The Schemes of Dragons

IV

ELENYA SPRINKLED THE SEEDS of sweet herbs over the grave and raked them under the newly-turned soil. Alemar handed her the water bucket, from which she took three handfuls in studied precision and cast them in droplets over her planting. Finally she lowered the sprig, its length thick with the tiny flowers that, after a season, would decorate the entire mound. Their fragrance rose though the heavy foliage toward the sunlight.

Milec the rebel had found his resting place.

On Elenya's left hand her gauntlet twitched, humming like a wasp caught in a bottle, its jewels casting off sudden, multicolored sparks. She stared at the grave, saying nothing.

Alemar turned to face the solemn assembly. His gauntlet, while silent, throbbed with a glow no less vivid than the display from his sister's. "Let's leave her alone," he said, waving everyone toward the shelter of a massive broadleaf tree. His twin made no acknowledgment of their leaving.

Alemar found a grassy spot and sat against the tree's trunk. He rubbed the puffy edges of his eyelids. He had never before tried to heal a dead man's flesh, and he doubted he ever would again.

Wynneth came to him holding a ewer and a gold cup. He caught the smell and wrinkled his nose.

"No, no, no," she said firmly. "You know you need it."

She filled the cup and handed it to him. He drank it quickly, wincing at the vile taste. It was his own concoction, and would mitigate the enervation brought on by such strong sorcery.

"Thank you," he said, a trifle insincerely.

"You would have forgotten it altogether," she scolded. "I'll not have my husband looking like an old man."

"Look who's calling whom old," he said. "You've got over a year on me."

She smiled and filled the cup again.

Even his wife's camaraderie could not banish the funereal gloom. They had lost both a good friend and a capable ally. Milec's father had been the lord of the province of Yent, one of the original victims of the Dragon's sudden takeover of Cilendrodel. The son had been among the first to join Alemar's small band, and he had proved to be not only a staunch fighter but an invaluable liaison between the rebels and the displaced royalty of the nation.

Alemar glanced at one of the lookouts half-hidden in the brush. The governor's patrols were combing the area around Old Stump in hopes of catching the rebel prince and princess. Though the rythni watched as well, the two dozen men and six women of the party kept their bows strung and their sword hilts unbound. Inevitably Alemar's gaze fell on his sister's back. He could see dirt from the gravedigging caught in her long black hair.

"It did me good these past months, to see her with Milec," he told Wynneth. "I would catch her smiling for no reason at all. Meeting him was one of the few joys she's had since we returned from the desert."

"I know," Wynneth said gently. "Don't dwell on it. You can't bring him back."

He sighed, and put an arm around her. "I just wanted Elenya to experience what I've found."

Wynneth nestled her head in the crook of his neck. "I wanted that for her, too, my love. Do you think she would have found it with Milec?"

"What do you mean?"

Wynneth kept her eyes down, as if she regretted bringing up the subject at that time. "I mean that they were good for each other, and they were infatuated, but I don't think Elenya would have married him. She's waiting for someone. I don't know who. An ideal maybe, not a living man at all. Someone she can respect as well as love."

Alemar plucked a wildflower from the ground. "Yes. You're right."

Wynneth closed the lid on the ewer and set it in the grass. A streamer of sunlight momentarily peeked through a gap in the canopy of leaves and lit her short, brown hair. Even in her mid-twenties, she still had a baby face. Some people were shocked to discover the strength behind it.

"Where will we go next?"

Alemar shrugged. "Toward Garthmorron, I think. There's more uninhabited land out that way. We might find the space to breathe."

"And then?"

"What are you getting at?"

"We've played cat and mouse with the Dragon for three years, waiting on Struth before we take the offensive."

"Yes. But now the end is in sight."

"In six months or a year. We may not have that much time. It was well known how important a member of our band Milec was. If Puriel could lay hands on him, the common people will conclude that all of us will be taken. The price on your head and Elenya's is fifty amath pearls each. Even the most loyal to the cause are tempted by that. If they believe the Dragon will win in the end anyway, they may feel there is nothing to lose. Unless we make a bold move, the revolt will be snuffed out."

"I'm afraid that is true," Alemar conceded.

"I know you and Elenya have been discussing the matter. What have you decided?"

"Nothing. I wish I could be more like her sometimes," he said, gesturing toward his twin. "She knows her way and follows it without hesitation. I forever debate which road I will take. Are you so eager for the fight?"

"No," she stated firmly. "But Puriel must die."

He blinked, startled. Gradually he nodded. "Yes, unfortunately that much is clear. What I am not certain of is how horribly he must die."

It was Wynneth's turn to be startled.

"Vendetta is a serious thing," Alemar said. "I learned that much in my years in the desert. I worry that when I am done, the people will look at me with just as much fear as they reserve now for the Dragon."

He reached out with his left hand-the one without the gauntlet-and gently stroked his wife's abdomen, feeling for the life growing inside it. "What sort of legacy will I leave this child?"

She rested her hands on top of his.

Finally he said, "Tonight, when we're well away from Old Stump, I'll confer with the rythni. I'll need their help."

The murmurs of the camp were indistinct behind him, as Alemar sat at the pool's edge, waiting. Serpent Moon was full, its white and blue reflection dancing on the water, the image's purity soiled by the glow of Motherworld, hidden somewhere behind the canopy of leaves. An iridescent gleam of tiny wings appeared over the stream. A moment later the rythni had settled on the moss-covered boulder beside him.

"Heeoo, Hiephora-bani," he said, quietly so as not to overwhelm her sensitive ears. She was not quite ten inches tall, slender and smooth almost to the point of androgyny, face wreathed in abundant dark blue tresses. Like all rythni, she went unclothed, but unlike most, she wore a fine gold chain around her neck.

"Greetings, Prince Alemar," answered Hiephora, her rendering of the High Speech as smooth as if it were her mother tongue. Her voice was tiny, barely able to be heard above the hum of nearby insects or of frogs calling from the stream. "You have committed Milec to his gods?"

"Yes, we have," Alemar stated solemnly.

"Our bard has already made a song about last night. It is called 'The Hero with a Hundred Wings.' May I teach it to you to pass on to your minstrel?"

"Yes, I would like that. But first, tell me how it went with your elders."

Hiephora perched cross-legged on the moss. "They're much like your own elders, I would imagine, only more so because of the centuries they have lived. To hear them talk, you would think I made my women kill a man, instead of rescuing the body of one from unkind hands. No matter. Am I not a queen? I left them to argue among themselves."

"How is the casualty?"

"The arrow only grazed her. She'll be fine. The elders had a fit about that, of course."

Alemar hesitated.

"I see a troubled conscience," Hiephora said. "Tell me what burdens you so."

"What if I were to ask you to kill?"

She looked as if she had been stabbed. "That would be another matter."

"Your people would not wield the blows. But their actions would result in the death of others."

"I see. I feared this, when they took Milec. I understand the human need for revenge."

"If it were vengeance alone, I would bide my time, run away as I have for the past three years. Certainly I would deal with it without troubling you. This, I'm afraid, is a case of self-preservation."

The moon and planet glow created deep shadows under the rythni's eyebrows, which made her expression seem doubly serious. "As for myself, there is no question. Gloroc is a great evil, and his governor a reflection of him. However, I cannot order my subjects to follow me, though many of them will. This defies tradition enough that my elders may well rouse out of their bowers in order to discipline me. We might soon both be rebels."

"Then you must not do it," Alemar said quickly.

"I made my decision to be part of your destiny years ago," Hiephora answered softly, "the day I tipped over your mother's cup of amethery. Do what you must do, prince, and I will be there."

He paused, as if to protest, but she held up her hand. Finally he sighed and touched his fingertip to her palm. "So be it," he said.

Music drifted through the forest of Cilendrodel, past the many watchful, tiny eyes. Wynneth waited by the fire, while Alemar sat with Solint the Minstrel, playing in unison "The Hero with a Hundred Wings" on lute and cittern. By now the musician had caught the tune and Alemar had to concentrate to match him. It did Wynneth good to see her husband apparently absorbed with the song.

Presently she glanced up, and saw a small, manlike form flit across a patch of half-night sky. At the same time, she became aware that someone had joined her.

"Wondering when they'll talk to you?" Elenya asked.

Wynneth made room for her sister-in-law. "I would be surprised if they ever did."

The firelight splashed over Elenya's face. There were no tears on her cheeks. "They might. You're like him," she said, gesturing toward her brother. "The same gentle soul. They can see that."

"Alemar tells me they used to talk to you."

"When we were children," Elenya said pensively. "I even learned a little of their language. But it ended when I reached puberty, and it never did compare to the rapport Alemar had with them. To be truthful, I didn't mind; I was too busy becoming a woman, or a fencer, or a princess."

Wynneth stared fixedly at Elenya. Her husband's sister had been completely silent on the journey from the grave site to this camp. Even now, her preoccupation was obvious from the pattern of her speech and the ominous warbling of the great wizard's amulet at her throat. Wynneth rubbed her belly nervously.

Elenya noticed the motion, and said, "Alemar told me last night you're pregnant."

"True," Wynneth said, and self-consciously took her hand away. "As a matter of fact, it was he who told me. He knew what had happened within hours of conception."

"Where will you go for the birth?"

"I don't know yet. Somewhere north, away from the coast."

Elenya stretched her gauntlet closer to the fire, letting the flames reflect on the polished metal. "Do you know, I have never even considered the thought of having a child?"

Wynneth waited several moments before speaking. "I know," she said finally.

"What will it be, a boy or a girl?" Elenya added after an equally long pause.

"A boy."

"Good. That's good."

A son of the Blood, Wynneth thought. And, now that Keron had been declared monarch of Elandris, in the absence of a capable leader among the survivors of the late King Pranter's more immediate family, the child might one day be a contender for the throne. That was assuming that the Dragon's possession of the kingdom could be ended, and the dynasty of Alemar Dragonslayer restored.

The women's conversation died out, and did not resume that night. The music became a lullaby. Wynneth stirred from a doze to find that Alemar had left the minstrel's side. He leaned over, kissed her on the lips, then helped his sister to her feet.

As the twins' gauntlets touched, they crackled with static. For a moment, Wynneth saw not her husband and sister-in-law, two people whom she knew and understood well, but two frightening, powerful beings. They stood face to face, short, lean, dark-haired magicians, descendants of perhaps the most powerful sorcerer ever to have lived. They turned together, walking away from the camp to confer, using the wordless method permitted by their amulets, leaving Wynneth to her all too normal humanity. Her thoughts turned to the child inside her. Would he one day frighten her as much?

V

THE DUNGEON REEKED. Seerie smelled stale urine, mildewed wood, dank stone, and rats. Occasionally there would be a scuffing of feet or a muffled groan from one of the cells across the corridor, but Seerie made no attempt to communicate. Damp straw and dirt sent rivers of cold into her bony rump. She guessed she had been there for at least twelve hours, uncertain because she had dozed some time after the jailor had shoved a plate of unappetizing gruel under her door. The vermin had eaten it.

The pain was back, dull and throbbing, low in her abdomen. She accepted it along with the other discomforts. Soon enough there would be release from all of them.

A new sound dragged her out of her feverish reverie. Heavy boots reverberated on the wooden slats of the walkway. The glimmer of lanterns filtered through the bars of the peephole.

Keys rattled in the lock. The door swung outward. Seerie blinked her eyes, trying to adjust to the illumination. A lumbering silhouette took two steps into the chamber, while the jailor waited in the corridor.

"Aunt Seerie, the Dragon's magician has summoned you!" Claric held the lantern high, casting garish streaks of light and shadow across his face. His gold tooth gleamed.

"The captain of the guard is now an errand boy," Seerie observed.

"Mind your tongue, old woman. I'm here for the pleasure of it."

"Obviously. You haven't changed, only grown worse with a lord who indulges your vices." She met his glare squarely, in spite of the distance he loomed above her.

"I might show you your place, Auntie, but Omril wants you intact, and I've no need to lift a finger to you. You're half a corpse already. What's the good of your fancy healer prince if he can't cure one old woman?"

"I will be glad to die, rather than live knowing I have kin like you," she said calmly.

He poked her sharply toward the door. She winced, but masked the reaction immediately, and started to walk. The jailor led the way through the maze of cells. Claric pressed uncomfortably close behind her. She had trouble keeping her balance on the slats. She reminded herself that they were easier to negotiate than the naked floor of mud, and carried on stoically, knowing that the less she seemed to suffer, the less Claric would like it.

The stairs were much worse. Before she had climbed to the servants' level, her right knee began to wobble ominously. She began to gasp. The jailor returned to his station, leaving Claric to nudge her backside the whole trip up to the lord's level. A guard smirked at her as she was hustled along a hallway. She marched on, determined not to stumble, though they had taken her cane when they had arrested her. At least the way was level now.

To her dismay, Claric directed her toward another flight of stairs. She began to climb them, depending almost entirely on her left leg. She crumpled on the fifth step.

Claric cursed, but rather than exhort her to get up, he slung her over his shoulder like a sack of flour and continued on. The Dragon's mage must be in a hurry, Seerie decided. She wanted to jab her elbow into her nephew's kidneys, but she was too exhausted to bother. She hung limp, nose full of the odor of sweaty leather.

They passed a narrow window, and she could see that they were ascending the northwest tower of the stronghold. Outside the sunset was mirrored in the water of Rock Lake. It was a view much too beautiful for the likes of Lord Puriel.

At the end of the stairs Claric rapped on a heavy door. They heard the wizard's command to enter, and, obeying it, found him contemplating the same scenery. His quarters filled the top of the tower. Along every wall were cabinets and shelves filled with books, scrolls, and vials of various powders and liquids. Pigeons cooed in a small coop. At the center of the room was a broad, finely polished table, on which stood a single scroll, weighted down by a pair of exquisite sculptures of dragons.

Claric dropped Seerie ignominiously on the floor, bruising her weak knee. She forced herself not to cry out.

"Leave us," the wizard told Claric.

Claric did so, without a word. Seerie made a note of it. Claric only gave this sort of silent obedience to someone he feared. Yet Omril had lived in Cilendrodel scarcely more than a fortnight.

Seerie did not bother to glance up as Omril walked slowly toward her. She could see his deceptively young face reflected in the gleaming marble floor.

"You are well thought of in Old Stump," Omril said, evincing none of the anger he had displayed in the town. "That is, according to the reports I've collected today."

Seerie's eyebrows rose in spite of herself. "You asked about me?"

"How else am I supposed to learn anything?"

Seerie did not know what she had expected when summoned to the magician's presence, but it was not this. "Come, sit down," he said, shocking her even more.

"What do you want with me?" she said, finally facing him. It was hard to do. His pale eyes left her feeling as if she were naked. She sank uncertainly into his cushioned chair.

"Why, knowledge, of course. You are the rebel's spokesman."

"I told you before, I am only an old woman."

Omril shrugged. "I speak metaphorically. Sometimes important facts hide in the most trivial of places." He gestured at the open scroll on the table. "Take this, for example. I found it in the library of this castle. It's considered the definitive work on the rythni, thin as it is. Yesterday I would have considered it a work of fiction. An hour ago I read that their females are winged during their reproductive years. Now I understand how Milec's body was spirited away."

Omril lifted one of the paperweights and allowed the scroll to close. "This prince and his sister are a danger to my master. My mission is to learn as much as I can about them. You'll tell me all you know."

"No. I won't."

"You'll resist, of course," the wizard said judiciously. "But it won't do you any good. Have you heard of dragon-touching?"

Seerie sank deeper into the chair.

"The human version is far weaker than that of a dragon, as one might expect, but Gloroc is an excellent tutor. It takes special training to be able to thwart the technique. Regrettably Milec had such training. You, I perceive, have none. It's best you don't struggle. It will save me from leaving permanent damage."

He uttered a word in a language Seerie did not recognize, and suddenly bands of silk sprung from the rear of the chair and bound her. Within a beat of her heart she was rendered immobile. Omril placed the bar against the door, moved a stool next to her, and took her hand. His grip was frighteningly gentle.

"Look at me," he said.

She did not want to obey. She kept her face turned. But she could not resist one quick, apprehensive glance. For the barest instant, her eyes met his. That was all it took.

Two soldiers of the garrison left the house, laughing at an obscene joke, and headed toward the Silver Eel. Seerie stood in the shade of the tree across the lane, stifling her rage. The soldiers had occupied the house for only two months, yet already the shrubbery she had so carefully cultivated had died. The men had carved their marks in the door frame. A pile of refuse had grown under the front window.

She had moved into that house as a bride. With her husband dead, her home had been the greatest comfort of her elder years. Now she had only a room in her sister's small residence. According to the new regime, old women did not deserve houses of their own when men of the garrison could make use of them.

She glared at the departing figures, most especially at the Dragon's insignia on their shoulders, and hobbled off to a part of the hamlet where she would not have to view what used to be.

The pain in her gut flared again. She groaned and tried to stretch out completely, hugging the bedcovers to her neck to ward off another sudden chill, but her abdominal muscles would not relax. She hardly noticed that her sister had entered the room, nor that she had brought someone with her.

He came forward into the candle glow. He was short, lean, black-haired, and wore a green cape. His right hand was enclosed in a jewel-encrusted mail gauntlet…

Seerie felt a tug at her mind, halting the flow of the memory. Over and over she saw the gauntlet, just as she had that night: The metal seemed to be gold. Tiny gems were placed at regular intervals across its surface, as well as a large, brilliant stone on the base knuckle of each finger. Each of the larger jewels shone with a different color. It was not the candle light they reflected; the illumination came from within them. At the sight of such a talisman, Seerie knew the identity of her visitor.

"Lilara," she murmured to her sister. "How did you…?"

"I didn't bring him," Lilara said. "He just appeared at the door."

"I heard of your condition," Alemar explained. "I've come to see what I can do."

Seerie swallowed. Dared she hope? Before she could speak, he took her hand in his bare palm, and closed his eyes. His expression grew blacker. He sighed and looked at her with compassion.

"It is your time," he said solemnly. "I cannot stop the progress of this disease. Your body wishes to die."

She looked down and nodded. She had feared it. In a way, it relieved her to be told the certainty of it.

"However," he added, "there is something I can offer." He withdrew a flask from his pouch, pulled the stopper, and tipped the spout to her lips. She took a small amount. It tasted like wine, lacking the bite of fermented fruit, but mimicking the rapid, suffusing warmth of alcohol. It had hardly reached her stomach before she felt her belly begin to unclench. Not only was the pain fading, but she could think more clearly than any time for the past week.

"One sip per day will ease your suffering, yet leave your mind unclouded." He gave the flask to Lilara. "That contains as much as you are going to need, I'm afraid."

"How can I thank you?" she asked.

"Drink my medicine," was all he said.

When she saw the twenty riders dragging their grisly burden down the center of Old Stump, Seerie knew she had borne as much as she could. "I'm going to follow them," she told her sister.

Lilara waved her pudgy hands in alarm. "What will you do?" she cried as Seerie reached for her cane.

"I will speak my mind," Seerie answered, and opened the door. The procession was well ahead of her; but she knew their destination. Lilara begged her to come back, but did not herself emerge from the house. Seerie turned a deaf ear. She would confront the nephew who had driven his mother, her youngest sister, to an early passing; she would speak against the governor who had ousted her from her home; she would proclaim the nobility of the prince who had eased her pain. She would do what others, with something to lose, feared to do.

Seerie came gradually to consciousness. The memories lingered like vivid dreams, detailed, but unreal. The incidents no longer felt like personal history; they struck her as moments from someone else's life.

Two men were talking. She opened her eyes and found that she was still in the chair, but the bindings had disappeared. Several candles and a pair of lamps lit the wizard's room, brightening what Motherworld provided through the windows. The air was cooler. She knew then that far more time had passed during the dragon-touching than she had perceived.

She glanced up into the gaunt visage of Lord Puriel, governor of central Cilendrodel.

"That's all?" he asked Omril. He glared at Seerie, tugging absently at his slate grey beard.

"She is strong-willed," the magician stated, brushing a piece of lint from his fine attire, "but she hadn't the skills to keep me from seeing what I wished. She is what she claims, only a dying old woman, angry at the change in her fortunes."

Seerie felt color rise in her cheeks. She felt raped, exposed, tossed aside. All her noble plans of the previous day had resulted only in giving the conjuror information about the prince's gauntlet.

"She's worthless to us, then," the governor said, as if in echo of her thoughts. "She can rot in the dungeon with the other traitors."

"I suggest not, my lord."

"Eh?"

"She will be dead in less than a fortnight, even if we give her your lady's chambers and feed her sweetmeats off silver platters."

"All for the best, then," Puriel said.

"I mean that it is pointless to keep her. She can do us no harm outside. If she dies while incarcerated, some of the populace may conclude that we fear old dames so much that we murder them. She would become a martyr."

Puriel scowled and twisted one of his many rings back and forth on his finger. "I see. Very well, then, we'll let her go. Not that I care what the rabble believe."

"My lord is wise," Omril said, with what seemed to be honest deference.

Seerie was not fooled. Puriel did not deserve such a capable ally. Seerie feared for the rebel twins. The Dragon had sent one of his best after them.

There was only one small way in which she could be of help. The idea made her heart race. If only…

Whether by fate or conscious intent, her wish was granted. She was dead before Puriel could summon the guard to escort her out of the castle.