“Ah.” The King nodded vaguely and turned away, leaning on the arms of his tall son and his nephew Polycarp. After a pace or two, he halted, frowning as something surfaced from the murk of his memory, and turned to Gareth. “This Dragonsbane—he did kill the dragon, after all?”
There was no way to explain all that had passed, or how rightness had been restored to the kingdom, save by the appropriate channels, so Gareth said simply, “Yes.”
“Good,” said the old man, nodding dim approval. “Good.”
Gareth released his arm; Polycarp, as Master of the Citadel and his host, led the King away to rest, the courtiers trailing after like a school of brightly colored, ornamental fish. From among them stepped three small, stout forms, their silken robes stirring in the ice winds that played from the soft new sky.
Balgub, the new Lord of the Deep of Ylferdun, inclined his head; with the stiff unfamiliarity of one who has seldom spoken the words, he thanked Lord Aversin the Dragonsbane, though he did not specify for what.
“Well, he hardly could, now, could he?” John remarked, as the three gnomes left the court in the wake of the King’s party. Only Miss Mab had caught Jenny’s eye and winked at her. John went on, “If he came out and said, ‘Thank you for blowing up the Stone,’ that would be admitting that he was wrong about Zyerne not poisoning it.”
Gareth, who was still standing hand-in-hand with Trey beside them, laughed. “You know, I think he does admit it in his heart, though I don’t think he’ll ever completely forgive us for doing it. At least, he’s civil to me in Council—which is fortunate, since I’m going to have to be dealing with him for a long time.”
“Are you?” A flicker of intense interest danced in John’s eye.
Gareth was silent for a long moment, fingering the stiff lace of his cuff and not meeting John’s gaze. When he looked up again, his face was weary and sad.
“I thought it would be different,” he said quietly. “I thought once Zyerne was dead, he would be all right. And he’s better, he really is.” He spoke like a man trying to convince himself that a mended statue is as beautiful as it was before it broke. “But he’s—he’s so absentminded. Badegamus says he can’t be trusted to remember edicts he’s made from one day to the next. When I was in Bel, we made up a Council—Badegamus, Balgub, Polycarp, Dromar, and I—to sort out what we ought to do; then I tell Father to do it—or remind him it’s what he was going to do, and he’ll pretend he remembers. He knows he’s gotten forgetful, though he doesn’t quite remember why. Sometimes he’ll wake in the night, crying Zyerne’s name or my mother’s.” The young man’s voice turned momentarily unsteady. “But what if he never recovers?”
“What if he never does?” John returned softly. “The Realm will be yours in any case one day, my hero.” He turned away and began tightening the cinches of the mules, readying them for the trek down through the city to the northward road.
“But not now!” Gareth followed him, his words making soft puffs of steam in the morning cold. “I mean—I never have time for myself anymore! It’s been months since I worked on my poetry, or tried to complete that southern variant of the ballad of Antara Warlady...”
“There’ll be time, by and by.” The Dragonsbane paused, resting his hand on the arched neck of Battlehammer, Gareth’s parting gift to him. “It will get easier, when men know to come to you directly instead of to your father.”
Gareth shook his head. “But it won’t be the same.”
“Is it ever?” John moved down the line, tightening cinches, checking straps on the parcels of books—volumes of healing, Anacetus’ works on greater and lesser demons, Luciard’s Firegiver, books on engineering and law, by gnomes and men. Gareth followed him silently, digesting the fact that he was now, for all intents and purposes, the Lord of Bel, with the responsibilities of the kingdom—for which he had been academically prepared under the mental heading of “some day”—thrust suddenly upon his unwilling shoulders. Like John, Jenny thought pityingly, he would have to put aside the pursuit of his love of knowledge for what he owed his people and return to it only when he could. The only difference was that his realm was at peace and that John had been a year younger than Gareth was when the burden had fallen to him.
“And Bond?” John asked gently, looking over at Trey. She sighed and managed to smile. “He still asks about Zyerne,” she said softly. “He really did love her, you know. He knows she’s dead and he tries to pretend he remembers it happening the way I told him, about her falling off a horse... But it’s odd. He’s kinder than he was. He’ll never be considerate, of course, but he’s not so quick or so clever, and I think he hurts people less. He dropped a cup at luncheon yesterday—he’s gotten very clumsy—and he even apologized to me.” There was a slight wryness to her smile, perhaps to cover tears. “I remember when he would not only have blamed me for it, but gotten me to blame myself.”
She and Gareth had been following John down the line, still hand in hand, the girl’s rose-colored skirts bright against the pewter grayness of the frosted morning. Jenny, standing apart, listened to their voices, but felt as if she saw them through glass, part of a life from which she was half-separated, to which she did not have to go back unless she chose. And all the while, her mind listened to the sky, hearing with strange clarity the voices of the wind around the Citadel towers, seeking something...
She caught John’s eye on her and saw the worry crease between his brows; something wrung and wrenched in her heart.
“Must you go?” Gareth asked hesitantly, and Jenny, feeling as if her thoughts had been read, looked up; but it was to John that he had spoken. “Could you stay with me, even for a little while? It will take nearly a month for the troops to be ready—you could have a seat on the Council. I—I can’t do this alone.”
John shook his head, leaning on the mule Clivy’s withers. “You are doing it alone, my hero. And as for me, I’ve my own realm to look after. I’ve been gone long as it is.” He glanced questioningly at Jenny as he spoke, but she looked away.
Wind surged down around them, crosswise currents swirling her plaids and her hair like the stroke of a giant wing. She looked up and saw the shape of the dragon melting down from the gray and cobalt of the morning sky.
She turned from the assembled caravan in the court without a word and ran to the narrow stair that led up to the walls. The dark shape hung like a black kite on the wind, the soft voice a song in her mind.
By my name you have bidden me go, Jenny Waynest, he said. Now that you are going, I too shall depart. But by your name, I ask that you follow. Come with me, to the islands of the dragons in the northern seas. Come with me, to be of us, now and forever.
She knew in her heart that it would be the last time of his asking; that if she denied him now, that door would never open again. She stood poised for a moment, between silver ramparts and silver sky. She was aware of John climbing the steps behind her, his face emptied of life and his spectacle lenses reflecting the pearly colors of the morning light; was aware, through him, of the two little boys waiting for them in the crumbling tower of Alyn Hold—boys she had borne without intention of raising, boys she should have loved, she thought, either more or less than she had.
But more than them, she was aware of the dragon, drifting like a ribbon against the remote white eye of the day moon. The music of his name shivered in her bones; the iron and fire of his power streaked her soul. To be a mage you must be a mage, she thought. The key to magic is magic.