The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [163]
She let go of the ledge and spread her wings with a slap of the air that boomed like a drum, but rather than fly away, she glided down to the valley below to perch on an outcrop of grey granite. Arzosah folded her wings, sat back on her haunches, and contemplated the mouth of the fissure, far above her.
“A clumsy trick like that isn’t going to fool me.” His voice came first; then Evandar materialized in front of her. “I heard you fly away.”
Hissing like a thousand cats, the dragon leapt to her feet. Evandar laughed and stepped back, raising one hand as if to ask for peace. He had taken the form of an elf, dressed in a green tunic and tight deerskin trousers, but to her dragonish sight his body wavered and glowed. He smelled so strongly of dweomer that she longed to eat him. Unfortunately, he only looked like meat, she knew, rather than being made of it.
“So!” Arzosah snarled. “I thought I smelled trouble, and trouble you are.”
“None other,” Evandar said, grinning. “Arzosah Sothy Lorohaz, remember that I bound you by the power of your true name! I control and command you.”
“I keep trying to forget, but I can’t, so there we are, you nasty bit of etheric slime! What do you want with me now?”
“A number of things. First of all, spring is here.”
“So it is; not that it’s any of your doing.”
“You made Rhodry Maelwaedd a promise, that you’d return to him in the spring. Do you intend to keep it?”
“What’s it to you if I do or not?”
“Ah, you don’t, then. I thought not. You wyrms are faithless, aren’t you? A promise is naught to you. Nasty and faithless both.”
Arzosah growled at him, but Evandar laughed, waggling a finger at her like a schoolmaster.
“I caught you out there, didn’t I?” Evandar said.
“You did not! I never told you if I meant to go or not.”
“If you’d planned to keep that promise, you wouldn’t have been so coy.”
“Coy?” Arzosah hissed again. “How dare you call me coy? If you didn’t have name-dweomer, I’d kill you.”
“But I do have it. The second thing I want is an errand. Rhodry Maelwaedd’s brother lives in far-off Bardek, and he’s gone mad. I promised I’d bring him home, but I find that I’ve got too many other important matters to attend to.”
“Hold your tongue! Do you expect me to fly across the Southern Sea and fetch him back?”
“I don’t merely expect you to. I intend to demand it and bind you with your name to ensure you do it.”
“But I can’t. The ocean’s far too wide, days and days of flying. I can’t fly forever without food and sleep. And how would I carry him home? In my claws? And what would he eat and drink, anyway?”
“Ah.” Evandar hesitated briefly. “I hate to admit this, but you’re right. It wasn’t much of a plan, was it?”
“Why not send a ship for him? That’s what ships are for, carrying things back and forth over the water. Dragons aren’t.”
Evandar nodded, staring down at the ground with narrow eyes, as if he were thinking things through. Arzosah sat back down and considered just how much she hated him. He’d tricked her into revealing her name, he’d given the rose ring to Rhodry to enslave her, and now apparently he thought of her as some sort of servant, to run and fetch at his bidding.
“The third thing,” Evandar said at last. “I have need of a vision, wyrm. It’s one thing to say I’ll return Salamander to Deverry. Where exactly in Deverry is another thing entirely. My heart is too troubled for me to see clearly.”
“Are you saying you want me to scry for you?”
“Exactly that.”
“No.”
“You can’t say no. I have your name.”
Arzosah tipped back her head and roared her rage to the sky.
“Whine all you want,” Evandar said. “But you’ll do as I say.”
“Whine? Whine, is it?” Words failed her, and she snarled, tossing her head back and forth.
“The sooner you scry for me,” Evandar said, “the sooner I’ll leave you alone.”
“Oh very well, scry I will, but I’ve never met Rhodry’s brother, so how can I scry him out?”
“It’s the future I want to see. I know where he is now.”
“There’s something else you need to know. You’re a wretched nuisance. Come into my lair.”
Evandar vanished. Arzosah