Dragonshadow

by Barbara Hambly

  What is the way to catch back the souls of those that disease drives out, Dragonsbane?

  He can’t be gone. He can’t.

  Now and then a marsh-wight would take over a child and have to be exorcised. The task left Jenny exhausted and she always treated it with the greatest and most painstaking care, but it wasn’t beyond her powers, and sometimes, if it were done quickly enough, the child’s soul could be recovered, or part of it anyway. Even the little pooks of the marsh could be deadly of course. John knew that in Far West Riding, near the Boggart Marshes, funeral customs involved binding the corpse to the bier until it could be burned, for fear that demons would inhabit it.

  A demon wizard. Demons more powerful than the spells that wizards used to protect themselves.

  He shut his eyes, trying to will away the images that crowded and tore in his mind.

  He had heard whisperers in the swamps take on the voices of Jenny or Ian, or one of his aunts. They’d call to him to do this or that, or try to lead him away into the marshes. Easy enough, he supposed, for a Hellspawn to speak to a mage through dreams. Do this rite, speak these words, mix blood and pour it on a heated thunderstone—then you’ll have the power you’ve been seeking … Jenny was not the only one to have been taught that the key to more magic was magic. He knew there had been a time when she would have done anything to obtain greater ability in her art.

  Only it wasn’t power that would hiss up out of the steam.

  Through the night and the next day and the night again he flew east over the empty seas, sailing when he could and cranking the springs of the engines taut. He watched the compass, and the spyglass, and consulted the charts he’d made, and betweentimes checked the swivels on the catapults and painted the harpoon-tips with poison. Twice he saw she-dragons, swimming and sporting with the brilliant males in the crests of the waves.

  Being each of us, Enismirdal had said. Being. Whole galaxies of meanings and shades of meaning attached to being: a hot singular purity, like the dense core of a star, from which magic radiated as light. Dragon-magic such as Jenny had absorbed from Morkeleb in her days of dragonhood, sourced and rooted in adamantine will.

  This, too, apparently, the demons could take.

  At least I know more than I did, thought John. At least I can go to Jen—if I make it back alive—and say, There was this wizard named Isychros, see, and he made a bargain with demons …

  But it was to Rocklys, he thought, that he would have to go first. To tell her that there was a Hellspawn at large wearing a wizard’s body and wielding a wizard’s power. There was a Hellspawn at large, inhabiting the body and the growing powers of what had been his son.

  He was a Dragonsbane. He was the one who understood, as much as any human understood, how to slay star-drakes.

  He was the one they would call upon, when that unholy three—demon-haunted mage, demon-haunted slave, demon-haunted dragon—returned from their hiding in the Skerries of Light.

  No, he thought, putting the understanding from his mind of what he would in all probability be called upon to do. No.

  John put the Milkweed in at an islet shaped like a court lady’s shoe, in the hot glitter of late afternoon, in time to see the bright blink of blue and gold skimming low and fast over the water, and, scrambling to the tip of the peak with his spyglass, discerned the two forms mounted on the dragon’s back.

  Heart hammering, he followed them with the glass and saw them settle on another isle perhaps twenty miles to the north. His hands were shaking as he pulled out the dozen scraps of parchment from his satchel: It was a C-shaped island with a central lagoon, according to his earlier glimpse, bright with waterfalls, thickly wooded, and populated by sheep.

  Build a raft, cross the open sea, and take on the three of them with one fell slash of his mighty blade?

  I’ll write a ballad about that.

  Wait until they’d gone on and then head east as fast as he could and leave his son, or what was left of his son, in the demon’s hands?

  He closed his eyes, his heart hurting more than he had thought possible.

  Ian, forgive me. Jenny, forgive me.

  It was not something, he already knew, that he’d ever be able to forgive himself.

  He remained on the peak, waiting, watching, wondering what he’d do if they didn’t fly on, if he had to take the Milkweed up with them still there, through the fey brittle twilight.

  Then in the morning he saw a flash of luminous blue in the sky, and turning his spyglass eastward saw Nymr the Blue circling down toward the waves, where she-dragons dipped and swam in the lagoons among the rocks, sounded in depths a thousand times darker than the light-filled midnight skies.

  Exhausted as he was, blinded and aching with grief, John couldn’t keep himself from turning the spyglass to watch. Did the females come into season, the way mares and cows did, he wondered. Or were they like women, welcoming this male or that for other reasons more intricate and obscure? Why had he seen no babies, no dragonettes? Dotys—or was it Cerduces?— had said somewhere that the younger dragons were bright-hued but simply patterned, in bars and bands and stripes, like the black and yellow Enismirdal, the patterns becoming more and more intricate over the centuries, and more beautiful as the dragon aged. Morkeleb was black. What did that mean?

  And what happened after black?

  My son is dead, he thought. I stand a good chance of coming down in the middle of the ocean halfway back and then if I make it to land walking from Eldsbouch to Cair Corflyn and THEN having to take on a demon mage and a dragon, and here I am wondering about the love-lives of dragons?

  Adric’s right. Dad was right. I am frivolous.

  Nymr circled over the sea again, wing tips skimming the waves. The air seemed wreathed with the garlands of the dragon’s music, filling John’s mind, twined with other, stranger airs. Serenading the girls?

  But it was not the she-dragons that came.

  It was Centhwevir.

  Centhwevir dropped on the blue dragon like a stooping falcon, plummeting from the white crystal of the noon sky with wings plastered tight to his blue and golden sides, beak open, claws reaching, eyes blank and terrible. Nymr swung, spinning in the air, whipping clear at the last moment as the blue and gold dragon raked at him; Nymr hissed, slashing back with claws and teeth and tail.

  And drove up, striking where Centhwevir was not. Was not, and had never been.

  Color and lightning blazed and smote John’s eyes, elusive movement and a whirling of the air. Sometimes he could see the two dragons, other times three and four, images of Centhwevir or simply fragments of driving, spinning blue and gold and purple, like the aurora borealis gone mad. They ringed Nymr, who slashed and snapped futilely, furiously, at the air. But out of those planes and whirlwinds of color and lightning fire spewed, spattering Nymr’s sides as he rolled in the air, and blood gushed from claw-rakes that appeared in his belly and sides.

  The blue dragon fled. Centhwevir pursued, now visible, now veiled in crazy fractures of illusion, above and behind. For a moment, when the blue and gold drake came visible again, John saw then that not one but two figures clung to his back, wedged among the spikes with their feet hooked through a cable of braided leather passed around the dragon’s girth.

  His heart stopped in his throat, seeing the dark hair, the weatherstained plaid. The two dragons twisted and clutched, light, illusion, magic searing and glittering between them as well as fire and blood and the spray of the waves. They fell, locked together, spikes and fire and thrashing tails, plunging toward the sea. John bit back a cry. They were close to the whirlpools of the twelve rocks, if Ian came off there would be no saving him …

  There is no saving him, thought John, but still he could not breathe.

  Nymr made one final attempt to flee, racing south. Centhwevir fell on him from above and behind, tearing and raking, ripped himself by the great spikes and razors of the other dragon’s backbones and wing-joints and neck-frill, and this time Nymr gave a thin hoarse c
ry—nothing like any sound John had heard from any dragon before—and plunged down into the sea, dragging Centhwevir and his two riders with him.

  “Ian!” John stumbled panting to the cliff’s beetling edge and knelt among the sea-oats and the poppies. He was shaking all over as he watched the sea where the two dragons, the wizard and his slave, had all vanished under the chop of the waves. Too long, he thought, sickened, unbreathing. Too long to survive…

  Fire flashed in the waves. Centhwevir’s head broke the surface, then his glittering back. The telescope showed John the gray-haired mage still clinging to the dragon’s back, holding Ian by the collar of his jacket. Ian was gasping, choking, but he did not struggle. The man’s face was grim but curiously uncaring, as if he harbored no fear of death. His eyes were fixed on the great blue shape of Nymr, whom Centhwevir had fast by the neck and one wing in teeth and claws.

  Driving himself with his tail, Centhwevir made for the round island. Once John thought he saw Nymr struggle and move his other wing. But he was clearly dying as his attacker dragged him up on the beach.

  It was hard to see. John looked around desperately, then ran along the cliff-top to a higher rock, thrust precariously out over the night-blue waves three hundred feet below.

  Through the lens he saw the dragon-wizard’s face clearly: a cold small mouth, and cold small eyes set close. A clean-shaven man, fastidious and rich—a man with a merchant’s cold eye. He half-carried Ian from Centhwevir’s back and laid him on the sand a little distance away. He didn’t even cover him, just turned back to the two dragons, took from his knapsack the silver fire-bowls and the sacks and packets of powders needed for healing spells and began to draw diagrams of power in the sand.

  The diagram incorporated Centhwevir, who sat up on his haunches and folded his wings. The blue and gold star-drake seemed unhurt, and settled more still, John thought, than he had seen other dragons sit. When he had accomplished the diagram and completed the sigils of power and of healing, the dragon-wizard—demon-wizard—drew from his knapsack another of the slivers of crystal and, as he had before, drove it into the back of Nymr’s head. When Centhwevir turned his head and the wind caught the fur and feathers of his great particolored mane, John saw the blink of crystal there under the horned neck-frill. The dragon-wizard took something—some of the dragon’s blood, John thought, but could not be sure—in a cup of gold and nacre, and carried it to where Ian lay. Opening the boy’s wrist, he let the blood drip down to mix with that of the dragon, and from out of the cup took a talisman of some kind. It looked to John as if he pressed it to Ian’s lips, and then to his own; then unfastened the breast of his robe and slipped the talisman he had made inside.

  Probably, thought John with a queer cold dispassion, into a locket around his neck, to keep it safe.

  Ian lay where he was while the wizard bandaged his wrist. John could not see whether his eyes were open or shut, but as the wizard walked away the boy moved a little, so John knew he lived. The wizard returned to Nymr, this time crossing carelessly over the traced lines of power.

  John lowered the telescope from his eye. He was sweating as if he had been struck with some grievous illness, and the only thing in his mind for a time was his son’s face and the face of the dragon-wizard—demon-wizard—working over Nymr.

  Demon or no, thought John, he’s wounded. Centhwevir’s wounded. Ian, or what once had been Ian, is laid up as well.

  If I’m to kill them, now’s my chance.

  John unloaded the crates and struts and casings from the Milkweed through the white mild summer night, though weariness seemed to have settled into his bones. Twice he checked through his spyglass, but the blue dragon and the blue and gold still lay on the beach. Ian remained where he was, covered with a blanket.

  Stay there, John whispered desperately. Just stay there and nap. I’ll be along in a bit.

  He didn’t let himself think about what would happen then.

  He assembled and counted out the various pieces of his second machine on the little level space at the bottom of the cleft that split the island. Toward midnight the twilight there deepened, but overhead the sky still held a milky light, and never did it grow too dark to see what he was doing.

  Sometime after the turn of the night he lay down in the warm sand and slept. His dreams were disquieting, dark humped shapes scurrying through them, green pale eyes glistening and the smell of fish, scalded blood, and sulfur everywhere. He thought he saw things like shining lizards creep up out of the surf and dance on the narrow beach of the turtle-shaped island, thought he saw the dragon-wizard sitting in their midst, letting them drink from his cup of gold and pearl.

  The old wizard first, he thought, rising from his sleep. He set in the plates of triple-thick crystal, the wheels and gears and the gimballed steering-cage that was the heart and core of the dragon-killing machine. Maybe that’ll end it.

  There was a demon in Ian as well, and he knew that wouldn’t end it, but he tried not to think about that. He found himself wishing he’d been able to learn more from Morkeleb about the crystal spikes in the dragons’ skulls, the nature of possession when it came to dragons …

  They were going to strike somewhere, almost certainly before he could make it back to land himself.

  Body and bones, his father had said. Body and bones.

  He mounted the metal plates to the wooden ribs and transferred all but two of the Milkweed’s catapults to the Urchin’s tough inner hull. It looked indeed like a rolled-up urchin when he was done with it, bristling with spikes as the dragons bristled. If he could not have the maneuverability and speed that a horse would give him, he would need armor and weight and surprise. Common sense told him that he needed to rest, to hunt, to eat. He felt the reserves of his strength trickling away as the moon set and the long summer morning climbed toward noon.

  At an hour before noon he wound the gears and springs of the gnome-wrought engine and, in the great wheel of the guidance cage within it, urged it out onto the beach. The Urchin lurched and jolted, then spun in a small circle, refusing to move farther no matter how John swung and pulled his weight. Cursing, he threw over the brake levers, let the tension out of the springs, and dismantled the engine again. Surf beat on the rocks. Gulls cried. Shadows moved. He wondered what was passing on the turtle-shaped island but dared not stop to look.

  The second trial worked better. The machine ran smoothly on its wheels, scrunching unsteadily in the soft sand. John had long ago mastered the complicated acrobatics of weight and balance needed in the cage. He turned, swung, swiveled the machine with its spines and its catapults, his half-naked body slick with sweat. Right. When I build this thing for keeps, it gets vents. He was gasping for air when he braked again, unlatched the lid and climbed the cage to put his head and shoulders out …

  And saw, across the spaces of the water, two dragons rising from the island to the south.

  Gold and blue they flashed in the light as they turned. Gorgeous as sunlight and flowers they wheeled, dipped low over the surf. Catching up his telescope John followed them, and saw the man with his embroidered cap tied close over his head and the boy with his cowl blown back, his dark hair blowing free.

  “No …” John was shivering in the sea-wind on his wet shoulders and face. “Don’t.”

  But they were winging away north again, and westward, not even stopping at the island where they’d camped.

  “Come back here!” he screamed, dragging himself from the dragon-slaying machine’s round belly, watching the great glittering shapes dwindle to hummingbirds. He was alone on his island, with the crabs and the dummies and the sheep. Bowing his head, he beat on the metal side of the Urchin and wept.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Fool!” Commander Rocklys slapped the scroll down onto her desk so hard the sealing-wax shattered. “A thousand times a fool! Grond’s beard, who the … ?” She looked up angrily as the chamberlain stopped short in the doorway, and her face altered when she saw Jenny at the man’s slippe
red heels. “Mistress Waynest!” She sprang to her feet, reminding Jenny of a big tawny puma. “Thank the Twelve you’re back safe!” Genuine concern twisted her brow. “Did you find this bandit wizard? Did you bring her here?”

  Jenny inclined her head. “And I think you’ll find her more than amenable to the idea of a school. Please …” She caught the Commander’s arm as Rocklys made to stride past her into the anteroom. “She’s very young,” she said, looking up into Rocklys’ face, “and she has been badly used. Be very, very gentle with her.”

  Rain pounded on the wood shakes of the roof. The parade ground beyond the window was a dreary piebald of rain-pocked gray mud in which the eight surviving members of Rocklys’ original twenty-five unloaded their meagre gear. The Commander counted them with a glance, turned back to Jenny with shock and rage in her eyes. “The bandit Balgodorus …?”

  “Was gone the third morning after the mage left his forces,” said Jenny. “I believe he still had nearly seventy men with him, out of close to three times that at the outset of the siege.”

  “Siege?” the Commander said sharply.

  Jenny nodded. “At Palmorgin. We barely reached the walls before the bandits were upon us.”

  Rocklys began to speak, outraged, then seemed to see for the first time Jenny’s dripping plaids and drawn face. “You’re soaked.” She laid a hand on Jenny’s arm, roughly solicitous. “Gilver …” The chamberlain disappeared promptly and came back a moment later with a servant, towels, a blanket, and a pitcher of hot mead. This last he set on the table while Rocklys steered Jenny firmly to the folding chair and brought the brazier over. “This bandit mage … she’ll serve the Realm?” pressed the Commander, planting one foot on the seat of the chair opposite and leaning her elbow on her knee.

  “I think so.”

  “Good. Good. Another came in yesterday—my cousin may be a fool, but at least he’s had the sense to send out word in the south begging those with the inborn power to come forward. The old man kept it secret for years. As if anyone still enforced the old laws against wizards! Bliaud—that’s his name, a decent old stiff—has been using magic to keep caterpillars off his roses and prevent himself from losing his hair. Idiots, the lot of them!” She shook her head in disbelief.