning bolt he’d drawn in the sand, as if he resented it. A sweep of his foot scattered the image. The lens moved on. “Kalla of Blue Mountain. You prefer swords to husbands?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Just as you prefer blunt words to tact.”
“Which do you think cuts deeper, blades or words?”
“I suppose it depends on the kind of wound you wish to inflict.”
Daryon awarded her with a shrewd grin, and the lens moved on. “Tarsyn. You tack on ‘of Cayndale,’ but your family does not own you.”
Laral bristled on the boy’s behalf. Why should they be subjected to this interrogation?
“I am my own people, sir,” Tarsyn said.
“You think you are nothing. Are you?”
Tarsyn shifted feet. Was he angry or merely discomfited?
“You don’t mind calling yourself nothing,” Daryon added, “but you mind it terribly when someone else does. Self-deprecation is a twisted sort of vanity. Disgusting. Don’t do it in my presence.”
Tarsyn struck an arrogant pose, chin high, fist on his hip. “Very well, I’m first cousin to the king. Who the hell are you?”
No’ak looked ready to faint. Laral grinned, then bit his lip to straighten his face because it was his turn. Through the lens, Daryon’s face shrank to the size of a fingernail.
“Lord Brengarra, you seek your family, and you blame yourself for their loss. You’re not much better than the boy here. A man does what he must, and you’re hardly a stranger to difficult decisions.”
Laral crossed his arms and looked at the sky, the palace, the sleeping dragon, anywhere but at the probing lens. The less he participated in Daryon’s games, the sooner he could continue his search.
“You’re of the Old Blood,” the man persisted. “Your azeth makes that clear.”
“Aye, what of it?”
“You know this?” As Laral suspected, Daryon had mentioned it only to shock, to offend. Or perhaps he hoped to cleave away the masks and cut to the heart of a person. Impulsive reactions often showed the quality of a person’s heart.
“Of course I know it,” Laral retorted. “You have yet to tell me anything I don’t know. I am not impressed. You show off you
r mind-reading as if you expect us to have never encountered avedrin before. Matter of fact, I have come to know that what you’ve done to us is considered utterly rude, a violation. And you waste our time.”
Light ignited in the dragon’s purple eyes. Iron hinges creaked as the construct raised its head. Daryon pushed himself to his feet. “Your thoughts are scattered like leaves at my feet. Is it any fault of mine they are there to be trod? Be careful you do not waste my time, duínovë. Tell me, does your missing son look like you?”
Which son? Laral wanted to ask, but his throat choked on the words. Daryon heard them anyway.
“The sickly one.”
Laral nodded.
“And your daughter?
“No, she looks like her mother.” Leshan’s coloring. Named after him.
“And your woman? Small. Like a bird.”
“You’ve seen them!” Merciful Mother, they were alive when they came this far. They weren’t contents of a meatwagon. They weren’t pile of bones along the roadside. They might still be alive. “When? Where?”
“Irrelevant. They’re denizens of Sky Rock now.”
“Will you help us free them?”
“Perhaps.”
“What more do you want?” Laral demanded, gesturing at the piles of junk.
Daryon offered an infuriating smile. “Let us talk. Eat, drink.” No one must forget for one instant that upon Gray Mountain he alone was in command.
His band of Elarion piled firewood in one of the dry fountains, set up a spit, and skewered a haunch of wild goat. They pretended the duinóvion weren’t present, making neither eye contact nor attempts at small talk. Tarsyn offered to help; his offer went unheeded, and if he hadn’t moved aside, the Elari delivering wood would’ve walked right over him. Laral suspected these Elarion desired nothing more than to fill the humans with arrows and dump them down Misten Gorge.
When all was prepared, Daryon ordered, “Step away!” With an exaggerated sweep of his hand he set the wood alight.
Tarsyn cried out, amazed. Precisely the reaction Daryon had been hoping for.
Laral rolled his eyes. “And I thought Thorn had a big head,” he whispered. Kalla choked down a chuckle.
While the meat roasted, Daryon served wine from a skin. The cups were rams’ horns, something Laral had seen only in books. Drys voiced his delight, “You can’t set it down till it’s empty!” Nor did he mind that the wine was turning sour. Perhaps Daryon had none better to offer. Perhaps he was still making blunt statements.
Laral pretended to sip. Until he received an answer, he’d stay clearheaded.
“What else can you do?” asked Tarsyn. He watched the fire intently, as if he expected it to turn green or start singing.
Daryon smiled, confident that he had gained a new disciple.
Before Laral had to listen to the man’s boasting, he said, “I was led to believe that all the avedrin were stolen away. Why didn’t the ogres take you?”
“They tried.” He turned to No’ak. “You saw the fresh paint on the bridge?”
“We did,” the dwarf replied as he stuffed leaves into his pipe.
“The war bands tried to infiltrate the city from the east as well. Some of these stones are newly fallen. But when the naenion failed to return, their denmates lost the heart for it. It’s such an insult to be underestimated.”
“What did you do to them?” Tarsyn’s eyes blinked wide, childlike.
“I put lightning in their bones and made them dance for me.” The statement was as straightforward as a blade to the throat.
Kalla offered a change of subject. “You’ve lived here all your life?”
“All my life...” For a moment he drifted back through the centuries, and Laral wanted to ask how many centuries that amounted to. “Yes, so I have. My mother’s people built Tánysmar. My father was one of the Shaddra’hin, but obviously my mother proved more alluring than the Goddess. That was back when the Shaddra’hin first settled the Valley of the Faithful. Dragons still dwelled there, still instructed the devoted in the ways of the Mother-Father. Before the Great War caused them to leave us. Now the dragons visit us only in dreams.” The wonders those strange, sour eyes had seen. The horrors. Laral couldn’t begin to guess. But no amount of suffering or sorrow excused willful rudeness.
Daryon made a slow turn to take in the ruined courtyard, the broken palace. “Yes, we once lived in splendor here. There was no city more lovely than Tánysmar. Then an envoy came, someone we loved. The gates were opened. The city fell. Now my mother’s people hide in the high, unreachable vales.”
Laral gazed at the mountain’s summit where sun and wind and snow reigned. How could anything but a goat survive there? Then he noticed movement in one of the palace windows. A face peered down at the courtyard, small and blond. Another appeared beside it, then both disappeared quicker than a blink. So Daryon had better reasons than snobbery for not inviting his guests under his roof.
“We few are their protectors,” he added, indicating the Elarion standing watch in their featureless gray cowls. “If I leave to help you find your family, I leave mine vulnerable. I believe you understand my dilemma.”
“Only too well,” Laral admitted.
“I hear that this Exiled fights for the freedom of my mother’s people.” His casual mention of Lothiar was jarring.
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
“Yes, there are two sides to every coin. Every coin. And I cannot tell you how tempting it is to join him.” Daryon’s acid-green eyes burned holes in his guests. Without warning, he turned and climbed the steps. “Basi, come.” The iron dragon clanked to its feet. The lens too spun to life and rose off the flagstones. Both rattled after him.
Were his guests to follow? No’ak started for the steps, but Brionyth extended her longbow, blocking his path.
“Is that it, then? Is that our answer?” asked Laral. “He would rather join Lothiar?”
The dwarf shrugged, helpless, then jerked the wineskin from Vosti’s hand. “Let’s drink and hope the bastard rots in the Abyss.”
The fire burned long into the evening, even after the firewood had disintegrated to ash. It burned because Daryon, wherever he had hidden himself, ordered it to. The dwarves and humans shared the goat haunch. The Elarion refused to join them but stood guard at the edge of the courtyard. Kalla eyed them apprehensively. “Will they let us leave?”
“Eh, they’re always like this,” No’ak assured her. But Laral caught the look that passed between him and Bjorni.
“How long should we wait?” Drys asked, mouth full of meat.
“We leave at dawn,” Laral said, cutting off any plans No’ak might have of lingering.
“We don’t need them, m’ lord,” Tarsyn said, approving.
“And you can fend off a dozen ogres with that scrawny blade of yours?”
Tarsyn wagged his head. “Two dozen! And Drys at the same time.”
They bedded down around the fountain. The fire waned, but the stones remained warm, and good thing, too. The wind barreling up the gorge became frigid after sundown. Laral watched the stars creep by. The heavens were blazing bright, this high. Andy would love it. He could name the stars better than anyone Laral knew. What else did the boy have to do but read while other boys his age were fishing and running and climbing the tor? Oh, to lie here with his son and watch Andy’s little finger point out the Blood Star and Vitruvia and Nexos, the Elf’s Bow and the Stallion.
How many more mountains? How much more delay?
Laral woke as the stars began to fade. No point in overstaying their welcome. The sentries were gone, the piles of stone bereft of vigilant eyes. The Elarion must’ve passed by in the night, on feet more silent than a breath. Grateful that they hadn’t decided to slit his throat as he slept, Laral added kindling to the ashes and laid out salt pork to be warmed over the flames. Only, he couldn’t find the flint box. He dug inside his pack, then in Drys’s, even No’ak’s. He was on the verge of despair when the fire
leapt to life.
Daryon stood at the base of the steps. Drawn up behind him, as high as the palace doors, loomed three companies of Elarion. Whether they had used the veil or not, they’d made not a sound as they gathered in formation. Perhaps they had been standing there for hours, waiting for the sun. Rather than the frayed gray robe, Daryon wore an exquisite suit of armor. The leaf-shaped scales were enameled gold, and the plate across his chest was molded with the image of a dragon rising on vast wings. A dragon’s horns adorned the golden helm under his arm.
Laral fought a chill and forced his voice to remain calm: “Is all this for Lothiar?”
“Is that the Exiled’s name?” Daryon asked. “No, his way is not the way.” There was a sigh of disappointment in the admission.
Their voices roused the others. No’ak swore elaborately in dwarvish as he scrambled from his bedroll and cast about for a weapon, but their swords and axes had not been returned. “What’s all this?” he demanded, sticking out his chest. “You come to toss us to the river?”
“You’ve had worse ideas,” Daryon grumbled. “We’ll take obscure roads and reach Sky Rock in two days. You will follow my orders. If you go off on your own, we will not save you.”
“Why the change of heart?” Laral asked.
“My heart has not wavered. I am merely fighting the Mother’s design. But she is stone and I am a breath of wind, so I will do her will and curse her for it later. She sent me a dream three nights in a row. ‘Follow the storm,’ the dragon said. And I saw that.” He pointed at the sigil on Laral’s surcoat. “Very well. Into the storm we shall go.”
~~~~
41
Carah detected something different, something odd in the air as she devoured breakfast. She didn’t notice the tastelessness of the oats or the overcooked texture of the boiled eggs. Her skin tingled; the fine hairs in her sleeves prickled. In every step of the long walk to the infirmary she felt a tension, as if the sky was biding its time, waiting for the right moment to break open and unleash a storm. But there were no clouds. Nor a breath of wind, nor a note of birdsong.