Song of the Beast

Chapter 10

I called on Keldar a number of times during that frigid night. Not in fear. Just a soft reminder that I was still there in the blustering wind and unending snow. I didn’t want him to forget about me. The night was bitterly cold, my lips and nose and fingers so ominously dead to the touch that I longed for the familiar ache in my hands just to prove I still had them. I was horribly thirsty, but I had no water, no food, no means of making fire, and no shelter but the feeble defense of my cloak. For seven years I had been a traveling musician, priding myself on how little I needed in the way of material comforts, but I had never been trained to survive like a soldier in the field, with nothing. Every time I thought I had been brought as low as a man could fall, I slipped a little further. Why was I yet living? The god of wisdom must have a plan for me, for all knew that horses were beloved of Keldar, and only a horse stood between me and the long, cold descent into death.

To keep my mind off my misery and prevent any panic-induced attempt to head Acorn for Camarthan, I kept trying to make some sense of my interview with Zengal. The Riders were afraid of me. It was the only possible conclusion—their hatred, their determination to force me silent, their defiance of Devlin. No wonder the king was worried. It didn’t matter whether I was his cousin or his brother or his wife or his child. If he had to choose between me and his dragon legions, he had only one possible course. Devlin’s dragons kept Elyria and his vassal kingdoms in existence.

Those of the Ridemark clan considered themselves above politics. Each of the Twelve Families chose to serve the ruler it considered the best tactician, the fiercest and craftiest opponent, the most ruthless war leader, or the best paymaster. Once sworn in fealty to a lord, the only thing that would make the Riders bend their honor and defy him was a threat to the superiority of their position—that is, a threat to their dragons. But why in the name of the Seven would they think of me as a threat? My brain came to a standstill whenever I hit this question. I would back off and try another path, but always I came back to it.

It could not be that I made the dragons “uneasy,” as Devlin said. Zengal claimed that nothing made them uneasy. But the Rider had exploded in anger and defensive-ness when I mentioned the escaped hostages. He had spewed out contrived stories and rote excuses. And then what had he said? No black-tongued singer could make the kai let hostages go free. If the Riders really believed I had made the dragons disobey, caused them to reject the control of the bloodstones ... Vanir’s fire, no wonder they were ready to kill me! But why would they think it? A series of remote coincidences? I knew nothing of dragons save the sounds of their voices that a god had used to inflame my music.

“Idiocy!” I shouted on the hundredth occasion I reached this impasse, inadvertently jerking the reins wrapped about my frozen hands. Acorn pulled up abruptly.

“No ... no ... I’m sorry.” What had the Elhim told me to say? For a panicked moment I could not remember. It was too dark; I was too cold. I’d been awake and afraid and freezing far too long. “Go on, Acorn. Have your head. You know the way. Go home to your ... home ... yes. Thanai!”

With a snuffle, the sturdy little beast took off plodding again and I leaned forward, burying my face in his wiry mane. “Thank you, Acorn ... Keldar, all praises be sung to your name.” I did no more thinking on that long night’s journey, but drifted in and out of sleep, holding on by sheer instinct, for I had nothing of will left. I dreamed fitfully of dragon wings and unclimbable mountains of snow, of Callia laughing as she bled out her life on her green silk dress, of Goryx smiling and fastening the cold metal jaws on my fingers....

“No! No more. Please no more.” I screamed as he began to break them one by one. I fought to make him stop. I felt like I was falling, though my bonds held me tight while lights flashed about me, and he kept on—one after the other. “Have mercy,” I sobbed. “I will be silent until the end of the world.”

“I’m sorry, my friend,” came a familiar voice. “We had to get your hands untangled from the reins. It was a long, hard journey, but you’re safe now. You’ll be warm again in time.”

Hot wine was poured down my throat until I gagged, and something heavy and blessedly warm was wrapped about my shoulders.

Another voice. “Lift him onto the litter. Careful!” “On his stomach, not his back. Hurry and get him to the fire. Of all the ill luck to have such a storm. One would think the Seven would arrange it otherwise.” There was a great deal of laughter at that.

They should not blame the gods. The storm was surely Keldar’s doing. If I was blind, then so were my pursuers blind. I was settled gently on my stomach. My hands—which were not broken, only frozen—were wrapped in warm cloths. I felt the unmistakable jostling of being carried. “I’ll be all right,” I said, my words muffled in the soft fur under my face. “I’ll be all right if I can just sleep for a year or two.”

Friendly, hearty laughter broke out around me. I wished I could see who it was, but I was carried close to a blazing bonfire, where I caught only a glimpse of a dozen pale gray eyes and a great deal of fair hair before I fell so deeply asleep I could not dream.

The smell of new-baked bread and hot bacon drew me out of the luxurious darkness into the gray light of a cold dawn. “I’m sorry we can’t let you sleep for a year, but I think I’ve brought you fair recompense. Am I right?” An Elhim—and I was certain it was Narim—sat cross-legged beside me, holding out a plate piled high with meaty slices of bacon still sizzling from the fire and thick chunks of bread dripping with butter. Behind him a bonfire showered sparks on at least five Elhim who were stuffing blankets and pots and tins into enormous saddle packs. I lay on the snow-covered ground swaddled in thick blankets, close enough to the fire that my face was hot.

“You’ve brought me the only thing in the world that could induce me to move,” I said, maneuvering myself so I could sit up without exposing any part of me to the cold air. “Though it looks as if you were going to force me to it fairly soon anyway.” One of the Elhim began throwing snow on the fire, which hissed in protest and sent out huge spouts of steam.

“We need to be on our way. The storm has passed, and we assume you will be pursued. You came on Acorn.” His face wore a cast of worry that I eased by passing on Davyn’s message around a mouthful of butter-soaked delight.

“Ah, good,” said Narim. “Davyn is the best and bravest of us all. You were recognized, then?”

“I was a fool. Came near getting another good man killed ... and this Davyn, too, if anyone gets wind of what he’s done. You and your friends would do well to keep your distance. You’ve saved my life yet again—and I do thank you most truly for all this—but my best repayment will be to stay away from you.”

Narim smiled and shook his head. “Since we found you in Lepan, your life has never been truly in danger, Aidan MacAllister—not because you are the cousin of the king, but because you are the nearest thing the Elhim have ever had to a hope of redemption. Whatever debt you acknowledge to me or my kin, you will have ample opportunity to repay ... if you come with us. Many will risk whatever danger is necessary to keep you safe.”

“I don’t understand. How is it that you and Davyn ...?”

“And Tarwyl is over there loading the horses. You have a number of friends. I’ve no time to tell you all of it right now. We must be off before the Riders start looking this way. Only know that as long as one of the three of us lives, you will never go back to Mazadine.”

“But—”

“Hurry yourself or you’ll get stuffed in a saddle pack.” He threw my boots and cloak at me, and after that a heavy shirt and a pair of thick woolen gloves—my own spare shirt and gloves that I’d last seen in my rooms at Camarthan. I thought of the quiet Elhim who had taken lodgings across the passage from me and wondered if he, too, would appear among my rescuers.

Riding in a saddle pack didn’t sound all that bad, for the air outside my cocoon was bitterly cold and thin. Acorn had brought me a good way up in the world. As I pulled on my outer garments and relinquished my blankets to the busy packers, the sun shot over the eastern horizon, banishing the lingering grayness and drenching the world in the blinding blue-white brilliance of winter morning.

We were camped on a high, wide plateau, looking eastward over a panorama of rolling hills and valleys unrecognizable beneath their mantle of snow. The world might have been newborn in that dawning, for there was no sign of human handiwork anywhere to be seen in all the lands laid out before me. Behind me rose a sheer face of pink-tinged granite rising sharply into the deep blue of the western sky—Amrhyn, the towering grandsire of the Carag Huim, the impenetrable Mountains of the Moon.

My spirits, lifted by the kindness of the Elhim, sank abjectly when I saw Amrhyn. Where within the boundaries of heaven and earth could we go from this place except back the way we’d come? For centuries men had attempted to conquer the heart of the Carag Huim, but found no passage save those to the south of Catania or far to the north in the realm of frozen wastes. Every attempt ended at an unscalable cliff, a gaping chasm, or an impassable slope of dangerously crumbled rock left by an avalanche. Every man who claimed to have found a way into those mountains had been proved a charlatan, and it was widely accepted that the gods intended for us to contemplate such awesome works as the Carag Huim from a respectful distance. Even the Dragon Riders stayed away from this mountain range, calling it a place cursed by the gods. But I was in no position to question my rescuers. I had nowhere else to go.

In a quarter of an hour I was astride the faithful Acorn, plodding up a winding way toward the cliff face. I could not call it a trail. Narim and Tarwyl rode single file in front of me, and two others behind. Two stayed back to wait for Davyn.

All day we traveled through impossible ways: paths that appeared to lead over cliffs, yet would turn abruptly to follow a narrow ledge bearing downward. Valleys with no outlet until you squeezed between two giant boulders and passed through a dark cleft in the rock to emerge in an open vale. Impossible slopes of dangerously loose talus that turned out to be more stable than they appeared. Sometimes it was difficult to see exactly how we got to where we were going, for the blinding sun on the snowy peaks forced me to keep my eyes squeezed to narrow slits. Surefooted Acorn followed his brethren, and I came to think that perhaps only the horses really knew the way.

About midday Narim called a halt. We cracked the icy shell of a noisy brook to refill our waterskins and let the horses drink. While Tarwyl handed around hard, sweet biscuits and dried meat, the other three Elhim talked of the trail and the weather.

“Isn’t Alfrigg going to miss you?” I said to Tarwyl, when the conversation lagged.

The deep-voiced Elhim nodded solemnly. “My cousin has taken my place at the merchant’s shop. Curiously enough his name is also Tarwyl, but he’s much less efficient than I. I would guess he’s already made some terrible errors in the accounts and is very likely to be sacked any day now.” The four Elhim broke into merry snorts and chuckles.

The Elhim were so difficult to tell one from another, I could well believe his story. “And you”—I spoke only half in jest to the fourth Elhim, who indeed bore an uncanny resemblance to the fellow who had lived across the passage in Camarthan—“I would guess you have a cousin who has moved into your rooms? One who is perhaps as much a thief as you, who seems to have acquired every stitch I own and brought it here?”

His pale skin had a leathery texture to it, and he had a terrible, red-rimmed squint to his eyes, as if he’d been in blinding sunlight far too long, but he managed to tilt his eyes cheerfully at my question. “Indeed, my cousin plans only to stay a few more days. The room is really not at all suitable.”

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

Every attempt at more serious questioning was gently but firmly put off, and we were back in the saddle before I had a single clue as to where we were bound and how in the name of heaven they had managed to find this passage into the Carag Huim. Our path took us ever higher and ever westward into the heart of the mountains. The stark ranks of ice-clad peaks rose sharply into the heavens on every side of us, and the snow lay deep upon the trails we followed, so that our going was often little more than a crawl. I began to believe that we were indeed going someplace where the clan would never find me.

Evening came early on the eastern flanks of Amrhyn, leaving us in chilly shadows at the hour when the rolling lands we had escaped were still basking in the gold of afternoon. We were climbing a saddle between the main bulk of Amrhyn and one of its towering shoulders to the north. It was the steepest ascent we had made. Impassable, every other traveler would have declared it, unless they saw the narrow thread of rock wall supporting the path that crisscrossed the slope.

“Only a little farther,” called Narim, who was in the lead. “Have a care as we descend, Aidan; the horses always try to run down this ridge.” He wore an odd smile as he disappeared over the top. I understood it when I reached the crest and saw what lay beyond. Not another frozen wasteland to be traversed. Not another stretch of tundra broken only by stunted junipers and ice-shattered rubble, not a snow-filled bowl, but a vast green valley dotted with lakes and springs, patches of evergreen forest dusted only lightly with snow, and everywhere herds of deer and elk and small, sturdy horses that could only have been Acorn’s relations. A flock of birds rose from the trees at the passage of a wild boar. I could scarcely comprehend such a marvel. In the distance a geyser shot twenty stories into the heavens, and an eagle soared joyously on the warm air that rose from the valley floor, lapping at my toes.

Even if I’d been able to form a question, my companions had already abandoned me, riding at full gallop down a broad, winding road that traversed the steep hillside. Acorn pulled anxiously at the reins, and I knew what he wanted. I clamped my arms around his neck and shouted, “Thanai!”

Like an arrow released from a bow, the horse raced after his fellows, all the day’s weariness shed in the warm air and the exhilaration of home ground. Down, down, recklessly, wildly. Even as I hung on for my life, I found myself laughing in manic delight. Into the evening wood-land, startling deer and at least one black bear nosing an overturned rock, back into meadowlands, leaping one streamlet after another, circling deep, blue pools that steamed in the cooling evening. All the way across the breadth of the valley and into a rocky enclave where sheer walls made a protected corner and a stream trickled from the mouth of a cave through a bed of mossy rocks.

The others were already off their horses, embracing a group of perhaps twenty Elhim who stood just in front of the cave. I pulled up Acorn so as to approach more slowly, rather than careening into the crowd and tumbling off into the arms of his laughing kin as Tarwyl had done. My intent was not to make my arrival dramatic, only civilized, but as I rode toward them silence fell. Every one of the gray eyes turned to me, and every fair head bowed graciously. There had been a time when I was accustomed to such attention, accepting it as an honor to my god and a challenge to prove myself worthy of his favor. But all that had changed. My face grew hot. As I slid off Acorn’s back and stroked the good beast’s neck with whispered thanks, a tall Elhim in a long gray robe, leaning heavily on the arm of a younger Elhim, stepped forward to greet me. His white hair was braided and fell to his hips. His pale, parchmentlike skin was creased with a fine tracery of white wrinkles. And his gray eyes were filled with such a vast knowledge of joy and sorrow, good and evil, that I thought he must be the oldest person I had met of any race.

I held out my hands in greeting, but the old Elhim did not take them. Rather he cupped his papery hands before his breast and bowed deeply, saying, “Greetings, Dragon Speaker. In the name of the One Who Guides and in the name of the Seven, I bid you welcome, and in the name of every Elhim that breathes the air of the world, I offer you our fullest gratitude for your coming. Everything we have is yours to command. Our lives are in your service before every other, and whatever we can do to ease your path is only your single word from being accomplished. You are the hope of our people, and our joy in your presence is beyond description.”

How could I answer such a kindly greeting full of such flowery nonsense? There was clearly some mistake, and honor bade me acknowledge it. I had so many guilts earned fairly through my own pride and folly and carelessness, but this one ... Whatever had I done to convince an entire people that I was worth putting themselves at such risk? I cupped my hands before my breast and returned his bow. “Good sir, I am honored by this generosity your people have shown me at such risk of their lives and fortunes. Your words humble me. But in truth I cannot accept such gifts when I believe them to be misdirected. You call me by a title I do not know, and speak of hopes of which I am ignorant, and you seem to have expectations that—much as I would desire to offer you service—it is very unlikely I could fulfill. There seems to have been a terrible mistake.”

I expected consternation, dismay, shock, perhaps anger, but instead I got sad smiles and sighs of resignation.

“You see, Iskendar? As I told you. Incredible as it may seem, he has no concept of what he is”—Narim spoke from behind the shoulder of the elderly Elhim—“or of what he was.”

“But if he is as we have judged him, all we have to do is tell him our story,” said the old Elhim. “Of course, we thought the deed was closer to accomplishment, but what is a matter of a few years after five hundred?” His eyes glittered, their sharp edges cutting away my skin as if to see what lay beneath.

“I’m afraid ...” Narim flushed and eyed me nervously. “Well, of course we will tell him and see what can be done. I swore to bring him here safely, and, thanks to my brave kin, I have accomplished it. A deed well worth doing, as Aidan’s is a heart worth keeping in the world. But whatever else comes of it is up to the One. I would hold no great expectations. Many things have changed since we last breathed hope. Many things.”

“You’ve done well, Narim. As you say, the One will decide the outcome.”

I followed their exchange with no splinter of enlightenment. It came to a point where I could no longer tolerate ignorance. “Tell me, Narim, and you, good sir. What is it you think I can do for you?”

The ancient Elhim answered, while Narim chewed one of his fingers and watched me closely. “We have hopes you can make them remember.”

The hair on my arms and my neck rose up as if brushed by a finger from the grave. A knife turned in the hollow of my chest so that I could not get out the question except in a whisper. “Who?” I said, and even then I did not know if I could bear the answer.

“The dragons, of course. The Seven who are the eldest and their sons and daughters who lie enslaved with them these five hundred years. If it is to be anyone at all, then it is you who must free the dragons that are named by men the Seven Gods.”