Ace Books by Patricia A. McKillip Title Page Copyright Dedication PART ONE: CHIMERA Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 PART TWO: WYVERNBOURNE Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 PART THREE: KINGFISHER Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 PART ONE CHIMERA 1 Pierce Oliver was pulling crab rings out of the water off the end of the dock at Desolation Point when he saw the knights. They were throwing doors open, clambering out of a black touring car half as long as the dock, it looked, and inset with strange devices depicting animals so rarely seen most were presumed extinct. Three young men, sleek and muscular, adjusting their black leathers and quilted silks, heads turning this way and that as they surveyed the tiny harbor, caused Pierce to forget what he was doing. The line went slack in his hands. The tiered, circular frames of the net he had hauled up, dripping and writhing with crabs, slumped into one another. A fourth door opened; another head rose out of the driver''s side, black-capped and masked with sunglasses. His voice queried something lost in a sudden squall of screeching gulls.
The three shook their heads, turning from him toward the dock. They were all, Pierce realized abruptly, staring back at him. A crab hit his shoe, skittered over it. He glanced down hastily, pulled the rings taut again, knelt to shake crabs back into the net and bat the smaller escapees back into the sea. He felt the tremor of footsteps along the dock. Boots, black, supple, and glistening like nacre, came to a halt under his nose. "Sorry to interrupt your work there, but could you tell us where in Severen''s name we are?" Pierce, the crab net rope in one hand, a lime-green plastic measure in the other, opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
The shadow stretching out from the boots on the dock seemed to have grown wings. They expanded darkly across the wood, rising to catch the wind. The boots under Pierce''s transfixed gaze refused to levitate, ignoring the wings. Then the broad, shadowy wings were gone, and he could lift his head finally, look helplessly up at the speaker, who had hair like cropped lamb''s wool and eyes like a balmy afternoon sky in some other part of the world. The eyes were beginning to look more bemused than tranquil at Pierce''s silence. "He doesn''t know either," the dark-haired man with a green jewel in one ear the color of his eyes guessed with a laugh. The third, a golden-haired giant as solidly massive as a slab of oak, flared suddenly, flames licking out all around him. Pierce jumped, dropping the crab measure.
"Cape Mistbegotten," he gabbled hastily, not wanting to rile them into further displays of weirdness. "Mistbegotten?" "Des--Desolation Point." "Des-- Seriously?" A gull landed on the dock beside him with a sudden, fierce cry. After the crabs, he thought, but it stayed very still then, raking the strangers with its yellow-eyed glare. He retrieved the crab measure, stood up shakily, and realized that he had forgotten to take his apron off. It hung limply around his neck, untied and grubby from the kitchen, the trellis of green beans on it like some stained mimicry of a heraldic device. Another crab was snarled in his shoelace, trying to untie his ancient, cracked trainer. "Desolation Point," he repeated more clearly, though his mouth was still dry.
The dark-haired man''s shadow seemed to have grown a barbed tail; it lashed sinuously, soundlessly, as though to sweep the crabs off the dock. It stilled finally. Pierce closed his eyes tightly, opened them and his mouth again. "It''s the only town on the cape. The sign got blown into the ocean during a winter storm. It''s still a little early in the season for tourists; we haven''t bothered to replace it yet." They were gazing at him with varying degrees of incredulity. "People come here?" the fire-giant said dubiously.
"On purpose?" Pierce shook the crab off his shoe; it landed on its back, legs waving at him furiously. "Like I said, it''s the only town on Cape Mistbegotten." "Then why isn''t it on the map?" the blond with the temperate eyes asked reasonably. "Our driver couldn''t even find it on paper." Pierce grunted, puzzled. Something in the gull''s grim eye, its oddly motionless stance, enlightened him. "Oh, that was probably my mother. Sometimes she hides things and forgets.
" "Your mother." The burly giant''s face flattened suddenly, all expression gone. "Hides. An entire cape." He had shifted suddenly very close to Pierce, forcing Pierce''s head to angle upward. "Are you mocking us? Do you have any idea who we are?" Pierce, caught helplessly in the hazel-eyed smolder, finally registered the odd crunch in the giant''s wake. "Not a clue," he said breathlessly. "But you just squashed a perfectly good dinner crab.
" The giant looked down at his boots, raised one slowly, grimacing at the legs dangling from the sole. The fair man with the wings dropped a hand on his shoulder, shook him lightly, fearlessly. "Temper, Bayley," he murmured. His eyes, on Pierce''s face, widened in sudden comprehension. "We must have wandered off the map into the realm of a sorceress." "Or a lunatic," the giant muttered, shaking crab off his boot. "No." The intense gaze fixed Pierce, held him motionless.
"He is the sorceress''s son. That''s why you couldn''t speak. Isn''t it? You saw something in us. Tell me what you saw." "I saw--" Pierce whispered, losing his voice again, "I saw your shadow. Your wings. And I saw your fire," he added to the giant, then to the dark knight, "I saw your barbed tail." Suddenly, they were all smiling.
"No wonder you lost your tongue," the giant marveled. "We''ve been up north, hunting our ancestors." He held up his brawny arm; Pierce saw the fine embroidered medallion on the black sleeve: a white bear outlined in flames. "I am Sir Bayley Reeve. My ancestors took the Fire Bear. I''m not sure how," he added with wonder. "She''s huge. She topped even me by a head.
" "And mine took the wyvern," said the man with the sea-green eyes. "I am Roarke Wyvernbourne." Pierce swallowed, speech swollen like a lump in his throat. Even Desolation Point, the outermost stretch of isolated land along the coast of Wyvernhold, got a newspaper now and then. "And mine the great Winter King of the north," the pale-haired man said. "The Winter Merlin, who taught the ancient mage of the first Wyvernbourne king. Back when there were a dozen petty kingdoms and as many kings. That''s what you saw in me: the falcon''s wings.
I am Sir Gareth May." They waited, gazing at Pierce expectantly, until he found his wits again. "Oh. Pierce Oliver." He started to hold out his hand, felt the crab net rope still in it. "Oliver," the Wyvernbourne prince murmured. "Wasn''t there something ." He shook his head, shrugging.
"Well." "Did you-- Ah-- Did you actually-- I mean, with weapons? I thought they were already pretty much extinct?" The knights were silent for a breath; Pierce saw the memories, complex and mysterious, in their faces. "We came as close as we could," Gareth May said slowly. "They leave a track. They leave a rumor. I climbed into the high forests, found the ancient nesting places of the Winter Merlins. I heard their voices in the wind. Maybe I saw one.
Maybe it was a cloud. Maybe it was both." "I searched in fire," Bayley said. "At night. Fire licking wood as the Fire Bear licks her newborn to turn them into flesh and blood; she swallows their fire, their immortality. Maybe I did that." "I found the caves where the wyverns raised their young," the Wyvernbourne prince said. "I saw their high nests, hollows of stone where they laid their eggs, said to make a noise like thunder when they cracked.
" "What we hunted, what we took, is what you saw," Gareth said simply. "That you saw it so quickly, so easily--that''s the wonder. We were searching for what we found. You weren''t looking for anything at all." Again they were silent, consulting one another with their eyes. Pierce watched, fascinated by their closeness, their fellowship. The motionless gull, which he had forgotten, gave such a sudden, piercing cry that he nearly leaped off the dock. It sounded, he thought as he caught his breath, like a curse.
He glanced down, saw more crabs wobbling to the edge of the rings, toppling onto the dock. He bent to pluck a couple of likely-looking dinners up, toss them back into the net. "Look for us," he heard, "if you come to Severluna. You might find a place for yourself in King Arden''s court." He straightened again, blinking at the thought. They were smiling at him again, welcoming him to their world, making him, for a moment that melted his heart, one of them. The moment passed; he was himself again, in all his awkwardness, his isolation, his inexperience: a young, tangle-haired man wearing a filthy apron at the end of a dock at the edge of the world, chasing after crabs instead of wyverns. "I''ve always lived here," he explained.
"It''s home." Bayley glanced bewilderedly at the tiny town lining the main street, doors facing the setting sun. The others refrained from looking. "Oh. Well," the giant said gruffly, and added, "Sorry about your dinner. Luckily there are more in your net." "They''re for.