A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [98]
“No, I don’t see. For the love of every god, Dalla, when are you coming home?”
“Soon, soon. Oh, don’t sulk—it’s only been a few days, after all. Listen carefully. You know that guest of yours, Nevyn’s friend, the one the sprite loves?”
“His name’s Maddyn. But it hasn’t been a few days.”
“Well, five days then, but do please listen! I can feel them drawing me back already. Maddyn’s got a piece of jewelry made of dwarven silver. The Guardians need it. Ado, I’ve got so much to tell you. Sometimes the Guardians can see the future. Only in bits and flashes, but they do see it, in little tiny true dreams, like. And one of them saw that this Maddyn fellow’s going to be important. So they need the rose ring.” Even as she went on speaking, her form seemed to be growing thinner, paler, harder to see. “In my saddlebags are all sorts of things that you can trade him for it—take as much as you need, heap him up with it, I don’t care. Just get the rose ring. Leave it in a tree near camp.”
“Do what? Why should I help these rotten creatures at all?”
“Oh, please, Ado, do be reasonable! Do for my sake if you won’t do it for theirs.” She was a mere shadow, a colored stain on the view behind her. “The biggest oak tree near camp.”
She was gone, and her companion with her. Aderyn looked down and saw the silver cord connecting his body of light with his physical body, lying in his blankets in his tent just below him. So—he hadn’t been dreaming after all! The meeting was in its way true enough. He slipped down the cord, returned to his body, and sat up, slapping the ground to earth himself out in the physical. The blue sprite was crouching at the foot of his bedroll and watching him.
“Well, little sister, you were a messenger, were you?”
She nodded yes and disappeared. For a long time that night Aderyn debated whether or not he’d do what Dallandra wanted, but in the end, for her sake, he decided that he would. He found her saddlebag—he’d been carrying it around for over a hundred and twenty years by then—and the jewelry she’d spoken of. Although it was all tarnished and dusty, she had some beautiful brooches and bracelets in the elven style, and they’d polish up nicely enough.
Early that morning, he went looking for Maddyn and found him sitting in the grass and tuning a small wooden harp in the middle of a cloud of Wildfolk. Although it was all nicked and battered, Aderyn had never heard a sweeter-sounding instrument. For a few moments they talked idly while the Wildfolk settled round them in the hope of music.
“I’ve got somewhat to ask you,” Aderyn said at last. “It’s probably going to sound cursed strange.”
“Ye gods, after knowing Nevyn for all these years I’m used to strange things. Ask away.”
“Someone told me that you’ve got a silver ring with roses on it or suchlike.”
“I do.” Maddyn looked startled that he would know. “It was given to me by a woman that I … well, if I say I loved her, don’t misunderstand me. She was someone else’s wife, you see, and while I loved her, there was never one wrong thing between us.”
He spoke so defiantly that Aderyn wondered if he were lying, not that it was any business of his. Mentally he cursed Dalla for asking for something that probably carried enormous sentiment for Maddyn.
“Um, well.” Aderyn decided that the plain truth was the best, as usual. “You see, in the dream I was told by a dweomerwoman of great power that this ring is marked by dweomer for a Wyrd of its own. She needs it very badly for a working she has underway. She’s offered to trade high.”
“Well, then, she shall have it. I’ve lived around the dweomer for years, you know. I’ve got some idea of the importance of dreams and what comes to you in them. I won’t trade, but I’ll give it to you outright.”
“Oh, here, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to wheedle like a child. It must mean a lot to you.”
“It did once, but the woman who gave it to me is beyond caring about it or me.” The bard’s eyes brimmed tears. “If you want