Moth and Spark (43 page)

“That,” Corin said, “is why my father saw you as my queen.”

She was afraid that if she looked at him she would weep. She stared fixedly at a knothole in a rafter. He put his hand on the side of her head and turned her slowly to face him. She swallowed over the swelling in her throat.

He stood up and drew her with him. She kept her hand in his. It felt more like a wedding than that moment in the palace had. He looked at Rois, started to say something, then shook his head. Tam looked back at Rois as Corin led her outside. The old woman held up a hand in farewell.

When they reached the dragon, Corin paused. It lay with its massive head resting on its forelegs, like a cat. The claws were a polished ivory that glistened where they caught the sun. Kelvan sat cross-legged on the ground beside it, inspecting a harness strap. He rose unhurriedly.

The dragon opened one eye and looked at Tam. She jumped. She knew she should not be afraid of the thing, not after having ridden on it for six hours with nothing worse than a queasy stomach, not with these two men here. But it was gazing at her with such intelligence, weighing her. The yellow of the eye was not really yellow, it was the color of straw and corn shucks, bright as new copper, striated with greens and browns that spoke of earth and evergreens and turning leaves. The pupil seemed to go forever, a liquid darkness, not like the darkness her hand had plunged into. It was deep and full of heat and profound knowledge waiting for her. It had a curving warm sensuality that brought her fingers to her mouth.

“Don’t look it in the eye, Tam,” Corin said, touching her shoulder. She jumped again and turned her head away. A pang of loss shuddered through her. Then she shook her head vigorously, as though she could shake the thoughts from it, and faced him with her back to the dragon. That seemed considerably less dangerous.

If I am going to free it I have to try to understand it, she thought.
That was why he wanted her to ride it again first. “Help me look at it,” she said.

He put his arm around her. It was warm, human. He walked her a few feet and turned her to look at the beast. Kelvan was now standing between her and the dragon’s eye.

She looked. Do not be afraid, she thought. Do not. Do not. She tried to approach it as her father would: a body, a creature of skin and flesh and bone, with veins and lungs and spleen. It was her task to sketch and label it. The front legs were as long as the back, but less muscled, slimmer. Made for lashing out. The wing joint lay beside and behind the shoulder. The scales were darker there and did not gleam as much. The wing was batwing, not birdwing, with what looked like a vestigial claw at the end. There were no ridges or crests anywhere on the dragon except its head. It was a creature that could slip through air as a fish through water. The tail was long and the same thickness nearly to the end. It too looked ready to lash and strike.

Carefully she moved forward. Corin stayed close. She noted how the scales on the back toes were barely the size of a coin, while the ones on the flanks were as large as her palm. The body moved with very slow, shallow breath. She gripped Corin’s hand with one of hers, and with the other pressed on a scale. The dragon did not respond. When she lifted her fingers from the dragon’s side, iridescent fingerprints faded quickly out.

Without looking at Corin, because that would make her give in to fear, she said, “I should talk to it.”

“Let me check,” he said, and after an instant said, “Go ahead. But kneel, you will probably get faint. I’ll be right beside you.”

She went to both knees and leaned back on her heels. The grass was short and withered from dragonheat. A wave crashed on the beach, very far away it seemed. A small black beetle wandered along beside the dragon. A rosemary bush in bloom hummed loudly with bees.

Tam closed her eyes and put both hands on the dragon’s side. Tell me your history, she thought.

The moon was high and full. It was cold. The trees were bare and straight and black, and the blue-silver light washed over everything. There was a scent of smoke lying under the cold scent of the snow and the frightened leaping scent of prey. Shadow fell over the open spaces, and the leafless trees trembled against one another. A dragon passed in
a roar of wind. It was huge and dark and glistened like sun on melting ice. It screamed. Red fire flared across the sky. Sparks showered golden to the snow.

More wind then, swirling, a column of sound. It caught the flames and spun them like autumn leaves.

Around and around, rustling, each flame a thousand wings, each spark a hundred golden eyes.

The deer pressed against one another, and the hares huddled against the snow, and even the owls sat hunched and silent with feathers tightly drawn together. The wolves sang. The dragon called back to them. Fire. Wind. Darkness.

Dragon darkness, filling everything, cold and stretching endlessly.

Scales fell from it and became crows, black and swift.

Wings beat and the dragon lifted. Moonlight sharp as a blade.

Tam fell back, gasping. Her vision was dark. She reached feebly for Corin and felt him take her hand. His fingers pressed painfully on the cut. “It’s all right,” he said, his words echoing a little. “It will pass. Lie still.”

She got her breath back, and the darkness faded. The sun was warm on her face. She tried to look at Corin but had to squint at his shape against the sun. The sky was a burning intense blue behind him.

He helped her up. The earth whirled beneath her feet. She stumbled forward and almost fell. She grabbed at him. He put his arms around her and supported her, saying nothing. The sun beat on her hair. His shirt under her turned cheek was warm. He smelled good. She stayed limp for a while.

When she felt a little stronger, she looked carefully again at the ground. It stayed steady this time, even when she straightened.

“All right now?” he asked.

“Yes.” She was far too unsure of it to say anything else.

He held her hand anyway and led her to the cottage. The interior was extremely dark after the brightness of the day, and she staggered again. By the time her eyes adjusted Tam realized she was famished. “I’m hungry,” she said.

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “That was a lot of effort. Sit down, and I’ll get you something. Water first, I think.”

She ate greedily, as though there had been no food for days. Cold
spring water, fruit, meat. Her limbs had the weakness that followed an illness. Corin ate nothing. She reached for more.

When finally she was finished, he took away her empty plate and put another full cup of water in front of her. She drank, and wiped her mouth, and let herself settle back into ordinariness.

“You’re very good at table service for someone of your upbringing,” she said as he sat down.

“One can’t talk privately of anything with servants hovering about ready to whisk away the dishes.”

“Did you ever have to wait on your father?”

“No, thank God. If I was competent enough to hear it at all, I was competent to sit at the table. He never trusted me with the wine, though.”

“Seeing how profligate you are, that was wise of him,” she said. She extended a hand toward him.

He stroked her thumb a few times, then said, “Do you still want to do it?”

“Yes,” she said. “I will See something. I wish I knew what the dragon said to me. Did it tell you?”

“No. Dragons keep confidences.”

“I asked for its history.”

“History is a human thing. Dragons don’t have it.”

“I thought you wanted me to See their past,” she said.

“Well, yes,” he said. “You’ve caught me in an inconsistency, which we could debate with Liden scholars for years. But don’t try to figure it out. The meaning will come to you. If you need to wait a while, Tam, then we’ll wait.”

He seemed much calmer than he had since yesterday. Perhaps he was ready to talk. “What happens if we fail?” she asked.

“Assuming it is not so spectacular a failure as to kill us both, then we have to cede Hadon the dragons and fight an ordinary war.”

If it turned into an ordinary war he would be always moving, hiding, planning. Tam wished she could spare him that. She said, “You won’t stay here in the valley.”

“No. But you might have to. We really will need to keep you hidden.”

She stood and looked out the window at the dragon. It turned its head and seemed to look back at her. Avoiding its eyes, she watched its tail move.

She said, “What happens if you free the dragons before the Myceneans and Sarians are gone? Will the dragons still help us?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He was calm, not despairing. Something had changed in him.

“Aren’t the Myceneans just as likely to leave us to Tyrekh, or even join with the Sarians as punishment for us?”

She heard him walk toward her. He put his hands on her shoulders and began to rub them. He kissed her hair. He said, “Tam, Caithen is the dragons’ land too.”

“But do they care about its people? What if all they want is to go back to the Dragon Valleys and be wild creatures again?” The dragon’s images of snow and wolves were haunting her.

He was so silent that she would not have known he was there if she had not felt his hands working evenly on her shoulders. At last he said, “If they don’t help us, we are still better off with them free of Mycene than with the Emperor using them against us. I don’t have anything to hold hostage against them, even if I were so inclined.”

“Can we try to bargain?”

He moved from her back to her side and faced her. His eyes were very green at the moment, nothing like dragon eyes. He traced her lips with a finger. Then he said softly, “What happens in the tales when someone tries to bargain with a dragon or a djinn or such?”

“If it’s the hero he tricks them. Everybody else loses.”

“Exactly. Never do both sides get what they want. The bargain always fails. I’m not playing that game.”

He was right, but something about it stung her. She realized she had wanted to be the hero, to find the answer, to set things right. Perhaps that was the result of talking to dragons. It made one feel stronger, more important, cocky. She nodded reluctantly.

“I know you don’t like taking things on faith,” he said. “Nor should you. But sometimes it’s necessary. A bargain is no bargain if you don’t have faith the other party will keep it. That’s why Hadon is losing his empire. He has no faith in his subjects, and they have no faith in him. A people can only be governed by its own consent.”

“You said at the ball that power was making a person give something for nothing and thinking she had got the better deal.”

“That’s power, not governance. They aren’t the same.”

It was her turn to touch his face. She said what she would not have
said to him last night when he was struggling. “You are going to be a splendid king.”

She thought there was a faint blush to his ears and cheeks but could not be sure. He looked at the dragon. His face went quiet. Sad. However things turned out, he was going to lose something he loved.

“Corin?”

“Yes?” he answered, from someplace very remote and far away.

Everything she could think of to say sounded mawkish, so she said nothing. For a long time they just looked at each other.

At last he said, “Whatever you decide about tomorrow, Tam, you have my trust and my blessing.”

“Thank you.”

The dragon touched her mind then, a swirling darkness, and at its center was a spinning silver flame. No bargain, no contract, but it was giving her a promise.

C
orin looked up at Tam on the dragon and said for at least the fourth time by his count, “Don’t try to speak to it, just look at the land.” Kelvan was in front of her, very adroitly managing to look at neither of them.

She gave him her most syrupy smile and said, “Yes, Your Highness.” Then she prodded Kelvan in the back. The dragon rose before Corin had time to speak the farewell. Dust kicked up and whirled from the flap of wings.

He had vowed not to engage in any nervous behavior such as pacing. They would not take that long. Kelvan was going to circle the valley and bring her back and that would be it. He sat down with his back against the hut to make it impossible to pace and looked upward. They were very high already. He began stropping his sword.

He worked carefully, and they were back before he finished. Tam dropped to the ground beside him. Her face was pink with chill. “That was much better,” she said.

“Good. How far could you see?”

“It’s very clear. For miles. He took me high. I can see why dragons are useful in a war.”

“Did he point out the Valleys?”

“The general direction. We’re too far west to see much. There was no sign of any other dragons.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she said. “I didn’t try to speak to it, but I think it spoke to me a little anyway. I had some strange images in my head. I can almost feel what it is to be a dragon. How much longer do you think you’ll be about that?”

He gauged the work. “Ten minutes, perhaps. Drink some water if you haven’t yet and I’ll be right in.”

She was not displaying any worry at all about the trance, which relieved him, since he was feeling enough for both of them. Last night she had asked Kelvan countless questions about dragons and riders,
gathering information, and she knew nearly as much as Corin did now. He wasn’t sure it was going to help her, since the taking of the dragons was just as remote to the riders. She had asked some other questions about the history of Caithen and the Empire and then declared herself done. Corin thought Kelvan was a bit relieved to have it over.

When he went back into the cottage, she was kneeling in front of the hearth, poking at embers. There was no wood laid for a fire. She accepted his hand and came to her feet as gracefully as if it were a court ceremony. He took her in his arms.

“What were you doing?” he asked.

“Seeing if the ashes were cool enough to sweep yet. I don’t think they are.” She pulled back a little and searched his face. “Kelvan went to get her.”

“Do you want to do it inside or outside?”

“Outside, and near to the dragon.” She swallowed. “You have to let me go as long as I can. Even if you think I’m in danger. It’s not going to be the same as Liko’s trance was; he did not really know what he was doing. I think she’ll take me much deeper.”

“Kelvan’s going to follow if he can.”

“I think the dragons will block him.”

How calm and ordinary it was, as though they were discussing arrangements for a banquet. He knew he had to let her do it. When Rois had told Tam she considered Caithenor her home, his own heart had been briefly stabbed with certainty. She had made her choices, set herself on her course, and that was the very thing he most loved about her. She would not be swayed from what she thought in her core was right and necessary. Not even if he did command her. She was stronger than that. He had been underestimating her again, and Rois had placed her so that he could not fail to see it.

He said, “Tam, I’m letting you go into danger. You have to do the same when it’s my turn.”

“I know.” She leaned against him. He was glad they would not quarrel about that. What was it his father had said?
She is far more sensible than you are
. She was not nearly so hindered by pride.

He held her a moment longer, then steeled himself and said, “It’s time.”

They found a spot under a tree eight yards or so from the dragon. The dragon had its head down, but Corin doubted it was sleeping. He
touched its mind and found it calm. He had only the barest intimation of its vast consciousness.

He set a stool in the grass for Rois and worked at the ground a little to make it steady. Tam had nothing to sit on but a folded cloak.

When Kelvan and Rois came, Corin helped the old woman to sit. Tam sat in front of her. Rois said, “Sometimes, if one goes deep enough, it needs a memory to pull the person out. Give me something that is old and simple.”

Tam tilted her face skyward to think. Corin loved that expression on her. The tiny purse of lips, the hint of a crease of the brow, the smoothness of her cheeks and eyelids. Sun coming through the tree branches dappled her hair. She said, “When I was ten, my brother brought a woman home to meet the family. I didn’t like her. So I spilled water all over the front of her dress and pretended it was an accident.”

Rois smiled. She said, “That will do well, unless—is it a bad memory? Were you punished?”

“Not really. My parents didn’t like her either.”

Corin felt himself grin. He had not heard that particular story before. He wondered if Rois had done it to set them all at ease. Tam looked at him, and he said, “If your brother spills water on me, I’ll challenge him to a duel.”

“He’s never held a sword in his life,” she said. “It wouldn’t be gentlemanly.” She turned back to Rois.

“Give me your hand,” Rois said. “I will chant you into trance.”

Tam did. Corin squatted where he could see her face. Silence was suddenly heavy and thick around them.

Rois chanted in a language he did not know. Tam’s eyes closed. Her face stilled and her breathing slowed. Still Rois chanted. Corin rubbed his own eyes as drowsiness began to overtake him.

Rois stopped chanting. “Who are you?”

“Tam Warin.”

“Where were you tranced?”

“In the wizard’s valley.”

“Who is with you?”

“Corin, Kelvan, you.”

“Very good. Now tell me where you are now.”

She hesitated a little before speaking. Her voice got stronger as she went on. “The same place I was before. But I can see it clearly now. It’s
daylight. The cliffs are glossy and smooth, like glass. No one could scale them. Black, but not really, there are lines of grey and violet shot through it. It’s silver where the sun catches it. Beautiful. The ground is grey and fine. Ashy. It’s very dry. Nothing grows.”

Corin bit the inside of his lip. He forced himself to relax. He heard Kelvan take up a place behind him.

“Turn around,” Rois said.

There was a pause. Then Tam said, “I’m at the end of the canyon. There’s only rock going up in front of me. There’s a crack in it, not very wide.”

“Can you go in?”

“Yes. It’s dark. It’s straight, mostly, I’m sideways but I don’t have to bend. It’s rough. It catches my clothing. Now it opens out, I can feel the space. I still can’t see anything.”

“You have a light.”

Silence. An inhalation. “It’s huge. I can barely see the other side. It’s almost perfectly round, like a bubble. And black, so black. The light is reflecting off the walls. There’s a chasm in the middle cutting it in half. The roof is high.” There was no sound of fear in her voice, no tension in her body.

“Is there any light or heat coming out of the chasm?”

“I don’t think so.” A pause. “No, it’s dead. It’s very cold. The air coming out feels icy. It smells stony.”

“Go back out.”

The silence was longer this time. Corin heard something snap and realized he had broken a twig he was holding. A dog barked with excitement on the hill. Tam said, “I’m out, but it’s night now. I see stars.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. No. It’s coming. It’s like wind. I lie down. I can’t hear anything but the wind’s roar.”

Corin tasted blood in his mouth from biting his lip. He swallowed. Her face was very calm. His legs were shaking a little from the strain of holding himself alert, so he gave in and sat down. He felt Kelvan’s hands come to rest on his shoulders. Her mouth moved silently. He was a good lip reader, but he could not make sense of what she was saying.

She said aloud, “Now everything is spinning. The wind is holding me down. It stops. I’m still in the valley but it’s changed, it’s warmer.
Oh! There are dragons. They are in formation. It’s like a dance. I can’t describe it. It means something.” Her tone was joyous, delighted. For a breath he envied her for what she saw. The dragons tugged painfully at him.

“Go back to the chasm.”

“I’m through the crack. The chasm is glowing now. It’s hot. Something smells foul. It’s not sulfur, not dragonscent. I can’t go any closer, it’s too hot. I hear steam. The smell is getting worse. There are wings. No, no.” Urgency, fear. Corin jerked upward.

“Run,” Rois said sharply, as Kelvan’s hands pressed down hard, holding him in place. Corin took his eyes off Tam’s face long enough to look at Rois and saw a disquieting expression of dread.

There was a lengthy silence. Then Tam said, sounding calmer, “I’m out. There are still dragons. It’s all spinning again. There are men now, and it’s cold again. Very cold. I see a dragon on the ground. It’s alive but not moving. Its scales are black. It’s the cold, that’s what’s keeping it slow. One of the men shoots it in the eye. Now they are gathering eggs. They have ropes and pulleys to lift them. There are no dragons flying.

“I go back through the crack. The chasm is dead again, they lost their heat, that’s what happened. There is a dead man at the side of the chasm. His eyes are like the walls. Black stone. His fingers are cold.

“Wait. Wait.”

Her lips did not move. Something made a sound behind him, and Corin looked over his shoulder. The dragon was standing. Its head was moving a little, back and forth, back and forth. Deep deep fear of it tightened his belly. He reached his mind out to it and sensed only a chaotic turbulence. It moved its front foot, scraping its talons against the earth. Kelvan’s hands tightened.

Tam’s face twisted in what seemed anguish. She said, “It’s so loud. I see it. No. Bring me back, bring me back.”

Rois chanted something rapidly. Tam’s eyes opened. She flung herself at Corin, weeping.

He held her without saying anything. Kelvan had stepped back. He touched the dragon’s mind and recognized it again. Her tears were warm on his skin. He smelled the salt.

She took a great, shuddering breath, and stopped crying. She straightened and looked at him. Her eyes were red and swollen. She wiped them.

“Corin,” she said, and her voice trembled a little, “Corin. The thing that’s trapped, it was once a dragon. I saw it, the Myceneans used the wizards to take its fire. They breathed it in and died. To free the dragons you have to set it loose, but it will kill you.”

They sat by the river again in the sunset light. The sun was a huge red circle low over the sea. Tam’s face showed signs of tears. She had been struggling against them all day. Corin felt only cold and empty.
It can’t be,
he said,
it can’t be
, even as his mind moved pieces into place and saw how well they fit.

Only after the sun had dropped beneath the ocean and the dark was gathering fast did Tam speak. “My love,” she said, and stopped.

He still did not want to talk about it. But he knew that was a weakness he could not indulge any longer. “Yes?”

She surprised him. “Do you know what is happening in Caithenor?”

So strange a question, practical, ordinary. “It can be found out,” he said.

“I think we need to.”

She was right. He was afraid that whatever he learned, whether good or ill, would make him give up. But he could not go on blind. He got to his feet. It would have been very satisfying to have another fit of rage, but he knew better.

Tam said, “Are you going to ask the dragon yourself?”

“No. Too risky. I’ll have Kelvan do it. Do you want to come?”
Would you like to have tea with me? Shall I take you to the theater tonight?

“I’ll wait here.”

“Very well,” he said, and heard the formality of it. He neither kissed her nor touched her before he went to find the rider.

He did not pause to speak to the dragon. That would make him too angry. He found Kelvan and issued curt instructions. There were a few bottles of wine the villagers had provided that he had not wanted to touch. He uncorked one, sniffed it. It had not gone to vinegar yet. He grabbed two earthenware mugs, almost dropping them, and stalked back to Tam.