The Fire Dragon

by Katharine Kerr

  “Jahdo!” Verrarc said, and his voice bubbled with false cheer. “Stout lad! It gladdens my heart to see you! And who be your friends?”

  As if he smelled danger, Lightning, head down and ruff up, squeezed in between the boy and the councilman and growled with a wrinkle of lip to expose fang. Verrarc stepped back sharply. Jahdo swallowed hard and turned to Dallandra, who arranged a smile and stepped forward.

  “Good morrow, Councilman,” she said. “My name is Dallandra, and I—”

  She stopped. Verrarc was staring at her face while his own went pale around the mouth. All at once she understood: these people had never seen Westfolk before.

  “I assure you I'm not a demon or suchlike,” she said, laughing. “We come from a country that lies to the south of here, and we're flesh and blood like you despite our ears and eyes.”

  “My apologies.” Verrarc was stammering. “There be a need on me to apologize for all of us. It be a rude thing to mob you like this, but truly, we've not seen your ilk here before.”

  “My thanks. Is there somewhere we can set up a camp?”

  “In truth, there be so. All along the town green here do we allow merchants and other travelling folk to shelter inside our walls. There be a well and fire pits farther along. Shall I lead you there?”

  “Thank you very much. That's most hospitable.”

  Verrarc managed a brief smile, then glanced at Jahdo. She didn't need dweomer sight to see Verrarc's desperation. What would he do, try to murder the boy to keep him silent?

  “Jahdo!” Dallandra called out. “You'd best come with—”

  Somewhere in the crowd a woman shrieked in piercing joy.

  “Mam!” Jahdo called out. “Mam! Da!”

  He rushed into the crowd, which parted to let him through. A small woman, far too thin, her blonde hair streaked with grey, ran forward and threw her arms around the boy. Behind her a tall grey-haired man stood beaming at the pair. Verrarc watched the family slack-mouthed. Dallandra realized suddenly that at his belt he carried a long knife in a beaded sheath, as indeed did most of the townsmen. Although ensorceling a person went against all the ethics of dweomer, Dallandra wasn't about to bring Jahdo home only to see him dead by morning. She took a deep breath, summoned power, and laid a gentle hand on Verrarc's arm.

  “Councilman?”

  When he turned to look at her, she caught his gaze and held it with raw force of will.

  “You will never hurt Jahdo. You love him like your own son.”

  “I'll never hurt him.” Verrarc's voice was thick and slurred. “Never hurt him.”

  With a quick toss of her head she released him. He blinked rapidly for a moment, then smiled.

  “There be no words to tell you how glad I be to see Jahdo home,” Verrarc said. “I love him like my own son.”

  “How sweet. Shall we go to the campground?”

  “Of course. There be a need on me to warn you, a merchant and his men do camp there already. They be Gel da'Thae. Know you of them?”

  “I do indeed. There's no need to worry.” Dallandra turned and waved to the other elves. “Dar! The councilman here will show you where to set up camp.”

  Dar nodded and waved in return to show her he understood. Verrarc called to the militiamen to follow him, then strode over to the prince. Together they began to sort out the stock and get everyone moving. Dallandra hung back, looking over the crowd around Jahdo. Finally she saw Niffa, standing off to one side and looking over the crowd—probably for her, Dallandra realized. Smiling, Dallandra made her way through the crowd. Niffa laughed and trotted over, holding out her hands. Dallandra clasped them in hers.

  “So we meet in the flesh at last!” Dallandra said. “It's good to see you.”

  “And it gladdens my heart to see you!” Niffa glanced around, then let go Dallandra's hands and lowered her voice. “And for many a reason more than my own. There's been such a fear on me, this past few days.”

  “No doubt! Here, you'll want to welcome your brother home. We'll be camping on the commons. Will you be able to join us there later?”

  “I can, truly. And I will. Have no fear of that.”

  Laughing and talking, a small crowd of family and friends swept Jahdo down to the lakeshore, where Chief Speaker Admi stood waiting to offer them the use of the council barge. Niffa stayed close to her father, whose sheer size cleared a path through the well-wishers onto the pier and then the barge itself. While the rest of her family came aboard, Niffa found a spot to stand in the bow. The sun was beginning to set, and the mists on the water turned gold, so that when the barge pushed off, they seemed to be gliding into the heart of a fire. Niffa leaned against the railing and wondered why it was suddenly so hard to breathe. For a moment she thought she saw real fire, flames leaping and crackling as the town burned, so vivid that she nearly cried out. She turned the sound into a cough and leaned over the rail to look at the water and hide her face.

  Already, she realized, she was beginning to understand how the witchroad would take her farther and farther away from life in Cerr Cawnen. She knew things hidden to her kin and fellow citizens, and she'd learned them by hidden means. Even her joy in her brother's return was blunted simply because she'd known for months that he was safe. She turned round again and watched Jahdo, leaning into their father's embrace. His great adventure had ended. For that moment she envied him.

  The barge crept up to its pier on Citadel, disgorged its passengers, then cast off again, heading back to town. On the sandy lakeshore the crowd sorted itself out. As much as friends and neighbors wanted to hear about Jahdo's travels, the less selfish among them pointed out, loudly, that he and his family would be wanting some time to themselves.

  “Come later,” Lael called out. “Let's all have a bit of dinner, and then we'll hear what my lad has to say for himself.”

  On a tide of agreement the family started their long trudge up to the granary, Jahdo between his mother and father, Kiel and Niffa bringing up the rear.

  “Here, now,” Kiel said softly. “Who be that woman? The one with the silver hair. And how be it that you know her?”

  “You have sharp eyes.”

  “Sharp mayhap but not as strange as hers. Ye gods, they do look like a cat's!”

  “So they do. Uh well, I know not how to tell you, nor Mam either, but things be on the move for me.”

  “Indeed?” Kiel hesitated, then shrugged. “No doubt I'll be hearing more than I wish to, and too soon at that.”

  In the last of the sunset they all hurried up the little alley to their door and climbed into the big room behind the granary. Lael left the door wide open for the light and went to the hearth to lay a fire. Dera stood smiling at her three children.

  “We're all here,” she said. “At last. All of us be home.”

  Niffa winced. Though Dera seemed not to notice, Kiel raised one pale eyebrow. Niffa refused to answer. Now that the moment was upon her, she realized that she'd given no thought of how she was going to tell her mother that her daughter was about to leave her hearth.

  “The weasels!” Jahdo sang out. “There be a need on me to greet them.”

  Jahdo dashed into the other room, where the three children had always slept and their ferrets as well. Niffa followed and stood in the doorway to watch. Jahdo went to the wood slat pen and crouched down to lean over the open top. Ambo, their big hob, stood up and sniffed the air, neck stretched high, then chirruped and allowed Jahdo to pick him up. Jahdo held him up to his face to let the hob get his scent. Ambo thrust his face forward and licked the boy's cheek, then his eyelids. The other ferrets climbed over the side or wiggled through the slats to dance around Jahdo's feet and nip his ankles. Jahdo laughed aloud and set Ambo down.

  “They remember me, they do remember me!”

  He sat on a straw mattress and let the ferrets clamber over him. Smiling, Niffa turned away and went to help her mother lay out dinner.

  In the big room the fire was crackling in the hearth, and light danced over
the walls. Dera had hung a pot of water from the hook over the hearth; she stood at the table cutting up chunks of salt pork and the flabby last of the winter's carrots. Niffa opened the big standing crock and scooped pounded grains of parched wheat into a bowl. When the water boiled she would slide the grain into the pot for a meal half stew and half porridge. Kiel and Lael sat down at the table, each with a tankard of ale.

  “I do suppose we'll have a powerful large crowd in here tonight,” Lael remarked.

  “Most like, Da,” Kiel said.

  And once the crowd came, when would she get a private word with her mother? Niffa realized that she could no longer put off the truth.

  “Mam?” she said. “There be a need on me to tell you somewhat.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kiel put down his tankard and turn on the bench to listen. With a vague smile Dera looked up from her chopping. Niffa saw no way but blurting.

  “The time be upon me to leave you,” Niffa said, “to follow the witchroad. Werda did tell me this, and ye gods, we all know how strange a child I was, and the dreams I do have and suchlike.”

  Dera let the knife slip from her fingers and fall onto the table. She looked as if she were about to speak, but she stayed silent, her eyes brimming tears.

  “Ah, Mam! I do hate to tell you this!” Niffa felt her own her lips trembling. “But Werda did say that there's a need on me to follow my destiny, and—”

  “I care not what Werda told you!” Dera's voice was shaking badly.

  “But she speaks true. My heart does shout the same truth. And the woman with silver hair, Dallandra her name be, the gods do mean her for my teacher.”

  “What? How can you say such things! Have you not but met her? And how do you know she has the lore? Mayhap she be some charlatan—”

  “She's not. I did meet her months before this, Mam, in my dreams, my true dreams. Dallandra, she be a master of the witchroad.”

  “Oh what drivel you speak! I'll not hear it in my house!”

  “Mam, she speaks the simple truth.” Jahdo was standing in the doorway with Tek-Tek snuggled in his arms. “This year past have I seen things that never did I know existed, and some of them Dallandra did work, spells and suchlike. In the Slavers' country they do call it dweomer.”

  Dera spun round to glare at him.

  “Soon I'll tell you my tales,” Jahdo went on, “and then know you'll what I do. I did go a long long way away, and truly, the whole world be a wider place than any of us did ever dream.”

  Dera turned her back on all of them, her shoulders shaking under her thin dresses. Niffa could keep her composure no longer. She rushed to her mother, threw her arms around her, and wept. Dimly she was aware of Lael getting up and walking over. He laid one gentle hand on Niffa's shoulder and the other on Dera's.

  “No man or woman either can argue with their Wyrd,” Lael said. “Here, here, Dera my love, in our heart of hearts we always did know this day would come.”

  With that Niffa could choke back her tears. She let her mother go and stepped back, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, while Lael put an arm around Dera's shoulders and led her out into the twilit alleyway. She could hear his soft voice murmuring, but she couldn't make out the words. Kiel sat at the table as if he'd been carved out of the same wood, staring at Jahdo.

  “And what's so wrong with you?” Jahdo said.

  “Naught,” Kiel said. “I did but notice how tall you've grown, this past year while you were gone.”

  Niffa picked up the knife and returned to chopping up salt pork. The water in the kettle had come to a simmer, and she slid the grain in. Kiel got up and fetched the wooden paddle.

  “I'll just be stirring that,” Kiel said. “You bring the other stuffs when they be ready.”

  “I will, and my thanks.”

  Kiel glanced her way and smiled, a wry twist of his mouth.

  “Things be on the move, you did tell me,” Kiel said. “Huh. A bit more than that, eh? But Da did speak true. You've always been the peculiar one.”

  “Beast!” Niffa grabbed a carrot end and tossed it at him.

  At that the three of them could laugh. Jahdo carried Tek-Tek over and sat down.

  “I swear, you did miss those weasels more than us,” Niffa said.

  “I did, truly.” But he was smiling. “Though I forgot just how strong they stink. On the morrow I'll bathe them.”

  “I've been lax about it, truly,” Niffa said. “And Kiel's been gone a fair bit with the town watch.”

  In a few moments Lael and Dera returned. Dera stood looking at her brood unsmiling, then sighed.

  “Well and good, then,” Dera said. “Wyrd is Wyrd. Now give over the knife, Niffa. That pork, it does need to be chopped finer than that.”

  During the meal they said little. Jahdo knew nothing of her marriage, Niffa realized, or her widowhood either, yet she knew that this was not the night to tell him. By the dancing light of the fire they could pretend that all troubles had fled, at least for this short while, and she refused to break the fragile calm. By the time they finished eating, guests began to arrive, all eager to hear the rare news of faraway lands.

  As the crowd grew, Niffa could slip away. When she lit a candle at the hearth, no one seemed to notice; she stuck it in a tin lantern and crept round the edge of the room to the door. For a moment she hesitated, looking back at the family and friends clustered round Jahdo by the hearth; then she stepped out, leaving the door open behind her for the air.

  As she was walking down to the lakeshore she saw someone coming up, carrying another lantern. When she held hers away from her eyes, she recognized Verrarc, walking as slowly and hesitantly as an old man. She would have hurried past, but he hailed her, and they met in the pool of light from their lanterns. She was shocked to see how exhausted he looked, with dark circles puffy under his eyes.

  “Good morrow, Mistress Niffa. What are you doing away from your hearth?”

  “I've an errand to run in the town.”

  Verrarc seemed to be studying her face. She smiled and waited.

  “Ah well,” he said finally. “I don't mean to pry. Tell me, do you think it would trouble your mother if I went to hear Jahdo's tales? Curiosity's eating my heart, I'll admit it.”

  “No doubt, all things considered.”

  He winced and tossed his head like a fly-stung horse.

  “But I know Mam would make you welcome,” Niffa went on. “When has she ever turned you away?”

  “Just so. My thanks.”

  He brushed past her and hurried up the path. She turned to watch him go, wondering if it were only some trick of the light that had made him seem on the verge of tears.

  Earlier, Councilman Verrarc had led Dallandra and the Westfolk to a camp about halfway around the lake, a stretch of spring grass with a stone well set a long way back from the reeking shore. As the men bustled around, unloading the mules and tethering out the stock, Dallandra walked to the well and looked beyond it to a trio of peaked tents some hundred yards away. Beyond them mules and some heavy horses grazed at tether. In the middle of the tents a group of human men sat around a low fire, but the only Gel da'Thae she saw was a single guard, standing at the door of one tent with a staff at the ready. She could guess that the tent belonged to Zatcheka. The guard seemed to be looking them over in return.

  Behind her a dog barked, and when she turned around, Dallandra saw Lightning trotting over the grass with his tail held high and wagging. Right behind him came Carra, carrying the baby, who wore a bit of cloth tied loosely over her mouth and nose.

  “Dalla? I'm not interrupting you, am I?”

  “You're not,” Dallandra said. “Did you think I was casting a spell or suchlike?”

  “Well, I didn't know, you see. I wanted to ask you: Lady Ocradda gave me some rose oil when we were leaving, just as a little remembrance. I've put some on this rag for Elessi. The stench here is just so awful. But the rose scent won't be bad for her, will it?”

  “I shouldn't i
magine it would, and it's bound to be better than the smell of this lake.”

  Elessi was awake, sitting up in her mother's embrace and looking around her. Since she let the scarf be without fussing, no doubt she agreed with their opinion of the air. Nose down and busy, Lightning trotted back and forth, stopping now and then to roll on the ground. It must have all smelled like delicious carrion to him.

  “This is fascinating,” Carra said abruptly. “Not the stink, I mean, but everything else. Look at this town! It's half in the water and half out.”

  “It's a marvel, truly.”

  “I never knew the Rhiddaer and people like Jahdo existed, and here I've lived my whole life long on the western border!”

  Dallandra suppressed a smile. Carra's whole life long amounted to some sixteen winters—at the most.

  “I've got to find out when it was built,” Carra went on, “Cerr Cawnen, I mean. Jahdo doesn't know, but someone must. And how did the escaped bondsmen build it? Did someone help them? They couldn't have had masons and suchlike when they first came here.”

  “I'd not thought about all that. It truly does interest you, then.”

  “It does. When we were all back in Cengarn, Jahdo told me a fair bit, and then poor dear Meer told me what he knew about the history of the Rhiddaer, but neither of them knew how this place was built. I'd love to just poke around here, like, and ask the old people things. Some of them may have been told ancient lore by their grandparents.”

  The passion in her voice took Dallandra by surprise for a second time.

  “I forget how much you love the old lore,” Dallandra said at last. “I'll wager that the old people in town will be pleased to talk with you. They probably don't get too many ready listeners.”

  In the sky the twilight was fading, covering the camp with soft night. The evening star appeared, like a scout beckoning the army of stars to follow it out. When Dallandra glanced back she saw Dar and his men building a fire in their camp. Melimaladar walked a few paces away, saw the evening star, and began to sing. The others took up the music, which drifted like smoke along the lakeshore. From their tents came Gel da'Thae to stand listening in the dusk. The peace of the moment struck Dalla, bringing tears to her eyes, that men of the Westfolk and the Gel da'Thae should camp like this, side by side. But in the morning? she thought.