Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [55]
But he woke not an hour later and found her gone. Nevyn jumped to his feet and ran for the river. He could just see her there, poised on the bank, a dark shape against the sky.
“Gwennie!”
She neither turned nor hesitated, but flung herself into the river before he could reach her. Weighted by her long dresses, she went down, swirling away into the darkness. Nevyn dove in after her. Black—the cold shock of the water—he could barely breathe or see. The current swept him along, but as he broke the surface and came up, he saw nothing but black water, scouring ahead of him. If she’d sunk already, he could easily be swimming over her.
Yet, though he knew it was hopeless, he kept diving, kept swimming back and forth across the river like a dog seeking a water bird. All at once, the current swirled him and rammed him hard against a sharp something in the dark. A rock. With his shoulder aching like a fire, Nevyn managed to pull himself to the riverbank and out, but only barely. He lay gasping and weeping on the bank for a long time.
Just as the gray of dawn lightened the sky, Nevyn got up and walked downstream. He was too mad with grief to know what he was doing; he merely walked, looking for her. As the sun came up, he found her where the current had washed her into a sandy shallows. She lay on her back, her golden hair sodden and tangled, her beautiful eyes wide open, staring sightlessly at the brightening sky. She had fulfilled her vow to the gods. Nevyn picked her up, slung her weight over his uninjured shoulder, and carried her back to camp. All he could think was that he had to get Gwennie home. He wrapped her in both cloaks and tied her over the gray’s saddle.
It was close to nightfall when Nevyn reached the hut in the forest. Rhegor came running out and stopped, looking at the burden in the saddle.
“You were too late.”
“It was too late from the first day he bedded her.”
Nevyn brought her down and carried her inside, laid her down by the hearth, then sat down beside her. While the light faded in the hut, he looked at her, simply looked as if he were expecting her to wake and smile at him. Rhegor came inside, carrying a lantern.
“I’ve tended the horse.”
“My thanks.”
Slowly, a broken phrase at a time, Nevyn told him the tale, while Rhegor listened with an occasional nod.
“The poor lass,” Rhegor said at last. “She had more honor than either you or her brother.”
“She did. Would it be a wrong thing for me to kill myself on her grave?”
“It would. I forbid it.”
Nevyn nodded vaguely and wondered why he felt so calm. He was dimly aware of his master leaning over him.
“Lad, she’s dead. You’ve got to go on from here. All we can do for Gwennie is pray that she has better afterwards.”
“Where?” Nevyn spat out the words. “In the shadowy Otherlands? How can there even be gods, if they’d let her die and not kill a wretch like me?”
“Here, lad, you’re mad from your grief, and truly, I’m afraid you might stay that way if you keep brooding. The gods have nothing to do with this, either way. That’s true enough.” Rhegor put a gentle hand on Nevyn’s arm. “Come, now, let’s sit at the table. Let poor little Gwennie lie there.”
Nevyn’s habit of obedience saved him. He let Rhegor haul him up and lead him to a table, sat down when the master told him to, and took a tankard of ale, as well, just because the master had handed him one.
“Now drink some of it right off. There. That’s better, lad. You think she’s gone forever, don’t you? Cut off from life, forever and ever, and her a lass who loved life so much.”
“And what else would I think?”
“I’ll tell you the truth to think instead. There’s a great secret to the dweomer, one that you can never tell any man unless he asks you point-blank. They never do ask, truly, unless they’re marked for the dweomer themselves. But the secret is this, that everyone, man and woman both, lives not once, but many times, over and over, back and forth between this world and the other. What looks like a death here, lad, is but birth to another world. She’s gone, truly, but she’s gone to