A Time Of Omens Part 16

"Well, that's certainly true enough." Keeta hesitated, on the edge of asking more. "I always wondered why she came out with us in the first place. But do you think she'll be all right?"

"My dear woman!" Ebany laughed aloud. "I've never known anyone better able to take care of herself than Jill."

Keeta nodded, considering, then smiled herself.

"Well, that's most likely true, too. Just wondering. I'm surprised she didn't say good-bye, but then, she's not the kind of woman who likes a long drawn-out parting. You can see that."

Ebany kept smiling until she wandered off, picking her way through the deck cargo in search of Delya; then he flung himself round and leaned onto the wale again, staring out as if he were struggling not to cry. Marka could think of nothing to do but lean next to him and wait. Ahead the sea stretched out like a road, green-blue and flecked with brown kelp. Gulls darted and shrieked in the rising sun.

"Ah, well," Ebany said at last. "Even old friends must part, sooner or later, I suppose."

"Are you going to miss Jill?"

He nodded a yes, staring off to sea.

"Well, darling." Marka felt like sobbing in relief, just from finding something to say. "If the show keeps doing so well, maybe we can go to Deverry someday and see her again. If she's at this Wmmglaedd place, we'll know where to find her."

He turned to look at her, and this time his smile was genuine.

"Maybe so. Somehow I managed to forget that."

"Silly." She laid her hand on his arm. "My beloved idiot."

"You do love me, don't you? Truly, truly love me?"

"What? More than my life."

"Don't say that." He grabbed her by the shoulders so tightly that it hurt. "It's ill-omened."

"I didn't know."

"But do you love me? Oh, by the G.o.ds! If you don't love me, I've-" His voice caught in a sob. "Of course I love you. I love you so much I can't even say."

"I'm sorry." He let her go, caught her again, but gently this time. "Forgive me, my love. I'll admit to having had days when I've been in better humor." He kissed her mouth. "Why don't you leave me to my fit, sulk, temperament, or whatever this may be?"

All morning he stood there alone, brooding over the sea and sky. Mama had a sudden premonition that had nothing to do with dweomer, that even if their marriage lasted for fifty years or more, she would never truly know her husband, realized it then, when by every law in Bardek and Deverry both it was far too late to change her mind. She also remembered the old fortune-teller in Luvilae. The knave of flowers, she thought. That's who it was: Ebany. I've married the knave of flowers, and I'll never be the princess now.

After she watched the ship sail out of sight, Jill returned to the inn, paid off the bills that the troupe had left behind them, then gathered a pack's worth of possessions: her clothes, the various maps and bits of ma.n.u.scripts that she'd found in the archipelago, a judicious selection of herbs and oddments, then in a fit of thrift stored the rest with the innkeep, just as if she might come back again someday. Laden like a peddler she strolled out of town by the west gate and followed the road, keeping more on the solid shoulder than the mucky middle, for about a mile. As soon as she turned off into the tangled forest, she saw Dallandra, waiting for her between two trees. In the sunlight the elven woman seemed as insubstantial as a wisp of fog caught in branches.

"You're ready?" Dalla said. "Now remember, Time runs differently, even on our borders. We won't seem to be in the Gatelands very long, but we might come out again years later or suchlike. We have to travel fast."

Together they walked through the dappled shade and between the enormous trees. At first Jill thought that nothing had happened, but then she realized that the thick jungle foliage was so intense a green that it seemed fashioned from emerald. When she took a few steps, she saw ahead of her windblown billows of gra.s.s. She spun round and found the jungle gone, swallowed by a mist hanging in the air, opalescent in a delicate flood of grays and lavenders shot through with pinks and blues. As she watched, the mist swelled, surged, and wrapped them round in welcome cold.

"There," Dallandra said. "You're not truly in your body anymore, you see."

Jill felt a weight round her neck and found, hanging from a golden chain, a tiny statuette of herself carved from obsidian. Dallandra laughed.

"Mine's of amethyst. That's rather rude of Evandar, to use blackstone for you. It's so grim."

"Oh, it suits me well enough."

Ahead three roads stretched out pale across the gra.s.slands. One road led to the left and a stand of dark hills, so bleak and glowering that she knew they had no part in any country that Dallandra would call home. One road led to the right and a sudden rise of mountains, pale and gleaming in pure air beyond the mist, their tops shrouded in snow so bright that it seemed as if they were lighted from within. Straight ahead on the misty flat stretched the third. Dressed in elven clothes, a man was walking to meet them down that middle way, whistling as he came, his hair an impossible yellow, bright as daffodils. When he drew close Jill noticed that his eyes were an unnatural sky-blue and his lips red as cherries. She felt magical power streaming from him as palpably as she felt the mist.

"Good morrow, fair lady." He spoke in Deverrian. "My true love tells me that you wish to hurry on your way and not linger here in my beloved land. What a pity, for I've many a marvel to Show you."

"No doubt, and truly, I'm honored by your invitation, but I've another kind of marvel to find. If I remember the tales about you rightly, it's one that I think you'd find interesting yourself, the island refuge of the sea elves."

He grinned, revealing teeth that were more than a little sharp.

"And someday, perhaps, I'll come visit you there." He turned to Dallandra. "I've found the road we want. Shall we travel it?"

For an answer she merely smiled and caught his hand. Jill walked alongside as they sauntered off down the middle road, as casually as a lady and her lover taking a stroll through the park lands of his estate. All round the mist hovered, parting directly ahead in swirls of watery sunlight to reveal dark mounds of trees. Off to her right she could hear a distant ocean crashing big waves onto some unseen sh.o.r.e.

"Those three roads you saw at first? They're the mothers of all roads," Evandar remarked. "Men and elves, every thinking creature under all the suns everywhere-they like to think they're following a road of their own building, don't they? But all those earthly roads are just the daughters of one of these three."

"Indeed?" Jill said. "I won't argue with you when you could well be right, for all I know."

"And since the three are the mothers of all earthly roads, all those earthly roads start and end here. You can move from one to another and come out where you choose, providing, of course, that you know how to get here in the first place."

"I see." Jill allowed herself a smile. "That's the trick, is it?"

"Just so." He smiled in return. "And not so easy a trick to learn."

"I well believe that."

"Now, of course, I could show you that trick, if you'd care to stay and learn it."

Jill felt a pang of temptation as strong as a stab of pain, but she merely laughed and shook her head no.

"I'm grateful for the offer, mind. But I've got a bit of work on my hands just now."

"Your choice, of course." Evandar bowed, a half-mocking sweep of his arm. "Now, it does take a bit of learning to untangle the roads from their mothers. It's rather like a tapestry weaver's remnants, a big basket of yarn of all colors, all tangled up together, and pulling just one strand free without knotting it round the rest isn't such an easy thing to do. Which is why we'd best stop for a moment and let me think."

They had reached a low rise, dropping gently down in front of them to another wide and gra.s.sy plain, crisscrossed with tiny streams and dotted with thickets of trees. Off on a far horizon in a gathering mist Jill could just make out a rise of towers, all white stone flecked with the occasional glint of gold, as if some mighty city stood there. Although Evandar had talked of many roads, she could only see one, meandering through the plain like a stream. He seemed to hear her thought.

"It's all in the walking, which road you end up traveling. They all do look alike at first. Come along, we'll just head down past those gray stones, there."

Now that he pointed them out, Jill could indeed see the boulders, shoving themselves clear of the earth about halfway down the rise. As they strolled past, she noticed that the stones seemed worked, shaped into flat slabs with some crude tool, and arranged into a roughly circular ring.

"We turn here, I think," Evandar said.

The sun turned brighter by a sudden streamside, all dappled with coins of gold light and bordered with a spill of yellow wildflowers. Even though it seemed they had traveled a long way, Jill could still hear the mutter of the invisible ocean.

"And what of the sea roads? Do all ships sail on that sea I hear over there somewhere?" She waved vaguely in the direction of the sound. "Is there a harbor where all sailors come to port?"

"There is, truly. Again, if they can find their way to it. If. Your ancestors sailed that sea when Cadwallon the Druid brought them free of slavery and defeat in the land they called Gallia. But, of course, you know that."

"What?" Jill stopped walking and turned to him. "I don't know in the least. What are you saying?"

Evandar tossed his head back and laughed.

"Cadwallon was a splendid man, if a bit dour at times. I knew him well, my lady. Now, if only you'd come take the hospitality of my hall, there's many a tale I could tell you."

When Jill wavered, Dallandra intervened, shooting a scowl in his direction.

"Don't listen to him, Jill. You've not got years and years of idle time to waste over a goblet of mead."

"You are a harsh one, my love." But Evandar was laughing. "Unfortunately, you speak true, and it would be too unscrupulous even for me to tempt our guest further. Look, see where the sun's breaking through? I think me that it shines on the island you're looking for."

The mist ahead opened like a door and let through sunlight in a solid shaft. As they came close Jill felt the steamy heat of a tropical day streaming out to meet them.

"A thousand thanks, Evandar. Dalla, will I see you again?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I was thinking of coming with you, just for a little while." She glanced at her glowering lover. "To you it'll be but moments."

"So it will, and go with my blessing, as long as you come back."

"Oh, that I will." Dallandra flashed a wicked smile. "This time."

Before he could protest further she dropped his hand and strode forward into the shaft of sun. When Jill hurried after, the light was so strong that it burned her eyes and made them blink and water. Blind and stumbling, she stepped forward and fell to her knees in soft sand.

"Ych, this is awful," Dallandra remarked from nearby. "I feel like I'm made of lead, and I've tripped over some driftwood or somewhat."

Finally, after a lot of swearing and muttering, Jill got her sight back and realized that they were kneeling on a beach under a blazing sun that lay halfway between the zenith and the horizon-whether it was setting or rising, Jill couldn't know. Off to her left the ocean stretched glittering; to her right, cliffs of pale sandstone rose up high; ahead the white sand ran on and on. Wildfolk swarmed round, climbing into their laps, patting their arms with nervous paws. Dallandra rose to her knees and shaded her eyes with one hand to frown up at the clifftops. Her figurine was gone, and when Jill automatically laid a hand at her own throat, she found that hers had vanished as well. She also realized that she could feel her pack on her back again; it had seemed to weigh nothing at all in the misty lands of the Guardians. For a moment Dallandra stood, looking this way and that, chewing on her lower lip in hard thought.

"Wait! I can just see ... a long ways down the coast there. Look at those black dots wheeling round in the sky."

"I can't make them out at all."

"My apologies; I forget you're not elven. But I can just see what looks like birds, wheeling round and diving and suchlike. I'll wager there's a river mouth, and where there's a river mouth there might be a harbor."

"True spoken. There'll be fresh water at least, and fish and suchlike."

"You'll need food, truly. Are you sure you should do this?"

"I don't have much choice, do I? Don't worry, Dalla. I've spent many a long year alone in wild places, and I have the elementals, too, to help me if need be."

"Well and good, then. And I'll be listening for you. If you call me, I'll come. It may take me a while, but I will."

"You have my thanks, and so does Evandar."

Dallandra smiled, then turned and began walking toward the sea, heading for a place where it seemed the sun laid a road of gold across the water. She waded out into the gentle waves, seemed to step onto the golden road, and disappeared like mist vanishing in the glare of sun. She apparently knew the trick, as Evandar had called it, of traveling to the home of the three mothers of all roads.

Jill allowed herself the luxury of a brief moment of envying her, then made herself concentrate on the job at hand. The Wildfolk were still cl.u.s.tering round, undines thronging all silver in the breaking waves, sylphs and sprites hovering overhead, crystal glimpses in the strong sun. At the head of a pack of warty green and purple gnomes, her faithful gray fellow was wandering around, poking at the sand with a piece of stick. When Jill called him, he trotted over, the others straggling slowly after.

"Now look, I need your help. You know who the Elder Brothers are."

The gray gnome nodded and grinned, revealing a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. The purple fellows were suddenly all attention.

"Well, somewhere around here they have a city, somewhere away from the sh.o.r.e, most like. I need to know where it is."

With a scatter of sand they all disappeared, leaving her to hope they'd understood her.

Sticking to the hard-packed sand at the water's edge, Jill headed down the beach, keeping the cliffs to her left- going south, she finally decided, once the sun had moved enough for her to judge that it was setting, not rising. It was a long time before she could see the specks wheeling and diving that Dallandra had noticed, and longer still before those specks did indeed resolve themselves into white birds. At that point she realized as well that the land was sloping ever so gently down, and that the cliffs rose lower and lower, finally petering out ahead in a last curve of broken hill. She could also see a brownish surge of water heading out from land and flowing across the ocean. So Dallandra had found her a river, indeed, and Jill was glad of it. In the blazing heat she wanted a swim in fresh water as badly as she was beginning to need the shade of the trees that bordered it.

Unfortunately, when she reached the shallows of the estuary, she found crocodiles, piled on a tumble of gray rocks or flopped onto each other as they lazed on the mud among stands of water reeds. Although Jill started to count them, she gave up after fifty. While the creatures blinked and drowsed in the afternoon sun, little brown birds walked among and over them without the crocodiles even noticing, but Jill had no desire to try the trick herself. She got one of her water bottles out of her pack and had a long swallow-warm, tasting of leather, but at least it was wet. If, as seemed likely, the river got deeper and ran faster upstream, she'd be able to find a safer spot to drink later.

By then the sun was sinking off in the west, and with the cooler air of evening came swarms of insects, rising like a mist from the riverbanks. Deep in the jungle ahead birds began to call back and forth. With a yawn and a grunt, a few of the crocodiles scrambled out of the pack and flopped into the river. Birds screeched a warning and flew. Jill decided that she'd be better off with a good stretch of dry land between her and them. Rather than face the night jungle she hurried back to the beach and went back the way she'd come for some hundreds of yards. Well above the current waterline she found the bleached-gray trunk of an entire tree, its roots all twisted with dead kelp, and a long scatter of smaller pieces of driftwood, plenty of bone-dry fuel for a fire. Crocodiles, she a.s.sumed, would dislike fire as much as other wild animals did. She swung her pack free of her aching shoulders, set it down in the shade of the trunk, and set about making camp.

As she was gathering small chunks and sticks, she discovered her first concrete bit of evidence that Evandar had indeed found her the right island. Lying half-buried in the sand was a broken plank, cut and curved in such a way that it could only have come from a ship. It might, of course, have been nothing more than wrack from some Bardek merchanter, carried hundreds and hundreds of miles by the currents, but she preferred to doubt it. In the last of the day's light she scurried round, searching for more driftwood, scrabbling like a mole in the sand, until at last, just as the twilight was growing thick and gray, she unearthed a flat panel of wood that must have once formed the side of a chest or back of a bench. It seemed to be the splintered half of a big oblong, and it was carved with designs that no Bardekian would have drawn.

Once she got a fire going with less interesting driftwood, Jill studied her discovery by firelight streaked blue from the sea salt impregnating the wood. Although the panel was bleached and blistering, she discovered on one edge two indentations that could only have been made by hinges-so it was part of a chest, indeed. With her fingertip she could trace a long pattern of vines and flowers, looping casually, almost randomly across the entire surface rather than being contained in strict bands, such as a Bardekian craftsman would have chosen, and among the foliage were the little faces of Wildfolk. On the reverse side of the panel she found deep-graved letters, recognizably elven though somewhat different from the profuse syllabary she'd learned.

Enough of the symbols were familiar for her to make a stab at deciphering the words, most of which seemed to have vanished with the missing piece of panel. There was the graceful hook that spelled "ba," and here the slashed cross of "de."

"Tran rinbaladelan linalandal-" she said aloud, and her blood ran cold at the sound of the city name. "Rinbaladelan son of the something? Or wait! The son of Rinbaladelan, not the other way round."

A new city, then, founded by exiles? Quite possibly, if its name had been inscribed on this long-sunk ship to show her home port. She tossed the panel over near her gear, then got up and laid more wood on the fire. In the blue and gold flame the salamanders leapt and sported, rubbing their backs like cats on the burning sea wrack. Jill wandered away from the pool of light so that she could look up at the stars, hanging bright and clear above her, so close, seemingly, that she felt she could stretch up a hand and touch them. She wished she had a navigator's lore, to read the stars and learn how far south she might be, but of course, for all the strange lore she did know, the book of the stars was closed to her. Far down the beach at low tide, the ocean lapped soft waves.

What, then, was the noise? All at once she realized that for some time now she'd been hearing a distant sound that she'd been a.s.suming, only half consciously, was surf, but here in this sheltered bend of coast, and with the tide so far out at that, no waves pounded on the sh.o.r.e. She went cold again, freezing motionless, straining to hear, to place, the soft but rhythmical boom, boom, boom boom, boom, boom floating through the night. floating through the night.

After some long minutes she realized that the sound was growing louder, coming closer, pounding like the footsteps of an enormous animal walking at a stately pace. She hurried back to the fire, wondered if she should keep it or smother it, cursed herself for not traveling armed, decided that one sword wouldn't have been much good, anyway, against a beast as big as this one must be, then laughed aloud at herself. She did, after all, have dweomer to fall back upon. No doubt a blaze of etheric fire would frighten away any animal, gigantic or not, if indeed a beast was what she was hearing. The sound was definitely closer now and definitely coming from the distant river. She walked away from the fire, peered into the dark until her eyes adjusted, then saw pinpoints of light flickering far off in the estuary. The booms grew louder still.

Drums. Drums and torches coming along the riverbank, and she was willing to wager that whoever came marching was pounding those drums to scare the crocodiles off. All at once Wildfolk swarmed into manifestation around her, a whole army of green and purple gnomes, a flock of sprites, jumping or fluttering round in sheer excitement. Her own gray gnome appeared, jigging up and down on top of her pack.

"The Elder Brothers, is it?"

He nodded a yes and grinned, gape-mouthed. In a few minutes she could see the dark shapes of ten men break free of the shadows around the river and turn, torches held high, onto the beach. She could even pick out the drummer, marching at the rear of the line and banging a large, flat drum with some kind of stick. She went back to her fire, threw on more wood to make it blaze in greeting, and waited, arms crossed over her chest, as they drew nearer, stumbling a little on the soft beach sand. With the crocodiles far behind, the drummer fell silent. About ten feet away they stopped, just out of the pool of light, but she could see them clearly enough: elves, all right, with their long, delicate ears and moonbeam-pale hair. They were dressed in full tunics, belted at the waist with a glitter of gold, which came just above their knees, and each man carried a quiver of arrows at his hip and a bow slung over his back. Jill hoped that they spoke the same elven language that she knew.

"I give you my heartfelt greetings," she said, "and hope I might be welcome here."

She could just make out a rustle of surprised whispers. One man stepped from the crowd and walked a few paces in her direction. A dragon's head, worked in gold and as big as the palm of his hand, clasped his belt. When he spoke, she could indeed understand him, but with some difficulty. His dialect was far more different from that of the Westfolk than, say, Eldidd speech is from that of Deverry proper.

"Strangers are always less than welcome. Are you a victim of the sea's rage?"

It took her a moment to realize that he meant a castaway.

"No, good sir. I came here quite deliberately, looking for you and your people, in fact."

Automatically he turned to glance at the cove, turned back to her with a slight frown.

"I see no boat."

"Well, no." There was nothing she could say but the truth. "I traveled by dweomer, and I come to greet you and ask your aid in the name of the Light that shines behind all the G.o.ds."

Jill had never seen anyone look so surprised. He turned on one heel, staring at the beach, turned back to her with a shake of his head, his mouth half-open as he fought for words. The men behind him went dead-silent for a moment, then all began talking in a gabble of surprise until their leader shouted at them to be quiet.

"It seems discourteous in the extreme to ask you for some proof, but given the circ.u.mstances..."