Kings Of The North Part 52

"How could you-?"

"We have little time," Arian said. "The taig needs you, Lady, and I must repair the...the pattern." She could not make the sound the dragon made.

"You can't; it's broken. It was not of my making." The Lady drew herself up and folded her arms.

"I can repair it."

"You're only a half-elf, daughter of a-" The arms came down; the Lady scowled.

Arian kept her own voice level. "You have said you do not know the pattern: I do. Will you sulk here under stone and let your forest burn?"

"It will not burn-I would know if-"

"It is burning now, now," Arian said. "The Pargunese brought scathefire from stolen dragon eggs."

The Lady swayed where she stood; Arian could see the shock on all the elves' faces. "I didn't know-how could I not know know? I can't reach it-"

Arian felt a grim satisfaction: the Lady now felt what she had imposed on Arian. "Will you come, or no?"

"If you can repair the pattern-do so!" one of the other elves said.

The Lady moved aside, and Arian came forward. Once the dais had been inlaid with patterns done in mosaic, some purely elven in origin, but the most important-for the moment-the one the dragon had shown her. Now that pattern-and those within an arm's length of it-were gone, revealing rough gray stone. Heaps of colored stone chips, each heap a different shade of blue or red or green, filled the back of the dais.

"They left us these," the Lady said, gesturing at the piles. "Taunting us...for only rockfolk, they said, had the stone-wit to know how to place them and bind them in stone so they would stay if I stood on them. Can you repair what full-born elves cannot?"

"Yes," Arian said, once more surprising herself. Was she that sure? It must be the dragon's aid. "But Lady, you must be prepared to return this place to those who made it and those who gave you stone-right."

"I cannot!" the Lady said. "It is the elfane taig!"

"It is only elfane taig where the Lady can sense the taig and wear the elvenhome as a cloak," Arian said. "Here, under stone, is not your domain." She pointed to the ceiling. "There-where the taig longs for your return-is your domain and your duty."

Arian could feel the other elves' astonishment and dismay.

"You lecture me me on my duty? You, whose father-" on my duty? You, whose father-"

"I have fought the fire you did not even know was burning," Arian said. "Where were you when the scathefire came, when the king needed your aid? Here, under stone-not in the real elfane taig. You did not even know the taig was in peril. Did not the First Singer charge the Sinyi with its protection?"

Shocked silence answered her. The Lady, after a long moment, bowed her head.

Arian said no more, but turned to the problem at hand. The scarred stone was no longer a circle but a rough oblong. Arian took one of her arrows and-fixing the pattern in her mind-set its point to the rock and began to trace the outline of the pattern. She paid no attention to the gasps of surprise as the arrow, its tip glowing, sank into the stone and behind its motion a groove opened. She concentrated on the pattern until she had completed it. As the dragon had first shown it to her, it had been only dark lines on gray stone, but now she felt an urge to give it color: she did not know why.

The others did not move or speak as she went back and forth, colored chips flowing through her hands, each to the place she knew was right. The light and dark blue, the bright and dark red, the single green, the rare touches of gold and silver. Moved by another impulse, she drew her sword and traced the now-colored lines in a different order than she had originally drawn the pattern. Now the colored chips flowed together, and the pattern lay fresh, unbroken.

When she looked again at the Lady, tears marked the queen's face. The Lady met Arian's gaze; Arian saw great sorrow there. Then the Lady turned to her entourage. "If a half-elf can do here what we full elves cannot, it is indeed not our place. We must give it up. The blame is mine; I wasted your time, brothers and sisters, long ago and once again, and offended those to whom the Singer gave the dominion of stone. I swear to you, I did so with good intent, but good intent does not excuse ill results. We must now return to the Ladysforest and do what we may for the taig, but afterward, if it is your will, another may challenge for my place."

"No, Lady!" Several elves protested, stepping forward. The Lady held up a hand to forestall them.

"It grieves me to say, but I was wrong; the taig is bearing the pain of my error, and the taig is-was-in my charge. Let us go quickly and spend ourselves in its defense." To Arian she said, "I am sorry you were hurt, child, by my anger. It was wrong of me to take, even for a moment, your taig-sense from you. I wanted only the best for my grandson, who had been so cruelly hurt so young." She stepped on the pattern Arian had made and offered Arian her hand. "Come with me, if you will, and I will do what I can to mend what I broke. Though I know you have another helper-" She glanced at the ceiling.

Go, said the dragon in Arian's mind.

Her resentment against the Lady was less important than the taig, than Kieri. She took the Lady's hand.

Once out of the stone, the Lady's connection with the elvenhome Forest moved them all to the edge of a long, straight ash-colored scar through the forest. Arian saw Kieri and a small group-Orlith among them, standing on the scathefire track-turn to the elvenhome light. And to one side, the dark man with flame-colored eyes.

By the third day of the attack Kieri felt that the situation had stabilized-though he still feared the magical fire the Pargunese king had mentioned, it had not yet been used. Someone had found the bodies of the couriers the a.s.sa.s.sin had killed, and another a.s.sa.s.sin-less skilled than the first-had been caught. Though Kieri's force was able to drive the Pargunese to the river in some places, the enemy still had a foothold on the south bank. Aliam and his remaining force would only now be hearing of the attack; it would be more than a hand of days before they could reach Chaya.

"Where is the Lady?" Kieri demanded of Orlith every day, and every day Orlith had no answer. "Why does she not come or send aid? Does she want the land burned to the bare rock as they've threatened? And where are the other elves?"

"I do not know," Orlith said. The elf looked almost as tired as Kieri felt, his usual bland expression strained. "I cannot sense her anywhere. I do not think she has been killed: the taig would surely react to that."

"The taig has enough anguish," Kieri said.

"I know. And before you ask again, I do not know where the other elves are: your uncle Amrothlin, for instance. It is as if the Ladysforest itself were withdrawn, though I can sense it, far off near the mountains. Even if she went below-"

"Below?"

"Into the elfane taig, the stronghold-even there I should be able to sense her, but I cannot."

For an instant, Kieri's mind threw up the memory of Arian's father, Dameroth, talking of Paks...of places no human should see...the elfane taig? Was that one of the places? He put that aside; it couldn't matter now.

"Without the Lady, or the guidance of another with her powers, the taig is defenseless," Orlith said. "If worse comes, neither of us can raise its full power."

"At the battle on my way here, a Kuakgan raised the taig-"

"We do not speak of Kuakkgani!" Orlith said.

"We speak of death and the destruction of the taig," Kieri said. "Surely you could cooperate long enough to save it."

"They are an abomination," Orlith said. "It cannot be."

"The taig doesn't think so," Kieri said. "And the Kuakgan I met was a healer; I saw him heal both man and horse."

"Oakhallow," Orlith said. "He is..." He paused and shook his head. "If the Lady is indeed gone, by her will or another's, then by the Singer's commands it is our charge, we remaining elves, to defend and uphold the taig by any means we can."

"So I believe," Kieri said. He felt a tiny trickle of hope. A Kuakgan might know what this mysterious scathefire was, might know how to heal what had already burned in more normal fires.

"You could command me," Orlith said. Kieri stared at him; Orlith, like the other elves, had made it clear that except for a.s.sociating-unwillingly-with humans, he considered himself the Lady's subject, not Kieri's. "If the Lady lives, and returns, and I have accepted a Kuakgan into her realm, she will blame me."

"It is my decision," Kieri said. "And my realm, since she is not here." Nonetheless, he had no idea how to ask a Kuakgan for help. Master Oakhallow had come from Brewersbridge at Paks's request, but that was days away, even for a courier, and he had none to spare. That there were other Kuakkgani he knew, but not how to find one. Perhaps the Seneschal...

"Yes, Sir King," the Seneschal said. "There are a few kuakkgannir in Chaya, though their Kuakgan has her grove in Tsaia. But there may be a way...shall I ask?"

"Yes," Kieri said. "At the least, we must warn anyone with an interest in the taig of the danger...if that other weapon is worse than fire."

That night the first scathefire attack came. Faster than couriers could ride, the path of purple-white flame raced down from Riverwash, near enough that the light of the flames could be seen to the north from the highest tower in the palace. Then-abruptly, just as the flickering of the flames replaced the glow, so close they were-they died. The dark returned, but the anguish of the wounded taig did not quiet. More than the trees had died.

By midday, Kieri knew that there had been two such fires, one halted farther away from Chaya but the nearer one, less than a day's ride. "I must see it," he said, over the objections of his Council. "If my magery can do anything to stop it, I need to know what it is before I can fight it."

Orlith and two of the remaining elves in Chaya rode with him, along with four Squires and-to his surprise-both senior armsmasters.

"It's not the first time I've been to battle with you," Siger said. "Magic fires I don't understand, but a.s.sa.s.sins in the bushes I do. And Carlion wants to see if my boasted ability to detect traps is real."

As the winter afternoon waned under a skim of high cloud, they rode north to find what the fire had done. An acrid stench met them as the breeze blew steadily out of the winter sky. The taig roiled below and around; their mounts jigged, snorting and switching their tails. Kieri tried to comfort the taig and knew Orlith and the elves were doing the same, but the wounds were too great.

Well before they reached the actual site, they could see a gap in the forest ahead-light pouring in where trees, even in winter, had scattered it. Then the extent of the damage spread before them, a wide swath heading north. All within it was consumed to soot and ash; trees on the margin were blackened, limbs on one side burnt away. Kieri shuddered. All the horses shied and refused to go nearer.

"It's like a great road leading north," Siger said. "Wider than the Guild League roads, even...but why didn't it spread to the side?"

"A weapon they could aim," Kieri said. "And halt here, as a warning of what they could do."

Carlion was off his horse, tossing his reins to a henchman, and walked ahead. "Sir King, there are tracks here. Two humans, both in boots, and some other marks I do not understand."

"They launched it there to burn back north?" Kieri asked.

"Not with the wind we had last night," Siger said. He, too, dismounted and looked at the ground. "Magical flames or not, it would move with the wind, not against it."

"Then-how did they get ahead of it to stop it?" Kieri asked. He dismounted; he wanted to see any tracks for himself.

"Someone already in place," Siger said. "But how they stopped it, once the flames were moving like that, I don't know."

"There's an arrow," Carlion said, pointing. He stepped forward.

"Hold!" Kieri said. Carlion stopped, looking back at him in surprise. "We don't know if the magic is exhausted: I don't want to risk you."

"Better me than you, Sir King. You have another good armsmaster, and the world has more of my kind than yours." Carlion walked out onto the ash some distance and bent to pick up something. Then he whirled to face Kieri.

"Sir King! It is a King's Squire's arrow! One of your Squires!" He looked around. "And there's another-and another-"

"How did the shafts survive?" Kieri asked. "It is not possible..."

"I'll bring them all," Carlion called. "Garris knows their marks."

Shortly he was back, showing the five arrow shafts. "I'd think the shafts would burn, leaving only the metal tips, at most," Kieri said. He picked up one of the shafts-scorched, indeed, but the pattern of rings that identified the archer still faintly visible on the blackened shaft. He turned it in the dimming light, trying to see...and his heart stopped, then thumped loudly before racing.

"Garris will know," Carlion said again.

"I know," Kieri said. It was hard to breathe. "Arian...she was coming back to...to warn..." Tears burned in his eyes; he could not blink them back before they ran down his cheeks into his beard. "She died bravely, as she would," he said, handing the shaft back to Carlion. know," Kieri said. It was hard to breathe. "Arian...she was coming back to...to warn..." Tears burned in his eyes; he could not blink them back before they ran down his cheeks into his beard. "She died bravely, as she would," he said, handing the shaft back to Carlion.

"My lord-" Carlion reached out, but Kieri shook his head.

"Just-let me-" He turned his face to the north wind, struggling against the white rage that he must not indulge. White rage had brought this fire-not his, but someone's. He had to breathe, he had to go on living, he had to be the king his people needed, and the man Arian had loved.

He looked at Orlith. "What can you tell about this fire-what is it?"

Orlith sniffed. "There's a scent-" He too dismounted and walked forward. "Iron...stone...blood. It has been long indeed since I smelled it-I should know it, but I cannot quite..." He bent to the tracks the armsmasters had found. "Here a half-elf...but this, that wears man's boots, does not smell like a man, nor does the taig regard it so."

"What about these marks?" Siger asked. "I can smell something, but I don't know what."

Orlith bent to those and then jerked upright. "Singer's grace! It cannot be...they never come to settled lands anymore-"

"What?" Kieri asked.

"A dragon," Orlith said. "A dragon was here."

"A dragon burned this? The Pargunese have a dragon on their side?"

"No! Never!" Orlith glanced at the other elves. "Dragons-adult dragons-are also creations of the First Singer, and they revere life and justice. They do not interfere in human affairs unless humans interfere in theirs, and we did not. But Pargun, it may be, did. Tell me, did you ever hear of dragons' eggs?"

"If you mean that old folktale where a fool finds a dragon's egg and tries to sell the jewels inside, yes. But that's just a story-parents use it to scare their children, but everyone knows there are no dragons anymore. Camwyn got rid of them."

"Not...quite." The speaker, barely visible in the gloom of the undergrowth to the side of the road, stepped out into it. Kieri's height, dressed like any winter traveler at first glance, leather cloak over leather jerkin, close-fitting shirt and trousers, tall boots. High cheekbones, long nose, slightly mottled dark skin, and surprisingly light tawny eyes gleaming from beneath the hood of his cloak.

Carlion, Siger, and two King's Squires had drawn blades all around Kieri before he could say anything. Kieri noticed the man wore no sword, not even a dagger.

"Dragon," Orlith said, hardly loud enough to hear.

The man tipped his head to Orlith, then looked back at Kieri. "You weep," he said. "Do you grieve for the land?"

"Yes," Kieri said. He did not believe the man was a dragon, though he was strange. Perhaps he was a Kuakgan. "I cannot heal this myself; I was hoping for a Kuakgan to help me."

The man looked hard at the elves then back at Kieri. "Do you consider the consequences of your acts?"

"Yes," Kieri said.

"And what did your Sinyi tell you about Kuakkgani?"

"They do not like them, for some quarrel I do not understand."

"I do," the man said.

"But the taig's need is greater than a quarrel," Kieri said.

"Quarrels are rarely just," the man said. He glanced back down the road. "Those horses should be farther away."

"Who are you?" Kieri asked.

"Who are you you?" the man answered with a mocking smile. "Do you have authority to demand my name?"

"I am the king," Kieri said. "If you are human, and in this realm, then yes, I do."

"Well, king, I am not human, though I take this shape to cause less fear. My name belongs to me alone, but the Sinyin there was correct: I am a dragon. Over whom, I must inform you, you have no authority whatsoever."