“Once.” Dallandra hesitated, then spoke carefully. “It reminds me of a tale I heard a long time ago. Have you ever heard of the Great Stone of the West?”
“I’ve not.”
Yet Laz felt an odd touch on his mind, not a memory, more a feeling of danger attached to the name. Dallandra was watching him, not precisely studying his face, but certainly more than usually alert.
“What is this fabled stone, if I may ask?” Laz said.
“An opal that one of the Lijik Ganda enchanted—oh, a long time ago. Ebañy told me about it. It had spirits guarding it, too, you see, which is why it came to mind.”
“Ah, I do see. Ebañy’s Evan the gerthddyn?”
“He is. My apologies, I forgot you wouldn’t know his Elvish name. He’s Wynni’s uncle, by the way.”
“And a mazrak, I gather.”
“He is that. He’s not the dweomerman who enchanted the opal, though. Nevyn, his name was, and I know it means ‘no one,’ but it truly was his name.”
The danger pricked him again. Laz felt as if he’d run his hand through the silken grass only to thrust a finger against a thorn. Dallandra was smiling, but only faintly, pleasantly. He wondered why he was so sure she was weaving a trap around him.
“Can you scry for the book?” Her abrupt change of subject made him even more suspicious. “You’ve actually seen it, and I never have.”
“I’ve been doing so to no avail, alas.” Laz decided that talking about the book was safe enough. “When Wynni took it, she put it into a leather sack, then wrapped the sack in some of her clothing. The bundle’s still in her lost saddlebags, or at least, I’m assuming that. All I get is an impression of a crowded darkness.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate!”
“If I ever see anything more clearly, I’ll tell you, though. Does the book belong to you?”
“In a way, I suppose it does. I think—I’m hoping—that it contains the spells I need to turn Rori back into human form. The being who wrote the book is the same one who dragonified him, you see.”
“So Enj told us. Um, the ‘being’? This Evandar wasn’t an ordinary man of your people, I take it.”
“He wasn’t, but one of the Guardians, their leader, as much as they had one, anyway.”
“Ye gods, then he’s the one the Alshandra people call Vandar!”
“Just that. He’d never been incarnate, so he could command the astral forces—or play with them, would be a better way of putting it. He never took anything very seriously.”
Laz looked away slack-mouthed for a moment, then regained control of his voice. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know why I’m so surprised. It would take someone that powerful to work the dweomers we’re discussing.”
“Indeed. And I have no idea how to unwork it, as it were.”
“You said you knew him well?”
“I did. He was my lover, in fact, for some while.”
Laz felt himself staring at her like a half-wit. A hundred questions crowded into his mind, most indelicate at best and outright indecent at worst. A beautiful woman like this, and a man who wasn’t really a man, but some alien creature in manlike form—the idea touched him with sexual warmth. He could smell the change in his scent, but fortunately she seemed oblivious to it.
“Working the transformation killed him—well, I don’t know if killed is the right word,” Dallandra went on. “It drained him of the powers that were keeping him from incarnating. That would be a better way of putting it.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“I’m not sure I do, either.” Dallandra smiled at him. “Evandar had no physical body, only an etheric form that he’d ensouled. To be born, he had to remove that form, but he’d woven it so well, and he had so much power at his disposal that it refused to unwind, as it were. Turning Rhodry into a dragon left him absolutely helpless, all that power spent, his own form destroyed. He could go on at last to cross the white river.”
“I see.” Laz turned his mind firmly back to questions of dweomer. “Speaking of incarnations, you mentioned having somewhat to tell me about mine.”
“I certainly do, thanks to Rori. It turns out that dragons have a certain amount of instinctive dweomer. He remembers you quite clearly from the days when he was human, and in dragon form, he can recognize you.”
“I’d suspected as much, but I’m glad to have the suspicion confirmed. What does he remember that’s so distressing? Distressing to me, I mean.”
“Do you remember aught about your last life?”
“Only a bit, that last battle in front of Cengarn, where Alshandra—well, died, or whatever it is Guardians do when they cease to exist. It’s all cloudy, but I think I was a Horsekin officer.”
“You were there, certainly, but you were a Deverry lord with an isolated demesne just north of Cengarn. You’d gone over to the Horsekin side. They probably treated you like one of their officers.”
Laz winced. “Oh, splendid! A traitor to my kind, was I? No wonder I’ve ended up a half-breed in this life! You’re quite right. That does distress me.”
“Well, Rhodry thought it was your devotion to Alshandra that drove you to it.”
“Worse and worse!” He forced out a difficult smile. “Mayhap it’s just as well that Sidro left me. She’d gloat if she knew that.”
Dallandra nodded, and her expression turned sympathetic.
“I have a vague memory of dying in battle,” Laz went on, “so I suppose I got what I deserved.”
“Your last fight was with Rhodry Aberwyn, a silver dagger. Um, here’s the odd part. Rhodry’s the man whom Evandar turned into the dragon.”
“He killed me?” Laz tossed his head back and laughed aloud. “No wonder he remembered me, eh? And wanted to do it again.”
It was Dallandra’s turn for the puzzled stare. The Ancients, Laz decided, weren’t as morbid as Deverry men and Gel da’Thae if she couldn’t see the humor in the situation.
“Your name was Tren,” Dallandra went on, “Another tale I heard has you killing a Gel da’Thae bard.”
Laz winced again. “That’s a heinous thing among my people,” he said. “And among the Deverry folk, too, I think.”
“One of the worst crimes under their laws, truly. I don’t know much else, because you were part of the Horsekin besiegers, and I was inside the city walls, so—” Dalla paused abruptly. “Now, who’s that?”
Someone was calling her name as he came walking through the rustling long grass. Dallandra rose to her feet, and Laz followed, glancing around him. A man of the Westfolk was striding toward them; he paused, waved to Dallandra, and hurried over with the long grass rustling around him. Tall, slender, pale-haired and impossibly handsome like all the Westfolk men, he had cat-slit eyes of a deep purple, narrowing as he looked Laz over. Ah, Laz thought, the lover or husband, no doubt!
“This is Calonderiel,” Dallandra said, “our banadar, that is, our warleader.”
“How do you do?” Laz made him a small bow.
“Well, my thanks.” Calonderiel held out his hand to Dallandra. “Our daughter’s awake.” The emphasis on the word “our” was unmistakable.
“You’ll forgive me, Laz,” Dalla said, “but I’ve got to go. We’ll continue this discussion later. I’d like to know what you think of Haen Marn, among other things.”
“Therein is a tale and half, indeed. One quick thing, though,” Laz said. “Little Wynni, is she well? As well as she can be, I mean.”
“She’s deep in her mourning, but she’s young, and she’ll recover, sooner or later. Evan’s doing his best to cheer her a bit.”
“He told me,” Calonderiel put in, “that he was going to take her to meet her stepmother today.”
“Stepmother?” Laz hesitated, thinking, then grinned. “The black dragon, you mean?”
“Just that.”
“Well, I’ve heard women describe their stepmothers as dragons before, but this is the first time I’ve ever known it to be true.”
&nb
sp; Calonderiel laughed, but Dallandra spun around to look back at the elven camp.
“That could be dangerous,” she said then took off running, plowing through the tall grass.
“What?” Laz said.
“I don’t know.” Calonderiel shrugged, then turned and trotted after Dallandra.
Laz set his hands on his hips and stood watching them go, cursing silently to himself in a mixture of Gel da’Thae and Deverrian. Warleader, is he? Doubtless he could slit my throat without half-thinking about it, and no one would say him nay.
All his life he’d heard about the fabled Ancients, but he’d never met any until the previous evening. Somehow he’d not expected them all to look so strange and yet so handsome at the same time. Despite her peculiar eyes and ears, Dallandra struck him as more beautiful than any woman he’d ever seen, certainly more glamorous than Sidro. Delicate yet powerful, he thought, that’s Dalla. And dangerous—the scent of dangerous knowledge hung about her like a perfume, or so he decided to think of it, the best perfume of all. What was that powerful opal, and who was this Nevyn? She’d been hinting about something. That he knew.
Laz walked back to his camp, which had returned to what semblance of order it had, the shabby, rectangular tents set up randomly, the men lounging on the ground or wandering aimlessly through scattered gear and unopened packsaddles. Beyond the camp their ungroomed horses grazed at tether. One of the men, one of Faharn’s recent recruits, lay snoring on his blankets. Laz kicked him awake.
“Ye gods!” Laz snarled. “Where’s Faharn? You lazy pack of dogs, this place looks like a farmyard, not a proper camp.”
“Indeed?” Krask scrambled up to face him. “Who do you think you are, a rakzan?”
Laz raised one hand and summoned blue fire. It gathered around his fingers and blazed, bright even in the sunlight. Krask stepped back fast.
“No,” Laz said. “Not a rakzan. Something much much worse.”
He flung the illusionary flames straight at Krask’s face. With a squall Krask ducked and went running. The other men watching burst out laughing. A few called insults after Krask’s retreating back, but they got to their feet fast enough when Laz turned toward them.
“Get this place in order,” Laz said. “Now!”
They hurried off to follow his command. Grumbling to himself, Laz ducked into the tent he shared with Faharn and which, apparently, his second-in-command had already organized. Their bedrolls were spread out on either side; their spare clothing, saddles, and the like were neatly stacked at the foot of each. Faharn himself, however, was elsewhere. Laz sat down on his own blankets and considered the problem of Sidro in the light of what he now knew about his last life.
She was a half-breed, just as he was, an object of scorn among the pure-blooded Gel da’Thae and their human slaves both, no matter how powerful the half-breed mach-fala and how weak the slave. Had she, too, betrayed her own kind, whichever kind that many have been, back in that other life? We must have been together, he thought. We must have some connection. It occurred to him that Dallandra might know. She might have told me if that lout hadn’t interrupted!
Although he’d not meant to scry, his longing brought him Sidro’s image, so clear that he knew it to be true vision and not a memory. She was kneeling beside a stream in the company of Westfolk women, laughing together, chatting as they washed clothes, their arms up to their elbows in soap and white linen. It suited her, this slave work, or so he tried to tell himself, with her plain face, so different from the elegant Dallandra’s, with those round little eyes and scruffy dark hair. She’d done him a favor, he decided, by leaving him. What would I want with her, anyway? An ugly mutt without any true power for sorcery!
Still, something seemed to have gotten into his eyes, dust from the camp, maybe, or smoke. Although he managed to stop himself from sobbing aloud, the traitor tears spilled and ran.
Toward noon Berwynna finally overcame her weariness enough to leave the refuge of the tent she shared with Uncle Mic. She emptied their chamber pot into the latrine ditch at the edge of the encampment, rinsed it downstream, then returned it to the tent. For a few moments she stood just outside the entrance and looked around her. Talking among themselves, the strangely long-eared Westfolk passed by. Many of them looked her way, smiled, or ducked their heads in acknowledgment, but she could understand none of their words, leaving her no choice but to smile in return, then stay where she was.
Eventually someone she recognized came up to her, Ebañy the gerthddyn. When he hailed her in Deverrian, she could have wept for the relief of hearing something she could understand.
“Good morrow, Uncle Ebañy,” Berwynna. “May I call you that?”
“By all means, though most people in Deverry call me Salamander.”
“I do like the fancy of calling you Uncle Salamander.”
“Then please do so.” He made her a bow. “My full name is Ebañy Salamonderiel tran Devaberiel, but I’m your uncle, sure enough.”
“My father’s brother. Right?”
“Right again, though we had different mothers. But can I turn myself into a dragon? Alas, I cannot.”
“Mayhap that be just as well. No doubt one dragon be more than enough for a family.”
“You have my heartfelt agreement on that. I can, however, turn myself into a magpie.” The beginnings of a smile twitched at his mouth.
“Be you teasing me?” Berwynna crossed her arms over her chest.
“Not in the least.”
“Ah, then you be like Laz and the raven. A mazrak.”
“Just so.” Yet he looked disappointed, as if perhaps he’d expected her to be shocked or amazed.
“That be a wonderful thing, truly,” Berwynna went on. “Better than being stuck, like, in one shape or another, such as that sorcerer did to my da. Or be it so that a man can get himself trapped in some other form, all by himself, I do mean?”
“He can, indeed, and frankly, I worry about Laz. Sidro’s mentioned that he often flies for days at a time.”
“I ken not the truth of that, but I did see him fly every day, twice at times, when we were traveling.”
“That’s far too often. Huh, I should have a word with him about it, a warning, like.”
“Think you he’ll listen?”
“Alas, I do not. Now, speaking of dragons, did you know that you have a stepmother and a stepsister of that scaly tribe?”
“I didn’t! Ye gods, here I did think that dragons be only the fancies of priests and storytellers, and now I do find that my own clan be full of them.”
“Priests?”
“Father Colm, the priest we did know back in Alban, did tell me once an old tale, that a dragon did eat a bishop—that be somewhat like a head priest, you see—but she did eat a bishop some miles to the south of where we did dwell. But I believed him not.”
“I have the horrid feeling that this Colm might have been right.” With a slight frown Salamander considered something for a moment, then shrugged the problem away. “Ah well, the dragons are sleeping the morning away in the sun, but when they wake, I’ll introduce you. In the meantime, Wynni, come with me, and let’s meet some of the ordinary folk.”
“Ordinary” was not a word that Berwynna would have applied to the Westfolk. With their cat-slit eyes and long, furled ears, they fit Father Colm’s descriptions of devils, yet she saw them doing the same daily things that the people of her old world did: cooking food, mending clothes, tending their children. They greeted her pleasantly, and some even spoke the language she now knew as Deverrian. Several woman told her how sorry they were that she’d lost her betrothed. Not devils at all, she thought. Most likely Father Colm never actually knew any of them.
One odd thing, though, did give her pause. Now and then she saw a person talking to what appeared to be empty air. Once a woman carrying a jug of water tripped, spilling the lot. After she picked herself up, she set her hands on her hips and swore at nothing, or at least, at a spot on the ground that seemed to contai
n nothing. Another person, a young man, suddenly burst out of a tent and chased—something. Berwynna got a glimpse of an arrow traveling through the air, but close to the ground and oddly slowly. With what sounded like mighty oaths, the man caught up, snatched it from the air, and aimed a kick at an empty spot near where he’d claimed the arrow.
“Uncle Salamander?” she said, pointing. “What does he talk to?”
“Hmm? Just one of the Wildfolk.”
“Oh, now you be teasing me.”
“You don’t see the Wildfolk?” Salamander spoke in a perfectly serious tone. “I would have thought you could.”
Wynni hesitated on the edge of annoyance. With a smile, he patted her on the arm.
“Don’t let it trouble your heart,” Salamander said. “Ah, there’s Branna. Let me introduce you.”
Branna turned out to be a human lass—blonde, pretty, and about Wynni’s own age—a relief, she realized, after all the strange-looking folk she’d seen and met. She also spoke the language that Wynni had come to think of as Deverrian, another relief.
“Dalla told me that you’d lost your man,” Branna said. “My heart aches for you.”
“My thanks.” Wynni managed to keep her voice steady. “I’ll be missing him always.”
“Well, now,” Salamander said. “I have hopes that in a while you’ll—”
“Oh, please don’t try to make light of it,” Branna interrupted him. “It sounds so condescending.”
Salamander winced and muttered an apology. Wynni decided that she liked Branna immensely, even though it surprised her to see her uncle defer to one so young.
Branna accompanied them as they continued their stroll through the camp. As they walked between a pair of tents, they came face-to-face with a small child, perhaps four years old, who held a small green snake in both hands. The child ignored them, and Branna and Salamander turned to go back the way they’d come.
Wynni lingered, watching the child, who had eyes as green as the snake and slit the same vertical way. She was assuming that the snake was a pet, but the little lad calmly pinched its head between thumb and forefinger of one hand, then twisted the creature’s body so sharply with the other that it broke the snake’s neck and killed it. Wynni yelped and stepped back as the child bit into the snake’s body. Blood ran down his chin as he spit out bits of green skin.