The Red Wyvern Read online

  “A question answered and one only, O Great Lord.” Brour spoke aloud. “I know full well how honored I am that thou hast answered my call.”

  In the pillar the figure inclined its head. Lilli somehow felt that it was amused at Brour’s presumption.

  “What wish you to know, Child of Earth?”

  “Deep within thy realm of earth and stone that lies under this dun and its outbuildings, there is a tunnel leading from the dun to somewhere beyond its walls and the walls of the city that surrounds it. We wish to know where it lies.”

  The figure inclined its head toward Lilli.

  “Look! Child of Aethyr, look into your basin!”

  Lilli followed orders. On the black surface of the ink pictures began forming: a gate in a wall, a narrow path between walls of stone, a broken tower standing in a cobbled ward. Behind that tower she saw wooden doors set into the earth.

  “A root cellar?” She couldn’t contain herself. “It’s in a root cellar? You’re certain?”

  Brour yelped in fear. She felt the King of Earth’s laughter wash over her and looked up at the greenish-grey figure in his pillar of silver light. He did seem to be laughing, truly.

  “We are certain, little one. You will find what you seek under those doors. Now fare thee well. Sorcerer! Release me!”

  “I shall, Great King of Earth,” Brour said. “And my thanks for thy aid in this matter.”

  Brour flung his arms into the air and began to chant. With each alien word the silver light dimmed until at last nothing remained but the normal yellow light of a candle flame dancing in a pierced lantern. With one hand raised to hold the astral sword, Brour turned toward the east. Chanting, he erased the circle of blue fire, then walked to the west and rubbed out part of the flour-marked circle with one foot.

  “May all spirits bound by this ceremony go free!” Brour called out. “It is over!”

  He stamped thrice upon the floor. Suddenly Lilli felt the room regain its normal size and normal emptiness. Brour caught his breath in a long sigh and sat down quite suddenly upon the floor.

  “Are you all right?” Lilli said.

  “Tired. Thirsty. Bring me that waterskin, will you? You have some too. And there’s cheese and bread in that bit of cloth.”

  After the marvels she’d just seen Lilli found the idea of eating ridiculous—until she saw the food and realized how hungry she was. She and Brour sat in the middle of the broken ritual circle and gobbled, washing the food down with water that tasted as good as mead. When she was done eating, she realized that the strange shimmer of light had faded from the walls. The view turned so magical had become mundane again.

  “It’s all gone,” she said wistfully. “All the silver magic.”

  “That’s the point of eating,” Brour said, grinning. “You can’t go about your daily affairs in a state of trance. And besides, we’ve got one last marvel to view—our bolthole. We’d best take a look at it before we forget the vision, too.”

  They blew out all the lanterns but one. Brour had brought extra candles as well as food; once the lanterns were cool enough, they packed them up and got on their way.

  As soon as they were outside, Lilli recognized the path that the King of Earth had shown her. The little gate by the far wall seemed to shimmer, as if a trace of dweomer-light clung to the wooden door. They went through and found themselves in a narrow passageway between two high walls that led downhill to another door in a low one. That, too, was unbarred. On the other side stretched a big ward, ringed with high walls and scattered with ruins—a broken tower, tumbled heaps of stones, mounds of grassy earth that probably covered the remains of sheds and huts.

  “It looks like this place saw some fighting,” Brour said.

  “So it does. It must have been an awfully long time ago. I’ve never heard anyone talk about it. There might have been a fire.”

  “True spoken. And the king didn’t rebuild in here because he wanted to keep the bolthole hidden, or so we can hope, anyway. No one would have any reason to come poking around in the ruins.”

  In the event Brour’s hope was justified. Around back of the broken tower Lilli saw the stone lean- to of her vision and the pair of wooden doors, half-rotted but still closed. While she held the lantern Brour broke them open. Six steps of packed earth led down into an ordinary-looking root cellar—ordinary except for the drifts of white mould and cobwebs.

  “Oh ych!” Lilli said. “It smells horrid.”

  “Well, we’re letting some fresh air in now,” Brour said. “We don’t dare linger out here. What if some watchman sees the lantern light?”

  Lilli took a quick gulp of fresh air, then went down the steps. The floor was mostly muck from seepage, but someone had laid big flagstones across the middle. Although they were slippery, they held stable. Brour followed her, watching each step he took.

  “How did anyone get horses down here?” Lilli said. “For the king to ride away on?”

  “Good question. I haven’t the slightest idea.” Brour paused, looking around. “Maybe it’s not the right—oh! Look!”

  A heavy door made of oak planks, hinged and bound in iron, graced the far wall.

  “Hah!” Brour said, grinning. “You don’t build a door like that to safeguard your turnips! Hold the lantern, lass. Let’s see if I can get it open.”

  Brour pulled, then tried pushing, shoved and grunted and shoved again. The door scraped inward by a bare inch. He set his back against it and began to walk backward, driving hard with his legs. Sweat broke out on his face. He took a deep breath, then drove once more. With a screech like ravens the door scraped on stone and opened. Lilli held the lantern high and sent a beam of light into a tunnel, lined with worked stone blocks, about eight feet high and ten across, stretching into darkness beyond the lantern light’s power to follow. Brour wiped his face on his sleeve and laughed, a bit breathlessly.

  “Well, that looks promising,” he said. “You could lead horses through it, sure enough, once you got them down here.”

  “Are we going to follow it tonight?”

  “Aren’t you too tired?”

  “I’m not! I want to see where it goes.”

  “And so do I. Curiosity’s a terrible thing.”

  Though the root cellar was filthy enough, the tunnel was worse, stinking of old rot. Pools of mucky water lay across the uneven floor. Brour rolled up his brigga legs, but since Lilli couldn’t carry a lantern and hold her skirts up at the same time, she had to let the hems fend for themselves. Fortunately she was wearing an old outer dress that she could give to a servant to keep her mother from asking about the stains.

  “Do you think there’s going to be rats?” Lilli said.

  “Probably. They’ll run from the light, though.”

  As they walked on they did hear noises that sounded like small things skittering away in the darkness. As it ran forward, the tunnel sloped downhill and a drainage channel appeared, lying along one side of the roughly paved floor.

  “Good.” Brour pointed to it. “We won’t find a lake waiting for us at the bottom after all. I was beginning to worry, but they must have made some outlets for runoff somewhere.”

  “That’s probably how the rats get in and out, then.”

  “Please stop worrying about rats, will you? I’m trying to forget about them myself.”

  After what Lilli judged to be half a mile, the tunnel levelled out again and ran straight ahead, though after a few hundred yards or so it made an odd jog around an enormous pillar of worked stone.

  “Know what that is?” Brour said. “One of the foundations of the outer walls of the city. We’re leaving Dun Deverry behind, all right.”

  “Which way are we going?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea.”

  Whichever way it headed, the tunnel ran straight enough. Perhaps a mile on, Brour had to stop and put fresh candles in their lanterns. By the time the tunnel began to slope upward, the candles were burning down, too. Once they’d replaced them
they walked forward for a long breathless climb up a slope. At the top the tunnel levelled out.

  “Another door!” Brour crowed.

  A door, bound and hinged in the exact same pattern of ironwork as the one back in Dun Deverry, stood across the passageway. This one, fortunately, opened outward and somewhat more easily, though Brour could shove it open a couple of feet and no more. They squeezed through into another cellar, though this one had lost its doors at the top of its steps. Fresh air, tinged with the damp of night, rushed in. Lilli breathed deep—no royal perfume had ever smelled better.

  “It must open outside,” she whispered.

  “If it’s a root cellar, they usually do.” Brour stuck his head out. “Ah, I see. This once lay under some kind of stone building, but it’s been razed, and many years ago, too. Cursed good thing. I was afraid we’d come into some lord’s great hall and have some explaining to do.”

  When Lilli climbed out, all she could see were dark stone shapes, looming against a starry sky, but she could make out enough to guess that they were seeing the remains of an outer wall that once had circled a small dun. At their feet grass and weeds grew thick. Brour squinted up at the stars.

  “We’d best get back. I don’t want your mother sending a page first thing in the morning only to find me gone.”

  On the trek back, Lilli suddenly realized that she was exhausted. Her excitement had kept her going on the way out; now she found herself yawning compulsively and shivering with cold. The long climb uphill under Dun Deverry left her gasping for breath. By the time they emerged from the tunnel, the lanterns they’d left behind in the root cellar had long ago burned out. Brour flung open the doors overhead to reveal the first grey of dawn.

  “You’ve got to get back,” he said. “If you hurry, you should be able to get up to your chamber without anyone seeing you. And clean the muck off those dresses before your mother sees it, too.”

  “I’ll do that.” Lilli hesitated, thinking back to the Great King of Earth shining in his silver pillar. “This has been splendid, Brour.”

  He started to smile, then merely yawned.

  “We’ll talk later. Now hurry.”

  Lilli did indeed manage to reach her chamber before the rest of the dun woke. She stripped off her dresses, hung them over a chair to let the mucky water dry—she could beat the worst of the mud off later—then fell into bed and deep sleep at what seemed to her the same moment.

  “Have you seen Lilli?” Merodda said.

  “I’ve not,” Bevyan said. “I asked a page a while ago, and he told me she was still asleep.”

  “Lazy little thing! Well, I’ll find her later. Will you be attending upon the queen this afternoon?”

  “I won’t. I’ve been asked to look in on Lord Arvan’s wife. She’s ever so ill, poor thing. She shouldn’t have come to court this year at all, if you ask me.”

  “She’s never been strong.” Merodda considered her rival for a moment. “If you do see Lilli, please tell her to find me.”

  Here was a bit of luck! But it was late in the afternoon before Merodda got her chance to speak to the queen alone, when Abrwnna’s maids went down to the river to wash clothes and her serving women had gone off about their own business. Merodda and the queen sat at a window in the high hall, where they could see the busy ward below, like a Bardek carpet scattered with children’s toys.

  “Look!” Abrwnna said, pointing. “There goes Lord Belryc. Sometimes I think I like him best—the best of my fellowship, I mean.”

  Merodda watched the young lord, sunny and blond, leading his horse toward the gates.

  “Only sometimes, my liege?” Merodda said, smiling.

  “Well, I like them all. Oh, it’s so awful, wondering what people are saying! Rhodi, do you think I’m a slut?”

  “Of course not, my liege! I have every faith that you understand how important your honor is. I know you’ll act properly.”

  “Well, it’s just so unfair!” Abrwnna left off watching the ward and turned in her chair to face Merodda. “Other ladies have lovers!”

  “Those other ladies have given their lords legitimate heirs, my liege. Then they may—”

  “But that’s even worse! It’ll be years before Olaen can—well, you know. If we even live that long! Oh gods, Rhodi, do people think I’m a dolt or suchlike? Don’t you think I know I’m likely to spend my whole life in some ghastly temple, if Cerrmor doesn’t have me strangled first?”

  “My liege, you’re just vexing yourself. The regent’s raised a decent army, and we’re not defeated yet, not at all.”

  Abrwnna tossed her head in her practiced ripple of red-gold hair.

  “Well, maybe not. But I don’t want to die a virgin after being shut up for years and years. But I don’t want people talking about me, either. Bevva says that honor’s like water. Once you spill it, you can’t get it back into the goblet, and it’s all dirty anyway.”

  “Lady Bevyan does take a strict view of such things.” Here was her chance!

  “I do like her, though,” Abrwnna said. “Don’t you?”

  “I do, indeed, my liege. In some ways we understand each other very well. We’ve both lost sons and lands to the wars.”

  “That must be awful.”

  “It is, truly.” Merodda looked away and allowed herself a small sigh. “Women take it different ways. Some of us learn to seize every bit of joy our life offers, and others—well, they get strangely harsh.”

  “Harsh?”

  “When it comes to judging other women. Some do, you know, like—well, like our Bevyan.”

  “Indeed?” Abrwnna leaned forward in her chair, her hands clasped. “What do you mean, judging others?”

  “Oh, that’s very unfair of me, truly. It’s just that she’s led such an exemplary life herself. It must be a bit hard to understand that other people aren’t as strong as she is.”

  “She talks about being strong all the time.”

  “She does, and she’s quite right of course. In your position, my liege, you cannot be too careful. What the court thinks of you is very important, and indeed, it could turn dangerous, if important lords like Tieryn Peddyc should begin to think ill of you. Which is why—”

  Merodda hesitated, watching the young queen’s face.

  “Why what?” Abrwnna snapped.

  “Naught, my liege. Naught that need concern you.”

  “Stop that! You were going to tell me somewhat, and I want to know what it is.”

  “Very well. I wonder at times what Lady Bevyan might be saying to her lord.”

  Abrwnna gasped, but it was an honest sound, not one of her rehearsed alarms.

  “That’s what I mean, Your Highness,” Merodda went on, “when I say that you need to be very very careful. You know the old saying: you can spoon the dead flies out of the honey, but it won’t taste as sweet to those who saw them there. Your honor is all you have in life, and believe you me, there will be plenty of women who’ll be judging how worthy of your position you are. The old ones are the worst. Sitting around and waiting for their betters to make a slip!”

  Abrwnna leapt to her feet in a swirl of long dresses.

  “What have they been saying about me?”

  “Your Highness!” Merodda got up to join her. “What makes you think anyone’s been—”

  “Oh don’t! I’m not stupid. I can see what you’re hinting at. What are they saying?”

  Merodda hesitated, looking torn. Finally she sighed.

  “Only what Your Highness might think,” Merodda said. “It’s the fellowship of course. All those young men at your feet! Can’t you imagine how jealous they all are, the other women? Especially those who aren’t young anymore.”

  “I shan’t disband my fellowship. I shan’t shan’t shan’t!”

  “Very well, Your Highness. Then you must be very careful about whom you take into your confidence.”

  “I can’t believe that Bevyan would betray me.”

  “She hasn’t.” Merodda hesit
ated again. “Not that I know of, anyway. Not that anyone would dare repeat scurrilous gossip about you to me. But when the other women get to talking, it’s so easy at times to go along with the drift, if you know what I mean. Especially if you really don’t approve—I mean, especially if you’re worried, and I know Bevva does worry, Your Highness, just as I do. We only want the best for you.”

  With a toss of her head Abrwnna stalked to the window. When Merodda started to follow, she spun around. Tears streaked her face.

  “Go away!” Abrwnna snapped. “I need to think about this. Leave me alone!”

  “Your Highness!” Merodda went cold with fear. “I never meant to upset you so. Let me beg your pardon—”

  “Oh, Rhodi, it’s not you! It’s just this—this—feeling betrayed. I need to think about Lady Bevyan.”

  “Oh please, don’t be angry with her! She really does mean well.”

  “So they all do, everyone means well. The poor little queen, that’s what they call me. Do you think I’m stupid, do you think I don’t know? I’m supposed to be ever so honorable no matter how unhappy I am, and they all worry that I won’t be, and I hate them all.” Abrwnna burst out sobbing. “Go away! Get out!”

  Merodda curtsied, then fled the chamber. As she hurried down the staircase, she was smiling to herself.

  When she returned to her suite, Merodda called out for Brour, but there was no answer. She glanced into his sleeping room, found him gone, and considered sending a page to look for him. She was too tired to bother with scrying, she decided, and went down to the great hall instead, to watch from a distance the great lords at their mead and meat. Like the other women, she could only guess at the things they argued over so urgently.

  That evening, watching the firelight play over their sweaty faces, she heard with a touch of dweomer the sound of ravens, screeching over a battle-feast. Fear sank long claws into her throat, and she knew with a dreadful certainty that the time would never come when that fear would leave her.

  About two hours before dawn, Lilli met her tutor one last time in the deserted root cellar. Although he was wearing a wool travelling cloak, Brour carried only his book.