The Dragon Revenant (11 page)

“You’re brooding again,” Salamander said abruptly. “It’s not going to do one rotten bit of good.”

“Oh I know, but I don’t have any elven blood, and so I can’t be heartless.”

“What a nasty tongue! Here, if I were truly heartless, would I be running all over Bardek looking for Rhodry?”

“You wouldn’t. Ah, forgive me—I’m sorry. I’m just all to pieces.”

“Of course.” He picked up the jug and frowned into it. “Almost empty. In a bit I’ll go buy more, but first we’ll drink this up. That way, if the shop is closed or I break my neck on the landlord’s unsafe stairs, at least we’ll have enjoyed the final cup. That’s the elven way, Jill, and is it truly heartless, to enjoy today when no man knows what evil the morrow will bring him?”

“It’s not. I should be thankful that Rhodry and I had as many good times as we did, even if he heaps scorn on me when we meet.”

“He’s not going to scorn you! Hum, I see from your dark look that if I go on talking, you’re going to strangle me, which would be a great hindrance to our plans. The Great Krysello shall make the supreme sacrifice and hold his tongue.”

Since they’d been stopping in every town and village, it had taken Zandar’s caravan several weeks to work its way to the city of Daradion, on the southern tip of Bardektinna. From there, Rhodry learned, they were going to take one of the special caravan barges, more cattle boat than sailing ship, across to the island of Martinna and their home city of Danmara. Since they arrived at the harbor town just before sunset, they camped outside the north gates in a public campground to wait until the gates opened again in the morning. Although the campground was deserted when they rode up, as they were tethering out the stock, a small caravan joined them, among them a young man, expensively dressed in a white tunic with gold and purple vertical stripes and a belt with a solid gold buckle. He had with him a boy who seemed to be a personal slave and three pack mules, laden with what turned out to be traveling gear, not merchandise. Zandar hailed the fellow, Pommaeo, as an old friend and insisted he join them for dinner round their campfire.

Once everyone had eaten, Zandar had Rhodry bring out a jug of wine and serve it round. While Rhodry worked, he noticed Pommaeo watching him, and in a few minutes he discovered why, when the fellow turned to Zandar.

“The Deverry slave? How much will you take for him?”

“I was thinking of keeping him, actually. He’s a good man around horses.”

“My dear old friend, you’ve never had much flair, have you? Are you really going to keep a showy little rarity like that out in the stable? I can think of lots of infinitely more appropriate uses for him. I’ll give you thirty zotars.”

“He’s not for sale.”

“Fifty, then.”

“I’m not haggling. I mean it.”

For a moment Pammaeo hovered on the edge of sulks, all pouty-mouthed like a child who’s never been denied any trinket or toy. Then he reached inside his tunic, pulled out a pouch of jingling of gold, and produced an enormous coin: one of the fabled Bardekian zials, worth a hundred zotars at face value but a good bit more than that in a transaction, thanks to its rarity. The other free men caught their breaths, but Zandar merely shrugged. Pommaeo’s scowl darkened further.

“By the wings of the Wave-father!” Zandar gave him a smile meant to be conciliatory, most likely, but that turned out suspicious. “Just what do you want him for, anyway, if you’re willing to pay that much?”

Rhodry had been rather wondering the same.

“As a gift for a very important friend of mine. I’m sure she’d be absolutely delighted with an exotic barbarian to tend her front door.”

“Oh.” All at once Zandar laughed. “I take it you’re still courting the widow Alaena?”

“I don’t see where it’s a laughing matter, but yes, I happen to be going to visit her.”

“And it takes a wealthy gift to snare a wealthy wife, eh?”

Pommaeo replied with a Bardekian phrase that Rhodry didn’t know, though he could guess its general tenor by the way the other men both winced and snickered. With a grin Zandar got up and motioned for Rhodry to follow him as he walked a few steps away.

“It feels odd, justifying something to a slave, but I’ve grown to like you, boy. I’m going to take this offer because I think you’ll be safer this way. Anyone can find out that I live in Danmara. For all I know, the men who want you are sitting there waiting for you to walk right into a trap. This should pretty well throw them off your track. Besides, you’ll live well in the widow Alaena’s household, and you’ll have plenty of chances to earn tips. Just don’t piss the money away on gambling and drinking, and you can buy your freedom back sooner or later.” He gave Rhodry a friendly slap on the shoulder. “And good luck.”

For Zandar’s sake Rhodry forced out a smile, but inwardly he was steaming at the thought of being a courting gift. If his position had allowed it, he would have cursed in a steady stream.

To clinch the deal Zandar threw in the horse that Rhodry had been riding and the clothes and blankets he’d been using. As the young slave boy, Miko, helped him carry his gear over to his new master’s campsite, the lad talked so much and so fast that Rhodry could only understand about half of what he said. He did manage to figure out, though, that Pommaeo was a difficult man, prone to slapping his slaves around if they didn’t do exactly as they were told. He realized that if he were going to live to see this widow’s household, he was going to have to keep a firm grip on his temper; striking back could get him flogged by the archon’s men. Although he couldn’t remember specifically why, he did know that restraining his temper was something he’d never done before in his life and that the job wasn’t going to be easy.

Later that evening Pommaeo left Zandar’s camp and returned to his own fire. While Miko combed the master’s hair and removed his face paint for the night, Pommaeo gave Rhodry a small lecture in remarkably good Deverrian. It turned out that he’d made several trading runs to the kingdom with his uncles.

“So, an Eldidd man, I’d say, and sold as a slave in the islands? Zandar told me it was a matter of gambling debts, but I have my doubts. It doesn’t matter a pig’s fart, mind, just so long as you watch your courtesies from now on.”

“And do I have any choice about that?”

“None, of course. Now listen, you’re about to go to a fine household that makes those barbarian duns of yours look like pigsties. You’ll have strict duties, and there’ll be other slaves to make sure you perform them in the correct manner. If I hear of you giving the lady Alaena the least jot of trouble, I’ll flog you myself. Do you understand me?”

“I do, master.”

Although Rhodry bobbed his head respectfully, he was considering ways to strangle Pommaeo and leave his body beside the road. The mincing piss-proud excuse for a real man! he thought to himself. Hunting rich widows! Let’s hope the poor old woman has the wit to see him for the snake he is!

“Do you know what the whole secret of the dweomer is?” Salamander said abruptly. “Making pictures in your mind. Just that and little else—making the right sort of pictures and saying the right words to go with them. How does that strike you?”

Startled, Jill looked up from her breakfast.

“Are you sure you’re not having a jest on me?”

“I’m not, though I know it must sound like one. There’s this book we all study—eventually you’ve
got
to learn to read, my little turtledove—which is known as
The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid
, though I’ve been told that it’s actually a lot of short bits and aphorisms jotted down by various dweomermasters over the years. Be that as it may, there’s one particular piece that springs to my mind at the moment. ‘You could go to the marketplace and, like a gerthddyn, preach aloud the secret of all dweomer without one soul being a wit’s worth wiser.’ Do you know why? Because it’s so simple everyone would sneer. Or to be precise: simple to describe; cursed hard to do.”

“I’ll admit to fighting the urge to sneer if all you’re talking about is a lot of pictures.”

“Aha, I know a challenge when I hear one. Very well.” He held up his elaborately jeweled table dagger. “Look at this for a moment. Then shut your eyes. Try to see the dagger as clearly as you could with your eyes open—a memory picture, like.”

Although Jill stared at the dagger for a long moment, she did so blankly, as if she could soak it up the way a bit of rag soaks up spilled ale. As soon as she shut her eyes, its image was gone, and no amount of struggling with her memory would bring a clear picture back. With an oath, she looked again, and this time she actively tried to memorize the details, but she could only retain the vaguest general impression, more of a daggerlike shape than a dagger.

“Harder than it sounds?” Salamander was grinning at her frustration.

“It is.”

“By the time you’re done with your ’prentice-work, you’ll be able to walk into a chamber you’ve never seen before, stay but a few minutes, yet be able to call up a picture of that chamber so clearly that you’d swear you were standing inside it. You’ll curse the work before you’re done, too, because learning how to manipulate images is the most boring thing in the world. Think of it as a test, my minuscule finch. The bard tales talk about suffering mysterious ordeals both harsh and lurid to gain the dweomer, but are you willing to be bored sick with it? That’s the true test of every apprentice.”

“When my father was teaching me how to use a sword, he drilled me until I wanted to weep. Have you ever lunged at a bale of hay over and over in the hot sun? Some days I’d do it a hundred times, while he stood there and criticized the way I was standing or holding my wrist or suchlike.”

“Gods, I doubt if you’ll find me as harsh a master as Cullyn of Cerrmor must have been. Now, let’s see. It’s easier to start with a picture than it is with a solid thing, somehow. We can search the marketplace for a painted scroll.”

“Oh come now, you don’t expect to find some rare dweomer book right out in the Myleton market, do you?”

“Of course not, but we don’t want one. What we need is the sort of thing a merchant’s wife would have in her reception chamber to amuse a guest, a little scroll with four or five colored drawings on it, maybe pictures of famous temples, maybe seacoast views—that sort of mundane thing. Trained slaves copy them out by the hundreds, so we should be able to find one with little trouble. You need a complicated thing to keep your mind alive while you do the wretched exercises.”

“Whatever you say. What comes after learning to hold pictures in your mind?”

“Oh, extensions of the basic work. You start by maybe changing some details of the picture you’re seeing mentally—adding clouds in the sky, say, or putting in a tree. Then, let’s see … uh well … eventually you have to pretend you’re in the picture yourself and looking around at all its various parts … I know we did that …” His voice trailed away.

“You don’t really remember it all, do you?”

“You may berate me for a wretched and most frivolous elf, if you wish, because, alas, alack, well-a-day, and so on and so forth, you speak the truth. I do remember the beginning banishing ritual, though, and that’s truly important for someone in your state of mind.”

“Well and good then. What is it?”

“There’s no time to go into it right now. If we’re going to buy horses, we have to get to the market before it closes for the midday heat, so let’s wait till we’re out on the road. But don’t let me forget to show it to you.”

It occurred to Jill that, as harsh ordeals went, learning dweomer from Salamander was going to have its moments.

Before they went to the market, Salamander did his usual morning’s scrying. His face all narrow-eyed concentration, the gerthddyn bent over the glowing embers in the charcoal brazier and watched as strange images moved among them. All at once he smiled and began to speak in a whisper.

“Finally! He’s riding up to a city, my turtledove, so we can—now wait, what’s this? Hell-ice and foul humors! Rhodry’s been sold again! Curse it all! I can see him riding behind some new master.” He paused for a long moment. “Ah, finally! They’re going into the city gates. I can see the crest, oh joy, oh rapture, the glorious city crest! Daradion down on the south coast … oh ye gods! Curse them, curse me, a pox and the vapors upon us all! They’re going down to the harbor! Oh dear dearest gods, not onto a ship!” He made a gargling noise deep in his throat, then watched in silence for a long while. “May the Lord of Hell’s balls atrophy and fall off! This wretched fool is dickering with a ship owner for some kind of passage!” With a toss of his head he looked up, sweeping away the vision. “At least I got a chance to read the ship’s name. It’s the
Gray Kestrel
, so we can ask the harbormaster where it was going.”

“When we get there. Ye gods, how far away is the place?”

“Well over a fortnight’s ride, alas. We have the lovely choice of traveling straight and slowly through the mountains, or roundabout but a more rapid pace along the coast. I can’t scry while they’re crossing the sea because of the …”

“The blasted elemental what’s-it … veils of astral force.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“You told me yourself, lackwit.”

“You needn’t be so nasty. Look, at least we’ll know we’re on the right track. We might have been rambling, roaming, and generally tramping about to no purpose at all.”

“True spoken, and I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s just that this new owner could be taking him anywhere at all … I mean, hundreds and hundreds of miles for all we know.”

Salamander’s face sank like warm wax into despair.

“Alas, ‘tis true, little eaglet. Fortunately, ships sail all year long across the nicely sheltered Inner Sea, and so we shall be able to follow them wherever they go. We have tarried long enough. Let us pack up our gear and head for the market place, so we may bend our course for glorious Daradion, winged with sails and so on and so forth. Myleton has enjoyed the pleasure of our presence long enough.”

During the slow trip across the Inner Sea to the island of Surtinna, Rhodry was quartered down in the hold in a stall next to the horses and mules, although he was allowed abovedecks to eat his meals with the other slaves. The arrangement suited him well enough, giving him the privacy to think a good distance away from Pommaeo’s ill-temper. Or at least he tried to think; most of the time he slept, drowsing in the warm straw with Wildfolk heaped around him like a pack of dogs. It did occur to him once that he probably had been a soldier if his body would insist on taking every chance it got to stock up on sleep, but try as he might, he never had another flash of insight like the drugged dream that had given him back his real name.