The Silver Mage

‘A very good point.’ Dallandra rose and began to pace back and forth in the tent. ‘I wonder if Evandar saw the other one there and acquired it somehow.’

‘Stole it, you mean.’ Valandario got up and joined her.

Dallandra swirled around to face her and set her hands on her hips. Val’s expression revealed only a studied neutrality. She’s right, Dallandra thought. He really was an awful thief. She wasn’t quite ready to admit it aloud.

‘Anyway, to return to the book.’ Val’s expression changed to narrow-eyed disgust. ‘I suppose we’d better talk with Laz Moj about it.’

‘You suppose? Val, you look like you just bit into turned meat.’

‘He’s someone else I have to forgive.’ Valandario forced out a brittle little smile. ‘After Jav’s murder, Aderyn and Nevyn spent a long time trying to piece together what had happened. A very long time, truly. Things didn’t fall into place till after the war where Loddlaen died.’

I was still gone then, Dallandra thought. The guilt bit deep. If she’d not gone off with Evandar, how different things might have been!

‘It wasn’t till then,’ Val continued, ‘that they realized Alastyr lay behind the murder and the war both.’

‘Rori told me that Laz was once Alastyr.’

‘Exactly, and I actually saw him when he was only a lad, a nasty little bit of work named Tirro. He grew up to be a merchant, and it was his ship that carried –’ She paused briefly ‘– the crystal away, which is why no one could scry for it. They would have been out on the open sea by the time I tried to find them.’

She means the crystal and Loddlaen, Dallandra thought. Aloud, she said, ‘I’ll go speak with Laz, but there’s no reason you need to come along.’

‘Thank you. I was hoping you’d say that.’ She hesitated again, then glanced away as if she’d decided not to say some painful thing.

‘What is it, Val? You might as well say it.’

‘Why couldn’t Evandar have just told you about the book on Haen Marn?’ Val’s words floated on a bitter tide. ‘Why all this secrecy and glittering crystals and the like? If that wretched crystal hadn’t existed, Loddlaen wouldn’t have coveted it. Yes, I know that sounds stupid, but he wanted it enough to kill for it. Why all the –’ She stopped, breathing hard. ‘My apologies.’

Dallandra could think of a dozen reasons why, but faced with Val’s undying grief, she found them shallow, stupid, pointless – rationalizations, not reasons. She sighed and said the simple truth, ‘I don’t know why, Val. I truly don’t.’

‘Oh.’ Val paused for a long cold moment. ‘Yes, I suppose you don’t.’ She got up and left the tent.

Dallandra followed her, but she left Val her privacy, and instead went looking for Grallezar. The royal alar spread out along a sizeable stream, tents on one bank, horse herds and sheep flocks on the other. Against the rich green of the grass, the freshly painted designs on the tents gleamed in the summer sun as if the dull leather had been beaded and bejewelled. Children and puppies chased each other among the tents, followed by swarms of Wildfolk, crystalline sprites in the air, warty grey and green gnomes on the ground. Now and then this crazed parade ran into an adult who, nearly toppled, yelled imprecations upon them all as they raced on past.

Dallandra found her fellow dweomermaster standing on the edge of the camp well away from the children’s chaos. She was talking with a Gel da’Thae man who wore a filthy grey shirt and trousers, the remnants of a regimental uniform, Dallandra assumed. Indeed, Grallezar introduced him as Drav, an officer in one of Braemel’s old cavalry troops.

‘He does want to take his men away from Laz and join us,’ Grallezar said. ‘I did tell him that only the prince could decide such a thing.’

‘That’s very true,’ Dallandra said. ‘How many men are there?’

‘But four, and one of them wounded. Two others did die in the rescuing of that caravan.’

‘I can’t see, then, why Dar wouldn’t agree. By all means, take Drav to him. I think Cal’s over there, too. Could you ask Drav if Laz is going to come tell us about that crystal?’

The two Gel da’Thae conferred briefly. Drav rolled his dark eyes and swung one hand through the air, a gesture that Grallezar had often used when dismissing someone as a fool.

‘He tells me,’ Grallezar said in her dialect of Deverrian, ‘that Laz be in a fair foul mood over Sidro. He does walk around swearing and kicking at things that be in his way. So he knows not what Laz might or might not do.’

‘I see. Thank him for the information, will you? Then we can go talk with Dar.’

By then the royal alar had grown used to travelling with individuals of the race they’d always called Meradan, demons, now that they knew that these ‘demons’ were real flesh and blood, not some faceless horde but individuals who were capable of changing their minds and their allegiances. The prince was glad enough to have more highly trained warriors in his warband, even if these were Gel da’Thae.

‘Besides,’ Dar told Dallandra in Elvish, ‘they understand the Horsekin, and they despise them even more than we do.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Drav has some solid information about their forces.’

Drav returned to his former camp to collect his men, but not long after he sent a messenger. Grallezar brought him and his news to Dallandra: Laz and those of his men who were unwounded were striking camp and planning on riding out.

‘What?’ Dalla snapped. ‘He’s leaving his wounded behind?’

The messenger spoke; Grallezar translated, telling her that the wounded men had asked to change their loyalties and stay with the alar. They would ride under Drav’s orders, or so they’d sworn on the names of the old Gel da’Thae gods.

‘Good riddance to the rest of them,’ Grallezar said, ‘or truly, it would be good riddance if we needed not to know what Laz knows.’

‘But we do need to,’ Dalla said. ‘I’ll go talk with him.’

‘Might that not be dangerous?’

‘It might, but I doubt it, not with his band so badly outnumbered, and Drav and his men right there.’ Dallandra considered briefly. ‘On the other hand, you might collect a few archers and come – oh say, about half-way to his camp.’

Grallezar grinned with a flash of needle-sharp teeth.

In the midst of a welter of half-struck tents and bedrolls, Laz’s remaining men hurried back and forth, saddling horses and gathering gear. Dallandra found Laz standing by his saddled and bridled horse, a stocky chestnut that bore a Gel da’Thae cavalry brand. The bright sun picked out the pink scars on his face and those cutting into his short brown hair. He’s got a face like a knife edge, Dallandra thought, all sharp angles and bone and that beaky nose. He looks half-starved, too. His smile did nothing to soften the impression.

‘Welcome,’ Laz called out. He spoke surprisingly good Deverrian. ‘Or perhaps I should say farewell. Alas, fair lady, I feel the need to take leave of you and yours, before the rest of my men decide they’d rather join you than stay with me.’

‘Well, I can understand that,’ Dallandra said. ‘It’s too bad, though. I was going to offer to trade you dweomer lore in return for some information.’

‘Oh?’ Laz glanced away, entirely too casually. ‘What kind of lore?’

‘What are you most interested in?’

‘At the moment, the burning questions in my mind concern those wretched crystals.’ He looked at her again. ‘Who, by the way, was Evandar?’

‘I can tell you a great deal about Evandar. The black crystal, it’s largely a mystery to me, though I do know somewhat that might interest you.’ She paused to glance around them, saw some of his men standing nearby, and dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘You owned it in a former life. In fact, I know somewhat about two of your former lives.’ She raised her voice to a normal level. ‘It won’t make pleasant hearing, though, so no doubt you’re wise to leave now.’

Laz’s eyes went wide, and he whistled under his breath. He gaped at her, as well and truly hooked as a caught trout, gaping at the end of a fisherman’s line. His horse stamped and tossed its head at the sudden slacking of its reins. At last Laz sighed and turned away to speak to his men in the Gel da’Thae language. Some of them shrugged, some of them raised eyebrows, others glanced skyward in disgust, but they all stopped work on striking the camp and began, instead, to restore it.

‘We need to find a place to talk,’ Laz said to Dallandra. ‘We can meet between the camps.’

‘Very well. You’re welcome in our camp, for that matter. The Westfolk will never eavesdrop on a Wise One.’

‘I will not set foot over there.’ Laz’s voice turned hard. ‘I see no reason to let Pir gloat over me.’

‘Oh come now, you know Pir better than I do! Would he truly gloat?’

‘I never thought he’d steal my woman, either.’ Laz hesitated, then shrugged. ‘That’s unfair of me. No one stole her. She’s not a horse.’ Laz seemed to be choking back either tears or anger, but he arranged a brittle smile.

He’s trying, Dallandra thought. Desperately trying to be fair, to do the right thing. She regretted her slip, mentioning that she had information about two of his past lives. Discussing Lord Tren was doubtless safe enough, but Alastyr? She found herself loath to speak of dark dweomer. What if it awakened Laz’s memories and, worse yet, his desire to use it? Worst of all, what if he already remembered and was hoping to get more information? Sidro had often warned her that Laz lied as cheerfully as most men jest.

‘Well, it was her right to choose.’ His voice sounded as tight as a drawn bowstring. ‘Alas. Let me hand my horse over to Faharn, and then we shall go to neutral ground and talk.’ Laz shaded his eyes and looked in the direction of Grallezar and the archers. ‘Ah, I see you prudently stationed a few guards out there.’

‘I’ll dismiss them.’

He grinned again, bowed, and led his horse away.

Laz handed his horse over to Faharn, then gave his apprentice a few quick instructions about setting up the camp. By the time he returned to Dallandra, the archers had gone back to the Westfolk tents. Dalla had picked out a spot midway between their two camps and trampled down the grass in a small circle. When they sat down, he felt oddly private despite the blue sky above them, as if they sat in a tiny chamber curtained all round with fine green lace.

‘Would you tell me what you know about the dragon book?’ Dallandra began.

‘The dragon book?’ Laz said. ‘Ah, there was a dragon on the cover, indeed. I held it in my hands and turned the pages, but I can’t truly read your beautiful language, so I have no idea of what was written in it.’

‘Berwynna told me that you thought the text had somewhat to do with dragons.’

‘Somewhat. For one thing, there was the image on the cover.’

‘I wanted to ask you about that. You have a book that’s decorated with the reverse colours but the same outline of a dragon. Did you buy that in a marketplace?’

‘I didn’t. My sisters had it made specially for me as a coming of age present. I saved it for years until I had somewhat important to write in it. You look surprised.’

‘I am. I suppose Evandar might have scried it somehow. He did see bits and pieces of future events, and if he saw you and the book, he might well have decided to make one much like it.’

‘I truly want to learn more about this fellow.’

‘I’ll tell you, fear not! But about the book –’

‘Well, beyond the cover, I could pick out a word here and there, and “drahkonnen” was one of them.’ Laz paused to summon his memories. He could see the pages of the book clearly in his mind. ‘Odd, now that I think of it! That word seemed to recur in the same place on every page. Indeed, about half-way down and to the right of the line, and on every page that I saw.’

‘How very strange!’

Laz nodded his agreement. ‘Did Wynni tell you about the spirits?’

‘She mentioned that you’d said some were attached to the book, but no more than that. She apparently can’t see the Wildfolk.’

‘She can’t, truly, but I did. They were spirits of Aethyr. They appeared once as flames, icy white with strangely coloured tips. Another time I saw them as a lozenge, floating just over the book. They can move it, by the by, and they must have some way of influencing people’s minds. Somehow they tricked Wynni into taking it from the island.’

‘That’s fascinating! I can see Evandar’s hand in this, all right.’

‘Have you ever heard of anything like this?’

‘Once.’ Dallandra hesitated, then spoke carefully. ‘It reminds me of a tale I heard a long time ago. Have you ever heard of the Great Stone of the West?’

‘I’ve not.’

Yet Laz felt an odd touch on his mind, not a memory, more a feeling of danger attached to the name. Dallandra was watching him, not precisely studying his face, but certainly more than usually alert.

‘What is this fabled stone, if I may ask?’ Laz said.

‘An opal that one of the Lijik Ganda enchanted – oh, a long time ago. Ebañy told me about it. It had spirits guarding it, too, you see, which is why it came to mind.’

‘Ah, I do see. Ebañy’s Evan the gerthddyn?’

‘He is. My apologies, I forgot you wouldn’t know his Elvish name. He’s Wynni’s uncle, by the way.’

‘And a mazrak, I gather.’

‘He is that. He’s not the dweomerman who enchanted the opal, though. Nevyn, his name was, and I know it means “no one”, but it truly was his name.’

The danger pricked him again. Laz felt as if he’d run his hand through the silken grass only to thrust a finger against a thorn. Dallandra was smiling, but only faintly, pleasantly. He wondered why he was so sure she was weaving a trap around him.

‘Can you scry for the book?’ Her abrupt change of subject made him even more suspicious. ‘You’ve actually seen it, and I never have.’

‘I’ve been doing so to no avail, alas.’ Laz decided that talking about the book was safe enough. ‘When Wynni took it, she put it into a leather sack, then wrapped the sack in some of her clothing. The bundle’s still in her lost saddlebags, or at least, I’m assuming that. All I get is an impression of a crowded darkness.’

‘Well, that’s unfortunate!’

‘If I ever see anything more clearly, I’ll tell you, though. Does the book belong to you?’

‘In a way, I suppose it does. I think – I’m hoping – that it contains the spells I need to turn Rori back into human form. The being who wrote the book is the same one who dragonified him, you see.’

‘So Enj told us. Um, the “being”? This Evandar wasn’t an ordinary man of your people, I take it.’

‘He wasn’t, but one of the Guardians, their leader, as much as they had one, anyway.’

‘Ye gods, then he’s the one the Alshandra people call Vandar!’

‘Just that. He’d never been incarnate, so he could command the astral forces – or play with them, would be a better way of putting it. He never took anything very seriously.’

Laz looked away slack-mouthed for a moment, then regained control of his voice. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why I’m so surprised. It would take someone that powerful to work the dweomers we’re discussing.’

‘Indeed. And I have no idea how to unwork it, as it were.’

‘You said you knew him well?’

‘I did. He was my lover, in fact, for some while.’

Laz felt himself staring at her like a half-wit. A hundred questions crowded into his mind, most indelicate at best and outright indecent at worst. A beautiful woman like this, and a man who wasn’t really a man, but some alien creature in man-like form – the idea touched him with sexual warmth. He could smell the change in his scent, but fortunately she seemed oblivious to it.

‘Working the transformation killed him – well, I don’t know if killed is the right word,’ Dallandra went on. ‘It drained him of the powers that were keeping him from incarnating. That would be a better way of putting it.’

‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘I’m not sure I do, either.’ Dallandra smiled at him. ‘He had no physical body, only an etheric form that he’d ensouled. To be born, he had to remove that form, but he’d woven it so well, and he had so much power at his disposal, that it refused to unwind, as it were. Turning Rhodry into a dragon left him absolutely helpless, all that power spent, his own form destroyed. He could go on at last to cross the white river.’

‘I see.’ Laz turned his mind firmly back to questions of dweomer. ‘Speaking of incarnations, you mentioned having somewhat to tell me about mine.’

‘I certainly do, thanks to Rori. It turns out that dragons have a certain amount of instinctive dweomer. He remembers you quite clearly from the days when he was human, and in dragon form, he can recognize you.’

‘I’d suspected as much, but I’m glad to have the suspicion confirmed. What does he remember that’s so distressing? Distressing to me, I mean.’

‘Do you remember aught about your last life?’

‘Only a bit, that last battle in front of Cengarn, where Alshandra – well, died, or whatever it is Guardians do when they cease to exist. It’s all cloudy, but I think I was a Horsekin officer.’

‘You were there, certainly, but you were a Deverry lord with an isolated demesne just north of Cengarn. You’d gone over to the Horsekin side. They probably treated you like one of their officers.’

Laz winced. ‘Oh splendid! A traitor to my kind, was I? No wonder I’ve ended up a half-breed in this life! You’re quite right. That does distress me.’

‘Well, Rhodry thought it was your devotion to Alshandra that drove you to it.’

‘Worse and worse!’ He forced out a difficult smile. ‘Mayhap it’s just as well that Sidro left me. She’d gloat if she knew that.’

Dallandra nodded, and her expression turned sympathetic.

‘I have a vague memory of dying in battle,’ Laz went on, ‘so I suppose I got what I deserved.’

‘Your last fight was with Rhodry Aberwyn, a silver dagger. Um, here’s the odd part. Rhodry’s the man whom Evandar turned into the dragon.’

‘He killed me?’ Laz tossed his head back and laughed aloud. ‘No wonder he remembered me, eh? And wanted to do it again.’

It was Dallandra’s turn for the puzzled stare. The Ancients, Laz decided, weren’t as morbid as Deverry men and Gel da’Thae if she couldn’t see the humour in the situation.

‘Your name was Tren,’ Dallandra went on. ‘Another tale I heard has you killing a Gel da’Thae bard.’

Laz winced again. ‘That’s a heinous thing among my people,’ he said. ‘And among the Deverry folk, too, I think.’

‘One of the worst crimes under their laws, truly. I don’t know much else, because you were part of the Horsekin besiegers, and I was inside the city walls, so –’ Dalla paused abruptly. ‘Now, who’s that?’

Someone was calling her name as he came walking through the rustling long grass. Dallandra rose to her feet, and Laz followed, glancing around him. A man of the Westfolk was striding toward them; he paused, waved to Dallandra, and hurried over with the long grass rustling around him. Tall, slender, pale-haired and impossibly handsome like all the Westfolk men, he had cat-slit eyes of a deep purple, narrowing as he looked Laz over. Ah, Laz thought, the lover or husband, no doubt!

‘This is Calonderiel,’ Dallandra said, ‘our banadar, that is, our warleader.’

‘How do you do?’ Laz made him a small bow.

‘Well, my thanks.’ Calonderiel held out his hand to Dallandra. ‘Our daughter’s awake.’ The emphasis on the word “our” was unmistakable.

‘You’ll forgive me, Laz,’ Dalla said, ‘but I’ve got to go. We’ll continue this discussion later. I’d like to know what you think of Haen Marn, among other things.’

‘Therein is a tale and half, indeed. One quick thing, though,’ Laz said. ‘Little Wynni, is she well? As well as she can be, I mean.’

‘She’s deep in her mourning, but she’s young, and she’ll recover, sooner or later. Evan’s doing his best to cheer her a bit.’

‘He told me,’ Calonderiel put in, ‘that he was going to take her to meet her step-mother today.’

‘Step-mother?’ Laz hesitated, thinking, then grinned. ‘The black dragon, you mean?’

‘Just that.’

‘Well, I’ve heard women describe their step-mothers as dragons before, but this is the first time I’ve ever known it to be true.’

Calonderiel laughed, but Dallandra spun around to look back at the elven camp.

‘That could be dangerous,’ she said, then took off running, ploughing through the tall grass.

‘What?’ Laz said.

‘I don’t know.’ Calonderiel shrugged, then turned and trotted after Dallandra.

Laz set his hands on his hips and stood watching them go, cursing silently to himself in a mixture of Gel da’Thae and Deverrian. Warleader, is he? Doubtless he could slit my throat without half-thinking about it, and no one would say him nay.

All his life he’d heard about the fabled Ancients, but he’d never met any until the previous evening. Somehow he’d not expected them all to look so strange and yet so handsome at the same time. Despite her peculiar eyes and ears, Dallandra struck him as more beautiful than any woman he’d ever seen, certainly more glamorous than Sidro. Delicate yet powerful, he thought, that’s Dalla. And dangerous – the scent of dangerous knowledge hung about her like a perfume, or so he decided to think of it, the best perfume of all. What was that powerful opal, and who was this Nevyn? She’d been hinting about something. That he knew.

Laz walked back to his camp, which had returned to what semblance of order it had, the shabby, rectangular tents set up randomly, the men lounging on the ground or wandering aimlessly through scattered gear and unopened pack saddles. Beyond the camp their ungroomed horses grazed at tether. One of the men, one of Faharn’s recent recruits, laying snoring on his blankets. Laz kicked him awake.

‘Ye gods!’ Laz snarled. ‘Where’s Faharn? You lazy pack of dogs, this place looks like a farmyard, not a proper camp.’

‘Indeed?’ Krask scrambled up to face him. ‘Who do you think you are, a rakzan?’

Laz raised one hand and summoned blue fire. It gathered around his fingers and blazed, bright even in the sunlight. Krask stepped back fast.

‘No,’ Laz said. ‘Not a rakzan. Something much much worse.’

He flung the illusionary flames straight at Krask’s face. With a squall Krask ducked and went running. The other men watching burst out laughing. A few called insults after Krask’s retreating back, but they got to their feet fast enough when Laz turned toward them.

‘Get this place in order,’ Laz said. ‘Now!’

They hurried off to follow his command. Grumbling to himself, Laz ducked into the tent he shared with Faharn and which, apparently, his second-in-command had already organized. Their bedrolls were spread out on either side; their spare clothing, saddles, and the like were neatly stacked at the foot of each. Faharn himself, however, was elsewhere. Laz sat down on his own blankets and considered the problem of Sidro in the light of what he now knew about his last life.

She was a half-breed, just as he was, an object of scorn among the pure-blooded Gel da’Thae and their human slaves both, no matter how powerful the half-breed mach-fala and how weak the slave. Had she too betrayed her own kind, whichever kind that may have been, back in that other life? We must have been together, he thought. We must have some connection. It occurred to him that Dallandra might know. She might have told me if that lout hadn’t interrupted!

Although he’d not meant to scry, his longing brought him Sidro’s image, so clear that he knew it to be true vision and not a memory. She was kneeling beside a stream in the company of Westfolk women, laughing together, chatting as they washed clothes, their arms up to their elbows in soap and white linen. It suited her, this slave work, or so he tried to tell himself, with her plain face, so different from the elegant Dallandra’s, with those round little eyes and scruffy dark hair. She’d done him a favour, he decided, by leaving him. What would I want with her, anyway? An ugly mutt without any true power for sorcery!