Читать книгу A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr - Страница 9

In the cold grey morning, when the mists rose from the surface of Loc Tamig, one could understand why the local farmers thought it haunted. All Aderyn could see of the lake surface was a few patches of rippled water, broken by a drowned tree and four steel-grey rocks, while on the far shore the pine-black mountains rose up in peaks and shadows. The sound of a hundred waterfalls chattered and murmured through the mists like spirit voices. At the moment, though, Aderyn was more worried about the coming rain than possible ghosts. He was, of course, still a young man then, with his hair a nondescript brown and always hanging in an untidy lock over his forehead rather than swept up in the owl-shape it would later assume, and he was even skinnier, too, because half the time he forgot to eat when he was deep in his dweomer studies. That particular morning he was down on his knees in the tall spring grass, digging up valerian roots with a small silver spade.

Wildfolk clustered round to watch him work – two small grey gnomes, skinny and long-nosed, three blue-green sprites with pointed teeth and pretty faces. Just like children they crowded close, pointed mute questions, and generally got in the way. Aderyn named everything they pointed at and worked fast with one eye on the lowering clouds. Just as he was finishing, a gnome picked up a clod and threw it at his fellow. Snarling and baring his teeth, the sprites joined in a full-scale dirt fight.

‘Stop it! Your great lords would find this most discourteous!’

One sprite pinched him on the arm. All the Wildfolk vanished with little puffs of air and dust and a gust of smell like clean leaf-mould. Aderyn gathered up his things and ran for shelter in the spattering rain. Down among a stand of trees was the round stone hut he shared with his master in the dweomercraft. Two years before, he and Nevyn had built the hut with their own hands and made a small stable for their horses and mules. At the back was their garden, where practical food such as beans and cabbages grew as well as exotic cultivated herbs, and a flock of chickens had their own little house. Most of their food, though, came from the farming villages at the north end of the lake, where the local people were glad to trade supplies for medicine.

When Aderyn dashed into the single round room, he found Nevyn, sitting by the fire-circle in the centre and watching the play of flame. A tall man, with a thick thatch of white hair and deep-set blue eyes, Nevyn was close to a hundred years old, but he had more vigour than most men of twenty, a striding walk and the erect carriage of the great prince of the realm that once he had been.

‘Back just in time, you are. Here comes the storm.’

A gust of wind eddied smoke through the draughty hut as the drops began pattering on the roof. Nevyn got up and helped Aderyn lay the valerian to dry on clean cloths. The roots had to be sliced thin with a small silver knife, a nose-wrinkling smell, and they had to wear fine leather gloves, too, lest the strong juices poison them.

‘Nevyn? Will we be leaving Loc Tamig soon?’

‘You will.’

Aderyn sat back on his heels and stared at him.

‘It’s time for you to go off on your own. I’ve taught you all I know, and your Wyrd runs different from mine.’

Even though he’d always known this day would come, Aderyn felt close to tears. Nevyn laid down one last slice of root and turned to look at him, his piercing blue eyes unusually gentle.

‘It’ll ache my heart to see you go. I’ll miss you, lad. But it’s time. You’ve reached the third nine of your years now, and that age marks a turning-point for everybody. Come now, you know it, too. You’ve got your herbcraft to feed and clothe yourself, and I’ve opened the gates of the dweomer for you as far as I can. Now you have to walk through those gates and take up your own Wyrd.’

‘But what will my Wyrd be?’

‘Oh, that’s not for me to say. No man can see another’s Wyrd. You have the keys to open that door. It’s time for you to work a ritual and use them. The Lords of Wyrd will reveal what you need to know – and not a jot more, doubtless.’

On the morrow, when the rain stopped, Nevyn took his horse and two pack-mules and rode off to the villages to buy food. He told Aderyn that he would stay away three days to leave him alone for the working, but as to what that working would be, he said nothing at all. Only then did the apprentice realize that the most important moment of his life was strictly in his own hands. He would have to draw on all his knowledge and practice to devise a ritual that would open his Wyrd and put him in contact, at least for a few brief moments, with his secret and undying soul, the true core of his being that had invented and formed the young man known as Aderyn for this lifetime the way a potter takes clay and makes a bowl. As he stood in the doorway and watched Nevyn ride away, Aderyn felt a panic tinged with excitement, an exultation touched with dread. It was time, and he felt ready.

That first day, Aderyn did his usual chores in the garden and hut, but he kept thinking about the task ahead. He had at his disposal a vast amount of ritual lore – tables of correspondence, salutations to the gods, invocations and mighty calls to the spirit world, signs, sigils, and gestures to set in motion streams of force and direct inner energies. In his excitement, his first thought was to use them all, or at least, as many as possible, to create a ritual that would sum up and climax all rituals, as elaborately decorated, braided, laced and spiralled as a beautiful brooch fit to give a king. While he weeded cabbages, his mind raced this way and that, adding a symbol here, a prayer there, trying to fit twenty years of work into a single mighty pattern. All at once he saw the irony: here he was, grubbing in the dirt like a bondsman and making grandiose plans. He laughed aloud and contemplated his mud-stained fingers, calloused with years of menial work such as this. The Great Ones had always accepted his humble status and lowly sacrifices before. No doubt a simple ritual would be best now. With the insight came a feeling of peace, because he’d passed the first test.

But just as with a simple meal or a simple garden, every element would have to be perfect of its kind and perfectly placed. The second day, Aderyn worked furiously all morning to finish his chores by noon. He ate a light meal, then went outside to sit under a willow tree by the shore of the lake, sparkling in the soft spring sun. On the far shore, the stony hard mountains rose dark against a blue sky. He looked at them and thought over his lore, rigorously pruning instead of proliferating it. A simple approach to a central symbol – he looked at the peaks and smiled to himself. For the rest of the day he practised every word and gesture he would use, mixing up the order so no true power would run through them. In the evening, by firelight, he prepared his magical weapons – the wand, cup, dagger, and pentacle that he had made and consecrated years before. He polished each one, then performed the simple rituals of consecration again to renew their power.

On the third day, he was quiet as he went through his work. His mind seemed as still as a deep-running river, only rarely disturbed by what most men would call a thought. Yet in his heart, he renewed, over and over, the basic vows that open the secret of the dweomer: I want to know to help the world. He was remembering many things, sick children he’d helped heal children who had died because they were beyond the help from herbs, bent-back farmers who’d seen the best of their harvests taken by noble lords, the noble lords themselves, whose greed and power-lusts had driven them like spurs and made them suffer, though they called the suffering glory. Someday, far in the future, at the end of the ages of ages, all this darkness would be transmuted into light. Until that end, he would fight the darkness where he found it. The first place he would always find darkness would be in his own soul. Until the light shone there, he could do little to help other souls. For the sake of that help, he begged for the light.

At sunset, he put his magical weapons in a plain cloth sack and set off for the shore of the lake. In the twilight, he made his place of working, not a rich temple glittering with golden signs and perfumed with incenses, but a stretch of grassy ground. He used the dagger to cut a circle deosil into the turf, then laid his cloth sack down for an altar in the middle. On the sack he laid the dagger, the wand and the pentacle, then took the cup and filled it with lake water. He set the cup down among the other objects and knelt in front of the sack to face the mountains. Slowly the twilight deepened, then faded as the first few stars came out, only to fade in turn as the full moon rose, bloated and huge on a misty horizon. Aderyn sat back on his heels and raised his hands, palms flat upward, about shoulder high. As he concentrated his will, it seemed the moonlight streamed to him, tangible light for building. He thrust his hands forward and saw to the east of his rough altar two great pillars of light, one all pure moon-silver, the other as dark as black fire shining in the star-strewn night. When he lowered his hands, the pillars lived apart from his will. The temple was open.

One at a time, he picked up each weapon, the dagger for the east, the wand for the south, the cup for the west, and the pentacle for the north, and used it to trace at each cardinal point of the circle a five-pointed star. Above and below him he finished the sphere, using his human mind alone to trace the last two stars, the reconcilers of the others. When he knelt upon the ground, he saw the temple glowing with power beyond his ability to call it forth. The Lords of Light were coming to meet him. Aderyn rose and raised his hands to the east between the pillars. Utterly calm, his mind as sharp as the dagger’s point and deep as the cup, he made light gather above him, then felt and saw it descend, piercing him through like an arrow and rooting itself in the ground. His arms flung out as he felt the cross-shaft pierce him from side to side. It seemed he grew huge, towering through the universe, his head among the stars, his feet on a tiny whirling sphere of earth far below, enormous, exalted, but helpless, pinned to the cross of light, unmoving and spraddled, at the mercy of the Great Ones.

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.

‘Why do you want knowledge?’

‘Only to serve. For myself, naught.’

With a rush like cold wind, with a dizzying spin and fall, he felt himself shrink back until he stood on the damp grass and saw the temple around him, the pillars glowing, the magical weapons streaming borrowed light, the great pentangles pulsing at their stations. He nearly fell to his knees, but he steadied himself and raised his hands in front of him. In his mind he built up the vision between the pillars – a high mountain, covered with dark trees and streaked with pale rock under a sunswept sky – until it lived apart from his mind and hung there like a painted screen. Calling on the Lords of Light, he walked forward and passed through the veil.

Pale sun glinted on flinty rock. The path wound steep between dead shrubs, twisted through leafless trees, and over everything hung the choking smell of dust. Aderyn stumbled and bruised himself on rock, but he kept climbing, his lungs burning in the thin cold air. At last he reached the top, where huge boulders pushed out from grey soil like the bones of a long-dead animal. He was afraid. He had never expected this barrenness, this smell of death as thick as the dust. Although the wind was cold, he began to sweat in great drops down his back. It seemed that little eyes peered out at him from every rock; little voices snarled in cold laughter. He could feel their hatred as they watched him.

‘Would you serve here?’ the voice said.

Aderyn had to force the words from his lips.

‘I will. I can see there’s need of me.’

There was a sound – three great claps of thunder, booming among the dead rocks. As they died away, the eyes and the voices died with them. The mountain top was lush with green grass; flowers grew, as vivid as jewels; the sun was warm.

‘Look down,’ the voice said. ‘Look west.’

Aderyn climbed to the top of a boulder and looked out, where it seemed the sun was setting on a smooth-flowing wide river. Oak forest stretched on the far bank.

‘West. Your Wyrd lies west. Go there and heal. Go there and find those you will serve. Make restitution.’

As Aderyn watched, the sun set over the river. The forest went dark, disappearing under vast shadows. Yet he could hear the water flowing. With a start he realized he was kneeling in the dew-soaked grass and hearing the hundred water-voices of Loc Tamig. In the west, the moon was setting. He rose and walked back between the pillars, then knelt again before the altar to raise his hands and prayed aloud in thanks to the Lords of Light. As he finished, the pillars disappeared, winking out like blown candles. He withdrew the five-pointed stars into himself and erased the magic circles.

‘And any spirits bound by this ceremony go free! It is over. It is finished.’

From the lake came three hollow claps of thunder in answer. Aderyn stood and stamped three times upon the ground, then fell to his knees, sweating with exhaustion, trembling so hard from the spent forces that he could do nothing but kneel and shake until the first pale grey of dawn cracked in the east and brought him some of his strength back with the sunlight. He gathered up his magical weapons, put them in the sack, then rose to see Nevyn, striding across the grass towards him.

‘Oh, here! Have you been close by all this time?’

‘Did you truly think I’d leave you to face this alone? You’ve done well, lad.’

‘I heard the voices of the Great Ones. I’ll never forget this.’

‘Don’t. It would go hard with you if you did. You’ve had your great vision, but there will be plenty of other little ones. Never forget that, either: you’ve just begun.’

Aderyn slept all that day and through most of the night. When he woke, a few hours before dawn, he knew that the hour had come for him to leave. As he lay in darkness and considered routes west, he was calm, knowing without knowing how he knew that he would see Nevyn again, no doubt many times, over the years ahead. His grief at leaving his beloved master was only another test; he’d had to believe that he would lose Nevyn in order to see if he would ride out even in grief. You’re not an apprentice any more, he thought, not a master, either, mind – but the journeyman is ready to go look for his work.

In the centre of the hut, a fire flared, revealing Nevyn beside it.

‘I figured you were awake,’ the old man said. ‘Shall we have one last meal together before you go?’

‘We will. I know I don’t need to, but I wish I could pour my heart out in thanks for all you’ve done for me.’

‘You were always a nicely-spoken lad. Well, then, in thanks, do one last thing that I charge you: go say farewell to your family before you head west. I took you from them, after all, and I feel I should send you back one last time.’

All of Aderyn’s new confidence dissolved in a sudden stab of anxiety. Nevyn grinned at him as if he knew exactly what was happening.

‘Oh, I’ll do it!’ Aderyn snapped. ‘But I’d hoped to spare them that.’

‘Spare yourself, you mean. And how can you handle the mighty forces of the universe if you can’t even face your own father?’

After they ate, Aderyn saddled his riding horse and loaded up his mule. He had only a few things of his own – a bedroll, a spare shirt, a cloak, his magical weapons, the cooking pots and implements he needed for camping by the edge of the road – but he did have a great store of herbs, roots, salves, and other such medicines, all of which needed to be carefully stowed in the canvas panniers. Nevyn also insisted on dividing their small store of coins and giving him half.

‘You’ve earned it as much as I have. Ride out in the light. We’ll meet again one of these days, and if the need is great, we can scry each other out through the fire.’

‘Well, so we can.’ Aderyn felt a definite lump in his throat. ‘But I’ll miss you anyway.’

As he rode out, leading his mule, Aderyn turned in the saddle and looked back. Nevyn was standing by the door of the hut and watching. He waved once, then turned back inside.

On a day warm with the promise of coming summer, Aderyn reached the village of Blaeddbyr and Lord Maroic’s dun, where his father, Gweran the bard, served the White Wolf clan and where Aderyn had been born and raised. To his surprise, the ward and the familiar buildings seemed much smaller than he’d remembered them. Near the broch tower he dismounted and looked round the dusty ward. A few curious servants stopped to look him over; a couple of the riders came strolling over as if to ask him his business there. All at once he heard a woman’s voice.

‘Ado, Ado, thank the gods!’

It was his mother, Lyssa, laughing and weeping at the same time as she threw herself into his arms. Close to tears himself, Aderyn hugged her tight, then set his hands on her shoulders and smiled at her. She’d grown stout but was still beautiful, her raven-dark hair barely touched with grey, her wide blue eyes bright, her cheeks barely marked with wrinkles.

‘It’s so good to see you,’ Lyssa said. ‘Truly, I was wondering if we would ever see you again. Can you stay with us a while?’

‘I will, if Lord Maroic allows. But, Mam, this is the last visit I’ll ever make. I want you to know that now.’

Lyssa caught her breath sharply, but he knew there would be no tears or recriminations. In a sweep of laughter, the rest of his family came running from the broch and clustered around him – his younger brother Acern, training to take his father’s place as bard, his sister Araena, married to the captain of Marioc’s guard and with a baby of her own, and finally his father, Gweran, as tall and imposing as always with his blond hair heavily laced with silver. In a chattering crowd they escorted him inside, where the ageing Lord Maroic rose from his carved chair and announced that Aderyn was going to take his meat and mead for as long as he wanted to stay. The dailiness, the cheer, the mundaneness of the visit broke over Aderyn like a wave, as if the dweomer were only some dream he’d once had. Being surrounded by his family made him realize why he had a lonely road ahead: the strange lore that mattered to him could never be shared. It set him apart even as he talked and gossiped and shared heavy meal after heavy meal with them all in the long drowsy days of his visit.

Gweran went out of his way to spend time with Aderyn, much more than usual. Aderyn supposed that Lyssa had told him that his first-born son would never ride home again. She’d always been the link between them, keeping them at peace, telling them things that they could never voice themselves. There was good reason for their distance. Looking at his father’s silvery hair, his straight, almost regal, bearing, his rich clothing that he wore like the honour it was, Aderyn found it hard to remember that Gweran was a murderer who had used the very law itself as a weapon. At times he wondered if Gweran even remembered the young rider, Tanyc, whom he’d so cleverly trapped twenty years before. Perhaps he did, because even though their talks rambled through Aderyn’s childhood, every time they came close to Aderyn’s seventh year, when the murder had happened, Gweran would shy away and find a distant topic to discuss. Aderyn was more than willing to let the subject stay closed. Even though he’d only been a child and spoken in all innocence, still he felt he shared his father’s blood guilt. Seven years old or not, he’d blurted out the information that had sent Gweran hunting revenge. ‘Tanyc’s always looking at Mam, Da.’ Even after this lapse of years, he could hear his small boy’s voice pronouncing an unwitting death sentence.

Since he’d done much meditation work to heal that old wound, Aderyn was surprised the way the murder rose to haunt him. Doubtless it came from being in the dun, whose walls had once displayed his private horror. He remembered it vividly: climbing out of bed on a sunny morning, throwing open the shutters at the window, and seeing, just down below his tower room, Tanyc’s body hanging by the neck from the ramparts. He was bound hand and foot, his head flopping like a rag doll’s, and already the ravens were wheeling in the sky. Aderyn could only think there’d been some ghastly accident. He started screaming for his mother, who ran to him, looked out of the window, and in a moment of horrified honesty, blurted out, ‘Your Da’s killed him!’ Later, she tried to recant, but by then, Aderyn knew that his father had goaded the young warrior into drawing a sword against him, a bard, a capital crime under Deverry laws. In his child’s way, he knew his mother had told him the truth that first time.

Aderyn wondered if Lyssa felt she shared their guilt. After all, Gweran and Tanyc had been fighting over her. During the visit, Lyssa said little, merely listening to him and his father talk while she watched Gweran with a patient devotion. Her man was a good husband who still loved her; he was famous, with young disciples clamouring to study with him; his skill kept her in comfort. Perhaps she’d carefully forgotten that he’d murdered a man for her sake. Perhaps.

On the last day of the visit, Aderyn and Lyssa walked down to the Nerraver as they’d so often done when he was a child. The river ran full between lush green banks and sparkled in the sun with little fish-scale ripples of silver. When they sat down for a rest, Lyssa hunted through the grass and picked a few daisies like a young girl.

‘Ado? Do you remember the year of the Great Drought?’

‘I do.’ That was the year of the murder, too. ‘Did you know it was Nevyn’s dweomer that set it right?’

‘Of course. It was one reason I let you go as his apprentice.’

‘And do you regret that decision now?’

‘Well.’ Lyssa looked at her daisies. ‘If a mother is any kind of mother at all, she knows her sons will leave her. I have your sister and her babies nearby.’

‘Well and good, but Mam, truly I’ll miss you.’

Lyssa shrugged, turning the flowers this way and that between her fingers, fighting to keep back tears.

‘Do you think you’ll ever marry on this strange road of yours?’ she said at last.

‘I doubt it. It wouldn’t be much of a life for a woman, living out of a mule’s pack and sleeping by the road.’

‘True enough, but here – don’t tell me the dweomer lets a man carry on with tavern lasses and suchlike.’

‘It doesn’t, but then I’ve got no intentions of doing anything of the sort.’

Lyssa considered him, her head a bit to one side.

‘You don’t care much for women, do you, Ado?’

‘Care? Of course I do. Truly, Mam, I prefer their company and talk to that of men most of the time.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

When he understood, Aderyn felt distinctly squeamish – after all, she was his mother.

‘Well, I don’t, not in that way. But Mam, don’t trouble your heart over it. I don’t care for other lads or suchlike.’

‘That wouldn’t have bothered me. It’s just that I’ve always felt you didn’t have much of a taste for that sort of thing with anyone. Do you feel you can’t trust us women?’

‘And why would you think that?’

‘Oh, you saw a bit too much, maybe, when you were a lad.’

Aderyn hesitated, then decided it was time for the truth.

‘You mean Tanyc’

‘Just that.’ Lyssa was studying the daisies. ‘He died because of me, no matter whose fault it was.’ She looked up sharply. ‘I’ll swear it to you, Ado. I never gave him a word of hope or encouragement.’

‘I never thought you did. But it’s not that, Mam. It’s the dweomer. It’s taken my whole life. Everything I would have given to a woman I’ve spent on the dweomer, heart and soul both.’

Lyssa sighed in honest relief, as if she’d been blaming herself for her son’s celibacy. Later, when he was alone, Aderyn wondered if in one way her fear was justified. He’d never blamed her, the woman in the case, for one wrong thing, but the murder had left him with doubts about being a man. To become obsessed with a woman the way Tanyc was seemed to lead to death; to love a woman the way his father did seemed to tempt crime. He decided that he’d better meditate on the subject and untangle this knot in his mind. It might interfere with his work.

All that summer, Aderyn made his way west, going from village to village, supporting himself nicely by selling his herbs – or nicely by his standards, since he was content with two spare meals a day and the occasional tankard of ale in a clean tavern. At times he settled for a week or two to gather fresh herbs or to tend to some long illness, but always he moved on, leaving grateful farmers and villagers behind. Every night when he performed his ritual meditations, he would brood on his Wyrd and wonder where it lay. Gradually his intuition grew that he should turn south-west in his wanderings, but no other signs or hints came to him, at least not in any simple way. When the first clue was given, it took him a long time to unravel it.

Near the western border of the kingdom was one last river, the Vicaver, where Aderyn went simply to take a look at it. Rather than the oak forests of his visions, however, he found the river bordered by farms, pastures, and the occasional stand of willow trees. Aderyn crossed it and rode to the village of Ladotyn, a straggle of some fifty houses scattered among poplar trees, though it did have a proper inn. The innkeeper told him that they got merchant caravans coming through the town, on their way to and from the kingdom of Eldidd to the west.

‘And if you’re thinking of riding west through those mountains, good sir, you’d best see if you can join some other travellers. Those louse-ridden savages up in the hills are always causing trouble.’

‘Well, I don’t intend to stay here all winter, caravan or no.’

‘It’s your burying, not mine – well, if you even get a burial in the ground and not in their stomachs, if you take my meaning, like.’

Although a caravan did indeed appear at the inn. it turned out that it was coming home to Deverry from Eldidd. and the caravan master doubted very much if Aderyn would see one going the opposite way so late in the season. As they stood talking together out in the innyard, Lillyc remarked that he’d been trading in some towns that lay on a river called the El.

‘Now that’s a strange name,’ Aderyn remarked. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.’

‘No doubt.’ Lillyc gave him the grin of a man with a secret joke. ‘It’s not a Deverry word, nor an Eldidd one either. The name comes from the Westfolk. They live off to the west of Eldidd, you see. Used to range farther east, but now-the place is getting properly settled.’

‘Indeed? Are they some of the Old Ones, then?’

‘If you mean the squinty-eyed dark-haired bondsfolk, that they aren’t. Oh, the Westfolk are a different lot altogether, and a strange bunch. They won’t settle in proper farms and towns. They wander around with their horses and sheep, just where the fancy takes them.’ Lillyc paused for a small frown. ‘But they’ve helped me and many a merchant make his fortune. They love iron goods – can’t work the stuff themselves, I suppose. How could you, riding around with never a proper forge? They trade us horses, Look.’

At that moment one of Lillyc’s men walked by, leading a pair of the most beautiful horses Aderyn had ever seen. They were both mares, but they stood sixteen hands easily, and their wide deep chests and slender legs bespoke good wind and good speed both. The most amazing thing, however, was their colour, a dark rich gold like fresh clay dug from a riverbank while their manes and tails were as silvery-pale as moonbeams.

‘Gorgeous, good sir!’ Aderyn said. ‘I’ll wager any noble lord in Deverry would give you a small fortune for breeding stock like that.’

‘Just so, just so. But I had to spend most of a small fortune to get them, let me tell you.’

A strange folk, then, these Westfolk, and perhaps with strange lore to match. The very thought made a cold shudder run down Aderyn’s back as he wondered if they were in some way linked to his Wyrd.

‘Here, I’m determined to go west. Think the weather will hold up in the mountains for a few more weeks?’

‘It’s not the weather you’ve got to worry about, it’s the savages. If I were you, lad, I’d wait. A herbman’s a valuable sort of man to have around. We’d all hate to lose you, like.’

Aderyn merely smiled. Waiting was not one of his strong points.

Since he was going to be travelling farther than he’d previously planned, Aderyn decided that he’d best consult Nevyn. That night, he went up to his chamber and built himself a small fire in the hearth. When he called upon his old master, the image built up fast, Nevyn’s face floating in the flames and scowling at him.

‘So, you deigned to contact me, did you? I’ve been worrying myself sick.’

‘My humble apologies, but truly everything’s been fine.’

‘Good. Well, now that you’ve made the first link, I can contact you again without wounding your dignity, I suppose, but kindly don’t let me brood about you for months at a time, will you?’

‘Of course not. And you have my heartfelt apologies.’

‘That’s enough humility for now, please. What have you been doing with yourself?’

Aderyn told him what little there was of interest in his summer’s wanderings, then turned to his plan of travelling to Eldidd. As the old intimacy between them re-established itself, Nevyn’s image grew in the fire, until it seemed that they were standing face to face, meeting in a grey void, swirled with violet mists.

‘Well, it seems that Eldidd would be as good a place to go as any,’ Nevyn said at last.

‘Do you know of any others of our kind there?’

‘I don’t, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Keep your eyes open, lad, and see what you find. Remember what I’ve always told you: in these things, there’s no need for hurry.’

‘What do you think about this strange tribe, the Westfolk?’

‘Very little, because I’ve never heard of them before. If naught else, this is all very interesting.’

At that time Eldidd was an independent kingdom, whose rulers were ultimately descended from the legendary warriors known as the Hippogriff and the Dragon, the two foster-brothers of King Bran himself who joined him for the Great Migration. In the year 297, after a bitter struggle over the kingship of Deverry, Cynaeval and Cynvaenan, their descendants and the current leaders of the two clans of the Dragon and the Hippogriff, with all their allies, kinsmen, supporters, and dependants, left Deverry to sail west and found their own throne and royal city. For years, the small colonies eked out a precarious existence along the sea coast, but in time the Dragon’s people flourished and spread up the great river valleys of the Dilbrae and the El, while the Hippogriff clan spread north from their town of Aberwyn up the Gwyn and the strangely named Delonderiel. In the year when Aderyn crossed the mountains of the Belaegyrys range into Eldidd, the kingdom boasted a respectable two hundred thousand people.

Because he needed to gather more medicines, Aderyn avoided the sandy coast road and chose the easy northern pass through the mountains. On the western side, he reached rolling hills, brown and scruffy with frost-bitten grass, and there he stumbled upon a tiny village in a secluded valley. The small square huts, roofed with dirty thatch, were made of rough-hewn wood packed with mud to keep out the chill. Grazing on the brown and stubbled grass were goats and a few cows. The village belonged to some of the Old Ones, those unfortunate folk who’d lived in the land before the blood-thirsty Deverrians had ridden their way to seize it from them. Dark-haired, on the slender side, they had their own immensely complex languages, or rather, a mutually incomprehensible group of them, which in the settled parts of Deverry and Eldidd were forbidden by the laws of their conquerors, but kept alive by stealth. When Aderyn rode up to the huts, the folk came running out to stare at him and his fine horse and mule. In a group, the eight men of the village advanced upon him with their rough spears at the ready, but when Aderyn spoke in their language and explained that he was a herbman, they lowered the weapons. Dressed in a long brown tunic, a man of about forty stepped forward, and introduced himself as Wargal, the head man.

‘You’ll forgive our greeting, but we have great reason to fear these days.’

‘Indeed? Are the men of Eldidd close by?’

‘The despicable blue-eyed ones are always too close by.’

For a moment they contemplated each other in an uneasy silence. Wargal’s eyes flicked back and forth between his folk and the stranger. He had a secret, Aderyn supposed, and he could guess it: the village was sheltering a runaway bondsman.

‘Are there any sick in your village?’ Aderyn said. ‘I have many herbs, and I’ll gladly help anyone who needs them in return for some fresh milk and a night’s shelter.’

‘Any stranger is welcome to milk from my flock. But if you can spare some medicine, one of our women has a bad case of boils.’

The villagers tended Aderyn’s horse and mule while Wargal took him to his own home, which had no furniture except for three big pottery jars near the tiny hearth and the straw mattress he shared with his wife. Hanging on the wall were a few bronze pots, a couple of knives of the same metal, and some rough cloth sacks. Aderyn sat down next to Wargal in the place of honour by the hearth while villagers crowded in for a look at this amazing event, a stranger in their village. After some polite conversation over bowls of goat’s milk, the woman with the boils was duly treated in the midst of the curious crowd. Other villagers came forward to look over the herbs and ask shy questions, but most were beyond his help, because the real plague in this village was malnutrition. Driven by fear of the Eldidd lords, they eked out a miserable living on land so poor that no one else wanted it.

Although Aderyn would have preferred to eat his own food and spare theirs, Wargal insisted that he join him and his wife in their dinner of goat’s milk cheese and thin cracker-bread.

‘I’m surprised you don’t have your winter crops in yet,’ Aderyn remarked.

‘Well, we won’t be here to harvest them. We had a long council a few days ago, and we’re going to move north. The cursed Blue Eyes get closer every day. What if one of their head men decides to build one of those forts along the road?’

‘And decides you should be slaves to farm for him? Leaving’s the wise thing to do.’

‘There’s plenty of open land farther north, I suppose. Ah, it’s so hard to leave the pastures of your ancestors! There’s a god in the spring nearby, too, and I only hope he won’t be angry with us for leaving him.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘We thought of leaving last spring, but it was too much of a wrench, especially for the women. Now we have another reason.’

‘Indeed?’

Wargal considered him, studying Aderyn’s face in the flickering firelight.

‘You seem like a good man,’ Wargal said at last. ‘I don’t suppose you have any herbs to take a brand off a man’s face?’

‘I only wish I did. If you’re harbouring a runaway, you’d best move fast in case his lord comes looking for him.’

‘So I told the others. We were thinking of packing tomorrow.’ Wargal glanced around the hut. ‘We don’t have much to pack or much to lose by leaving – well, except the god in the spring, of course.’

Aderyn felt a sudden cold shudder of dweomer down his back. His words burned in his mouth, an undeniable warning that forced itself into sound.

‘You must leave tomorrow. Please, believe me – I have magic, and you must leave tomorrow and travel as fast as you can. I’ll come with you on the road a-ways.’

His face pale, Wargal stared at him, then crossed two fingers to ward off the evil eye, in case Aderyn had that, too.

On the morrow leaving took far longer than Aderyn wanted. Although the village’s few possessions were easily packed onto bovine and human backs, the goats had to be rounded up. Finally a ragged group of refugees, about eight families with some twenty children among them, the cows, the herd of goats, and six little brown dogs to keep the stock in line, went to the holy spring and made one last sacrifice of cheese to the god while Aderyn kept a fretful watch on the path behind them. By the time they moved out of the valley, it was well after noon, and the smaller children were already tired and crying from the smell of trouble in the air. Aderyn piled the littlest ones into his saddle and walked, leading the horse. Wargal and a young man, Ibretin, fell in beside him. On Ibretin’s cheek was the brand that marked him as a lord’s property.

‘If you think they’ll catch us, O Wise One,’ Ibretin said to Aderyn, ‘I’ll go back and let them kill me. If they find us they’ll take the whole tribe back with them.’

‘There’s no need for that yet,’ Wargal snapped.

‘There never will be if I can help it,’ Aderyn said. ‘I’d be twice cursed before I’ll let a man be killed for taking the freedom that the gods gave him. I think my magic might make us harder to find.’

Both men smiled, reassured by Aderyn’s lie. Although he could control his aura well enough to pass unnoticed and thus practically invisible, Aderyn couldn’t make an entire village disappear.

For two days they went north, keeping to the rolling hills and making a bare twelve miles a day. The more Aderyn opened his mind to the omens, the more clearly he knew that they were being pursued. On the third night, he scried into a campfire and saw the ruins of the old village, burnt to the ground. Only a lord’s warband would have destroyed it, and that warband would have to be blind to miss the trail of so many goats and people. He left the campfire and went to look for Ibretin, who was taking his turn at watching the goats out in the pasture.

‘You’ve called me Wise One. Do you truly think I have magic?’

‘I can only hope so. Wargal thinks so.’

It was too dark under the starry sky to see Ibretin’s face. Aderyn raised his hand and made the blue light gather in his fingers like a cool-burning torch. Ibretin gasped aloud and stepped back.

‘Now you know instead of hoping. Listen, the men chasing you are close by. Sooner or later, they’ll catch us. You offered to die to save your friends. How about helping me with a little scheme instead?’

At dawn on the morrow, while Wargal rounded up the villagers and got them moving north, Aderyn and Ibretin headed south. Although Aderyn rode, he had Ibretin walk, leading his pack-mule as if they’d been travelling together for some time as servant and master. About an hour’s ride brought them to the inevitable warband. They were just breaking their night’s camp, the horses saddled and ready to ride, the men standing idly around waiting for their lord’s orders. The lord himself, a tall young man in blue and grey plaid brigga, with oak leaves embroidered as a blazon on his shirt, was kicking dirt over a dying campfire. When Aderyn and Ibretin came up, the men shouted, running to gather round them. Aderyn could see Ibretin shaking in terror.

‘Oh, here,’ a man called out. ‘This pedlar’s found our flown chicken! Lord Degedd will reward you for this, my friend.’

‘Indeed?’ Aderyn said. ‘Well, I’m not sure I want a reward.’

With a signal to Ibretin to stay well back, Aderyn swung down from his horse just as Degedd came pushing his way through his men. Aderyn made a bow to him, which the lord acknowledged with a brief nod.

I’ve indeed found your runaway bondsman, but I want to buy him from you, my lord. He’s a useful man with a mule, and I need a servant.’

Caught utterly off-guard, Degedd stared for a moment, then blinked and rubbed his chin with his hand.

‘I’m not sure I want to sell. I’d rather have the fun of taking the skin off his cursed back.’

‘That would be a most unwise pleasure.’

‘And who are you to tell me what to do?’

Since Aderyn was not very tall, the lord towered over him with six feet of solid muscle. Aderyn set his hands on his hips and looked up at him.

‘Your men called me a pedlar, but I’m nothing of the sort. I’m a herbman, travelling in your country, and one who knows the laws of the gods. Do you care to question me further?’

‘I do. I don’t give a pig’s fart whether you’re a learned man or not, and anyway, for all I know, you lie.’

‘Then let me give you a sample of my learning. Enslaving free men to work your land is an impious thing. The gods have decreed that only criminals and debtors shall be bondsmen. That law held for a thousand years, back in the Homeland, and it held for hundreds here, until greedy men like you chose to break it.’

When his men began muttering, shame-faced among themselves at the truth of the herbman’s words, the lord’s face turned purple with rage. He drew his sword, the steel glittering in the sun.

‘Hold your ugly lying tongue, and give me back that bondsman! Be on your way or die right here, you scholarly swine!’

With a gentle smile, Aderyn raised his hand and called upon the spirits of fire. They came, bursting into manifestation with a roar and crackle of bright flame on the sword blade. Howling, Degedd struggled to hold on to the hilt, then cursed and flung the flesh-branding metal to the ground. Aderyn turned the flames to illusions and swung around, scattering bright but harmless blue fire into the warband. Yelling, shoving each other, they fell back and ran away to let their lord face Aderyn alone.

‘Now then, I’ll give you two copper pieces for him. That’s a generous price, my lord.’

His face dead-white, Degedd tried to speak, failed, then simply nodded his agreement. Aderyn untied his coin pouch and counted the coppers into the lord’s broad but shaking left hand, as the right seemed to pain him.

‘Your chamberlain will doubtless think you’ve made a fine bargain. And of course if you and your men return straight to your lands, there’s no need for anyone to ever hear this tale.’

Degedd forced out a tight sour smile. Doubtless he didn’t care to be mocked in every tavern in Eldidd by the story of how one herbman had bested him on the road, especially since no one would believe that the herbman had done it with magic. With a cheery wave, Aderyn mounted his horse and rode away, with Ibretin and the mule hurrying after. About a mile on, they looked back to see Lord Degedd and his warband trotting fast – away back south. Aderyn tested the dweomer warnings and felt that, indeed, all danger was over. At that he laughed aloud.

‘If nothing else,’ he told Ibretin. ‘That was the best jest I’ve had in a long time.’

Ibretin tried to smile but burst into tears instead. He wept all the way back.

That night there was as much of a celebration in the camp as their meagre provisions would allow. Aderyn sat at the biggest fire with Wargal and his wife while the rest of the villagers squatted close by and stared at him as if he were a god.

‘We have to let the goats rest a day, or they’ll stop giving milk,’ Wargal said, ‘Is that safe, Wise One?’

‘Oh, I think so. But you’d best travel a long way north before you find a place to settle down.’

‘We intend to. We were hoping you’d come with us.’

‘I will for a while, but my destiny lies in the west, and I have to go where my magic tells me.’

After three more days of slow straggling marching, the luck of Wargal’s tribe turned for the better. One afternoon they crested a high hill to see huts of their own kind spread out along a stream, prosperous fields, and pastures full of goats. When they came up to the village, the folk ran to meet them. There were only seven huts in the village, but land enough for many families. After a hasty tribal council, their headman, Ufel, told Wargal that he and his folk were welcome to settle there if they chose.

‘The more of us the better,’ Ufel said. ‘Our young men are learning a thing or two from the cursed Blue Eyes. Someday we’ll fight and keep our lands.’

Wargal tossed back his head and howled a war-cry.

Their journey over, the refugees camped that night along the streambank. The villagers brought food and settled in for talks to get to know their new neighbours. At Ufel the headman’s fire, Wargal and Aderyn drank thin beer from wooden cups.

‘I take it your folk have lived here for some time,’ Aderyn said. ‘May you always live in peace.’

‘So I hope. We have a powerful god in our valley, and so far he’s protected us. If you’d like I’ll show you his tree on the morrow.’

‘My thanks, I would.’ Aderyn had a cautious sip of the beer and found it suitably weak. ‘I don’t suppose any of the Blue Eyes live near you?’

‘They don’t. And I pray that our god will always keep them away. Very few folk of any kind come through here – one of the People, every now and then, that’s all.’

‘The who?’

‘The People. The Blue Eyes call them the Westfolk, but their own name for themselves is the People. We don’t see many of them any more. When I was a little child, they brought their horses through every now and then, but not recently. Probably the demon-spawn Blue Eyes have tried to enslave them, too, but I’m willing to bet that they found it a very hard job.’

‘From what I’ve heard, the Eldidd men have some kind of trade with them – iron goods for horses.’

‘Iron goods? The idiot Blue Eyes give the People iron?’ Ufel rose and paced a few steps away from the fire. Trouble and twice-trouble over that, then!’

‘What? I don’t understand. The Westfolk seem to want the iron, and …’

‘I can’t explain. For a Blue Eye you’re a good man, but telling you would be breaking geis.’

‘Never would I ask you to do such thing. I’ll say no more about it.’

On the morrow Aderyn rose before dawn and slipped away before the village was truly awake to spare everyone a sad farewell. He followed an ancient trail that wound through the barren pine-stubbed mountains without seeing a soul, either good or bad, until he rejoined the road. Even though the fields were ploughed and ready for the autumn planting, and orchards stood along the road, the houses were few and far between, and villages rare, unlike in Deverry. As he came closer to the river El, the real spine of the country, the houses grew thicker, clustering in proper villages. Finally, after six days on the road, he reached Elrydd, a proper town where he found an inn, not a cheap place, but it was clean, with fresh straw on the tavern room floor.

Aderyn paid over a few of his precious coins for the lodging, then stowed his gear in a wedge-shaped chamber on the upper storey. The innkeep, Wenlyn, served a generous dinner of thick beef stew and fresh bread, topped off with apple slices in honey. He also knew of the Westfolk.

‘A strange tongue they speak, break your jaw it would. A jolly sort of folk, good with a jest, but when they come through here, they don’t stay at my inn. Don’t trust ’em, I don’t. They steal, I’m cursed sure of it, and lie all the time. Can’t trust people who won’t stay put in proper villages. Why are they always riding on if they don’t have somewhat to hide, eh?’ Wenlyn paused to refill Aderyn’s tankard. ‘And they’ve got no honour around women. Why, there’s a lass in our very own town who’s got a bastard to one of them.’

‘Now here, plenty of Eldidd men sire bastards, too. Don’t judge the whole herd by one horse.’

‘Easy enough to say, good sir, and doubtless wise. But there’s just somewhat about these lads. The lasses go for them like cats do for catmint, I swear it. Makes a man nervous, it does, wondering what the lasses see in a bunch of foreigners. Huh. Women have got no sense, and that’s all there is to that.’

Aderyn smiled in bare politeness while Wenlyn sucked his teeth and sighed for the folly of lasses.

‘Tell me, good sir,’ Aderyn said at last, ‘If I ride straight west on the king’s road, will I eventually meet up with some of these folk?’

‘Oh, no doubt, but what do you want to do that for? If you do, be cursed careful of your mule and horse. They might take a fancy to them, like. But as to where, let’s think – never been there myself – but Cernmeton, that region, that’s where our merchants go to trade.’

‘My thanks. I’ll be leaving on the morrow, then. I’ve just got a fancy to take a look at these folk.’

Wenlyn stared at him as if he were daft, then left Aderyn to finish his meal in peace. As he sopped up the last of his stew with a bit of bread, Aderyn was wondering at himself. He felt something calling him west, and he knew he’d better hurry.

Out on the grasslands the seasons change more slowly than they do in the mountains. At about the time when Aderyn was seeing omens of autumn up in the Eldidd hills, far to the west the golden sunlight still lay hazy on the seemingly endless expanse of green. When the alar rode past a small copse of alders clustered around a spring, the trees stood motionless and dusty in the windless heat, as if summer would linger there forever. Dallandra turned in her saddle and looked at Nananna, riding beside her on a golden gelding with a white mane and tail. The elder elven woman seemed exhausted, her face as pale as parchment under her crown of white braids, her wrinkled lids drooping over her violet eyes.

‘Do you want to rest at the spring, Wise One?’

‘No need, child. I can wait till we reach the stream.’

‘If you’re sure-’

‘Now don’t fuss over me! I may be old, but I still have the wit to tell you if I need to rest.’

Riding straight in the saddle for all her five hundred years, Nananna slapped her horse with the reins and pulled a little ahead. With her second sight, Dallandra could see the energy pouring around her, great silver streams and pulses in her aura, almost too much power for her frail body to bear. Soon Nananna would have to die. Every day Dallandra’s heart ached at the thought of losing her mistress in the craft of magic, but there was no denying the truth.

Their companions followed automatically as they rode on. Earlier that morning, their alar had hurried ahead with the flocks and herds and left them a small escort of others who needed to move slowly. Enabrilia came first, leading the packhorse that dragged the heavy wooden travois with the tents. Her husband, Wylenteriel, their baby in a leather pack on his back, rode some distance behind and kept the brood-mares with their young colts moving at a slow but steady pace. His brother, Talbrennon, rode point off to one side. In the middle of the afternoon Nananna finally admitted that she was tired, and they made camp near a scattering of willow trees. Normally, since they were only stopping for one night, they wouldn’t have bothered to unpack the tents, but Dallandra wanted to raise one for Nananna.

‘No need,’ Nananna said.

‘Now here, Wise One,’ Wylenteriel said. ‘Me and Tal can have it up in no time at all.’

‘Oh, children, children, it’s not time for me to leave you yet, and when it’s time you can fuss all you like, but it won’t give me one extra hour:’

‘I know that’s true,’ Dallandra said. ‘But–’

‘No buts, child. If you know it, act on it.’

Wylenteriel, however, insisted on a compromise: he and Tal set up a small lean-to to keep the night damp off and unpacked cushions from the travois to lay on the canvas ground cloth. Dallandra helped Nananna settle herself, then knelt and pulled off the old woman’s boots. Nananna watched with a faint smile, her thin gnarled hands resting on her frail knees.

‘I’ll admit I could use a bit of a nap before dinner.’

Dallandra covered her with a light blanket, then went to help set up the camp. The men were already watering the horses at the stream; Enabrilia was sitting on the ground by a pile of dumped gear and nursing Farendar, who whimpered and fussed at her breast. He was only a year old, still practically a new-born by elven standards. Dallandra wandered downstream, driven by a sudden stab of omens. Even in the bright sunlight she felt cold, knowing that warnings were trying to reach her like slivers of ice piercing the edge of her mind, an image of winter, when something would tear her life in half and change her irrevocably. Nananna’s death, probably. With a shudder she ran back to the safe company of friends.

That night, while the others sat around a small campfire, Dallandra went to the lean-to. Nananna made a large ball of golden light and hung it on the ridge-pole, then rummaged through her saddle-bags for the small silver casket that guarded her scrying stones. There were five of these jewels, each set in a small silver disc graved with symbols: ruby for fire, topaz for air, sapphire for water, emerald for earth, and finally, the largest of them all, an amethyst for aethyr. Nananna laid the discs on a cushion and frowned at them for a moment.

‘I had a dream while I was napping, and I need to see a bit more. Hum, the amethyst will do.’

Carefully Nananna wrapped the other jewels up in bits of fine silk cloth, then laid the amethyst disc in the palm of her right hand. Dallandra knelt beside her and looked into the stone, where a small beam of light gleamed in the dead-centre, then swelled to a smoky void – or so it seemed to Dallandra. Nananna, however, watched intently, nodding her head every now and then at some detail. Finally she spoke the ritual word that cleared the stone of vision.

‘Now that’s interesting,’ Nananna said. ‘What do you think of it?’

‘Nothing. I couldn’t see.’

‘A man of magic is coming to us from the east. His destiny lies here, and I’m to take him in.’

‘Not one of those smelly Round-ears?’

‘Any man who serves the Light is welcome in my tent.’

‘Of course, Wise One, but I didn’t think a Round-ear would have the wits for magic.’

‘Now, now! Harsh words and prejudice don’t suit a student of the Light.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t like the Round-ears much either, mind. But I’m trying. Do your best to try, too.’

In the middle of the next afternoon, they rode into the alardan, the great camp, where the People meet at the end of the summer after a long season’s wandering with their flocks and herds. That year the banadars of the scattered tribes had chosen the Lake of the Leaping Trout, the most southerly of a chain of four lakes along a wide river which the Eldidd men, with a characteristic lack of imagination, called simply Aver Peddroloc, the four-lake river. To the south stood a vast oak forest, tangled and primeval, that was a burying ground held sacred by the People for thousands of years. From the north shore spread an open meadow, where now hundreds of the brightly painted tents rose like flowers in the grass. Out beyond were flocks of sheep and herds of horses, watched over by a ring of horsemen.

As their little group rode up, Talbrennon peeled off to drive their stock into the communal herds. Dallandra led the others down to the lakeshore and found an open spot to set up camp. As they dismounted, ten men came running to do the heavy work for the Wise One and her apprentice. Dallandra led Nananna away from the bustle and helped her sit down in the grass, where Enabrilia and the baby joined them. Farendar was awake, looking up at his mother with a wide toothless grin.

‘Look, sweetie, look at the camp. Isn’t it nice? There’ll be music tonight, and you can listen.’

Farendar gurgled, a pretty baby, with big violet eyes, a soft crown of blond hair, and delicate ears, long and tightly furled, as all babies’ ears were. They would begin to loosen when he was three or so.

‘Give your Aunt Dalla a kiss.’ Enabrilia held him up. ‘Malamala’s sweetest love.’

Obligingly Dallandra kissed a soft pink cheek. There was a definite odour about the child.

‘He’s dirty again.’

‘Oh, naughty one!’

Enabrilia knelt down in the grass and pulled off his little tunic to unlace the leather nappy and pull it off. The nappy was stuffed with long grass, definitely well-used; Enabrilia shook it out and began to pull clean. All the while she kept up a running stream of sweet chatter that vaguely turned Dallandra’s stomach. Her friend gushed over the baby no matter what he did, whether soiling his nappies or blowing his snotty little nose. At times it was hard for Dallandra to believe that this was the same girl who used to train to be an archer and race her horse ahead of the alar across the grasslands, who used to camp alone in the forest with Dallandra, just the two of them. Every child, of course, was more precious than gold and twice as rare among the People; every elf knew that, and Dallandra reminded herself of it often. When Enabrilia started to put the grass-filled nappy back on, Farendar proceeded to urinate all over himself and her hand, but his mother just laughed as if he’d done something clever.

‘I think I’ll walk back to the camp,’ Dallandra said. ‘See if the tent is ready.’

The tents were indeed standing, and Halaberiel the banadar was waiting in front of Nananna’s with four members of his warband. Louts, Dallandra considered the young men, with their long Eldidd swords at their sides and their swaggering walk. Halaberiel himself, however, was a different matter, a far-seeing man and a skilled judge for the alarli under his jurisdiction. When Dallandra held up her hands palm-outward, he acknowledged the gesture of respect with a small firm nod.

‘I’m glad to see you, Wise One. I trust Nananna is well.’

‘A bit tired. She’s down by the lakeshore.’

‘I’ll go speak with her.’ Halaberiel glanced at his escort. ‘You all stay here.’

The four of them obligingly sat down in front of the tent. The worst four, Dallandra thought. Calonderiel, Jezryaladar, Elbannodanter, and Albaral – they were all staring, hungry-eyed and smiling. She felt like kicking dirt in their faces. As she followed the banadar, Calonderiel got up and ran after, catching her arm and bobbing his head to her.

‘Please, Dalla, won’t you take a little stroll with me? Oh, by the gods who live in the Moon, I’ve dreamt about you every night for weeks.’

‘Have you?’ Dallandra shook her arm free. ‘Then maybe you’ve been drinking too much Eldidd mead before you go to bed. Try taking a herbal purgative.’

‘How can one so lovely be so cruel? I’d die for you. I’ll do anything you say, fight a thousand Round-ears or ride along to hunt down the fiercest boar! Please, won’t you give me some quest? Something dangerous, and I’ll do it or die all for your sake.’

‘What a lard-head you can be!’

‘If I talk like a madman, it’s because I’m mad all for the love of you. Haven’t I loved you for years? Have I ever looked at another woman in all that time? Haven’t I brought you gifts from down in Eldidd? Please, won’t you walk with me a little way? If I die for lack of your kisses, my blood will be on your head.’

‘And if I get a headache from listening to you babble, then the pain will be in my head, too. Cal, the alardan’s full of prettier women than me. Go find one and seduce her, will you?’

‘Oh, by the gods!’ Calonderiel tossed his head, his violet eyes flashing with something like rage. ‘Doesn’t love mean anything to you?’

‘About as much as meat means to a deer, but I don’t like to see you unhappy. We’ve been friends for ever so long, since we were children, truly.’

Just seventy that year, Calonderiel was a handsome man, tall even for one of the People, towering a full head above her, his hair so pale it seemed white in the summer sun and his eyes as deep-set as a dark pool among shade-trees. Yet Dallandra found the thought of him kissing her – or worse yet, caressing her- as repellent as the thought of biting into meat and finding a maggot.

‘Besides,’ she went on, ‘how would your pack of friends take it if I chose you?’

‘They’d have to take it. We threw knuckle-bones to see who’d get the first chance to court you, and I won.’

‘You what?’ Dallandra slapped him so hard across the face that he reeled back. ‘You beast! You gut-sucking sheep-worm! Am I supposed to be flattered by that?’

‘Of course you are. I mean, aren’t you glad to have four men all ready to die for you?’

‘Not if they dice over me first like a piece of Eldidd ironware.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that!’

‘Horse turds.’

When Dallandra started to walk away, he grabbed her arm again, bobbing his head and ducking before her like a bird drinking from a stream.

‘Please, wait! At least tell me this: is there someone you love more than me? If you do then I’ll ride off with a broken heart, but I’ll ride.’

‘Since I don’t love you at all it wouldn’t be hard to find someone I loved more, but actually, I haven’t even looked. Why don’t you believe me, you cloud-brain? I don’t love you. I don’t love anyone. I don’t want to get myself a man. Plain truth. No more to say. There you are.’

Rage flared in his eyes.

‘I don’t believe it. Come on, tell me: what can I do to make you love me?’

She was about to swear at him, then had a better idea.

‘I’ll never love any man who isn’t my match in magic.’

‘What a rotten thing to say! What man’s ever going to match you? That’s a woman’s art.’

‘It doesn’t have to be.’ Dallandra gave him a small smile. ‘A man could learn it, too – if he had the guts, and most of you don’t.’

This time, when Dallandra shook free and walked on, Cal stayed behind, savagely kicking at a tuft of grass with the toe of his boot. She hurried on to the lakeshore, where Nananna and Halaberiel were sitting in the long grass in the shade of a willow tree, their heads together and talking urgently.

‘I’ve asked the banadar to do us a small favour,’ Nananna said. ‘Concerning yesterday’s vision.’

‘Of course I’ll go look for this man, Wise One. I’ll take my escort with me, too.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Let’s see – The last of the Round-ear merchants is still here. I could ask him if he’s seen anything of a stranger.’

‘No,’ Nananna said. ‘I know this is only making your task harder, Banadar, but I’d prefer that you speak to the Round-ears as little as possible.’

Halaberiel shot her a troubled glance, then nodded his agreement.

‘Take Cal with you, will you?’ Dallandra broke in. ‘I want him out of my sight.’

‘Oh, now, now.’ Halaberiel gave her an infuriatingly paternal smile. ‘He’s a decent boy, really, if you’d only give him a chance.’

When Dallandra crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, Halaberiel hastily looked away and made the sign against the evil eye with his fingers. Although the evil eye was only a myth, most dweomerfolk found it a useful one.

‘Very well, Cal will ride with me,’ Halaberiel said. ‘Now, about this Round-ear we’re fetching, can you give me a sign to look for, O Wise One?’

‘Come to my tent after dark. I’ll give you a riddle to ask him, too, just to make sure you’ve cut the horse out of the herd of cows.’

‘Good.’ Halaberiel rose, bobbing his head at her. ‘Shall I escort you to your tent?’

‘No, but thank you. I think I’ll take a bit of sun.’

Nananna waited until the banadar was out of ear-shot before she spoke.

‘And why are you breaking poor Cal’s heart?’

‘I don’t love him.’

‘Very well, then, but there’s nothing wrong with you finding a nice young man to keep you warm in the winter.’

Dallandra wrinkled her nose and shuddered. Nananna laughed, patting Dallandra gently on the arm with one frail hand.

‘Whatever you want, child. But a cold heart may find it hard to work magic as it grows older and more chill.’

‘Oh, maybe so, but I hate it when they hang around me, yapping like dogs around a bitch in heat! Sometimes I wish I’d been born ugly.’

‘It might have been easier, but the Goddess of the Clouds gave you beauty, and doubtless for some reason of her own. I wouldn’t argue with Her now that you have it.’

That night was the first in what promised to be a long series of feasts. Each alar made up a huge quantity of a single dish and set it out in front of their tents – Dallandra stewed up a vast pot of dried vegetables heavily spiced with Bardek curries – and the People drifted from one alar to another, sampling each dish, stopping to talk with old friends, then moving on to the next. Dallandra took a wooden bowl and trotted back and forth from alar to alar to fetch a selection of favourite treats for Nananna, who sat regally on a pile of cushions by a campfire and received visitors while she ate. By the end of the alardan she would have seen everyone at the meeting and dispensed wise advice, too, for most of their problems. Someday this role of wise woman would be Dallandra’s, but she was filled with the dread that she was too young, not ready, nowhere near Nananna’s equal. Her worst fear was that she would somehow betray her people’s trust in her.

Slowly the night darkened; a full moon rose bloated on the far empty horizon. Here and there, music broke out in the camp, as harpers and flute-players took out their instruments and started the traditional songs. Singing, or at least humming along under their breaths, the People drifted back and forth through the light from a hundred campfires. Just as the moon was rising high in the sky, the Round-ear merchant came to pay his respects to Nananna. Since she was supposed to be polishing her knowledge of the Eldidd tongue, Dallandra moved close to listen as Namydd of Aberwyn and his son, Daen, made Nananna low bows in the Round-ear fashion and sat down at her feet. The merchant was a portly sort, greying and paunchy, and his thin wisps of hair made his round ears painfully obvious. Daen, however, was nice-looking for one of his kind, with a thick shock of blond hair to cover what Dallandra thought of as his deformed ears.

‘I’m most grateful you’d speak with me, O Wise One,’ Namydd said in his barbarous-sounding speech. ‘I’ve brought you a little gift, just as a token of my respect.’

Daen promptly handed over a cloth-wrapped parcel, which his father presented to Nananna with as much of a bow as he could manage sitting down. With a small regal smile, Nananna unwrapped it, then held up two beautiful steel skinning knives with carved bone handles.

‘How lovely! My thanks, good merchant. Here, Dallandra, you may choose which one you want.’

Eagerly Dallandra took the knives and studied them in the firelight. One knife was decorated purely with interlacements and spirals; the other had a picture of a running horse in the clumsy Eldidd style. She chose the abstract one and handed the other back to Nananna.

‘My thanks, good merchants,’ Dallandra said. ‘This is a truly fine thing.’

‘Not half as fine as you deserve,’ Daen broke in.

Dallandra realized that he was staring at her with a besotted smile. Oh no, not him too! she thought. She rose, made a polite bob, then hurried to the tent on the excuse of putting the new knives away.

By the time the moon was at her zenith, Nananna was tired. Dallandra shooed the last visitors away, then escorted Nananna to their tent and helped her to settle in to bed. In the soft glow of the magical light, Nananna seemed as frail as a tiny child as she lay wrapped in her dark blue blanket, but her violet eyes were still full of life, sparkling like a lass’s.

‘I do love an alardan,’ Nananna said. ‘You can go watch the dancing if you’d like, child.’

‘Are you sure you won’t need me for anything?’

‘Not while I sleep, no. Oh – I forgot all about Halaberiel. Here, go find him and tell him I’ll speak to him in the morning.’

Shortly after dawn on the morrow, Halaberiel appeared at their tent with the four young men who were to ride with him. They all sat on the floor of the tent while Nananna described the young Round-ear she’d seen in her vision – a slender man, much shorter than one of the People, with dark hair and big eyes like an owl. He was travelling with a mule and earning his living as a herbman.

‘So he shouldn’t be too hard to find,’ Nananna finished up. ‘When I scryed him out, he was leaving Elrydd and making his way west. Now, the rest of you leave us while I tell the banadar the secret riddle.’

Carefully avoiding Calonderiel, Dallandra left the tent along with the men and went over to Enabrilia’s tent, which stood nearby. Enabrilia was cooking soda-bread of Eldidd flour on a griddle while Wylenteriel changed the baby. Enabrilia broke off a bit of warm bread and handed it to Dallandra.

‘I’ve got something to show you later,’ Enabrilia said. ‘We traded a pair of geldings for some marvellous things yesterday. A big iron kettle and yards and yards of linen.’

‘Wonderful! I should take some of our extra horses over to the Round-eyes, too.’

The Eldidd merchants left the alardan the next day, taking away fine horses and jewellery and leaving behind a vast motley assortment of iron goods, cloth, and mead. The alardan settled down to its real business –trading goods among itself, and sorting out the riding orders for the long trips ahead to the various winter camps. Just at twilight, Dallandra took an Eldidd-made axe and walked about a mile to a stand of oaks where she’d spotted a dead tree earlier. In the blue shadows under the old trees, all tangled with underbrush, it was cool and quiet – too quiet, without even the song of a bird. Suddenly she was aware of someone watching her. She raised the axe to a weapon-posture.

‘All right, come out,’ Dallandra barked.

As quietly as a spirit materializing, a man of the People stepped forward. Dressed in clothes pieced out of animal skins, he carried a long spear with a chipped stone blade, the shaft striped with coloured earths and decorated with feathers and ceramic beads. Round his neck on a thong hung a small leather pouch, also elaborately decorated. One of the Forest Folk, come so close to a gathering – Dallandra lowered the axe and stared in sheer surprise. His smile was more a sneer as he looked her over.

‘You have magic,’ he said at last.

‘Yes, I do. Do you need my help for anything?’

‘Your help?’ The words dripped sarcasm. ‘Impious bitch! As if I needed your help for one little thing. That axe-head is made of iron.’

Dallandra sighed in sudden understanding. The Forest Folk clung to ancient taboos along with ancient ways – or so the People saw it.

‘Yes, it is, but it hasn’t hurt me or my friends. Honest. No harm’s come to us at all.’

‘That’s not the issue. The Guardians are angry. You drive the Guardians away with your stinking filthy iron.’

To Dallandra the Guardians were a religious principle, not any sort of real being, but there was no use in arguing philosophy with the Forest Folk.

‘Have you come to warn us? I thank you for your concern, and I shall pray for forgiveness.’

‘Don’t you mock me! Don’t you think I can tell you despise us? Don’t you dare speak to me as if I were a child, or I’ll–’

When he stepped forward, raising the spear, Dallandra threw up one hand and summoned the Wildfolk of Aethyr. Blazing blue fire plumed from her fingers with a roaring hiss. The man shrieked and fell on his knees.

‘Now,’ she said calmly. ‘What do you want? If you just want to lecture me, I’m too busy at the moment.’

‘I want nothing, Wise One.’ He was shaking, his fingers tight on the spear-shaft for comfort. ‘I brought someone who does need your help.’

When he called out, a human man crept forward from the underbrush. His dark hair was matted; his tattered brown rags were filthy. He fell to his knees in front of her and looked up with desperate eyes. He was so thin that she could see every bone in the hands he raised to her.

‘Please help me,’ he stammered out in the Eldidd tongue.

Dallandra stared at his dirty face. On his left cheek was a brand, bitten in deep to his flesh, the mark of some Round-eared lord. A bondsman – fleeing for freedom and his life.

‘Of course we’ll help you,’ Dallandra said. ‘Come with me. Let’s get you fed first.’ She turned to the spearman. ‘You have my sincere thanks. Do you want to eat with us, too?’

For an answer he rose and ran, slipping back into the forest like a deer. Weeping a low animal mutter under his breath, the Round-ear staggered to his feet. When they reached the alar, the People clustered round with shouts and oaths. Wylenteriel pressed a chunk of bread into the man’s filthy hands and got him a bowl of ewe’s milk to drink – the roast lamb and spiced food would have only made him vomit.

‘One of the Forest Folk brought him in,’ Dallandra said. ‘They must have been waiting for the merchants to leave.’

‘I heard your people help such as us,’ the bondsman stammered. ‘Oh, please, I can’t bear it any more. My lord’s a harsh man. His overseer flogs us half to death whenever it suits him.’

‘This lord is probably coming after him, too,’ Dallandra said to the crowd in Elvish. ‘I wish Halaberiel were here, but we’ll have to work something out without him.’

‘My alar’s riding west.’ Gannobrennon stepped forward. ‘We’ll take him with us, and we’ll leave tonight.’

‘Good, but what if the Round-ears ride in looking for him?’ Elbaladar said. ‘We’d better break up the alardan.’

At this a round of arguments, suggestions, a babble of good advice and drawbacks, broke out. Slowly Nananna came out from the tent and walked over. At the sight of her, everyone fell silent.

‘Elbaladar is right,’ Nananna said. ‘We’d better break camp tonight. I can contact Halaberiel through my stones and tell him the news.’ She paused, looking around at the assembled people. ‘I need four or five young men to join my alar. We can’t ride fast, and so the Round-ears might catch up with us.’

Quickly the news spread through the alardan: they were rescuing a Round-ear slave, and the Wise One had given her orders. The People gobbled down the feast, then packed up gear and struck tents by firelight and the rising moon. A few at a time, the alarli cut their stock out of the common herds and disappeared, moving on fast into the silent dark grasslands, until the vast meadow stood empty with only the crushed grass and various leavings to show where the alardan stood. Just after midnight four young men brought their stock and their possessions over to join the Wise One’s group, the last two tents left of hundreds.

‘I can ride for a few hours tonight,’ Nananna said. ‘I want to turn back east. If the Round-eared lords find anyone, it had best be me.’

They made a hasty sparse camp two hours later on the banks of the river that flows out of the Lake of the Leaping Trout. In the morning they forded the river and turned dead-south through the grasslands. Enabrilia and Dallandra led the travois horses while Wylenteriel, Talbrennon and one of their new recruits herded the stock in the rear. The other three rode in front, hands on sword-hilts, eyes constantly sweeping the horizon, ready to ride between any Round-ear and Nananna. Towards noon, the trouble came. Dallandra saw a puff of dust heading towards them that soon resolved itself into six horsemen, trotting fast over the grasslands.

‘Good,’ Nananna said. ‘Let’s pull up and let them catch us. Dalla, you do the talking.’

Dallandra handed her the rope of the travois horse and rode up to the head of the line. The horsemen shouted and turned their horses, galloping the last half mile up to the alar. At their head was a heavy-set blond man in the plaid brigga that marked him as an Eldidd lord; behind him were five of his warband, all armed and ready. The lord checked his men some twenty feet away from the alar and rode on alone to face Dallandra. He looked sourly over the small party; she could see him noting well the armed men – six of them counting young Talbrennon.

‘My lord! Shall we charge?’

‘Hold your tongue!’ the lord yelled. ‘Can’t you see the women with them? And one of them’s old at that.’

Dallandra relaxed slightly; so he had a bit of his kind of honour. The lord edged his horse up close to hers.

‘Now, can any of you speak my language?’

Dallandra gave him a wide-eyed stupid stare.

‘Eldidd.’ He sighed and pointed to himself. ‘I’m a lord. I lost a bondsman. Have you seen him?’

‘Bondsman?’ Dallandra said slowly. ‘What is bondsman? Oh – farmer.’

‘That’s right.’ The lord raised his voice, as if she would understand if only he shouted. ‘A kind of farmer. He has a brand here.’ He pointed to his cheek. ‘A mark. He’s my property, and he ran away.’

Dallandra nodded slowly, as if considering all of this.

‘He’s a young man, wearing brown clothes,’ the lord bellowed at the top of his lungs. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘That I not. No see farmers.’

The lord sighed and looked doubtfully at the alar’s gear, as if a bondsman wrapped in blankets might be hidden on a travois.

‘Which way have your people ridden? North? South?’ He pointed out the various directions. ‘Do you understand? Where have you come from?’

‘North. No see farmers. No farmers in north grass.’

‘Well, you would have seen him out in those dismal plains.’

‘The dis-what?’

‘Oh, never mind.’ The lord made a vague bow in her direction, then turned and yelled at his warband. ‘All right, men, we’re riding east. The bastard must have doubled back.’

As soon as the warband was out of sight, the alar burst into howls and cackles. Dallandra leaned into her saddle-peak and laughed till her sides ached.

‘Oh, a splendid jest,’ Wylenteriel gasped with his perfect Eldidd accent. ‘No see farmer! By those hells of theirs, Dalla!’

‘No speak good. Me simple elf. Hard of hearing, too.’

On a wave of laughter the alar rearranged their riding order and continued their slow trip south.

About four days’ ride west of Elyrdd, Aderyn came to a tiny lake fringed with willow trees. In a nearby farming village were a woman ill with shaking fever and a man with a jaw abscessed from bad teeth. Aderyn made a camp on the lakeshore, with a proper fire-circle of stones, a canvas lean-to to cover his gear, and a neat stack of firewood donated by the grateful villagers, and rode daily into the village to care for his new patients. Once they were out of danger, he lingered to gather and dry wild herbs. On his tenth night there, as he was eating bread and cheese by his fire, he heard his horse whinny a nicker of greeting to some other horse, but one he couldn’t see or hear. When the mule joined in, Aderyn felt profoundly uneasy. He was a good two miles from the village, far away from help if he should need it.

Off among the willows a twig snapped; then silence. Aderyn spun around and stared into the darkness. He thought he saw something moving – too slender for a deer – no, nothing but tree branches. Now here, he told himself, you’re letting your nerves run away with you. But in the distance he heard another sound – a footfall, a twig. He retreated close to the fire and picked up the only weapon he had, a table dagger.

The five men materialized out of the willow trees and stepped quietly into the pool of firelight. While he gawked, too frightened to speak, they ringed him round, cutting off any escape. All five of them had pale blond hair, like moonlight in the fire-thrown shadows, and they shared a certain delicate kind of good looks, too, so that Aderyn’s first muddled thought was that they were brothers. They were dressed differently than Eldidd men, in tight leather trousers instead of baggy brigga, and loose dark blue tunics, heavily embroidered, instead of overshirts, but they all carried long Eldidd swords.

‘Good evening,’ one of them said politely. ‘Are you the herbman the villagers told us about? Aderyn, the name was.’

‘I am. Do you need my help? Is someone sick?’

The fellow smiled and came closer. With a twitch of surprise Aderyn noticed his ears, long, delicately pointed and curled like a sea-shell, and his enormous eyes were slit vertically, like a cat’s.

‘My name is Halaberiel. Answer me a riddle, good herbman: Where have you seen the sun rise when you see with your other eyes?’

‘At midnight, but that’s a strange riddle for a man to know.’

‘It was told me by a woman, actually. Well, good herbman, we truly do require your aid. Will you ride west with us?’

‘And do I have any choice about that?’

‘None.’ Halaberiel gave him a pleasant smile. ‘But I assure you, we mean you not the least harm. There’s a woman among my people with great power in what you Round-ears call dweomer. She wants to speak with you. She didn’t tell me why, mind, but I do what Nananna wants.’ He turned to one of the others. ‘Calonderiel, go fetch his horse and mule. Jezry, bring our horses.’

The two melted away into the darkness with hardly a sound.

‘I take it we’re leaving tonight,’ Aderyn said.

‘As long as you’re rested, but we won’t go far. I just want to put a little distance between us and the village. The villagers might go running to their lord with tales of Westfolk prowling around.’ Suddenly he laughed. ‘After all, we are actually thieving tonight, stealing the herbman away.’

‘Well, the herbman is curious enough to come with you on his own. I’m more than willing to speak to anyone who has dweomer.’

‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that. It would have ached my heart to tie you up, but we couldn’t have you taking wing and flying away the minute our backs were turned.’

‘Flying? Not quite, but I have ways of moving in the dark, true enough.’

‘Ah, you’re only an apprentice then. Well, no doubt Nananna can teach you a thing or two.’

Halaberiel spoke so matter-of-factly that the implication was unmistakable. Could this Nananna fly? Did all the dweomermasters of the Westfolk have a power that was only a wistful dream for those of the human sort? Aderyn’s heart started pounding in sheer greed. If Halaberiel had somehow changed his mind and tried to keep Aderyn away, he would have had a nasty fight on his hands. Aderyn’s kidnappers-cum-escorts saddled his horse, loaded up his mule, then put out his fire and buried it for him. As the horses picked their way across the dark meadow, Halaberiel rode beside Aderyn.

‘I’ll tell Nananna tonight that we’ve found you.’

‘You can scry, I take it.’

‘I can’t. She’ll come to me in a dream, and I can tell her then.’

Just after midnight, Halaberiel ordered his men to make a rough camp by a riverbank. Aderyn judged they’d gone about ten miles. In the darkness, he could see nothing, but in the morning, he woke to the sight of a swift-flowing, broad river and, beyond on the farther bank, a primeval oak forest. He jumped up and ran to the water’s edge. It had to be – he knew it deep in his heart – it was the river of his vision. With a little yelp of sheer joy he jigged a few dancing steps there on the riverbank.

‘Is somewhat wrong?’ Halaberiel came up beside him.

‘Not in the least. Quite the contrary, in fact. You don’t need to worry about me trying to escape or suchlike, believe me.’

After a meal they forded the river and walked the horses slowly into the forest, which soon turned so thick and tangled that they had to dismount and lead their mounts along a deer-track. In a few miles the trail disappeared, leaving them to thread their own way through the trees. For three agonizing hours they picked their way west, stopping often to urge on the balky horses or deliberate on the best way to go. Finally, just when Aderyn was ready to give up in frustration, they came to a road: a proper, hard-packed, level dirt road about ten feet across, running straight as a spear through the forest.

‘Here we are,’ Halaberiel remarked. ‘Few of the Round-ears would push on long enough to find this, you see.’

‘I take it you don’t trust my kind.’

‘And how should I?’ Halaberiel considered him with cool, violet eyes. ‘No offence, good sir, to you as a man, but first we gave the Round-ears the coast; then they started pushing up the rivers; now I see them breeding like rats and swarming all over the country. Everywhere they go, they make slaves out of the Old Ones who were here before them. Where will they stop? Anywhere? Or will they keep on pushing north and west, ploughing up the grasslands for their fields and killing the grass for our horses? Are they going to look at us and covet us for slaves one fine day? They’ve already broken at least one treaty with my kind that I know of. Trust them? I think not, good sir. I think not.’

‘I assure you, those of us who serve the dweomer hate slavery as much as you do. If I could free every bondsman in the kingdom, I would.’

‘No doubt, but you can’t, can you?’ With an irritable shrug, Halaberiel turned away and called to his men. ‘Let’s get on the road. We can rest the horses when we come to the big spring.’

The spring turned out to be some two miles further west, a stone pond with a stone culvert that led the overflow down to a stream among the trees. Inside the stone wall water welled up clear and noiselessly from the sandy bottom. Before anyone drank, Halaberiel raised his hands over the water and called out a short prayer in a soft musical language to thank the god of the spring. Then they unsaddled their horses, let them roll, and watered them before sitting down to their own meal of smoked fish and soft ewe’s milk cheese. Aderyn was beginning to be able to tell the young men apart: Calonderiel, taller than the rest, Elbannodanter, as delicately handsome as a lass, Jezryaladar with a quick flash of a grin, and Albaral, who said very little and ate a lot.

‘Banadar?’ Calonderiel said. ‘Has Nananna told you where she is?’

‘Not far beyond the forest. She and her escort met up with a couple of big alarli yesterday, and they’re all camping together by the haunted pool. The rest of our warband’s on the way to join them, too. We’ll all move down to the winter camp together.’

When he finished eating, Aderyn went for a closer look at the spring. The stonework was carved with looping vines and flowers, and peering out from among them were the little faces of the Wildfolk.

‘Halaberiel?’ Aderyn said. ‘Your people do beautiful stonework.’

‘Well, they used to. This is over eight hundred years old. There’s not a man or woman alive now who could do as well.’

‘Indeed? Here, your men call you banadar. Is that like a lord or prince?’

‘In a way, but only in a way. We’ll have to start teaching you our speech, Aderyn. Most of us here in the east know a bit of the Eldidd tongue, at least, but further west the People don’t care for the barbarous languages.’

Late in the afternoon they followed a little stream out of the forest into the grasslands and made their night’s camp. As he was unloading his mule, Aderyn realized that he was completely lost, cut off from Eldidd and everything he’d ever known. Perhaps he might have been able to find his way back through the forest to the river on his own – perhaps. Later, when the others were asleep in their bedrolls, Aderyn sat by the dying campfire and thought of Nevyn. The old man’s image built up instantly, smiling at him.

‘Did I wake you?’ Aderyn thought to him.

‘Not at all. I was just sitting here wondering about you. Where are you? Still in Eldidd?’

I’m not. Strange things have been happening.’

Carefully and in some detail Aderyn told him about his forced trip to see Nananna. His eyes thoughtful, Nevyn’s image grew stronger above the fire.

‘Strange things indeed. Now fancy that – I never knew another race lived to the west. I think me that King Bran and Cadwallon the Druid led their folk to a stranger place then ever they could have guessed. I’ll have to meditate on this, but from what you say, I think that these elves originate in a different part of the Inner Lands than men do.’

‘So it would seem. I truly wonder what kind of dweomer they have.’

‘So do I. I trust you’ll tell me when you find out. It seems the Lords of Light have warned this Nananna of your coining. Interesting, all of it.’

‘I truly wish you were here to see for yourself.’

‘Well, who knows? Maybe someday I’ll ride west. Until then, be careful, will you? Don’t go rushing into anything unwise just out of lust for secret lore.’

Then he was gone, the contact broken and cold.

Towards noon on the next day they reached the camp. They came to the sheep first, a huge flock, watched over by dogs and mounted shepherds, one of which was a woman, dressed in the same leather trousers and dark blue tunic as the men, but with long hair in one thick braid hanging down to her waist. About an hour’s ride on they reached a herd of some sixty horses on long tethers, among them the rich yellow-golds with silvery manes and tails so highly prized by Eldidd men. Just beyond the herds were the tents, along a stream and among the willow trees there. Each was a swirl and splash of bright colour – animals, birds, leaves, tendrils – all intertwined but so solid and realistically painted that it seemed the birds would fly away. Out in the middle was a big cooking fire, where men and women both were working, cutting up lamb, stirring something in a big iron kettle. Other elves stood round, talking idly. When Halaberiel called out, the folk came running, all talking at once. Aderyn heard his name mentioned several times, and some of the folk openly stared at him. In a flood of laughter and talk, the men began to help them unsaddle their horses.

Off to one side Aderyn noticed a young woman, whose hair, as pale as silver, hung to her waist in two long braids. Her face was a perfect oval; her enormous eyes were as dark and grey as storm clouds; her mouth was as delicate as a child’s. When she walked over to speak to him, he felt his heart pounding like a dancing-drum.

‘Aderyn? My name is Dallandra, Nananna’s apprentice. My mistress is resting, but I’ll take you to her later. My thanks for coming to us.’

‘Most welcome, but the banadar didn’t give me much choice.’

‘What?’ Dallandra turned on the banadar. ‘What did you do, kidnap him like a lot of Round-ear bandits?’

Although Halaberiel laughed, he stepped back a pace from her anger. She’s splendid, Aderyn thought, and by every god, she must have dweomer, too! All at once he was aware of Calonderiel watching him narrow-eyed, his arms folded over his chest. Aderyn’s heart sank; he should have known that a woman like this would be long spoken for. Then he caught himself. What was he doing, him of all people, acting like some stupid young lad bent on courting? Hastily he recovered his dignity and made Dallandra a bow.

‘There’s no need to chide the banadar. I’d gladly travel a thousand miles for the sake of the dweomer. In fact, I already have.’

She smiled, well pleased by his answer.

‘Where shall we put you? You don’t have a tent of your own.’

‘I’ll take him with me,’ Halaberiel said. ‘Truly, good Aderyn, my tent is yours if it pleases you.’

The banadar’s tent, a blue and purple monster some thirty feet across, stood at the edge of the camp. Lying around on the floor were piles of blankets and saddle-bags. Halaberiel found a bare spot near the door and gestured Aderyn to lay down his bedroll.

‘The unmarried men in my warband shelter with me, but I promise you’ll find them better mannered than a Round-ear lord’s warriors.’

Jezryaladar brought in Aderyn’s mule-packs and dumped them unceremoniously on the ground near his bedroll. Apparently the elves considered this all the unpacking that was necessary; Halaberiel took his arm and led Aderyn outside to introduce him to the crowd round the cooking fire. A young woman, carrying a baby on her back in a leather and wood pack, handed Aderyn a wooden bowl of stewed vegetables and a wooden spoon, then served the banadar. They stood up to eat off to one side of the fire and watched as the young men of the warband lined up for their share.

‘That lamb will be done later, I suppose,’ Halaberiel said vaguely.

‘Oh, this is fine. I don’t eat much meat, anyway.’

As the afternoon wore on, everyone was perfectly friendly, and most of the People spoke the Eldidd tongue but, on the whole, Aderyn was ignored or, rather, taken for granted in a way that made him feel slightly dizzy. After they ate, Halaberiel sat down on the ground in front of one of the tents and started an urgent conversation in Elvish with two men. Aderyn wandered through the camp, looking at the paintings on the tents, and watched what the People were doing in a vain attempt to fit into their pattern. The People strolled around, talking to whomever they met, or perhaps taking up some task only to drop it if they felt like it. Aderyn saw Jezryaladar and another young man bringing a big kettle of water up from the stream to the fire; it sat there for a long time before Calonderiel put it on the iron tripod to heat; then it sat some more until a pair of the lads got around to washing up about half of the wooden bowls. When Aderyn wandered off, he found a young woman sitting on the ground behind one of the tents and talking to a pair of sleek brown dogs; she lay down, fell asleep, and the dogs lay down with her. Later, when he strolled back that way, they were gone.

Finally, towards twilight, the roast lamb was done. Two of the men took it off the spit and slung it down on a long wooden plank, while others kicked the various dogs away. Everyone gathered round and cut off hunks of meat, which most of them ate right there, standing up and talking. Aderyn saw Dallandra putting a few choice slices on a wooden plate and taking them away to a tent painted with vines of roses in a long, looping design.

‘Nananna must be awake,’ Halaberiel said with his mouth full. ‘She’s very old, you see, and needs her rest.’

Privately Aderyn wondered if it might be days before Nananna got around to remembering she’d had him brought here. As it grew dark, some of the elves built a second fire, then sat around it with wooden harps that looked somewhat like the ones in Deverry but which turned out to be tuned in quarter-tones; they had long wooden flutes, too, that gave out a wailing; almost unpleasant sound for a drone. They played for a few minutes, then began to sing to the harps, an intricate melody in the most peculiar harmonies Aderyn had ever heard. As he listened, trying to figure them out, Dallandra appeared.

‘She’s ready to see you. Follow me.’

They went together to the rose-painted tent. Dallandra raised the flap and motioned him to go in. When he crawled through, Aderyn came out into a soft golden light from dweomer globes hanging at the ridgepoles. All around were the Wildfolk: gnomes curled up like cats or wandering around, sprites clinging to the tent-poles, sylphs like crystal thickenings of the air. On the far side, perched like a bird on a pile of leather cushions, was a slender old woman, her head crowned with stark white braids. Aderyn could feel the power flowing from her like a breath of cool wind hitting his face, a snap and crackle in the air to match the life snapping in her violet eyes. When she gestured to him to sit down by her feet, he knelt in honest respect. Even when Dallandra joined her mistress, Aderyn couldn’t take his eyes from Nananna’s face. When she spoke, her voice was as strong and melodious as a lass’s.

‘So, you’re the dweomerman from the east, are you?’

‘Well, I’m a dweomerman from the east. I take it you had some warning of my coming.’

‘I saw somewhat in my stone.’ Nananna paused, leisurely studying his face. ‘In truth I asked for you.’

Dallandra caught her breath with a small gasp.

‘I’ll die soon,’ Nananna went on. ‘It is time, and Dallandra will have my tent, my horses, and my place among our folk.’ She laid a bony pale hand on the lass’s shoulder. ‘But I leave her a bitter legacy along with the sweet. I am old, Aderyn, and I speak bluntly. I do not like your people. I fear their greed and what it will do to us.’

‘I fear it too. Please believe me – I’d stop them if I could.’

Nananna’s eyes bored deep into his. Aderyn looked back unflinchingly and let her read the truth of what he said.

‘I have heard of the dweomer of the east,’ she said after a moment. ‘It seems to serve the Light I serve, only after its own manner.’

‘There is only one Light, but a rainbow of a thousand colours.’

Pleased by the answer, Nananna smiled, a thin twitch of bluish lips.

‘But one of those colours is the red of blood,’ she said. ‘Tell me somewhat: will your people kill mine for their land?’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of. They’ve killed others for theirs – or enslaved them.’

‘No one will ever enslave an elf,’ Dallandra broke in. ‘We’d die first, every last one of us.’

‘Hush, child!’ Nananna paused, thinking. ‘Tell me, Aderyn. What sent you to us?’

‘Just this spring I left my master and received my vision. In it I saw a river, far to the west. When Halaberiel brought me to you, I crossed that river.’

‘And do you want to go back across it to your own kind? I can have the banadar escort you.’

‘Wise One, there are some rivers that can never be recrossed.’

The old woman smiled, nodding her agreement. Aderyn felt cold with excitement, a sweet troublement. He could hear the distant singing, drifting in from the night with the wailing of flutes.

‘If you asked for me, and if I’ve been sent to you,’ Aderyn said, ‘what work do you want me to do?’

‘I’m not truly sure yet, but I do want Dallandra to have a man of your people at her side, who understands your ways as she understands ours. I see blood on the grasslands, and I hear swords and shouting. It would be a shameful thing if I didn’t even try to stop it. Will you ride with us for a while?’

‘Gladly. How can I stand by and let my folk do a murdering thing to haunt their Wyrd forever?’

‘Nicely spoken. Tell me, Dalla – can you work with this man?’

Dallandra turned her storm-cloud gaze Aderyn’s way and considered him for so long that his heart began pounding.

‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘I’d work with the Dark Fiends themselves if it would help my people. He’ll do.’

‘Well and good, then, as your folk would say.’ Nananna raised a frail hand in blessing. ‘Ride south with us, young Aderyn, and we’ll see what all our gods have in store.’