A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [85]
“Well, I need you, too, and so do the rest of the People.”
“I know that.”
“Then why do you keep hunting these demons down?”
“Oh, come on, they’re not demons!”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I just don’t like them. And besides, it isn’t all pity on your part, is it? You seem to find them fascinating on their own.”
“I’ve got to admit that. It’s because they’re a puzzle. We’ve searched out all the lore we can, from your old master and his books, from all the other dweomerworkers among the People, and we still don’t know what they are. I’m the only one who has a chance of finding out.”
“It’s all curiosity, then?”
“Curiosity?” She felt a surge, not of anger, but of annoyance. “I wouldn’t dismiss it that way.”
“I never meant to dismiss it.”
“Oh, indeed?”
And they had the first fight they’d ever had, hissing the words at each other, because back and forth outside the tent the rest of the alar kept going past on their morning’s chores. Finally Dallandra got up and stormed out of the tent, ran through the camp, and kept running out into the grasslands. When she slowed to a walk and looked back, she was furious to see that he hadn’t followed her. She caught her breath, then walked on, heading nowhere in particular and circling round to keep the camp in sight as a distant jagged line of tents on the horizon.
“Dallandra! Dallandra!” The voice seemed far away and thin. “Wait! Father told me your name.”
She spun around to see Elessario running to meet her. As she came close, the grass parted around her as if she did indeed have physical substance and weight, but her form was slightly translucent and thin. Smiling, she offered one hand, bunched in a fist to hide something.
“A present for you.”
When Dallandra automatically held out her hand, Elessario dropped a silver nut onto her palm. It looked much like a walnut in a husk, and it had a bit of stem and one leaf still attached, but all of silver, solid enough to ring when Dallandra flicked the husk with her thumbnail.
“Well, thank you, but why are you giving this to me?”
“Because I like you. And as a token. If you ever want to come to our country, it’ll take you there.”
“Really? How?”
“Touch it to your eyes, and you’ll see the roads.”
Again, automatically, Dallandra started to do just that, then caught herself in the nick of time. With a shaking hand she stuffed the nut into her trousers pocket.
“Thank you, Elessario. I’ll remember that.”
The child smiled, and she looked so happy, so innocent in her happiness, that it was impossible to suspect her of guile. Evandar, of course, was another matter.
“Did your father give you this to give to me?”
“Oh yes. He knows where they grow.”
“Ah. I rather thought so.”
Elessario started to speak, then suddenly yelped like a kicked dog.
“Someone’s coming! Him! Your man!”
Elessario disappeared. Dallandra spun around and saw Aderyn hurrying toward her. When she went to meet him, he smiled in such relief that she remembered their quarrel.
“I’m sorry I ran out like that,” she said.
“Well, I’m sorry I said all those things. I love you so much.”
She flung herself into his arms and kissed him. With his arms tight around her, she felt safe again, warm and secure and even happy. But somehow, she forgot to tell him about the silver nut; when she found it in her pocket, she wrapped it up in a bit of rag and hid it at the bottom of one of her personal saddlebags, where he’d never have any reason to look for anything.
It was some months later, when the days were growing shorter and the alar was beginning to talk about heading for the winter camps, that Aderyn realized Dallandra was seeing the Guardians regularly. Although she would ride off alone at least three afternoons a week, both of them needed so much time alone, for meditation as well as certain ritual practices, that at first he thought nothing of it. His own teaching work took up so much of his attention that he was in a way grateful that she was occupied elsewhere. Later he was to realize that he’d also been refusing to believe that his