The Song of Andiene (12 page)

Dragonsquare was the heart of the city. Yvaressinest had lain a captive there for two hundred years, watching his enemies to learn their ways. All the great betrayals lay before her eyes. She saw her ancestors, bloody-handed, as son killed father, and brother killed brother, an endless round of hate and retribution.

And the lesser betrayals lay plain before her also, the thievery, the cruelty, the words of love, lightly spoken and lightly forgotten. She heard the foolish words, the endless foolish jabber from men who thought that they were wise. Generation after generation the same, wearying, sickening.

Yvaressinest showed her all that had passed before his eyes. She saw the empty-eyed gawkers; she felt the maiming pain of escape. He meant for her to see her people in all their littleness.

She saw that clearly enough, but she saw other things that he did not intend, even though she saw them through the haze of his contempt and fury. She searched the faces of the crowd for what she needed, and found parents leading their children, teaching them with love. Then time passed, and those same children guarded their parents, and took good care of them.

Andiene listened, and heard words of wisdom and gentleness, half-unnoticed among the clamor. She saw lovers talking joyful foolishness, blind to the grimness of the place they were in, and fifty years later, she recognized those same people, walking hand in hand and still looking at each other with love.

Andiene let the folly and cruelty slip by her, and clung to those images of love and life, letting them hold her up and save her from drowning in his hate. But she said nothing, and listened meekly to his fierce teaching.

“Now you have seen more of your land than you ever saw before,” he said at last. “You know what your kind are.”

“How will that teach me to use what is within me?”

“Be patient,” Yvaressinest said, and he showed her all the forms of fire, and movements of the air. “If you knew how, you could kindle a fire that would burn this world to ashes.”

She stood and listened, in the endless fog and twilight, the flowerless meadow, the land where there is no land. And as she listened to dragon-thoughts and dragon-voice, the use of power became evident and easy.

Fierce thoughts brought flames, subtle thoughts moved the air. She learned thoughts of callings, thoughts of shapings, thoughts to hold and warp men’s minds. They came to her easily. Words were unnecessary, gestures only toys.

She questioned him only once. “And what of healing?” she asked.

A sound that could have been a laugh came from the dragon’s throat. “You have no gift for that in you. No seed nor root of it, nor could seed grow in that barren soil.”

So she turned away, and did not ask again. She wove shapes of mist and fire on the high sea-cliffs, and gave no thought to the passing of time.

Chapter 9

Ilbran had half-forgotten his own danger, as he knelt in the dusty roadway. So compelling had been the grizane’s need, to pass the message and the burden on. For a moment longer he stared at the ragged gray robes, the arrow feathered with purple and red. Then he raised his head and saw the archers, a pair of them on horseback, far down the dusty road and seeming in no hurry to come closer.

They fear the grizane, he thought, but as he turned and ran, they gained courage and galloped after him. While they rode, they could not aim well, the only thing that might save him.

No time to waste in useless grief. Saliswood trees grew along the river, but they were too far away. If he ran straight, the archers would ride him down long before he had reached their shelter. He swerved from the road and plunged into the thick blaggorn straw, burrowing into it. Even sitting high on horseback, they might lose him in the tall-stalked field.

The broken blaggorn stems would leave a trail that anyone on foot could follow, but once inside the field, he found a maze of animal trails. He ran half-crouched along the little paths beaten in the tall grass. They twisted and turned, but he followed the ones that led downhill. When he paused once to glance back, peering between the long grass stems, the horsemen were quartering and casting about like hounds on an unclear trail. He heard a horn blowing, calling others to the hunt.

He was close to the trees now. They gave no cover, but the tall thin trunks were set too thick for a horse to pass. If his pursuers had been wiser, they would have begun their hunt there, and gradually driven him back to the road, the open places.

But the kingsmen were still behind him. Ilbran sprang to his feet and dashed toward the trees. He heard the shouting behind him, the swish and thump as arrows struck the ground—in front of him. He had badly misjudged the distance, to show himself so close within their range.

He did not look back; it would only slow him down. He crouched and ran, dodging through the slender trees. A blow on his back, a sudden hot pain, an arrow trembled in his shoulder, tearing at his flesh as he pushed his way between the trees. He reached up and snapped off the feathered shaft, without breaking stride. The arrowhead twisted in the wound; now he would leave a blood-trail that they could follow. No time for a bandage, no time for thinking. A steep cliff, but not high, ran down to the wide streambed. He plunged down it.

The saliswood grew more thick and brushy in the stream bottom. The branches plucked even at the stub of the arrow shaft, as he forced his way through the trees. But he had outdistanced the hunters. Time to run wise, now.

On the far side of the stream, the brushy hills began to rise up. Though Ilbran had never seen such a land, he knew that it was fugitive country, outlaw land.

The brush was tall enough to hide him, but it grew sparsely on the dry hills. He could choose any of a myriad of trails. Slowing a little in his flight, he tugged off his tunic and bound it around his shoulder to stop the blood. Now he would leave no marks on the stony ground.

The hill was steep. The bushes were sweet and fragrant as he clung to them, using them to drag himself uphill. They were not useful plants, like the ones of the plains, where every grass, herb, and shrub is a servant to man. But they hid him from his enemies.

At last he reached the crest of the hill, the brush so thin that he had to crawl close to the ground. He looked down the far slope, and then he despaired, for men wearing the armor and bright colors of Nahil’s men had spread out and were beating the brush, working up the hill toward him.

Thirst tightened his throat as though a hand had clenched on it. The desire to surrender rose in him. For a mad moment, it seemed better and easier than being hunted like an animal across these hot dry hills.

Images of torture and death rose up in his mind for the first time in many days. No! He would not throw away the grizane’s gift so easily. He would run and hide for as long as he was able, and when he was caught, though he had no weapons, he would fight with his hands until they were forced to kill him.

On the other side, the soldiers were still far down the hill, searching slowly, but no doubt confidently. Ilbran glanced around him. The snare had not yet tightened. He ran half-crouching, a little below the ridge line so that he would not be outlined against the sky. Ahead was a great tumble of rocks, promising some chance of a place to hide.

These stones were not the great megaliths of the plains, monuments that warned away the fearful and the wise. They were merely an outcropping on the hillside, as neutral to mankind as is the earth itself. He reached their shadows without showing himself, but at first glance, they seemed to have offered a treacherous hope. Only a few caves, blind shallow openings. The soldiers could drag him out like a toothless courser.

Ilbran circled the stones, moving eastward. Here on the south side, one had split and opened up a chimney far higher than his head. He looked at it with sudden hope. At the top, was there any place where he could lie and hide? He would have no second chance. The hunters would be upon him.

He set his back to one face of the cleft, braced his feet against the other, and began his climb, turned half to one side so that his arrow-pierced shoulder would not press against the rock.

An age later, it seemed, he neared the top. Every muscle in his legs ached and trembled, ready to give way and let him fall to the bottom. The flesh of his back was rubbed raw. With his last strength, he grasped the edge of the rock and drew himself up to the top.

On one side of the cleft, the rock fell away in knife-edge sharpness, but on the other side, one rock rested against another and made a nest, a little hollow for him to lie in.

In it, wind-blown soil had collected, and grass had grown and died. Ilbran lay on his belly, his raw skinned back turned to the sun. He had left no trail on the stony ground, but his back had left a blood-trail on the rock walls for any eyes to see. He heard voices below, as the searchers reached the crest of the hill.

“Might be hiding in a place like this,” said one.

“Nah, we left him in the saliswood. Might be two leagues downstream by now.”

“What about the other one you killed?” said a third voice. “The bounty on him … Ha ha! You were going to buy our drinks for a month with it!”

“I tell you, I killed him,” the first one said. “Right through the chest, and I never took my eyes off of him. Some more of their filthy magic.”

Their voices became fainter, as they moved farther away. Ilbran lay where he had fallen. The work he had done all his life had called for strength, but not for great endurance. He had pushed his body to efforts he scarcely knew were possible.

As the day went on, the sun grew brighter. Though aftersummer had passed, no one would willingly lie in the midday sun. The patch of dry grass shielded him from the full heat of the rock, but his thirst tormented him, and there was fever rising in him to match the fevered sun.

The soldiers’ voices were loud as thunder as they beat back and forth across the hillside. The thatched roof flamed and the storm could not quench it. The executioner lit his torch. The pitiless eyes of the crowd surrounded him. Dragonsbreath seared him. He was blinded with the fierce light, and he would walk blind for all eternity, for the grizane had kept his sight and it had died with him.

But the fire was not so fierce, and that was worth the price, worth any price. He closed his eyes and huddled himself to the sweet-smelling earth. When he opened his eyes at last, the stars were shining.

His shoulder throbbed and burned. He unbandaged it carefully, hoping that the arrow had not lodged against the bone. He had snapped the shaft of the arrow too short, but he was able to grip it and force it through his shoulder, though he almost fainted from the pain.

It bled more fiercely than ever, then, and Ilbran bandaged the wound again with his shirt. The starweb was half-formed, bright enough for easy travel. Though Ilbran’s back had dried and numbed, the first inches of the descent woke it to burning fire. Before he was halfway down, his legs gave way, and he fell, to lie limp and half-stunned on the cool and fragrant earth.

When he roused himself at last, he saw the watchfires gleaming, down the slope. That way was not safe.

He crept along the line of the hill, then followed a dry wash downward. Water … he needed water … he could hear the stream falling over the rocks.

He thought his heart would stop with the cold shock of it. It burned his face and hands like fire. Still, he floundered out into midstream, into the cold running water that purifies all things. He dipped his hands and face under it, and sucked up great throatfuls like a thirsty animal. He lay in a deep pool, and let the water wash away the dirt and poison from his back.

At last, Ilbran crawled out onto the bank, still weak and dizzy, chilled and trembling with cold. What was he to do, if he could shake the hounds from his trail? Carvalon? What would he find there? His friend was dead. What use would they have for a meaningless message, scraps of an old man’s dying delirium? He could not think clearly, but he had to travel in some direction. North and east would be as good as any other way.

The starweb lit his path well, though the shadows were dark and strange. He walked on stony paths, wide outcroppings of rocks that covered whole hillsides. No sign that the hunters had come this far.

But as he walked, he began to stumble over nothing at all; a rock turned under his foot and threw him to the ground, making the hot blood spring out from under the bandage. When he dragged himself up, he stood for only a moment before he fell again. That time he did not rise.

Then the little ones came, a caress of soft fur along his bare skin, a comforting warmth huddled by his side. Their fur was pale in the starlight. Their eyes were huge and dark.

They chittered to one another, softly, and more and more of them came, warming him in the cold night as he lay only half-aware. He had never known of wild ones as fearless and gentle as these.

With the coming of the dawn, the night wind shifted, and a stench blew from the north. It woke Ilbran from his doze. He looked down at the ones that had warmed him, little ones, half as long as a man’s forearm. Their silken fur was pale and golden. Sick of heart, he knew the place he was in, and he knew these gentle creatures for what they were—golderlings. He had slept on the very outskirts of the city of the dead.

His father and mother lay somewhere in that city, and so did a king and all his children but one. The golderlings had no fear of mankind, neither would the wide-winged golden vultures that descended from the sky even now, to feast.

Golden is the color of death. Even the corpse-carriers, that polluted race, wore their saffron-bordered robes. Movement in the distance caught his eyes. A pair of them came, bearing another dweller for the city of the dead.
When we die they lay us on the rocks, and let the wild beasts have their will with us. Thus is the earth purified.

The saffron-robed ones plodded closer, their heads bowed low. Ilbran tried to lie motionless. With his torn and bloody back, the marks of torture still on his body, he might look to an indifferent eye as though the golderlings and vultures had already begun their work. In truth, he almost feared the vultures more than men. He imagined that he heard the beat of their wings above him, that he felt the coolness of those fanning wings.