Sword-Maker, page 12
We huffed and puffed and coughed and swore and muttered all the way up the mountain. We also slid, staggered, fell down, gagged on the stink of the dragon’s breath. And wished we were somewhere else, doing something else; Del no doubt thought of Ajani, while I dreamed of a cantina. A cantina in the South, where the days are warm and bright. And there are no mountains to climb.
The dragon snorted smoke. A rumble accompanied it. And then a relentless hiss spitting wind into our faces. It ripped the hair from my eyes and inserted hot fingers into the weave of my heavy wool tunic.
I slipped, slid, climbed. Threw a question over my shoulder toward the woman who climbed behind me. “Who is this man again?”
“What man?—oh.” Del was breathing hard. She spoke in brief, clipped sentences, sparing no breath for more. “Chosa Dei. Sorcerer. Supposed to be very powerful—till he lost an argument.”
“With his brother.”
“Shaka Obre.” Del sucked in a breath. “There are stories about both of them … tales of great and powerful magic … also ambition. Chosa Dei is the example parents put up before greedy children. ‘Look, oh look, beware of wanting too much, or you will become like Chosa Dei, who dwells in Dragon Mountain.’” It faded into a cough.
“So now everyone in Ysaa-den thinks their mountain is Dragon Mountain, and that Chosa Dei dwells in it.”
“Yes.”
“Sounds like they’re taking after the old man and his taste for ambition. I mean, saying their village lies in the dragon’s shadow is an attempt to claim some fame, isn’t it? Just like Bellin the Cat.”
It was Del’s turn. “Who?”
“Bellin the Cat,” I repeated. “You know, that silly boy back in Harquhal who wants to be a panjandrum. Who wants to make a name.” I sucked more air. “The kid with all the axes.”
That, Del remembered. “Oh. Him.”
“So, it seems to me Ysaa-den’s a little like him—” I bit off a curse as a foot slipped and nearly deposited me on my face. “I mean, isn’t it a little silly to adopt a story as truth just to gain a little fame?” I brushed dirt from my clothes and went on.
“If you lived in Ysaa-den, what would you do?”
I thought it over. “True.”
Del slid, caught at rock, climbed upward again.
“After all, what does it hurt? No one really knows where Dragon Mountain lies—there are countless maps with countless mountains called after Chosa Dei’s prison—and no one really knows if Chosa Dei ever existed. He’s a legend, Tiger. Some believe it, some don’t.”
“Which are you, Delilah?”
Del laughed once. “I told you, stories about Chosa Dei and his battles with Shaka Obre were favorites when I was young. Of course I want to believe. But it doesn’t mean I do.”
I wondered, not for the first time, what childhood for Del had been like. I knew bits and pieces only, because that was all she’d shared, but it wasn’t hard to put a few of them together.
I imagined a pretty but strong-minded girl who preferred boys’ doings to girls’. And who, as the only daughter, was allowed the freedom to be a boy, even symbolically, because it was probably easier for father and uncles and brothers. Easier for a mother who knew she was outnumbered. No skirts and dolls for Del; she’d been handed a sword in place of a cooking spoon.
I’d asked her once what she would be if she hadn’t become a sword-dancer. And she had said probably married. Probably bearing babies. But it was impossible for me to think of Del in those terms, to even imagine her tending a lodge, a man, a child; not because I didn’t think she could, but because I’d never seen it. All I had ever seen was a woman with a sword, tending to men in the circle.
For six long years, it was all Delilah had been. But I wondered. Even if she didn’t, I did. I couldn’t help myself.
What would become of Del once Ajani was dead?
Yet more importantly: what would Del become once Ajani was dead?
“Tiger—look.”
I looked. Was too out of breath to speak.
“Almost there,” Del gasped, nearly as winded as I. “Can’t you feel the heat?”
Heat, yes, if you’re a Northerner. To a Southroner, it was merely a gentle warming, like the breeze of a spring day. What I noticed was, it stank.
“Hoolies,” I muttered, “if this man’s that powerful a sorcerer, why can’t he live in a place that smells better?”
“No choice,” Del croaked. “It was a spell put on him by Shaka Obre.”
“Ah. Of course. I forgot.” I topped off the last bit of mountain and arrived at the dragon’s lip. Heat and stench rolled out to bathe me in dragonish breath. “Hoolies, this place stinks!”
Del came over the edge and paused to catch her breath. I saw her expression of distaste as the odor engulfed her as well. It’s hard enough trying to suck wind back into laboring lungs, but when it smells this bad the task is that much harder.
Smoke rolled out of the “mouth.” I steeled myself and went over for a closer look.
From below, it looked like a dragon. The shape of earth and rock, the arrangement of the same—from below, it looked dragonish. But from up top, from the opening in the rock, it was only a large odoriferous cave extending back into the mountain. The spires of rock forming “teeth” were nothing more than stone columns shaped by ancient rain and the wind moaning incessantly through the cavern’s entrance, bearing the stench of rotting bodies and a trace of something more.
Does magic have a smell?
“No hounds,” Del observed.
No hounds. No dragon. No Chosa Dei.
“Wait a moment,” I muttered, frowning down at the ground. I bent, squatted, looked more closely at turfy ground and the tracks pressed into it. “Pawprints,” I said, “going straight into the cave.”
Del took an involuntary step back, one hand drifting up toward the hilt riding above her left shoulder. “It couldn’t be their den—” But she let it trail off.
“Leave her sheathed,” I suggested, thinking of Halvar’s warning, “and yes, I think it could be … if I believed they were really hounds. It’s what I’ve called them—the Hounds of Hoolies—for lack of a better name, but I never believed they were. And I don’t think beasts live in dens.” I shrugged. “Although I suppose they could.”
We stared at one another, not liking the idea. Not liking the vision I’d painted. I thought it pretty disgusting; Del didn’t say anything.
She edged closer to the entrance. She didn’t draw Boreal, but her right hand hooked in her harness as if to stay close just in case. And I didn’t really blame her.
“Tiger, do you think—”
But I didn’t hear her finish. A blast of malodorous wind came roaring out of the cavern; with it came an overwhelming presentiment of power.
I itched, because all my hairs stood up on my arms, my thighs, the back of my neck. Even my bones tingled; my belly climbed up my throat. It was all I could do not to vomit. “Del—oh, hoolies—Del—”
“What is it? Tiger, what is it?”
I staggered back from the opening, trying not to retch. I also tried to wave Del off, but she followed anyway. “Don’t, bascha—wait—can’t you feel it?”
Maybe. Maybe not. But Del unsheathed Boreal.
It drove me to my knees. “I said wait—oh, hoolies, bascha—I think I’m going to be sick.”
But I wasn’t. I couldn’t be. There wasn’t time for it.
I got up, staggered a step or two, swung back around toward the cavern. “In there,” I gasped. “I swear, it’s in there—”
“What is, Tiger?”
“The thing we’ve been chasing. Sorcerer. Demon. Thing; I don’t know! I just know it’s in there. It’s got to be—and that’s where we have to go.”
Del looked at the cavern. Looked back at me.
“I know,” I said testily. “Do you think I like the idea?”
Del’s jivatma gleamed: pale salmon-silver. In answer, the dragon roared.
At least, it sounded that way; it was wind keening through the cavern, whining in cracks and crannies, then whooshing out of the opening to splatter our faces with stink.
“Come on,” I said unhappily, stepping into the cave. “Let’s get this over with.”
The weight of rock was oppressive. I stopped dead on the threshold.
“What?” Del asked; it fell away into dimness.
I waited, saying nothing. The feeling did not go away.
Del opened her mouth, then shut it.
Behind me yawned the sky. I wanted nothing more than to spin away from the cave and go out into the sky. To take myself from the dark. To walk on the dragon’s spine in the cold, clear air with the sun on my face. Even the Northern sun.
Still Del waited. Somewhere, so did the hounds.
I sweated. Shoved hair out of my eyes. Sucked a breath and spat, cursing myself for the weakness.
“Do you need light?” Del asked.
I looked at her sharply, saw comprehension in her eyes. She knew. She remembered, even though she hadn’t been there. She recalled the result too well.
“No,” I rasped.
“All I’d have to do is sing. My jivatma will give us light.”
I glanced at Boreal: thin silver promise in dimness. Light spilled into the mouth of the cavern from the day beyond, but it died too quickly to gloom. It lent the cavern an eerie insubstantiality, a sense of things unseen. The walls were pocked with shadows.
Light would alter everything. But we couldn’t afford it now. “No,” I told her curtly. “Let’s not offer any more magic to the hounds.”
She waited a moment. “Do you really think—”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.” I was snappish in discomfort. “I just figure it won’t hurt anything not to take any chances.”
Breath boomed in the dragon’s throat. The sound was deafening as air rushed by us toward the entrance. The roar sounded almost real, though both of us knew it wasn’t. It was nothing more than wind and smoke being blown or sucked out of the cave into the vast freedom beyond.
“Will you be all right?” Del asked.
“Leave it alone,” I snapped. I took a step toward the darkness, then came to an abrupt halt. “It’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“That feeling … it’s faded. A moment ago I could almost taste it, and now it’s faded away.” I frowned, turning in a slow revolution. “It was here … it was here—” I stabbed a finger downward, “—filling up this place … it was like a cistern choked with sand, spilling through all the cracks—only what I felt was magic—” I shook my head, frowning. “Now it’s all gone.”
Wind whined through the cavern. With it came the stink, and the wail of a distant hound.
I shut my hand on my sword hilt and slid the blade into freedom. “To hoolies with those hounds.” And led the way into darkness.
Thirteen
Down the dragon’s gullet—or so Halvar might have said. The ceiling dropped, the walls closed in, the darkness was nearly complete. Except for a sickly red glow that crept out of the depths of the dragon to illuminate our way.
A lurid carnelian light that reminded me of new blood.
The fear, for the moment, was gone. Movement provided the opportunity to set it aside, to think about something else. But I couldn’t quite forget it. It waited for me to remember so it could creep out again.
The throat fell away into belly; we left behind the gullet and entered a larger chamber. Del and I stopped short, then tightened grips on hilts.
“What in hoolies is that?”
Del shook her head.
I scowled blackly. “I thought you knew Northern magic.”
“I know about Northern magic … but I don’t know what that is.”
“That” was a curtain of flame. A lurid carnelian flame that stretched from floor to ceiling across the width of the cavern. It resembled nothing so much as a curtain hung for privacy, dividing room from room. Opaque, yet oddly vibrant, it shimmered against the blackness. Sparks burned bright, then died, pulsing against a net.
But it wasn’t hot. It was cold.
Suspicion bloomed. “You know,” I said lightly, “what that reminds me of—what that reminds me of a lot—is the light from Bor—from your sword.” I caught myself in time.
Del flicked me a narrowed glance; I was not forgiven. “I don’t think it’s the same thing.”
“How do you know? You yourself said you don’t know what that is. For all you know, it could be exactly the same.”
“But not from the same source.” Del edged closer. Red light shirred off her blade, altering its color. Salmon-silver was dyed amber-bronze.
I looked at my own sword. It had not, up till now, shown any inclination to take on a particular color. The phenomenon was familiar—I’d seen numerous jivatmas keyed, and all displayed a signature color, but mine never had. It was bright and shining silver, but so was every other sword save those born of Northern magic.
Which left me wondering suddenly if perhaps mine wasn’t blooded. Wasn’t really quenched.
And yet it had to be. It showed too many symptoms. Displayed too much of its power. Even the hounds knew it.
Del frowned at the curtain. “Maybe some kind of ward? Something to keep people out?”
“But why? What is there to hide? Why would wards be here?”
Del abruptly smiled. “Chosa Dei,” she answered. “It’s Chosa Dei’s prison.”
“Oh, right. Of course; I was forgetting.” I squinted against the brilliance of the curtain, looking around, searching for some clue. “I don’t suppose there’s some way around this thing … some tunnel or passageway.”
Del shrugged, saying nothing. Like me, she examined the chamber.
I heard the dragon rumble. Swung and stared as the curtain rippled. The glow intensified, and then the curtain parted. Hot smoke belched out.
Del and I, of course, ducked; flame—or whatever—licked toward us both. The curtain wavered in the wind, then shredded on a roar as the smoke was sucked out of the chamber into the tunnel beyond.
The stench drove me to my knees. I forgot all about flaming curtains or passageways and concentrated on holding my breath so I wouldn’t lose my belly. Del, half-shrouded by smoke, sounded no better off; she hacked and gagged and swore, though only briefly, in her twisty Northern tongue. I helped out with Southron, with a dash of Desert thrown in.
Then wished I hadn’t; swearing made me suck air.
“Agh, gods—” I spat. “This is enough to make a man sick.”
“Coal,” Del said intently. “I know it now: coal … and something else. Something more. Something that smells—”
“—like rotting bodies; I told you before.” The curtain sealed itself as smoke died away. For the moment the dragon slept, or else merely held its breath. I stood up, wished for aqivi to wash away the foul aftertaste, yanked my now-filthy tunics back into place. And clutched my sword in one hand. “What’s this ‘coal’ you mentioned?”
Del got up, brushed gritty dark dust from her no-longer-pristine white clothing, scowled at the curtain. “Coal,” she repeated. “It’s a fuel. It’s sort of like rock, but it burns. We lived in the downlands, where wood is plentiful; I saw coal only once. It comes from high in the mountains, in the uplands above the timberline.”
“Well, if it smells this bad, I don’t see how anyone uses it.”
“I told you, there’s something more—”
The curtain flowed briefly aside and emitted another belch. Smoky wind rushed through the chamber on its way to the dragon’s throat. I swore, waving madly, and tried to peer through the rent in the flame.
In shock, I sucked a breath. “Hoolies, I saw people!”
Del looked at me sharply; no need for her to ask.
“I did,” I declared. “Through the curtain—I swear, I saw people. Men, I think, doing something around a fire. A real fire, bascha—not this magical curtain.” I strode to the “flame,” tried to peer through it again. “When the smoke comes through, it thins. You can see right through it. All we have to do is wait—”
“—then walk right in?” Del’s brows arched. “Are you so sure that’s wise?”
“Of course I’m not sure. I can’t foretell the future, bascha; how in hoolies am I supposed to know what is and isn’t wise? But Halvar said there was no other way into the dragon; here we are with nothing better to do, and two magical swords. So we may as well get this thing finished before the place smells any worse.”
“I’m not so sure—”
I thrust up a silencing hand. “Hear it? That’s the rumble—any moment the curtain will part … just use your jivatma, Del. Isn’t that what it’s for?”
“This isn’t a circle, Tiger … you don’t know—”
“Shut up and use your sword … Del—now—”
I thrust a swordtip into the curtain of cold flame as it thinned and blew apart, and prodded gently, none too sure what sort of response I might get. The tip sliced through easily enough, as if the curtain was made of air. Colored, cold air, shaped to look like a flame.
I slid the sword a bit farther, risking myself carefully. Felt a prickling in fingers and hands; then it spread to encompass forearms. I took a single step forward, closed nose and mouth against stench, felt the curtain snap shut against flesh.
The sensation was odd, but not threatening. I moved forward carefully, aware of a dampening of sound, a dying of the light. Everything was red.
“You coming?” I asked it thickly around the breath I held.
Her tone sounded no better. “Yes, Tiger, I’m coming.” She sounded exasperated. Like maybe she didn’t think we were doing the right thing. Like maybe she thought I was being foolish.
As if she were humoring me; never her strong point.
I wanted to retort, but I was much too busy.
Almost through—almost—
Something knew I was there.
“Tiger—wait—”
—oh—hoolies—
“Del!”
The dragon swallowed me whole.
Fourteen
They had been beating me again. I could feel it clear to the bone.
