A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [184]
Scattered here and there through books in other languages, however, were the occasional reference to Elvish lore and learning, written down by the rare scribe who considered the People worth listening to. Jill was determined to see what she could glean from these less than fertile fields. Since she’d learned to read so late in life, understanding Deverrian text was still a slow process for her, and she had to pause often and ask one of the scribes the meaning of an obscure word. Puzzling out Bardekian was even slower.
After about two weeks of frustrating and unprofitable research, Jill was ready to pack it up as a bad job and depend entirely on meditation for her information, but just as she was about to give up she came upon a passage that made her struggles seem worthwhile. “When our people first came to the islands,” wrote a certain Bardekian historian, “they found other refugees there ahead of them, a strange people who had no name for themselves but who said they came from across the northern sea. There were never very many of them, so the old tales run, and they either all died or sailed south.” That was all, just a tantalizing scrap of legend passed down by word of mouth and quite possibly unreliable—but one that would fit the elvish refugees from the Great Burning of the Cities. What if it were true? And what, furthermore, if descendants of those refugees still lived, off in the little-known islands far to the south? The very thought drew to the surface of her mind long-forgotten memories, little scraps of knowledge about Bardek that had never seemed very important before, such as a certain style of wall painting that reminded her of the decorations on elven tents.
Late one evening she was sitting in the tiny guesthouse, going over a list of names of the more obscure islands and hoping to find some similarities to Elvish words, when she felt Aderyn’s mind tugging on hers. She sat down on the floor by the fire and stared into the glowing coals until at last his face appeared, floating just above the flame.
“Thank god I finally reached you. I’ve been trying to attract your attention for hours.”
“My apologies, but I’ve been on the track of some very peculiar information, and it’s a fascinating puzzle.”
“Could you see your way clear to laying it aside for a while? Somewhat’s dreadfully wrong.”
“What? Of course! I mean, what is it?”
“I need your help. I hate to ask, truly, because I know how you feel about Rhodry, but you’re the only one I can turn to. I beg you, if ever you’ve honored me, ride back to us.”
“I’ll leave on the morrow. Where are you?”
The vision changed to show her the camp, nestled in a valley up at the northern end of the Peddroloc; then Aderyn’s mind left hers in a gust of anxiety, as if every moment was so precious that he simply couldn’t stop to explain.
When she rode out, Jill left her mule and packs of medicines behind, and she borrowed an extra riding horse from the priests, too, so that she could switch her weight back and forth between her two mounts. For the first three days she traveled fast and smoothly; then a summer storm boiled up out of the west. On the fourth morning she woke to a sky as dark as slate and a pair of horses turned jumpy and foul-tempered by the thick and oppressive air. Late in the day it broke, a few fat drops at first, then a hard stinging slash of storm and the crack of lightning. Jill was forced to dismount and calm her trembling pair until at last the lightning moved off and the rain settled to a steady drizzle. Although she made a few more miles, shoving a way through the soaking-wet grass was so hard on the horses that she stopped early, making a wet camp in a little clump of willows by a stream.
Just before dawn she woke, cramped and shivering, to the distinct feeling that someone was watching her. Although the rain had stopped, the clouds still hung gray and lowering