The Dragon Revenant (46 page)

“What? Have you gone daft?”

“Not in the least. There’s a thing in that villa that I absolutely have to have if I’m going to track the Old One.”

“Walking right into a nest of assassins and asking for it sounds daft to me.”

“No doubt, but I won’t exactly be asking, bargaining, more like.”

“Nevyn,” Jill broke in. “I feel cold as ice. There’s danger all around us.”

“Of course. I’ll admit it’s somewhat of a gamble. If I thought they’d kill us the moment I opened the door, I wouldn’t go, but they’ll want a look at me first, to gloat if naught else. You see, I’m willing to wager that they’re as sure as sure that I’m helpless against armed force. Those of us who study the dweomer of light would generally rather die ourselves than cause another man’s death and these stupid piss-poor excuses for sorcerers have always taken that for a sign of weakness.” Nevyn actually laughed, a rusty-sounding burst of good humor. “Now, Rhodry, are you staying here or are you coming on my terms?”

“I’m coming to guard Jill if naught else.”

“Well and good, then. Remember your orders.”

Nevyn dismounted, tossed his reins to the startled Gwin, then strode off downhill, leaving the others to follow as fast as they could. By the time everyone caught up with him, he was knocking on the front gate as calmly as a peddler with trinkets to sell. Jill began to think that Rhodry was right and the old man’s wits were going.

“Er, my lord?” she said. “I doubt me if they’re just going to answer as courteous as you please.”

“I wasn’t putting that kind of knock on the door.”

Nevyn raised both hands over his head, held them there for a moment, then slowly brought them down in one smooth sweep until his fingers pointed right at the ironbound double gates of the compound. With a roar and a gust the wind rose and slammed into them like a battering ram. Wood splintered, iron bands snapped, one gate shattered right then; the other flew open and shattered against the wall behind it. Over the roar and the pounding Jill heard screams, prayers, and the sobs of terrified men as well as women.

“Well, come along,” Nevyn snapped. “No need to dawdle.”

As he strode through the broken gates, they crowded in after him. In the lush garden trees still quivered and rustled from the wind; ancestor statues lay broken on the ground. Out in the middle square of lawn huddled the Old One’s slaves while all around them, as if standing guard, clustered a veritable army of Wildfolk. Jill had never seen so many—big burly gnomes standing grim and attentive, hordes of sprites hovering like wasps in the air, smaller gnomes dancing and baring their needle-sharp teeth.

“Flee, all of you!” Nevyn called out. “Run for your lives and now! Run to the town and beg for help, go hide in the mountains—but run!”

When he waved his arm, illusory lightning plunged and thundered among the trees. Screaming, shoving each other, the slaves bolted and raced ahead of him, panting and yelling and sprinting round the longhouse toward the back gate. In a swirling pack the Wildfolk followed, pinching, poking, biting the poor souls to keep them moving out to safety. Nevyn walked up to the front door, shoved on it, found it open, and flung it aside. Jill gasped, half-expecting an arrow or knife to come flying out. Nothing moved; the rustling trees fell silent; there was no challenge, no taunting, nothing.

“Very well, then we’ll go in after them.”

As they walked down the long corridor, the Wildfolk came back, materi alizing in midair and drifting down like drops from a leaky roof. Jill was so sure they were walking into a trap that she could barely breathe when they stepped into a modest reception chamber of the usual sort, the walls painted with fading flowers, the dais died in restful blues and hung with blue-and-purple silk drapes. Sitting in a low-backed chair on the dais was an enormously tall man with the dark skin of Orystinna; around one wrist he wore a tattoo of a striking hawk, and his face was masked with a red silk hood. Crouched at his feet was a Bardekian whose black hair and beard were so slick that it looked as if they’d been oiled.

“Baruma,” Rhodry hissed.

When the Bardekian raised his head, Jill saw that he wore a collar and a chain. The other man jerked the chain and smiled at her, as if he’d read her mind and was underscoring her point.

“Greetings, Master of the Aethyr,” the Hawk said in Bardekian. “How sad that we meet only to say farewell.”

“Oh come now!” Nevyn answered in the same. “Do you really think your paltry brigands are capable of killing me?”

“What’s to stop them? You’ve left your only hope up on the hill. Slaves may run from your tricks with the wind, but my men won’t.”

“No doubt, no doubt. And truly, you must be far stronger than I thought to chase the Old One out of his hole.” Nevyn glanced around the room. “I never thought he’d have such good taste in furnishings. I was expecting something gaudy and morbid. Rather like your taste in hoods.”

The Hawkmaster hesitated, then shrugged.

“Bluster all you want, old man. You followed my bait and walked right into the trap. You’ve got to admit that—you tracked me exactly like I wanted.”

“Nothing of the sort, actually. My spirits showed me where the Old One lived, and you were a mere incidental. But come along, if you’d go to all the trouble to lay some sort of abortive trap, there must be somewhat you’re after. Let me guess—if I do some thing for you, you’ll let my companions go.”

“That was the bargain I had in mind, yes. I’ll even make sure that they reach their ship without anyone else giving them a moment’s trouble. You know, when the Hawks bargain, they keep their word. We’re not like the Brotherhood. No one would hire us if we reneged on our contracts.”

“I’ve always heard that, and I believe you. What do you want from me?”

He sounded so calm, like a farmer haggling over cabbages in the market square, that Jill wanted to scream just to break the tension. On either side of her Salamander and Rhodry had gone as still as the statues in the garden outside, and both of them were a ghastly sort of pale, too, looking at that moment more elven than human from the wild fury in their eyes. The Hawkmaster smiled and lounged back in his chair to cross one ankle over the opposite knee.

“It’s nothing that will even trouble your conscience, Master of the Aethyr. You came here to kill the Old One, didn’t you? Well, so did I, but he’s escaped. Tell me where he is. Which way he’s running will do. You can die content, knowing that we’ll finish the job for you.”

“Well, that certainly sounds like a fair bargain.”

“Nevyn, no! You can’t!” Jill felt all her hard-won strength slip away like a doffed cloak and leave her sniveling and shaking. “I’d rather die than see you—”

“Whist!” Nevyn snapped. “Every man comes to his time, child. Mine is now. Get Rhodry back to Eldidd—I enjoin you, I lay this task upon you, I insist upon it in the name of the Holy Light itself. Will you promise me?”

Through a blinding scald of tears she nodded her agreement. When Salamander opened his mouth to argue, Nevyn silenced him with a black look and threatened Rhodry with a slap across the face. Then he turned back to the Hawkmaster, and at that moment he seemed taller, young and proud and straight, standing in an unearthly light as the Wildfolk came to cluster around him and lend him their strength and wildness.

“Very well. I’ll find the Old One.” Nevyn even smiled at the Hawkmaster. “But do you have somewhat of his that I can use for a focus? Some thing he worked dweomer with.”

“It’s right here, all ready for you.”

When the master snapped his fingers, Baruma picked up a bundle wrapped in black velvet and shuffled to the edge of the dais. Whimpering all the time, glancing Rhodry’s way in abject terror, he handed the bundle to Nevyn, then in a clank of chain rushed back to his master’s feet. Although Rhodry’s eyes followed him, his expression of utter impassive blankness never changed. Nevyn unwrapped the bundle to reveal a silver chalice, engraved with a welter of peculiar symbols and sigils and crusted, just here and there among the engraving, with drops of dried blood.

“The Old One’s slaves were careless when they cleaned the silver.” Nevyn wrapped it back up again. “This will do splendidly.”

“I have some small knowledge of these things.” The Hawkmaster smiled as if at a compliment. “You best had send your companions away.”

“I’ll just walk with them to the door.”

In a silence that seemed as thick and cold as seawater, Jill and the others followed Nevyn down to the chamber door. Just outside, blocking the corridor, she could see two men, armed and at the ready. Nevyn bent down and kissed her on the cheek.

“Kill those men without any compunctions,” he whispered in Devenían, then raised his voice and changed his language. “Farewell, child. Remember me in your heart.”

Hope stabbed her very soul.

“Always, my lord,” she said. “And may the gods go with you on your last journey.”

“Well spoken, isn’t she?” The Hawkmaster called out, “Very well, all of you. Get out of here, fetch the rest of your men, and get on your way to Indila. No one will harm you. I’ve given my word, and I keep it. Nevyn, as for you, come back here. It’s time to perform your last little trick.”

“Oh, gladly.” Nevyn turned to face him and raised one hand, a gentle gesture as if he were about to point out some small error of discourse. “What about a trick with fire?”

The draped silk caught with a hiss.

“You may keep your word.” Nevyn smiled gently. “But I never swore mine. I’ll find the Old One after you’re dead.”

Flames leapt to the walls, crackled, and spread in the dweomer-wind that rose and charged across the dais. The Hawkmaster dropped Baruma’s chain and jumped up, screaming, his tunic blazing as he ran panicked for a side door in a stream of sparks that fell to fire the scattered cushions. Tiles began to crack and burst from the wall with booms and explosions like in one of Salamander’s shows. Just as the master reached the door, Baruma rushed after. He held his own chain in both hands and swung it hard, lashing the Hawkmaster across the head and knocking him sideways into the flaming wall. The enormous assassin grabbed the burning curtains and fell, pulling them down with him into a writhing, blazing heap. With a shudder the side wall collapsed on top of him.

“The ceiling will go in a minute,” Nevyn yelled. “The Wildfolk are firing the upstairs chambers—anyone hidden up there is beyond help, so let’s get out of here.”

As Jill turned and raced out through the billowing smoke, she was drawing her sword. Screaming out curses the two assassins charged, but she spun to one side, let her man overrun his mark, and slashed him across the neck as he tried to catch his balance. Grunting he went down, folding into death at her feet just as his fellow dropped on top of him. With a bloody sword in one hand Rhodry grabbed her shoulder with the other.

“Baruma!” he screamed over the roar of flames. “Where’s Baruma?”

“No time! Let’s get out of here! Look, Nevyn and Salamander are already gone.”

When he took out running down the long corridor, Jill followed, thinking that he was heading for the gates out of the compound.

When the flames on the floor above began scorching the ceiling of the reception chamber, Nevyn and Salamander raced across the room and out the side door, which led into a big disorganized courtyard in back of the house itself. Nevyn clutched the precious scrying focus with both hands as they dodged through sheds and storage huts, rounded the empty stables and ran across the kitchen garden to the back gates, which were standing wide open from the earlier flight of the Old One’s slaves. Nevyn glanced around to make sure that the Wildfolk had followed his orders to carry or chase to safety all the various animals that were bound to be part of an estate like this, then led the way out the gate. Beyond the villa walls lay the wild grassy hills, rolling away to far-distant mountains. As they ran, heading far away from the burning compound, Nevyn seemed to pick out something moving among the hills.

“There he is! Can you see him?”

“Not one thing,” Salamander was panting for breath. “And I’m the elf.”

Only then did Nevyn realize that he’d already slipped into a light trance, that he was seeing the small group of men, carrying some large and lurching thing up a hill, only in his mind.

“It’s Tondalo in a litter. This hideous chalice is practically throbbing in my hands, it’s so linked to him. Well and good, then. You guard my body while I go into full trance. If this wretched fool thinks he can escape me as easily as he fooled the Hawks, then he’s stupid as well as evil to the core.”

Panting and gasping under the weight of the Utter, the slaves staggered up the hill. Inside, thrown this way and that, grabbing at window frame and curtains indiscriminately to steady himself, the Old One was already making his mental preparations. Across from him Pachela moaned as she clutched a padded box with one hand and the litter frame with the other. Her gray hair was slipping from her coiffure in big wisps. Suddenly the motion of the litter eased somewhat as the slaves reached the crest of the hill.

“Stop here!” the Old One called. “Put me down here.”

The litter jerked to the ground, and the door flung open of its own accord. Pachela scrambled out first, then helped the Old One haul his bulk free and stand up. Far down below him the smoke from the burning villa rose in an oily plume. The Old One turned and found the slaves huddled together by the tipped litter.

“As of now you’re all free, for all the good it will do you. Pachela, get out the bottle of the poison. I brought a wineglass, too. If it hasn’t broken, I might as well die in proper style. The rest of you, run away now! Fast! Head to town and tell everyone that brigands have fired the villa. If you’re lucky, they’ll believe you before the Hawks get you.”

Half-slinking, half-scrambling they hurried off downhill. The Old One lowered himself to the grass and patted the ground with one hand. It was such a distasteful feeling, the ground hard, the grass slick and somehow oily on his parchment-dry skin, that he realized with some surprise that he hadn’t been outdoors inside his own body in over fifty years. Shaking with fear, Pachela opened the prepared poison, dissolved in wine, and poured it out. The Old One held up the glass goblet and swirled the dark red wine, a Myleton vintage, raw and brash enough to cover the acrid tinge. Far below the greasy plume of burning had climbed to the sky.