Ширли Мерфи - The Dragonbards

“No one is completely ready to do that, Kiri. But now, all of Tirror will follow him, to confront those on Aquervell.” Cannery’s green eyes were filled with resolve. “It is time. Teb has made it so. And perhaps our mother has, too.”

Within an hour, the bards and dragons were in the sky, lifting above banks of gray cloud. Below, the march north had begun, flowing out of Auric’s palace and villages, and from the palace at Ratnisbon, gathering more strength as it moved north. Perhaps no one could put logic to this sudden swelling movement, but already it was inevitable and fierce. The dragonbards meant to free all who might join it.

Camery and Marshy moved to the west, bringing song and freedom to the outer islands. Colewolf and Aven followed to the east, touching the larger countries. Kiri and Darba and the two riderless dragonlings moved up through the center of the island mass. Below them the marching numbers swelled as the bards and dragons freed more and more of Turor’s peoples, waking slaves in a sudden all-out attack on the remaining pockets of darkness. Those slaves turned on their masters and killed them. Everywhere, they were joined by the speaking animals. Off the eastern coast, otters flashed through the green waters, led by the two white otters, moving resolutely and unswervingly north.

Thakkur forged on, grimly cleaving through the sea’s swells. He had done all he could. His love was with Teb, his caring and his deep prayers. He felt certain that they approached the last battle, and he knew a dread he did not speak of, a private sadness.

Chapter 25

As Sharden fell from a city of vivid life to a prison of despair, so all Tirror now follows.

*

Teb and Seastrider crossed over the last islands just at dusk and made for the Aquervell shore, dropping low over cadacus fields that grew along the coast. The city of Sharden rose beyond the fields, a tangle of close, narrow streets running at all angles and crowded with shacks and stone mansions pushing against one another. The city was built along and over three rivers, its seventeen bridges each crusted with houses and shops divided by a narrow cobbled lane. On a hill apart from Sharden stood Quazelzeg’s castle, a fortress of dark-gray stone.

Sharden had once been the jewel of Tirror. It was the center where all craftsmen had come to study, to trade, to celebrate and feast. The shops had been filled with wares wrought half with skill and half with magic cloth of gold reflecting distant visions, kettles of copper that could brew an ambrosia of healing, bridles that could immediately gentle the wildest colt. That magic was gone now; the city was a morass of dirty streets and bawdy houses and drug dens and theaters where a night’s entertainment watching unspeakable tortures could be had for the price of a new victim—a child or small animal.

Seastrider circled high above the clouds until nighttime. When they could not be seen, she dropped down to a rocky hill beyond palace and city, where she could lie hidden among jutting boulders. From here Teb could see the palace and the guards pacing atop its wall.

He ate a simple supper of dried meat and bread, wondering if he should slip into the palace when most of its inhabitants slept, to find the gold Door. Perhaps that would be the easiest way through into the Castle of Doors. There were two such Doors, far from the Castle of Doors but opening into it by spells. Meriden had gone through the other Door, in the sunken city, to move through warping space into the Castle of Doors and so into other worlds. If Meriden had been able to move through that Door, surely he and Seastrider could enter through this one.

The other way would be to fly north over the mountains until they saw the castle as they had seen it in Meriden’s vision—but the gold Door was so near. Surely he could get to it unseen when the palace slept.

“And how would I get into the palace, Tebriel? How would I squeeze myself into palace chambers, to reach the gold Door? No, Tebriel. Not possible. We must go over the mountains.”

“Yes, all right,” he said, keeping his own counsel. “But tonight we must rest. It was a long journey from Auric. You flew against heavy winds.” Strangely, now that he was here, he was not ready. Something held him back. He wondered if Meriden’s will held him . . . not before you are ready. Take care. . . .

Seastrider looked at him uneasily. Yet if he wanted sleep, so be it. She curled down between the boulders, to rest and keep watch. He lay down against her.

He could hear, from the city, the faint sounds of horses and wagons, doors slamming, and scattered shouts. When it grew late, the shouts increased, mixed with harsh music. The city drew him, with its tangle of narrow streets and of different peoples. He turned over, away from it, and at last he slept.

He woke to far, raucous laughter and the terrified screams of a child. He sat up and didn’t sleep any more.

Near to midnight, a coach arrived at the palace from the east, its six horses gleaming with sweat in the torchlight. Soldiers snapped to attention, and servants backed away in deference as a tall, hunched figure stepped out—a figure that struck terror into Teb.

As he watched Quazelzeg enter the palace, Teb’s urgency to go through the Doors faltered again. By the time the palace quieted and lamps were snuffed, he had worked himself into a turmoil of doubt.

Quite late, he began to see snatches of vision.

He saw Meriden. All around her swirled dimensions ever changing—meadow, wood, hellfire, stars, swamp, blackness. He saw a cave that was a dragon’s tomb, the giant white skeleton looming, and, afraid, he turned away from it. He wandered through shifting worlds stumbling and confused.

But slowly the confusion left him. The hunger that Quazelzeg had planted through drugs and mind warping grew bold. He began to lust for the drugs, to need them, and to hunger for the powers the drugs would give him.

Those powers, he thought with sudden understanding, were powers he could use to drive the dark out, not to help it—if he was clever.

If he was canny, he could outsmart Quazelzeg. With the powers the drugs gave him—powers Quazelzeg had meant him to use for the dark—he could defeat the un-man. With those terrible powers he had touched when he lay in Quazelzeg’s palace, he could control Tirror and control everyone in it. And then, instead of helping the unliving, he would force every soul upon Tirror to rise against the unliving and drive the dark out.

How simple. And how foolproof. He had only to make Quazelzeg think he had turned to the dark.

When he had such power, he would permit only goodness upon Tirror. Hadn’t Thakkur himself said, I have—faith in you, Tebriel—in your goodness, in your ultimate good sense.

His need to control was different from Quazelzeg’s greed for control. He, Tebriel, wanted only to save Tirror. He needed the drugs to strengthen his powers—he would take of the powers of the unliving and join them with his own powers, and thus make himself invincible.

He would save Tirror.

He would find drugs easily in Sharden, on any street corner. He was completely caught in the brilliance of his plan, when suddenly Seastrider struck him across the face, knocking him backward. He stared at her, shocked.

“He steals your soul, Tebriel! He takes your soul from you!”

“He does nothing of the kind! What’s the matter with you?”

“He is sending visions to destroy you! He is drawing your mind into the darkness!”

“His thoughts are not touching me! Leave me alone!”

Seastrider reared over him. Her power hit him like a storm; her eyes blazed as she sought to destroy Quazelzeg’s hold. She breathed out fire and cuffed him, and drove him up the hill farther from the city and palace. He could not use a sword against her any more than he could thrust it through his own body. She cornered him among boulders. He fought her with his bard powers, defying her with a fury he had never imagined he would feel for her. But for every movement he made, she bested him. She would not let him leave the hill.