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Authors: Joanne Bertin

BOOK: Dragon and Phoenix
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Linden wholeheartedly agreed.
 
Four of the truedragons stood together to one side of the Field; they were the guard of honor, made up of kinswyrms of the fifth and largest truedragon, one honored and venerated among his kind and the Dragonlords.
Morlen the Seer swung his long neck around as the Dragonlords and Taren approached.
*Well met, little cousins,*
Morlen said.
*And good day to thee, truehuman Taren Olmeins; we thank thee for thy sacrifices in bringing us this news.*
Taren’s face turned an alarming shade of grey.
Be gentle with him, Morlen,
the Lady said privily to the Seer.
Like most truehumans, he’s terrified of dragonkind, and has been ill as well.
Aloud she said, “Taren, please tell Morlen all you told the Saethe earlier.”
Once more Taren Olmeins recited his news. But this time he told it quickly, the tale skinned and cut to its bones. Now and again the Lady elaborated in mindspeech for Morlen’s benefit.
When the man was done, Morlen thought for a time, then asked,
*Have thee any idea who it might be, Jessia?*
Taren’s gaze darted between them.
The Lady replied, “Kelder and I talked it over last night. While Taren says that the captured dragon is a Dragonlord, it’s not proved to our satisfaction. We all know, old friend, how false tales can spring to life. It could well be a truedragon. More of your kind have disappeared than of mine. That’s why I asked you to come.
*Still, the tale could be true. Besides the many truedragons that have gone missing, there are a few Dragonlords who have disappeared over time, Dragonlords that thee have no idea what befell them. This could be any one of those. But I agree—this is most likely one of my kind.*
“I tell you, the one beneath the Iron Temple is a Dragonlord!” Taren interrupted. His hand flew to his mouth as if to chastise his tongue for its rudeness. A faint flush of color crept into his cheeks.
The Lady nodded, accepting the tacit apology. “It’s possible. And there’s one we consider more likely than any of the others, for he was fascinated with exploring new places before …”
*
Before his soultwin, Carra, died. Thee should not look so surprised, Jessia; thee were thinking of Dharm Varleran, were thee not? I remember him wandering the northern wilds after her death. I spoke with him then; Dharm talked of releasing his hold on life so that Varleran would come into his own, and he would be free to follow Carra to the other side. It would also explain a Seeing I had long ago; I could not understand it then, for it was confused and faint, but now …
*
“If it is Dharm, then this is the concern of the Dragonlords.”
*No, Jessia, even if this is the one we once knew as Dharm Varleran, then Dharm has already gone on to the other side. That means it is Varleran who is imprisoned—and if that is so, it is the concern of the truedragons. And even if it is not he, there are truedragons it might well be. As thee said, we have also had our disappearances. Either way, I think we must claim this burden. I will bring it before our council, and we will decide what must be done.*
A gasp from Taren brought her attention back to the man. “You will send Dragonlords, will you not?” he demanded of her.
She frowned at him, surprised by his vehemence. “Lord Morlen has claimed this—”
“No! Where he’s kept, the truedragons wouldn’t be able to reach him. You must send Dragonlords!”
Then, as if his last outburst was too much for him, Taren staggered and would have fallen had not Sirl caught his arm. “I apologize, I have no right to speak so. It’s just … I—I must lie down,” he whispered.
The Lady nodded and beckoned to Sirl. She watched the
kir
help Taren back to the Keep. “Now why … ?”
Morlen chuckled in her mind.
*Did thee not say he was terrified of my kind? Perhaps he feared thee would send him as our guide and that one of us would mistake him for a rabbit one dark night.*
Once again the Lady spent a rueful moment reflecting that she had forgotten too much about truehumans—especially if a truedragon had to remind her of their foibles!
“What of Taren’s claim that you won’t be able to reach the prisoner?”
*Where one dragon has gone, others may follow. This is not the task of thy kind, Jessia. Let us hope it need never be. *
 
“I suggest you stop pushing your luck, young man,” Otter said as he entered the chambers that were his whenever he came to Dragonskeep. He pushed the door closed behind him. “That was cowardly; you know Linden won’t clout you because you’re my great-nephew, and Maurynna’s friend.”
Raven looked up from sorting through his packs, his eyes flashing in anger. “Ah—because he’s a Dragonlord I’m supposed to be so careful of Linden Rathan’s feelings? Just lie down and accept that he’s stolen my lass from me? I thought you always said he preferred being treated like any man, not like some godling. Well and well, I’m treating him better than any other man who’d taken Maurynna from me. I haven’t Challenged him, have I?”
Otter shook his head in disgust. Was the boy really such a fool? That wasn’t the Raven he knew. “You ass. Do you really think you’d have a chance against Linden in a duel? Likely he could have scrubbed the stable floor with you even before he’d Changed. Or did you forget that he’s a warrior trained from the cradle, O my idiot nephew, and you a trader with but a few tricks with the sword? Remember those he was a mercenary under—the woman who became the greatest queen Kelneth ever had, and the man whose reign as High Chief was a golden age for Yerrih. It would have been no contest even then. Now, of course, he could merely pick you up and throw you into a wall to have done with it.
“But never mind that. I wasn’t talking about Linden. I was talking about Maurynna. Don’t think she didn’t notice you sniping at Linden all morning
long. Just a short while before I left them she was planning to have a little … talk with you.”
At least the boy had the sense to wince at that. There was hope for him yet. A flaying with the sharp edge of Maurynna’s ire was not a thing to court. Nor would she hesitate to clout the fool boy, either, as the young idiot knew well. She’d done it many a time back in Thalnia.
“Rest easy; Linden was talking her out of it when I left them. Why, I don’t know. I’ve always told him he’s too easygoing.” Otter crossed over to his favorite chair and sat. He looked down at Raven squatting over his bundles on the floor and tugged his beard in frustration. “Didn’t you listen to a single blasted word of the tales I told you and Maurynna when you were both sprats? Linden didn’t ‘steal’ Maurynna from you. They were given to each other by the gods more than six hundred years ago.”
The bard sighed. “If you only understood how lonely he was, waiting for his soultwin to be born, afraid it would never happen.”
“‘The Last Dragonlord,’” Raven quoted softly. “He was named so in the stories, wasn’t he?”
“You remember that much at least,” Otter said. “And don’t you dare tell me you’ll be as lonely as that pining away for Maurynna. It’s not the same thing as missing literally half your soul. Not at all.”
A sheepish grin told him Raven had indeed been clutching that bit of romantic idiocy to his bosom.
“Ass,” Otter said again, but this time with affection. “There’s someone else for you, you’ll see. And just for my curiosity—did you tell your father and stepmother you were coming here?”
Raven bit his lip. After a moment, he said, “No.”
“They must be worried sick—especially Virienne—wondering what’s happened to you,” Otter said quietly.
“The letter should have reached them by now. Remember how desperate I said Iokka was? You’ll understand just how much when I tell you that he agreed to give that letter into Da’s own hand in return for my getting Taren as far away from Assantik and anyone in House Mhakkan as I could,” Raven said smugly.
Otter laughed until the tears came. The boy wasn’t the trader his father was, thought the bard, but that time he’d driven the bargain of a lifetime. “That was cruel, lad,” he said with real admiration.
“Iokka thought so, too,” Raven said with a grin. “But I kept my part of it. House Mhakkan doesn’t trade this far north. And how could I trust poor Taren to anyone else? There he was, ill with the shaking sickness and so glad to have someone he could speak Yerrin to once more—” He stopped, cursing himself.
“He’s Yerrin?” Otter asked, surprised. Taren wasn’t a Yerrin name.
“Yes,” Raven said. The words came reluctantly. “Taren Willowson is his real name—
“Willowson?” Otter interrupted, tugging at his beard. “There’s something—bah! It’s gone again; getting old, I guess. But my apologies—go on.”
“His mother was Kelnethi, but his father was Yerrin and he was raised in Yerrih. Mountain Eagle clan. He’s as Yerrin as you or I, or Linden Rathan for that matter. It’s just—”
Suspicions sprang up in Otter’s mind at Raven’s hesitation. “No clan braid? He’s outcast, then?”
“It was cut off in Jehanglan; he was a slave there. Please don’t tell anyone he’s Yerrin,” Raven pleaded. “He wants to pass as Kelnethi. Though it wasn’t his fault, he feels his honor in his clan has been broken. He’s ashamed to face them. That’s why he asked no word be sent to his kin.”
“I see,” Otter said. And he did. Unconsciously his hand groped for the long, narrow clan braid hanging down his back. He sighed in relief. Silly, that; of course it was still there.
Gods
—
not even your worst enemy will cut off your clan braid. Your head, perhaps
, Otter thought.
But not your braid
.
The mere thought made him queasy. To cut off a clan braid was to brand one as
parna
, outcast, unclean. It was done to break a man or woman’s spirit, declare them dead to the clan and to all honor. “But of course the Jehangli wouldn’t know,” he said. But whether to reassure himself or Raven, he wasn’t certain.
“They did. He’d told them, you see, what it meant. They cut it off anyway,” Raven said. He looked ill. “Taren said they laughed when they did it.”
“Oh, gods,” said Otter, sickened. Never mind that it wouldn’t mean the same thing to the Jehangli as it would to any Yerrin, even anyone in the Five Kingdoms. The thought still turned his stomach.
Raven grabbed his packs and pushed to his feet. His voice rough, he said, “If it’s all the same to you, Great-uncle Otter, I’d like to switch to that outside sleeping chamber. I like the view from the window. But it’s a long way down, isn’t it?”
“Very,” Otter said. “This end of the Keep is built right on the edge of the cliffs. Nothing between you and the valley floor but thin air and lots of it. Don’t get any ideas about sneaking out that way as you used to do when you’d slip out to the big fair at Stormhaven.”
Raven laughed. “I always thought you knew about that. Thanks for never giving me away to Da.”
Otter watched his grandnephew stride from the sitting room. Aye, the boy was hurt now but he’d recover. He was young and, though he’d deny it hotly, had never been desperately in love with Rynna. There was some other girl whose life Raven would make miserable, Otter thought with a smile.
Raven’s disembodied voice floated in from the small sleeping chamber. “He’s calling himself Taren Olmeins. That was his mother’s name. Never let on that you know he’s Yerrin, please; he’ll feel like an outcast around you because you’re a bard, and he doesn’t deserve it. He’s a fine man, risking his life to help that dragon.”
 
“You’re too late, Lleld,” said Nevra, one of the
kir
guards barring the way to the Meeting Field beyond the Keep.
“What do you mean?” Lleld asked. Blast it all, she knew she should have tried sneaking in from the other side. There was a well-hidden trail through the rocks there so narrow that only a child—or a very undersized Dragonlord—could fit through it. A pox on Jekkanadar for tricking that promise out of her! Now how was she to know what the truedragons had discussed with the
Saethe?
She tried to see past the stocky guard. “Where’s the one from Jehanglan—Taren?”
Nevra said, “The truehuman went back to the Keep some time ago. He didn’t look at all well. The Lady and some of the
Saethe
are still talking with Morlen and the other truedragons, but most have left. The council is over, they told us.”
Damn, damn, damn
! “So what did they say? Is there really a truedragon held captive in Jehanglan? Or is it one of us? Either way, who is it?” Lleld demanded in an agony of frustration. How maddening! She could see the truedragons and a few Dragonlords talking, too far away for even another Dragonlord to hear what was discussed. “What do the truedragons say?”
Nevra shrugged. “The truedragons are keeping their own counsel. My guess is they’ll—There they go!”
Five mighty forms erupted from the ground. Wing stroke after powerful wing stroke gained them the upper air. As she watched them rise, an idea came to Lleld.
She raced away. A quick run along the paths seaming the plateau of Dragonskeep brought her to the stone stairway leading to the wide landing cliff. She raced down it, leaping from step to step like a demented mountain goat.

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