The Prophecy Read online

  Hilari Bell

  The Prophecy

  For Anna Maria—the friend whose

  insightful advice made this book,

  finally, work.

  Contents

  1

  PERRYN WAS ON HIS WAY TO THE LIBRARY TOWER when…

  2

  CEDRIC MAINTAINED HIS BRUISING HOLD ON Perryn’s arm as he…

  3

  PERRYN TIED THE LAST TWO STRIPS OF BLANKET together and…

  4

  “SO THEN I LOOKED IN HIS BAGS AND—”

  5

  “WHAT ELSE?” PERRYN ASKED THE GRINNING BARD. The flickering campfire…

  6

  “IT’S ENTIRELY MY OWN FAULT,” SAID LYSANDER. “I knew you…

  7

  “NOW WHAT?” PERRYN GAZED AT THE UNCONSCIOUS unicorn—he had no…

  8

  WITH THE AID OF A LONG BRANCH, PERRYN FINALLY succeeded…

  9

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE REALLY PRINCE PERRYNDON!” the bard exclaimed,…

  10

  “THEN THERE WAS THE TIME ME AND OLD BRYNDON took…

  11

  AFTER THEY PASSED THROUGH THE DRAGON’S GAP, THEY climbed for…

  12

  PERRYN CROUCHED IN THE CAVE, GAZING OVER THE valley. Not…

  About the Author

  Other Books by Hilari Bell

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  This is the story, as told by the bards, of Prince Perryndon, who set out to slay the black dragon guided by the words of a prophecy.

  In all the great libraries of the land, Prince Perryndon studied the lore and history of dragon slaying.

  1

  PERRYN WAS ON HIS WAY TO THE LIBRARY TOWER when the master of arms’ shadow fell across his path. He jumped, and Cedric’s hand closed around his shoulder.

  “It’s time for your sword lesson, Prince Perryndon. Had you forgotten?”

  “But…” Perryn’s thoughts spun. Cedric hasn’t come after me for months. Father….

  “Is my father home?”

  Sunlight flooded through the arched windows, but it brought no more warmth to the master of arms’ face than it did to the gray floor and walls of the castle’s upper hall. Cedric’s eyelids dropped, concealing his gaze.

  “I don’t think it’s my place to answer that, Your Highness. Would you please come with me?” He started toward the side stair that led down to the practice yard.

  Perryn braced his feet, resisting, and the scarred hand tightened on his shoulder. He tried not to flinch. Cedric’s body was long and lean, hiding his strength. It fooled people, until he proved his strength on them.

  “I’ll go,” said Perryn, “if you answer my question. Is my fath—”

  “You’ll go anyway.” Cedric shoved him in the direction of the stairs.

  Perryn staggered, but regained his balance before he fell. Whenever Cedric caught him alone, the respectful facade slipped.

  Cedric hovered over him as they walked down the stairs, giving Perryn no chance to escape. His tanned face revealed nothing, but Cedric’s face never showed anything unless he wanted it to.

  The king must have returned from riding the borders. Cedric never hunted him down unless his father was home—why put on a show unless you had an audience? Usually Perryn could elude the master of arms, but his father had been gone for so long that he had become careless.

  In the small armory that adjoined the practice yard, Cedric watched him fumble with the buckles on his armor. The anger and fear rushing through Perryn’s veins made his fingers shake.

  “Would you like me to help you, Prince Perryndon?”

  “No.”

  When he was finished, Perryn removed his spectacles and set them carefully on a high shelf. They fit too awkwardly under the helmet Cedric made him wear. He had cracked a lens once and spent a week groping through a blurred world before the town glazier could grind him a new one—and then his father had complained about the expense. After that Perryn had chosen to fight without them, though their absence made it impossible for him to see the small, warning twitches of Cedric’s sword.

  Perryn put on his helmet, pushed up the visor, reached for his shield, and slid his arm through the straps. He lifted his sword. It was almost too heavy for him with just one hand, but he managed.

  Perryn clanked around Cedric and into the practice yard. Fuzzy lumps of color were all he could see of the guardsmen who stood around its edges. He thought he saw more of them than usual. Perryn hoped he appeared dignified, but he knew it was unlikely. Once he’d overheard a guardsman say that he looked like a puppet whose joints were too loose.

  That was mostly because his armor was too big. When the metalsmith made it, just after Perryn turned thirteen, he’d said that the prince would grow into it. That was over a year ago, and the stiff metal joints still hit his limbs in the wrong places. It was excellent armor, well crafted, fit for a prince…a prince who was three inches taller than Perryn.

  Cedric stepped up in front of him. The arms master was giving instructions, but he spoke so softly that Perryn could barely hear him. It did more harm than good anyway, when he listened to Cedric’s instructions, for Cedric never did what he said he would. He’d tell Perryn to set his guard for high blows, then swing for his knees. Or promise a set of slow, practice forms, and then attack at full combat speed.

  The master of arms wore no armor or helmet, carrying only a shield and a blunt-edged practice sword. Perryn’s sword was sharp, showing everyone that Cedric knew the prince couldn’t hit him. Perryn usually didn’t care, secretly grateful for the protection of his clumsy armor. But today his father was home. Probably watching. He squinted up at the windows surrounding the practice yard, but all he could see were hazy shadows.

  A crushing blow struck his breastplate. Perryn stumbled back, tripped, and found himself sitting on the ground. The visor clanged down, obscuring what little remained of his vision. He heard the guardsmen snickering, and his face grew warm inside the concealing helmet.

  “Always keep your attention on your opponent, Prince Perryndon.” Cedric’s voice was serious and respectful—playing to his audience. “In battle, a man will take any advantage.”

  A teacher shouldn’t. But Perryn didn’t say it aloud. He knew that his father would agree with the master of arms.

  Perryn shoved back his visor, hauled himself to his feet, and picked up his sword. His blade was sharp. Cedric wore no armor. And my father is watching.

  After teaching Perryn for four years, Cedric hardly bothered to guard himself. Why should he, since Perryn never swung at him?

  Cedric started to stalk him, and Perryn backed away. His stomach was tight and quivering—fear of the blows, fear of humiliation, which could hurt even worse. But Algrimin the tactician had written that catching your enemy off guard was half of winning. If he was careful to give no warning, maybe he could hit Cedric. Just once. With my father watching.

  Cedric rushed toward him.

  Perryn tried to leap back, but the heavy armor defeated him. He got his shield up, but he was off balance, and the blow knocked him sprawling.

  The snickers turned to open laughter.

  Perryn barely noticed. His shield arm hurt, but his sword arm was fine, and for some reason the shaking in his belly was subsiding. He picked up his weapon and stood again, staggering slightly.

  Cedric saw it. He began circling Perryn, but his pretense of wariness was just that—he was performing now, for the laughing guardsmen and the watching king. His attention wasn’t on his opponent.

  Perryn jumped forward and swung his sword low, at the unprotected legs beneath the shield.

  Cedric leaped away, but for once he was too slow! Perryn felt the tip of his sword ca
tch something. Then Cedric’s shield slammed into him. Perryn flew back, struck a wall, and slid down it, half stunned.

  Rough hands jerked the helmet from his ringing head. “He’s all right,” Cedric announced, without bothering to ask him.

  Cedric’s legs were right in front of his face. Perryn thought there was a cut in his leggings, but he couldn’t see any blood. What was that beneath the cloth? He squinted, bringing his vision into focus.

  Padding, thick enough to deflect anything but a strong, well-aimed blow.

  Tears rose in Perryn’s eyes. He blinked them down, dragged himself to his feet, and stumbled back to the armory to find his spectacles.

  ONE OF THE MENSERVANTS WAS WAITING FOR Perryn when he returned to his room. He had drawn the prince a hot bath.

  It would have been churlish to refuse. Perryn had never understood why the castle servants treated him with respect, when the guardsmen all despised him. Perhaps it was because they’d been the ones who cared for him, after his mother’s death. But they’d cared for his father, too, in his furious, shattered grief. However, his father didn’t seem to remember that time—he still didn’t know the names of half of the menservants who escorted him, stumbling up the stairs.

  But all the servants, from the steward, Halprin, to Dis, the scullery boy, had been on Perryn’s side ever since he could remember. And he returned their care with gratitude. So, he took a bath, which eased some of his bruises, and ate the meal they brought, although he didn’t really want that either. It wasn’t until he reached the library tower that he was able to put the afternoon’s humiliation behind him.

  The library tower was his place. No one else ever climbed the long flights, past all those rooms of dusty paper. No one had ever organized it either, each king’s clerks shoving chests of papers and stacks of books into any vacant spot that took their fancy. Perryn had turned the room at the top of the stairs into a study, cleaning it himself, furnishing it with ink and pens and his favorite books. His most prized possession, a turning globe of the stars that had belonged to his mother, stood by the windows.

  Perryn had been only four when she died, but he still remembered…not her face, but the feel of her: soft, warm arms around him, as he sat on a velvet-covered lap and watched her hands turning the globe; the scent of lavender. He also remembered a father who had returned from the summer campaigns laughing with joy at seeing his family again, tossing his small son high into the air before he settled into a solid hug. Perryn wasn’t sure how accurate his memories were; he sometimes wondered if his liking for books had come from her.

  Though he loved reading for its own sake—history, natural science, the old bardic lays, any book he could get his hands on—Perryn spent most of his free time methodically sorting through room after room of books, records, and scrolls, searching for any reference to dragon slaying.

  The room he was working in now held mostly documents from the reign of the sixth king, a time when dragons were nothing but a misty legend from the northern mountains. Perryn opened the chest without excitement and read for several hours. Only four scrolls remained, and his grimy fingers left smudges on the paper he unrolled.

  The dragonslayer must be a true bard, one who sees and sings the truths that are hidden in men’s hearts.

  He must have with him a unicorn, a creature of such purity that its tears can cleanse the blood of dragon’s wrath.

  And he must slay it with the Sword of Samhain, whose steel, tempered with courage, can withstand the dragon’s flame.

  With perfect truth, purity, and courage, even a dragon can be slain.

  This I have seen in a vision come to pass, and this I prophesy.

  To this I set my hand,

  Mardon the Magus

  Perryn’s blood thundered in his ears. He read the prophecy again and again. His whoop of joy echoed from the stone walls, and the scroll rolled shut as he danced wildly around the room.

  The dance ended abruptly as he tripped over the edge of an old chest and fell to his knees. He pushed his spectacles back into place, unraveled the scroll with fingers that trembled, and read it again.

  For five years Perryn had been searching the dusty tower for those words, for any words that would give instructions, even a hint, of how a dragon might be slain. Now he held a prophecy made by the greatest magus and seer that had ever lived. Mardon, who had guided the fifth king to ally Idris with the six southern kingdoms. Mardon, who had foretold the invasion of the Norse barbarians centuries before the first attack. In that age no dragon had even been seen in Idris, so this must be a true prophecy! He had to show it to his father!

  Tucking the scroll in his belt, Perryn hurried down the spiral stairs, past the rooms full of history books, land deeds, tax records, and scrolls of poetry.

  Bards were fewer now, but surely a true bard could be found. There had been one in the castle only last week. Perryn had been in bed with a cold and hadn’t seen him, but he’d heard something about trouble with Steward Halprin.

  In fact, contrary to the castle gossip, Perryn was seldom ill. He was thin and small for his age, with pale hair and skin, but it was only because Cedric complained so often about Perryn missing his sword practice that many people thought he was weak and sickly.

  The tower steps ended in the long hall. Perryn rushed down it, careful not to brush the faded tapestries with his dirty clothes.

  A unicorn would be harder to find, although people claimed to have seen them in many of the histories Perryn had read. One book, Animal Footprints by Ebron the Hunter, had shown drawings of unicorn tracks. Searching stubbornly for dragons, Perryn had generally skipped over these references. Now he would have to go back and find them again.

  He grabbed the rail at the top of the great stair and let his own momentum spin him onto the steps, which he hurtled down, two at a time.

  Had the Sword of Samhain been buried with the twenty-eighth king? No, it was King Albion, the twenty-seventh! Perryn didn’t remember reading about the tomb’s location, but that didn’t matter. The details of any king’s burial were a matter of historical record.

  Perryn crossed the great hall in a rush. A bored guard stood before the double doors to the dining hall, a sure sign that his father was still there.

  “Wait, Your Highness,” said the guard urgently, as Perryn reached for the door handle. “You don’t want to go in there. The king is…I mean, King Rovan doesn’t like to be disturbed after dinner.”

  “It’s all right. I have good news.”

  But Perryn hesitated for an instant. Everyone knew that the king drank deeply in the long nights of the early spring. Or, at least, it once had been only in the spring. Now…Perryn wiped his grimy hands on his tunic and slipped quietly through the door.

  His father sprawled in the chair at the head of the long, empty table. The dirty dishes left by the army officers who dined with him had been cleared away—only the bottles, and the cup in his father’s hand, remained. His moody gaze lifted at the sound of the door closing, and Perryn breathed a sigh of relief. He could tell from his father’s eyes that he wasn’t too drunk to understand.

  “Don’t stand there cowering. What do you want, boy?”

  Perryn flinched, but he drew a deep breath and went to the head of the table where he pulled out a chair and sat next to the king. “I have news, Father. Wonderful news!”

  “You’ve learned how to kill something bigger than a spider? You haven’t been at sword practice for months. You think I don’t know that, but I do. I asked Cedric. He says you hide from him when it’s time for your lessons.”

  Perryn’s gaze fell. It had been years, not months, since he had started avoiding sword practice—hiding from the master of arms, who never looked very hard. “That isn’t important. Not compared to this.” He held up the scroll.

  “You can’t use a scroll to skewer a Norseman through the guts when he comes after your life and your kingdom. Someday I’ll be gone and you’ll be the one fighting them, boy. Then, by the gods, you�
��ll wish you’d learned to use a sword when you had the chance.”

  “But we’ve held the Norsemen at our borders for more than forty generations. Surely…”

  “Yes, that we have. Oh, surely. But that was before the dragon came, sapping our strength raid by raid, village by village. For more than fifty years. You know what I’m doing now? Trying to recruit troops for the summer’s campaign. Going from town to town looking for landless men to train for men at arms. Used to be they’d flock to the gates of Idris Castle. Now we have to beg them to stay and fight instead of running south. They run anyway. Scared of the Norsemen, they are. Scared of the dragon. Scared of everything.”

  “Father, I’m talking about the dragon. I’ve found a prophecy!”

  The king drained his cup. “Prophecies are cow flop, Perryn.” He poured more wine.

  “But it tells us how to slay a dragon! We need a bard, a true bard….”

  The king snorted. “You mean a tune plucker like that scoundrel I kicked out last week after we caught him sneaking into the wine cellar? What for? To sing little dragon-wagon a lullaby? To sing the death dirges for the slain?” The king took a long drink.

  “A true bard, Father.” Perryn drew a steadying breath and pressed on. “And a unicorn, to heal the fever. And the swor—”

  “A unicorn! Where in this gods-forsaken land do you think you’re going to find a unicorn? And I’ve seen that fever you’re talking about. ‘The dragon’s wrath.’ It burns through a man’s blood, killing him in hours. No dainty unicorn is going to stop that hot death. A kinder death than a cold one, though. Maybe they’re right, that the dragon can only be fought with magic. Maybe we were doomed from the start.”

  Perryn felt his heart sink at the mention of his mother’s death. Remembering what had happened to his wife always set the king on the path to oblivion.

  “But a prophecy is a kind of magic.” Perryn held hard to his courage. “Why should the dragon be the only magical creature left in the land? We can find a unicorn! And the Sword of Samhain!”