by Anne Leonard
Pain, memories of pain. Heat rising from a blistering desert and the hollow wizened faces of those who had died in thirst and starvation, with the sun beating on them and the horrible consuming light everywhere. Then for a long time she felt only pain screaming at her from every cell in her body. She was blind but could not pass into unconsciousness. She could form no words or thoughts. Her head was heavy and hot and felt ready to burst into a thousand pieces.
The agony shifted into rage that she shrank from. It clawed at her. She crossed her arms before her. She had to hide. It pushed viciously against her. It forced its way through every protection that she had. She cowered against it.
It relented. Her mouth and throat were paper dry. There was a deep ache in her bones. They were there, the dead, their voices clamoring in her mind. They wanted her body, wanted to walk again on earth and under sky. It would be simple to yield to them. She was so very tired. Rest, a voice cajoled, rest. Her skin was numb. The spirits rocked her gently and sang a lullaby.
There was someone with her. It did not matter. There was no pain anymore, only weight and stillness. Light and silence. She could not lift her arm. All that remained of her was her mind. If she released it she would be done.
Sharp pain cut across her hand. She shouted. She was bleeding, damn it. What was Rois doing?
Then she realized she was herself again. Her whole body jerked violently. Her breath was ragged. Blood was running down her palm and fingers onto the floor.
Rois put down the knife and wiped Tam’s hand with a warm damp cloth. It stung a little. The cut was very shallow.
“You’d better wrap it,” Tam said tiredly. Her voice was hoarse and scratchy.
Without speaking, Rois spread a bitter-smelling paste across the wound. It numbed the skin. She wrapped it neatly with a strip of cloth.
“If you can go that deep on your own,” Rois said, “trance is extremely dangerous. I may not be able to bring you back.”
“You’ll have to,” Tam said. Her mind felt very clear. Whatever she had heard, whatever had spoken to her, that was what remained of the dragons’ age. She drank some tea. “How many other worlds are there?”
“More than we can ever know,” said Rois. “Or perhaps all worlds are one with ours but we can only see this if we step back.”
There was a very long silence. Tam let it fill her, the valley silence, the voice of stone. It was far older than Caithenor. That was what Kelvan had meant about it giving her stories. The magma at the roots of the mountains, the wearing away by the rain, uncountable years of wind. It made the dragons look young, and yet they were like it too, snatched out of time to dwell in fire and rock.
She picked up the knife and wiped it clean with the damp cloth. One of the goats behind the hut bleated. She said, “How much do you remember, Rois? How old are you?”
Rois laughed. “I was not alive at the taking of the dragons, if that is what you want to know. Wizards live and die as other humans. But I am old enough to remember when Aram’s grandfather found us and offered us this place. I was a girl then.”
“Do you remember any stories about the taking of the dragons?”
“There is a legend, but I doubt its truth.”
“Tell me anyway. Please.”
After a hesitation, Rois said, “As the stories go, the Myceneans came and found a group of wizards to aid them. They were wizards who tried to increase their power with other magics, sorceries and spells from without, not wizards of ordinary sort. They took the Mycenean soldiers to the Dragon Valleys. They thought they would gain more power by becoming riders for the Empire. Somehow they made the dragons cold, froze them. Different versions say different things. They called the North Wind, shot arrows of ice, transformed the flames into rubies. Then the Myceneans killed all but one of them and took him and the eggs back to Mycene, and after the eggs hatched they killed him too. In one version of the story the wizards stole power from the rest of us and used it up, and that’s why we weakened.”
Made them cold, Tam thought. Something about it seemed familiar. She remembered the cold air when her hand plunged through the silver tray, the ice Corin had described when he tried to bring Tai back. It mattered. She could not quite see her way through to the answer.
“Why did your people come here?” she asked.
“It seemed a fair bargain,” she said. “The service of a few to the king, whose subjects we were anyway, in exchange for safety and solitude instead of hiding and poverty. After the Fires things were very hard for us. There were some who objected to the bargain but they agreed in the end.” She hesitated. The wrinkles around her eyes creased a little more. “But I remember, when we came here, it was the only time I ever saw my father weep. He felt free.”
Tam imagined how he must have felt and shivered with the intensity of it. “What was that king like?” she asked. “Do you remember?”
“Big, black-bearded, impatient. Kind in an absentminded sort of way. He was said to be clever but not deceitful. I didn’t know him, of course. I could not tell you if Corin is anything like him.”
Tam had a hundred other questions, about Rois, about wizardry, about the people of the village. All of them seemed too much like prying. “Thank you,” she said.
Rois rose. “He has waited long enough.” She opened the door.
Corin came rapidly in and sat down beside Tam. “Well?” he asked. Then he saw her hand. “What the hell happened?”
“She wanted to be sure I could do it,” she said. “It’s all right. I’ll tell you the whole story later.”
He scowled. Tam did not try to appease him. She watched him exert control of himself. He said, quite calmly, “Will you do it, Rois?”
“Yes,” she said. “Send for me tomorrow when you are ready.”
“Thank you,” he said. He started to rise, then dropped back down abruptly. He said, “How much power does she have?”
Rois included Tam in her answering look. “Sight, strongly. I think stronger in some places than others, places where there is power. But no wizard power.”
Tam said, “Joce thought I might be able sometime to do more than See. Years from now. That was all he would say. The king seemed to think there was more.”
“It depends upon how you use your Sight now,” Rois said. “Upon what you will let in.”
It sent coldness down her back and arms, and recall of wings fluttering against her skin. Was she ready to admit the dead? She swallowed and said, deflecting the question, “There’s power in Caithenor.”
“Yes. It did not become the seat of rulers by accident. That is what woke you.”
“I didn’t feel anything when I went back. There was no point in going.” She remembered walking those ashy streets, sitting on the cobbles baking from the sun. It had been hot and frightening, and all that had happened was that her legs got more tired.
“You went back,” Rois said, “because it is now the place you consider home.”
Tam wanted to deny it, but the protest died on her lips. Even if Corin died, she would not be able to settle comfortably back into her parents’ home. Rois was right.
“That,” Corin said, “is why my father saw you as my queen.”
She was afraid that if she looked at him she would weep. She stared fixedly at a knothole in a rafter. He put his hand on the side of her head and turned her slowly to face him. She swallowed over the swelling in her throat.
He stood up and drew her with him. She kept her hand in his. It felt more like a wedding than that moment in the palace had. He looked at Rois, started to say something, then shook his head. Tam looked back at Rois as Corin led her outside. The old woman held up a hand in farewell.
When they reached the dragon, Corin paused. It lay with its massive head resting on its forelegs, like a cat. The claws were a polished ivory that glistened where they caught the sun. Kelvan sat cross-legged on
the ground beside it, inspecting a harness strap. He rose unhurriedly.
The dragon opened one eye and looked at Tam. She jumped. She knew she should not be afraid of the thing, not after having ridden on it for six hours with nothing worse than a queasy stomach, not with these two men here. But it was gazing at her with such intelligence, weighing her. The yellow of the eye was not really yellow, it was the color of straw and corn shucks, bright as new copper, striated with greens and browns that spoke of earth and evergreens and turning leaves. The pupil seemed to go forever, a liquid darkness, not like the darkness her hand had plunged into. It was deep and full of heat and profound knowledge waiting for her. It had a curving warm sensuality that brought her fingers to her mouth.
“Don’t look it in the eye, Tam,” Corin said, touching her shoulder. She jumped again and turned her head away. A pang of loss shuddered through her. Then she shook her head vigorously, as though she could shake the thoughts from it, and faced him with her back to the dragon. That seemed considerably less dangerous.
If I am going to free it I have to try to understand it, she thought. That was why he wanted her to ride it again first. “Help me look at it,” she said.
He put his arm around her. It was warm, human. He walked her a few feet and turned her to look at the beast. Kelvan was now standing between her and the dragon’s eye.
She looked. Do not be afraid, she thought. Do not. Do not. She tried to approach it as her father would: a body, a creature of skin and flesh and bone, with veins and lungs and spleen. It was her task to sketch and label it. The front legs were as long as the back, but less muscled, slimmer. Made for lashing out. The wing joint lay beside and behind the shoulder. The scales were darker there and did not gleam as much. The wing was batwing, not birdwing, with what looked like a vestigial claw at the end. There were no ridges or crests anywhere on the dragon except its head. It was a creature that could slip through air as a fish through water. The tail was long and the same thickness nearly to the end. It too looked ready to lash and strike.
Carefully she moved forward. Corin stayed close. She noted how the scales on the back toes were barely the size of a coin, while the ones on the flanks were as large as her palm. The body moved with very slow, shallow breath. She gripped Corin’s hand with one of hers, and with the other pressed on a scale. The dragon did not respond. When she lifted her fingers from the dragon’s side, iridescent fingerprints faded quickly out.
Without looking at Corin, because that would make her give in to fear, she said, “I should talk to it.”
“Let me check,” he said, and after an instant said, “Go ahead. But kneel, you will probably get faint. I’ll be right beside you.”
She went to both knees and leaned back on her heels. The grass was short and withered from dragonheat. A wave crashed on the beach, very far away it seemed. A small black beetle wandered along beside the dragon. A rosemary bush in bloom hummed loudly with bees.
Tam closed her eyes and put both hands on the dragon’s side. Tell me your history, she thought.
The moon was high and full. It was cold. The trees were bare and straight and black, and the blue-silver light washed over everything. There was a scent of smoke lying under the cold scent of the snow and the frightened leaping scent of prey. Shadow fell over the open spaces, and the leafless trees trembled against one another. A dragon passed in a roar of wind. It was huge and dark and glistened like sun on melting ice. It screamed. Red fire flared across the sky. Sparks showered golden to the snow.
More wind then, swirling, a column of sound. It caught the flames and spun them like autumn leaves.
Around and around, rustling, each flame a thousand wings, each spark a hundred golden eyes.
The deer pressed against one another, and the hares huddled against the snow, and even the owls sat hunched and silent with feathers tightly drawn together. The wolves sang. The dragon called back to them. Fire. Wind. Darkness.
Dragon darkness, filling everything, cold and stretching endlessly.
Scales fell from it and became crows, black and swift.
Wings beat and the dragon lifted. Moonlight sharp as a blade.
Tam fell back, gasping. Her vision was dark. She reached feebly for Corin and felt him take her hand. His fingers pressed painfully on the cut. “It’s all right,” he said, his words echoing a little. “It will pass. Lie still.”
She got her breath back, and the darkness faded. The sun was warm on her face. She tried to look at Corin but had to squint at his shape against the sun. The sky was a burning intense blue behind him.
He helped her up. The earth whirled beneath her feet. She stumbled forward and almost fell. She grabbed at him. He put his arms around her and supported her, saying nothing. The sun beat on her hair. His shirt under her turned cheek was warm. He smelled good. She stayed limp for a while.
When she felt a little stronger, she looked carefully again at the ground. It stayed steady this time, even when she straightened.
“All right now?” he asked.
“Yes.” She was far too unsure of it to say anything else.
He held her hand anyway and led her to the cottage. The interior was extremely dark after the brightness of the day, and she staggered again. By the time her eyes adjusted Tam realized she was famished. “I’m hungry,” she said.
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “That was a lot of effort. Sit down, and I’ll get you something. Water first, I think.”
She ate greedily, as though there had been no food for days. Cold spring water, fruit, meat. Her limbs had the weakness that followed an illness. Corin ate nothing. She reached for more.
When finally she was finished, he took away her empty plate and put another full cup of water in front of her. She drank, and wiped her mouth, and let herself settle back into ordinariness.
“You’re very good at table service for someone of your upbringing,” she said as he sat down.
“One can’t talk privately of anything with servants hovering about ready to whisk away the dishes.”
“Did you ever have to wait on your father?”
“No, thank God. If I was competent enough to hear it at all, I was competent to sit at the table. He never trusted me with the wine, though.”
“Seeing how profligate you are, that was wise of him,” she said. She extended a hand toward him.
He stroked her thumb a few times, then said, “Do you still want to do it?”
“Yes,” she said. “I will See something. I wish I knew what the dragon said to me. Did it tell you?”
“No. Dragons keep confidences.”
“I asked for its history.”
“History is a human thing. Dragons don’t have it.”
“I thought you wanted me to See their past,” she said.
“Well, yes,” he said. “You’ve caught me in an inconsistency, which we could debate with Liden scholars for years. But don’t try to figure it out. The meaning will come to you. If you need to wait a while, Tam, then we’ll wait.”
He seemed much calmer than he had since yesterday. Perhaps he was ready to talk. “What happens if we fail?” she asked.
“Assuming it is not so spectacular a failure as to kill us both, then we have to cede Hadon the dragons and fight an ordinary war.”
If it turned into an ordinary war he would be always moving, hiding, planning. Tam wished she could spare him that. She said, “You won’t stay here in the valley.”
“No. But you might have to. We really will need to keep you hidden.”
She stood and looked out the window at the dragon. It turned its head and seemed to look back at her. Avoiding its eyes, she watched its tail move.
She said, “What happens if you free the dragons before the Myceneans and Sarians are gone? Will the dragons still help us?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He was calm, not despairing. Som
ething had changed in him.
“Aren’t the Myceneans just as likely to leave us to Tyrekh, or even join with the Sarians as punishment for us?”
She heard him walk toward her. He put his hands on her shoulders and began to rub them. He kissed her hair. He said, “Tam, Caithen is the dragons’ land too.”
“But do they care about its people? What if all they want is to go back to the Dragon Valleys and be wild creatures again?” The dragon’s images of snow and wolves were haunting her.
He was so silent that she would not have known he was there if she had not felt his hands working evenly on her shoulders. At last he said, “If they don’t help us, we are still better off with them free of Mycene than with the Emperor using them against us. I don’t have anything to hold hostage against them, even if I were so inclined.”
“Can we try to bargain?”
He moved from her back to her side and faced her. His eyes were very green at the moment, nothing like dragon eyes. He traced her lips with a finger. Then he said softly, “What happens in the tales when someone tries to bargain with a dragon or a djinn or such?”
“If it’s the hero he tricks them. Everybody else loses.”
“Exactly. Never do both sides get what they want. The bargain always fails. I’m not playing that game.”
He was right, but something about it stung her. She realized she had wanted to be the hero, to find the answer, to set things right. Perhaps that was the result of talking to dragons. It made one feel stronger, more important, cocky. She nodded reluctantly.
“I know you don’t like taking things on faith,” he said. “Nor should you. But sometimes it’s necessary. A bargain is no bargain if you don’t have faith the other party will keep it. That’s why Hadon is losing his empire. He has no faith in his subjects, and they have no faith in him. A people can only be governed by its own consent.”
“You said at the ball that power was making a person give something for nothing and thinking she had got the better deal.”