The Other Wind (11 page)

Alder said he had had no dream he could recall.

“I did,” Onyx said. “I dreamed of the Summoner who was my teacher in the School on Roke. They say of him that he died twice: because he came back from that country across the wall.”

“I dreamed of the spirits that are not reborn,” Tenar said, very low.

Prince Sege said, “All night I thought I heard voices down in the city streets, voices I knew from my childhood, calling as they used to do. But when I listened, it was only watchmen or drunken sailors shouting.”

“I never dream,” said Tosla.

“I didn’t dream of that country,” the king said. “I remembered it. And couldn’t cease remembering it.”

He looked at the silent woman, Tehanu, but she only looked down into the pond and did not speak.

No one else spoke; and Alder could not stand it. “If I am a plague bringer, you must send me away!” he said.

The wizard Onyx spoke, not imperiously but with finality. “If Roke sent you to Gont, and Gont sent you to Havnor, Havnor is where you should be.”

“Many heads make light thinking,” said Tosla, sardonic.

Lebannen said, “Let’s put dreams aside for a while. Our guest needs to know what we were concerned about before he came—why I begged Tenar and Tehanu to come, earlier this summer, and summoned Tosla from his voyaging to take counsel with us. Will you tell Alder of this matter, Tosla?”

The dark-faced man nodded. The ruby in his ear gleamed like a drop of blood.

“The matter is dragons,” he said. “In the West Reach for some years now they’ve come to farms and villages on Ully and Usidero, flying low, seizing the roofs of houses with their talons, shaking them, terrifying the people. In the Toringates they’ve come twice now at harvest time and set the fields burning with their breath, and burnt haystacks and set the thatch of houses afire. They haven’t struck at people, but people have died in the fires. They haven’t attacked the houses of the lords of those islands, seeking after treasure, the way they did in the Dark Years, but only the villages and the fields. The same word came from a merchantman who’d been southwest as far as Simly trading for grain: dragons had come and burnt the crop just as they were harvesting.

“Then, last winter in Semel, two dragons settled on the summit of the volcano, Mount Andanden.”

“Ah,” said Onyx, and at the king’s inquiring glance: “The wizard Seppel of Paln tells me that mountain was a most sacred place to the dragons, where they came to drink fire from the earth in ancient days.”

“Well, they’re back,” said Tosla. “And they come down harrying the herds and flocks that are the wealth of the people there, not hurting the beasts but frightening them so they break loose and run wild. The people say they’re young dragons, black and thin, without much fire yet.

“And in Paln, there are dragons living now in the mountains of the north part of the island, wild country without farms. Hunters used to go there to hunt mountain sheep and catch falcons to tame, but they’ve been driven out by the dragons, and no one goes near the mountains now. Maybe your Pelnish wizard knows about them?”

Onyx nodded. “He says flights of them have been seen above the mountains like the flights of wild geese.”

“Between Paln and Semel, and the Island of Havnor, is only the width of the Pelnish Sea,” said Prince Sege.

Alder was thinking that it was less than a hundred miles from Semel to his own island, Taon.

“Tosla set out to the Dragons’ Run in his ship the
Tern,
” the king said.

“But got barely in sight of the easternmost of those isles before a swarm of the beasts came at me,” Tosla said, with a hard grin. “They harried me as they do the cattle and sheep, swooping down to singe my sails, till I ran back where I came from. But that’s nothing new.”

Onyx nodded again. “Nobody but a dragonlord has ever sailed the Dragons’ Run.”

“I have,” the king said, and suddenly smiled a broad, boyish smile. “But I was with a dragonlord . . . Now that’s a time I’ve been thinking about. When I was in the West Reach with the Archmage, seeking Cob the necromancer, we passed Jessage, which lies even farther out than Simly, and we saw burned fields there. And in the Dragons’ Run, we saw that they fought and killed one another like animals gone rabid.”

After a time Prince Sege asked, “Could it be that some of those dragons did not recover from their madness in that evil time?”

“It’s been fifteen years and more,” Onyx said. “But dragons live very long. Maybe time passes differently for them.”

Alder noticed that as the wizard spoke he glanced at Tehanu, standing apart from them by the pool.

“Yet only within the last year or two have they attacked people,” said the prince.

“That they have not,” Tosla said. “If a dragon wanted to destroy the people of a farm or village, who’d stop it? They’ve been after people’s livelihood. Harvests, hayricks, farms, cattle. They’re saying,
Begone—get out of the West!
”

“But why are they saying it with fire, with havoc?” the wizard demanded. “They can speak! They speak the Language of the Making. Morred and Erreth-Akbe talked with dragons. Our Archmage talked with them.”

“Those we saw in the Dragons’ Run,” the king said, “had lost the power of speech. The breach Cob had made in the world was drawing their power from them, as it did from us. Only the great dragon Orm Embar came to us and spoke to the Archmage, telling him to go to Selidor . . .” He paused, his eyes far away. “And even from Orm Embar speech was taken, before he died.” Again he looked away from them, a strange light in his face. “It was for us Orm Embar died. He opened the way for us into the dark land.”

They were all silent for a while. Tenar’s quiet voice broke the silence. “Once Sparrowhawk said to me—let me see if I can remember how he said it: that the dragon and the dragon’s speech are one thing, one being. That a dragon does not learn the Old Speech, but
is
it.”

“As a tern is flight. As a fish is swimming,” Onyx said slowly. “Yes.”

Tehanu was listening, standing motionless by the pool. They all looked at her now. The look on her mother’s face was eager, urgent. Tehanu turned her head away.

“How do you make a dragon talk to you?” the king said. He said it lightly, as if it were a pleasantry, but it was followed by another silence. “Well,” he said, “that’s something I hope we can learn. Now, Master Onyx, while we’re speaking of dragons, will you tell us your story of the girl who came to the School on Roke, for none but me has heard it yet.”

“A girl in the School!” said Tosla, with a scoffing grin. “Things have changed on Roke!”

“Indeed they have,” the wizard said, with a long cool look at the sailor. “This was some eight years ago. She came from Way, disguised as a young man, wanting to study the art magic. Of course her poor disguise didn’t fool the Doorkeeper. Yet he let her in, and he took her part. At that time, the School was headed by the Master Summoner—the man,” and he hesitated a moment, “the man of whom I told you I dreamed last night.”

“Tell us something of that man, if you will, Master Onyx,” the king said. “That was Thorion, who returned from death?”

“Yes. When the Archmage had been long gone and no word came, we feared he was dead. So the Summoner used his arts to go see if indeed he had crossed the wall. He stayed long there, so the masters feared for him too. But at last he woke, and said that the Archmage was there among the dead, and would not return himself but had bade Thorion return to govern Roke. Yet before long the dragon bore the Archmage Sparrowhawk living to us, with my lord Lebannen . . . Then when the Archmage had departed again, the Summoner fell down and lay as if life had gone out of him. The Master Herbal, with all his art, believed him dead. Yet as we made ready to bury him, he moved, and spoke, saying he had come back to life to do what must be done. So, since we were not able to choose a new Archmage, Thorion the Summoner governed the School.” He paused. “When the girl came, though the Doorkeeper had admitted her, Thorion would not have her within the walls. He would have nothing to do with her. But the Master Patterner took her to the Grove, and she lived there some while at the edge of the trees, and walked with him among them. He and the Doorkeeper, and the Herbal, and Kurremkarmerruk the Namer, believed that there was a reason she had come to Roke, that she was a messenger or an agent of some great event, even if she herself didn’t know it; and so they protected her. The other masters followed Thorion, who said she brought only dissension and ruin and should be driven out. I was a student then. It was a sore trouble to us to know that our masters, masterless, were quarreling.”

“And over a girl,” said Tosla.

Onyx’s look at him this time was extremely cold. “Quite,” he said. After a minute he took up his story. “To be brief, then, when Thorion sent a group of us to compel her to leave the island, she challenged him to meet her that evening on Roke Knoll. He came, and summoned her by her name to obey him: ‘Irian,’ he called her. But she said, ‘I am not only Irian,’ and speaking, she changed. She became—she took the form of a dragon. She touched Thorion and his body fell to dust. Then she climbed the hill, and watching her, we didn’t know whether we saw a woman that burned like a fire, or a winged beast. But at the summit we saw her clearly, a dragon like a flame of red and gold. And she lifted up her wings and flew into the west.”

His voice had grown soft and his face was full of the remembered awe. Nobody spoke.

The wizard cleared his throat. “Before she went up the hill the Namer asked her, ‘Who are you?’ She said she did not know her other name. The Patterner spoke to her, asking where she would go and whether she would come back. She said she was going beyond the west, to learn her name from her own people, but if he called her she would come.”

In the silence, a hoarse, weak voice, like metal brushing on metal, spoke. Alder did not understand the words and yet they seemed familiar, as if he could almost remember what they meant.

Tehanu had come close to the wizard and was standing by him, bending to him, tense as a drawn bow. It was she who had spoken.

Startled and taken aback, the wizard stared up at her, got to his feet, backed off a step, and then controlling himself said, “Yes, those were her words:
My people, beyond the west.
”

“Call her. Oh, call her,” Tehanu whispered, reaching out both her hands to him. Again he drew back involuntarily.

Tenar stood up and murmured to her daughter, “What is it, what is it, Tehanu?”

Tehanu stared round at them all. Alder felt as if he were a wraith she saw through. “Call her here,” she said. She looked at the king. “Can you call her?”

“I have no such power. Perhaps the Patterner of Roke—perhaps you yourself—”

Tehanu shook her head violently. “No, no, no, no,” she whispered. “I am not like her. I have no wings.”

Lebannen looked at Tenar as if for guidance. Tenar looked miserably at her daughter.

Tehanu turned round and faced the king. “I’m sorry,” she said, stiffly, in her weak, harsh voice. “I have to be alone, sir. I will think about what my father said. I will try to answer what he asked. But I have to be alone, please.”

Lebannen bowed to her and glanced at Tenar, who went at once to her daughter and put an arm about her; and they went away on the sunny path by the pools and fountains.

The four men sat down again and said nothing for a few minutes.

Lebannen said, “You were right, Onyx,” and to the others, “Master Onyx told me this tale of the woman-dragon Irian after I told him something about Tehanu. How as a child Tehanu summoned the dragon Kalessin to Gont, and spoke with the dragon in the Old Speech, and Kalessin called her daughter.”

“Sire, this is very strange, this is a strange time, when a dragon is a woman, and when an untaught girl speaks in the Language of the Making!” Onyx was deeply and obviously shaken, frightened. Alder saw that, and wondered why he himself felt no such fear. Probably, he thought, because he did not know enough to be afraid, or what to be afraid of.

“But there are old stories,” Tosla said. “Haven’t you heard them on Roke? Maybe your walls keep them out. They’re only tales simple people tell. Songs, even. There’s a sailors’ song, ‘The Lass of Belilo,’ that tells how a sailor left a pretty girl weeping in every port, until one of the pretty girls flew after his boat on wings of brass and snatched him out of it and ate him.”

Onyx looked at Tosla with disgust. But Lebannen smiled and said, “The Woman of Kemay . . . The Archmage’s old master, Aihal, called Ogion, told Tenar about her. She was an old village woman, and lived as such. She invited Ogion into her cottage and served him fish soup. But she said mankind and dragonkind had once been one. She herself was a dragon as well as a woman. And being a mage, Ogion saw her as a dragon.”

“As you saw Irian, Onyx,” said Lebannen.

Speaking stiffly and addressing himself to the king only, Onyx said, “After Irian left Roke, the Master Namer showed us passages in the most ancient lore-books which had always been obscure, but which could be understood to speak of beings both human and dragon. And of a quarrel or great division among them. But none of this is clear to our understanding.”

“I hoped that Tehanu might make it clear,” Lebannen said. His voice was even, so that Alder did not know whether he had given up or still held that hope.

A man was hurrying down the path to them, a grey-headed soldier of the king’s guards. Lebannen looked round, stood up, went to him. They conferred for a minute, low-voiced. The soldier strode off again; the king turned back to his companions. “Here is news,” he said, the ring of challenge in his voice again. “Over the west of Havnor there have been great flights of dragons. They have set forests afire, and a coaster’s crew say people fleeing down to South Port told them the town of Resbel is burning.”

***

T
HAT NIGHT THE KING’S SWIFTEST
ship carried him and his party across the Bay of Havnor, running fast before the magewind Onyx raised. They came into the mouth of the Onneva River, under the shoulder of Mount Onn, at daybreak. With them eleven horses were disembarked, fine, strong, slender-legged creatures from the royal stables. Horses were rare on all the islands but Havnor and Semel. Tehanu knew donkeys well enough but had never seen a horse before. She had spent much of the night with them and their handlers, helping control and calm them. They were well-bred, mannerly horses but not used to sea voyages.