Winterlands 2 - Dragonshadow (43 page)

Peace seemed to come into her mind. She drew breath, and sat up, and ran her hands over her bare, scarred scalp. Once before you asked me that, she said. You gave me a choice: to become a dragon, and to live forever in magic. It would be easy, I think, to do that now. He sat still, like a great cat, his forepaws crossed and his diamond eyes glimmering from the transparencies of dawn. Smoke from John’s campfire momentarily delineated him, becoming for an instant the curve of the horns, the riffle of the beribboned mane, then dissolving to a skeletal ghost.

Maybe I’ve been with John too long for my peace, she went on. It will be hard to go back, now, as I am. To be pitied by those who knew me when I had power. To see Ian in pain, and John… She shook the thoughts away. And I’m not … able, really, to cope with what I think may lie ahead.

Because Folcalor didn’t die, Morkeleb. Folcalor wasn’t one of the demons we imprisoned and sent behind the Mirror of Isychros. And Folcalor is more intelligent than the other demons; slyer and more patient. He had some plan, some intention, beyond the dragons and the mages whose bodies he enslaved: something that involved the mages’ souls. If I went with you now, if I sought peace now, I would not be in the Winterlands when he comes again.

Morkeleb said, Ah.

Do you understand?

It is not a thing of dragons, said Morkeleb, to serve, and to risk, and to bleed for others. It may be that I, too, have associated too long with your Songweaver, my friend. Because I understand. Will you be able to endure?

Jenny looked down at her scarred hands. Thought about Yseult, and Summer, whose despair at losing the sweet poison of their demons had cost them their lives.

Thought about John.

I will endure, she said. I will trust the Lord of Time, as humans must, who cannot will pain away by magic, nor seek relief either in illusion or immortality. This is what I am. Even so, said the dragon. I have lived for many years and have seen those things that humans receive, who trust the Lord of Time. And whether those things are bitter or sweet, or whether they are all only illusion—this I cannot tell. I would that I could heal you, my friend, but this is not possible: I, who destroyed the Elder Droon and brought down the gnomes of Ylferdun to ruin, I cannot make so much as a single flower prosper when frost has set its touch upon it. His warmth surrounded her, velvet against her wasted flesh and peace-filled as the sunlight on the Skerries of the north. Therefore I can only say, Live however best you can. Watch for these evils, and seek healing for yourself, even when the darkness and the pain seem unending. I will come back to you, my friend, to your help or to your rescue or only to sit on the hillside and gossip, as friends do.

She smiled as he spread his ghostly wings and lifted from the ground as mist lifts, an unearthly glitter of starlight and bones. I will be there when you come, Dragonshadow. He thinned away into the silver morning and was gone…

The End.