Rogue Dragon

VI

Poets there were on MM beta, though mostly employing verse forms so involved and elaborate as to make the triolet seem simpler than the couplet. And there were thieves there, too, although even the apprentice ones would scarcely bother with anything as small as a lamb. Poetic thieves, however, or thieving poets — this was something new to Jon-Joras. He suspected it might be something new (or, at any rate, something different) to students of societal set-ups throughout all the teeming galaxy.

And so, there by the leaping flames, he leaned and he listened — amused, amazed, disapproving, entranced — while Henners recited (in couplets and quatrains) his exploits in removing the jewels and gold and silver plate of His Serene Supremacy the Chairman of the Board of Syndics of Drogue, while the latter sat at meat in his high chamber.

With guests.

He was mildly annoyed at the distraction of having a voice break in on the recitation… at first. But when the words sank in, he forgot Henners and all his works.

“She’s a mean one, that baggage… isn’t she?”

Jon-Joras, turning his head and seeing Trond, face reddened by the fire light, had somehow no doubt who was meant by “she.”

“Who is she?” he asked, half-whispering. Trond jerked his head to the left, moved off, and Jon-Joras followed him. Henner’s voice was still audible when they stopped at last, but the words could no longer be made out. A fat and gibbous moon rode the cloud-flecked skies and afforded plenty of light to the park-like glade where the thieves’ jungle was set up.

“Who is she?” Trond repeated the. question, sat himself on a moss-covered tree trunk lying where it had fallen in some long-ago storm. He did not answer the question, said, instead, “She claims you’re following her…”

Speechless indignation followed by indignant speech. She claimed that he was following her? If the truth was anything at all like that, it was strictly the other way around. He told the older man of finding her in the mob scene in Peramis when the Doghunter had been convicted of killing the Gentleman, of his own attempt to help her and how it had been repulsed — almost rabidly.

“That could have been an accident, our meeting the first time. She couldn’t have known I was going to be there, I certainly didn’t know she was going to be there. And as for the second time—” Abruptly, he stopped. Did Trond or any of his fellows know about the Kar-chee castle and what was being done there? And, assuming that he and they didn’t, did Jon-Joras want them to? Quick reflection decided him that he didn’t. He went on, a bit lamely, “—and the second time I was just lost in the woods, I’d gotten separated from the people I was with, and I was picked up by some Doghunters.

“I had no notion she’d be wandering in the same woods. And this last time, I—”

“You got lost,” said Trond, nodding, expressionlessly. “Again.”

The night was warm, but the young man felt his face go warm. “It may sound like an unlikely coincidence,” he said, defensively, “but you have to remember that I’m an outworlder… a stranger… And besides — how could I have known that she — and you — would be riding along at just that time.”

Trond grunted. He produced an oddly-shaped piece of wood, thrust it into a pouch and did something to it, blew on the end of a stick he’d brought with him from the fire, and, when it glowed red, thrust the device into his mouth and touched it with the ember end. Odd little noises, then a cloud of smoke… and another… the acrid odor made Jon-Joras cough a bit — and then he remembered. Tobacco! Its use had not followed mankind outward to the stars, and even here on its native world it was supposed to be all but extinct. Where had Trond gotten the ancient herb? For surely the Poets cultivated no crops! Most likely he had stolen it.

“Well,” said Trond, on a prolonged note, with a puff, “I’m just telling you what she says. I could think of a lot of ways it might be true… if I was minded to… but I’m not. Why not? Because. Like I say. She’s a mean one, that baggage. As the triolet says—”

But Jon-Joras did not at that moment want to know what the triolet said. He grasped Trond’s knee, and repeated, “Who is she? Who?‘

Trond puffed at his pipe a moment more. “Her name,” he said, “is Lora.”

Lora. “No… It doesn’t mean a thing to—”

“Maybe her father’s name might mean a thing to you.”

“Her father?”

Trond nodded. His pipe made a gurgling sound. “Yes. Tall, thin, ukh-looking man. Name of Hue.”

Away in the night Henner’s voice ceased. There were cheers and applause. Jon-Joras, feeling stunned, feeling stupid, said, “But she hates me. Her father doesn’t hate me.”

Trond made a noise which might have been a grunt or a chuckle. “Don’t fool yourself. Of course he hates you. You’re an outworlder, aren’t you? Well, figure it out. According to him, according to her, if you — all of you — didn’t come here to hunt, the whole system would collapse. It doesn’t pay for itself, that’s for sure. Not hate you? He’s just older, has more control over his feelings, that’s all.”

In his mind’s eye Jon-Joras saw once again that grim, gaunt figure, preternaturally rigid, stalking the halls and walls and ramparts of the great black stronghold of the cold-blooded, castle-keeping Kar-chee; heard the screams of the rogue dragon in the pit, trained by torment — dragons: Hue’s enemy: prepared to fall upon Hue’s other enemy. Once again he saw the figure of the dummy that was no dummy, trussed and tied, then tossed and toothed and torn to bleeding fragments; heard the outlaw’s outraged cry, “That… is what happens to traitors!”

Hue hated him? Yes… it was clear enough now that he must. And what must he think of him now? What, but that he himself, Jon-Joras, freed by the nomad raiders, taking with him the castle’s secret, was himself a traitor? And Jon-Joras imagined himself bound and fastened in the dragon-pit, watching and waiting and hearing and smelling the maddened creature come trampling down the pounded ground towards him…

Nothing could save him from that, were Hue to take hold of him again. He felt his chin tremble and his skin grow cold and wet. If the daughter did not believe that he was accidentally present in the forest along the way to the outlaws’ castle, would the father? Not likely.

“They mustn’t take me,” he muttered, his voice uneven. “Not again. Not again.”

Trond pursed his wide mouth, waved his hand. “Not much danger of that,” he said. “You’re worth more to us by getting you back to one of the states. Provided, of course,” he raised his eyebrows, “provided, of course, you meant what you said. About our, uh, expenses…?”

Jon-Joras assured him that, of course, he meant it. “Jetro Yi, the Hunt Company representative, has an ample fund, sufficient to repay you. Generously. Generously!”

The other man rose, stretched. “That’s all right, then,” he said, yawning. “We’ll get you back, all right. Oh—” A sudden thought seemed to occur to him. He put a hand on Jon-Joras’s shoulder, leaned so close that the reek of his tobacco was strong in the cool night air.

“You know one of ours, by the name of Thorm? Kind of a bandy-legged fellow with bulging blue eyes and his verses don’t scan? No? Well… Anyway… Watch out for him. Kind of carefully. Let’s be getting back to the fire, it’s growing cold.”

The moon continued to wander up the sky and a light mist was settling in the glade. The effect was luminous and ghostly.

“Thorm,” Jon-Joras repeated. “Why should I? I don’t know him at all. Does he know me?”

Trond stopped to rap his pipe against the boll of a tree. “No,” he said. “But he knows Lora.”

Jon-Joras recognized Thorm at once when, as soon as they got back to the fire, the man stepped forward, gave him an ugly look, spat on the ground, then stooped, dug up the clot of earth with the spittle on it, and flung it into his face.

“Well, well,” said Henners, in a tone of pleasant surprise. “This is an honor, young our guest. You may neither realize nor appreciate it, but it is truly very seldom that we accord the dignity of challenged combat, and all that it implies, to those not of our own select group. And certainly not as soon as this. Some might be inclined to disallow it… Eh?” He looked around in a politely questioning manner.

Trond said, “It’s not customary. It’s what you might call an innovation.”

There was a murmur of approbation. “Like free verse,” someone added, disapprovingly. But another voice said, “I wouldn’t be inclined to quibble. The guest’s poesies were really quite acceptable, I thought, from a non-poet — wouldn’t you agree? Voice vote! Voice vote!”

And the Gos outnumbered the Nos.

“Very well,” Henners said, equitably. “It’s go, then — Oh, if the guest accepts. Do you?” he asked. “Do you choose to accept the challenge and all that it implies?”

Jon-Joras felt that he would much rather not; much, much rather not. But he felt unable to say so. And he asked what other choice he had, instead.

Henners cleared his throat, frowned slightly. “I, well, really, the other choice is so very unpleasant, I would really rather not go into it. My word as a rhymer. Accept the challenge. Eh?”

And Jon-Joras nodded. And a cheer went up.

A space was cleared, two wicked looking knives produced, one given to Thorm and one to Jon-Joras. There were ritual preliminaries, but he did not hear them. A chill was on his heart, and with all his chill heart he cursed this the world of his race’s birth and all its bloody ways. Knives! Duels! Combats! What did he know of such things? On his own home world nothing more dangerous than wrestling-

And, “Go!” cried a hundred throats.

Thorm came forward in a sort of dancing crouch that instantly put Jon-Joras in mind of a stance quite popular at the Collegium; finding that the knife in his hand not only felt unfamiliar but was likely to impede him, he thrust it between his teeth, and then, almost automatically, without a second’s hesitation, leapt forward, grasped Thorm by the right ankle, and pulled him off his feet.

A cry of delight went up from the crowd, including one man who was casually whittling the end of a long stick.

Thorm fell, Jon-Joras released the ankle and reached for the shoulders. But Thorm, whose knife was not between his teeth, slashed at him; Jon-Joras swerved, missed the shoulders, felt the knife tear his side. At the moment what he felt was not pain, but a sort of sick surprise.

They broke and parted. Jon-Joras had achieved the first fall, but Thorm, the first blood; and as they were engaged, not in a wrestling match but a duel to the death, progress so far was definitely his. One thing was clear: Jon-Joras must henceforth concentrate, not on his opponent’s shoulders, but on the wrist of the hand holding the knife.

What followed was a nightmare. The thud of body against body, the smell of sweat, the fear, the trembling, the scramble towards safety, the eye ever on the bloody knife…

… the bloody knife which once more, then twice more, then a third time more, grew bloodier yet from his own torn flesh.

It happened thus: Thorm had left himself open and Jon-Joras jumped him, had — almost — his fingers upon the wrist of the knife hand, felt his foot turn upon a pebble, swerved without meaning to or being able to prevent it, was seized by Thorm and carried backward, downward, backward — Then he partly righted himself, did, indeed, grasp the dangerous wrist. And so they found themselves, half-crouching, half-kneeling, unable to move one the other. But it was Jon-Joras, held fast by Thorm’s arms and legs, whose back was to the fire. And his back was very close to the fire, and soon the smell of his singed tunic came to his nostrils, and after that began the pain. Pain unbearable.

He did not later remember doing what he knew he must have done. All he remembered was, suddenly, in the sudden silence, seeing — over Thorm’s shoulder — the handle of the knife buried in Thorm’s back. Thorm never said a word nor made a sound as he slumped, sagged, sank with all his weight into Jon-Joras’s arms. Who, his back seeming all afire, screamed, gave a mighty thrust forward, felt himself staggering backward—

— and was grasped by many willing hands and pulled away. His smoking tunic was torn from his bleeding body. Voices cried, “Take! Take!” He stared at them, stupidly.

“Take what?” he asked.

For answer, someone seized the knife from Thorm’s hand (the body lay where it had fallen, on its back, the prominent blue eyes staring at the starry sky, mouth open on a note of unutterable surprise), someone ripped open tunic and pulled up shirt, someone parted the pale skin of the chest with the knife, reached in, twisted, tugged, hand emerging with something dark-red and dripping. It was in an instant skewered on a long stick and someone handed the stick to Jon-Joras.

He grasped hold of it automatically and uncomprehendingly. “What… what do I do with it?” he asked.

There was a huh? of astonishment; then the man who had whittled the sharp end to the stick, this man said, “Do with it? Why, what else would you do with your enemy’s heart — except grill it and eat it?”

Body shuddering, face twitching, Jon-Joras held it at arm’s length, as far away as he could, straining to be quit of it. But it didn’t vanish, it stayed where it was, and it dripped. “No…” he said. “No… No… I can’t…”

“You can’t? But — why not?”

Neither could he vanish himself. He forced himself to answer. “It. Is. Against. My custom.”

At length the puzzled silence was broken by Henners. He took the stick with the pierced heart out of Jon-Joras’s clenched, stained hand. “Well, if you can’t, you can’t,” he said. “Of course, one must keep one’s custom. But… Still… Well, all I have to say is, in that case, you’ve wasted a damned good man.”

Had Jon-Joras wisdom to know and freedom to choose, he could scarcely have selected anything better for him just at that time than that which was selected for him. No sooner was his back dressed with scented oil and his wounds medicated and bandaged, than Henners and Trond asked if he felt well enough to ride.

“It won’t be very far,” the older man said, a hint of constraint in his voice. “Then we’ll take water.”

Jon-Joras said that he did. “I’d appreciate it,” he added, “if my pony could be returned, with my thanks, to Ma’am Anna. I don’t want her to worry about where I am.” She might worry about other things connected with his leaving her custody, but he could not help that.

Henners nodded, and they were on their way. The camp-fires had died down and the camp was sunk in sleep. Of Lora, there was no sign. The moon was low on the horizon as they rode along the trail — trail which must have begun to follow water quite some while before Jon-Joras noticed it — which was only when they suddenly swerved and startled to splash across the ford. The splashing must have been signal enough to alert the three men who came out of the moon-mist and darkness to meet them on the other side.

In the low-voiced talk which followed, he took no part until Henners broke off and spoke to him. “That’s right, isn’t it — you’ll pay the expenses of the boaters, the watermen, as well as ours?”

“Yes.”

He followed them along the narrow beach south of the ford, trees and bluff overhanging closely, the air very dark and cool and damp, the water widening, the water mumbling and cooing to itself in a low, slow, confident voice. “Best dismount now,” someone said. “Take my hand,” someone said. There was a shoving and straining in the darkness deep into the banks and suddenly there was a boat upon the water and they were in the water and it rose over their feet and onto their legs. “Take my hand… here… gently…” And they were in the boat.

For yet a little while the moon sent silver ripples and silver mist to mark their passage as they glided (with only now and then the plash of a paddle, so it seemed) straight down the water into the huge and ghostly moon. Then, slowly, then, rapidly, it sank into the water and was gone. For a while all seemed so black. Later, starshine showed them their way. And then the stream disembogued into a wider water which Jon-Joras knew must be the great river itself; it shook the long, low and narrow craft for a moment; then the boaters lifted their paddles in unison. Ssss… the paddles plunged into the bosom of the water… ssss… they rose again… And so, hissing the rhythm, the watermen guided their craft steadily out into the quiet water of the clear channel. And all of his sickness, his sorrow, his disquiet and his pain seemed to leave him, seemed to sink into the broad and watery plain he rode upon, seemed to wash away. And a cleanness and a quiet took a hold of him, and he floated off into a sleep.

He awoke into a misty, pearl-gray dawn. Henners sitting upright looked as trig and elegant as ever; Trond sprawled on a gunwhale, snoring loudly. Now for the first time Jon-Joras was able to a clear look at the boaters — all of a family, seemingly, or perhaps their looks were all of a clan — race — caste — rufous, long-haired little men, with skinny legs tucked under them as they tirelessly plied their paddles.

Well before the sun had done its work of burning the concealing mist off the water, the watermen had taken the boat off the main stream and up a narrow inlet leading into a still narrower, winding creek; and moored her to a skeleton tree near a tiny clearing. Quickly, they cut brush for a lean-to, trimmed the short and springy-twiggy sprigs of an evergreen for bedding. Trond half-scrambled, was half-pulled ashore; like a sleep-walker, began to snore before he sank down again. And they with him.

Once, springing stiff and terror-stricken from the slackness of dreamless slumber, Jon-Joras heard a dragon sounding its deep and melancholy mating call. But it was not near, and when next it came it was farther yet away. And the fatigue, and the ability of his young and healthy body to respond to it, was strong upon him; and he slept again. Not always restfully, to be sure: for once he waked to think he smelled again the ancient reek of the castle, and once he dreamed he woke to see a great, gaunt Kar-chee shadow in the moonlight…

When they were next all awake the boaters had speared fish and proceeded now to cook it. Trond smoked his pipe, Henners carefully made his toilet, the rivermen pretended to count their paddles lest the poets had stolen one of them… so, easily, the hours passed till dark came again and the voyage was resumed. Jon-Joras knew now what the plan was and what was expected him: a landing near the thickets by the shallows of northern Peramis, a riverman to go with message to Jetro Yi, the Company man to come with the money to pay the “expenses,” and a point of honor to say nothing till time enough had passed for the guides (and guards) to be safely all away.

This was well enough with Jon-Joras. He felt slightly feverish, rather light of body and mind, day and night passed like gentle and unimportant dreams… in the background there were hints of hideous things… but only hints… and only in the background…

He was not quite sure how many of these days and nights there were (though surely not many). There was the hot smell of the grass and the resinous scent of the evergreen boughs, Trond and Henner now talking of Lora’s attempts to urge the Poets into counter-action against the nomad Tribesmen, now reciting to each other old verses or new or once again comparing couplets and quatrains and sonnets and triolets; the ruddly little rivermen squinting at them and him goodnaturedly and not understanding or caring about a word of it. There was the river at night, throbbing with its own great pulse in the incredibly yellow moonlight, golden buttery reflections rippling and melting and coalescing; and on a night like that a wedge of boats advanced towards them from downstream and another had spread out behind them from upstream, and—

“Yield! Yield!” cried voices all around, Trond swore, Henners wordlessly slipped from his clothes and was pale as moonlight as he dove into the stream, the boaters pulled their vessel around and darted for the higher shore, but then a bow twanged and one of the watermen cried out and caught at the shaft in his shoulder.