The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [2]
“Good sir, I can promise you that with all my heart. No one but his own son would believe a man who told of things like this.”
“Done, then!” The fellow raised his hands and clapped them three times together. “Turn your back on the tree, Domnall Breich, and tell me what you see.”
Domnall turned and peered through the thin fall of snow. Not far away stood a tangle of ordinary trees, dark against the greater dark of night, and beyond them a stretch of water, wrinkled and forbidding in the gleam of magical fire.
“The shore of the loch. Has it been here all this while, and I never saw it?”
“It hasn’t. It’s the shore of a loch, sure enough, but’s not the one you were hoping to find. Do you see the rocks piled up, and one bigger than all the rest?”
“I do.”
“On top of the largest rock you’ll find chained a silver horn. Take it and blow, and you’ll have shelter against the night.”
“My thanks. And since I can’t ask God to bless you, I’ll wish you luck instead.”
“My thanks to you, then. Oh, wait. Face me again.”
When he did so, the fellow reached out a ringed hand and laid one finger on Domnall’s lips.
“Till sunset tomorrow you’ll speak and be understood and hear and understand among the folk of the isle, but after that, their way of speaking will mean naught to you. Now you’d best hurry. The snow’s coming down.”
The fellow disappeared as suddenly as a blown candle flame. With a brief prayer to all the saints at once, Domnall hurried over to the edge of the loch—not Ness, sure enough, but a narrow finger of water that came right up to his feet rather than lying below at the foot of a steep climb down. By the light of the magical tree he found the scatter of boulders. The silver horn lay waiting, chained with silver as well. When he picked it up and blew, the sound seemed very small and thin to bring safety through the rising storm, but after a few minutes he heard someone shouting.
“Hola, hola! Where are you?”
“Here on the shore!” Domnall called back. “Follow the light of the fire.”
Out of the tendrilled snow shone a bobbing gleam, which proved to be a lantern held aloft in someone’s hand. The magical fire behind cast just enough light for Domnall to see a long narrow boat, with its wooden prow carved like the head of a dragon, coming toward him. One man held the lantern while six others rowed, chanting to keep time. As the boat drew near, the oars swung up and began backing water, holding her steady as her side hove to.
“It’s a cold night to ask you to wade out to us,” the lanternbearer called, “but we’re afraid to run her ashore with the rocks and all in the dark.”
“Better I freeze seeking safety than freeze standing here like a dolt. I’m on my way.”
He hitched his plaid up around his waist and bundled the cloak around it, then stepped into the lake. The cold water stole his breath and drove claws into his legs, but it stood shallow enough for him to reach the dragon boat, where hands of flesh and blood reached down to pull him aboard.
“Swing around, lads! Let’s get him to a fireside.”
Shivering and huddling in the dry part of his plaid, Domnall crouched in the stern of the boat as they headed out from shore. In the yellow pool of lantern light he could see the man who held it, a fellow on the short side but stocky. He wore a hooded cloak, pinned with a silver brooch in the shape of a dragon. In the uncertain light Domnall could just make out his lined face and grizzled beard.
“Where are we going, if I may ask?” Domnall said.
“The isle of Haen Marn.”
“Ah.” Domnall had never heard of the place in his life, and he’d spent all twenty years of it in this corner of Alban.