Kindred and Wings (12 page)

Pelanor tugged on his arm twice, drawing his attention to the rear. There, standing among the crowd of Vaerli, were five Kindred. They wore bodies of rock and earth rather than the more terrifying fire form, but Byre knew they were no safer. From where they stood it appeared that the Kindred had actually been helping the Vaerli construct this portion of the white stone wall. None of the Kindred made a move toward Byre and Pelanor.

Only the Vaerli did. A bearded man with strands of gray in his long hair greeted them. “Welcome to V’nae Rae, young one.” His brow furrowed when his gaze alighted on Pelanor, but he said nothing nor made a move to confront her. “I am Yafet. I sense you have come far to join us.”

It was not a question; what need was there for questions when all that Byre was lay open to every Vaerli. He felt almost tongue tied, unable to decide what was an appropriate greeting.

He was saved from embarrassment by a sudden darkness that fell over them all. Everyone looked up, but Pelanor alone was the one that swore. “By the Goddess’ Twelfth Mouth!”

The sunlight gleamed off a long silver belly and outspread wings while a carved, intelligent head turned downwards. It was a dragon and Byre knew her name, a name that every Vaerli infant knew: Morleth the First. Stories whispered in the night were not enough to prepare for the sheer grandeur of her. Larger than the complete section of wall and blocking out the sky, she still did not instill fear in him. Instead there was an absurd joy in laying eyes on the dragon.

Barely disturbing the rock, Morleth landed as lightly as a cat, and turned her huge frilled head to examine Byre. “You are damaged, little brother.”

Her eyes, bright blue eyes with flecks of gold in them, narrowed, and he felt as though she were looking into his head, though there was no sensation. Folding her wings tightly against her body, Morleth wrapped her tail over her front paws.

“But you are expected.” Her voice was sharp like crystal in his ears, but hearing it made tight tears form in the corners of his eyes.

He was hearing and seeing and feeling the legendary dragon. The Kindred’s idea of testing had not been this in his imagining, and part of Byre wondered when he was going to be snatched away from it all.

His other problem was that he had absolutely no idea how to address a dragon properly. He paused for a moment, feeling all the eyes of his people on him, and then awkwardly sketched what he hoped was an elegant bow for her. At his side Pelanor followed suit, and he was surprised and pleased. The Phaerkorn were not known to be overly fond of abasing themselves before others. He imagined that dragons made as much of an impression on Blood Witches as they did on all the other races.

The Vaerli around them laughed gently. Morleth’s rumble of amusement was strong enough to run up through the earth into their bones. “Little brother, there is no need for ceremony. We are all children of the chaos here. One and the same.”

Byre did not understand what that meant, but found he was blushing as if caught in some foolishness by a relative.

“Ellyria is waiting for you,” Morleth boomed, extending her gleaming silver arm. “Come fly with me.”

“Sacred blood,” Pelanor hissed, and actually took a step backwards behind him.

Byre turned on her and grinned mischievously. “You can always fly yourself if you want to, no need for a dragon to take you.”

The Witch’s gaze flicked between him and the shining dragon as she appeared to consider her options. Then a slow smile spread across her face, wicked and fearless. “A dragon flight is something even a Phaerkorn cannot turn down.”

Then, just like that, they were climbing up the silver leg of Morleth the First. When Byre’s hand came down on the dragon’s skin, it was warm and surprisingly smooth, like polished leather.

In all the stories of Ellyria’s dragon, it had never been mentioned how kindly her great curved eyes were. Byre had been raised on tales about how Morleth had been terrible and perilous, yet as he pulled Pelanor, almost giggling, up behind him, he couldn’t see the danger in her.

The dragon was magnificent and shining like polished steel. Just looking on her was enough to bring a smile to anyone’s face, he thought. Then all rational thought was jerked out of his head as she sprang upwards into the sky.

Byre laughed while Pelanor squeezed him tight, her abrupt gasp of surprise a heavy breath in his ear. Morleth’s wings snapped wide, thrusting them through the air higher and higher. A few wide, deep beats of her wings and they were among the clouds—higher than birds. V’nae Rae was spread out below them, like some child’s drawing of the city. Byre, despite his slight fear of heights, was mesmerized by what lay before them. Pelanor’s hands tightened on his waist, and she pushed her narrow face in against his shoulder.

Such magnificence couldn’t last forever. Eventually, they spiraled down, circling the ragged mountains that were even at that moment being smoothed by Vaerli and Kindred so that the city would have a place to remain static.

The citadel was much as Byre remembered—but fresher, whiter and sharper than it had been, or would be with the Caisah in residence. The
pae atuae
would show up best under moonlight, but even under an afternoon sun they glinted from time to time. It lifted his heart to see everything as it had always been meant to be—and not how things had devolved under the tyrant.

He did not want to think of that man or that time—not right now.

“The Waterfall Gates of Iilthor,” Byre said turning and pointing to the fluted and carved niche where the two gushing rivers splashed to each side of the silver bound doors. Everything was familiar and somehow so very different.

Morleth trumpeted a laugh, one that they could feel deeply in their flesh and bone. “What a wonderful name! I think we shall call it that. You Vaerli have a real ability to name things—it is so delightful!”

Byre felt a shudder of strangeness run through his spine, as the vagaries of time began to make themselves apparent. The Kindred who lived without the tides of time became stranger and stranger to him.

It was a much-needed reminder that they were alone in this place, and it would have its own dangers and rules that they best discern quickly. Byre kept his mouth closed on the subject of any more names, lest he create too much of a disturbance in time.

Instead, he turned his attention to the place they were moving toward. He observed a sweeping balcony at the highest point of the Citadel that poked out of the red cliffs like a admonishing finger. It looked fragile and filigreed, but incredibly the vast bulk of Morleth landed easily upon it. Not even a creak sounded beneath them.

Byre stroked the dragon’s smooth, strong hide, uncertain if he wanted to get down. What would be the chances of him ever being able to get back up again? It was the kind of experience he did not expect to repeat.

The dragon’s head swiveled about and she regarded her passengers. “You came a great distance to find my lady, Byreniko-of-the-future, so I think you should talk to her while you may.”

His mouth dropped open, ready to ask a thousand questions, but then the flicker in Morleth’s eye reminded him: she had once been a Kindred. A Name had not changed everything, necessarily. She was still of this earth and knew more than he ever could.

Taking the hint, Byre slipped down and held out a hand to Pelanor. She looked down at him, head cocked. Her voice, when it came, was almost admonishing. “I am very far from my
gewalt
here, Byre of the Vaerli. I hope you know what you are doing . . .”

He didn’t reply, because to reply would have meant having to lie. He did not want to do that to her. Instead, he mutely kept that hand extended to her. Eventually she gave in, took it, and stalked after him as he went inside the Citadel.

It was a beautiful, moving thing, this palace. The walls shifted and danced with mosaics of the Vaerli and the Named. Centaurs capered around the corner of the hallway that opened out onto the terrace, and seemed to dare them to follow as they moved ahead of the newcomers. The tiny stones that made up the decoration flared different colors in an amazingly complex pattern. Byre had no idea how it was done, but suspected it was leading them somewhere.

Pelanor’s hand clenched in his. Her eyes widened at the fine silk curtains fluttering in the wind, and the cut crystal above them that lit the way, but with no discernible light source.

Finally, by virtue of following their flat, impossible guide stones, they found her.

It was madness how she was simply there. Ellyria Dragonsoul, the first of the Vaerli, the one who had made the Pact with the Kindred. She was the one individual who had always been upheld as the greatest of their kind, and thus she was an ideal more than a real person, woven in myth and surrounded by holiness. Byre stopped suddenly, as if he’d been struck from above.

Hearing them enter the bare chamber, Ellyria turned to regard them. No aura of anything particular surrounded the woman standing in the white stone chamber. She was not haloed by light, or burning with righteousness, but it was also impossible to pretend she was normal.

She looked young, with a heart-shaped face and sharp cheekbones, but her eyes reflected a great age. Her shiny black hair was folded into a thick plait that lay straight against her spine. Mother of the Vaerli she might be, but Ellyria Dragonsoul was also completely naked. However, it did not shock or titillate. Instead, it seemed the most natural way to find her. Her nudity made the words carved on her body clearly visible, like blue snakes spiraling around her limbs, encircling her breasts and twisting across the flat plane of her belly. It was hard not to follow the curving lettering, to try and discern what it might mean, but Byre managed to pull his eyes away when he realized something: Ellyria was his great-grandmother; kin and blood.

At his side Pelanor was unusually silent, and he wondered how Ellyria looked through the Blood Witch’s sharp senses. One thing he could be sure of was: she was somehow catching a whiff of power from the leader of the Vaerli. He was unsure how much the Phaerkorn knew of Vaerli mythos, but she did the right thing: dropped her eyes to avoid staring, and waited hopefully to see what he did.

Byre bent to one knee and inclined his head also to the floor. It was a gesture he had never seen a Vaerli make, but in the face of the mother of his people it was entirely appropriate. He waited, breathing hard, until he saw her bare feet appear in his vision. Then he felt a slight touch on the crown of his head.

“You have made a long journey.” Her voice came out strangely hesitant, and softer than he might have imagined. “I see how sad and hurt you are. I am very sorry for it.”

Byre glanced up. Her eyes were like the other Vaerli’s, full of stars, but there was no focus within them. Getting to his feet, he watched her wander away from them in a dissolute manner. She flicked her gaze over one shoulder and smiled. “Come into the Puzzle Room.”

Both Byre and Pelanor jumped when Morleth’s crested head appeared at the window Ellyria had just been standing before. The dragon was large enough to twine herself around the Citadel and peer in any window she might fancy.

“She is as you find her.” Morleth rested her smooth, gleaming head close to the window and watched the Vaerli disappear deeper into the Citadel with one blue slitted eye. “Her struggle with my Kin did not leave her scarred on the outside, but the inside is another matter. It is difficult to be both born and made seer.”

“Both?” Byre stiffened. This was something he had never heard before. “Ellyria is a seer?”

The dragon let out a great sigh, her talons shifting on the white stone. “Such vision is a great burden,” was all she would say, before she pulled her head back from the window and disappeared from sight.

“What is this born and made business?” Pelanor asked, tucking her dark hair behind one ear in a sharp gesture. Phaerkorn were haughty folk indeed—even in such strangeness.

“There are always two seers among the Vaerli,” Byre replied as evenly as possible, even though he wanted to dash after Ellyria. “One is born into the role and one is made into a seer when she reaches maturity. They work together. The born has the gift of interpretation while the made has only the strength to see. I never knew . . . no one ever told me that Ellyria was both.”

“She is expecting you to follow,” Morleth said, appearing again, thus proving her hearing was sharp, “but be careful.” The dragon tilted her head as she peered in, and Byre was reminded of a child peering into their toy house. The effect was disconcerting.

Byre did not direct Pelanor to follow him, but he could feel that she did. The Vaerli blood in her made her a shadowy echo in his new perception. Trying to ignore her, he concentrated on observing more of the interior of the Citadel. He had never seen the inside in his own time, so could not judge what the Caisah might have done to it. The deeper they went, the fewer mosaics there were. Instead, the
pae atuae
was everywhere. It danced through and over the mosaics that were opposite each window. Light flooded every nook and cranny so that no shadow dared to linger.

Byre would have loved to stop and examine the word magic—for he had never had the chance to learn it—but down the end of the corridor he could sense Ellyria. She was the center and the beginning. If ever he had a chance to find out answers to those questions, it was down there.

He’d heard of the Puzzle Room, the place where his sister had earned pieces of the answer the Caisah dangled before her. The idea that it had been made by his own people was a new one.

Cautiously, aware of Morleth’s warning, Byre pushed open the door. Ellyria was standing, hands on hips in the middle of the room that was flooded with a curious golden light. Spread out on the floor was not the Caisah’s puzzle, but something infinitely more complex.

Mosaics depicting fire were fanned out on the floor before her. From this center radiated other interconnected pieces. There were several colors that joined together before separating and interconnecting with others. The whole effect was of ribbons wiggling their way out in a bewildering pattern that made Byre’s head hurt.