The Silver Mage (61 page)

“My thanks,” Dallandra said. “First off, just because we finally have the book doesn’t mean I can work the dweomer in it. I’ve not even seen the thing yet. Laz has it on Haen Marn.”

“Oh.” Arzosah’s voice sounded calmer. “I didn’t know that.”

“Which is why I’m telling you. Second, and here’s the crux, I’ll need your help. You were feeding Evandar some of your life force, weren’t you, when he transformed Rhodry into Rori?”

“How clever you are! I’d wondered if you noticed that.”

“I did. So no doubt I’ll need you to reabsorb that power while I’m working the dweomer.”

“Do you really think I’d help you take away my mate? You must be daft.”

“I was assuming you’d feel that way, frankly. You have the winning stone in this game of carnoic, and so there’s no need for you to whine, is there?”

Arzosah rumbled, then pulled one of her paws free and curled it to contemplate her claws. Dallandra waited, hands on her hips, and tried to think of some argument that might change the dragon’s mind.

“Humph!” Arzosah laid the paw down again. “Why doesn’t anyone ever consider my feelings on these matters?”

“Because you always do it for them,” Dallandra said. “You’re so busy considering your own feelings that no one else can get a word in edgewise.”

“The gall!”

“You’ve got a fair bit of that, too.”

Arzosah opened her mouth then shut it with a clack of fangs.

“You’re only angry,” Dallandra went on, “because I’m right.”

“You don’t need to be smug about it.”

It was, Dallandra decided, as much of an admission as a dragon could possibly make.

“I suppose,” Arzosah continued, “that if I refuse, you’ll only force me to do it, anyway. If I could think up some new curses for Evandar, I would, giving away my true name the way he did. That slimy little clot of ectoplasm!”

“No, I won’t. I’d never force anyone to work dweomer.”

“You must be jesting, just to add to my misery.”

“I’m not doing anything of the sort. Forcing you to use dweomer against your will—that’s a kind of slavery I could never ever countenance.”

Arzosah’s head jerked up, and she slithered around to look Dallandra in the face.

“Slavery.” Arzosah spoke so softly that the word was almost a hiss. “You bring memories to mind, dweomermaster.” Her tail slapped the ground hard. “Do you truly mean this, that if I refuse, that will be the end of the matter, and Rori will stay mine?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. The decision is yours and Rori’s.”

The great wyrm went very still, crouching, her eyes fixed on some far distant thought or time.

“You’re free to go,” Dallandra said. “But please, think well on this.”

“Now that I can promise you. I shall think long and hard.”

She turned and waddled some yards away, where she could spread her enormous wings without causing Dallandra harm. With a shudder of muscles, she leaped into the air and flew, flapping hard as she gained height with her greenish-black wings drumming the clear sky. Dallandra watched as she headed north, dwindled to a speck of shadow, and then was gone.

R
ori had followed the Horsekin south all that day, but the army made slow progress. Some hours after noon, when they stopped yet again for no discernible reason, his impatience got the better of him. He suspected that Arzosah would be returning as soon as she possibly could after speaking with Dallandra. His life hung on that conversation like the sword that hung from a single thread in the ancient Greggyn fable, whether he lived five hundred years as a dragon or only a few as a man on Haen Marn. Waiting to hear became intolerable. He took out his dread on the army below. He swooped down, scattered their horses, killed one, grabbed one of the Keepers of Discipline and let him fall to his death, then made his escape from the cloud of angry arrows and javelins that followed him without doing him harm.

In a considerably better mood, Rori headed south, but he’d not gone more than a few miles when he saw Arzosah, flying north in the last of the long summer daylight to join him. They circled round each other in greeting, then flew back toward the army together. That night they made a lair on a long ledge of rock tucked into the side of a hill. Below, at a good distance, they could see the campfires of the Horsekin army spread out along a stream.

“I spoke with Dallandra in Cerr Cawnen,” Arzosah said. “But I suppose you realized that I would.”

Rori winced and braced himself for a tirade. None came.

“She says Laz Moj has that book,” Arzosah went on. “She doesn’t know if she can work the dweomer in it or not because she’s yet to read it.” She paused to consider him with narrowed eyes. “But Dallandra also told me that she can’t reverse the transformation unless I help her.”

“That settles that, then,” Rori said. “I’ll be staying in dragon form.”

“And I suppose you’ll fly off and sulk for a hundred years, leaving me all alone.”

“No. Why would I do that?”

“To punish me, of course.”

“For what? Wanting my company?”

Arzosah sighed and crossed her front paws. For some while she stared off into the gathering night.

“Do you remember Evandar’s silver ring?” Arzosah said abruptly.

“Of course. It’s the beginning of everything between us.”

“I like the evasive way you say that. You’re beginning to speak like a dragon, Rori. Are you sure you want to turn into a despicable, two-legged, earth-bound creature again?”

“Does it matter?”

“Think back! You threw me that ring, and I ate it, and I was free of its spell over me. You set me free when I might have been your slave. Why wouldn’t I do the same for you?”

Hope sprang up in his heart. Slowly, Rori swung his head her way. She uncrossed her paws and held one up, curling it to contemplate her claws.

“You’ll help Dalla?” he said.

“If you want me to. Say so, and I will.”

“I don’t want to lose you and your company forever.”

“Why would you? You were Rhodry Dragonfriend before, and you’ll be Rhodry Dragonfriend again.”

He felt his eyes, those traitorous human eyes, fill with tears. “When Evandar was going to work the change upon me, there in Cerr Cawnen, Dallandra warned me that I’d be throwing my human soul away. That’s what I wanted, then. I remembered too many evil things, and I wanted to forget them all.”

“Your soul seems a rather high price to pay to purge some evil memories.”

“Oh, I never paid it. Dalla was wrong. I’ve never been able to rid myself of that human soul, and now it’s calling me back.”

“Back to your true form?”

“Back to my true home.”

Arzosah lifted her wings as if she were about to spread them, then let them fall to her sides in a rustle like the wind in a thousand oaks. “So be it,” she said. “We’ll fly to Haen Marn together.”

“My thanks.” His voice broke, and he laid his head upon the hard rock. He heard her scales scrape on the ledge as she moved close to lick his face, comforting him as she’d done so often before.

“But do one last thing for me while you have wings,” she said. “Bid farewell to our son.”

Rori hesitated, thinking back to his other, mostly human sons. He’d never said farewell to them because he could never have told them why he was leaving without disinheriting them. This son, at least, could hear the truth.

“When the time comes, I will,” he said aloud. “In the morning, let’s fly to our lair. I’d like him to help guard the evacuation, anyway. Part of his heritage comes from the Westfolk, and part from Aberwyn, as well. He needs to become a friend to both.”

“So he does, and that’s the one doubt I have about your leaving us. How will he know whom he may trust and whom he should despise?”

“Ebañy will be here. He wants to repair the old watchtower, he tells me, to live in. He’ll teach Devar while he studies more dweomer.”

“Oh, fires and fumes! You mean I’ll be afflicted with that chattering elf for years to come?”

“Would you rather he stayed away? Or you could find a new lair away from the tower.”

Arzosah growled and turned her head away. He waited while she thought the matter through.

“For Devar’s sake, I can put up with your brother,” Arzosah said eventually. “Medea’s fond of his antics, and I suppose Mezza will be, too, once she sees his silly tricks and the like.”

“As long as you won’t see him as some kind of affliction.”

“I won’t, no.” All at once she rumbled with laughter. “Let me think about this new wretched annoyance! Somehow or other, it must be Evandar’s fault.”

D
allandra woke long before daylight. She fed Hildie’s son Frei, dressed, and wandered outside to look down at the town below. The lake mists were beginning to clear in a soft rising wind, and she could see in the windows of every house the gleam of candles and cooking fires. The town had woken early as well. She turned to the east and saw in the dark gray sky a sliver of pink dawn just breaking. When she turned her mind to Dari, she saw her daughter just waking in her hanging cradle. Nearby, Sidro sat up and rolled free of her blankets without waking Pir to tend the baby. Dallandra smiled at them all, then broke the vision. Soon she’d see them all again in the flesh.

As the sky brightened, she returned to Jahdo’s house and found it awake. The servants were setting out the last of the food while the family and guests stood around the table to eat rather than sit. Few people spoke, no one smiled. The farewell to their beloved city had begun. Dallandra took a chunk of bread and beckoned to Niffa and Salamander, who followed her out to the morning light.

They walked round the back of the house. Below, they could see the ruins of the old temple and, beyond that, down the steep hill, tangled brush and shrubs. The slope led down to the lake, where black rocks raised jagged heads out of the water. As the morning sun gathered strength, the mists began to clear away, revealing the turquoise water.

“This be a beautiful sight,” Niffa said. “It does break my heart to think I’ll not see it again.”

“I know you love it,” Salamander said, “despite the fiery earth-blood under your feet, but truly, it’s a dangerous spot.”

“It did be our home for so long.” Niffa paused to wipe a few tears from her eyes. “Still, better to leave than stay. I be well-pleased that our citizens did make the better choice.”

“I am, too,” Dallandra said. “I was terrified that they’d choose to stay.”

“So was I.” Salamander looked off to the north. “The Horsekin aren’t coming with a real army. It’s a mob, a horde, a howling crowd that’s only barely under the control of its officers. If they conquered the town with the people in it, the slaughter and rape would be horrifying, worse even than what your usual army would perpetrate. They’re Children of Fire, after all. Their rage escapes the control of their will and flares up like burning grass.”

Niffa shuddered profoundly. “I do pray that we might get far enough away before they do reach our gates and find us gone.”

From their perch, they could see the council barge crossing the lake toward the north commons. Niffa pointed it out.

“The load it carries, that be the mule packs. My brother, he does keep his mules over there. His men will load them up and take them round to the south gate. I think me it be time for us to ready ourselves to ride.”