Dog And Dragon Part 19

"He does not kill intelligent life-forms."

She turned the crystal over, and a tall, dark-skinned, foxy-faced man appeared. Ah. They'd had Spathos hunting him. Cutting out the middleman, as it were. But, she admitted, it was possible they had not known that he was her lackey.

It appeared Spathos had vanished in the rebellion against Prince Maric.

It would seem that brushing up against this dragon could be unhealthy even if he did not kill.

"Is this what you pitted my other cauldron-creatures against?" she said, suddenly suspicious.

"Yes," said the creature of smokeless flame. "Or rather, his guide."

It did not even try to lie. Interesting. And it spoke of its master's master. Very high. Very powerful. "This will be very, very expensive," said the queen.

"Name your price."

Vanaheim was a place where dragons felt at home. Someone had to. Dragons liked volcanoes and jagged new mountains, and a vast blue sky feathered with thin cloud. The land, where it wasn't edging into sea cliffs, was mostly fells full of sheep. Fionn knew the other coast had a gentler slope, a warmer current and forests for Vanar's fleets. This piece of the Celtic was colored by their Nordic conquerors-a gift the islanders liked to spread around. Fionn was convinced it was the long, cold, dark winters that made them so homicidal-that or their beer. Or it could be eating slow-fermented basking sharks. Fionn had sampled this "delicacy" once.

From up here, where the Tolmen Way had brought them, they could see the fleet was on the water-every longship the islanders could find by the look of it.

And also by the look of it, most of them were returning to the fiords of Vanaheim, because there really was a stiff onsh.o.r.e breeze blowing. A few determined ships were trying to row their way into it, but most had turned for home.

Besides their taste for mayhem and loot, fermented basking shark and too many salt herring dishes, the other flaw that Fionn felt the Vanar culture had was their desire to shoot dragons, and they had strong muscles, good composite bows and strong nerves that made it possible. Fionn understood fully that the desire was fueled by conflict over who would eat the coa.r.s.e-haired fell sheep. But it made flying low anywhere near the coast-where the Vanar lived-quite a dangerous pastime for dragons. It took a lucky shot to kill or even seriously injure a dragon, but it could damage their wings. And killing the dog would be easy too. The air here was cold. At alt.i.tude it was winter-arctic cold. It added a layer of complications to flying to the next Tolmen Way. One forgot the flexing in time between worlds. He'd expected to fly on in the night, not to waste another day!

Dileas was already heading across the meadow, down toward the fiord below. "Where are you going, you fool dog?" asked Fionn.

"A dragon!" came a sudden shout. The Vanar warrior charged, swinging his double-bladed axe and blond plaits.

Fionn knocked him down with a swipe of the tail. Just because he wasn't supposed to kill them didn't mean that he had to put up with someone swinging an axe at him. Fionn rolled him over and sat on the warrior, as Dileas came charging to the rescue. Fionn changed his form as the stunned seat groaned. "Have you been eating those mushrooms again?" demanded Fionn. Agaric tended to make for berserker warriors...and some strange visions. And this one smelled of the mushroom. Fionn got up and rolled him over, kicking the axe away. "You just called me a dragon, tried to chop me up, and fell over my dog," he said accusingly. "What's wrong with you?"

"There was a dragon..."

"No, there wasn't. If there was, do you think either I, or the sheepdog, would be here?"

The large warrior sat up. Groaned. "I gotta go. I promised Thor Red-Axe I'd join his war band."

"Where are you going?" asked Fionn, although he suspected he already knew.

"Vleidhama, to find a ship. The volva say that the way is open to Lyonesse! We must go aviking!"

Which translated as "loot, rape and pillage and maybe even stay in a place where it isn't dark for half of the year." Fionn clipped him, hard, behind the head. He fell over again. "You were right, Dileas. Just let me relieve him of these fashion accessories, and we can walk down and join a boat."

The Vanar warrior was relieved of his mail shirt, helmet, axe and woolly breeches. Fionn looked into his travel bag. A side of salted smoked salmon, a loaf of rye bread, a bag of coa.r.s.ely ground oatmeal, and yes, dried red-and-white-spotted mushrooms...a leather bag with a little money-the clumsy coinage of Vanar: iron, copper and a little gold. Dileas growled at him. "Another one of these mushrooms and he wouldn't know I relieved him of it. But you're right. I'll leave him with some of Spathos's silver. I'm not that fond of silver, but it's valued here. And his cloak. But to make you my partner in crime, I'll give you some of the salmon. It's mostly salt and smoke with a bit of fish. Consistency of leather. Keeps well and exercises the jaw. We'll leave him the bread and that flask which I think might make him see more than dragons, by the smell of it."

Disguised as a Vanar warrior-a not very rich or bright one-who came down from the sheep in the mountains, Fionn walked into the nearest crowded fishing village. Finding a place for himself and Dileas on one of the good Skei was not likely, but some of the bigger Busse were struggling to find oarsmen. Anyone who thought they were anyone wanted a place on one of the faster ships, so a slightly slow-witted shepherd who wasn't prepared to leave his smart dog behind could find a place, and be away for the sh.o.r.es of Lyonesse just as soon as the wind turned again. That, according to the weather wise would be sometime after midday, and the captains were trying to keep the oarsmen sober until then...or at least not quite paralytic.

Fionn found it amusing, seeing as his multiple livers meant he could drink their Branntwein and barley beer until it ran out of his ears without any effect. The Hakarl they were eating with it was a different matter. He'd need more than multiple livers for that. It was considered a manly thing to eat.

Fionn was glad he was a dragon, and not in need of eating ammonia-scented, fermented shark meat to prove this. Dileas, however, had embraced local behavior with gusto, eaten far too much salty smoked salmon, and was now throwing up, and needing water, along with Vanar's finest warriors. Perhaps this was why men and dogs had such a natural affinity, reflected Fionn, noting that the wind was dropping.

CHAPTER 20.

Meb looked at the javelin, and at the group of...possibly people, all with more throwing spears at the ready, in the forest shadows on either side. She could see the weapons clearly enough, and their sharp stone points. The wielders...were a mat of hair and twigs and vine. Rather like bears that had rolled in honey and then down a steep brush slope, thought that dispa.s.sionate part of her mind. She wondered in a panic if it would do any good at all to try and "hide" Neve and herself. Probably not, thought the pragmatic part of her mind. They would throw their spears the moment she and Neve disappeared.

And then she realized that she and Neve had not walked alone into the deep woods after all. And if anyone was in trouble it would certainly also be the spearmen. Not that she and Neve would be any the better off for the fact that the muryan bit the attackers to death.

The odd spear wielders plainly spotted the tide of muryan. They lowered their spear points warily. But how do you point a spear at thousands of foes, each smaller than a thumbnail? Quite a few spear wielders backed off completely, vanishing into the shadows. "Are you the Wudewasa?" said Meb. "Because we were told to look for you."

"Who sent you?" said one of the hairy, twiggy people stepping out of the dense leaf-mottled shade, away from the muryan. "We have no dealing with incomers. Even ones served by the muryan." He sounded a lot more doubtful about that part.

"One of the spriggans," said Meb. "They said the Land wanted us to come to you."

"Just who are you, and where are you from?" asked the hairy man, with the added leaves and twigs.

Why did they all want to know that? Did it really matter?

"She's the Defender," said Neve, proudly touching Meb, who still stood holding her axe. "Prince Medraut and Mage Aberinn didn't believe her, but she made the sea-wall window come back. And it was her, not Aberinn, that defeated the Fomoire's evil eye! The fay come to her. They look after her. Have you ever seen the muryan before? They feed us, and protect us."

"We see muryan from time to time in the woods. We leave them alone, maybe leave them some sc.r.a.ps of food, and they leave us alone." He looked at the ground, and at the warrior muryan there. "I'll grant I have never seen them seeming to defend anyone before. But the prince and the mage and all the rest: they mean nothing to us. We stay in our deep woods and they do nothing for us and we owe nothing to them. This is our land. Our forest."

"Yes, but we've knockers and spriggans and even the piskies helping her."

"Even the piskies! Now that would be something to see," said the hairy man sounding faintly amused. Looking closer now, Meb could see that not all of it was growing on him, but that some of it was woven into a kind of cloth. Hairy cloth. "But it seems your friend has lost her tongue. Maybe she can talk for herself?"

Meb shrugged. "I am just me. That's all. I call myself Meb. I have been told my birth name was Anghared. I came from a place called Tasmarin, where the dragons rule. They told me here that I had magic and I must be of the House of Lyonesse. And then they decided I didn't and wasn't. They do their magic by patterns and diagrams and models and calculations and rituals. I don't even know how to start that. It comes to me sometimes, because I need it, and because I dream it. And now you see me." She concentrated hard on not being seen and walked away. He stared, blinked, rubbed his eyes. Reached out to where she'd been. Just behind him she tapped him on his shoulder, willing herself to be seen again. "And now you don't."

He turned and stared. She dug out her juggling b.a.l.l.s, simply because they helped her think. Began tossing them one-handed, the other hand holding the axe. "If," she said, "we just wanted to go through your woods, we could. You wouldn't have even known we were there. And if I was interested in conquering and killing, I could have come unseen and sent the muryan to deal with you in your sleep."

She pa.s.sed the axe to the other hand, and caught the b.a.l.l.s with it. "But we were looking for you, because I was told you were the right people to look for. That you were, of all the humans, closest to the Land."

The hairy man nodded. "I will take you to the wisewoman and the shamans. They said...disaster had come. They said all the Ways were open and invaders who have no respect for our forest will be coming soon. We watched for that. Not two women."

"M'lady," said Neve, timidly. "Do you mind if I carry the axe? It's really scary when you toss it up and catch the b.a.l.l.s. I've seen how sharp it is."

The Wudewasa man smiled and nodded. "But a woman with a big axe and b.a.l.l.s...makes men nervous."

They were led through the forest, carefully skirting around several places where the trail seemed to go. Someone had plainly gone ahead, because the wisewoman who seemed to lead the tribe, as much as they had a leader, was waiting with the two shamans in their equivalent of a reception room-a huge hollow tree set at the end of a double row of mossy rocks, with a wooden chair carved into the wood itself. It was occupied by the Wudewasa's wisewoman, with the two shamans with their drums and bones having to settle for logs.

The wisewoman's hair was white. There was a vast amount of it, and barring the addition of a willow catkin, she didn't have any twigs or leaves in it. She was tiny and frail, and attended by a young girl, because moving was obviously painful for her. Her brown eyes, peering out of a ma.s.s of wrinkles, were rheumy and she blinked a lot. But her wits and tongue were still sharp. "I thought you said it was a woman carrying the weight of the Land. I'm seeing two girls, who couldn't carry more than a peck of dirt."

"That shows that you need look a lot more carefully, Mortha," said one of the mossy stones unwinding itself into a spriggan. "We know, the muryan know, the knockyan know, the piskies and, if you look properly, you'll find you do, too. Did you think it comes with a fine horse and a coronet and troops of soldiers? You're in for a sad disappointment."

The silver-haired woman didn't move. "Those are holy rocks."

The spriggan snorted: "Then maybe you should count them more often. To not notice there was an extra one might be seen as disrespect," he said tartly, showing no deference at all for her age or the rocks. "A few minutes ago you were twittering in fear because the Vanar were coming. Wondering how best to keep them from cutting your trees for charcoal or ship timbers, like last time. Now you're fussing about the size of the help."

The wisewoman kept her dignity...barely. "We were hoping...for what is asked, that we'd get something in return. Some troops of fighting men with iron swords, against their iron axes."

"She seems to have odd ideas," said the spriggan, jerking a thumb at Meb. "Believes in giving something back in exchange for what she is given. The old kings of Lyonesse would be very shocked." He seemed to enjoy that idea.

Meb sighed. "Do you mind stopping this talking over my head? I don't know what is going on, and I think if I am going to help I will need to."

"All the Ways are open," said the wisewoman, Mortha. "All our enemies will come. And while many pa.s.s through the forest without much searching or effect, the first here, the soothsayers say, will be the Vanar. They've cut out most of their own forest. Now they want ours."

"It was the Vanar who burned my village and our boats," said Neve. "Please, m'lady. You've got to stop them."

"They burn what they can't carry away," said Mortha. "The soothsayers say the sea will be black with their dragon ships this time."

"Dragon ships?" The dragons Meb knew would make poor boats. Or even poor pullers of boats, if this was something like a donkey cart.

"Their ship's prows are carved to look like dragons or great monstrous serpents. They come from Vanaheim, where it is cold and the trees don't grow well. So they come for ours. And anything else they can find," said Neve, quite used to explaining by now. "They're not quite as big as the Fomoire, and they don't have much magic, but there are lots of them and they go berserk when they fight. You have to kill them to stop them."

"They chew mushrooms that make them mad," said Mortha.

"Where will they beach?" asked Meb. "Can we stop them getting to the land at all?"

"My Gamma Elis said that in King Angbord's day they had watchtowers along the coast and warning bonfires. The troops would ride out from Dun Tagoll, Dun Argol, Dun Telas, Dun Carfon and fight them on the beaches. There was talk of having catapults to sink their ships while they were still at sea. But the people of Lyonesse never did it, and then the towers fell or were burned after King Geoph died."

The wisewoman sighed. "The only thing that'll hold them on land is hors.e.m.e.n, hors.e.m.e.n who fight to order, with long lances, and good ma.s.sed bowmen. Our forest people...We can ambush and fight in the dark, but we cannot hold them back. And we've seen what Medraut does: fight a quick skirmish and run for Dun Tagoll, and leave those outside to feel their wrath."

The spriggan looked thoughtful. "They fear magic, though. Especially women's magic. They'd be more afraid of a woman mage than a male one. And, the truth be told, they treat us with fear and respect. That'll not keep them from the forests, and they have too much iron for us. It's a slow poison to our kind, and even being close to it in concentrated or purified form for too long weakens us. If the Lady Land asks it, tribes of piskies can mislead them for a while. And we can look very large. The muryan...well, if they slow down enough, the muryan can and will overwhelm anything. And neither iron nor anything else holds much threat to them. The knockyan, well, let's be honest, they don't really fight or do more than play jokes on those who wander underground. They have tunnels everywhere, of course."

"And they will all stand against the invaders?" asked Meb.

"If you tell them to, yes." The spriggan pulled a face. "Of course...it's not quite as easy as that."

"No," said Meb, "that would all be too simple, wouldn't it?"

"Exactly, and if life were simple, we'd all have warm palaces to live in and strawberries to eat every day, in winter too. But it isn't. See, we're yours to command, but you must command us."

"I'm telling you to resist the invaders," said Meb obligingly.

"And I will," said the spriggan. "But I'm bound to a certain area. Bound within seven miles of my place. And you've told me. But you'll have to tell each of the spriggans. We tend to live three or four together. The knockyan, well, they talk and pa.s.s it on. By now I'd guess stories about you and your juggling, and having knockyan babies on your lap, will have spread from one end of Lyonesse to the other, and are being told to others. Other spriggans, some human miners too. The muryan will defend you if they are where you are, and will attack if you tell them to. But there are tens of thousands of queens. Each only controls their own nest. As for the piskies...well, they're family groups. And they don't keep their mind on the task very easily. They'll enjoy misleading and mazing the Vanar. But sooner or later the Vanar will find out how to counter that. It's best saved for when you need it. And by then it'll be too late, I shouldn't wonder."

Meb sighed. "The real wonder is how cheerful you are. Tell me. Do I command anyone else? Merrows? Do you have them here?"

"Well, there are merpeople, but they live in the sea, and are no part of the land. And they're not good to deal with."

"Even so," said Meb, "I think that's what we're going to have to try and do, and quickly because I'd rather not have more mad people here. Most of the ones here seem quite mad enough already."

The gilded crows gave Aberinn a wide view of Lyonesse, and a headache. Too many images to process. He had as yet not found any sign of the two women. They probably had not gotten very far before falling prey to what young women roaming Lyonesse without protectors would fall prey to. He felt Medraut's reaction to them simply too extreme. But then Medraut alternated between believing in the prophecy and believing, somehow, that it was all a plot against him. Either by the mage or one of the factions of n.o.bles who still squabbled over Lyonesse like real crows over a corpse. Well, he'd had his own suspicions about the girl. It appeared at most she was adept with a knife and a few magic tricks-probably prepared by some adept for her, to be displayed suitably.

Anyway, they were dead and gone and Lyonesse faced an influx as she had never suffered before. As yet, the gilded crows reported no major invasions. But they would come soon. The land would suffer, fortresses would fall. And somehow he must work out just what had happened to the Changer.

Meb traveled with an escort of forest people, down a wooded valley, to the coast. They had provided her with a jacket of coa.r.s.e brown cloth, set with fresh twigs and branches, but it could not come close to their camouflage. They could freeze and look like trees or shrubs or just the branches of one. They were experts at not moving suddenly, and at sticking to places where the light was broken with shadows. And for most of the journey down to the coast, that was adequate. Neither Aberinn's gilded crows nor anything else could possibly have seen them. Meb was surprised at how many other people-peasants mostly-they did see. Here a nervous group of ex-soldiers from some foreign place eking out a living, there a solitary fisherman working a stream. Lyonesse was a rich country for those needing to live off the land. It made her realize that the various fay had probably worked quite hard to get her and Neve that far without meeting anyone. She was realistic enough to realize that such a meeting would only have been an ugly experience, needing the axe and luck to survive. They crossed several open patches during the night, but the problem came the next day, when they were close enough to smell the sea, and cover was spa.r.s.e.

And the gilded crow was circling.

It was probably just trying to gain height. From here in the tree shadows, Meb could see that it didn't fly as well as a real crow might.

She wished it would go away. Wished it with real urgency and irritation. Wondered if she could simply "hide" them all, and whether this would work to deceive Aberinn's magical-mechanical creatures. Just wished it would hurry up and go away, that flying should be for real birds.

And, as they watched and waited, a real bird buzzed the contrivance. And then another. Smaller than the gilded crow, of course, but far more agile. She'd seen blackbirds pack a hawk like this. And now there were more birds, mobbing the crow. The gilded crow tried to flee them, but even the sparrows were as fast as it was. And it was as if they'd realized that although the interloper might be bigger, it was fairly helpless and far from as agile as they were. Then more birds came and they mobbed it down.

It crash-landed awkwardly. The birds all flew off about their business.

The crow plainly tried to fly again. And the birds drove it down. "Good," said Meb. "It can walk back to Dun Tagoll, and tell Aberinn what sore feet it has."

"You're a very powerful mage," said one of her escort, fearfully.

Meb swallowed. "Birds do that to foreign interlopers from time to time." Silently, to herself, she said, "but if I made it happen...I wish you all lots of worms, or seeds or fruit, and a safe nest for your help. I don't want them spying."

They took her to the water's edge. And she had absolutely no idea what to do. She'd had the idea that the merpeople would come to her, the way the others had.

And the waves remained...waves.

"Is anyone listening?"

No mermaids appeared dancing on the water.

The sea just sighed against the rocks.

She reached down to it, picking up a handful and letting it dribble through her fingers, sighing back at it. She wondered how the spirit of the sea was doing with the lord of the mountains. Groblek had had no limitation to planes and places...

"And neither does the sea," whispered a voice. "It is many seas, but it is all aspects of one Sea." The face in the foam tracery looked...like that of someone who had forgotten to do their hair. "Forgive me. I am a little...busy," said the sea.

"Oh dear. Groblek?"

"No, you were quite right. We've found ways...it has been some years. But we have a child, and he is never still unless he is asleep."

Years? Fionn had said that time ran differently in some places. How was he after...years? Was Dileas old? She swallowed. "I was hoping to negotiate for some help. We're expecting to be attacked from the sea."

"The Vanar. Good seamen. Quite respectful," said the Spirit of the Sea.

"Oh. But we can't have them here, lady. Please."