A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [188]
“What we need is somewhat to occupy what little mind she has, and I think we’ve found the perfect bait for our snare. Watching us catch her is going to be hard on Rhodry, but he’s brought it on himself, after all.”
“Forgiving sort, aren’t you?”
“And there you’ve put a finger on my weakness. Compassion doesn’t come easy to me, Aderyn. I’m not like Nevyn that way, or like you, either. Maybe it’s because I’ve survived my own hard times, but I don’t have much patience for someone else’s.”
“Just so long as you know.”
Two days later a summer storm whistled in like a curtain of rain moving across the grasslands. Aderyn announced that he was going to talk with Calonderiel and left the tent, ostentatiously taking Gavantar with him. Jill made a ball of dweomer light, hung it near the smoke hole in the ceiling, then brought out a pouch of elven “dice,” tiny wooden pyramids, painted a different color on each side. To play you shook ten pieces in your cupped hands, then strewed them out in a line; how many sides of each color came up, and the pattern they made, determined the winner, with the top score being a highly improbable straight of ten reds. Since the pyramids never fell plumb on tent cloth and grass, usually the players ended up arguing—not that Rhodry seemed to care one way or the other, though. Half the time he barely watched her pieces fall, and she had to remind him when it was his turn.
“We can stop if you want,” she said at last.
“My apologies, but my heart’s not in it.”
“Is she calling you?”
“She’s always calling me these days.”
“Ah, Rhoddo, my heart aches for you.”
At the sound of his nickname he looked up and smiled with such a profound melancholy that for a moment she truly did feel sorry for him. She reached out and ran her hand through his hair and caressed the side of his face, and at her touch he turned his head and kissed her fingers, an old gesture, a habit from their time together long before.
The blow from behind slammed into her so hard that Jill nearly fell right into his arms. She heard Rhodry yell; then a slap hit her hard across the face. With a wrench of will she kept herself from using magic and fought back with both hands, blindly grabbing and slapping this way and that like a cat batting at a mouse. At last one hand landed on something fairly substantial with a squishy thwack.
“You bitch! You leave Rhodry alone!”
Her only answer was another slap. Jill made a two-handed grab and caught something slick and cool but shaped much like an arm. There was a shriek, a slap, and suddenly Jill saw her, writhing in her hands: pale, lovely, but furious, her mouth twisted, her teeth pointed and sharp, her long blue hair waving in a private breeze of its own. She flung herself on Jill and tried to bite her, then disappeared, slipping through her hands as easily as water. Jill turned and made a blind grab, catching what felt like a handful of long hair. With a yelp the sprite reappeared, screaming and clawing at Jill’s face.
“Enough!” Aderyn called. “We’ve got the circle drawn.”
The sprite froze in Jill’s hands, then moaned, such a pathetic little sound that Jill let her go. She was trapped beyond her power to disappear, anyway, because not only had Aderyn and Gavantar slipped in when she was distracted by the fight, but a Lord of the Wildlands had come through to the physical plane. He seemed to be a thickening of the light, a silver shaft that barely hinted of a man shape caught within it. Her eyes springing illusionary tears, the sprite fell to her knees at his feet and buried her face in her hands.
“It’s all over now.” The presence had a voice as soft as water slipping over rock. “You’re coming home with me, child.”
The sprite moaned and raised her head to look desperately at Rhodry. When she held her arms out to him, he took one step forward, but Jill grabbed him and shoved him back.
“I hate you!” the sprite hissed at Jill.
“I don’t hate you, little one.”
Just beyond the lord another presence appeared like a beam of light thrown from a slit in a lantern, enclosing a female