by Melanie Rawn
Then again, Sorin thought suddenly, Riyan had said that the dragon had been capable of killing him while in contact with his colors. Perhaps there was some truth in the legends after all. He didn’t much want to consider it.
Still, what creature would not use any means at its disposal to kill an enemy? They were men; a man had done this to the dragon, a man powerful enough to bring him down out of the sky like a falling arrow. He examined the fine, elegant structure of the wings, the sweep of strong bone and muscle covered in blue-gray hide. The contasting underwings were black, the skin almost silky to the touch. He had never seen a dragon this close. And he wished for this dragon’s sake that he had not had this opportunity.
He considered the tall, blue-eyed, arrogantly handsome man responsible for this horror. And abruptly the connection was made between what Riyan had said about the method and the dragon’s ability to kill. No Sunrunner could have done this—but a sorcerer, a diarmadhi, might.
“Will he wake up again?” he asked Riyan, who shook his head.
“He’ll only last until sunset at most. Sioned tells me the sleep-weaving is good for a whole night.” He ran one hand down the dragon’s neck. “Poor beast. Sorin, when we find the man who did this—”
“Rohan will want him brought to Stronghold for trial.” He met his friend’s eyes. “Somehow I don’t think he’ll live that long, do you?”
“Funny you should put it that way.”
In perfect agreement, they hiked back through the hills to their horses.
Late afternoon found them in the congenial comforts of Elktrap Manor, and in the more than congenial company of Lord Garic and Lady Ruala. The former had reached the colossal age of eighty-six; the latter, his granddaughter and only surviving relative, had just seen her twenty-seventh winter. Ruala’s parents had died of Plague the year after she was born, and her only sister had succumbed to injuries suffered in a climbing accident four summers ago. It was just the old man and the young woman now in the sprawling manor house, supervising a few servants, the herds of sheep harvested for their wool, and the elk harvested for meat and the tough, beautiful black hooves that were carved into anything from drinking vessels to jewel boxes. The dinner service they brought out to honor their lordly guests was a gorgeous collection of plates, bowls, and goblets inlaid with elk-hoof that Lord Garic himself had made over the course of his long life. The food was simple but good, and wine fermented from honey-pine resin was served in very old Fironese crystal stemware. Sorin and Riyan were made happily welcome, and it was not until they sat with the athri and his granddaughter in her private antechamber that they got around to explaining their presence.
Word of a slain dragon had brought them into the Veresch. Decreed with uncharacteristic imperiousness twenty-three years ago on assuming his title, High Prince Rohan’s strict law severely punished anyone who killed a dragon. Most thought the law sentimental nonsense, if not actually threatening; Rohan was known to have a ridiculous love for the frightening creatures who decimated herds and crops when food supplies in their habitual ranges grew low. It was true that he wished to protect dragons because of his feeling for them—but also because their melted shells yielded gold. Riyan, Lord of Skybowl where abandoned dragon caves were mined for their gold-bearing shells, knew this; Sorin did not. That the law was Rohan’s law was enough for Sorin, who shared his uncle’s love of dragons.
But the law had been broken, and they had come to investigate. Lord Garic told them that he had heard of a dead dragon several measures to the north, confirming their guess that the dragon they had found that morning was a second kill. Lady Ruala paled as Riyan described the scene. He apologized for the graphic description.
“Forgive me, my lady, but I had to make clear the horror of the crime.”
She nodded silently and gestured for him to continue.
But he hesitated a moment, glancing at Sorin, before deciding he might as well tell it straight out. “I was able to get a description of the man. From the dragon.”
Lord Garic’s unfaded blue eyes narrowed in a direct look at Riyan’s faradhi rings. “Ah,” was all he said. His granddaughter, whose eyes were so dark a green that in shadow they seemed nearly black, merely nodded again, as unsurprised as the old man. Riyan found this disconcerting. He hadn’t thought Sioned’s trick of communicating with a dragon to be common knowledge.
But he let their lack of reaction pass. “He’s tall, with dark hair and blue eyes, very handsome, arrogant, strongly made. I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’ve heard anything about such a person.”
Midway through his description Lady Ruala’s gaze twisted around to Lord Garic. “Grandsir—it’s not possible!”
He fixed a grim stare on the two young men. “Not only have we heard of such a person, we gave him shelter not two nights ago.”
Sorin leaned forward eagerly. “What did he say? Did he tell you his name? Did he give any clues about who he is, where he’s from, where he’s bound?”
Ruala shook her head. “None. He gave the name Aliadim, but after what you’ve said we can deduce that it was false. He told us he was of independent means, traveling through the Veresch for pleasure. He was alone and he only smiled when we cautioned him against wandering too far from the main roads.” She frowned, her eyes darkening. “He rode a very fine horse, I remember—not one of our mountain ponies, but feather-hoofed.”
“Kadar Water,” Sorin supplied. “Lord Kolya’s breed. What about the saddle, my lady? The bridle? Anything at all you can remember.”
“Grandsir? You were in the stables when he arrived.”
The old man rocked gently back and forth, gnarled fingers laced together over his lean chest. “Plain saddle, nothing special. Bridle the same. But the blanket—deep violet. Like his tunic.”
That settled it for Riyan. He had deliberately not mentioned that detail of color, hoping that Sorin’s questions would elicit the information and confirm the man’s identity. “Which direction did he ride out?”
“North, but that means nothing,” Ruala explained. “There’s a crossroad a measure up the north road. He could be anywhere.”
“We know where he was today,” Sorin said tightly.
“Not today, my lord. Three days ago.” Ruala set down her cup. “I remember now. There was a strangeness to his horse’s eyes, calm enough to ride but still skittish from some recent fright. And the first thing he asked for was a bath to wash the road from him. But dirt isn’t red-brown the way dried blood is—and that was the color I saw beneath his nails.”
Riyan felt his stomach lurch. “You’re saying it took that dragon three days to die?” he whispered. “Sweet Goddess.”
“This ‘Aliadim’ killed the dragon on purpose, you know,” Garic mused. “He deliberately broke the law.”
“But why, Grandsir?” Ruala pleaded. “Why would anyone want to kill anything as miraculous as a dragon? The wisest thing the High Prince ever did was decree their protection!”
Riyan glanced at her with interest; most people were terrified of dragons and thought Rohan’s law the stupidest thing he had ever done.
“The dragon was killed in challenge, to flout the law,” the old athri replied. “To bring investigating Desert lords into the Veresch, as has happened. But—no disrespect intended, my lords—I believe this man was hoping not for those of Skybowl and Feruche but Stronghold and Dragon’s Rest.”
“You have to tell them,” Sorin said some time later, when they were alone in the pleasant, well-lit chamber allotted to them.
Riyan came out of the bathroom, rubbing his face with a towel. Elktrap Manor was a well-appointed place with many modern conveniences. Lord Garic had kept his wealth secret during Roelstra’s rule for fear of its being legally confiscated, but in the years Rohan had been High Prince he had gleefully used his hoarded treasure to make improvements in his beloved holding. Unlike Roelstra, Rohan believed that as long as the contract between lord and prince for supplies in return for protection and shrewd
bargaining with other princes was upheld, an athri’s goods and lands belonged to an athri. Unlike Roelstra, Rohan was not a thief—legal or otherwise.
“I suppose I will have to let them know,” Riyan said. “But you know Rohan, you know Pol—and you know what will happen.”
Sorin nodded. “They’ll be here like arrows shot from a single bow. But there’s a nasty section of that law saying that anyone who fails to report a dragon’s killing immediately is judged as guilty as the one who did the deed.”
Tossing the towel onto a chair, Riyan laughed. “Can you seriously see Rohan stripping us of half our wealth?”
Sorin did not find this particularly amusing. “There have been rumblings lately that there’s one law for the highborns and Sunrunners, and another for the common folk. Frankly, I don’t want to be caught in the middle of the same kind of dispute.”
Riyan sobered. “I suppose you’re right. Very well. At moonrise I’ll contact Sioned and then Pol. But I can’t help hoping that clouds will blow up so I can’t work. I think Lord Garic is right. ‘Aliadim’ isn’t interested in us. He’s out to provoke Rohan and Pol.”
“And knew exactly how to do it.” Sorin picked up a rolled parchment borrowed from Elktrap’s surprisingly fine library. “A treatise on dragons,” he explained as Riyan’s brows arched. “I’ll try to borrow it for Lady Feylin, but right now I want to do a little reading myself. Did you get a look at the dates on some of Lord Garic’s books? Right back to the year Goddess Keep was established. As old or older than the scrolls Meath found on Dorval.”
“But not as dangerous, I hope,” Riyan murmured to himself. He sat in a deep armchair by the windows and stared at the purple mountains, waiting for the moons to rise.
After a time he heard the rustle of parchment that meant Sorin had rerolled it. “Interesting enough to borrow for Feylin?” he asked.
“Yes.” Sorin’s voice was strained, and Riyan glanced around curiously. “But that’s not what I want to talk about. I didn’t want to mention it until you did. But you don’t seem to realize how that dragon was killed.”
“What do you mean?”
Sorin raked pale brown hair out of blue eyes, an impatient gesture. “Don’t you see? You’re a Sunrunner. Could you bring a dragon down from the sky? You told me that’s what happened, and for all my admiration for faradh’im, I don’t think any of you could have done it. You probably have the power—but not the right spell.”
Riyan felt himself go absolutely still, mind and body and spirit.
“Which means Andry should be told about this, too,” Sorin continued stubbornly. “I know you don’t much like what he’s done the last nine years, but you would’ve told Lady Andrade, wouldn’t you? My brother is Lord of Goddess Keep now. He needs to know this.”
“The law is Rohan’s,” Riyan heard himself say.
“But the spell was diarmadhi.”
“No proof.”
“Oh, for the love of—Riyan, you were the one who communicated with that dragon! And by the way, Pol’s going to be crazy once he hears. He still hasn’t managed it and neither has anybody else. But did the man who killed that dragon wear Sunrunner’s rings? Yet he yanked the creature right out of the sky! Andry has to be told.”
“I’ll mention it to Sioned,” was as far as Riyan was willing to go, and with that Sorin had to be content.
Chapter Nine
Dragon’s Rest: 4 Spring
Pol hung on as best he could, but the effort was in vain. Daylight opened up between him and the saddle. The next instant he was flat on his back in the lush spring grass with the wind knocked out of him. The filly, with fine regard for his comfort now that it no longer depended on her, sidled over and poked her delicate nose into his ribs. Propping himself on his elbows after he’d caught his breath, he frowned up at her in disgust. “I’m fine, thanks for asking,” he growled.
A young man leaning on the paddock rails had been laughing uproariously all this time. “I don’t see what’s so damned funny,” Pol complained as he regained his feet.
“Don’t you? From where I’m standing, it was hilarious.”
“You have no respect for your prince’s dignity, Rialt—let alone his sore backside.”
“If your dignity depended on your backside, you’d have a problem,” Rialt replied as grooms loosened the filly’s saddle girth. She was perfectly reasonable now without a man’s weight on her back. “I just hope the mount you bring to your marriage bed is easier to ride than this lady here,” he teased.
“And no respect for your prince’s privacy, either,” Pol snapped.
“Temper, my lord,” Rialt grinned. Marriage was an increasingly irritating subject for Pol, who had just finished his twenty-third winter and was being delicately pressured by almost everyone but his parents to find a wife. “Come, a nice hot bath will—”
“Don’t try to manage me the way you manage my palace, Chamberlain,” came the sharp reply, and Rialt shut up. Pol’s bad humor righted itself by the time the filly had been led away, and as he closed the paddock gate behind him he apologized with a rueful smile. “Sorry. But it seems that everything, including my own horses, gets the better of me these days.”
“Cheer up. There’s excellent news that I came down here to tell you. We lost only half the sheep we originally thought in the winter floods, and saved most of the vines and young trees.”
Rialt chattered on about their domestic state as they walked the long road from paddock to palace, and Pol’s mood improved. Livestock and crops were doing better than initial word had indicated. Torrential rains that winter had endangered Dragon’s Rest; other holdings had been all but ruined. Pol hoped to use some of his own stock to replenish herds drowned in floods or dead of resulting disease, and the information heartened him. It had the added benefit of taking his mind off the tedious business of preparing to Choose a bride.
He hoped he would have as much luck in finding a wife as he had had in finding a chamberlain. Rialt, encountered by chance many years ago at an inn below Graypearl, was the youngest son of an important Dorvali silk merchant. He had often appeared at Prince Chadric’s court during Pol’s last years there as a squire, representing his father and a small group of other merchants. Pol had gotten to know him, liking what he saw. But an invitation to visit Stronghold and further his education in the economics of trade was reluctantly declined; Rialt was married by that time, with one daughter born and another on the way. Two summers ago his wife had died in childbed and a son with her, and Rialt had written a respectful letter asking if the offer still held. By then, though only three winters Pol’s senior, he had a successful trade of his own in both silk and pearls. But he found home insupportable with its memories of his beloved wife.
Leaving his daughters behind with their grandparents, he had come to Dragon’s Rest to set up the books. Within a season he was running the whole palace, from the horse-breeding farm to the purchase of ornaments for Pol’s own chambers. Rialt was a fiendishly capable administrator whose talents, unbound by the strictures and the relatively minor scope of trade, had found their true calling in the completion and governance of a palace. It had taken several years to build the first three sections of Dragon’s Rest—the Princes Hall and the two towers flanking it—but the great semicircular structures that finished the palace had gone up in an astonishingly short time. The Rialla would be held here again this year, and the princes and lords would find every arrangement for their comfort. Pol wasn’t sure quite how Rialt had managed it, but was grateful that he had done so.
“Your Ostvel,” Rohan had told him once, smiling. “He, too, took all the everyday worries of running a castle from me, so I could sit back and think great thoughts!”
And as Ostvel had become Rohan’s friend, so Rialt was Pol’s. This year Prince Chadric and Princess Audrite were bringing Rialt’s two daughters from Graypearl to live with their father. Pol looked forward to having more little ones running rampant around the palace—but he knew that what he
really wanted were children of his own.
Finding their mother, however. . . . He frowned again at the inevitable return to the inevitable Choice awaiting him. Noting the expression, Rialt sighed.
“If you’re determined to be aggravated, my lord, please do everyone a service and do it elsewhere! The older servants know better by now, but the new ones still walk in terror of their Sunrunner prince—and your expression is anything but reassuring.”
Pol was startled out of his mood. “Are they really frightened of me?”
Rialt grinned at him. “It doesn’t help when you light every candle in your suite all at once, you know. Plus the hearth fire.”
A smile twitched one corner of his mouth. “Mother scolds me for being a bit of an exhibitionist. Very well, I’ll take my temper into the gardens and terrorize the roses. And try to remember to resist my more startling impulses.”
Rialt chuckled. “I recall very well my own startlement in Giamo’s inn that day nine years ago.”
Their first meeting teased Pol’s mind: himself and Meath, peacefully eating a meal; a Merida posing as a Gribain soldier starting a fight meant to cover the assassination of the High Prince’s heir; Pol’s instinctive call of Fire that had given Meath a precious moment of surprise; Rialt’s competence with his fists during the brawl. Pol clapped his friend on the back. “I startled myself, too. But we both seem to have gotten over it. I’ll be in the gardens if you need me.”
The roses ruled serenely in the soft spring sunlight. Pol had arranged the plantings so that some part of the gardens was in bloom all year long; winter flowers lingered now, and spring blossoms were on the verge of opening. Summer and early autumn were the spectacular seasons, with a profusion of color such as made faradhi senses drunk.