Dragonbards (21 page)

This was why she had led him here.

Bayzun’s great feet stood solidly, one with
the claws torn away. From these had the lyre been carved. Teb
knelt. He knew with a calm certainty that if the lyre was returned
to the bones of Bayzun, the lyre’s power would become immense.

Yes, give him the lyre, Tebriel.

But as he reached to place the lyre before
Bayzun, Seastrider swung her head and pushed him aside. “Wait.”

He glared at her, startled.

Meriden’s voice was insistent.
Give
Bayzun the lyre, Teb. There is little time—our soldiers are losing.
Listen to your bard knowledge. Bayzun is the grandfather of all
dragons. If you lay the lyre at Bayzun’s feet, the power will
come.

“
Is
that bard knowledge, Tebriel?”
Seastrider said.
“Is
that Meriden’s voice?”

He stared at her. “Of course!”

But now Meriden shouted,
Do not part with
it! Do not give it!

Teb stood up, confused, and stared around
him, clutching the lyre.

Make the Ivory Lyre speak, Tebriel. But do
not give it. Bring Bayzun’s power alive with its song.

Which was Meriden?

Which was the dark?

One voice was false—but how clearly it
imitated hers.

Yet surely he had only to make one simple
gesture, had only to lay the lyre at Bayzun’s feet, and he could
resurrect the lyre’s power. There was no evil in Bayzun, only the
power of the light.

Do not let the lyre from your hand!
the voice cried.

He looked at Seastrider, sick with
uncertainty.

Lay the lyre at the feet of Bayzun, Tebriel.
Do not play it now, in this place. Give the lyre to
Bayzun. . . .

Surely that was Meriden.

Make the lyre speak, Teb, do not give it.
Sing Bayzun alive, sing his power alive.

The voices dueling inside his head dizzied
him. He plucked one string so hard the little lyre
shook. . . .

But it was silent.

He stared at it, shocked into choking
dismay. He had used its strength too recently, to save himself in
the drug dens of Sharden.

They needed the lyre now, more than Tirror
had ever needed it. Shame held him. Terror held him.

You must renew its strength, Tebriel—at the
feet of Bayzun.

Yes. Yes. That was Meriden’s voice.

Cries of battle echoed through the cave. Teb
saw visions of animals falling and arrows piercing the diving
dragons. He saw Snowblitz thrashing with a bleeding wing and saw
the dark unliving striding among the fallen, tasting gore, swinging
their swords and laughing. He tried to bring power with his own
voice, with song. Sweating, choking, he could hardly use his
cracking voice. The lyre remained silent.

There is only one way, Tebriel. Give the
lyre to Bayzun. There it can regain its strength. Our armies are
dying, Teb.

He had failed Tirror twice, failed them all.
He must not fail now. He stood staring at Bayzun’s skeleton and
could do nothing. Bayzun stared back at him, seeming engorged with
eerie power.

Did not Bayzun command him to return the
lyre? Why else was he here, but to return it? Again he knelt before
the skeleton. What harm could come from Bayzun? He held out the
lyre, reaching. . . .

But something stopped him, made him draw
back. This was not the way. . . .

Thakkur’s words thundered in his memory.
Do not underestimate Quazelzeg. . . .

He must trust nothing. To give the lyre from
his grasp, in these endless and alien worlds, could risk
everything. In one final, false step, he could give Quazelzeg and
the dark a terrible power. Visions of the battle surged. He
turned.

He saw Meriden astride her dragon, winging
down the well of sky toward him.

But suddenly the dragon was gone. Meriden
was falling, alone, falling through the endless
cleft. . . falling . . . falling alone reaching
out to him.
Do not give the lyre.
Dark winds tumbled her and
flung her down chasms; boulders spun and bounced against her.

Quazelzeg’s voice exploded. “
Give the
lyre to Bayzun, and I will release her.”

“
No!”
she cried.
“You will destroy
everything!”

“
Let her go!”
Teb shouted.
“I will
NOT give the lyre! Release her!”
But his voice choked with
uncertainty.

Meriden was pulled through shifting winds
and swept crashing into stone. She was pressed between stone walls
so tight she was nearly crushed, could not lift her arms, stone
crushing her cheek, twisting her body. . . .

“
Give me the lyre!”

“
I will NOT! Release her!”
But he was
shaking with terror for her.

Suddenly the rock exploded, throwing her
into space again. Quazelzeg’s laugh was terrible, thundering
echoing as she fell careening among pieces of the mountain. Visions
of battle clashed around Meriden’s falling figure. The armies of
light were pulling back. The whole of the universe seemed filled
with the dark’s swelling power.

He must make the lyre speak. He
must.

He tried, straining, and could not.

“
Give the lyre!
Save your mother!
Save Tirror!”

Defeat filled him. He had no choice. He
could not let her die—even for Tirror. He stared at Bayzun’s
mutilated toes, from which the lyre had been carved.

“
No, Teb! No!”

How could he help but give it? He reached
out with the lyre. . . .

Quazelzeg appeared suddenly, blocking the
skeleton, pulling the lyre from him. . . .

“
No!”
He struck Quazelzeg’s hands
from the lyre, broke his grip with one sharp blow, knocked the
un-man down as he jerked the lyre away. He
shouted
a bard’s
song at Quazelzeg, wrought of all the pain and love in him. A
terrible power of love rose out of him, a power he had nearly
denied, love for Tirror, love for all the world he had nearly
lost—love for his mother and what she was and for all those close
to him. They would be nothing if Tirror were lost, they would all
be lost, Meriden destroyed. In that moment of terrible
understanding, his hands struck the strings again and the lyre sang
out fierce and wild with love.

But in the moment that Quazelzeg had held
the lyre, a rift had been torn between worlds. Quazelzeg’s laughter
thundered. “Too late! Useless! Too late—the Doors are open now!”
Teb saw the hordes pouring through onto the battlefield. A
blood-faced shade scuttled through. A vulture with a woman’s eyes
fled through. Too late. . . . The barrier had been
torn. The dark hordes came rushing. Doors flung open across a
thousand worlds and a black mass of monsters poured into Tirror,
leaping onto the backs of the retreating armies, slashing at the
horses’ legs. The lyre’s song rang out, and the attack faltered—but
not enough. From every palace window and door, dark incubi and
blood-licking demons crawled and flew, howling, reaching. The air
was a tangle of screams and groans and stinks. Quazelzeg’s laughter
thundered. ‘Too late, too late . . .” A young otter was
stabbed, screaming. Monstrous vultures snatched up foxes and
wolves.

“No!” Teb shouted. “No!” Not even the lyre
was stopping them. “Bayzun!” he shouted. The lyre wailed. He prayed
to the Graven Light, and he prayed to Bayzun. He slapped the silver
strings with a love for Tirror that nearly tore him apart. The
lyre’s voice rang so mightily he could feel it stinging his blood;
suddenly it shouted a dragon’s raging bellow, and Teb shouted with
it,
“Bayzun!”

Bayzun’s skeleton vanished. The huge black
dragon loomed over him, its breath blazing, its eyes like fire.

The voice of the lyre was Bayzun’s voice.
The black dragon exploded past him out of the cave on immense
wings, his red mouth open in a bull dragon’s bellow. Teb turned,
playing the lyre with all the power in him, and Meriden was there
astride Dawncloud, rocking on Bayzun’s wind beside the cave
door.

“Now!” she cried. “Now . . .”

Teb leaped for Seastrider and felt
Seastrider’s excitement, felt the closeness of the two dragons,
mother and child. The lyre’s voice thundered as the dragons wheeled
together up the cleft, following Bayzun. Where—where was a way
through . . . ?

It was that moment, in vision, that Teb saw
Thakkur fighting something dark and grinning, saw the white otter’s
sword flash, saw him back the vampire-toothed demon away with
snarling rage and drive his sword in; but too late—Teb cried out as
Thakkur was struck from behind, as Thakkur
fell. . . .

Thakkur . . .

And Teb could not reach him.

“There,” Meriden cried, pointing where a
bright thin crack appeared in murky space. “There . . .”
Bayzun was through. They plunged after him—and dropped into the sky
above the battle.

Teb searched wildly for Thakkur. Bayzun
dove, slashing at the unliving. Meriden’s sword flashed. Teb
brought the lyre’s song ringing across the battle to drive the dark
back. The lyre’s roar and Bayzun’s roar filled the wind. He saw the
dark falter—and he searched for one small white figure amid the
surging battle.

The dark fell back. Rebel warriors rose to
storm palace walls. Monsters seething over parapets dropped down
again into the courtyard, their screeching silenced.

Nightraider dove at a tangle of giant
serpents; Camery slashed and cut at them. Ebis the Black rode down
a screaming basilisk and cut its snake body to shreds. The great
cats and wolves tore at the unliving. Dragons dove to burn. Marshy
leaned down, clutching harness, to snatch up a wounded otter. The
lyre’s song thundered across the battlefield, driving back the
dark—but it was Bayzun who struck the coldest terror into the dark
forces.

*

On a hilltop, Windcaller fought to drive
warriors away from Kiri, who knelt, cradling Thakkur.

She had seen the hordes of dark monsters
appear from nowhere, storming out of the palace. In that moment
when defeat was certain, she had seen Thakkur fall. Windcaller had
cut a swath through the attacking hordes, and Kiri had knelt over
Thakkur in the little space Windcaller won. She held Thakkur’s
body, trying to find a heartbeat. There was none. She rocked him,
torn with grief for him, sick with despair.

Their world was dying, Tirror was dying.
There would be nothing left but the dark. Teb was lost somewhere.
Kiri’s stomach was twisted in knots. Thakkur’s poor torn body
seemed an instrument of terrible prediction, mirroring the final
and terrible end for them all.

Then something stirred her. Something
summoned.

She heard the lyre crying out across the
battle, silencing all cries with its fury. She saw the black dragon
explode out of nothing, riderless and huge. She saw Seastrider
. . . and Teb! She saw a white dragon she had never seen.
A woman—Meriden!

The lyre thundered. The black dragon
slaughtered. The rebel armies rallied, and the dark armies trembled
and fell back as Kiri knelt on the battlefield, holding Thakkur and
screaming with victory.

Teb saw her crouched before Windcaller,
holding something white. He sped toward them, leaped down, and
knelt beside Kiri praying that Thakkur was alive.

And knowing he was not.

Kiri and Teb cradled Thakkur between them,
their eyes meeting in a storm of grief.

She smoothed Thakkur’s bloody white fur over
his terrible wound. Teb pulled Kiri against his shoulder suddenly
and fiercely, and held her tight, Thakkur couched in their circling
arms.

When Teb rose at last, he held Thakkur
gently. He turned away from Kiri to mount Seastrider. Kiri watched
as they lifted away above the battle. She did not follow.

In the sky, Teb cradled Thakkur’s body
inside his tunic, beneath the lyre. He stroked the lyre’s strings
in a thundering dirge for Thakkur, its voice struck with grief and
love. At its bright, ringing notes, the last of the dark hordes
turned and fled into the palace. They pushed back through
Quazelzeg’s golden Door, trampling each other, wraiths and incubi
and monsters crowding through.

Among the dark warriors, only Quazelzeg
paused.

When all the hordes had fled, Quazelzeg
stood within the safety of the gold Door, burning with fury at what
he had lost.

But there would be other worlds, other
challenges. He turned to consider such worlds—his next quest.

He went white at what he saw.

He spun and tried to run, but light exploded
around him, light so bright and consuming that the Door was lost in
its brilliance. The light twisted Quazelzeg and sucked him in. He
spun within its glow, screaming. . . .

Slowly he was consumed, by a light so
powerful that it turned white the battlefield and the surrounding
hills, and its clear brilliance burst like a nova across Tirror’s
skies.

The terror of Quazelzeg’s scream remained
long after his body was consumed. The light that took him was seen
from Auric Palace in an exploding brilliance that cascaded across
the sky; it was seen in Nightpool, where the few otters who had
remained stared up in chittering wonder.

It turned the sky over Yoorthed so pale that
the dwarfs ran out of the cave, shouting, “What is it?”

“Power,” King Flam said, staring at the
shining sky. “What power?” a dwarf said, shivering. “Not the power
of the dark,” King Flam cried, his voice thundering. He smiled at
the gathered dwarfs.

“I would guess the battle has ended. This,”
King Flam said, sighing with relief, “this is the greatest
power—the power that holds us all.”

The battlefield was still, every face turned
toward the Graven Light. Not until that light faded did anyone
speak, and then only in whispers.