Servant of the Dragon (23 page)

She felt tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She couldn't stop them any more than she could stop her heart beating. Merota's arm wove under Ilna's so that she could hug the older woman also as they sat side by side.

"It's their world, you see, Merota," Ilna said, "so it's me that has to be wrong. And I suppose I could be wrong about the sailors' fantasies too. What Mastyn promises can't possibly be true. Anybody can see that once they think it through."

"I hope so, Ilna," the girl said in a soft voice.

Ilna grimaced. "Come," she said. "We'll find softer ground and get some sleep. My cloak will cover two."

Maybe if she slept she could manage to forget Chalcus saying how it was easy to get people to believe in what anybody should have known was too good to be true. And also forget Chalcus' knowing smile.

* * *

"Where am I?" Sharina asked. She started back instinctively, though she felt embarrassed at once. The long jaws would look the same whether the creature were smiling or leaping to tear her throat out.

"You're on an island that doesn't have a name as yet, Sharina," the creature said. "In your day—in the age from which you come—it will be called Cordin."

If she turned her head even slightly she could no longer see him; he was a blur of smoke and faint light visible from only one angle. His voice rang in her head as if someone played the words on tiny metal strings instead of speaking them through a normal throat.

Sharina forced herself to breathe slowly, but she couldn't help the way her heart hammered. She wondered if she was really listening to a reptile man or if this was a hallucination from the stress of the past—-hours? How long had it been since the great bird snatched her away from her friends?

"You can put your knife away," the creature said. "I mean you no harm. And besides, it's no threat to me. Even in this age, I've been dead for longer than you can imagine."

He made a trilling sound in her head like the call of a leopard frog. Sharina supposed it was laughter; and it did relax her, for no reason she could have explained.

She slid the knife home in its sheath, closing the tongue of sealskin around the hilt and into the socket on the other side. "Who are you?" she asked. "You already know my name."

The creature shrugged. "The colonists call me the Dragon," he said. His long jaw swung and dipped, indicating the direction from which Sharina had entered this chamber. "The people like you, that is.
My
people are long dead."

"Why do they want to kill me?" Sharina said. "What have you done to them to make them so afraid?"

"They have no more reason to fear me than I, who am dead, have to fear them!" the Dragon said. His mouth shut so sharply on the last syllable that Sharina heard the
clop
that the jaws would have made if they were real. "They're barbarians who know no response but fear or violence."

He bent forward slightly—though Sharina noticed that he never took his four-fingered hands from the table nor leaned beyond its ghostly edge. "Nor have you, Sharina. If you wish, you can walk away from here without let or hindrance. But if you do—"

Sharina touched her index finger to the black horn hilt of her knife. She knew it was useless as a weapon, but the smooth coolness of it helped her retain her calm.

"—you should realize that you will never see your home again. Alternatively, you can choose to serve me. If you do so, you and your friends will gain by it."

Sharina put her hands to her side and stood straight. "I won't serve evil," she said in a clear voice.

The Dragon responded with more trilling laughter. "I am not evil, Sharina os-Kenset," he said. "Or good either, if it comes to that. If you enter my service, you
will
serve me. But I promise that if you serve me well, you will find me a good master."

She realized that the real oddity of the creature's voice was not how she heard it, but rather that she heard it without echoes. Her words waked their own chorus whenever she spoke.

Sharina chuckled. What was the choice, after all? To go back to the settlement? The only question there seemed to be whether they would simply kill her or instead would kill her with refinements.

The Dragon's jaws opened in a toothy grin. His voice in her mind said, "They aren't a very refined group, I'm afraid. Though perhaps they'd make an exception for you."

He hears what I think!

Sharina interlaced her fingers and stretched them. "But of course you would, wouldn't you?" she said, deliberately speaking aloud.

"If you enter my service, you will have far to travel," the Dragon said, continuing the previous thread of conversation with an ophidian determination. "Though the path will be toward your home, you will find the way hard. I will give you guidance on the way, but I cannot protect you."

He didn't blink the way a human does, but as he spoke membrane flicked sideways across eyes, the right one and then the left. The effect was disconcerting; but then, everything about Sharina's situation was.

She bent and began to massage the soreness from her calf muscles with both hands. "If I served you, what would you have me do?" she asked without looking up from her task.

Abduction and being chased through the forest had taken a lot out of Sharina. She'd have liked to sit, but there was no chair or bench and sitting on the floor would have put her at the Dragon's feet. Did his toes have claws? His fingers looked normal enough by human standards, though fine scales covered them in place of bare skin.

Instead of answering immediately, the creature stood deliberately and set his right foot on the table before him. His jaws smiled. His high buskins were of gilded leather. If the foot within the boot's pointed toe had claws, they were small ones.

"I will direct you to a place," the Dragon said. "You will find an object there. You must destroy the object, an undertaking even more dangerous than the journey itself."

Sharina stood straight again. Even wearing the thick-soled footgear, the Dragon was shorter than she was. He sat again as he waited for her reply.

"What sort of object?" she asked, though in a way it really didn't matter.

"A mummified body," said the Dragon. "The mummy of my own body, as a matter of fact."

The Dragon's laughter shrilled again in Sharina's mind. His fingers splayed and closed on the shimmering table in what Sharina guessed was a meaningful gesture to the creature's own race.

"I was a great wizard, you see," he explained. Hints of merriment continued as an undertone to his words. "My flesh retains certain authority over the powers I controlled when it clothed me. Those who are using that flesh for their own ends should have remembered that—"

The humor vanished. The reptilian cheekbones didn't have muscle over them and therefore lacked a mammal's range of facial expression, but Sharina suddenly knew what a snake looks like to a rabbit in its last moments of life.

"—by doing so they may call up the spirit which once wore the flesh."

"Who's using your mummy?" Sharina asked. Her mind flashed through the implications of what she was being told, vivid images of danger framed by the greater blackness of the unknown.

"Wizards," the Dragon said. His long thumbs tapped the table together; soundlessly, because neither they nor the furniture had material existence. "Fools."

He smiled broadly. "No friends to you and yours, Sharina. You have my oath on that."

The Dragon leaned toward her again. "But I will have your oath too, Sharina os-Kenset. If you enter my service, you bind yourself by your honor and your soul that you will keep on until you have accomplished the task I have set you."

The black, bulging eyes watched her. The creature was still and silent.

"If you keep faith with me," Sharina said, slowly and distinctly, "then I will keep faith with you. I swear this by the Lady, the Queen of Heaven."

"My art has shown me many things," the Dragon said, "but I have never seen the God my own people worshipped. Nor your Gods either, human."

Sharina let her lip curl. She said nothing.

"Perhaps I look with the wrong eyes," the Dragon said at last. She thought she heard—felt?—an undertone of approval. "I accept your oath, Sharina os-Kenset. If you survive, you will be glad of our bargain."

Sharina felt a rush of relief. She'd been taken away from everyone and everything she knew. She hoped that the Dragon would return her to those she loved; but whether he did or not, she had a place again in the cosmos. She'd stopped being a chip adrift on the seas of time and space.

Sharina grinned. She'd never expected to be the servant of a pre-human wizard, but she hadn't expected to be a princess surrounded by servants and sycophants, either. Aloud she said, "I've had jobs I liked less."

"To business, then," the Dragon said. "You will leave this building and walk toward the arch at the end of the avenue—opposite the gate by which you entered. Slide off the seat of the throne that faces the arch. In the hollow base it you will find a snakeskin and a gold plaque."

The Dragon's image had a wavering insubstantiality like that of the creatures which appeared in Valles at the site of the bridge; but the giant bird, at least, had proved itself quite real. Sharina massaged her left shoulder where the talon's grip had bruised her.

"Carry the snakeskin with you," the Dragon continued. His lipless mouth moved in synchrony with the words in Sharina's head, but she doubted that those reptilian jaws could have made the sounds she could hear with her ears. "You will want it when you reach your destination. The plaque you will sell for money to keep you while on your journey."

"Sell it in the settlement here?" Sharina said in cautious concern.

The Dragon laughed. "To those folk, trade is what you do when the other party has as many spears as you do," he said. "Besides, they wouldn't understand what you meant by coinage. But their descendents will have progressed to a degree, at least; you will sell the plaque at the next station on your way."

Sharina nodded but said nothing. Her interruptions had slowed the transfer of information, so she bit back the further question she'd started to ask.

The Dragon gave a soft hiss of approval. "When you have the skin and the plaque," his cold, inhuman voice continued, "stand under the arch and wait for the moon to reach zenith. When that occurs, you will be transported to the next stage."

Sharina thought of where the moon had been when she slid to safety in this building. Frowning she said, "That won't be long."

"You are correct," the Dragon said. "Occupy yourself in the place to which the arch has sent you until I contact you with further instructions."

"How long will that take?" Sharina asked.

"However long it takes," said the Dragon. "Go now and deal with my affairs, Sharina."

The alcove of light and illusion faded into a haze of discrete dots, then vanished entirely. Had it been in Sharina's mind, as the voice certainly was? When she turned, her eyes were as well adapted to the dark as if no light had impinged on them for the past half hour. She could see the interior doorway, a rectangle of moonlight which had seeped the length of the building from the hole by which she had entered.

That was the only exit, also. Sharina started back, wondering how long it would take her to find the arch. No more than minutes, she hoped, because the moon was already near zenith.

When she passed the statue in the central room; the odor she'd noticed earlier was gone.

Sharina's subconscious had identified it, by now. She'd smelled somemthing similar the year a storm in early spring had toppled a great oak. The roots had pulled open the den of vipers wintering beneath them.

* * *

CHAPTER TEN

Warm sunlight falling through the mansion's open doorway had brought Cashel back to consciousness. Back to life, pretty close. He'd felt strength returning slowly to his limbs as if he was a bean sprout unfolding in the bright sun.

The woods had a balm of their own, though, because they were bubblingly full of life. Landure's mansion and the sloping meadow on which it stood were coldly pure. That was well enough in itself, but it wasn't an atmosphere that Cashel would've wanted to stay in for very long.

He smiled, maybe a little sadly. You got that feeling around Ilna sometimes, when she was having a bad day. Which was more days than not, when you came right down to it.

Cashel sauntered along at the pace he'd have used if he'd been following sheep. He ached all over, and he felt weak as a kitten besides. On a better day he'd have moved a mite faster, though he'd rarely seen as much need for haste as pushier folk did.

Thinking about it, Cashel spun his quarterstaff around in a half circle in front of him, then crossed his wrists and finished the rotation. The staff moved as easily as water down a mill's spillway.

He grinned. Not quite as weak as a kitten, then.

Plants called Spring Apples carpeted the ground, though high summer had shrivelled their leaves. Their swelling fruit was already a bright shade of orange.

Cashel didn't have to hurry this morning. Landure wasn't going anywhere.

When Cashel had to deal with wizardry, it always took a lot out of him. The business with Landure—killing Landure—was maybe why he felt like he'd been dragged behind a wagon for most of a day.

But Colva had done something to him too. She'd like to sucked the life out of him, and he wasn't sure a few hours sleep and bright sunlight had been enough to recruit the strength the woman drained with those tendrils of gray ugliness. Colva had stood there like leeches grew from her scalp, smiling the way a weasel does as it rips the throats out of chickens.

Colva was loose in the world because Cashel had let her loose. There was no point in pretending that it hadn't happened that way.

Air ruffled the treetops. Not much of the breeze reached down here to the forest floor, but when the broad leaves of the big white oak fluttered, sunlight touched Cashel and the viburnum sprouting beside the path. It felt good.

Cashel was sorry as anything that he'd knocked in the head of the fellow that Tenoctris sent him to for help, but looking back on it he didn't see much he could've changed. If Landure had bothered to explain instead of throwing out orders the way a man does to his dog, well, things might've worked out better.

Chances are Landure would claim there hadn't been time enough for him to go into the whys and wherefores. Well, maybe not; but Landure doing things his way had gotten him time aplenty. Given the way it worked out, even the wizard would say he should've been more polite to a stranger.

A crow in a hickory cawed an angry warning. Cashel looked up. The bird swooped away, putting the crown of the tree between itself and the man on the ground. It called again, a sound as harsh as a branch splitting in a storm.

Cashel came around the stand of birches and saw the great bronze doors set into the bluff before him. He stopped and reflexively crossed his quarterstaff before him.

Landure wasn't quite where he'd fallen after all. A group of little animals had dragged the body off the threshold and—
by the Shepherd
!—were digging a trench alongside it for a grave.

The raccoons had already vanished into the spicebushes fringing the base of the hill, though Cashel caught a glimpse of a ringed tail. Two of the possums were ambling in the same direction, though the third blinked several times at Cashel before swaying off toward cover.

The squirrel stood its ground, hissing and chattering with its head low and its slashing tail held high. Before the little rodent lay the white length of root it'd chopped out of the deepening grave.

"Go on!" Cashel said, flicking the tip of his staff in the squirrel's direction. "Shoo!"

The squirrel's hind legs bounced up and down. Cashel didn't remember the last time he'd seen anything so mad at him. Things had tried to kill him now and again, but that was generally because of what was in their head rather than for anything Cashel had really done.

He'd done this, all right. He'd killed Landure.

Keeping his eye on the squirrel, Cashel squatted down and felt for a pebble in the damp clay soil. Squirrels were agile little critters, no mistake, and their teeth were no joke. If Cashel tried to swat this one, chances were good it'd come swarming up the staff at him; and if the staff did connect with a solid blow, well, he wasn't in the mood just now to kill something that maybe had right on its side.

Though what Cashel had been supposed to do when Landure came at him with a sword,
that
he didn't see.

He cocked his arm back with the stone. "Get on off!" he said, a last warning and meaning it. He didn't often miss when he shied stones at targets as close as the squirrel was.

The squirrel either figured as much or just generally ran out of meanness. It spun sideways, then sprang for the branch of a dogwood high off the ground. The critter bobbed and cussed him for some moments more, then disappeared like the other animals and birds that ought to be going about their noisy business among the trees.

Cashel grimaced.
What's done is done,
he thought. They'd mounded up the dirt at either end and the near side of the would-be grave. He walked around it, then squatted to view Landure close up.

Nobody looks grand with his forehead dished in, but Landure had a strong jaw and pretty impressive shoulders for a fellow who wore robes as fancy as his. His bleached white tunic would show dirt like a cloud in a clear sky if you did any real work in it, and the apron was thick brocade and stiff with gold embroidery besides.

Cashel wasn't sure what he ought to do. Carry Landure back to his house and bury him on the hillside, he supposed. Or maybe just finish the grave the forest animals had started? He wondered if there was a shovel somewhere. He hadn't seen tools when he was at the house, but there might be an outbuilding on the other side.

There were more questions too, pushed toward the back of Cashel's mind by the need to do what he could for the dead man. He didn't see how he was going to get from here to where Sharina was, now that he'd killed the man Tenoctris had planned would help him. As a matter of fact, it was hard to see how Cashel was ever going to get out of this place, period.

Well, he had to go back to the house to look for a shovel so he might as well take the body with him. If he decided to finish the grave here, he'd just carry Landure back again.

Cashel set his quarterstaff down and started to reach under the body. The wizard had been dead long enough that the stiffness had passed, leaving his muscles as flaccid as wet wool. Cashel would take the staff in his hands again as soon as—

"Now what?" a shrill voice demanded. "You've already loosed a monster on the world and killed the guardian. Do you plan to eat the body to end the business with a flourish?"

Cashel jumped, spinning in the air so he came down facing the other way. His left hand snatched the quarterstaff and brought it up across his body.

He'd thought somebody had crept up behind him. Nobody was there.

"Cute," the voice said. "Do you balance a plate on your nose for the next act?"

Cashel spun again. He peered into the open portal to see if somebody was hidden there. The cave went a long way back into the bluff, but there was nobody standing in it for as far as the sunlight penetrated. Besides, echoes would thicken the voice of anybody speaking from inside the rock. What Cashel heard chirped like a cicada.

He turned to the forest again. "Who said that?" he called. His legs were spread and he dug his toes into the ground to give him a firm base if he needed to swing the staff.

"Well, let's consider the possibilities," the voice piped. It was coming from
beneath
him. "There's Landure, but I guess he'd have a hard time speaking with his upper jaw broken into about twenty pieces. Not to mention his brains leaking out."

Cashel knelt, reaching for Landure's right hand. The wad of mud Colva had smeared over the ring had fallen off when the body was moved.

"Or there's you talking to yourself," the voice continued. "Personally I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you did talk to yourself, but I doubt you make this much sense when you do. And last—"

Cashel turned the ring to look at the jewel in the setting. It was a huge thing, the size of a duck's egg, polished instead of being faceted to sparkle more. Deep in the stone's purple-black depths was a wavering star of light, five streaks like a stick figure's head and limbs.

"—there's me, Krias, the demon of the ring," said the voice. Cashel could feel the ring vibrate like the breast of a stunned bird against his palm. "Which do you suppose the right answer is? Being it's you, I'll give you three chances."

Cashel slid the ring off the dead man's finger and held it so that a shaft of light fell across the setting. It was a sapphire, he guessed, but so dark it wouldn't be worth much to the gamblers who came to Barca's Hamlet during the Sheep Fair. They wanted jewelry that flashed and tricked their victims' eyes away from what the gamblers' fingers were doing.

The dim star in the jewel's heart had changed. Now the stick figure stood arms-akimbo. "Well?" the ring demanded.

"Good morning, Master Krias," Cashel said politely. "I'm a stranger in these parts, and I'm hoping you can help me get my bearings."