The Red Wyvern: Book One of the Dragon Mage. Katharine Kerr

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      Dallandra hesitated on the edge of snarling at him. Once he defined something as a riddle, he would never tell the answer, no matter how much she prodded or swore or wheedled.

      ‘Oh very well,’ she said with a sigh. ‘And how soon will this moon of yours rise?’

      ‘I have no idea. I’ve been weaving this scheme for a long time, truly, ever since I asked the man named Maddyn for his rose ring – hundreds of your years ago now, isn’t it?’

      ‘It is. Wait – that’s the ring Rhodry used to have, the one with the dragon’s name graved on it.’

      ‘It is, but I’ll speak no more about it now.’ Evandar paused for a lazy grin; he knew full well how his riddles irritated her. ‘But to the matter at hand, my love, Shaetano’s clever, so that will take this strange thing, Time, as well. He’ll hide from me, but sooner or later, he’ll have to appear to his worshipper over in Cerr Cawnen. When he does, I’ll be close by.’ All at once he tossed his head in a spasm of pain. ‘Iron! Wretched demon-spawn metal!’

      Evandar took one step toward the window and disappeared. She saw nothing, not a fading or a trembling of him – one moment he was there; the next he was not. Dallandra shuddered once, but only once. She’d got used to him and his ways, over the years they’d been lovers, hundreds of years, in fact, as men reckon time.

      The tiny room smelled of ancient smoke and recent dust. The fetid air hung cold and close around the two people standing, bundled in cloaks, with their backs to the wide crack between stones that served as its door.

      ‘It be best not to light a candle or suchlike in here,’ Verrarc whispered. ‘Not enough air.’

      ‘There’s no need on us for one,’ Raena said. ‘Watch, my love. See what I did learn, this past year or two.’

      He could hear her draw a deep breath; then she began to chant the same few words – he thought they might be Gel da ’Thae – over and over again. Up at the corner of the webby ceiling a silver light gleamed, then spread and brightened. Spiders dashed from her dweomer.

      ‘Ye gods,’ Verrarc whispered.

      ‘Gods, indeed, my love. This be a gift from the gods I do serve, the true gods.’ Raena turned, glancing around the room. ‘What place be this? It must be old, truly old.’

      ‘No one knows. When I was a boy, I did find all the secret places of Citadel. Some few I asked the elders about, but most, like this one, I did keep for my own.’

      She nodded, looking round her. Near the ceiling and all round the room ran a line of triangles and circles, crudely carved into the stone. Verrarc had never seen it so clearly; when he had hidden in this half-buried chamber as a child, the only light had been a dim glow from the entrance.

      ‘I feel despair here,’ Raena spoke abruptly. ‘And old fear.’

      ‘Do you? We’d best be about our business. I don’t want anyone wondering where we might be and come looking for us. What was this thing you were going to show me? Or is it the light?’

      ‘Not just the light. Here.’

      When she knelt on the dirty floor, he joined her. She flung both hands into the air and began a chant of different words, vibrated from deep in her throat and spat out like a challenge. In answer the silver light shrank and collected itself into a glowing sphere, about the size of an armload of hay, that hung above and before them. When Raena tossed her head, the hood of her cloak fell back. Her eyes were shut, sweat oozed down her face, and her long black hair seemed to gleam and flutter in the unnatural light. Verrarc felt himself turn cold as the sphere of light began to stretch itself in to a long cylinder.

      Within the silvery pillar something – no, someone – was forming. At first it seemed only a trick of the light, a shape like a drift of smoke caught in a sunbeam, but gradually it solidified and turned mostly human. When the figure stepped free of the silver pillar, Verrarc could see that there was more than a touch of the fox about him. Red fur tufted his ears and ran in a brushy roach from his low forehead back over his skull and down his neck. Under their red-tufted brows, his eyes gleamed black and bright. Each of his fingers ended in a sharp black claw.

      ‘I am the Lord of Havoc, ruler of the powers of strife and tumult.’ His voice boomed and echoed so loudly that Verrarc feared someone in the town above would be hearing him. ‘Why have you summoned me, O my priestess?’

      ‘To beg my lord’s favour,’ Raena whispered. ‘I have brought another who would worship thee.’

      ‘Then you have summoned well, little one. I shall –’

      All at once Lord Havoc hesitated, staring at something behind his two worshippers. When Verrarc twisted around to look, he saw nothing, but Havoc yelped. He flung himself backward into the pillar and disappeared, leaving behind him the stink of fox. The light that formed the pillar began to break up. Although Raena chanted to drive it back, the light stubbornly spread out and clung to the walls, as faded and torn as an old curtain. With a gasp for breath she fell silent.

      ‘Rae, forgive me,’ Verrarc said. ‘But a doubt lies upon me that he be any sort of god at all. A fox spirit, more like, such as do live in the woods.’

      ‘Animal spirits are weak little things!’ She turned on him with a snarl. ‘How could he nourish my dweomer if he were some woodland imp? I tell you, I’ve seen him do great things, Verro, truly great, and he does shower favour upon me.’

      Verrarc got up, dusting off the heavy cloth wrappings round his legs.

      ‘You saw the light, didn’t you?’ Raena snapped.

      ‘I did.’ He straightened up, then gave her his hand and helped her clamber to her feet. ‘Here! You do be as pale as he was!’

      She very nearly collapsed into his arms. He struggled with the folds of his cloak and hers, finally got a supporting arm around her, and helped her stand. All around them the silver light was fading.

      ‘It be needful to get you back to the house,’ Verrarc said.

      He squeezed out of the room first to the dark tunnel beyond, then helped her through. The tunnel twisted and wound, the air grew fresher and colder, and about thirty feet along they came to its entrance, an opening in a stone wall. Beyond they could see snow and tumbled blocks of stone overgrown with leafless shrubs. Verrarc helped her climb out, then scrabbled after to the wan light of a dying day.

      They were standing on the peak of Citadel, the sharp hill island that rose in the centre of Loc Vaed and the town of Cerr Cawnen. Between the trees that grew among and around the ruins of the old building, brought down in an earthquake centuries ago, Verrarc could see down the steep slope of the island, where public buildings and the houses of the few wealthy families clung to the rocks and the twisting streets. The blue-green lake itself, fed by volcanic springs, lay misted with steam in the icy air. Beyond, at the lake’s edge, the town proper sprawled in the shallows – houses and shops built on pilings and crannogs in a welter of roofs and little boats. Beyond them, marking out the boundary of Cerr Cawnen, stood a circle of stone walls, built around timber supports to make them sway, not shatter, in the earth tremors that struck the town now and again.

      They were looking roughly west, and the lazy sun was sinking into a haze of brilliant gold. Thanks to Loc Vaed’s heat, Cerr Cawnen itself lay free of snow, СКАЧАТЬ