Everran’s Bane

Sylvia Kelso

Chapter I

Where the dragon came from, nobody knows. It may have flown down from the torrid north, up from the icy south, east across the endless red deserts of Hethria, or west over the bulging blue eyeball of Nerrys’yr, the Peaceful Ocean. Whatever its origins, most people were sorry that it fell upon Everran, which was not only a small kingdom but prosperous, and not only a prosperous land but a contented one. They may have felt such a place should be dragon-proof as well as extraordinary.

As dragons go it was quite ordinary. That is, it was longer than an ocean-going ship, black, mail-clad, claw-toed, fire-breathing, winged, and ravenous. Or silver, fire-breathing, crested with stings, bearing a scorpion’s tail, and ravenous. Or molten gold, crocodile-legged, fire-breathing, winged, clawed, possessing eyes that spellbound its prey before the teeth dismembered him. And ravenous. Always ravenous.

These descriptions come from eyewitnesses, or, at least, those who left at speed from a safe distance. No one close enough for accuracy survived.

Which brings me into this song: my name is Harran, and for three years before the dragon came I was hearthbard to the Everran kings. Being hearthbard, I am naturally a harper, which as naturally means, lore-keeper: the guardian of past and present, to whom truth is a sacred trust. I shall have cause to remember that, before this song ends. But I pledged myself to make it, and the holder of that pledge shall have truth entire and unbroken, however discreditable it proves to me.

My own origins are not a mystery. I come from Meldene, those high western hills where the winds riot and the yeldtar bloom crimson amid the gray rocks and gray hethel trees. People call it a hard country, grudging, dull: but if you pause to watch the sun slide on the hethellin groves, or try to number the subtle shades of gray that play amid the leaves in their twinkling galaxies, you may never crave bright colors again.

Perhaps that vision, like the memory of my parents’ tall, narrow house above the gate in Vethmel, is biased by time as well as miles. After all, it is eleven years since I left for Saphar with a harp under my elbow and a most noble ambition to be the crower of the age, eleven years that have brought me from the carriers’ taverns to the houses of the carriers’ masters, thence to the hethel oil and vineyard owners’ halls, and on to the marble floors and rosewood ceilings of the palace itself. It is a fine palace, despite its oddity. It overlooks Saphar as Saphar overlooks Everran: a thin angular heap of towers and sun-rooms and open audience halls, straggling along the thin high cinnabar scarp from which Saphar falls in rucks of red tile and golden thatch and whitewash to the loop of Azilien, whose clear blue currents girdle the city like a gemstone in a ring.

Curiously for a capital, Saphar itself was a happy town. There were few beggars, except those too lazy to work, and Everran has plenty of work. The soil of Gebria and Tirs and Meldene is too poor for our neighbors to covet, but the vineyards of Stiriand and Saphar and the hethel groves of Meldene demand much labor, and repay in kind. Hethel oil has underwritten half our aristocrats, and our wine is counted the best in the Confederacy. Since our people are too canny to breed big, expensive families, we need not export men, and our lords learnt three generations back to keep their place in things. There were cobbles in the streets, good engineers had arranged the water supply to the many fountains, and the houses rarely fell down, causing lawsuits more often than funerals when they did

I knew little of that when I looked up that first time, pausing on the bridge over Azilien. It was a clear sunset, with a sky like a vast azure bell, making the crimson-shot bulk of the Helkent ranges a mere backdrop for the city beneath. In the elbow-crook of river and range it rose upon its knoll in cornice after cornice of golden light, glossed blue with smoke, edged bright with sunset gilt, buzzing and ringing like a happy human hive. Close by came a cheerful racket from a wayside inn. Higher, a harper was playing in some wine-lord’s feast. Highest of all, silver bells rang out from Asterne’s lookout post, a sweet wind out of the autumn sky. I shifted my father’s harp in its old leather sling, and thought: I shall be a song-king. Here is my inheritance.

If there may be more than one kind of king, there was only one king in Saphar, as Beryx taught me the first time I played for him. It was in the great audience hall, at the feast on Fire’s day. My patron was a high lord, since I was well up my peak by then, and he took me as others took their jesters or jugglers or fire-swallowers: to amuse Beryx, after the lord Iahn had been pledged on His hearth, and the real drinking of the night began.

In such a small capital royalty is not remote. Beryx had crossed my path a score of times, riding out with hawk or hound or border cavalry, banqueting in guildhalls, dispensing justice or inspecting half-built porticoes, overseeing the wine and oil weighed in market when the Confederate traders came. That night in the palace still seems my first real sight of him.

Red light from burning tarsal wood and golden light from pendant hethel lamps overflowed the hall, cascading through open arches into the sky where Valinhynga, the evening’s herald, loveliest of planets, was just pricking through. In Saphar, men dress their halls in air and dress to allow for it. All down the table the lords wore fur-lined jackets and trousers of creamy Quarred wool, with gold chains of office shining over everything. They answered the silver tableware, the ruby glow of wine, the glitter of gems on the ceremonial sword sheaths propped against each chair. But at the table’s head Beryx leant a little aside, chin in palm, elbow on the arm of the king’s seat, and all the light of the hall seemed to gather on his royal crimson cloak, his raven hair, and his long, lazy, twinkling green eyes, that saw so much and made such a joke of it all.

Sea-eyes, the name means, so it was of sea I sang: not Nerrys’yr, the wide blue ocean, but Berfing, the green southern sea where the whalers of Hazghend stain the ice-floes red with blood. Everyone knows that in boyhood he ran away to ship with them. As I sang I could see the royal brooch, a huge circlet of whale-tooth ivory, rich cream upon his crimson cloak.

The lords clapped at the end, in more than courtesy. It made my patron flush. He was high in his clique, and ambitious of climbing higher, and had seen me as a chancy ladder rung. He called to Beryx, “Is he not a prince of harpers, lord?”

Beryx nodded. Then the corners of his long mouth went up, and he drawled, “A prince of harpers, Vellan. But not—yet—a king.”

Though Vellan was a ruddy man I saw his color fade. It was a mere moment, a tiny aside. Yet I, too, saw those eyes were the color of an iceberg’s shadow, and I, too, understood.

Then Beryx looked back to me and smiled, a real smile this time. “Harpers are long-minded in Meldene,” he said. “So, you will find, are kings.”

So I went back to the lords’ halls, and I wrought with my art as vinegrowers do with weeds. And two years later, when the corsairs ravaged Quarred and Beryx took his soldiers down to a great cleansing by the sea, I made a song about newer deeds.

When I finished, he leant back in the high seat and nodded toward the right side of the fire, the place of a hearthbard, which had been empty since his father’s harper Quennis died.

“Bring a seat for the harper, Kyvan,” he told his chamberlain. “He has been standing long enough.”

* * * * *  

The king’s hearthbard is expected to entertain at every banquet, with an endless fund of songs and a fine tact in their choice. He also adorns household ceremonies, from Lords’ days to chambermaids’ betrothals, creates memorable lore from mundanities, and commemorates both his lord’s judgments and his nobility. I had my rank, my bardic lodging, my robes and role to fill. The one flat in the strings, and that an ungrateful one, was within me. Beryx was easy to serve and easier to compliment: in three years I never had to hide one shabby deed. But in those three years I was never more or less to him than a hearthbard, and he was never more or less to me than a king.

Nevertheless, it was as hearthbard that I had attended audience, on that chill spring morning when the first news came. Counselors, messengers, plaintiffs had all come muffled to the eyebrows: I relished the fire near my own ribs. Vast blue gulfs of air spread below us over the slopes of Saphar Resh, which were all that most delicate green of newly burgeoned vines. Trying to catch it in a couple of phrases, I hardly heeded the messenger, till the silence round him made my fumblings over-clear.

“. . . from Pentyr, lord.” A farmer, an ordinary pharr’az, dirty breeches, wide straw hat, wide red face. But the cheeks were drawn in, and shiny with sweat. “Couldn’t find a mirror-signaler nowhere, we thought best to send . . . There’s half a deme of vineyards scorched to ash. ‘N steadings burnt. My neighbor Varn.” He swallowed noisily. “We heard the screams. ‘N Pensal’s gone, lord. That selfsame night. Fire high as the stars . . . Burning. We smelt it on the wind.”

I saw general Inyx’s hand clench upon his sword. He had gone against the corsairs. He knew what such burning meant.

Counselors clucked like hawk-scared fowls. In the high seat, Beryx’s face was hidden from me, but Inyx stiffened when he spoke.

“Pentyr deme burnt. Pensal razed. Where was my lieutenant in the north?”

The farmer rolled his eyes up. Appalled, I saw he had begun to weep.

“Marched out, lord. All t’garrison of Pirlase, ‘n Lyvar at their head. When I left ‘twas three days—three days quiet. ‘N never a man of ‘em come back.”

Inyx’s sword rasped, half-drawn, then driven home into the sheath. Beryx said, “Thank you.” Then, to the chamberlain, “Kyvan, attend this messenger. Counselors, good day.”

Counselors’ mouths opened. Shut. Out they went, and the rest with them. Only Inyx stood his ground.

Beryx left his high seat and paced about. Harper and general, we watched him as he walked, wind fluting the crimson cloak, across the hall and back across, blazing, dulling, from arch to sunlit arch. Tall, and straight as a spearhaft: a kingly king.

Halting, he looked at Inyx: squat, black, gnarled as an aged hethel tree, his calling in his face. Their eyes spoke, an old comradeship.

Beryx said, “Pentyr deme. Half Stiriand Resh.”

I remember finding it odd that Inyx, usually so definite, should seem hesitant, indeed reluctant to speak.

“Lyngthirans,” he growled at last.

Beryx shook his head. “There’d have been some alarm.”

“Quarred, then.”

“Too early. And too far north.”

When Inyx said nothing, he went on, “Pensal sacked. A whole deme burnt in a night. Not an entire army could do that.”

Inyx growled in his throat. Beryx said, “And the Pirlase garrison clean gone. If it were raiders, someone would have got back.”

Not raiders? What else on earth could it be? I looked at Inyx, still mute. Beryx looked too.

Then he said, “You think it is.”

If Inyx did not want to listen, nor did he like what he heard. He shook his head about. Then he burst out, “Why should it be? What’s to say it’s that at all? It could be—”

“It could be what?” He waited. “It could be what, old lad?”

Inyx growled under his breath and tossed up both hands in a surrender long since become habitual. “The Phathos?”

“The Phathos,” Beryx agreed, “first.”

* * * * *

So messengers went to the observatory of the Phathos, the seer of Now, Then, and Soon. And the Phathos, sitting in the high seat with his claw fingers on the carven chair arms and his thin white beard tumbling over the blue velvet gown that hid his thin old knees, closed his eyes and said in his thin high voice, “It is a Skybane. Its name is Hawge.”

Any question of Whence or Why it came or How it might be removed, he declined to hear.

Since the hearthbard is also made free of the king’s presence chamber, I too received that messenger. After he left, Beryx set a foot on the hearth-kerb and stared down into the core of the fire.

“A Skybane,” he said.

On the hearth the coals glared, red as the aura of that word. A Skybane: known in lore if not in living memory, and through that lore they move like baleful meteors. Small matter indeed if it had come down from the torrid north, up from the icy south, east across Hethria, or west over the Peaceful Ocean. It was here. Fabulous, legendary. Crown of scourges, king of catastrophes.

Slowly my training reasserted itself. Harpers are men’s judges as well as their memorials. It was for Beryx to deal with this. It was my part to gauge how he dealt. But within the common urge to refuge with our betters from disaster, within the harper’s scrutiny, rose a small sharp personal interest: now, at last, I would plumb the man under the crown.

He was still gazing into the heart of the fire. The green eyes were cold, but to my astonishment, full of an intransigent mirth. Then his mouth corners went up.

“A dragon,” he drawled. “And in our time. Sad luck—for us.”

“Sad luck?” The last thing I had looked for was frivolity.

He gave me the tail of an eye. Then he said wryly, “Prophets are seldom so . . . concise.”

I gave my opinion of the unhelpful Phathos on my harp. Beryx laughed.

“And its name,” he said, “is Hawge.” His brows knit. “Is there value in knowing that?” Of a sudden he thrust out a foot to hook round a chair and swung himself astride it with elbows on the back as any carrier in a tavern might. Kingship was in his blood. Kingliness he could shed like a cloak.

“What does the lore tell of dragons?” he said.

“There are many songs,” I began.

“Sing them,” he said.

The shadows reversed from east to west while he listened, chin in palms, eyes unwavering upon my face. I sang of the goldsmith who became a dragon when he fell in love with his hoard, and his brother whose greed brought a youth to slay his bloodkin on that golden bed. Of the sea-dragon who ate maidens chained to a rock, slain by the head of a woman whose face turned her beholders into stone. Of the lion-hero who slew the dragon guard upon a tree of golden apples at the Other End of the World, of the fire-breathing monster whose slayer was obliged to ride upon a winged horse. Of the sage who mastered a dragon simply by speaking its name, and the dragon who from vanity showed a spy in its lair, its only chink. Of the bowman who found that chink.

When I finished, Beryx said, “Go on.”

I looked at him. He said, “You know you haven’t sung it yet.”

So I sang of the old king who went out, with nothing but mortal might and valor, to slay a fire-drake and save his land: how the dragon seared his flesh and melted his armor, his horse died, his company fled, and he himself, sore scathed, gave the dragon its death wound and took his own.

I made a cacophony of the final chord. Beryx paid no heed. As the jangle died away, he murmured, “But he saved the land. In the end.”

Then he sat up and began to number briskly on his fingers, showing me how a harper’s vision differs from a king’s.

“Dragons breathe fire and fly. They are so armed and armored, it is an ill march going against them without some great weapon. Of knowledge—or of magic. Which we lack. Or unless you are a hero-god. Which we are not. Their stomachs are bottomless, but they hoard gold: I must visit the Treasury. You can parley with them. We must wait till it lairs for that. They may be mastered by a wizard. Which we also lack. Or . . . by courage alone.”

“What may be done by courage alone?” asked Sellithar the queen, entering from the garden with a swish of silk and a timbre of laughter in her voice.

Sellithar is tall, and fair as Beryx is dark, and comely as women go: but her deep, pure voice is resonant as human harpsong, which is why I have been in love with her since the first word I heard her speak.

“What may be done?” she repeated as we rose. She was smiling, yet her wide blue eyes held a sort of timidness.

“A dragonslaying,” Beryx told her, smiling also, “as demonstrated by the king of the Geats.”

She caught her breath. Her hand caught the band of sapphires at her throat. Faintly, she said, “Oh, no.”

“No?” He was still smiling. “Why not?”

Her pupils widened till her eyes seemed almost black. “You,” she sounded breathless, “are the king.”

Then, at last, I saw the fullness of the threat. Climbing to my eminence, I had never paused to wonder what upheld the world for me to climb, never pondered the nuances of that word “king.” Never thought past the lucky wanderer, the dashing soldier, to the years of trading, building, dealing justice, managing lords and guilds, guarding borders, keeping the Confederacy in tune. Yet each dull daily decision asked as much skill and foresight as that cold glance which had quenched Vellan’s uprising with a look. How often had I heard it, at some insoluble debate in market or quarry or guildhall? “Take it to the king.” It was upon this Everran rested, as upon the harp’s firm arms the fragile strings.

“Starflower,” he was saying, light as ever, “you and my harper are a pair. He’s sung all morning round what any ditch-digger would tell me. And you won’t even think of it.”

When she did not reply, he spoke at last those words I had so sedulously avoided: the first words in dragon-lore.

“A dragon’s coming is a curse upon a land. Unforeseen, but not unearned.”

She looked down on Everran: lovely, carefree, and prosperous. “What has Everran done, to earn a curse?”

He turned his hand out. “You know the saying.”

“Not in Tirs.” She is from Maer Selloth, citadel of Tirs, our southern Resh. The Resh-lord’s daughter. Wed, perhaps, to secure all three.

“Liar.” He was laughing still. “Skybane, king-bane. King-summoned, king-slain.”

Frightened out of respect, I snapped, “If the king is an idiot.”

“Master harper,” he remarked, while I sat gagged by my insolence. He did not seem offended. He was studying the rich, dark beams of the rosewood roof. “Master harper, what do you suppose the Findarre and Kelflase garrisons will say if I send them after Lyvar’s men—alone?”

I retorted with spirit, “That you are a wise general as well as a king.”

He shook his head. “That’s no road for a king.”

“Better,” I lost all prudence, “to fry nobly and leave Everran to the dragon—and to Vellan’s kind?”

He was looking at me as he had at Vellan. He had not moved a muscle, but his pupils had dilated. It was like hurtling headfirst into two black, deadly, sentient wells.

“Harran is right,” Sellithar, invisible, sounded more breathless than ever. “Beryx, he’s right. If you were—what would Everran do?”

My sight returned. The king had looked away. He strode to his high seat and whipped around, fingers white on Everran’s carven crest of the shield and vine.

“This time,” he said balefully, “I shall quote some lore.” He jerked a thumb at Saphar. “Nine kings ago, our founder Berrian turned that from a pit of brigands to a country’s capital. Eight kings ago, his son threw the Hethox out of Gebria and built a wall to keep them out. Seven kings ago, my forefather Berghend ransomed Meldene when he leapt onto the Hazghend spears. Six kings ago, his son met the Lyngthirans in Stiriand and drove them north of the Kemreswash for good. Five kings ago, his son Berazos founded the Confederacy. Four kings ago, his son brought it through the plague. Three kings ago, my longfather taught the Everran lords that a king is not a corsair’s figurehead. Two kings ago, my grandfather built this palace,” his eye softened, glancing up, “after he led Quarred and Estar to burn the corsairs in their ships. One king ago, my father rebuilt Saphar to match, after he steered us through the five-year drought.” His hand clenched on the crest. “Now comes a Skybane. The king of plagues. Up there,” his hand shot north, “are wasted lands, burnt steadings, razed towns. Dead men. Soldiers. And helpless, innocent folk. That is my land! My forefathers’ trust! Do you think that I, a Berheage, will sit like an Estar shophet and watch it butchered before my eyes!”

From the palace garden a black and white eygnor sang liquidly, limpidly, in the hush behind his steps. Then Sellithar said, between tears and laughter, “He always goes where he wants. And you would have to fight, if you did get there first.”

My only answer was in the harp. It grasped a child’s phrase, summoning the apple-buds to Tirs. Sellithar caught her breath. Said, “Help him, Harran,” and went.

* * * * *

A fine parting chord. But how was I to follow it? A harper preserves lore, graces banquets, and soothes unquiet breasts: he does not change the key of kings. But she had asked for Beryx. And it was Sellithar who asked.

The king was in council. I duetted with an eygnor in the sketchy shade of hellien trees where palace garden meets gatehouse bastion, until green gowns filled the gate beneath.

Inyx was making for the armory and merely nodded when I fell into step. He was in haste. I asked, “What does the king plan?” He answered as soldier to soldier: quick, curt, and frank.

“Scouts. Evacuate. Raise the Confederacy. Levy. March.”

“March where?”

His sharp black glance was wholly incredulous. “Stiriand!”

“The king goes himself?”

I got both eyes that time. “What would you think?”

We strode down the walkway past the Stiriann watch-tower, Gebrian and Meldener, short and tall, thick and thin. Looking down on those wide, solid, desert-fighter’s shoulders, I decided to take a chance. “I think—surely, that is general’s work?”

He swung and stopped. He stood four-square, a fire of haste frozen by soldier’s discipline. I half expected a challenge for imputing cowardice, but with same clipped gruffness he said, “Laid me five to one in gold rhodellin you’ll find a prophecy to keep him home.”

I threw up both hands. “If I could!”

He altered neither look nor posture: but his words announced the ally I sought.

“Told him, it’s running the whole phalanx into forceps before he’s set skirmishers. Like his father. If they don’t want to listen—chut!”

“But surely . . .”

“He’s a Berheage. They’re not much at leading from behind.”

He was off again. Keeping pace, I asked, “Inyx—what will it be like?”

His face lost all expression. “You’d know better than me.”

I thought of what I knew. “But—Lords of the Sky, he’ll not take levies against that! Untrained levies—raw Everran farmers—!”

Inyx gave a short grim snort. “Levies are for Saphar. He’s taking volunteers. Three hundred picked volunteers. From the Guard.” I gulped. “Phalanxmen that can ride. I’d be luckier finding teeth on a chicken. But they’ll ride for him.”

There was feeling now: not envy but the rawness of anticipated grief. The thousand Guardsmen, core of Everran’s army, trained, tried, tempered to a single sword-arm, were the pride of Inyx’s heart.

“But surely Estar . . . Hazghend . . .”

“Seen a dragon lately? Their champions’ll be raw as ours.”

“Oh, Four!”

Another snort. “Fine sight we’ll be. No mail, he says. Iron’ll fry you alive. Leather, he says. Bull-hide from toe to crown and round the sarissa hafts. Set of grannies waving fifteen-foot spindles. And archers. In a phalanx. Never led such an abortion in m’ life.” His stride quickened. “‘March in three days,’ he says. I must get on—”

Next morning, down in the marketplace before all Saphar, I watched Beryx seek his volunteers.

The Guard marched in with that concerted thump and ring of perfect unison which only the best troops can achieve: tall stalwart Meldeners, tough lithe Tirianns, squat massive Gebrians, wrestler-built Stirianns, all the weight and muscle and endurance the phalanx demands, a two-hundred-and-fifty file, quadruple column, of shining greaves and mail hauberks and wide-brimmed helmets, their big round shields bearing Everran’s crest. And rippling above like the quills of a deadly porcupine, the sheeny heads and fifteen-foot hafts of the sarissas, the phalanx spears.

Inyx bellowed. Two thousand iron-shod boot-heels crashed. Crashed again. With a halt and half-turn they formed a semi-circle about the auctioneer’s rostrum, just as Beryx ran lightly up its steps.

“You all know,” his voice, barely raised, was clear and carrying as a trumpet call, “there is a dragon loose in Stiriand. Our folk are dying up there. This is not a matter for orders.” A sudden elfish smile. “This is a matter for companions. I am going to meet the dragon. I ask for three hundred volunteers.”

The ranks rippled sharply, once. For an instant I wanted to cover my eyes, not to see his shame. Then I realized the front rank had shrunk their shoulders as if overcrowded, heard the hiss from behind—“Isyk, you great oaf, lemme through!”—and understood.

There were a thousand volunteers.

* * * * *

Slowly I climbed away from the scattering crowd, the carriers’ taverns, the lords’ mansions, the huge spouting serpents of the gate-square fountain, up the zigzag way whose every turn brings your right, unshielded side to the bastions above. Under the massive gate arch built by Berrian, cut with his personal crest: a wide, unblinking, huge-pupilled eye. Up the gatehouse steps. Past the barracks and retainers’ houses, the watch and fighting towers, the armory, halls, garden, royal apartments. Still that unblinking stone stare was on my back. I am a harper, I told it. My task is to preserve lore. To make it is heroes’ work.

The eye did not blink.

I descended the Meldene walkway. The hearthbard’s tower looks to those gray hills from the citadel’s brink: a nice touch, I had always thought. The door opened on my harp, hung in its new cover, marehide stitched with beryl stones to outline the vine and shield in scintillant green fire. Beyond was the great Quarred hanging, miniature gods and heroes in a verdant paradise beneath the smoky-lavender clouds of terrian trees in bloom: my last year’s Fire-feast gift. On the sideboard stood the silver jug and goblets he gave me for that corsair song. The set of ivory tuning keys, the inlaid Hazyk armring, the riot of seven colors in the hearthbard’s ceremonial robe—Enough! I cried, whirling to the window. Sellithar was sitting with her maidens in the tiny pleasance just beneath.

Very clearly, as the door closed, I could recall the flower hues of their dresses, the twinkle of needle and ring, the crisp eucalypt tang of the helliens whose thin shade splashed Sellithar’s hair. She was wearing a coronal for which I once made a song: a play on, “gold and lesser gold, the lesser crowning more.” It ran in my head as I went, searching for the king.

The Treasury is a place I love, not for avarice but because the play of light on precious things is the music of light itself. Everran had its share in those days: gold, silver, gems; gifted, won, inherited. The king stood facing the barred window, the Treasurer at his elbow, and as he turned I recognized what he held.

If nobody remembers Maerdrigg, all Everran knew his maerian. Berrian brought it, to be the pride—some say, the luck—of his house. It is oval, a palm wide, an inch thick at the center, the color of translucent milk: but move it, and the depths prickle into shifting, arrowy, red and golden fire. They say men were and are and will be ready to kill for it. It was also the only gem in Everran’s treasury I had never been able to like.

Beryx had been handling it with something like my own fascinated repulsion, but as he glanced up it vanished in a glint of mirth.

“Master harper.” He acknowledged my bow. His mouth corners puckered. “Have you come to reveal a prophecy, by any chance?”

“Alas, lord,” I answered blandly. “You have lost your bet.”

He laughed outright. “So my old Lockjaw talked at last! What is it, then?”

“It is a favor, lord.” My own voice: why did it sound so strange? “I have come to ask for a horse.”

He grew very still. The quiet of masked regret. Even, possibly, grief. “And, master harper, where do you wish to ride?”

“To Stiriand,” I said.

The Treasurer opened his rheumy old eyes and stretched his tortoise neck. Beryx looked taken aback. Then he said rather hurriedly, “Master harper, I will not hazard you. This is no harper’s work.”

“Permit me a confession, lord.” I kept my tone light. “There is another lore-word I omitted. When the war-lords meet, it says, ‘The bards of the world appraise the men of valor.’ Such a meeting as this, then, is surely harper’s work?”

His eyes narrowed. Then they altered. He handed the maerian away without looking where. “Harran,” he said a little thickly, “you shall have your horse.”

And I went out feeling absurdly pleased for one who has just contracted to commit suicide, because he had never before called me by my name.

* * * * *

From then on Beryx most resembled a whirlwind set on legs: you cannot simply walk out of a kingdom and clap to the door. Message after message went out to call up levies in Gebria, Tirs, and Meldene; to ask help from the Confederacy in Quarred, Estar, Hazghend, and Holym; to summon his uncle as Regent from Aslash; to order urgent evacuation of Stiriand. Nothing mobile would stay in the dragon’s reach. And north, too, went the scouts and mirror-signal relayers who would direct our march.

I had my own kingdom to arrange. My one body servant, used to bards, said calmly, “To meet the dragon. Yes. Will you be taking the great robe?” But there was also my treasury of lore, more precious, more jealously warded than my blood. I spent the next two days feverishly rehearsing my apprentice in the Ystanyrx, the Great Tales, inwardly crying, Why did I do so little? Why did I start so late?

When he was saturated, I said, “Tomorrow, then.” He rose from the window seat, carefully wrapping his harp, a slender, serious lad with deep brown eyes. Almost desperately I said, “Zarrar, you will remember?” And his face broke into its rare, impish smile.

“Have no fear, lord,” he said. “Whatever befalls you, the songs will be sung.”

I was so wrapped in my own affairs that it came as a surprise when the queen’s steward asked me, next morning, to play for her at Ilien’s festival.

Everran honors the Four Sky-Lords without ostentation: people go in their own way and their own time, up to fly Air’s huge gaudy kites atop Asterne’s thousand steps, out on the roads with the saplings to plant for Earth, off to Hazar’s little green plain where bonfires seed the dark for Iahn’s day, and down to the river for Ilien. Descending through the city, Sellithar and her maidens and I swelled a steady stream of families and households, each with the wine-pitcher and the toy boat piled high with Water’s beloved smoky-lavender terrian flowers.

Below us the long narrow parks along the river margin were moving flower beds, and Azilien’s bosom wore a drift of smoke-blue petals and tiny white sails, their progress followed with cries of tension and delight and cheerful woe. If your boat reaches the bridge safe, says Saphar, your wish will return in the coming year. Sellithar’s maidens were merry already. Sellithar, in a smoke-blue smoke-thin gown that honored the Water-lord and made her eyes rival Azilien, was quiet.

As we crossed the springy new grass, she said abruptly, “Beryx was too busy. It’s the first time I’ve been—alone—for Ilien’s day.”

“I remember,” was all I could manage. Being near Sellithar always clogs my tongue.

She glanced east. In the river’s bight, a stand of silver-green morgas trees cupped the white head of the Phathos’ tower.

“Was the Phathos,” she said with the same strained abruptness, “no use?”

“All he told us,” I answered ruefully, “was the dragon’s name.”

“Its name?” Something near horror dilated her eyes. The coronal’s freestanding golden terrian sprays shook above her golden coils of hair, and something squeezed my heart.

“Lady . . . Sellithar.” I hoped she would not catch the interval. “It will never reach Saphar. And if it did . . . the king would have you away long before. He would never risk such a—”

Treasure. What can you say, when every word turns to revelation, or to fulsomeness?

Her hand twitched and jumped on her sapphire collar. She was distressed for some hidden thing, and I knew it. And it was not my place to comfort her.

“Lady,” I said, “shall we trust it to Ilien?”

So at the water’s brink I sang the slow, sinuous Ilien’nor, while Yvalla poured the wine, slowly, gracefully, its red thinning and coiling away into the pellucid stream. Then, more graceful than the falling wine, Sellithar knelt to launch the boat.

The water cradled it: a propitious breath of westerly plumped the sail. It glided away. At such times a ninety-year-old can be only nine. Yvalla and her fellows jumped squeaking up and down, gasped, cheered in relief, and so did I. Sellithar stood rigid, eyes fixed painfully on the dwindling shape.

It neared the bridge, one among a flotilla converging on the pier eddy, Yvalla was running deer-like for a closer lookout—and the wind changed.

Like a slap it backed to the north: a vicious gust scourged the river-face. The tiny sails jerked aback, entangled, capsized. As the gust fled away, the bridge-arch swallowed a drift of pathetic debris and a trail of drowning flowers.

Sellithar went so white I almost dared to catch her arm. “No,” she said faintly. “I am well. Thank you, Harran. No. I can walk alone. Only . . . only . . . I think we will go home now.”

* * * * *

Ilien’s day falls on a full moon, which left the eygnors wakeful as I. I tracked the lattice shadow, dismembered the bed: hated birds’ effortless mastery. Then surrendered, took harp and cloak and went out into the noon of night.

South-east of my tower a tongue of garden slants down from the royal apartments to the deep-cut stair of a ancient postern gate. The garden was afloat, ethereal, the loftiest terrians reduced to pure line and shadow, a painter’s sketch in an unpaintable light, but the air was rich. Dewy grass, tang of helliens, honey breaths of norgal tree blossoms, mingled with a drift of pure wizard’s spice: a rivannon tree, thick with sprays of brown and yellow flowers. In its shadow I sat down, tuned, and waited for music’s release. But the spell was never realized.

Someone was trying to take a mule through the postern gate.

I heard the obstinate clatter and snort. Breathless mutters: a muffled clang as the iron wicket swung shut. Moonlight showed me the tall ears, the obstinately humped quarters: a swathed head, skirts.

“You really should know better,” I said, coming along the wall, “than to try that with a mule. Especially at night.”

The mule cracked its nostrils, the driver choked a shriek. I just caught the halter in time to prevent a bolt. The mule skittered, trembling. The woman faltered, “I could not—there was no other way.” There was no way of disguising that harpsong voice.

“Sel—Lady,” I said. “Where—why—what in the Four’s name are you doing here,” I took in her coarse clothing, “like this?”

The over-tuned string broke. Dropping back against the wall, she buried her face in her hands and burst into such a spasm of sobs as almost tore me apart. I could not release the mule, I dared not embrace the queen. Another rescued us both.

“Sellithar.”

The mule’s ears flickered and relaxed. The queen fell forward to that quiet, all-sufficient voice.

“What is it, clythx?”

It means, Heart. And he said it with such tenderness.

The sobs died away. The queen rested in his arms as in sanctuary: but the note in that pure voice was defeat.

“I was going away. To Stiriand.”

Beryx did not stiffen. And only I could see his face.

“But clythx . . . why?”

“Because,” another stifled sob, “I asked Ilien . . . and the ship sank. Before the bridge.”

I would have cried, Will you augur from such child’s omens as that? Beryx knew better. Kindly, gravely, he persisted, “But clythx—why Stiriand?”

I made to shift the mule. He gave his head a violent shake. Within his arms, that pure voice spoke with a rending despair.

“To find the dragon,” it said.

I think I froze. Certainly, I could not believe my ears. Beryx sounded carefully casual.

“Surely, clythx, a king and three hundred guardsmen can deal with that?”

“But the curse is my fault,” said the hidden voice. “It has been my fault these last five years.”

The eygnors caroled on, heart-whole, oblivious. The mule hove a bored sigh. Very slowly Beryx freed a hand, cupped her chin, and lifted her face to his.

“Clythx?” The quiet had changed. Now it chilled my spine. “Who has made you think a queen must breed like a carrier’s mare?”

She merely shook her head.

I saw his shoulders straighten. When he spoke, his voice had changed again. Steady. Deliberate. Accepting more than the role of comforter.

“Clythx . . . remember the lore. If it was that which—brought the curse—a dragon is summoned by the king.”

I must have jerked the lead-rope, for the mule flung its head up and his voice changed in a flash.

“Now Harran shall stable your nag and you can take off those abominable clothes and we’ll all forget this,” I felt his eye on me, “and go where we ought to be: home in bed.”

He turned her about in his arm, and they walked away, her head against his shoulder, his arm tight about her waist. Left with the mule and the moonlight, I tried to feel thankful, and could find only an ache that overrode the too explicable dread. For we both needed comfort, and she had taken it: but the comfort she had taken was not mine.

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© 2005 Sylvia Kelso

First published by FiveStar Books