Rawn,Melanie - Dragon Star 1 - Stronghold

PART ONE

Chapter One

Kohan squinted into the Desert sky, watching his circling hawk. All at once

the bird plummeted to the rough scrub of the Vere Hills. Rohan held his

breath. A few moments later the hawk soared upward, a greentail clutched in

her talons. She spiraled on a thermal, then swooped down to deposit the plump

bird neatly at Rohan's feet. When she balanced on his arm again, he whistled

appreciatively; she replied with a grating coo of affection.

"She's flirting with you again," Sioned observed.

"I have that effect on ladies of taste and perception." He fed the bird a

morsel of raw meat, whistled the flight command again, and flung her smoothly

into the air. The hawk flew off to seek her own dinner.

Sioned sat down on a rock. "I assume that means Avaly of Rezeld would've had

more luck if she'd batted her lashes?"

"So that's what's been bothering you all day." Unhooking the water skin from

his belt, he took a swig and offered her some.

"It was embarrassing to watch." She drank and stoppered the skin.

"All I could think about was getting her off her knees and out of my sight as

fast as possible."

"Why did she wait nine years? It couldn't have taken that long to think up

that tale about her father's being under a diarmadhi spell like Chiana."

"Her proposed husband evidently inspired her. He wants the holding and the

title along with her highborn blood. That's the only dowry a merchant that

wealthy would care about."

"Well, he can't have them. Morlen was just waiting for a chance to betray you

and Pol, and I see no reason to reward

his daughter for it. And anyway, how could she think of marrying a man who

forced her to that performance?"

"Sioned! Wouldn't you plead on your knees for me?"

"With my aching joints? Certainly not."

He grinned down at her. "Well, I suppose you are getting old and crippled and

decrepit."

"Half a season your senior, young fellow, and don't you forget it!" She wagged

a finger at him, laughing.

He caught her hand and was about to pull her up into his arms when a screech

and a feather-rush warned him. He turned just in time to extend his right arm

to his hawk, who dug her talons into protective leather and preened.

"Jealous, too," Sioned remarked. "Goddess, doesn't she look pleased with

herself!"

They walked back through the late afternoon haze to Stronghold, entering by

the grotto passage—once secret, but not anymore. Sioned lingered by the

waterfall to bathe her face and arms while Rohan returned his hawk to the

mews. This autumn, her thirty-ninth in the Desert, was the hottest she could

recall. She and Rohan had avoided summer completely this year by indulging in

a lengthy journey through Syr before going up to Dragon's Rest for the Rialla.

She'd shown him her childhood home of River Run, taken a side trip into the

Catha Hills to investigate the dragons' winter lairs, and stopped in at High

Kirat to visit her nephew Prince Kostas and his family. Many times they'd left

their small retinue behind and slept in the open, hunted or hawked as fancy

dictated, and forgotten for days at a time that there were titles and

responsibilities attached to their names.

But having escaped the summer heat, they returned after the Rialla to find

their princedom had taken on all the soothing qualities of a smelting furnace.

The sun blazed, the dunes burned with shimmer-visions, and heat clung to every

stone. Rohan shrugged off the brutal climate, being Desert born and bred, but

even though she'd spent two-thirds of her life here, Sioned felt the heat more

as she grew older.

She settled on a mossy rock and hauled off her t>oots. Gasping with the shock

as she plunged her feet into cool water, she closed her eyes and tried to

dream herself back at River Run. No use. If Avaly hadn't arrived yesterday

with her foredoomed plea, she could have been at Radzyn by now, enjoying its

crisp sea breezes, visiting Maarken and Hollis at Whitecliff—

"Don't get too comfortable," advised Rohan from behind her. "We've just been

graced with an emissary from Prince Velden of Grib."

"Damn it, what's wrong with these people? Why couldn't they have talked to us

at the Rialla?"

"Doubtless they had their reasons."

"Whatever they are, I don't like them."

"Come on, High Princess—we played all summer. Time to get back to work."

She kicked water at him across the little pool. "I don't want to."

"Now you sound like Jihan."

"Well, you have to admit people make things difficult. You can hardly pretend

to be reluctant with your power when they're always handing you chances to use

it."

"Pretend?" He frowned.

"Demanding that you use it, actually. At least Pol's honest about it. He loves

to fix things and makes no pretense of—"

"Just be grateful that someone still finds it worthwhile to consult us old

folks," he drawled.

That silenced her. She followed him back through the gardens and upstairs,

gnawing over his implication. It was amusing to tease each other about

oncoming old age— especially when neither believed the other had aged at all—

but at times they were forcibly reminded that the years were indeed

accumulating.

The knowledge had sneaked up on them at first. Perhaps it had started at the

Rialla of 731, Pol's first as husband and father as well as prince. He had

spoken for Princemarch before, of course, but with his new family had come new

awarenesses. The terms he gained, independent of anything Rohan won for the

Desert, were highly advantageous and gave subtle hints about his plans for his

daughters' future. Rohan and Sioned had congratulated themselves on their

success—after all, they had taught Pol everything he knew.

But more leisurely reflection, and repetition of the experience in 734 and

again this very summer, had shown them a hard truth. While the princes still

looked to them, they also looked to Pol. The next High Prince.

Rohan and Sioned had given him the world in which he exercised his share of

the family cunning. The peace they'd established had lasted with only minor

lapses since 704.

14 Melanie Rawn

They'd founded a school for physicians and a scriptorium. Specific borders

agreed to by all princes ensured that no more wars were fought over a few

square measures of land. Arts and sciences thrived. Interwoven trade made the

princedoms economically dependent on each other. Most importantly, Rohan had

nudged the other rulers into standardizing much of the legal code. Over the

years this had come to be known as the High Prince's Writ, and it would be his

most lasting achievement. It was more than any other High Prince had done

before him, more than anyone else could have hoped to do in a lifetime—even if

anyone else had been the dreamer Rohan was. But because he did have dreams,

leavened with vast patience and ruthless practicality, there was so much more

that he wanted to accomplish.

It was a proud thing to watch Pol fulfill their hopes. And Meiglan had

surprised them all with her adjustments to her role as his wife. Though she

would never be the kind of High Princess Sioned was, she had grown into her

own sort of wisdom. People didn't confide in Meiglan, or consult her about

matters of state. They merely did not guard their tongues around her. It was

an opportunity not open to Sioned, whose intelligence was well known and often

feared. She learned more from what people didn't tell her than from what they

did. But Meiglan was so quiet, so unobtrusive, that most of the time one

forgot she was there. What she reported was colored by her personal

prejudices—she loathed Pirro of Fessenden, for instance, and was terrified of

Ghiana. But she had learned to weed out what was important and present it with

an eye to Pol's needs. Her methods differed from Sioned's, but she got the job

done.

This past Rialla Rohan and Sioned had mostly watched the young couple's work,

giving private advice here and there. It was time for them to move into the

background; eventually Pol and Meiglan would take their places. The other

princes must accustom themselves to the next generation. Eminently practical—

but a little depressing.

Sioned wondered if Zehava had experienced the same thing when Rohan had been

the one young and strong and full of impatient energy. She understood Pol's

eagerness— the young dragon exhilarated by the strength of his wings. Perhaps

Zehava had watched with the same smile she saw sometimes on Rohan's face, a

look of pride and rueful regret.

She sat at her dressing table, brushing out her hair, watching him covertly in

the mirror. The hot misted light of sunset drifting through open windows

turned his hair as gold as it had been in his youth. Looking at him as he

shrugged out of his sweat-stained shirt, it was impossible to convince herself

that this coming winter would be his sixty-first. That it would be forty years

next spring since she'd first seen him on the road to Stronghold, bloodied and

exhausted after killing the dragon that had killed his father. That they were

not just growing older, but growing old. That not only had she never fallen

out of love with him, but had, in fact, fallen in love with him all over again

many times—most recently this very summer.

Preposterous. The product of an overactive imagination that insisted on

picturing him at River Run, enchanted with the greenness, lazing back in

flower-strewn grass, making love to her in a hayloft, racing for shelter

during a sudden thundershower. Or at Dragon's Rest: long walks in the forest

or through Pol's beloved gardens, nights on their own in Meiglan's little

hillside cottage, a memorable evening when she took him on a tasting tour of

the wine cellar she'd personally assembled for their son.

Yet there had been reminders of age, too, most obviously in the form of twin

seven-year-old granddaughters. Rohan didn't look like a grandsire. But Jihan

had not only half his name but his blue eyes as well, and the cleft in

Rislyn's dainty chin could have come from no one else. He gleefully indulged

them with endless games of dragon slaying, and earned the supreme accolade

that Grandsir was much better at it than Papa. Jihan usually won; she was the

dominant twin, running riot around the palace, trailing mischief in her wake.

Rislyn was quieter, gentler, more like her shy mother. Everyone adored Jihan,

but everyone's favorite was Rislyn.

They even said that Rislyn looked very like Sioned.

Gentle fingers clasped her shoulders, and she gave a start. "I didn't mean

that, you know," Rohan said. "About being old."

"I know you didn't, but it's true." She met his gaze in the

irror. "Though it's hard to believe, looking at you. You've

mirror

gone all silvery instead of golden—that's the only difference." "Liar. My

bones creak and my right shoulder aches in the cold and my arms aren't long

enough to hold parchments where I can read them."

"And last night all you could do in bed was sleep."

He grinned. "Well, I do seem to have a soft spot for elderly ladies."

"My dear decrepit azhrei, right now I haven't the slightest interest in your

soft spots."

Quite some time later, he stretched and dug his toes into the cool silk of

bunched sheets at the end of the bed. Using a strand of Sioned's long hair to

tickle her shoulder, he whispered, "I think I saw it that time."

"Hmm?" she asked drowsily. "Saw what?"

"The colors."

She quivered with silent laughter. "Now we have the truth at last. He only

makes love to the Sunrunner witch for the sake of intellectual curiosity."

"Certainly," he agreed. "You should never have told me what you see. I've been

trying to catch a glimpse ever since."

"And did you?"

"Why don't we try it again and I'll let you know?"

The Gribains were growing impatient by the time Rohan and Sioned finally came

downstairs for dinner in the Great Hall. Casual pleasantries were the order of

conversation; the Gribains were firmly steered away from any formal discussion

during the meal. Rohan knew why they were here. According to his habit, he had

made no decision and would not until one presented itself. Though open

discussion was prevented by Sioned's tact and Rohan's sporadic deafness

whenever the subject was hinted at, he had not counted on the artless

innocence of the squire who was serving at dinner.

Isriam was the only child of Sabriam of Einar and Isaura of Meadowlord, Prince

Halian's niece. With his family connections and the wealth of his father's

city, one day Isriam would be an important man. At sixteen he was a dark-ey^d,

dark-haired, gawky adolescent possessed of not the slightest hint of subtlety.

Rohan kept telling himself the boy would grow out of his awkwardness, but

despaired of ever teaching him how to keep his every thought from his face and

his every idea from spilling over into speech. As he served taze and cakes to

the high table, Isriam asked, "Will your grace

desire the Summer Room made ready for a conference with the Gribain

ambassadors this evening?"

This was the perfect opening, and the courtier who had been sent by Prince

Velden took advantage of it with practiced smoothness. "It is extremely wise

of your grace to wish this unhappy matter settled as quickly as possible. We

will, of course, make ourselves available to your grace immediately after

dinner."

Rohan considered answering Isriam in the negative, then chided himself. He had

spent most of the spring and all summer at play. He planned a trip to Radzyn

in a few days that would extend the holiday well into autumn. He really ought

to do a little work and earn the privilege of being bowed to and gossiped

about behind his back. Deciding to give in, he replied with a smile, "That's

very kind of you, Master Eschur. The journey from Grib is a tiring one. But if

it suits, then yes, we'll meet in a little while."

"As your grace wishes," Eschur said with a slight bow. Rohan reflected that

his name suited him; eyes with a "wolfs sight" he truly had,-yellowish and

sharp. The High Prince did not anticipate a fun evening.

He was right. With Sioned at his side and Isriam attending them—one could only

hope he would learn something— Rohan listened as the Gribains presented their

prince's views. The problem outlined to him was a reminder that whatever he

had accomplished by way of codifying laws, he hadn't thought of everything.

Not by any means.

The difficulty was one of inheritance. An Ossetian younger brother had married

the heiress of a neighboring athri in Grib. It was agreed all around that the

young man would forswear his allegiance to Prince Tilal and commit himself

instead to Prince Velden. The athri had died this spring and the daughter and

her husband had inherited. But the elder brother had recently suffered a

serious head injury; he recognized no one and was subject to intermittent fits

of violence. His heartbroken brother had reluctantly ordered him confined for

his own safety and that of his people.

With the elder brother incapable of rule, the younger was the heir. But this

would leave the young man with two holdings in two different princedoms—with

two sets of loyalties. Should the lands be combined under one princedom? If

so, which? Should they be kept separate against the day when sons would be

born to take one holding each? Or

should the man inherit only his own father's land, with the Gribain holding

reverting to Prince Velden and being bestowed at his pleasure to someone else?

Tilal sent no emissary; nor had he come to Stronghold from Dragon's Rest,

where he and his wife Gemma lingered to see their daughter Sioneva settled in

for a long visit. Tilal had merely conveyed to Sioned through Pol that

whatever was decided would be fine with him. Rohan thanked the Goddess for

providing him with at least one prince who trusted him completely. Of course,

Tilal was Sioned's nephew and had been Rohan's squire. His faith in the High

Prince was a very personal thing, not to be confused with the sometimes wary

acquiescence of others.

Fifty years ago, the two princedoms would have mustered armies by now and

tested each other's commitment through a few skirmishes, consulting the High

Prince only if neither force left the field—and the holding—to the other.

Roelstra would have been called on to stop a war already half begun. This time

no one had even considered battle. Rohan was being asked to settle a

difficulty of law. But he did not congratulate himself yet on the happy

progress of civilization. If the High Prince's Writ could not provide a

satisfactory solution, things could still degenerate into open conflict.

Still, at least they were talking about it instead of fighting. However often

he accused himself of throwing words at a problem until it collapsed under

their sheer weight, he was always reminded of something Chay had told him long

ago: that those words were his armies, fighting battles without bloodshed,

more effective than any swords or arrows. Rohan supposed this was true; he

felt like a battleground often enough.

As anticipated, Velden wanted the property to revert to himself. This was

couched in much flowery sympathy for the family and regret for not continuing

a holding in the line that had held it so long. But the meaning was plain:

Vetden wanted those valuable square measures, and he intended Rohan to take

his side.

"We thank you for your statements," Rohan said when they were finished. "We

will, of course, consider them very carefully."

Sioned coughed to hide what he knew was amusement at a speech she had heard a

million times. Then she said, "I gather there is no objection to the young

man's qualifications?"

"None, your grace," Eschur said. "He is honest, capable, and well-liked."

"I'm glad to hear it," she replied warmly. "We must be careful that no insult

is implied to his abilities. No matter what is decided, he will still be an

athri and conscious of his honor as such." She paused, frowning slightly. "If

our cousin of Grib did have the giving of this holding, who do you think it

would go to, Master Eschur? Just to satisfy my curiosity, you understand."

Rohan wondered what she knew, or thought she knew. Eschur's wolfish eyes

narrowed in a flash of some powerful emotion and a corner of his mouth

twitched downward. He said, "I am not sufficiently in Prince Velden's

confidence to know, your grace."

Sioned smiled in sweet sympathy. "Ah, yes, we princes must have our little

secrets, mustn't we? How irritating it must be sometimes!"

"The ways of princes, your grace, are not to be questioned by mere common folk

like myself."

A proper answer, delivered with the proper humility, but the whole byplay told

Rohan what Sioned had guessed: Eschur himself coveted the holding and the

title that went with it. Crafty of Velden, sending a man who wanted the lands

to argue for them. If he gained them for his prince, they would be his reward.

But Master Eschur had something else to say. "His grace has. however,

instructed me to make known to your royal highnesses that he would appreciate

a consultation with Lord Andry."

Rohan kept startlement from his face. "To what purpose?"

"It is said that certain powerful faradh'im can see the future in a flame.

Prince Velden considers that this might be a useful—" Eschur's yellow gaze

strayed to Sioned: a mistake. The look in her eyes deprived him of the power

of speech.

She asked very softly, "And did Lord Andry volunteer his personal services for

this little experiment in oracle reading? Or will any Sunrunner do?"

He swallowed hard, rallied, and managed, "Lord Andry reacted favorably to the

suggestion. I meant no offense, your grace."

"We know precisely what you meant."

There were levels to Sioned's rage; Rohan had rarely seen

this one. Tobin vented her wrath with the same vehemence whatever the weight

of the matter. Sioned's responses varied— and in her green eyes now was the

lethal fury that paralyzed its object the way legend said a dragon's gaze

turned men to stone.

"Convenient to have a fortune-teller ready to hand, isn't it?" she said in

that same silken voice. Extending both her hands, the single great emerald

flashing in bright candlelight, she added, "But perhaps we do not meet the

current standard. Do you think our lack of Sunrunner's rings disqualifies us?"

That lack had caused many to forget what Sioned truly was: Sunrunner as well

as High Princess. Eschur's face turned white. "Your g-grace, I—"

"Or perhaps," Sioned went on inexorably, "our training at Goddess Keep under

Lady Andrade was so long ago that we are not fully conversant with the rituals

now considered necessary by Lord Andry."

Eschur gulped again and flung a look of appeal at Rohan.

"We suggest you withdraw your proposal," the High Prince said mildly.

After several tries he stammered out, "I-^-I will so inform Prince Velden." He

and his companion departed the Summer Room with indecent haste.

Rohan gestured to the slack-jawed Isriam. Sioned saw it and snapped, "I don't

need any wine. I need a few moments in private with the Prince of Goddess

Keep!"

"Drink it anyway." When Isriam had provided full goblets for them both, Rohan

waited until Sioned had downed a good half of hers and was seething in silence

before saying, "I understand how you feel."

"No, you don't," she stated flatly. "You're not a Sunrunner."

Aware that they ought not discuss this around Isriam, he turned from her and

beckoned the squire forward. "Well? What do you think?" he asked.

"Me, my lord?" Isriam turned red and stared.

"You, my lord," Rohan replied, wishing the boy would cease his imitation of an

astonished lobster, all red face and blinking eyes. "You heard Master Eschur

explain the problem. You know the circumstances. What is your opinion?" Isriam

continued to gape, and Rohan sighed. Goddess help Einar if her future ruler

didn't learn to see people with his mind as well as his eyes.

Sioned had made the effort and recovered her balance by now. She entered into

a conversation designed to instruct :r.e squire in statecraft—as well as to

clarify the available Ttions. Rohan's other purpose was to distract her from

her ir.aer: that she knew it was clear in the glance she gave him

•xfore asking, "What do you think of Prince Velden's claim, Isriam?"

"It sounds valid, my lady," he ventured.

"It does indeed. Did you draw any conclusions from Master Eschur's reply when

I asked about who might revive the holding?"

Isriam's brow furrowed. At length he said, "I—I'm not >ure. my lady. But I

think perhaps he knows who wants it,

•;\in if he doesn't know who'll get it."

Absolutely true. He does know who wants it. And so do

Really? Who?"

He does. Think about it. If you had a case to present to :.-.e High Prince,

who would you send to do it? Who would irgue most strongly?"

Isriam considered with an even mightier frown. Then >~niight broke across his

face. "Master Eschur himself!"

Rohan felt like applauding. Instead he drawled, "If you r»o are finished being

brilliant. . . ."

Isriam and I are doing very nicely without you. Run r-vay and play while we

solve all your problems."

Emboldened by his success, Isriam actually grinned. Rohan chuckled; there

might be hope for the boy after all.

"All right, then," he said, "consider this. The two holdings lie on the coast

and command a nice little harbor. The only reason no substantial town has

grown up there before ;> tf>at the place is held by two princes, not one. They

do a minor shipping business, but most goods go to port at Waes—or Einar." He

let Isriam ruminate on this for a moment, and saw the dark eyes go wide.

Sioned gave him a disgusted look that told him he was being unfair.

"My father wouldn't half like it if the two combined and a port was built,"

Isriam said worriedly.

"No, he wouldn't. But I'm not Lord of Einar, I'm High Prince. More and easier

trade is always profitable and therefore desirable. It's part of my duty to

foster such. So again I ask: what would you recommend?"

The boy looked miserably unhappy. "My lord ... I don't think I'm able to say.

I am my father's son."

Sioned took pity on him. "Isriam, that is exactly the right answer for you to

give. It's not your decision and you're correct to remind his grace of that.

As an athri, your duty is to look to your own interests first and foremost."

Isriam's brows knotted over his nose. "But—but still I have to think about

what might happen to everyone else."

Rohan was pleased. "That's very wise of you. You're fortunate. You can

consider possibilities and choose the most personally advantageous with a

clear conscience. I have to pick what's best for everyone."

Sioned added in dry tones, "His grace's conscience does not bear close

scrutiny, Isriam."

A tentative smile curved the squire's mouth, and Rohan laughed softly. "Which

is why I'm going to delay a decision for a few days."

Shaking her head, Sioned confided, "He's a cruel man. After a few days in this

heat the Gribains will agree to anything he says, just to go home!"

Rohan dismissed the squire for the night and took his wife for a stroll in the

gardens. The moons were down and the sky was alive with stars, their silvery

light almost bright enough to read by.

"You handled Isriam very nicely," Rohan commented.

"You certainly didn't," she scolded. "He's not like Daniv or any of your other

squires. He needs to be led—gently enough so his pride isn't hurt, but firmly

enough so he understands. He's not unintelligent. Just young and shy."

They came to his mother's fountain, which trickled feebly as it always did at

this time of year. When rain came to the northern hills and flowed down to

swell the spring that was Stronghold's life, the water would again play as

Milar had intended, a joyous patter dancing to the rhythm of the wind.

Sioned bent to rinse her hands in the pool, then straightened. "You weren't

very subtle about diverting me from things too dangerous for Isriam to know,"

she accused.

"He didn't notice. I knew you would. I save subtlety for those who need or

earn it." Seating himself on the fountain's tiled rim, he went on, "Not that

you spared Eschur your talons, my love."

She shrugged irritably. "You can't understand," she repeated. "You're not a

Sunrunner."

"You're right, I'm not. But I am the High Prince. I don't like Andry's

interference any more than you do."

She paced the summer-sere grass. "Prince I called him, and prince he's trying

to become—in function if not title. Prince of Concocted Mysteries! I would

never have believed it of a son of Tobin and Chay!"

"Andrade had the making of the Sunrunner he became," he reminded her. "Just

like you."

Sioned rounded on him. "And I took to princely rule like a sorcerer to

dranath, is that it?"

"Partly. I think Lady Merisel had the right idea long ago—strongly

discouraging trained Sunrunners from marrying princes or athr'im."

"I wasn't the first."

"No. But your grandmother Siona was."

"That only gave Andrade the idea. You were the great experiment."

i;One that failed," he said lightly.

:'This is different, Rohan. Andrade's ambitions were for vou, not for herself.

And whatever your disagreements with her—caused mostly by me—" She held up a

hand to stop his interruption. "By me," she repeated. "I'm the one who defied

lier by becoming a princess first and a Sunrunner second. But you and she were

always working toward the same thing. The power of the High Prince working

together with the power of a faradhi. Andry, on the other hand, is ambitious

for himself."

"It infuriates you, doesn't it?" he asked softly. "All the ceremony. The

ritual."

"Andrade would have cut the rings from her fingers before she'd countenance

half of what he's done 'in the Name of the Goddess.' "

Rohan stood and put his arm around her waist. He drew her along the paths to

the grotto, speaking only when they stood beside the thin waterfall. "There

isn't a way to stop him. All we can do is live with it and hope most people

have more sense than to believe in superstition."

She kicked a loose rock into the pond. "He knows what's seen in Fire and Water

isn't the destiny of princedoms, it's personal. And it's only what might be.

Andrade always said that the future isn't carved in stone—and even if it were,

stone can be broken."

"If it were a truly reliable skill, it would have become

widespread long before this. This is the first time Andry's suggested it. I

think he knew all along that he wouldn't have to do it. He just wanted to give

the impression that he could."

"That makes it even worse."

He should have known what she would do next, but still was startled when a

trickle of Fire crossed the pond, brilliant with color and sternly controlled.

He had learned over the years to recognize the elusive response of his own

faradhi blood when she worked this way; it was a fragile quiver deep within

him, something he could never touch, never use.

She conjured what she had shown him a very long time ago, when they'd both

been young and untried, when they'd felt the Fire but were unable to trust

that it wouldn't burn their hearts to ashes. Two faces appeared in Fire and

Water, poignantly young and solemn, foreheads circled by thin gold crowns like

living flame.

"I saw this first when I was barely sixteen," Sioned murmured. "It's what I've

seen all my life."

"You are my life," he replied simply.

She rested her head on his shoulder and allowed the vision to fade. "Were we

ever that young?"

"I thought we'd already agreed that we're both elderly and decrepit." He held

her closer, burying his lips in her hair.

"Oh, yes ... I'd forgotten."

"So," he said, "had I."

Chapter Two

A o the Sunrunners standing on the battlements of Goddess Keep, the ocean was

as vast a wilderness as the Desert, and more threatening. They could at least

retain their wits if forced to traverse the Long Sand; setting sail across

Water meant incapacitating sickness which, though it wouldn't kill them, would

surely make them wish they were dead. A faradhi on water was as helpless as a

dragon without wings. Andry sometimes wondered how Lady Merisel had convinced

her people to leave Dorval for the continent.

And why had they come here, of all places? he asked himself as Valeda chanted

the day's end. Goddess Keep had several advantages—rich farmland that made it

self-sufficient, comforting isolation, a defensible approach on one side and

forbidding cliffs on the other, no mountains to block the sunlight, and a far

southwesterly location that gave it a maximum-length day even in whiter. But

rain and thick fog walled up the castle every year, rendering the light of sun

and moons inaccessible. Was this the best Merisel could find? Or had there

been some unknown but compelling reason to build here?

He chided himself for letting his attention stray from the ritual. He'd

already missed half of it; Torien's deep voice, representing Earth, alternated

now with his wife Jolan's ringing words as she personified Fire. The two

aspects of the Goddess were thus invoked—male and female, Earth and Fire.

Deniker then took over the male's part, speaking for that aspect of the Storm

God that was Air. Ulwis assumed the voice of Water, sweetly melodic as a

mountain stream as she recited the counterpoint to her husband's words. Andry

let the chant wash over him. Not the best poetry, but adequate to the purpose.

It got the idea across.

All four voices invoked protection over the times between sunset and moonrise,

moonset and sunrise, when there was no light for a faradhi to use. Andry found

the cadences more powerful in the old language, with its terse nouns and spare

verbs. But the majority offaradh'im knew little of it, so perforce the rituals

were in modern speech. He often wondered why Merisel had forbidden the use of

the continent's original language. And how had she managed to all but

obliterate it, except for remote places in the northern princedoms, in a mere

few hundred years? It was the language of sorcery, and that might have been

the reason for her adamant eradication. Andry suspected, though, that she had

decided to emphasize the establishment of a new order of things by

establishing another tongue. But on this, as on many other things, her

histories were frustratingly silent.

Only magical terms and personal names were still as they had been. Logical

enough; the terms were evocative of power in and of themselves, and a Naming

was a very solemn ceremony—also magic. Many places retained their old names in

sometimes corrupted forms. Veresch trans-. lated into "silent wolf"—

appropriate to those mountains. Dorval, home of the Sunrunners before their

arrival on the continent, meant "loyal sword"; Catha was a particularly potent

word combining Water and breath, or Air. But it was anybody's guess what

Ossetia or Zaldivar or Ussh had originally been. Even some personal names were

puzzling. Jolan, the scholar among his devr'im, often spent whole nights

working on a single term. Intellectual puzzles appealed to her.

Andry translated the last lines back and forth from one language to the other,

enjoying the unison of four differing voices.

Protect us from the dark time of night (Vis-tiel wis'im se'eltan la bellia)

Until the Sun brings light and life. (Josclen dev edeva.)

He and his devr'im had no reason to feel helpless without sun or moons. But

common Sunrunners were not taught to use the stars. Gathered down below in the

courtyard, they found great meaning in this daily ritual conducted by their

superiors.

He and Jolan had spent a whole winter and spring working out the specifics of

the Elements. No one had ever codified belief before. This amazed Andry—for

there was much satisfaction to be had from organized, definitive tenets.

Surely Merisel had known that. But she had allowed no formalization of the

attributes of the Goddess and the Father of Storms, and no rituals other than

the ancient ones of Naming, Choosing, and Burning. Faith was a casual thing,

casually observed. Andry suspected she had overreacted to the complex

ceremonies of the diarmadh'im; this "Nameless One" he had heard sorcerers

swear by had evidently demanded elaborate rites. Andry did not propose the

same. What he was doing he likened to what Rohan had done at his first Rialla

as ruling prince. Just as Rohan had used ancient maps and treaties to clarify

borders and set every princedom's boundaries so everyone would know literally

where he stood, Andry found clues in the histories and the Star Scroll to set

the boundaries of belief.

The four voices rose ie unison for the final verse, praising the Goddess and

the Storm God. Air and Water were obviously Elements of the latter, each

capable of bringing both life and destruction—but not to each other. Fire, the

most sacred, could scorch Earth to ashes. This was the source of tension and

thus of power, for it was the Goddess' strength that kept her two aspects

under control. Sunrunners were first and foremost servants of the Goddess,

drawing their power from her.

All persons were made of all four Elements: the Air of breath, the Water of

blood, the Earth of bones and flesh, and the Fire that was the life of the

mind and heart. Their tensions were reflected in everyone. It was a tidy

system, and appealed to Andry's sense of order.

For example, Sunrunner physicians now knew exactly where to direct their

energies to effect a cure. A broken bone required no Water-rich potions, nor

cauterizing Fire, nor inhalations of herbs on Air, but rather splints made of

Earth-born wood. Likewise a poisoning of the blood's crimson Water could be

helped only by certain plants that grew in rivers and lakes. It was entirely

fitting and logical that dranath, the herb of the mind, should require baking

in hot ovens or drying in the sun's Fire to reach its full effectiveness.

These remedies had been known before, but now physicians knew the why of them.

Andry was not responsible for the medicinal aspect of belief. For that he

credited a young man who had come to Goddess Keep two years ago after training

in Gilad. Evarin had been only nineteen, the most brilliant student ever known

at the school for physicians. But he was also faradhi gifted, and knew it, and

had left Gilad before receiving his certificate.

"I won't waste a weary year as a drudge for some idiot who couldn't soothe a

skinned knee, and then pay over part of my earnings for three more years to

support the school. Especially when I've known what I really am since the

first time I set foot in a fishing boat! And besides that, my Lord, you need

me."

Evarin offended many with what they saw as arrogance. Andry knew it was the

supreme confidence of someone born to a specific work; after all, he was

called arrogant, too. Valeda had had Evarin's man-making night, reporting with

amusement that the boy's pride had suffered a serious hurt remedied just

before dawn. This secretly increased Andry's liking for him—his own first

night had not been a resounding success. He'd made up for it since. So had

Evarin, if rumors were to be believed. He now wore eight rings, and it was for

him and at his suggestion that the eighth was reserved hereafter for Master

Physicians. Andry alone kept that ring without having to qualify for it; his

devr'im, who wore nine, had mostly chosen to give it up. Deniker, Oclel, and

Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 1 - Stronghold

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