The Dragonbards

Chapter 25

As Sharden fell from a city of vivid life to a prison of despair, so all Tirror now follows.

*

Teb and Seastrider crossed over the last islands just at dusk and made for the Aquervell shore, dropping low over cadacus fields that grew along the coast. The city of Sharden rose beyond the fields, a tangle of close, narrow streets running at all angles and crowded with shacks and stone mansions pushing against one another. The city was built along and over three rivers, its seventeen bridges each crusted with houses and shops divided by a narrow cobbled lane. On a hill apart from Sharden stood Quazelzeg’s castle, a fortress of dark-gray stone.

Sharden had once been the jewel of Tirror. It was the center where all craftsmen had come to study, to trade, to celebrate and feast. The shops had been filled with wares wrought half with skill and half with magic cloth of gold reflecting distant visions, kettles of copper that could brew an ambrosia of healing, bridles that could immediately gentle the wildest colt. That magic was gone now; the city was a morass of dirty streets and bawdy houses and drug dens and theaters where a night’s entertainment watching unspeakable tortures could be had for the price of a new victim—a child or small animal.

Seastrider circled high above the clouds until nighttime. When they could not be seen, she dropped down to a rocky hill beyond palace and city, where she could lie hidden among jutting boulders. From here Teb could see the palace and the guards pacing atop its wall.

He ate a simple supper of dried meat and bread, wondering if he should slip into the palace when most of its inhabitants slept, to find the gold Door. Perhaps that would be the easiest way through into the Castle of Doors. There were two such Doors, far from the Castle of Doors but opening into it by spells. Meriden had gone through the other Door, in the sunken city, to move through warping space into the Castle of Doors and so into other worlds. If Meriden had been able to move through that Door, surely he and Seastrider could enter through this one.

The other way would be to fly north over the mountains until they saw the castle as they had seen it in Meriden’s vision—but the gold Door was so near. Surely he could get to it unseen when the palace slept.

“And how would I get into the palace, Tebriel? How would I squeeze myself into palace chambers, to reach the gold Door? No, Tebriel. Not possible. We must go over the mountains.”

“Yes, all right,” he said, keeping his own counsel. “But tonight we must rest. It was a long journey from Auric. You flew against heavy winds.” Strangely, now that he was here, he was not ready. Something held him back. He wondered if Meriden’s will held him . . . not before you are ready. Take care. . . .

Seastrider looked at him uneasily. Yet if he wanted sleep, so be it. She curled down between the boulders, to rest and keep watch. He lay down against her.

He could hear, from the city, the faint sounds of horses and wagons, doors slamming, and scattered shouts. When it grew late, the shouts increased, mixed with harsh music. The city drew him, with its tangle of narrow streets and of different peoples. He turned over, away from it, and at last he slept.

He woke to far, raucous laughter and the terrified screams of a child. He sat up and didn’t sleep any more.

Near to midnight, a coach arrived at the palace from the east, its six horses gleaming with sweat in the torchlight. Soldiers snapped to attention, and servants backed away in deference as a tall, hunched figure stepped out—a figure that struck terror into Teb.

As he watched Quazelzeg enter the palace, Teb’s urgency to go through the Doors faltered again. By the time the palace quieted and lamps were snuffed, he had worked himself into a turmoil of doubt.

Quite late, he began to see snatches of vision.

He saw Meriden. All around her swirled dimensions ever changing—meadow, wood, hellfire, stars, swamp, blackness. He saw a cave that was a dragon’s tomb, the giant white skeleton looming, and, afraid, he turned away from it. He wandered through shifting worlds stumbling and confused.

But slowly the confusion left him. The hunger that Quazelzeg had planted through drugs and mind warping grew bold. He began to lust for the drugs, to need them, and to hunger for the powers the drugs would give him.

Those powers, he thought with sudden understanding, were powers he could use to drive the dark out, not to help it—if he was clever.

If he was canny, he could outsmart Quazelzeg. With the powers the drugs gave him—powers Quazelzeg had meant him to use for the dark—he could defeat the un-man. With those terrible powers he had touched when he lay in Quazelzeg’s palace, he could control Tirror and control everyone in it. And then, instead of helping the unliving, he would force every soul upon Tirror to rise against the unliving and drive the dark out.

How simple. And how foolproof. He had only to make Quazelzeg think he had turned to the dark.

When he had such power, he would permit only goodness upon Tirror. Hadn’t Thakkur himself said, I have—faith in you, Tebriel—in your goodness, in your ultimate good sense.

His need to control was different from Quazelzeg’s greed for control. He, Tebriel, wanted only to save Tirror. He needed the drugs to strengthen his powers—he would take of the powers of the unliving and join them with his own powers, and thus make himself invincible.

He would save Tirror.

He would find drugs easily in Sharden, on any street corner. He was completely caught in the brilliance of his plan, when suddenly Seastrider struck him across the face, knocking him backward. He stared at her, shocked.

“He steals your soul, Tebriel! He takes your soul from you!”

“He does nothing of the kind! What’s the matter with you?”

“He is sending visions to destroy you! He is drawing your mind into the darkness!”

“His thoughts are not touching me! Leave me alone!”

Seastrider reared over him. Her power hit him like a storm; her eyes blazed as she sought to destroy Quazelzeg’s hold. She breathed out fire and cuffed him, and drove him up the hill farther from the city and palace. He could not use a sword against her any more than he could thrust it through his own body. She cornered him among boulders. He fought her with his bard powers, defying her with a fury he had never imagined he would feel for her. But for every movement he made, she bested him. She would not let him leave the hill.

In the small hours, when he saw he could not win, he pretended to falter. He rolled into his blanket and made a skillful vision of sleep.

Seastrider did not sleep. Each time he glanced up, she was watching him.

*

Across the continents the pilgrimage was now a strong army marching steadily north. Slaves had become soldiers. The cats and wolves and otters and foxes hunted food for the humans and shared the children’s beds to warm them. No one was turned away; all had a right to confront the dark on Aquervell.

But the unliving, too, marched north.

*

Quazelzeg was not yet ready for Teb to enter the Castle of Doors. Deftly he wove visions for Tebriel through the power he held over him, renewing the black chambers of confusion that he had erected in Tebriel’s mind and renewing the bard’s drug hunger.

The twisted visions sucked at Teb in grand vistas of power, so he hardly remembered that he and the bards together—or even he and Meriden—might already possess the power to draw the unliving away from Tirror and destroy them. He clung to the grander plan. He fought his confusion sometimes, sweating and trapped in the consuming pit of Quazelzeg’s will. But more often he followed the dark dream. Day came, then night again. He made no move to set out for the mountains. Seastrider did not sleep but watched him steadily. She would not allow him to leave the hill. When dark soldiers skirted the base of the hill, Seastrider drove them off, raging at Teb to fight them.

Teb would not. He turned away from her, nursing his own thoughts. For two days he dreamed his grand dream and longed for the power-strengthening drugs, and waited for Seastrider to sleep. He did nothing to help Meriden.

Late on the second night, when Seastrider could no longer keep awake, when she dozed in spite of a terrible effort of will, Teb moved away from her down the dark, rocky hill. The craving drew him powerfully. If, in some dark recess of his mind, it terrified him, too, he ignored that. The black desire pulled him on, toward the night sounds of Sharden.

Sharden’s streets were narrow, rubbish-strewn, and dim. He stumbled through them eagerly. The city smelled of stale food and animal dung . . . and drugs. Ahead of him, shouting crowds had gathered for some brutal entertainment. Teb hurried to them, drawn by the scent of cadacus.

He found cadacus easily, all he wanted, and licked it from dirty spoons like any drug-ridden creature. Folk watched him, interested. When he was well drugged, they moved in and began to shove and caress him. But when two men ripped his tunic open, he clutched the exposed lyre, shocked into sense—and terror. His tormentors paused, staring at the lyre. Drug-crazy men and women surrounded him, reaching for it.

He backed away from them, protecting the lyre drunkenly. The horde pressed close. He struck the lyre’s strings into harsh music to drive them back. Its power stopped them; they stood shivering and gaping.

But when he turned away, they followed. He fled, reeling, through narrow rubbled streets, using the lyre’s music to drive them back. But as he ran, the lyre suddenly fell silent. The dark hordes gained on him. Thakkur’s warning rang in his head—and a sudden, sick dismay overcame him.

It was thus Seastrider found him, pursued by a lusting rabble through alleys. She dove, tearing down walls to get at him, breaking buildings and driving men back against shattered timbers and into distant streets. He stood watching her sweep toward him and was filled with love for her—and with shame.

She dragged him up into the sky, carried him back to the hill, and dropped him on his blanket. She stood staring down at him, her long green eyes cold with disgust.

“What is your excuse tonight, Tebriel? You were not chained to a table tonight. You were not force-fed cadacus tonight.

“This night’s stupidity was your own doing! Tonight, you used the magical powers of the lyre, which were meant to save our world—you used them to save yourself! To save your own hide from the terrible results of your stupid, blundering weakness!”

He stared up at her, flayed raw by her fury. She didn’t need to be so violent when he felt this sick.

“Why have you come here to Aquervell? Do you remember that, Tebriel?”

“What makes you so angry?”

“You do. Your stupidity does. Your weakness makes me retch with disgust.”

He wanted to slap her. “What do you mean to do about it?”

“It is not what 1 will do about it. It is what you will do. What do you mean to do, Tebriel?”

He looked at her coldly. But he realized, with sick shame, that only Seastrider’s anger kept him from sinking completely under Quazelzeg’s power. When she changed suddenly from anger, and her eyes became dark with hurt, he stared at her, shaken. Her voice became softer and incredibly sad.

“Do you know, Tebriel, how difficult it is for me to rage at you thus? Do you know how it tears at me? I want to comfort you. I want only to curl around you and warm and comfort you.”

He stared at her uneasily—this wasn’t fair.

“The drug hunger possesses you, and I cannot fight it. Kindness cannot fight it. Kindness can only weaken you.”

He started to speak, but her look stopped him.

“Only you can fight this, Tebriel. Only you can defeat it. I cannot.” Her look was the saddest he had ever seen. “If you do not fight it—and win—you will destroy us both. And you will destroy Meriden.”

He felt shame so sharp he could not look at her.

He knew what he must do—now, before he could falter again. He trembled with terror of Quazelzeg and of the dark worlds, and of how the dark might reach him beyond that barrier. But Meriden struggled alone to draw the dark away from Tirror and to stop a larger invasion. He must go there at once, to help her, before his courage failed altogether.

It did not occur to him to wonder why, when Quazelzeg could mold his mind so readily, he still felt driven to go into those distant worlds to help Meriden. Whatever occurred to Seastrider she kept to herself. Perhaps her wisdom told her that not until the challenge was faced could he be free.

As dawn began to lighten the sky, Teb made ready in a dull silence born of drug sickness. Seastrider was quiet. But once he was mounted, she leaped powerfully into the slate-gray sky, pulled fast above the concealing clouds, and swept north.