“Kaugh!” Atop the highest branches of a further mangrove, a raven landed and perched there, swaying, its claws clenched on a too-slim branch. It clung there a moment, then launched itself in a flurry of wings, finding a similar perch a few yards to the south. “Kaugh!”
“I see you, little brother,” Ushahin called to the raven, one of those serving to guide him through the swamp. He thrust strongly on his pole and the skiff turned, edging southward. “I am coming.”
Satisfied, the raven pecked at something unseen.
In truth, it would be easy for a man to lose his way in the Delta. And would that be such an ill fate? Pausing to swig from his waterskin, Ushahin pondered the matter. There was something … pleasant … about the swamp. He felt good here. It wasn’t merely a question of the moist air being kind to his bones,. no. Something else was at work, something deeper. There was a pulse beating in his veins that hadn’t surged since … since when?
Never, perhaps. One half of his blood, after all, was Ellylon. Haomane’s Children did not know desire of the flesh, not in the same way other races among the Lesser Shapers did. The Lord-of-Thought had Shaped them, and the Lord-of-Thought had refused Satoris’ Gift, that which was freely bestowed on other Shapers’ Children.
The other half … ah.
Arahila Second-Born, Arahila the Fair. She had accepted his Lordship’s Gift for her Children; and Haomane’s, too, that which he had withheld from all but his beloved Sister’s Children. Thus the race of Men, gifted with thought, quick with desire.
Ushahin had never reveled in the mortal parentage of his father, in his possession of Lord Satoris’ Gift. Here, in the Delta, it was different. The songs he crooned under his breath were cradle-songs, sung to him by his mother aeons ago, before his body was beaten, broken and twisted.
“So, Haomane!” Ushahin addressed his words to a cloud of midges that hung in the air before him, standing in lieu of the First-Born among Shapers. “You’re afraid, eh? What’s the matter? Was Lord Satoris’ Gift more powerful than you reckoned?” Pushing hard on his pole, he hummed, watching the midges dance. “Seems to me mayhap it was, Lord-of-Thought. At least in this place.”
“Kaugh, kaugh!”
Ravens burst from the tops of the mangroves; one, two; half a dozen. They circled in the dank air above the center of the swamp, and sunlight glinted purple on their wings. Ushahin paused and rested on his pole, gazing upward. Images of a hillock, vast and mossy, flickered through his mind.
“What’s this?” he mused aloud. “What do you wish me to see? All right, all right, little brothers! I come apace.”
He shoved hard on the pole, anchoring its butt in the sludge beneath the waterways. The skiff answered, gliding over still waters made ruddy by the afternoon sun. In the center of a watery glade stood a single palodus tree, tall and solitary. In the shadow of its spreading canopy arose the mossy hillock he had glimpsed. For no reason he could name, Ushahin’s mouth grew dry, and his pulse beat in his loins. It was a strange sensation; so strange it took him long minutes to recognize it as carnal desire.
Such desire! He was tumescent with it. The image, all unbidden, of the Lady of the Ellylon, slid into his mind. Cerelinde, bent over the saddle, the tips of her fair hair brushing the earth.
“Oh,” Ushahin said, grinding his teeth, “I think not.”
Sluggish bubbles rose in the murky water before him; rose, and burst, carrying the sound of laughter, slow and deep. In the branches, ravens arose in a clatter, yammering. Beneath the surface of the water, a pair of greenish eyes opened, slit with a vertical pupil and covered by the thin film of an inner lid.
Gripped by sudden fear, Ushahin propelled the skiff backward.
Iron-grey and slick with moss, the dragon’s head emerged from the water. It was twice the size of the skiff, dripping with muck. Droplets slid down its bearded jaw, plunking into the water, creating circular ripples. It stirred one unseen foreleg, then another, and Ushahin struggled to steady his craft as the swamp surged in response. The dragon’s inner lids blinked with slow amusement as it regarded him, waiting until the waters had quieted and he had regained control of the skiff. Only then did the massive jaws, hung on either side with strands of rotting greenery, part to speak.
“Is thisss desire ssso disstasssteful to you, little brother?”
Ushahin laid the pole across the prow of the skiff and made a careful bow. “Eldest,” he said. “Forgive me, Lord Dragon. I did not know you were here.”
Overhead, ravens circled and yammered.
The dragon’s gaze held, this time unblinking. “You bear Sssatoriss’ mark. You are one of his. You have ssseen my brother and know his fate.”
“Yes,” Ushahin said quietly. “Calandor of Beshtanag is no more.”
Turning its head, the dragon sighed. A gout of bluish flame jetted from its dripping nostrils, dancing eerily over the oily waters to set a stand of mangrove alight. A single tree flamed, black and skeletal within a cocoon of fire. The circling ravens squawked and regrouped at a distance. In the skiff, Ushahin scrambled for his pole.
“Peasssse, little brother.” The dragon eyed him with sorrow. “I mean you no harm, not yet. Calandor chose his path long ago, thisss I know. We know. We always know.” It shuddered, and ripples emanated across the swamp, setting the skiff to rocking upon the waters. “Ssso why come you here?”
“Seeking passage.” Emboldened, Ushahin rode out the waves, planting the pole in the mire and gripping it tight in both hands. “Will you grant it, Elder Brother?”
“Brother.” Beneath yellow-green eyes, twin spumes of smoke issued forth in a contemptuous snort. “What makesss you think I am your brother?”
Ushahin frowned, shifted his grip on his pole. “Did you not name me as much?”
“I named you.” The dragon snorted. “Brother!”
“What, then?”
“Would you know?” The nictitating lids flickered. “Guesssss.”
A mad courage seized him. What was there to lose, here in the Delta? Whether he would continue onward or die in this place was the dragon’s to choose. Craning his neck, Ushahin gazed at the dragon’s nearest eye. The yellow-green iris roiled in the immense orb, colors shifting like oily waters. The vertical pupil contracted like a cat’s, but vaster, far vaster. Blacker than the Ravensmirror, blacker than a moonless night, it reflected no light, only darkness.
If he hesitated, he would falter; so he didn’t. Using the skills taught him long ago by the Grey Dam, Ushahin slid his thoughts into the mind behind that black, black pupil.
It was like stepping into a bottomless pit.
There was nothing there; or if there was, it was a thing so huge, so distant, he could not compass it. The way back was gone, the filament that connected him to himself might never have existed. There was only an encompassing, lightless vastness. Deeper and deeper he fell, a tiny star in an immense universe of darkness. There were no boundaries. There would be no end, only an endless falling.
Sundered from himself, Ushahin shaped a soundless cry …
… and fell …
… and fell …
… and fell …
Something flickered in the incomprehensible verges of the dragon’s mind; something, many somethings. Tiny and urgent and defiant, they came for him like a cloud of midges, a storm of claws. Feathered, frantic thoughts, scrabbling for his. Yellow beech leaves, shiny black beetles, an updraught beneath the wings and the patchwork of the tilting earth glimpsed below.