Is that why youre always waiting on everyone?
Sidro started to answer, then hesitated, visibly thinking. I suppose it be so, she said at last. What we always knew before, it be comforting, somehow. My thanks, Branna! Ill be thinking on that, I truly will. Though the Wise Ones, they do deserve what service we can pay them.
Thats true. I just wish Neb could see it, Branna thought. Well, mayhap someday he will.
Yet, when she returned to their tent she found Neb sitting under a silver dweomer light, studying the book of herblore that shed compiled back in her life as Jill. He looked up at her with watery eyes.
Is the mouldy smell bothering you? she said.
Not truly. He laid the book down, stretched, and yawned. My eyes are just tired, thats all. Ill brew up some eyebright water on the morrow.
You told me that Dallandra wanted you to study less.
So? He spat out the word. She doesnt know everything.
She knows more than you do.
Branna regretted the words the moment shed said them. She braced herself for one of their fights, but Neb merely shrugged and looked away.
So she does, he said at last. For now.
Branna said nothing. Outside the storm suddenly broke with a patter of rain on the tent roof.
As the alar continued making its slow way north, the rain followed. On the dry days the alar set up only a few tents, but a day or two out of every four it needed to make a full camp and wait out the storm, no matter how impatient its Wise One was. At least, Dallandra reminded herself, they never came upon any lingering snow.
A blessing, Dallandra remarked to Valandario. I lived with snow for one whole winter, up in Cengarn, and I swear to all the gods I never ever want to see the stuff again.
I dont think I ever have. Val considered for a moment. Im glad, too.
Dallandra glanced around the camp. Under a grey sky, streaked with near-black, the men were bustling around, setting up the tents for the night, while the women worked with the herds, hobbling the horses in case the coming storm broke with thunder and lightning. Wildfolk, children, and dogs raced through the camp in unruly packs, always in everyones way.
Wed better get inside, Dallandra said.
Yes, come to my tent, will you? Val said. I keep thinking about Haen Marn, and we need to scry.
Now that she was Vals apprentice, Sidro had already brought her teachers possessions into the tent. Most lay piled neatly in the curve of the wall, since the alar would stay in this tent for a short time only, but her blankets and scrying materials lay spread out and ready. Sidro herself was hooking tent bags onto the wall near Vals pillow.
Be there a want upon you to eat dinner now, Wise Ones? she said.
Not now, but soon, Valandario said. My thanks, but Ill call you when were ready.
With a curtsey Sidro hurried out to leave them their privacy. Dallandra made a golden dweomer light and tossed it up to the tent roof, then sat down on a cushion opposite Valandario with the scrying cloth between them.
The thing is, Dallandra said, no ones been able to see the beastly island in any sort of vision. It may be impossible, because after all, it has to be surrounded by water, since its an island. But I keep wondering if there might be some way to reach it somehow.
Val nodded, then assembled a handful of gems, picking and choosing from various pouches.
We wish to know about Haen Marn, Val said. How may we see it for ourselves? She scattered the gems over her scrying cloth. For some while she studied the layout, whispering a word or two at moments. Ah, she said at last, something needs completing, something unfinished lingers in the question.
Well, we rather knew that, Dallandra said.
Val frowned, then laid a finger on a topaz ovoid that lay on the seam between a red square and a black.
No, no, not just the question itself, Val said. Its some small thing, a step towards finding the answer.
Dallandra reminded herself to hold her tongue and let her colleague do things her own way. Finally Val pointed out a gold bead that gleamed against a misty lavender square in one corner of the patchwork.
Treasure in the past, Val announced. Or from the past. She raised her head and looked off into space, her mouth slack, her eyes expressionless as she waited for some thought or omen to rise into her mind. The scroll. She smiled, herself again. Dalla, Aderyn had a scroll that Evandar left for him. It was a set of evocations in the strangest language Ive ever heard or seen. Do you know what happened to it?
Its in my tent, Dallandra said. Gavantar gave it to me before he set sail for the Southern Isles. Aderyn had wanted me to have it, he said.
Splendid! I had the privilege of working with the thing with Aderyn and Nevyn when I was just out of my apprenticeship. Evandar made sure that it was found at the same time as the obsidian pyramid. They didnt seem to be connected back then, but he might have had some reason to leave them together.
Evandar always had a reason. Dallandra got to her feet. Ill fetch it right now.
The men of the alar had finished raising Dallandras tent. She ducked inside and found Neb arranging her bedding and goods. Have you seen the grey tent bag with the symbols of Aethyr on it? Dallandra said. Theyre embroidered with purple yarn.
I have indeed. Neb unpiled a few things, rummaged around in a heap of bags, and at last brought out the correct one. Here we are. Why do you want it?
It doesnt concern you.
He winced but said nothing more.
As she walked back to Valandarios tent, Dallandra was thinking more about Neb than the scroll. He was not exactly disrespectful around her, his master in dweomer, but still, at moments his behaviour was a little too free and familiar, as if hed known her for a long time. In a way, he had, of course, in his previous life, when as a young woman shed been very much his inferior in dweomer workings. That was a long time ago, she reminded herself. Id better make that clear to him. At these moments she was grateful to Grallezar all over again, for warning her about his wish that he was Nevyn still.
Inside her tent, Val had put away her scrying gems and cloth. Dallandra knelt under the dweomer light and brought out the wooden box holding the scroll. She laid the bag down, sketched out a circle of warding around it, then opened the box and brought out the scroll. The pabrus had turned brown over the years, and it threatened to split along the creases where it had been first rolled, then squashed into a box. Very carefully indeed she unrolled it and laid it down on the tent bag.
I should have left this in Mandra with Grallezars books, Dallandra said. To be honest, Id forgotten I had it.
Its just as well you did, Val said, smiling. Since we need it.
They leaned closer, nearly head to head, to look it over.
As I remember, Valandario said, theres one invocation thats incomplete. That may be what the scrying meant. So lets start there. Ah, here it is!
Valandario cleared her throat, then read the call aloud in a deliberately colourless voice. Olduh umd nonci do a dooain de Iaida, O gah de poamal ca a nothoa ah avabh. Acare, ca, od zamran, lap ol zirdo noco olpirt de olpirt.
Valandario cleared her throat, then read the call aloud in a deliberately colourless voice. Olduh umd nonci do a dooain de Iaida, O gah de poamal ca a nothoa ah avabh. Acare, ca, od zamran, lap ol zirdo noco olpirt de olpirt.
Is that supposed to mean something? Dallandra said.
Oh yes. Although Valandario frowned at the scroll. Master Aderyn read these out in an odd way. He sounded every letter as the syllable it represents. Ol-de oo-me-deh deh-oh like that.
It doesnt make any sense that way, either.
Its not in Elvish, thats why. Theres a translation of everything down at the bottom
Dallandra looked where Val was pointing. Right! Here it is! Dallandra read from the scroll. I do call you in the name of the Highest, oh spirit of the palace on the in the midst of hyancith seas. Come, therefore, and show yourself to me for I serve the same Light of Lights.
Id say that the missing word has to come right here, palace on the in the midst of hyacinth seas. Valandario laid a delicate finger on the fragile scroll. The palace on what? Could it be an island?
It certainly could, and look! right here in the gloss, it says: some say that the spirit word for island is hanmara. Dallandra nearly choked on the name. Hanmara, she repeated. But Rori told me once that haen marn means black stone in the Dwarvish tongue.
Oh, does it? Valandario broke into a grin. Well, why cant hanmara mean both? The island might appear to be made of black stone if we saw it on the spirit plane.
Yes, thats plausible.
The palace on the black stone in the midst of hyacinth seas. I like the way that echoes in my mind.
One of us needs to vibrate this call.
I dont want you to risk the child.
The generosity of this simple statement considering who that child had been in her previous life left Dallandra speechless. Valandario misunderstood the silence.
Something nasty might answer, you know, Val said. Aderyn was very careful about that, when he first had the scroll. So it had best be me.
Youre probably right, but Im going to come along when you do the working. Just in case.
Good. I had no intentions of keeping you away, mind. Just stay outside the circle. Valandario paused, listening to the noise filtering through the tent walls. Were going to have to get away from camp, so we need to wait for a break in the rain.
The rain fell all the next day, keeping everyone in camp. Dallandra took the opportunity to bring Neb into her tent for a private talk. She spoke in Deverrian to make sure that he understood her. When his yellow gnome followed him in, Dallandra shooed it out again. Even though the gnome lacked a true consciousness, she wanted no witnesses to what Neb might well find shaming.
Neb, she began, theres a common problem with dweomer apprentices, that they dont work hard enough at their studies. She paused for a smile. But Id say you have the opposite problem. You need to work a little less and do more of the physical work around the camp, like helping with the horses.
Indeed? Nebs eyes flared in rebellion. But Ive got so much work to do already.
Are the exercises I set you too much to finish in a day?
Theyre not. Im studying herbcraft, too, is all, and I want time for that.
Youve got years ahead of you for all of that.
You know, Im human. Ill only have a short life this time. I dont see why I should waste any of it when Ive got so much to learn.
Why are you so sure your life will be short?
Well, because Neb stopped, startled. Well, wont it be? Compared to a Westfolk life, I mean.
Maybe, maybe not. I dont know. But those who give their heart to dweomer, and you obviously have, tend to live a fair bit longer than ordinary folk. You of all people should know that.
True spoken. He ducked his head and looked only at the floor cloth.
Now, Ive taught several apprentices in my day, and for that matter, I was an apprentice myself once. I know how hard it is to hold back when youre so eager to learn. She paused, as if thinking. That was so long ago, truly. Nevyn only knew me as an apprentice, you know. Why, it must have been over four hundred years ago, now.
I take your point. Neb looked up, and the rebellion came back into his eyes. Youve lived a cursed lot longer than I have, and you know a cursed lot more, too.
Then why dont you listen to what I say? Dallandra dropped any pretence of jollying him along. Im your master in dweomer now. You refused to listen to the last one, too, Rhegor that was, so long ago. Do you remember what came of that?
Neb turned white around the mouth, and his hands clenched hard into fists.
I see you do, Dalla went on. Well?
Their gazes met and locked. The drip and patter of the rain outside sounded as loud as drumbeats until at last, he looked away.
Ill help with the horses, Neb whispered. Morning and night.
Splendid! Dallandra arranged a friendly smile. That gladdens my heart to hear.
May I leave now? He was staring at the floor cloth.
You may, certainly.
Neb got up and rushed out without looking her way. Stubborn colt! she thought. But hell grow into a splendid stallion one day.
In the late afternoon the rain slackened. A strong south wind sprang up, chivvying the fading storm and driving it off. Dallandra and Valandario walked to the edge of the camp and stood studying the sky. The damp wind felt pleasantly cool, not biting or chilly, and it carried the scent of new grass.
We could go out now, I suppose, Dallandra said. I do love the feel of a spring wind.
So did I, Val said, but the grounds still too wet. The grass will be soaked.
Well, if this wind keeps up, it will dry out quickly. We should be able to do the ritual just at sunrise, once the astral tide turns toward Aethyr. Well probably travel all day tomorrow, and Id like to experiment with that evocation before too long.
Me too. Val grinned at her. Sunrise it is. Ill memorize the words tonight.
In the chilly dawn Valandario left her tent and met Dallandra out by the horse herd. Both of them carried their ritual swords, wrapped in bits of cloth to keep off the damp. They were blunt blades of cheap metal to look at, but charged with a very different kind of power than that in a warriors muscles. For privacys sake they walked a good mile from the camp, then chose a spot suitable for the working. A gaggle of gnomes trailed after them, but as soon as Val unwrapped her sword, they rushed away to disappear.
Together Val and Dallandra trod down a rough circle in the grass. After the proper invocations Val evened up its perimeter into a proper circle by marking the damp sod with the point of the sword. As the sun rose, she greeted the powers who stand behind this visible symbol of warmth and light. To them she consecrated the ceremony.
Are you ready, sentinel? Val said.
I am. Dallandra raised her own sword. Let the ritual begin. She brought the sword down sharply.
Valandario stood in the centre of the circle, lifted her arms over her head, and vibrated the words from the scroll, drawing breath from deep within herself, breaking each word into syllables as Aderyn had taught her, all those years before.