Moth and Spark (45 page)

Hums again, wordless, not quite song.

Give me your word.

A single clear chime, and then a birdlike trill, beautiful.

The net of light extended from him. He straightened.

I need also your riders. Call them. Even if they are not with you, call them. Tell them I must speak with them.

Presences began to gather, little flecks of color in the darkness. He sensed puzzlement, glee, anger, patience. He waited until the dragons hummed again.

He said, Riders, I summon you. You know what the dragons want. You know what you must do. Come, and hear me.

The bell, deep gongs, threatening. He felt his words affirmed. He reached to the sky for fire and let it flow from his fingertips. He found an image of Tower Peak in his mind, and pictured the angle of the sun he wanted, and fed it to the dragons.

There, he said. Two mornings hence. You are sworn to the Empire, and I am a prince of the Empire, and the dragons and I speak as one. You are summoned.

The dragon sounds rose in volume. The presences flicked out. He heard a cascade of hums. The bell once more. A flash of color. Images of the sea.

Silence, and a convulsive jolt.

He was lying on his back beside the dragon. His whole body ached. He felt as though he had been twisted and wrung and then thrown off a cliff onto sharp rocks.

There was torchlight. And moonlight. The moon wasn’t supposed to be up yet. Someone was leaning over him. Tam. Kelvan stood a few feet behind her.

Groaning, he sat. His bones seemed to wobble and bend. She supported him, then offered him a cup. He took it carefully, with both hands. Water. He drank it empty.

He said, and was surprised to hear his own voice, “How long did that take?”

“Three hours. You hardly moved. We poked you occasionally to make sure you were still alive.”

Between that and the ride, it was small wonder that he felt like hell. No one was going to draw him a hot bath, either. He stood, wincing and swearing, and shook himself lightly to try to get the stiffness out. Astoundingly, his legs did not collapse.

“Did it work?” she asked.

He had to remind himself of what had passed. “Yes. I think so. I have the dragons’ promise. They won’t leave until Caithen is free.” I won’t die for nothing, he thought. But he would not say that, it would hurt her for no reason.

“And the riders, will they come?”

“Not all of them. But most.” He did not expect to have them all. Hadon had not lost their loyalty yet. But some would come because they sided with Corin, and some would come to challenge him, and some would come because they were curious. It would be enough. “It was an order, not a discussion. They’ll obey the summons and oppose me at the gathering if they intend to.” Then he could not endure any more. Exhaustion struck him, hard.

He took Tam’s outstretched hand and let her guide him back into the cottage. The moonlight was eerie and beautiful on the granite peaks and shone bright on the ground. The shadows were very dark. He stumbled several times.

As they entered, he said, “I’m afraid I’m not going to be much of a husband tonight.” His voice was thin and tired.

“It’s all right.” She pushed open the door to their room. He did not
even have the mental strength to light the candle. Tam took it to the hearth while he sat down wearily on the pallet.

She came back in, the candle lit, the fire beautiful on her face. He wanted to desire her but could not. She put the candle back on the floor and sat beside him. Her hands moved up and down his back, soothing.

She said, “If the wine were any good I would give you some, but I don’t think it will help.”

“I’d rather suffer,” he said. The pain was fading, or he was becoming accustomed to it, but the fatigue would not be shaken off.

Breeze fluttered the cloth over the window. Tam stiffened.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Something just gave me the shivers.”

“You had a very hard day,” he said. The summoning of the dragons and the riders had been nothing compared with what she saw, what she held in her mind. He looked at the wall where he had seen the shadowthings and saw only a dark moth a few inches under the window.

Tam looked that way too. “Get it out of here,” she said, “kill it, make it leave.”

“It’s just a moth,” he said.

“It’s not,” she said, sounding on the verge of panic.

He could not help being irritated. He suppressed it, forced himself up without bothering to hide the discomfort, and carried the candle toward the window. He set it on the narrow sill and tried to cup the moth with his hands.

It flew away and circled the flame. The light twisted and contorted with the draft. The moth kept circling. It tipped its wings like a dragon. It was colored with dozens of bands of inky black and dark grey and deep deep blue, with small silvery-grey spots at the ends of the wings. The wings were delicate and feathery with edges scalloped like the trim on a lady’s gown.

“Corin,” Tam said anxiously.

Another moth came. They moved around the candle opposite each other, round and round, himself and Tam in the ballroom. The heart of the flame was nearly white.

He held the candle out the window to draw them back outside. One flew too close and went up in a crackle of smoke before the breeze blew out the flame.

He pulled the shutter closed and fastened the cloth across the gap.
The moonlight was not coming in directly but it cast enough brightness for him to see by. He put the candle down and went back to the pallet.

She clutched at him. “What was that about?” he asked.

“Cade.”

Of course. What a fool he was not to remember. His annoyance faded. “Tam,” he said, “those were the moths no one else could See. These were ordinary.”

“I know. But things are different here.”

That was true enough. There was nothing he could say back. He pulled his shirt over his head. He did not think he could stay upright any longer. His boots took some doing to get off. He flopped onto the pallet. “I love you,” he said.

She kissed him and wriggled out of her clothing. They settled down together in the darkness. He shifted to lie face to face with her and put his arm over her shoulders. There was very little room for her on the bed. Her warm body against his was soft and smooth but he could barely keep his eyes open.

Tam murmured his name. Her breath was warm.

“Mmm?”

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“We can’t put three people on a dragon,” he mumbled. It took a while for his sluggish mind to put the words together. It was not so much the weight as it was the havoc it could cause in wind, and the difficulty in arranging straps over that much of a dragon’s body.

“It’s time you had a dragon of your own.”

Yes, he thought. They could give him that much too. Let him be a real rider, even if only for a day. He touched their minds and gave them the wish. A faint whistle sounded in his head. Then the dragons were silent.

T
am was shaking him. Corin opened his eyes slowly. His head hurt. The room was light, it must be well past dawn. He sat up groggily and ran his hands through his hair.

“That’s not an improvement,” Tam said. She was fully dressed and her own hair was pulled back and braided. “Wake up. The dragon came.”

“I feel like I drank an entire cask of wine,” he muttered. His mouth was dry and foul-tasting, and his back ached. He dressed as quickly as he could and splashed some water on his face. Tam waited patiently, then led him out of the hut.

Green and black. He woke immediately. Not jewel green, but deep green, the hue of very old bronze and several shades darker. It glistened and shone as old bronze never did. The wings were black. Gold scales banded its neck. It was smaller than Kelvan’s dragon, feet more delicate, head more curved.

There was still a rider harness strapped to it. He realized Kelvan was nearby. “Do you know it?” he asked.

“Aye. Its rider died in the taking of Caithenor. No one will be claiming it back from you.”

“Was it followed?” He knew the dragons would not have followed on their own, but it could hardly have left unnoticed.

“No,” Kelvan said. “There’s no rider anywhere near us, I’m certain of it.”

Tam put her arm around his waist. “You should fly it,” she said.

“Come with me.”

She shook her head. “Not this first time. It should be just you.”

He put his hand on the scales and let his mind slip into its mind. At once he realized how much he had been restraining himself when he spoke to Kelvan’s dragon. He had not wanted to intrude. But this, this was his. Anticipation churned under the surface images of its thoughts. It was expecting things to happen too.

The rider’s helmet was attached to the straps by a loop. He put it on
his head and climbed onto the dragon. Tam looked quite small. He waved at her. She blew him a kiss.

Kelvan said, “Fly fast, fly far, and fly well.”

I’m a rider now, Corin thought, awed. Up! he said to the dragon.

And oh, this flying was different too. His mind fell into the dragon’s and he saw with its eyes, felt the wind with its skin. His arms were wings. The air currents were pale ribbons that changed colors like opal or mother-of-pearl, and the colors told him where to go. Violet to descend and dawnlike pink to rise. The sea was a sheet of silver, etched and polished. Every edge and surface of mountain rock was marked, clear, distinct. The waterfall at the valley’s end threw out droplets of clear glass that hung in the air before drifting slowly downward. Even the smallest ones had shape that he could see.

He swooped so low to the rock that claws nearly scraped, hurtled sideways through a gap between two crags, circled and looped with the slightest bend of wing, flick of tail. The air was a cushion, a bed, a buoyant thickness of light. Several goats stood on an outcropping, and his blood surged with hunger and the desire to kill. One quick swipe of claw across back, one taloned grip of neck and hindquarters, and the beast would be his, hot and rich.

No, Corin thought, exerting control. He brought the dragon out of its downward curve and back up. He looked down at the valley and as he tried to focus his human gaze on the huts his eyes blurred, and when he looked again there was nothing below but river and meadow. Illusion.

He had the dragon hover and sat still upon it, watching the movement of wings, feeling the air pass over him. The heat of the dragon’s body worked its way through his trousers into his thighs and groin. His stomach tightened and curled, and his head pounded. He was holding on so hard that the straps wrapped around his hands dug painfully into his skin. He drew in all the air his lungs could hold and shouted so that his whole body shook. Again.

Then he retreated back into himself. Softly, he directed the dragon back downward. It landed with silence and grace. He slid off and put the helmet back on its strap. Sound rushed in. Birds, the ocean, a rooster crowing somewhere up the hill.

Tam was waiting where he had left her. The light on her shirt revealed the shape of her body perfectly.

With very great effort he took her hand and kissed it, courtly, polite.
She looked at him and said, “You can ravish me later. There’s work to do.”

“Don’t I know it,” he said. “Damn you. We haven’t any maps here, how good is your geography?”

The three of them came to Tower Peak the next morning an hour or so after sunrise. It was a two-hour flight, and Corin was tired and stiff when they arrived. He had kept an arm around Tam’s waist nearly the entire time, even when he did not need to. Her hair was clean and combed, and she wore a vivid red and gold scarf wrapped loosely around her neck. It drew the eye from her plain clothing to her face, beautiful. She looked fit to be a queen.

The weather had held, and the sky was clear. By the time things started the sun would be high enough over the crenellations of the mountaintop to keep Corin out of the shadow, and the riders would not have to squint to see him against the mountain. The huge slabs of granite were almost white in the sun.

He had been there once before, on that long journey through the mountains to the Dragon Valleys. He had expected that it would be diminished, as so many things in memory were when seen again, but if anything it was larger than he recalled. The mountain sloped down to a narrow river valley that was gold with meadow and green with pines. On the other side of the valley the bare ridge above the trees was an uneven collection of fractures and lumps and cliffs. Smooth fans of grey ash spread above loose jumbles of rock. To the north and south the ridges continued as far as the eye could see, growing gradually higher northward. There was just enough wind to blow the ends of Tam’s hair about.

They were on level granite below a fissured ridge of rough stone that had the appearance of a war-tower wall. The mountain curved behind him in a half-round with rocks protruding from either end, creating a natural amphitheater. There was easily space for five or six dozen riders without forcing them to crowd together. His dragon and Kelvan’s would stay near, flanking him, but the riders’ dragons would have to find perches on the crags and outcroppings. That was one reason Corin had chosen the place; he wanted the riders to feel somewhat naked.

Tam kept her hand in his. She was unusually silent. He thought it
was more than fatigue from the early rising and the long ride, or worry over what might happen. She was looking everywhere, her gaze fixed and intent. Perhaps she felt lonely, there in the starkness of rock and sky. He was counting on it quelling the riders a little too.

Kelvan hollered, “One comes!”

“Go!” Corin shouted back. He watched carefully as Kelvan rode up to meet the rider. They would not be able to speak directly, of course, not at that distance even with only a light wind, but they had hand-signs. Kelvan would not speak to the other rider through the dragons unless there was some crucial need to; he was to act as Corin’s lieutenant, not as the riders’ peer.

Tam said, “Where should I wait?”

He had considered having her stand beside him, but they had decided it was better to keep the focus on him alone. It would be distracting enough to the riders that she was there at all. He had not wanted to bring her, but she and Kelvan both said her power might be needed.

“There will do,” he said, pointing at a spot several yards behind him where the granite had cracked in a steplike formation. “On the top. Do you think you’ll be able to hear?”

“As long as the wind stays light.” She paused. “Corin, do you remember what Rois said about places of power?”

“Yes.”

“This is one. The dragons may be able to use it.”

“I will be careful,” he said. It was a complication he could do without, but if the dragons used it, they used it. Kelvan and the rider were landing.

She took her hand out of his but waited until the other rider was approaching to bend her head and walk backward from him. He resisted watching her over his shoulder.

Several more riders were circling above. A few specks on the horizon betokened others. That was one thing one could say for them, they were punctual. As each came in and was separated from his dragon, Corin observed him closely. A handful were younger than himself, but most were Kelvan’s age or older; some were grey-haired. They were all strong and graceful. If they rushed him with rider-quickness he would not have much chance, even with a dragon close by. Most looked at him with the same neutral expression. They would hear him out, but he had not won them yet.

When it became evident that no other riders were coming, there were fifty-three men standing before him. That was a good showing. If the dragons all left Caithenor and the other cities, the Myceneans might lose control of the Sarians too quickly.

The breeze died down, a stroke of fortune, and the sun on his back was suddenly hot. Corin straightened. He had better start. They were too well disciplined to shuffle, but he would lose their attention if he waited any longer.

“Riders,” he said, and again, “Riders!” He saw his voice catch them. Confidence surged through him. He was prepared for this.

“Hadon betrayed me,” he said. “Hadon betrayed you.” Clear, simple sentences, but they would need reason behind them, not rhetoric. This was not a mass of impressionable peasants or fawning lords. He and Tam and Kelvan had debated at length about which language he should use and finally decided on Mycenean, to emphasize the depth of Hadon’s betrayal.

“When the king swore his loyalty to Hadon, when I put my own hands between the Emperor’s and swore the same, Hadon himself swore that in return for such loyalty he would provide the protection of the Empire. That is the compact of a liege with his vassals.

“And what has he done now? He has opened the way for the barbarian Tyrekh to conquer Caithen, and he has sent his own soldiers and servants to help. He has sent you. You! To burn a city that has never raised a hand in war against him, to destroy people who look on him as their own lord. You are the instruments he uses in his betrayal. It is not right, it is not just.”

He paused to stare at them. They stared back. He lowered his voice a notch and said, “If you choose to take Hadon’s way, I cannot stop you. If you continue to serve a coward in his cowardice, I cannot keep you from doing so. All I can do then is pity you. If you bring my head to Hadon and are rewarded, I can’t even pity you. But your dragon will scorn you.” He gestured sweepingly to the dragons scattered about on the rocks. As though prompted, several of them keened. A soaring raven made a sharp angle and winged rapidly south, away.

Corin lowered his voice a bit more and shifted his tone to something less emphatic and more conversational. “You know why he’s done this, of course. Because the dragons have chosen me to serve them and to free them, to let them return north, where they belong. And that’s the
hard choice for you. Serve a traitor and keep a dragon, or lose your dragon and keep your honor.”

He stopped again. He expected that one of them would speak. But they did not. They looked expressionlessly back at him, judging, thinking. On an impulse he changed tactics.

“But it’s not really a choice, is it?” he said. He reached to the dragons with his mind and found the threads of light that joined them. He heard their hums. He sent them a thought. “Because I command the dragons. I speak with them.”

He waved both hands like a conductor, and the dragons rose from their places and swooped across the sky. He was not sure what they would do; he left it to them to decide how they wanted to show their submission and their power. He waved again, and they gave a loud cry in harmony. It was piercing and beautiful. It vibrated in his chest. A rock cracked explosively on the opposite mountain. Something roared.

They all turned to the sound. A chunk of rock was falling, and bringing other stones with it in a rush. It sounded like the sea, like the wind, like the rattle of a hundred wagon wheels on the cobbles. The slide continued, pouring down the mountainside like a living thing. It reached the trees and crashed into them. They cracked and toppled. The rising dust obscured the slope. Ravens croaked and fluttered away in a line. Then silence returned.