Dragonbards (19 page)

As he turned away, she stood looking after
him filled with the one consolation, that the lyre would give him
strength.

Within Quazelzeg’s eastern palace there is a
door made of gold that can open by a warping of time and place into
the Castle of Doors— just as the door in the sunken city did. Yet
only if our own power falters does Quazelzeg hold certain control
over his private gold door.

*

Teb and Seastrider left well before it was
light. His thoughts were filled with what lay ahead, but filled,
too, with Thakkur’s dark eyes watching him. He had so strong a
sense of Thakkur that the white otter might almost have been with
him. His mind echoed Thakkur’s warnings of danger and foolish
pride—and of the foolishness of battling the dark alone. Thakkur’s
voice rode with him for a long way, unsettling him, nearly making
him turn back. But then Thakkur’s more positive words came.
I
have absolute faith in you, Tebriel—in your
goodness. . . .

When thoughts of Thakkur faded, the wind
rushed empty around Teb. Alone on the wind, bard and dragon
remained silent, winging north toward Aquervell and the city of
Sharden.

*

It took Kiri hours to go to sleep. She
tossed on her straw pallet, trying not to wake Camery. Her fear for
Teb was a blackness that would not leave her. She knew that when
she woke in the morning, Teb and Seastrider would be gone—alone.
When finally she did sleep, she dreamed a vision so real she
thought she and Teb had returned to Nightpool.

She dreamed that Seastrider and Windcaller
dropped onto the sea beside Nightpool, and all around them otters
came hurrying out of caves, shouting and hah-hahing in greeting.
She dreamed that she and Teb followed Thakkur and Hanni into the
sacred cave amid a press of eager, fishy-smelling otters. There,
Thakkur turned and looked at her with such powerful concern and
said, “I can give you this, I can give Tebriel this, though it
pains me.”

She dreamed that the clamshell had
brightened, and when the vision came, all who watched were caught
in the black emptiness between worlds. She saw the ivory lyre lying
alone, across ancient white bones. She saw Quazelzeg moving through
dark worlds following a shadow she could not make out, and she
screamed with fear for Teb. She awoke sweating and cold.

In his palace at Aquervell, Quazelzeg
followed Meriden in vision, meaning to turn her back to Tirror,
where his power over her would be greatest. She kept retreating,
glancing back at him, laughing as she slipped in and out of
shifting dimensions beside the white dragon. He did not like her
mockery; he did not like the insolent turn of her head. She thought
that she led him, that she had drawn him through again. But
this
was only a vision. He would follow her thus until she
fled from him into evils she had not dreamed; then she would beg
for his help.

A river lay ahead. Meriden and the dragon
flew across it. Rivers contained creatures friendly to him, and he
stepped in. When slimy hands reached, he smiled. This was, after
all, only vision. But the creatures clutched at him. When he pushed
them away, their mouths sucked at his hands and arms, burning like
fire. He turned, puzzled—she had drawn him through against his
will. He brought his power to drive the creatures back, to free
himself. But Meriden and the dragon stood before him.

Behind them opened a Door into a cave, and
in the cave shone the giant white skeleton of a dragon. Its tall
ribs curved up in an arch, and its empty eye sockets held shadows
that shifted and threatened him—as if Bayzun’s spirit lived.
Meriden smiled coldly.

“The spirit of Bayzun will defeat you,” she
said softly “The Ivory Lyre of Bayzun will defeat you.”

Quazelzeg backed away, willed himself away
from her; with a terrible effort he willed himself back into his
palace.

He stood there shaken.

This moment made an end to games. The woman
must be disposed of. He shouted for Shevek. The captain came
running.

“I expect to be in Sharden by tomorrow
night. I do not relish a long ride. Find a fast ship.”

Shevek nodded.

Quazelzeg smiled. In Sharden his powers
would increase. In Sharden he could step
through
at his own
choosing, by the power of the gold Door, and move on within the
Castle of Doors readily, to find Meriden. Soon Tebriel would arrive
in Sharden, and the spells Quazelzeg had planted within the
bard—and the bard’s own weakness—would feed his own power
further.

*

Kiri woke to sunlight in her face. Camery’s
bed was empty. She lay seeing the dream.
Was
it a dream? Or,
as she slept, had Thakkur given her a vision? Her thoughts were
filled with the shadows of dark worlds and with Quazelzeg’s pale,
evil face; and with the shock of the ivory lyre lying abandoned
across ancient bones. Waking fully, she remembered that Teb would
be gone from Auric now, winging over far continents, and she buried
her face in her pillow.

At last she rose, washed from the basin of
cold water Camery had left, and dressed. She did not feel hungry.
She went down the stone flights, thinking only of Teb.

The main hall was crowded with folk packing
bundles, wrapping food, mending and oiling harness and boots. The
courtyard was the same, as people prepared to journey north. Teb’s
desire to hurry northward had flamed through the palace, filling
everyone with the need to follow him.

Camery came to join her.

“He wasn’t ready,” Kiri said. “He isn’t
ready to face Quazelzeg.”

“No one is completely ready to do that,
Kiri. But now, all of Tirror will follow him, to confront those on
Aquervell.” Cannery’s green eyes were filled with resolve. “It is
time. Teb has made it so. And perhaps our mother has, too.”

Within an hour, the bards and dragons were
in the sky, lifting above banks of gray cloud. Below, the march
north had begun, flowing out of Auric’s palace and villages, and
from the palace at Ratnisbon, gathering more strength as it moved
north. Perhaps no one could put logic to this sudden swelling
movement, but already it was inevitable and fierce. The dragonbards
meant to free all who might join it.

Camery and Marshy moved to the west,
bringing song and freedom to the outer islands. Colewolf and Aven
followed to the east, touching the larger countries. Kiri and Darba
and the two riderless dragonlings moved up through the center of
the island mass. Below them the marching numbers swelled as the
bards and dragons freed more and more of Turor’s peoples, waking
slaves in a sudden all-out attack on the remaining pockets of
darkness. Those slaves turned on their masters and killed them.
Everywhere, they were joined by the speaking animals. Off the
eastern coast, otters flashed through the green waters, led by the
two white otters, moving resolutely and unswervingly north.

Thakkur forged on, grimly cleaving through
the sea’s swells. He had done all he could. His love was with Teb,
his caring and his deep prayers. He felt certain that they
approached the last battle, and he knew a dread he did not speak
of, a private sadness.

As Sharden fell from a city of vivid life to
a prison of despair, so all Tirror now follows.

*

Teb and Seastrider crossed over the last
islands just at dusk and made for the Aquervell shore, dropping low
over cadacus fields that grew along the coast. The city of Sharden
rose beyond the fields, a tangle of close, narrow streets running
at all angles and crowded with shacks and stone mansions pushing
against one another. The city was built along and over three
rivers, its seventeen bridges each crusted with houses and shops
divided by a narrow cobbled lane. On a hill apart from Sharden
stood Quazelzeg’s castle, a fortress of dark-gray stone.

Sharden had once been the jewel of Tirror.
It was the center where all craftsmen had come to study, to trade,
to celebrate and feast. The shops had been filled with wares
wrought half with skill and half with magic cloth of gold
reflecting distant visions, kettles of copper that could brew an
ambrosia of healing, bridles that could immediately gentle the
wildest colt. That magic was gone now; the city was a morass of
dirty streets and bawdy houses and drug dens and theaters where a
night’s entertainment watching unspeakable tortures could be had
for the price of a new victim—a child or small animal.

Seastrider circled high above the clouds
until nighttime. When they could not be seen, she dropped down to a
rocky hill beyond palace and city, where she could lie hidden among
jutting boulders. From here Teb could see the palace and the guards
pacing atop its wall.

He ate a simple supper of dried meat and
bread, wondering if he should slip into the palace when most of its
inhabitants slept, to find the gold Door. Perhaps that would be the
easiest way through into the Castle of Doors. There were two such
Doors, far from the Castle of Doors but opening into it by spells.
Meriden had gone through the other Door, in the sunken city, to
move through warping space into the Castle of Doors and so into
other worlds. If Meriden had been able to move through that Door,
surely he and Seastrider could enter through this one.

The other way would be to fly north over the
mountains until they saw the castle as they had seen it in
Meriden’s vision—but the gold Door was so near. Surely he could get
to it unseen when the palace slept.

“And how would I get into the palace,
Tebriel? How would I squeeze myself into palace chambers, to reach
the gold Door? No, Tebriel. Not possible. We must go over the
mountains.”

“Yes, all right,” he said, keeping his own
counsel. “But tonight we must rest. It was a long journey from
Auric. You flew against heavy winds.” Strangely, now that he was
here, he was not ready. Something held him back. He wondered if
Meriden’s will held him . . .
not before you are
ready. Take care. . . .

Seastrider looked at him uneasily. Yet if he
wanted sleep, so be it. She curled down between the boulders, to
rest and keep watch. He lay down against her.

He could hear, from the city, the faint
sounds of horses and wagons, doors slamming, and scattered shouts.
When it grew late, the shouts increased, mixed with harsh music.
The city drew him, with its tangle of narrow streets and of
different peoples. He turned over, away from it, and at last he
slept.

He woke to far, raucous laughter and the
terrified screams of a child. He sat up and didn’t sleep any
more.

Near to midnight, a coach arrived at the
palace from the east, its six horses gleaming with sweat in the
torchlight. Soldiers snapped to attention, and servants backed away
in deference as a tall, hunched figure stepped out—a figure that
struck terror into Teb.

As he watched Quazelzeg enter the palace,
Teb’s urgency to go through the Doors faltered again. By the time
the palace quieted and lamps were snuffed, he had worked himself
into a turmoil of doubt.

Quite late, he began to see snatches of
vision.

He saw Meriden. All around her swirled
dimensions ever changing—meadow, wood, hellfire, stars, swamp,
blackness. He saw a cave that was a dragon’s tomb, the giant white
skeleton looming, and, afraid, he turned away from it. He wandered
through shifting worlds stumbling and confused.

But slowly the confusion left him. The
hunger that Quazelzeg had planted through drugs and mind warping
grew bold. He began to lust for the drugs, to need them, and to
hunger for the powers the drugs would give him.

Those powers, he thought with sudden
understanding, were powers he could use to drive the dark out, not
to help it—if he was clever.

If he was canny, he could outsmart
Quazelzeg. With the powers the drugs gave him—powers Quazelzeg had
meant him to use for the dark—he could defeat the un-man. With
those terrible powers he had touched when he lay in Quazelzeg’s
palace, he could control Tirror and control everyone in it. And
then, instead of helping the unliving, he would force every soul
upon Tirror to rise against the unliving and drive the dark
out.

How simple. And how foolproof. He had only
to make Quazelzeg think he had turned to the dark.

When he had such power, he would permit only
goodness upon Tirror. Hadn’t Thakkur himself said,
I have—faith
in you, Tebriel—in your goodness, in your ultimate good
sense.

His need to control was different from
Quazelzeg’s greed for control. He, Tebriel, wanted only to save
Tirror. He needed the drugs to strengthen his powers—he would take
of the powers of the unliving and join them with his own powers,
and thus make himself invincible.

He
would
save Tirror.

He would find drugs easily in Sharden, on
any street corner. He was completely caught in the brilliance of
his plan, when suddenly Seastrider struck him across the face,
knocking him backward. He stared at her, shocked.

“He steals your soul, Tebriel! He takes your
soul from you!”

“He does nothing of the kind! What’s the
matter with you?”

“He is sending visions to destroy you! He is
drawing your mind into the darkness!”

“His thoughts are not touching me! Leave me
alone!”

Seastrider reared over him. Her power hit
him like a storm; her eyes blazed as she sought to destroy
Quazelzeg’s hold. She breathed out fire and cuffed him, and drove
him up the hill farther from the city and palace. He could not use
a sword against her any more than he could thrust it through his
own body. She cornered him among boulders. He fought her with his
bard powers, defying her with a fury he had never imagined he would
feel for her. But for every movement he made, she bested him. She
would not let him leave the hill.