A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [102]
Except, no doubt, by handing over the ring.
“Let’s go. Hurry!”
Rhodry broke into a run and raced for camp, leaving the others startled behind him. Enabrilia’s distinctive tent, painted with scenes of deer drinking at a river, stood off to one side, with nothing beyond it but the lakeshore. As Rhodry jogged up, he saw Val heading down to the water’s edge with a leather bucket in his hands. Rhodry took off after him, yelling his name. The boy stopped on the pale sand and looked back, smiling. Out on the water something was forming. It seemed a wisp of mist at first, then shimmered and began to grow thicker.
“Run!” Rhodry shrieked. “Come here, Val!”
The boy dropped the bucket and followed orders, racing to Rhodry’s open arms just as the shape took form and stepped off the water to the shore. She looked so like Oldana—and her hair was the other’s proper color now, too, a pale gold—that Rhodry swore under his breath. Val twisted in his arms.
“Malamala!” he cried out. “Let me go! It’s my mother.”
Rhodry held him tighter and swore again as the boy burst into tears. Shouting and cursing, Jennantar and half the alar came running to surround them. The apparition shook one fist in Rhodry’s direction, then vanished like smoke blowing away under a wind.
“She’s gone,” Val sobbed. “Why didn’t you let me go? Why?”
“Because she would have taken you with her to the Otherlands, and it’s not your time to go.” Rhodry said the only thing he could think of, looked round, saw Enabrilia shoving her way through the crowd. “Here’s your gramma. Go with her. I’ll come talk to you later, little one, but I don’t know if I can ever explain.”
“I wanted to go with Malamala. I hate you! I want my mother.”
When Rhodry handed the weeping child over to Enabrilia, the other women formed round her like a guard and swept them away. Rhodry looked round to find Daralanteriel and the other men standing between him and the lake.
“I’m sorry,” Dar stammered out. “Jennantar, I never should have doubted your word, and I’m sorry. I—”
“Don’t think of it again.” Jennantar laid a gentle hand on the prince’s shoulder. “It’s all unbelievable enough, isn’t it? Rhodry, for the love of every god, what was that—that creature?”
“I don’t truly know.” Rhodry ran both hands through his hair and felt himself shake like a man with a fever. “But she bodes ill, whatever she is. Let’s go find the banadar.”
Rhodry could be a stubborn man when he wanted, and indeed at times when he didn’t, as well. That she would stoop so low to gain her prize made him suddenly determined that she should never have that ring, no matter what the cost to him. Risking the rest of the alar, of course, was different. When they found Calonderiel, Rhodry told him the story, then led him away from the others out to the edge of the forest, where the corridors of trees stood nodding in the rising wind.
“That Guardian I saw spoke true. I’ve got to leave, for the alar’s sake more than my own. I’m minded to ride north and look for Aderyn. No doubt she’ll follow me and the ring and leave the rest of you in peace.”
“It seems best, doesn’t it? But you can’t go alone. Too dangerous. I’ll come with you, and we’ll take part of the warband, too.”
“You have my thanks, and from the bottom of my heart.” Rhodry caught himself—he was speaking Deverrian again. After so many years of rarely hearing it, he was surprised that he would so instinctively return to it when he was troubled. He made himself speak Elvish. “I wasn’t looking forward to being out there alone, but I’ve got to talk to Aderyn. I don’t know whether to placate her or fight her.”
“If she’s one of the Guardians, normally I’d say you should do what she wants, but I’m beginning to wonder.” Calonderiel thought for a moment, frowning out at the horizon. “I’ve never heard of a Guardian begging and wheedling a mere mortal like this. Maybe she’s some kind of evil spirit. You’re right. Aderyn’s the one who