A Time Of Omens Part 21

"I doubt me if she will." Evandar paused, rummaging in a little leather bag he wore at his belt. "A question for you. Have you ever seen a thing like this before?"

"A whistle, is it?" Rhodry automatically held out his hand and caught it when Evandar tossed it over. "Ych! It looks like it's made of human bone!"

"Or elven, truly, except it's too long. I thought at first that two finger joints had somehow been joined into one, but look at it, close like."

Rhodry did so, holding it up and twisting it this way and that. All at once he remembered Yraen. The lad was clutching his saddle peak with both hands, leaning forward and staring, his mouth slacked open like a half-wit's.

"I told you that you should ride back to your father's dun," Rhodry said, grinning. "It's not too late."

Yraen shook his head in a stubborn no. Evandar looked him over with a thoughtful tilt of his head.

"And you are?"

"My name's Yraen," he snapped. "What's it to you?"

"Yraen? Now there's a well-omened name!" Evandar laughed aloud. "Oh, splendid! You've found a fine companion, Rhodry, and I for one am glad of it. Good morrow, lads. A good morrow to you both."

With a friendly wave he turned his horse and trotted off along the lakesh.o.r.e, yet, before he'd gone more than a hundred yards, both he and his horse seemed to waver, to dissolve, to change into mist, a puff of it, blowing across the water and then gone.

"Ye G.o.ds," Yraen whispered. "Oh, ye G.o.ds."

"Go home, then, where spirits fear to ride."

"Shan't. That's what we get, riding on Samaen day, and cursed and twice cursed if I'll run from some rotten ghost."

"No such thing as ghosts. Our Evandar's a good bit stranger than that, and by the h.e.l.ls, he's gone and left me with the wretched whistle." Rhodry breathed a few quiet notes into it. "It makes a nasty sound, it does."

"Then maybe you'd best just throw it into the lake. Last thing we need is a pack of spirits, coming at your call."

"Well, I don't know about that, lad. There are spirits and spirits, and some can be useful, in their way." He grinned and leaned forward to unlace the flap of his saddlebag. "It's too strange to throw away. Looks like it's been made from the bone of a bird's wing, but one fine big bird it must have been, an eagle or suchlike. Want a look at it?"

"I don't." Yraen cleared his throat to cover the squeak in his voice. "We'd best get riding. Going to rain soon."

"So it is. Well, south and east, our Merro said, and we'll see if this feud has a hire for the likes of us."

At about the time that Rhodry and Yraen were riding away from the lake, Dallandra woke, after what seemed an ordinary night's sleep to her. The cloth-of-gold pavilion was empty except for the sunlight, streaming through the fabric so brightly that it seemed she lay in the middle of a candle flame. Yawning, rubbing her eyes, she got up and stumbled outside, where she stood for a long moment, getting her bearings in the warm day. The dancing was over; the meadow, empty, except for Evandar, sitting under the oak tree. When he saw her coming, he rose and hailed her.

"There you are, my love. Refreshed?"

"Oh, yes, but how long have I slept?"

"Just the night." He was grinning in his sly way. "And you needed a bit of a rest."

"Just the night here, yes. How long?"

"Oh, some years, I suppose, as Time runs back in your country. It was winter there, when I left Rhodry on the road."

"When you what? Ye G.o.ds! Will you tell me what you've been doing?"

"I will, but there's not much to tell. I just wanted to see if he was safe and well."

"Let me think. He's the one with the ring, isn't he? You know, I do wish you'd tell me about that ring."

"There's naught to tell. The ring is just a perfectly ordinary bit of jewelry."

"Aha! Then Jill's right. It is is the word inside that's so important!" the word inside that's so important!"

"You're too clever for me, my love. So it is, and I wonder if Jill's found the secret yet. No doubt she will, because she's as clever as you are, in her way. And so, why should I waste my breath, telling secrets that you'll only unravel between you?"

When Dallandra made a mock swing his way, he laughed, ducking back.

"Are you hungry, my love? Should I call a servant to bring you food?"

"No, thank you. There's naught I need but answers."

Grinning, he ignored her hint.

"Help me look for something, will you?" he said. "That wretched whistle. I had it this morning, and now I've lost the thing."

"It's just as well. It was ill-omened, I swear it. Why don't you let it go?"

"Because its owner might come looking for it, and if I had it, I could make a bargain." He paused, frowning at the water reeds. "I was walking over there when I came back. Maybe I dropped it in the river. By those h.e.l.ls men swear by, I hope not."

"Why not scry for it?"

"Of course!" He grinned in a sly sort of way. "Here's a trick you might not have seen before. Watch."

When he knelt beside the river, she joined him and did just that while he described a circle in the air with a flick of one hand. The motion-trace glowed, became solid, then settled upon the flowing water like a circle of rope, but unlike the rope, it remained in the same spot instead of floating downstream. Within the circle pictures appeared, all hazy and strange at first, then forming into clear images: a muddy road, a rainy sky, a vast lake, rippled and dark. Two riders appeared, one dark-haired, one light.

"Rhodry," Evandar remarked. "And the yellow-haired fellow's Yraen. Now here I am, riding up to them."

Riding up, talking, and handing Rhodry the whistle-the memory vision broke when Evandar swore under his breath.

"I forgot to take it back from him. Well, it's gone, then. No use in worrying over it."

"Now just wait! We can't leave him with that ill-omened thing without even a warning. It's as you said: what if its owner comes looking for it?"

Evandar shrugged, turning half away to stare at the swift water, flowing between the sword-sharp rushes. All at once he seemed old, his face fine-drawn and far too pale. The sun darkened, as if it had gone behind a cloud, and the wind, too, blew suddenly cold.

"What's so wrong?" she said, and sharply.

"I forgot, that's what. I simply forgot that I'd handed him the whistle, forgot that I left it back in the lands of men."

"Well, everyone forgets something every now and then."

He shook his head in a stubborn no.

"You don't understand," he snapped. "This is a serious matter. I grow weary, my love, more weary every day, and now, it seems, feeble-minded as well. How long will I be able to keep our lands safe and blooming?" He paused, rubbing his eyes with both hands, digging the palms hard into his cheekbones. "It's true. You've got to take my people away with you, and soon."

She started to make her ritual protest, to beg him to come himself, but an idea struck her, and she said nothing. He dropped his hands and looked at her with a flash of anger in his turquoise eyes.

"Well," she said carelessly. "If you've made your mind up to stay behind, who am I to argue with you?"

"I'm no man to argue with, no." But for the first time, she heard doubt in his voice.

She merely nodded her agreement and looked away.

"Well, someone had best go after Rhodry," she said. "Will you?"

"I can't. One of us has to stay here, on guard. It was foolish of me to leave while you slept, truly."

"But I've never seen him in the flesh. Sharing your memory won't help me scry him out."

"True." He hesitated, thinking. "I know. Scry for the whistle. You've handled it, even."

"True enough. All right, let me see if I can, before I actually go anywhere."

Sure enough, picturing the image of the bone whistle led her in vision straight to Rhodry. Yet, when she found him, she was glad she'd been so prudent and not gone haring off to Deverry in search of him without a look first. The vision showed her a stone dun, far east of the elven border, where a cold and sleeting rain turned the outer wards to mud. Inside, the great hall swarmed with human men, most armed. Off in the curve of the wail the whistle appeared in sharp focus, held in Rhodry's hands, although Rhodry himself was hard to see clearly, simply because she'd never actually met him on the physical plane, merely seen him in several states of vision over the years. As far as she could tell, he was showing the whistle to some lord's bard, who merely shook his head over it and shrugged to show his ignorance of the subject.

Since she saw no elves in the hall, and no one with the golden aura of a dweomermaster, either, Dallandra focused the vision down a level, till it seemed to her that she stood in the great hall at Rhodry's side. From this stance she could see him a good bit more clearly and pick out his companion as well, the young blond fellow that Evandar had called "Yraen," the Deverrian word for iron and thus doubtless only a nickname. The bard, an elderly fellow, set his harp down on the floor and took the whistle, turning it this way and that to study it.

As she hovered there, looking round within the room of her vision, a flash of blue etheric light caught her eye. Over by the hearth something man-shaped and man-sized appeared, swinging its head this way and that, but judging from the shape of that head, flat and snouted like a badger's, and its skin, covered with short blue-gray fur, there was nothing human in its nature. It was dressed in human clothes, but of a peculiar cut: brown wool brigga that came only to its knees, a linen shirt as full as those Deverry men wore, but lacking sleeves and collar. Round its neck it wore a gold tore. Slowly it stood and began ambling over to Rhodry's side, but no one in the room seemed to see it at all. At times, in fact, one of the men might have walked right into it if the creature hadn't jumped out of their way.

All at once Rhodry spun round and yelped aloud, pointing straight at the snouted beast. Dallandra had forgotten that he was half-elven, with that race's inherent ability to see etheric forms, so long, that is, as the forms are imposed into the physical plane. It seemed that the creature hadn't known it, either. It shrieked and disappeared, leaving behind a puff of evil-looking etheric substance like black smoke. Apparently the shriek was a thing of thought only, because none of the men, not even Rhodry, reacted to it. What did happen was that a cl.u.s.ter of men formed round the silver dagger, all of them looking puzzled and asking questions. Talking a flood of explanations, Yraen grabbed the bone whistle with one hand and Rhodry's arm with the other and dragged him out of the hall.

Dallandra followed, hovering round them until she was sure that the badger-thing was gone for good, then broke the vision cold and flew up the planes. She found Evandar waiting where she'd left him on the riverbank. When she told him the story, his mood turned as dark as a summer storm.

"Then it's as I thought, my love," he snarled. "Curse them all! Sniffing and snouting round my country, threatening harm to a man under my protection!"

"Who?"

"The dark court. Those who dwell farther in." He rose, snapping his fingers and s.n.a.t.c.hing from midair a silver horn. "This could well mean war."

"Now wait! If I simply go and fetch the whistle back-"

"That won't matter. This is a question of boundaries, and those are the most important questions of all."

With a toss of his head he raised the horn and blew, a long note that was both sweet and terrifying. In a clang of bronze and silver and a storm of shouting, the Host came rushing to ring him round.

"Our borders! They've breached our borders!" Evandar called out. "To horse!"

With a roar of approval the Host raised their spears and yelled for horses. Servants swarmed out of nowhere to bring them, and these steeds were every one white with rusty-red ears. Evandar helped Dallandra mount, then swung up onto his own horse, gathered the reins in one hand, and rode up beside her.

"If things go against us, my love, flee for your life back to the Westlands, but I'd beg you to remember me for a little while."

"Never could I forget you." She felt cold horror choking her throat. "But what do you think might happen?"

"I don't know." He laughed, suddenly as gleeful as a child. "I don't have the least idea."

The Host howled laughter with him. Holding the silver horn above his head in one hand, Evandar led them out at a jog upstream along the riverbank. Over the mutter of water and the jingling of armor and tack Dallandra found it impossible to ask him questions-not, she supposed, that he would have answered them. There was nothing for her to do but ride and picture horrible imaginings of war.

Once, hundreds of years past as men and elves reckoned time, though it seemed but a few years ago to her, she'd done what she could with herbs and bandages after a battle, when wounded man after wounded man was dragged to her and dumped bleeding or dying onto the wagon bed she was using for a surgery. Hour after hour it went on, till she was so exhausted that she could barely stand, though no more could she bear to stop tending such need. It seemed to her that she could smell all over again the lumps and streaks of gore clotting black on her hands and arms. With a moan of real pain she tossed her head and forced the memories away. Evandar, riding a bit ahead of her, never heard.

By then the river had sunk and dwindled to a white-water stream, cutting a canyon some twenty feet below and to the left of the road. The sun hung red and swollen off to their right, as if they saw it through the smoke of some enormous fire. Ahead lay plains, as flat and seemingly infinite as those in the Westlands, stretching on and on to a horizon where clouds-or was it smoke-billowed like a frozen wave, all b.l.o.o.d.y red from the bloated sun. Ahead out in the gra.s.slands this hideous light winked and gleamed on spears and armor. Evandar blew three sharp notes on the silver horn. The Host behind him howled, and a dusty wind blew back in answer the sound of another horn and the shouting of the enemy.

"Peel off!" Evandar yelled at Dallandra. "Stay in safety and prepare to flee!"

Sick-cold and shaking, she followed his orders, turning her horse out of line and heading off to the right, where she could lag behind the warband. Yet both her caution and her fear went for naught that day. As they rode closer to the a.s.sembled army, waiting out in the plain, a herald broke ranks and came trotting out, carrying a staff wound with colored ribands in the Deverry manner. When Evandar began screaming orders, the Host clattered to a stop behind him and reined their horses up into a rough semicircle, spread out by the river. Clad in glittering black helms and mail, their opponents wheeled round to face them, but they kept their distance. In a muddle of curiosity and fear for her lover's life, Dallandra kicked her horse to a trot and rejoined Evandar as he jogged out to meet the herald. As if in answer to her gesture, one of the enemy warriors broke ranks and trailed after the herald, but he tucked his helm under one arm and held his spear loosely couched and pointed at the ground.

When out between the armies the two sides met, Dallandra nearly lost all her courtesy; with great difficulty she stifled a noise that would have been partly an oath, partly a scream. Although both the herald and the warrior facing them were shaped like men, and both were wearing human-style clothes and armor, their faces were grotesquely distorted, the herald all swollen and pouched, his skin hanging in great folds of warty flesh round his neck, while the warrior was more than a little vulpine, with pointed ears tufted with red for and a roach of red hair running from his forehead over his skull and down to the back of his neck, while his beady black eyes glittered above a long, sharp nose. The herald was bald and hunchbacked as well, though he did speak perfect Elvish with a musical voice.

"What brings you to the battle plain, Evandar? My lord has committed no fault against you or yours."

"A fault he has done, good herald, against a man marked as mine, and all for the sake of a trinket dropped in my country and thus mine by treaty."

When the herald swung his head round in appeal to the warrior behind him, the swags and wattles of skin grated with a sound like dry twigs sc.r.a.ping over one another. The warrior acknowledged his gesture with a nod, then spurred his horse to the herald's side. For a moment he and Evandar considered each other in silence, while the herald turned dead-pale and began to edge his mount backward. Dallandra noticed then that the ancient creature's eyes were pink and rheumy.

"Not one word of what you say makes the least sense," the leader of the Dark Host said at last. "What trinket?"

"A whistle made of some kind of bone," Evandar said. "And dropped by one of your spies, I'll wager. I gave it to a human man named Rhodry, and now one of your folk's come sniffing round him to fetch it back."

"I know naught of what you say. Never have I owned or seen a bone whistle."

Evandar studied him with narrowed eyes while the herald fidgeted in his saddle.

"Tell me this," Evandar said at last. "Have ever you seen or accepted service from a man with a head and snout as flat and blunt as a badger's, and him all hairy with gray far, who dresses as the Deverry men dressed when first they came into their new country?"

"And what name does -he answer to?"

"I don't know, but he wears a twisted rod of gold round his neck."

"Then I know him, yes, but he's no longer one of mine. Some of my people have broken from my rule and command, Evandar, just as, or so I hear, some have from yours." All at once he grinned, pulling dark lips back from sharp white teeth. "Even your wife, or so the minors say,"

"My liege!" With a little shriek the herald rode in between them. "If we're here to prevent a battle, perhaps the harsh ways of speaking had best be laid aside,"

"Go away, old man," the fox warrior snarled. "My brother and I will solve this thing between us."

Dallandra caught her breath in a little gasp. Was this then her lover's true kin and his true form? Sitting easily on his horse Evandar merely smiled at his rival, and he looked so truly elven at that moment, except perhaps for his impossibly yellow hair, that she found it hard-no, she refused-to think of him as anything but a man of her own people. Whimpering, the herald pulled back, "Women tire of men all the time." Evandar remarked, still smiling. "Tend to your rebels, and I'll tend to mine. Are you telling me that you hold no command over our snouted friend?"

"I am. Just that. Some few have left my host, claiming they've found more powerful protectors elsewhere. At first I thought they'd gone over to you."

"No such thing, not in the least, The woman you spoke of told me about new and powerful friends as well"

For a long moment they stared at each other, each man, if such you could call them, leaning a bit forward over his horse's neck, their eyes locked as if they could read truth from each other in some secret way. Then the fox warrior grunted under his breath and sat back, shifting his weight and bringing up his spear to the vertical.

"This is no time for feuding between us. I'll give you a weapon against this rebel of mine."

"And I'll offer you my thanks in return, but give it to this woman who rides with me, for she's the one who'll need it."