After the Dragon

by Wendy Palmer

'Only one magic could so do that.’ She went silent and her gaze fell on him. She blinked.

  'And that would be?’ He asked because he did not think she would answer.

  For a long moment, his expectation held correct. Then she shrugged as if to herself. ‘At the bottom of the sea.'

  'Careless,’ he said, a sly response to mask his surprise.

  She smiled, sudden and quick and startling. ‘It was lost there deliberately.'

  'Why?’ asked Trick. ‘If this thing could do such a rare magic, surely it was powerful.'

  'Do you know of Telamon?'

  Jarrett had mentioned Telamon once. He dredged it up. ‘The split happened during his reign.’ Jarrett had called it the Fall but he was wise enough not to repeat that sensitive word back to a DarkElf.

  Mizzle looked at him again, and he guessed he had just shown more knowledge than most humans could. But she went on. ‘The Emperor of the Elves had a sceptre crowned by the Stone, receptacle of the most powerful magics of the Ancients. The Emperor, by reason of this, was the most powerful Elf in all of Kerna. Telamon was the last Emperor. He was evil and perfectly sane and his depravities are too numerous to name. He fed the Stone and the Stone fed him. After many years and with the help of the other Ancients and even the human servants—'

  'Slaves.’ He risked breaking her mood.

  He got a glance and an acknowledging tilt of the head. ‘He was removed. But they were loath to lose the power he had gained. As he lay dying they cut his left hand from him and preserved it with molten gold infused with all the magics the Ancients could muster. It held much of his power, more powerful than even the Stone, for it worked in the There, which the Stone, entirely of this world, could not.'

  Trick did not quite follow this, but he held his tongue and she went on. ‘It held his evil in equal measure and those who used it succumbed to madness and hunger. So it was decided amongst much acrimony that it must never be wielded again. They could not bring themselves to destroy such power so they hid it safely away, hiding it so it could not be found again.'

  At the bottom of the sea. ‘Should've tried harder—a fisherman will be netting it any day now.'

  'It has been five thousand years,’ she said with her lightening smile. ‘It is due.'

  She rode for a moment with a small frown. When she went on speaking, her voice was even lower, and he had to lean closer to hear her. ‘The acrimony over the decision to hide the Hand was bitter and divisive and the losing faction could not reconcile themselves to it. The Hand was used a last time to split the Stone in two so that one such as Telamon could not arise again. Even that simple and altruistic use almost destroyed the Elf who volunteered to do it. Then the Elves gathered on the coast and watched as the Hand was sent down, and one faction took one stone north and found only caves for shelter, and the other faction took the other south and found forest. Kerna was left for the humans.'

  He had to know. ‘Was it the DarkElves or the LightElves who fought so bitterly against the loss of the Hand?'

  'The story is not recorded in a written form,’ Mizzle said. He thought she was amused. ‘Alas, that small detail has been lost.'

  He stared into the forest. It came to him and he couldn't help it. ‘You stole the DarkElves’ stone, didn't you?'

  She straightened, sitting back in the saddle. He feared her temper with her hands clenched around the reins. ‘I need it.'

  'You seem to be managing well enough without it.’ Dare he say he liked her much better when she wasn't feeding herself into her stolen prize?

  'I am exercising great control. It is difficult to maintain.'

  She was exercising it now. He gave her practice. He backed off and reminded her of what she was aiming for. ‘Why join the LightElves?'

  'Life with the DarkElves is intolerable.’ She smiled as if she was in pain.

  He was insistent in the face of it. ‘But why the LightElves? Live among humans.'

  'Did Dester teach you nothing?’ The shot was sharp to the heart.

  So, Dester had taught her to re-think every thought, and it had taught her to shun humans. That hurt him, obscurely. ‘Not all humans will react like that. I'll tell you who will always react like that.'

  'Who?’ Her silver eyes were intent.

  She had to ask? He stared at her. ‘LightElves.'

  Chapter Four

  Kintore's room is across the hallway from Jacoby's. He sits on his bed and tips out little jars and bottles from his pack. ‘Sit and take your tunic off.’ He searches amongst his medicines, not meeting her eye.

  Jacoby looks wicked but complies. Kintore runs long-fingered hands over the smooth skin of her back and shoulders. ‘Bruising mostly,’ he remarks almost casually. ‘A few cuts.'

  Jacoby stares straight ahead. Kintore fills a bowl from the water jug on the table by the window and sits behind her again, still studiously not looking at her nakedness. He cleans her cuts and dries them with gentle concentration.

  Jacoby sits still under his ministrations but flinches as he twists to search among the pharmacopoeia strewn on the bed.

  'What is it?’ He holds a small vial containing a dark green salve. ‘You are tense.'

  'I have my mortal enemy behind me,’ she replies quietly. ‘I have noticed he might be able to get to his sword quicker than I can draw mine.'

  He rubs the cream into the skin of her back, frowning. ‘He would not do so.'

  'My mortal enemy promises not to attack me,’ says Jacoby. ‘This is a promise, indeed.'

  Kintore does not answer, working on in silence. Eventually, he screws the lid back on the jar, and presses it into her cold hand. ‘You may keep this.'

  The DarkElf accepts it in silence, stands up and puts her tunic back on. She watches him as she moves towards the door.

  'I recommend rest,’ says Kintore. He is not looking at her at all, gathering up his medicines and putting them back in his pack. He stops suddenly, staring at the small blue bottle he has just picked up. ‘Yoruko?'

  Jacoby turns to look at him, only the slightest jump of her hands towards her swords betraying her nerves.

  He holds the bottle out to her. ‘Take this also. One sip at night. Reduces.’ He presses his lips together. ‘Reduces nausea,’ he finishes finally, very calmly, but with his gaze fixed firmly on the bed.

  Jacoby sighs. ‘Hiruko,’ she says. ‘Kintore OneEyed.’ She shakes her head slightly. ‘I am a liar.'

  She volunteers the slightest of bows and is gone. Kintore lets his outstretched arm drop. He sits, head bowed still, on the bed. His lips move a little, a few words audible.

  He is offering up a prayer of thanks.

  * * * *

  They camped as evening fell, back on the northern edge of the forest. Mizzle laid and lit the fire while Trick took care of the horses, a wordless and almost companionable splitting of the camp chores. He noted she could still light the fire with the sudden spark from her fingertip, a small magic not wrapped up with the stone. They ate their travel rations, and Trick rued not stealing bread from the cottage.

  The sun had barely set before he wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down. He used his spare soldier's cloak as a pillow until he remembered Faustus had Mizzle's cloak. At that he sat up again and took off his wool cloak and held it out to her. She waved it away and took the thinner one.

  It threw him how he could feel grateful for that when both cloaks were his. He wrapped up again and lay down. Now she had covered herself with the cloak, he allowed himself to realise he had not judged her size very well when he had grabbed clothes for her from the Dester supply store. The grey clothes hugged curves he had vowed not to notice.

  He rolled over abruptly, not wanting another dream that was not of Linnet. Staring north towards the hill, he fancied he could see the Giant's fire. Then, in the gloom, he saw a darker shadow making its way towards them.

  He lay still, staring out into the dark with the fire and Mizzle at his back. He wondered if she had seen it and if he should warn he
r and decided most likely and not yet.

  He thought it was Jarrett and wanted to stay as if sleeping.

  He was right. The DarkElf male stopped a good distance away and bowed deeply to Mizzle. As before, he greeted her with a ritual phrase in DarkElvish.

  Trick guessed his purpose. Creatures of dark passions and near-ungovernable cruelty, the DarkElves maintained intricate ceremonial patterns to protect themselves from each other. A pity they had never seen fit to extend their restraint to other races.

  Mizzle said, ‘Speak Bourchian.’ Trick could not decide if she knew he was awake and meant him to hear, or if she simply tried to distance herself from the temptation of all things DarkElvish.

  Jarrett walked past Trick to stand before Mizzle. ‘I have come to you again as I said I would.’ His voice was as Trick remembered it, calm, slightly amused.

  'I see it,’ said Mizzle. Trick could detect nothing in her voice to say she was pleased or displeased to see Jarrett again.

  Jarrett seemed to. ‘Why won't you trust me, little one?'

  Trick blinked before he remembered that two hundred years was young for a DarkElf. A stillness grew behind him and he realised two hundred years might be young, but Jarrett had still overstepped a hidden boundary.

  Jarrett broke the silence, not sounding discomfited. ‘Are you going to give the DarkStone to the LightElves?'

  Trick was glad he lay with his back to them, as he blinked in surprise again. Mizzle must have told Jarrett she had the stone in that first DarkElvish conversation. It had been Jarrett who talked of theft but that had been after Mizzle had spoken at length, nothing Trick had been able to understand. That she should trust him so at their first meeting spoke for Jarrett's reputation.

  'They will need a token of my sincerity.’ She was as flat and bland as ever. And did she think to give the stone up easily, while she relied on it so?

  He heard Jarrett sigh. ‘They will join it back with the LightStone and have a weapon as powerful as the Hand.'

  For a moment Trick could almost guess what Mizzle was thinking, no matter how alien those thoughts might be. Had Jarrett been shadowing them from the forest edge, to bring that up so soon after Mizzle had talked of it?

  The other DarkElf went on. ‘I want to help you, Mizuasobi. I have been among humans more years than you have lived. The LightElves are not your only option.'

  Again Mizzle did not answer. Trick thought, Let him help you, Mizzle, while a different voice said, cynical and suspicious, He wants something.

  And what else could he want but the DarkStone? Then Trick realised—Mizzle herself, child of the Dark and startlingly beautiful, was perhaps as great a prize.

  The first time Jarrett had approached her, Trick had thought Mizzle liked him. She had been relaxed and animated, for her. She had plainly trusted him, to tell him of the stone. But he could not hear any of that now. Perhaps she had thought on his offer as she had said she would do, and found it lacking. Perhaps the loss of the power of the stone made her reticent, or perhaps Bourchian was a more substantial barrier than he suspected.

  Whatever her reasons, she threw him no sop.

  Jarrett sighed again, loud in the night. ‘I have been lost from my own people for so long that I can no longer understand you.’ He stood, farewelled her in DarkElvish and walked away.

  Trick held still long after he had gone, wondering if Mizzle expected him to sit up. He fell asleep still asking himself and woke to dawn, and snow. He had not dreamed of Mizzle, and not of Linnet as she was now, cold and accusing, but Linnet as she had been. It gave him a pang of guilt that he had not thought of her nearly enough over the last few days.

  Mizzle said not a word to him until they had shared out breakfast and were on their way again. Only then did she speak. ‘You heard.'

  He didn't think of lying, not beyond his habitual split-second. ‘Yes.'

  She nodded, but said nothing further. Not knowing if she wanted to hear what he thought, he asked instead, ‘Can the two stones be reunited as he said?'

  'They can,’ said Mizzle. ‘When they separated, the two groups were not bitter enemies. It was thought the larger magic might one day be needed for the protection of Kerna.'

  'Livania.’ He could not help but correct her and did not know why beyond the urging of Linnet and the impulse towards Mizzle's swords.

  She ignored him. ‘The stones may be joined and parted again.'

  He dared further. ‘What would happen if they were joined?'

  But Mizzle frowned and shook her head and he did not pursue it. If the Hand was the cursed child of Telamon, the Stone was his father, and such power should make her wear that considering expression.

  They slanted northeast back towards the Giant's fire. Trick guessed they would get there only just before midday. If Mizzle found her herb, that gave them plenty of time to reach the Wizard before his deadline expired. But if she couldn't, and in the snow in late winter Trick doubted her, they would have to rescue the son, ride back to the cottage, and then back through the forest to the castle. He was glad he had slept well the night before, for he despaired of sleep tonight.

  He thought about Jarrett as they rode, Mizzle's silence falling about him like the snow. Trick knew and liked and trusted him as Fingers, adult ally on the pirate ship. He suspected his mistrust of Jarrett now had more to do with ill-advised jealousy of whom Mizzle should be beholden to, than any actual danger the exiled DarkElf posed to them.

  That thought unsettled him. He could be falling under her influence, as lost as Faustus, and never know it at all until he and Faustus went for each other's throats over her. Dead Linnet could not protect him, not even with her whisper in his ear and her cold hands about his heart. Her solution was, as always, his sword or Mizzle's.

  'Not today,’ he said, as he always told her when she grew insistent, and was startled to find he had spoken aloud.

  Mizzle glanced across, incurious. The world was her and him and walls of white snow around them. He was abruptly suffocating and without escape. The silence was too much.

  'Why won't you just leave him alone?’ He meant himself and chose Faustus to fight for to rid himself of this feeling of choking.

  Mizzle shook her head as if to clear it. ‘You mean what?'

  'Faustus,’ said Trick. ‘You're driving him insane and you don't even need him.'

  'I do nothing to him,’ she said, all ice. ‘He sought me out.'

  Both these scraps of information gave Trick pause but he ploughed on. ‘Just let him go, Mizzle. I'll help you, I swear it.’ He didn't know he was going to say such a thing until he said it, and did not know if he meant it.

  'He is not mine to set free.'

  Frustration and claustrophobia and the dark impulse driven by Linnet took hold of his tongue. ‘Not yours? Not likely. He's under your glamour and you'll hold him there until there's nothing of him left.'

  Her hands twitched on the reins and Skye threw her head, but she did not draw her swords on him. ‘You mistake glamour for allure.'

  He knew the difference from Jarrett. Glamour was what Mizzle had forced on him in Port Told, a peculiarly DarkElf female talent. Allure was the natural attractiveness all Elves wore like a scent. ‘Allure couldn't possibly put Faustus in such a state.'

  Mizzle took a second look at him and he realised he had once again shown more knowledge than he had any right to. But she didn't press him. ‘It affects him strongly. I can do nothing.'

  He himself had felt her allure wrapping tendrils about him. It was hard to fight it off, and even if he did he found the other, simply human, attraction waiting underneath. Only Linnet protected him. But he could not believe Mizzle had no control over it, no matter that she told him so and that Jarrett had told him so on the pirate ship.

  'Hear this,’ he said, telling himself he practised honesty not cruelty. ‘You keep your glamour and your allure and no one will ever help you voluntarily.'

  She was turning to him, calling out that DarkElvish word, Gekizou
, to bring her swords back, skewing from the saddle.

  He didn't understand for a moment, thinking she meant to strike him, that he had finally provoked what Linnet wanted.

  Then he realised she was looking past him, swords to hand and waiting. They were under attack. He bent low in the saddle and slid off on Bet's near side, to stand beside Mizzle.

  'What is it?’ An undulating call made the hairs on his neck stand up.

  'Goblins,’ she told him, softly. ‘On the threshold.'

  She had spoken before of that other place, the There, where the other Ancients had gone and where the DarkStone did not work. She hadn't implied incursions.

  'They are after me.’ Mizzle looked over Bet's neck, staring out through the snow. ‘They should not harm you.'

  DarkElves were, apparently, universally unloved, with Giants and Goblins both counted as enemies. His heart beat hard and painful. She could tell him all she liked about what Goblins should and should not do, but it did not make him safer. He drew his sword and it shone.

  'The iron,’ Mizzle said, ‘will stop you crossing over.'

  Her voice held not a hint what she wanted him to do.

  His instinct was to drop the sword so he wouldn't be separated from her, and he suspected that impulse the way Mizzle suspected her own first impulses. He held on to the sword.

  That eerie cry echoed out of the snow again and stones flew at them. One struck Mizzle in the shoulder and she staggered. Trick yelped and took a few steps towards her, but she was gone.

  She had been taken across to the other world wounded and alone.

  He could not bear it. He flung himself up on Bet and shouted out, his voice thin and whipped away into the white sky. ‘You cowards, you come back and take me too.'

  And they came, fading into the world—ten or so tall green creatures with slingshots and long spiked blades. Facing them, Mizzle stood, swords still in hand. Several of the goblins were bleeding. She had not after all been defenceless.

  He already regretted his thoughtless allure-driven reaction and had to grab for Skye's loose reins with one hand to stop her bolting while Bet skittered backwards under him.