The Silver Mage (73 page)

“Yes, and I never forgot Angmar.”

“I know, and that’s what saved you.”

“So it did. Where is she?”

“Just outside the door, waiting to come in.” Dallandra turned away and started toward the door in question.

“Wait!” Rhodry said. “There’s one thing I have to ask you first. Cerr Cawnen. Is it true, that the town’s been destroyed?”

“It is, and the Horsekin army with it. Don’t you remember?”

“I was hoping it was a dream, a nightmare more like.”

“What? Why?”

“There were slaves there, innocent souls. I saw them so I know. What choice did they have? Why didn’t I see that before? Why couldn’t I remember my shame over Slaith? Why couldn’t I see that—”

“Hush!” Dalla laid her hand over his mouth. “Because you weren’t a man at that moment, Rhodry. Because you were on your way to becoming somewhat cold and cruel. Soon you wouldn’t have been a man at all.” She took her hand away. “We brought you back just in time, before you became a dragon in your soul.”

“So you did.”

At that moment, Rhodry couldn’t bear to look at her. He covered his face with his hands as if he could physically block out the memory of the earth’s blood boiling up and the screams of men dying in agony. He heard Dallandra moving away, heard the door open and the murmur of Angmar’s voice. The door shut again. He lowered his hands, thinking he was alone, but Angmar stood quietly, leaning against the closed door and holding a small cloth-wrapped bundle in both hands.

“Be it that you want me to leave?” she said.

“Never,” he said. “If you’ll forgive me for the things I’ve done.”

“I care not, Rori.” She walked over, laid the bundle down beside him then perched on the edge of the bed. “Whatever it be that makes your heart feel shamed, it’s naught to me now.”

“Truly?” He held out his hand.

“Truly.” She caught it in both of hers.

“Then I never want you to leave again, and even less do I want to leave you.”

“Well and good, then. I do feel the same, and all be as well as ever it can be.” She glanced at the bundle then let go his hand. “Dallandra, she did bring somewhat for you.”

Rhodry picked up the bundle and unwrapped it to reveal his silver dagger. Someone—Cal, he suspected—had rewrapped the hilt with fresh leather.

“It gladdens my heart to see this,” he said, “not that I’ll be riding the long road again.”

“You won’t, truly,” Angmar said. “You’ll be taking my hire and none others.”

He looked up and saw her smiling at him. He laid the dagger down and caught her by the shoulders.

“So I will,” he said.

And with their long waiting over, he kissed her.

Your soul does not sit in your body like a nut in a shell. It
forms the etheric double, which interpenetrates the flesh.
Indeed, the soul creates the body for its own purposes.

THE ROYAL ALAR REACHED
the trading grounds near the seacoast shortly before the autumnal equinox. Several other alarli had already gathered there, and a few last traders from Eldidd lingered for the inevitable feasting and celebrations as well. The news spread quickly, that Prince Daralanteriel had established new farmlands and planned to found a city up north along the river that men called the Melyn but elves, Cantariel, though the name means “honey-colored” in both languages.

News of a quieter sort arrived when Medea flew into camp, carrying messages and a passenger. The bards immediately dubbed Prince Dar “Dragonfriend,” an epithet that Medea graciously acknowledged.

“He’s certainly my friend,” she told Dallandra, “so your people can call him that if they’d like.”

The passenger, Pol, whom Laz had freed from slavery, stood quietly beside the young dragon and looked at the trading ground with wide eyes. Contrary to Laz’s descriptions of him, Dallandra decided, he wasn’t so much obese as oddly formed, thanks to the barbarous practice among the Horsekin of turning young boys into eunuchs. He’d continued to grow long past the usual age, so that he was nearly seven feet tall with an abnormally large rib cage and long spindly arms. When he finally spoke, his voice was high-pitched but strong.

“I have messages for the prince.” Pol laid a hand on the leather pouch he carried. “From the Red Wolf dun.”

“Excellent!” Dallandra said. “Am I remembering this correctly? You’re a scribe?”

“Yes, I am, but I’m just learning the syllabary. I can write in Deverrian and Gel da’Thae, though.”

“You’ll pick up the Elvish script fast enough. The prince needs a scribe. The last one left his retinue to settle in the new town up north. Come with me.”

As Pol accompanied her through the camp, Dallandra noticed the other Westfolk doing their best not to stare at him, and he grimly kept his gaze fixed ahead. When they reached Dar’s tent, however, painted with red roses in memory of the Far West, the sight of the flowers made him smile. He reached out and touched one of the images.

“We have these at home,” he remarked, “in the seacoast villages. The legend runs that the People brought them from the old cities.”

“Do you?” Dallandra said. “So something of the Vale of Roses survived. That’s lovely.”

At Dallandra’s urging, Daralanteriel took Pol on as his new scribe. When he read the messages out, Dallandra heard what she’d been waiting for. Lady Solla had been safely delivered of a fine, healthy son. Gerran and his wife and heir would spend the winter with Tieryn Cadryc, then move out to the Melyn Valley with the spring.

“That’s splendid,” Dallandra remarked to Valandario later. “The Gold Falcon clan’s off to a good start.”

“So it is. Gerran will make a decent lord, I think.”

“If he doesn’t, Dar will take him in hand.”

Valandario nodded and pulled her cloak a little tighter around her shoulders. They were sitting in front of Dallandra’s tent and nursing a tiny fire against the chilly evening breeze. Around them swirled the normal sounds of a night camp: children crying, dogs barking, harp music, singing, and the occasional angry quarrel followed by soothing words.

“Summer’s almost gone,” Dallandra said. “Will you be going back to Mandra for the winter?”

“I don’t know,” Valandario said. “I’m too comfortable there.”

“What? There’s naught wrong with being warm and dry.”

“That’s not what I meant. Comfortable in my soul, with my gems and the books all around me. How long has it been since I truly worked dweomer?”

“When you evoked the spirit of Hanmara.”

“Oh, that was just a typical evocation. I wouldn’t call it a real accomplishment.”

“Well, your scrying system is certainly valuable.”

“I know, I know, but once Sidro gets it written up from her notes, anyone with the smallest dweomer gift will be able to use it. I mean real dweomer, something to stretch my mind and soul, something with risks, even.” Val paused to add another patty of dry horse dung to the campfire in front of them. “Ever since I approved Ebañy’s plan to go live in that tower, I’ve felt guilty. I was always badgering him to do more with his dweomer gifts, but I wasn’t using mine fully, either.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“But I would.” Val smiled at her. “I’ve been looking back over my life. When Jav died, I retreated from it, life that is. I’ve been living in a jewel-encrusted shell, Dalla. I’ve forgotten that I’m still young, and I’ve been a coward.”

“Here! I wouldn’t call you that.”

“Thank you, but I would. I can’t even make up my mind whether to destroy the black stone, can I?”

“Why should you, really?”

“It caused a murder, and Evandar meddled with it.”

“That’s true.” Dallandra hesitated then decided against saying anything. She badly wanted the crystal, she realized, wanted to cherish it as the last token of her love for Evandar.
It’s Val’s,
she reminded herself,
not yours to have or destroy.
She concentrated on watching the salamanders basking in the tiny flames. For their sake she added a few sticks to the fire.

“I’m going to ride out tomorrow,” Val said eventually. “I want to take the black crystal back to the place where Jav found it, the ruins of that tower. I have the feeling that I’ll know what to do with it once I’m there.”

“But the tower fell nearly two hundred years ago. There won’t be much left. You probably won’t even be able to find the place.”

“He said the broken stones were huge. The tide won’t have washed them away.”

“Ah, I see. Who’s going to go with you?”

“No one. I’m going alone.”

“What? That’s dangerous!”

“I don’t care.”

“Val! You can’t!”

“I’ve made up my mind.” Val rose from her seat. “I’m leaving on the morrow.”

When the morrow came, Dallandra continued arguing the point while Valandario loaded supplies onto her pack mule and saddled up her riding horse. Val merely smiled, refusing to answer. Eventually Dallandra ran out of words.

“If I get into trouble,” Val said, “I’ll call to you mind to mind. Besides, if you’re truly this worried, you can always scry me out.”

“That’s true,” Dallandra said. “Very well, I’ll hold my nagging tongue. The truth is, I keep wanting to beg you for the crystal. It’s the last thing of Evandar’s that I have.”

“I know you loved him, but it’s time to put his schemes to rest.”

“So it is.” Dallandra hesitated, then forced out a smile. “Take it and give it to the Lords of Aethyr then, should they want it. It’s time, indeed, for me to let Evandar go.”

O
ver the next few days, as she rode west, Valandario was aware now and then of the touch of Dallandra’s anxious mind, watching over her. At first Val found it annoying, but by the end of an eightnight, she began to welcome it. The grasslands stretched out empty to the north; to the south lay only the sea, muttering on its rocky beach. For company she had only the seabirds, wheeling and mewling over the green swells and the dark water that stretched to the southern horizon.

Although she’d brought a canvas shelter with her, most nights she left it tied in a bundle. She lay out in the grass near her tethered horse and mule and watched the wheel of stars while the sea murmured and sang nearby. On nights when the fog came in thickly over land and sea, she gathered driftwood for a fire. She watched the flames, burning blue from the salt crusted on the wood, for half the night. At times she saw strange images among them, of tall towers of stone amid the streets of ancient cities.

On the twelth day she reached the ruins of the old guard tower. A half circle of broken walls stood on the edge of a cliff. On the beach below, the corners of huge stones emerged from nearly two hundred years’ worth of sand and driftwood as if they were swimmers just coming up from a dive. Jav had found the box with the the obsidian crystal somewhere among them when they lay clean and exposed to the open air. If any dweomer objects lay in the sand now, they were too well-buried for her to sense. The remains of the tower wall, however, still stood on the cliff edge.