Dragon's Bane

VIII

In the deathly hush that hung over the gardens, Gareth’s descent from the wall sounded like the mating of oxen in dry brush. Jenny winced as the boy crashed down the last few feet into the shrubbery; from the shadows of the ivy on the wall top at her side she saw the dim flash of spectacle lenses and heard a voice breathe, “You forgot to shout ‘Eleven o’clock and all’s well,’ my hero!”

A faint slur of ivy followed. She felt John land on the ground below more than she heard him. After a last check of the dark garden half-visible through the woven branches of the bare trees, she slipped down to join them. In the darkness, Gareth was a gawky shadow in rust-colored velvet, John barely to be seen at all, the random pattern of his plaids blending into the colors of the night.

“Over there,” Gareth whispered, nodding toward the far side of the garden where a light burned in a niche between two trefoil arches. Its brightness spangled the wet grass like pennies thrown by a careless hand.

He started to lead the way, but John touched his arm and breathed, “I think we’d better send a scout, if it’s burglary and all we’re after. I’ll work round the three sides through the shadows of the wall; when I get there, I’ll whistle once like a nightjar. Right?”

Gareth caught his sleeve as he started to move off. “But what if a real nightjar whistles?”

“What, at this time of the year?” And he melted like a cat into the darkness. Jenny could see him, shifting his way through the checkered shadows of the bare topiary that decorated the three sides of the King’s private court; by the way Gareth moved his head, she could tell he had lost sight of him almost at once.

Near the archways there was a slither of rosy lamplight on a spectacle frame, the glint of spikes, and the brief outline of brightness on the end of a long nose. Gareth, seeing him safe, started to move, and Jenny drew him soundlessly back again. John had not yet whistled.

An instant later, Zyerne appeared in the doorway arch.

Though John stood less than six feet from her, she did not at first see him, for he settled into stillness like a snake in leaves. The enchantress’s face, illuminated in the warm apricot light, wore that same sated look Jenny had seen in the upstairs room at the hunting lodge near the Wildspae—the look of deep content with some wholly private pleasure. Now, as then, it raised the hackles on Jenny’s neck, and at the same time she felt a cold shudder of fear.

Then Zyerne turned her head. She startled, seeing John motionless so near to her; then she smiled. “Well. An enterprising barbarian.” She shook out her unbound, unveiled hair, straying tendrils of it lying against the hollow of her cheek, like an invitation to a caress. “A little late, surely, to be paying calls on the King.”

“A few weeks late, by all I’ve heard.” Aversin scratched his nose self-consciously. “But better late than never, as Dad said at Granddad’s wedding.”

Zyerne giggled, a sweet and throaty sound. Beside her, Jenny felt Gareth shiver, as if the seductive laughter brought memories of evil dreams.

“And impudent as well. Did your mistress send you along to see if Uriens had been entangled in spells other than his own stupidity and lust?”

Jenny heard the hiss of Gareth’s breath and sensed his anger and his shock at hearing the guttersnipe words fall so casually from those pink lips. Jenny wondered why she herself was not surprised.

John only shrugged and said mildly, “No. It’s just I’m no dab hand at waiting.”

“Ah.” Her smile widened, lazy and alluring. She seemed half-drunk, but not sleepy as drunkards are; she glowed, as she had on that first morning in the King’s Gallery, bursting with life and filled with the casual arrogance of utter well-being. The lamp in its tiled niche edged her profile in amber as she stepped toward John, and Jenny felt again the grip of fear, as if John stood unknowingly in deadly danger. “The barbarian who eats with his hands—and doubtless makes love in his boots.”

Her hands touched his shoulders caressingly, shaping themselves to the muscle and bone beneath the leather and plaid. But Aversin stepped back a pace, putting distance between them, rather as she had done in the gallery to Dromar. Like Dromar, she would not relax her selfconsequence enough to pursue.

In a deliberately deepened north-country drawl, he said, “Aye, my lack of manners does give me sleepless nights. But it weren’t to eat prettily nor yet to make love that I came south. I was told you had this dragon eating folks hereabouts.”

She giggled again, an evil trickle of sound in the night. “You shall have your chance to slay it when all is ready. Timing is a civilized art, my barbarian.”

“Aye,” John’s voice agreed, from the dark cutout of his silhouette against the golden light. “And I’ve had buckets of time to study it here, along with all them other civilized arts, like courtesy and kindness to suppliants, not to speak of honor, and keeping one’s faith with one’s lover, instead of rubbing up against his son.”

There were perhaps three heartbeats of silence before she spoke. Jenny saw her back stiffen; when she spoke again, her voice, though still sweet, had a note to it like a harp string taken a half-turn above its true note. “What is it to you, John Aversin? It is how things are done here in the south. None of it shall interfere with your chance of glory. That is all that should concern you. I shall tell you when it is right for you to go.

“Listen to me, Aversin, and believe me. I know this dragon. You have slain one worm—you have not met Morkeleb the Black, the Dragon of Nast Wall. He is mightier than the worm you slew before, mightier than you can ever know.”

“I’d guessed that.” John pushed up his specs, the rosy light glancing off the spikes of his armbands as from spearpoints. “I’ll just have to slay him how I can, seemingly.”

“No.” Acid burned through the sweetness other voice like poisoned candy. “You can not. I know it, if you and that slut of yours don’t. Do you think I don’t know that those stinking offal-eaters, the gnomes, have lied to you? That they refused to give you true maps of the Deep? I know the Deep, John Aversin—I know every tunnel and passage. I know the heart of the Deep. Likewise I know every spell of illusion and protection, and believe me, you will need them against the dragon’s wrath. You will need my aid, if you are to have victory—you will need my aid if you are to come out of that combat with your life. Wait, I say, and you shall have that aid; and afterward, from the spoils of the Deep, I shall reward you beyond the dreams of any man’s avarice.”

John tilted his head a little to one side. “You’ll reward-me?”

In the silence of the sea-scented night. Jenny heard the other woman’s breath catch.

“How is it you’ll be the one to divvy up the gnomes’ treasure?” John asked. “Are you anticipating taking over the Deep, once the dragon’s out of the way?”

“No,” she said, too quickly. “That is—surely you know that the insolence of the gnomes has led them to plot against his Majesty? They are no longer the strong folk they were before the coming of Morkeleb. Those that were not slain are divided and weak. Many have left this town, forfeiting all their rights, and good riddance to them.”

“Were I treated as I’ve seen them treated,” John remarked, leaning one shoulder against the blue-and-yellow tiles of the archway, “I’d leave, myself.”

“They deserved it.” Her words stung with sudden venom. “They kept me from...” She stopped herself, then added, more reasonably, “You know they are openly in league with the rebels of Halnath—or you should know it. It would be foolish to dispose of the dragon before their plots are uncovered. It would only give them a strong place and a treasure to return to, to engage in plotting further treason.”

“I know the King and the people have heard nothing but how the gnomes are plotting,” Aversin replied in a matter-of-fact voice. “And from what I hear, the gnomes up at the Citadel haven’t much choice about whose side they’re on. Gar’s being gone must have been a real boon to you there; with the King half-distracted, he’d have been about ready to believe anything. And I suppose it would be foolish to get rid of the dragon before so many of the gnomes have left the Realm—or some reason can be found for getting rid of the rest of ’em—that they can’t reoccupy their stronghold, if so be it happened someone else wanted the place, that is.”

There was a moment’s silence. Jenny could see the light slither quickly along the silk facing of Zyerne’s sleeve, where her small hand clenched it in anger, leaving a print of wrinkles like the track of invisible thoughts. “These are matters of high polity, Dragonsbane. It is nothing to you, after all. I tell you, be patient and wait until I tell you it is time for us to ride together to the Deep, you and I’ll promise that you shall not be cheated of this slaying.”

She stepped close to him again, and the diamonds on her hands threw little spits of fire against the dullness of leather and plaid.

“No,” Aversin said, his voice low. “Nor shall you be cheated of the Deep, after I’ve done your butchering for you. You summoned the dragon, didn’t you?”

“No.” The word was brittle as the snap of a frost-killed twig. “Of course not.”

“Didn’t you, love? Then it’s gie lucky for you that it came along just when it did, when you were wanting a power base free of the King, in case he tired of you or died; not to speak of all that gold.”

Jenny felt the scorch of her wrath like an invisible explosion across the garden, even as Zyerne raised her hand. Jenny’s throat closed on a cry of fear and warning, knowing she could never have moved in time to help and could not have stood against the younger woman’s magic, if she did; Aversin, his back to the stone of the arch, could only throw his arm before his eyes as the white fire snaked from Zyerne’s hand. The hissing crackle of it in the air was like lightning; the blaze of it, so white it seemed edged in violet, seared over every stone chink and moss tuft in the pavement and outlined each separate, waxy petal of the winter roses in colorless glare. In its aftermath, the air burned with the smell of ozone and scorched leaves.

After a long moment, John raised his face from his protecting arms. Even across the garden. Jenny could see he was shaking; her own knees were so weak from shock and fear she felt she could have collapsed, except for her greater fear of Zyerne; and she cursed her own lack of power. John, standing before Zyerne, did not move.

It was Zyerne who spoke, her voice dripping with triumph. “You get above yourself, Dragonsbane. I’m not that snaggle-haired trollop of yours, that you can speak to me with impunity. I am a true sorceress.”

Aversin said nothing, but carefully removed his spectacles and wiped his eyes. Then he replaced them and regarded her silently in the dim light of the garden lamp.

“I am a true sorceress,” she repeated softly. She held out her hands to him, the small fingers plucking at his sleeves, and a husky note crept into her sweet voice. “And who says our alliance must be so truculent, Dragonsbane? You need not spend your time here tugging with impatience to be gone. I can make the wait pleasant.”

As her delicate hands touched his face, however, Aversin caught the fragile wrists, forcing her away at arm’s length. For an instant they stood so, facing one another, the silence absolute but for the racing draw of their breath. Her eyes were fixed upon his, probing at his mind. Jenny knew, the same way she had probed at Gareth’s earlier, seeking some key of consent.

With a curse she twisted free of his grip. “So,” she whispered. “That raddled bitch can at least get her rutting spells right, can she? With her looks, she’d have to. But let me tell you this, Dragonsbane. When you ride to meet the dragon, like it or not, it will be me who rides with you, not her. You shall need my aid, and you shall ride forth when I say so, when I tell the King to give you leave, and not before. So learn a little of the civilized art of patience, my barbarian—for without my aid against Morkeleb, you shall surely die.”

She stepped away from him and passed under the lamplit arch, reaching out to take the light with her as she went. In its honeyed brightness her face looked as gentle and guileless as that of a girl of seventeen, unmarked by rage or perversion, pettiness or spite. John remained where he was, watching her go, sweat beading his face like a mist of diamonds, motionless save where he rubbed the thin, sharp flashburns on his hands.

A moment later, the window behind him glowed into soft life- Through the fretted screen of scented shrubs and vine that twined its filigreed lattice. Jenny got a glimpse of the room beyond. She had an impression of half-seen frescoes on the walls, of expensive vessels of gold and silver, and of the glint of bullion embroidery thickly edging the hangings of the bed. A man lay in the bed, moving feebly in some restless dream, his gold hair faded and colorless where it lay in disorder over the embroidered pillows. His face was sunken and devoid of life, like the face of a man whom a vampire has kissed.

“It would serve her right if you left tonight!” Gareth stormed. “Rode back north and left her to deal with her own miserable worm, if she wanted it so badly!”

He swung around to pace the big chamber of the guest house again, so furious he could barely splutter. In his anger, he seemed to have forgotten his own fear of Zyerne and his desire for protection against her, forgotten his long quest to the Winterlands and his desperation to have it succeed. From her seat in the window. Jenny watched him fulminate, her own face outwardly calm but her mind racing.

John looked up from tinkering with the keys of the hurdy-gurdy. “It wouldn’t do, my hero,” he said quietly. “However and whyever it got here, the dragon’s here now. As Zyerne said, the people hereabouts are no concern of mine, but I can’t be riding off and leaving them to the dragon. Leaving out the gnomes, there’s the spring planting to be thought of.”

The boy stopped in his pacing, staring at him. “Hunh?” John shrugged, his fingers stilling on the pegs. “The harvest’s gone,” he pointed out. “If the dragon’s still abroad in the land in the spring, there’ll be no crop, and then, my hero, you’ll see real starvation in this town.”

Gareth was silent. It was something he had never thought of. Jenny guessed. He had clearly never gone short of food in his life.

“Besides,” John went on, “unless the gnomes can reoccupy the Deep pretty quick, Zyerne will destroy them here, as Dromar said, and your friend Polycarp in the Citadel as well. For all Dromar’s hedging about keeping us out of the heart of the Deep, the gnomes have done for us what they can; and the way I see it, Polycarp saved your life, or at least kept you from ending up like your father, so deep under Zyerne’s spells he can’t tell one week from the next. No, the dragon’s got to be killed.”

“But that’s just it,” Gareth argued. “If you kill the dragon, she’ll be free to take over the Deep, and then the Citadel will fall because they’ll be able to attack it from the rear.” He looked worriedly over at Jenny. “Could she have summoned the dragon?”

Jenny was silent, thinking about that terrible power she had felt in the garden, and the dreadful, perverted lour of it in the lamplit room at Zyerne’s hunting lodge. She said, “I don’t know. It’s the first time I’ve heard of human magic being able to touch a dragon—but then, Zyerne derives her magic from the gnomes. I have never heard of such a thing...”

“Cock by its feet, horse by its home...” repeated John. “Could she be holding the dragon by his name? She knows it, right enough.”

Jenny shook her head. “Morkeleb is only the name men give it, the way they call Azwylcartusherands Dromar, and Taseldwyn Mab. If she’d had his true name, his essence, she could send him away again; and she obviously can’t, or she would have killed you in the garden tonight.”

She hitched her shawl up over her shoulders, a thin and glittering spiderweb of South Islands silk, the thick masses of her hair lying over it like a second shawl. Cold seemed to breathe through the window at her back.

Gareth went back to pacing, his hands shoved in the pockets of the old leather hunting breeches he’d put on to go burgling.

“But she didn’t know its name, did she?”

“No,” replied Jenny. “And in that case...” She paused, then frowned, dismissing the thought.

“What?” John wanted to know, catching the doubt in her voice.

“No,” she repeated. “It’s inconceivable that at her level of power she wouldn’t have been taught Limitations. It’s the first thing anyone learns.” And seeing Gareth’s incomprehension, she explained. “It’s one of the things that takes me so long when I weave spells. You have to limit the effect of any spell. If you call rain, you must specify a certain heaviness, so as not to flood the countryside. If you call a curse of destruction upon someone or something, you have to set Limitations so that their destruction doesn’t come in a generalized catastrophe that wipes out your own house and goods. Magic is very prodigal in its effects. Limitations are among the earliest things a mage is taught.”

“Even among the gnomes?” Gareth asked. “You said their magic is different.”

“It is taught differently—transmitted differently. There are things Mab has said that I do not understand and things that she refuses to tell me about how their power is formed. But it is still magic. Mab knows the Limitations—from what she has told me, I gather they are more important in the night below the ground. If she studied among the gnomes, Zyerne would have to have learned about them.”

John threw back his head and laughed in genuine amusement. “Gaw, it must be rotting her!” He chuckled. “Think of it, Jen. She wants to get rid of the gnomes, so she calls down a generalized every-worst-curse she can think of upon them—and gets a dragon she can’t get rid of! It’s gie beautiful!”

“It’s ‘gie’ frivolous,” Jenny retorted.

“No wonder she threw fire at me! She must be that furious just thinking about it!” His eyes were dancing under his singed brows.

“It just isn’t possible,” Jenny insisted, in the cool voice she used to call their sons back from skylarking. Then, more seriously, “She can’t have gotten to that degree of power untaught, John. It’s impossible. All power must be paid for, somehow.”

“But it’s the sort of thing that would happen if it hadn’t been, isn’t it?”

Jenny didn’t reply. For a long time she stared out the window at the dark shape of the battlements, visible beneath the chilly autumn stars. “I don’t know,” she said at last, stroking the spiderweb fringes other gauze shawl.

“She has so much power. It’s inconceivable that she hasn’t paid for it in some fashion. The key to magic is magic. She has had all time and all power to study it fully. And yet...” She paused, identifying at last her own feelings toward what Zyerne was and did. “I thought that someone who had achieved that level of power would be different.”

“Ah,” John said softly. Across the room, their eyes met. “But don’t think that what she’s done with her achievement has betrayed your striving, love. For it hasn’t. It’s only betrayed her own.”

Jenny sighed, reflecting once again on John’s uncanny ability to touch the heart of any problem, then smiled a little at herself; and they traded a kiss in a glance.

Gareth said quietly, “But what are we going to do? The dragon has to be destroyed; and, if you destroy it, you’ll be playing right into her hands.”

A smile flicked across John’s face, a glimpse of the bespectacled schoolboy peeking out from behind the complex barricades raised by the hardships of the Winterlands and his father’s embittered domination. Jenny felt his eyes on her again—the tip of one thick reddish brow and the question in the bright glance. After ten years, they had grown used to speaking without words.

A qualm of fear passed over her, though she knew he was right. After a moment, she drew her breath in another sigh and nodded.

“Good.” John’s impish smile widened, like that of a boy intent on doing mischief, and he rubbed his hands briskly. He turned to Gareth. “Get your socks packed, my hero. We leave for the Deep tonight.”