Dragon and Phoenix

by Joanne Bertin

  The Lady heard. A short time later, the deep, gasping breaths turned shallow and Pah-Ko’s eyes became vague and unfocused. Then, from one heartbeat to the next, the light went out of them.

  For an instant longer, Zhantse held the twisted fingers, then laid them upon the still breast. He watched the color fade from the dream-form that once held Pah-Ko’s spirit, leaving it as grey as the mists that surrounded the Place of Dreamings. Zhantse blinked as tears stung his eyes. When he looked again, Pah-Ko was gone.

  The shaman rose. “I thank Shashannu that you were able to see the Vale, my friend. It was hard keeping such beauty from you. But alas! for your land and mine, Pah-Ko. Evil walks them, and yet more evil may follow!”

  For they had run out of time. Shima and Maurynna must leave at once for the Valley of the Iron Temple.

  Zhantse began the long journey back to his body.

  Shima dropped the bundle of kindling by the clay oven near the door, and stretched. His sister, Keru, came out of the house, balancing a basket of spice grass leaves on her hip. Shima’s stomach growled in anticipation. Baking day was always a good time to be home.

  As Keru passed him, Shima lightly dug a knuckle into her head. “Bzzzzz,” he said, imitating a rockbee.

  Keru laughed and swatted at his hand. “Why couldn’t I have had all sisters?” Her eternal complaint, and only rarely meant. She set her basket down by the kindling. Straightening, she began, “Nathua brought back dried persimmons from the Vale, and gave some to—What’s wrong with Zhantse?” she finished sharply, looking beyond Shima’s shoulder.

  Shima spun around. One look told him something was wrong—very wrong. “What is—”

  Zhantse cut him off. To Keru, he said, “Get Maurynna Kyrissaean. Now!”

  Keru ran into the house.

  A coldness born of fear fell over the little yard. “Master?” Shima whispered.

  “My sister will be here shortly to dye Maurynna’s skin. While she makes the Dragonlord ready, get food and water and anything else you need. You must leave as soon as possible.”

  For a moment Shima could only gape at the shaman. At last he managed to say, “But we were to wait for the dark of the moon!”

  “There’s no time. Pah-Ko is dead. So is the emperor.” The shaman’s voice was grey and flat.

  Simple words, and full of ill-omen. Shima caught his breath as their full import struck him. “To whom does the feathered mantle fall?” he asked.

  “Haoro,” said Zhantse.

  “Spirits help us,” Shima said, fear threading its cold way down his spine. “I go.” A moment later he was running along the dusty paths through the mehanso.

  “Who are they?” Maurynna murmured to Lark as they watched the three women who had invaded Lark’s home. Each had a wide-mouthed pot to which she added water drop by drop, stirring briskly after each addition.

  “The older woman is Zhantse’s sister, Chanajin. With her are her daughters Zelene and Yallasi.”

  The women paused in their work and smiled as Lark spoke to them in their own language. Maurynna nodded in return, assuming introductions had been made.

  “And as for what they’re doing,” Lark went on, “they’re preparing the dye for your skin.”

  Maurynna chewed her lip. Yes, she had been warned of this, but it was not supposed to happen for at least a hand of days yet. But Zhantse had had Lark roust her and Raven unceremoniously from their beds, and hurried off before Maurynna could wake up enough to ask any questions. Nor did she like the worried look in Lark’s eyes, although the Yerrin woman spoke cheerfully enough.

  Now Raven’s voice drifted in through the window; he’d been chased outside earlier. He still sounded confused. Maurynna sympathized. But before she could ask Lark what in blazes was going on, the Tah’nehsieh women, finished with their preparations, descended upon her.

  Moments later Maurynna found herself stripped to the waist, her hair hastily pinned on top of her head, bits of it coming down already, with her arms held out to the sides at shoulder height, enduring the cold touch of dye and early morning air as the three Tah’nehsieh women dabbed at her with rough bits of cloth, working the thick sludge into her skin.

  I wish there was a fire in this room.

  Goose bumps prickled along her skin and she shivered. Another strand of hair came loose; it fell into the stuff coating her shoulders. Despite the injunction against using any of her magic, Maurynna finally called up a heat spell. A very little one, she told herself. Hardly noticeable. It would do no good catch her death of cold, after all.

  The spell helped—a little. If only the dye weren’t so thick and slimy as well as—Ugh!

  Chanajin swirled the disgusting stuff into Maurynna’s right ear, working the daubing cloth into every nook and cranny. Maurynna grimaced. Next came her left ear. Zelene and Yallasi were finished with her torso and were each working down an arm. Maurynna’s gaze met Lark’s. The other woman smiled wryly in sympathy.

  I can’t complain they’re not thorough, Maurynna told herself. I just wi—“What the—!” She grabbed the waist of her breeches just in time.

  Chanajin tugged at the drawstring of her breeches again, and said something. When Maurynna wouldn’t let go, the woman turned to Lark and began a vigorous complaint, waving the dye cloth as she spoke. Lark essayed a reply, and the flood of words and gestures began anew.

  Suddenly Maurynna thought she understood, and was appalled. Did the woman truly think that she would wear one of the men’s short kilts? Gods help her, not even the shortest of her nightgowns exposed so much leg!

  When Lark looked at her and opened her mouth to speak, Maurynna interrupted with, “I know what you’re going to say—and the answer is no! I, I—I won’t.”

  Damn it all, she could feel her face burning. Maurynna was certain she was blushing furiously.

  Lark laughed. “I told Chanajin that. But she says that if you’re trying to pass for a Tah’nehsieh man—wait; I just had a thought.”

  She said something to Chanajin, who started to protest, then fell silent, frowning thoughtfully. Lark spoke again and pointed to Maurynna’s breeches. Grumbling, Chanajin gave in; Maurynna could see it in the jut of her lower lip.

  She nearly melted with relief. “What did you say to her?” she asked Lark.

  “That you have the height of a man, and the free stride of a man, but that you most certainly do not have a man’s legs.” Lark grinned. “They’d give you away in an instant. I then pointed out that your breeches are similar to those worn by the Zharmatians, and that some Tah’nehsieh wear them, especially when riding long distances. And that’s when most of us are captured, so many of the slaves wear them.”

  “Most of us”—she thinks of herself as one of this dark-haired, dark-skinned tribe. Strange words to be uttered so calmly by a woman whose fairness was alien to this land.

  No, not so strange, Maurynna realized. She’s spent most of her life here, after all. And will I do the same someday, think of myself only as a Dragonlord rather than as a member of House Erdon? Will I forget who I was?

  Before she could be swept away by a flood of unformed doubts and fears, Lark went on, “You will, of course, have to change those stiff boots of yours for ours.” Lark pulled up her long skirt enough to reveal a soft boot made of split leather, gartered to the knee with narrow strips of more leather. Gay-colored fringe ran down the sides.

  As long as she could keep her breeches, Maurynna didn’t care if she went barefoot, and said so fervently.

  Lark chuckled. “Shima has an old pair he kept to use as a pattern. I’ll get them and one of his tevehs”—Maurynna recognized the word for the kind of sleeveless tunic the Tah’nehsieh men wore—“for you to wear. And just to warn you, you’ll have to stay like that a while longer for the dye to take. But in a little bit, one of the girls will bring in a hot infusion to wash that stuff off with; it will also set the dye.”

  With that warning, Lark disappeared. Zhantse’s kinswomen sat with their backs again
st a wall. They had the look of people settling in for a long wait.

  Maurynna gloomily increased the strength of the heat spell.

  At last they were ready to go.

  “It’s late in the day to start a journey,” Maurynna said quietly to Shima as she pulled Boreal’s girth snug.

  “Have we any choice?” he replied. “Look at Zhantse. I’ve never seen him like this.”

  Maurynna glanced over at the shaman. Zhantse paced back and forth, snapping at Lark and Keru as they packed food and skins of water into the saddlebags.

  “Hurry! They must be away!” Zhantse urged over and over.

  At last the bags were full; Lark and Keru each brought one to where the Llysanyins and their riders waited.

  Without a word, Maurynna and Shima took them and tied them to the saddles. It was too hard to talk, Maurynna discovered.

  “The—the scrips are packed inside,” Lark said, her voice quivering. “You’ll need them to carry the food once you leave the horses.”

  “Thank you, Mother,” Shima managed to say at last. He caught his mother in a hug. “Stay well.”

  “Stay out of the way of soldiers,” she retorted. “Both of you.” Tears shone on her cheeks.

  “You must go now,” Zhantse said, a worried frown creasing his forehead. “Get as far as you can while the light lasts.”

  They nodded, and mounted. Maurynna looked around.

  No Raven. She urged Boreal on; Shima quickly caught up with her. They turned again and again to wave until the others were out of sight.

  “Now where to?” Maurynna said as they rode. There was a hollow feeling in her stomach that had nothing to do with hunger.

  “There’s a back trail out of the valley. It’s narrow and steep, but it will put us closer to Mount Kajhrenal than the main route.”

  Before she could reply, there came a thunder of hoofs after them. Maurynna turned.

  It was Raven. She pulled up; so did Shima, though his face was a mask of disapproval that lightened only when he saw that Raven rode bareback.

  As the cantering Stormwind pranced to a halt, Raven said, “No, I’m not trying to go with you—not like this. I just thought I’d ride with you while I can.” He looked from one to the other. “Well enough?”

  “Well enough,” Maurynna said. Then, “I’m glad you came, Raven. I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye.”

  “You wouldn’t be so lucky, beanpole,” Raven said.

  They rode on quietly, side-by-side when the path was wide enough, single file where it narrowed. Shima led them into a little side canyon that, to Maurynna’s inexperienced eye, looked like any of a hundred others they’d passed.

  They came to where another path branched off the one they traveled.

  “This is where you must turn back, Raven,” Shima said. “Only Maurynna and I may go on from here.” He gestured at the path, his hand rising in the air.

  Maurynna looked up and swallowed hard. True, Shima had warned her it was steep and narrow, but by the gods, she hadn’t expected anything like this! The first part ran along the canyon wall; then, when it ran out of wall, it turned in a switchback, back and forth, back and forth, until it reached the plateau high above. She hoped there was enough room for the Llysanyins’ broad hooves.

  I’ve seen wider hair ribbons, she thought wildly as Shima set Je’nihahn to the path. She’d never again complain about the trail to the meadow back at Dragonskeep.

  “Beanpole,” Raven said, staring up at the trail, “drop the reins on Boreal’s neck, hang on to the saddle, and by all the gods, stay the hell out of his way.”

  She did as he bade her, letting the reins fall onto the stallion’s neck, especially since Boreal was nodding hard enough to send his mane flying. Her fingers locked onto the high pommel of her saddle, she said, “I’m ready.”

  Boreal began climbing.

  I wouldn’t mind if I could go up a rope ladder—then I could just pretend I was climbing a mast. Or if I could fly up and send Boreal on alone; that wouldn’t be bad, either.

  Damn Kyrissaean, anyway.

  Fifty-one

  That night, Lark had trouble sleeping. Every time she closed her eyes, images of Shima and Maurynna in the hands of the temple guards tormented her. Each time the images ended with them trembling upon the lip of the Well of Death.

  She rolled over yet again, and propped herself up on her elbows, her heart hammering.

  It was in the darkest part of the night that the noises she’d half expected came. Holding her breath, she listened as the stealthy footsteps crossed the lower floor, heard the rustling of baskets being opened.

  She thought he’d given up too easily. Flopping back on her bed, she waited for the sounds to end, for him to come back up the ladder. When she heard his breathing turn deep and regular, Lark rose and quietly went about her own preparations.

  A scratching at the tent door brought Linden awake instantly. “Who is it?” he called softly.

  “Dzeduin. May I enter?”

  Linden looked around at the other Dragonlords and Otter, now awake also; they nodded, sitting up in their blankets. “Yes.”

  The Zharmatian slipped inside and crouched just inside the doorflap. “Word just came that troops bearing the crest of Lord Jhanun are within a day’s ride, and that they’re led by one wearing the garb of a merchant. Perhaps it’s the one who betrayed you; if we ride out soon, we’ll be able to tail them.”

  Linden grunted. “I’ll go. I’d like to get my hands on that bastard Taren; I want to know what his game was.” He pushed back his blankets and stood up, wearing only his breeches. As he reached for his tunic, the others kicked off their own blankets. In a ragged chorus they announced that they, too, wanted to find Taren.

  Soon they were dressed and following Dzeduin through the dark camp, their cloaks wrapped tightly around them.

  Lark waited where the trail came out onto the top of the cliff. Crouched behind a thick saltbush so that she couldn’t be seen from below, she pulled her jelah closer against the predawn cold. The land of the Tah’nehsieh drank up the heat of the sun during the day like a miser hoarding up gold, she thought, and spent it in the night like a wastrel in a tavern. Behind her, her horse nibbled the dry, spiky grass that grew in tufts between the rocks. Somewhere a bird sang a few tentative notes as if uncertain whether it should be awake this early. Lark yawned in sympathy.

  He would be coming. She was certain of it; just as certain as she was that the sun would rise this day.

  The bird’s song came again, less hesitant this time, and with a jaunty trill at the end. Lark smiled; it was a rock wren, one of the saucy little birds that lived near the mehanso and would dash in to steal the grain from the great mortars as it was being ground.

  Now the wren burst into full song. The sound echoed cheerily among the rocks. Lark shut her eyes to rest them, knowing her feathered serenader would play sentry for her.

  As it did a short time later. The song ended with an indignant chirp and an explosion of flapping wings. Lark looked up in time to see the small, reddish brown bird rise above the cliff and fly off, still scolding the intruder below.

  She inched closer to the cliff edge and waited for her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom below; the light of the newborn sun was not yet bright enough to reach down between the cliffs.

  He rode up the trail just as she’d known he would. She watched him until he was hidden by a switchback. Lark stood, groaned a little at the stiffness in her limbs, and mounted her horse. She rode it along the upper trail as it twisted and turned between the boulders that covered the plateau like an army standing watch. When the boulders became walls that towered over her head, she went on until she came to a narrow gap blocked by brush.

  Here, she knew, was one of the tribe’s lookout points. From here, a sentry could look out over the plateau and see an invading army long before it reached the trail to the valley. One could also see a goodly portion of the trail from the valley to here. Lark pushed
the brush aside and sent her horse up a short slope to a point behind the left-hand wall. Satisfied with her view, she settled herself to watch her backtrail.

  She waited with the patience of a hunter. At long last, she heard the ring of iron horseshoes on stone and saw rider and horse surge out of the ravine onto the plateau and stop. He squinted against the sudden brightness and raised a hand to shield his eyes. His hair flamed in the young sunlight, and the years of her exile fell upon her like a snowcat upon its prey.

  Gods help her, how long had it been since she’d seen a fellow countryman? Not since her ship went down in the Haunted Straits, and she had washed ashore more dead than alive nigh thirty years ago. Six hellish years a slave, traded from tribe to tribe, until Kuthera of the Tah’nehsieh took her to wife. Now she was content with a place in both family and tribe, her only regret—and it was a mild one now, she admitted; it had faded with the years—that she would never see her homeland again. So she’d filled her children’s heads with tales of the northern lands. Of the four, only Shima, the oldest boy, longed to see Yerrih, with her broad, grassy plains like an ocean of shimmering green and pine-clad mountains wreathed in mist and clouds.

  This man was an image out of the past. Red hair, blue eyes, freckles splashed across his nose; so had her own father looked, her brothers, her uncles. He turned in the saddle as if to make certain of his saddlebag, revealing the clan braid that hung down his back like a ribbon of pale fire.

  His clan braid. Her hands went to her own, one at each temple in the manner of Yerrin women; stroked them. Even after all this time, she couldn’t bring herself to abandon them. She was still Yerrin. She would be until she died—as any true Yerrin was.