Ширли Мерфи - The Dragonbards

“The conch held a vision,” Hanni said. “I was seeing so strong a vision, I didn’t hear anything. I heard a little rustling noise once, as if someone was there. I didn’t pay any attention.

“When I came out of the cave, the bay was so silent. I didn’t hear the voices of my family. There was no laughter, no shouts about what fine fish folk had caught. They—” Tears flowed. Hanni pressed his face into Kiri’s shoulder.

“There was blood in the sea. Dead bodies everywhere. The dark ship was just disappearing around the end of Sitha. I stood looking. I knew I must go out there to see if anyone was alive. I went toward the water. They—the dark unliving—had not all gone. One of the dark creatures grabbed me. . . .”

The rest of Hanni’s tale was of torture. Small tortures, Hanni called them, because they didn’t want him too injured.

“They wanted me to take them where I had gotten my worry shell. They thought there were more like it. They didn’t want me all broken; they wanted me to lead them there and to dive for the conch.” He looked up at Teb. “The dark unliving want visions; they want the power of visions.

“They tried to make me bring a vision in my shell. They knew I could. I wouldn’t,” he said stubbornly. “They tried to make me use it to tell where the dragons were.” Hanni stared at them. “That was why they came to Cekus, to find the young dragons. When—when no otter would admit they knew dragons, the un-men killed them. Then they thought the shell could tell them.

“When one of them touched my shell, he backed away. None of the others would touch it. One lifted it from me with the tip of his sword while they held me down. They tried to make me tell how much of the vision-making was my power and how much came from the shell. I don’t know which is which. I wouldn’t tell if I did.”

“Maybe it’s all your power,” Teb said.

Hanni shook his head.

“Have you ever brought visions with another shell?”

“Yes. But not as clear as with the conch. It was a rare one, a golden conch. My uncle brought it up from the sea bottom before I was born. He found the chain in the sea. He threaded it through the conch. When I was born white, he knew the conch was for me. When I was big enough, he put it around my neck.

“Now,” Hanni said, “now it’s at the bottom of the marsh, all burned.”

“Are there other ships?” Teb said. “Did they mention other ships traveling with them?”

Hanni shook his head. “They seemed to be all alone.” He began to shake again. Kiri cradled the small otter in her arms, and the dwarfs made murmuring noises. King Flam reached to stroke the little creature.

“You can stay here,” the dwarf king said. “You can live with us, and you will be our own child.”

Hanni cried all the harder.

“That is kind,” Teb said. “Or perhaps Hanni will decide to join the otter nation at Nightpool. There is a white Seer there. Thakkur could be his teacher.”

Hanni stiffened.

Flam said, “Yes, perhaps he should be among his own people. If he has skills that can be used against—”

“It was Thakkur!” Hanni cried. “His name—the white otter I saw in vision when . . . before they captured me. It was Thakkur. He is in danger—his whole island is in danger.”

Chapter 9

There is an island off the coast of Auric where the speaking otters live in secrecy. I do not talk of it, or go there, for I fear some spy within our own palace might find it. But I am warmed to know of it.

*

Teb held the white otter’s shoulders. “What else did your vision show, of the danger to Nightpool?”

“I saw armies on the mainland. Soldiers were looking toward the otter island and sharpening weapons.”

“Has it already happened? Or is it a vision of the future?”

“I don’t know—I can’t be sure. I felt mostly their hatred. I—I couldn’t see any more.” Tears threatened again. The little otter was all worn out. Camery and Kiri fed him more fish soup, then took him away to tuck him down in one of the sleeping alcoves, covered with warm blankets. Teb heard them singing to him.

He knew they must go at once. Perhaps only they knew of this, through Hanni’s vision. Perhaps only they could save the otter nation.

But how could they travel? Iceflower was not strong enough for the journey of a day and a night across the sea. And they must take Hanni with them, yet Hanni, too, was weak. But Teb felt strongly that Hanni belonged with Thakkur—if Thakkur was still alive.

That thought tore at him, sickening and infuriating him.

Marshy tugged at Teb, staring up, the little boy’s gray eyes serious. “Iceflower will be strong enough. You can’t leave us. And I won’t leave her. She flew today, Tebriel. She is getting well.”

We must go together, Colewolf said. It is the very young, Tebriel, who carry the spirit the dark fears most. We cannot leave them.

“We’ll go together,” Teb said. There was nothing else to do. It was too dangerous to leave the dragonling here—the dwarfs could not protect her. They must leave Yoorthed together.

The dwarfs were already packing food and filling the bards’ waterskins. The dragons went quickly to make a meal of shark and returned with a rich catch of salmon for the dwarf nation. It was the only gift the bards were able to leave, except for their gratitude and affection.

The bards had a hurried meal. Camery tucked the sleeping otter into the sling, they thanked Flam and the dwarfs, and mounted up. They lifted quickly, heading east. Snowblitz and the three young males moved out fast, but Iceflower and the older dragons paced themselves against the hard journey ahead. As they swung over the edge of the land, they watched for ships. The dragonlings swept up and down the coast looking, but the sea was empty.

Once they were away from land, the wind blew so cold, their eyes watered and their faces went numb. The young dragons flew close around Iceflower, to shelter her. Her stride was not strong, and near to noon she began to fly unevenly, dropping toward the waves. The dragons settled onto the sea so she could rest. It was not good to be still on this sea; they had hunted huge shark here. Iceflower slept, her wings against the water for balance, her head tucked down on her shoulder. The other dragons swam in a circle around her, the sea crashing up their sides. Teb waited with ill-concealed impatience.

Kiri said, “Maybe she’ll be stronger once she’s rested.” She studied Teb’s lean face, red from the icy wind. His urgency to move on unsettled her. “Will you tell me about Nightpool? Will you tell me what it’s truly like? Not from bard memory, but—but the way you feel about it.”

He looked back at her, half irritated, half touched. It was a painful time to think about Nightpool—yet he couldn’t stop thinking about it, seeing the island empty, seeing empty caves and blood staining the black stone cliffs.

“Please, Teb, tell me . . . how it was for you, growing up there.” She watched him, saw him ease.

As the dragons rocked close together in the sea, Teb took Kiri’s mittened hand and made a song of vision. He showed her Nightpool’s hidden valley in the center of the island, with its secret blue lake where the otter babies learned to swim. He showed her the caves carved by the sea into the black stone rim of the island, and inside the caves, the otters’ sleeping shelves and the shelves they had carved to hold their sea treasures. He showed her his own cave, his gold coins and rare shells that he had found on the sea bottom, diving with the otters, and the warm gull-feather quilt that Mitta had woven for him. He showed her Mitta, as the little pudgy otter doctored him and changed the clay dressing on his broken leg.