Dragonworld

by Byron Preiss

  Pennel swung himself down from the cart and led the weeping man into his house. Jondalrun looked at Agron. Agron took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You said there would be more proof,” he said. “You were right, apparently.”

  Jondalrun nodded. “I will post the notice of my son’s death,” he said. Then, he added silently, I am going to see Amsel.

  * * *

  On all worlds, in all times, there are always those who are the curious ones. Amsel was such a person. He asked questions about everything, pried into secrets where others saw no secrets, and, like most with a mind given to wonder, did not fit well with his contemporaries. He was mistrusted and ostracized by the dour majority of Fandora, those for whom life was what they could wrest from the ground and sea.

  Amsel was quite aware that he was not well-loved by his countrymen, and he considered himself indifferent to the fact. Despite their distrust of him, they had never offered him harm. He had occasionally prescribed healing poultices and remedies for minor ailments to some of the farmfolk, and so won tolerance by them. At times illness or misfortune had been attributed to his “magical” abilities, but the Chief Elder of Tamberly Town was a just and sensible man who refused to take action without evidence.

  Now, it seemed, a person had dared to beard the “sorcerer” in his den. Amsel was both sad and angry. He had put a great deal of design and work into the building of his Wing, and now it had been stolen, and he had no idea where to begin looking for it.

  He had been sitting there pondering the problem for some time; now he stood and slowly began his descent. But before he had gone far, he heard a rustling in the underbrush below, a pounding as if someone were knocking heavily on his door, and a voice crying out his name.

  “Up here!” Amsel shouted.

  He stood and waited. Very rarely did he have visitors; he could not imagine who it could be. The leaves rustled, and then the farmer Jondalrun, one of the Elders of Tamberly Town, stepped from the trunk stairs onto the limb. Amsel gazed at him in astonishment. The old man’s face was haggard, his eyes wild, even slightly feverish. Without a word he lurched toward Amsel, both hands grasping for the hermit’s throat. Amsel glanced over his shoulder quickly, then stepped off the branch into empty air, fell twelve feet, and landed with practiced ease on another wide limb. Jondalrun glared down at him in baffled rage. “Traitor!” he shouted. “Filthy Sim!”

  “What do you mean?” Amsel said, bewildered.

  Jondalrun did not answer. He climbed clumsily down to Amsel’s new perch and lunged at him again. Amsel leaped out of the way, landing feetfirst on a thin springy branch that hurled him upward. He rose past the disconcerted Jondalrun, seized and sat himself upon a bough over the farmer’s head, looking down at him.

  “Jondalrun, what has happened?”

  “You know what has happened!” cried Jondalrun. “And you shall pay for your part in it!” Panting, he lifted his staff to throw at Amsel.

  There was no reasoning with the Elder, so Amsel leaped down in front of him. Before the staff could be used, Amsel pulled it from Jondalrun’s grasp. Pushing the Elder back quickly into the fork of two limbs, Amsel wedged the staff between Jondalrun and a tangle of smaller branches. The Elder was trapped.

  “Now,” Amsel said, “tell me what has happened.”

  Jondalrun struggled, but to no avail—the staff held him firmly. He kicked at Amsel, who nimbly dodged the boot. Finally he spoke.

  “You know . . . what you have done.” The old man’s voice came in bitter, broken gasps. “You tricked Johan . . . into following your evil ways. Now he has paid for it . . . with his life!”

  Amsel grew very pale. “Johan,” he said softly. “Johan took the Wing.” It made terrible sense—fool that he was not to have seen it earlier. The boy had always been particularly fascinated by the Wing, and had begged Amsel often to be allowed to fly it.

  “You Sim are murderers of our young. You are afraid to attack openly!”

  “Jondalrun, what are you—”

  “Don’t try to deny that you are a Simbalese, Amsel! You’ve been sent here to undermine us with sorcerous terrorism!” Jondalrun spat at him; Amsel jerked his head out of the way. “A Simbalese windship attacked Gordain Town, burned half of it to the ground! Another has killed young Analinna! And still another has torn my son from the sky, where you sent him!”

  Amsel shook his head in confusion. It was obviously impossible to talk sanely with Jondalrun—he was raving. Amsel watched the old man warily, his memory filled with young Johan, one of the few friends the hermit had ever had. “Jondalrun,” he began, “I had no idea Johan was—”

  “You knew! You gave him wrong thoughts to think! You encouraged him to break the laws of nature, and he has died because of it! I swear, hermit, that I will have revenge on you and all of Simbala for this!”

  With a massive effort that left his face purple, Jondalrun broke the staff that imprisoned him. Amsel leaped back quickly. They faced each other.

  “I cannot win against you here,” Jondalrun said at last. “You know these treeways too well. But there will be a reckoning, Amsel, and not all your magic will save you from it!”

  He turned and descended the wooden steps. Amsel watched him go.

  The sound of Jondalrun’s passage through the forest faded to silence. Amsel still stood, unmoving. The old man was not insane. Johan was dead. Johan, for whom he had come to feel parental affection, was gone from the world—and he alone was to blame.

  Amsel sat down slowly on the branch, put his face in his hands, and began to cry.

  IV

  Jondalrun returned to Tamberly Town. He rode his horse down the winding streets, looking neither left nor right, paying no attention to the whispers and stares of the townsfolk. Tension filled the air, taut as a bowstring. A newly posted notice told of an impending High Council of Elders, the first in years, to be held at the Stairs of Summer. Couriers had already been sent to all the towns and hamlets of Fandora, even as far away as Delkeran on the western border. Jondalrun paused for a moment before the town-house wall and looked silently at the crisp, unweathered paper that fluttered in the breeze next to his announcement of Johan’s funeral. Then he rode slowly to the house of the town stonecutter to order a headstone carved.

  That afternoon, he buried Johan. The sun, heedless of his sorrow, shone in a cloudless sky. The day was bright and cool—the kind of day, Jondalrun thought bitterly, that Johan had always loved, with crisp, clear air that brought a snap of red to the cheeks. On such days Johan would hurry to finish his chores, that he might run and play touchstone with his friends in the Toldenar Hills near the farm. Jondalrun decided to bury him on the highest hillcrest there.

  It was the Fandoran custom to bury the dead quickly and privately, and afterward to receive condolences from mourners. With his mattock and shovel Jondalrun loosened the ground and cleared a deep grave, then tenderly lowered the small enshrouded form into it. He stood looking down at it, still in the grip of a grief that would not let him fill in the grave and hide the sky and sun forever from his child. Like most Fandorans, he was a religious man, and now he prayed that his son might enjoy an eternal spring. After the prayer was done, he stood looking down, motionless. It was hard, very hard, to throw that first shovelful of dirt.

  “M-mesire Jondalrun . . . ”

  Jondalrun turned and saw two small boys standing on the nearby ridge of rocks that ran like a spine along the first hill. He recognized them—two of Johan’s friends, Marl and Doley. They stood forlornly in the bright sunshine, their jerkins and breeches dirty and tears streaking their faces. Jondalrun stared at them, not sure what to say. It was improper to interrupt the private burial. Yet, stickler though he was for tradition, he could not find it within him to send them away. He merely stood and looked at them, not knowing what to say.

  The shorter boy—he could not remember which name belonged to whom—held a small toy in his hands. He held it out to Jondalrun.

  “Johan l-lent it
to me,” the child said. “It was his favorite, but he lent it to me. I thought he might want to keep it now.”

  Jondalrun slowly opened his weathered hand, and the boy placed the toy in it. Then, as though released from an obligation and grateful to be off, they both turned and walked quickly, not quite running, down the hill toward town.

  Jondalrun looked at the toy. It was a small wooden horse and cart, whittled from interconnecting pieces, so that the cartwheels turned and the horse could be unyoked. Jondalrun’s hand tightened then in a sudden spasm that almost crushed the fragile thing, for he had suddenly recognized its construction. It had been given to Johan by Amsel. Jondalrun stared at it, trembling slightly. He loathed the very touch of the thing upon his palm—it was unclean, a Simbalese creation, a product of the same hands that had sent Johan to his death. Twice he raised it over his head to cast it down and crush it underfoot, and twice he stopped, remembering that it had been Johan’s favorite toy.

  At last he turned, his movements stiff, and, bending down, laid the toy upon the still form. His eyes averted, he began to shovel. He tossed the loamy soil into the grave quickly, his breathing ragged, until the body was covered. He worked more slowly then. When the grave was filled, he affixed a makeshift marker that would serve until the headstone was finished. Without gazing at the mound of earth, he collected his tools and walked heavily down the hill.

  * * *

  Word spread slowly across the steppes and hills of Fandora. A merchant, his cart filled with dried fruits, mentioned the tragedy to the inhabitants of several tiny hamlets. A Courier came to Silvan Town, feverish from an infection contracted by stepping on a spikebush during his run and not taking time to treat the wound. The word went out: for the first time in a decade, a High Council of Elders had been called.

  Words from drovers and Waymen had already instigated rumors that were bandied about in marketplaces and taverns. There had been an invasion of Simbalese windships in the north of Fandora that was even now moving southward and westward. Sorcerers from Simbala in the guise of wolves and bears were stalking the countryside. Elders were hard put at times to keep panic from overflowing as the stories chased each other to the south and west.

  In Borgen Town the speculation had reached a feverish height. Old women and gossips leaned daily from windows beneath peaked roofs and regaled each other with figures of imaginary casualties. Some even took to laying up corned and salted meats, bread and cheeses in their stillrooms and larders.

  Tenniel, the sandalmaker, had just finished replacing the leather wrappings on the head of Old Ma’am Mehow’s cane when a young boy came to the door of his shop and told him a meeting of the Elders had been called. Tenniel had been listening politely to Old Ma’am Mehow’s theory that all this excitement was only a plot by those venal cliff fishers to increase the price of puney fish. He nodded polite agreement and ushered her out of the shop, then closed up and hurried down the street, rubbing his hands together to rid them of the softening oils he had been using on the leather. He was one of the youngest Elders in any town in Fandora—only twenty-eight—and his appointment to the post had not been without controversy. Tenniel had been keenly aware of this the times he had attended a meeting of the Elders. The responsibility of the post frightened him, but he had managed to keep his fear in check by his determination to do his best for the town in which he had been born. He loved Borgen Town devotedly; he would, when work permitted, spend hours simply wandering about the village, gazing fondly at its cottages and houses, at the noisy open bins of the marketplace, the fruit groves outside of town, the various heralds and coats of arms over doorways.

  It was because of his passionate love for his town that he had been chosen an Elder at his young age. Few people had a deeper understanding of the town and its ways, and few were more anxious to serve.

  Rushing through a lane behind the Court of Wells, he speculated on the sort of problem that had arisen to require a special council. It was not hard to guess that it must be concerned with the rumors of war with Simbala. As he turned the corner and came into view of the Chief Elder’s house, he saw Axel, the third Elder, just entering, and ran the rest of the way so as not to be too far behind him.

  Talend, the Chief Elder, was an ancient man of seventy or more, with one foot twisted and useless from a hunting accident that had happened long before Tenniel was born. Axel frowned as the young man sat down, puffing slightly. Axel was also much older than Tenniel. He was a sour-looking Elder who owned several of the shops in the town, and he wanted to own Tenniel’s as well. The younger man steadfastly refused to sell his shop—it had been his father’s, and he made a good living from it. As a result, their encounters were often tense.

  Talend affected not to notice this conflict. As Chief Elder he had selected both of them, subject to approval by the townsfolk, and he felt that he had made a good decision. He thought that Tenniel’s youthful views on things balanced his own nicely.

  In a voice that Tenniel always found surprisingly strong for its age, Talend began to read the proclamation that had been brought to him by courier. The Elders of Tamberly Town had requested a High Council of all the townships of Fandora, to discuss and decide what action to take concerning the recent attacks by Simbalese windships.

  Tenniel sat rigid with excitement. A High Council! The last such one had been held when he was seventeen, and had been called to decide how best to aid the flood victims of three towns when the Wayyen River had overflowed. If a meeting was deemed necessary now, then the possibility of war must be very serious indeed.

  Talend squinted at him and Axel and said, “One of us must attend.”

  “Do you think it is possible that there will be war?” Tenniel asked, and was relieved that his voice was steady. There had been no war in Fandora, civil or otherwise, since it had been settled over two hundred years ago. There had been no desire by any other country to annex this land of high and barren steppes, rocky hills, and low marshes. There had been no desire by the Fandorans to war upon themselves or others—the business of making a living was hard enough. The concept of war was unbelievable to Tenniel at first. In fact, it was hard for him to conceive of Fandora as a country united enough to wage war.

  “This is not to be decided by the three of us,” Talend said in answer to his question. “Our task is to decide which of us will represent Borgen Town in the High Council. I am old and lame—I could not make the journey and be at my best. Therefore, it is between you two.”

  Tenniel said immediately, “Axel must go.” It was so obvious that it hardly needed stating. He was older, and therefore wiser and more qualified to go. It was in the best interests of Borgen Town—therefore, Axel would go. Tenniel told himself that he was quite content to stay in this town that he loved, even though he knew that was not true. He did want to be part of this meeting, to aid in this decision that might well be one of the most important ever made in Fandora. Yet he also wanted what was best for his town, and so he voted for Axel.

  He fully expected Axel to vote for himself, and for Talend to approve. Axel was not given to false modesty. Therefore, Tenniel was astonished beyond words of protest when Axel said briefly, as was his way, “Tenniel goes.”

  Tenniel was sure he had not heard aright. He could only stare at Axel in amazement. But his amazement had yet further to go, for Talend nodded and said, “I agree. Tenniel, you are to represent Borgen Town at the High Council.”

  “I? But . . . ” Tenniel was literally beyond words; his jaw moved up and down and from side to side, like a marionette with loose strings. Talend chuckled, and even sour old Axel was moved to twist one side of his mouth in a smile.

  “Yes, you, sandalmaker,” Talend said. “We all know it can be no other. You have the energy, and the devotion which the High Council requires. It is a long trip and a difficult mission.” His voice grew serious. “There will be enough there to represent the sage and hoary point of view. Let youth also be there, since youth is always the cutting edge in war.”<
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  “Aye,” Axel said. “Your devotion to Borgen Town is known to all, and second to none. You will not use us ill, I think.”

  Tenniel looked at Axel with surprised gratitude. Axel snorted gruffly, as though to take some of the compliment back from his words.

  Later that day, Tenniel packed a small satchel in his room behind his shop and left Borgen Town. Nedden, his horse, wore the finest saddle Tenniel had made. The sandalmaker was proud. He was having to readjust the scope of his loyalty—to widen it from the small town in which he lived to include the entire country of Fandora. It was an exciting concept. He knew next to nothing about the Simbalese, but how could their loyalty and devotion to their townships possibly match that of the Fandorans? However, he thought, war was more than just a matter of loyalty and enthusiasm. He knew that the concept of war was a simple one to most Fandorans: great bunches of men ran at each other from opposite directions, brandishing swords and firing arrows, and in a few minutes a victory was won, and the losers stood sullenly by while the winners had their pick of the spoils, which were usually fine silks, jewels, and sometimes princesses.

  There was certainly nothing wrong with that, but he wondered if it would really be that simple. For one thing, the Sim were well-known to be versed in all forms of magic, which could be a formidable weapon. Something would have to be done to negate that. Tenniel felt that if it came down to a vote for or against war, he would not vote for it unless he knew the Sim magic could be challenged. He felt sure that he and his fellow countrymen could triumph over any normal army that came against them. It would certainly be a great adventure. As he rode toward the east, he recalled a bit of an old war song he had once heard sung by a traveler from the southern nations, and he sang what he recalled of it as he rode, substituting his name for that of the hero. It sounded very good.