The Ivory Lyre

Chapter 2

Teb watched the dragons stir and wake. All four turned to look at him. Even to a dragonbard, those four stares all at once, bright and intent, were unnerving. He frowned, trying to understand what they were thinking.

He had an impression of journey, of wheeling flight. But they did that every morning. He had an impression of cobbled streets and dim city doorways seen close at hand, of palaces and crowds of people and the smell of taverns. Yes, their sleeping thoughts had been the same as his waking ones. It is time, Teb thought. Time for me to go into the cities.

The dragons nodded.

He felt shrunken and small knowing he would walk alone and earthbound when for so long he had soared aloft between the wings of dragons and had been protected by dragons.

But he and the dragons had done their work on nearly all the smaller continents. Only a few islands were left. Their usefulness through song was nearly gone for the present. The larger lands were ruled by the dark, except for half a dozen, and one bard and four dragons could not free the minds of a whole continent at one time. The dragons would be discovered, the dark put on alert. They must play the game close until their band was larger.

He must join the underground. He must search for bards. He must learn the ways of the resistance, and how best to help it. He must make himself and the dragons known to the resistance, so they could plan together for the greater battles to come.

“Yes,” said Seastrider. “Yes. But you will not go alone.”

He stared at her. What nonsense was this? He had always known that when the time came, he must go into the cities alone. “What do you plan to do?” he asked her, touching her great silver cheek. “Walk the roads pretending to be my war-horse?”

“Yes,” she said. “I will do that.”

Teb wished she could. It wasn’t a moment for joking.

“I will shape-shift. We have spoken of it before. It is not impossible.”

“But you said it was unreliable, with the powers of the dark so strong. Even if you could make shape-shifting magic strong enough to counter the dark, it could be dangerous. You said you might not be able to change back.”

“With practice, Tebriel, we will manage. Nothing in this life is without danger.”

“And what do you mean by we?”

“One saddle horse and three to follow you.” Seastrider stretched out over the lip of the nest, her wings spread on the wind so she hung motionless in the sky. Then she turned and curled down into a tight circle. Suddenly she vanished.

In her place reared a dazzling white mare, her neck bowed and her green eyes blazing. Teb stood gaping.

Then Starpounder disappeared, and where the blue-black dragon had coiled there wheeled a snorting blue-black stallion. Then Nightraider, two stallions and a mare now, and then Windcaller. So two and two they were, their eyes flashing with powerful magic.

“How can you do that?” Teb said, caught in wonder. “How can your bodies compress so? How . . . ?”

We do not compress, Seastrider managed to tell him. Our bodies are caught in another dimension. What you see of us is the stuff of magic, of the shape-shifting spell, and not real.

Teb touched her shoulder and neck, and wove his fingers in her mane. She felt very real to him, warm and silken, with the wild, sweet smell of a good horse. He put his hand on her back. She stayed steady. He tightened his hand in her mane and with a sudden thrust leaped across her back and swung astride. She stood quivering and snorting; then she reared and pawed in a battle stance, so he had to grip tight with his knees. She galloped in a small circle, leaping logs, then stood quiet, sweating.

Will I do? she asked demurely.

“Oh, yes. Only . . . you are too beautiful. All of you are. You will attract too much attention.”

Seastrider lowered her head and looked at him with wry teasing that made him laugh. We cannot help being beautiful, Tebriel. Dragons are the most beautiful creatures alive, and so we have become beautiful horses. They had no false modesty, these dragons.

Teb sighed. “Not only will you make me more conspicuous,” he said, “but the armies of the dark would like very much to have such mounts as you. What will you do if they try to steal you?”

When she did not answer, he grew annoyed. He knew her silences. “What kind of plan are you cooking? Do you want to be stolen? But what good—”

Not stolen, Tebriel. You will travel as a horse trader, and we will be your wares. Such fine mounts as we should give you entree into any palace on Tirror.

“And may I ask where I have secured such horses? And what you mean to do if someone buys you? What—”

Seastrider’s look silenced him. You will call yourself a prince from the far southern land of Thedria, which lies beyond the vast expanse of sea and has no commerce with these lands. The dark knows little of that place, I think, for we have sensed no evil from that far continent. You will steal appropriate clothes for a prince, and you will enter the strongholds of the dark in style. And, she said, tossing her head, if we are bought, Tebriel, no matter. No stable or fence or stone prison can hold us.

“Well,” he said. “Well. . . all right. But how have I come to these continents? By rowboat over the wild seas hauling four horses?”

By seagoing barge, to barter your horses for gold. You are the Prince of the Horsemasters of Thedria.

She had it all worked out. Teb pointed out to her civilly that he had not intended to go among palaces but to slip quietly into the cities among the common folk, where he could gather information unnoticed by the dark rulers. If it was all the same to Seastrider, he did not want to make himself an object of immediate observation for the dark.

But if you are an object of great interest to the dark, Tebriel, do you not think the underground will be watching you even more closely? Do you not think they will be more than anxious to learn about you, and to learn which side you might favor, this very rich and mysterious prince? It will be much easier to let the underground soldiers come to you, Tebriel, than to try to search them out in strange cities.

Teb sighed again and said no more. The horses disappeared and the dragons were there, still staring in that annoying way. He stared back at them crossly, then turned away to ready his pack.

He wrapped his mother’s diary in oilskins, with a few other valuables he would not take, and hid them between tree trunks in the wall of the nest. He would take the large packet that contained the white leather from which he had cut Seastrider’s harness, and the awl he had used to fashion it. He would need more thread. He slipped the gold coins into his pocket, gifts from the otter nation. With gold he could steal clothes, yet leave payment.

He knew where they would go—they had discussed it several times: Dacia, which lay far to the north above a tangle of island nations. Neutral Dacia. They had swung low on the night wind near to it more than once, and always they could sense the powers of the dark there. Yet the dark did not rule Dacia. He didn’t understand how this could be, how that country had remained neutral. Both dark and resistance forces were strong on Dacia. He didn’t know what had kept the dark from possessing that country totally, for the small continent provided good cover for the dark forces. From that base, the unliving could attack Edain and Bukla and the tiny island nations of the Benaynne Archipelago.

Surely the resistance had a strong spy network and ways to steal food and weapons from the dark armies. Perhaps the strength of the resistance alone was what kept Dacia free, though Teb felt there might be a stronger force at work. He would be very interested to learn why Dacia was not beaten back by the dark, yet had not driven it out. Dacia would be a likely place to find Garit, and maybe Camery, a good place to join the rebels in any case.

The truly free countries were very aggressive in destroying the unliving, for most humans felt only terror of the wraithlike creatures. The very mention of the leader Quazelzeg made warriors burn with hatred.

The slave makers sucked on the suffering of humans as a leech will suck human blood. Fear in humans strengthened the un-men, and pain in humans and animals was as heady as wine to them. They would devise any means to increase and lengthen such suffering.

But if Ebis the Black had driven them out, and had kept his land free, so could others. Teb and the dragons had gone twice to Ratnisbon, to sing the past alive for Ebis’s people. Ebis understood that people needed that knowledge of Tirror’s past, of their own pasts; otherwise they had no memory, no knowledge of themselves, and no notion of who they really were or what choices they had in life. Ebis’s people wanted to make their own choices and would not allow the dark to rob them of that freedom.

The dragon song kept freedom alive in people’s minds, stirring their fury against the smothering and consuming dark. That was what it must do for all of Tirror. There were more bards; there had to be. Perhaps, somewhere, there were more dragons. The old power, where bard could speak to bard or dragon over distances, was all muddled and frayed by the dark. Teb caught only glimpses of battles. He knew there was little communication remaining among the resistance forces, human or animal. This, too, Teb and the dragons meant to change. Meanwhile, they would be in the thick of it in Dacia, and would learn more.

They waited until dark before taking to the sky, moving on the silent wind over the small island nations. It was near to midnight when Teb chose a likely-looking fishing town from which to steal his new clothes.

They came down along the cave-ridden cliffs of Bukla and, because black Nightraider would not be seen so easily, it was he who turned himself into a horse and carried Teb up the cliffs to the prosperous little town.

Teb jimmied a shop door with little trouble. He chose his clothes with care by the shielded light of one lantern taken from the shop desk. He selected three changes of the most elegant tunics and dark leggings, a pair of fine boots, and a red cape that stirred memories, for its color. These were clothes meant to impress, suited to a rich prince, not to his personal preference. He found buckles, heavy linen thread, and some felted horsehair padding for a saddle in the shop’s workroom, and packed it all into a linen bag. He left ample gold in exchange, and locked the door behind him.

They spent three days on a small rock island while Teb fashioned the four halters, a saddle, and saddlebags of the white leather. Then on the fourth night the dragons made for the northerly and deserted shore of Dacia, north of the city, some five miles from the black palace that loomed against the stars.