A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [84]
“What do you think of that?” Dallandra said at last.
“It never happened to me, all that blood and slime!”
“I didn’t think it had, no.”
“But why? What a horrible thing! Why?”
“To learn this world.” Dallandra swept her arm to point out sky and earth, grass and water. “To learn all about it and never ever vanish.”
For a moment Elessario considered, her mouth working in thought this time, not disgust. Then she turned, stepped into the stream between the hazels, and was gone. That will have to do for now, Dallandra thought to herself. We’ll see if she can even remember it. As she was walking back to her horse, she was thinking that Nevyn’s theory of never-incarnate spirits seemed more and more true. She had just reached the tethered mare when she felt a presence behind her like a cool wind. She spun around to see Alshandra, towering and furious, carrying a bow in her hands with a silver-tipped arrow nocked and ready. Suddenly Dallandra remembered the arrow she’d been given and remembered even more vividly that it was no etheric substance but real, sharp wood and metal.
“Why are you angry?”
“You will not come to us in our own country.”
“If I did, would I ever come back to my own country?”
“What?” Alshandra’s rage vanished; she seemed to shrink down to normal size, but still she clasped the bow. “Why would you want to?”
“This is where I belong. What I love dwells here.”
Alshandra tossed the bow into the air, where it disappeared as if it had tumbled through an invisible window into some hidden room. Dallandra’s blood ran cold: these were no ordinary spirits if they could manipulate physical matter in such a way.
“You will take my daughter from me, girl. I fear you for it.”
“What? I don’t want to steal your daughter.”
Alshandra shook her head in a baffled frustration, as if Dallandra had misunderstood her.
“Don’t lie—I can see it. You will take my daughter. But I shall have a prize in return. Remember that, girl.”
Swelling and huge, she rose up, her hands like claws as she reached out. Dallandra dropped to her knees, grabbed the hilt of the buried knife, and pulled it free, rising again in one smooth motion. Alshandra shrieked in terror and fell back. For one panicked moment they stood there, staring at each other; then Alshandra’s form wavered—and bulged out, as if some invisible force from the knife blade was pushing against her midriff and shoving it back. She looked exactly like a reflection on the surface of a still pool when a puff of breeze moves the water: all wavering and distorted. Then she was gone, with one last shriek left to echo round the grasslands and make Dallandra’s mare kick and snort in fear.
That night Evandar appeared in Dallandra’s dreams and said one simple thing: you should never have done that. She didn’t need him to tell her what action he meant. What he couldn’t understand was that she felt not fear but guilt, that she’d caused Alshandra such pain.
In the morning, as they sat in their tent eating wild berries and soft ewe’s-milk cheese, Dallandra broke their unspoken rule about mentioning the Guardians and told Aderyn what had happened. She was utterly stunned when he became furious.
“You said you’d never go see them again!” His voice cracked with quiet rage. “What, by all the hells, did you think you were doing, going off alone like that?”
She could only stare openmouthed. He caught his breath with a gasp, swallowed heavily, and ran both hands over his face.
“Forgive me, my love. I … they terrify me. The Guardians, I mean.”
“I don’t exactly find them comforting myself, you know.”
“Then why—” He checked himself with some difficulty.
The question was a valid one, and she gave it some hard, silent thought, while he waited, patient except for his hands, which clasped themselves into fists as they rested on his thighs.
“It’s because they’re suffering,” she said at last. “Evandar is, anyway, and his daughter suspects that something’s very wrong with their people. They do need help, Ado.”
“Indeed? Well, I don’t see why you should be the one to give it to them.”
“I’m the