Authors: Angus Wells
She bade me welcome. I stroked her glossy cheek, her sinuous neck. I plucked a fragment—a hunk!—of troublesome meat from her teeth. She thanked me; I loved her as
well, albeit differently, as I loved Rwyan. I asked her how her egg fared. (I’d know what Bellek did and why he came here so late, but there’s a decorum to dragons as patterned as any formal aeldor’s court. They live long, dragons, and to a slower beat of time: unhurried, save by hunger. There are always prices to be paid in dealing with dragons. It is, I think, a price worth the paying.)
She told me her egg fared well. I set my hand on it and felt the pride of the bull as I gloried in Deburah’s triumph. I could feel the pulsing of the heart within. It required an effort to remind myself why I’d come here. I asked Deburah.
I cringed then, under the sadness I felt. I’d not known what it is to lose a bond-mate.
I looked across the cave and saw that Bellek knelt on a ledge. The relics of a nest lay there, and the shattered fragments of an egg. He touched them reverentially as I touched Deburah’s; but his were in pieces, ours whole and pulsing vigorously with unborn life.
He looked on the past: I looked on the future.
I wondered why no dam sat there.
Deburah told me she’d died.
Of age, she said, ancient even more than Bellek, and even in her age produced an egg. I felt Deburah’s pleasure at my arrival in Tartarus, and understood—albeit only vaguely then—that the laying was somehow linked to the presence of Dragonmasters, that I’d an inexplicable hand in her fecundity. I felt her sending as a comfort against Bellek’s grief, her pride in
our
egg, though I scarce understand even now how that should be—that the dropping of a dragon’s womb can somehow depend on the belief that a person, Changed or Trueman, gives. I felt a terrible sadness for Bellek’s loss.
Then, I’d barely tasted the bonding of dragon and Dragonmaster, but still I felt Bellek’s pain. It was a blade twisted in my soul. But still I did not understand the entirety of its meaning.
I made a sound. I did not know it until Bellek turned toward me. The width of the brood cave stood between us, but in the radiance of the walls I saw the tears that glistened on his cheeks, his filled eyes, all overrunning. That was such grief as I’d never seen.
For long moments we stared at one another. I knew embarrassment:
I knew I intruded on private grief. Then he wiped a sleeve across his face and blew his nose. It was a thin, reedy sound amongst the shufflings and snortings of the dragons, but I heard it clear as scream of pain. I said, “I’m sorry.”
The distance between us was too far he could hear me, the noises the dragons made too loud, but he did. And I heard him say, “No matter,” and knew he referred not to my sympathy for his loss but to my apology for intruding. They were the same thing: he knew it. We spoke in words, but it was the minds of the dragons that carried our voices back and forth. I watched him rise, and sigh, and stretch his shoulders before he clambered down from the ledge and came toward me.
I stood waiting, leaning against Deburah. I felt afraid in a manner I cannot explain, as if I saw through mists my own future, I become Bellek, old and soul-weary, likely crazed. My sweetling told me I was not, and I stroked her cheek in gratitude.
Bellek halted before her ledge. He said, “You know something of it now. I told you there was a price.”
I said, “You did not define it.”
He said, “You did not ask I should. Had I?”
I shrugged. So close to Deburah, enfolded by her thoughts, I could only answer, “No. It should not have mattered.”
He smiled. On Thannos Eve we Dhar don masks and revel for a night in honor of the Pale Friend, death. It’s a festival of which the Church does not entirely approve, for it is redolent of the old ways. The masks depict grinning skulls or a lovely woman’s face, each incarnation representing the Pale Friend counting her harvest. Bellek’s face reminded me of those death’s-heads.
Without preamble he said, “Aiylra was her name. She was beautiful; a queen.”
His voice was low and husky, empty of inflection in that way men have when they contain anguish. Let us not disgrace ourselves with exhibition of weakling’s pain. Or is it only that we cannot handle it in any other way, save that denial of it? I knew he hurt in ways I could not yet imagine: unthinking, I touched his shoulder. As men do, I thought; and turned my hand to hold him. He leaned against me and
wept openly. I put my arms around him and felt him shudder. My shirt got wet.
Against my chest he said, brokenly now, “Oh, Daviot, she was so beautiful. She laid Kathanria, which is how I can ride that one. And Deburah; though”—proud laughter came now through his weeping; such as a father accords a beloved child—“though Deburah’s like her dam—proud. She’d have only her one rider. She’d bond with only one master. She’d not let me mount her. Only you. Do you understand?”
I began to grasp it: I felt afraid and proud. I said, “I’m not sure.”
Bellek said, “You love Rwyan, no? Whatever risks we take in the days to come, you’d live out your life with her and none other, no?”
I said, “Yes.” And to Deburah, silently,
And you.
“And should you lose her?” he asked me.
I said, “I did. But found her again; I think I should die, did I lose her now.”
He said, “It’s worse.”
I asked, “How?” I could imagine nothing worse than losing Rwyan.
He pushed clear of my arms, rubbing again at his eyes. He looked very old. He looked weary as Tryman, in that tale that tells of how the giant held up the world for his penance. He said, “Dragons live longer than men; and those who dwell with dragons. That was the price. That, and love.”
“What do you tell me?” I asked, half suspecting; fearful.
He said, “That you—all of you—must become true Dragonmasters if you’re to win this war. That to become Dragonmasters you must bond yourselves, soul to soul, with your mounts.”
I said, “I know that. You told us that: we agreed.”
He said, “I did not tell you the whole of it.”
I said, “I guessed as much. But even so, we accept.”
He said, “Had I told you the whole of it, perhaps you’d not have agreed so readily.”
I said, “Perhaps not. But the bargain was struck, and do we turn back now—what? The Great Coming? The rising of the Changed? Blood shed all over Dharbek? Can we but implement Rwyan’s design, then we can change all that. We can build a better world. Surely that must be worth the price?”
He sighed then, and straightened his back, and looked me unblinking in the eye. “To become a Dragonmaster you must accept the curse of long life. Sometimes longer, even, than the dragons’.” He laughed: again that hint of madness. “Does your bond-mate drop an egg, then that may prolong your life. And dragons live a very long time, Daviot; and they’re demanding creatures—they’ll not let you go easily. That’s the bargain we strike, we Dragonmasters.”
I said, “Still, I don’t quite understand.”
And he laughed, so loud the bull on watch outside stirred and turned his baleful eye back. I heard the scrape of claws on stone.
The Dragonmaster said, “Long life. To watch your loves, your friends, your comrades—all of them—die. To live on when they are gone. Glorious, aye; to live with dragons and ride the skies. Such glory! And such pain when it ends. When your bond-mate dies. Like Aiylra! Had she not birthed Kathanria and Deburah I’d have died ere now; or taken that Way of Honor Tezdal thinks of.”
I saw a truth then. It was stark, as truth often is. I asked Bellek, “Is that what happened to the others? Your fellow Dragonmasters?”
He ducked his head and told me, “Aye. Their bond-mates died, in battle or age, and they’d no brood-kin to hold up their hopes. Or”—again he laughed that crazed laugh—“hold them here. Only I! And those threads that bind me to this tiresome life grow thin now. Aiylra’s gone, and I am weary. Kathanria and Deburah held me, but they’ve new bond-mates now.”
I said, “What shall you do?”
Bellek said, “Teach you to ride dragons in battle.”
I said, “And then?”
He said, “Find peace. Go into the Pale Friend’s arms. I’d welcome that embrace as you shall, in time.”
I asked him then, “Is it so much pain?”
He lowered his head, and I saw fresh tears fall out of his eyes as he answered me, “Aye. Pain beyond your imagining. I think your Sky Lord friend’s the better way. It should be better to put a blade in my belly than suffer this.”
I said, frightened, “Then why don’t you? Why haven’t you?”
He said, “Because I had Deburah and Kathanria.
Aiylra’s laying, them; and mine. I’d have followed her into death, save there were no other Dragonmasters then, and I’d not leave my charges solitary. They are my children as much as his.”
I followed the direction of his eyes toward the entrance of the cave, where the bull sat massive on his guardian’s ledge, and understood what Bellek told me.
I felt my mouth go dry. I felt my bowels shrivel. I committed my life here, and Rwyan’s; and carried Urt’s and Tezdal’s with me. I knew that then: I felt small and afraid. Like a boy standing on the beach as the airboat came closer and spread its malign shadow over me. Hoarse, I said, “I understand now.”
Bellek said, “Do you accept it?”
I looked at Deburah and found no choice. I said, “Yes.”
Bellek said, “You cannot tell your friends. Do that—do they disagree—and you’ll fly no dragons against the armies that threaten.”
I looked at him and asked, “Think you they’d disagree?”
He said, “It shall mean your lives here, in no other place; and they shall be very long lives. It shall mean you cannot return to Dharbek, but must take my place in the Dragon-castle.”
I think I knew it even then, but still I must ask him, “Why?”
He said, “Because the dragons will not leave this place, and do you enter fully into the bonding, then nor shall you. You begin to feel those ties e’en now, I think. They shall grow stronger—glorious chains that bind you to the ending of your days.”
I did begin to feel it. Already it was a painful notion to contemplate parting from Deburah. I said, “That, I can accept. I think the others would, too.”
Bellek coughed laughter. “It’s not so easy,” he said. “Shall Tezdal agree to never more walk the earth of Ahn-feshang? Shall Rwyan give up her sorcerous friends? Urt not go back to Ur-Dharbek?”
Doubt clogged my throat, sour. I swallowed. “Why can I not put it to them?”
He turned his face away at that, and when I saw it again, it was composed. “Because they might disagree. Not Rwyan, I think; at least, not so long as you remain. But Urt and
Tezdal … ?” He took hold of my hands. I winced at the force of his urgent grip. “You must take my place! You four can bring new life to Tartarus; you can make the dragons great again. But you must pay that price!”
I weighed it in my head. I sensed Deburah waiting for my decision. I wonder, had I not already taken the first strides along that road that binds Dragonmaster to dragon, if I’d have chosen different. But I had, and so I can never be sure. Was it I made that decision? Or was it that I’d see that dream I shared with Rwyan fulfilled? Or was it Deburah made up my mind? I know not; and likely never shall.
I do know that I answered Bellek’s grip then and said, “So be it. I’ll not tell them.”
He said, “Not even Rwyan?”
I shook my head. I felt a dreadful guilt as I told him, “Not even Rwyan.”
I felt such intoxicating pleasure then as makes the headiest wine akin to tepid water. I felt … this is not easy to describe, but a promise of glorious days to come, of long happiness, shared lives, pleasure. I was sent stumbling forward as Deburah craned her great head down to nudge my back. Bellek caught me, else I’d have fallen, and on his face I saw reflected the satisfaction I felt from my lovely dragon.
I said, “My word on it,” and silently, inside my skull, where the deepest and most hidden of our thoughts reside,
Forgive me, Rwyan.
There are some bargains as rest heavy on the soul. For each bright shining promise, there exists a dark shadow. Bellek had extracted from me an agreement I was not certain I should have given: I committed my love and my friends to a future in which they had no say. But had I not, then surely our agreed aims could never have been accomplished.
I told myself I had no other choice as I walked with Bellek back along those snow-clad ledges that brought us to the castle.
I had no other choice.
It did not help me much. I thought Rwyan must surely read the guilt I felt inscribed upon my face. My mouth went dry, and when we found the empty hall and stood before the banked fire with snow coming vaporous off our clothes and hair, I found the wine jug and drank deep.
“Remember,” Bellek said, likely not aware he insulted me, “that do you say aught of this, no dragons shall fly.”
I nodded and set down my cup. There are some bargains as sit heavy on the soul.
Rwyan was asleep when I came in. That magic she’d set about the chamber brought gentle light from the walls and ceiling, and perhaps it was that stirred her. Perhaps it was only my presence, the small sounds I made, or her own curiosity. I confess that I’d hoped she would remain asleep, and I be able to slink silent to our bed and not need give answer to questions I’d sooner not now face, but wait for morning and the prevarications of a rested mind.
But I had no other choice: she woke, and raised herself against the pillows, and pushed tumbled hair from her face, and fixed her sleepy, blind eyes on me. I saw them grow alert: I felt afraid. I’d sooner dare the jaws of a bull dragon than this.
She said, “You were long with Bellek.”
Inevitably, a question hung between us. I ducked my head: I’d not then much wish to meet her eyes. In that moment I regretted the promise I’d given the Dragonmaster; I thought of breaking it. I knew I could not, else her dream be damned at its birthing.
I said, “Aye. He had things to speak of.”
She said, “What things?”
I shrugged. “Let me wash first. It was cold out there.” She said, “In the brood cave?”
How much did she know? I said, “Yes,” and hid myself within the alcove, toweling my hair dry, washing: delaying.