A Time of Justice

KATHARINE KERR

A Time of Justice

Days of Air and Darkness

A Novel of the Westlands Cycle

Copyright

Voyager

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1995

Copyright © Katharine Kerr 1995

Katharine Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780006478591

Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007395552

Version: 2015-04-27

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

A Note on the Pronunciation of Deverry Words

Maps

I Prologue – Albus

II Past – Conjunctio

III Present, Rising – Fortuna Minor

IV Present, Falling – Tristitia

V Future – Cauda Draconis

VI Epilogue – Populus

Keep Reading

Glossary

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

A Note on the Pronunciation of Deverry Words

The language spoken in Deverry, which we might well call Neo-Gaulish, is a member of the P-Celtic family. Although closely related to Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, it is by no means identical to any of these actual languages and should never be taken as such.

Vowels are divided by Deverry scribes into two classes: noble and common. Nobles have two pronunciations; commons, one.

A as in father when long; a shorter version of the same sound, as in far, when short.

O as in bone when long; as in pot when short.

W as the oo in spook when long; as in roof when short.

Y as the i in machine when long; as the e in butter when short.

E as in pen.

I as in pin.

U as in pun.

Vowels are generally long in stressed syllables; short in unstressed. Y is the primary exception to this rule. When it appears as the last letter of a word, it is always long whether that syllable is stressed or not.

Diphthongs generally have one consistent pronunciation.

AE as the a in mane.

AI as in aisle.

AU as the ow in how.

EO as a combination of eh and oh.

EW as in Welsh, a combination of eh and oo.

IE as in pier.

OE as the oy in boy.

UI as the North Welsh wy, a combination of oo and ee.

Note that OI is never a diphthong, but is two distinct sounds, as in carnoic (KAR-noh-ik).

Consonants are mostly the same as in English, with these exceptions:

C is always hard as in cat.

G is always hard as in get.

DD is the voiced th as in thin or breathe, but the voicing is more pronounced than in English. It is opposed to TH, the unvoiced sound as in th or breath. (This is the sound that the Greeks called the Celtic tau.)

R is heavily rolled.

RH is a voiceless R, approximately pronounced as if it were spelled hr in Deverry proper. In Eldidd, the sound is fast becoming indistinguishable from R.

DW, GW, and TW are single sounds, as in Gwendolen or twit.

Y is never a consonant.

I before a vowel at the beginning of a word is consonantal, as it is in the plural ending -ion, pronounced yawn.

Doubled consonants are both sounded clearly, unlike in English. Note, however, that DD is a single letter, not a doubled consonant.

Accent is generally on the penultimate syllable, but compound words and place names are often an exception to this rule.

I have used this system of transcription for the Bardekian, Dwarvish, and Elvish alphabets as well as the Deverrian, which is, of course, based upon the Greek rather than the Roman model. As faithful readers of this series know, my decision to use this simple approach rather than the full scholarly apparatus developed at the University of Aberwyn has been roundly attacked of late in the academic press. Such readers will be glad to hear that the lawsuit against those attackers, in particular a certain Elvish professor of Elvish, filed on my behalf by my publishers, is proceeding nicely through the courts in Aberwyn, where in due time it will reach the gwerbret’s malover and be resolved, once and for all, and in our favour, or so I may hope.

Maps

I PROLOGUE

The Northlands, 1116

ALBUS

The opposite of Rubeus in all things, thus generally an omen for good. Yet when it falls into the House of Lead, pertaining to matters of war, it does signify days of air and darkness, and an evil upon the land.

The Omenbook of Gwarn, Loremaster

Under a starry night two men and a dragon camped by a river. Though the wind blew warm, the men had built a fire for light, and the great wyrm lay her head as close to it as she dared. The rest of her glittering body and folded wings stretched away into shadow. Well over twenty feet long, not counting the tail curled round her haunches, the greeny-black dragon kept raising her head to look about her and sniff the summer wind. On the opposite side of the fire sat a young man of the Mountain People, though he was tall for one of them at five and a half feet. He had high dwarven cheekbones and a flat nose, narrow eyes, shadowed under heavy dwarven brows, and his hair was a brown close to black, as was his close-cropped beard. Every time the dragon went on guard he would start up, then mutter a curse under his breath and sit again.

‘Rori?’ he said finally. ‘What be troubling the beast?’

Rhodry Maelwaedd stopped his restless pacing and walked back into the pool of firelight. He was well over six feet tall but built straight from shoulder to hip, and his raven-dark hair and cornflower blue eyes marked him for an Eldidd man, even though that province lay hundreds of miles to the south, all the way across the far-flung kingdom of Deverry. Weather-beaten, grizzled, Rhodry was still a handsome man, and he looked human enough – at first glance, anyway.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s a pity you never learned the Elvish tongue, Enj. It’s the only thing she speaks.’

‘And where would I have come across elves, all the way up here? Well, before I met you, anyway.’

‘True spoken.’ Rhodry turned to the dragon and began speaking in the language of his father’s people. ‘What’s wrong? Do you smell trouble on the wind?’

‘What? No, not yet, anyway.’ The dragon’s voice rumbled and growled like a turning millstone. ‘But I like to keep a bit of a guard.’

‘Sensible enough, and my thanks.’

She rippled her long wings, then rested her head on her coppery-green paws, though she kept an eye open to watch him. On the third finger of his right hand Rhodry wore a silver ring, a flat band inscribed on the outside with a design of roses and on the inside, with her true name.

‘Naught’s wrong.’ Rhodry sat down on the ground a few feet from Enj and spoke in the rough patois of Deverrian and the mountain tongue that they both could understand. ‘She’s just troubled, like we are.’

‘It’s been a miserable bad day, truly.’

Rhodry laughed, a high mad chortle of a berserker’s howl that made Enj wince and the dragon raise her head to hiss like a thousand cats.

‘You must admit, Enj old lad, that you’ve a fine gift for understatement. You’ve lost home and kin both, and I’ve lost a woman I loved with all my heart and soul, and what do you call it? A miserable bad day. Well, truly, it was that, I suppose.’

‘My apologies, then!’ Enj snarled like the dragon. ‘But ye gods, what do you expect me to do? Orate like one of your wretched bards?’

Rhodry wiped his grin away.

‘I’m sorry. Forgive me.’

The two men stared at each other for a long moment; then Enj held out his hand. Rhodry shook it. His mouth set hard against mourning, Enj returned to watching flames dance along logs.

Rhodry’s heavy sword belt lay beside him on the ground. He pulled a dagger free of its sheath and began fiddling with it, polishing the narrow blade on his sleeve holding it up to catch the light. When he flicked it with a thumbnail, the blade rang like silver, though it was as hard as steel. The dragon’s coppery eye followed every glint.

Their camp lay in a broad valley where a river flowed through scattered pines and high grass. All round rose the mountains of the Roof of the World, in those days untrod and unsettled by either dwarf or man. Framing the valley, hills climbed, dark with trees, while beyond them rose the high peaks, their perpetual snow gleaming a faint silver in the light from the overarching stars. Down from the foothills the night wind brought them the sound of wolves howling on the hunt. Arzosah raised her massive head to listen.

‘They’re moving away from us,’ she remarked. ‘I do wish you’d sheathe that knife, Rori. It’s driving me daft, watching you play with it.’

He smiled and closed one broad hand around its hilt.

‘You know,’ she went on, ‘if you need someone to hate, you could blame Evandar. I do.’

‘For what? The vanishing of Haen Marn?’

‘Nah nah nah. What do I care about your stupid island? It wasn’t my home. I blame him for the troubling of me.’

‘I should have known.’ Rhodry translated this exchange for the puzzled Enj, then turned back to her. ‘Well, if he hadn’t given me this little ring, you’d be all nice and snug, sure enough, lolling round in your fire mountain and chewing on a cow bone or two.’

‘Don’t mock! It’s bad enough you’ve enslaved me. Don’t mock me, too.’

‘Watch your courtesies when you speak to me.’

She whined, rolling an enormous copper eye to the stars. He held up his hand to catch the firelight on the ring.

‘My apologies,’ she said. ‘You’re a harsh man, Rhodry Dragonmaster.’

‘I intend to stay that way and stay alive.’

She whined again, flopping her head onto her paws. He glanced at Enj to find him utterly expressionless.

‘We should turn in,’ Rhodry said. Think you can sleep?’

‘Not without dreaming. Let’s let the fire burn a while.’

‘Very well.’ He looked at the dragon, who was quietly snarling to herself. ‘Still thinking of Evandar?’

‘Yes. If ever I find him again, I’m going to eat him. Munch crunch gobble gone.’

‘A fine sentiment, but I’m afraid you can’t really eat him. He doesn’t have a real body, not one made out of meat, I mean, like you and me.’

‘Just like him! The final cheat of all!’

‘A spiteful beast, isn’t she?’

The voice came out of the dark beyond the fire. His dagger in hand, Rhodry scrambled to his feet as a figure strolled toward them. A silver glow like moonlight hung in the air round him so that they could see him clearly, a tall fellow, slender, dressed in a long green tunic and buckskin trousers. His hair was the bright yellow of daffodils, his lips were the red of sour cherries, and his eyes were an unnatural turquoise blue, bright as gemstones. Yet the strangest things of all were his ears, long and delicately pointed, furled tight like a fern in spring.

‘Evandar!’ Rhodry hissed.

The dragon slapped her tail upon the ground with a dull boom like an avalanche. He could hear her scuffling to her feet behind him.

‘The very one.’ Evandar made a bow, then raised one hand to point a long and slender finger at the dragon. ‘Arzosah Sothy Lorezohaz! Remember that I know your name.’

She snarled, opening her mouth wide, but she held her place. Enj crouched by the fire and stared at their visitor.

‘What brings you here?’ With a nod Enj’s way to include him, Rhodry spoke in the Deverrian patois.

‘A warning for you,’ Evandar said in the same. ‘Are you heading south?’

‘We are. Cengarn’s under siege. Did you know that?’

‘Of course. I know everything that’s worth knowing about this war, Rhodry Maelwaedd.’

‘Oh, do you now? Then where’s the relieving army? We’ll be looking to join up with it.’

‘Go to Lin Serr first. Garin and his troop of axemen haven’t left yet.’

‘What? I’d have thought them long gone.’

‘There’s an obstacle in their way.’ Evandar flashed him a grin. ‘A small army’s tramping round the countryside. Horsekin.’

Enj winced and swore.

‘The filthy bastards!’ Rhodry said, half-laughing. ‘I want a chance at killing me a few.’

‘You’ll get it,’ Evandar said. ‘But stay on guard while you’re flying south, because there’s some peculiar birds who soar between worlds, and I think me one of them means you harm.’

‘Shapechangers!’

Evandar smiled, briefly.

‘It’s the raven I’d watch out for. A bird of ill omen, always, but particularly ill-omened is the raven I have in mind. You’re wearing some sort of talisman of hiding, aren’t you?’

‘I am.’

‘I thought so. No doubt your enemies are having a fair bit of trouble scrying you out, and so they’ll have to come look for you in the flesh. Be careful, very careful. The raven woman’s as dangerous as they come.’

‘We’ll keep alert, then, and my thanks. Answer me somewhat, will you?’

‘Probably not, but you can ask. I only set riddles. I don’t answer them for naught.’

The dragon swung her head his way and growled. Oho! Rhodry thought.

‘All right, then,’ Rhodry said aloud. ‘Why would you come to warn me? I don’t recall ever doing anything for you, and yet you’ve helped me a good many times now.’

‘I don’t know. It’s a riddle I’ve set for myself, I suppose a riddle as new and shiny as a gold coin, and here I never meant to do such a thing.’ Evandar tilted his head a little to one side, suddenly solemn, and yet it seemed that he was acting the role of a man thinking rather than truly thinking something through. ‘I suppose there’s only one thing the answer could be.’

‘And that is?’

Evandar laid a hand along the side of Rhodry’s face, then kissed him full on the mouth. His hand felt oddly cool, more like silk than flesh, but the kiss was warm enough. Rhodry could neither move nor think till Evandar released him.

‘That could be it, indeed.’ Evandar took one step back and vanished, suddenly and utterly gone, without so much as the flicker of a shadow.

Rhodry raised his hand and touched the dagger to his mouth, stood there narrow-eyed and speechless while Enj goggled and Arzosah made the long rumbling noise that did her for a laugh. Rhodry turned on her with a snarl.

‘Oh stop your cackling, Wyrm! Why didn’t you tell me you could speak the language of men?’

‘You never asked, Dragonmaster.’ She stopped rumbling, but he suspected her of doing whatever it was dragons did when they smirked. ‘So. Evandar isn’t real flesh and blood, is he? I never would have guessed it.’

‘I said hold your tongue!’ Rhodry flung his hand up to make the ring flash. She whined and crouched like a kicked dog. ‘Oh, my apologies. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.’

‘A harsh man, but a just one.’ She relaxed with a toss of her massive head. ‘I could be enslaved by worse.’

There remained Enj. It took Rhodry a long moment to make himself look his friend in the face.

‘That wretched wyrm,’ Enj said. ‘Pretending she couldn’t understand a word I said, making you babble back and forth like an ambassador!’

Rhodry let out his breath in a sigh. The matter, he knew, would stay closed between them from now on. He sat down again and leaned back against his bedroll.

‘And what or who is this Evandar fellow?’ Enj said.

‘I’m not truly sure. He has the ears and eyes of a full-blooded elf, but I’ve been told by sorcerers that he’s naught of the sort. Riddles, indeed!’ Rhodry spat into the fire. ‘They say he’s some kind of spirit who’s never been born, and that he lives in some kind of magical country that lies beyond the world, not that it’s floating in the air or suchlike – just “beyond”, they say. None of it makes a bit of sense to me, curse them all! But Evandar’s got dweomer, all right, the way other men have blood running in their veins.’

The dragon clacked her fangs in a sound that, he suspected, did duty as a snicker.

‘Indeed?’ Enj considered for a long while. ‘Do you think he’d know where Haen Marn’s gone off to?’

‘I’ve no idea, but I suspect that if anyone does, it’d be him. Maybe I’ll get a chance to ask him.’ Rhodry shot the dragon a murderous glance. ‘And no smart remarks from you.’

Arzosah curled her paw and contemplated her claws, but he could have sworn she was smiling.

After a few hours’ troubled sleep they woke at dawn. Arzosah clambered to her feet and stretched her wings, throwing huge shadows over the entire campsite, then folded them back and waddled down to the river to drink, which took a while because she lapped water like a cat rather than sucking like a cow. The men sat by the ash of their dead fire and shared stale flatbread and a strip of venison jerky.

‘How long till we reach Lin Serr?’ Enj said.

‘On her back? No more than three days, more likely a pair.’

‘There’s some food left, but not much. If we could wait a day, I could catch us more.’

‘Truly, I’ve never seen a man as good as you at foraging in the wild country. But time’s short.’

Enj nodded, glancing away upriver, where once the magical lake and island of Haen Marn had sat upon the countryside like a bowl on a table. By its dweomer it had vanished, taking itself away from marauders and the dangers of war – how or where, they didn’t know. With it, though, had gone Enj’s kin and clan, his home and his entire life, leaving behind only a long stretch of empty grass, green in the bright sun.

‘I was just thinking,’ Enj said in a shaking voice. ‘That it may be that the isle will return, with the danger gone off south.’

‘Think it likely?’

Enj shrugged. His eyes were brimming tears.

‘Tell me somewhat,’ Rhodry went on. ‘Have you ever marched to war?’

Enj shook his head no.

‘I thought as much. Here, why don’t you let me take what food we have, and you stay here to hunt and wait. I’ve seen you in wild country, and I know that you can live here for years if you have to. If the war ends soon, I’ll come back. If Haen Marn returns, you come south and find me.’

‘Will you think me a coward if I stay, Rori?’

‘Never, my friend. Never that.’

Enj started to speak, then wept, covering his face with his hands. Rhodry got up and strolled down to the river to join Arzosah.

‘The small creature’s snivelling again,’ she remarked.

‘He’s no warrior. Let him weep. If my soul weren’t dead, I’d weep too.’

‘Your soul is dead?’ She swung her massive head round fast to look at him. Water drops gleamed among the scales on her chin.

‘Just a way of speaking.’

‘Never ever say such a horrid thing again! It curdles my blood, just hearing the words. Don’t you realize that such can happen to men, and that it’s the most unclean thing of all under the sky?’ She shuddered with a swishing of wings. ‘Horrible!’

‘Well, my apologies. I feel like my heart’s died, then, if that suits you better.’

‘It does. A dead heart is sad, but not horrible. Rather common, actually. Males do kill their own hearts over losing the females they love.’ She sighed in a long rustle of wings. ‘Was this Angmar the only woman you’ve ever loved?’

‘Do you care?’

‘I do. We females like knowing these things.’

‘Well, then, no, she wasn’t the only one. I loved someone named Jill when I was very young, but she left me.’

‘And that’s sad, too. Was it for another man?’

‘It wasn’t, but for the dweomer.’

‘Ah! Naught to be done about that! When it calls, you follow.’

‘So she told me.’

‘You sound bitter still.’

Rhodry shrugged and watched the river flow. He could see the rippling reflection of her massive head, watching him.

‘I’ve lost a mate,’ she said at last. ‘My heart didn’t die, me being female and all, but his loss wounds me still. For your Angmar’s sake as well as his, I’ll eat the first Horsekin we slay.’

It was, Rhodry supposed, an honour of sorts.

‘Then I thank you. Ah well, I shouldn’t be surprised that I’ve lost her – Angmar, I mean. It’s better she’s gone, for her sake.’

‘Well, if the wretched Horsekin had found Haen Mam –’

‘Just so. No doubt my one true love sent them. She’s the jealous sort, truly, which is why I’ve lost every woman I’ve ever loved. If I’d dared to go on spurning her, she would have sent Angmar to the Otherlands. She’s a great queen, you know, and she could have done it easily. I’ve been marked for her love from the beginning of my life, no doubt about that, and I’ve lost all her rivals.’

‘And just what are you talking about?’ The dragon swung her head round to glare at him. ‘What great queen?’

‘The one woman I’ve ever loved who’s truly loved me in return.’ Rhodry flung one hand in the air in salute. ‘My lady. Death. Oh, we’ve had a long fine affair of it, Death and I, and always have I served her well, sending her many a pretty gift from battle. Someday she’ll take pity on me, like she takes pity on all men, and let me sleep in her cold cold arms. I tell you, Wyrm, I begin to long for her more and more.’

Arzosah stared at him, her huge and alien eyes unreadable. At length he laughed, but it was just a normal sort of chuckle.

‘If you’ve drunk enough,’ he said, ‘it’s time to fly south.’

‘I suppose you’re going to put those nasty ropes round me again.’

‘I am. But not as many this time, because Enj will be staying here.’

‘Well, that’s one thing to the good, then. He’d get so beastly sick, and I was always afraid he was going to soil my scales with one of his ends or the other. Are you sure I can’t just eat him and put him out of his misery?’