Everran's Bane (2 page)

When Inyx said nothing, he went on, “Pensal sacked. A whole deme burnt in a night. Not an entire army could do that.”

Inyx growled in his throat. Beryx said, “And the Pirlase garrison clean gone. If it were raiders, someone would have got back.”

Not raiders? What else on earth could it be? I looked at Inyx, still mute. Beryx looked too.

Then he said, “You think it is.”

If Inyx did not want to listen, nor did he like what he heard. He shook his head about. Then he burst out, “Why should it be? What's to say it's that at all? It could be—”

“It could be what?” He waited. “It could be what, old lad?”

Inyx growled under his breath and tossed up both hands in a surrender long since become habitual. “The Phathos?”

“The Phathos,” Beryx agreed, “first.”

* * * * *

So messengers went to the observatory of the Phathos, the seer of Now, Then, and Soon. And the Phathos, sitting in the high seat with his claw fingers on the carven chair arms and his thin white beard tumbling over the blue velvet gown that hid his thin old knees, closed his eyes and said in his thin high voice, “It is a Skybane. Its name is Hawge.”

Any question of Whence or Why it came or How it might be removed, he declined to hear.

Since the hearthbard is also made free of the king's presence chamber, I too received that messenger. After he left, Beryx set a foot on the hearth-kerb and stared down into the core of the fire.

“A Skybane,” he said.

On the hearth the coals glared, red as the aura of that word. A Skybane: known in lore if not in living memory, and through that lore they move like baleful meteors. Small matter indeed if it had come down from the torrid north, up from the icy south, east across Hethria, or west over the Peaceful Ocean. It was here. Fabulous, legendary. Crown of scourges, king of catastrophes.

Slowly my training reasserted itself. Harpers are men's judges as well as their memorials. It was for Beryx to deal with this. It was my part to gauge how he dealt. But within the common urge to refuge with our betters from disaster, within the harper's scrutiny, rose a small sharp personal interest: now, at last, I would plumb the man under the crown.

He was still gazing into the heart of the fire. The green eyes were cold, but to my astonishment, full of an intransigent mirth. Then his mouth corners went up.

“A dragon,” he drawled. “And in our time. Sad luck—for us.”

“Sad
luck?”
The last thing I had looked for was frivolity.

He gave me the tail of an eye. Then he said wryly, “Prophets are seldom so... concise.”

I gave my opinion of the unhelpful Phathos on my harp. Beryx laughed.

“And its name,” he said, “is Hawge.” His brows knit. “Is there value in knowing that?” Of a sudden he thrust out a foot to hook round a chair and swung himself astride it with elbows on the back as any carrier in a tavern might. Kingship was in his blood. Kingliness he could shed like a cloak.

“What does the lore tell of dragons?” he said.

“There are many songs,” I began.

“Sing them,” he said.

The shadows reversed from east to west while he listened, chin in palms, eyes unwavering upon my face. I sang of the goldsmith who became a dragon when he fell in love with his hoard, and his brother whose greed brought a youth to slay his bloodkin on that golden bed. Of the sea-dragon who ate maidens chained to a rock, slain by the head of a woman whose face turned her beholders into stone. Of the lion-hero who slew the dragon guard upon a tree of golden apples at the Other End of the World, of the fire-breathing monster whose slayer was obliged to ride upon a winged horse. Of the sage who mastered a dragon simply by speaking its name, and the dragon who from vanity showed a spy in its lair, its only chink. Of the bowman who found that chink.

When I finished, Beryx said, “Go on.”

I looked at him. He said, “You know you haven't sung it yet.”

So I sang of the old king who went out, with nothing but mortal might and valor, to slay a fire-drake and save his land: how the dragon seared his flesh and melted his armor, his horse died, his company fled, and he himself, sore scathed, gave the dragon its death wound and took his own.

I made a cacophony of the final chord. Beryx paid no heed. As the jangle died away, he murmured, “But he saved the land. In the end.”

Then he sat up and began to number briskly on his fingers, showing me how a harper's vision differs from a king's.

“Dragons breathe fire and fly. They are so armed and armored, it is an ill march going against them without some great weapon. Of knowledge—or of magic. Which we lack. Or unless you are a hero-god. Which we are not. Their stomachs are bottomless, but they hoard gold: I must visit the Treasury. You can parley with them. We must wait till it lairs for that. They may be mastered by a wizard. Which we also lack. Or... by courage alone.”

“What may be done by courage alone?” asked Sellithar the queen, entering from the garden with a swish of silk and a timbre of laughter in her voice.

Sellithar is tall, and fair as Beryx is dark, and comely as women go: but her deep, pure voice is resonant as human harpsong, which is why I have been in love with her since the first word I heard her speak.

“What may be done?” she repeated as we rose. She was smiling, yet her wide blue eyes held a sort of timidness.

“A dragonslaying,” Beryx told her, smiling also, “as demonstrated by the king of the Geats.”

She caught her breath. Her hand caught the band of sapphires at her throat. Faintly, she said, “Oh, no.”

“No?” He was still smiling. “Why not?”

Her pupils widened till her eyes seemed almost black. “You,” she sounded breathless, “are the king.”

Then, at last, I saw the fullness of the threat. Climbing to my eminence, I had never paused to wonder what upheld the world for me to climb, never pondered the nuances of that word “king.” Never thought past the lucky wanderer, the dashing soldier, to the years of trading, building, dealing justice, managing lords and guilds, guarding borders, keeping the Confederacy in tune. Yet each dull daily decision asked as much skill and foresight as that cold glance which had quenched Vellan's uprising with a look. How often had I heard it, at some insoluble debate in market or quarry or guildhall? “Take it to the king.” It was upon this Everran rested, as upon the harp's firm arms the fragile strings.

“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—”