Deverry - A Time Of War Part 17

'Do you enjoy it when you fly?' he remarked.

'I do, at that. It's a glorious feeling.'

'I rather thought you would, knowing you as I do. If ever there was a soul born to fly free, it would be you.'

'You can still charm a la.s.s's heart, can't you, Rhoddo? Or an old woman's. Come sit down.'

'Shan't, if it's all the same to you. Not there, anyway.'

She laughed with a toss of her silver hair.

'Well, mock me all you like, but I've never fancied being up this high. Climbing the Cann.o.bacn light used to turn my guts, not that I would ever have admitted it then, back when I was young. Besides, if [ should fall, I couldn't sprout wings to catch myself like you can.'

'Well, then, we'll have to get you the loan of a pair. That's why I wanted to talk with you, in fact.'

'Oh ye G.o.ds! What now?'

'How gracious you sound.'

'It's enough to drive a man daft, having sorcerers jest with him.'

'Why do you think I'm jesting?'

'Well, all this talk of wings, of course.' He stopped, suddenly wondering if he should be afraid.

'Not a jest at all. It has to do with that word graved inside your ring.'

Reflexively he held up his right hand, and the silver band flashed on the third finger.

'Arzosah Sothy Lorezohaz.' Jill formed each word carefully. 'As far as I've been able to figure out, that's how you should p.r.o.nounce those written characters, and the p.r.o.nouncing of them is truly important. Your life's going to depend upon it.'

'What? What is it, some kind of spell?'

'It is and it isn't. It's a name, but a name that's a spell by its very nature. The name gives you control over the owner of the name, you see.'

'I don't see anything of the sort, my thanks. Who owns it?'

'A dragon, as a matter of fact.'

Rhodry started to laugh, but she looked at him so mildly, so blandly, that his mirth spilled and ran.

'There's no such thing as dragons,' he snarled. 'Except the kind they have in Aberwyn, pretty pictures to put upon a banner or a bit of jewellery.'

'Not true, Rhoddo, not true. Up in the Roof of the World there are a few, a very few, of the great wyrms, living in solitude, and they're much like the legends and bard tales paint them, too. Or so I have it on the very best authority.'

'Now wait a minute. Whose authority?'

'Er, well.'She glanced away in faked indifference. 'Evandar's.'

'Ye G.o.ds! That crazed creature? How by all the h.e.l.ls and their privies can you trust one word of what he says?'

'I had a feeling you were going to be difficult about this.'

Rhodry snorted profoundly and began pacing back and forth, his hands shoved into his brigga pockets.

'Will you listen to me?' she snapped.

'I'm listening. Spout away. The bard here's a melancholy man, and I could use a good jest.'

He heard her make a sound that was almost a growl.

'Still' as pigheaded as always, aren't you?' she said at last.

'I'm pigheaded? You drag me up here and start telling me crazed tales, and then when I don't hang on every word like a truckler you call me pigheaded.'

'Well, maybe I've been a bit unfair.'

It was his turn to growl 'Will you stop pacing like that? You're driving me daft.'

With a melodramatic sigh he sat down on the roof near her feet.

'Very well. Talk away.'

'I'll try to make things clear. You remember your father's tale, that a mysterious being gave him the ring, announcing that it was for one of his sons Well,' that person was Evandar in disguise. He's the one who graved the name into the ring, because of a vision he had.'

'And can we believe a word of anything Evandar tells us?'

She considered this question seriously.

'I think we can in this case. Besides, Meer's told me much dragon lore, and it matches what Evandar says. They can think and speak, and they put great store in their names. They believe that if a man knows their true name, he controls them.'

'I'm not sure if I trust Meer any more than I do Evandar.'

'Well, he's the only loremaster we've got who knows one wretched thing about dragons.'

'I suppose so. Do you think that's true, about the name controlling them?'

'It doesn't matter if it is, so long as they believe it.'

'Sounds a risky thing to me, frankly, hoping they'll believe when the least thing could prove them wrong.

But now wait. I don't understand. Why is the dragon so important?'

'Evandar had a vision. He saw the beast guarding Carra's child once it was born, and helping Dallandra in her work, and then at length guarding the ruins of a city he thought to be Rmbaladelan. So he found the dragon of his vision and wheedled its name out of it, somehow or other. I don't know he managed, but he did.'

'Oh very well. Suppose I accept that. Suppose, for the sake of argument alone, that he did indeed have the vision, find the wyrm, and grave its name on this convenient little bauble. Why give the ring to me?'

She tilted her head to one side and considered him for so long that he began to feel uneasy.

'I'll answer that if you wish,' she said at last. 'If you truly truly wish it, Rhodry, I will answer. But I warn you, the answer will tear the way you think about the world into pieces, and the way you look at your life and at other's mens lives as well.'

He got up and began pacing again, back and forth. To the south the hills dropped away to farmland and the settled kingdoms that had bounded his whole life. To the north he could sec with his half-elven sight to a far horizon where hovered white peaks, whether only clouds or the actual mountains he couldn't tell, but a promise of the Roof of the World, The view was beautiful, even alluring, calling him, daring him, even, to risk that distant height. He could climb another height, this one of the soul, if he dared. All he had to do was ask. She would answer. He spun round to find Jill waiting, her hands patient in her lap. All he had to do was ask, 'You want me to go hunt this dragon,' he said instead.

She smiled, and the moment broke between them.

'Not to kill it or suchlike. To find it and get it onto our side.'

'And how do you expect me to that?'

'By talking it round. Meer swears up and down that the great wyrms all speak Elvish.'

When he rolled his eyes heavenward in disgust, she growled again. He laughed.

'And will you be coming with me?'

'I can't. I've got to stay with Carra, for one thing, and for another, there's trouble brewing here.'

He strode back to the north side of the roof. Far away the white glimmerings of mountains danced on the horizon.

'Jill, I've always been a warrior, whether it's been as an honoured lord in Aberwyn or a road-filthy silver dagger. In all the battles I've ridden I've never faced a man stupid enough to call me a coward. You know that, and you know it isn't fear that's making me hesitate now. The thing is, what do I know of wild country? Ye G.o.ds, all my fighting's been done in armies, with supply trains right at hand. I'm no trapper or forester, to go tramping off through the woods looking for some wild beast.'

'Now that, alas, is true-spoken.'

He walked over to the wall and forced himself to look down. Far below the stable-yard lay tiny, with horses the size of cats and grooms like mice. For a moment he wondered what it would be like to swoop down, free for one glorious moment before the cobbles brought him death. He made himself look up.

'I can see why you didn't want anyone overhearing this story.'

'For fear they'd think I'd gone mad?' Jill sounded amused. To tell you the truth, Rhoddo, I'm rather surprised at myself for believing what Evandar says, but you see, it makes sense of a lot of things I've learned for myself, ties them all up. You will go fetch the dragon, won't you?'

'How can I promise you that? I'll certainly go try.' He grinned at her. 'Try with all my heart and soul, because it seems a fine way to court my Lady Death, if naught else. But to promise you that I'll succeed would be a stain upon my honour and a waste of breath both.'

'True enough. You have my heart-felt thanks.'

She stretched, cat-lazy in the warm sun, smiling a little, human again for that brief moment - until he realized how casually she took his talk of his Lady Death, as if she knew perhaps better than he did how close his suit was to a successful outcome. He hesitated on the verge of asking outright, but she turned away, her smile fading, to look across the uneven rooftop.

'There's somewhat that I've got to teach you,' she said. 'But I'm afraid of being overheard, no matter where we go in the dun, even up here.'

'Is it as secret as all that?'

'Well, it is and it isn't. Every priest in the kingdom knows how to do this, but I don't want the wrong people knowing you know.'

'That doesn't make much sense.'

'It aches my heart to say this, but from now on, I fear me that not much of what I say is going to make a cursed lot of sense. But for the love of every G.o.d, trust me enough to do what I say. Can you do that, Rhoddo? Will you?'

'I'm naught but a silver dagger, riding at some other man's command. Lead away, cadvridoc, and I'll do my best to follow.'

She smiled, but briefly.

'Well and good, then. Sit down, will you? If we had time, I'd explain everything, but we don't, and so you'll have to learn this by rote. Meer's lore insists that speaking a dragon's secret name gives you power over the beast, and Evandar swears up and down that the name inside the ring's absolutely correct. But you can't just say it out like you'd say any name - oh Jill is that you - or suchlike. Or even like you'd say the king's name, all proper and full of courtesy. There's a dweomer way of p.r.o.nouncing these things, and you've absolutely got to have it down right. If you don't, and you do face this creature, it's most likely going to kill you.'

'I somehow guessed that.'

'You don't have to yell and scream, mind, but you've got to bring the sound up from your very heart and soul and make it vibrate like a loosed bowstring. First you breathe very deeply and slowly, to fill your lungs and steady yourself down, then you bring the sound out.' She paused, thinking hard. 'I can't describe it in words. I'll have to show you, but ye G.o.ds, I don't want anyone hearing!'

'We could ride out to the countryside?'

'I don't dare leave the dun, either. Of course, if a thunderstorm or suchlike should come up, we could make all the noise we wanted up here without anyone being the wiser.'

Rhodry looked up at the clear and sunny sky.

'Not likely, is it?' he said.

Jill merely smiled.

Some little while before sunset the storm hit. Rhodry was walking across the ward when he felt the wind, whistling up cool and sharp from the west. He trotted over to the outer wall, scrambled up to a catwalk, and watched the sky from this perch with a view free of the encircling dun. Far off to the west the sun was sinking in a huge billow of black cloud, rising above hill and forest and sweeping towards Cengarn.

Often out on the gra.s.slands he'd seen storms like this, charging un.o.bstructed over the plains, but never in hill country. The clouds headed for the town so purposefully that for a moment he feared some vast and unnatural fire; then he remembered Jill, and her smile.

Just as the sky was darkening over, and the wind was turning damp, Jill hailed him from the ward below, It was time, he supposed, for his lesson. When he climbed down, she remarked as much.

'If there's lightning with this storm,' he said, 'we'd best not go up on the tower roof again.'

'Oh, we'll be safe enough.'

Up on the high tower the wind hissed and whistled round them. Off to the west Rhodry could see the occasional flash, and tardy thunder rolled their way. Down below servants and warriors rushed back and forth, getting horses into the stables, dragging firewood under overhangs, dashing at last for shelter themselves as the first fat drops of rain hit. Rhodry felt one splash on his cheek, then nothing, even when it began to rain steadily all round. When Jill laughed at his surprise, he realized something that his memories of her and their love-affair had kept him from seeing until this moment, that she had changed far beyond the woman he once had loved, so far that whether she were a beauty or a crone, or even whether she were male or female, simply no longer mattered. She stood beyond such things, a consciousness that used flesh for her own purposes rather than being bound by flesh, and one that held power over far more than her own flesh.

In a wash of blue glare lightning struck close; thunder boomed and rolled round the dun; she laughed with a toss of her head. Rain poured down like a silver curtain, sheltering them from casual sight, leaving the spot where they stood bone-dry. All at once he was frightened of her, Against the hiss of rain she raised her voice to be heard, 'Remember what I was telling you earlier?'

He nodded yes.

'Listen to me, then. This sound means naught, by the way. It's just a sound, not a dweomer call.'

He was glad that she'd told him. She breathed out a long 'ah' sound, such as a bard will use to cover a word he's forgotten, but the sound was neither spoken nor sung, more like a hum, perhaps, but strong and deep, resounding from her very soul, as she had said, quivering like a live thing, if indeed a sound can be said to live, vibrating like a harp-full of strings. It took a long time to die away, even on the wet, heavy air.

'Try it.'

'Oh here, I could never do that.'

'I think you can, Rhodry. For reasons I can't tell you, mind, but I think you can. There's more music in your soul than you might know.'

At first he felt embarra.s.sed, as if he'd become some sort of half-wit, standing on a roof and bellowing.

Yet for her sake he tried, over and over, making all sorts of yells and hisses and a couple of truly foul remarks as well until all of a sudden something came clear without his truly knowing how it did, just as when a child learns to whip a top, flailing away too lightly, then too forcefully, until suddenly the thing spins. He felt the sound well up deep, seemingly of its own accord, and flood through and out of him, shaking his entire body. Once learned, he knew he would never forget - again, just like that child.

'Splendid!' Jill said, grinning. 'You've got it. Now you've got to learn the name.'

A syllable at a time she drilled him, over and over till he wanted to scream at her instead of the dragon.