Servant of the Dragon Read online

  The end that Cashel had dipped in the pond was sprouting leaves around the iron ferrule. Another unfolded as he watched, the bright green of new growth and bigger than you'd get on a mature tree.

  "Is it going to keep on doing that?" Cashel asked. The staff wouldn't be much use if it did. How could he spin it if instead of bare wood he was swishing a leafy branch through the air?

  "It'll shrink back to what it was unless you dip it in the Fountain of Life every day," the ring said. "But you could, you know. You could stay here forever, living on the fruit and bathing yourself in the water every day."

  Mention of fruit reminded Cashel of how hungry he was. The tree's branches were so laden that they hung down to the ground like the fronds of a weeping willow. The foliage was more like a cherry's pointy ovals than the slender leaves were of a willow, though.

  He plucked something that looked like an apple, though it was hard to tell with everything being colored by the indigo light. There were all sorts of hanging fruit, some of it as big as melons, and no two alike that he could tell.

  "This is all right to eat, then, Master Krias?" Cashel asked. He remembered what the ring demon had said, but when there were way more different kinds than he could count without a tally stick, well, he didn't want Krias crowing that the one Cashel had just swallowed would make him turn black and bust.

  Although... Krias hadn't ever tried to trick Cashel into anything that was really going to hurt him. The demon had a tongue on him, that he did; but so did Ilna, and Ilna wouldn't have let anybody, not even Uncle Katchin, drown from his own stupidity.

  "All right?" Krias said. "It's not 'all right', sheep-boy, it's food fit for the Gods! It's better than the best thing you've ever eaten--and better than anything you'll ever eat again if you're fool enough to leave here."

  Cashel bit down. It was like--well, it was nothing he could describe as a flavor. It was more like morning on a sun-swept meadow, the air clean and everything more perfect than it could ever be in life.

  "I see," Cashel said. He didn't remember swallowing, but his mouth was empty except for the tingle. He took another bite. The fruit didn't have a core like an apple, and there weren't seeds in the flesh either.

  He ate the fruit down to the stem by which he'd plucked it. Every bite was just as wonderful as the first. It didn't have an aftertaste, but it left him with a general memory of wonderfulness.

  "You could eat the fruit every day," the demon said. "You'd live forever, just from that. One of these fruits would bring life back to a dead man!"

  Cashel shook his head. The demon seemed to be serious about him staying in this place. He supposed he could get used to the funny light, but it was such a silly notion.

  "What would I do here, Master Krias?" Cashel said. "There aren't any sheep to watch, are there? And even if there was, I need to find Sharina. Not that I think that she isn't fine wherever she is, but...."

  He stopped talking. He'd already said more than he liked to. Cashel had never been one to talk about the way he felt, and he didn't guess the vinegar-tongued demon would be the one he'd choose to unburden himself to anyhow.

  "You could live forever, sheep-boy," Krias said. His voice buzzed, but it didn't have quite the usual edge.

  "But why?" Cashel said in honest wonder. He took another fruit, this time one that looked more like an eggplant than anything he'd seen on a tree before. "I mean, living forever's all right for you, but I'm just a shepherd."

  "Do you think it's all right for me, Cashel or-Kenset?" the ring demon said. "But I see what you mean: this island isn't greatly different from the jewel that holds me. We'll spend the night here and then revive Landure."

  Cashel bit into the second fruit. The flavor differed from the first--this tasted like a summer evening just after the stars appeared in the west, with a soft breeze and the sheep murmuring in the fold--but it was equally wonderful.

  "But take one of the fruits in your wallet, sheep-boy," Krias said in a voice like a bee crossing a meadow. "It'll keep for a time. Time matters to you, after all. And life too, you'll find."

  Ilna's feet had felt the pulse of water racing through a channel for some while. Closer on she heard the stream as well, but the roar that met her and her companions when they stepped into the domed chamber was a surprise even so.

  The air was as wet as that of a meadow after an evening storm, and condensate gave the walls a glassy sheen. A chasm split the chamber; on this side the rock floor was no more than a few spans wide, scarcely a ledge compared to the canyon beyond. She couldn't see across. Clouds of chill mist filtered and muted the light coming from the abyss.

  A cable as thick as a man's torso crossed the chasm--or at any rate vanished into the mist, sagging slightly. This end was attached to the rock face by some means that Ilna couldn't see from where she stood.

  A man, tall and very thin despite the hooded cape that covered all but his face, waited at the head of the cable.

  "Good day, my friend," said Chalcus as he stepped out, bowing deeply. He flourished his left arm forward and his right behind him, managing to make the gesture courtly despite the sword still bare in his right hand.

  The chanteyman walked on, keeping the blade down at his side to suggest it was simply too much effort to sheathe it. "My name is Chalcus and I'm a stranger here. May I ask your name?"

  "I am Harn," the tall man--very tall, now that Chalcus had come close enough to provide scale. "Do you wish to use my bridge?"

  Harn's voice seemed thin, but it penetrated the roar of the torrent even better than the chanteyman's practiced tenor did. Penetrated--and rasped on Ilna's mind like the scrape of slate on slate.

  "I don't like him," Merota said quietly.

  Ilna had one arm around the girl's shoulders and the noose ready in her other hand. "Nor do I, child," she said. "But then, I don't like very many people, so perhaps you should ignore my opinion."

  "We'd indeed like to use your bridge, Master Harn," said Chalcus as he stepped very slightly closer to the bridgeman. "We'd be much beholden to you."

  "You will not be beholden," Harn said. "You will pay me and cross; or you will not cross."

  Ilna stepped forward. She tried to ease Merota behind her, but the girl stayed at her side.

  "Where does your bridge go?" Ilna demanded. She was starting to feel a pattern, as though the passage they'd followed was one strand and that just ahead was a joining beyond even her skill to fully comprehend.

  "My bridge takes you to wherever you wish to go," Harn said. With his arms crossed beneath his cape he looked more like a draped post than he did a man. "There is no other way to go than by my bridge or back by the way you came; but you must pay me."

  The floor on which they stood was a niche, though a considerable one. Within a bowshot to either side the chamber's walls closed over the chasm. There was no path skirting the abyss for Ilna and her companions to follow, and no imaginable way to cross the torrent thundering in the depths even if the two females could have climbed down the cliff.

  "Why, we're all three honest folk, Master Harn," Chalcus said cheerfully, "even those of us who might have been something else in the past. What would your price be for us to use your fine bridge?"

  "There are three of you," said Harn. "One will be mine as the toll for passing the other two to their desire."

  Ilna smiled faintly. It was always good to know where matters stood. She felt Merota stiffen beside her, but the girl didn't whimper.

  "That's a high price indeed," said the chanteyman, "but I'll offer you even a greater one, Master Harn. My friends and I will cross your bridge, and for payment I'll leave your head--"

  His curved blade sang as it flickered a finger's breadth short of Harn's shadowed face.

  "--on those narrow shoulders of yours."

  Harn leaped--not toward Chalcus, certain death on the sword's point as the chanteyman drew his dagger with his left hand--but sideways. He scuttled to the chamber's curving wall and turned to watch them. With the li
ght from the abyss no longer silhouetting Harn, his face was triangular and less than human.

  "Go!" Chalcus said to Ilna, a snarled command that the circumstances justified. He stood between Harn and the women: swordblade slanting down and dagger point up.

  The cable appeared to be glued or even melted onto the cliff face. "Hold the back of my sash, Merota," Ilna said as she stepped onto it. "And don't look down."

  The cable beneath Ilna's bare feet was silk: numberless gossamer strands had been braided into a hawser that would support the weight of a city. Though firm as the rock and even stronger, it thrummed with suppressed energy.

  Ilna strode on, unconcerned for herself. She was used to crossing streams on fallen trees or steppingstones polished by generations of use.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Merota met her eyes with a calm, trusting stare.

  Ilna smiled approval. "We're well clear, Master Chalcus!" she called to the chanteyman poised at the head of the cable, his back to the chasm.

  Harn flung his cape to the ground. He--it--had eight slender, multi-jointed legs. It scrambled up the sheer rock like a spider on a stone wall.

  Ilna continued walking at the same measured pace. She heard Harn's chittering despite the boom of the torrent below. Harn reached the arched ceiling and continued across it, clinging to the smooth rock.

  Chalcus was on the rope, staying far enough back that he wouldn't crowd Merota. His face was turned upward, and Ilna thought she heard a snatch of something he was singing.

  The light came from so far below that it was a milky blur even when Ilna looked down into the abyss. Cold spray soaked her garments. She laughed.

  Cocking her head back to meet Merota's eyes she said, "Our luck's changed, child. We'll drink well when we get to the other side."

  The girl managed a smile, but drops of more than condensate were running down her cheeks. Ilna felt a sudden rush of affection.

  Courage doesn't mean you're not afraid. Courage means you go on anyway.

  "And yet you will pay me, humans," Harn called from the rock high above. Its body was long and slender like that of a dragonfly, and its hindmost pair of limbs were working a billowy something from the tip of its abdomen. "You will pay, as all pay who cross!"

  The silken cable had began to slant upward by the same slight degree it had sagged when they started across. Ilna saw hard angles before her. The start of the bridge had long vanished in the mist, but they were nearing the far terminus at last.

  "Ilna!" Chalcus cried. "It's a net!"

  Ilna looked up. Harn's bundle quivered down like a flung stone, then snapped open at a twitch of the line still attached to the creature's abdomen. Not a net but a web, fluttering toward Merota.

  Ilna twisted, leaning so that her body covered the child. Chalcus was running toward them, but she knew as the silk settled onto her that the sword's keen edge would be useless against this gummy fabric.

  "Don't try to cut it!" she shouted. She expected Chalcus to ignore her and tangle his blade hopelessly in silk both sticky and too light to cut except under tension.

  He didn't, for a wonder. Chalcus listened to her, and that was almost enough to make Ilna believe in the Gods in these last moments of her life!

  Merota hadn't moved. She was singing a child's prayer for bedtime, her hands still gripping Ilna's sash. Harn clicked and giggled above, but the creature hadn't yet put strain on its net because that might permit a blade as sharp as the chanteyman's to shear it through.

  As Chalcus poised with his sword raised and his face stark with fury, Ilna gave a flick of her wrist to wrap her own noose about the cable. She caught the loop end in her other hand. She could still move within close limits.

  "Let go of me, Merota!" Ilna said, wondering if the girl would obey the order. If she didn't, she'd die. Death is the way of the world. "Now, close your eyes and run for the far side!"

  Ilna hurled herself off the cable, carrying Harn's web with her.

  She heard the creature shriek like a cicada, but it loosed the loop of silk it held in its hind legs. The reserve of line was long enough that Ilna's doubled noose rather than the net took the weight of her falling body.

  "Ilna! Ilna! Ilna!" Merota cried as she scampered across the last twenty feet of the bridge like a squirrel on a twig. Safe! Chalcus would see to the future....

  Only if Ilna let go of the noose could Chalcus cut Harn's line. Her plunge into the abyss would keep her out of the creature's belly--or worse.

  "Hold on or may the gulls eat your eyeballs!" Chalcus said. As Merota reached the far ledge, he knelt and drove his dagger into the bridge cable at a slant. What was he--

  Ilna laughed with the delight of a craftsman learning a trick from an equal craftsman. The dagger would be Chalcus' handgrip if the cable broke.

  He brought the sword down behind him in a slashing blow. The cable was strong beyond the imagining of anyone but Ilna and Harn itself, but it was soft nonetheless. The steel edge cut a hand's-breadth deep. The strands' own tension pulled them apart when severed, making a broad V across the surface to direct the chanteyman's second draw-cut.

  Which was perfectly placed and as powerful as the first. Of course!

  Harn was screaming, but Ilna had no time for the creature. She twisted her hands to loop her noose around her wrists. If her fingers lost their grip, the cord would still support her for the few moments she'd need to recover. Normally Ilna didn't doubt her strength, but the test facing her in a moment--

  The sword flashed down. Ilna had expected six or more cuts, but she hadn't reckoned with the chanteyman's strength.

  Silk sheared; the few remaining strands stretched and began to snap. A wisp of silk is lighter than the breeze, but these wisps had been spun into a hawser so thick and long that both Uncle Katchin's millstones together had nothing like its weight.

  Chalcus sheathed his blade with a cry of triumph, then wrapped his legs and right arm around the cable. The chanteyman's left hand held the dagger hilt in a grip that death couldn't break.

  The last threads gave way. The bridge's greater length sprang backward toward the side from which Ilna and her companions had come. The short end, four or five times a man's height, swung toward the cliff.

  Harn had spun enough slack to keep Ilna's leap into space from freeing her, but this sudden additional drop was beyond his capacity. She felt the net grab around her head and torso, clinging by the strength of the adhesive and trying to lift her away from the cable.

  Ilna held and the bridge fragment continued to swing down. She expected Harn to release its end of the net. The creature couldn't do that because the silk was a part of its body beyond easy separation.

  Harn jerked away from the ceiling to hurtle down in a long arc toward the stone wall.

  Ilna tried to keep her feet in front of her to take the shock, but the silk cable was twisting as it shrank under the release of tension. She hit the stone sideways, a stunning blow but not quite enough to jerk her fingers loose. Her looped cord and Chalcus' support--the chanteyman behind her must have landed like a bird--were insurance that she didn't need.

  Harn, the end player in a monstrous game of Crack the Whip, snapped into the cliff face and shattered like a crab dropped from a height. Its muscles spasmed, then relaxed; now at last the creature's abdominal sphincter released the silk that held it.

  Harn dropped into the mists. Its jerking form was visible longer than Ilna would have believed possible; but even so, it finally vanished.

  "Can you climb, Ilna?" Chalcus said. "Shall I carry you?"

  "I can climb," Ilna said. Because she'd spoken, she wrapped her legs around the thick cable and started to creep upward. The net still lay over her like a bath in honey, disgusting if she let herself think about it but actually useful because it helped her cling to the hawser.

  She was going to make it to the top; but after she did, she was going to lie down for a very long time.

  "Ah, you were magnificent, love!" Chalcus cried from behind her.
"I'd never have thought to pull the skinny wretch loose had you not shown me the way."

  "I think you're lying," Ilna said, because she was Ilna. But for the same reason she added, "But I'm grateful to you, and anyway, it's a kindly lie."

  She touched the edge of the cliff and felt Merota's tiny hands grip her wrist. Chalcus began to sing merrily, "This night my soul has caught new fire! I felt the Shepherd drawing nigher....

  "Half stroke!" called Jem from the Tailwind's tiller. His brothers and Bantrus were doubled on the pair of sweeps that the barge used to move in light winds and tight spaces. The stars were hard sparks in the dome of the sky, though the moon hadn't come up as yet.

  "Back water!"

  The oarsmen rose, pushing instead of pulling on the oarlooms, until the barge grounded easily on the muddy waterfront. It was a warm night. Lamps gleamed from the unshuttered windows of buildings around the harbor, and somewhere in the distance a musician was bowing his fiddle.

  Dalar and Sharina stepped ashore. They'd stayed quietly in the vessel's bluff bow since the fight with Tiglath that morning. They were out of the crew's way there; and more important, Bantrus and his friends could pretend their passengers didn't exist. Portions of food were set out for them, but even then there'd been only a few words exchanged.

  Dalar stretched by doing splits, right foot forward and then reversing with a kick that seemed scarcely to lift his body off the ground. He stood and bowed to the Tailwind's crew, dark shapes in the starlight.

  "Peace is a wonderful thing," the bird said quietly to Sharina. "But a folk so peaceful that even the rebels grow ill to see a bully put down--they would have no business among my people. Nor among yours for long, I fear, Sharina."

  Sharina nodded. She was about to walk away when Bantrus left his fellows and came forward.

  "Master Bantrus," Sharina called in a voice the others could hear as well. "Thank you and your friends for the hospitality you've shown us. I regret any difficulties that we've caused you."