The Return of Kavin (12 page)

“Here, brother, what’s this?” Zamor asked, drawing closer. Kavin rode nearer too, studying the other man with narrow eyes.

“I…” Hugon said, shakily, and shook his head. “No. I can’t say exactly what it was. Kavin, you should have warned me about the shrines in your land. In Meryon we worship
Her
too, but She doesn’t speak.” He glanced at one and then the other. “No, I’m not mad. I don’t think I am, anyway. Look you, Zamor, Kavin, I only thought… a common custom, after all… a little wine, and a prayer for luck in our work.”

“A Goddess spoke to you?” Zamor asked incredulously. “But I saw nothing up there, nothing but yourself, and the rocks…”

“What did she say?” Kavin asked with a curious intentness.

“I… cannot tell you,” Hugon said. “Only… I heard a voice. She… laughed. If you had heard that, you’d believe me. It was no human laughter. And then She… told me certain things concerning myself and…” He looked at Kavin.
“You, Prince Kavin.
And… a great deal more. But I… cannot say what it was
She
told me.”

“You mean this Goddess forbids you to tell us?” Zamor asked. “Was it something about our fate?
A prophecy?”

“Damnation, no!”
Hugon
snapped,
anger in his voice. “Look
you,
it was no prophecy, nothing like that… and no command to keep silent. I can’t repeat what I heard… because there were no words, and I’ve got no words of my own for what I… saw.” Zamor’s black face grew gray.

“May the Snake protect you, brother,” he said in a low voice. “I have heard of this thing among my own people. If She comes thus to a man, he says that he has been spoken to, but he can’t repeat what he’s heard… as you say. We… fear such visitation.”

Kavin was silently watching Hugon. He nodded, but said nothing. After a while, Hugon said, “That was it, as you say. I heard and saw… something that cannot be said.” He glanced at Zamor. “You say you’ve heard of others…”

“In my land,” Zamor said. “They who have seen the Goddess generally go mad; some die. A few become witchmen.”

Hugon shivered slightly. He looked at Kavin.

“One thing,” he said. “The voice spoke a few words that were plain enough, of you. But I don’t understand their meaning.”

Kavin stared at him silently; then glanced ahead, along the road, and back at Hugon.

“You may as well tell,” he said, grimly.
“Though I think I can guess.”

“The voice said, ‘Let the Prince Kavin know that my daughter has returned to the place from which she came.’” Hugon said, slowly.

Kavin abruptly drew his horse to a halt, and his head bent over the saddlebow. As Hugon pulled up and looked back, he saw the expression on the other’s face; the look of a black despair, a loss. Then Kavin
straightened,
his expression calm again, but his eyes grim.

“I accept this too,” he said, and his horse paced on again.

They rode silently over a ridge, and looked over a wide valley where the road wound downward toward distant towers. The sea was visible again, far away; and on the other side, a glitter of water among thick trees, a lake in the forest. A narrow path wound away from the main road toward that distant lake.

“These are the lands of Hostan,” Kavin said, pointing across the valley. “There, the manorhouse… where the present lord of this valley lives. And there are the horses bred here… see, in those fields. They were my charge… while I was Orm.”

He reined in at the beginning of the narrow path, and turned his horse toward it, slowly, seeming to do so reluctantly.

“I lived there, near that lake,” he said, but did not ride on. Zamor and Hugon both noticed the odd use of the past tense, but waited silently.

“When I… awoke, after that strange sleep,” Kavin said, “I came here, as you know. I remembered this valley, and that lake, as a place of peace.” He stared down the path. “Once, in my… other life, when I was Prince Kavin…” His mouth twisted wryly. “A prince, leader of a people, and all the other things one says of princes. There was a woman. A strange woman indeed…”

“All of them are,” Hugon said. Kavin stared at him,
then
smiled slightly.

“True,” he said. “But you cannot know how strange. Listen, now, and see if you can understand me. In that other life, long ago, I left two queens to rule Koremon while I went on that journey that ended with my long sleep. There was… another.
A woman who was a voice, and no more… invisible.
Whether her
kind are
mortal or not, I never knew, I don’t know now. But she was real enough, as Thuramon could tell you.”

There was another silence. Then Kavin went on.

“When I returned to this land, I found… her, here. She is there, in the house by that lake; she has been with me since I became Orm. But she is no longer invisible. She was there, and I… was very glad of it.” He leaned forward in his saddle, his hands gripping the horn hard, his jaw set. “But I did not understand. I do not understand now. What she
was,
or how she came across that long span of time, while I slept… why she should have seemed to be… no more than any mortal woman.” He stared at Hugon, strangely. “I did not want to understand,
d’you see
? She may have been… anything. A witch, a goddess, a being from another world… I couldn’t ask. It was enough that she was here.”

Hugon looked at Kavin, and nodded.

“She is no longer there,” Hugon said in a quiet voice, but with a strange certainty.

“The Goddess said it,” Kavin said. “Returned… to the place from which she came.” He pulled harshly at his horse’s head, swinging the animal around. “There’s no need for me to go back, now.”

“Are you sure, Prince?” Hugon asked.

“I am sure,” Kavin said. He glanced back along the path into the forest, and then away again. “I came to bid her farewell, and she’s been wise enough not to wait.” He spurred his horse, and the other two men rode after him, back up the road

SIX

In the late afternoon, the three men rode once more across the causeway and into the landward gate of Drakonis. For a long time, riding back, Kavin had been silent and gloomy; then, for no reason that Hugon could understand, he began to change, as if the weight were lifting. As they drew nearer to the town, Kavin seemed his old self again, though there was a shadow in his eyes.

“Both of you must think I’m mad,” he said, as their horses clattered on the paved street.
“A day’s journey for nothing at all!”

“It’s given me a thirst,” Zamor called out over the noise. “There, now… shall we stop a moment?” He drew up, and the others beside him; a boy came out of the inn and took the reins of their horses while the three dismounted.

“The sign of the Two Dragons,” Hugon said, staring up at the brightly painted board overhead. “Eh, now, it seems a lucky omen.”

Zamor lowered his bulk onto a bench in the innyard and grunted, “Omen me no omens. I thirst, man.” An aproned man, fat and smiling, approached, and Zamor asked for cold wine.

Returning with tall pitchers and mugs, the innkeeper set them down on the table; then paused, looking with round eyes at Fraak, who sat on Hugon’s shoulder.

“Ah… sir?”
The innkeeper came closer. “Is… is it truly a dragon?
So small?”

“I’m NOT small,” Fraak said firmly, and puffed.

“It speaks, too!” the innkeeper said, amazed. “We have seen dragons here, of course, but only those great ones on their island. May I touch it, sir?” He stretched out a hand.

Fraak uttered a low hiss, but allowed the touch, at Hugon’s warning word.

“Could you think of selling it, good sir?” the innkeeper asked. “An inn that possessed such a curiosity would be known to all…”

“Fraak isn’t
a curiousity
,” Hugon said, in a level voice. “And it’s he, not it. No, I wouldn’t sell him, not at any price.”

Fraak uttered a scale of notes, pleased sounds, and blew a long plume of fire which caused the innkeeper to retreat in some haste. He spread his wings and whistled gleefully.

“A little calmer, Fraak,” Hugon told him. Then, to Kavin, “I wonder what those great dragons on that island would think of this one? What are they like?”

Kavin sipped his wine. “Those? Few men have spoken with them. I have, a long time ago. They’re wise, and old… and not fond of any closeness to mankind. Man and dragon have a compact in this land… to let each other alone, as far as possible.”

“The warlock said we must go there, to their island,” Zamor said. “If they’re no friends to human folk…”

“It depends,” Kavin told him. “I have been there once. And by custom, certain men go there, to live and learn from the dragon folk. No, if Thuramon says we must go, then we shall go. But whether they’ll aid him in any way… well, they are a strange kind. I don’t know what they’ll do.”

They drained their mugs and went out into the street again. Swinging up into their saddles, the three slowly moved along the streets of Drakonis, back toward the warlock’s house.

“They call this the Street of the Ship,” Kavin said at the next corner. “Look there, at the other end.”

There were white columns, and as the three rode closer, a high marble dome came into view, and columned arcades. Through a great open archway, the interior was visible; a block of stone on which something was mounted, a dark shape.

“It’s a ship,” Hugon said.

“Yes,” Kavin said. “Mine, once. There she is, put up like a monument… and under that great ugly piece of rock…” He stopped and grinned strangely. “Myself. Yes. That’s the tomb of the first King of Koremon, Kavin.”

Hugon stared and shook his head. “I don’t think I’d care to visit a tomb with my name on it,” he said. “Not even if I felt positively sure I was still alive. Let’s ride on, to our magician host, and supper.”

They wheeled and rode away along the last streets toward the house of Thuramon.

The ape servants, swift and wordless, took charge of the horses; within, other servants waited with hot water and fresh robes. In the dining hall, platters of food appeared with marvelous speed. The three sat down and began to eat without waiting for Thuramon to appear; by now, they had grown used to his odd ways.

But they were hardly started when the door opened and the magician entered; he came to the table and sat down, leaning back.

“So,” Thuramon said, looking at Kavin. “You bear it well, Prince.”

Kavin looked at the magician. “You know, then.”

Thuramon nodded. “Your woman… or whatever she was… is no longer here.”

Kavin looked at Thuramon oddly, and then laughed, in a short bark. “So,” he said, “even you are not quite all-knowing, are you, Thuramon?”

Thuramon looked puzzled.

“The gods be thanked, you aren’t wise in all things, not yet, old friend,” Kavin said. “Though you’ve learned much, it seems, since I’ve been asleep…” He watched Thuramon’s face and grinned. “Yes, the woman is gone, as your magic told you. But I have a feeling she’s not gone very far.”

Thuramon suddenly looked nervous, and glanced around the room. Then, frowning, he looked at Kavin.

“As long as the matter’s settled,” he said, “I am content. Kavin… I could have told you that she would vanish again, but you would not have thanked me for the foretelling, would you?”

“No,” Kavin said. He drew a platter toward himself and began to hack off a slice of meat.

“You two,” Thuramon looked toward Zamor and Hugon. “Now, the work begins.”

Hugon fed Fraak a delicate morsel, and scratched the scaly head, watching Thuramon. Zamor ate, silently.

“Tomorrow, we go to visit the Dragon’s Isle,” Thuramon said, slowly. “There, if they will aid us, we can find those things we’ll need for the work we must do.”

Hugon pulled an
oar,
and Zamor another, as the open boat turned outward, past the harbor mouth. Thuramon, muffled in a dark cloak, sat in the stern with Kavin, while Fraak perched on the rail beside him. The dragonet uttered small, excited cries; he had captured a fish, and was watching for another.

Ahead, shrouded in the morning mist, the gray bulk of the place called the Isle of Dragons looked shadowy and unreal; like an immense whale, drifting on the sea. The two men pulled steadily toward it, as Kavin steered.

“The galley… was easier rowing,” Hugon said, in a strained voice, drawing at his oar in an effort to match Zamor’s strokes.

Zamor appeared to have no trouble; he grinned as his oar beat steadily at the water.

“Your back would have been stronger, after a while, Hugon,” Zamor said.
“Stronger, or fishfood.”
He chuckled, grimly.

The boatman had been most reluctant, though he yielded at last to gold.
But to row them to the Isle of Dragons?
No, that he would not do for any amount of gold whatever. And as he had watched them go, his expression said plainly that he did not expect them back.

The dark rock grew closer, looming over them; Zamor and Hugon stopped rowing, letting the boat drift on a running tide that set toward the island; and Zamor narrowed his eyes, studying the rock.

“There’s no harborage, Master Thuramon,” Zamor said. “Not even a beach.”

“If we are admitted at all, we will find an entrance,” Thuramon said, shortly. Then Fraak exploded with a squealing cry.

A shadow crossed the boat, and returned a moment later. Hugon stared at the broad-winged shape that soared by close overhead, circling silently and ominously. A gigantic triangular head looked downward, and eyes, emerald spheres as large as a man’s whole head, scanned the boat. Fraak, his own wings spread widely, teetered on the rail; he opened his jaws and a horn note came out.

The dragon overhead emitted a tremendous tone, Fraak’s note amplified and lowered in pitch; then, the giant tilted and swept closer in a long spiral, touching the oil-smooth sea as lightly as a gull, though it was twice the size of the boat. It came close, sliding through the water till it was at the boat’s side; the snaky neck lifted, and the monstrous head peered down. Zamor and Hugon sat, tense; each man’s hand moved uncontrollably toward his sword hilt, though there would have been no real use in such weapons.