Dragonsbane (42 page)

She circled the smoke, invisible in the colors of the air, and felt the darkness of a shadow circling above her.

Wizard woman,
said the voice of the dragon in her mind,
is this truly what you want?

She did not reply, but she knew that, dragon-wise, he felt the surge and patterns of her mind. She felt his bafflement at them, and his anger, both at her and at something within himself.

At length he said,
I want you, Jenny Waynest. But more than you, I want your happiness, and this I do not understand—I do not want you in grief.
And then, his anger lashing at her like a many-tailed whip,
You have done this to me!

I am sorry, Morkeleb,
she said softly.
What you feel is the love of humans, and a poor trade for the power that the touch of your mind gave me. It is what I learned first, from loving John—both the pain and the fact that to feel it is better than not to be able to feel.

Is this the pain that drives you?
he demanded.

She said,
Yes.

Bitter anger sounded in his mind, like the far-off echo of the gold that he had lost.
Go, then,
he said, and she circled down from the air, a thing of glass and lace and bone, invisible in the soft, smoky darkness. She felt the dragon’s power surround her with heat and magic, the pain shimmering along her bones. She leaned into the fear that melted her body, as she had leaned into the winds of flight.

Then there was only weariness and grief. She knelt alone in the darkness of the autumn woods, the night chill biting into all the newly healed wounds of her back and arms. Through the warty gray and white of the tree boles, she could see the red glow of fire and smell the familiar odors of woodsmoke and horses; the plaintive strains of a pennywhistle keened thinly in the air. The bright edge of color had vanished from all things; the evening was raw and misty, colorless, and very cold. She shivered and drew her sheepskin jacket more closely about her. The earth felt damp where her knees pressed it through her faded skirts.

She brushed aside the dark, coarse mane of her hair and looked up. Beyond the bare lace of the trees, she could see the black dragon still circling, alone in the sounding hollow of the empty sky.

Her mind touched his, with thanks deeper than words. Grief came down to her, grief and hurt, and rage that he could feel hurt.

It is a cruel gift you have given me, wizard woman,
he said.
For you have set me apart from my own and destroyed the pleasure of my old joys; my soul is marked with this love, though I do not understand what it is and, like you, I shall never be able to return to what I have been.

I am sorry, Morkeleb,
she said to him.
We change what we touch, be it magic, or power, or another life. Ten years ago I would have gone with you, had I not touched John, and been touched by him.

Like an echo in her mind she heard his voice.
Be happy, then, wizard woman, with this choice that you have made. I do not understand the reasons for it, for it is not a thing of dragons—but then neither, any longer, am I.

She felt rather than saw him vanish, flying back in the darkness toward the empty north. For a moment he passed before the white disk of the moon, skeletal silk over its stern face—then he was gone. Grief closed her throat, the grief of roads untaken, of doors not opened, of songs unsung—the human grief of choice. In freeing her, the dragon, too, had made his choice, of what he was and would be.

We change what we touch, she thought. And in that, she supposed, John—and the capacity to love and to care that John had given her—was, and forever would be, Morkeleb’s bane.

She sighed and got stiffly to her feet, dusting the twigs and leaves from her skirts. The shrill, sweet notes of the pennywhistle still threaded the evening breeze, but with them was the smell of smoke, and of bannocks starting to burn. She hitched her plaid up over her shoulder and started up the path for the clearing. 

Barbara Hambly (b. 1951) is a
New York Times
bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction, as well as historical novels set in the nineteenth century.

Born in San Diego and raised in the Los Angeles suburb of Montclair, Hambly attended college at the University of California, Riverside, where she majored in medieval history, earning a master’s degree in the subject in 1975. Inspired by her childhood love of fantasy classics such as
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
and
The Lord of the Rings
, she decided to pursue writing as soon as she finished school. Her road was not so direct, however, and she spent time waitressing, modeling, working at a liquor store, and teaching karate before selling her first novel,
Time of the Dark
, in 1982. That was the birth of her Darwath series, which she expanded on in four more novels over the next two decades. More than simple sword-and-sorcery novels, they tell the story of nightmares come to life to terrorize the world. The series helped to establish Hambly’s reputation as an author of intelligent fantasy fiction.

Since the early 1980s, when she made her living writing scripts for Saturday morning cartoons such as
Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
and
He-Man
, Hambly has published dozens of books in several different series. Besides fantasy novels such as 1985’s
Dragonsbane
, which she has called one of her favorite books, she has used her background in history to craft gripping historical fiction.

The inventor of many different fantasy universes, including those featured in the Windrose Chronicles, Sun Wolf and Starhawk series, and Sun-Cross novels, Hambly has also worked in universes created by others. In the 1990s she wrote two well-received Star Wars novels, including the New York Times bestseller
Children of the Jedi
, while in the eighties she dabbled in the world of Star Trek, producing several novels for that series.

In 1999 she published
A Free Man of Color
, the first Benjamin January novel. That mystery and its eight sequels follow a brilliant African-American surgeon who moves from Paris to New Orleans in the 1830s, where he must use his wits to navigate the prejudice and death that lurk around every corner of antebellum Louisiana. Hambly ventured into straight historical fiction with
The Emancipator’s Wife
, a nuanced look at the private life of Mary Todd Lincoln, which was a finalist for the 2005 Michael Shaara Prize for Civil War writing.

From 1994 to 1996 Hambly was the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Her James Asher vampire series won the Locus Award for best horror novel in 1989 and the Lord Ruthven Award in 1996. She lives in Los Angeles with an assortment of cats and dogs.

Hambly with her parents and older sister in San Diego, California, in September 1951.

Hambly (right) with her mother, sister, and brother in 1955. For three years, the family lived in this thirty-foot trailer at China Lake, California, a Marine Base in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Hambly (left), at the age of nine, with her brother and sister on Christmas in 1960.

Hambly’s graduation from high school, June 1969.

A self-portrait that Hambly drew while studying abroad in France in 1971.

Hambly dressed up for a Renaissance fair.