by Anne Leonard
“That’s power, not governance. They aren’t the same.”
It was her turn to touch his face. She said what she would not have said to him last night when he was struggling. “You are going to be a splendid king.”
She thought there was a faint blush to his ears and cheeks but could not be sure. He looked at the dragon. His face went quiet. Sad. However things turned out, he was going to lose something he loved.
“Corin?”
“Yes?” he answered, from someplace very remote and far away.
Everything she could think of to say sounded mawkish, so she said nothing. For a long time they just looked at each other.
At last he said, “Whatever you decide about tomorrow, Tam, you have my trust and my blessing.”
“Thank you.”
The dragon touched her mind then, a swirling darkness, and at its center was a spinning silver flame. No bargain, no contract, but it was giving her a promise.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Corin looked up at Tam on the dragon and said for at least the fourth time by his count, “Don’t try to speak to it, just look at the land.” Kelvan was in front of her, very adroitly managing to look at neither of them.
She gave him her most syrupy smile and said, “Yes, Your Highness.” Then she prodded Kelvan in the back. The dragon rose before Corin had time to speak the farewell. Dust kicked up and whirled from the flap of wings.
He had vowed not to engage in any nervous behavior such as pacing. They would not take that long. Kelvan was going to circle the valley and bring her back and that would be it. He sat down with his back against the hut to make it impossible to pace and looked upward. They were very high already. He began stropping his sword.
He worked carefully, and they were back before he finished. Tam dropped to the ground beside him. Her face was pink with chill. “That was much better,” she said.
“Good. How far could you see?”
“It’s very clear. For miles. He took me high. I can see why dragons are useful in a war.”
“Did he point out the Valleys?”
“The general direction. We’re too far west to see much. There was no sign of any other dragons.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she said. “I didn’t try to speak to it, but I think it spoke to me a little anyway. I had some strange images in my head. I can almost feel what it is to be a dragon. How much longer do you think you’ll be about that?”
He gauged the work. “Ten minutes, perhaps. Drink some water if you haven’t yet and I’ll be right in.”
She was not displaying any worry at all about the trance, which relieved him, since he was feeling enough for both of them. Last night she had asked Kelvan countless questions about dragons and riders, gathering information, and she knew nearly as much as Corin did now. He wasn’t sure it was going to help her, since the taking of the dragons was just as remote to the riders. She had asked some other questions about the history of Caithen and the Empire and then declared herself done. Corin thought Kelvan was a bit relieved to have it over.
When he went back into the cottage, she was kneeling in front of the hearth, poking at embers. There was no wood laid for a fire. She accepted his hand and came to her feet as gracefully as if it were a court ceremony. He took her in his arms.
“What were you doing?” he asked.
“Seeing if the ashes were cool enough to sweep yet. I don’t think they are.” She pulled back a little and searched his face. “Kelvan went to get her.”
“Do you want to do it inside or outside?”
“Outside, and near to the dragon.” She swallowed. “You have to let me go as long as I can. Even if you think I’m in danger. It’s not going to be the same as Liko’s trance was; he did not really know what he was doing. I think she’ll take me much deeper.”
“Kelvan’s going to follow if he can.”
“I think the dragons will block him.”
How calm and ordinary it was, as though they were discussing arrangements for a banquet. He knew he had to let her do it. When Rois had told Tam she considered Caithenor her home, his own heart had been briefly stabbed with certainty. She had made her choices, set herself on her course, and that was the very thing he most loved about her. She would not be swayed from what she thought in her core was right and necessary. Not even if he did command her. She was stronger than that. He had been underestimating her again, and Rois had placed her so that he could not fail to see it.
He said, “Tam, I’m letting you go into danger. You have to do the same when it’s my turn.”
“I know.” She leaned against him. He was glad they would not quarrel about that. What was it his father had said? She is far more sensible than you are. She was not nearly so hindered by pride.
He held her a moment longer, then steeled himself and said, “It’s time.”
They found a spot under a tree eight yards or so from the dragon. The dragon had its head down, but Corin doubted it was sleeping. He touched its mind and found it calm. He had only the barest intimation of its vast consciousness.
He set a stool in the grass for Rois and worked at the ground a little to make it steady. Tam had nothing to sit on but a folded cloak.
When Kelvan and Rois came, Corin helped the old woman to sit. Tam sat in front of her. Rois said, “Sometimes, if one goes deep enough, it needs a memory to pull the person out. Give me something that is old and simple.”
Tam tilted her face skyward to think. Corin loved that expression on her. The tiny purse of lips, the hint of a crease of the brow, the smoothness of her cheeks and eyelids. Sun coming through the tree branches dappled her hair. She said, “When I was ten, my brother brought a woman home to meet the family. I didn’t like her. So I spilled water all over the front of her dress and pretended it was an accident.”
Rois smiled. She said, “That will do well, unless—is it a bad memory? Were you punished?”
“Not really. My parents didn’t like her either.”
Corin felt himself grin. He had not heard that particular story before. He wondered if Rois had done it to set them all at ease. Tam looked at him, and he said, “If your brother spills water on me, I’ll challenge him to a duel.”
“He’s never held a sword in his life,” she said. “It wouldn’t be gentlemanly.” She turned back to Rois.
“Give me your hand,” Rois said. “I will chant you into trance.”
Tam did. Corin squatted where he could see her face. Silence was suddenly heavy and thick around them.
Rois chanted in a language he did not know. Tam’s eyes closed. Her face stilled and her breathing slowed. Still Rois chanted. Corin rubbed his own eyes as drowsiness began to overtake him.
Rois stopped chanting. “Who are you?”
“Tam Warin.”
“Where were you tranced?”
“In the wizard’s valley.”
“Who is with you?”
“Corin, Kelvan, you.”
“Very good. Now tell me where you are now.”
She hesitated a little before speaking. Her voice got stronger as she went on. “The same place I was before. But I can see it clearly now. It’s daylight. The cliffs are glossy and smooth, like glass. No one could scale them. Black, but not really, there are lines of grey and violet shot through it. It’s silver where the sun catches it. Beautiful. The ground is grey and fine. Ashy. It’s very dry. Nothing grows.”
Corin bit the inside of his lip. He forced himself to relax. He heard Kelvan take up a place behind him.
“Turn around,” Rois said.
There was a pause. Then Tam said, “I’m at the end of the canyon. There’s only rock going up in front of me. There’s a crack in it, not very wide.”
“Can you go in?”
“Yes. It’s dark. It’s straight, mostly, I’m sideways but I don�
�t have to bend. It’s rough. It catches my clothing. Now it opens out, I can feel the space. I still can’t see anything.”
“You have a light.”
Silence. An inhalation. “It’s huge. I can barely see the other side. It’s almost perfectly round, like a bubble. And black, so black. The light is reflecting off the walls. There’s a chasm in the middle cutting it in half. The roof is high.” There was no sound of fear in her voice, no tension in her body.
“Is there any light or heat coming out of the chasm?”
“I don’t think so.” A pause. “No, it’s dead. It’s very cold. The air coming out feels icy. It smells stony.”
“Go back out.”
The silence was longer this time. Corin heard something snap and realized he had broken a twig he was holding. A dog barked with excitement on the hill. Tam said, “I’m out, but it’s night now. I see stars.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes. No. It’s coming. It’s like wind. I lie down. I can’t hear anything but the wind’s roar.”
Corin tasted blood in his mouth from biting his lip. He swallowed. Her face was very calm. His legs were shaking a little from the strain of holding himself alert, so he gave in and sat down. He felt Kelvan’s hands come to rest on his shoulders. Her mouth moved silently. He was a good lip reader, but he could not make sense of what she was saying.
She said aloud, “Now everything is spinning. The wind is holding me down. It stops. I’m still in the valley but it’s changed, it’s warmer. Oh! There are dragons. They are in formation. It’s like a dance. I can’t describe it. It means something.” Her tone was joyous, delighted. For a breath he envied her for what she saw. The dragons tugged painfully at him.
“Go back to the chasm.”
“I’m through the crack. The chasm is glowing now. It’s hot. Something smells foul. It’s not sulfur, not dragonscent. I can’t go any closer, it’s too hot. I hear steam. The smell is getting worse. There are wings. No, no.” Urgency, fear. Corin jerked upward.
“Run,” Rois said sharply, as Kelvan’s hands pressed down hard, holding him in place. Corin took his eyes off Tam’s face long enough to look at Rois and saw a disquieting expression of dread.
There was a lengthy silence. Then Tam said, sounding calmer, “I’m out. There are still dragons. It’s all spinning again. There are men now, and it’s cold again. Very cold. I see a dragon on the ground. It’s alive but not moving. Its scales are black. It’s the cold, that’s what’s keeping it slow. One of the men shoots it in the eye. Now they are gathering eggs. They have ropes and pulleys to lift them. There are no dragons flying.
“I go back through the crack. The chasm is dead again, they lost their heat, that’s what happened. There is a dead man at the side of the chasm. His eyes are like the walls. Black stone. His fingers are cold.
“Wait. Wait.”
Her lips did not move. Something made a sound behind him, and Corin looked over his shoulder. The dragon was standing. Its head was moving a little, back and forth, back and forth. Deep deep fear of it tightened his belly. He reached his mind out to it and sensed only a chaotic turbulence. It moved its front foot, scraping its talons against the earth. Kelvan’s hands tightened.
Tam’s face twisted in what seemed anguish. She said, “It’s so loud. I see it. No. Bring me back, bring me back.”
Rois chanted something rapidly. Tam’s eyes opened. She flung herself at Corin, weeping.
He held her without saying anything. Kelvan had stepped back. He touched the dragon’s mind and recognized it again. Her tears were warm on his skin. He smelled the salt.
She took a great, shuddering breath, and stopped crying. She straightened and looked at him. Her eyes were red and swollen. She wiped them.
“Corin,” she said, and her voice trembled a little, “Corin. The thing that’s trapped, it was once a dragon. I saw it, the Myceneans used the wizards to take its fire. They breathed it in and died. To free the dragons you have to set it loose, but it will kill you.”
They sat by the river again in the sunset light. The sun was a huge red circle low over the sea. Tam’s face showed signs of tears. She had been struggling against them all day. Corin felt only cold and empty. It can’t be, he said, it can’t be, even as his mind moved pieces into place and saw how well they fit.
Only after the sun had dropped beneath the ocean and the dark was gathering fast did Tam speak. “My love,” she said, and stopped.
He still did not want to talk about it. But he knew that was a weakness he could not indulge any longer. “Yes?”
She surprised him. “Do you know what is happening in Caithenor?”
So strange a question, practical, ordinary. “It can be found out,” he said.
“I think we need to.”
She was right. He was afraid that whatever he learned, whether good or ill, would make him give up. But he could not go on blind. He got to his feet. It would have been very satisfying to have another fit of rage, but he knew better.
Tam said, “Are you going to ask the dragon yourself?”
“No. Too risky. I’ll have Kelvan do it. Do you want to come?” Would you like to have tea with me? Shall I take you to the theater tonight?
“I’ll wait here.”
“Very well,” he said, and heard the formality of it. He neither kissed her nor touched her before he went to find the rider.
He did not pause to speak to the dragon. That would make him too angry. He found Kelvan and issued curt instructions. There were a few bottles of wine the villagers had provided that he had not wanted to touch. He uncorked one, sniffed it. It had not gone to vinegar yet. He grabbed two earthenware mugs, almost dropping them, and stalked back to Tam.
She did not greet him. He filled the cups and handed one to her. The moon would not be over the mountains for a few hours yet, and the last of the sunlight was gone. They could not see each other’s faces. If he tried he would be able to, dragons saw well at night. He did not want anything to do with their powers.
“Tell me,” he said, a command. He was afraid she would call him “my lord.” That would be the first breach.
She took his hand and kissed it. “Please don’t interrupt me, Corin,” she said. “I can only stand to do this once.”
“I promise,” he said, softening.
She released his hand. He heard her drink. She said, with that calmness he always marveled at, “The thing that came at me out of the chasm, it was a dragon. But it was wild and vicious and cruel. It was not like these dragons. It saw me and it hated me. It wants to inflict pain, to steal back what was taken.
“And they need it, Corin. It’s what they’re missing. They were defanged. It’s what’s left after the Myceneans stole the fire. It’s a shadow, a wraith. Without the fire, it can’t get into the dark place where it belongs. Once they have the fire back, they’ll be free. You have to call it to you and give it back the flame. And you’ll be the first thing it has a chance to kill.”
Every cell in his body told him she was right. Whenever he put on robes to sit in judgment he felt his mind sharpen, clarify, detach itself from the rest of him. He became a figure, the whole and real Corin covered by the anonymity of the formal costuming. His mind did the same thing now, abstracting what Tam said from the muscles and bones and nerves that screamed out for him to retreat.
“Yes,” he said. “I see.”
“I’m not going to able to explain it any better than that. My mind is too human. I can’t See into their world. They showed me this, but I don’t have words.”
“It’s enough,” he said. He leaned toward her and found her lips with his. She was alive, warm, present.
They broke off the kiss. He said, “Hadon roused it?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think the dragons drove him mad and followed him in. They couldn’t free it, but they made it stir
. He has nothing to do with it. He was just the opening.”
“Bastards,” he said, without force. He saw it clearly now. There was no way out.
She said, “You still have a choice.”
“I don’t,” he said. “If I refuse either I’ll go mad too, or they’ll let Caithen be torn apart. It’s not Hadon who holds the country hostage, it’s the dragons.” He could not even be bitter about it. He had accepted this when he turned to the dragons to try to bring his sister home, when he let them bear him from a burning palace, every time he went skyward and felt the rush of air over the dragonwing. They cared nothing for human love, for human loss; they were not human.
Tam said something he could not understand. It sounded as though she were crying again.
He put the mug down and pulled her into his lap, wrapped his arms around her. He would not lie to her and tell her he would live, she would not persuade him not to go. It was what he had to do. He was going into battle like a soldier, just not the battle he had expected.
“Tam,” he said, “is there any chance you’re pregnant?”
A sniff. “We’ve done our job trying,” she said. “But I don’t know. It’s far too soon.”
“If you are, and I die, Kelvan has to take you to my father.”
“Don’t say things like that, not now.”
“All right.”
They sat quietly again for a long time. Corin was aware of how alive they both were, their breath moving in not quite the same rhythm, her body warm and solid against his, the fingers of her right hand locked over his knee.
Desire roused. He resisted for a while, then gave in. His hand went to the inside of her thigh and clasped the muscle. The trouser-cloth was thin and soft with wear against his palm.
Footsteps. Tam scrambled off his lap. They both rose. She bent down again. When she straightened he could see that she was holding a mug in each hand.
“My lord,” Kelvan said, with a bow.
For a moment it made him think his father was known dead. But no, if the rider were bringing that news he would have knelt. It was just a formality because Tam was present. Because Kelvan knew how tightly Corin was wound.