Everran's Bane Read online

  “Starflower,” he was saying, light as ever, “you and my harper are a pair. He’s sung all morning round what any ditch-digger would tell me. And you won’t even think of it.”

  When she did not reply, he spoke at last those words I had so sedulously avoided: the first words in dragon-lore.

  “A dragon’s coming is a curse upon a land. Unforeseen, but not unearned.”

  She looked down on Everran: lovely, carefree, and prosperous. “What has Everran done, to earn a curse?”

  He turned his hand out. “You know the saying.”

  “Not in Tirs.” She is from Maer Selloth, citadel of Tirs, our southern Resh. The Resh-lord’s daughter. Wed, perhaps, to secure all three.

  “Liar.” He was laughing still. “Skybane, king-bane. King-summoned, king-slain.”

  Frightened out of respect, I snapped, “If the king is an idiot.”

  “Master harper,” he remarked, while I sat gagged by my insolence. He did not seem offended. He was studying the rich, dark beams of the rosewood roof. “Master harper, what do you suppose the Findarre and Kelflase garrisons will say if I send them after Lyvar’s men—alone?”

  I retorted with spirit, “That you are a wise general as well as a king.”

  He shook his head. “That’s no road for a king.”

  “Better,” I lost all prudence, “to fry nobly and leave Everran to the dragon—and to Vellan’s kind?”

  He was looking at me as he had at Vellan. He had not moved a muscle, but his pupils had dilated. It was like hurtling headfirst into two black, deadly, sentient wells.

  “Harran is right,” Sellithar, invisible, sounded more breathless than ever. “Beryx, he’s right. If you were—what would Everran do?”

  My sight returned. The king had looked away. He strode to his high seat and whipped around, fingers white on Everran’s carven crest of the shield and vine.

  “This time,” he said balefully, “I shall quote some lore.” He jerked a thumb at Saphar. “Nine kings ago, our founder Berrian turned that from a pit of brigands to a country’s capital. Eight kings ago, his son threw the Hethox out of Gebria and built a wall to keep them out. Seven kings ago, my forefather Berghend ransomed Meldene when he leapt onto the Hazghend spears. Six kings ago, his son met the Lyngthirans in Stiriand and drove them north of the Kemreswash for good. Five kings ago, his son Berazos founded the Confederacy. Four kings ago, his son brought it through the plague. Three kings ago, my longfather taught the Everran lords that a king is not a corsair’s figurehead. Two kings ago, my grandfather built this palace,” his eye softened, glancing up, “after he led Quarred and Estar to burn the corsairs in their ships. One king ago, my father rebuilt Saphar to match, after he steered us through the five-year drought.” His hand clenched on the crest. “Now comes a Skybane. The king of plagues. Up there,” his hand shot north, “are wasted lands, burnt steadings, razed towns. Dead men. Soldiers. And helpless, innocent folk. That is my land! My forefathers’ trust! Do you think that I, a Berheage, will sit like an Estar shophet and watch it butchered before my eyes!”

  From the palace garden a black and white eygnor sang liquidly, limpidly, in the hush behind his steps. Then Sellithar said, between tears and laughter, “He always goes where he wants. And you would have to fight, if you did get there first.”

  My only answer was in the harp. It grasped a child’s phrase, summoning the apple-buds to Tirs. Sellithar caught her breath. Said, “Help him, Harran,” and went.

  * * * * *

  A fine parting chord. But how was I to follow it? A harper preserves lore, graces banquets, and soothes unquiet breasts: he does not change the key of kings. But she had asked for Beryx. And it was Sellithar who asked.

  The king was in council. I duetted with an eygnor in the sketchy shade of hellien trees where palace garden meets gatehouse bastion, until green gowns filled the gate beneath.

  Inyx was making for the armory and merely nodded when I fell into step. He was in haste. I asked, “What does the king plan?” He answered as soldier to soldier: quick, curt, and frank.

  “Scouts. Evacuate. Raise the Confederacy. Levy. March.”

  “March where?”

  His sharp black glance was wholly incredulous. “Stiriand!”

  “The king goes himself?”

  I got both eyes that time. “What would you think?”

  We strode down the walkway past the Stiriann watch-tower, Gebrian and Meldener, short and tall, thick and thin. Looking down on those wide, solid, desert-fighter’s shoulders, I decided to take a chance. “I think—surely, that is general’s work?”

  He swung and stopped. He stood four-square, a fire of haste frozen by soldier’s discipline. I half expected a challenge for imputing cowardice, but with same clipped gruffness he said, “Laid me five to one in gold rhodellin you’ll find a prophecy to keep him home.”

  I threw up both hands. “If I could!”

  He altered neither look nor posture: but his words announced the ally I sought.

  “Told him, it’s running the whole phalanx into forceps before he’s set skirmishers. Like his father. If they don’t want to listen—chut!”

  “But surely...”

  “He’s a Berheage. They’re not much at leading from behind.”

  He was off again. Keeping pace, I asked, “Inyx—what will it be like?”

  His face lost all expression. “You’d know better than me.”

  I thought of what I knew. “But—Lords of the Sky, he’ll not take levies against that! Untrained levies—raw Everran farmers—!”

  Inyx gave a short grim snort. “Levies are for Saphar. He’s taking volunteers. Three hundred picked volunteers. From the Guard.” I gulped. “Phalanxmen that can ride. I’d be luckier finding teeth on a chicken. But they’ll ride for him.”

  There was feeling now: not envy but the rawness of anticipated grief. The thousand Guardsmen, core of Everran’s army, trained, tried, tempered to a single sword-arm, were the pride of Inyx’s heart.

  “But surely Estar... Hazghend...”

  “Seen a dragon lately? Their champions’ll be raw as ours.”

  “Oh, Four!”

  Another snort. “Fine sight we’ll be. No mail, he says. Iron’ll fry you alive. Leather, he says. Bull-hide from toe to crown and round the sarissa hafts. Set of grannies waving fifteen-foot spindles. And archers. In a phalanx. Never led such an abortion in m’ life.” His stride quickened. “‘March in three days,’ he says. I must get on—”

  Next morning, down in the marketplace before all Saphar, I watched Beryx seek his volunteers.

  The Guard marched in with that concerted thump and ring of perfect unison which only the best troops can achieve: tall stalwart Meldeners, tough lithe Tirianns, squat massive Gebrians, wrestler-built Stirianns, all the weight and muscle and endurance the phalanx demands, a two-hundred-and-fifty file, quadruple column, of shining greaves and mail hauberks and wide-brimmed helmets, their big round shields bearing Everran’s crest. And rippling above like the quills of a deadly porcupine, the sheeny heads and fifteen-foot hafts of the sarissas, the phalanx spears.

  Inyx bellowed. Two thousand iron-shod boot-heels crashed. Crashed again. With a halt and half-turn they formed a semi-circle about the auctioneer’s rostrum, just as Beryx ran lightly up its steps.

  “You all know,” his voice, barely raised, was clear and carrying as a trumpet call, “there is a dragon loose in Stiriand. Our folk are dying up there. This is not a matter for orders.” A sudden elfish smile. “This is a matter for companions. I am going to meet the dragon. I ask for three hundred volunteers.”

  The ranks rippled sharply, once. For an instant I wanted to cover my eyes, not to see his shame. Then I realized the front rank had shrunk their shoulders as if overcrowded, heard the hiss from behind—“Isyk, you great oaf, lemme through!”—and understood.

  There were a thousand volunteers.

  * * * * *

  Slowly I climbed away from the scattering crowd, the carriers�
�� taverns, the lords’ mansions, the huge spouting serpents of the gate-square fountain, up the zigzag way whose every turn brings your right, unshielded side to the bastions above. Under the massive gate arch built by Berrian, cut with his personal crest: a wide, unblinking, huge-pupilled eye. Up the gatehouse steps. Past the barracks and retainers’ houses, the watch and fighting towers, the armory, halls, garden, royal apartments. Still that unblinking stone stare was on my back. I am a harper, I told it. My task is to preserve lore. To make it is heroes’ work.

  The eye did not blink.

  I descended the Meldene walkway. The hearthbard’s tower looks to those gray hills from the citadel’s brink: a nice touch, I had always thought. The door opened on my harp, hung in its new cover, marehide stitched with beryl stones to outline the vine and shield in scintillant green fire. Beyond was the great Quarred hanging, miniature gods and heroes in a verdant paradise beneath the smoky-lavender clouds of terrian trees in bloom: my last year’s Fire-feast gift. On the sideboard stood the silver jug and goblets he gave me for that corsair song. The set of ivory tuning keys, the inlaid Hazyk armring, the riot of seven colors in the hearthbard’s ceremonial robe—Enough! I cried, whirling to the window. Sellithar was sitting with her maidens in the tiny pleasance just beneath.

  Very clearly, as the door closed, I could recall the flower hues of their dresses, the twinkle of needle and ring, the crisp eucalypt tang of the helliens whose thin shade splashed Sellithar’s hair. She was wearing a coronal for which I once made a song: a play on, “gold and lesser gold, the lesser crowning more.” It ran in my head as I went, searching for the king.

  The Treasury is a place I love, not for avarice but because the play of light on precious things is the music of light itself. Everran had its share in those days: gold, silver, gems; gifted, won, inherited. The king stood facing the barred window, the Treasurer at his elbow, and as he turned I recognized what he held.

  If nobody remembers Maerdrigg, all Everran knew his maerian. Berrian brought it, to be the pride—some say, the luck—of his house. It is oval, a palm wide, an inch thick at the center, the color of translucent milk: but move it, and the depths prickle into shifting, arrowy, red and golden fire. They say men were and are and will be ready to kill for it. It was also the only gem in Everran’s treasury I had never been able to like.

  Beryx had been handling it with something like my own fascinated repulsion, but as he glanced up it vanished in a glint of mirth.

  “Master harper.” He acknowledged my bow. His mouth corners puckered. “Have you come to reveal a prophecy, by any chance?”

  “Alas, lord,” I answered blandly. “You have lost your bet.”

  He laughed outright. “So my old Lockjaw talked at last! What is it, then?”

  “It is a favor, lord.” My own voice: why did it sound so strange? “I have come to ask for a horse.”

  He grew very still. The quiet of masked regret. Even, possibly, grief. “And, master harper, where do you wish to ride?”

  “To Stiriand,” I said.

  The Treasurer opened his rheumy old eyes and stretched his tortoise neck. Beryx looked taken aback. Then he said rather hurriedly, “Master harper, I will not hazard you. This is no harper’s work.”

  “Permit me a confession, lord.” I kept my tone light. “There is another lore-word I omitted. When the war-lords meet, it says, ‘The bards of the world appraise the men of valor.’ Such a meeting as this, then, is surely harper’s work?”

  His eyes narrowed. Then they altered. He handed the maerian away without looking where. “Harran,” he said a little thickly, “you shall have your horse.”

  And I went out feeling absurdly pleased for one who has just contracted to commit suicide, because he had never before called me by my name.

  * * * * *

  From then on Beryx most resembled a whirlwind set on legs: you cannot simply walk out of a kingdom and clap to the door. Message after message went out to call up levies in Gebria, Tirs, and Meldene; to ask help from the Confederacy in Quarred, Estar, Hazghend, and Holym; to summon his uncle as Regent from Aslash; to order urgent evacuation of Stiriand. Nothing mobile would stay in the dragon’s reach. And north, too, went the scouts and mirror-signal relayers who would direct our march.

  I had my own kingdom to arrange. My one body servant, used to bards, said calmly, “To meet the dragon. Yes. Will you be taking the great robe?” But there was also my treasury of lore, more precious, more jealously warded than my blood. I spent the next two days feverishly rehearsing my apprentice in the Ystanyrx, the Great Tales, inwardly crying, Why did I do so little? Why did I start so late?

  When he was saturated, I said, “Tomorrow, then.” He rose from the window seat, carefully wrapping his harp, a slender, serious lad with deep brown eyes. Almost desperately I said, “Zarrar, you will remember?” And his face broke into its rare, impish smile.

  “Have no fear, lord,” he said. “Whatever befalls you, the songs will be sung.”

  I was so wrapped in my own affairs that it came as a surprise when the queen’s steward asked me, next morning, to play for her at Ilien’s festival.

  Everran honors the Four Sky-Lords without ostentation: people go in their own way and their own time, up to fly Air’s huge gaudy kites atop Asterne’s thousand steps, out on the roads with the saplings to plant for Earth, off to Hazar’s little green plain where bonfires seed the dark for Iahn’s day, and down to the river for Ilien. Descending through the city, Sellithar and her maidens and I swelled a steady stream of families and households, each with the wine-pitcher and the toy boat piled high with Water’s beloved smoky-lavender terrian flowers.

  Below us the long narrow parks along the river margin were moving flower beds, and Azilien’s bosom wore a drift of smoke-blue petals and tiny white sails, their progress followed with cries of tension and delight and cheerful woe. If your boat reaches the bridge safe, says Saphar, your wish will return in the coming year. Sellithar’s maidens were merry already. Sellithar, in a smoke-blue smoke-thin gown that honored the Water-lord and made her eyes rival Azilien, was quiet.

  As we crossed the springy new grass, she said abruptly, “Beryx was too busy. It’s the first time I’ve been—alone—for Ilien’s day.”

  “I remember,” was all I could manage. Being near Sellithar always clogs my tongue.

  She glanced east. In the river’s bight, a stand of silver-green morgas trees cupped the white head of the Phathos’ tower.

  “Was the Phathos,” she said with the same strained abruptness, “no use?”

  “All he told us,” I answered ruefully, “was the dragon’s name.”

  “Its name?” Something near horror dilated her eyes. The coronal’s freestanding golden terrian sprays shook above her golden coils of hair, and something squeezed my heart.

  “Lady... Sellithar.” I hoped she would not catch the interval. “It will never reach Saphar. And if it did... the king would have you away long before. He would never risk such a—”

  Treasure. What can you say, when every word turns to revelation, or to fulsomeness?

  Her hand twitched and jumped on her sapphire collar. She was distressed for some hidden thing, and I knew it. And it was not my place to comfort her.

  “Lady,” I said, “shall we trust it to Ilien?”

  So at the water’s brink I sang the slow, sinuous Ilien’nor, while Yvalla poured the wine, slowly, gracefully, its red thinning and coiling away into the pellucid stream. Then, more graceful than the falling wine, Sellithar knelt to launch the boat.

  The water cradled it: a propitious breath of westerly plumped the sail. It glided away. At such times a ninety-year-old can be only nine. Yvalla and her fellows jumped squeaking up and down, gasped, cheered in relief, and so did I. Sellithar stood rigid, eyes fixed painfully on the dwindling shape.

  It neared the bridge, one among a flotilla converging on the pier eddy, Yvalla was running deer-like for a closer lookout—and the wind changed.

  Like
a slap it backed to the north: a vicious gust scourged the river-face. The tiny sails jerked aback, entangled, capsized. As the gust fled away, the bridge-arch swallowed a drift of pathetic debris and a trail of drowning flowers.

  Sellithar went so white I almost dared to catch her arm. “No,” she said faintly. “I am well. Thank you, Harran. No. I can walk alone. Only... only... I think we will go home now.”

  * * * * *

  Ilien’s day falls on a full moon, which left the eygnors wakeful as I. I tracked the lattice shadow, dismembered the bed: hated birds’ effortless mastery. Then surrendered, took harp and cloak and went out into the noon of night.

  South-east of my tower a tongue of garden slants down from the royal apartments to the deep-cut stair of a ancient postern gate. The garden was afloat, ethereal, the loftiest terrians reduced to pure line and shadow, a painter’s sketch in an unpaintable light, but the air was rich. Dewy grass, tang of helliens, honey breaths of norgal tree blossoms, mingled with a drift of pure wizard’s spice: a rivannon tree, thick with sprays of brown and yellow flowers. In its shadow I sat down, tuned, and waited for music’s release. But the spell was never realized.

  Someone was trying to take a mule through the postern gate.

  I heard the obstinate clatter and snort. Breathless mutters: a muffled clang as the iron wicket swung shut. Moonlight showed me the tall ears, the obstinately humped quarters: a swathed head, skirts.

  “You really should know better,” I said, coming along the wall, “than to try that with a mule. Especially at night.”

  The mule cracked its nostrils, the driver choked a shriek. I just caught the halter in time to prevent a bolt. The mule skittered, trembling. The woman faltered, “I could not—there was no other way.” There was no way of disguising that harpsong voice.

  “Sel—Lady,” I said. “Where—why—what in the Four’s name are you doing here,” I took in her coarse clothing, “like this?”

  The over-tuned string broke. Dropping back against the wall, she buried her face in her hands and burst into such a spasm of sobs as almost tore me apart. I could not release the mule, I dared not embrace the queen. Another rescued us both.