Teb sighed again and said no more. The horses disappeared and the dragons were there, still staring in that annoying way. He stared back at them crossly, then turned away to ready his pack.
He wrapped his mother’s diary in oilskins, with a few other valuables he would not take, and hid them between tree trunks in the wall of the nest. He would take the large packet that contained the white leather from which he had cut Seastrider’s harness, and the awl he had used to fashion it. He would need more thread. He slipped the gold coins into his pocket, gifts from the otter nation. With gold he could steal clothes, yet leave payment.
He knew where they would go—they had discussed it several times: Dacia, which lay far to the north above a tangle of island nations. Neutral Dacia. They had swung low on the night wind near to it more than once, and always they could sense the powers of the dark there. Yet the dark did not rule Dacia. He didn’t understand how this could be, how that country had remained neutral. Both dark and resistance forces were strong on Dacia. He didn’t know what had kept the dark from possessing that country totally, for the small continent provided good cover for the dark forces. From that base, the unliving could attack Edain and Bukla and the tiny island nations of the Benaynne Archipelago.
Surely the resistance had a strong spy network and ways to steal food and weapons from the dark armies. Perhaps the strength of the resistance alone was what kept Dacia free, though Teb felt there might be a stronger force at work. He would be very interested to learn why Dacia was not beaten back by the dark, yet had not driven it out. Dacia would be a likely place to find Garit, and maybe Camery, a good place to join the rebels in any case.
The truly free countries were very aggressive in destroying the unliving, for most humans felt only terror of the wraithlike creatures. The very mention of the leader Quazelzeg made warriors burn with hatred.
The slave makers sucked on the suffering of humans as a leech will suck human blood. Fear in humans strengthened the un-men, and pain in humans and animals was as heady as wine to them. They would devise any means to increase and lengthen such suffering.
But if Ebis the Black had driven them out, and had kept his land free, so could others. Teb and the dragons had gone twice to Ratnisbon, to sing the past alive for Ebis’s people. Ebis understood that people needed that knowledge of Tirror’s past, of their own pasts; otherwise they had no memory, no knowledge of themselves, and no notion of who they really were or what choices they had in life. Ebis’s people wanted to make their own choices and would not allow the dark to rob them of that freedom.
The dragon song kept freedom alive in people’s minds, stirring their fury against the smothering and consuming dark. That was what it must do for all of Tirror. There were more bards; there had to be. Perhaps, somewhere, there were more dragons. The old power, where bard could speak to bard or dragon over distances, was all muddled and frayed by the dark. Teb caught only glimpses of battles. He knew there was little communication remaining among the resistance forces, human or animal. This, too, Teb and the dragons meant to change. Meanwhile, they would be in the thick of it in Dacia, and would learn more.
They waited until dark before taking to the sky, moving on the silent wind over the small island nations. It was near to midnight when Teb chose a likely-looking fishing town from which to steal his new clothes.
They came down along the cave-ridden cliffs of Bukla and, because black Nightraider would not be seen so easily, it was he who turned himself into a horse and carried Teb up the cliffs to the prosperous little town.
Teb jimmied a shop door with little trouble. He chose his clothes with care by the shielded light of one lantern taken from the shop desk. He selected three changes of the most elegant tunics and dark leggings, a pair of fine boots, and a red cape that stirred memories, for its color. These were clothes meant to impress, suited to a rich prince, not to his personal preference. He found buckles, heavy linen thread, and some felted horsehair padding for a saddle in the shop’s workroom, and packed it all into a linen bag. He left ample gold in exchange, and locked the door behind him.
They spent three days on a small rock island while Teb fashioned the four halters, a saddle, and saddlebags of the white leather. Then on the fourth night the dragons made for the northerly and deserted shore of Dacia, north of the city, some five miles from the black palace that loomed against the stars.
Chapter 3
The Palace of Dacia was built directly into the mountain, so its deepest chambers were the mountain’s own stony caves. The sheer black palace walls, carved and ornate, looked down on the country’s one city, their arrow slits watching the teeming streets like thin, appraising eyes. The city climbed up so abruptly to meet the palace that the stone huts stood jumbled nearly on top of one another, straw-thatched roofs shouldering against the doorsteps above.
It was early evening now, the sun gone behind the mountain. The palace’s heavy shadow spread down across the tangled city, reaching to swallow more and more houses and lanes as suppertime drew near. The smell of the city was of boiled mutton and cabbage and of animal dung and crowded humanity. Men were coming home from the wharves and fields and pouring out of taverns. Women shuffled pots on cookstoves and shouted at squalling babies.
Kiri stood in her own darkened doorway, listening.
She glanced back inside once, where her grandmother dozed on the cot, her thin body angled under the frayed quilt, her veined hands clasped together.
Kiri watched Gram with tenderness, then turned to make her way up the darker side of the cobbled street, deeper into the shadow of the palace. She was fourteen, thin, sun-browned, her brown hair tucked up under a green cap. She was dressed in the green homespun tunic of a page. She wore a sharpened kitchen knife hidden beneath the tunic, couched comfortably against her thigh. As she climbed, the city spread itself out below her. She could see the first early squares of candlelight, and the occasional brighter glow of an oil lamp in some privileged household—Kiri took note of which houses. There, the baker was burning oil, where he had not in nearly a month. What had he been up to, to curry favor with the king? And the tanner, also—two bright lamps in his windows.
There was a look about Kiri that was difficult to define, though she tried her best to look unremarkable. Her two tunics were purposely worn and shabby, her hair dulled by rubbing dust into her comb, her expression spiritless and unrevealing. But beneath the seeming dullness was a spark as free and wild as a mountain deer, hidden as best she could hide it. The clean chiseling of her face and the challenging, longing look in her dark eyes did not belong to the kind of drudge she pretended to be. It was a joy at night to strip out of her confining cap and brush her hair clean and talk with Gram in the privacy of their cottage, to hear Gram’s tales before the cookfire, and laugh, and not have to look so solemn and stupid.
Gram’s tales were sometimes about Kiri’s father, who once had been horsemaster to the king. It was a prestigious position. The horsemaster of any kingdom on Tirror was a most important person and responsible in good part for the strength of that country’s armies. Now Kiri’s father had gone away. He was not Gram’s son; Gram was Kiri’s mother’s mother. But Gram respected him. Neither Gram nor Kiri spoke about the thing that had been done to him. Kiri missed him. She did not miss her mother, who had been dead since Kiri was two. She had died of the plague that Kiri and her father had escaped, though everyone around them had been sick. Kiri didn’t know why this was except maybe it was because of the special talent that she and her father shared. It made her sad to think that because Mama had not shared this gift she had died. It was after Mama died that Gram came to live with them and look after Kiri.