Dragon's Treasure (31 page)

"I am often right," his wife said. "Dangerous as Kojiro Atani, yes, perhaps. But at least he was not mad."

"How do you know that?"

"He could have let the city burn. He didn't." She rose in a whisper of silks, and glided across the red-tiled floor to stand beside him. "I wonder what provoked him."

"Some stupidity of Marion's, I'm sure of that." Kalni Leminin turned from the window. "Damn Marion; he gives me trouble even with his death! There's not even an acknowledged heir. I shall have to appoint a governor."

"I thought he had a brother."

"Cosimo; he lives outside Fuld. He's an astrologer. He was the elder; by rights, Sorvino came to him. But he never wanted it. He signed a paper relinquishing his right to rule; I saw it.
He'll
be no help.

"No, I shall have to find someone else."

* * *

Ralf molto did not regain consciousness.

Finle and Rogys rolled him under the wagon. He lay there, face slowly purpling, his breathing slow and labored. Molto's mule, and all the horses, including Smoke, had fled in terror at the dragon's roar.

"They'll come back," Hawk said. "Sit down, before you fall."

Taran folded into the grass. Finle brought him dried meat and fruit, and a waterskin. His mouth hurt, and his teeth were loose. He chewed slowly. It hurt to swallow. "How did you find me?" he asked. Hawk said, "Shem found you." The little boy sat in the hollow of Finle's arm. He looked exhausted.

Taran said, "Thank you, Shem." Every muscle in his body ached.

Finle said to Hawk, "Where is he?" She looked at him. "Dragon. Where did he go?" She said, "Sorvino."

Taran remembered the dragon's great horned head stooping near him, and the heat of its breath, and the white rage shimmering in its eyes. Finle opened his mouth, as if to ask another question, then shut it.

Rogys said, "I wonder if that bastard's awake yet." He padded off in the direction of the wagon. He returned, frowning. "He's dead," he reported. "Now what do we do?"

"Bury him," Finle said.

"Here?"

"No," Hawk said. "Wait till the horses come back. See if that cart will roll."

The horses drifted back. Molto's mule was with them. They carted the body to Estancia, and paid the long-faced innkeeper to bury him. It was not the first time he had been asked to do such a service. Traveling, he informed them, was unhealthy. People died on the road, of all sorts of ailments. Better a man should stay where he was.

"What sort of rites would your friend wish?" he inquired.

Rogys said shortly, "He wasn't our friend. He was an outlaw."

Hawk said, "Say whatever ritual seems good to you. Have you a bathhouse? Our companion needs to bathe. He needs clean clothes, too." She passed the man some more coins. "Trousers, a shirt, boots."

The bathhouse behind the inn was small, and it smelled of sewage, but the stones in the fire pit were hot. Taran sat on the narrow seat, drinking water, and sweating, while the filth peeled off his skin. They ate in the inn's common room. The food was passable. They slept at the inn that night. In the morning they rode north. Taran rode Rogys's horse, while Rogys rode Smoke. Hawk took Shem before her. They left the mule and cart with the lugubrious innkeeper, in payment for the night's lodgings. They went slowly; Taran was still weak, and there was no need to tax the horses.

The first night they stayed in a travelers' shelter. It rained.

The second night they camped in a farmer's apple orchard. They made a ring of stones and built a fire, more for the comfort of the light than for warmth. The night air was mellow, ripe with the scent of apple blossoms. The farmer's wife brought them lamb stew, seasoned with apples, and a jug of apple wine. Finle and Rogys passed it back and forth. Hawk shook her head. They offered it to Taran, but he waved it away. Just the smell of wine made him queasy.

Finle, finally, said, "You'd best tell us what happened, One-arm. How did you come to leave the Keep?"

Taran told them about Edric's offer, and about the men who had taken him.

Finle said, "What did diSorvino want with you?"

"He wanted to put me in a cage."

"Truly?"

"Yes."

Finle said, "He must have really hated you. Why did he?"

"I never knew," Taran said.

"I thought you'd killed Herugin," Rogys said.

"I didn't."

"I know that now."

Shem said suddenly, "The house is burning."

They all looked at him. Finle said, "What house, cub?"

"The angry man's house. He's dead." He sighed gustily, and knuckled his eyes. Hawk smoothed his hair.

Rogys said, "What's the boy talking about? What man?"

She said, "I think he means Marion diSorvino. Dragon's killed him and burned his house."

"How can he know that?" Finle asked.

"I don't know," Hawk said. "He shouldn't."

So diSorvino was dead, burned to ash in his big house, just as he had wished for so long.... Taran wondered why he did not feel exultant. Maia would have to be told that her father was dead. He did not think she would grieve.

Their fire was nearly out, its fuel consumed. He gazed at the flutter of red thrusting between the stones.
Wake
, he said to it in his mind,
move.
... It rose out of the ash like a wave to shore. He felt it in his mind. His muscles locked. He stared at the bright leaping flame, astonished, uncertain. The yellow tongue of flame subsided.
Move,
he said to it again.

But whatever had happened did not come again. He glanced at his companions. Rogys, clasping the jug, was staring at the moon. Finle was removing his boots. Neither he nor the redhead had noticed anything. But Hawk was looking at him out of her single eye.

Careful,
she said. Her lips had not moved. She had spoken inside his head.
Be very careful, One-arm.

* * *

Maia diSorvino was picking raspberries on a hillside when she saw the dragon fall.

He came down fast, on folded wings. She dropped her basket. He was moving so swiftly that she did not see how he could stop in time. Without thinking, she began to run.

At the ridge, she climbed, legs and lungs burning, terrified of what she might see from the crest. At first she could not see anything. Then she saw him: a fair-haired, fair- skinned man, prone in the fireweed, head turned to one side as though he were sleeping. She clambered down the hill. Kneeling, she laid a scratched, berry-stained hand on his back. His skin was warm, his breathing even. She felt his pulse with trembling fingers. It was strong as the river in spate.

Ice coated his hair. His shirt was caked with ash. She shook him, gently at first, then harder. "Karadur," she said. "Karadur Atani, wake...!" He rolled over, and sat up.

Morga bounded up the hill. Tail thrashing, she thrust her nose at him. She sniffed his hands, then his sleeves. The fur on her back stood up in a ridge. She growled, deep in her throat, and backed from him, still growling.

"Fool dog," Maia said, "what's wrong with you?"

Karadur said, "She smells death."

Treion,
she thought,
something has happened to Treion....
She sat back on her heels, and laid her hands in her lap.

She said, "Whatever it is, tell me quickly."

He said, "Maia diSorvino, I am sorry. Your father is dead."

It was not at all what she had expected. She wondered how it had happened: a fall from a horse, a sudden sickness.... No. Karadur Atani would not have come racing across the sky to tell her that.

"Did you kill him?" she said. He nodded. "How?"

"I burned his house."

Surely a daughter should mourn a father. There were words a child was supposed to say, prayers to speed a parent's spirit on its journey. She had said them for her mother.

But she had not loved Marion diSorvino, and he had not loved her. He had killed Master Eccio. He had dishonored her mother. She felt no grief, only a strange and compelling lightness.

"Why did my father send men to Dragon Keep?"

"They came to take your brother."

She caught her breath. "Taran tried to leave the Keep?" Stupid Treion; savage Treion, whose name was Taran now...

"No. It was a design of your father's. He paid men to kidnap Taran, to bring him to Sorvino. All's well, we found him. He's sore and weary, but not hurt."

Vaikkenen, god of thieves and beggars, thank you for that mercy.

Dragon waking, Dragon flies, Dragonfire fills the skies, How many candles by my bed, snuff them out you sleepyhead. Ten, nine, eight, seven...

"Did you burn the city, too?"

"No," he said. "I could have. He sent men to my domain, to
my
Keep. They killed Herugin, my cavalry master. But I did not do it. I am not my father."

Herugin was the man Treion had scarred. She wondered if he had left a wife, children.... Karadur's face was light-filled, shining with the dragon-glamour. Mother of the gods, he was beautiful. His skin glowed like polished metal. If she touched him she would burn. She would not wait any longer. She put her hands on his forearms, then on his face, and drew his head down. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her mouth. They disengaged. She was shaking. Her legs did not want to move. Karadur's arm came around her, and the shaking stopped.

He lifted her, and brought her down the hill. At the foot of the hill, he set her on her feet. He lifted her hands lightly, and kissed her palms.

"Maia."

"My lord..." His smile silenced her. "I don't know what else to call you."

He said, "My friends call me Kaji."

"Kaji," she repeated. They walked together to the cottage. She pushed the door open. "Come in," she said. Karadur did not move. She held out a hand. "Please."

He said, "Maia, are you sure?"

He was Dragon, dragon and human, together; he would never be other.

"I'm sure."

He took off his clothes, letting her look at him. Over the last two years she had treated the wounds of farmers, hunters, trappers: she knew what men's bodies looked like.

His body was perfect. He took off her clothing, slowly, a piece at a time. He kissed her eyelids, her breasts, her belly. His hands moved on her, gently, then hungrily, but she did not fear his desire, or his strength, or the fire that shimmered in his hair and on his skin.

He said, "They say it hurts, the first time."

"I know."

"Shall I..."

"Yes!"

* * *

At moonrise they went to the river to bathe. Karadur waded to the middle of the deep, swift stream and held out his hands. She plunged toward him, gasping as the water enveloped her. She stood within his arms, and did not feel the cold.

They returned to the cottage, to the bed. She lay naked, head pillowed on his arm. Despite soreness in unaccustomed places, her body felt pliant and languorous as a cat's. Morga lay on the rug, paws neatly crossed, head erect, watching them. She had whined outside the door until Karadur unbarred it.

Hip to hip on the narrow bed, they talked.

"Tell me about your mother," he said. "Was she tall like you? Was she kind? Was she beautiful?"

"She was beautiful," Maia said. "She wasn't tall, she was tiny. She was always kind to me. She was courageous. Even when she lay dying, she would only let me give her enough poppy to dull the pain." She twined her fingers with his. "Tell me about your father. You were very young when he died. Do you remember him?"

"A little. I remember the way he filled the room. He carried me on his shoulders, and taught me the names of the stars. He gave me my first knife." His voice grew meditative. "In the domain, and outside it, they tell stories of his cruelty. Lorimir Ness, the Keep's senior captain, once told me that there was only a little tenderness in him, and that he did not dispense it freely. But with me, with my brother, he was always gentle."

Of his brother he said, "We were womb-brothers. We were friends when we were young. But he envied me, that I had inherited the dragon-nature from our father, and he had not. It made him bitter, and vengeful. He was truly a sorcerer, but he sold his gift to the darkness that he might destroy me. He almost succeeded."

He stayed the night, and left in the morning. All morning she moved within a dream, pursued by heat that seemed to rise from her feet and travel up her frame to the crown of her head in inexorable waves.

At sunset he returned, soaring through the purple sky, immense and golden. Despite their breadth, his pale gold wings seemed delicate as the wings of butterflies, far too light to bear his weight.

"I brought you this." It was a fur cloak. The luscious brown pelt was sleek and sensuous as satin. He wrapped it around her shoulders.

"It's so warm...." She stroked it. "What beast has fur like this?"