Lords of the Sky (95 page)

He said, “As you love me, friend.”

His eyes allowed no other choice: I took the blade and asked him, “What must I do?”

He said, “This should be done with Attul-ki attending. Or at least Kho’rabi knights. But … you wait until I’ve opened the Way, and then use the sword on my neck.”

I said, “Is there truly no other way?”

And he shook his head. “No. Neither would I ask this of any other. Only of my truest friend.”

He clasped my hand, and there was such longing in his eyes, I could only nod through my tears and slide the sword from its sheath as he knelt and loosed the fastenings of his tunic and shirt and slipped the garments off, so that his torso was bared to the wind and the cold. And his neck to the sword I held. It shone in the failing light. It rested heavy in my hands: heavy as the weight on my soul.

I said, “I am not sure I can do this, Tezdal.”

He said, “As you love me, you can.”

And then, before I might argue further or throw down the sword and run away, he drew his dagger and sank the blade deep into his belly. He made no sound as he cut, but I saw the agony on his face as his lips contorted in denial of the pain. And in his eyes a terrible relief as he found his Way of Honor.

So I did what he asked of me. I raised his sword and brought it down against his neck. I’d never held so fine a blade before, nor one so sharp: it took off his head in one clean cut.

I fell to my knees, weeping as his skull went bouncing over the bloodstained flags.

I knew only pain until I felt hands touch my face and looked up into Rwyan’s blind eyes. I saw grief there, and then more on Urt’s face, and Lysra’s. And then I was aware of dragons perched all around. I could not speak; only clutch at Rwyan’s knees and weep.

She asked me, “Did he demand this of you?”

I nodded against her gown, and she knelt beside me and put her arms about me and held me close and said, “Oh, Daviot! My poor, poor Daviot. How he must have trusted you.”

I said, “That I’d slay him?”

She said, “That he trusted you with his honor. That he’d have you perform this awful service.”

I said, “I killed him, Rwyan.”

She said, “He slew himself, my love. Because it was the only way for him. What you did was friendship’s duty, and I think there’s likely no greater love than that.”

We wrapped Tezdal in his cloak, and Urt brought a canvas that we might sew the sundered parts safe together, and we saddled our dragons and fastened Tezdal’s body to Peliane, and flew to the valley of the dead, and spilled him down there. Down where Bellek and all the other Dragonmasters lay, and all the centuries-long-dead dragons.

Ours keened their mourning, and Peliane’s was loudest of all. I felt that like a knife in my heart, sharp as that swift blade Tezdal had sunk into his belly. I think it hurt me not much worse than what he’d had me do or what I felt for his loss. I had lost a beloved friend: she had lost her bond-mate.
I could, in a way, comprehend why he chose that course: she could not. For nine days she battered the Dragoncastle with her keening, and I believe she might have flown out looking herself to die had Deburah’s egg not hatched.

Death and life run in cycles, no? One dies, one is born: life continues, and pain abates. Mine did, albeit slower than Peliane’s. She found a new reason to live.

Dragons are proud and magnificent and, in their own way, loving, but they do not love as Truemen or Changed. An egg is a triumph for all the brood, and its tending shared between them all. Sometimes the mother will have nothing to do with the hatchling—it is the laying that’s important—and so Deburah was perfectly content to leave the tending of the bull she bore to Peliane. She was proud, yes; and so was I, for I could not help but feel that the mewling babe that cracked his shell with such force, it shattered all at once and he came out screaming to be fed, was mine as much as hers or the bull’s that had seeded her. But she let Peliane attend the infant, and even I, when I went to stroke his glossy blue head and admire his needle-sharp baby’s teeth (carefully, for young dragons are not overly particular whom they bite), must first pass Peliane’s inspection. And admire his growing wings under her watchful eyes, and not come close until she allowed.

Thus was Peliane saved from her grief.

And Rwyan saved me from mine in long conversations that at last convinced me I’d not done wrong but only service to a friend who’d have it no other way.

I accepted that, but I tell you—I still cannot properly understand that code by which the Kho’rabi lived, nor much respect so harsh a servitude. I accept that it was Tezdal’s way and that I did no less than duty by him, but I was forced to that just as he was forced to our duty by that vow he gave to Rwyan. And I still wonder if we were, any of us, right.

W
e had none of us fully realized the weight of time that burdened Bellek. I had suspected it, but that was only guessing, for he’d never set it out clear. I am convinced he meant it so, in care of his charges, and for fear we should reject that inheritance, did we see it in all its long entirety.

Dragons live longer than men: ages longer. And Dragonmasters share that longevity. Even now, as newcome masters find their bonding and the halls of the Dragoncastle fill up again with life, we do not understand it: only that it is, and that it is a choice a Dragonmaster must make. We did not, not truly, but I think that we’d still have chosen that road had Bellek pointed us toward its invisible, timeless ending. Could we have denied that love?

I’ve told them, the newcome Dragonmasters, and they accept it. Taerl’s son chose it; and the daughter of Ahn-feshang’s last Khe’anjiwha chose it. Cleton’s grandson came north when he had the dream and shrugged acceptance when I warned him. The dreams of dragons are hard to deny. They choose it, and laugh when I warn them of the years, and tell me they can bear the weight.

I think they will: the world is changed now, and they no longer fear the dragons; not even the Changed, whose children come to laugh and sport amongst the claws and take their knocks with the hatchlings.

The love of dragons is a heady seduction.

I think it is a better world now.

I hope it is, for otherwise my life was all wasted.

But I cannot believe that so, even as I think on the blood
that paints my hands. Were it so, then Rwyan was wrong, and that I’ll not believe.

No!

But I ramble somewhat. So:

We set Tezdal to rest in the valley of bones and mourned him. Peliane tended Deburah’s hatchling—and now Kaja is the mightiest bull in all the Dragoncastles, a splendid creature, and a seeder of numerous dams. There are more dragons now; it is as if a balance were restored.

Urt and Lysra bred seven children, all of them hale and decent as their parents. Two chose to go south and found places in the Raethe of Ur-Dharbek. The others remained here, and their descendants tend me now with a respect I find ofttimes embarrassing. One is a Dragonmaster.

My Changed comrade is dead, and I shall talk of that no more than I’ll speak of Rwyan’s passing. That’s too much pain to set in words. I outlived them all, and I wish I’d not. I’d sooner have gone with them.

But …

… It was not unhappy. We all of us lived long past our natural span, and I was happy with Rwyan.

I was happy as I’d not believed could be possible.

Good years, those; all of them. A gift, I suppose, for we had more time than ordinary folk are granted to be together. But still, in time she died, and some time after Anryäle followed her. Kathanria is dead, but Peliane lives on, and Deburah, though both are old now and fly less often. I’ve lived on because Rwyan set that duty on me, no less than Tezdal bound me to his strange honor, and I’d not betray my loved ones again.

We changed our world, but we could not change the accretion of the years, when bones grow brittle and blood flows slower down the veins. I think that perhaps that’s the only god: time. The ager who takes us all.

But I had long years with the woman I loved, and did we have no children, still there are Urt’s offspring; and I’ve known friends and rode the skies on dragon’s back, and known the love of dragons.

And that is something of a life, no?

I’ll not complain.

I’ll accept my guilt and let the Pale Friend take me and judge me. And do I face the One God or the Three, then I
shall tell them that what I did was done in honest belief of trust and friendship and the chasing of a dream. And if they should tell me that it was a dream I sowed in Rwyan’s soul and she was wrong, then I shall spit in their faces and deny them. For I’ll not deny her; ever!

And I think that Deburah would join me then, and Anryäle, and all the others. And must it be so, then we’ll deny the gods as we denied the men who’d know only strife, and fly against them as we flew against the Sky Lords and the ignorance of Truemen.

But that is yet to come.

First, I must meet with the Pale Friend.

Does she permit it, I’ll saddle Deburah one last time and fly her to that valley where the bones are, and does the Pale Friend meet me there, I’ll take her hand and go with her. That shall be a great journey, no?

Lords of the Sky
is not entirely my own work.

Originally, the book was a lot more words (wordier?), but my editor got to work and suggested where I might cut the manuscript, to tighten it up and keep the narrative flowing without excess verbiage. No less, she pointed out where the psychology of my characters went astray and how to bring them back in line. I believe she made the book better, and for that I owe her.

So—thank you, Janna E. Silverstein; long may you edit.

A
NGUS
W
ELLS
   
Nottingham, 1993.

T
HE savage roaring of the Breakers’ weirdling beasts echoed like frustrated thunder off the hills surrounding the Meeting Ground. Through that chorus, and rising higher-pitched above it, the dread riders sang their own blighted hymn, an ululation of thwarted bloodlust. From the trees surrounding the great expanse of meadow, birds frightened by the horrid threnody took flight, adding their own alarm-songs to the cacophony, and in the farther hills wolves howled, and coyotes. The night filled up with noise, rang in horrid lamentation, as the Breakers vented their disappointment on the bodies of the slain, mutilating the corpses of fallen warriors, or gifting them to their mounts like playthings to huge and vicious kittens.

It seemed, in that time the Breakers came down onto the grass of the Meeting Ground and found the People gone, that in all Ket-Ta-Witko only the Maker’s holy mountain and the full moon of the Turning Year stood serene, allied in their defiance of the invaders. The moon silvered the grass—where it was not stained dark with blood—and the holy mountain towered white and dispassionate over all. Where the great arch of light had stood, the Maker-given gateway through which the last of the People had escaped, there was now only trampled ground. Of the people, and their horses and their dogs and their lodges, of the Grannach and all their possessions, nothing remained: they had gone away to another place, another time. Morrhyn’s promise was fulfilled.