A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [97]
By then the thought of his father was so distant that Aderyn felt neither more nor less pleased than he would at the thought of meeting any friend of Nevyn’s, but once he got to know Maddyn he did indeed find him congenial. Nevyn’s predictions about the course of the war proved absolutely true. When in the spring Maryn and his army moved south, the people of Eldidd scrambled to surrender and end the endless horrors of the war. Abernaudd opened its gates the moment it saw him coming; Aberwyn made a great show of holding out for an afternoon, then surrendered at sunset. While Maryn and his men hunted down the last Eldidd king, Aenycyr (who was, for those of you who care about such historical things, the great-grandson of Prince Mael of Aberwyn, later known as Mael the Seer, through the legitimate line of his first marriage), Nevyn took a leave of absence from his king’s side and traveled west with only Maddyn for company to visit with Aderyn.
They met just northwest of Cannobaen on the banks of a little stream that ran into Y Brog, where the alar had set up camp to rest their horses on their way to the first alardan of summer. By then Maddyn was forty-five, an ancient age for a fighting man; his hair was thoroughly gray and his blue eyes were weary with the deep hiraedd of someone who’s seen far too many friends die in far too short a time. Yet he was still an easy man to talk with, and ready with a jest, and the People all liked him immediately because among his other talents he could see the Wildfolk as clearly as they did. There was one small creature, a sprite with long blue hair and needle-sharp pointed teeth, that was as devoted to him as a favorite dog, following him around during the day and sleeping near him at night.
“I’m afraid it’s my fault,” Nevyn said ruefully when Aderyn asked about the sprite. “Many years ago Maddyn spent a winter with me, you see, when he’d been badly wounded. He began seeing the Wildfolk then—just because they were all around him, I suppose. His music had somewhat to do with it, too, because he’s a truly fine harper.”
“The Wildfolk do love a good tune. Well, there’s no harm in it, I suppose, except I feel sorry for the poor little thing. When Maddyn dies, she’s not going to be able to understand it at all.”
“Oh, she’ll probably forget him quick enough. He wasn’t meant to see the Wildfolk, much less have one of them fall in love with him.”
Although Aderyn normally only slept a few scant hours a night, that evening he felt so tired that he went to his tent early and fell asleep straightaway. In his dreams the little blue sprite came to him and led him out across the grasslands—that is, he thought at first that he was in the grasslands, until he noticed the vast purple moon hanging swollen at the horizon. In his dream-mind a voice sounded, saying cryptically, “The Gatelands.” When he looked around he saw two young women running toward him, hand in hand and smiling. One of them was Dallandra. He’d dreamt about her so much in the last hundred years that he felt neither pleasure nor grief at first, merely noted somewhat wryly in his dream that yes, he still cared enough about her to summon her image at times.
Until, that is, she came closer and he saw the little amethyst figurine at her throat, such a discordant detail that it made him wonder if this dream were different. He realized then that rather than appearing as a dream-image of himself, he’d somehow assumed his body of light, the pale bluish form, a stylized man shape, in which he traveled on the etheric.
“Ado, it’s good to see you, even in