A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [40]
“So, you’re the dweomerman from the east, are you?”
“Well, I’m a dweomerman from the east. I take it you had some warning of my coming.”
“I saw somewhat in my stone.” Nananna paused, leisurely studying his face. “In truth, I asked for you.”
Dallandra caught her breath with a small gasp.
“I’ll die soon,” Nananna went on. “It is time, and Dallandra will have my tent, my horses, and my place among our folk.” She laid a bony, pale hand on the lass’s shoulder. “But I leave her a bitter legacy along with the sweet. I am old, Aderyn, and I speak bluntly. I do not like your people. I fear their greed and what it will do to us.”
“I fear it, too. Please believe me—I’d stop them if I could.”
Nananna’s eyes bored deep into his. Aderyn looked back unflinchingly and let her read the truth of what he said.
“I have heard of the dweomer of the east,” she said after a moment. “It seems to serve the Light I serve, only after its own manner.”
“There is only one Light, but a rainbow of a thousand colors.”
Pleased by the answer, Nananna smiled, a thin twitch of bluish lips.
“But one of those colors is the red of blood,” she said. “Tell me somewhat: will your people kill mine for their land?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. They’ve killed others for theirs—or enslaved them.”
“No one will ever enslave an elf,” Dallandra broke in. “We’d die first, every last one of us.”
“Hush, child!” Nananna paused, thinking. “Tell me, Aderyn. What sent you to us?”
“Just this spring I left my master and received my vision. In it I saw a river, far to the west. When Halaberiel brought me to you, I crossed that river.”
“And do you want to go back across it to your own kind? I can have the banadar escort you.”
“Wise One, there are some rivers that can never be recrossed.”
The old woman smiled, nodding her agreement. Aderyn felt cold with excitement, a sweet troublement. He could hear the distant singing, drifting in from the night with the wailing of flutes.
“If you asked for me, and if I’ve been sent to you,” Aderyn said, “what work do you want me to do?”
“I’m not truly sure yet, but I do want Dallandra to have a man of your people at her side who understands your ways as she understands ours. I see blood on the grasslands, and I hear swords and shouting. It would be a shameful thing if I didn’t even try to stop it. Will you ride with us for a while?”
“Gladly. How can I stand by and let my folk do a murdering thing to haunt their Wyrd forever?”
“Nicely spoken. Tell me, Dalla—can you work with this man?”
Dallandra turned her storm-cloud gaze Aderyn’s way and considered him for so long that his heart began pounding.
“Well,” she said at last, “I’d work with the Dark Fiends themselves if it would help my people. He’ll do.”
“Well and good, then, as your folk would say.” Nananna raised a frail hand in blessing. “Ride south with us, young Aderyn, and we’ll see what all our gods have in store.”
The cold autumn rains slashed down over the town of Cernmeton and sent water sheeting across the cobbles and pooling in the gutters. Wrapped in his heavy winter cloak of dark blue wool, Cinvan rode fast through the twisting streets and left it up to the few townsfolk abroad to get out of his horse’s way. He clattered through the gates of the tieryn’s dun, a walled compound centered round a stone broch, rode round to the back stables, and yelled for a groom. A stable boy came running.
“So you’re back, are you? How was your visit home?”
“As good as it needed to be. Did I miss any excitement?”
“You didn’t, unless you count getting drunk in our lord’s hall as excitement.” He sighed in a melancholy way. “We’ve got a tournament going on Carnoic. So far Edyl’s ahead by six games.”
“I’ll see if I can give him a run for his coin, then.”
In the great hall smoke from the