The Dragonbards

Chapter 5

The dark captains move into the villages two and three at a time to take control, warping minds with their dark powers and with drugs, molding willing slaves. In the cities their manipulations are more intricate, as they win the allegiance of kings.

*

Teb touched the lyre’s strings again. All faces were turned to him, solemn and expectant. He slapped the silver strings so the lyre’s music raged, summoning wild winds and thunder across Stilvoke Cave. He brought to the young dragon’s sleeping mind the power of dragons, the fearsome passion of dragons, and their tangled past.

When he let the lyre’s music quiet to a rhythm like pounding blood, he brought a vision of a dragon nest cradled by mountain winds, where sky-colored eggs reflected clouds, and where dragon babies shattered their shells and pushed up toward the welcoming sky—but suddenly the lyre’s voice died, sucked away to silence beneath Teb’s hands.

The cave was silent. Only the echo of the lyre’s voice clung.

Still the dragonling did not stir. But Teb could feel a change in her, subtle as breath, and knew the lyre’s power had drawn her back from the thin edge of dying. Her body seemed rounder, and her white scales had begun to shine with iridescent colors. Marshy stroked and stroked her, murmuring and calling to her. King Flam began, again, to feed her.

Suddenly she moved one forefoot.

But then she was still again, though she began to swallow alone, without the need for magic. Teb stared down at the small ivory lyre. Had he used up all its strength? Kiri laid her hand on the warm ivory, her eyes questioning him. He touched one string.

Silence.

King Flam said, “The flaw is in the ivory, young bards. Do you not know that? It renews itself only slowly.”

Teb stared at him. “How could you know such a thing?”

King Flam smiled. “When you first found the lyre, Prince Tebriel, when you broke the spell that hid it, all Tirror knew once again of its existence.”

“Even so, how could you know something we did not?”

“Has not much of your knowledge been destroyed by the dark powers, Tebriel?”

“It has.”

“The dark was surely disturbed when you broke the spell on the lyre. It cannot be pleased that you now wield the lyre’s power. I expect the dark unliving would make every effort to destroy your knowledge of the lyre’s one flaw. Would it not?”

“But you . . .”

“The dwarf nation is an ancient family, Prince Tebriel. It was our own dwarf ancestor who carved the lyre from the claws of Bayzun.”

“You descend from the line of Eppennen?”

“We do. And our knowledge of the lyre, once that knowledge was returned to us, is quite complete.”

Teb tucked the lyre back inside his tunic, cursing the dark that confused the bards’ own rightful knowledge. “Will you tell us how you found the dragonling?” he asked.

“We were fishing,” King Flam said. “When we came around a bend in the cliff, she was thrashing and struggling across the ice. Her face was smeared with blood, and the dead seal lay next to her, half eaten. We had seen her often in the sky, with her brothers and sisters. We knew the dark soldiers searched for them.”

“Quazelzeg’s soldiers,” Teb said.

King Flam nodded. “Quazelzeg keeps a disciple to practice his evil in this land, but the man is a dull creature. When Quazelzeg wants something particular, he sends his own troops. It is Quazelzeg’s ships that search for the young dragons. Surely it was they who left the poisoned seal—surely they who killed this dragonling’s nestmate.”

Teb’s hand paused in midair.

“Killed . . .” Kiri said. “Oh, no . . .”

King Flam nodded. “There were six dragons in the clutch. Three females, three males.” He spoke softly, watching Teb, then returned to the rhythm of ladling. “One female was hunted down some months ago by Quazelzeg’s soldiers. They caught her in the swamp south of Stilvoke. They . . . beheaded her.”

Kiri gasped.

“A trophy for Quazelzeg, I suppose. My folk found her body by a lake in the marsh when they were dragging for crayfish. The land is warm there, heated by the volcano. It is a place that would appeal to dragons. Her wings were broken; she could not have flown from her pursuers.”

Kiri turned away, sick.

“They will pay for it,” Teb said. “We must get the other dragonlings to safety. Two bards are searching for them now, up the coast.”

“The young dragons like to hunt up the coast around the otter colony of Cekus Bay.”

“A nation of otters!” Teb said.

“Yes, the otters are good folk. We visit them often. Their waters around Cekus Volcano are warm, the fishing rich. But those waters are shark filled, too. The otter nation is pleased to have the young dragons hunt the predators.”

“I lived with the otters of Nightpool for four years,” Teb said. “They took care of me when my leg was shattered and my memory gone. They raised me, taught me. They are like my own kin.”

King Flam motioned for another pot of gruel. “How did you end up there? What happened to you? We knew that your father, the King of Auric, was murdered.”

Teb nodded. “By a trusted officer, a captain named Sivich. I was seven, my sister, Camery, was nine. Sivich’s men held us, made us watch him kill our father.

“After that, I was kept chained as a palace slave for five years. Camery was kept locked in the tower.

“But when Sivich learned that a dragon had been seen on Tirror, he decided to capture it, using me as bait. He knew I was a bard though I myself did not know. He saw the dragon mark on my arm. He thought the dragon would come to me. He built a gigantic cage of felled trees and barge chain and chained me inside it.”

The dwarfs had pushed close around Teb, to hear the tale.

“I escaped in the midst of battle between Sivich and the rebel leader, Ebis the Black. The dragon herself burned the chains that held me. A soldier pulled me up onto his horse, but his horse was shot and fell on us. The soldier was killed, my leg was broken, and I got a blow on the head.

“I lay in the marsh unconscious until two roving otters found me. They took me on a raft around the coast, to Nightpool. They set my leg and doctored me when I nearly died from fever. They were very patient, as patient as otters can be. I could remember nothing, not even my name.”

“They are good folk,” King Flam repeated. “I imagine they taught you many of their ways.”

“They taught me to dive deep and long and bring up abalone,” Teb said, smiling. “They taught me many secrets of the sea and many ways that I value.

“They taught me to eat raw fish, too,” he said, laughing. “Your roasting rabbit smells better.” He took the weight of the gruel pot from a dwarf and looked around the cave. “There is a strength in this cave, King Flam. A sense of protection and peace.”

King Flam nodded. “There are three sanctuaries on this continent, Prince Tebriel. This one is Mund-Ardref.”

Once, before the dark unliving invaded Tirror, the cave sanctuaries had been meeting places that brought humans and dwarfs and the speaking animals together in an easy, loving companionship. On the walls of many of the sanctuaries were pictures of the speaking foxes and otters and wolves, the great cats and the speaking owls, and the unicorns—for unicorns had roamed Tirror then, practicing a gentle, healing magic. The dark had driven them all out. It had destroyed the comradery of the sanctuaries and disrupted the nations of speaking animals, so that they hid themselves. Humans had grown sour and afraid, and some had grown obedient to the dark.

There were no pictures in Mund-Ardref, but the walls were carved into shelves crowded with clay bowls and jugs, and into alcoves that held small beds cozy with bright weavings and thick blankets and pillows. The tables and stools were simply made, from stone. It was a comfortable place.

But it was the ceiling that interested Teb. The cave’s ceiling curved upward and caught the firelight in a deep metallic glow shot with streaks like silver.

“The roof is iron,” King Flam said. “You puzzle over it, and rightly. It is not iron of our world, Prince Tebriel, but comes from some world none of us has ever seen. It is iron that fell into this mountain, crashing down out of the sky thousands of years ago.”

Teb’s mind touched the knowledge. All history was a part of the bard knowledge, though some was muddled, now, by the dark’s powers. He tried very hard, rejecting visions, seeking others, until he could see the world of Tirror before there was life on it. It was a mass of molten stone, with the fires of other worlds blasting into it. He saw a fireball fall onto the mountains of Yoorthed and lodge there. He could see the cave that washed out beneath the iron over centuries.

“The iron has power,” King Flam said. “It keeps the dark from us; they do not enter here. We have—”

Marshy’s cry stopped the king short.

The dragonling had begun to paw the air. Her eyelids moved. Her nostrils flared. She scented Marshy. He remained very still. She reached out to him.

The dragonling opened her eyes. They were as green as sunlit sea.

Child and dragon stared at each other, their recognition ancient and powerful.

Teb took Kiri’s hand and they moved away with Flam and the dwarfs, leaving the child and dragonling alone. The cave darkened as two big heads thrust in to see the baby awake. Seastrider’s breath huffed through the cave in smoky whiffs; Windcaller murmured softly; then they withdrew into the snow, their eyes slitted with pleasure.

A feast had been laid out: roast rabbits, broiled mushrooms and roots, a mild amber wine, warm bread, and a fruit called payan that grew in the warm marsh near the volcano. Kiri fixed a bowl for Marshy, but he hardly noticed it. He looked up at Kiri, his face all alight with wonder. “Her name is Iceflower.”

Kiri hugged him. “She’s lovely, Marshy.” The young dragon nuzzled Kiri’s hand. Iceflower’s face was finely sculptured. The pearly hues of her scales caught the colors of the fire. Marshy’s eyes were filled with dreams that now, for the first time, could come true. Kiri kissed him on the forehead and turned away, putting aside her own disquiet.

The food smelled wonderful. She supposed she would feel better once she’d eaten. But she couldn’t get her mind from the dragonlings—was one of those young creatures meant to be her own? She tried to touch the dragonlings in thought as they moved across Yoorthed’s winds, tried hard to sense that subtle bonding that would mark one special dragon. Her thoughts came back to her empty.

She tried to sense her father and Camery, too, but there was no hint of the two bards. Fear for them chilled her—though she knew it was the enemy doing this, the power of the dark clouding their silent speech. She shook her head, tried to marshal her thoughts, and went to sit with Teb.

As they ate, Teb and Kiri told the dwarfs all they could about the war. On the smaller continents, where Teb and the dragons had been able to bring the past alive, slaves had awakened and remembered their own worth, and had risen to kill their dark masters. But that was only on the small continents. Teb and the dragons, alone, had not been a large enough force to take on the big continents where kings had been mind twisted or replaced. Now that Teb had found the other bards, and now that there would be more dragons, their band would have formidable power—but against a formidable enemy.

“If . . .” Kiri began, then stopped, her voice drowned by the thundering voices of dragons. Bards and dwarfs, jumped up and pushed through the cave door into the moonlight.

The night was filled with dragons, rearing and careening as they greeted each other. Nightraider and Starpounder towered blacker than the sky, in a sparring greeting with Seastrider and Windcaller. Crowding around the big dragons were four strapping dragonlings, three dark males and a female.

From inside the cave came a faint, coughing roar, and Iceflower stumbled out behind the dwarfs, with Marshy beside her. The four dragonlings gawked at her and at the little boy.

“Your bard . . .”

“You found your bard.”

“Small . . . he’s so small.”

“Young . . .”

The dragonlings began to nose at Marshy and sniff him all over.

“You’re alive,” said the white sister, nosing at Iceflower. “We’re very glad you’re alive.”

“Not dead like Snowlake,” said the blue-black dragon.

“I nearly was,” said Iceflower.

“We searched for you,” said the red-black. “We had no sense of you. The dark . . .”

“They were still searching when we found them,” Camery said.

“Iceflower was drugged,” Teb said. “A drugged seal.”

Camery reached to stroke the sick dragonling. “Did the dark mean to kill you, young one? Or did it mean to capture you?”

“I suspect to capture and train her,” Teb said, filled with sharp memory of the time when the dark tried to warp his own mind to their evil way.

Camery touched Teb’s cheek and hugged him.

“Did you see any ships?” he said.

“No. The dragonlings saw ships near the otters’ bay at Cekus some weeks ago and felt the terrible power of the dark.”

“Maybe we can send Quazelzeg’s ships to the bottom for the sharks,” Teb said, “before we leave this land.”

Kiri had moved away, by herself. Teb watched her, feeling sharply her disappointment that none of the dragonlings was for her. He followed her and took her hand, and she leaned her forehead against his shoulder.

“There will be other dragons, Kiri.”

“Where? There are no other dragons.”

He lifted her chin. “Once, you thought there were no dragons on Tirror.”

“But . . .”

“There will be other dragons.” He put his arms around her. She eased against him, her spirit filled with sadness, needing him, needing his comforting.

“There will be other dragons. Somewhere, a dragon is calling to you. Don’t you sense it?”

“I sense it. And I’m always disappointed.” She buried her face against his shoulder.