[Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars (14 page)

Before him, the great dragon’s voice warmed, gentled.

“They are black, these firedrakes, most beautiful to behold. My own consort is so much younger than I,” murmured Wyzásukitán. “My mother hatched him only shortly before she died. He will not be ready to fly for three centuries yet. So darksome fair, he will make the perfect sire to all my progeny. My wings, how they ache from disuse! They are ready now, and I long to try them.”

Realization jolted Jan. “Your…your consort,” he stammered. “He is your sib? Your own mother’s child?”

The dragon queen flexed her massive, bat-form wings. “Of course. It is always thus among dragons.”

A bitter taste rose in Jan’s mouth. He thought of Tek, his late sire’s own uncounted daughter, Korr’s first, unspoken child. Wary of offending the dragon queen, Jan swallowed hard. Yet such a union as she described was unconscionable among his own folk, even if his and Tek’s pledge had been undertaken innocently, neither knowing Tek’s secret parentage. Yet once done, it could never be undone: Dhattar and Aiony were the living proof. Shaken, Jan found his tongue.

“You say Lynex, too, bred with his own kin?” The thought repulsed him.

Again Wyzásukitán nodded. “As did your own scouts upon their arrival here.”

“What?” cried Jan, shocked. “How do you mean?”

Ever so subtly, the dragon queen cocked her head. “There were only two,” she answered quietly, “two that remained. They have had no contact with others of your folk these four hundred years. How did you imagine they had multiplied if at first sib had not pledged with sib?”

Jan’s mind reeled. He felt his knees lock. How was it he had not deduced something so obvious? Inbreeding explained the striking resemblance among all Oro’s folk: modest stature, stocky build, dark roan or dapple coats, those odd, half-standing manes. Jan shook himself, staggered. Numbly, he strove to collect himself, to bring his awareness back to the firedrake’s lair. He opened his mouth to speak. But the dragon queen spoke first.

“Your thoughts return to your Vale, I see,” she said, “and to those you cherish there. Come.” She bowed her head to the chamber’s floor. “Gaze into me, and you will see what is and is to be.”

Jan breathed deeply, trying to clear his head. Shaken still, he approached the dragon queen. Her mouth was easily great enough to engulf him in a single snap, yet he felt no fear, only his own turmoil roiling within. Despite her reptilian shape, he doubted somehow that dragons ate flesh. Steaming, her fragrant breath enveloped him. Her enormous, ruby-colored eye watched him as he leaned to peer into the dark pool of her brow.

The pied mare stood keenly aware that all she surveyed she beheld for the last time in season. Never again would she gaze upon the Vale on summer’s ending day, autumn’s eve. Come spring—whether or not her mate had returned—she and the herd must depart for the Hallow Hills. The creeping shadows overtaking the Vale advanced. Tek sighed, longing for Jan, heart filled with something akin to despair. Neither he nor she had expected his absence to stretch so long. Jan’s chasing his crazed sire had only achieved what Korr had striven toward all along: to part her from her mate and him from her.

The pied mare set her teeth. She loathed the dark king with all her fury. Though as a filly and young half-grown she had enjoyed his high favor—exactly why, she had never known—she had always mistrusted him, kept her distance. About the time of his son’s initiation, she and Jan had become shoulder-friends, and still the dark king had smiled his approval. Only when Jan had grown old enough to eye the mares had the king’s mood inexplicably darkened—though never toward Tek, only toward his son. She had steered well clear of Korr then, never dallying with the young prince before his father’s eyes.

Still, she never could have imagined the king’s rage upon her return from the Summer Sea when he learned of the sacred pledge she and Jan had shared, a vow unshakable in Alma’s eyes. The king had railed wildly against her then. When her burgeoning belly made plain that she was in foal, the dark stallion’s ravings tipped into madness, and he had sought her death. Fleeing the Vale, she had taken refuge with her then-outcast dam, Jah-lila, who had used sorcery to defend her and midwive her young.

Again the pied mare breathed deep, the bare hint of a smile quirking her mouth. How the world had turned since then: now Korr was the hated outcast, Jah-lila the honored insider, advisor to the prince. Tek herself had returned in triumph, her eminence second only to that of her mate. Quietly, she studied the darkening Vale, which she had ruled all summer as prince’s regent. The herd trusted her, gladly followed her word. She had won their respect on her own merits. That she was daughter to the red wych and dam to the prince’s heirs only enhanced her station.

Tek’s smile slipped, faded. A frown of frustration wrinkled her brow. Where was he? Where was her belovèd Jan? Weeks had passed since the scouts she had sent had brought back any useful news. At first, when summer had been new, she had waited. But when, after three days her mate had not returned, she had dispatched runners into the Pan Woods to look for him and his quarry. Her foster sisters, the young pans Sismoomnat and Pitipak, had set forth as well. All had returned with tales of Korr’s senseless terrorizing of the Wood. It had taken weeks for Tek to reparley the peace with all the goatling tribes.

She had realized then that Jan dared not return unsuccessful. The goatlings expected—indeed had demanded, and she confidently promised—that the dark marauder be captured and punished for his trespass against the unicorn’s allies. The pied mare shook her head. She had never considered herself a diplomat. She had none of Jan’s glib grace, his quick understanding. Still, she had evidently succeeded, for the pans had held their truce and agreed to wait the outcome of the prince’s quest.

Meanwhile, the prince’s mate had learned, Jan had followed his sire onto the Plain. Again, Tek tasted despair. That limitless expanse gave Jan everywhere to search, Korr anywhere to hide. The herd’s lack of ties with the Plain’s few, scattered wanderers troubled her as well. For centuries her own folk had hated and feared these wild unicorns, believing them outcasts and rebels from the Vale. Tek knew differently, yet still felt the greatest unease at Jan’s venturing among such unknown folk. Outside the Ring of Law, who knew what customs they might keep? That the Plain was also home to great, banded pards and savage grasscats filled her with dread.

Despite all dangers, Tek had found no dearth of volunteers to scout the Plain. The first to set out had brought back nothing. The Mare’s Back was simply too vast for outlanders to track either friend or foe. She instructed her next scouts to seek out Plainsdwellers and ask their aid. But, as she had feared, the ones most of her own folk still stubbornly called “Renegades” shied clear of dwellers of the Vale—and again her scouts returned thwarted.

Her resolve only strengthened, she had called on Jan’s and her own shoulder-companion Dagg to lead the next search, and this expedition had at last borne fruit. Dagg had encountered Plainsdwellers, and though he clearly lost no love for ones he considered Ringbreakers or descendants of such, he had approached politely as many times as needed to persuade them. In the end, he had learned what he had come to learn: that Korr had rampaged across the Plain. The Free People called him the dark destroyer.

Jan, too, apparently because of his similar coloring, had at first been mistaken for Korr and been shunned. At length, he had managed to gain the trust of a party of Renegades even as Dagg and his fellows now had done, and convinced them that he sought to contain the mad stallion, not repeat his crimes. Dagg had learned of the long chase Korr had led his friend, how Jan had sought and received aid of a seer or singer known as Alma’s Eyes. But when Dagg had eventually caught up with this one, the young prince had already left him, vanished away into the Salt Waste on the trail of the king.

“It was odd,” Dagg had said. “When first I saw him in profile, by moonlight, my heart lifted with joy. I thought he was Jan. They have the same legs and frame, the same muzzle and mane. Their voices, even some of their gestures, echo in the most uncanny way.”

The dappled warrior had snorted then.

“Of course, by day, none could mistake the two. The seer is an evening blue speckled with stars. His manner of speech is that of the Plain. He is older than Jan, not quite Korr’s age, and spent ten days in Jan’s company.”

Again the dappled warrior had snorted, remembering.

“After their parting, so I gather, this Alma’s Eyes went among his people singing the history of Jan and the Vale. Jan, it seems, recounted a number of our lays to him, which allayed much of the Plainsdwellers’ mistrust. Korr’s acts clearly had stirred much ill feeling against our folk.”

Dagg shrugged, sidled, seeming almost chagrined.

“I believe the links Jan forged during his sojourn upon the Plain will serve us well come spring. Jan, so it seems, made a fair enough singer to catch the ear of this Alma’s Eyes, who recounts nothing like our own formal singers of the Vale—and yet, a kind of wild beauty haunts his song. His folk admire him, and through him, Jan.”

Tek laughed quietly to herself, thinking of her mate. He had always revered her singer’s gift, declaring himself reft of any skill. Yet she had always suspected he, too, harbored the bent. How he loved the old lays, remembered them flawlessly, remarking even the slightest variation from one recitation to the next. He spoke with ease before even the greatest throng. What if until now, his musical nature had manifested solely through fiercely expressive dancing? She had always known him to be as much a singer as he was a warrior, a peacemaker, a dancer, and a prince.

Someone moved beside her on the slope before the cave. She started, remembering belatedly that she shared this stony spot with Dagg. The dappled warrior moved closer to her. She did not turn her head, the image of his robust frame, pale eyes, grey mane, and yellow coat firmly imprinted on her mind. The grey spots flocking his withers and hindquarters thickened into stockings on all four legs. He rubbed shoulders with her companionably. She leaned, shouldering him in turn. Quietly, unselfconsciously, Dagg voiced her greatest fear:

“What if he does not return? What if Jan does not appear by spring? What then?”

She shuddered, sighed. “We must honor our pact with the gryphons regardless. We must leave the Vale and press on to the Hallow Hills.”

“The herd will follow you, and gladly”, Dagg told her.

Tek shrugged, smiled. “In Jan’s name.”

Here Dagg surprised her. He shook his head. “For your own sake. You are a great warrior. Our folk would charge with you into the wyverns’ jaws for that alone.”

She felt a little thrill of gratitude, of pride, tried not to show it. “Now that Jan’s blood makes us all proof against their stings, such a charge should prove easier.”

Dagg chuckled softly. “I doubt you delude yourself thinking our task will be accomplished with ease.”

“First we must see the herd safe through winter—Alma grant us another mild one, I pray, for the sake of our fillies and foals.” Tek frowned, thinking. “Kindling marks the opening of winter, and Quenching its end.”

She gazed down at the valley floor where, in the lengthening shadows of evening, beneath a blue, brilliant sky, her twin offspring ramped whinnying along with Lell and with Dagg’s firstborn, Culu. Barely a year and a half old, the suckling foal sported forequarters of intense, true yellow shading to brilliant salmon at the rump, exactly the hue of the sundog for which he was named. The pan sisters Sismoomnat and Pitipak chased the four colts amid much whistling and squealing. Ringing their swirl, Jah-lila, Ses, and Dagg’s mate, Ryhenna, stood, shooing stray tag-players back into bounds.

Tek eyed the coppery mare, who, like her own dam, had been born outside the Vale to a hornless race, but who, upon joining the herd, had drunk of the sacred waters of the moon’s mere deep within the Hallow Hills and been transformed into a unicorn. Ryhenna’s coppery coat exactly matched the hue of her standing mane. Her tail fell full and silky. Like Jah-lila, she was beardless, lacking tassels to the tips of her small, neat ears and feathery fringe to her fetlocks. Instead of being cloven, her hooves were solid rounds.

Yet despite such differences, Ryhenna had been welcomed into the Vale even as Jah-lila now found welcome, hailed as Jan’s savior for aiding his escape from her own captors, the two-footed firekeepers. Ryhenna’s transformation had been celebrated in myth and lay, her copper-colored horn admired, and with her mate’s aid, she had set about learning the ways of a warrior with a will. Jan had declared her mistress of fire, and she presided over Kindling and Quenching, the herd’s newly created ceremonies at winter’s beginning and end, striking the sparks from which all the torches of winter would burn.

“By winter’s end, before we march,” Tek said to Dagg, “we must all harden our heels and horns that we may smite the wyrms’ bony breastplates without shattering our weapons.”

Dagg nodded. “Come spring, it will be time.”

The game below had broken up. Tek watched the figures moving up the hill toward her, colts and fillies frisking still, the mares moving more leisurely. Lell pranced alongside Sismoomnat, the elder of the two pan sisters. The pied mare caught a snatch of their conversation as they ambled by, Lell tossing the milk mane from her eyes, Sismoomnat resting one forelimb on the dark amber filly’s withers with a trace of a smile. Tek, too, smiled. Lell reminded her more than a little of Jan as a colt: hot-headed and passionate, fiercely intelligent but ruled by her heart.

“His wings were broad and green, and his voice so lilting sweet. He vowed to return to us, come spring, and accompany us to the Vale.”

Sismoomnat nodded gravely as Lell halted and began to graze. The young pan bent to pull and collect grass seed in one upturned, hairless paw.

“You must introduce him to me when he returns,” she murmured. Tek turned her attention back downslope. They were discussing the gryphon Illishar. Still. The pied mare marveled at it, that the green-fletched wingcat could have so captured Lell’s curiosity. Nothing seemed to distract her from speculating when he would return, expounding the magnificence of his flight and the sweetness of his song. She would prattle thus to any who would harken until their ears well and nearly withered. Tek regarded Dhattar and Aiony, accompanied by Pitipak, the younger pan. The three of them had begun another game on the slope. She heard white Dhattar saying, “Nay, we’ll not see him at all this winter.”

Aiony added, “Save in dreams.”

Pitipak made a small sound, as of sympathy. Tek’s ears pricked, but she dared not interrupt with questions. Like as not, such would only quiet her offspring completely, or loose a torrent of observations too tangled for Tek herself to sort. Quietly, their dam eavesdropped.

“He talks to the one with the red jewels now,” Aiony was saying.

“She’s older than we,” Dhattar laughed, “and goes about things very slowly.”

Chasing him around Aiony, Pitipak nearly caught him. The black-and-silver filly dodged away now, as well.

“She’s been sleeping a long, long time.”

Tek turned her mind away, unable to follow their thread. Almost certainly, she knew, they were discussing Jan, but she lacked any context with which to make their words meaningful. Reluctantly, she contented herself with the assurance he was alive and hale. Ryhenna came up the hillside now, followed closely by her young one, Culu. With an affectionate nip, Dagg left the pied mare’s side. The coppery mare whistled a greeting to Tek before nuzzling her mate. The little foal began to suckle. Jah-lila and Ses came up the rear. They, too, spoke quietly as evening neared.