The Dragon Revenant (9 page)

When Kryblano, a free man working as a caravan guard, dropped back beside him, Taliaesyn asked him the river’s name.

“The En-ghidal. It’s dry now, all right, but soon the rains will start, and the flash floods with them. We’ll be home by then, though.”

That night the caravan camped downhill from a farming village called Deblis, a tidy arrangement of some fifty square white-plastered houses, each with a little wooden fence around a vegetable patch in front and a chicken coop behind. At sunset, Zandar took Taliaesyn and Kryblano in for the nighttime market. Among the flower-blossom lights of oil lamps, peddlers and local craftsmen squatted on the ground with their merchandise neatly arranged on pallets of woven rushes, but the local folk seemed to be standing around gossiping more than they were buying. Zander’s goods, however, were a different thing. Once Taliaesyn got them unpacked and spread out, the village women clustered round to haggle for the little clay pots and packets of beaten-bark paper that held the precious spices.

After about an hour, as business was slacking off, Zandar sent Kryblano and Taliaesyn off to buy him some wine, and, generous employer and master that he was, gave Kryblano the money to buy himself and the slave a cup, too. After some poking around the village they found a tiny wineshop set into the side of a house, a room smoky from oil lamps where row after row of yellow clay jugs stood against the wall and patrons spilled out into the alley. While they sipped the flat cups of sweet red wine, Kryblano struck up a conversation with a pair of locals, but Taliaesyn stood a little behind him and spoke to nobody.

As they made their way back to the marketplace, Kryblano paused for a moment to slip down an alley and relieve himself in the dark. Carrying the wine jug for their master, Taliaesyn waited for him in the street, which was nearly as dark, and chewed over his continual nag of a problem: who am I, anyway? At a scrape of sandal on sand behind him, he turned and saw two men walking up to him, so purposefully and yet so quietly that he went on guard. Then he saw the bright gleam of a tiny dagger in one man’s hand, and the coil of fine silken rope in the other’s. Taliaesyn ducked to one side and kicked out as the steel flashed toward him, but he felt the dagger graze his arm. He threw the wine jug in his attacker’s face and grabbed the rope carrier by the arm, twisting him round. When the man with the knife feinted in, Taliaesyn yelled an instinctive war cry and shoved his struggling prisoner straight onto the blade. The man in his hands screamed and slumped forward with a gush of blood. As the second turned to flee, Kryblano came running, yelling his head off, and the alley filled with villagers drawn by the shouting. As they tackled the escaping assassin, Kryblano reached Taliaesyn’s side and grabbed his bleeding arm to look at the shallow wound.

Everyone was talking so fast that Taliaesyn had trouble understanding more than a few words. All at once he realized that his cut was burning and that he could no longer focus his eyes. By the light of oil lamps that shot up and wavered in great gobbets of flame, he saw Zandar forcing his way through the crowd in the company of a stout man with gray hair. It was suddenly very hard to hear the voices around him. He did hear Kryblano, shouting in alarm; then there was a gauzy gray silence and a dark.

In the dark a light was burning. At first he thought it was the sun, but as he walked toward it he saw that it glowed red like a campfire, that indeed it was a fire, but a strange one, because in the middle of the flames crouched a tiny red dragon. Around the fire stood a black man holding the hand of a white woman and a black woman standing alone. When they saw him they laughed and waved to him. Instinctively he knew that he should complete the circle, and as soon as he’d linked up the partners, they all began to dance, circling round and round, faster and faster, until all four of them blurred together in a rush of silver light, and the dragon swelled up, huge and ominous in a roar of flames, calling out to him, calling his name …

“Rhodry.”

He said the name aloud, and he was awake, lying on a blanket in the shade of a tree at the edge of the caravan camp. By the sun’s position he could tell that it was nearly noon. Although he was so dry that his tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth, and his scratch from the night before still stung, he felt perfectly well and steady-headed, not at all like a man who’d taken a poisoned wound. When he spoke the name again, Zandar noticed that he was awake and came over with a waterskin.

“So you’re alive, are you? Good.”

“I’ve remembered my real name.” Dry mouth or not, he felt his news so urgently it was like an ache. “It’s Rhodry.”

“Well, by the gods and all their little piglets! Good, good for you. Here. Drink first; then we’ll talk.”

Taliaesyn drank as much as he could hold, waited a few moments, then found he could drink some more. Zandar hunkered down next to him and watched with a commercial sort of compassion.

“There was some kind of poison on that blade,” the trader said. “The village herbwoman was sure of that, but it couldn’t have been very strong.”

“I don’t think it was poison. How about a simple drug, to knock me out and make me easy prey?”

“If so, it failed badly. The man you had in your hands is dead.”

All at once Rhodry went cold all over, remembering that he was a slave.

“And will I die for that?”

“No. He attacked you, and the village headman is a friend of mine. What we all want to know is
why
he attacked you.” Zandar gave him a grim smile. “Or let me guess: you can’t remember if you have any enemies who want you dead.”

“I can’t, master. I’m sorry. I wish I could.”

“Of course you do. Well, the headman’s going to have the other thief executed, and that will be an end to that. Think you can ride today?”

“Oh yes. I feel fine. That’s why I think it was a drug, not a poison.”

“Oh.” Zandar considered this for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, let’s get out of this place and on the road, then. Maybe that will throw these mysterious enemies off your trail. I paid too much for you to have you slaughtered in front of me.” Yet he paused for a moment, mouthing syllables. “Rhodry, huh?” He said the name strangely, with no puff of breath and barely any trill on the
rh
. “Tell the others, will you? At least it’s shorter.”

Some five days later, the Great Krysello and his beautiful barbarian maidservant found themselves a suite of chambers in one of the most expensive inns in Myleton. Since the innkeep had plenty of experience with traveling showmen, he demanded payment in advance, but once Salamander gave him a generous handful of silver coins, he turned servile, showing them up to the suite personally, bowing often, and muttering words that Jill interpreted as being “Hope my humble quarters are suitable” and other such pleasantries. The innkeep’s boy carried up their traveling gear and laid it down on top of a low chest, then retired with an awestruck look for the pale hair and eyes of his guests, rarities enough in Bardek to be a show in themselves. Although Salamander announced that he was pleased, especially with the piles of cushions and the purple divan, Jill found the squareness of the room uncomfortable, and the echoing tile floor and stark white walls amplified every sound they made. Near the ceiling ran a painted dado of fruit and flowers, so realistically done that she would have sworn you could have plucked them off the wall. When her gnome appeared, it sniffed round the corners like a dog.

“Now Jill, listen,” Salamander said. “When we go to the marketplace today, you’ll have to peace-bind that sword with a thong or suchlike, or the archon’s men will confiscate it.”

“What? The bloody gall! What kind of a place is this, anyway? What if some thief attacks us?”

“They don’t have that kind of thief here, thanks to those very same archon’s men. If you get your pocket picked, you see, you lodge a complaint, and the archon’s men hunt down the thief for you and arrest him.”

“Sounds like a waste of public funds to me, when I’m quite capable of slitting the dishonest bastard’s throat for him.”

“I fear me you’re going to find Bardek a great trial, and doubtless Bardek will find you one in return.”

“Let them. Do you think Rhodry’s here in Myleton?”

“I only wish life would smile upon us so warmly, my little eaglet. I’m willing to wager that he came through here, though, because this town is the center of the slave trade. Anyone with an expensive property like our Rhodry would be insane to sell it somewhere else. I’m just hoping he went at government auction. They keep careful records of every sale, and for a few coppers we’ll … that is, I’ll be allowed to read them.”

“One of these days I suppose I should learn letters. It seems like such a wretched bore, puzzling them out.”

“Not once you learn, and truly, you should. Let me just see if I can pick up our Rhodry’s trail now that we’re back on land.”

In a corner of the room stood a rectangular charcoal brazier, made of cast iron, on a solid-looking bronze stand, with a layer of kindling and charcoal all ready for a fire. Salamander lit the fuel with a wave of his hand, then stared steadily into the pale and tiny flames. Jill felt a cold trembling of fear. For all they knew, Rhodry had never been sold at all, but still suffered at the hands of the Hawks of the Brotherhood. When the gerthddyn groaned dramatically, she leapt to her feet, thinking he’d seen Rhodry dead or maimed.

“He’s been sold, sure enough, to some kind of caravan leader,” Salamander said. “It certainly looks like he’s being well-treated.”

“Oh ye gods, you chattering elf!” She felt tears misting her eyes and took refuge in anger. “Then why did you have to make such mournful noises?”

“Because they’re traveling on a road through the grasslands, heading toward the undistinguished, unremarkable, and boringly bland mountains that cover half this island and a good chunk of the next, too. I have absolutely no idea where they may be.”

Jill muttered several foul things under her breath.

“Fortunately,” Salamander went on, “We can draw upon resources other than dweomer. We can check the aforementioned government records, and we can ask questions of the private traders, too. An expensive barbarian like our Rhodry will have been remembered.”

“Good. Let’s get on our way.”

“We might as well, O Gilyan of the hot blood. Besides, we have to go to the market to buy supplies and to get a permit. Tonight we put on our first show.”

In spite of the constant anxiety that underlay her mind like the sound of the waves in a harbor, Jill found Myleton splendid with its longhouses and painted garden walls scattered through the forest of flowering trees. When they came to the market, she was doubly impressed. The vast plaza was a sea of brightly colored sunshades, rippling in the wind over the hundreds of booths spread out around the public fountains. Here and there was a small stage where performers struggled to get the crowd’s attention. Salamander told her that at noon the market would shut down while everyone slept the hot afternoon away, then reopen at twilight. They wandered around, eating cakes sticky with a white, sweet powder while they looked over heaps of silverwork and brass-ware, oil lamps, silks, perfumes, jewelry, strangely shaped knives, and decorative leatherwork. Salamander pawed through all the gaudiest merchandise and made his purchases; they ended up burdened with two brass braziers, packets of charcoal and resin incenses, yards and yards of red cloth, a long drape of cloth-of-gold, a tunic stiff with floral embroidery for her, and a brocaded robe of many colors for the mighty wizard to wear on stage. While he shopped he kept chattering away, but Jill noticed just how much information he managed to extract as he did so, from the best place to buy horses to the current political temper of the city and, most important of all, the names of several private slave traders along with the news that at the last public auction, at least, no barbarians had been offered for sale.

The first trader they visited informed them sadly that he’d seen no barbarians in over a year, but he did direct them to a man named Brindemo, who spoke the barbarian tongue well and was thus the private trader of choice for someone who had a barbarian for sale. After a quick stop at their inn to unburden themselves of their packages, they followed the convoluted directions and managed to find, at last, Brindemo’s shabby compound. When they knocked on the door, it was opened by a slender man, too young to grow a beard, whose dark eyes darted this way and that as he greeted them. Salamander bowed to him and spoke in Deverrian.

“Where is Brindemo?”

“Very ill, my lord. I am his son. I will serve you in his stead.”

“Ill? Is there a fever in your compound?”

“Not at all, not at all.” He paused to run his tongue over his lips. “It was strange. Spoiled food, mayhap.”

While Salamander considered him, the boy squirmed, his eyes looking everywhere but at the gerthddyn.

“Well,” Salamander said at last. “Tender my humble apologies to your esteemed father, but I insist on seeing him. I know many a strange thing, you see. Perhaps I could recommend a remedy.” He paused for effect. “I am the Great Krysello, Barbarian Wizard of the North.”

The young man moaned and squirmed the more, but he threw the door wide open and let them into the grassy yard, where a couple of young women sat together near the well in a dull-eyed slump of despair. When Jill realized that she was seeing human merchandise, her stomach clenched, and she looked away.

“I must see if my father is awake.”

“We’ll come with you while you do,” Salamander said.

With a groan of honest terror the boy led him round the longhouse to a side door which, it turned out, opened directly into his parents’ bedchamber. Lying amidst a heap of striped cushions on a low divan, Brindemo raised his head drunkenly and stared at them with rheumy eyes, his dark skin ashy-gray from fear and fever. Her hands clasped over her mouth, his stout wife stood frozen in the corner. Brindemo looked at her and barked out one word; she ran from the room. Salamander stalked over to the bedside.

“Look at my pale hair. You know I’m from Deverry. You had a barbarian man here for sale, didn’t you?”