The Spirit Stone (57 page)

‘Now that I’d never have guessed. The Mountain Folk?’

‘Why not? They maintain farming villages not all that far east of it. They could join those up with a dun or one of their underground fortresses and form a northern line of defence.’

‘But what about Gerran and his new clan?’

‘That’s where the lost taxes come in. He’d become a vassal of Tieryn Cadryc and be given a new dun on the Melyn river somewhere. That area needs fortifying against raiders anyway. It would be to our advantage as well, having allies right there to call upon in the future.’

‘So it would. Do you want some more of this bread?’

‘I do, my thanks. So here’s the thing that had Ridvar soiling his brigga. Voran wants Cadryc to change allegiance and become Prince Dar’s vassal. And of course, all of Cadryc’s vassals will come with him.’

‘I can’t imagine Ridvar allowing that.’

‘He’ll have to.’ Calonderiel paused to grin. ‘Otherwise, the high king will create a new gwerbretrhyn just to the south of Ridvar’s—or so Voran says, at any rate. And that means a rival on our gwerbret’s borders. Oh, he’ll let Cadryc go, all right.’

Dallandra found that she could still laugh. ‘Grallezar always calls Voran sly. It’s a good word for him.’

‘Yes, it is.’ Calonderiel returned the grin. ‘Now, tomorrow the entire army’s pulling back to the place where that road to Braemel joins the river. Day after that, part of it will retreat further, across the ford and some miles east.’

‘Only part of it?’

‘Yes. We’ll be sending the wounded back under heavy guard. The rest of us will stay and wait.’ He paused to scrape green mould from a chunk of cheese.

‘Wait for what?’

‘The Horsekin reinforcements. The dragons killed a couple of men we missed who were trying to get back to their cities, but I’m certain that some will make it back, the ones with the wits to reach the forest. The dragons can’t follow them there, and we can’t ride in after them, either.’

‘And when they reach the cities?’

‘I can’t believe the reserve forces won’t march out immediately.’ Calonderiel looked up with a sunny grin. ‘This is our chance to deal them a blow they’ll remember for years, Dalla. The more we kill now, the more time we’ll have to fortify duns along the Melyn. If the People are going to survive, we have to have somewhere to retreat to if—no, when—these shit-ugly savages break out onto the grasslands again.’ He stabbed the now-clean cheese wedge with his table dagger and gestured with it. ‘And you know they will.’

‘Yes, I suppose I do. Are you going to stay?’

‘Of course. I’m the banadar.’

By sheer dint of will Dallandra managed to keep from shedding angry tears. With the fortress destroyed, she had thought the worst over, but the worst was refusing to end.

‘I’ll stay with you,’ she said. ‘Some of our men might well be wounded, and you’ll need a healer here who understands the People. I can send two of my assistants back with the others.’

‘Good. We’ll need you.’

Her gratitude that he would say only the simple truth surprised her. Praise or fulsome thanks would have sickened her, she realized, but all of a sudden she lost her appetite, especially for tough, stringy horsemeat. She handed him the rest of her dinner to finish, then made a dweomer light and hung it near the smokehole.

‘What’s that for?’ Calonderiel said with his mouth full.

‘The holy relics from Zakh Gral. I haven’t even looked at them yet.’

‘You know, those might be useful. No doubt their wretched priestesses will want them back. They could give us something to bargain with in the future.’

‘Perhaps. Some of them should be destroyed.’

Dallandra found the sack and sat down with it under the light. She opened it and pulled out a lumpy bundle wrapped in the banner made of Salamander’s old shirt.

‘I can’t believe they thought that prattling dolt had worked a miracle,’ Calonderiel said.

‘They wanted a miracle very badly, is why they believed it.’ One fold at a time, Dallandra unwrapped the relics and laid them onto a leather cushion beside her. In the dweomer light the golden bow and arrow glittered with a normal metallic sheen.

‘Now, these I won’t mind turning over to you, if you think they’ll be useful,’ Dallandra said. ‘They’re just ordinary objects. So’s this.’ She picked up a wooden box inlaid with spirals and opened it to reveal the so-called wyvern knife. ‘But here’s Yraen’s silver dagger.’ Dallandra handed the box to Calonderiel. ‘They shan’t have that back. They stole it in the first place. Give it to Gerran, I’d say. None of us can touch the thing without it blazing like a fire.’

‘Oh, it might come in handy on a dark night.’

‘I doubt if you want to use it for a torch. I’m not sure how it affects us, but I suspect it sucks out life force to fuel the light.’

‘Very well, out it goes.’ Calonderiel was scowling into the open box. ‘I’ll see if Gerran wants it. A silver dagger’s something of an insult among the Roundears, though.’

‘It’s too bad we don’t know where Yraen’s buried, or we could put it in his grave. Otherwise, I don’t know what to do with it. One of the Mountain Folk might want it for the metal, I suppose.’ She paused to hold up the bone whistle. ‘Here’s this hideous thing! I don’t want it in Horsekin hands. It has an odd power over dragons. I’m planning on giving it to Arzosah to destroy. Huh. If they want Salamander’s shirt back, they can have that, but I doubt very much that they will.’

Dallandra opened the last fold and found the black obsidian pyramid lying among the stains and frayed embroideries. It caught the dweomer light and glittered with sparks of what seemed to be black fire, edged with gold. Calonderiel leaned back as if he feared they would burn.

‘It won’t hurt you,’ Dallandra said. ‘That’s just a manifestation of the spirit trapped in the pyramid. It’s furious, I should think.’

‘I would be, if someone trapped me somewhere.’

‘I’m sure you would, but hush for a moment. Let me see if I can release it.’

Dallandra let herself relax to the edge of trance and opened her etheric sight. She saw a cage of blue light woven around the pyramid, the visible traces of the binding ceremony. Its builder, however, must have been an extremely powerful dweomerworker, because the lines of blue light ran through the obsidian as well, as if the cage had grown tendrils into the crystal. Deep in the black heart of the gem she could just make out a whorl of silver light, spinning around and around in a tiny cell—the trapped spirit.

Dallandra visualized a pentagram, then pushed the image out of her mind onto the etheric cage. Nothing happened. She returned her sight to the physical world with a toss of her head.

‘May whoever did this rot!’ she said.

‘I take it you couldn’t just let it go.’

‘No, nothing so simple. Cal, would you go find Ebañy? I may need his help for this.’

‘You’re still so tired. Can’t it wait?’

‘And how would you feel, if the person who could let you out of prison decided to take a nap first?’

With a sigh Calonderiel got to his feet. ‘I’ll go look for him. No doubt someone knows where he is.’

Calonderiel ducked out of the tent, to return shortly with Salamander. Purple bruises under his eyes marked the gerthddyn’s dead-pale face.

‘Our most esteemed banadar told me you wanted my help,’ Salamander said. ‘Aha, behold the black stone!’

‘Just that,’ Dallandra said. ‘I’m going to go up to the astral to try to free that spirit. I wanted you here in case something went wrong.’

‘If naught else, I can channel vital force to you.’

‘If you have any to spare. Ebañy, you look utterly drained.’

‘Oh, it’s only grief. No dweomer, nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘Don’t! I can’t bear to listen to you try to joke it away.’

‘No doubt. No more can I bear to listen to myself.’ Salamander nearly wept, choked it back, then knelt on the floor near her. ‘Are you going into full trance?’

Had it not been for the trapped spirit, Dallandra would have prodded him into the relief of tears. As it was, she said, ‘Yes. The simple working I just tried failed miserably.’

Dallandra lay down on her back and set her hands on her chest. Salamander placed the black pyramid in her fingers, then knelt at her head while Calonderiel left to stand guard outside the door. Dallandra built up the image of her body of light, a glowing silver flame, then transferred her consciousness into it. Once she was free of her body, she looked down and saw the obsidian, shot through with lines of blue light, clasped between her pale hands. Unlike ordinary stone, so dead when seen on the etheric plane, the black crystal pulsed gold.

In this state she could work from above, as it were, upon the spirit trap. After an invocation to the Light that shines beyond all the gods, she focused her concentration upon the crystal. She could see the spirit as a golden line beating against the bars of its prison. Now and then it twisted into an agony of struggle.

‘Hold still!’ she thought to it. ‘I come in the name of the Light!’

The golden line swelled in greeting, then shrank down to a point. Inside her flame-shape, Dallandra raised her etheric hands and began to gather force from the blue light billowing around her. She shaped it into the image of an axe, then grabbed the handle with both hands. With another call to the Light, she swung the axe up high and brought it down hard upon the bars of the spirit cage. They shattered into a shower of black sparks.

On a wave of joy the golden line darted from the crystal. As it rose, it grew until it reached a spear’s length of gleaming metallic light. Trembling, it stood before her.

‘You will have my thanks through all eternity,’ the spirit thought to her. ‘You are my deliverer. What may I do to serve you?’

Dallandra nearly lost her concentration in sheer surprise. She’d been expecting a fragment of mind such as the Wildfolk have, but this spirit belonged to a much higher order of being if it could send thoughts in the form of words.

‘I ask nothing from you,’ Dallandra said, ‘but to serve the Light always.’

‘That shall I do with great joy.’

‘Tell me, who trapped you in this gem?’

‘I know not his name. If I had, I should have cursed him thrice over. His image—look!’

The golden line flickered, swelled, and transformed itself into the blurry but recognizable image of a Deverry man—a typical Cerrmor man, Dallandra realized, with pale hair and high cheekbones. The illusion melted as fast as a sliver of ice on a hearthstone, leaving the spirit standing before her.

‘I can show no more,’ it said, ‘but if you find that man, beware beware beware!’

‘I shall indeed, and my thanks for the warning.’

‘The man dripped evil. First he bought my prison from a murderer. He gave the murderer a golden coin for it. Then he built the cage and chased me until I could flee no more. When he trapped me, he mocked me, saying that the only being in any world who could release me was the murderer’s mother. And so I raged, thinking I would be bound for all eternity.’

Dallandra felt such a stab of grief that it manifested. A long howl of pain, a keening wail, cut through the billowing blue light. She could feel the spirit’s confusion as it swirled about her silver flame.

‘You are my deliverer,’ it said. ‘I meant not to pain you by repeating that evil fool’s lie.’

‘It was no lie,’ Dallandra said. ‘I am that woman. I am the murderer’s mother.’

The spirit turned into a rigid line of gold, pure force frozen briefly into form. For a moment it hovered in front of her, trying to comprehend, then like an arrow loosed from a bow it launched itself and flew, darting away into the billowing blue mists. Far more slowly Dallandra retreated down the silver cord to her body.

With a grunt of pain she woke to find herself still lying on her back with her fingers twined around the obsidian pyramid. Salamander reached over and took the crystal from her, then rose to call Calonderiel. She unfolded her hands and shook them to bring back feeling to them. She sat up just as Cal came hurrying back into the tent.

‘No flopping around this time,’ Calonderiel said. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am, too.’

‘So am I,’ Dallandra said. ‘I don’t need bruises.’ She looked Salamander’s way. ‘The spirit is free.’

Salamander smiled, but tears were running down his face. He handed her the pyramid and tried to speak. With a shrug, he stood up, then ducked under the door flap and left the tent.

‘Sisi!’ Laz said. ‘Come look at this!’

He was sitting at the table with the white pyramid in front of him. Sidro sat down opposite and leaned onto the table to stare into the crystal. Her first glance made her gasp and lean closer. Instead of the Inner Shrine, she saw the smoky image of a woman of the Ancients sitting inside a tent. Golden light fell around her. The woman, silver-eyed and silver-haired, was talking as she pointed to the pyramid. The view changed and swooped so rapidly that Sidro felt momentarily ill. When it cleared, she saw the face of Exalted Mother Grallezar, peering into the smoky view. The Ancients woman had apparently handed the crystal to the Gel da’ Thae.

‘Rocca must have saved the holy relics somehow.’ Sidro tore herself away from the image and looked at Laz. ‘They wouldn’t have the crystal otherwise.’

‘That’s true. She did one thing right in her benighted life.’

‘Oh, hold your tongue! Don’t mock the dead!’

‘Why? Do you think she’ll come back to curse me if I do?’

‘Naught of the sort! It’s merely an ugly stupid thing to do.’ Sidro looked away, shocked at her own feelings. For years she’d hated Rocca, her rival and tormentor, but now Rocca was dead while she still lived. ‘My sister in Alshandra,’ she whispered. ‘She really was, you know, in spite of everything, a sister. I shall miss her.’

Laz stared, uncomprehending.

‘I used to envy her so much,’ Sidro continued. ‘Her faith came so easily, like a river in spate, where mine was a little trickle from a muddy spring. But now I see that she was mad, absolutely moon-struck. She’ll never have the chance to learn the truth. I don’t envy her any longer. I’m sorry she’s dead, I really am.’

‘I suppose I understand that.’ Laz spoke softly. ‘But I also suppose I don’t need to understand.’