A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [82]
“I know. It’s somewhat that I’ll have to fight, isn’t it? My own heart-aching envy.”
That night the three of them sat together in Aderyn and Dallandra’s tent. Since it was too warm for a fire, Dallandra made a dweomer globe of yellow light and hung it at the tent peak. Wildfolk swarmed, the gnomes hunkering down on cushions, the sprites and sylphs clustering in the air; a few bold gray fellows even climbed into Nevyn’s lap like cats.
“Aderyn’s been telling me about the Guardians,” Nevyn said to Dallandra. “This is a truly strange thing.”
“It is,” Dallandra said. “Do you know who or what they are?”
“Spirits who’ve never been born, obviously.”
Both Aderyn and Dallandra stared.
“Never been incarnated, I mean,” the old man went on. “But I get the distinct feeling that they’re souls who were destined to incarnate. I think, Dalla, that this was what Evandar meant by ‘staying behind.’ That they should have taken flesh here in the material world but refused to do it. The inner planes are free and beautiful and full of power—a very tempting snare. They’re also completely unstable and fragile. Nothing endures there, not even a soul that would have been immortal if it had undergone the disciplines of form.”
“Do you mean that the Guardians really will fade and simply vanish?” She was thinking hard, her eyes narrow.
“I do. Eventually. Maybe after millions of years as we measure time, maybe soon—I don’t know.” Nevyn allowed himself a grin. “It’s not like I’m an expert in this subject, you know.”
“Well, of course.” Dallandra thought for a moment before she went on. “Evandar said that they were meant to be ‘like us.’ Are they elven souls, then?”
“Mayhap. Or it might well be that they belong to some other line of evolution, some other current in the vast river of consciousness that flows through the universe, but one that’s got itself somehow diverted into the wrong channel. It doesn’t much matter, truly. They’re here now, and they desperately need a pattern to follow.”
“But Evandar said his people could help us, do things for us.”
“No doubt. They have all sorts of dweomer power at their disposal, dwelling on the inner planes as they do. I couldn’t even begin to guess what all they may be able to do. But I’d be willing to wager a very large sum on this proposition: they have no wisdom, none. No compassion, either, I’d say. That’s the general rule among those who’ve never known the material world, who’ve never suffered in flesh.” Nevyn leaned forward and caught Dallandra’s gaze. “Be careful, lass. Be on your guard every moment you’re around them.”
“I am, sir. Believe me. And truly, I don’t want anything to do with them from now on. If it’s my Wyrd to learn about them or suchlike, it can just wait till I’ve got the strength to deal with it properly.”
“Well, I think me that in this case at least, your Wyrd should be willing to do just that.”
And Nevyn smiled in relief, as if he’d just seen a horse jump some dangerous hurdle and come down safe and running.
It was some three years before Dallandra spoke with the Guardians again. In the first year of her marriage to Aderyn, she deliberately kept herself so busy learning what he had to teach and teaching him what lore she could pass on that she had few moments to think of that strange race of spirits. She also refused to go anywhere alone, and sure enough, they avoided her companions, if indeed they weren’t avoiding her. By a mutual and unspoken agreement, she and Aderyn never mentioned them again, and they grew clever at changing the subject when one of the other dweomerworkers did bring the Guardians up. Her love for Aderyn became exactly the anchor, as she’d called it, that she wanted. He was so kind, so considerate of her, that he was an easy man to love: warm, gentle, and rock-solid reliable. Dallandra was not the sort of woman to demand excitement from her man; in her work she dealt with enough excitement to drive the average woman, whether human or elven, daft and gibbering. Since Aderyn was