The Dragon Revenant (48 page)

“Rhodry, come on! Now!”

He pulled her dagger free and swung around just as the wooden gate behind them went up in a blaze of flame. They were trapped. She could sec the berserker fit leave his eyes as he realized it.

“Oh ye gods! My love, I’m sorry!”

The dagger in his hand was blazing with dweomer-light as its spell responded to his elven blood. She had one maddened thought that at least they’d die together; then her newfound strength welled to the surface of her mind. With a howl of her own she flung both arms over her head.

“Lords of Fire! In the name of the Light, attend me!” She felt as much as she saw them, vast and towering shapes of light in the flames, a steady presence when all else around them was leaping and flickering, a rush of power and majesty like a cool wind billowing out of the smoke.

“Lords of Fire! In the name of the Master of the Aethyr, save us! I beg you as a servant of the Light.”

The presences swelled with the leap of flame, and for a moment she thought they would refuse her. Then came a wind, hissing and gliding as it parted the flames like the prow of a ship parts the sea. The foaming wake turned gold and red as the burning chunks and embers of what once had been the gate boiled to either side and a smoking path appeared between.

“Rhodry, follow me. Don’t stop and don’t look back. Lords of Fire! Your hands hold our lives.”

Jill took a deep breath of air turned suddenly pure and ran, knowing instinctively that the safe path could only hold for a few brief moments no matter how much the Lords wished otherwise. Over the roar and crackle of the blazing house she could hear nothing, had no way of knowing if Rhodry were behind her or not, but she could spare not a second to look back and see. The world had shrunk to a tunnel that opened in the solid blackness of smoke. She burst out of the walled garden, dodged through the burning sheds, raced for the fire-free breach that suddenly appeared in the crumbling outer walls while around and above her the sparks and floating chunks of burning flew back as if invisible hands knocked them away. Her lungs were seared from heat, and the air was poisonous again, but in one last burst of will she leapt free and stumbled, staggering up and careening like a drunken woman across the grassy ground outside.

Something caught her hand, and she looked down to see her gray gnome, dancing in glee and pulling her onward. Through a waft of smoke shapes appeared ahead: more gnomes, all sooty and triumphant.

“Rhodry!” she gasped out. “Are you …”

“Right here.” He was choking and hacking. “Right here and safe.”

The gnomes clustered round and grabbed his hands to drag him forward. In a crowd of Wildfolk they staggered up to the crest of a hill and flopped down, coughing and gasping for breath. When Jill looked back, she saw the compound walls collapsing inward in a rush of greasy black smoke. Even though the tall grass grew all round, and sparks and great slabs of burning debris blew through the air, not one blade of the green ever caught, nor did the fire reach them. She turned to Rhodry and burst into hysterical laughter, because even in the midst of all these vast dweomer-workings, these mighty magicks drawn from the soul of the universe, her dagger still faithfully glowed to warn her that an unreliable elf was close at hand.

“Oh, I wish Otho could see this!” She was choking and laughing and sobbing all at once. “Never trust an elf, he told me. They’ll get you into trouble for sure, he said. Ye gods, he was right! He was right!”

Rhodry stabbed the dagger into the ground to douse it and threw his arms around her. Alternately choking and laughing they clung together until Nevyn and Salamander came pounding up the hill.

“Are you hurt?” Nevyn said.

“We’re not. Singed, no doubt.”

“You don’t have any eyebrows that I can see. And as sooty as the inside of a charcoal brazier, both of you.” Nevyn’s voice shook so badly that it was hard to tell if he were close to tears or hysterical laughter. “Can you ride? We’d best get out of here.”

Rhodry scrambled up, then caught her hand to pull her after him. When she stumbled and nearly fell, she realized just how exhausted she was, and not in any normal way. Only then did she realize something else as well, that there in the burning garden she’d worked dweomer, not done an exercise or accidental trick, but performed an act of magic, and a mighty one.

Late that afternoon Rhodry led his ragged line of frightened men and spooked horses up to the grassy crest of a low hill. Down below he saw a sheltered valley where a stream ran over clean rock, and holm oaks grew in a scattered grove. Although it was a perfect place to camp, when he turned in the saddle he could still see the smoke of the burning villa, a black though distant streak on the sky. Nevyn rode up next to him.

“It’s time to camp for the night.”

“We can’t stop here. We’re still in danger.”

“Well, so we are.” Nevyn’s voice seemed to trail away in exhaustion after every phrase. “The rest of the Hawks are bound to discover what’s happened sooner or later.”

“That’s not what I meant, my lord. Those slaves you drove off? They must have reached a town or another villa by now. The authorities will round up the local militia. The smoke from that fire’s like a beacon, and once they get to the villa, they’d have to be blind to miss our tracks.”

“Just so. That’s one reason I set the wretched fire in the first place. Gwiri’s got you thinking like a Hawk, Rhodry lad. Once we’re under arrest, we’ll be safe.” The old man patted the leather bags that hung from his saddle’s peak. “I have letters from the archon of Pastedion to show around as we need them. Come to think of it, I’ve got some from the archon of Surat, too.”

For a moment Rhodry wanted to yell at the old man. It was a physical thing, sharp and bitter—he wanted to snarl at Nevyn and announce that he was in charge here and that they’d blasted well camp when he wanted to and not a moment before.

“Jill’s got to rest,” Nevyn went on. “She’s so utterly spent that she can’t even stay in the saddle much longer.”

Hearing the old man mention her name infuriated him further, especially since he hadn’t thought to check on her himself.

“Very well,” Rhodry said. “I’ll call a halt.”

Rhodry jerked his horse’s head around and rode back along the line, shouting orders as he went, until he reached Jill, who was riding next to Salamander. For a moment Rhodry felt so jealous of his brother that he wanted to slap him across the face; then he realized that it wasn’t Salamander who was making him suspicious, but Nevyn. He nearly laughed aloud. Don’t be a dolt! he told himself. Why, the old man must be eighty if he’s a day! Yet later that evening, when he saw Nevyn and Jill sitting at a campfire and talking in whispers, their heads bent together and the Wildfolk all around them, his jealousy bit as deep as if she’d been flirting with the handsomest man in all Deverry. He went over, sat down next to her, and took her hand in his. Nevyn smiled at him so warmly and openly that he suddenly felt like a fool, especially when Jill moved close to him and leaned her head on his shoulder with the ease of a long intimacy. Of course I’m the one she loves, he reminded himself, and he wondered all over again why he had to keep doing that reminding.

“Is somewhat wrong?” the old man said. “Or truly, that was a stupid question, after everything we’ve been through!”

“All this magic gets on a man’s nerves, sure enough,” Rhodry said. “Though I don’t know why I’m surprised anymore at one single thing you do.”

“It does take some getting used to.” Nevyn sounded comfortably smug, like a house-proud wife. “Even for a man who’s traveled the kingdom the way you have.”

All at once Rhodry remembered something that had been obscurely nagging at his mind all day, waiting for him to have the leisure to attend to it.

“Oh by the hells! My silver dagger!”

“What of it?” Jill raised her head and looked at him.

“I never found it, and here it was your father’s. I swore I’d get it back.”

“Well, my love, if it was in that house, it’s naught but a puddle of silver by now.”

Rhodry swore so foully that most of the Wildfolk vanished.

“Don’t ache your heart,” Nevyn said. “Cullyn wouldn’t care. To him it was only a mark of shame.”

“Mayhap, but I swore a vow I’d get it back.”

Nevyn glanced at Jill’s gray gnome.

“Do you know where it is?”

The gnome shrugged a no and began scratching its armpit. “Did it melt?” Jill said. “Wait, I can see you don’t understand that. Did the silver turn into water and spill?”

This time the no was definite.

“Then what, by the hells and horseshit, did they do with it?” Rhodry growled.

The gnome shrugged, then disappeared.

“Do you think he’s gone to look for it?” Rhodry said.

“I doubt it, my love. I don’t think he has the wits.” Jill considered, thinking hard. “If you’re meant to have it back, it’ll find its way home.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. Just what I said, I suppose.” She yawned with a little shudder. “I’ve got to lie down. Right now. I’ve never been so tired in my life.”

All that night Jill had strange dreams. Although she could never remember them clearly afterwards, she did recall walking down jeweled corridors into enormous rooms that blazed with colored light as palpable as gems, while she talked with splendid beings, clothed with gold and wreathed with silver fire, who may have been either spirits or men and women—she was never sure which, just as she could never consciously recall the amazing secrets they told her. She would always remember, however, waking up suddenly to find the sun shining in her eyes and a soldier squatting beside her, a tall black man, wearing a cuirbolli breastplate and leather skirts over his tunic and dangling a plumed helmet in one hand. With the other he was steadying himself by leaning on a long spear whose businesslike steel point winked in the sun. When she bit back a scream, he grinned at her.

“Forgive me for startling you, girl, but you’re safe now. As far as I can tell, we’re rescuing you from something or somebody.”

“Oh? Well, then, thank you and all that, but ye gods!” Yawning and rubbing her eyes she sat up, looked around, and found their camp full of armed men. “How did I sleep through all of this?”

“I was wondering that myself, to tell you the truth. Have you been drugged?”

“No, not at all.”

Yet when she started to stand, she felt so dizzy and sick that she had a brief moment of wondering if Nevyn had given her some sort of sleeping draught. Since she couldn’t remember drinking one, she could only assume that her clumsy and desperate dweomer-working of the day before had left her dangerously exhausted. The soldier—she still wasn’t sure if he were captor or rescuer—gallantly caught her elbow and steadied her.

“Your grandfather’s over there, talking with the officers. He must be an important man, huh?”

“Very important.” She ran hasty fingers through her hair to smooth it down. “Where’s Rhodry?”

“The black-haired barbarian? With the officers. Are you going to be able to ride?”

“Of course. Where are we going?”

“As far as I can tell, we’re escorting you down to Indila and the archon’s law courts. Except for your grandfather and you, everyone’s under arrest.”

With so many riders, horses, and foot soldiers along, the march down to Indila took three days. Since the officers had decided that Jill and Nevyn were victims, while everyone else was a criminal, she had no chance to speak to Rhodry or Salamander during the journey, not so much as a simple “Good morning.” Even from a distance, though, she could see that Rhodry was wrapped in one of his black moods, and she didn’t envy Salamander the job of cheering him out of it. Finally, some two hours before sunset on the third day, they reached Indila and found a surprising welcome. Although Jill was afraid that Rhodry and his men would be marched off to prison, instead the archon himself was waiting at the gates with a token escort of city guards, and with him was Elaeno, wearing all the fine clothes and gold jewelry that were his due as the owner and master of a merchant ship.

“I contacted him when we were first arrested, you see,” Nevyn murmured in Deverrian. “He has influence in the islands, after all, and I decided that he might as well use it.”

That influence combined with Nevyn’s various official letters worked a dweomer of their own. Instead of the archon’s prison they were escorted to a splendid inn down near the harbor—quite conveniently near Elaeno’s ship, in fact—and told that the expense would be borne by the state, because they were possible criminals under investigation, and the prison was very small—a line of reasoning that ignored the inconvenient fact that the supposed criminals were being quartered with their supposed victims. There was nothing feigned, however, about the city guards who stood in fours at every door and pairs at every window, nor were the innkeeper’s bitter complaints an idle masquerade. That very evening, as well, the archon’s personal scribe appeared to summon Nevyn and Elaeno for a conference with various officials. Jill walked downstairs with them to the walled courtyard around the inn.

“Will you be hiring an advocate, too?” Jill said.

“We will,” Nevyn said. “But only for show. Don’t look so alarmed, child. Things are going our way, whether it looks like it or not.”

“If you say so. It’s just hard to believe we’re truly safe, and everything’s all over.”

“Oh, I didn’t say that! We’ve got to get home, for one thing, and for another, I’ve got to see if there’s anything I can do about Rhodry’s memory.”

Jill had been so sure that Nevyn could cure Rhodry as a matter of course that she felt as stunned as if he’d slapped her. He cast an anxious glance over his shoulder at the secretary, impatient in the doorway.

“We’ll talk later—I’ve got to go right now. But Jill, I did try to warn you.”

“You did, truly. I’m sorry.”

After the guards escorted them out to the street, she went back to the common room of the inn, where oil lamps flickered, flashing points of light off the tiled floor and painted walls. At a table in one corner Rhodry and Salamander were playing dice while Gwin and the men from the warband stood round and watched, wine cups in hand. In time, she supposed, Rhodry could relearn most of what he needed to know, such as the names of the important men in his rhan and a working knowledge of common law. But something valuable beyond words would still be missing, the extravagant capacity for life and feeling that had always made him as attractive as a roaring fire on an icy night. Although she would still love him, his subjects were going to find him curiously changed and perhaps disappointing. He’s going to need me at his elbow all the time, she thought, and with the thought she felt as though a cold hand clenched her heart. If she were going to continue her dweomer studies, she would need time to herself—hours upon hours of time, and all of it alone. If. She had to continue. She knew it better than she’d ever known anything, that if she stopped studying the dweomer now, her soul would shrivel into something dead and ugly within her just from her own bitterness at being forced to lay her studies aside. She loved the dweomer as much as Rhodry, or was it more? That simple little word seemed to burn in her mind. Until that moment she’d never thought that she could love anything more than Rhodry, her wonderful handsome Rhodry who needed her so badly now. I’ll never leave him, she thought, never! And yet she knew that she could never leave the dweomer behind, either, not now, not after she had at last found her heart’s true craft.