Tapio poured himself more wine. ‘When the war was over, the survivors determined that never again would people of power do certain things.’
Mogon kept looking into the fire. ‘All the things the winners had done to win the war were outlawed, of course,’ she said. ‘Possession. Necromancy. The fire from the sky.’
Tapio added. ‘Ash was there. Ash is the greatest of the dragons – and the one most inimical to any rivals.’
Mogon laughed. ‘Ash has no rivals, but he perceives all of us – every sentient being – as an enemy because he understands the potential in every thinking thing to rise to power. Ash desires to be a god. Or perhaps to be God.’ Her laugh was bitter. ‘I am accounted old at half a thousand years, and I have seen enough to know that the showdown with Ash has been long and long in the making. My father believed-’ She looked at Tapio.
Geraaargkh shook himself and hunkered over. ‘We were promised!’ he said. ‘Promised a king. A leader.’
Tapio’s smile grew cynical. ‘A messiah – isn’t that what we were expecting? ’
‘Half the Wild thinks it is you,’ Geraaargkh said.
‘It is said,’ Tekkismark spat. ‘You are the one. The one who will free us from the wheel and make the gears turn any way they will.’ He clashed his forearms together, and they made the same sound, Redmede thought, that a peasant made as he sharpened a scythe.
Tapio looked disgusted. ‘I am not your messiah. We need to come down from the clouds and solve this ourselves.’
Mogon sat back heavily and her big oak chair gave a momentous creak, almost a groan. ‘We were promised. By the Lady Tar.’
Nita Qwan nodded. ‘Tar is a name I know, even among my people in Ifraqu’ya. But we call her Tara. The Great She-Wolf.’
Mogon’s crest was almost a bristle brush – every spine seemed to strain for the beamed ceiling. ‘Tar is no wolf, man-who-cooks. Tar is another of the great serpents. A dragon.’
Geraaargkh said, ‘Bears call her “The First”.’
Tapio sipped his wine and sang a lilting song in an irk language. The pace was slow and steady, and the tuning was alien to human ears, but had a stately dignity that transcended melody.
‘First who slipped through dappled glades
First who danced among the blades.’
Nita Qwan cleared his throat in the momentary silence that followed the irk’s song. ‘So – Tar is good? And Ash is evil?’
Tapio grinned so that all his fangs showed. ‘Out in the hall many folk are dancing in the Yule, proclaiming the light against the dark. And despite my love’s passion for cleaning, there are small creatures that live in the hall – mice, rats, even some beetles. When the flashing heels of a dancer slay one such, was the dancer good, or evil? While proclaiming the triumph of light, they may slay a dozen mice and a hundred beetles.’
Mogon extended a long, taloned arm. ‘And if the mice and the beetles were to band together and form an army against the dancers would they understand what they were fighting? Would the dancers?’
Redmede felt thick and stupid. He stood up. ‘What are we to do, then?’ he asked.
Tapio laughed. ‘Oh, we’ll fight, alongside the mice and the beetles,’ he said. ‘Just don’t imagine we’re the heroes. For all I know, Ash is locked in a valiant struggle with the very soul of evil, and we will provide the tiny distraction that leads to the ultimate triumph of darkness.’
Redmede grabbed the table. ‘Really?’
Tapio shook his head. ‘Nay, brother. I am in a foul mood. Listen: west of the Inner Sea everything is moving. Hordes are coming – greater than armies. This is just one tiny part of whatever is going on. We – the mice and the beetles – can only go by what we see. Some dancers avoid us on the floor – some even pick us up and move us tenderly to the wall. Others stomp on us whenever they can.’ He sighed, raised an eyebrow, and looked at Redmede from under it. ‘But aren’t you Jacks suspicious any time someone tells you that they represent the side of good and right? ’
Redmede nodded. ‘That’d be the Church.’
Mogon shook her head. ‘No – that’s everyone. Once the dispute turns to war, every side claims the others are demons.’ She turned to Tapio. ‘Can we not approach this Thorn and offer a deal? Or simply make an alliance and use it as a shield?’ She nodded. ‘And I agree about the west. Someone has kicked all the anthills there.’
‘We can piss on that fire when the flames lick us. As for Thorn.’ Tapio shrugged. ‘It is probably worth a try.’
Geraaargkh said, ‘Too late for us. He attacked us. Even now, the cubs of my people are hunted in the woods.’
Mogon was watching Tapio. ‘You want this,’ she said.
He gave her a wry smile, full of humour and sorrow with a spice of self-knowledge. ‘I’m no messiah,’ he said. ‘But I’m a pretty fair general. Go to war with Ash? No one will ever forget us! ’
Geraaargkh growled. ‘You and your songs will not save the life of one cub, or provide winter food for a starving bear.’
Tekkismark made the scythe sound again. ‘Always, my kind are the fodder in the wars of the powers. It would be different to fight on a side we had chosen ourselves.’
Tapio seemed fascinated by his moccasins. ‘I’m sure your kind always imagine that they choose their sides.’
Tekkismark’s mouth opened – sideways – and his purple-ichor tonguebeak shot out for a moment. ‘No!’ he scratched out. ‘That delusion is for men. We are slaves to our message breeze, and nothing else.’ He snapped the chitinous claws on one delicate hand. ‘Coming here, I was against war with Thorn. Meeting you, I war will make. When the spring turns and the hard water softens, then my people will come.’
Geraaargkh snarled. ‘My people are at war, although many do not yet know it. But we will have lost the Adnacrags by spring. Where will we make a stand? And how? Thorn’s power increases every day, and he gathers men and creatures from many lands.’
Tapio scratched under his chin, a gesture curiously at odds with his languorous elfin dignity. ‘Thorn – what a pleasure to say his name aloud – Thorn will have to make war on men to seize the Adnacrags, and men, as we all know, can be brilliant at making war.’
‘The only thing at which they have skill,’ Tekkismark said drily.
‘They build snug dens,’ Geraaargkh said.
‘At any rate, he will have to fight several great battles to take your mountains. We need not hurry. It will take him a long time to reach us,’ Tapio said. He wobbled his head from side to side – not a human gesture. ‘A year for him, or perhaps two. And three – at least – before the rising tide out of the West crests and overruns us.’
Mogon shook her crested head. ‘Every victory will make him stronger,’ she insisted. ‘Even now, Ash has sent him something abominable. When it grows to maturity, it will be mighty indeed.’ She paused. ‘Is Ash behind the rise of the West?’
‘It flatters me, Duchess, that you ask me about Ash as if he and I were peers. I have no idea what Ash intends. Nor what has happened in the West, where there are powers with whom I, thanks be to Tara, have never contended.’ Tapio nodded thoughtfully. ‘But what you say of men and war is fully true, my friends, and perhaps it would suit us to fight like men. And like the Wild, too. Will you have me as your High Constable? ’
Mogon smiled. ‘If only my brother had lived. But yes.’
One by one, the others nodded. Tekkismark made an odd sound, and a scent like almonds washed over them.
‘He makes the breeze of agreement,’ Mogon said.
‘Well,’ Tapio said slowly. ‘If Thorn insists on tying himself to an army of men – we can always use the mountains against him.’