Winterlands 4 - Dragonstar (20 page)

“I know.” Jenny looked wonderingly across at him, thin and unshaven and haggard-looking, as if he'd been living on jackrabbit for a week, which apparently he had. In the firelight she could make out bruises, too, fading almost to nothing now. She had come so near to losing him, she reflected wonderingly. Had come so near to losing herself. “Everywhere the dead are walking: Pelannor of Palmorgin in the North, and Trey here … even Caradoc, the real Caradoc, took a corpse to dwell in, and I fear will be haunting the woods near Alyn, trying to trap Ian.”

“Ah.” He nodded, as if putting together two accounts of the same event. “That's what that was, then. I had a—a vision of it. Of somethin' lurkin' about outside the Hold, tryin' to get in. Sendin' evil dreams. As I had a vision of you, love, hurt an' in the Deep, an' of the old King an'Trey.”

“Ian knows to be on his guard,” said Jenny, her mouth full of duck scraps. “Muffle put the whole of the village on the alert, that there would be some attempt on him.”

“Good for Muffle! And for you, love.” He touched her hand again, as he had a dozen times during supper—as her foot had sought his, her knee had pressed his knee, beneath the table, craving and delighting in merely the warmth of his flesh and his bones. “Gar has to be warned. Not just about Trey, but … Jen, the Demon Queen's got out from behind the mirror.”

“I know.” Jenny felt her face get hot with shame. “John, I—I let her out. I had her trapped—in this”—she held up the silver catch-bottle—“and I let her out.”

His eyes held hers for a long time in the low orange glare of the hearth. Then he sighed and shook his head and said, “First time I've ever seen her properly dressed, all kitted out in black velvet with yellow stripes to her skirt.… I wonder where she got it? Not that she couldn't go about this neighborhood wearin' only that sort of veil thing she does, but she'd be stopped with offers every ten feet, and not so much as a purse on her to put the money in. And then I came in here, and almost convinced meself it wasn't her after all, maybe for that reason. But it was her, walkin' through the square like she'd leased a house here—which I wouldn't put past her.”

Chin on palm, John listened to Jenny's account of her injury in the mines of Ylferdun, and what she had heard in the tunnels there, and all that it had led to, listened with the firelight glare touching glints in the half-seen silvery marks on his face and throat. The light slipped and flickered as his jaw muscles tightened, but he said calmly, “She was right, you know, love. About it bein' more important for you to come back here and warn us than to keep her tied down in that bit of a jar. We're already hip-deep in demons, anyway. I'm surprised you found the bottle, given that Folcalor thought he'd need spells an' that to get past whatever glamours the Queen kept on the place.”

“I knew where to look,” said Jenny. “I guessed where it had to be. And I had a hothwais, to give proper light. Though now that you mention it, it does sound odd. This Star-Juggler must have gone in through the back way, through the old library—probably smuggled in by loyalists within the old High King's Court—and been killed on the threshold of the mirror chamber. He could easily have been trapped on the stairs. When the chamber was bricked up—”

“Aye,” said John softly. “But the thing is, that catch-bottle wasn't Folcalor's first weapon of choice, was it? You said you heard the demon in the mines ask, Any luck with the dragon? ”

“I think—I'm not sure—that I was shot with a poisoned arrow, rather than being killed outright, to lure Morkeleb down into the mines.” Jenny tore off another piece of bread and drizzled honey over it. She had been in the catch-bottle, she estimated, about a day and a half, and had watched through most of the previous day in Ernine with only the few rabbits Morkeleb had killed. “They set off an explosion of blasting powder to trap him there. Maybe to kill him, maybe as a way to maneuver him into using his magic, either to save himself or to save me, so that the demons in the mines could take him. They've lost the dragons that they had—Centhwevir and Nymr and the others. And Morkeleb is the most ancient of all, a mage among them and a loremaster. The lore and spells in his mind would give them power over her.”

“That it would,” agreed John, and spun the catch-bottle on its round end, like a top, among the muddle of gravy-soaked trenchers and dribbles of honey on the table. Beside the fire the dog-mastiff gave a muffled snore in his sleep. “But it might not have been Morkeleb they spoke of, though he'd be that miffed if he heard me say he wasn't foremost in their thoughts. I was sent to Hell and back—two or three times, in fact—to fetch a man named Corvin, who turned out to be a dragon: who turned out to be a dragon in whose mind Aohila had established herself, as Amayon established himself in yours. And far as I can tell, he considers himself the most ancient mage an' loremaster of 'em all an' a scientist to boot, so there! You've said as how you understand the demon-speech because Amayon left a shadow of himself—like a footprint, or fruit peels in a corner—in your mind. D'you know Amayon's true name?”

Jenny blinked at him and said, “Yes.” It was not something she had thought of before, but the question brought it forward in her mind. An ugly name, not music like a dragon's name, but a wicked little cluster of barbed glass hatreds that it fouled her even to consider.… But his name. Its name. And she understood with disgusting intimacy every one of those hates, and wondered how she could ever have loved or pitied him.

“I think the dragon they spoke of was Corvin, not Morkeleb,” said John. “And I think Aohila sent me to fetch him, not from hate or vengeance, but just to keep him out of the way of Folcalor's goons. So that they couldn't trap him, and prise Aohila's true name out of his mind. Failin' that—since he was in Prokep with me—they hit Ernine, tryin' to find the catchbottle, or to take Aohila by main strength, which obviously didn't work. Did they get the mirror?”

“I don't know.”

“It'd pay us to go to Ernine and check. Is Morkeleb nearby?”

“Not that I know of. I think he will be soon. He'll be scrying for me, searching for me.…”

John opened his mouth to ask something, then closed it. Remembering that John's anger at her during the darkness that followed her release from the demon had taken the form of jealousy of Morkeleb, Jenny inquired matter-of-factly, “Is this dragon Corvin nearby?”

John shook his head. “Gone off to the Skerries of Light.” He threw the remains of the trenchers to the mastiffs and carried the cups into the scullery. Worrying still about his feelings, Jenny dipped a jar full of what hot water was left from the copper by the fire, and followed. It was freezing cold in the scullery and dark: she took a rushlight from the box and stuck it into the holder near the sink, and kindled it with a glance. But when John spoke, it was in his usual tone. “Corvin knows the danger he'll be in if Folcalor does break the Henge—he, and the other dragons who were possessed before. They don't miss the demons, as humans do.…”

He paused apologetically, and Jenny made a resigned gesture and a wry smile, not pretending that she hadn't missed Amayon nearly to the point of madness. A rueful glance passed between them, like a mutual head shake and shrug: Goose and gander, love.

“But the demons know their names, which for creatures of magic is dangerous in a different way than it is for us.” He sopped the rag in the hot water, washing the ale-cups while Jenny scooped sand from the bucket to scour the last of the pots. “He's got until the full moon, if Dotys's account of the comet is to be trusted. Say just over two weeks.”

“It is,” said Jenny. “At least, Aohila told me much the same in the catch-bottle, if she was telling the truth. She said the spells work best in the full of the moon. Since they destroyed so many of their soul-crystals attacking the mirror in Ernine, I'm guessing they'll wait until the full moon to try again. It's cutting it close for them, with the Dragonstar growing fainter each night.”

“Damn them.” John hurled his washrag into the basin, the murky light of the dip flashing off his specs. “Brâk warned me about that in the summer. Brâk was the leader of the escaped human slaves who were hidin' out in the Tralchet mines, you remember, when I went callin' on the gnomes up there. Brâk warned me about Goffyer, too—the Lord of the Twelfth Deep, an' a mage who was obviously in league with the demons long before Folcalor took him over bodily. Brâk didn't know what was afoot, but he warned me to fight to the death if Goffyer came at me with opals in his hand.”

“He had a bowl of jewels in my dream.” Jenny shook the scouring sand into a second bucket and wiped out the pots. “Folcalor was driven from Caradoc's body in the sea. He could have used any water as a gate, to get to Goffyer. You say the mages of Prokep were astronomers, who used their own knowledge of the Dragonstar to trap the demons. Some of that knowledge may have remained in the library at Halnath. But if, as you say, the Master has been taken …”

“We'll have to do somethin' about that, yes,” said John. He dried his hands, his eyes bright with a faraway gleam. “But as it happens, we don't need to go up to Halnath to learn about the Dragonstar's nature. I've got notes about the whole thing—what it is, what it's made of, how it works—in me jacket.”

They banked the fire, turned the mastiffs into the yard, and went out themselves, barring the kitchen door behind them. The Dragonstar stood barely visible above the black line of the stable roof, so clear that each of its multiple tails stood out like an infinitely tiny thread of fire. Through Jenny's glove, John's gloved fingers were strong and warm, steadying and reassuring, as if he could support her through flood and fire and world's end. She felt as if she'd come home.

Ridiculous, given the peril they stood in and the horror she was certain they'd have to face. But she wanted to laugh and dance.

“First thing to do is make sure Gar is safe,” said John as they stepped out into the inky lane. “Gar and his daughter, and get Polycarp away from the dungeons … they can't just murder the Master of Halnath in his cell without a major war breakin' out, and I don't think Folcalor's willin' to risk that until he's had a crack at the Henge in Prokep. Though with demons it's hard to tell what they'll do. But those things done—”

“I like the way you say that.”

He shoved her, like a schoolboy nudging a mate, and she shoved him back.

“Those things done, we can see what we can do about finding Corvin, and putting Aohila's name back into your little catch-bottle.”

“If it's Aohila we need most to trap,” said Jenny thoughtfully.

“Who else did you have in mind, love?”

“Folcalor.”

“And wherever are we to get … ?” He thought about it a moment, and said, “Oh, aye. Yes.” That was, Jenny reflected, one of the things she loved most, and had missed most, about John. You didn't need to explain much.

They walked for a time in silence down the lane, the stars of springtide glittering sharp through breaking clouds. “I was afraid for you,” said John out of the dark. “I missed you something desperate, I wanted you … an' you'd have been gie interested in the Hells I saw, an' the Otherworld.… But all the time I kept hopin' you'd be all right. That you'd … that you'd forgive me. Because I did act like a right bastard.”

“You acted like a man who was afraid,” said Jenny softly.

“Afraid? I was dissolvin'! What I don't understand is … and you can tell me this is none of my business if you want to … you said you took on dragon form again, of yourself, with Ian's help, when the demons attacked the Hold.” He stopped in the alley along the stable wall, holding her hands in his. Moonlight glimmered a little on the dirty snow, made silver rounds of his spectacle lenses and diamonds of his breath. “What I don't understand is, why did you come back after that? After what I said, and what I did …”

Jenny put her fingers to his lips. “When I made my choice five years ago—when Morkeleb first offered me the power of dragon form—my choice was a real one. I knew that to be human is to have what humans have, which is the near-certainty of occasional pain. And that there is a kind of pain that comes from loving, that doesn't come from any other thing in the living world. I chose to be human, John, something very few people can truly choose.”

He shook his head and said, “No, love. We all choose it, sooner or late.”

“Maybe,” said Jenny. “But having chosen, I would no more have called on Morkeleb to change me back—to run away from pain—than you would have called on the Demon Queen when you were at the stake. It is not what I am.”

“And what are you, love?”

And she smiled. “What I am.”

Then as they turned to go, Jenny paused in her stride, something catching at her mind, half-remembered like a dropped glove. Something she'd left in the kitchen … done in the kitchen …

She looked straight across the lane at the bare ground of the orchard, at a wisp of the straw someone had unwrapped from around the first of the pear trees and left in a corner in the snow. The straw burst into flames, causing John, a halfpace ahead of her, to whip around, sword in his hand like a conjurer's penny. He looked at the burning straw, looked at her, as she turned her eyes to the yellow flag of fire again and quenched it. Even above the moss-smell and the dung-smell and the piss-smell of the neighborhood, the wisp of fresh smoke was a touch of perfume.

John said, “Ah, love,” and, sheathing his sword, put his two hands on the sides of her face and kissed her again, gentle and deep as the stir of spring beneath winter's ice.

“There's someone there,” whispered Jenny, in the breathsoft murmur of hunters in the Winterlands, whose life depends upon not being heard. Under the sigh of the wind in the pine trees, and the distant sursurrance of the unseen river, this wasn't difficult. She strained her ears, extended her senses toward the dark blot against the dark of the trees. “A woman …”

She made her own heart quiet, listened beneath the soughing of the boughs. Putting aside the voice of the river, and each sound of the still winter night. Scenting the cloaked forms as a fox scents rabbits. “Herbed soap, no perfume. A child is with her, sleeping. Two children.” And whimpering with cold and fear in their sleep.