Days of Blood and Fire

by Katharine Kerr

  “This must seem tedious to you,” she remarked. “It’s beginning to be so for me, I’ll tell you. I wish I knew someone who’s got more lore than I—ye gods! Meer.”

  When she banged the book shut, dust puffed, and the Wildfolk disappeared.

  After a lot of asking and searching through the dun, she found Meer round back of the stable, sitting on a wagon bed and taking the sun while nearby young Jahdo curried their white horse. The pair spent a lot of time with their horse and mule, or so she’d noticed, and when she found them Meer was holding one of the stable cats in his lap as well, stroking the animal absentmindedly while he chatted with the boy.

  “Good morrow, Jill,” Jahdo sang out as she approached. “Meer, it be Jill, come to see us.”

  “And a good morrow to you, mazrak,” Meer rumbled. “I assume your coming bodes good, at the least.”

  “Probably not,” Jill said, smiling. “It never does these days. I’ve come with a lore question for you, good bard.”

  “Indeed? Well, answer me one and I’ll consider answering yours.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Jahdo here tells me that Princess Carra is married to a man of a tribe called the Westfolk, and it seems that they’re the horseherders who saved the Rhiddaer people when they fled the Slavers, all those long years ago.”

  “That’s quite true.”

  “Ah. And, says Jahdo, these people have the same form as the gods.”

  Puzzled, Jill glanced Jahdo’s way. He nodded a vigorous yes.

  “Well, then, I suppose they do,” Jill said. “I’ve never seen one of your gods, so I wouldn’t know.”

  “Huh. I should have thought of that. Of course you wouldn’t. No doubt you have gods of your own, and why would mine appear to you? Well, then. That tears that. No offense to you, lad, but I was hoping for another view, as it were, of the matter.”

  “Oh, I know,” Jahdo said cheerfully. “But they be just like the blessed lady who did come to us in our cell.”

  “Rhodry told me about that, by the way.” Jill hesitated, wondering if she should tell him the truth, then decided that if it comforted the boy to think Dallandra a god, well and good. Besides, leaving him his belief was a fair bit easier than explaining. “Meer, I don’t know what to think about the resemblance.”

  “No doubt these Westfolk were formed in the images of the gods for some divine purpose.”

  “It could well be, for all I know. Or wait, Meer. They’re refugees, that’s all, from the Seven Cities. The ones your people hold now.”

  Meer tossed his head back, then muttered something in his own tongue that might have been a quick prayer.

  “The Children of the Gods, then,” he whispered, awestruck. “Are you telling me, mazrak, that immortals lodge in this very dun?”

  “I’m not, because they’re as mortal as you or I, though they do live a very long time.”

  “Ah. If they’re not immortal, they can’t have lived in the Seven Cities of the Far West.” Meer’s voice turned tight and hard. “They must just be those horseherders.”

  “Well, these elves didn’t live there, truly. Their ancestors did. I assume they made the images of the gods you know to look like themselves.”

  Meer growled long and hard.

  “What’s so wrong, good bard?” she spoke cautiously. “I meant no offense.”

  “Indeed? Then why do you speak sacrilege?” He hesitated, on the edge of saying more, then merely grunted.

  All at once Jill realized that she stood to lose his goodwill.

  “Well,” she said. “No doubt you’re right about their origins. It was all a long time ago now, anyway.”

  For a moment he sat silently, his hands tight on his staff, his massive head inclining toward her; then he made a sound under his breath that was half a snort, half a laugh.

  “And what was your question?” he said. “If it skirts the edge of impious things, as this other talk’s done, then I shan’t answer it.”

  “Well, then, I’ll hope it’s not impious. Do you know any lore pertaining to dragons?”

  “A fair bit, truly.” Meer relaxed, baring his fangs in a smile. “It’s one of the fifty-two required topics for a bard who would be more than a singer at feasts and funerals.”

  “My grandfather did see one once,” Jahdo piped up. “Flying north of our town. And the day after a farmer did tell how two of his cows did get taken, both at once, like, by the beast.”

  Jill started to make some jesting remark, then realized that the boy was dead-serious. Something about his almost offhand sincerity convinced her that he was speaking simple truth, repeating not some tall tale but an actual incident. Her blood ran cold. This thing is real, she told herself. Only then did she see her own disbelief, that in spite of all her searching for lore, in spite of all the long hours she’d scried and pondered, she’d honestly thought, somewhere deep in her mind and until this very moment, that the creature and its name were merely some peculiar prank or jest of Evandar’s.

  Somewhere round the middle of the afternoon, Rhodry was walking across the ward when he saw Jill hurrying to meet him. He paused, smiling as he waited, but the grim look in her eyes soon wiped the smile away.

  “What’s so wrong?” he said.

  “Naught. Well, except for everything, of course. Rhodry, I need to talk with you, somewhere we can’t possibly be overheard. I think we’d best try the rooftop.”

  They climbed the spiral staircase to the top chamber of the main broch, a squat and narrow space stuffed with bundled arrows. In the ceiling a trapdoor and wooden ladder led out to the flat roof. Cengarn fell away from them, their view tumbling down the city’s hills and spreading out into a pool of green farmland, striped with forest, stretching farther and farther until the mists swallowed their sight at the horizon. Jill walked over to the rim’s wall, barely three feet high, and sat, looking down so far and so casually that Rhodry could barely stand to watch her.

  “Do you enjoy it when you fly?” he remarked.

  “I do, at that. It’s a glorious feeling.”

  “I rather thought you would, knowing you as I do. If ever there was a soul born to fly free, it would be you.”

  “You can still charm a lass’s heart, can’t you, Rhoddo? Or an old woman’s. Come sit down.”

  “Shan’t, if it’s all the same to you. Not there, anyway.”

  She laughed with a toss of her silver hair.

  “Well, mock me all you like, but I’ve never fancied being up this high. Climbing the Cannobaen light used to turn my guts, not that I would ever have admitted it then, back when I was young. Besides, if I should fall, I couldn’t sprout wings to catch myself like you can.”

  “Well, then, we’ll have to get you the loan of a pair. That’s why I wanted to talk with you, in fact.”

  “Oh, ye gods! What now?”

  “How gracious you sound.”

  “It’s enough to drive a man daft, having sorcerers jest with him.”

  “Why do you think I’m jesting?”

  “Well, all this talk of wings, of course.” He stopped, suddenly wondering if he should be afraid.

  “Not a jest at all. It has to do with that word graved inside your ring.”

  Reflexively he held up his right hand, and the silver band flashed on the third finger.

  “Arzosah Sothy Lorezohaz.” Jill formed each word carefully. “As far as I’ve been able to figure out, that’s how you should pronounce those written characters, and the pronouncing of them is truly important. Your life’s going to depend upon it.”

  “What? What is it, some kind of spell?”

  “It is and it isn’t. It’s a name, but a name that’s a spell by its very nature. The name gives you control over the owner of the name, you see.”

  “I don’t see anything of the sort, my thanks. Who owns it?”

  “A dragon, as a matter of fact.”

  Rhodry started to laugh, but she looked at him so mildly, so blandly, that his mirth spilled and
ran.

  “There’s no such thing as dragons,” he snarled. “Except the kind they have in Aberwyn, pretty pictures to put upon a banner or a bit of jewelry.”

  “Not true, Rhoddo, not true. Up in the Roof of the World there are a few, a very few, of the great wyrms, living in solitude, and they’re much like the legends and bard tales paint them, too. Or so I have it on the very best authority.”

  “Now wait a minute. Whose authority?”

  “Er, well.” She glanced away in faked indifference. “Evandar’s.”

  “Ye gods! That crazed creature? How by all the hells and their privies can you trust one word of what he says?”

  “I had a feeling you were going to be difficult about this.”

  Rhodry snorted profoundly and began pacing back and forth, his hands shoved into his brigga pockets.

  “Will you listen to me?” she snapped.

  “I’m listening. Spout away. The bard here’s a melancholy man, and I could use a good jest.”

  He heard her make a sound that was almost a growl.

  “Still as pigheaded as always, aren’t you?” she said at last.

  “I’m pigheaded? You drag me up here and start telling me crazed tales, and then when I don’t hang on every word like a truckler you call me pigheaded.”

  “Well, maybe I’ve been a bit unfair.”

  It was his turn to growl.

  “Will you stop pacing like that? You’re driving me daft.”

  With a melodramatic sigh he sat down on the roof near her feet.

  “Very well. Talk away.”

  “I’ll try to make things clear. You remember your father’s tale, that a mysterious being gave him the ring, announcing that it was for one of his sons. Well, that person was Evandar in disguise. He’s the one who graved the name into the ring, because of a vision he had.”

  “And can we believe a word of anything Evandar tells us?”

  She considered this question seriously.

  “I think we can in this case. Besides, Meer’s told me much dragon lore, and it matches what Evandar says. They can think and speak, and they put great store in their names. They believe that if a man knows their true name, he controls them.”

  “I’m not sure if I trust Meer any more than I do Evandar.”

  “Well, he’s the only loremaster we’ve got who knows one wretched thing about dragons.”

  “I suppose so. Do you think that’s true, about the name controlling them?”

  “It doesn’t matter if it is, so long as they believe it.”

  “Sounds a risky thing to me, frankly, hoping they’ll believe when the least thing could prove them wrong. But now wait. I don’t understand. Why is the dragon so important?”

  “Evandar had a vision. He saw the beast guarding Carra’s child once it was born, and helping Dallandra in her work, and then at length guarding the ruins of a city he thought to be Rinbaladelan. So he found the dragon of his vision and wheedled its name out of it, somehow or other. I don’t know how he managed, but he did.”

  “Oh, very well. Suppose I accept that. Suppose, for the sake of argument alone, that he did indeed have the vision, find the wyrm, and grave its name on this convenient little bauble. Why give the ring to me?”

  She tilted her head to one side and considered him for so long that he began to feel uneasy.

  “I’ll answer that if you wish,” she said at last. “If you truly, truly wish it, Rhodry, I will answer. But I warn you, the answer will tear the way you think about the world into pieces, and the way you look at your life and at other men’s lives as well.”

  He got up and began pacing again, back and forth. To the south the hills dropped away to farmland and the settled kingdoms that had bounded his whole life. To the north he could see with his half-elven sight to a far horizon where hovered white peaks, whether only clouds or the actual mountains he couldn’t tell, but a promise of the Roof of the World. The view was beautiful, even alluring, calling him, daring him, even, to risk that distant height. He could climb another height, this one of the soul, if he dared. All he had to do was ask. She would answer. He spun round to find Jill waiting, her hands patient in her lap. All he had to do was ask.

  “You want me to go hunt this dragon,” he said instead.

  She smiled, and the moment broke between them.

  “Not to kill it or suchlike. To find it and get it onto our side,”

  “And how do you expect me to do that?”

  “By talking it round. Meer swears up and down that the great wyrms all speak Elvish.”

  When he rolled his eyes heavenward in disgust, she growled again. He laughed.

  “And will you be coming with me?”

  “I can’t. I’ve got to stay with Carra, for one thing, and for another, there’s trouble brewing here.”

  He strode back to the north side of the roof. Far away the white glimmerings of mountains danced on the horizon.

  “Jill, I’ve always been a warrior, whether it’s been as an honored lord in Aberwyn or a road-filthy silver dagger. In all the battles I’ve ridden I’ve never faced a man stupid enough to call me a coward. You know that, and you know it isn’t fear that’s making me hesitate now. The thing is, what do I know of wild country? Ye gods, all my fighting’s been done in armies, with supply trains right at hand. I’m no trapper or forester, to go tramping off through the woods looking for some wild beast.”

  “Now that, alas, is true spoken.”

  He walked over to the wall and forced himself to look down. Far below, the stableyard lay tiny, with horses the size of cats and grooms like mice. For a moment he wondered what it would be like to swoop down, free for one glorious moment before the cobbles brought him death. He made himself look up.

  “I can see why you didn’t want anyone overhearing this story.”

  “For fear they’d think I’d gone mad?” Jill sounded amused. “To tell you the truth, Rhoddo, I’m rather surprised at myself for believing what Evandar says, but you see, it makes sense of a lot of things I’ve learned for myself, ties them all up. You will go fetch the dragon, won’t you?”

  “How can I promise you that? I’ll certainly go try.” He grinned at her. “Try with all my heart and soul, because it seems a fine way to court my lady Death, if naught else. But to promise you that I’ll succeed would be a stain upon my honor and a waste of breath both.”

  “True enough. You have my heartfelt thanks.”

  She stretched, cat-lazy in the warm sun, smiling a little, human again for that brief moment—until he realized how casually she took his talk of his lady Death, as if she knew perhaps better than he did how close his suit was to a successful outcome. He hesitated on the verge of asking outright, but she turned away, her smile fading, to look across the uneven rooftop.

  “There’s somewhat that I’ve got to teach you,” she said.“But I’m afraid of being overheard, no matter where we go in the dun, even up here.”

  “Is it as secret as all that?”

  “Well, it is and it isn’t. Every priest in the kingdom knows how to do this, but I don’t want the wrong people knowing you know.”

  “That doesn’t make much sense.”

  “It aches my heart to say this, but from now on, I fear me that not much of what I say is going to make a cursed lot of sense. But for the love of every god, trust me enough to do what I say. Can you do that, Rhoddo? Will you?”

  “I’m naught but a silver dagger, riding at some other man’s command. Lead away, cadvridoc, and I’ll do my best to follow.”

  She smiled, but briefly.

  “Well and good, then. Sit down, will you? If we had time, I’d explain everything, but we don’t, and so you’ll have to learn this by rote. Meer’s lore insists that speaking a dragon’s secret name gives you power over the beast, and Evandar swears up and down that the name Inside the ring’s absolutely correct. But you can’t just say it out like you’d say any name—oh, Jill, is that you—or suchlike. Or even like you’d say the king’s
name, all proper and full of courtesy. There’s a dweomer way of pronouncing these things, and you’ve absolutely got to have it down right. If you don’t, and you do face this creature, it’s most likely going to kill you.”

  “I somehow guessed that.”

  “You don’t have to yell and scream, mind, but you’ve got to bring the sound up from your very heart and soul and make it vibrate like a loosed bowstring. First you breathe very deeply and slowly, to fill your lungs and steady yourself down, then you bring the sound out.” She paused, thinking hard. “I can’t describe it in words. I’ll have to show you, but ye gods, I don’t want anyone hearing!”

  “We could ride out to the countryside?”

  “I don’t dare leave the dun, either. Of course, if a thunderstorm or suchlike should come up, we could make all the noise we wanted up here without anyone being the wiser.”

  Rhodry looked up at the clear and sunny sky.

  “Not likely, is it?” he said.

  Jill merely smiled.

  Some little while before sunset the storm hit. Rhodry was walking across the ward when he felt the wind, whistling up cool and sharp from the west. He trotted over to the outer wall, scrambled up to a catwalk, and watched the sky from this perch with a view free of the encircling dun. Far off to the west the sun was sinking in a huge billow of black cloud, rising above hill and forest and sweeping toward Cengarn. Often out on the grasslands he’d seen storms like this, charging unobstructed over the plains, but never in hill country. The clouds headed for the town so purposefully that for a moment he feared some vast and unnatural fire; then he remembered Jill, and her smile.

  Just as the sky was darkening over, and the wind was turning damp, Jill hailed him from the ward below. It was time, he supposed, for his lesson. When he climbed down, she remarked as much.

  “If there’s lightning with this storm,” he said, “we’d best not go up on the tower roof again.”