Moth and Spark (36 page)

Suddenly it struck her as funny, and she laughed. There was an edge of panic in the laughter, and she stopped immediately. At least she still had that much control. She looked down at her hand for the first time. The ring fit well. The band was an engraved gold, the stone a large emerald. It was obviously a betrothal ring, one that had been given to Mari by her husband, who was dead now. And Mari had given it to Corin to give to her. She was married to him.

She wept soundlessly, not trying to stop it, and Joce did not try to comfort her. After a few minutes she was done. I won’t cry again, she thought. “I’m ready.”

The sun was well up when they reached the village. They stopped at an inn, to rest and water the horses. Joce left Tam in the common room, where she waited nervously until he returned with a sack of food for them and clothes for her. She took them into a room to change. The shirt was too large, and the pants too long, and both were stained and
worn, but they were clean and dry. She rolled up sleeves and trouser legs, tightened the rope belt, and found Joce readying the horses. They set off again, carrying their breakfast.

Twice in the morning they saw a circling dragon shining high up against the blue sky. Otherwise there was no evidence of war.

They took the country roads, not the main highway, avoiding towns. Fields and pastures and woodland-covered hillsides, goats and streams and ancient oaks. Here and there a shrine with a bit of food, some feathers, a woven hex. Villages that were only a few huts on rutted roads with dogs yelping and children staring, fascinated. It became a blur for Tam. Whenever she thought of Corin she raised her head and stared along the line of road as far as she could see, and after a while the thoughts vanished in the warmth of sun on her bare forearms and the breeze bending the grasses on the verge.

By midday it was quite hot. They stopped to rest on a tree-shaded riverbank, not far below a mill. They could hear the mill working and the water roaring through it, though they could not see it for the trees. After they ate, Tam sat motionless in the lassitude of heat and watched the sunlight twining through the branches. Even the birds were still.

She was thinking it was time to go when she heard the shrill cry of a dragon, close. She shuddered. The horses stomped nervously. Quick as a cat Joce was squatting beside her, one hand on her shoulder. His skin was fever-hot.

She squirmed and looked at him. He raised a finger to his lips and then released her. He rose lightly and went to the horses, caught each one’s reins in a hand. They were trembling and sweating, ears back and nostrils flared, but they stayed under his control.

Tam felt it then, the dragon presence, searching. It was a cold sharp needle in her mind. They won’t hurt me, she thought. They won’t hurt me. Not if they want Corin to help them. But she could not help remembering the things the dragons had done under Hadon’s command. Bodies on a roof, fire in the sky. If they were slaves she was not safe.

She stared at the ripples on the water, the sun glancing off in silver, and emptied her mind of everything else. Images came to her. Black lava flows. The stone was rough and full of pocks. A waterfall spilling down
a tall mountainside, and a river with a scattering of huts beside it. A throne with dragons carved on the arms. A bloodstained sword lying on granite. A man whose skin was the waxy white of death and whose lips and fingernails had turned blue, with steam curling around him. A black moth, circling a candle flame.

The dragon was speaking to her, but she did not understand it. They had done it once before, telling her they meant to free Tai, but she had only understood because she was already in their space. She thought of colored sand on a silver tray and wondered if they had spoken to her then as well. It made her shiver.

The pain in her mind vanished. The dragon cried again, higher and farther away. It was leaving. Joce released the horses, which bent to grazing as if nothing had happened. He looked at her and she was frozen by his gaze. It was gone in less than a second. He had to have some sort of power, not just knowledge of it. It was strange how readily she accepted that now. Aram had known, which was why he had put them together. She wondered if Joce knew about the dragons and Corin’s task.

She stood and asked the question she had been trying not to think. “What if the king didn’t get out?”

“That we will hear news of. I am certain he did, though. There were plans in place. Better you know nothing of them.”

“But if he didn’t . . .”

“If he is dead, you are the queen,” he said. “And nowhere will be safe. We will probably have to hide in the Fells. It will be hard.”

You are the queen
. The food she had just eaten felt heavy in her stomach. What had she done? “They’ll come looking for me,” she said.

“I am afraid so.”

“Can we go through the woods and fields?”

“Not on horse. I would prefer not to turn loose the horses until we must, they are too useful.”

“They’re too good,” she said. “No one will recognize me if we walk. I’ll cut my hair.”

“They will be watching your home,” he said. “We can’t go there.”

“My parents—” she said, frantic. If Cina had not escaped, or Jenet, or others, they could have been tortured to tell everything they knew about Tam. Alina might have talked before she died. When Tam opened the door, Alina’s black blind face had been in front of her, swinging slightly.
The rope squeaked as it moved against the bar. One of her shoes dragged on the floor, scraping. She felt sick.

Neither spoke. Tam wondered if Joce was waiting for her to give him an order. A coldness moved across her skin, like wind. Nothing stirred in the leaves. She swallowed.

“The dragon,” she said. “It spoke to me. I didn’t understand it.”

He did not respond to that either. His face was not its usual unreadable mask. He seemed troubled, perplexed. It was uncharacteristic of him. He took a step toward her. Suddenly she was frightened. Did he mean to leave her, or to force her with him?

He took her left hand and kissed Mari’s ring, gently released it. His skin was still hot. His face smoothed. “My lady,” he said. “I need to tell you something so you can choose well. But I am breaking my word to several people, including the king. It is rightly he who should tell you, not I. Can I have your promise of silence?”

“Does Corin know?” She did not want to keep secrets from him.

“Yes.”

“Then tell me, and I will keep confidence.”

“I can get you into Dalrinia unseen. Even into your home.”

“With power.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“What kind of power, Joce?”

“Wizardry,” he said.

Tam understood things then. His hot skin, his silver eyes, his freezing gaze. The stories said wizard-power was within, not power that one reached for. She understood too what a terrible secret it was.

“But I’m not one,” she said hesitantly.

“No.”

“Did you tell the king I had it?”

He shook his head. “I had no knowledge of you earlier than you had of me. My lord has no power either, but he has made enough study of it to see it when it chances to awake.”

It was almost too much. She said, “What do I do?”

He took what seemed years to give her an answer. “You have to know your power,” he said at last. “I can teach you that through the knife.”

“Then do it.” She realized it was her first command. She took a deep breath and drew her knife.

He said, “First stillness. Turn your blade up and watch it. Hold with both hands if you must. You have to be the blade.”

She obeyed. The knife was straight and silver. The sharpness of the edges gleamed in the sun. She stared. Time slipped away into nothingness. Elbows bent, she held the knife still and upright, a line between her hands and the sky. Her legs were a line too, pinning her feet to the earth. She was utterly still and the rest of the world moved around her. The knife was radiance. She had not thought that light had weight. But everything did. Souls were moths and love was butterflies. The true world was out there, where the carousel horses had run, and if she raised the knife she would pierce through the shell surrounding her and enter it again. Her breath was slow and even. Silver light spilled down her arms like water. It had felt much like this when Liko put her into trance.

“Stillness, and speed. Swing the knife.”

A crow cawed in one of the trees. It echoed in her head. It would speak words to her if she let it. She moved her arm in the motions he had taught her. She was surprised at how much easier it seemed; the weight of the knife balanced her. Quiet, like the standing had been. She swung her arm out once more and felt that connection, the light going through her. Once more, over and over.

“Enough,” he finally said. He sounded pleased. She was surprised at the disappointment in her. It felt extraordinarily natural, the knife a part of her body. She had not wanted to stop. He must have sensed that, because he said, “Don’t try the knife practice alone. You’ll wear yourself out or get into a bad habit.”

“Yes. All right.” She sheathed the blade and looked at the river again. The water moved slowly and steadily, covered with green reflections and light-tipped ripples.

In Illyria there was a place called the Lake of the Dead. She had been to it years ago, before Tyrekh, when she and her brother accompanied her father on the first part of his second trip to Sarium. The story was that there had been a town there once, centuries ago, and then rains came, and then an earthquake. The quake shook the weakened earth and threw rocks down into the flooded river, damming it. The waters rose and filled the valley, drowning the people and buildings. On certain moonlit nights the town was said to stir again, the fully fleshed dead moving through the water as if it were air. It was a beautiful place,
with high wooded hills on either side and water the deepest blue Tam had ever seen. There were no dead, she knew that, but it was, or had been, a gateway. She saw that now with astonishing clarity. Memories of power lingered and became stories.

There was power in Caithenor. Lines spreading and branching like roots, some frail tendrils and some thick knots that would sprout again like witch-grass if you broke them. It was a knot under the palace. That was what had enabled her to See, and Aram to see her.

Black moths. Corin on the steps, staring inhumanly outward. Aram’s hands on her shoulders. Horses riding over blackness, the scrape of claws and rush of wings. The crow cawed again. She found it, a darkness in the thick shadows of a tree’s branches. Hidden in the sunlight. She could do that.

“Even if it’s safe, I can’t risk something happening to my parents. I’m going to have to go back to Caithenor,” she said.

“We dare not. It’s very dangerous,” Joce said. “As much from random acts as from anyone looking for you. There’s no safe place to hide, not with Sarians there. We need to go to Pell. It’s large. You will be well hidden. I can find the king’s agents.”

Agents. He meant spies. If they were loyal she would be safe.

“Not back to Caithenor yet,” she said. “We’ll let things settle a little. Find barns and clearings and root cellars to hide. I’ll practice. But if you have the power to sneak me home unseen, even where they will be waiting for me, I trust you have the power to slip us back into Caithenor unnoticed when they have stopped searching.”

He looked at her for a very long time. If he refused there was nothing she could do about it; it would be both stupid and useless to run away from him.

“Why?” he asked.

She told him the only truth she had. “In Caithenor I am stronger.”

He was silent again. She could not read the expression on his face. Finally he said, “God help me if anything happens to you and I live to tell about it, but we’ll go back. And on our way and when we are there you will do exactly as I say.”

“Agreed,” she said. It was a fair bargain.

He held the horse for her to mount. When she looked down at him he said, “His Highness could not have chosen better.”

She flushed. He pretended not to notice.

A
n eerie blue light flickered along the ridgetops. Sometimes it flashed brightly, bleaching exposed granite into something as stark and lifeless as a full moon. The ribbon of waterfall cascading down the cliffs at the eastern end of the valley caught the light and threw it back so that the mountain seemed to be splitting. The sky was black and starry in the east, but the wind was blowing hard and cold. Clouds were piling rapidly over the sea.

“What is it?” Corin asked. He had been in the wizards’ valley before, but he had never seen such a light.

“Something is trying to get in,” said Kelvan.

“Soldiers?”

“Perhaps. Would you have me check?”

Corin shook his head. “No.” He trusted the valley’s defenses to hold. But if he had in fact been traced there somehow—it seemed impossible—he had to leave. Flee once more. He had a brief image of being pushed farther and farther north until he was alone on a plain of ice at the top of the world. Dragon cold come to meet him. He rubbed his right hand and arm reflexively.

Tai had made it back alive and was now locked in lavish but well-guarded apartments. Kelvan said there was no longer any pretense that she was a guest. It was the attempt to rescue her that had unleashed the attack on Caithenor. In his bitterest moments Corin blamed himself for that too. He had precipitated battle before they were ready. Aram had had things in hand, he never should have interfered. Even if he had brought her through, Hadon would have sent forth his dragons. Corin had no idea if anyone in Mycene could have seen what happened, but Hadon had known, and that was enough.

By speaking through the dragons to a rider he trusted, Kelvan had learned that Tyrekh himself had come in to Caithenor on dragonback the day after they fled; there had been an agreement of some sort after all. Sarians had come in rapidly on horse. The foot soldiers, who must have been slipping in for months, were mostly Mycenean, but there
were some Sarians among them. Mycenean or Sarian, many had fire weapons, as did the riders. Kelvan himself had a war-light. Hadon had equipped his men well. Corin knew his father was not dead or captured, but nothing more about Aram. Kelvan had obtained the names of some of the dead. Too many of them were men and women Corin would miss, including Ellid and the marshal, Coll. He had received the news of the discovery of Arnet’s body floating in the river, a knife in its back, with a most unprincely satisfaction. He tried not to think about Tam.

“Is it possible Hadon knows about this valley?” he asked.

“Not unless someone managed to find out from my dragon,” Kelvan said. “I haven’t come back that often, and I’ve never been followed. No one has any reason to come this far north, and Hadon wouldn’t want to send anyone. It’s too close.”

“To the Dragon Valleys.” They lay eastward, on the other side of several ridges of higher mountains. “I thought the dragons couldn’t go back.”

“They can’t. I tried once and the dragon nearly lost its mind. I was sicker than I’ve ever been. I thought it would throw me. But he’s not going to take chances.”

So they should be safe from any of Hadon’s riders. Corin did not find that as reassuring as it should have been, since something was trying to get in. The valley was part of a huge swath of Crown lands, wild and lordless, and it was not unlikely that someone would consider the lands a place to search. But it was twelve difficult days from Caithenor by horse. He could not possibly have been tracked by Mycenean soldiers yet.

Wind whipped his cloak against him. The slow dark river was whitecapped with the force of the wind pushing against the current. At its mouth, where it met the tide, the water foamed and bubbled. “We’d better get back inside,” he said. “It’s going to be hell when this breaks.”

“I think we need to go see Rois. She may know what it is.”

“This late?” It was past midnight. Kelvan had roused him when the lights started, and they went to the riverside, away from the trees that sheltered the cottage, so that they could see. It had been a peaceful place until then. Corin could have stood there in the daytime and watched the reeds and small waterfowl and sunlight for far too long. Even with learning to ride the dragon and losing repeatedly to Kelvan at swordplay, he had too much empty time. No papers to read, no soldiers to train
with, no courtiers to placate. He felt inexcusably idle. He still had no idea how to set the dragons free. Not that he dared to do anything yet, while Hadon held Tai. He was learning rider skills fast—everything from understanding dragonspeech to staying strapped in while the dragon turned sideways to checking for scalemites—but such speed was of little use until his sister was freed.

“No one sleeps when that happens,” Kelvan said. He gestured broadly at the blue light. “We won’t be the first ones there.”

“So it’s happened before? It might not have anything to do with us?”

“Aye.”

There was no more conviction in Kelvan’s tone than Corin felt himself. Things were moving, and he was at the fulcrum. He glanced over his shoulder, up the hill. There were no lights on in any of the houses. Huts, really. But Kelvan would know. “Let’s go, then,” he said. The track was rough and would be difficult in the dark, even worse if it rained. Kelvan refused to use the Sarian light in the valley, and Corin understood him. It would have been a kind of desecration.

They walked past the bulk of the resting dragon. It was dark and still, as undisturbed by the wind as a rock. Corin had to restrain himself from extending his mind to it. The temptation was constant. But it would be too easy to lose himself entirely in dragonthought. He was not supposed to be able to speak to the dragon without touching it, but he could. It was one of the powers they had given him. It would be the hardest to let go of. His senses had sharpened, hearing and sight both, and he was gaining a rider’s quickness. He did not care much about those things; it was the speech that seduced him, the images and the words and hums, the dragon presence that extended across time and space beyond the tiny bit of dragon he could see.

That should have extended, he corrected himself. They were tethered to the Empire now.

The path was uneven and gullied, switching back and forth along the hill. Above it the forest was thick and impenetrable, until it gave way to the towering cliffs. Branches were creaking in the wind. It was almost frightening in its wildness. He had given up wearing his sword—there was no need here—but not his knife. He touched the handle for reassurance. The ordinary world was only an outer layer in this valley. Beneath it seeped the old powers and magics of the wizards, quiet and
noiseless but ready to leak through into what he so foolishly called
real
. The huts changed their appearance sometimes. It would not have surprised him if the forest moved or the trees spoke.

It was only the dragon power that allowed him to see such things. Six months ago it would have been an ordinary village to his eyes. Poor and powerless.

Rois’s hut was about halfway up the hill. As they drew closer he could see the dance of firelight through the cracks in the shutters. He heard low voices before they opened the door.

It was crowded. There was a momentary silence when they entered, a quick assessment of danger. It did not offend him. Caution ran deep in these people. That was why they were still alive. They all knew who he was—it was the only way Kelvan could have brought him at all—but that did not make them less wary of outsiders. Four days was not nearly long enough to earn their trust.

The cottage floor was well-worn wood covered with faded and stained woven rugs. Pots and braids of garlic hung from the rafters. There was something familiar and even soothing about the orderly twists of the garlic stems, and he realized he had seen them before in dragonspeech. It was reassuring to think that the dragons had expected him to come here. The sleeping area was only a loft above the lower room. It could have been any peasant’s hut in Caithen, except that the wood was too well planed and joined, the wall above the fireplace too clean of smoke, the hinges on the door too well made. He had a sudden sharp memory of standing in this room with his father. It had seemed as stately as Aram’s receiving room, and the king had not looked out of place. Corin had felt out of place himself, somehow smaller and rather stupid. He straightened. He could not afford to feel that way now.

Rois was standing by the fire. She was an old woman, slight, with white hair that hung in a dark-tipped braid nearly to her ankles. He had spoken to her once before, briefly, insubstantially. It had been sufficient for him to know she was at least his match in wits and far surpassed him in wisdom. Her eyes met his and he sensed she had been waiting for him. He suspected Kelvan had known as much. He walked forward alone to join her.

Despite the noise and closeness of the people, there was a quiet space for them. He was as sure as he had ever been of anything that they could
not be overheard. A plain wooden stool was to one side of the hearth; as he approached, Rois sank down onto it. He stood in front of her, feeling as though he were about to undergo an examination from a tutor.

She spoke. “Sit down so I can see your face, lad.”

Lad! There was nothing but the floor. It was stone here by the hearth. He sat and crossed his legs. She leaned forward and put her thin dry hands on his cheeks. Power seared through him. He jerked back. His breath was coming fast.

She dropped her hands and looked at him. He could not see the silver of her eyes, but he knew it was there. She said, “You are very like your father, Corin.”

It was the first time anyone in the village had used his name. It startled him. “Not so much as you think.” He wondered how well she knew Aram, to be able to say such a thing.

“More than you know.” She straightened. “What is she like, your wife?”

Wife. He was not used to that either. He had told Kelvan only the barest details but was not surprised they had been passed on. It mattered to the villagers who would be queen. Who had his heart in her hand.

“Strong,” he said. “Fierce and just and gentle all at once.” He paused, made himself meet her eyes. “She is a Seer. Neither of us understands it.” Though they had had no time to speak of it.

“It happens,” Rois said. “Usually nothing wakes it. We were the same race in the beginning, you know.”

He had not known that. But of course they must have been. He nodded. “I fear for her,” he said. Kelvan had said that the garrison in Dalrinia had surrendered without bloodshed, which reassured him a little. Of Tam herself he had heard nothing. If she had been captured it would have been trumpeted. But he could not keep from imagining her lying dead in a pasture somewhere. He knew what happened to refugee women.

“Joce will keep her safe.”

“Is that a prophecy?”

“We have helped protect you all your life. The shield extends to those you love.”

“The Basilisks.”

“And others. I was there at your birth. Your mother’s maid, a stablehand, a gardener. The people no one ever sees.”

“Tam sees them,” he said, missing her for that as well.

“You are a fortunate man,” she said.

He did not feel fortunate. But there was no point in self-pity. He shifted and looked at the fire. Watching the light, he said, “Am I pursued here?”

“Perhaps. You won’t be found. The barrier won’t fall.”

He felt dwarfed by the power behind her words. He said, “You don’t need the king to keep you hidden. Safe. You are far stronger here than an army of ten thousand. Why do you give up your children as servants?”

“Do you ask that question of your other subjects?”

Neatly turned, and that meant he would not get an answer. The wood was fragrant. He forced himself to breathe deeply and loosen his shoulders. The fire’s roar and crackle would drown out his thoughts if he let it. It would be so easy to just give up. A bit of wood fell off the end of one of the logs in a shower of golden sparks the color of dragon eyes.

Still watching the flame, he said, “How much has Kelvan told you about the dragons?”

“He said that they have set you the task of freeing them.”

“Yes. And I don’t know how.”

“You know more than you think you do. They’ve given you the answer,” she said. “You simply have to remember it.”

That sounded impossible. He clenched his teeth. “What do you know about them?” he asked, a touch of accusation in his voice.

She looked evenly at him. “There is a story that it was wizards who led the Myceneans into the Dragon Valleys. They thought they would be the dragonriders. The wizards took the dragons’ fire, but instead the fire killed the wizards, and the Myceneans murdered the ones who were left. It may not be true. It is true that our power began to wane at that time. But I have no special knowledge of dragons.”

It only increased his frustration. He could hardly shake a better answer from her, though. He scuffed at the stone with his boot.

His skin tingled sharply, stopped. The room had gone quiet and tense. He was not the only one who had felt something, then. A man near the south window opened the shutters. The blue light flared blindingly.
Something dark, wind-tossed, was flung through the window and landed hard on the floor. A bird. Stone-dead, with a broken neck. Its feathers had already lost their luster. The people closest backed away.