The Dragondain (18 page)

Finally having created the opening she was looking for, Lily said, “Wait. Perhaps there
is
a way.” Lily’s eye drifted to Cora, who seemed to understand that Lily had finally reached a stage of bargaining.

“Be precise, Lily,” said Cora.

“What do you have in mind?” asked Curse.

“If I were to cure Tavin of this illness, then you would have to swear to protect my well-being, by the exact same contract that binds you to Tavin.”

“All right,” agreed Curse hastily, and Tavin’s face smiled a thin smile. “I promise. Now cure him.”

That was too easy.

“No. You must swear.”

“All right, I swear,” said Curse.

Lily hesitated. Until a short time ago, Lily would not have trusted Curse on any account. But now she understood that Curse was a spoken thing, and that Curse had a stake in Tavin’s protection . . . . Words ruled in this game. Words were something that Curse could be bound to. That changed everything, for where there were rules, there could be bargains.

“I’m not interested in playing games, Curse,” chided Lily. “Now repeat after me. And don’t change a single word: I swear, upon him who spoke me that I will see to Lily Winter’s well-being from this time forward to the time of my lifting.”

“I swear upon him who spoke me—”

“Wait! I want to change that part.”

“Foul-tongued child—spit out your words and let them lie!” Tavin smiled grotesquely. “The bloom is off the rose, now,” he said coyly. “Would that it were to smell as sweet.”

Lily glanced at the scar on Tavin’s leg and was horrified to see a ridge of bumps forming underneath it, stretching the skin.

“You’re doing that!” Lily cried.

“Not much time for anyone, I suppose,” sneered Curse.

Dubb, who had started pacing, also took notice of the ridges forming along Tavin’s scar.

“I’m very sorry, Lily. But your time is up. We can’t allow these blooms to burst through his skin. The poison spore will become airborne and infect everyone here, including you. Containing such an outbreak would take the efforts of every healer within a hundred miles.”

“Just give me one minute!” shouted Lily. “Just one!”

“You have until I can fetch help to carry him to the pyre,” said Dubb, and he hastened from the room in search of Andros.

Lily turned to Tavin. “Repeat this: I swear upon
the
one
who spoke me that I will see to Lily Winter’s well-being from this time forward to the time of my lifting.”

Curse repeated the sentence perfectly.

“I have done what you asked. Now you must fulfill your end of the bargain.”

Lily paused. “I’ll need to speak to Tavin.”

“What! I told you that was not possible. He is too far gone! Are you telling me you don’t know how to save him? How did I not see your lies?”

“I didn’t lie. I have a piece of knowledge you overlooked.”

“Carrion of lies! You have tricked me, but it will get you nothing!”

“On the contrary, it will get me everything. You are correct that I don’t know the answer myself. But, I know that Tavin does. And by suppressing him, you’ve hidden it from yourself. You’re lying about Tavin not being able to talk. You’re holding him back!”

Tavin’s eyes stared at Lily with awe, but it was Curse who looked out from behind them. “You are a formidable little maggot. Fair enough.”

Tavin’s eyelids fell shut, and the rate of his breathing increased.

“Tavin!” said Lily. “Tavin! You said it’s not too late. How?”

Dubb and Andros entered the small room.

Tavin lifted one of his raised fists. “Where,” he croaked, only this time he spoke in Dainish.

“Has she gotten anywhere?” Dubb asked. Raewyn shook her head. “Andros, you take his shoulders. I’ll get the feet.” With their daggers, they cut the cords binding Tavin to the great wooden table.

And then, in a flash, Lily understood everything. Outside the walls of Bairne, even in his delusional state, Tavin hadn’t been striking out senselessly at the blackmage. He’d seen something—something he thought would help. Lily leapt to Tavin’s hand and tried to pry apart his fingers. But his fingers were sealed like a vise.

“It’s in his hand!” she cried. “He’s not saying “where” as in what place. He’s saying “wear” as in to put on!”

Dubb glanced at Raewyn. She shook her head. “I would have detected anything magical in his hand,” she said.

Dubb and Andros lifted Tavin. Lily wrapped her arms around Tavin’s forearm and held on tight.

“You don’t understand! After Tavin cut off the blackmage’s arm, Grimm saw them fighting over it. Don’t you see? Tavin saw something: an amulet, a ring, something he thought could help.”

Dubb sighed. “Lily, a blackmage, with a single word, will destroy all his magical artifacts before he dies.”

Unwilling to give up, Lily grasped the first thing that came to her mind. “But if it was in Tavin’s hand! If he’d closed his hand around it—he’s Dragondain, right? He’s resistant to lunamancy. So anything in his fist would be out of reach of the blackmage’s spells.”

Dubb and Andros froze. “There could be something to that,” said Andros.

“The body of the Dragondain can act as a shield,” said Cora, joining in. “I should know, all the times I’ve hidden behind you three.”

Andros and Dubb returned Tavin to the table.

“Raewyn,” said Keegan. “Quickly, try and open his hand.”

Raewyn tried to pry open Tavin’s hand. “His hand is like stone.”

Cora quickly formed her peerin. “I don’t see anything upon it.”

“What if the blackmage created something around it, like a cage, but not actually touching him?” said Lily.

Keegan placed a palm over Tavin’s closed fist. “Lily, come here. I want you to do something for me. I want you to imagine you are holding me to this place, like an anchor. Do you think you can do that?”

Lily gripped the moon coin in her right hand, then closed her left hand around the folds of Keegan’s sleeve and tried as hard as she could to think anchory thoughts.

Keegan looked at Raewyn and Cora. “I’m going to do a little hunting
.
Maybe I can bring it a little closer to us. Be ready to assist if you think you can.”

Keegan closed his eyes, speaking words Lily didn’t understand. A light flared in his open palm, and as it faded, a dark network of tightly woven lines materialized around Tavin’s hand. It was as though his hand were encased in thinly spun wire.

“I see it,” said Raewyn.

“So can I,” said Dubb. “What is that?”

Keegan did not speak, but continued murmuring his incantation.

Cora peered intently at it through her peerin, “It doesn’t appear in my peerin!” shouted Cora.

Raewyn quickly formed her healer’s peerin. “Nor mine!” she confirmed.

Keegan stopped chanting. “I’ve brought it partly into our world. We must act quickly! We need something sharp.”

Andros stabbed at the densely packed lines with his dagger, but to no avail: the knife passed through easily, but the lines remained.

“Dubb,” croaked Tavin, in the common tongue.

“Tavin!” Dubb cried. “What is it?”

“Sharp . . . sharp as moonlight.”

Dubb leapt away from the table and unsheathed his moon sword. “Stand back,” he commanded. Plunging the tip of his blade into the dark mass, he flicked his wrist and sliced through the dark lines. Tavin pushed his hand though the breached area, and with great effort opened his fist.

Inside, resting on his open palm, lay a gold ring with a crudely set black stone, dusted with tiny speckles of a garish, purplish-pink color. Lily seized it at once, even as Keegan protested, and slipped it onto one of Tavin’s fingers.

Once on his finger, the tiny speckles burst into fiery light. Instantly, Tavin’s body began to convulse. He began to scream so loudly that Lily was certain he was dying. The flesh covering the death-blooms blackened as if burnt. Dubb and Andros struggled to keep Tavin’s hands from clawing at his darkening flesh.

Slowly, in time with the dimming of the ring, Tavin’s flailing subsided. His breathing steadied, like an athlete getting his wind after a great run. His eyes regained their focus.

“I’m all right,” he gasped, and Dubb and Andros released their holds. Tavin pushed himself upright on his elbows. His skin looked healthy, and a brightness that Lily had never seen before flickered in his eyes. He was reinvigorated.

Tavin reached out, offering his hand to Lily, who took it. He gave her a very grave look. “You bargained with Curse,” he said. “I could hear you, as though I were listening from some faraway place.”

“I don’t know how successful I was,” confessed Lily. “It seemed too easy.”

Tavin smiled. “Curse wants you to doubt yourself. It wants you to think you’ve failed, and there is no surer way to fail, Lily, than through self-doubt. But I could feel—very clearly—Curse’s intense anger. I believe you succeeded. I owe you my life. It is not a debt I will take lightly. If you should ever—”

“Promise me that at first crossover you will meet with Greydor, the Pride of the Rinn, and offer to him your services as a Dainrider.”

Tavin blinked. He took a deep breath and held it.

No one spoke, although Dubb and Andros grinned at Lily in frank appreciation of her triumph. She’d accomplished something no one had ever done, though many had tried: she’d bested Curse.

Tavin nodded. “Aye, I will do this thing—at first crossover.”

“
We
will do this thing,” corrected Dubb. He leaned down to Tavin and said, “How do you like that, my friend? No sooner are you out of the frying pan than you’re falling—”

“—into the mouths of Rinn,” finished Andros, who had knelt down to join them. The three men burst into a laughter so fierce that any sane person would have thought all three of them escapees from a lunatic asylum.

Chapter Twelve

The Unexpected Party

L
ily
wanted to stay for the party that followed, but Cora wouldn’t allow it.

Ember, riding a horse far more beautiful than the nag pulling the wagon, accompanied them. She kept her hood drawn down low, shielding her eyes, and often drifted quite far afield. She started no conversations, and Cora asked her no questions. Lily wondered if Ember had been the woman she’d heard crying in the woods. Shortly before reaching old Pym’s homestead, the lunamancer continued on toward Bairne alone.

“Cora?” said Lily.

“Yes?”

“I don’t want you to tell them what I did.”

“They’ll find out, you know.”

“Yes. But not today. Not this first night. Not right now.”

Cora gave Lily a nod. “That I can do.”

The news of Tavin’s recovery affected everyone differently: Grimm, Darce, and Andra pumped their fists to the sky and cheered. Ren and Prin burst into happy tears. The triplets danced in a circle around Ridley and Teague. Falin gazed up at Rel’ Kah and squinted. Making an O with his thumb and forefinger, he pressed it over his heart. “Looking after one of your own, eh?” he said to the moon, shaking his head and smiling.

Cora helped Lily out of the wagon. “We’re going to need more barrels of wine and mead from the storeroom. Where are Nye and Luna?”

Falin shrugged his shoulders. “They’re around.”

“Well, make sure you mind them. This place looks like it could use some work. As long as you’re guests here, you should make yourselves handy.”

After hoisting the last keg into place, a sweaty Falin and Grimm put on a pretty argument about how they they were old enough to attend the party.

Cora ignored them. “Make sure you’re all ready to leave by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.” Cora eyed the additional kegs in the back of the wagon. “Or maybe by early evening.”

“We’re going to travel at night?” asked Darce.

Cora looked uncertain. “Oh dear. I suppose there’s a chance we won’t leave until the morning after. We’ll just have to play it by ear.”

And with that Cora gave the reins a shake and off the wagon creaked.

“All right,” began Darce under her breath. “Let’s give Cora a friendly wave goodbye. Smiles, everyone.”

“Did we overplay it?” asked Grimm though a frozen smile.

“Little bit. The woman’s not daft, you know,” replied Darce.

“I think we did fine,” said Falin.

“Well, I totally bought it. If that helps,” said Lily. “Now, what was it I bought again?”

Darce gave Lily a cursory glance, then looked at everyone else in turn.

“All right then. I declare this party a go. Ren, Ridley, Prin: provisions. Teague, Luna, Andra: get up to the cistern and get those water skins filled.” Darce gauged the moons in the sky. “Where are Luna and Nye? They should have been back
before
Cora and Lily arrived.”

“Party?” asked Lily.

Darce, Grimm, and Falin removed a rolled-up blanket from a rough looking duffel bag and laid it out. Inside were four swords—two long and two short—with belts and scabbards.

“What are these for?” asked Lily.

Grimm and Darce unrolled more blankets. These were filled with bucklers, shields, helmets, and other bits of armor whose names Lily didn’t know.

Falin hefted one of the longswords, examined it quickly, and tossed it to his brother, taking the other for himself. They rolled up their old weapons in the empty blankets and carefully stowed them. Even to Lily’s inexperienced eye, their previous swords seemed like playthings.

Darce patted her shorter, more agile-looking weapon. “You would do far better with something faster,” she said to Falin. “Two well-placed hits are better than one big one.”

Falin partly drew out his blade and made a quick inspection. “Yeah, well, just try and tell that to the one taking the big hit,” he said, grinning.

“Don’t fret, Darce,” said Grimm. “We’ve got the strength to use them in close quarters. You won’t be in any danger. And let’s face it, neither Falin nor I will ever possess your placement skills. These are a much better fit for our styles.”

Darce shook her head in obvious disgust.

“Um, guys?” said Lily. “Could someone please tell me what’s—”

Darce gave Lily a hard look. “We’re tired of our parents having all the fun,” she snarled.

“What are you planning to do?”

“Let them have their party tonight, but we have no intention of wasting our time being babysitters.” Lily stared at Darce. “Nye found Badru’s boat. He has to have come from somewhere!”

“Badru?” said Lily slowly, not believing what she was hearing. “You mean to find out where the blackmage came from?”

“Yes. And any others who are working with him.”

“Don’t you think—” Lily cut herself short; second-guessing Darce would only make things worse. “But with Badru dead . . . if he came by boat . . . he could have come from anywhere in the fens. How will you track him?”

“What does it matter to you?” asked Darce. “You’re no fighter, no lunamancer, no healer. I doubt you’ve ever drawn a bow.” That said, Darce stomped off.

“Falin,” Lily implored. “The fens are huge. Badru could have come from anywhere in them. This is crazy.”

Falin gave a knowing smile. “We
will
find where he came from, and this very night. We had planned to avenge Tavin, but this will be sweeter. Ours is not a plan born from a single mad mind—”

“Yes, I can see that. It was born from many mad minds!”

Falin laughed. “More than you know. Annora and Bree—”

“Annora!” said Lily.

“Yes, and you should come with us.”

“Me? Why?”

“Annora and Bree will want a firsthand account of how Tavin was saved.”

Lily didn’t let her face show a thing. “When do you plan to leave?”

“As soon as Nye and Luna get here with the horses.”

“What about the children?”

“They’ll be fine. Andra, Ridley, Prin, Luna—they’ll take care of the little ones. And Byrne is on his way with his brothers. They’re on foot.”

“They’re walking through the wastes?”

“Yes. We’ll leave a horse behind for Byrne if he gets here late, but his brothers will be staying here.” Falin leaned in conspiratorially. “Andra is very upset that she has to stay behind. But the party is already quite large, especially with the Lintel brothers coming along.”

Lily felt a cold dread pass over her. “The Lintel brothers? The ones Annora and Bree hurt in the arena? The ones that can’t form peerins anymore?”

Falin grinned. “Yes. Evidently, there was more to that little trick than they told any of us. Turns out the four of them had been planning it for some time, but they needed all those lunamancers to pull it off. Something about drawing magic off them.”

Little trick? The way Jasper had described it, Annora and Bree’s contest in the arena had gone horribly wrong, and not according to any plan.

“Personally, though,” continued Falin, “I think it was a bit more painful than Beck or Newlin had bargained for. But I must continue to help packing. Let me know what you decide.”

Lily nodded, still thinking over Falin’s surprising news about the Lintel brothers’ role in the plan. She was certain now Annora and Bree had drawn off the moon coin through Jasper as well. No one could have planned for that.

Falin glanced up at the sky, which was clear of clouds. “Taw is moving off now—taking Dik Dek and Barreth with it. It doesn’t look like we’ll have a dominant moon tonight. That would be a good thing; we can use all the darkness we can get. But we’re still in the middling, so you can expect—Ah, look! Rel’ Kah is staying with us, and by the look of her, she’s waxing.”

“You call the moon Rel’ Kah a she?” asked Lily.

“It’s not an uncommon thing, to liken one of our moons to a woman.”

“Even Darwyth?”

“Even Darwyth. Evil can find purchase in any heart.” He pointed low in the sky. “Look here. She’s bringing the Secret moon with her for company—a sure sign of mischief, that. The only iller omen would be for Darwyth to join them.” He sighed. “We have a ways to travel. We’ll be in want of moonlight before we reach the fens, though we’ll wish we were darkward before the night’s over.”

“And you have real horses for this?”

“Horses aren’t so hard to come by out here. Nye says all kinds of animals come drifting in from the wastes. The healers take care of them until they’re ready to go out again. Nye’s gone off to get them now.”

Byrne, along with both his brothers, jogged into camp shortly before Nye and Luna arrived with three horses.

To even out their weight, Falin rode with Nye, Byrne with Grimm, and Lily rode with Ren and Darce. Darce was originally adamant that she be in charge of the horse. Ren didn’t care who took the reins as long as it wasn’t herself, but once Lily climbed on and made several impressive maneuvers, including a jump over a fence, Darce changed her mind, giving Lily full credit for her horsemanship.

Nye took the lead, and Lily was happy to see that she wasn’t the only one who knew her way around a horse.

After an hour, the path began a slow descent, leveling off rarely, and even then only for short periods before dipping downward again. They rode fast and long for many hours. The sun sank into the horizon and the sky between the moons filled with bright stars. Lily grew concerned for the horses and was about to say something when they reached a darkly wooded coomb, its entrance marked by a gushing waterfall. At the bottom, they emerged from the deep shadows of the tree line and assembled on a stony shore at the water’s edge, where a boat floated in the moonlight. Three black shapes stood waiting.

The party dismounted, and a ball of blue light took shape before the three figures, lighting their faces. Drawing from Jasper’s description, Lily easily identified Annora, making the young man in black either Newlin or Beck, and the girl with her arms around him Bree.

“There are seven of you?” said Annora, squinting her eyes in Lily’s direction.

“This is Lily Winter, Jasper’s sister,” said Ren. “She wanted to come along.”

“Oh, good. For a second I thought you’d brought Luna. Hello, Lily, it’s nice to meet you.”

“The same. I heard about your competition from my brother.” Lily eyed the Lintel boy warily.

“Where’s Beck?” asked Prin.

“He’s not coming,” said Annora shortly. “Now let’s get moving. We have no idea how long this might take.”

Working as a team, they unloaded the horses and stocked the boat. Nye tarried with the horses, softly talking to each of them, his head pressed close to theirs. It was something Lily liked to do before a jumping event with Hello Kitty.

The boat was quite large, and very wide, yet even with all ten of them aboard, it drew very little water. From its center rose a tall, single mast. Someone had raised its yard but not yet unfurled the sail.

Moonlight from Rel’ Kah and Secret spilled down and lit the shore’s edge, sparkling off the water leading into the fens, illuminating small islands of trees and wide meadows of reed. Vapors rose from the water, vanishing into the dense cloud banks blanketing the fens.

Nye, Falin, Grimm, and Darce boarded first. Using long poles, they anchored the boat in place as Ren untied the mooring line.

Once they were all aboard the blackmage’s boat, Lily decided to stick close to Ren, who in turn stayed close to her fellow lunamancers. They gathered near the mast around a table made of rough planks.

Ren formed a peerin and scanned the wood. “I don’t see anything unusual . . . just some old wooden planks.”

And then, to Lily’s surprise, Newlin formed a peerin before his chest.

“I thought you couldn’t do that anymore!” said Lily.

Newlin smiled graciously. From his halting speech, Lily determined that he was manipulating things within his peerin as he spoke. “This . . . is no ordinary peerin, Lily. This . . . is what we now call . . . a
dark
peerin.”

Suddenly, the boards rattled loose and popped out of their seatings. Newlin collapsed his peerin and began flipping the boards over one at a time, slowly revealing a map burned into the wood. Annora waved her hand and the glowing ball of blue light swept closer. Lily pulled out one of her notepads and began furiously sketching the map. All four of them turned and stared.

“What?” she said, pausing briefly. “Notes are good! How do you think the British made their Empire?”

“The who?” asked Ren.

Lily blushed. She’d forgotten that here, in the Moon Realm, her obscure history references would not only be unappreciated, but total non sequiturs to boot.

“Runs in the family, I suppose,” said Newlin under his breath, and everyone, even Lily, grinned. Newlin tapped a spot on the map. “This is where the boat was found. . . . And this is where we are now.”

“How does it work, Newlin?” asked Ren, staring intently at the map.

“There are two holes for pegs—here, in the map. It appears I’m the only one who can see them.”

“Are the pegs invisible, too?” asked Ren.

“Hold on.” Newlin reformed his peerin. “The pegs are here. But only when called for, like so.” Newlin spoke something into his peerin and twitched a finger. Two balls of mist appeared at the top of the map, grew solid, and finally resolved into slightly different looking wooden pegs, one with a boat carved on top, and one with an X. Newlin closed his peerin and picked them up.

“This is the destination peg,” he said, picking up the peg with the X. “It was still in the map when Nye found the boat. And this,” said Newlin, holding up the peg with the boat carved on top, “is the starting point peg.” He placed the peg over the hole in the wooden map where Badru had landed and shot it home. The boat shuddered.

“They’re different, you see, so they can be switched when you want to start the return trip. This way, a minion, if properly trained, could operate one of these boats without the blackmage on board.”

“Just the two holes?” asked Lily.

“This boat is only halfway through its mission.” answered Newlin. “A singular mission.”

“To claim Tavin and take him back to . . . wherever,” said Lily.

“It would seem so.” Newlin raised his voice. “Listen, everyone. Hold fast to something.” He held up the destination peg. “
This
goes—
here
.” As his hand reached toward the center of the map, to what looked like an island in the middle of the fens, Ren gasped.

“Perianth,” she said, looking stricken. Her arm shot out to stay Newlin from seating the peg. “But that’s so far! We’ll need to travel through half the fens and back!” Ren turned to Annora. “How long have you known this?”

“Beck figured it out this afternoon,” said Annora. “But it doesn’t change anything.”

“Doesn’t change anything? We’re chasing a blackmage! What if there are others? What if there are dread-knights?”

Lily shifted, suddenly uncomfortable.

“The blackmage is dead,” explained Annora. “We’re just going for reconnaissance, Ren. Then we’ll turn the pegs around and come back. Perianth is long abandoned. No one will see us.”

“Just what
is
a dread-knight?” asked Lily in a low voice.

Several faces turned to Darce.

“Dread-knights,” began Darce in a voice of deadly calm, “were once Dragondain,
real
Dragondain, just as blackmages were once lunamancers. Beyond that, very little is known.”

“Tavin followed one into the fens,” said Lily.

No one spoke for a time.

“Are you certain?” asked Darce evenly.

“Positive.”