The Silver Mage

Still, something seemed to have got into his eyes, dust from the camp, maybe, or smoke. Although he managed to stop himself from sobbing aloud, the traitor tears spilled and ran.

Toward noon Berwynna finally overcame her weariness enough to leave the refuge of the tent she shared with Uncle Mic. She emptied their chamber-pot into the latrine ditch at the edge of the encampment, rinsed it downstream, then returned it to the tent. For a few moments she stood just outside the entrance and looked around her. Talking among themselves the strangely long-eared Westfolk passed by. Many of them looked her way, smiled or ducked their heads in acknowledgment, but she could understand none of their words, leaving her no choice but to smile in return, then stay where she was.

Eventually someone she recognized came up to her, Ebañy the gerthddyn. When he hailed her in Deverrian, she could have wept for the relief of hearing something she could understand.

‘Good morrow, Uncle Ebañy,’ Berwynna said. ‘May I call you that?’

‘By all means, though most people in Deverry call me Salamander.’

‘I do like the fancy of calling you Uncle Salamander.’

‘Then please do so.’ He made her a bow. ‘My full name is Ebañy Salamonderiel tran Devaberiel, but I’m your uncle, sure enough.’

‘My father’s brother. Right?’

‘Right again, though we had different mothers. But can I turn myself into a dragon? Alas, I cannot.’

‘Mayhap that be just as well. No doubt one dragon be more than enough for a family.’

‘You have my heart-felt agreement on that. I can, however, turn myself into a magpie.’ The beginnings of a smile twitched at his mouth.

‘Be you teasing me?’ Berwynna crossed her arms over her chest.

‘Not in the least.’

‘Ah, then you be like Laz and the raven. A mazrak.’

‘Just so.’ Yet he looked disappointed, as if perhaps he’d expected her to be shocked or amazed.

‘That be a wonderful thing, truly,’ Berwynna went on. ‘Better than being stuck, like, in one shape or another, such as that sorcerer did to my da. Or be it so that a man can get himself trapped in some other form, all by himself, I do mean?’

‘He can, indeed, and frankly, I worry about Laz. Sidro’s mentioned that he often flies for days at a time.’

‘I ken not the truth of that, but I did see him fly every day, twice at times, when we were travelling.’

‘That’s far too often. Huh, I should have a word with him about it, a warning, like.’

‘Think you he’ll listen?’

‘Alas, I do not. Now, speaking of dragons, did you know that you have a step-mother and a step-sister of that scaly tribe?’

‘I didn’t! Ye gods, here I did think that dragons be only the fancies of priests and story-tellers, and now I do find that my own clan be full of them.’

‘Priests?’

‘Father Colm, the priest we did know back in Alban, did tell me once an old tale, that a dragon did eat a bishop – that be somewhat like a head priest, you see – but she did eat a bishop some miles to the south of where we did dwell. But I believed him not.’

‘I have the horrid feeling that this Colm might have been right.’ With a slight frown Salamander considered something for a moment, then shrugged the problem away. ‘Ah well, the dragons are sleeping the morning away in the sun, but when they wake, I’ll introduce you. In the meantime, Wynni, come with me, and let’s meet some of the ordinary folk.’

‘Ordinary’ was not a word that Berwynna would have applied to the Westfolk. With their cat-slit eyes and long, furled ears, they fitted Father Colm’s descriptions of devils, yet she saw them doing the same daily things that the people of her old world did: cooking food, mending clothes, tending their children. They greeted her pleasantly, and some even spoke the language she now knew as Deverrian. Several woman told her how sorry they were that she’d lost her betrothed. Not devils at all, she thought. Most likely Father Colm never actually knew any of them.

One odd thing, though, did give her pause. Now and then she saw a person talking to what appeared to be empty air. Once a woman carrying a jug of water tripped, spilling the lot. After she picked herself up, she set her hands on her hips and swore at nothing, or at least, at a spot on the ground that seemed to contain nothing. Another person, a young man, suddenly burst out of a tent and chased – something. Berwynna got a glimpse of an arrow travelling through the air, but close to the ground and oddly slowly. With what sounded like mighty oaths, the man caught up, snatched it from the air, and aimed a kick at an empty spot near where he’d claimed the arrow.

‘Uncle Salamander?’ she said, pointing. ‘What does he talk to?’

‘Hmm? Just one of the Wildfolk.’

‘Oh, now you be teasing me.’

‘You don’t see the Wildfolk?’ Salamander spoke in a perfectly serious tone. ‘I would have thought you could.’

Wynni hesitated on the edge of annoyance. With a smile he patted her on the arm.

‘Don’t let it trouble your heart,’ Salamander said. ‘Ah, there’s Branna. Let me introduce you.’

Branna turned out to be a human lass, blonde, pretty, and about Wynni’s own age – a relief, she realized, after all the strange-looking folk she’d seen and met. She also spoke the language that Wynni had come to think of as Deverrian, another relief.

‘Dalla told me that you’d lost your man,’ Branna said. ‘My heart aches for you.’

‘My thanks.’ Wynni managed to keep her voice steady. ‘I’ll be missing him always.’

‘Well, now,’ Salamander said. ‘I have hopes that in a while you’ll –’

‘Oh, please don’t try to make light of it,’ Branna interrupted him. ‘It sounds so condescending.’

Salamander winced and muttered an apology. Wynni decided that she liked Branna immensely, even though it surprised her to see her uncle defer to one so young.

Branna accompanied them as they continued their stroll through the camp. As they walked between a pair of tents, they came face-to-face with a small child, perhaps four years old, who held a small green snake in both hands. The child ignored them, and Branna and Salamander turned to go back the way they’d come. Wynni lingered, watching the child, who had eyes as green as the snake and slit the same vertical way. She was assuming that the snake was a pet, but the little lad calmly pinched its head between thumb and forefinger of one hand, then twisted the creature’s body so sharply with the other that it broke the snake’s neck and killed it. Wynni yelped and stepped back as the child bit into the snake’s body. Blood ran down his chin as he spat out bits of green skin.

Salamander touched Wynni’s arm from behind. ‘Come back this way,’ he said. ‘That’s one of our changelings, and he won’t move for you.’

A changeling, Wynni assumed, must be the same thing as a halfwit. She followed Salamander out of the narrow passage, but she glanced back to see the child still eating the snake raw.

‘My apologies,’ she said. ‘He just took me by surprise.’

‘No doubt,’ Branna said. ‘We never know what they’ll do.’

When they reached the last tent, Berwynna looked out into the open country and saw dragons lounging in the grass. She stopped with a little gasp and stared at them, the enormous black dragon, her glimmering scales touched here and there with copper and a coppery green, and the smaller wyrm, her scales the dark green of pine needles, glinting with gold along her jaw and underbelly.

‘They be so beautiful,’ Berwynna said. ‘How I wish my sister Avain were here to see them! She does love all things dragonish so deeply.’

‘Well, if the gods allow,’ Salamander said, ‘mayhap one day she will. Now, the black dragon is Arzosah, your father’s second, well, wife I suppose she is. The smaller is Medea, a step-sister.’

As the three of them started toward the dragons, Wynni heard Dallandra calling from behind them, though she couldn’t understand her words. She glanced back to see the dweomermaster running after them, waving her arms.

‘She wants us to stop,’ Branna said.

The three of them waited for Dallandra to catch up.

‘Let me go ahead,’ Dalla told them. ‘I want to make sure that Arzosah’s in a good mood. One never knows with dragons, and she’s very jealous of your mother, Wynni.’

Dallandra strode off through the grass to join the dragons. Arzosah lifted her massive head, and Medea sat up, curling her long green and gold tail around her front paws like a giant cat. Although they were too far away for Berwynna to hear their conversation, she could see the results. At first Arzosah listened carefully, then suddenly threw back her head and roared. Dallandra set her hands on her hips and yelled right back.

‘Oh joy,’ Salamander said. ‘It’s a good thing Dalla did go ahead, it seems.’

While the black dragon and the dweomermaster argued, the green and gold dragon waddled toward Berwynna and Salamander. Although Father Colm had always said that dragons were the absolute peak and zenith of evil, Berwynna had lost her faith in the priest’s sayings, but she had to admit that her heart began to beat faster and harder. Salamander went tense, then stepped in front of Berwynna, but the dragon ducked her head and let out a quiet rumbling sound, a dragonish equivalent of a smile.

‘Greetings, step-sister!’ she said. ‘My for-sharing name is Medea, and I assure you that I don’t bear you the least ill will.’

‘My thanks.’ Berwynna curtsied to her. ‘I do feel a great fear upon me of your mother.’

‘No need.’ The dragon rumbled a bit more loudly. ‘She agreed right away to never harm you. They’re arguing about somewhat else, the spirit named Evandar.’

‘Ah.’ Salamander sounded greatly relieved. ‘They argue about him constantly, so we may rest assured that all is normal and summery in life.’

‘Very true.’ The dragon paused for a yawn that revealed teeth like long dagger blades. ‘My apologies. These warm days make me sleepy. Anyway, so you’re my step-father’s hatchling?’

‘I am, and I do have a twin sister back home. Her name be Mara.’

‘So I have two step-sisters.’ Medea seemed honestly delighted with the news. ‘And you have another step-sister and a brother back home in our fire mountain.’

‘Oh, that be splendid!’ Berwynna said. ‘We were so lonely, you see, on our island, but now we do have a clan. What be your father like?’

‘Alas, he’s no longer with us. The wretched Horsekin slew him.’

‘That aches my heart. They did kill my betrothed as well.’

Medea stretched out her neck and gave Berwynna a gentle nudge of sympathy. ‘So sad!’ the dragon said. ‘To lose someone so young! Now, our father was old and ill. That’s the only reason those horrible bastards of Horsekin could capture him.’

‘Were your da a fair bit older than your mam, then?’

‘Truly he was. At least a thousand years older, maybe more.’

‘Ai! You live so long a time!’

‘We do, at that. But Papa was so ill that he wanted to bathe in a hot spring near our lair. When he didn’t come home, Mama left me to watch my younger hatchling while she went off to find him.’ Medea hissed as if she were remembering the day. ‘Papa never came home. The Horsekin slew him while he tried to get free of the spring, and then they gloated about it.’

‘Did your mother kill them for it?’

‘As many as she could catch, truly. They couldn’t harm her. I can’t imagine anyone capturing Mama.’

‘No more can I. She be magnificent.’

‘I’ll tell her you said so. She’ll like that.’

Medea turned around and waddled off, heading back to her mother, who was still in full argument with a furious Dallandra. Salamander sighed and shook his head.

‘They can go on like that for half a day.’ He waved a hand toward the pair.

‘Truly,’ Branna said. ‘I think we’d best go back to camp.’

‘Indeed,’ Salamander said. ‘Wynni, I’ll introduce you later.’

By the time she finished talking with Arzosah, Dallandra’s mood had turned foul. It seemed to her that all of her female friends, whether Westfolk or Wyrmish, were taking entirely too much pleasure in telling her their low opinions of Evandar. She stalked back to camp to find Calonderiel waiting for her.

‘Where’s Dari?’ she snapped.

‘Sidro put her down for a nap in our tent,’ Cal said. ‘I want to talk with you, beloved. I don’t want you going off alone with that Laz fellow. If you don’t want me to go with you, take some of the men. He’s not trustworthy.’

Dallandra sighed, considering him as he stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes narrow. Arguing with him in one of his jealous moods would only waste a long valuable part of the day.

‘Very well,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask Ebañy to go over and finish our talk.’ She glanced around and saw him standing nearby with Branna and Berwynna. ‘Ah, there he is now.’

‘That’ll be much better.’ Cal grinned at her. ‘And my thanks.’

Salamander left Berwynna in Branna’s care, then went to his tent with Dallandra. She stood watching while he took the black crystal from his saddlebags, then repeated his instructions all over again.

‘But don’t talk to him about Alastyr,’ Dallandra finished up. ‘I don’t want to awaken any memories of dark dweomer.’

‘The temptation to use it might be too great, you mean?’

‘Just that. Sidro told me about their teacher back in Taenbalapan. Ych! A truly loathsome dark dweomer refugee from Bardek, back when the cities were breaking the power of the dark guilds. Apparently he escaped the archon who was trying to hang him and managed to take ship for Cerrmor. How he made his way north Sidro didn’t know. I’ll wager that Laz learned plenty of dubious things from him.’

‘Very well, then.’ Salamander made her a bob of a bow. ‘My lips are sealed with the wax of circumspection and the signet of prudence.’

As he walked over to Laz’s camp, Salamander called up from his memory what he knew about Alastyr, whom he’d seen in the flesh only briefly, when he was a very young child and Alastyr a young lad who went by the nick-name of Tirro. Salamander had been gone from the camp when a fully-grown Alastyr had helped Loddlaen murder Valandario’s lover, but he’d of course heard the tale. Many years later he’d helped Nevyn track down an utterly corrupt Alastyr, who preyed upon young children of both sexes not merely for pleasure but also to drain their life force for his evil dweomer workings. Although Salamander had never actually seen the dark dweomermaster Tirro had become, Nevyn had told him the tale in some detail. A thoroughly loathsome soul, that Alastyr, Salamander thought.

And yet, when he sat down with Laz to discuss the black crystal, Salamander found him no fiend. Berwynna had told him how Laz had risked his own life to save the caravan. Laz seemed concerned about her, asking Salamander how she and her uncle fared, expressing sincere sorrow over the death of her betrothed and the deaths of the other men as well.

‘But in the end,’ Laz said at last, ‘death takes us all, and life on the caravan road is generally short.’

‘True enough, and alas,’ Salamander said.

They shared a brief silence in the memory of the slain. Salamander took the chance to study Laz’s aura, a strangely mottled swirl of purple and green. Laz, he supposed, was doing the same to his.

‘I see you’ve brought that black crystal with you,’ Laz said eventually. ‘Do you know somewhat about it? Dalla mentioned that I’d owned it in a former life.’

Salamander had sudden thoughts of doing Dallandra bodily harm. How was he supposed to gain Laz’s trust by telling him the truth but never mention Alastyr? Fortunately Laz misread his silence.

‘I take it you don’t know,’ Laz said.

‘Well,’ Salamander found a dodge just true enough to pass muster. ‘Dallandra doesn’t like to tell tales of other people’s past incarnations unless they’ve told her she may.’

‘Very honourable of her, then.’

‘I do know a bit about the crystal, though. Whenever I look into it, I see the same vision, of Evandar standing on the pier at Haen Marn.’

Laz mugged shock. ‘Evandar again? Very strange!’

‘Even stranger,’ Salamander went on, ‘is this. I’ve never been to Haen Marn, and yet in the crystal, I’m apparently scrying it out. What have you seen in it?’

‘Only the location of the white crystal, which is, unfortunately, now at the bottom of Haen Marn’s lake. They’re linked in some way, but I have no idea of how.’

‘Have you ever thought of using it to scry for the dragon book?’

‘I haven’t, but that’s a good idea.’

When Salamander held out the crystal, Laz took it in both of his maimed hands, using them like a pair of tongs to set it down on the ground in front of him. He leaned over and stared down through the squarecut tip. After some little while he swore with a shake of his head.

‘When I think of the book,’ Laz said, ‘the interior of the crystal changes to a thick black darkness. I suspect I’m seeing the inside of Wynni’s saddlebags.’

‘Not very helpful, then.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. I felt my mind touch those spirits attached to the book. I have no idea, though, if they knew it did.’

‘They might have. If they’re spirits of Aethyr, they’re more highly developed than most. I suspect that this crystal and its brother are attuned to Aethyr, too. May I ask you where you came upon the white one?’

‘In the ruins of Rinbaladelan.’ Laz grinned, a gesture sharp as a knife-edge, as if he were expecting a reaction.

Salamander saw no reason to deny him. He whistled under his breath in sheer surprise.

‘I went there on a whim,’ Laz continued, ‘just to see what I could see, which wasn’t much. The city’s been taken back by the forest. The walls are split, the streets crumbled, the towers fallen, and over everything grows trees and ivy and the like. I was poking around, pulling off a vine here, a cluster of weeds there, and along one wall I poked too hard. It started to collapse, and when the dust cleared, lo! I saw the remains of a wooden casket. Inside was the white crystal.’

‘You found it just like that?’ Salamander said. ‘By chance?’

‘Not chance.’ Laz frowned, remembering. ‘Someone or something had left a trail. Some of the underbrush was cleared away or trampled down, so it was easier to walk up to that particular wall. And the casket itself looked big enough to hold a pair of crystals, but only one remained.’

‘I think we can guess who made that trail.’

‘Evandar?’

‘So I suspect. Very well, you found the crystal he left for you –’

‘Oh ye gods!’ Laz stared, the grin gone. ‘How would he have known I was going to go there?’

‘From what Dalla’s told me,’ Salamander said, ‘Evandar knew a great many things about the future. Unfortunately, they were all small details, mere glances, glimpses, and flashes of things to come, like lines snatched randomly from a long poem. So he saw naught wrong with trying to arrange those fragments into the tale he wanted told. I’d wager high that he saw someone finding that crystal. Whether or not he saw you in particular, who knows?’

‘Very well, then.’ Laz’s grin came back, but as brittle as glass. ‘And here I thought I was being so clever!’

‘Evandar played a great many tricks on a great many clever people. Don’t let it trouble your heart.’

For some while they discussed the crystal and the dragon book, until Salamander felt he knew everything Laz had learned about them – not that such amounted to a great deal. Laz, however, seemed pleased with their talk. When Salamander stood up to leave, Laz joined him and invited him to come back whenever he wanted.

‘It’s a relief to find people who’ll talk openly of dweomer matters,’ Laz told him.

‘No doubt, after being surrounded by Alshandra’s believers.’

Laz laughed and agreed.

When Salamander left the camp, two of the men followed him, both pure Gel da’Thae from the look of their long black hair, braided with charms, and the brightly coloured tattoos on their milk-white skin. His heart pounded briefly in fear, but they bowed to him, then knelt at his feet.

‘Big sir,’ one of them said in a language that was more or less Deverrian. ‘I speak little words, but we –’ he paused to gesture at the other man’ – now want leave Laz. Go with Drav. We ask, safe?’

‘It is. The prince has taken Drav into his service.’

The man stared at him in desperation. Salamander tried again.

‘Safe,’ he said. ‘Come see Drav with me.’

At that they both smiled.

As they followed him back to the Westfolk tents, Salamander saw Grallezar and hailed her. She took these new recruits to Drav while Salamander sought out Dallandra to give her his report.

‘Laz thinks the spirits of the book may be aware of his mind trying to reach them, but he couldn’t be sure,’ Salamander finished up. ‘And they wouldn’t know if he were a friend or an enemy.’

‘That’s very much too bad,’ Dallandra said. ‘I keep wishing I’d seen the wretched thing myself.’

‘Me, too. You know, it’s an odd thing about Laz. Is Rori truly sure he knew this soul as Alastyr?’

‘Well, he’s told me so a couple of times now. Why?’

‘He doesn’t seem as horrible as he should.’ Salamander shrugged with an embarrassed laugh. ‘I suppose that’s what I mean.’

‘You know, some people do learn from their lives. It’s one of the things that keeps my faith in the Light strong, actually, that some people really do see the evil they’ve done and do their best to redeem themselves. The opportunity’s offered to every soul in the Halls of Light.’

‘Of course.’

‘You sound doubtful.’ Dallandra cocked her head to one side and considered him.

‘In a way I suppose I am. I’ve never had grand memories of my past lives, you know. I assume I must have had some, but without actual memories, the assumption’s – well – bloodless.’

‘You should talk less and meditate more.’

‘Why am I not surprised you said that?’

When he grinned at her, she scowled at him, then softened and returned the smile. Still, he told himself, she’s right, you know – you should.

‘Besides,’ Dallandra continued, ‘Laz also had that miserable life without a shred of dweomer in it, where he was nothing but a renegade Deverry lordling, and I think he truly learned something from that, too.’

‘Which reminds me. Laz said you told him that he owned the crystal in a former life. He certainly did – as Alastyr.’

‘Yes, I know, that was a nasty slip on my part. I’ll have to think of a way to tell him without evoking that life in his mind.’

‘Good luck! Better you than I.’ Salamander hefted the crystal. ‘Shall I give this to Valandario?’

‘By all means. It rightfully belongs to her.’

Valandario was sitting in her tent, studying an array of her scrying gems, when Salamander called to her from outside.

‘Oh esteemed teacher, may I enter?’

‘Yes, certainly.’

Salamander ducked under the tent flap and came in, carrying something wrapped in what looked like an old shirt. Val smiled at him, then began picking up the gems and putting them back into their pouch. He hunkered down and waited until she’d finished.

‘I brought this back to you.’ Salamander laid the bundle down in front of her. ‘It’s the black crystal. I know you asked me to smash it, but it occurred to me that you might enjoy doing it yourself.’

‘Most likely I will,’ Val said. ‘My thanks.’

She unrolled the wrapping – indeed, an old shirt – and set the crystal down on the tent cloth between them. At the moment it appeared so ordinary, just a carved bit of obsidian, that she wondered if it were the correct crystal. Salamander supplied the evidence without being asked.

‘Every time I look into it,’ he said, ‘I see Haen Marn and Evandar.’

‘That seems to be its one power,’ Val said. ‘I wonder why Loddlaen wanted it so badly.’

‘Doubtless he didn’t know how limited it is, and besides, he was fetching it for the man called Alastyr.’

Val nodded. She was remembering Jav, laughing at some jest as they walked together down by the ocean. With a shake of her head, she banished the memory.