Читать книгу The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr - Страница 7

Death had turned Dougie’s hair white and his flesh translucent. In the darkness he glowed with a faint silvery light as he stood smiling at Berwynna.

‘Remember me, lass,’ he said in the language of Alban, ‘but live your life, too. I loved you enough to wish you every happiness. Find a new man.’

‘I don’t want to,’ Berwynna said. ‘The only thing I want is for you to come back to me.’

‘This is as far back as I can come, just up to this side of dying. Wynni, live your life!’

He vanished.

Berwynna screamed and sat up, scattering blankets. She found herself in a round tent so unfamiliar that for a moment she thought she still dreamt. The Ancients, she reminded herself. I’m safe among the Ancients, but Dougie’s dead. The first light of dawn fell like a grey pillar through the smoke hole in the centre of the roof. Across from her, on the far side of the tent, a bundle of blankets stirred and yawned. Uncle Mic sat up and peered at her through the uncertain light.

‘Are you all right?’ he said in Dwarvish. ‘Did you make some sort of a sound just now?’

‘I was dreaming,’ she said. ‘In the dream I saw Dougie, and when he disappeared, I screamed.’

‘Ai, my poor little niece!’ Mic paused to rub his face with both hands and yawn prodigiously. ‘It sounded like a moan, here in the waking world.’

‘That would fit, too.’

Mic let his hands fall into his lap. From outside came the noises of a camp stirring awake – dogs barking, people talking in an unfamiliar language, occasionally a child crying or calling out. Distantly a horse whinnied, and mules brayed in answer.

‘We might as well get up,’ Berwynna said.

‘Indeed, and I wouldn’t mind a bit of breakfast, either.’

They’d both slept dressed. Mic pulled on his boots, then got up and left the tent. Berwynna busied herself with rolling up their bedrolls.

‘Berwynna?’ Dallandra pulled back the tent flap and came in. ‘You’re awake, then?’

‘I am, my lady.’

‘There’s no need to call me lady,’ Dallandra said with a smile. ‘I wanted to tell you that your father’s flown off to scout the Northlands. He asked me to give you his love and to tell you he’ll be back again as soon as he can.’

‘My thanks.’ Berwynna bit her lip in disappointment. ‘I’d wanted to say farewell.’

‘Dragons come and go as they please, not as we want, I’m afraid. He also told me about the lost dragon book.’

Berwynna winced. Dallandra sat down opposite her. In the pale light from the rising dawn, she seemed made of silver, with her ash blonde hair, steel grey eyes, and her pale skin, so unexpected in a person who lived most of her life out of doors. Silver or mayhap steel, Berwynna thought, like the pictures on the doors of Lin Serr.

‘In a moment I’ll have to go tend the wounded men,’ Dallandra said. ‘But I wanted to ask you about the book. You’ve seen it, I take it.’

‘I have,’ Berwynna said. ‘Not that I were able to read a word of it, mind. Laz, he did say that it be written in the language of the Ancients, your language, that be.’

‘It was written, then, in letters?’

‘Be not all books written so?’

‘They are, truly.’ Dallandra smiled at her. ‘But some also have pictures in them.’

‘I never did see such, but then, my sister wouldn’t be allowing me to turn its pages, and no doubt she were right about that, too. What little I did see did look to me much like the carvings on our walls.’

‘The what?’

‘Forgive me.’ Berwynna smiled briefly. ‘I do forget you’ve not seen Haen Marn. In the great hall, the walls, they be of wood, and there be carvings all over them, letters and such, I do suppose them to be. Laz, he did call some of them sigils, whatever those may be.’

‘They’re a particular type of sign, a mark that stands for the name of a thing or a place or suchlike.’ Dallandra paused. ‘Well, that will do as an explanation, though it’s not a very good one.’

‘’Twill do for me, truly. But the book, it were such a magical thing. It does ache my heart that I had somewhat to do with the losing of it.’

‘No one’s blaming you, Wynni. Try not to blame yourself. You’re exhausted, you’re mourning your betrothed, and every little thing’s going to weigh upon you now. One of these days your mind will be clearer, and you’ll be better able to judge what happened.’

‘I’ll hope that be true.’

‘It is true. I lost a man I loved very much, and I thought at the time that I’d mourn him all my life. In time, I laid my mourning aside and found another love. So I know how you must feel.’

‘You must, truly.’ For the first time since Dougie’s death, Berwynna felt – not hope, precisely, but a rational thought, that one day hope would come. ‘My thanks for the telling of this.’

‘You’re most welcome.’ Dallandra reached over and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Now, about the book, though, I’d like to know how large it was, how thick, how many pages.’

‘As to the pages, well, now, I be not sure of that. It were a great heavy thing –’ Berwynna stopped, struck by a sudden realization. ‘At least, it were at first, when Dougie did bring it to Haen Marn. But it did shrink.’

‘It what?’

‘I did carry it once on Haen Marn, and it were so heavy that there were a need on me to clasp it in both arms.’ Berwynna demonstrated by holding her empty arms out in front of her. ‘But when I did take it from the island, it did fit most haply in one of my saddlebags.’

‘That’s extremely interesting.’

‘Laz did talk of guardian spirits. Think you they do have the power to change it – oh, that sounds so daft!’

‘Not daft at all. That’s exactly what I think must have happened. A person with very powerful dweomer made that book.’ Dallandra got up, stretching her back as if it pained her. ‘My apologies, but I truly do have to go now. Your uncle should be here with your breakfast in a moment, but please, feel free to leave this tent. Come out whenever you’re ready. This will be your first day in a Westfolk alar, so everything’s going to seem strange to you, but your other uncle – Ebañy, his name is – will be glad to introduce you around.’

‘My thanks.’ Berwynna rose and joined her. ‘Be there any help I may give you?’

‘Not needed. I have apprentices.’ Dallandra cocked her head to one side to listen. ‘Ah, here’s Mic now.’ She strode over and held the tent flap open.

‘My thanks,’ Mic said as he ducked inside. He was carrying a basket in one hand and a pottery bowl in the other. ‘Bread and soft cheese, Wynni.’

Berwynna took the bowl from him. When she glanced around, Dallandra had already gone, slipping out in silence.

Dallandra found Neb and Ranadario at work in the big tent that the alar had allocated to its healers. Ranadario was explaining how to bandage a bad wound on the upper arm of one of the Cerr Cawnen men while Neb listened, his head cocked a little to one side as if he were afraid that her words would evade him. Their patient, a beefy blond fellow with the odd name of Hound, kept his eyes shut tight and panted in pain. The wound had cut deep into the side of his upper arm, missing the largest blood vessels but severing muscles and tendons. Dallandra doubted that he’d ever be able to use the arm properly again.

‘Ranadario,’ Dallandra said in Deverrian. ‘Did you give him willow water to drink?’

‘I did, Wise One,’ Ranadario said. ‘This cut is healing so slowly, though.’

Hound opened his eyes and stared at her. His breathing turned ragged, and Neb laid a hand on his unwounded shoulder to steady him.

‘Not slowly for a child of Aethyr.’ Dalla paused for a quick smile to reassure him. ‘It’s doing as well as we can expect. Don’t you worry, now. It’ll heal up soon.’

Hound returned the smile, then shut his eyes again.

With her apprentices to help her, Dallandra tended the wounds of the two Cerr Cawnen men and did what she hoped was right for the wounds of the others, four of them Horsekin and one a half-blood fellow. Since those who’d sustained the worst cuts in the fight to save the caravan had all died during their journey south, she could be fairly confident that those who’d lived to reach her would recover.

When she left the tent, Neb followed her with his fat-bellied yellow gnome trailing after. For a moment he merely looked up at the sky as if he were expecting rain. The gnome kicked him hard in the nearer shin.

‘Dalla,’ Neb said, ‘I owe you an apology.’

The gnome grinned and vanished.

‘You do, truly.’ She kept her voice gentle. ‘I wondered when it would come.’

‘Pride’s an infection in itself.’ He was studying the ground between them. ‘I should have spoken before this. I never should have tried to ride away like that.’

‘Well, it’s not like you’re the only man or woman either to kick like a balky horse during training. It’s a common enough stage in the apprenticeship, especially among the lads.’

Neb winced, his shoulders a little high, as if he expected a blow. ‘Common, is it?’ His voice choked on the words.

‘Very, actually.’ Dallandra felt genuinely sorry for his humiliation, but he’d earned every moment of it. ‘I take it you’re no longer so confused. Your decision about becoming a healer who incorporates dweomer into his work is a truly good one.’

At that he looked up again.

‘Now, I’m a healer, certainly,’ Dallandra continued, ‘but it’s only a craft for me. You’re hoping to try somewhat new.’

‘Hoping is about right. I don’t know if I can or not.’

‘No more do I, but I wager you’ll succeed. At this stage you’ve got to learn both crafts down to the last jot.’

‘I know that now.’ Neb’s voice rang with sincerity. ‘And I promise you that I’ll gather every scrap of knowledge that I possibly can.’

‘Good! That’s all anyone can ask of you. Now we’d both best clean up. I’ve got gore all over my hands, and your tunic is a fearsome sight.’

Dallandra had just finished washing her blood-stained hands in a bucket of water when one of the Cerr Cawnen men walked over, another beefy blond with narrow blue eyes, a common type among the Rhiddaer men, who were descended from the northern tribes of ‘Old Ones’, as the original inhabitants of the Deverrian lands used to be known. This particular fellow introduced himself as Richt, the caravan master.

‘You do have all my thanks, Wise One,’ he said, ‘for the aid you and your people do give me and my men. I would gift you with somewhat of dwarven work. It be a trinket I did trade for in Lin Serr.’ From the pocket of his brigga he brought out a leather pouch.

‘I don’t need any payment, truly,’ Dallandra began, then stopped when he shook a pendant out of the pouch onto his broad palm. ‘That’s very beautiful.’

‘As you are, and I would beg you to take it.’

The pendant hung by a loop from a fine silver chain. Two silver dragons twined around a circle of gems, set in silver. The jeweller had arranged three petal-shaped slices of moonstone and three of turquoise around a central sapphire.

‘Are you sure you want to part with this?’ Dallandra said.

‘I be sure that I wish you to have it.’ Richt smiled, a little shyly.

‘Then you have my profound thanks.’

When Dallandra held out her hand, he passed the pendant over, then bobbed his head in respect and walked away. The more she studied the pendant, the happier she was that she’d accepted the gift. Rarely did she like jewellery enough to wear any of it, but this particular piece made her think of the moon and its magical tides. A bevy of sprites materialized in the air and hovered close to look at it. She could hear their little cries of delight, a sound much like the rustling of fine silks.

‘Who gave you that?’ a normal elven voice said.

Dallandra looked up to see Calonderiel watching her with his arms crossed over his chest.

‘The caravan master,’ she said. ‘In thanks for tending his wounded men. He told me it’s dwarven work.’

‘Oh.’ Cal relaxed with a smile. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Thus, it suits you.’

‘Shall I put it on?’

‘Please do.’

The pendant hung just below Dallandra’s collarbone. As it touched the magical nexus at that spot, she felt emanations.

‘There’s dweomer on this piece,’ she said to Cal. ‘I’m not sure what, though. I’ll have to show it to Val later.’

‘Maybe you’d better show it to her now. Are you sure it’s safe to wear it?’

‘Yes, actually. Cal, you sound so worried.’

‘I keep thinking about the spell over Rori.’ He paused, glancing away, biting his lower lip. ‘And how dangerous it’s going to be to lift. I’ve got suspicious of everything dweomer, I guess.’

‘Reversing the spell may not be dangerous at all. We don’t know that.’

Cal did his best to smile. ‘If it turns out to be dangerous, then,’ he said, ‘warn me.’

‘I will, I promise. I’ve been thinking about what happened to Evandar. He wasn’t incarnate, don’t forget, which meant there was nothing truly solid about him. He could appear to have a body, but at root he was nothing but pure spirit, pure vital force. After he drained himself of most of that power, there was nothing left for him to fall back on, as it were.’

‘Ah.’ Cal paused, visibly thinking this through. ‘I do see what you mean. But I’ve heard you talk of the – what did you call that? the rule of compensation or suchlike.’

‘The law of compensation, yes. Any great pouring out of dweomer force is going to have an equal reaction of some kind. The problem is knowing what it will be.’ Dallandra smiled briefly. ‘I may never be able to fly in my own bird form again. That’s my best guess.’

‘You’re willing to do that?’

‘Flying comes in handy, but it doesn’t mean a great deal to me any more. I have you, I have our child, and the ground seems like a very pleasant place to be.’

He smiled so softly, so warmly, that she felt as if she’d worked some mighty act of magic.

‘I do love you,’ he said. ‘I’m terrified of losing you.’

‘Don’t worry, and don’t forget, I’ll have a great deal of help – Val, Grallezar, Branna, and for all I know, the lass on Haen Marn knows enough to take part in whatever the ritual is.’

‘That’s right! I tend to forget about them. It’s not like you’ll be fighting this battle by yourself.’

Dallandra smiled and said nothing more. At the very beginning of a ritual she always asked that any harm it might evoke would fall upon her alone, but that Cal didn’t need to know.

‘I’m not just worrying for my own sake and for Dari’s,’ Cal went on. ‘If you –’ he hesitated briefly ‘– went away, what would happen to the changelings?’

‘There are other dweomer workers. Look at Sidro. She’s amazingly patient with those poor little souls, much more than I can be.’

‘True.’ He suddenly smiled. ‘Oh very well, I’m truly worried if I can forget things like that. I’ll do my best to stop, but I make no promises.’

Richt and his gift reminded Dallandra that she had an extremely unpleasant task ahead of her, telling her fellow dweomermaster in Cerr Cawnen about the fate of the caravan. As she went to her tent for privacy, she wondered if Niffa might already know, since Niffa had lost a great-nephew in that attack. The plight of bloodkin had a way of reaching a dweomermaster’s mind. Indeed, as soon as Dallandra contacted her, she could feel Niffa’s grief, as strong as a drench of sudden rain.

‘My heart aches for your loss,’ Dallandra said.

‘My thanks,’ Niffa said. ‘Jahdo’s the one who’s suffering the more, alas. Aethel was always his favourite grandchild.’

Dallandra let a wordless sympathy flood out from her mind. Niffa’s image, floating in a shaft of dusty sunlight, displayed tears in her dark eyes. Her pale silver hair hung dishevelled around her face, a sign of mourning.

‘The men who’ve survived this long are likely to live,’ Dallandra said. ‘I just tended them and spoke with Richt. They won’t be able to get back on the road for some while, though.’

‘My thanks for the telling. With my mind so troubled, it’s been a hard task to focus upon their images and read such things from them.’

‘No doubt! Here, I’ll let you go now. I’ll contact you again to let you know how they’re faring.’

Niffa managed a faint smile, then broke the link between them.

Just as Dallandra got up to leave, Sidro brought her the baby to nurse. They sat together, discussing the changeling children, until little Dari fell asleep. Dallandra settled the baby in the leather sling-cradle hanging in the curve of the tent wall. Westfolk infants sleep more or less upright, settled on beds of fresh-pulled grass, rather than wearing swaddling bands as we Deverry folk wrap our babies.

‘I was just going to talk with Valandario,’ Dallandra said. ‘Do you think you could watch the baby for me?’

‘Gladly, Wise One,’ Sidro said. ‘I’ll take her with me to my tent, if that pleases you.’

‘It does, and my thanks. Ah, here’s Val now! I thought she might have heard me thinking about her.’

Val had, indeed. After Sidro left them, they spoke in Elvish. Valandario exclaimed over the pendant when Dallandra handed it to her, rubbed it between her fingers, and pronounced the dweomer upon it safe enough to wear.

‘Someone’s turned it into a talisman to attract good health, is all.’ Val handed it back. ‘Huh, and the dwarves claim they don’t believe in dweomer!’

‘Probably one of the women did the enchanting.’

‘I suppose so.’ Valandario settled herself on a leather cushion. ‘I’ve been thinking about the dragon book, and I don’t understand how Evandar could have written it. He couldn’t read and write, could he?’

‘I honestly don’t know.’

‘What? The subject never came up in all those hundreds of years?’

‘There’s something you don’t understand. Hundreds of years passed in this world, yes. For me it was only a couple of long summers with barely a winter in between. That first time when I went to Evandar’s country, I thought I’d spent perhaps a fortnight away.’

Valandario pursed her lips as if she were clamping them shut.

‘Don’t you believe me?’ Dallandra went on.

‘Of course I do.’ Val stayed silent for a moment more, then let the words burst out. ‘But how could you love a man who’d trick you that way? He trapped you in his little world, and by the Star Goddesses themselves, the grief he caused in this one!’

‘Tricked me?’ Dallandra found that words had deserted her. She sat down opposite Val, who apparently mistook her silence.

‘I’m sorry,’ Val said. ‘A thousand apologies.’

‘No, no, no need.’ Dallandra managed to find a few words. ‘I’d never – I don’t think I ever thought of it – of him – that way before.’

‘As what? A trickster? He had to be the consummate trickster, the absolute king of them all, from everything I know about him. This book – it’s another of his tricks, isn’t it? Like the rose ring and the black crystal. I hope it’s the last of the bad lot.’

‘Well, so do I.’

The silence hung there, icy in the pale silver light. Abruptly Val flung one hand in the air. The dweomer light above them changed to a warmer gold.

‘About the book,’ Val said. ‘So Evandar could have written it.’

‘Yes, perhaps he might have.’ Dallandra let out her breath in a long sigh. ‘Though it seems like it would have taken a long time, just from its size, I mean, and he had so little patience.’

Valandario quirked an eyebrow. Dallandra kept silent.

‘What about the archives in the Southern Isles?’ Val went on. ‘Could it be a copy of something there?’

‘I had hopes that way, but no,’ Dallandra said. ‘Meranaldar was a librarian there, you know, and he knew every single volume that survived the Great Burning. Before he left last autumn, I asked him about the book that Ebañy saw in the crystal. He didn’t recognize it, and yes, he remembered all the covers of the books, too.’

‘He would.’ Valandario grinned at her. ‘But boring or not, he was a useful sort of man to know. You were already wondering, last summer, if the book contained dragon lore, too.’

‘So I was. He told me that the only dragon lore they had was the occasional comment or passage in books about other things.’

‘Didn’t you say that Jill had books from the Southern Isles?’

‘Yes, and when she died, Evandar reclaimed them. Meranaldar told me that he brought them back to the archive. I’ve got her other books, and the only dragon lore in them is what she wrote in the margins.’

‘So much for that, then. Now, what about Laz’s book, his copy of the Pseudo-Iamblichos Scroll? It has such a similar cover. Sidro told me that he bought it already bound but with blank pages up in Taenbalapan. Do you suppose the dragon book came from there, too?’

‘A very good point.’ Dallandra rose and began to pace back and forth in the tent. ‘I wonder if Evandar saw the other one there and acquired it somehow.’

‘Stole it, you mean.’ Valandario got up and joined her.

Dallandra swirled around to face her and set her hands on her hips. Val’s expression revealed only a studied neutrality. She’s right, Dallandra thought. He really was an awful thief. She wasn’t quite ready to admit it aloud.

‘Anyway, to return to the book.’ Val’s expression changed to narrow-eyed disgust. ‘I suppose we’d better talk with Laz Moj about it.’

‘You suppose? Val, you look like you just bit into turned meat.’

‘He’s someone else I have to forgive.’ Valandario forced out a brittle little smile. ‘After Jav’s murder, Aderyn and Nevyn spent a long time trying to piece together what had happened. A very long time, truly. Things didn’t fall into place till after the war where Loddlaen died.’

I was still gone then, Dallandra thought. The guilt bit deep. If she’d not gone off with Evandar, how different things might have been!

‘It wasn’t till then,’ Val continued, ‘that they realized Alastyr lay behind the murder and the war both.’

‘Rori told me that Laz was once Alastyr.’

‘Exactly, and I actually saw him when he was only a lad, a nasty little bit of work named Tirro. He grew up to be a merchant, and it was his ship that carried –’ She paused briefly ‘– the crystal away, which is why no one could scry for it. They would have been out on the open sea by the time I tried to find them.’

She means the crystal and Loddlaen, Dallandra thought. Aloud, she said, ‘I’ll go speak with Laz, but there’s no reason you need to come along.’

‘Thank you. I was hoping you’d say that.’ She hesitated again, then glanced away as if she’d decided not to say some painful thing.

‘What is it, Val? You might as well say it.’

‘Why couldn’t Evandar have just told you about the book on Haen Marn?’ Val’s words floated on a bitter tide. ‘Why all this secrecy and glittering crystals and the like? If that wretched crystal hadn’t existed, Loddlaen wouldn’t have coveted it. Yes, I know that sounds stupid, but he wanted it enough to kill for it. Why all the –’ She stopped, breathing hard. ‘My apologies.’

Dallandra could think of a dozen reasons why, but faced with Val’s undying grief, she found them shallow, stupid, pointless – rationalizations, not reasons. She sighed and said the simple truth, ‘I don’t know why, Val. I truly don’t.’

‘Oh.’ Val paused for a long cold moment. ‘Yes, I suppose you don’t.’ She got up and left the tent.

Dallandra followed her, but she left Val her privacy, and instead went looking for Grallezar. The royal alar spread out along a sizeable stream, tents on one bank, horse herds and sheep flocks on the other. Against the rich green of the grass, the freshly painted designs on the tents gleamed in the summer sun as if the dull leather had been beaded and bejewelled. Children and puppies chased each other among the tents, followed by swarms of Wildfolk, crystalline sprites in the air, warty grey and green gnomes on the ground. Now and then this crazed parade ran into an adult who, nearly toppled, yelled imprecations upon them all as they raced on past.

Dallandra found her fellow dweomermaster standing on the edge of the camp well away from the children’s chaos. She was talking with a Gel da’Thae man who wore a filthy grey shirt and trousers, the remnants of a regimental uniform, Dallandra assumed. Indeed, Grallezar introduced him as Drav, an officer in one of Braemel’s old cavalry troops.

‘He does want to take his men away from Laz and join us,’ Grallezar said. ‘I did tell him that only the prince could decide such a thing.’

‘That’s very true,’ Dallandra said. ‘How many men are there?’

‘But four, and one of them wounded. Two others did die in the rescuing of that caravan.’

‘I can’t see, then, why Dar wouldn’t agree. By all means, take Drav to him. I think Cal’s over there, too. Could you ask Drav if Laz is going to come tell us about that crystal?’

The two Gel da’Thae conferred briefly. Drav rolled his dark eyes and swung one hand through the air, a gesture that Grallezar had often used when dismissing someone as a fool.

‘He tells me,’ Grallezar said in her dialect of Deverrian, ‘that Laz be in a fair foul mood over Sidro. He does walk around swearing and kicking at things that be in his way. So he knows not what Laz might or might not do.’

‘I see. Thank him for the information, will you? Then we can go talk with Dar.’

By then the royal alar had grown used to travelling with individuals of the race they’d always called Meradan, demons, now that they knew that these ‘demons’ were real flesh and blood, not some faceless horde but individuals who were capable of changing their minds and their allegiances. The prince was glad enough to have more highly trained warriors in his warband, even if these were Gel da’Thae.

‘Besides,’ Dar told Dallandra in Elvish, ‘they understand the Horsekin, and they despise them even more than we do.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Drav has some solid information about their forces.’

Drav returned to his former camp to collect his men, but not long after he sent a messenger. Grallezar brought him and his news to Dallandra: Laz and those of his men who were unwounded were striking camp and planning on riding out.

‘What?’ Dalla snapped. ‘He’s leaving his wounded behind?’

The messenger spoke; Grallezar translated, telling her that the wounded men had asked to change their loyalties and stay with the alar. They would ride under Drav’s orders, or so they’d sworn on the names of the old Gel da’Thae gods.

‘Good riddance to the rest of them,’ Grallezar said, ‘or truly, it would be good riddance if we needed not to know what Laz knows.’

‘But we do need to,’ Dalla said. ‘I’ll go talk with him.’

‘Might that not be dangerous?’

‘It might, but I doubt it, not with his band so badly outnumbered, and Drav and his men right there.’ Dallandra considered briefly. ‘On the other hand, you might collect a few archers and come – oh say, about half-way to his camp.’

Grallezar grinned with a flash of needle-sharp teeth.

In the midst of a welter of half-struck tents and bedrolls, Laz’s remaining men hurried back and forth, saddling horses and gathering gear. Dallandra found Laz standing by his saddled and bridled horse, a stocky chestnut that bore a Gel da’Thae cavalry brand. The bright sun picked out the pink scars on his face and those cutting into his short brown hair. He’s got a face like a knife edge, Dallandra thought, all sharp angles and bone and that beaky nose. He looks half-starved, too. His smile did nothing to soften the impression.

‘Welcome,’ Laz called out. He spoke surprisingly good Deverrian. ‘Or perhaps I should say farewell. Alas, fair lady, I feel the need to take leave of you and yours, before the rest of my men decide they’d rather join you than stay with me.’

‘Well, I can understand that,’ Dallandra said. ‘It’s too bad, though. I was going to offer to trade you dweomer lore in return for some information.’

‘Oh?’ Laz glanced away, entirely too casually. ‘What kind of lore?’

‘What are you most interested in?’

‘At the moment, the burning questions in my mind concern those wretched crystals.’ He looked at her again. ‘Who, by the way, was Evandar?’

‘I can tell you a great deal about Evandar. The black crystal, it’s largely a mystery to me, though I do know somewhat that might interest you.’ She paused to glance around them, saw some of his men standing nearby, and dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘You owned it in a former life. In fact, I know somewhat about two of your former lives.’ She raised her voice to a normal level. ‘It won’t make pleasant hearing, though, so no doubt you’re wise to leave now.’

Laz’s eyes went wide, and he whistled under his breath. He gaped at her, as well and truly hooked as a caught trout, gaping at the end of a fisherman’s line. His horse stamped and tossed its head at the sudden slacking of its reins. At last Laz sighed and turned away to speak to his men in the Gel da’Thae language. Some of them shrugged, some of them raised eyebrows, others glanced skyward in disgust, but they all stopped work on striking the camp and began, instead, to restore it.

‘We need to find a place to talk,’ Laz said to Dallandra. ‘We can meet between the camps.’

‘Very well. You’re welcome in our camp, for that matter. The Westfolk will never eavesdrop on a Wise One.’

‘I will not set foot over there.’ Laz’s voice turned hard. ‘I see no reason to let Pir gloat over me.’

‘Oh come now, you know Pir better than I do! Would he truly gloat?’

‘I never thought he’d steal my woman, either.’ Laz hesitated, then shrugged. ‘That’s unfair of me. No one stole her. She’s not a horse.’ Laz seemed to be choking back either tears or anger, but he arranged a brittle smile.

He’s trying, Dallandra thought. Desperately trying to be fair, to do the right thing. She regretted her slip, mentioning that she had information about two of his past lives. Discussing Lord Tren was doubtless safe enough, but Alastyr? She found herself loath to speak of dark dweomer. What if it awakened Laz’s memories and, worse yet, his desire to use it? Worst of all, what if he already remembered and was hoping to get more information? Sidro had often warned her that Laz lied as cheerfully as most men jest.

‘Well, it was her right to choose.’ His voice sounded as tight as a drawn bowstring. ‘Alas. Let me hand my horse over to Faharn, and then we shall go to neutral ground and talk.’ Laz shaded his eyes and looked in the direction of Grallezar and the archers. ‘Ah, I see you prudently stationed a few guards out there.’

‘I’ll dismiss them.’

He grinned again, bowed, and led his horse away.

Laz handed his horse over to Faharn, then gave his apprentice a few quick instructions about setting up the camp. By the time he returned to Dallandra, the archers had gone back to the Westfolk tents. Dalla had picked out a spot midway between their two camps and trampled down the grass in a small circle. When they sat down, he felt oddly private despite the blue sky above them, as if they sat in a tiny chamber curtained all round with fine green lace.

‘Would you tell me what you know about the dragon book?’ Dallandra began.

‘The dragon book?’ Laz said. ‘Ah, there was a dragon on the cover, indeed. I held it in my hands and turned the pages, but I can’t truly read your beautiful language, so I have no idea of what was written in it.’

‘Berwynna told me that you thought the text had somewhat to do with dragons.’

‘Somewhat. For one thing, there was the image on the cover.’

‘I wanted to ask you about that. You have a book that’s decorated with the reverse colours but the same outline of a dragon. Did you buy that in a marketplace?’

‘I didn’t. My sisters had it made specially for me as a coming of age present. I saved it for years until I had somewhat important to write in it. You look surprised.’

‘I am. I suppose Evandar might have scried it somehow. He did see bits and pieces of future events, and if he saw you and the book, he might well have decided to make one much like it.’

‘I truly want to learn more about this fellow.’

‘I’ll tell you, fear not! But about the book –’

‘Well, beyond the cover, I could pick out a word here and there, and “drahkonnen” was one of them.’ Laz paused to summon his memories. He could see the pages of the book clearly in his mind. ‘Odd, now that I think of it! That word seemed to recur in the same place on every page. Indeed, about half-way down and to the right of the line, and on every page that I saw.’

‘How very strange!’

Laz nodded his agreement. ‘Did Wynni tell you about the spirits?’

‘She mentioned that you’d said some were attached to the book, but no more than that. She apparently can’t see the Wildfolk.’

‘She can’t, truly, but I did. They were spirits of Aethyr. They appeared once as flames, icy white with strangely coloured tips. Another time I saw them as a lozenge, floating just over the book. They can move it, by the by, and they must have some way of influencing people’s minds. Somehow they tricked Wynni into taking it from the island.’

‘That’s fascinating! I can see Evandar’s hand in this, all right.’

‘Have you ever heard of anything like this?’

‘Once.’ Dallandra hesitated, then spoke carefully. ‘It reminds me of a tale I heard a long time ago. Have you ever heard of the Great Stone of the West?’

‘I’ve not.’

Yet Laz felt an odd touch on his mind, not a memory, more a feeling of danger attached to the name. Dallandra was watching him, not precisely studying his face, but certainly more than usually alert.

‘What is this fabled stone, if I may ask?’ Laz said.

‘An opal that one of the Lijik Ganda enchanted – oh, a long time ago. Ebañy told me about it. It had spirits guarding it, too, you see, which is why it came to mind.’

‘Ah, I do see. Ebañy’s Evan the gerthddyn?’

‘He is. My apologies, I forgot you wouldn’t know his Elvish name. He’s Wynni’s uncle, by the way.’

‘And a mazrak, I gather.’

‘He is that. He’s not the dweomerman who enchanted the opal, though. Nevyn, his name was, and I know it means “no one”, but it truly was his name.’

The danger pricked him again. Laz felt as if he’d run his hand through the silken grass only to thrust a finger against a thorn. Dallandra was smiling, but only faintly, pleasantly. He wondered why he was so sure she was weaving a trap around him.

‘Can you scry for the book?’ Her abrupt change of subject made him even more suspicious. ‘You’ve actually seen it, and I never have.’

‘I’ve been doing so to no avail, alas.’ Laz decided that talking about the book was safe enough. ‘When Wynni took it, she put it into a leather sack, then wrapped the sack in some of her clothing. The bundle’s still in her lost saddlebags, or at least, I’m assuming that. All I get is an impression of a crowded darkness.’

‘Well, that’s unfortunate!’

‘If I ever see anything more clearly, I’ll tell you, though. Does the book belong to you?’

‘In a way, I suppose it does. I think – I’m hoping – that it contains the spells I need to turn Rori back into human form. The being who wrote the book is the same one who dragonified him, you see.’

‘So Enj told us. Um, the “being”? This Evandar wasn’t an ordinary man of your people, I take it.’

‘He wasn’t, but one of the Guardians, their leader, as much as they had one, anyway.’

‘Ye gods, then he’s the one the Alshandra people call Vandar!’

‘Just that. He’d never been incarnate, so he could command the astral forces – or play with them, would be a better way of putting it. He never took anything very seriously.’

Laz looked away slack-mouthed for a moment, then regained control of his voice. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why I’m so surprised. It would take someone that powerful to work the dweomers we’re discussing.’

‘Indeed. And I have no idea how to unwork it, as it were.’

‘You said you knew him well?’

‘I did. He was my lover, in fact, for some while.’

Laz felt himself staring at her like a half-wit. A hundred questions crowded into his mind, most indelicate at best and outright indecent at worst. A beautiful woman like this, and a man who wasn’t really a man, but some alien creature in man-like form – the idea touched him with sexual warmth. He could smell the change in his scent, but fortunately she seemed oblivious to it.

‘Working the transformation killed him – well, I don’t know if killed is the right word,’ Dallandra went on. ‘It drained him of the powers that were keeping him from incarnating. That would be a better way of putting it.’

‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘I’m not sure I do, either.’ Dallandra smiled at him. ‘He had no physical body, only an etheric form that he’d ensouled. To be born, he had to remove that form, but he’d woven it so well, and he had so much power at his disposal, that it refused to unwind, as it were. Turning Rhodry into a dragon left him absolutely helpless, all that power spent, his own form destroyed. He could go on at last to cross the white river.’

‘I see.’ Laz turned his mind firmly back to questions of dweomer. ‘Speaking of incarnations, you mentioned having somewhat to tell me about mine.’

‘I certainly do, thanks to Rori. It turns out that dragons have a certain amount of instinctive dweomer. He remembers you quite clearly from the days when he was human, and in dragon form, he can recognize you.’

‘I’d suspected as much, but I’m glad to have the suspicion confirmed. What does he remember that’s so distressing? Distressing to me, I mean.’

‘Do you remember aught about your last life?’

‘Only a bit, that last battle in front of Cengarn, where Alshandra – well, died, or whatever it is Guardians do when they cease to exist. It’s all cloudy, but I think I was a Horsekin officer.’

‘You were there, certainly, but you were a Deverry lord with an isolated demesne just north of Cengarn. You’d gone over to the Horsekin side. They probably treated you like one of their officers.’

Laz winced. ‘Oh splendid! A traitor to my kind, was I? No wonder I’ve ended up a half-breed in this life! You’re quite right. That does distress me.’

‘Well, Rhodry thought it was your devotion to Alshandra that drove you to it.’

‘Worse and worse!’ He forced out a difficult smile. ‘Mayhap it’s just as well that Sidro left me. She’d gloat if she knew that.’

Dallandra nodded, and her expression turned sympathetic.

‘I have a vague memory of dying in battle,’ Laz went on, ‘so I suppose I got what I deserved.’

‘Your last fight was with Rhodry Aberwyn, a silver dagger. Um, here’s the odd part. Rhodry’s the man whom Evandar turned into the dragon.’

‘He killed me?’ Laz tossed his head back and laughed aloud. ‘No wonder he remembered me, eh? And wanted to do it again.’

It was Dallandra’s turn for the puzzled stare. The Ancients, Laz decided, weren’t as morbid as Deverry men and Gel da’Thae if she couldn’t see the humour in the situation.

‘Your name was Tren,’ Dallandra went on. ‘Another tale I heard has you killing a Gel da’Thae bard.’

Laz winced again. ‘That’s a heinous thing among my people,’ he said. ‘And among the Deverry folk, too, I think.’

‘One of the worst crimes under their laws, truly. I don’t know much else, because you were part of the Horsekin besiegers, and I was inside the city walls, so –’ Dalla paused abruptly. ‘Now, who’s that?’

Someone was calling her name as he came walking through the rustling long grass. Dallandra rose to her feet, and Laz followed, glancing around him. A man of the Westfolk was striding toward them; he paused, waved to Dallandra, and hurried over with the long grass rustling around him. Tall, slender, pale-haired and impossibly handsome like all the Westfolk men, he had cat-slit eyes of a deep purple, narrowing as he looked Laz over. Ah, Laz thought, the lover or husband, no doubt!

‘This is Calonderiel,’ Dallandra said, ‘our banadar, that is, our warleader.’

‘How do you do?’ Laz made him a small bow.

‘Well, my thanks.’ Calonderiel held out his hand to Dallandra. ‘Our daughter’s awake.’ The emphasis on the word “our” was unmistakable.

‘You’ll forgive me, Laz,’ Dalla said, ‘but I’ve got to go. We’ll continue this discussion later. I’d like to know what you think of Haen Marn, among other things.’

‘Therein is a tale and half, indeed. One quick thing, though,’ Laz said. ‘Little Wynni, is she well? As well as she can be, I mean.’

‘She’s deep in her mourning, but she’s young, and she’ll recover, sooner or later. Evan’s doing his best to cheer her a bit.’

‘He told me,’ Calonderiel put in, ‘that he was going to take her to meet her step-mother today.’

‘Step-mother?’ Laz hesitated, thinking, then grinned. ‘The black dragon, you mean?’

‘Just that.’

‘Well, I’ve heard women describe their step-mothers as dragons before, but this is the first time I’ve ever known it to be true.’

Calonderiel laughed, but Dallandra spun around to look back at the elven camp.

‘That could be dangerous,’ she said, then took off running, ploughing through the tall grass.

‘What?’ Laz said.

‘I don’t know.’ Calonderiel shrugged, then turned and trotted after Dallandra.

Laz set his hands on his hips and stood watching them go, cursing silently to himself in a mixture of Gel da’Thae and Deverrian. Warleader, is he? Doubtless he could slit my throat without half-thinking about it, and no one would say him nay.

All his life he’d heard about the fabled Ancients, but he’d never met any until the previous evening. Somehow he’d not expected them all to look so strange and yet so handsome at the same time. Despite her peculiar eyes and ears, Dallandra struck him as more beautiful than any woman he’d ever seen, certainly more glamorous than Sidro. Delicate yet powerful, he thought, that’s Dalla. And dangerous – the scent of dangerous knowledge hung about her like a perfume, or so he decided to think of it, the best perfume of all. What was that powerful opal, and who was this Nevyn? She’d been hinting about something. That he knew.

Laz walked back to his camp, which had returned to what semblance of order it had, the shabby, rectangular tents set up randomly, the men lounging on the ground or wandering aimlessly through scattered gear and unopened pack saddles. Beyond the camp their ungroomed horses grazed at tether. One of the men, one of Faharn’s recent recruits, laying snoring on his blankets. Laz kicked him awake.

‘Ye gods!’ Laz snarled. ‘Where’s Faharn? You lazy pack of dogs, this place looks like a farmyard, not a proper camp.’

‘Indeed?’ Krask scrambled up to face him. ‘Who do you think you are, a rakzan?’

Laz raised one hand and summoned blue fire. It gathered around his fingers and blazed, bright even in the sunlight. Krask stepped back fast.

‘No,’ Laz said. ‘Not a rakzan. Something much much worse.’

He flung the illusionary flames straight at Krask’s face. With a squall Krask ducked and went running. The other men watching burst out laughing. A few called insults after Krask’s retreating back, but they got to their feet fast enough when Laz turned toward them.

‘Get this place in order,’ Laz said. ‘Now!’

They hurried off to follow his command. Grumbling to himself, Laz ducked into the tent he shared with Faharn and which, apparently, his second-in-command had already organized. Their bedrolls were spread out on either side; their spare clothing, saddles, and the like were neatly stacked at the foot of each. Faharn himself, however, was elsewhere. Laz sat down on his own blankets and considered the problem of Sidro in the light of what he now knew about his last life.

She was a half-breed, just as he was, an object of scorn among the pure-blooded Gel da’Thae and their human slaves both, no matter how powerful the half-breed mach-fala and how weak the slave. Had she too betrayed her own kind, whichever kind that may have been, back in that other life? We must have been together, he thought. We must have some connection. It occurred to him that Dallandra might know. She might have told me if that lout hadn’t interrupted!

Although he’d not meant to scry, his longing brought him Sidro’s image, so clear that he knew it to be true vision and not a memory. She was kneeling beside a stream in the company of Westfolk women, laughing together, chatting as they washed clothes, their arms up to their elbows in soap and white linen. It suited her, this slave work, or so he tried to tell himself, with her plain face, so different from the elegant Dallandra’s, with those round little eyes and scruffy dark hair. She’d done him a favour, he decided, by leaving him. What would I want with her, anyway? An ugly mutt without any true power for sorcery!

Still, something seemed to have got into his eyes, dust from the camp, maybe, or smoke. Although he managed to stop himself from sobbing aloud, the traitor tears spilled and ran.

Toward noon Berwynna finally overcame her weariness enough to leave the refuge of the tent she shared with Uncle Mic. She emptied their chamber-pot into the latrine ditch at the edge of the encampment, rinsed it downstream, then returned it to the tent. For a few moments she stood just outside the entrance and looked around her. Talking among themselves the strangely long-eared Westfolk passed by. Many of them looked her way, smiled or ducked their heads in acknowledgment, but she could understand none of their words, leaving her no choice but to smile in return, then stay where she was.

Eventually someone she recognized came up to her, Ebañy the gerthddyn. When he hailed her in Deverrian, she could have wept for the relief of hearing something she could understand.

‘Good morrow, Uncle Ebañy,’ Berwynna said. ‘May I call you that?’

‘By all means, though most people in Deverry call me Salamander.’

‘I do like the fancy of calling you Uncle Salamander.’

‘Then please do so.’ He made her a bow. ‘My full name is Ebañy Salamonderiel tran Devaberiel, but I’m your uncle, sure enough.’

‘My father’s brother. Right?’

‘Right again, though we had different mothers. But can I turn myself into a dragon? Alas, I cannot.’

‘Mayhap that be just as well. No doubt one dragon be more than enough for a family.’

‘You have my heart-felt agreement on that. I can, however, turn myself into a magpie.’ The beginnings of a smile twitched at his mouth.

‘Be you teasing me?’ Berwynna crossed her arms over her chest.

‘Not in the least.’

‘Ah, then you be like Laz and the raven. A mazrak.’

‘Just so.’ Yet he looked disappointed, as if perhaps he’d expected her to be shocked or amazed.

‘That be a wonderful thing, truly,’ Berwynna went on. ‘Better than being stuck, like, in one shape or another, such as that sorcerer did to my da. Or be it so that a man can get himself trapped in some other form, all by himself, I do mean?’

‘He can, indeed, and frankly, I worry about Laz. Sidro’s mentioned that he often flies for days at a time.’

‘I ken not the truth of that, but I did see him fly every day, twice at times, when we were travelling.’

‘That’s far too often. Huh, I should have a word with him about it, a warning, like.’

‘Think you he’ll listen?’

‘Alas, I do not. Now, speaking of dragons, did you know that you have a step-mother and a step-sister of that scaly tribe?’

‘I didn’t! Ye gods, here I did think that dragons be only the fancies of priests and story-tellers, and now I do find that my own clan be full of them.’

‘Priests?’

‘Father Colm, the priest we did know back in Alban, did tell me once an old tale, that a dragon did eat a bishop – that be somewhat like a head priest, you see – but she did eat a bishop some miles to the south of where we did dwell. But I believed him not.’

‘I have the horrid feeling that this Colm might have been right.’ With a slight frown Salamander considered something for a moment, then shrugged the problem away. ‘Ah well, the dragons are sleeping the morning away in the sun, but when they wake, I’ll introduce you. In the meantime, Wynni, come with me, and let’s meet some of the ordinary folk.’

‘Ordinary’ was not a word that Berwynna would have applied to the Westfolk. With their cat-slit eyes and long, furled ears, they fitted Father Colm’s descriptions of devils, yet she saw them doing the same daily things that the people of her old world did: cooking food, mending clothes, tending their children. They greeted her pleasantly, and some even spoke the language she now knew as Deverrian. Several woman told her how sorry they were that she’d lost her betrothed. Not devils at all, she thought. Most likely Father Colm never actually knew any of them.

One odd thing, though, did give her pause. Now and then she saw a person talking to what appeared to be empty air. Once a woman carrying a jug of water tripped, spilling the lot. After she picked herself up, she set her hands on her hips and swore at nothing, or at least, at a spot on the ground that seemed to contain nothing. Another person, a young man, suddenly burst out of a tent and chased – something. Berwynna got a glimpse of an arrow travelling through the air, but close to the ground and oddly slowly. With what sounded like mighty oaths, the man caught up, snatched it from the air, and aimed a kick at an empty spot near where he’d claimed the arrow.

‘Uncle Salamander?’ she said, pointing. ‘What does he talk to?’

‘Hmm? Just one of the Wildfolk.’

‘Oh, now you be teasing me.’

‘You don’t see the Wildfolk?’ Salamander spoke in a perfectly serious tone. ‘I would have thought you could.’

Wynni hesitated on the edge of annoyance. With a smile he patted her on the arm.

‘Don’t let it trouble your heart,’ Salamander said. ‘Ah, there’s Branna. Let me introduce you.’

Branna turned out to be a human lass, blonde, pretty, and about Wynni’s own age – a relief, she realized, after all the strange-looking folk she’d seen and met. She also spoke the language that Wynni had come to think of as Deverrian, another relief.

‘Dalla told me that you’d lost your man,’ Branna said. ‘My heart aches for you.’

‘My thanks.’ Wynni managed to keep her voice steady. ‘I’ll be missing him always.’

‘Well, now,’ Salamander said. ‘I have hopes that in a while you’ll –’

‘Oh, please don’t try to make light of it,’ Branna interrupted him. ‘It sounds so condescending.’

Salamander winced and muttered an apology. Wynni decided that she liked Branna immensely, even though it surprised her to see her uncle defer to one so young.

Branna accompanied them as they continued their stroll through the camp. As they walked between a pair of tents, they came face-to-face with a small child, perhaps four years old, who held a small green snake in both hands. The child ignored them, and Branna and Salamander turned to go back the way they’d come. Wynni lingered, watching the child, who had eyes as green as the snake and slit the same vertical way. She was assuming that the snake was a pet, but the little lad calmly pinched its head between thumb and forefinger of one hand, then twisted the creature’s body so sharply with the other that it broke the snake’s neck and killed it. Wynni yelped and stepped back as the child bit into the snake’s body. Blood ran down his chin as he spat out bits of green skin.

Salamander touched Wynni’s arm from behind. ‘Come back this way,’ he said. ‘That’s one of our changelings, and he won’t move for you.’

A changeling, Wynni assumed, must be the same thing as a halfwit. She followed Salamander out of the narrow passage, but she glanced back to see the child still eating the snake raw.

‘My apologies,’ she said. ‘He just took me by surprise.’

‘No doubt,’ Branna said. ‘We never know what they’ll do.’

When they reached the last tent, Berwynna looked out into the open country and saw dragons lounging in the grass. She stopped with a little gasp and stared at them, the enormous black dragon, her glimmering scales touched here and there with copper and a coppery green, and the smaller wyrm, her scales the dark green of pine needles, glinting with gold along her jaw and underbelly.

‘They be so beautiful,’ Berwynna said. ‘How I wish my sister Avain were here to see them! She does love all things dragonish so deeply.’

‘Well, if the gods allow,’ Salamander said, ‘mayhap one day she will. Now, the black dragon is Arzosah, your father’s second, well, wife I suppose she is. The smaller is Medea, a step-sister.’

As the three of them started toward the dragons, Wynni heard Dallandra calling from behind them, though she couldn’t understand her words. She glanced back to see the dweomermaster running after them, waving her arms.

‘She wants us to stop,’ Branna said.

The three of them waited for Dallandra to catch up.

‘Let me go ahead,’ Dalla told them. ‘I want to make sure that Arzosah’s in a good mood. One never knows with dragons, and she’s very jealous of your mother, Wynni.’

Dallandra strode off through the grass to join the dragons. Arzosah lifted her massive head, and Medea sat up, curling her long green and gold tail around her front paws like a giant cat. Although they were too far away for Berwynna to hear their conversation, she could see the results. At first Arzosah listened carefully, then suddenly threw back her head and roared. Dallandra set her hands on her hips and yelled right back.

‘Oh joy,’ Salamander said. ‘It’s a good thing Dalla did go ahead, it seems.’

While the black dragon and the dweomermaster argued, the green and gold dragon waddled toward Berwynna and Salamander. Although Father Colm had always said that dragons were the absolute peak and zenith of evil, Berwynna had lost her faith in the priest’s sayings, but she had to admit that her heart began to beat faster and harder. Salamander went tense, then stepped in front of Berwynna, but the dragon ducked her head and let out a quiet rumbling sound, a dragonish equivalent of a smile.

‘Greetings, step-sister!’ she said. ‘My for-sharing name is Medea, and I assure you that I don’t bear you the least ill will.’

‘My thanks.’ Berwynna curtsied to her. ‘I do feel a great fear upon me of your mother.’

‘No need.’ The dragon rumbled a bit more loudly. ‘She agreed right away to never harm you. They’re arguing about somewhat else, the spirit named Evandar.’

‘Ah.’ Salamander sounded greatly relieved. ‘They argue about him constantly, so we may rest assured that all is normal and summery in life.’

‘Very true.’ The dragon paused for a yawn that revealed teeth like long dagger blades. ‘My apologies. These warm days make me sleepy. Anyway, so you’re my step-father’s hatchling?’

‘I am, and I do have a twin sister back home. Her name be Mara.’

‘So I have two step-sisters.’ Medea seemed honestly delighted with the news. ‘And you have another step-sister and a brother back home in our fire mountain.’

‘Oh, that be splendid!’ Berwynna said. ‘We were so lonely, you see, on our island, but now we do have a clan. What be your father like?’

‘Alas, he’s no longer with us. The wretched Horsekin slew him.’

‘That aches my heart. They did kill my betrothed as well.’

Medea stretched out her neck and gave Berwynna a gentle nudge of sympathy. ‘So sad!’ the dragon said. ‘To lose someone so young! Now, our father was old and ill. That’s the only reason those horrible bastards of Horsekin could capture him.’

‘Were your da a fair bit older than your mam, then?’

‘Truly he was. At least a thousand years older, maybe more.’

‘Ai! You live so long a time!’

‘We do, at that. But Papa was so ill that he wanted to bathe in a hot spring near our lair. When he didn’t come home, Mama left me to watch my younger hatchling while she went off to find him.’ Medea hissed as if she were remembering the day. ‘Papa never came home. The Horsekin slew him while he tried to get free of the spring, and then they gloated about it.’

‘Did your mother kill them for it?’

‘As many as she could catch, truly. They couldn’t harm her. I can’t imagine anyone capturing Mama.’

‘No more can I. She be magnificent.’

‘I’ll tell her you said so. She’ll like that.’

Medea turned around and waddled off, heading back to her mother, who was still in full argument with a furious Dallandra. Salamander sighed and shook his head.

‘They can go on like that for half a day.’ He waved a hand toward the pair.

‘Truly,’ Branna said. ‘I think we’d best go back to camp.’

‘Indeed,’ Salamander said. ‘Wynni, I’ll introduce you later.’

By the time she finished talking with Arzosah, Dallandra’s mood had turned foul. It seemed to her that all of her female friends, whether Westfolk or Wyrmish, were taking entirely too much pleasure in telling her their low opinions of Evandar. She stalked back to camp to find Calonderiel waiting for her.

‘Where’s Dari?’ she snapped.

‘Sidro put her down for a nap in our tent,’ Cal said. ‘I want to talk with you, beloved. I don’t want you going off alone with that Laz fellow. If you don’t want me to go with you, take some of the men. He’s not trustworthy.’

Dallandra sighed, considering him as he stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes narrow. Arguing with him in one of his jealous moods would only waste a long valuable part of the day.

‘Very well,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask Ebañy to go over and finish our talk.’ She glanced around and saw him standing nearby with Branna and Berwynna. ‘Ah, there he is now.’

‘That’ll be much better.’ Cal grinned at her. ‘And my thanks.’

Salamander left Berwynna in Branna’s care, then went to his tent with Dallandra. She stood watching while he took the black crystal from his saddlebags, then repeated his instructions all over again.

‘But don’t talk to him about Alastyr,’ Dallandra finished up. ‘I don’t want to awaken any memories of dark dweomer.’

‘The temptation to use it might be too great, you mean?’

‘Just that. Sidro told me about their teacher back in Taenbalapan. Ych! A truly loathsome dark dweomer refugee from Bardek, back when the cities were breaking the power of the dark guilds. Apparently he escaped the archon who was trying to hang him and managed to take ship for Cerrmor. How he made his way north Sidro didn’t know. I’ll wager that Laz learned plenty of dubious things from him.’

‘Very well, then.’ Salamander made her a bob of a bow. ‘My lips are sealed with the wax of circumspection and the signet of prudence.’

As he walked over to Laz’s camp, Salamander called up from his memory what he knew about Alastyr, whom he’d seen in the flesh only briefly, when he was a very young child and Alastyr a young lad who went by the nick-name of Tirro. Salamander had been gone from the camp when a fully-grown Alastyr had helped Loddlaen murder Valandario’s lover, but he’d of course heard the tale. Many years later he’d helped Nevyn track down an utterly corrupt Alastyr, who preyed upon young children of both sexes not merely for pleasure but also to drain their life force for his evil dweomer workings. Although Salamander had never actually seen the dark dweomermaster Tirro had become, Nevyn had told him the tale in some detail. A thoroughly loathsome soul, that Alastyr, Salamander thought.

And yet, when he sat down with Laz to discuss the black crystal, Salamander found him no fiend. Berwynna had told him how Laz had risked his own life to save the caravan. Laz seemed concerned about her, asking Salamander how she and her uncle fared, expressing sincere sorrow over the death of her betrothed and the deaths of the other men as well.

‘But in the end,’ Laz said at last, ‘death takes us all, and life on the caravan road is generally short.’

‘True enough, and alas,’ Salamander said.

They shared a brief silence in the memory of the slain. Salamander took the chance to study Laz’s aura, a strangely mottled swirl of purple and green. Laz, he supposed, was doing the same to his.

‘I see you’ve brought that black crystal with you,’ Laz said eventually. ‘Do you know somewhat about it? Dalla mentioned that I’d owned it in a former life.’

Salamander had sudden thoughts of doing Dallandra bodily harm. How was he supposed to gain Laz’s trust by telling him the truth but never mention Alastyr? Fortunately Laz misread his silence.

‘I take it you don’t know,’ Laz said.

‘Well,’ Salamander found a dodge just true enough to pass muster. ‘Dallandra doesn’t like to tell tales of other people’s past incarnations unless they’ve told her she may.’

‘Very honourable of her, then.’

‘I do know a bit about the crystal, though. Whenever I look into it, I see the same vision, of Evandar standing on the pier at Haen Marn.’

Laz mugged shock. ‘Evandar again? Very strange!’

‘Even stranger,’ Salamander went on, ‘is this. I’ve never been to Haen Marn, and yet in the crystal, I’m apparently scrying it out. What have you seen in it?’

‘Only the location of the white crystal, which is, unfortunately, now at the bottom of Haen Marn’s lake. They’re linked in some way, but I have no idea of how.’

‘Have you ever thought of using it to scry for the dragon book?’

‘I haven’t, but that’s a good idea.’

When Salamander held out the crystal, Laz took it in both of his maimed hands, using them like a pair of tongs to set it down on the ground in front of him. He leaned over and stared down through the squarecut tip. After some little while he swore with a shake of his head.

‘When I think of the book,’ Laz said, ‘the interior of the crystal changes to a thick black darkness. I suspect I’m seeing the inside of Wynni’s saddlebags.’

‘Not very helpful, then.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. I felt my mind touch those spirits attached to the book. I have no idea, though, if they knew it did.’

‘They might have. If they’re spirits of Aethyr, they’re more highly developed than most. I suspect that this crystal and its brother are attuned to Aethyr, too. May I ask you where you came upon the white one?’

‘In the ruins of Rinbaladelan.’ Laz grinned, a gesture sharp as a knife-edge, as if he were expecting a reaction.

Salamander saw no reason to deny him. He whistled under his breath in sheer surprise.

‘I went there on a whim,’ Laz continued, ‘just to see what I could see, which wasn’t much. The city’s been taken back by the forest. The walls are split, the streets crumbled, the towers fallen, and over everything grows trees and ivy and the like. I was poking around, pulling off a vine here, a cluster of weeds there, and along one wall I poked too hard. It started to collapse, and when the dust cleared, lo! I saw the remains of a wooden casket. Inside was the white crystal.’

‘You found it just like that?’ Salamander said. ‘By chance?’

‘Not chance.’ Laz frowned, remembering. ‘Someone or something had left a trail. Some of the underbrush was cleared away or trampled down, so it was easier to walk up to that particular wall. And the casket itself looked big enough to hold a pair of crystals, but only one remained.’

‘I think we can guess who made that trail.’

‘Evandar?’

‘So I suspect. Very well, you found the crystal he left for you –’

‘Oh ye gods!’ Laz stared, the grin gone. ‘How would he have known I was going to go there?’

‘From what Dalla’s told me,’ Salamander said, ‘Evandar knew a great many things about the future. Unfortunately, they were all small details, mere glances, glimpses, and flashes of things to come, like lines snatched randomly from a long poem. So he saw naught wrong with trying to arrange those fragments into the tale he wanted told. I’d wager high that he saw someone finding that crystal. Whether or not he saw you in particular, who knows?’

‘Very well, then.’ Laz’s grin came back, but as brittle as glass. ‘And here I thought I was being so clever!’

‘Evandar played a great many tricks on a great many clever people. Don’t let it trouble your heart.’

For some while they discussed the crystal and the dragon book, until Salamander felt he knew everything Laz had learned about them – not that such amounted to a great deal. Laz, however, seemed pleased with their talk. When Salamander stood up to leave, Laz joined him and invited him to come back whenever he wanted.

‘It’s a relief to find people who’ll talk openly of dweomer matters,’ Laz told him.

‘No doubt, after being surrounded by Alshandra’s believers.’

Laz laughed and agreed.

When Salamander left the camp, two of the men followed him, both pure Gel da’Thae from the look of their long black hair, braided with charms, and the brightly coloured tattoos on their milk-white skin. His heart pounded briefly in fear, but they bowed to him, then knelt at his feet.

‘Big sir,’ one of them said in a language that was more or less Deverrian. ‘I speak little words, but we –’ he paused to gesture at the other man’ – now want leave Laz. Go with Drav. We ask, safe?’

‘It is. The prince has taken Drav into his service.’

The man stared at him in desperation. Salamander tried again.

‘Safe,’ he said. ‘Come see Drav with me.’

At that they both smiled.

As they followed him back to the Westfolk tents, Salamander saw Grallezar and hailed her. She took these new recruits to Drav while Salamander sought out Dallandra to give her his report.

‘Laz thinks the spirits of the book may be aware of his mind trying to reach them, but he couldn’t be sure,’ Salamander finished up. ‘And they wouldn’t know if he were a friend or an enemy.’

‘That’s very much too bad,’ Dallandra said. ‘I keep wishing I’d seen the wretched thing myself.’

‘Me, too. You know, it’s an odd thing about Laz. Is Rori truly sure he knew this soul as Alastyr?’

‘Well, he’s told me so a couple of times now. Why?’

‘He doesn’t seem as horrible as he should.’ Salamander shrugged with an embarrassed laugh. ‘I suppose that’s what I mean.’

‘You know, some people do learn from their lives. It’s one of the things that keeps my faith in the Light strong, actually, that some people really do see the evil they’ve done and do their best to redeem themselves. The opportunity’s offered to every soul in the Halls of Light.’

‘Of course.’

‘You sound doubtful.’ Dallandra cocked her head to one side and considered him.

‘In a way I suppose I am. I’ve never had grand memories of my past lives, you know. I assume I must have had some, but without actual memories, the assumption’s – well – bloodless.’

‘You should talk less and meditate more.’

‘Why am I not surprised you said that?’

When he grinned at her, she scowled at him, then softened and returned the smile. Still, he told himself, she’s right, you know – you should.

‘Besides,’ Dallandra continued, ‘Laz also had that miserable life without a shred of dweomer in it, where he was nothing but a renegade Deverry lordling, and I think he truly learned something from that, too.’

‘Which reminds me. Laz said you told him that he owned the crystal in a former life. He certainly did – as Alastyr.’

‘Yes, I know, that was a nasty slip on my part. I’ll have to think of a way to tell him without evoking that life in his mind.’

‘Good luck! Better you than I.’ Salamander hefted the crystal. ‘Shall I give this to Valandario?’

‘By all means. It rightfully belongs to her.’

Valandario was sitting in her tent, studying an array of her scrying gems, when Salamander called to her from outside.

‘Oh esteemed teacher, may I enter?’

‘Yes, certainly.’

Salamander ducked under the tent flap and came in, carrying something wrapped in what looked like an old shirt. Val smiled at him, then began picking up the gems and putting them back into their pouch. He hunkered down and waited until she’d finished.

‘I brought this back to you.’ Salamander laid the bundle down in front of her. ‘It’s the black crystal. I know you asked me to smash it, but it occurred to me that you might enjoy doing it yourself.’

‘Most likely I will,’ Val said. ‘My thanks.’

She unrolled the wrapping – indeed, an old shirt – and set the crystal down on the tent cloth between them. At the moment it appeared so ordinary, just a carved bit of obsidian, that she wondered if it were the correct crystal. Salamander supplied the evidence without being asked.

‘Every time I look into it,’ he said, ‘I see Haen Marn and Evandar.’

‘That seems to be its one power,’ Val said. ‘I wonder why Loddlaen wanted it so badly.’

‘Doubtless he didn’t know how limited it is, and besides, he was fetching it for the man called Alastyr.’

Val nodded. She was remembering Jav, laughing at some jest as they walked together down by the ocean. With a shake of her head, she banished the memory.

‘Well, what to do with it?’ Val said briskly. ‘I’d enjoy smashing it to bits, certainly, but since we don’t truly understand this bit of work, I’m hesitant. Besides, it doesn’t seem evil to me, now that I look at it.’

‘Was the crystal evil, or was it the lust for the crystal that brought the evil?’

‘A very good point.’ With a sigh Val wrapped the black stone up again in the shirt. ‘Well, I’ll keep it for a few days at least, to study its emanations. Evandar’s little gifts – by the Black Sun, how much trouble they’ve caused! The rose ring, this crystal, and now that wretched book.’

Some words they had, for dealing with those, either spiritfolk or flesh-folk, who knew Elvish words, but among themselves, the spirits of the dragon book used shape and colour to convey what thoughts they needed to share. Some leapt up in long iceblue lines, others agreed in a dim blue glow: danger, terrible danger, despite the smothering dark around the book they guarded.

Evandar, where is Evandar? They asked each other repeatedly by creating images of his various shapes, flashing like lightning in the dark. They summoned their lords and petitioned them. They brazenly asked their king, when at last he deigned to notice them. Where is the spirit known as Evandar?

Answers never came. No one knew.

‘You know, it’s odd,’ Branna said, ‘but I keep thinking about the dragon book. I wonder if we’ll ever find it?’

‘I do hope so,’ Grallezar said. ‘Without it, I doubt me we can ever turn the silver wyrm back into his true form.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that, too. Since dragons have some kind of instinct for dweomer, couldn’t we just teach him how to transform himself?’

‘After many a long year, mayhap. And mayhap the turning would fail and kill him, too.’ Grallezar sucked a thoughtful fang. ‘Did Dalla ever tell you how Evandar worked the dweomer?’

‘She did. He made some kind of dragon-shaped mould out of astral substance and wound it round Rhodry. Then the physical matter poured into it.’

‘Just so. And here be the crux of the thing. The turning itself may well be simple enough, once we find the key. But what then do we do with the astral substance that did make the mould? It be heavily charged with dweomer – twice so charged, once we free it from the man inside. I doubt me if a simple touch of a pentagram will turn it harmless and send it on its way.’

‘Oh. I’d not thought of that.’

‘The problem be a bit much for an apprentice, truly. I know you be eager to help with this working, but dealing with that dragon simulacrum had best be left to me and Dalla. Other work will come your way.’

‘Very well, then. Of course I’ll do as you say.’

Grallezar smiled briefly. ‘It gladdens my heart to see you listen to your master in the craft.’

‘Well, after what nearly happened to Neb –’

‘Indeed. At least some good did come of it, since you did take the lesson to heart.’

‘I have. I promise. But it’s a bit more than just my wanting to help with the working when it comes. I feel like I have to do this for some reason I don’t understand. I mean, I know Jill wanted to spare him this wyrd, but it seems like there’s more to it than that.’

‘Indeed?’ Grallezar paused to study her face for a moment. ‘That be a good theme for your meditations, then. See what symbols rise around your thoughts, and we shall discuss them.’

‘Well and good. I’ll do that.’ She paused, glancing to one side, where she’d seen a flash of movement. Her grey gnome had appeared. He sat down cross-legged, imitating her, and began picking his nose. When she shook a finger at him, he vanished. Grallezar rolled her eyes at his antics, but she was smiling.

‘Now it be time to stop thinking of dragons and the like,’ Grallezar said. ‘Let me hear you recite the true names of the spirit lords of each sphere.’

With a sigh, Branna began the lesson. Thinking about the silver wyrm held a great deal more interest than all the memorization that dweomer entails, but she knew that the one was the key to the other.

Dallandra, however, cut that particular lesson short. Branna heard her calling Grallezar’s name in a voice brimming with excitement. With a sigh Grallezar got up and stuck her head out.

‘I don’t mean to interrupt,’ Dallandra was saying, ‘but –’

‘Do come in,’ Grallezar said. ‘Being as you’ve interrupted already.’

When Dallandra ducked under the tent flap and came in, she was smiling, her eyes gleaming with delight.

‘And what be all this?’ Grallezar said.

‘I’ve just had a talk with Laz,’ Dallandra said. ‘He’s told me about the true nature of Haen Marn, so my apologies –’

‘The interruption, it be as naught.’ Grallezar pointed at a cushion. ‘Sit you down and tell.’

‘I shall do exactly that.’ Dallandra flung her arms into the air and danced a few steps. ‘It bears on the dragon book, too. Neither of them really exist.’

‘Hah!’ Grallezar said. ‘So we did wonder.’ She glanced at Branna and laughed. ‘You do look dumbfounded utterly.’

‘I am,’ Branna said. ‘Or do you mean, they don’t exist on the physical plane like ordinary matter?’

‘Just that.’ Dallandra sat down on a cushion. ‘You learn fast.’

After he spent some futile days searching for Berwynna’s lost mule and the book it carried, Rori took a round-about route back to the royal alar. On his previous scouting trips, he’d seen parties of Horsekin raiders on the move. Somewhere they had to have a central force, most likely one that was travelling toward the new fort he’d seen a-building. The logical starting point for this central army lay near Taenbalapan and Braemel. Braemel, Bravelmelim as it was known in the old days, lay more west than north. He passed over fields and pastures tucked into the mountain valleys and terraces, green with crops, that climbed the lower hills like steps. Now and then he saw flocks of sheep as well as cows grazing in the mountain meadows. That first night he picked off a cow, in fact, for his dinner and found her fat and tasty.

In the morning he reached Braemel, a prosperous-looking place lying in a broad valley, a semi-circle of houses set along straight streets, with the river along one edge of the town and good stone walls surrounding it on the other three sides. A straggle of huts stood outside the west gate, but when he flew low enough, he could see that they were guard stations and barracks. His shadow, vast in the morning sun, swept across the road like an omen. Shouting, soldiers ran out to watch him as he spiralled higher, well out of arrow range, and flew on.

Tanbalapalim, to give it its ancient name, lay spread across three hills. A river cut through the town, entering and leaving through breaches in the outer walls. In the old days, two graceful bridges made of stone overlaid with different colours of marble had arched over the smooth-flowing water like twin rainbows. Although stubby stone piers still jutted from the river banks, the bands of marble had been scavenged for other projects. The Gel da’Thae had built new bridges of wood reinforced here and there with plain stone.

When Rori flew over the town, he saw only one wooden bridge still whole and the other, burned down to the water line. Fire had swept through the eastern sectors, leaving nothing standing but the occasional blackened stone wall. Ashes covered the ground in sweeps of grey. Had there been riots, he wondered, when the Gel da’Thae realized that their new Horsekin neighbours had taken control of their city? The western half still stood, but as he circled far above it, he saw only a few people moving in the streets.

Not far south of Tanbalapalim, Rori found what he’d been looking for. An army marched down the road beside the river, several thousand men by his rough estimate, more than half of them riders, the rest spearmen. Behind them trailed a long supply train, and small boats glided beside them on the slow-flowing river. He circled them several times to study, then headed for the mountains to the west. At a mountain pass above Braemel lay another ancient site. On the off-chance that the Horsekin had decided to occupy it as well, Rori flew there, only to find it deserted.

As he drifted on the wind high above it, Rori saw why the ancestors of the Westfolk had named it Garanbeltangim, the ‘Reaching Mountain’. Ancient layers and slabs of rock make up the Western Mountains, all twisted and folded, heaved out of the earth by some colossal cataclysm, perhaps, then washed bare by millennia of rain and snow. The old tales of giants may be true, that in their final war they threw huge rocks and slabs at one another and in the process built the peaks of the far west. Be that as it may, the highest peak of all is Garangvah, to give it its modern name. Like hands three huge slabs of sea-stone reach up to the sky and form a semi-circle around the high terraces that once held Ranadar’s fortress.

The Hordes from the north never conquered Garangvah, though they did take over the lower slopes and the farms that had previously supported Ranadar and his men. For an entire year the fortress held out, living on its stores, until the last grain of wheat, the last fleck of cheese rind, and the last mouse and rat had been eaten. Just when starvation threatened the defeat that the Horsekin couldn’t deliver, the Horde broke the siege and fled. Their look-outs had spotted a relieving force headed their way.

While the rescuers did bring food, they also brought the worst news of all, that Rinbaladelan had fallen, and the Vale of Roses lay destroyed, covered in ashes and cinders. Ranadar was king of precisely nothing worth ruling. Revenge alone remained to him. For its sake, he left the Reaching Mountain, and he never returned. The limestone slabs continued to cast their shadows over the palaces and walls, the storehouses and the towers, the outbuildings and alleyways. The roofs fell in with time and the snows. Mosses, the sparse mountain grass, and a scattering of twisted, stunted trees pried apart the fine paving stones of the courtyards.

By the time that Rori flew over Garangvah, the palaces and outbuildings had worn down to mere stubs of walls and heaps of rubble. The wind had blown soil over them, and grass had sprouted. A few small trees stood upon them. Doubtless their roots would soon destroy whatever fragments of splendour still lay hidden.

The stone outer walls, however, stood strong. Although they’d been built without mortar, the masons had shaped and fitted each stone to those below and beside it so carefully, so tightly, that the walls had survived for a thousand years and more. Rori circled overhead, looking for Horsekin, but saw no sign of occupation except for some ancient nests, probably built by eagles, in the towers. A few foxes darted across the ruined courtyard to their burrows in the palace mound to hide from the silver apparition in their sky.

Since Rori had flown all day, he needed immediate rest. He found a place on the outer wall where the stonework looked as if it could support his weight. He landed cautiously, wings akimbo, ready to leap skyward should the wall crumble under him, then settled when it held. From his perch he could see down the slopes to the hazy landscape below, a thing of patchy grass and tumbled rock where once had lain fertile terraces.

In his mind, however, his dragon mind with its long link into the past, he could see much further. He found himself remembering the long slope of another hill, covered with brush and boulders, choked with dust in the late summer heat. That hill was far to the north, he thought, farther even than I realized at the time, not that the distance mattered, in the end.