Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [189]
“Well, they shun me.” Enj smiled, but ruefully. “We Mountain People can see them, but they dislike us, and so I suppose they’re avoiding you because I be here.”
“Then that’s why I never saw them swarming round Avain. Usually they like a person who shows dweomer talent.”
“Do they? I didn’t know that. You know, when Avain scried, she kept holding the ring, and without the ring she saw little enough. You’ve elven blood in your veins, and you wear the dragon’s name. Can’t you scry for it?”
“Not in the least, or I would have.”
“Well, true, and my apologies. I just feel that somehow we’re missing some thing or other that would help us.”
And they needed every scrap of help they could get, Rhodry realized. After they’d eaten, while the late sun still shone golden over the plain far to the west, he climbed the outcrop again and stood staring into the view. The longer shadows of sunset did seem to pick out mountain peaks on the other side of the mysterious plain, though far away, as sharp as cat’s teeth, these, if indeed mountains they were. He was painfully aware that he and Enj could wander in this unknown range for months, circling round their dragon, even, or missing the beast by a scant mile or two. When he lowered his hand, the ring glinted a reminder.
“Here, Enj, don’t think I’ve lost my wits, but I think me I’ll try calling our wyrm.”
It took him a moment to remember what Jill had taught him, and he slipped the ring off, too, to make sure he had each elven letter right in his mind. First he mouthed the words to get the feel of it again, Arzosah Sothy Lorezohaz; then he gathered himself, took a deep breath, and intoned the name.
“Ar Zo Sah Soth Ee Lor Ez O Haz.”
In the silent mountains, hushed with sunset, the name boomed out like a gong. Like a gong the sound lingered, quivering to a long stop. For a moment he felt nothing but foolish. Down below Enj was staring gape-mouthed.
“Do it again, Rori,” he whispered. “I’ve never heard anyone but a priest do that.”
Rhodry gathered himself again, and this time he imagined himself on the brink of some crucial battle.
“Ar Zo Sah Soth Ee Lor Ez O Haz.”
A blare of sound, this time, like the brass horns in the Dawntime style that Deverry priests blow at Samaen, humming and vibrating as much as it trumpeted over the valley, echoing round, racing, it seemed, to the horizon itself. The answer came, a touch, an awareness, a feel of a mind, an alien mind upon his. The dragon lived, and not far, not far measured by the distance they’d already come. He could feel its disquiet—not a fear, certainly, nothing so strong as that—but an ill ease, a wondering that some thought it couldn’t understand had touched its mind.
As he shaded his eyes and stared toward the sunset plain, he knew that the wyrm laired to the west. He tossed back his head and laughed his berserker’s howl, the mad chortle echoing round the hills, but yet it sounded almost normal after the intoning of that name. Still grinning, he slid down again and clapped his hand on Enj’s shoulder.
“We go west. You’ll walk upon that plain, lad, just like you wanted.”
In but two days more they had solid evidence to match his dweomer knowledge, when they reached the high plain, a sliver of land caught between two ranges. As they hiked down the last slope leading to it, the first thing they noticed was the change in the trees—still the gray mountain fir, but stunted, with scant branches that drooped more and more the nearer they went to the peak. Rhodry found himself sniffing the air like a dog, finally realized what he’d been scenting.
“Ye gods,” he said. “The air stinks of brimstone.”
“It does, at that.” Enj paused to sniff as well. “Just now and again, like, when the wind comes from the due west.”
They exchanged a grin and trudged on.
Toward evening they came down at last onto the plain. Rhodry