A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [183]
His death would doom her. Aderyn said so, and he knew in his very heart that the old man would never lie. Pouting, she slid closer, sensing his coldness, smiling again, slipping her hands free of his weakening grasp and moving closer yet to run her hands through his hair and waken a desire that made him gasp for breath, just from the sweetness of it. He was about to kiss her when she screamed. Rhodry spun around and saw Aderyn striding across the meadow, his face as grim and set as a warrior’s, and right behind him came a presence. At moments it seemed to be a slender young man, but with flesh and clothes of palest silver; at others, a misty, swirling tower of moonlight. With a howl and shriek of rage the White Lady vanished, sweeping all color from the world along with her. Over a corpse-gray meadow Aderyn came stalking, the ground shaking, rumbling, the trees trembling, rocking
and Rhodry woke to find Aderyn shaking him by the shoulders. Although Aderyn’s face was every bit as grim now as it was in the dream, there was no sign of the Silver Lord of the Wildlands.
“By the Dark Sun herself,” Aderyn said. “This is going to be a battle and a half. You’re not leaving the camp alone until we’ve won it. I’m going to find Cal and ask him for some guards.”
Rhodry’s first and immediate thought was to slip out while the old man was gone, but Gavantar was standing by the door with his arms folded over his chest and a grim look of his own carved onto his young face. When he snapped his fingers a horde of Wildfolk materialized to sit on Rhodry’s lap, grab his arms, weigh down his shoulders, and generally do whatever they could to keep him in place. Rhodry studied the floorcloth and tried to ignore her voice, whispering, begging, calling to him like the murmur of a distant sea. Now that he was awake, he could argue with her, warn her, tell her of the evil fate that waited for her if she persisted in loving him, but she only said that she was as willing to die for him as he was for her.
“You don’t even know what death means.”
He realized that he’d been speaking aloud and looked up to find Gavantar listening in a horrified fascination. He felt tears brim in his eyes and spill beyond his power to stop them, but he couldn’t say one word more until Aderyn returned. As soon as the dweomermaster slipped through the tent flap, she fled with one last whisper of desire.
“I don’t sleep as much as most men do,” Aderyn said. “But I do need some rest every now and then, and Gav is only a beginner at this sort of thing. Thanks to the warleader and his men, your body’s going to stay right here, but your soul’s somewhat of a problem. I think me I’d best send for some help.”
After she left the encampment, Jill rode southwest, heading for the seacoast and the islands of Wmmglaedd, which at that time was a small temple complex dedicated to the gods of knowledge and learning. Already, though, a long stone building, where peat fires always smoldered to keep off the damp, held the core of what was to become its famous library. With the help of a young priest Jill settled in, hunting through its collection of some five hundred books and scrolls for any scrap of information that would help decipher the mysteries of Rhodry’s Wyrd in general and the rose ring in particular. Her problem was simple. At that time the entire Elvish heritage of literature and history appeared lost. Although some of the People out on the grasslands could read, and a few more were trained as sages to memorize vast