[Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars (15 page)

“I have often wondered where in the wide Plain he might be found, but of late the more intensely,” Ses was saying, head down, tone barely above her breath. “Then, of a sudden, to have news of him after so long, that he is well, a singer… I had always suspected—”

Her words broke off as she and the red mare drew close to Tek. Schooling her expression to betray nothing, the pied mare listened in surprise. Ses spoke of Jan, of course—who else? Yet, despite her obvious strong emotion, her words rang somehow odd in reference to her son. Puzzled, Tek glanced away and harkened without seeming to.

“Both you and I have forfeited much for the welfare of our young,” Jah-lila murmured to Ses.

The pied mare felt a telltale frown creasing her brow and dismissed it. Her own dam, she knew, had forgone a place in the herd for nearly ten years in order that her filly might be raised among them as Teki’s daughter. Tek—and all the Vale—now knew that the stallion whose namesake she was had not been her sire. To this day, the red mare continued to conceal that one’s identity. Some nameless Renegade was all the account Tek had ever been able to wrest from her.

Of her own dam’s sacrifice, the pied mare was well aware. But what of Ses? Did Jah-lila refer to the public repudiation of Korr by his mate when, during that terrible winter, his madness had threatened even Lell? Yet Tek had the strongest feeling that Ses’s unknown deed must have been to Jan’s benefit, not Lell’s. The pale mare’s eyes were closed, as if in pain.

“I count the days till Jan’s return,” she whispered to Jah-lila. “Though I could do no other and keep my offspring safe, I have held this silence far too long. By Alma’s eyes, Red Mare, I swear when next we meet, I’ll tell my son the truth.”

Jan felt himself returning. He became aware of the dragon’s den again, of the awful glare of the pool of fire, of its intense heat. Neither troubled him, though he was vaguely aware that he should long since have swooned. Dimly, in the back of his mind, he tried to remember what had caused this strange imperviousness—dragonsup?—but his thoughts were fluid, shifting still, and the query refused to come to the forefront of consciousness. Instead, a new need suddenly kindled there, bright and imperative: to learn the meaning of his mother’s vow.
I’ll tell my son the truth.
He had no inkling what she could mean.

“What is this?” he demanded. “What have I beheld?” Before him, the languid dragon stirred. Great lids slid down over garnet eyes, then up again. The pool upon her brow rippled and stilled. Her vast body stretched away across the chamber, enormous claws of her toes tightening. Her monumental, rose-colored wings flexed. The resulting gust fanned the steam of her breath in curling eddies about Jan. She chuckled very quietly, deep in her throat, at his sudden urgency, all trace of his former reticence gone.

“None but your home and friends, the unicorns of your Vale,” she answered, chiding. “I should have thought you would have recognized them.”

The dark unicorn let his breath out, chastened. “Your pardon,” he offered, then tried again. “What I meant to ask is: is what I see upon your brow that which is, or are these images your own inventions, conjurings…”

“Lies?” Wyzásukitán inquired mildly.

“Dreams,” Jan countered.

Again the red dragon chuckled. “You see what is. I see it, too, but it is no dream of mine. We dragons do not dream, in that sense. We contemplate that which is. The only conjurer here is you, invoking upon my brow those things you most desire to see.”

Jan frowned, unsatisfied. “But is it real?” he whispered. “Or only imagined by me?”

Wyzásukitán shrugged. Her massive wing moved, glittering. Her head remained perfectly still. “Does it feel real—or imaginary?”

“Real,” Jan answered, unhesitating.

The dragon queen nodded, closing her eyes again and inclining her head almost imperceptibly. The strange water upon her brow lapped, smoothed. “Then trust it as real, for I believe the truth, however harsh, is what you long to see above all things, even above soothing lies. A courageous wish, and a most unusual one.

Álmaharát-elár-herát, whom we call the Many-Jeweled One, or Her of the Thousand Thousand Eyes, has chosen you well for her purpose. You have seen what is and what has been. Come. Look again. I will show you now what is to be.”

Jan gazed deep into the dragon’s pool. The Vale lay below him in a gryphon’s eye view. He leaned closer, perception skimming lower through the air. Frost rimed the grass, brown stubble now. Wisps of snow sifted down, floating like feathers. Sky hung grey, early dusk drawing on. Jan watched his fellows gathering. When he spied the great heap of brushwood on the council rise, he knew the day could only be solstice, the start of winter.

His herdmates below looked well-fed, pelts thick and warm. Nearly all the many fillies and foals would be weaned by spring.
When the herd must depart,
Jan heard himself think, unsure if he spoke aloud in the distant dragon’s den.
I must return by then,
he thought.
I must lead them.
The notion filled him with dread, not of the task itself, but of the other that must accompany it: disclosure of Korr’s unspeakable secret.

Far below, Tek stood upon the council rise. She was a striking sight, bold black and rose, her particolored mane lifting in the slight, frigid breeze. The herd around her assembled joyously. How regal she looked, like a princess, like a queen.
She is their queen,
he thought.
Leader of the herd now that Korr is gone—and not as any regent, but in her own right: undeclared princess of the line of Halla all the time that I have ruled.

Watching her, Jan felt terror and longing war within his breast. He did not know, suddenly, how he would bear yielding his station as prince. For honor’s sake, and out of love for Tek, he could consider no other course. Yet its taste rose bitter in his mouth—for another thing he must relinquish, too. And this he could not face at all: abandoning his mate, renouncing her.
Not Tek, my belovèd!
It was inconceivable.

Mounting panic took him by the throat. He gasped, shuddering. The image in the dragon’s pool wavered, obscured by snow. Frantically, Jan strove to still his roiling thoughts. Gradually, his inner clamor quieted, breathing eased. The images in the pool clarified. He gazed into them deeply, desperately. The scene below offered distraction, lifted him out of his turmoil and pain. His last awareness of the dragon’s den and his own identity faded as he grew wholly absorbed.

Tek spoke to the assembled herd, and they danced the great ringdance, trampling the snow. Much later, when the dance had ended, Tek again addressed the herd. Her foster father, Teki the healer, came forward and sang the lay of Jan’s winter captivity three years past and of his eventual return, bearing the secret of fire in his hooves and horn. Impervious to solstice chill in their thick winter shag, the resting herd stood harkening, or lounged at ease on the frosty ground.

Teki’s lay done, Tek called on Ryhenna to stand beside her on the rise. Dagg’s copper-colored mate had fought at the prince’s shoulder during his escape from the two-footed firekeepers. She too, like Jan, had trod upon the burning coals Jan had kindled that day, tempering her round, solid hooves to sparking hardness. Each year since the herd had acclaimed her its priestess, she had kindled the great bonfire that would burn all winter long.

Calling on Alma now, thanking the goddess for her gift of fire, the coppery mare reared and dashed her hooves against the stones on which the dried tinder rested. Sparks flew. Ryhenna rose and struck again, again. Whinnying, she cavaled, stamping her hind heels. All the herd whistled with her. More sparks. Some flew into the midst of the tinder and caught. Smoke curled up, then little tongues of flame. When the bonfire had become a blaze, Tek called members of the herd to come forward.

In twos and threes, unicorns approached the council rise. Each bore a dried branch clenched in teeth. Carefully, they dipped their brands into the flame, then raised them burning aloft. The fire-bearers sprang away at a gallop, ploughing through snow, seeking their grottoes before the firebrands guttered. Each grotto, Jan knew, housed a similar tinder pile beside a cache of stores. Here borrowed flames would burn all season, warming the herd, that none need ever again suffer privation from hunger and cold. Guardians would tend the great bonfire on the council rise until the birth of spring.

Jan found his viewpoint pulling back from the kindling, buoyed like a gryphon on a rising wind. The images before him blurred, altering. He seemed to have traversed many miles in a single breath. Vague impressions of Pan Woods and Plain swept rapidly beneath him, then the rises and ripples of the Hallow Hills. He began to descend, rushing earthward. Below, he glimpsed the Mirror of the Moon, the unicorns’ sacred pool, hard by the expanse of broken limestone shelves housing entry to the wyverns’ dens.

The next heartbeat found him within. Long caverns twisted through the white limestone, all coated with a crystalline glaze. As the pale wyrms slithered, their tiny scales sloughed, volatile oils from their skin rubbing off, forming silvery trails. Over hundreds of years, the trails had thickened into layers which caught the lightwells’ gleam, diffusing it, to lend a dim glow to the dens even in their deepest parts. The translucent patina had a resinous odor. Jan knew it to be fiercely combustible. One spark could set the whole warren alight.

Jan found himself in the deepest recess of the vast network of interlocking tunnels. A great wyvern lay curled in his lair, unaware of the dark unicorn’s distant observation. This wyrm was the largest Jan had ever seen, larger even than the three-headed queen he had battled as a colt. Jan guessed that this creature must be very old, for wyverns grew throughout their lives. At the tip of his poison tail, seven barbs glinted. Two badger-broad forepaws, his only limbs, scratched absently at his vitreous belly, stretched taut by a recent meal. Old scars disfigured his breast.

The wyrm had seven heads. Realization seized Jan with a start. Each head possessed a hood, bristling whiskers and dozens of needle-sharp teeth. The eldest, central pate was also the largest. It lay dozing, long neck stretched along the ground. Other heads twined about it. Two were nearly half as large. These also slept. The rest were smaller, younger, wakeful. Of them, the final, seventh nob was a mere slip, whining and nibbling at its own gill ruff. Its three companions stirred restively, glancing about the room as if on guard. A firebrand smoldered smokily nearby, only the smallest stack of twigs heaped by for future fuel. Furtively, in whispers, the four smallest heads argued.

“Why must
we
always keep watch,” the next-to-smallest complained, “while the large ones sleep?”

“Silence!” the fourth-largest head hissed. “You’ll wake the One.”

The complainer and its closest companion both hissed and turned to eye the largest pate, which slept on, unperturbed. The tiniest sniffed at a fellow’s gills, parting colorless lips for a tentative nibble. The second-to-smallest spun and snapped at the tiny head, driving it back. The fourth-largest clucked at the other three, then cast about suspiciously, eyeing the egress to the wyrm king’s den as if impatient for some visitor. The second-largest countenance, flanking the One, stirred. All four of the small aspects riveted their gazes upon it for a few heartbeats, then lost interest when it made no further move.

“Where in all the burrows is the kindling?” the fourth-largest demanded. “Our brand’s near burnt out.”

“Do you think it was the peaceseekers, waylaying the wood gatherers again?” the fifth-largest nob ventured.

“Peaceseekers!” the next-to-the-smallest growled, then spat.

“Stingless grubs.”

The tiny head hissed furiously, a tangle of sounds that might have been, “Stingless! Stingless!” Its three walking comrades ignored it.

“It was when our queen died, five seasons past,” the fifth-largest muttered, “that was when our fortunes fell.”

The next-to-smallest one beside it harrumphed. “They were wretched before.”

“Hardly!” the fourth-largest snapped. “While our queen lived, she kept the barbless freaks in check.”

“Verminous peaceseekers!” its companion, fifth-largest, snarled.

“We were never cold then; that I’ll grant,” the next-to-smallest face conceded.

“Peace! Peace!” the tiny head hissed as though it were a curse.

“Killed by those thrice-cursed unicorns,” the fourth-largest head murmured.

Its slightly smaller companion added, “Our gallant queen. Priestess of the divine fire.”

“She never let our torch grow cold,” the second-to-smallest added.

The tiny head alongside hissed out, “Torches. Cold.”

The gazes of the four small walking faces flicked between the egress and the guttering fire. The one largest pate dozed on, as did the two middle-sized heads that flanked it. The larger of those uncoiled its neck, turned upside down. Again the four small heads froze, silenced, until their medium-sized fellow again lay still.

“Cursed be the night-dark prince of unicorns,” the fourth-to-largest whispered. “When he slew our queen, we lost our heirs as well.”

“All those ripe eggs, ready for hatching,” the fifth-largest lamented. “Tramped under his cloven heels.”

“His and his shoulder-friends’, the pied one and the dapple,” the next-to-smallest added.

The fifth-largest continued, “Two dozen sharp-pricked little prits. Had they but hatched, they’d have quelled and mastered all these stingless freaks!”

“Eggs, prits,” hissed the littlest head. “Freaks!”

“Yes, stingless,” the fourth-largest head of the wyrmking echoed. “That’s all the wyverns were before we hatched. When our folk slaved among the thrice-cursed dragons, none bore a sting. We, Lynex, were the first. We bred our line into a race of wyverns—independent, strong!—not those cringing wyrms our folk had been. We made our followers hunters, capturers of prey, no longer puling scavengers, eaters of the dead.”

Another head took up the thread. “And for years upon years, our line bred true. We ourself sired most of the eggs our females laid. The stingless ones were few and easily destroyed. But now the One grows old and sires no more. The eggs the unicorns crushed were our last brood. Now stingless ones hatch nearly as frequently as those with stings! Some females refuse to eat such young, hide them away instead to keep them safe.”

“The old queen knew how to find and devour them,” its companion beside it interjected. “But she is dead now, and the One has lost interest. He dozes his hours away, content to let others address our woes…”

“But others do not remedy as they ought,” another interrupted. “The stingless peaceseekers are becoming a troublesome faction. They speak out against the spring hunting. They themselves seek only carrion to eat—”

“Carrion!” squawked the next-to-smallest head, and the fifth-largest spat, “Filth!”

“They refuse to take fellow creatures’ lives!” the fourth-largest ranted. “Pledge not to hunt living prey!”

The voices of all four of the smaller heads had risen, becoming both louder and more shrill. They hissed and squabbled among themselves until the two middle-sized heads—flanking the largest, still-sleeping visage—jerked awake. Clear, crystalline eyes fixed on the smaller four, the middle-sized pair rose hissing.

“Stingless freaks,” one crackled.

Its mate echoed, “Witless ones, more like.”

“Still your prating tongues before you wake the One,” the second-to-largest muzzle cautioned, reaching to sink its fangs into two of the smaller four in turn. All of the little heads leaned frantically away, but the necks of the middle-sized heads were longer.

“No more talk of peaceseekers and unicorns,” the third-to-largest head commanded. “Such dross troubles the dreams of the One. Our late queen is gone, but our fire burns on.”

“Hist! Hist!” the youngest head broke in. Behind, the fire was nearly out.

“Quick, lackwits!” the second-to-largest pate snarled. “Feed the flame. If it dies, the One will snap you four off at the chins and devour your brains.”

“You were ordered to watch,” its companion, the third-largest, berated. “A fine mess you have made of it, too. This torch is the last in all our dens, to be hoarded and tended with utmost care!”

Frantically, the four smaller heads snatched up tinder and twigs to add to the dwindling fire. At first it seemed they had smothered it, but then smoke curled up and bright tongues of red and yellow burst across the fuel. The two middle-sized maws snicked and snorted, the four smaller pates sighing with evident relief. Five of the wakeful, coherent heads turned to cast angry, hopeful looks toward the chamber’s egress.

“Where in all the dens is the wood gatherer?” the third-largest demanded of the one beside it. “Could it be the stingless peaceseekers again? You know they preach life without reliance on fire.”

The second-largest muttered. “Fire savages the blood. Fire first gave us stings and a taste for live meat…”

All five watching the door continued to grumble. Behind them, the wyrmking’s one great, original head dozed on. Meanwhile the littlest face watched the bright, short-lived flames consuming the last of the firebrand’s fuel. For a few moments, the fire guttered, fizzing, then shrank still further. It became a blue flicker, vanished in a waft of pungent smoke. Sudden chill swept the room. The nostrils of the five other waking heads flared. Gasping, they wheeled to gape at the shadowed remains of the burnt-out branch. Not a sound broke the stillness but the tiny maw’s whimpers.