A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [64]
“Well and good, Wise One,” Aderyn said. “But what do you mean, grow wings?”
“Our dweomer has a strange trick or two to show you.” Nananna managed a smile. “Dallandra and I are shape-changers. Someday you, too, will learn to take on the body and flight of a bird—an owl, I think, to judge from those big eyes of yours.”
Aderyn caught his breath with a gasp.
“A thousand thanks. I swear I’ll be worthy of it, and only use it to serve the Light.”
“Good. Very well, then. I have set you both on your course. It’s time for me to depart. Child, let me lie down now.”
Dallandra settled her on the cushions and moved aside to kneel by Aderyn. For a moment Nananna lay still, gathering her energy; then slowly, softly under her breath, she began to chant, and her voice took on a last brief flower of strength.
“The river opens before me. I see the light upon the river. It is time to sail to the sea.”
When Dallandra sobbed aloud, Aderyn realized that she was too distraught to fulfill the ritual, and that he would have to take her rightful place.
“May the sun shine on you as you sail the river,” he whispered. “May the current be fast.”
“The sun gathers around me. I step into the boat at the riverbank.”
“I see the silver river flowing west, the dark rushes and the boat, ready for you.”
As he spoke, Aderyn did indeed see in his mind the vision that they were building together as they went on speaking, describing the scene back and forth to each other. Wrapped in the golden light of the sun, the soul stepped into it—a pale flame of silver light, flickering at first, then towering up strong, far different from a human soul.
“Sun and moon, shine upon her!” Aderyn cried out. “Bring her to the sea of light, love, and life.”
The boat was drifting downriver, the silver flame glowing as she rode proudly on. He seemed to drift above it on a bird’s wings and see, in the gleaming sunset ahead, Others coming to meet them on a vast wave of light. Nananna rose free of the boat and flew to join them in a sudden blaze that left him blind. Blinking his physical eyes and shaking his head, he brought himself back to find her body lying dead on the cushions.
“It is over,” Aderyn called out. “She has gone to her true home.”
Like thunder came a booming hollow drumbeat in answer, three great knocks rolling over the camp. From outside he heard a shout, then voices raised in keening, a high and musical wailing for the dead. Aderyn slapped his open palm once on the ground to earth the final force. It was finished. Her trained soul had no need to hang around near its corpse for three days; she had left cleanly and gone free. Aderyn crossed the frail arms over the slender chest and closed the eyes that the soul no longer needed for seeing.
“We should burn the body soon,” Aderyn said. “Or do your people lay out the dead to weep over them?”
Dallandra looked at him, then threw back her head and howled. Tears ran down her face as she keened over and over, reaching up, pulling at her hair, unloosening the braids in a silvery spill of mourning, rocking herself from side to side so violently that Aderyn threw his arms around her and pulled her tight. She wept against him, sobbing like a child, her pale soft hair like a cloud over his arms, while outside the People sang in a long wail of grief.
“Hush, hush, it was time.”
As violently as it had come, her weeping left her. He could see her wrench her will under control as she looked up, her eyes as calm and gray as fog over sea.
“So it was. And someday we’ll meet again in some land or another.”
“Just so. Have faith in the Light.”
In simple exhaustion, Dallandra leaned her head against his shoulder. As Aderyn held her, his heart pounding, he realized that he’d fallen in love.
That night they burned Nananna and scattered her ashes under the trees of the sacred grove, in a spot where the moon fell through the branches and touched the ground with silver. On her grave Halaberiel swore an oath that never would the race of men