A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [77]
“The thing about the dweomer teaching is, once you’ve got the rootstock, the plant will grow again on its own. Teach them what you know, and they’ll recover the rest. Besides, someday soon I might ride your way, and I can bring books if I do.”
“Would you? Oh, that’d be splendid! And you could meet my Dallandra.”
Nevyn’s image smiled.
“That would gladden my heart, truly,” the old man said. “But I can’t make any promises about when I’ll come.”
Every afternoon Aderyn and Dallandra would retire to her tent, where she began teaching him the mechanics of the shape-change and the Elvish language as well. His mind and his heart were so full that he was hardly sure if he loved her so much because she was dweomer or if her dweomer was only one more splendid treasure to be found in his beloved. He supposed that Dallandra knew he loved her, but neither of them said one explicit word. Aderyn himself was sure that she would be uninterested in a homely man like him but too kind to say so and break his heart. Since he had never been in love and never expected to be, he was caught by his own utter naïveté about human women, much less elven ones. He had never even kissed a lass, not once, not even in jest.
On a still night that was a little warmer than usual, Aderyn and Dallandra left the camp and walked alone to the seashore to practice a simple ritual. They had no plans of working any great dweomer or invoking any true power; they merely wanted to practice moving together in a ritual space and making the proper gestures in unison. When the moon broke free of the earth and flooded the water with silver, they took their places facing each other and began to build the invisible temple by the simple method of first imagining it according to formula, then describing to each other what they saw. With two trained minds behind them, the forces built up fast. The cubical altar, the two pillars, the flaming pentangles appeared at the barest mention of their names and glowed with power. Aderyn and Dallandra took positions on either side of the altar—he to the east, she to the west—and laid their hands on a glowing cube of astral stone that only eyes such as theirs could see. For the first time Aderyn actually felt it, as solid and cold as real stone, under his trembling fingers.
Dallandra raised her head and looked him full in the face. Although they had yet to start any invocations, suddenly he saw a female figure standing behind her, a gauzy sort of moonlight shape. At first he thought it might be one of the Guardians; then she stepped forward, burst into light and power, stood solid and real, grew huge until she seemed to swallow up the actual elven woman standing beside her. Her pale hair spread out like sunlight, flowers bloomed in garlands, her smile pierced his heart but so sweetly that he cried out and trembled as the scent of roses filled the air.
“What do you see?” It was Dallandra’s voice, but as vast as a wave booming on the shore.
“The Goddess. I see her, and she stands upon you.”
Barely aware of what he was doing, Aderyn sank to his knees and raised both hands in worship as the Goddess seemed to merge again with the moonlight and blow away in the wind. When she was gone, he felt like weeping with all the grief of a deserted lover. Dallandra called out and stamped upon the ground. With a snap of withdrawn power, the temple vanished, and Aderyn jerked forward and nearly fell, because he’d been leaning against the astral altar for support. Half spraddled on the wet sand, he was too exhausted to do more than watch while Dallandra formally closed the working and banished the invisible forces. Only when she’d finished did he hear again the sound of the ocean, crashing heavy waves nearby. She knelt down beside him and caught his hands in hers.
“I’ve never felt such power before. I don’t know what went wrong—well, if you could call it wrong.”
“Of course