A Time Of Omens Part 15

"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 gra.s.sy 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 ma.s.sive 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 gra.s.sy 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."

"I'd never argue with you." Dalla felt her voice as very small and weak. "We'd best try to find out what she means by friends."

"Will the finding be a safe thing? I don't know, mind. I'm asking you."

"I don't know, either. Can't we get away from all this music and the noise and all?"

"Of course. Ell, I fear to leave you alone. Come with us."

"I'm so tired, Father. I don't want to."

"Well, I'm not going to leave you sleeping beside the river like a falcon's lure. I-" All at once he smiled. "Very well, my love, my daughter, my darling. Rest you shall have. Dalla, if you'll step here to my side?"

Puzzled, Dallandra did just that. Evandar raised one hand and waved out a circle that seemed to float from his fingers and ring his daughter round. He chanted, too, in some language that Dallandra had never heard before, just softly, briefly while Elessario yawned, reaching up to rub her eyes. It seemed that the wind caught her hair and tossed it, spread it out around her as she reached up higher, grabbed at it, her fingers turning long and slender, growing out, her arms reaching, stretching, stiffening, suddenly, as gray-brown bark wrapped her body round, and her hair, all green and gold, sprouted into leaves. A young oak tree, some seven feet tall and slender, nodded in the evening wind.

"Alshandra the Inelegant will never think to look for her there," Evandar remarked. "She truly can be a bit thick at times."

Dallandra merely stared, gape-mouthed, until he took her hand and led her away.

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While Evandar was confronting his wife in his strange homeland, in the world of men Jill was trying to discharge what she saw as her obligation to Salamander before she moved on. After the triumph at Myleton Noa, the troupe set sail, falling into the routine of sailing down the coast some miles, then disembarking at yet another sodden hamlet, where they would be received like kings. Jill had the distinct feeling that Salamander was avoiding her. When everyone was crammed on board the small and smelly coaster, it was of course impossible to get a word alone with him. On land, whenever she went looking for him for their talk about his studies, he always seemed to be negotiating with an innkeep, or teaching a member of the troupe a juggling trick, or solving some problem among the acrobats, or arranging their next show. Finally, though, one evening in a good-sized town called Injaro, he made the mistake of leaving the dinner table early while Marka stayed behind to gossip with her friends. Jill followed him upstairs and cornered him in his inn chamber.

"Uh, I was just going back down," he squeaked. "I have to talk to Vinto and make sure the troupe's ready to take ship. We're leaving on the dawn tide, you know."

"Indeed? Then why have you lit all these lamps?"

"Er, just looking for somewhat. Are you all packed and ready for the journey? Best make sure you are."

"Stop driveling."

With a heavy sigh Salamander sank down onto an enormous purple cushion and gestured at her to find a seat opposite him. Sitting so close, she could smell the scent of sweet wine clinging to him and see the dark circles smudged under his puffy eyes.

"I was only wondering how your studies were going." She made her voice as mild as possible.

"I haven't done one rotten thing, and you know that as well as I do. Jill, I'm so cursed weary!"

"Well, then, when do you plan to take them up again?"

"Never."

The last thing she'd expected was candor. He went so wide-eyed and tense that she knew he'd shocked himself, too, but though she waited, he refused to back down, merely watched the insects swarming round the oil lamps and let the silence grow.

"Do you truly think you can just turn your back and walk away from the dweomer?" she said at last.

"I intend to try." His hands were shaking so hard that he clamped them down on his thighs. "I am sick to my heart of being badgered and prodded."

"What's brought all this on?"

"I should think it would be clear, plain, obvious, and evident. I've found a thing that I want more than dweomer power." He paused for one of his sunny smiles, and never had the gesture seemed less appropriate. "A normal life, Jill, a normal life. Does that have one shred of meaning for the likes of you?"

"What are you talking about? What's so splendid about traveling the roads with a troupe of mangy acrobats and this poor child you've married?"

"Of course it's not splendid. That's the point."

"You're a dolt, Ebany."

"Oh, I suppose I must look that way to you, truly. I no longer care. I've found the woman I love, and I've found a way to have a family of my own while we travel the roads, just like I've always loved to do, and cursed, plagued, excoriated, blighted, and scourged will I be before I give one whit of it up."

"I'm not asking you to give up one thing, just to develop the talent you were born with."

"Talent? Oh, ye G.o.ds!" All at once he exploded, talking much too fast, his voice hissing as he tried to keep from shouting. "I am so sick of that ugly little word. Do you think I ever asked for it? Talent. Oh, certainly, I know I have talent for magic. That's all I've ever heard in my long and cursed life, from the time that my wretched father dragged me to meet Aderyn when I was but a little child. Talent. You have splendid talent for the dweomer. You must study it. It would be a waste to not study it. Your people need you to study it. No one, not one blasted soul, whether elven or human, not one person in the entire world has ever asked me if I wanted to study the blasted dweomer. All they did was push and press and mock and nag until by every G.o.d in the sky I'm sick of the very name of dweomer."

"My heart aches for you, but-"

"Don't you be sarcastic with me."

"I wasn't. I'm trying to point out that-"

"I don't want to hear it! By the black hairy a.s.s of the Lord of h.e.l.l, Jill, can't you see? I've finally found what I want in life, and I'll have it no matter how many plat.i.tudes and how much invective you heap upon my head."

"Whoever said you couldn't have it?"

"The dweomer itself, How can you sit there and tell me that I could have both, you of all people on this blasted earth?"

Jill came perilously close to slapping him. Her rage at having that ancient wound reopened took her so much by surprise that for a long moment she couldn't speak. When he shrank back, suddenly pale, suddenly weak-cringing, or so she thought of it-the rage turned as cold as a steel blade on a winter morning. She got up slowly and stood for a moment, her hands on her hips, looking down as he crouched on the cushion, one hand raised as if to ward off a blow.

"Oho, I think I do see." She could hear her voice crack like a boot breaking ice. "You're a coward."

He was on his feet in a moment, red-faced and shaking with a rage to match hers.

"After all I've risked for you, after all I've done for you-"

"You haven't done one thing for me. You've done it for the dweomer and the Light."

"I don't give a-" He caught himself on the edge of blasphemy. "So I did. Wasn't that enough, then, everything I suffered for the Light?"

"You can't measure out service like so many sacks of meal and say 'enough, no more.' But that doesn't matter anyway. My road isn't your road. I couldn't have Rhodry and the dweomer both, but there's no reason on earth you can't raise your family and study as well. If I'd married, my life would have been my husband's. That's a woman's Wyrd, not yours. You can have Marka's life and yours as well. You're just too cursed lazy to study, aren't you? That's the ugly truth of it. Lazy and a coward."

"Mock and goad me all you want. I've made my decision."

"Well and good, then. Far be it from me to stop you. Not one thing on this earth or over it or under it can force you to take up the birthright you're throwing away. But cursed and twice cursed if I linger to watch you."

She turned on her heel and spun out of the chamber, slamming the door behind her, and strode down the narrow hall that stank of dust and damp in the cloying heat. She meant to go for a walk in the night air and let them both come to their senses, but he was furious enough to follow her.

"I am sick half to death of you lording it over me," he snarled. "Don't you think I know you despise me?"

"Naught of the sort! I'm merely sick at heart to see you p.i.s.sing your life away into a puddle."

"Oh, am I now? Is that all you think Marka is? A waste of my most exalted and ever so talented self?"

"Of course not! It's got naught to do with the la.s.s."

"It's got everything to do with her. That's what you don't understand. You're just like Nevyn, Jill. As cold and nasty hearted as ever the old man was."

"Don't you say one word against Nevyn."

The snarl in her voice frightened even her. He stopped in midreply and stepped back against the wall as if she were a thief come to murder him.

"You spoiled stinking mincing little fop," she went on. "Have it your way, then. My curse upon you!"

She slammed out of the inn, strode across the courtyard, slammed out of the gates, and stomped off for a long walk round the town. Wildfolk cl.u.s.tered round her like an army, and whether it was her rage or their unseen but bristling presence, she didn't know, but no one, not one single thief or drunkard, so much as came near her all during that long aimless trek. Through the muddy streets of Injaro, out into the surrounding cleared land along a rutted road-only the light from the Wildfolk of Aethyr kept her from breaking her neck and ending that particular incarnation then and there. All at once she realized that she'd gone dangerously far from the town, no matter how much dweomer she had, and turned back. For all that she'd walked herself exhausted, she still was too angry to judge Salamander fairly.

Toward dawn her wandering brought her back to a small rise overlooking the harbor, where she paused among a tangle of huge ferns, as big as trees, to catch her breath. Down below, out at the end of a long jetty, a boat lay at anchor in a pool of torchlight. Like ants the troupe moved back and forth, hauling their personal goods for the sailors to stow below. At the landward end of the jetty, Salamander was supervising while a pair of stevedores unloaded the troupe's props and stage from a wagon. Jill swore aloud. She'd forgotten how early the tide would turn for their journey out. Fortunately there was still plenty of time left. She could trot right down, tell Salamander that she was going back to the inn for her pack and suchlike, then return to the coaster before they sailed.

For a long time she stood there, leaning against one of the tree ferns, and wondered why she wasn't hurrying. Already out to the east the sky was beginning to lighten to the furry gray that meant dawn coming. Her gnome appeared to grab the hem of her shirt and pull on it as if he wanted to lead her to the ship. She picked him up in her arms and made sure she had his attention.

"Go tell Dallandra it's time. Find her among the Guardians. She'll know who sent you."

In a puff of moldy air the gnome vanished. Jill watched the bustle at the pier. It seemed that everyone was on board, but Salamander lingered on land, looking up the road into the town, pacing back and forth, pausing to stare again. When the captain left the ship and walked over to argue with him, Salamander waved his arms in the air and shook his head in a stubborn no. The sky was all silver now, and already the heat of day was building in the humid air. Jill had one last stab of doubt. Was she simply being stubborn? Was she deserting a friend, and him one she'd known for years and years? Yet with the cold intuition of the dweomer she knew that she was doing the right thing, that she could no more force him to take up his Wyrd before he wished than Nevyn had been able to force her, all those years ago.

At last, Salamander flung both hands into the air, shook his head, and followed the captain on board. Just as the ship was pulling away from the jetty, the gray gnome appeared, all grins and bows. Jill picked him up again and held him like a child clutching a doll as she watched the ship sail away, heading south on a rising wind, until it disappeared into the opalescent dawn. In the day's fresh heat, sweat trickled down her back.

"Well, we can hope, at least, that the Elder Brothers found themselves a better island to settle than this one, but somehow or other, I have my doubts."

The gnome mugged a mournful face, then disappeared.

The ship had sailed some miles down the coast before Marka realized that something was wrong with Salamander. She was standing in the stern of the boat, watching the wake and chatting with the helmsman, when a grim Keeta made her way back through the piles of trunks and boxes.

"Marka, you'd best tend to that husband of yours. He's up in front."

When she hurried forward, Keeta followed, but she hovered a respectful distance away, back by the mast. At the prow, Salamander was leaning onto the wale as if he were a lookout, but she could tell that he was staring off toward nothing and seeing nothing as well.

"Ebany?"

He neither moved nor seemed to hear. For a moment she felt paralyzed by a sudden mad fear, that no words of hers would ever reach him, that if she tried to touch him her hand would pa.s.s right through his arm, that never again would he hear when she tried to speak. As if a waking nightmare had dropped over her like a net, the light turned strange, all blue and cold for the briefest of moments. She could not speak, knowing that he would never hear. She caught her breath in a sob, and he spun round, masking his face in a smile.

"Well, we're under way nice and early, aren't we?"

The illusion shattered. Ordinary sunlight danced on the sea and fell warm on her skin and hair. Yet, when he went on smiling, she felt as if he'd slapped her, that he would hide his hurt this way.

"I thought something was wrong."

"Oh, no, no. Just thinking."

In her sudden misery she could only study his face and wonder if he still loved her.

"Salamander?" Keeta strode forward. "Where's Jill?"

"Oh, she's not coming with us. There's really nothing she wants in these stinking islands, so she'll be catching a ship back to Orystinna."

"Really?" Keeta raised one eyebrow.

"Just that." Ebany smiled again, easily and smoothly. "She's got her work to do, you know, and she could see that she's not going to find any rare books in these rotting little towns."