The old man with the brown skin and ready smile still sat on the rocks where Evandar had left him. He was still cutting the apple with a blunt knife, and each time he sliced off a piece, another grew back to replace it. Yet something had changed. All around him, for a distance of some fifty feet, the barren land had turned green with the beginnings of grass. Near the dead trunk a sapling had sprouted. With a shiver of feathers Evandar changed back into elven form, then created himself a green tunic to wear as well. He sat down on the rock opposite the old man.
“An apple tree?” Evandar said. “That’s new.”
“It is.” The old man looked up and greeted him with a smile. “You’ve returned.”
“I have, at that. I’ve come to ask you a question or two.”
“Ah, have you? Well, I may not answer unless you answer me some of my own.”
“A fair bargain, good sir. I’ve told you why I’m here. Why are you here?”
“To act as a canal.”
Evandar gaped.
“Haven’t you ever been to Bardek?” the old man said, grinning. “The irrigation canals bring water from where it is to where it’s not.”
“And are you bringing water, then? The land’s a bit greener than when last I saw it.”
“Water of a sort. But now it’s my turn for the question. You came to ask questions, but why do you think I have answers?”
“Because of that apple. In my own country there’s a tree that marks a borderland. One half of it is always green and in full leaf, while the other half is dead and blazes with fire. I don’t know why, but the apple seems to me to be the same sort of thing.”
“Very good. You’re quite right.”
“I think me that I’m a canal myself, when it comes to maintaining my lands.”
“It could well be.”
“Can you tell me how these canals work?”
“Power comes from the astral plane, meets a pattern, and fills it, like water will run down a canal and fill up a pond. Do you know what I mean by the astral plane?”
“I’ve heard the word before, truly. So the power runs through me to my lands?”
“I’d suppose so.” The old man suddenly laughed. “I’ve never seen you at work.”
“Ah. Well, I’m the master of the green lands over there.” Evandar waved in their direction. “I created them for my people by pulling down energy and braiding it into forms. This was all a long time ago, of course. We wandered among the stars, but we grew weary.”
“Ah, so you don’t come from the world of matter.”
That word again, matter! Evandar considered it one of the three greatest riddles, along with Death and Time.
“I don’t, good sir,” Evandar said. “Could you be so kind as to answer me this? When I’m in residence in my lands, I can create anything I wish, just by picturing it, but the thing refuses to stay. If I don’t keep bringing water down the canal, as it were, then the pond dries up. How can I stop this?”
“You can’t. That’s the very nature of the etheric plane at work. Nothing persists there unless you keep building it anew.”
Evandar swore with a few oaths he’d learned from Rhodry. The old man made a wry face.
“You may ask me a question now, sir,” Evandar said. “It’s your turn.”
“Oh, I don’t have any more. I’ll save them in case I need to ask you somewhat later.”
“Fair enough. Then I’ll give you another question to hold in store. When I go to the world of men and elves, nothing I imagine gets itself born. Why?”
“That’s the nature of the world of matter. It’s extremely difficult to create there, but what you create takes great effort to destroy. In the etheric world, what you create with great ease fades away easily.”
Evandar sighed and considered this, while the old man kept peeling the apple and eating what he sliced away.
“I think I begin to understand,” Evandar said at last. “Do you mean to tell me that unless I’ve been born, unless I’ve subjected myself to flesh and stench and death, that nothing I do will remain?”
“Oh, it’s not quite as bad as all that. Close, but not quite. Well-loved images remain as images, though imperfect ones. In some worlds bards already sing about your country, though they have all sorts of wrong names for it.”
“So if I should lose it, it won’t be completely gone?”
“Not as long as the bard songs get themselves sung and men and elves are willing to hear them. But in the end, every song falls silent.”
“Then I’m doomed to lose it for once and all.”
“Not truly. If you lose it, you’ll find it again. If you hoard it, you’ll lose it.”
This made no sense whatsoever, but Evandar had no time to puzzle it out. He rose and bowed.
“My thanks, good sir. If ever I can be of aid to you, I will.”
“You’ve got the answers you need, then?”
“I do, though I like them not.”
Evandar flung his arms into the air and leapt back in to the red hawk form. He screeched once in farewell, then flew off, fast and steadily, for his own country and the mothers of all roads.
Far, far to the south of Bardek, so far that in those days very few human beings knew they existed, lie a handful of islands, scattered across the sea by the Goddess of Fire, some say, in aeons past. Be that as it may, they’d offered a refuge to elven folk who’d fled the destruction of the Seven Cities by ship, back at the time when Deverry men first rode in Annwn. The name of the largest of them is Linalantava, the Island of Regret.
In elven form, wearing his green tunic and buckskin leggings, Evandar travelled to Linalantava. With a pair of heavy leatherbound books under his arms, he walked along a misty trail that seemed to lead nowhere. All at once he stepped off, glided down, and found himself standing among twisted, stunted pines.
A cool wind played over a barren landscape. It seemed that the very sunlight changed, turning pale while he picked his way through huge grey boulders along the crest of a hill. Below him a cliff dropped down to a long parched valley gashed by a dry riverbed; far across rose high mountains, black and forbidding, peaked with snow. A wind blew steadily, whining through the coarse grass. The stunted slant of the few trees made it clear that the wind rarely stopped.
When he turned round, he saw directly behind him more of the deformed trees, scattered round a spread of low wooden buildings, long oblongs roofed with split shingles. They were covered with carvings, every inch of the walls, every window frame and door lintel, of animals, birds, flowers, words in the elvish syllabary, all stained in subtle colors, mostly blues and reds, to pick out the designs. From round behind the complex he could hear a faint whinny of horses, and a snatch of song drifted with the swirling dust.
Evandar made his way among the huddled longhouses, some hardly better than huts, that sheltered what was left of one of the finest university systems the world has ever known, then or now. The dry air of these parched mountains protected the books that the People had brought with them into exile, the last pitiful remains of the grand libraries of Rinbaladelan and the copies that generations of scribes had made since. It was the curator of these books that he’d come to see, and he found him in the scriptorium, a long narrow building with windows all round.
Meranaldar jumped up to greet him with a low bow. Although his name meant “demon slayer,” Meranaldar was a thin man, stooped and hollow-eyed from his long years spent tending the sacred books. His hair was as pale as Evandar’s own, but his eyes were a more normal purple color.
“My humble greetings!” Meranaldar said. “A visit from one of the Guardians is an honor worth treasuring.”
“My thanks to you, then.” Evandar held out the books. “I’ve brought these back to you.”
Meranaldar took them and laid them down on the wooden table. His long fingers, gnarled from years of holding a pen, trembled as he turned a few pages.
“Does Jill have no further need of these, then?”
It too
k Evandar a few moments to realize what he meant.
“I’m sorry,” Evandar said. “But yes, she’s dead.”
Meranaldar’s eyes filled with tears. He wiped them away on the sleeve of his tunic.
“Well, she had the shaking fever very badly when she left us,” Meranaldar said. “May her gods treat her well in their Otherlands, as she called them.”
Evandar considered telling him how Jill had truly died, then decided against it. Grief was grief no matter what caused the mourning, and he had no desire to tell long complex stories about dweomer and the Guardians.
“I knew she’d want you to have them back,” Evandar said instead. “My friend, I’ve come with a favor to ask you. You’ve got a map of the city of Rinbaladelan, if I remember rightly. I should like a copy of it.”
Meranaldar stared at him for a long moment.
“Er, you do have the map, don’t you?” Evandar said.
“Of course! I’m just surprised. It seems such an odd thing to ask for.”
“Ah, well, I suppose it does. I have this scheme in mind, you see, but it’s not yet ripe enough for the talking about.”
“Very well. Far be it for me to argue with a Guardian.” Meranaldar paused, drumming his fingertips on the table while he thought. “The best copy isn’t here. It’s down in the city. I’ll have to find someone to take my place, then journey there.”
There had been a time when Evandar would have accepted all this effort as merely the tribute due to a Guardian, but recently he’d learned what effort meant to those who lived in the world of Time and Death.
“How may I repay you?” Evandar said.
“Oh, my dear Evandar! No payment needed.”
“But I want to bring you something in return. Jill told you about the Westlands, I know, and your people left behind there. Would more news of them please you?”
Meranaldar looked up with a smile that seemed to lighten the entire room.
“Very well,” Evandar said. “What sort of information would you like?”
“Well, I—all of us—would really like to know how they escaped the destruction of the Seven Cities. Ever since Jill was here, I’ve been puzzling over that. She knew very little of the actual history.”
“Excellent! Please make me my map, and in return, I’ll bring back everything I can find out about the Great Burning. That’s what they call those days, you see.”
“And a good and true name for them it is.” Meranaldar looked away and sighed. “A very good name indeed.”
One sunny afternoon, though the snow lay thick over Cengarn, Dallandra went for a walk in the town, just to be out of the dun for a little while and no reason more. She was climbing the hill path back when she saw Evandar, standing in the shadow of a wall and waiting for her. With a laugh she ran to him and flung herself into his arms. He held her tight and kissed her.
“Oh, it’s so good to see you,” she said. “Is it better out here, away from all the iron?”
“Somewhat, truly, but still I can’t stay long. I’ve got an errand to run.”
“Indeed?”
“Indeed.” He smiled with a hint of teasing; he knew perfectly very well that she was curious. “Dalla, answer me one thing. In all the Westlands, is Devaberiel Silverhand still the greatest bard?”
“As far as I know, it would be hard to find a better. Why?”
But instead of answering, he disappeared, leaving her scowling after him. Apparently she wasn’t the only one to receive a visit; later that day, when Rhodry joined her for a meager supper of bread and cheese, he remarked that Evandar had come asking him questions about Devaberiel as well.
“Did he give you a chance to ask him why?” Dalla said.
“Not much of one.” Rhodry drew his silver dagger and eyed the chunk of cheese doubtfully. “I’ll pare that mold away, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Please do.”
“So Evandar told me that someone he knows in the Southern Isles wants to know more about the Time of Burning and the Westlands. Who? say I, and why? as well. Oh, you’ll find out in good time, says he. It’s a—”
“Riddle, right?”
“Just so. I expect we’ll know when he tells us and not a heartbeat before.”
Dallandra made a sour face and watched him as he swept the parings of mold to one side of the board with his dagger. He wiped the blade clean on his shirt, then began to slice the cheese.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about the Time of Burning myself,” Dallandra said. “When the bards recited the history of the invasions, they called the invaders meradan, demons, or maybe goblins would be a better word in the Deverry tongue. A small people they said, and ugly, too.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call the Horsekin a beauty to behold, but true enough, they’re taller than I am, on an average, and from what Meer told us, their women stand as high as their men.”
“It’s puzzling. I wonder if maybe there were two groups of invaders, and it’s the small ones who were wiped out by plague.”
“Meer never mentioned that, and the gods—his and mine both—know that he’d expound upon the old days at a moment’s whim.” Rhodry divided the slices up evenly and slid her share toward her. “The only distinction he ever made was between the Gel da’Thae, the ones like him, who live in cities, and then the Horsekin proper, who travel with their herds up in the far north.”
“Just so. Well, when we get back to the Westlands, we can ask the bards ourselves.”
For a moment they ate in silence.
“I’ll not be going with you to the Westlands,” Rhodry said abruptly. “I promised Jahdo that I’d take him home to Cerr Cawnen, but after that, I’ll be heading back to the Dwarven lands.”
“Ah.” She considered her feelings for a moment and realized that she’d been expecting just this. “To hunt for Haen Marn?”
“To wait for it, more like—to sit in those desolate hills until I rot. But I promised Enj I’d come back when the wars were done.” He was studying her face. “I’m sorry, but—”
“No need for an apology.” She held up one hand flat for silence. “Haven’t we both always known that my heart belongs to Evandar?”
He smiled, relaxing.
“Just so,” he said at length. “More bread?”
“I’ll have some, and my thanks.”
Out among the elves in the Westlands, winter was a thing of rain and dark skies, not snow. When the summer days became noticeably shorter, the People began driving their herds south. By the time winter had set in they were camped at the edge of the Southern Sea, where there were ravines to shelter their encampments from the wind and enough grass in the cliff-top meadows to feed their stock until spring. Riding his gold stallion Evandar went from one to the other and asked for Devaberiel Silverhand, the bard. Eventually he found him, camped with his alar far to the west of Deverry, on a day when long rains had given over to a pale sun and a damp wind.
Evandar left his horse outside the camp and made himself invisible, then walked through the circular leather tents. Their owners stood around and talked, while children and dogs chased each other, laughing and barking, from the sheer joy of being outside at last. Devaberiel was sitting in front of his leather tent on a cut log for a chair and enjoying the sunshine, it seemed. He was a tall man, Devaberiel, with moonbeam-pale hair and long elven ears, but anyone who knew Rhodry as well as Evandar did could see the resemblance between them.
When Evandar stepped back into visibility, Devaberiel leapt to his feet with a yelp, but when he spoke, his voice held steady.
“That’s a rude way to introduce yourself,” the bard said. “Although truly, I think me we’ve met before.”
“So we have, a very long time ago, when you’d just finished your apprenticeship. I gave you a gift.”
“The rose ring.” Devaberiel turned away and spat as if the words festered in his mouth. “I’ll never forget the cursed thing.”
“What? Now whose manners need mending? That’s a fine way
to treat a gift from a Guardian.”
“I don’t care. You’ve lost me two of my sons with your poisoned trinket. Isn’t that reason enough for an old man’s rage, that he’s lost two of his sons and him in need of them to cheer his last days?”
“Oh come now, you don’t look a day over three hundred!”
Devaberiel crossed his arms over his chest and glared.
“My dear bard,” Evandar went on. “I meant no harm when I gave you that dweomer-token.”
“But harm it’s brought and grief as well. Your blasted rose ring drove Rhodry far away, back into the lands of men. Come to think of it, it was your Alshandra who chased him there!”
“Imph, well, I can’t deny it, though she’s no longer my wife, I assure you. But what of the other boy?”
“When he was seeking out his brother to give him the ring, Ebañy travelled to Bardek, and there he fell in love with the woman who keeps him there still, or so I heard a long while back.”
“Ah. Well, I can’t deny that, either. But here, can’t we lay old griefs aside and—”
“No! We most emphatically cannot. What do you want with me, anyway?”
“I need lore, and I’ve been told you know the lore I need. It’s about the Great Burning.”
“Well, I have that lore, yes. I’ve collected more of it than any other bard alive, I’ll wager. But I’ll not be giving you one blasted scrap of it.”
“But it’s for the good of your people—”
“My people are a dying race, and soon I shall die with them, alone with my grief for my missing sons.” Devaberiel turned away with a sweeping gesture and laid one hand over his eyes. “I wish to see no more.”
Evandar felt like shaking him, but instead he considered what Dallandra would do in this circumstance. In Deverry, bards often performed for gifts—a jewel from a rich lord, or coins, or even a mere meal if they were down on their luck.
“Here, good bard,” Evandar said. “What if I give you a gift in return for your knowledge? What would please you?”