A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [153]
“Go ahead and shudder,” Rhodry said. “There’s no shame in it.”
Yraen nodded, gulping for breath and clutching at the saddle peak. Rhodry looked away, watching the swell and rise of the distant ocean while he spoke.
“I’m glad I thought to mention silversmiths to Evandar. It’s time we got you a knife of your own. Still want it?”
Yraen had never thought that he would ever feel such pride, the sort that comes from knowing you’ve earned a thing yourself, and against all odds.
“Well, call me daft for it, but I do.”
“Good. You know, I just realized a thing that I should have seen years ago. Once the wretched dweomer’s had its hand on you, there’s no going back; there’s no use in pretending that things will ever be all quiet and peaceful and as daily as before.” He turned, glancing Yraen’s way. “You’re a silver dagger now, sure enough, as much an outcast as any of us.”
Yraen started to make some jest, but all at once he could think of nothing to say, just from hearing the bitter truth in his friend’s words.
By the time Dallandra reached Bardek, summer was well along in Deverry, though the journey seemed to take only a day to her. As usual, she started from the Gatelands in Evandar’s country, at a spot near the river where white water foamed and churned over black rock. When she thought of Jill, the image that rose, seemingly standing between two trees, seemed so faint and silvery that Dalla was alarmed. She hurried over just as it disappeared, called up another image, followed that, trotting faster and faster until at last the river disappeared far behind her, and she heard the ocean. In a swirl of mist upon a graveled beach, Jill’s image appeared again, a little more solid and bright this time. When she approached it, Dallandra felt the gravel underfoot turning to coarse, stunted grass, rasping round her ankles. The ocean murmur disappeared. She hesitated, looking over a brown and treeless plain, wondering if she’d made a wrong turn, but tracking the images had never failed her before.
As she walked on, she kept expecting to find herself emerging into a jungle, but the air stayed cool and the landscape barren. It seemed that the very sunlight changed, turning pale while she picked her way through huge gray boulders along the crest of a hill. All at once she realized that the amethyst figurine was gone. She was fully back in her body, shivering in cold sunlight, breathing hard in thin air. Below her a cliff dropped down to a long parched valley gashed by a dry riverbed; far across rose mountain peaks, black and forbidding, peaked with snow. A wind blew steadily, whining through the coarse grass. The stunted slant of the few trees she saw told her that the wind rarely stopped.
When she turned round, she saw directly behind her more of the deformed trees, scattered round a spread of low wooden buildings, long oblongs roofed with split shingles. They were covered with carvings, every inch of the walls, every window frame and door lintel, of animals, birds, flowers, words in the Elvish syllabary, all stained in subtle colors, mostly blues and reds, to pick out the designs. From round behind the complex she could hear a faint whinny of horses, and a snatch of song drifted on the swirling dust. Out in front of the nearest building a gray-haired woman sat reading on a wooden bench, a pair of big tan hounds lounging at her feet.
“Jill! By the gods!”
The dogs leapt up and barked, but Jill hushed them, laying a slender scroll down beside her just as Dallandra hurried over. She was much thinner, and