Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [104]
Jill whistled softly under her breath.
“You don’t want to say those words you’ve been saying, do you?”
“I don’t.” He forced the words out. “It’s needful.”
“Indeed? Interesting. Now, just stand there quietlike for a moment. Don’t move and don’t speak.”
Jill opened up her dweomer sight to take a look at the boy’s aura. As is the case with most children, his formed a lopsided, ever-changing cloud of energy, at moments shriveled, at others billowing out to one side or the other. Yet spiraling round the aura ran a dark smear or line, ineptly drawn, but no doubt effective. Jill grunted in distaste, then sent a line of light from her own aura and wiped the dark away. She shut down the dweomer sight to find Jahdo watching her, his head cocked to one side like a puzzled dog.
“Now tell me, lad, do you want to go with Rhodry and the dwarves?”
“I don’t! Oh, please, mayn’t I stay?”
“Of course. And as soon as ever we can, we’ll take you home.”
He broke into a grin, started to skip a few steps, then stopped, letting the grin fade as he stared off in thought.
“Jahdo?” Jill kept her voice very soft. “Someone told you to ride with Rhodry. Who was it?”
“No one did tell me. I did but know that it was needful for me to keep going onward.”
“Indeed? ‘Onward,’ is it? Try answering this. Who told you to go with Meer?”
“I—I don’t remember.”
“But someone told you.”
“Not exactly. I just did know it was needful. I couldn’t say I didn’t want to go when Meer asked.”
“And Yraen asked if you wanted to go with Rhodry?”
“He did, but it were a jest, like. I did see in his eyes that it were a jest, and yet I couldn’t say no. It was needful for me to travel onward.”
Jill growled under her breath. Whoever had ensorcelled the child was a clever little scoundrel. Since he’d never given Jahdo a direct order, the boy wouldn’t remember him directly, either, unless Jill could think of perfectly apt questions. Until she knew more, those lay beyond her. It was at least obvious that this amateur sorcerer lived in Cerr Cawnen, where Jahdo had started his journey. She would simply have to wait and deal with him there, providing, of course, she did manage to get the boy home again someday.
That night Jill risked traveling in the etheric a little farther than usual. Normally she went north and west, searching in the general direction in which an attack was likely to come, but this time she headed straight west, wondering if perhaps the enemy was outfoxing her by marching from an unexpected direction. Again, she found nothing, returning exhausted at dawn to her body and the dun. Before she went down to the great hall she rested, wondering if perhaps Alshandra had given up her mad plan of releasing her daughter’s soul by killing her growing physical body. It seemed unlikely that a spirit so single-minded, so lacking in the breadth of experience and the compassion that incarnation brings, would abandon her obsession so easily. Certainly Dallandra had always considered her implacable.
Dallandra. All of a sudden Jill was wide awake, realizing just how long it had been since Dalla had gone off, promising to come right back. Yet even though she worried, she could explain her fears away. With Time’s flow so uneven between the worlds, Dalla might very well have been experiencing but a few moments passing. Jill had no way of finding her. Evandar’s country was so foreign to her nature as well as so distant on the astral that Jill could never scry into it. She put the matter out of her mind, for that while at least, and went on down to breakfast with Cadmar and, of course, his lady as well as Carra and her prince.
Dar had apparently been doing some thinking of his own about their situation. He waited until the serving lass had set down the bread and porridge and was gone before speaking, then leaned forward to address both Jill and the gwerbret.
“Your Grace, good sorcerer, if Cengarn’s going to be sieged, what we need is archers, and my people can easily raise five hundred of them, all armed with good yew bows. All I have to do is send out some of my men to find