A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [113]
“Rhodry,” Evandar remarked. “And the yellow-haired fellow’s Yraen. Now here I am, riding up to them.”
Riding up, talking, and handing Rhodry the whistle—the memory vision broke when Evandar swore under his breath.
“I forgot to take it back from him. Well, it’s gone, then. No use in worrying over it.”
“Now just wait! We can’t leave him with that ill-omened thing without even a warning. It’s as you said: what if its owner comes looking for it?”
Evandar shrugged, turning half away to stare at the swift water, flowing between the sword-sharp rushes. All at once he seemed old, his face fine-drawn and far too pale. The sun darkened, as if it had gone behind a cloud, and the wind, too, blew suddenly cold.
“What’s so wrong?” she said, and sharply.
“I forgot, that’s what. I simply forgot that I’d handed him the whistle, forgot that I left it back in the lands of men.”
“Well, everyone forgets something every now and then.”
He shook his head in a stubborn no.
“You don’t understand,” he snapped. “This is a serious matter. I grow weary, my love, more weary every day, and now, it seems, feeble-minded as well. How long will I be able to keep our lands safe and blooming?” He paused, rubbing his eyes with both hands, digging the palms hard into his cheekbones. “It’s true. You’ve got to take my people away with you, and soon.”
She started to make her ritual protest, to beg him to come himself, but an idea struck her, and she said nothing. He dropped his hands and looked at her with a flash of anger in his turquoise eyes.
“Well,” she said carelessly. “If you’ve made your mind up to stay behind, who am I to argue with you?”
“I’m no man to argue with, no.” But for the first time, she heard doubt in his voice.
She merely nodded her agreement and looked away.
“Well, someone had best go after Rhodry,” she said. “Will you?”
“I can’t. One of us has to stay here, on guard. It was foolish of me to leave while you slept, truly.”
“But I’ve never seen him in the flesh. Sharing your memory won’t help me scry him out.”
“True.” He hesitated, thinking. “I know. Scry for the whistle. You’ve handled it, even.”
“True enough. All right, let me see if I can, before I actually go anywhere.”
Sure enough, picturing the image of the bone whistle led her in vision straight to Rhodry. Yet, when she found him, she was glad she’d been so prudent and not gone haring off to Deverry in search of him without a look first. The vision showed her a stone dun, far east of the elven border, where a cold and sleeting rain turned the outer wards to mud. Inside, the great hall swarmed with human men, most armed. Off in the curve of the wail the whistle appeared in sharp focus, held in Rhodry’s hands, although Rhodry himself was hard to see clearly, simply because she’d never actually met him on the physical plane, merely seen him in several states of vision over the years. As far as she could tell, he was showing the whistle to some lord’s bard, who merely shook his head over it and shrugged to show his ignorance of the subject.
Since she saw no elves in the hall, and no one with the golden aura of a dweomermaster, either, Dallandra focused the vision down a level, till it seemed to her that she stood in the great hall at Rhodry’s side. From this stance she could see him a good bit more clearly and pick out his companion as well, the young blond fellow that Evandar had called “Yraen,” the Deverrian word for iron and thus doubtless only a nickname. The bard, an elderly fellow, set his harp down on the floor and took the whistle, turning it this way and that to study it.
As she hovered there, looking round within the room of her vision, a flash of blue etheric light caught her eye. Over by the hearth