A Time of Omens (23 page)

“And what-happened to this thing?”

“Oh, we tossed it back. Wasn’t one of our ships.”

“I see. So, then, it must have come from somewhere to the south?”

“Most likely. And then there’s the bubbles, too. Down on the southern beaches, sometimes you find these glass bubbles after a storm/” He cupped Ms massive hands, “About so big. Bad Suck to break one. The priests say there must be evil spirits trapped inside. But someone must have blown the glass and trapped the spirits.”

“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in sailing south someday, just to find out what lies that way.”

“Not on your life!”

“Not even if someone paid you well?”

“Not even then. You can’t spend coin down Hades way, can you? That storm took us about as far as a man can sail and still get himself home again, and we all came cursed near to starving to death before we made port.”

The way he shook his head, and the edge of fear wedging into his voice, made it plain that not all the persuasion in the world was going to change his mind. Jill stood him to another cup of wine in thanks for the information, then bid him farewell and strolled over to join the troupe. They were laughing, tossing jests back and forth and all round the circle, dancing through their work, so happy—so relieved, really—that she couldn’t bear to spoil their celebration. She would wait to talk with Salamander on the morrow, she decided.

“Ebañy?” she called out. “I’m going back to the inn. This trip’s wrung me out.”

He tossed a length of rope into a wagon and hurried over, peering at her in the flickering torchlight. He himself looked exhausted, streaming with sweat his eyes pools of dark shadow.

“Jill, are you well? Lately you’ve looked so pale.”

“It’s the heat.” As she spoke, she realized the grim truth of it. “I’m not used to it, and I’m not as young as I used to be, you know. And it seems to be taking its toll on you, as well.”

He nodded his agreement and ran both hands through his sweaty hair to slick it back from his face.

“Don’t stay up too late yourself, my friend,” Jill said. “As for me, I think I’ll go have some of that watered wine or winy water or whatever it is, and then just go to bed.”

She was so exhausted that once she lay down in her inn chamber, she fell straight asleep and never even heard the entire troupe clattering in, an hour or so later.

In the middle of the night, though, Jill woke in a puddle of sweat. Since the window was a patch of black only slightly grayer than the room itself, she could assume that the moon had already set but the dawn was still hours away. Swearing under her breath she got up, rubbed herself dry with her dirty shirt, and put on her cleaner one to go outside for a breath of air. The compound was utterly silent, utterly dark except for the faint murmur of water in the fountain and a glimmer of stars far above. She made her careful way across the cracked tiles to the fountain, groped around, and found a safe seat on its edge. Here outside, with a trace of breeze brushing her face and the sound of water splashing nearby, she felt cool enough to think.

Getting an Anmurdio ship for the trip south was out of the question. She decided that straightaway. Even if the crew proved trustworthy, they and their passengers both would still likely die from the bad water and worse food on such a long journey. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she could never subject the troupe to the journey, not even if they had the best boat in the world to carry them. Not even Marka? She indulged herself with a few choice curses on Salamander’s head. They
could neither take the lass along nor leave her behind, not now, unless of course Salamander stayed with her. But go alone? She was willing to admit that the idea of traveling alone across the southern sea frightened her, in spite of all her dweomer, but she also knew that if she had to, she would. When she looked up, the stars hung bright and cold, a vast indifferent sweep dwarfing even a dweomermaster and her concerns in a tide of light and darkness. In the spirit of an invalid demanding a lantern in her nighttime chamber, Jill snapped her fingers and called upon the Wildfolk of Aethyr. They came, clustering round the decayed stone nymph in the center of the fountain and shedding a faint but comforting glow.

The silver light made her think of Dallandra, just idly at first, until an idea struck home like an arrow. Jill pointed at one of the spirits hovering nearby.

“You know the lands of the Guardians. Fetch Dallandra for me.”

The spirit winked out of manifestation, but whether it had truly understood the command, Jill couldn’t say. She waited for a long time, was, in fact, about to give it up and go back inside when she saw a wisp of silver light gathering above the fountain.

“Dalla?” She breathed out the name.

But it was only an undine, raising itself up, as sleek as a water snake, to stare at her with enormous eyes before vanishing in a swirl of water. Dressed in her elven clothes, though the amethyst jewel no longer hung round her neck, Dallandra herself strolled across the courtyard, as solid as the cobblestones.

“I can’t believe I managed it,” she remarked, grinning, and she spoke in Elvish, “But it worked, and here I am. Jill, I’ve got so much to tell you. Evandar’s found the islands, first off, and we can take you there.”

“Take me there?” Jill felt as muddled as if someone had just struck her on the head. “You’ve got a ship?”

“No, but we don’t need one. It’s Evandar’s dweomer. But I don’t know how many of you we can—”

“I’ll be the only person making the trip. I’ve been dreading taking other people along with me. I can’t tell you how grateful I am! For all I knew, we could all drown out there.”

“Most likely you would,” She paused, glancing over her shoulder at something that only she could see. “I’ve still got to be quick, even though it’s ever so much easier to talk like this. But Evandar said to tell you something else, that these people respect and honor the dweomer more than any other thing under the sun and moon, and so you’ll have a welcome there.”

“And I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that, too! I’d been rather wondering about it.”

“No doubt.” She flashed a grin. “When do you want to go? I imagine that you’ve got farewells to make.”

“And some gear to get together. And, well, there’s somewhat I’ve got to do before I leave, not that Salamander’s going to thank me for it, I suppose. I don’t suppose we can set a time, anyway. If I say a fortnight, how will you know when that comes round?”

“It’s difficult, yes. I do have a plan. There’s a place that I can wait, one that’s next to your world, you see, and so its Time runs a little closer to yours. Get yourself ready, and I’ll come to you as soon as I can. Send me one of the Wildfolk for a messenger.”

“Splendid. And you have my thanks and a thousand times my thanks.”

“Most welcome.” She paused again, staring down at the ground and frowning. “The child. She’s going to have to be born soon, because there’s trouble brewing in our lands. I can’t explain. I only half understand it myself. But it’s going to have to be soon.”

All at once a thought struck Jill. It might well be that Salamander and his new wife would serve the dweomer whether he wanted to or no.

“Tell me something. Could the child be born here? In the islands, I mean?”

“No, not at all. All the omens, and what little logic there is in this thing, for that matter, say she has to be born into the Westlands.”

“That’s a pity.”

“Why?”

“Oh, just that I know a new husband who might make a splendid father for such a child.”

“Good, because, you see, there’ll be other children born
later, lots and lots—at least, if I can carry this thing off. Jill, at times I’m frightened.”

“Well, for what my help is worth, you have it”

“It’s worth a very great deal.”

They clasped hands and shared a smile. Jill was surprised at how warm and solid Dallandra’s hand felt; she’d been expecting some cool etheric touch.

“If great things are on the move,” Jill said, “I’d best wrap up my affairs here and get on my way back to Deverry.”

“When the time draws near, III take you back to Deverry, have no fear about that. I’ve so many marvels to tell you about, to show you, once we’ve time to talk together for a while, but now—”

“Yes, I understand. You’d best go. It’s almost dawn, and if other people find you here, they’ll ask questions.”

Dallandra walked toward the inn-yard gates, turned once to wave, then vanished in a glimmer of gray dawn light. Marvels, indeed! Jill thought. All at once she laughed aloud, thinking what a wonderful Jest it would be on Salamander, if indeed he ended up fathering the body for some dweomer-touched child. Even Nevyn, she supposed, would have been able to see the humor in this, for all that the old man could be downright grim more often than not.

When Dallandra mentioned trouble brewing, she meant nothing more than the ill will that Alshandra bore her, but as things turned out she’d spoken more truly than she knew. After she left Jill at the inn yard, she traveled back through the twisting roads and the mists to Evandar’s country. He was waiting for her on the hilltop, standing alone and looking down through the night to the meadow where his people danced by torchlight. The music drifted up to them on the wind, harp and drum and flute.

“You’ve come back,” he said, “My heart ached the whole time you were gone.”

“Did you think I’d desert you so soon?”

“I no longer know what to think. I thought I was so clever at jests and riddles, and now you’ve posed me a riddle that I can’t answer.” He shook his head and made his yellow hair toss like a horse’s mane. “I take it you found Jill?”

“I did, and she’ll follow our road with heartfelt thanks. But what do you mean, a riddle you can’t answer?”

All at once the life flashed in his turquoise eyes, and he grinned.

“Now that I shan’t tell you, because it’s a riddle of mine to top the one you posed me. Or perhaps we can say that—” He hesitated, listening.

Dallandra heard it, too, a thin shriek on the rising wind. Together without need for words they turned and hurled themselves into the air, he a hawk, suddenly, a red hawk from Deverry, while she changed to her usual shape of some gray and indeterminate songbird, both of them with wingspreads of fully fifteen feet across. They banked into the rising wind and rode it down, swooping over the grassy hillside to the flowered meadow where now the court screamed and ran about in confusion. In the darkening night torches guttered and sparked.

“Elessario!” The cry drifted up to them. “She’s been taken!”

The hawk screamed, a harsh cry, and changed course for the river. Dallandra followed, praying for moonlight, and as if in answer a moon began to appear on the horizon, vast and bloated, casting a sickly yellow light. Far below on the oily river she saw a shape, like a splinter of wood from their height, pushing itself upstream. Evandar stooped and plunged. More slowly in prudent circles Dallandra followed him down and saw a black barge, rowed by slaves, churning against the current. In the prow stood Alshandra, and she seemed that night some ten feet high, a warrior woman dressed in glittering armor, nocking an arrow in her bow. Screaming, the hawk plunged down and upon her before she could aim and loose. His massive claws raked her face and his beak tore at her arms as she fell to the deck, howling in rage, clubbing him with the bow.

Bound round with black chains Elessario crouched, sobbing, some feet away. Dallandra understood enough about this country by then to keep her wits. She landed on the deck and shed her bird-form like a cloak.

“Break the chains!” she snapped. “Just flex your arms, and they’ll fail right off.”

Elessario followed orders and laughed aloud when the chains turned to water and puddled at her feet. With a
howl of rage Alshandra threw the hawk to one side and hauled herself to her knees. Boat, slaves, armor, night—they all vanished as suddenly as the chains. In the golden sun of a late afternoon they stood in elven form on the grassy riverbank while the chattering Host swarmed round.

“Oh, go away, all of you!” Alshandra snarled.

Laughing and calling out to one another they fled. Dallandra put an arm round Elessario’s shoulders and drew her close while Alshandra and Evandar faced each other, both dressed in court clothes, now, cloth-of-gold tunics, diadems of gold and jewels, and their cloaks, tipped in fur, seemed made of silver satin. And yet, across her cheek ran the bleeding rake of a hawk’s talon, and on his face swelled a purple bruise.

“She’s my daughter, and I shall take her wherever I want,” Alshandra said.

“Not unless she goes willingly, and the chains show she was less than willing. Where were you going to take her? Farther in?”

“That’s no affair of yours.” Alshandra turned on Dalla. “You may have my man, because I tired of him long before you came to us, but you shall not have my daughter.”

“I don’t want her for my sake. I only want her to have the life that should be hers, that should be yours, truly, as well.”

With a shimmer of light Alshandra changed her form, becoming old, wrinkled, pathetic in black rags.

“You’ll take her far away, far, far away, and never shall I see her again.”

“Come with her, then. Follow her, the way all of your people are going to do. Join us all in life.” Dallandra glanced Elessario’s way. “Do you want to go with your mother?”

“No, I want to stay with you.”

Alshandra howled, swelling up tall and strong, dressed like a hunter in her doeskin tunic and boots, the bow clasped in red-veined hands.

“Have it your way, witch! You’ll lose this battle in the end. I swear it. I’ve found some as will help me, back in that ugly little world of yours. I’ve made friends there, powerful friends. They’ll get me my daughter back the moment
she tries to leave us. I’ll make them promise, and I know they will, because they grovel at my feet, they do.”

She was gone, winking out like a blown flame, but all round them the wind seemed cold and the sunlight, shadowed. Shaking and pale, Elessario leaned into Dallandra’s clasp.

“Friends? Groveling?” Evandar said. “I wonder what she means by that. I very much do. I’d say it bodes ill, an ill-omened thing all round.”