Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) (31 page)

“No … I heard something …” Aris stumbled on the robe, going down the stairs, and Juris caught him.

“Kilt that up before you take a tumble,” he said. “Or—I know—Camwyn’s rooms are only one flight down—do you still keep your roof-climbing clothes there?”

“Y-yes.” He did not want to go into Camwyn’s room and rummage for clothes with Camwyn near death. But Juris led him there, and once he was in his old knee-patched climbing trews and his soft faded shirt, he felt better. “What about the shadows—the kuaknomi? Iynisin?”

“The king sent guards after them, searching—the bell sound followed them, I think. I don’t know—he sent me to you. But Aris, how did you know? Everyone else was caught by their glamour.”

“I don’t know … Gird maybe?” Aris shivered, and Juris put an arm around him. “I was asleep and then I was awake, and I went to see what had waked me … and the palace guards were all just standing there. Then I heard a cry.”

“And the prince is lucky you did. We’re all lucky. You, that they didn’t kill you—did you even have a weapon?”

“One of the uniform blades pages carry, my dagger—”

“Gird’s blood, Aris, you’d have been killed if they’d attacked you—”

“Yes … I kept thinking someone would wake up.”

“The Bells must have recognized iynisin,” Juris said as they walked down the passage together. “I wonder why not sooner. Maybe when Camwyn wounded one and the blood spilled …”

“Ummm … I think it was the bell pull.”

Juris stopped short and grabbed Aris by the arm. “The bell pull?
What
bell pull?”

“That old one in the passage between the king’s rooms and the prince’s. The one everybody knows doesn’t work … the one with the stories about it … but it was all I could think of.”

“You …” Juris shook his head. “I would never have thought of that. Never. When I was a page, I yanked it once, just to see, and nothing happened. Didn’t you, your first year?”

“Yes. And it was like yanking a rope tied to a rock. I thought it was tied off somewhere up in the ceiling. But no one was answering me, and I heard Camwyn up there, yelling, and blades … I had to do
something
.”

“You woke the Bells in the tower, and how that happened I do not know. Some elven magery, I suppose.”

They met a palace servant hurrying toward them. “The king wants you,” he said. “Down in the scullery.”

The first words Aris heard the king say, to the captain of the palace guard, were “Where are the other iynisin, then?”

“They fled somewhere—the bell sound followed them, but the palace guard did not pursue past the gates.”

The king, clearly furious, opened his mouth then shut it again, shook his head, and said, “And your task, as you understood it, was to protect me and the prince.”

“Yes, sir king. I’m sorry, sir king …”

“You did what you thought was your duty. No one can ask more.” He caught sight of Aris. “And you, Aris Marrakai—if he lives, it is you who saved him. You alone broke the spell laid on all the rest of us. Do you know how?”

“No, sir king.” Aris’s throat had closed again, seeing Camwyn lying so pale, so still, blood seeping through the many bandages. The dented helmet still covered his head; the physicians argued over how best to remove it without causing more harm. “But … we’re friends.”

“So you are. And it was you who pulled the rope, I understand, and woke the Bells of Vérella. How did you know to do that?”

“It was all I could think of, sir king. I could not wake the guards. I didn’t know it would wake the Bells, only that someone had said they’d heard it could bring the gods’ help.”

“And so it did. Aris, you have my thanks for this, and another day I will thank you properly. Stay watchful; those who did this may hold a grudge against you for it.”

“Yes, sir king.” He wanted to ask Mikeli if Camwyn would live, but he knew he should not.

“King of Tsaia, a word.” The speaker, a dark figure by the door, took everyone by surprise. Several drew blades; Mikeli whirled, scowling.

“I am no iynisin,” the figure said. Aris stared at him, the dark leather clothing faintly patterned like scales, the dark-skinned face and startling golden eyes like flames. “And you, King, have met me before, when I was sent by Lord Arcolin in company with his sergeant, Stammel.”

“Put up your blades,” Mikeli said. “I do indeed remember Sir Camwyn.”

“Your brother the prince fares ill,” the man said.

“He does. He was attacked.”

“We must talk, King. Step aside with me.”

The king’s guards protested, but the king and the strange man
went into the kitchen, the king gesturing for the servants there to leave.

“Why are you here?” Mikeli asked the man who was not a man.

“I came too late for another; I may have come too late for my namesake.”

“Your … name really is Camwyn?”

“No. I am Dragon; that is all the name I need. But your brother—he has a touch of dragonfire, and he loves me. I felt that before. So I came at once.”

“The physicians will not tell me … I know by their looks … and already a High Marshal has prayed for Gird’s healing and it has not come. I laid my hands on him—some kings in the past could heal, it is said. Kieri of Lyonya healed the king of Pargun. But when I tried, nothing happened.” Mikeli fought back the tears rising in his eyes. “What kind of king am I, if I cannot heal my own brother? Was it to murder him that I prayed I might have no magery, in order to keep the throne?”

“You love your brother,” the dragon said.

“Of course I love my brother,” Mikeli said. “And he … he may die. They think he will die. And that if he does not die, his mind … it is like the kick of a horse that splits a skull, they said. A few live, but not as themselves … a broken life.”

“Do you love your brother enough to lose him?” The dark man kept his eyes fixed on Mikeli’s.

“To … to let him die, you mean?”

“Would it not be better than living as a mindless body?”

“No … yes … but is his mind then destroyed?”

“Perhaps not. But
here
it cannot heal. There is a place … You surely know, King, that there are places of power as well as powers embodied.”

Mikeli wept. “If there is a place of healing for him, then … then yes, I will take him there, leave him there, if that is what it takes.” He
struggled to keep speaking. “But … but our physicians say he will surely die if he is moved.”

“If you moved him, the way you travel, he would die. He will not die if I take him.”

Mikeli stared. “You? You would take him? In your … in your
mouth
?”

“Where all who fly with me must ride, yes. Half-Song, Lyonya’s queen, has ridden so, and the Blind Archer has ridden so. Your brother for a short time, as you know.”

“And … you can heal him?” The thought of Camwyn alive, Camwyn beside him again, almost stopped his breath.

“I am certain he can be healed. But I tell you this truth: he may not be as he was—as you know him. Alive, well, in a good place, and yet changed.”

Mikeli struggled with his grief for himself at losing his brother and his joy if Camwyn could live. “I love him,” he said, hating the shakiness of his voice. “The last thing both my father and my mother said to me was ‘Take care of your brother, Miki … he needs you.’ If he must leave, to live, then … then I must let him go … but not to
know
 …”

The man’s impossible tongue came out, shimmering with heat, and touched Mikeli’s forehead, a touch no warmer than his father’s hand had been and as comforting. “You will know how he fares in healing, for I will tell you. I promise that, though I cannot promise his return.” He looked aside at Camwyn for a moment. “It would be best if I took him now, sir king. He is sinking.”

Mikeli noticed, even in his grief, that the dragon had addressed him formally for the first time. He went back into the scullery and waved the others away, ignoring their protests. They would think he had given up, that he knew Camwyn was dying and wanted to mourn, and that much was true.

He sat down again on the stool by the table on which Camwyn had been laid and touched Camwyn’s forehead. “Brother, heart-kin more than blood-kin, if you can hear me at all, know I love you and always will. You wanted to fly with the dragon; the dragon offers a chance at healing for you, and so I send you in the best and only care
I can find. If I never see you again, I pray you know in your heart your brother loved you and for nothing less than saving your life would have sent you away.” He looked at the dragon. “Can you take him here, or shall I carry him to the courtyard for you to change?”

“I must change,” the man said. “For the shape of this body will not encompass him as he is now. But I can carry him more safely than you; for what lesser magery this body can do will keep him safer.”

Together they walked through the palace, the dragon man cradling Camwyn like a small child. Camwyn never stirred. In the courtyard, the man handed Camwyn to Mikeli. Once again Mikeli saw the transformation of a man’s shape to a dragon’s. When the last scales rattled a little on the pavement, the mouth opened, and the long red tongue slid out, hissing a little on the dew that slicked the stones.

“Lay him there,” the dragon said in Mikeli’s mind. “His head to the outer world.”

Mikeli bent with difficulty and laid Camwyn on the tongue, then kissed his brow.

“Touch your tongue to mine again,” the dragon said. “For this is a vow between us.”

The dragon’s tongue tasted, impossibly, of Camwyn’s favorite food.

“So you know that I know him, and care for him,” the dragon said.

Mikeli stood and backed away. The tongue, with Camwyn upon it, slid into the dragon’s mouth. Mikeli saw no movement of the dragon’s throat, nothing at all but that great yellow eye gazing steadily at him. Then the lid of that eye blinked over it once, and the dragon rose into the air, still with its tail coiled to avoid the wall of the court. When it rose above the palace, it stretched, opened wings so wide they shadowed the entire palace, and sped into the sky, vanishing into the blue.

Mikeli stood a long moment in the courtyard, then turned and bypassed the turn to the kitchen wing, instead climbing up the stairs and turning to Camwyn’s room … the room his brother might never see again. He had thought he was over the worst, calm again after his decision, but the empty bed, covers still rumpled where Camwyn
had been sleeping earlier, struck him to the heart with grief and guilt. He collapsed onto it, smothering his sobs in Camwyn’s pillow.

“Sir king …”

He did not recognize the voice at first; he wiped his face on his sleeve and turned around. It was Rothlin, his cousin. A coolness had come between them after he’d forced Beclan’s exclusion from the family, and a little more when he’d realized that Rothlin really was interested in the Kostandanyan princess and was afraid Mikeli would offer for her.

“Is he … did he die?” Rothlin asked.

“No. Not yet.” Mikeli took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He was failing so fast … we could all see it; you saw it. And the dragon came.”

“Dragon? The same one who—”

“Yes. The dragon said Cam could find no healing here, but only in a magical place the dragon knew of. But that he might never return … I suppose that means his memory … he might have none.”

“I’m sorry,” Rothlin said. “Cousin … I am sorry for it all.”

“And so am I, Roth. You love Beclan as I love Cam.
Damn
this stupid prejudice against magery! If we had magery, we might have saved Camwyn from the beginning, and more besides.”

“You are making changes,” Rothlin said. “There’s been no mob violence here, as in Fintha.”

“But too many deaths, and deaths from lack of magery as well.” Mikeli reached out, and his cousin took his hand. In a moment they were hugging, pounding each other’s back.

“We will survive this,” Rothlin said. “You will, as king, and—in case no one has told you during this mess—you’re being a good king.”

“And so will you be,” Mikeli said.

Rothlin looked shocked.

“I have no heir of the body; you just moved from third to second in line.”

“But you will marry—”

“If I have time.” Mikeli walked around the room, picked up Camwyn’s dagger, wishing he’d thought to send some of Camwyn’s favorite
things, then realizing the dragon might not have agreed to take them. And if Cam had no memory, how could these things remind him of home? He put down the dagger, touched the stone in its hilt, and turned away. “What if the iynisin come again? What if they are able to take the regalia?”

“It’s still there, isn’t it?”

“Yes. For now. But it’s a danger to us all, just being here and wanting—wanting to be somewhere else.”

“How do you know that?”

“Duke Verrakai. It speaks to her—she told me it wants her, thinks it belongs to her. And she alone can open the chest now.” He glanced at Rothlin, who had raised one arched brow. “Yes. And … it has begun speaking to me. In my head.”

“Does that mean you’re a mage, too?”

“No. Or Camwyn would be here, healed, and not wherever the dragon’s taken him.” Yet even as he said that, he felt something deep inside himself, something he could not define … but knew, with terrifying certainty, was his own magery. He turned to Roth. “We must send the regalia away with Duke Verrakai.”