Dragon's Teeth (16 page)
Authors: Mercedes Lackey
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #historical, #dark fantasy
“This one has no quarrel with any here, nor does this one’s lady. You have done your best; this one has sprung the trap. There is no dishonor in retreat. Hireling to hireling, there is no contract violation.”
The man straightened, looked relieved. “You—”
“No!”
The voice was high, cracking a little, and came from Lyran’s left, a little distance up the street. It was a young voice; a breath later the owner emerged from the shadow of a doorway, and the speaker matched the voice. It was a white-blond boy, barely adolescent, dressed in gaudy silks; from behind him stepped two more children, then another pair. All of them were under the age of fifteen, all were dressed in rainbow hues—and all of them had wild, wide eyes that looked more than a little mad.
The man facing Lyran swallowed hard;
now
he was sweating even harder. Lyran looked at him curiously. It almost seemed as if he were
afraid
of these children! Lyran decided to act.
He stepped out into the street and placed himself between the man and the group of youngsters. “There has been no contract violation,” he said levelly, meeting their crazed eyes, blue and green and brown, with his own. “The man has fulfilled what was asked.” Behind him, he heard the fighter take to his heels once the attention of the children had switched from himself to Lyran. Lyran sighed with relief; that was one death, at least, that he would not have to Balance. “This one has no quarrel with you,” he continued. “Why seek you this one?”
The children stared at him, a kind of insane affrontery in their faces, as if they could not believe that he would defy them. Lyran stood easily, blade held loosely in both hands, waiting for their response.
The blond, nearest and tallest, raised his hands; a dagger of light darted from his outstretched palms and headed straight for Lyran’s throat—
But this was something a Mage Guild fighter was trained to defend against; fire daggers could not survive the touch of cold steel—
Lyran’s blade licked out, and intercepted the dagger before it reached its target. It vanished when the steel touched it.
The child snarled, his mouth twisted into a grimace of rage ill-suited to the young face. Another dagger flew from his hands, and another; his companions sent darts of light of their own. Within moments Lyran was moving as he’d never moved in his life, dancing along the street, his swordblade blurring as he deflected dagger after dagger.
And still the fire-daggers kept coming, faster and faster—yet—
The air was growing chill, the sunlight thinning, and the faces of the children losing what little color they had possessed. Lyran realized then that they were draining themselves and everything about them for the energy to create the daggers. Even as the realization occurred to him, one of them made a choking sound and collapsed to the pavement, to lie there white and still.
If he could just hold out long enough, he
might
be able to outlast them! But the eldest of the group snarled when his confederate collapsed, and redoubled his efforts. Lyran found himself being pressed back, the light-daggers coming closer and closer before he was able to intercept them, his arms becoming leaden and weary—
He knew then that he would fail before they did.
And he saw, as he deflected a blade heading for his heart, another heading for his throat—and he knew he would not be able to intercept this one.
He had an instant to wonder if it would hurt very much. Then there was a blinding flash of light.
He wasn’t dead—only half-blind for a long and heart-stopping moment. And when his eyes cleared—
Martis stood in the doorway of the house that had sheltered them, bracing herself against the frame, her left palm facing him, her right, the children. Both he and the youngsters were surrounded by a haze of light; his was silver, theirs was golden.
Martis gestured, and the haze around him vanished. He dropped to the pavement, so weak with weariness that his legs could no longer hold him. She staggered over to his side, weaving a little.
“Are you going to be all right?” she asked. He nodded, panting. Her hair was out of its braids, and stringy with sweat, her robes limp with it. She knelt beside him for a moment; placed both her hands on his shoulders and looked long and deeply into his eyes. “Gods, love—that was close. Too close. Did they hurt you?”
He shook his head, and she stared at him as he’d sometimes seen her examine something for magic taint. Evidently satisfied by what she saw, she kissed him briefly and levered herself back up onto her feet.
His eyes blurred for a moment; when they refocused, he saw that the haze around the remaining four children had vanished, and that they had collapsed in a heap, crying, eyes no longer crazed. Martis stood, shoulders sagging just a little, a few paces away from them.
She cleared her throat. The eldest looked up, face full of fear—
But she held out her arms to them. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said, in a voice so soft only the children and Lyran could have heard the words, and so full of compassion Lyran scarcely recognized it. “I know it wasn’t your fault—and I’ll help you, if you let me.”
The children froze—then stumbled to their feet and surrounded her, clinging to her sweat-sodden robes, and crying as if their hearts had been broken, then miraculously remended.
“—so Bolger decided that he had had enough of the Mage Guild dictating what mages could and could not do. He waited until the Lyosten wizard had tagged the year’s crop of mage-Talented younglings, then had the old man poisoned.”
The speaker was the dwarf—who Lyran now knew was one of the local earth-witches, a cheerful man called Kasten Ythres. They were enjoying the hospitality of his home while the Mage Guild dealt with the former Citymaster and the clutch of half-trained children he’d suborned.
Martis was lying back against Lyran’s chest, wearily at ease within the protective circle of his arms. They were both sitting on the floor, in one corner by the fireplace in the earth-witch’s common room; there were no furnishings here, just piles of flat pillows. Martis had found it odd, but it had reminded Lyran strongly of home.
It was an oddly charming house, like its owner: brown and warm and sunny; utterly unpretentious. Kasten had insisted that they relax and put off their mage-hireling act. “It’s my damned house,” he’d said, “and you’re my guests. To the nether hells with so-called propriety!”
“How on earth did he think he was going to get them trained?” Martis asked.
Kasten snorted. “He thought he could do it out of books—and if that didn’t work, he’d get one of us half-mages to do it for him. Fool.”
“He sowed the dragon’s teeth,” Martis replied acidly, “he shouldn’t have been surprised to get dragons.”
“Lady—dragon’s teeth?” Lyran said plaintively, still at a loss to understand.
Martis chuckled, and settled a little more comfortably against Lyran’s shoulder. “I was puzzled for a moment, too, until I remembered that the storm that met us had been witched—and that the power that created it was out of control. Magic power has some odd effects on the mind, love—if you
aren’t
being watched over and guided properly, it can possess you. That’s why the tales about demonic possession; you get a Talented youngling or one who blooms late, who comes to power with no training—they go mad. Worst of all, they
know
they’re going mad. It’s bad—and you only hope you can save them before any real damage is done.”
“Aye,” Kasten agreed. “I suspect that’s where the dragon’s teeth tale comes from too—which is why I told your man there to remind you of it. The analogy being that the younglings are the teeth, the trained mage is the dragon. What I’d like to know is what’s to do about this? You can’t take the younglings to the Academe—and I surely couldn’t handle them!”
“No, they’re too powerful,” Martis agreed. “They need someone around to train them
and
keep them drained, until they’ve gotten control over their powers instead of having the powers control them. We have a possible solution, though. The Guild has given me a proposition, but I haven’t had a chance to discuss it with Lyran yet.” She craned her head around to look at him. “How would you like to be a father for the next half-year or so?”
“Me?” he replied, too startled to refer to himself in third person.
She nodded. “The Council wants them to have training, but feels that they would be best handled in a stable, homelike setting. But their blood-parents are frightened witless of them. But you—you stood up to them, you aren’t afraid of them—and you’re kind, love. You have a wonderful warm heart. And you know how I feel about youngsters. The Council feels that we would be the best parental surrogates they’re ever likely to find. If you’re willing, that is.”
Lyran could only nod speechlessly.
“And they said,” Martis continued with great satisfaction in her voice, “that if you’d agree, they’d give you anything you wanted.”
“Anything?”
“They didn’t put any kind of limitation on it. They’re worried; these are
very
Talented children. All five of the Councilors are convinced you and I are their only possible salvation.”
Lyran tightened his arms around her. “Would they—would they give this one rank to equal a Masterclass mage?”
“Undoubtedly. You certainly qualify for Swordmaster—only Ben could better you, and he’s a full Weaponsmaster. If you weren’t an outlander, you’d
have
that rank already.”
“Would they then allow this one to wed as he pleased?”
He felt Martis tense, and knew without asking why she had done so. She feared losing him so much—and feared that this was just exactly what was about to happen. But they were interrupted before he could say anything. “That and more!” said a voice from the door. It was the Chief Councilor, Dabrel, purple robes straining over his stomach. “Swordmaster Lyran, do you wish to be the young fool that I think you do?”
“If by that, the Mastermage asks if this one would wed the Master Sorceress Martis, then the Mastermage is undoubtedly correct,” Lyran replied demurely, a smile straining at the corners of his mouth as he heard Martis gasp.
“Take her with our blessings, Swordmaster,” the portly mage chuckled. “Maybe you’ll be able to mellow that tongue of hers with your sweet temper!”
“Don’t I get any say in this?” Martis spluttered.
“Assuredly.” Lyran let her go, and putting both hands on her shoulders, turned so that she could face him. “Martis,
thena,
lady of my heart and Balance of my soul, would you deign to share your life with me?”
She looked deeply and soberly into his eyes. “Do you mean that?” she whispered. “Do you really mean that?”
He nodded, slowly.
“Then—” she swallowed, and her eyes misted briefly. Then the sparkle of mischief that he loved came back to them, and she grinned. “Will you bloody well
stop
calling yourself ‘this one’ if I say yes?”
He sighed, and nodded again.
“Then that is an offer I will
definitely
not refuse!”
This story was written for the Grail anthology that was to be presented at the World Fantasy convention in Atlanta. Richard Gilliam approached me and asked me if I would contribute. We discussed this idea, which I had almost immediately, and he loved it, so I wrote it. The book was later broken into two volumes and published as
Grails
of
Light
and
Grails
of Darkness.
The Cup and the Caldron
Mercedes Lackey
Rain leaked through the thatch of the hen-house; the same dank, cold rain that had been falling for weeks, ever since the snow melted. It dripped on the back of her neck and down her back under her smock. Though it was nearly dusk, Elfrida checked the nests one more time, hoping that one of the scrawny, ill-tempered hens might have been persuaded, by a miracle or sheer perversity, to drop an egg. But as she had expected, the nests were empty, and the hens resisted her attempts at investigation with nasty jabs of their beaks. They’d gotten quite adept at fighting, competing with and chasing away the crows who came to steal their scant feed over the winter. She came away from the hen-house with an empty apron and scratched and bleeding hands.
Nor was there remedy waiting for her in the cottage, even for that. The little salve they had must be hoarded against greater need than hers.
Old Mag, the village healer and Elfrida’s teacher, looked up from the tiny fire burning in the pit in the center of the dirt-floored cottage’s single room. At least the thatch here was sound, though rain dripped in through the smoke-hole, and the fire didn’t seem to be warming the place any. Elfrida coughed on the smoke, which persisted in staying inside, rather than rising through the smoke-hole as it should.
Mag’s eyes had gotten worse over the winter, and the cottage was very dark with the shutters closed. “No eggs?” she asked, peering across the room, as Elfrida let the cowhide down across the cottage door.
“None,” Elfrida replied, sighing. “This spring—if it’s this bad now, what will summer be like?”
She squatted down beside Mag, and took the share of barley-bread the old woman offered, with a crude wooden cup of bitter-tasting herb tea dipped out of the kettle beside the fire.
“I don’t know,” Mag replied, rubbing her eyes—Mag, who had been tall and straight with health last summer, who was now bent and aching, with swollen joints and rheumy eyes. Neither willow-bark nor eyebright helped her much. “Lady bless, darling, I don’t know. First that killing frost, then nothing but rain—seems like what seedlings the frost didn’t get, must’ve rotted in the fields by now. Hens aren’t laying, lambs are born dead, pigs lay on their own young . . . what we’re going to do for food come winter, I’ve no notion.”
When Mag said “we,” she meant the whole village. She was not only their healer, but their priestess of the Old Way. Garth might be hetman, but she was the village’s heart and soul—as Elfrida expected to be one day. This was something she had chosen, knowing the work and self-sacrifice involved, knowing that the enmity of the priests of the White Christ might fall upon her. But not for a long time—Lady grant.
That was what she had always thought, but now the heart and soul of the village was sickening, as the village around her sickened. But why?
“We made the proper sacrifices,” Elfrida said, finally. “Didn’t we? What’ve we done or not done that the land turns against us?”
Mag didn’t answer, but there was a quality in her silence that made Elfrida think that the old woman knew something—something important. Something that she hadn’t yet told her pupil.
Finally, as darkness fell, and the fire burned down to coals, Mag spoke.
“We made the sacrifices,” she said. “But there was one—who didn’t.”
“Who?” Elfrida asked, surprised. The entire village followed the Old Way—never mind the High King and his religion of the White Christ. That was for knights and nobles and suchlike. Her people stuck by what they knew best, the turning of the seasons, the dance of the Maiden, Mother and Crone, the rule of the Horned Lord. And if anyone in the village had neglected their sacrifices, surely she or Mag would have known!
“It isn’t just our village that’s sickening,” Mag said, her voice a hoarse, harsh whisper out of the dark. “Nor the county alone. I’ve talked to the other Wise Ones, to the peddlers—I talked to the crows and the owls and ravens. It’s the whole land that’s sickening, failing—and there’s only one sacrifice can save the land.”
Elfrida felt her mouth go dry, and took a sip of her cold, bitter tea to wet it. “The blood of the High King,” she whispered.
“Which he will not shed, come as he is to the feet of the White Christ.” Mag shook her head. “My dear, my darling girl, I’d hoped the Lady wouldn’t lay this on us . . . I’d prayed she wouldn’t punish us for his neglect. But ’tisn’t punishment, not really, and I should’ve known better than to hope it wouldn’t come. Whether he believes it or not, the High King is tied to the land, and Arthur is old and failing. As he fails, the land fails—”
“But—surely there’s something we can do?” Elfrida said timidly into the darkness.
Mag stirred. “If there is, I haven’t been granted the answer,” she said, after another long pause. “But perhaps—you’ve had Lady-dreams before, ’twas what led you to me . . . .”
“You want me to try for a vision?” Elfrida’s mouth dried again, but this time no amount of tea would soothe it, for it was dry from fear. For all that she had true visions, when she sought them, the experience frightened her. And no amount of soothing on Mag’s part, or encouragement that the—things—she saw in the dark waiting for her soul’s protection to waver could not touch her, could ever ease that fear.
But weighed against her fear was the very real possibility that the village might not survive the next winter. If she was worthy to be Mag’s successor, she must dare her fear, and dare the dreams, and see if the Lady had an answer for them since High King Arthur did not. The land and the people needed her and she must answer that need.
“I’ll try,” she whispered, and Mag touched her lightly on the arm.
“That’s my good and brave girl,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t fail us.” Something on Mag’s side of the fire rustled, and she handed Elfrida a folded leaf full of dried herbs.
They weren’t what the ignorant thought, herbs to bring visions. The visions came when Elfrida asked for them—these were to strengthen and guard her while her spirit rode the night winds, in search of answers. Foxglove to strengthen her heart, moly to shield her soul, a dozen others, a scant pinch of each. Obediently, she placed them under her tongue, and while Mag chanted the names of the Goddess, Elfrida closed her eyes, and released her all-too-fragile hold on her body.
The convent garden was sodden, the ground turning to mush, and unless someone did something about it, there would be nothing to eat this summer but what the tithes brought and the King’s Grace granted them. Outside the convent walls, the fields were just as sodden; so, as the Mother Superior said, “A tithe of nothing is still nothing, and we must prepare to feed ourselves.” Leonie sighed, and leaned a little harder on the spade, being careful where she put each spadeful of earth. Behind the spade, the drainage trench she was digging between each row of drooping pea-seedlings filled with water. Hopefully, this would be enough to keep them from rotting. Hopefully, there would be enough to share. Already the eyes of the children stared at her from faces pinched and hungry when they came to the convent for Mass, and she hid the bread that was half her meal to give to them.
Her gown was as sodden as the ground; cold and heavy with water, and only the fact that it was made of good wool kept it from chilling her. Her bare feet, ankle-deep in mud, felt like blocks of stone, they were so cold. She had kirtled her gown high to keep the hem from getting muddied, but that only let the wind get at her legs. Her hair was so soaked that she had not even bothered with the linen veil of a novice; it would only have flapped around without protecting her head and neck any. Her hands hurt; she wasn’t used to this.
The other novices, gently-born and not, were desperately doing the same in other parts of the garden. Those that could, rather; some of the gently-born were too ill to come out into the soaking, cold rain. The sisters, as many as were able, were outside the walls, helping a few of the local peasants dig a larger ditch down to the swollen stream. The trenches in the convent garden would lead to it—and so would the trenches being dug in the peasants’ gardens, on the other side of the high stone wall.
“We must work together,” Mother Superior had said firmly, and so here they were, knight’s daughter and villien’s son, robes and tunics kirtled up above the knee, wielding shovels with a will. Leonie had never thought to see it.
But the threat of hunger made strange bedfellows. Already the convent had turned out to help the villagers trench their kitchen gardens. Leonie wondered what the village folk would do about the fields too large to trench, or fields of hay? It would be a cold summer, and a lean winter.
What had gone wrong with the land? It was said that the weather had been unseasonable—and miserable—all over the kingdom. Nor was the weather all that had gone wrong; it was said there was quarreling at High King Arthur’s court; that the knights were moved to fighting for its own sake, and had brought their leman openly to many court gatherings, to the shame of the ladies. It was said that the Queen herself—
But Leonie did not want to hear such things, or even think of them. It was all of a piece, anyway; knights fighting among themselves, killing frosts and rain that wouldn’t end, the threat of war at the borders, raiders and bandits within, and starvation and plague hovering over all.
Something was deeply, terribly wrong.
She considered that, as she dug her little trenches, as she returned to the convent to wash her dirty hands and feet and change into a drier gown, as she nibbled her meager supper, trying to make it last, and as she went in to Vespers with the rest.
Something was terribly, deeply wrong.
When Mother Superior approached her after Vespers, she somehow knew that her feeling of
wrongness
and what the head of the convent was about to ask were linked.
“Leonie,” Mother Superior said, once the other novices had filed away, back to their beds, “when your family sent you here, they told me it was because you had visions.”
Leonie ducked her head and stared at her sandals. “Yes, Mother Magdalene.”
“And I asked you not to talk about those visions in any way,” the nun persisted. “Not to any of the other novices, not to any of the sister, not to Father Peregrine.”
“Yes, Mother Magdalene—I mean, no Mother Magdalene—” Leonie looked up, flushing with anger. “I mean, I haven’t—”
She knew why the nun had ordered her to keep silence on the subject; she’d heard the lecture to her parents through the door. The Mother Superior didn’t believe in Leonie’s visions—or rather, she was not convinced that they were really visions. “This could simply be a young woman’s hysteria,” she’d said sternly, “or an attempt to get attention. If the former, the peace of the convent and the meditation and prayer will cure her quickly enough—if the latter, well, she’ll lose such notions of self-importance when she has no one to prate to.”
“I know you haven’t, child,” Mother Magdalene said wearily, and Leonie saw how the nun’s hands were blistered from the spade she herself had wielded today, how her knuckles were swollen, and her cheekbones cast into a prominence that had nothing to do with the dim lighting in the chapel. “I wanted to know if you still have them.”
“Sometimes,” Leonie said hesitantly. “That was how—I mean, that was why I woke last winter, when Sister Maria was elf-shot—”
“Sister Maria was not elf-shot,” Mother Magdalene said automatically. “Elves could do no harm to one who trusts in God. It was simply something that happens to the very old, now and again, it is a kind of sudden brain-fever. But that isn’t the point. You’re still having the visions—but can you still see things that you want to see?”
“Sometimes,” Leonie said cautiously. “If God and the Blessed Virgin permit.”
“Well, if God is ever going to permit it, I suspect He’d do so during Holy Week,” Mother Magdalene sighed. “Leonie, I am going to ask you a favor. I’d like you to make a vigil tonight.”