Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [80]
A syllable at a time she drilled him, over and over till he wanted to scream at her instead of the dragon. He remembered learning how to use a sword, and the endless drills. If she were right, his life depended on this practice more than it ever had on his skill with a blade. As he worked, vibrating each part of the name, he felt that he grew in height, towering up, yet made of nothing more substantial than the clouds round them, weightless, floating up from the stone, trembling yet charged with power stronger than the lightning. Finally, just as the night was growing so dark that he could barely see her face, she pronounced him good enough—for the time being.
“We’ll have to do this again and again,” she said. “But I don’t want you going hoarse on me. Try the whole name, Rhodry. All of it together in one long breath.”
He gathered as much air as he could and growled it out.
“Ar Zo Sah Soth Ee Lor Ez O Haz.”
For the briefest of moments he felt answered. It wasn’t a word, nothing so concrete, more of a touch of mind on mind, a living presence, a soul, hearing his call, turning his way. The feeling vanished, leaving him spent. He felt as if he were falling, shrinking as he fell, tumbling and swooping through clouds and a long way down to hit hard ground.
“Rhodry, ye gods! I’m sorry!”
In the gathering night Jill’s pale face swam before him. He realized that he was kneeling on the roof with her beside him. She flung one arm round his shoulders, or he would have fallen onto his face.
“I’m truly sorry,” she repeated. “I forgot that you’ve never done this before.”
He nodded, panting for breath.
“It’s rather like some townsman who’s never ridden a horse,” she went on. “And then ends up spending a day in the saddle. You’ll feel this on the morrow.”
“No doubt.” He managed to smile. “But will I pass muster?”
“You will. Oh, that you will! I told you you had a streak of music in your soul, didn’t I? Now let’s get you down to the great hall, where it’s warm. It’s a bit damp up here. You need to eat, too. Food’s the best thing at a time like this.”
Sure enough, after a plate of bread and cold meat, washed down with a couple of tankards of ale in the company of other men in the great hall, Rhodry felt his usual self. Screaming the name into the rain seemed like an odd dream he’d had and nothing more, even though he knew that knowledge was his now forever. As he mulled it over in memory, the entire day turned strange and dreamlike, yet menacing at the same time. Jill and her wretched questions, he thought. A lot of horseshit, thinking that a man might live more lives than one! Couldn’t be possible. And what if it was? Just what if? I could have asked her. She would have answered. When he found himself remembering the white mountains, the height at the edge of his view, his mind skipped and shied.
“Somewhat wrong?” Yraen snapped. “You look like you’ve seen some evil spirit.”
“Mayhap I have. Nah, nah, nah, I was just thinking of a shameful thing.”
“Some wench, is it?”
“I only wish, but I was thinking of the only time in my life that I’ve been a coward.”
Yraen turned on the bench to consider him narrow-eyed and puzzled. Rhodry had a long swallow of ale.
“And when was that?” Yraen said at last.
“Today, as a matter of fact. This very day.” Rhodry slammed the tankard down on the table. “Say one word more about it, and I’ll kill you.”
“You’re drunk.”
“So I am.” Somewhat unsteadily, Rhodry rose, swinging himself clear of the bench. “I’m going to bed.”
But once he was lying in his bunk, the sound of rain kept him awake. He kept remembering Jill, sitting in the sunlight and laughing at him, as merry as a lass over forbidden secrets of the soul.
The rain stopped just after dawn. The sudden silence woke Jahdo, and he lay in bed for a moment with his eyes shut tight, praying that when he opened them, he’d be home. Yet of course, once he succumbed and looked, he saw only the wedge-shaped chamber in the gwerbret’s broch, all gray and swimmy with shadows. He sat up, yawning, and realized that Meer’s bed