The Red Wyvern

  “Is the porridge good?” Mic said.

  “It is.” She returned to gobbling.

  “I’ve got news for you. Do you remember that your mother was going to have a new baby?”

  Avain nodded and held her free hand out in front of her stomach, no doubt to indicate her mother’s size.

  “Well, last night she had two babies.” Mic held up two fingers. “You have two new sisters.”

  Avain laid her spoon down, then held up two fingers in imitation of his gesture.

  “Babies,” she said. “Avain wants to see the babies.”

  “I’m afraid they’re too little to come visit you yet.”

  She stared uncomprehendingly. Mic held up his hands to indicate a tiny size.

  “The babies are too small,” he said. “They are very small. They have to stay in bed.”

  She smiled and nodded, started to pick up her spoon, then hesitated, her head tilted to one side.

  “Avain wants to see the babies.”

  “Well, can you see them in your silver basin?” Mic pointed to the big silver bowl that also sat on the table. “Can you look into the water and see them?”

  Avain frowned, considering something. Over the winter past Mic had seen her scry far-off things often enough that he no longer doubted that she was as dweomer as the island itself.

  “Avain wants to really see them. Avain go downstairs.”

  “All the way to the manse? Will you go all the way to the manse? That’s where they are.”

  “Avain go to the manse.” She stood up. “Now.”

  Getting her down the stairs and out took a fair while. She would descend a few steps’ worth, then lose her nerve, but every time that Mic suggested she go back to her room, she would shake her head and take a few more stairs. Finally they reached the tower door, where she balked one more time.

  “There’s the manse,” Mic said, pointing. “The babies are in bed with your mother. Do you want to see them, or do you want to go back?”

  Avain took a deep breath and stepped out into the sunlight. She yelped and put both hands over her eyes, separating her fingers just enough to peer out through them.

  “Nasty,” she remarked, perhaps of the glare. “Avain wants to see the babies.”

  Mic led her inside through a back door to the manse, so they could avoid the men in the great hall. Once in the relative shade she sighed and lowered her hands. The stairs up she took willingly, giggling a little as they climbed. At the door Mic knocked; in a moment it opened a crack to reveal an irritable Lonna.

  “And what do you want?” she hissed. “I won’t have anyone bothering my lady—oh! Avain!”

  “Avain wants to see the babies,” the lass said. “Two babies.”

  “Well, there are two, truly.” Lonna stepped back and opened the door. “If you want to see them badly enough to come down, then see them you shall.”

  Avain marched into the room, and Mic followed to keep an eye on her. Back home in Lin Serr he never would have been allowed into the presence of a woman who had just given birth—men were forbidden to impinge upon such sacred and dangerous matters—but Lonna, so long away from Dwarven society, let him in. He did stay well back by the door, though, lest he pollute Angmar and the infants somehow.

  Avain ran right over to her mother’s bedside. Angmar woke, smiled and sat up, turning her face so Avain could kiss her cheek.

  “Babies!” the lass squealed. “Two babies!”

  “Just so,” Angmar said, laughing. “My darling Avain! How sweet of you! Here are your new sisters, right enough.”

  With Lonna’s help, Avain picked up the bigger infant. Mic was surprised at her gentleness; she held the baby carefully and merely gazed into its eyes. Finally with a sigh she handed it back to the maidservant.

  “Pretty!” Avain announced. “So pretty!”

  “She is, isn’t she?” Angmar said. “Would you like to hold the other one?”

  Avain smiled and nodded, then once again took the infant with surprising tenderness. When she bent her head to look into its eyes, she squealed in delight.

  “Granmama!” Avain said. “Avain is here, Granmama!”

  With a glance at Angmar, Lonna leaned forward to take the baby. Avain planted a kiss on the baby’s cheek, then surrendered her. Lonna handed her back to her mother.

  “Avain?” Angmar whispered. “Do you mean Grandmother Marnmara?”

  “It is. Granmama.” Avain looked up and laughed, then spun away from the bed, spun around and around, suddenly graceful as she grabbed her dress at the seams and held it out, as if she were tugging at wings. “Mama wants to go home, Granmama.”

  In the crook of Angmar’s arm the baby had fallen back asleep. Lonna came stumping over with a short bit of green thread.

  “Let’s just tie this around Mara’s little ankle,” Lonna said. “So we can tell her and Berwinna apart.” She glanced Mic’s way. “I’ll explain later.”

  “Well and good, then. If I don’t die of curiosity first.”

  Avain laughed, clapped her hands, and danced over to the window.

  “Home,” she said. “We all go home soon.”

  Mic felt foolish for allowing himself to hope, but hope he did, that perhaps she’d been given an omen that soon Haen Marn would return to Dwarveholt. But what did “soon” mean to her, anyway, and what, truly, would she see, staring into the future with her strange dragon’s eyes?

  END OF BOOK ONE OF

  THE DRAGON MAGE

  Appendices

  A NOTE ON DEVERRY YEARS

  Deverry dating begins at the founding of the Holy City, approximately year 76 C.E. The reader should remember that the old Celtic New Year falls on the day we call November 1, so that winter is the first season of a new year.

  A NOTE ON THE PRONUNCIATION

  OF DEVERRY WORDS

  The language spoken in Deverry is a member of the P-Celtic family. Although closely related to Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, it is by no means identical to any of these actual languages and should never be taken as such.

  Vowels are divided by Deverry scribes into two classes: noble and common. Nobles have two pronunciations; commons, one.

  A as in father when long; a shorter version of the same sound, as in far, when short.

  O as in bone when long; as in pot when short.

  W as the oo in spook when long; as in hoof when short.

  Y as the i in machine when long; as the e in butter when short.

  E as in pen.

  I as in pin.

  U as in pun.

  Vowels are generally long in stressed syllables; short in unstressed. Y is the primary exception to this rule. When it appears as the last letter of a word, it is always long whether that syllable is stressed or not.

  Diphthongs generally have one consistent pronunciation.

  AE as the a in mane.

  AI as in aisle.

  AU as the ow in how.

  EO as a combination of eh and oh.

  EW as in Welsh, a combination of eh and oo.

  IE as in pier.

  OE as the oy in boy.

  UI as the North Welsh wy, a combination of oo and ee.

  Note that OI is never a diphthong, but is two distinct sounds, as in carnoic, (KAR-noh-ik).

  Consonants are mostly the same as in English, with these exceptions:

  C is always hard as in cat.

  G is always hard as in get.

  DD is the voiced th as in thin or breathe, but the voicing is more pronounced than in English. It is opposed to TH, the unvoiced sound as in th or breath. (This is the sound that the Greeks called the Celtic tau.)

  R is heavily rolled.

  RH is a voiceless R, approximately pronounced as if it were spelled hr in Deverry proper. In Eldidd, the sound is fast becoming indistinguishable from R.

  DW, GW, and TW are single sounds, as in Gwendolen or twit.

  Y is never a consonant.

  I before a vowel at the beginning of a word is consonantal, as
it is in the plural ending -ion, pronounced yawn.

  Doubled consonants are both sounded clearly, unlike in English. Note, however, that DD is a single letter, not a doubled consonant.

  • • •

  Accent is generally on the penultimate syllable, but compound words and place names are often an exception to this rule.

  I have used this system of transcription for the Bardekian and Elvish alphabets as well as the Deverrian, which is, of course, based on the Greek rather than the Roman model. On the whole, it works quite well for the Bardekian, at least. As for Elvish, in a work of this sort it would be ridiculous to resort to the elaborate apparatus by which scholars attempt to transcribe that most subtle and nuanced of tongues. Since the human ear cannot even distinguish between such sound-pairings as B> and

  GLOSSARY

  ABER (Deverrian) A river mouth, an estuary.

  ALAR (Elvish) A group of elves, who mayor may not be bloodkin, who choose to travel together for some indefinite period of time.

  ALARDAN (Elv.) The meeting of several alarli, usually the occasion for a drunken party.

  ANGWIDD (Dev.) Unexplored, unknown.

  ARCHON (translation of the Bardekian atzenarlen) The elected head of a city-state (Bardekian at).

  ASTRAL The plane of existence directly “above” or “within” the etheric (q. v.). In other systems of magic, often referred to as the Akashic Record or the Treasure House of Images.

  AURA The field of electromagnetic energy that permeates and emanates from every living being.

  AVER (Dev.) A river.

  BARA (Elv.) An enclitic that indicates that the preceding adjective in an elvish agglutinated word is the name of the element following the enclitic, as can+bara+melim = Rough River (rough+name marker+river).

  BEL (Dev.) The chief god of the Deverry pantheon.

  BEL (Elv.) An enclitic, similar in function to bara, except that it indicates that a preceding verb is the name of the following element in the agglutinated term, as in Darabeldal, Flowing Lake.

  BLUE LIGHT Another name for the etheric plane (q.v.).

  BODY OF LIGHT An artificial thought-form (q. v.) constructed by a dweomer-master to allow him or her to travel through the inner planes of existence.

  BRIGGA (Dev.) Loose wool trousers worn by men and boys.

  BROCH (Dev.) A squat tower in which people live. Originally, in the homeland, these towers had one big fireplace in the center of the ground floor and a number of booths or tiny roomlets up the sides, but by the time of our narrative, this ancient style has given way to regular floors with hearths and chimneys on either side of the structure.

  CADVRIDOC (Dev.) A war leader. Not a general in the modern sense, the cadvridoc is supposed to take the advice and counsel of the noble-born lords under him, but his is the right of final decision.

  CAPTAIN (trans. of the Dev. pendaely.) The second in command, after the lord himself, of a noble’s warband. An interesting point is that the word taely (the root or unmutated form of -daely,) can mean either a warband or a family depending on context.

  CONABER (Elv.) A musical instrument similar to the panpipe but of even more limited range.

  CWM (Dev.) A valley.

  DAL (Elv.) A lake.

  DUN (Dev.) A fort.

  DWEOMER (trans. of Dev. dwunddaevad.) In its strict sense, a system of magic aimed at personal enlightenment through harmony with the natural universe in all its planes and manifestations; in the popular sense, magic, sorcery.

  ELCYION LACAR (Dev.) The elves; literally, the “bright spirits,” or “Bright Fey.”

  ENGLYN (Welsh, pl. englynion.) A metrical form, consisting of a three-line stanza, each stanza having seven syllables, though an extra syllable can be added to any given line. All lines have end rhymes as well. In Deverry at the time of which we write, this form was so much the rule that its name would translate merely as “short poem,” hence my use of the corresponding Welsh term to give it some definition.

  ENSORCEL To produce an effect similar to hypnosis by direct manipulation of a person’s aura. (True hypnosis manipulates the victim’s consciousness only and thus is more easily resisted.)

  ETHERIC The plane of existence directly “above” the physical. With its magnetic substance and currents, it holds physical matter in an invisible matrix and is the true source of what we call “life.”

  ETHERIC DOUBLE The true being of a person, the electromagnetic structure that holds the body together and that is the actual seat of consciousness.

  FOLA (Elv.) An enclitic that shows the noun preceding it in an agglutinated Elvish word is the name of the element following the enclitic, as in Corafolamelim, Owl River.

  GEIS A taboo, usually a prohibition against doing something. Breaking geis results in ritual pollution and the disfavor if not active enmity of the gods. In societies that truly believe in geis, a person who breaks it usually dies fairly quickly, either of morbid depression or some unconsciously self-inflicted “accident,” unless he or she makes ritual amends.

  GERTHDDYN (Dev.) Literally, a “music man,” a wandering minstrel and entertainer of much lower status than a true bard.

  GREAT ONES Spirits, once human but now disincarnate, who exist on an unknowably high plane of existence and who have dedicated themselves to the eventual enlightenment of all sentient beings. They are also known to the Buddhists as Boddhisattvas.

  GWERBRET (Dev. The name derives from the Gaulish vergobretes) The highest rank of nobility below the royal family itself. Gwerbrets (Dev. gwerbretion) function as the chief magistrates of their regions, and even kings hesitate to override their decisions because of their many ancient prerogatives.

  HIRAEDD (Dev.) A peculiarly Celtic form of depression, marked by a deep, tormented longing for some unobtainable thing; also and in particular, homesickness to the third power.

  JAVELIN (trans. of Dev. picecl) Since the weapon in question is only about three feet long, another possible translation would be “war dart.” The reader should not think of it as a proper spear or as one of those enormous javelins used in the modern Olympic Games.

  LWDD (Dev.) A blood-price; differs from wergild in that the amount of lwdd is negotiable in some circumstances, rather than being irrevocably set by law.

  MALOVER (Dev.) A full, formal court of law with both a priest of Bel and either a gwerbret or a tieryn in attendance.

  MELIM (Elv.) A river.

  MOR (Dev.) A sea, ocean.

  PAN (Elv.) An enclitic, similar to -fola- defined earlier, except that it indicates that the preceding noun is plural as well as the name of the following word, as in Corapanmelim, River of the Many Owls. Remember that Elvish always indicates pluralization by adding a semi-independent morpheme, and that this semi-independence is reflected in the various syntax-bearing enclitics.

  PECL (Dev.) Far, distant.

  RHAN (Dev.) A political unit of land; thus, gwerbretrhyn, tierynrhyn, the area under the control of a given gwerbret or tieryn. The size of the various rhans (Dev. rhannau) varies widely, depending on the vagaries of inheritance and the fortunes of war rather than some legal definition.

  SCRYING The art of seeing distant people and places by magic.

  SIGIL An abstract magical figure, usually representing either a particular spirit or a particular kind of energy or power. These figures, which look a lot like geometrical scribbles, are derived by various rules from secret magical diagrams.

  TAER (Dev.) Land, country.

  THOUGHT FORM An image or three-dimensional form that has been fashioned out of either etheric or astral substance, usually by the action of a trained mind. If enough trained minds work together to build the same thought form, it will exist independently for a period of time based on the amount of energy put into it. (Putting e
nergy into such a form is known as ensouling the thought form.) Manifestations of gods or saints are usually thought forms picked up by the highly intuitive, such as children, or those with a touch of second sight. It is also possible for many untrained minds acting together to make fuzzy, ill-defined thought forms that can be picked up the same way, such as UFOs and sightings of the Devil.

  TIERYN (Dev.) An intermediate rank of the noble-born, below a gwerbret but above an ordinary lord (Dev. arcloedd).

  WYRD (trans. of Dev. tingedd) Fate, destiny; the inescapable problems carried over from a sentient being’s last incarnation.