Dragon's Bane

  torn sacks, and through it gleamed the darkness of the

  floor, like water collected in hollows of the sand.

  Morkeleb lay upon the gold, his vast wings folded along

  his sides, their tips crossed over his tail, black as coal

  and seeming to shine, his crystal eyes like lamps in the

  dark. The sweet, terrible singing that Jenny had felt so

  strongly had faded, but the air about him was vibrant with

  the unheard music.

  "Morkeleb," she said softly, and the word whispered

  back at her from the forest of glittering spikes overhead.

  She felt the silver eyes upon her and reached out, ten-

  tatively, to the dark maze of that mind.

  Why gold? she asked. Why do dragons covet the gold

  of men?

  It was not what she had meant to say to him, and she

  felt, under his coiled anger and suspicion, something else

  move.

  What is that to you, wizard woman?

  What was it to me that I returned here to save your

  life? It would have served me and mine better to have let

  you die.

  Why then did you not?

  There were two answers. The one she gave him was,

  Because it was understood between us that if you gave

  me the way into the heart of the Deep, I should heal you

  and give you your life. But in that healing you gave me

  Dragonsbane 223

  your name, Morkeleb the Black—and the name she spoke

  in her mind was the ribbon of music that was his true

  name, his essence; and she saw him flinch. They have

  said, Save a dragon, slave a dragon, and by your name

  you shall do as I bid you.

  The surge of his anger against her was like a dark wave,

  and all along his sides the knifelike scales lifted a little,

  like a dog's hackles. Around them in the blackness of the

  Temple, the gold seemed to whisper, picking up the

  groundswell of his wrath.

  / am Morkeleb the Black. I am and will be slave to no

  one and nothing, least of all a human woman, mage though

  she may be. I do no bidding save my own.

  The bitter weight of alien thoughts crushed down upon

  her, heavier than the darkness. But her eyes were a mage's

  eyes, seeing in darkness; her mind held a kind of glowing

  illumination that it had not had before. She felt no fear

  of him now; a queer strength she had not known she

  possessed stirred in her. She whispered the magic of his

  name as she would have formed its notes upon her harp,

  in all its knotted complexities, and saw him shrink back

  a little. His razor claws stirred faintly in the gold.

  By your name, Morkeleb the Black, she repeated, you

  shall do my bidding. And by your name, I tell you that

  you will do no harm, either to John Aversin, or to Prince

  Gareth, or to any other human being while you remain

  here in the south. When you are well enough to sustain

  the journey, you shall leave this place and return to your

  home.

  Ire radiated from his scales like a heat, reflected back

  about him by the thrumming gold. She felt in it the iron

  pride of dragons, and their contempt for humankind, and

  also his furious grief at being parted from the hoard

  that he had so newly won. For a moment their souls met

  and locked, twisting together like snakes striving, fighting

  for advantage. The tide other strength rose in her, surging

  224 Barbara Hambly

  and sure, as if it drew life from the combat itself. Terror

  and exhilaration flooded her, like the tabat leaves, only

  far stronger, and she cast aside concern for the limitations

  other flesh and strove against him mind to mind, twisting

  at the glittering chain of his name.

  She felt the spew of his venomous anger, but would

  not let go. If you kill me, I shall drag you down with me

  into death, she thoughts/or dying, I shall not release your

  name from my mind.

  The strength that was breaking the sinews of her mind

  drew back, but his eyes held to hers. Her thoughts were

  suddenly flooded with images and half-memories, like the

  visions of the heart of the Deep; things she did not under-

  stand, distracting and terrifying in their strangeness. She

  felt the plunging vertigo of flight in darkness; saw black

  mountains that cast double shadows, red deserts unstirred

  by wind since time began and inhabited by glass spiders

  that lived upon salt. They were dragon memories, con-

  fusing her, luring her toward the place where his mind

  could close around hers like a trap, and she held fast to

  those things of her own life that she knew and her memory

  of the piping of old Caerdinn whistling the truncated air

  of Morkeleb's true name. Into that air she twisted her

  own spells of breaking and exhaustion, mingling them

  with the rhythm of his heart that she had learned so well

  in the healing, and she felt once more his mind draw back

  from hers.

  His wrath was like the lour of thunder-sky, building all

  around her; he loomed before her like a cloud harboring

  lightning. Then without warning he struck at her like a

  snake, one thin-boned claw raised to slash.

  He would not strike, she told herself as her heart con-

  tracted with terror and her every muscle screamed to flee

  ... He could not strike her for she had his name and he

  knew it... She had saved him; he must obey... Her mind

  gripped the music of his name even as the claws hissed

  Dragonsbane 225

  down. The wind of them slashed at her hair, the saber

  blades passing less than a foot from her face. White eyes

  stared down at her, blazing with hate; the rage of him

  beat against her like a storm.

  Then he settled back slowly upon his bed of gold. The

  tang of his defeat was like wormwood in the air.

  You chose to give me your name rather than die, Mor-

  keleb. She played his name like a glissando and felt the

  surge of her own rising power hum in the gold against his.

  You will go from these lands and not return.

  For a moment more she felt his anger, resentment, and

  the fury of his humbled pride. But there was something

  else in the hoarfrost glitter of his gaze upon her, the knowl-

  edge that she was not contemptible.

  He said quietly. Do you not understand?

  Jenny shook her head. She looked around her once

  again at the Temple, its dark archways piled high with

  more gold than she had ever seen before, a treasure more

  fabulous than any other upon earth. It would have bought

  all of Bel and the souls of most of the men who dwelled

  there. But, perhaps because she herself had little use for

  gold, she felt drawn to ask again, Why gold, Morkeleb?

  Was it the gold that brought you here?

  He lowered his head to his paws again, and all around

  them the gold vibrated with the whisper of the dragon's

  name. // was the gold, and the dreams of the gold, he

  said. / had discontent in all things; the longing grew upon

  me while I slept. Do you not know, wizard woman, the

&n
bsp; love that dragons have for gold?

  She shook her head again. Only that they are greedy

  for it, as men are greedy.

  Rose-red light rimmed the slits of his nostrils as he

  sniffed. Men, he said softly. They have no understanding

  of gold; no understanding of what it is and of what it can

  be. Come here, wizard woman. Put your hand upon me

  and listen with my mind.

  226 Barbara Hambly

  She hesitated, fearing a trap, but her curiosity as a

  mage drove her. She picked her way over the cold, uneven

  heaps of rings, platters, and candlesticks, to rest her hand

  once more against the soft skin below the dragon's great

  eye. As before, it felt surprisingly warm, unlike a reptile'.,

  skin, and soft as silk. His mind touched hers like a firm

  hand in the darkness.

  In a thousand murmuring voices, she could hear the

  gold pick up the music of the dragon's name. The blended

  nuances of thought were magnified and made richer, dis-

  tinct as subtle perfumes, piercing the heart with beauty.

  It seemed to Jenny that she could identify every piece 01

  gold within that enormous chamber by its separate sound-

  ing, and hear the harmonic curve of a vessel, the melding

  voices of every single coin and hairpin, and the sweet

  tingling locked in the crystal heart of every jewel. Her

  mind, touching the dragon's, flinched in aching wonder

  from the caress of that unbearable sweetness as the echoes

  awoke answering resonances within her soul. Memories

  of dove-colored dusks on the Fell that was her home

  pulled at her with the deep joy of winter nights lying on

  the bearskins before the hearth at Alyn Hold, with John

  and her sons at her side. Happiness she could not name

  swept over her, breaking down the defenses of her heart

  as the intensity of the music built, and she knew that foi

  Morkeleb it was the same in the chimeric deeps of his

  mind.

  When the music faded, she realized she had closed her

  eyes, and her cheeks were wet with tears. Looking about

  her, though the room was as black as before, she thought

  that the memory of the dragon's song lingered in the gold,

  and a faint luminosity clung to it still.

  In time she said. That is why men say that dragon's

  gold is poisoned. Others say that it is lucky... but it is

  merely charged with yearning and with music, so that

  even dullards can feel it through their fingers.

  Dragonsbane 227

  Even so, whispered the voice of the dragon in her mind.

  But dragons cannot mine gold, nor work it. Only gnomes

  and the children of men.

  We are like the whales that live in the sea, he said,

  civilizations without artifacts, living between stone and

  sky in our islands in the northern oceans. We lair in rocks

  that bear gold, but it is impure. Only with pure gold is

  this music possible. Now do you understand?

  The sharing had broken something between them, and

  she felt no fear of him now. She went to sit close to the

  bony curve of his shoulder and picked up a gold cup from

  the hoard. She felt as she turned it over in her hands that

  she could have chosen it out from a dozen identical ones.

  Its resonance was clear and individuated in her mind; the

  echo of the dragon's music held to it, like a remembrance

  of perfume. She saw how precisely it was formed, chas-

  tened and highly polished, its handles tiny ladies with

  garlands twined in their hair where it streamed back over

  the body of the cup; even microscopically fine, the flowers

  were recognizable as the lilies of hope and the roses of

  fulfillment. Morkeleb had killed the owner of this cup,

  she thought to herself, only for the sake of the incredible

  music which he could call from the gold. Yet his love for

  the gold had as little to do with its beauty as her love for

  her sons had to do with their—undeniable, she thought—

  good looks.

  How did you know this was here?

  Do you not think that we, who live for hundreds of

  years, would be aware of the comings and goings of men?

  Where they build their cities, and with whom they trade,

  and in what? I am old. Jenny Waynest. Even among the

  dragons, my magic is accounted great. I was born before

  we came to this world; I can sniff gold from the bones of

  the earth and follow its path for miles, as you follow

  ground water with a hazel twig. The gold-seams of the

  228 Barbara Hambly

  Wall rise to the surface here like the great salmon of the

  north country rising to spawn.

  The dragon's words were spoken in her mind, and in

  her mind she had a brief, distant glimpse of the Earth as

  the dragons saw it, spread out like a mottled carpet of

  purple and green and brown. She saw the green-black pelt

  of the forests of Wyr, the infinitely delicate cloud shapes

  of the crowns of the tall oaks, fragile and thready with

  winter, and saw how, toward the north, they were more

  and more replaced by the coarse spiky teeth of pine and

  fir. She saw the gray and white stones of the bare Win-

  terlands, stained all the colors of the rainbow with lichen

  and moss in summer, and saw how the huge flashing silver

  shapes of eight- and ten-foot salmon moved beneath the

  waters of the rivers, under the blue, gliding shadow of

  the dragon's wings. For an instant, it was as if she could

  feel the air all about her, holding her up like water; its

  currents and countereddies,. its changes from warm to

  cold.

  Then she felt his mind closing around hers, like the

  jaws of a trap. For an instant she was locked into suf-

  focating darkness, the utter darkness that not even the

  eyes of a wizard could pierce. Panic crushed her. She

  could neither move nor think, and felt only the acid gloat-

  ing of the dragon all around her, and, opening beneath

  her, a bottomless despair.

  Then as Caerdinn had taught her, as she had done in

  healing John—as she had always done within the circum-

  scribed limits of her small magic—she forced her mind

  to calm and began to work rune by rune, note by note,

  concentrating singly and simply upon each element with

  her whole mind. She felt the wrath of the dragon smoth-

  ering her like a hot sea of night, but she wedged open a

  crack of light, and into that crack she drove the music of

  the dragon's name, fashioned by her spells into a spear.

  She felt his mind flinch and give. Her sight returned,

  Dragonsbane 229

  and she found herself on her feet among the knee-deep

  piles of gold, the monstrous dark shape backing from her

  in anger. This time she did not let him go, but flung her

  own wrath and her will after him, playing upon the music

  of his name and weaving into it the fires that scorched

  his essence. All the spells of pain and ruin she had wrought

  into the poison flooded to her mind; but, like her fury at

  the bandits at the crossroads these many weeks ago, her


  anger had no hate in it, offering him no hold upon her

  mind. He shrank back from it, and the great head lowered

  so that the ribbons of his mane swept the coins with a

  slithery tinkle.

  Wrapped in a rage of magic and fire, she said, You shall

  not dominate me, Morkeleb the Black—neither with your

  power nor with your treachery. I have saved your life,

  and you shall do as I command you. By your name you

  shall go, and you shall not return to the south. Do you

  hear me?

  She felt him resist, and drove her will and the strength

  of her newfound powers against him. Like a wrestler's

  body, she felt the dark, sutfurous rage slither from beneath

  the pressure of her will; she stepped back, almost instinc-

  tively, and faced him where he crouched against the wall

  like a vast, inky cobra, his every scale bristling with glit-

  tering wrath.

  She heard him whisper, I hear you, wizard woman, and

  heard, in the cold voice, the reasonance not only of furious

  anger at being humbled, but of surprise that she could

  have done so.

  Turning without a word, she left the Temple and walked

  back toward the square of diffuse light that marked the

  outer hall at the end of the Grand Passage and the Great

  Gates beyond.

  CHAPTER XII

  WHEN JENNY CAME down the steps of the Deep she

  was shaking with exhaustion and an aftermath of common

  sense that told her that she should have been terrified.

  Yet she felt curiously little fear ofMorkeleb, even in the

  face of his treachery and his wrath. Her body ached—

  the power she had put forth against him had been far in

  excess of what her flesh was used to sustaining—but her