The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [18]
“But I don’t care if you do or not,” Merodda went on. “Let’s get started, shall we?”
Brour grunted and set the taper down among the others. On the table the candles danced and sent light glinting onto the black pool in the silver bowl. Lilli found herself watching the glints, staring at them, caught by them while her mother’s hand slid from her shoulder to the back of her neck. She felt her head nodding forward, pressed down by the weight of a hand grown suddenly heavy. The ink pool seemed to surge and heave like waves on a black sea that swelled to fill her sight, to fill the room, it seemed, and then her world. As she sank down into the blackness, she heard Merodda’s voice chanting, low and soft, but she could distinguish not a single word. The syllables clanged like brass and seemed to reverberate in her ears, foreign sounds linked into alien words.
In the blackness, a point of candlelight, dancing—Lilli swam toward it but felt her body turn to dead weight, as if she hauled it behind her when she moved. The point brightened, then dilated into a circle of light that she could look through, as if she’d pulled back a shutter from a round window and peered out at the sunny world beyond. From some great distance she heard Merodda’s voice.
“What do you see, Lilli? Tell us what you see.”
She felt her mouth move and words slip out like pebbles, falling into the black. In the window things appeared, creatures, vast creatures, all wing and long tails. Around them a bluish light formed and brightened, glinting on coppery scales, blood-red scales, a pair of beasts sleeping, curled next to one another. One of them stirred and stretched, lifting its wings to reveal two thick legs and clawed feet. A huge copper head lifted, the mouth gaped in a long yawn of fangs.
“Wyverns. I see red wyverns, and now they’re flying.”
“Good, good.” Her mother’s voice slid out like drops of oil. “Where do you see them?”
“Over a grassy plain.”
Down from the mountains they swept, their massive wings slapping the air, and to Lilli it seemed that she flew with them while her voice babbled of its own accord. They circled round a meadow where a herd of swine fed, then suddenly stooped and plunged like hawks. Shrieking and cackling they struck. The blood-red wyvern rose, flapping hard, with a big grey boar clutched limp and bleeding in its talons.
In her vision Lilli flew too close. The wyvern’s enormous head swung her way. The black eyes glittered, narrowed, and seemed to pierce the darkness and stare directly at her. Lilli screamed and broke the spell. She staggered, stumbling forward, knocking into the table. A candle tottered and fell with a hiss and a stench into the black ink.
“You clumsy little dolt!”
Merodda grabbed her by the hair and swung her round, then slapped her with her other hand. Lilli yelped and sank to her knees. Pain burned and crawled on her face.
“Stop it!” Brour snarled. “She can’t help it. She can’t control the trance.”
Merodda stepped away, but Lilli could hear her panting in ebbing rage.
“She needs to be trained.” Brour’s voice had turned calm again. “I don’t see why you won’t let me—”
“We will not discuss this in front of her.” Merodda leaned down. “Oh, do get up!”
Lilli scrambled to her feet.
“You may go to your chamber,” Merodda said. “Leave us. And if you ever tell anyone what happened here—”
“Never, I promise. Never.” Lilli could hear her own voice swooping and trembling. “I’ve never told before, have I?”
“You haven’t, truly.” Merodda considered her for a long cold moment. “You have some wits. Now go!”
Lilli gathered up her long skirts and raced from the chamber. She dashed down the hall, ran into her tiny chamber at the far end, and barred the door behind her. For a long moment she stood in the twilight grey and wept, leaning against the cold wall; then she flung herself down on her narrow bed and fell asleep, as suddenly as a stone dropped from a tower hits the ground.
• • •
That same spring evening, at the stillness before the sunset, Lady Bevyan of Hendyr stood at her bedchamber’s narrow window and