The Ivory Lyre

Chapter 16

The fox abandoned subtlety and manners, and gave the sleeping queen a sharp poke. “Wake up! It’s Hexet!”

The queen stirred, brushing at her thin, tangled white hair, looked up over the mass of blankets, and scowled at him. “Go away. Don’t poke me. Where are your manners? Come back when you can speak softly, the way I like.”

Gently, he laid a paw on her cheek and looked deep into her pale eyes. He would like to nip her and rout her out of that bed. “Wake up properly. It’s urgent— something vital and urgent.”

She sat up in a storm of blankets and stared at him. “I don’t like urgent. Or vital.” But she put out her thin old hand to him and stroked his back. “What is it? What is this all about? I’ve never seen you so—”

“Agitated,” he supplied. “I am agitated and angry, and you must get up out of that bed at once.”

“Are you telling me what I must do? I am a queen. You are only—”

“A dignitary in my own nation,” he said, “and equally as important as you. And far more useful to the world, considering our respective talents.”

“What does that mean? You are making double-talk.”

“I am only speaking the truth.” He settled down into the pile of covers, nuzzled her cheek gently, then placed a soft paw against her thin lips. “Now listen. I will tell you something, and I don’t want interruptions. It must be told, Queen Stephana. And you must listen.” He removed his paw and sat looking at her.

She started to tell him there was nothing she must do, then changed her mind and settled back against the headboard, sighing, pulling the blankets around her.

He bobbed his chin with satisfaction. “It is about Prince Tebmund. You told me he had visited with you.”

Her face went closed with apprehension. She searched his face, then nodded reluctantly.

“Did you like him? Did you feel kinship with him?”

Her eyes blazed, as if he had spoken of something private that was not his right to consider.

“Did you?”

“What if I did. He is a nice enough young man.”

“What kinship, Queen Stephana? There is not much time. Do you know what kind of kinship?” He watched her, saw the spark of fear in her eyes. She did not want to discuss this. Yet he saw something more, too. Something strange, alien to her. He saw tears start.

“He is the same as you, Queen Stephana. He is a dragonbard.”

Despite the tears, her eyes went wild at this effrontery. And with this truth, for she could not deny it. He moved closer, touching her with his nose.

“Prince Tebmund has been taken captive. He is chained in the stadium.”

Her eyes flew open.

“The king intends to use him in the games. He will die today, Queen Stephana, if you do not get up out of that bed and help him.”

“Die?” She breathed, her eyes searching and wild. Then her look was shuttered. She lifted her chin and regarded him steadily. “I can do nothing. What could I do?”

He stared at her in silence.

“What difference if he dies?” she shouted suddenly, her anger seeming to make her grow larger. “What difference? What good is he? What good am I?” She stared at Hexet, furious. Then, in a whisper, “What good is a dragonbard without . . . without dragons?” Her anger boiled out again. “That part of the prophecy was wrong! There are no more dragons!” She fixed Hexet with a defiant stare. Then she shrank into herself, and sat cowering in her blankets.

“What prophecy?” he said sharply. “What are you talking about?” Then, at her silence, “You must tell me. Is it a prophecy that has to do with Prince Tebmund? With dragonbards—with yourself? Where did you hear it?” He watched her, tense with excitement. “You must tell me. You must!

“Only you can help him,” Hexet said softly. “If you do not, they will kill him.”

He saw she was weakening. “His murder will be a curse on your soul, Queen Stephana.”

She stared at him in misery. He pushed his nose against her cold hands, but his look was hard, demanding.

At last she seemed to relax, to soften, to give up the battle. Her eyes were pained, and somehow younger. And then, so suddenly that she startled him, she was weeping, deep, racking sobs that alarmed him.

He had never seen her so out of control. Had she taken some of the drug? Roderica kept it here, did not put it into her food, took it herself sometimes, which explained, Hexet thought, Roderica’s wild changes in temperament. He pressed against the queen, and the old woman put her arms around him and bawled wetly into his shoulder.

When she subsided at last, she told him about the lyre, how the sudden knowledge of it had exploded in her mind when the spell was shattered.

‘There is power here in this palace. I never knew—he kept me locked away from it.”

Hexet did not point out to her that she had allowed herself to be locked away, had welcomed it. But her face was filled with the shame of that.

“I did it only because there were no more dragons. Because I was all alone. . . .”

Hexet leaned close to her. “There are dragons,” he said softly. “I believe there are dragons.” He looked up into her faded eyes. “I believe there are dragons here on Dacia. I have good reason to believe it.” He saw a spark come alive, a germ of yearning and fire. “I believe, Queen Stephana, that if you will do as I say—now, today—I believe that you will see them.”

*

News of the bear-creature that had killed two of Sardira’s soldiers exploded into gossip that spun across the city like wildfire, increasing the number of dead soldiers tenfold and painting the bear tall as the palace. Tales spun from urchin to shopkeeper to brothel and tavern, then out along the streets. Soon no one in the city was ignorant of the killer bear that had been captured and would star in the stadium games, pitted against its own master, against bulls and the horse-sized lizards. The city, wild for the sight of blood, laid odds thirty to one, fifty to one, all in favor of the bear. Well before the stadium games began, the five gates to the stands were jammed with shouting commoners sucking on clay bottles of mithnon and sniffing cadacus or licking it from the backs of dirty hands. Small children came glaze-eyed, shouting for gore, and when the gates were thrown open the crowds stormed into the stands, the drunks and cadheads screaming and stamping, pushing their fellows off the stone bleachers onto the heads of others. Before the games began, more than a dozen citizens lay dead, ignored by their seething fellows, and others had crawled away injured.

The first game was a teaser, designed to heighten their lust to new frenzy.

A naked, bound prisoner was dragged into the center of the arena, a man jailed two months before for annoying a palace guard when he tried to deliver cabbages. He lay staring at the gate, shivering and exposed, as two dozen maddened, steel-spurred gamecocks, raised on a diet of raw meat, were dumped out of baskets onto his prone body. The crowd’s cheering excited the roosters further.

Kiri could see through the arrow slits in the low stone wall below the seats as she moved beneath the stands, but she did not look. The victim’s screams were enough, alone, to make her sick; that, and the crowd’s insane shouting.

It was damp under the stands, and smelled of urine. She knew that, somewhere above her among the crowded benches, Garit watched the bloody games. So did a handful of rebel soldiers, though the bulk of the rebel forces had remained outside the gate, milling and shouting with the rabble that could not get in; they were more mobile out there, and might be of more use. Prince Tebriel was the first prisoner for whom the rebel armies had come out of hiding in force. He was perhaps the only prisoner for whom they would have shown themselves so openly. They had counted on reinforcements from other countries, time to arm more heavily before they declared open war. It was all happening too fast.

She approached the cages beneath the stands warily, for Sardira’s soldiers were thick around them, keeping the rabble back. They let a few street folk through, those wild with drugs and armed with sharp sticks to tease the captives. A horse screamed, and there was a deep bellowing that must be the bear. The crowd was so thick around the bars she could not see Tebriel. As she pushed her way through, she could see a herd of old, lame horses being driven out of a pen into the arena. They were followed by a spotted bull forced out with spears. It kept charging the fence, maddened from the cadacus it had been given.

Then, looking down through the cages, she saw the silver bear. It was sitting on its haunches, silent and still, watching the arena.

Had they given cadacus to the bear? Sometimes the drug produced rage, and sometimes lethargy. Had they drugged Tebriel? In humans, the cadacus stirred false power, making them foolhardy; then soon they would collapse into a depression of terror.

A knot of men forced her back from the bars, and one of them pinched her crudely. She flung away from him, her wound searing her with pain, then slipped into a crowd of laughing, drunken couples. She fought her way back to the cages, away from the pinching men, and grabbed up a stick as if to prod along with half a dozen others. She pressed against the bars, staring down though the row of cages, and could just see the great bear. She backed away when the caged black bull charged her, hitting the bars like an earthquake. The bull’s tormentors jeered.

As she worked her way to the left toward the bear, she could see a dozen horse-sized brown lizards writhing beyond. In the last cage stood Tebriel chained to the wall, his leathers stained with blood. She began to push toward him, but five drunken boys blocked her, laughing, and one grabbed her arm. She kicked him in the leg, kneed him, and spun away, tunneling through the mob, ducking and shoving.

The prince stood with his back to her, watching the stadium, where, now, the spotted bull charged blood-hungry lizards among the bodies of the dying horses. Kiri watched the crowd. No one seemed interested in Tebriel; all were watching the bloody game. She whispered to him. He seemed glued to the spectacle of killing. When she spoke again, he turned.

His eyes were filled with fury; his face was drawn; his fists were clenched white. Such anger filled him that he did not recognize her at first. Then his eyes changed. He came to the bars to look down at her.

“Kiri! Oh . . .” His eyes searched hers, puzzled at the emotion that flared between them. He was tired, wounded, sick with the killing in the arena, straining to keep his head when he knew he might die soon.

“A man with red hair sent me,” she said softly.

“Garit,” he whispered. Then a flash of suspicion showed deep in his eyes. She reached to touch his hand.

A man glanced at her and turned away. A rag woman wandered by close to her and didn’t look, one of Garit’s trusted spies. Kiri made as if drunk, trying to throw up against the cage bars as a group of girls moved near.

When she and Tebriel seemed ignored again, she said, because she knew Garit would expect it, and to prove herself to Teb—but not because she needed proof, now, “What hangs on the walls of your palace?”

His eyes flared with interest. “Tapestries. They were bright once, but now they’re ruined, maybe gone. Do you know what they showed?”

“Other worlds,” she said, “that you had never seen.”

He nodded.

“What color dress did your mother wear most?”

“Red. A red dress brighter than the flowers of the flame tree in her walled garden where she sat with us. Do you know the name of my first pony?”

“Linnet,” she said. Their eyes held. The crowd surged around them. He turned away, pretending to watch the arena. She could see the scar on his arm, twisting a small, dark blemish that must be the mark of the dragon. Her own mark was where she could not decently show it. She wanted to tell him what she was. She felt shy and awkward. When the crowd had passed, she spoke softly, watching his leather-clad back. “You and Camery used to sit in the walled garden together.”

He spun to face her, his face open now and eager. “Camery! It was Camery who had escaped from Vurbane. Where . . . ?”

“She will come soon. She is safe.” Then, “Garit is in the stadium. He will help you. We will all help you. Our people . . .” She hardly breathed the words.

His own voice was so low she had to press her face to the bars to hear him. “The resistance . . . you are . . . ?”

She nodded, then backed away as the crowd pressed around them.

Beyond, in the arena, mounted soldiers were dragging away the carcasses of dead lizards and horses. Kiri caught the eye of the rag woman who had lingered, and nodded. The old woman faded into the crowd. She would pass the word to another, and so to another. It would reach Garit quickly through the milling crowds: Tebriel! Yes, he is Tebriel. And rescue plans would begin.

Had Garit had time to do more than organize archers to mount the outer stadium walls and shoot the animals that attacked Tebriel? Maybe mounted rebels would crash the gates. War in the stadium would erupt quickly, Kiri knew, into all-out war across the city. There was no way to prevent it.

More old, crippled horses had been turned in with the bulls. The carcasses dragged away would be divided among the crowds. That, too, she supposed was reason for the excitement. If they ate drugged meat, what was the difference?

Teb started to speak, but guards thronged around his gate. Three pushed inside to unchain him. She backed off at the first movement, but their eyes met and held; then she faded back into the crowd that was now shouting for the blood of the prince.

They stripped him nearly naked as the crowd stamped and shouted. They prodded the bear until it roared and struck at its tormentors. They forced it into the arena, forced Teb in behind it. Would the bear, pain-maddened, drug-maddened, turn on its master? In the ring now were the bear and two bulls, a dozen lizards, a few horses still on their feet cowering at one end, and one young dragonbard stripped and weaponless, a chain dragging from his ankle. Kiri stared up at the stands hoping for a glimpse of Garit, then felt a hand on her arm. She spun, her knife raised—Summer stood close, staring past her toward the arena and Teb.

In the arena, Teb turned as if someone had spoken his name. Behind him the bulls pawed. He stared at Camery, their looks frozen—then he saw her alarm, turned fast as the bulls charged. He stood in front of one. It roared down on him. He stepped aside so it passed him. The two bulls charged one another, locking horns, sparring, forgetting Teb for a moment. The bear had risen over Teb—but only to protect him.

Camery’s voice was choked. “I came too late. Oh, Kiri, it is Teb. The army—could we attack now? Where is Garit?” Her pale hair was hidden by a dirty scarf, her face smeared with soot. “Oh, what is Garit doing? Teb will be killed. We . . . Come on!” She grabbed Kiri’s arm and pushed through the crowd toward the gate that led into the arena, her hand on her sword. Kiri started to follow, terrified, knowing this was not the way yet that they must help him quickly. But suddenly another power touched her, another knowledge. She grabbed Cameras arm and tripped her. Camery turned on her with fury.

“Wait,” Kiri whispered. “Wait.” Her thoughts were stirring with a power that made her tremble. She turned and stared up at the stands. . . .

She began to drag Camery toward the stairs that led up. Camery fought her at first, then began to run, her eyes wide with the strange, unbidden knowledge. Something was drawing them upward toward the top of the stands where the king’s box rose—some power they could not resist.

Yet, behind them, Teb faced death.

He was a tiny figure now below them in the yawning arena. The spotted bull charged. The crowd roared; the iron gates heaved as resistance soldiers fought their way forward. Kiri battled the crowd upward with Camery, falling over feet, stepping on hands, until they reached the satin-draped royal box. They dove into a narrow space behind it.

It was dark behind the low wall of the box, and smelled musty. They could not see the arena, only hear the shouting, muffled by the two walls between which they crouched. Light came through the space above them, between the top of the wall and the satin-draped roof. Directly above them, they could see sky. Kiri didn’t know why they had come, but she knew they had to be here. Power had called them. Power for them to seek and use . . . Power that could help Tebriel.

Kiri could hear Accacia’s voice through the space above the wall, then General Vurbane’s. At the sound of his voice, Camery went pale and pulled her scarf farther over her face and hair and, kneeling, scraped up a handful of dirt to smear her face darker. Accacia’s salmon-pink veil had caught across the top of the wall above them, where it ended some inches above Kiri’s head.

Vurbane said in a flat voice, “Perhaps the bull will kill him. No, I will bet on the bear. Though it seems rather dull. Didn’t they give it drugs?”

“It spit out the drugs,” Accacia said. “It injured five men when they tried to force it.”

Then Sardira’s low voice, muffled by the wall. “It has been prodded and burned all morning. It is an extremely stupid bear.”

“Yes. The creature seems to be defending the prisoner,” Vurbane said. “I could have better entertainment in my own pasture.”

“Wait,” Accacia said, her scarf bobbing. “Patience, General. Wait until the lizards kill the bear; then the bulls will have the prince to themselves.

“Bets on that,” said Vurbane lazily. “Bets . . . fifty to one . . . New bets, my dear.”

“Ninety to one for the bull.” Accacia laughed. Kiri could hear Roderica’s laughter, too.

Camery pressed close to Kiri, her fists clenched. When she glanced at Kiri, her look was still puzzled. “A power to help him,” she whispered. “The bard’s power—try, Kiri.” But already Kiri was trying with everything she knew to bring strength around Tebriel, a strength to increase his own.

“The bear,” Vurbane shouted. “Chain the bear.”

Suddenly they saw the king’s black-sleeved hand lift above the wall as he signaled. The crowd stilled. Quiet spread as if time itself had frozen.

In the stillness, chains rattled.

Suddenly the silence was shattered with the crowd’s wild shouting. “Chain the bear . . . chain the bear. . . .

The bear was roaring, its rising voice thundering. A man screamed.

“Kill it!” someone shouted from the box. “If you can’t chain it, kill it!”

“Chain the prisoner!” a woman yelled. The bulls bellowed. The crowd started to stamp, shouting,

“Blood! Blood!”

Kiri nudged Camery, then climbed up the rough-lumber wall, quickly past the opening and onto the canopy, Camery close behind, both hoping the noise of the crowd hid their commotion.

The satin-covered roof was usually filled with servants and pages who had climbed up secretly, but now it was deserted. Maybe they had been routed earlier. Lying flat on their stomachs, Kiri and Camery could see the arena clearly.

The black bull lay dead. The bear was standing on its hind legs swinging its bloody paws over three giant lizards that lay torn open at its feet. But the bear was bleeding, too, from a gash in its side. Teb crouched near the center pole covered with blood. The spotted bull moved toward him pawing, the steel tips on its horns catching the light. Camery’s fists were white, her lips moving with her effort. Kiri fought harder. She watched the bull circle Teb shaking its metal horns, saw Teb rise. The bear moved to protect him, stood rearing over the bull so the bull backed away. But suddenly the bull staggered uncertainly, nearly fell—more than the bear had made it cower. Every creature in the arena cowered down except the bear. A fierce power touched the gaming field. Kiri gasped as she felt that power joining with her own, with Camery’s, violent and strong.

Every creature in the arena was frozen still. Kiri and Camery were caught in a power much greater than their own, had become a part of that power that had stopped the killing. . . .

Camery touched her hand and pointed behind them. Someone in the box below them gasped. Kiri felt the power and saw the source of it approaching them.

Coming through the king’s private gate were four soldiers carrying a litter chair. In the seat rode a thin, wrinkled old woman dressed in the royal purple and green, her skin like parchment, her wild white hair so thin her scalp showed through. Kiri had not glimpsed the queen in years. The soldiers carried her toward the royal box, but when she raised her hand they paused. She looked up directly at Kiri and Camery, and a force linked them that left Kiri breathless. This woman—she had called them here. She was the source of the power. . . .

Below them the box was astir. “The queen has come. . . .”

“The queen? I don’t believe . . .”

In the arena, the bull faltered and fell to its knees. Soldiers galloped in and prodded it. More lizards were released, but they, too, faltered. The force of the dark and the force of the light crashed around them. Kiri strained, heady with the power that linked her and the queen and Camery.

But soldiers were dragging Teb toward the center pole. Fight them, Teb. Fight. . . we’re with you. . . . Her pulse raced; Camery’s face swam; the queen’s pale eyes seemed huge. Kiri saw the soldiers falter before they reached the pole, saw Teb spin, knocking soldiers to the ground, saw the bear grab the bull by the neck and shake it.

The bear had grown immense. It looked misty. What was happening? Shapes were dissolving, swirling. . . .

Something white like mist writhed in the arena, and the bear was gone; something gigantic and coiling, towering, a fog-thing growing denser, all pearl and silvery with light. A dragon shape—a dragon . . . and the dragon’s shoulder was red with flowing blood. A pearl-colored dragon filled the arena, its wings spread to darken the stands. The crowd cowered, silent.

The naked, blood-covered prince gathered up his dragging chain and climbed painfully to the dragon’s back. Nothing moved in all the stadium.

The dragon leaped into the sky suddenly, beating its wings across the stands so its wind tore at the cowering watchers. Kiri and Camery stared after it hungrily, pummeled by dragon wind.

There was no other sound but that wind.

The dragon swept away fast, until it was only a speck in the sky.

Then suddenly it was coming back, growing larger. But now there were more than one. “Four,” Kiri breathed. “Four.”

Four dragons filled the sky, two white and two black, now so low over the stadium that the stands and arena were dark. Their wind tore at the crowd. Huge green eyes looked down. Open mouths flamed. Teb looked down between the white dragon’s wings, laughing. Their wind was so strong that satin ripped from the king’s box. A woman shrieked. The stands exploded in panic, the thunder of running, of stampeding and screaming, filled Kiri’s ears.

One black dragon swept down so low his face was right above them, golden eyes blazing. Camery stared up, reached up to him.

Camery, he thundered in their minds. Camery . . . soon . . . I searched for you. You are safe. Soon . . . He banked, his wing sliding over them so Camery’s hands stroked ebony feathers. He lifted, twisting, blazing upward to join his brother and sisters.

The dragons swept higher as stampeding crowds fought to get out the gates. Dragon wings shattered the light when they banked. They twisted, then soared into cloud, moved fast away from the stadium, grew smaller. . . .

They were gone. Gone.

Kiri stared up at the empty sky, yearning.

Nothing moved in the arena. A tableau of bloody bodies, a few bleeding horses crowded at one end. Dead bulls, but no bear. The thunder of running and screaming still came in waves. Kiri looked down at the queen.

The four soldiers still stood at attention bearing her litter chair, but the queen did not look back. She lay sprawled across the litter chair unnaturally twisted, with the king’s jeweled knife through her heart.