The Spirit Stone (41 page)

‘Greetings, oh perfect pinnacle of dragonhood!’ Salamander said in Elvish.

‘Same to you, oh maudlin minstrel of many words,’ Arzosah said. ‘Flames and fumes! Your army travels so slowly that it’s enough to drive one daft. I’ve been waiting for you out here for days.’

‘It’s driving me daft, too. The Roundears can’t seem to unpack so much as a saddlebag without it taking forever.’

‘How like them! Now, as for me, I’ve tracked Rori down.’

‘That’s grand news! Is he willing to join us?’

‘Oh yes. As soon as I mentioned slaughtering Horsekin, he became quite tractable.’ She sighed with a lift of a wing. ‘He really is splendid, when he’s himself, anyway.’

‘Is that wound still troubling him?’

‘Oh yes. He wants revenge for it, he tells me, and so do I, after having to live with it all these years. There have been times I’ve felt like biting him, just to make him stop all his licking and worrying at it! Let’s hope Dallandra can heal it.’

‘I shall hope indeed. Where is he?’

‘Off to the west, scouting the fortress. Your description of its whereabouts was more than a little vague, you know.’

‘Well, I was confused when I arrived there and even more so when I left.’

‘Your natural state, no doubt. Now, I’m going to chase after Rori when I leave here, but we’ll both return and join you once you meet up with the Westfolk muster. It’s quite near.’

‘Splendid!’

‘Keep a watch for us. We’ll fly overhead and then land some decent distance away.’

‘It’ll probably be easier for Rori to meet with us without everyone watching.’

‘Do you think so?’ Arzosah cocked her head to one side and considered this. ‘You’re quite possibly right. For now, however, I’m off to look for my dinner.’

‘Very well. I’ll go back to camp and get my own.’

Salamander waited until the camp had quieted down later that evening before he tried contacting Dallandra. As soon as his mind touched hers, he knew she was deeply troubled.

‘I heard from Niffa earlier,’ Dallandra told him. ‘Cerr Cawnen won’t be sending us any troops. They need every man they’ve got to stay home and guard their walls.’

‘Are the Horsekin prowling around?’

‘Not yet, but messengers rode in yesterday from Braemel. The council there has broken its alliance with Cerr Cawnen.’

‘Ye gods! What does Grallezar say about that?’

‘I haven’t been able to reach her.’

Simple common sense frightened him as much as any dweomer omen might have. ‘Do you think she’s dead?’ he said.

‘No. I’d feel that. She’s merely too upset about something to hear me. She’s more angry than frightened, though, which gives me hope. Her adoptive mother was the one who forged that alliance, you know.’

‘I didn’t know, actually. But no wonder the daughter’s furious.’

‘Just so. But the evil thing is, there’s no use counting on troops from Braemel, is there? Ebañy, I have to go. Here comes Prince Dar, and he needs to know about Cerr Cawnen.’

She broke off contact before he could answer.
Worse and worse,
he thought.
That’s two allies lost. Thank all the gods for the Mountain Folk!
And how was he going to tell this news to Prince Voran and Gwerbret Ridvar? He quite simply couldn’t, he realized, because even if he could convince them that dweomer could send messages, they would never believe that he possessed it. He’d played the babbling fool too long and too well.

On the morrow, the army reached the elven muster. Around noon, Salamander was riding just ahead of the baggage train when he heard shouting up at the van. Slowly the sound and the news travelled back along the length of the army—Westfolk tents ahead! Salamander turned his horse out of line, rode some hundred yards out to get free of the dust the army was raising, and saw like tiny clouds on the horizon the white peaks of elven tents. He nudged his horse to a trot and rode on ahead of the army.

Salamander had never seen a Westfolk camp so large or so organized. What with the archers, the swordsmen, the horse handlers and others who’d volunteered to act as servants, the packhorses and the travois loaded with supplies, it spread out as widely as a small Deverry town. Herds of horses grazed round the edge of the camp under the guard of mounted archers. Inside this ring ditches stood open for garbage and other leavings; they also provided a certain amount of protection, Salamander supposed, should there be an attack by Horsekin cavalry. In the middle of the area, tents marched in even rows.

Salamander dismounted and hailed the guards, who let him through. Leading his horse, he made his way through the camp. Everywhere he looked, swordsmen were coming and going with purposeful strides. Archers sat on the ground, straightening arrows, repairing fletching, testing bowstrings. He eventually found Prince Daralanteriel’s tent, painted with its distinctive roses, in the centre of a tight ring of other tents.

‘Ebañy!’ Dallandra hailed him. ‘Over here!’

She was standing in front of Calonderiel’s tent, one of the central ring. Two men and two women stood around her—healer’s assistants, Dallandra told him. One of them took his horse’s reins and led it away.

‘I’m counting on your help, too, once the battles start,’ Dallandra said.

‘Whatever I can do, I will,’ Salamander said. ‘I can fold bandages if naught else. But I shan’t be able to camp with you once the two armies start moving again. I have to stay with the Red Wolf. I’ve been sharing a tent with Gerran and young Clae.’

‘Ah yes, you’re Cadryc’s scribe now. I’m so pleased that Neb isn’t with the army.’ Dallandra glanced around, then pointed to a plain grey tent set a little apart from its neighbours. ‘Valandario’s still with us. She’ll be part of the alar—well, the military escort, really—that’s going to take Carra and the children down to Mandra. All of the women archers will go with them. Cal says they’re more accurate than the men, you see, so they’ll make every arrow count if they have to. The entire contingent will stay close to the town for the duration.’

‘Near the ships, you mean?’

‘Just that.’ Dallandra’s eyes turned grim. ‘Just in case. If Dar dies, Rodiveriel’s the prince of the Westlands. They’ve got to keep him safe, even if it means heading out to sea. We have a treaty with the gwerbret of Aberwyn, and he’ll shelter the boy if it’s necessary.’

‘It’s just as well to plan for the worst, I suppose, but I doubt me if the Horsekin force at Zakh Gral is large enough to threaten Mandra.’

‘Oh, so do I, or I’d be a gibbering madwoman out of sheer terror.’ Dallandra smiled briefly. ‘I’ve got herbs to sort. Do you want to go talk with Val?’

‘I most certainly do. I’ve been vexing myself about that obsidian pyramid. If anyone knows anything about that most peculiar, bizarre, and just plain odd crystal, it will be Val.’

Salamander found Valandario in her tent. A dweomer light hung in the air to supplement the sunlight filtering in from outside; the silver glow gleamed on her silk scrying-cloths and sparkled on the gems spread across them. Valandario herself was sitting cross-legged on a leather cushion behind the array. When he came in, she looked up and smiled without a trace of surprise, as if perhaps she’d not noticed he’d been gone for weeks.

‘Val, I know you’ll be leaving soon,’ Salamander said. ‘So I need to ask you a question. My apologies for interrupting.’

‘You’re not really interrupting, actually. I was just studying a fine point from yesterday’s omens.’ She waved at another cushion on the other side of the cloth. ‘Sit down and ask away.’

Salamander sat down as carefully as he could to avoid disturbing the arrangement of gems.

‘When I was at the Horsekin shrine,’ he began, ‘I saw some objects they keep as holy relics. One of them was a crystal, and I thought you might know something about it and why the wretched Horsekin would value it. It was a piece of obsidian in the shape of a pyramid, but the top point, the peak, as it were, looked as if it had been lopped off at an angle.’

For a long moment Valandario stared at him, her eyes wide, her lips half-parted.

‘Uh,’ Salamander said, ‘is it at all important, or is this an utterly stupid question?’

‘Not stupid, no, merely painful. So that’s where it went.’ Val set her lips in a thin line of grief. ‘That wretched awful gem.’ Her voice wavered. ‘I was so glad to get it, too. When I think what it brought with it—’ She caught her breath and steadied her voice. ‘What I wonder now is how did the filthy Horsekin get hold of it? It suits their nature, I suppose, a wicked little morsel like that.’

‘I take it you know what this thing is.’

‘Well, there might be more than one of them, but I doubt it. Don’t you remember it? It’s the gem that Loddlaen was stealing when he murdered my beloved.’

Salamander let out his breath in a sharp puff. Val looked away, her face set, her delicate hands clenching into fists.

‘I was off in Deverry when the murder happened.’ Salamander made his voice as soft as he could. ‘So I only heard about it much later. I’m sorry I’ve reminded you of it.’

Valandario shrugged, then let her hands relax. Still, it took her a moment more before she looked at him. ‘About the gem itself, though.’ Val’s voice had steadied again. ‘It’s a showstone of sorts—very much of sorts. You were the only person who could ever see anything in it. I honestly don’t understand why Loddlaen wanted it so badly.’

‘I was? I don’t remember ever looking into it.’

‘You were a very young child at the time. Let me think.’ She paused, her mouth a little slack as she considered her memories. ‘You saw a book with a dragon on it, and a man who turned out to be Evandar.’

‘By every god!’ Salamander whispered. ‘I’ve got no memory of that at all!’

‘I’m not surprised. You were just learning to talk at the time. What you told us was all very choppy and scant.’

‘No doubt. Why didn’t you have me look in it again later? When I was older, I mean.’

‘It would have been too dangerous—dangerous to you, that is. I consulted with Nevyn, and he agreed. It’s terrible to let an untrained child mess about with dweomer devices. In fact, one apprentice of his died young because some unscrupulous fellow exploited her gifts before she was ready to control them. It weakened her etheric double, and she came down with consumption. Lilli, I think her name was.’

‘I remember that story, yes.’

‘So we decided I should wait till you’d completely mastered scrying. But by then the stone was gone.’

‘I see.’ Salamander felt a stab of guilt.
If I hadn’t kept running away, if I’d only worked harder, maybe I could have seen the message years ago.
Valandario was looking at him with a grim frown that made him wonder if she were thinking the same thing.

‘Uh, well.’ Salamander came up with a quick question to change the subject. ‘What about the spirit indwelling the stone? Do you know what it is?’

‘Spirit? There wasn’t any spirit when I had it. Someone else has been working with the thing.’

For a long moment they stared at each other in surprise.

‘It might have been Evandar’s doing,’ Salamander said at last.

‘That’s true, it might have,’ Val said. ‘You know, you can never ever tell Dallandra I said this, but the Guardians positively make my flesh creep. How she could have run off with one of them, I’ll never know.’

‘Jill made similar remarks.’

‘No doubt! Now, Evandar was at least less irrational than most Guardians. If he put a message in that stone, it must have been something important.’

‘Maybe it’s still there. If we do take Zakh Gral, I’ll be able to recover the pyramid and look into it again.’

‘If it isn’t destroyed in the battle. I wonder how the Horsekin got hold of it? After Loddlaen’s death, Aderyn looked for the stone, but he couldn’t find it. No one knew what had happened to it.’

‘It seems to have travelled a long way west.’

‘Yes, and I wonder how. Now, if you get the thing, look into it, write down what you see, and then smash it to pieces.’ For a moment her voice touched upon an animal growl. She laid a hand on her throat and coughed before she spoke again. ‘Look into it more than once, of course, if you need to. But when you feel there’s no more good to be got out of it, destroy it for me. Will you do that? I’d love to know it was gone forever.’

‘I’ll do that. I promise.’

‘Thank you.’ Valandario smiled, back to her usual composed and golden self. ‘You know, I’d best put these gems away and start packing for tomorrow. Princess Carra wants to leave at dawn.’

‘Well, then, may you all have a safe ride down to the coast.’

‘Oh, we will.’ Valandario pointed to her scrying array. ‘It’s the rest of you I worry about.’

Salamander pushed out a weak smile, then rose and left. He had to admit that even though he’d received no sinister omens, he was worried himself.

He found Dallandra and her cluster of helpers packing up for the march as well. Behind Calonderiel’s tent lay a welter of pack panniers, which the assistants were filling with medicinals, bandages, kettles for brewing herbs, and the like. When Salamander joined them, Dallandra gave some orders to her chief assistant, Ranadario, a young woman with raven dark hair and deep purple eyes. Since she had no dweomer apprentice at that time, Dallandra had taken on two young men and two young women who wanted to learn healing and herbcraft. Dallandra led Salamander some distance away, where they could speak privately.

‘What did Val have to say about the obsidian pyramid?’ Dallandra said.

‘A very great deal,’ Salamander said. ‘Let me tell you.’

By the time he finished, Dallandra was frowning in thought.

‘The thing that bothers me,’ Dallandra said at last, ‘is the presence of that spirit. I wonder who bound it? Evandar never would have done such a thing. I doubt me if it was someone who followed the path of light.’

‘I’d wager on your nasty bitch of a Raena,’ Salamander said, ‘or beg pardon, the holy witness Raena. The other objects on the altar supposedly belonged to her.’

‘I know the wyvern dagger did at one point. But you know, I met Raena, and she didn’t have the power to bind spirits. She only knew the most elementary things about dweomer. All her dweomer acts derived from first Alshandra and then Shaetano working through her.’