The Dragon Revenant (43 page)

“Now this is the most important thing of all,” Nevyn said finally. “Do you know where the Old One lives?”

“I do and I don’t. They don’t tell lowly journeymen like me all the details, but I know he got that estate from the archons of Vardeth.”

“Ye gods! It can’t be all that far away!”

“Just that. You know, my lord, I keep thinking that he drew us here, like. That we’ve been thinking we’re as clever as clever, but all the time he’s been drawing us in like a spider that’s got a wrapped fly on a thread.”

“You’ve been spending too much time around Salamander and his lurid imagination.”

“Maybe. It’s just that you hear all these rumors about the Old One. Even my master back in Valanth used to say that half of what you heard couldn’t be true, but he didn’t know the false half from the real one. But then, the stinking Brotherhood never told us more than the bare bones of what we needed for a job.”

“You know, I hadn’t realized just how much the Hawks hated the Brotherhood. Back in Deverry we always assumed you worked hand in hand.”

“Only when we were paid to, my lord. They say that the Brotherhood founded the Hawks, hundreds of years ago, back when there was plague in the islands and everything was a proper mess and the archons were too frantic to worry about a dark lodge or two, but I don’t know if it’s true or not. If it is, they parted company soon enough.”

“That was probably inevitable.”

“Probably.” Gwin looked up, his eyes brimming pain. “My lord, can you cure Rhodry? Can you undo what that swine did to him?”

Nevyn considered—briefly—telling some reassuring he.

“I don’t know. I won’t know until I try, and I won’t be able to try until we’ve disposed of the Old One. I’ll need time, and I’ll need to concentrate. Wondering if assassins or evil dweomermen are going to drop out of the sky upon you tends to ruin a man’s ability to pay attention to his work.”

Gwin smiled, a twitch of his mouth with no real humor in it.

“Gwin, you must have seen what happened. I take it Baruma was mostly using physical pain to break down Rhodry’s defenses.”

“He was, but he tried to use shame for a weapon, too. He started torturing Rhodry when we were still in Slaith, and all the pirates would stand around and watch. They thought it was a bit of fun to see just how much pain the silver dagger could take.” His voice was so conversational and ordinary that it was chilling. “They were laying wagers, you see, on how long he’d last.”

“Was Rhodry aware of that?”

“He was. He taunted them—ye gods, my lord! He had the guts to lie there and jest with them, telling them to wager high, because he was going to make them rich by outlasting anything Baruma could do to him. I think that’s when I fell—when I realized I—well, that I couldn’t stand what they were doing to him.” Gwin’s face turned bleak. “Baruma never did much torturing at once, an hour here and there throughout the day. He wanted Rhodry to think about what was going to happen to him, and he wanted his fun to last, too. But then I realized that the little pig-bugger was afraid of me. So I’d sit where he could see me and just stare at him, and he’d get so nervous that he’d make the sessions even shorter. Once we got on board ship and away from Slaith, he really began to sweat. After he’d broken Rhodry down, he wanted to go on entertaining himself, but I told him I’d kill him if he didn’t leave Rhodry alone. I wanted to kill him anyway, but the ship was crawling with pirates, and he was the one who was paying them. I want you to know that, my lord. I really would have killed him if I could have.”

“I believe you.”

“My thanks. If they’d killed me, they would have killed Rhodry, too, and so we wouldn’t have gained anything.” He looked away again. “Do you think I’m mad? Jill does.”

“I think you’ve lived a life that would have driven most men mad, but that you’ve come to sanity’s gates.”

“Fair enough. And it’s up to me whether or not I open them and go in?”

“Just that. You learn fast, Gwin.”

“It’s being around Rhodry, most like. Well, and all the dweomer round me, too.” This time when he smiled his eyes came alive, too. “If I can speak frankly, my lord? Hearing Jill and Salamander talk about you chilled my heart, because I’ve never seen power like theirs, but here they kept saying you were the real master.”

“Flattering of them. So, you could see that Jill has power of her own?”

“Who couldn’t, my lord? I mean, anyone who has a little knowledge would have to be blind to miss it. Like the way she ensouled that dweomer image of the wolf and sent it after Baruma—or did she tell you about that? It was a fair lovely trick, I thought, but Salamander didn’t seem all that pleased with her for doing it.”

When he understood what Gwin meant, for a moment Nevyn couldn’t speak out of sheer hurt feelings. Here Jill was studying dweomer at last, and she’d never even told him! Gwin winced, taking his silence wrong.

“I never meant to tell you somewhat Jill didn’t want known, my lord, truly I didn’t.”

“It’s not that.” Nevyn grabbed his hurt with mental hands and shook it into submission. “It’s just that she did a truly dangerous thing. Salamander’s not much of a teacher, I’d say. What’s wrong, lad? You look distressed.”

“I don’t understand how you run things, that’s all. Do you want me to inform on them?”

“What? I don’t indeed! My apologies! I forgot how an idle question would sound to someone who used to be a Hawk. Here, I’ll take the matter up with Jill herself, but I’m not angry with her or with Salamander, and truly, what they may do or not is no affair of yours.”

“My thanks. It ached my heart, wondering what I was supposed to say.”

“No doubt. Here, you’d best get off to bed. I’ve kept you up late enough, haven’t I? If you remember anything else about your old lodge, you can always tell me in the morning.”

In truth, of course, Nevyn wanted to be left alone with his hurt, which, though subdued, was alive and snarling in its chains. He was surprised and more than a little disappointed in himself, that he would feel like a jilted lover. It seemed to him that he’d spent hundreds of years preparing a splendid gift, some intricately carved and polished gem, say, only to have Salamander nip in and hand her a duplicate he’d picked up in a marketplace without even realizing its worth. Don’t be a fool! he told himself. What counts is the Light, not the servant who brings her to the Light. Yet he went to the window, threw open the shutters to the night, and stood looking out for a long time, watching the moon and thinking of little but his hiraedd.

With a tap on the door Jill let herself into the chamber. He knew it was her even before he turned to see her, hastily dressed and yawning in the last guttering light from the oil lamps. When he tossed up one hand and made a ball of golden light, she blinked like a sleepy child.

“You’re unhappy,” she said. “I just knew it, somehow. I meant to tell you about studying dweomer earlier, but there was no time.”

When he felt tears stinging in his eyes, he cursed himself for a doddering old lackwit. She hurried over and laid one hand on his arm.

“What’s so wrong?”

“Oh naught, naught.”

“You used to be better at lying.”

“Humph, and that’s a nasty way to put it!” He cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes dry on his sleeve. “Forgive me, child. I know it’s empty vanity, but I always wanted to be the one who taught you about dweomer.”

“Well, don’t you think you were? If I’d never known you, and Salamander came babbling to me about magical ensorcelments and suchlike, I would have laughed in his face—if I didn’t slap it for him. Ever since that first summer we met, you’ve been trying to show me what I could have, if only I had the wit to want it. It took a horrible thing to make me look where you were pointing, but I finally have.”

Hiraedd broke and shattered like a dropped jug. Although he considered the idiotic grin that he felt spreading on his face unworthy of them both, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

“Truly?”

“Truly. All Salamander’s done is give me the practices I needed and tell me a few principles and suchlike. I’m truly grateful to him, too, but you know, he’s a wretchedly scattered sort of teacher. Nevyn, you said once that I could always ask you for help. Did you mean that? Would you teach me more, when all this is over?”

“Of course! Child, nothing would please me more than to teach you everything I’ve learned, to pass it on and keep it safe for the future, if naught else.” Even in his delight at this moment of triumph, so long postponed, he felt his duty pricking at him. “In fact, let’s start right now. What’s all this I hear about a dweomer-wolf?”

Jill winced and looked hastily away to gather her excuses. They talked till dawn, going over every half-aware step she’d taken both in creating the wolf and destroying it until she saw every error she’d made, but although she did her share of squirming under his inquisition, her attention never wandered. Her mind had been forged into a formidable weapon indeed, he realized, to some extent by her natural talent but even more by her father’s harsh training in weapon craft and the dangerous life she’d led.

Much later, in the middle of all the confusion of packing up to leave the city, it occurred to him, almost casually, that he’d finally fulfilled his vow. Soon, he would be free to die. He felt the dweomer-cold grip him like an evil spell as he wondered just how soon it would be.

“By the way, oh younger brother of mine, what are we going to do about the other horses? The ones that used to belong to Gwin’s obnoxious expedition.”

Rhodry stopped packing his saddlebags and sat back on his heels to consider Salamander, who looked sincerely vexed as he squatted down next to him.

“Leave the wretched beasts here for the stable owner to sell,” Rhodry said. “They’ve been naught but a cursed nuisance.”

“What? We can’t just leave twenty-four perfectly good horses behind.”

“We can, and we are.”

“But that’s like throwing gold into gutters!”

All at once Rhodry understood.

“We are not, oh elder brother of mine, out on the grasslands. You don’t need to hoard every spavined nag that comes your way.”

“I don’t care. If we leave them here, can we come back for them at some point later?”

“When, you stupid dolt?” It was Nevyn, striding into the room. “For all I know, we’re riding to our deaths, and you’re worrying about extra horses? Ye gods!”

“But what if some disaster falls upon us, and we need remounts?”

“No doubt we can buy them in some town or other. You and Jill seem to be dripping with coin. Which reminds me. Just how did you two earn all that money, anyway?”

“Oh, um, performing in the marketplace.” But Salamander had gone dead-white. “I’m a gerthddyn, after all, and Jill was a good draw just by being a blonde barbarian lass.”

At the word “marketplace” a crowd of Wildfolk materialized: sprites swooping through the air, gnomes leaping and dancing, and in a shuddering curtain of purple light the Wildfolk of Aethyr made their presence known. Faint thunder boomed.

“You didn’t!” Nevyn turned as grim as a berserker.

“Er well, I can’t lie. I did.”

“May the Great Ones rend your soul! You stupid chattering elf! Real dweomer in the marketplace?” Nevyn stopped talking and started sputtering in sheer rage.

“My lord?” Rhodry broke in. “But it saved all our lives. Gwin told me that the Hawks never even suspected who Evan was until it was too late.”

“And that statement, Rhodry lad, has just saved your scapegrace brother’s life—from me. Still, I’ve more to say on this subject. Salamander, come with me, will you?”

Since Nevyn grabbed his arm and hauled him up with a grip as strong as a blacksmith’s, Salamander had little choice about it. Berating him all the while Nevyn dragged him out into the corridor, and Rhodry could hear the old man’s voice for a long time before they moved out of earshot.

When he finished packing, Rhodry went down to the inn yard, where Amyr, Gwin, and the rest of the warband were milling around, waiting for his orders. Although Rhodry still didn’t recognize the men from Eldidd, with Jill’s coaching he’d learned their names and enough small things about them to hide his lack of memory. Amyr, in particular, he had reason to remember, because according to Jill that young rider had helped save his life in battle some years back—not that Rhodry could recall a single thing about it. Yet oddly enough, although he remembered no concrete details like names or places or battles, he did remember being a lord, just as he remembered how comfortable and masculine it was to wear brigga rather than a tunic now that he had a pair of trousers back on. Since he was heading a warband again, and every man in it was treating him with utter deference, all the feelings of leadership returned to him, from the easy pride to the hard worrying about their safety, as well as a way of standing and holding his head, a way of smiling even, that Rhodry the slave footman would never have dared allow himself, indeed, that he would never have recalled. When Amyr came forward to bow to him, he smiled and raised one hand in a gesture that felt familiar even though he couldn’t consciously remember learning it. No doubt, it occurred to him, he was aping his mother’s husband, the noble-born man who’d raised him, in some way.

“Do we ride out today, my lord?” Amyr said.

“We do. Amyr, you’re going to be the captain for this ride, and always remember that we’re heading for the strangest battle of our lives. If you notice anyone acting strange, brooding, maybe, or saying things that don’t make sense, tell Nevyn straightaway. From what Jill’s. been telling me, our enemies can work on men’s minds from a long way away.”

“I’ll stay on guard then, my lord. Shall I get the men saddled up and ready to ride?”

“Do that.”

As the others hurried off, Rhodry noticed Gwin, standing a little ways apart and looking a little bewildered, as if he had no idea of how he fit into this new order of things.

“Gwin? I’ve been thinking. There’s no reason for you to ride with the rest of the warband—you don’t truly belong there. Will you be my bodyguard from now on?”

Nodding his agreement, Gwin studied the ground for a moment, then looked up and smiled at him with an affection that went far beyond the deference of a rider to his sworn lord. Rhodry knew that Gwin loved him; he was touched at times, embarrassed at others, but always he had more than one reason to be grateful to him—of that, he was painfully aware. He gave Gwin a friendly slap on the shoulder.