The Dragon Revenant Read online

  Taliaesyn stayed at the market for two more days of drowsy boredom. Although he did his best to probe his mind, he found the work hard going, confirming his own thought that he’d never been a man who paid much attention to his mind. He did, however, remember one small thing, the matter of the piece of jewelry. Although he couldn’t remember exactly what it was, Taliaesyn was sure that Baruma had stolen a valuable piece of silver jewelry from him, some heirloom, handed down to him by some member of his clan or by someone he admired—he wasn’t sure which. He did know, however, that having lost that piece of jewelry was a shameful thing, that he would be dishonored forever if he didn’t find Baruma and get it back. The shame fed his hatred until at times he daydreamed for long hours about killing Baruma in one or another hideous way.

  On the mid-morning of the third day he was sitting out in the grassy courtyard when Brindemo brought a customer to see him. He was a tall man, quite dark, with close-cropped curly black hair and two green diamonds painted on his left cheek. The straight-backed way he stood suggested that at some time he might have been a soldier, and his shrewd dark eyes often flicked Brindemo’s way in contemptuous disbelief as the trader chattered on, singing Taliaesyn’s praises and creating a false history for him all at the same time.

  “Very polished manners, sir, a merchant’s son and very well-spoken, but alas, he had a terrible taste for gambling, and fell in among bad company over in Mangorio, and …”

  “Are you good with horses?” The customer broke in, speaking straight to Taliaesyn. “Most Deverry men are.”

  “I am. I’ve been riding all my life.” As he spoke, he remembered another scrap of his earlier life: a sleek black pony that he’d loved as a child. The memory was so vivid, so precious that he missed what the customer said next while he groped and struggled to remember the little beast’s name.

  All at once the customer swung at him, a clean hard punch straight at his face. Without thinking Taliaesyn parried with his left wrist and began to swing back. Brindemo’s horrified scream brought him to his senses. He could be beaten bloody for swinging on a free man, but the customer only laughed and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder.

  “I think you’ll do. I’m leading a caravan into the mountains. One of my muleteers fell ill, and I’ve no time to hire a free man to take his place.”

  “What, honored sir?” Brindemo’s jowls were shaking in indignation. “A valuable barbarian, used as a muleteer?”

  “Only for a while. I’m quite sure I can resell him at a profit later on. Arriano told me that he needed to disappear, for your sake and his, and I can manage that.”

  “He told you what?” The trader’s voice rose to a wail.

  “You can trust me. Eight zotars.”

  “You have larceny in your heart! You wish to drive me out of business!”

  The haggling was on in earnest. For a good long time they insulted each other’s motives and ancestry at the top of their lungs until at last they settled upon sixteen zotars. Out came the original bill of sale, which Taliaesyn’s new master read over quickly with a bitter twist to his mouth, as if he were amazed at the clumsiness of the forgery.

  “I’ll make out a new bill, of course,” Brindemo said.

  “Of course. My name is Zandar of Danmara.”

  When Brindemo waddled off inside the house to write out the new bill, Zandar crossed his arms over his chest and considered Taliaesyn carefully and coolly.

  “You deal honestly with me, boy, and I’ll do the same with you. When your relatives catch up with us, I’ll sell you back for little more than I paid—provided you work hard and cause me no trouble. Is it a bargain?”

  “Yes. I don’t suppose free men shake hands with slaves here, or I’d offer you mine.”

  “No one shakes hands the way you do in your country, so don’t take it as an insult. Unsanitary custom, it always seemed to me, rubbing palms with someone you barely know. You’ll have a quarterstaff like the other men. Will you swear to me you won’t turn it against me?”

  “On the gods of my people.”

  “All right, then. We won’t mention it again.”

  In spite of himself Taliaesyn felt a grudging respect for the man. He would have liked him, he decided, if they’d met in other circumstances. Zandar went on with his slow scrutiny.

  “Silver dagger,” he said abruptly. “That mean anything to you, boy?”

  Taliaesyn felt his head jerk up like a startled stag’s.

  “I thought it might. You look the type. It would fit what little I’ve been told about your mysterious circumstances.”

  “So it does. Oh by every god!” He spun around on his heel and began to pace back and forth in sheer excitement as memories crowded at the edge of his mind. He could feel the weight in his hand, the perfect balance of the dagger, see the pommel with the three silver knobs, the device graved on the blade, a striking falcon. All at once tears sprang to his eyes, as he saw another picture in his mind, the grim, scar-slashed face of a man with gray-shot blond hair and ice-blue eyes, a cold man, hard as steel, but one who loved him. “I think I remember my father, and by the hells, he was no merchant.”

  “We were all sure of that, boy. What’s his name? Think.” He let his voice drop to a whisper. “Try to remember his name.”

  Taliaesyn felt it rising, just out of reach, tried to remember, and lost the memory cold.

  “I can’t.” Then he felt the stomach-wrenching cold of a loss of hope. “Well, if I was a silver dagger, you don’t need to worry about my kin coming to ransom me back. Doubtless they’ll be glad enough to be rid of me forever.”

  “Many a man’s worked his way out of slavery, you know. All it takes is a little shrewdness and a willingness to take on paying jobs after your duties are done.”

  Taliaesyn nodded in agreement, but in truth he barely heard him. He was remembering the dagger again, and he knew now what Baruma had stolen from him, knew what he had to take back at the cost of Baruma’s life. Although he would never harm Zandar, he’d sworn no vow against escaping the first chance he got. Even though he would be torn to pieces as an escaped slave, he would take his revenge first, then die knowing he’d earned his manhood back again.

  On the other side of the city from the harbor, Myleton sprawled along a shallow though broad river. Beside the water lay a tangle of alleys, tumbledown warehouses, and wooden jetties, where brightly colored punts bobbed in the flow. Beyond this disorderly district was a flat open pasture-land where merchant caravans could camp with their pack animals. Zandar’s caravan was waiting there, camped around two stone fire circles and a pair of rope corrals. It was a big caravan, too: thirty pack mules and twelve riding horses, tended by nine freemen and now, of course, one slave.

  Eking out his knowledge of the language with gesture and pantomime, the men introduced Taliaesyn to his new life. The extra horses were his responsibility, as well as all the odd pieces of work unworthy of freemen: cutting firewood, fetching water, stacking gear, and serving the food at meals, though one of the other men did double as the cook. Although everyone treated him decently, no one spoke to him unless it was to give him an order. As a slave he seemed to be almost invisible, like a tool or a cookpot, hung up out of sight when not in use. When dinner time came, Taliaesyn was fed last and sat behind the others at a respectful distance. Afterwards, while they lounged talking around the fire, he scrubbed out the cooking pots and washed the bowls. Even though he’d had some days at Brindemo’s to recover, he was still so weak from the long ordeal in the ship that by the end of the evening his head was swimming with exhaustion. As he fell asleep, he realized that it would be some time before he could seriously consider escape.

  When the caravan broke camp the next morning, it headed out to the southeast, following the line of the river. After a few miles Taliaesyn realized why Zandar didn’t seem worried about his new slave escaping. The countryside ran perfectly flat, perfectly featureless, mile after mile of small farms with only a few shade trees to break
the monotony. Before noon they turned away from the river to head straight south and soon left the settled farms behind to follow a narrow caravan track through grassland. A runaway slave would have no place to hide, no food to forage, no true road to follow. Well, by the gods of my people, Taliaesyn thought, I’ll have to wait and see what the mountains bring me, then.

  That time of year, when winter was already howling through Deverry, the Southern Sea was so rough that the small bark was forced to tack its way across to Bardek. Of a morning it might run miles out of the direct course before a strong west wind, only to laboriously turn back in the afternoon when the wind changed. All around, the ocean stretched wintry blue and lonely, an endless swell off to a gray-mist horizon. Considering the time of year, it was doubtless the only ship out to sea. Its tattered crew of fifteen sailors grumbled at their captain’s decision to make the trip south, but then they were usually grumbling about one thing or another. A rough lot, they went armed with swords and squabbled like the winds themselves, but they were quite respectful of the ship’s two passengers. Whenever Salamander the gerthddyn and his bodyguard, a young silver dagger with the supposed name of Gilyn, took the sea air or stood at the ship’s railing of a morning, the pirates bowed politely, left the deck to give them privacy, and made the sign of warding against witchcraft as they did so. If they had been able to see the small gray gnome that frisked along with the pair of them, they would have outright run away.

  “Ah, the call of the sea!” Salamander remarked one frosty morning. “The vast and windswept sea, at that, and then, far ahead of us, an exotic land and strange clime.” He leaned against the rail and watched the white water foaming under the prow. “Bracing salt air, the creak of ropes and sails—ah, it’s splendid.”

  “I’m cursed glad you think so,” Jill snarled. “I’d rather have a good horse under me any day.”

  “Spoken like a true silver dagger, Gillo my turtledove, but you’re overlooking a great advantage to shipboard life: spare time. Time to plan, to scheme, to brood revenge for the evils done our Rhodry, but best of all, time for you to learn Bardekian.”

  “Is it hard to learn?”

  “Oh, not at all. I picked it up in a couple of weeks the first time I was there.”

  Salamander was forgetting, however, that he was not only half Elvish, with that race’s natural proclivity for language, but also a man with a highly trained and disciplined mind. Jill found her studies maddening. Although she submitted to Salamander’s endless drills, after hours of sitting in the stuffy cabin her stubbornness began to wear on him. It only took a couple of days before his patience snapped.

  “Now here!” he snarled one morning. “You’ve got to put the adjectives before the nouns, you little dolt! If you say ‘orno mannoto,’ you’re saying ‘the dogs are ten.’ Ten dogs is mannoto orno”

  “Why can’t these idiots speak properly? If putting those ad-things after a name is good enough for the King, it should be good enough for them.”

  Salamander heaved an unnecessarily loud sigh.

  “Mayhap we need a bit of a rest,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to look over our coin, anyway. How much of Gwerbret Blaen’s bounty do we have left? These pirates are both bestial and of repellent aspect, but they do not come cheap.”

  After Jill barred the door, they pooled their coin and counted it out. His long nose quivering, the gnome hunkered down to stare at the precious gold. When Salamander set aside the second installment on their passage, the pile left looked inadequate indeed.

  “Even if we find Rhodry right away, we’re going to have to stay in Bardek all winter,” Jill said. “Is it an expensive sort of place?”

  “It is, but men like a good tale no matter where they live. I shall ply my humble trade, but it’s going to look truly humble in the sophisticated islands. The rich folk won’t pay much for a storyteller, deemed fit only for farmers and slaves.”

  “Well, as long as we eat regularly, we don’t have to live in luxury.”

  “You may not have to live in luxury.” With a decidedly mournful sigh, Salamander began making the coins disappear into hidden pockets in his clothing. “Besides, if I’m not rich, how can I buy an exotic barbarian slave?”

  “What? Who’s going to be buying any slaves?”

  “We are, my turtledove—Rhodry. What did you think we’d do? Demand him back by force or steal him with the sword? This is a civilized country. You can’t just take someone’s property.”

  “By every greasy hair on the Lord of Hell’s black ass, I want revenge, not haggling in a marketplace.”

  “Do you also want to be arrested for armed robbery? Jill, please, for the sake of every god of both our peoples, follow my orders when we get there. If we cause trouble, we could rot in prison for years, and that won’t do our Rhodry one jot of good.”

  Once the coins were hidden, Salamander leaned back on his narrow bunk and idly stroked the blanket with his long, nervous fingers while he thought something through. All at once he laughed, his smoky-gray eyes snapping with delight.

  “I have it, my sweet, my eaglet! I shall be a wizard, not a gerthddyn.” He waved a hand in a flourish, and blue fire danced and sparked from his fingertips. “Krysello, the Barbarian Wizard from the Far North!” Another snap of his fingers sent a small shower of bright red sparks flying. “Come one, come all, and see the marvels of the northern lands! Bring the children, bring the aged grandmother, and see if you can discover if it’s done with powders and mirrors, or if the barbarian wizard is everything he claims to be.” When he waved both hands, a sheet of purple flame stippled with gold drifted across the cabin to dissipate harmlessly against the wall. “By the hells, they’ll be throwing coins at us by the handful.”

  “No doubt, since they’ll be seeing real dweomer. But what would Nevyn say about this?”

  “Does elven skin make good leather? Let us most profoundly hope that Nevyn never finds out about this little show, or the question will be put to the test. But don’t you see, Jill, how perfect this’ll be? Our enemies won’t suspect a thing, because they won’t believe for a moment that anyone would show off real dweomer in the marketplace.” He rubbed his hands together in glee, making a small fountain of silver flames. “Now, let’s see … aha, you can be my beauteous barbarian handmaiden. Come see the fair Jillanna, a savage princess of far-off Deverry! See how she carries a sword like a man! You’ll be a draw in and of your lovely self.”

  “My very humble thanks. I suppose it’s better than being known as your fancy lad.”

  Salamander wiped his smile away and considered her for a moment.

  “I’m sorry, Jill. I know your heart is sick with worry. It’s a hard quest we’re on, but we’ll save Rhodry yet. Try not to brood.”

  “Not brood? Ye gods, with him in the hands of the Hawks of the Brotherhood?”

  “He may not be that, remember. Snilyn the pirate was as clear as clear, they were going to leave him alive and then sell him.”

  “So they told Snilyn.”

  “Well, true spoken.”

  Cold fear swept between them like another wind from the sea. With a doglike shudder Salamander roused himself from what threatened to be despair.

  “Let me amuse you, my turtledove. The Great Krysello had best practice his astounding repertoire of marvels.”

  As it turned out, with the aid of the Wildfolk of Fire and Aethyr, Salamander could put on an amazing show of true magic disguised as false. He sent balls of blue fire dancing, sheets of red flame drifting, sparks glittering down in firefalls and miniature lightning bolts shooting and blazing. In the dark, the show would be absolutely dazzling. Once he had his visual effects coming easily, he added snaps, booms, crashes, and sizzles, courtesy of the Wildfolk of the Air. At the end, he threw a golden firefall up far above his head and made miniature thunder roll as it came cascading down. As the booms died away, there came a timid knock on the door. When Jill opened it, she found a white-face pirate.

  “Oh here,” he said,
with a lick at nervous lips. “Be all well with you?”

  “It is. Why?”

  “We heard them noises.”

  “It was merely my master, studying his dark arts. Dare you intrude?”

  With a yelp, the pirate turned and fled. As Jill shut the door, Salamander broke out into howls of wild laughter.

  “That’s the spirit,” he said between gasps. “I think me this ruse will work splendidly.”

  Baruma the merchant leaned onto the windowsill of his inn and looked out over the twilit city of Valanth. Far below down the hill, the last of the sunset sparkled on the broad river; here and there, lantern light bloomed in the windows of the houses or glittered among the trees of a garden. The sound of donkey bells drifted up to him from the distant streets. On this lovely evening he was inclined to be in a good mood. Not only had he successfully finished his job for the Old One, but his own affairs were progressing well. Sewn inside the hem of his tunic was a small cache of diamonds, far more portable than gold. Although he traded in goods that couldn’t be displayed in any market or spoken of openly in any guild hall, they fetched a steep price for the man who knew where to sell them, and Baruma’s poisons were all of the highest quality. He’d personally tested them on slaves to ensure it. While he considered which of his select group of customers to visit next, he scratched his hairy stomach, idly hunting for the tiny black fleas that were one of the hazards of traveling in the islands. It was time for him to leave Bardektinna and sail across to Surtinna; his ultimate goal lay on that island, far up in the hills where the Old One lived.

  When the night grew cool, Baruma closed the shutters and turned back to his chamber, a luxurious one with white walls and a blue-and-green tiled floor scattered with velvet cushions and set about with tiny oil lamps. In one corner lay his traveling gear and two big canvas-wrapped bales, which he never allowed out of his sight. Any customs officer who went through his goods would find heavily embroidered linen tablecloths, napkins, and decorative bands for tunics and suchlike, made by barbarians in Deverry for sale to the wealthy ladies of Bardek. Unknown to those who made them, however, once Baruma brought their work back to Bardek it underwent a subtle change. He used the various traditional patterns as labels, indicating the name of the poison in which the cloth had been soaked. Put the cloth in water or wine, and there was the poison again, safe from the prying eyes of the archon’s men.