From the reviews of The Ivory Lyre
“A riveting sequel to Nightpool. . . . A finely crafted story filled with scenes of chilling horror as well as courage and beauty. Murphy's dragon lore exhibits an exciting immediacy; her scenes of dragons in flight exalt the reader. . . . Anne McCaffrey, make room.” —ALA Booklist
“This well-crafted fantasy has a depth and scope reminiscent of Tolkien.” —Publisher's Weekly
The Ivory Lyre
(Dragonbards Trilogy, Book Two)
by
Shirley Rousseau Murphy
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 1987 by Shirley Rousseau Murphy
All rights reserved. For information contact webmaster@joegrey.com. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be resold, given away, or altered.
This is the second book of a trilogy. It is preceded by Nightpool and followed by The Dragonbards.
Harper & Row edition (hardcover) published in 1987
HarperPrism edition (paperback) published in 1988
Ad Stellae Books edition, 2010
Author website: www.joegrey.com
Cover art © by Fernando Cortés De Pablo / 123RF
Chapter 1
The four dragons fled through the sky, their wings hiding stars, the wind of their passing churning the sea below. The two black dragons were nearly hidden against the night, but the two white ones shone bright as sweeping clouds. The larger white dragon carried a rider, a slim lad. He was barely sixteen, well muscled, tanned, dressed in stolen leathers, with a stolen sword at his side. He stared down between the white dragon’s beating wings at occasional islands fast overtaken. Then he looked ahead with rising anger at the island that was this night’s target. His rage matched the dragons’ fury for what they sensed there on Birrig.
“The dark unliving rule there,” the dragons screamed. “They are soul killers—the dark side of mortal. . . .”
“Yes,” Tebriel answered, “but they will die. We free Birrig this night.”
They dove in a rush of wind, Teb bent low to see between Seastrider’s wings as the dragons dropped toward Birrig’s wood.
Meadows lay on the far side of the island, dotted by eight villages. The dragons gained the shore on widespread wings, then folded their wings close to their sides and slipped in among the twisted oaks of the grove in silence, pressing under the great branches, the leaves sliding noiselessly across their scales. Teb slid down.
He paced the wood, then returned to stand beside Seastrider, listening with his mind and inner senses just as the four dragons did. They could see in their minds the dark leaders who ruled here, and knew that the enslaved islanders slept a sleep as featureless as death. Even waking they would know little pain or wonder, so drugged were they with the powers of the dark. The dragons moved deeper among the giant trees. To be discovered was too great a danger, not for themselves, but for the cause they served.
“There are nine leaders,” Teb said softly, stroking Seastrider’s white cheek. She leaned her head against him, feeling his hatred of the dark; their thoughts were in perfect sympathy, these two who were so powerfully paired.
They are sheltered in the stone manor house, she said in silence. Two of the true dark, the unliving, and seven humans turned to the ways of the dark. She scraped her scales nervously against the rough sides of the oaks.
The other three dragons moved uneasily. Teb walked among them, touching and reassuring them. He could feel their tension nearly exploding, their hatred of the dark grown to a force almost visible in its intensity. It matched his own.
Of the dark leaders they saw in vision, five slept. Two of the humans were awake, locked in obscene embrace with the two unliving. The unliving never slept, though they never seemed to come fully to life, either. The pale, man-shaped beings were as coldly expressionless as spiders. Their color would rise a little at the lure of new evil or lust. They sucked upon men’s spirits and souls as certain spiders suck upon human blood.
Teb stood a moment filled with disgust, putting down his instinctive fear. Un-men, unliving, you will not take this land, not while dragons live to defeat you. You will give back the minds you have robbed. We will take them back.
In the vision that Teb and the dragons shared, the blank faces of the sleeping villagers were scarred and bruised and dirty. Many slept on the ground, tied by ropes to their places of work, too obedient to the dark to untie themselves. The miller was shackled beside the mill wheel; a carpenter sprawled among logs and tools; shepherds were leg-tied together beside a dung heap. A small child with a twisted arm lay huddled on rags in the corner of a barn, tied to a post where she had been pounding grain.
The dragons were clawing now into the soft mulch of the forest, tense with rage at the slavery the dark had created, ready to battle it. Teb leaped to Seastrider’s back, stroked her. Now, he said, now begin, and power filled them as they raised their voices in song, dragon and boy.
Power swelled as they made visions explode in the minds of the sleeping slaves. Now you will see truly once more. They warped time into another dimension so that the past came alive. People long dead came alive, as real as Teb himself. A forgotten time exploded into life, a time before Birrig was slave to the dark.
Now, suddenly, busy people filled the lanes and sheepfolds, shearing, lambing, making the dyes and grooming the wool and weaving the fine tapestries for which Birrig was famous. Loud, hard-living people. Dragon song brought alive the hot glances of the young as they sought their mates. A girl cuddled a baby. Small children ran among the looms. The blending voices of bard and dragon peopled the village and filled the minds of the present-day slaves, who woke and stumbled to their doors to gape. Before them in the streets, the past lived.
Folk came forth hesitantly, out into the busy lanes. They stepped into a world nothing like their drab one, and their faces lost confusion and brightened with understanding.
Untie yourselves, Teb shouted in song, tear off your chains.
Men and women fought to free themselves and reached out to touch the strangers who were their own ancestors. They could not touch them, yet were not perplexed.
The past is the lost part of you, Teb shouted. Feel whole again, now; defeat the dark, now. . . .
The child inside the barn was awake, tearing at the knots of her ropes. Freed, she stood for a moment not knowing what to do. Then she began to run. She ran in circles around the cottages, in and out among her ancestors like a colt gone wild.
Folk began to approach the woods, coming to the call of the songs. They moved through the Birrig of the present and the Birrig of the past all at once, seeking the source of the magic. But not all came toward the woods; some approached the manor house. The nine dark leaders stood there in the doorway shoulder to shoulder, their evil like a dark stench seeping around the building.