Ширли Мерфи - The Dragonbards

Chapter 5

The dark captains move into the villages two and three at a time to take control, warping minds with their dark powers and with drugs, molding willing slaves. In the cities their manipulations are more intricate, as they win the allegiance of kings .

*

Teb touched the lyre’s strings again. All faces were turned to him, solemn and expectant. He slapped the silver strings so the lyre’s music raged, summoning wild winds and thunder across Stilvoke Cave. He brought to the young dragon’s sleeping mind the power of dragons, the fearsome passion of dragons, and their tangled past.

When he let the lyre’s music quiet to a rhythm like pounding blood, he brought a vision of a dragon nest cradled by mountain winds, where sky-colored eggs reflected clouds, and where dragon babies shattered their shells and pushed up toward the welcoming sky—but suddenly the lyre’s voice died, sucked away to silence beneath Teb’s hands.

The cave was silent. Only the echo of the lyre’s voice clung.

Still the dragonling did not stir. But Teb could feel a change in her, subtle as breath, and knew the lyre’s power had drawn her back from the thin edge of dying. Her body seemed rounder, and her white scales had begun to shine with iridescent colors. Marshy stroked and stroked her, murmuring and calling to her. King Flam began, again, to feed her.

Suddenly she moved one forefoot.

But then she was still again, though she began to swallow alone, without the need for magic. Teb stared down at the small ivory lyre. Had he used up all its strength? Kiri laid her hand on the warm ivory, her eyes questioning him. He touched one string.

Silence.

King Flam said, “The flaw is in the ivory, young bards. Do you not know that? It renews itself only slowly.”

Teb stared at him. “How could you know such a thing?”

King Flam smiled. “When you first found the lyre, Prince Tebriel, when you broke the spell that hid it, all Tirror knew once again of its existence.”

“Even so, how could you know something we did not?”

“Has not much of your knowledge been destroyed by the dark powers, Tebriel?”

“It has.”

“The dark was surely disturbed when you broke the spell on the lyre. It cannot be pleased that you now wield the lyre’s power. I expect the dark unliving would make every effort to destroy your knowledge of the lyre’s one flaw. Would it not?”

“But you . . .”

“The dwarf nation is an ancient family, Prince Tebriel. It was our own dwarf ancestor who carved the lyre from the claws of Bayzun.”

“You descend from the line of Eppennen?”

“We do. And our knowledge of the lyre, once that knowledge was returned to us, is quite complete.”

Teb tucked the lyre back inside his tunic, cursing the dark that confused the bards’ own rightful knowledge. “Will you tell us how you found the dragonling?” he asked.

“We were fishing,” King Flam said. “When we came around a bend in the cliff, she was thrashing and struggling across the ice. Her face was smeared with blood, and the dead seal lay next to her, half eaten. We had seen her often in the sky, with her brothers and sisters. We knew the dark soldiers searched for them.”

“Quazelzeg’s soldiers,” Teb said.

King Flam nodded. “Quazelzeg keeps a disciple to practice his evil in this land, but the man is a dull creature. When Quazelzeg wants something particular, he sends his own troops. It is Quazelzeg’s ships that search for the young dragons. Surely it was they who left the poisoned seal—surely they who killed this dragonling’s nestmate.”

Teb’s hand paused in midair.

“Killed . . .” Kiri said. “Oh, no . . .”

King Flam nodded. “There were six dragons in the clutch. Three females, three males.” He spoke softly, watching Teb, then returned to the rhythm of ladling. “One female was hunted down some months ago by Quazelzeg’s soldiers. They caught her in the swamp south of Stilvoke. They . . . beheaded her.”

Kiri gasped.

“A trophy for Quazelzeg, I suppose. My folk found her body by a lake in the marsh when they were dragging for crayfish. The land is warm there, heated by the volcano. It is a place that would appeal to dragons. Her wings were broken; she could not have flown from her pursuers.”

Kiri turned away, sick.

“They will pay for it,” Teb said. “We must get the other dragonlings to safety. Two bards are searching for them now, up the coast.”

“The young dragons like to hunt up the coast around the otter colony of Cekus Bay.”

“A nation of otters!” Teb said.

“Yes, the otters are good folk. We visit them often. Their waters around Cekus Volcano are warm, the fishing rich. But those waters are shark filled, too. The otter nation is pleased to have the young dragons hunt the predators.”

“I lived with the otters of Nightpool for four years,” Teb said. “They took care of me when my leg was shattered and my memory gone. They raised me, taught me. They are like my own kin.”

King Flam motioned for another pot of gruel. “How did you end up there? What happened to you? We knew that your father, the King of Auric, was murdered.”

Teb nodded. “By a trusted officer, a captain named Sivich. I was seven, my sister, Camery, was nine. Sivich’s men held us, made us watch him kill our father.

“After that, I was kept chained as a palace slave for five years. Camery was kept locked in the tower.

“But when Sivich learned that a dragon had been seen on Tirror, he decided to capture it, using me as bait. He knew I was a bard though I myself did not know. He saw the dragon mark on my arm. He thought the dragon would come to me. He built a gigantic cage of felled trees and barge chain and chained me inside it.”

The dwarfs had pushed close around Teb, to hear the tale.

“I escaped in the midst of battle between Sivich and the rebel leader, Ebis the Black. The dragon herself burned the chains that held me. A soldier pulled me up onto his horse, but his horse was shot and fell on us. The soldier was killed, my leg was broken, and I got a blow on the head.

“I lay in the marsh unconscious until two roving otters found me. They took me on a raft around the coast, to Nightpool. They set my leg and doctored me when I nearly died from fever. They were very patient, as patient as otters can be. I could remember nothing, not even my name.”

“They are good folk,” King Flam repeated. “I imagine they taught you many of their ways.”

“They taught me to dive deep and long and bring up abalone,” Teb said, smiling. “They taught me many secrets of the sea and many ways that I value.

“They taught me to eat raw fish, too,” he said, laughing. “Your roasting rabbit smells better.” He took the weight of the gruel pot from a dwarf and looked around the cave. “There is a strength in this cave, King Flam. A sense of protection and peace.”

King Flam nodded. “There are three sanctuaries on this continent, Prince Tebriel. This one is Mund-Ardref.”

Once, before the dark unliving invaded Tirror, the cave sanctuaries had been meeting places that brought humans and dwarfs and the speaking animals together in an easy, loving companionship. On the walls of many of the sanctuaries were pictures of the speaking foxes and otters and wolves, the great cats and the speaking owls, and the unicorns—for unicorns had roamed Tirror then, practicing a gentle, healing magic. The dark had driven them all out. It had destroyed the comradery of the sanctuaries and disrupted the nations of speaking animals, so that they hid themselves. Humans had grown sour and afraid, and some had grown obedient to the dark.

There were no pictures in Mund-Ardref, but the walls were carved into shelves crowded with clay bowls and jugs, and into alcoves that held small beds cozy with bright weavings and thick blankets and pillows. The tables and stools were simply made, from stone. It was a comfortable place.