Dragon's Treasure (35 page)

She held up both hands, palms out, to prove they were empty. As he had seen the men do, Shem put his hand on the hilt of his knife.

"Peace to you," he said.

"Sorry to have startled you," she said. "Is this the way to Dragon Keep?"

He knew then she was a foreigner. Everyone in Ippa knew the way to Dragon Keep. He pointed north. "Dragon Keep is that way. If you follow the road, you'll find it. I'll help you catch your horse if you like."

She said, "I'm on foot. Thank you for your offer, though."

She stepped back. Clearly she meant him to ride on past her, and so he did. Halfway across the meadow he looked back, but could not see her.

* * *

At the Keep, a caravan clogged the way to the main gate. The caravan guards sat in the sun beneath their flapping flags. In their brightly colored caps they looked hot, and bored. Shem weaved Bella carefully through the press of big horses.

The merchant stood before the gate, talking earnestly with Derry. Shem liked Derry, who had once been Dragon's page, and was now grown, and in the war band.

"Hey," he said, "it's me."

"Shem. What are you doing on this side of the gate? Go ahead, go in."

He brought Bella to the stable. Turtle frisked from a stall, tongue lolling, and jumped to lick his face. "Down. Sit." Kneeling, he pressed his face into the dog's fur. He gave Bella water and rubbed her down, taking care to check her hooves for cracks. Then he went to the forge. The forge was hot; it was always hot, even in winter. Devin stood beside Rannet, Telchor Felse's tall son, helping him pump the big bellows. Sparks flew around his ears. His face was smeared with soot. They grinned at one another.

Devin said, "Hey. Kiala was looking for you earlier."

"Whyfor?"

"Something about a shirt."

Kiala was always fussing at him about his clothes. He grew quickly; it was, Hawk said, the changeling blood in him.

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her I didn't know where you had got to."

They grinned at one another. When first he had started stealing away to Maia's house, he had created a maze of half-truths, telling Devin one thing, Rogys another, Kiala a third, so that no one would know that he had left the Keep. He did not mind lying to Kiala. But Devin was his friend, his best friend, and he hated lying to Devin. So he told Devin about Maia. So far, Devin had kept his secret.

Rannet made an irritated noise. Devin bent to his task. A spark lit on his shoulder. Shem brushed it away quickly before it made a hole in his shirt.

Devin said, "You know, I'm thirsty."

"I could do that," he offered. He put his hands round the bellows poles.

"Steady," Rannet warned.

"I know," Shem said. He pumped in a steady rhythm, keeping the fire hot, while Rannet held the tongs with one hand and worked his hammer with the other. Devin slipped out to get a drink of water and wipe the soot from his eyes. Then he came back. Shem relinquished the poles. They took turns pumping, until Kiala came in.

"How come you're never where I want you to be when I look for you?" she said. She glared at Devin. "Where have you been all day? Gods, you're filthy! Come on. You can't stay like that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's disgusting." She dragged him to the laundry and made him stand in a tub and be scrubbed, and pulled a clean shirt to wear from out of his chest, and a partially clean pair of breeches, and made him put them on, despite his protests. "And stay out of the dirt!" she ordered.

It was an impossible prohibition; every part of the Keep had its own kind of dirt. Shem climbed the stairs to the roof, to the place near the kitchen chimney, where no one would find him and make him do anything he did not want to do. Scents from kitchen and stable, forge and field washed over him. A drift of cloud like lambswool scudded across the sky. He drew a deep breath in through his nostrils. The weather was changing. Frost was coming; he could smell it. Dragon was in the tower; Shem could feel the hidden heat of him across the castle. It warmed him.

He heard the scrabble of claws on stone. A cold nose poked his chin. A warm tongue lapped across his cheek. "Dog," he said softly. "You dog."

* * *

By the time the horn blew to call the Keep to supper, he was hungry again. As he went into the hall that night to eat, Devin caught his sleeve.

"There's a stranger at Dragon's table, a woman," he whispered. "She's odd: not a merchant, and not a messenger, either. Go look."

Strangers were interesting. Curious, Shem strolled between the tables, Turtle at his heels. Dragon had not come to the table yet. But Lorimir was there, and Orm, and Marek, and Hawk, and beside Hawk sat the sunflower-eyed woman who had loomed like a revenant out of the field. He smelled her scent, the cinnamon-grass scent he had smelled in the field, but deeper, more intense. Something in his mind cried
Danger; danger.
He started to retreat. But she had seen him. Her yellow eyes met his. He felt a prickle of sensation in his head.

Turtle growled his singing growl. "Hush," he said to the dog. He slid his fingers under Turtle's collar. The hair on the brown dog's back was raised and bristling.

Hawk said, "Shem, this is Callista Dahranni, your father's sister. She has come from Nyo, in Nakase, a long, long way."

"Why?"

"To greet you."

Callista said, "Greetings, Shem Wolfson, brother's son. My mother, your grandmother Naika, sent me."

Your father's people live in Nakase, by the Crystal hake, where the river ends. It is a long, long ride from Dragon's country, farther even than Ujo. Someday they will come for you, and you will go to them.

Shem stared at the stranger, the first of his own kind he had ever met, and hated her. He backed from the table, dragging Turtle with him. His heart was pounding. Then Dragon came into the hall. Everyone stood. The servers came from the kitchen with the big platters filled with meat, and baskets of soft white rolls.

Devin bobbed up beside him.

"What's happened?" A moth fluttered past them, on its way to oblivion in a candle flame. "Something's the matter, I can tell. What is it?"

"Nothing. Go away, leave me alone." He sidled into the corner where the servers kept the brooms. It was a shadowy place, away from the torches, a place from where he could watch, and listen, and not be seen.
Danger, danger.
He listened to the men talking. They were talking of hunting. A trapper had stopped at the Keep that morning to say that he had seen elk in the northern woodlands.

"It's early for elk," Marek said. "It hasn't even snowed yet. Last year it was November before they came."

Lorimir said, "It will be an early winter."

Azil the singer sang, and Juni Talvela played, his fingers dancing on the harp strings. Azil sang "The Red Boar of Aidu," and "Tirion's Hunting," and "The Riddle Song."

Then Dragon asked Callista Dahranni if there was a song she wished to hear.

She said to Azil, "Do you know 'Benta's Lament?' It is a song from Issho."

"I know it," the singer said. He took the harp from Juni.

Shem had never heard the song, and so he listened intently. It told the story of a warrior who returns to his home after a terrible battle, and finds all changed; his wife and children gone, and strangers in their places. He walks around his manor, and speaks to people, but no one can hear him. At last he realizes that these are his descendants, and that he is a ghost.

Grieved, but content—for the land is rich and fruitful, its people fed—he lays his broken sword upon the hearthstone of his hall, and walks into the mist.

Let the mountain be my gravestone, and let no man speak my name,

That I may sleep, that I may sleep.

The music was sad, but it stirred the blood like one of Raudri's horn calls. When it ended, the men shifted on the benches, their faces hard and thoughtful. The servers brought the wine round a final time. Slowly the hall cleared, as men left for their posts, or for their beds, until only the folk at Dragon's table were left.

A deep voice spoke inside Shem's head.

Shem Wolfson. Come here.

Shem walked across the hall to the table where his lord sat, with Akil the singer, and Finle, and Rogys, and Hawk, and Callista Dahranni. Lorimir had gone. So had Marek and Orm and Lurri. Juni Talvela sat at the end of the bench, running a soft cloth over the rosewood harp.

"My lord, you sent for me," he said.

Dragon said, "You didn't eat."

"I wasn't hungry," Shem said stiffly.

"My wolf cub not hungry? Impossible," Dragon said. A smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. Then the smile went away.

He said, "Your father's sister Callista came from Nakase, a long journey, to meet you, and you would not speak to her. Tell me why."

"I don't know her."

"She is your kin, your father's sister. She is wolf, like you."

"I don't care," Shem said.

"You have kindred in the west, cub. It is fitting that you meet them, and know them."

A black wind of despair blew through his heart. "I don't want to know them. I don't want to leave Dragon Keep. You said, 'Dragon Keep is your home.' You said so. You must remember."

Dragon said, "I did say so. I say it now again. Dragon Keep is your home, forever and ever. You are mine. Your father pledged you to my service when you were not a year old. You shall serve me, and when I am gone, you shall serve my son or daughter, whichever it shall be.

"But it is right that you should know your father's people. Therefore, it is my command that you shall go with your aunt, cub, and when you have learned what your people can teach you, you will return. A warrior goes where his lord commands. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Shem said.

Dragon reached a hand out and ruffled his hair with his long fingers. "It will not be so bad, cub. You will see."

Then Dragon rose, and the officers, too. Dragon left, with Azil Aumson at his heels. The servers came from the kitchen with their brooms and cloths. The dogs snuffled beneath the tables. Shem looked at the sunflower-eyed woman, and she looked gravely back at him.

He said, "When must we leave?"

"In a few days," she said.

"Is Nyo far?"

"Reasonably far. A few weeks' journey at best. Longer if the weather turns bad."

Turtle pressed against his leg. He said, "I would not like to go without my dog. I raised him from a pup. It would break his heart to be left behind."

She said, "Of course he shall come with you."

"Bella, too?"

"Who is Bella?"

"My pony."

She said, "Yes, of course. Both can come." And somehow that made it not so terrible. She beckoned. "Let us go from here. I want to show you something."

They walked into the courtyard. Night was approaching fast, and with it rode the frost that he had smelled in the air that afternoon. High above, on the wall, halos ringed the torches. He sniffed the moist, chill wind, tasting it in his throat.

He said, "It smells like snow."

She said, "I smell it, too."

But Cuillan could smell snow, too, and so could old Jon Duurni, and Lorimir, too, sometimes. Was what he smelled different from what they smelled? He did not know.

He said, "What do you want to show me?"

She knelt, and pulled the shirt back from her throat, exposing a bright jewel on a golden chain. "This. Do you know what it is?" He shook his head. "Look closely." He looked, and saw that it was a lump of yellow amber, rough carved in the shape of a wolf's head. "I made it, when I was fourteen. It's a talisman. It is changeling-magic. Every changeling makes a talisman: it is the device through which we receive and direct our powers. Dragon has one: the ring he wears on his arm. Your father had one, a silver pendant. You will have one, too."

"Every changeling has a talisman?" he repeated. "Hawk doesn't."

"Terrill Chernico's talisman was lost. That is why she cannot fly."

He had known that. Surely he had known that.

"May I touch it?" he asked. She nodded. He brushed his fingertips against the amber. It was warm from her skin.

"It's pretty," he said guardedly. "How does it work?"

She said inside his head,
Like this.
Light shimmered across his vision like a curtain blowing in the wind. He blinked. His heart jumped. Sleek as shadow, a wolf with a tawny, silver-tipped coat stood before him. It gazed at him out of sunflower eyes.

The light came again. The wolf vanished. Callista stood looking at him. They stared at one another.
When you are older, you will learn to do that. I will teach you.

He shivered a little, at that touch inside his mind. The hairs on his arm lifted, then settled.

What might it feel like, to be wolf, to have a wolf's grace and agility and power, to know the world as a wolf would know it, with its secret scents and whispers?