After the Dragon

by Wendy Palmer

  A cheap and clumsy shot and it bit deep. ‘Ben Matray loved my mother.’ He had that fact clearly fixed in his head and no spite from an Ullwyn cousin could shake it. ‘He came for her, after you locked her in her room bleeding. He saved her life.’ His mother had never said much about that night, barely conscious and taken from temple to temple until Ben found a priest prepared to risk the wrath of Fortune and the Ullwyns to help her. She rarely spoke of it and when she did he heard the pain and terror echoing in her voice. That horror still shadowed her today, leaving her sickly and meek in the bosom of her family. It left nothing of that part of her his father had loved.

  'And ran off the moment she insisted he leave his precious pirate ship.'

  Trick got up, Faustus matched him. ‘You don't care about her anyway,’ he said. ‘Do you even know how ill she is?'

  Trick went still. His mother had been ill as long as he could remember. He didn't believe this was any worse, until Faustus added, ‘She's dying alone in Kiara Valley and you don't even care.'

  He had not even known she had gone to the Ardmore manor. Guilt made him even angrier and he started to shout something back. Mizzle stood up on the other side of the fire.

  'Enough,’ she said, calm and disinterested. ‘You are both altogether too loud.'

  Faustus sat again, jaw set, and after a moment Trick followed him, tense and biting his tongue on words unsaid. Could she expect them to keep silent and sleep, with accusation and threat roiling in the air between them?

  But Mouse slept, and finally Faustus slept, and the thickness in the air settled. Trick lay down to at least try, lying on his side, staring though the flames. His hand kept trying to touch the scar, so he tucked it under him to curb that habit before it could take hold.

  He had to have been almost asleep when the murmur of voices woke him. He opened his eyes without otherwise moving.

  Jarrett had come to her again. He guessed from the tone and inflection of the murmur that they spoke Bourchian as she had insisted last time, but they were too quiet and close together to hear.

  If Faustus could have seen the two DarkElves sitting so close and intimate—Trick had a moment to think about waking him just for the look on his face and the possibility of injury. But he let that fantasy go in the hope of catching a few words, watching them through the low flames.

  He thought Jarrett might be comforting her, encouraging her after her failure in the cave, guessing on scraps of sound and minimal alien body language. He had decided he was right and went vacillating back again when he remembered how cold she had been when Jarrett last approached her. Perhaps it was a DarkElvish mating game, or perhaps it was the comfort of the stone that made her sit by him so comfortably when last time she had been all monotone and ice. Or perhaps it had been, after all, knowing he listened, and the demand for Bourchian had been all her own reasons and nothing for him. That he could well believe.

  He could not guess. He fell asleep still wondering.

  * * * *

  No sign of Jarrett in the morning, and Faustus wasn't speaking to him nor Mouse nor even Mizzle.

  Trick decided that suited him well enough and they went on their way with no more than two words between them.

  All that day they went south through thick Livanian forest. Winter had broken on this side of the mountain, and Trick tasted thaw in the air. His spirits lifted at the thought of spring, but the camp that night was sullen and silent again. Jarrett might have come again, but Trick saw no sign of it in the camp or in Mizzle.

  They went on monotonously, a blending of days riding down overgrown trails or hacking through undergrowth. Once, at sunset, they came across a lake, cold and deep with snow melt, and suffered Mizzle to be naked again as she bathed. Sometimes Trick heard wolves in the night but the pack must have recognised the predator in their own pack for they were not disturbed.

  One night, he woke late as the fire died down, and realised Mizzle was gone. He rolled over and saw her outlined against the moon, flowing through slow graceful steps, her swords flashing silver in her hands. He shivered as he watched her practise the DarkElves’ deadly art and he did not fall back asleep for a long while.

  Finally, after he had lost track of days and was heartily sick of wild greens, pigeon and rabbit, they came out by the side of a fast-flowing stream and saw fields, grey with the last of the snow and green with new growth. The sky was dark, threatening with clouds and the edge of evening. Distant heathlights winked out the presence of a town. That would be Kitira if they hadn't borne too far west.

  'Camp here tonight,’ he said. ‘Clean up and go in for supplies tomorrow.'

  Mizzle was no provocation in town now. In Livania, DarkElves were almost myth and not hated. Bourchian Faustus was another matter, but he thought they would be safe enough.

  He heard no argument. After they settled the horses and lit a fire, he took his knife over to the stream and shaved by touch. Livanian men by custom went clean-shaven and he preferred that. The night was too overcast for him to see his reflection, but his fingers told him his face was thinner than it had been.

  Faustus came over and trimmed his beard, looking gaunt and stricken. How long had he had that look in his eyes, that Trick had not noticed until now?

  Trick twisted his hair into his hand and sawed at it with the knife, hacks of hair falling into the stream. All he could see in the water was shadow. Linnet's ghost wrapped herself around him and he bowed forward until he felt himself on the point of falling.

  But he drew back. He had seen Linnet shake her head at him as he slid towards that edge and he knew now that what he had named her ghost was his own dreadful longing. That he had ever believed it could have been Linnet made him sick with guilt.

  Faustus still sat beside him, staring likewise into the water.

  'You have to let go,’ he whispered, in the darkness, with the fire a distant memory at their backs.

  He was all shadow. Trick could not be sure he had really spoken. ‘Faustus?'

  Faustus stirred and shivered and got up. Trick stood up too. They walked back to the fire. Mizzle sat with her back to the fire and them, staring out over the dark Livanian plain. The stars were obscured by cloud. The only light came faint and far from the town.

  All was muted and expectant. He was holding his breath and didn't know why, but that the impending storm oppressed him. Then the lightning arced down, dazzling in a brilliant stroke from the arch of the sky to the uninterrupted horizon.

  Trick blinked and blinked again, stung by the sudden brilliance in the gloom, afterglow printed in the dark of his closed eyes.

  Mizzle had fallen. Only then, when he opened his eyes again and saw her on the ground and Mouse by her and Faustus rushing over, did he realise that what dazzled human eyes would blind a DarkElf.

  The crack of the thunder came right above their heads, a physical blow ripping across the sky. Mizzle cried out. As he ran over, she sat up, shoving the other two away hard. Her silver eyes watered, and she covered them. Her ears had to be ringing.

  'You didn't know about lightning?’ he asked.

  She didn't answer, staggering up and away into the trees. His first, frightened, impulse was to go after her but he stopped himself by stopping Faustus and Mouse.

  'Don't touch her.’ He had to hold Faustus and pull him away.

  Mizzle slammed into a tree a few feet away. She stopped, head lowered, and slid to the ground. She jerked her hood up and hid her head into her knees. The next lightning flash passed over their heads and she didn't stir. Thunder cracked again, further away.

  Trick said again, ‘Don't touch her.’ He feared they would and she would kill them. He ran over to her and tossed her the blanket he had been wearing as a cloak since his own had been ruined with blood in the tunnel. She pulled that over her head as he went over to the saddlebags and pulled out Mizzle's bag, and took it to her.

  The storm began in earnest, cold rain threatening the fire. The trees made scant shelter, but Trick didn't think
any of them could have slept no matter where they were. He stood, Faustus on one side, Mouse on the other, and waited as if Mizzle's pain could be lessened by their vigil.

  The storm passed eventually. They huddled together, wet through, watching Mizzle's still form. Finally she threw off the blanket. Faustus started forward, and Trick stopped him.

  Mizzle took her bag, her back to them, and pulled out jars and sachets. Trick smelt the same salve she had given him for his wrist and knee. She ripped a strip of cloth from her cloak, rubbed salve into it and bound her eyes with it.

  Trick's heart failed him. She was blind.

  She got up, hands against the tree trunk and turned slowly so she was facing them. She walked over, hands out in front and to the side, faltering steps.

  'Oh, Mizzle,’ said Faustus. He might have been weeping.

  'Temporary,’ she said. ‘My eyes are not so sensitive as others in my clan. I will recover.’ She sounded calm but her hands shook as she reached out. She touched Mouse's shoulder, and Trick's and sat beside them.

  'Build the fire again,’ she said.

  It couldn't be for her benefit, she who was cold and did not feel the cold. But Trick moved to do as she asked.

  'I did not know about the lightning,’ she said, soft, and it took him a moment to realise she was answering his question from a lifetime before. ‘I came out in winter because the light is less.'

  A true sign she had little knowledge of the world away from her dark northern caves and tunnel, that she had known to run when the sun was not so powerful, and not known how dazzling sun on ice could be and not known about thunderstorms.

  And why had she run from the DarkElves when winter had almost left them, and not months before? She might never have had to learn about lightning. He did not ask while he struggled with the fire, wet wood and flint.

  Mizzle touched him, pushed him aside, and held out her hand. The spark trembled on the edge of failing but the fire took, smoky and warm.

  They all edged closer, even Mizzle, sitting shoulder to shoulder between Mouse and Trick. They were at ease with each other as they had not been since the cave, since Mizzle had killed San, since Trick and Faustus had argued. All their concern was for her, sitting blindfolded in the smoke.

  'I did not intend to leave when I did,’ she said. She held her long fingers to the fire. Trick knew she couldn't be cold. She sought the sensation of heat to replace the darkness, just as a human might. ‘I intended to wait until next year.'

  It verged on reading his mind, and made him uneasy. He didn't say anything.

  Mouse looked up at her. Her head turned towards him and he looked away as if scolded by her blind gaze behind the cloth.

  Faustus said, ‘It was no accident that you came to Port Told when you did, though.'

  The blind gaze went across the fire to him.

  'Fortune appeared to me, Mizzle, and sent me down to meet you. She knew where you would be and She knew where Trick would be. You were meant to be in Port when you were, no matter it wasn't your intention.'

  The darkness that had covered him by the stream still lingered. Trick was embarrassed by Faustus's fervour.

  'I had heard of Ullwyns,’ Mizzle said.

  She meant, I was accosted by a strange human and did not kill him because his name means luck and influence. Trick trusted Faustus not to make that link. He could see it in his head, a cloaked figure walking into Port Told, Fortune-driven Faustus running up to it. Words exchanged, she draws back her hood, he falls to his knees and is lost.

  Idle fancy. He shook his head and got the food, generous with the lights of the town in sight. He pushed Mizzle's ration into her hand, without letting his fingers touch hers.

  'Why did you leave when you did, then?’ he asked as they ate.

  Mizzle did not reply. She went through her moods, one moment volunteering information he had never thought to ask for, the next silent and prickly, enforcing her borders. She had taken comfort from them in the aftermath of the lightning and now she recovered her equanimity and withdrew again—that was his uncharitable assessment.

  He shrugged and wrapped himself in his blanket to sleep. Mizzle still stared sightlessly into the fire as he drifted off.

  * * * *

  The next morning, Trick saddled all the horses, which was faster than making Faustus help, while Mouse buried the fire. Mizzle took her blindfold off, turned away from them, and rubbed more salve on to it and around her eyes. When she was done, he pushed Skye's reins into her hand without quite touching her.

  'I no longer use the stone,’ she said. ‘It is a crutch and a poor one.'

  Unspoken between them was San, dead despite the control of the stone. She had done better under her own control, and Trick was alive to vouch for it.

  She already knew that. He said instead, ‘So I should try not to annoy you then?'

  'An advisable strategy.’ A humour edged her smoke and mirrors voice, as Trick had not heard since she had been separated from the stone. She truly wasn't using it.

  She unbound her hair, hid away her swords, and stopped using the stone to control her dark emotions. Even her blinding had not dissuaded her from this course. He caught himself praying to Fortune that no other challenge would be thrown her way too soon.

  He looked south towards the town, mazed in fog this morning. He thought it was Kitira, but he wouldn't know for sure until they got closer. He turned back to see Faustus trying to help Mizzle up on Skye. She wasn't using the stone but she didn't kill him, just pushed him away and felt for stirrup and pommel, swinging up with no less assurance and grace than usual.

  A league out from the forest edge, he swore at himself and Fortune for his unaccustomed and unanswered prayer. The haze resolved itself into an army massed around the town. That could only be Mikcul.

  And they had gone ahead with far too little caution, coming across the first of the outriders just as Trick realised what he was seeing. He sent a quick look at Mizzle before remembering she could take no signal from him.

  The scout reined to a stop in front of them and looked them over. He was not wearing Mikcul's brown and gold.

  Trick knew he looked dirty and off-kilter but thankfully Livanian, no matter dark-haired Mouse peering around him and dark-haired Faustus and dark-haired Mizzle on either side.

  'What's your business in Kitira?’ The man addressed him in Livanian, and didn't sound hostile.

  'We're travelling south, we need supplies.'

  He waited to be told to go round, to find another town. But the man said, ‘Lord Dalton holds this town. Get your supplies and get out.'

  There was no help for it then, but to fall in with other early morning travellers and go on to the encamped town.

  'What's going on?’ asked Faustus.

  'Rebellion,’ said Trick. ‘It has to be.'

  'What did the man tell you?'

  Faustus didn't understand Livanian. Parochial, inconvenient and perhaps long-term useful. ‘Just to be quick. We'll pick up supplies and then we'll have breakfast somewhere so I can find out how far this goes. We may have to go back north and across to the coastal route.'

  Running the gauntlet of pirates and bandits on the trade route would be a damn sight better than getting between Mikcul and the army of a provincial lord.

  Guards at the gate were examining travellers closely but Trick's group were passed through without demur. Their enemy was other Livanians, not Bourchians, and Trick was grateful for that small mercy.

  The town thronged, markets crowding the avenues, clumps of people swirling through the streets, and everywhere the muted yellow of soldiers, far more soldiers than Mikcul allowed his lords to have. Kitira was more crowded than it had any right to be with an army sitting outside its walls. That spoke of grassroots support for this Lord Dalton.

  From horseback, Trick saw a sea of blonde hair, pale blonde to Trick's own sandy colour, the occasion black or brown which signalled Bourchian, and once, a glimpse of red hair disappearing into the cro
wd.

  Not Linnet, he told himself to settle his heartbeat back down. Of course not.

  He was glad they weren't the only strangers in town. A tense and mutinous townsfolk found strangers a compelling target. Best to take the scout's advice and get back out quickly, whichever way it was safe to go.

  Skye's hooves rang on cobblestones as she shifted nervously. The placid mare was upset and sweating, because Mizzle held the reins too short, knuckles white.

  She was sightless, with the overwhelming smell and noise of humanity, buzz of conversation, cry of market, and the tramp and ring of soldiers. Mizzle had to know that last intimately, the sound of war. She had been calmer in the face of the mob at Dester.

  'We'll be out soon,’ he said, leaning towards her. ‘Port Told is bigger than this.'

  'I was in Port Told only at night,’ she said back.

  So a truly novel and uncomfortable experience for her—a large town on market day. He set himself to work, veering over to stalls to buy food and grain from horseback with the last of his coin while the others waited.

  Mizzle rode over. ‘I need these items,’ she told him, and rattled off a prodigious list of herbs. That truly was the last of his money. The Bourchian gold was accepted cheerfully at an outrageous exchange.

  Finished, he gave Mizzle's packages over to her and led them to an inn, full with breakfasters. They tied the horses up around the back.

  'Mouse, stay here and watch the horses,’ Trick said. ‘I'll bring you out breakfast.'

  Mouse was not happy with that order and yet stayed. Trick took Mizzle and Faustus round to the front door. ‘I'll be quick, Mizzle,’ he said. He was sorry for the noise and crowd inside, but needed those to get information.

  She nodded once, standing just off from leaning against him. He thought, and thought again, and finally put a hand to her arm. She allowed him that, and he led her back through tables to a vacant one at the back of the room.

  Faustus glared at him as they sat down. Trick ignored him. The table was private, screened and out of the way, but unfortunate for hearing conversations. Words sank lost into the general hum.