Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [186]
“I have no idea. It was still the right thing to do. What made you forgive him?”
“Forgive him? I’ve not forgiven him one wretched thing, my love, not one shred of his black deeds, not one jot of the harm he worked you. Someday I’ll take my payment for all of it, and he’ll not find joy in my doing so, I promise you.”
The quiet way he spoke made her shudder.
“Well, then, why didn’t you just destroy him when he was groveling in front of you?”
Evandar started to speak, then hesitated, thinking.
“I’ll tell you the truth.” He turned to face her. “Instead of a riddle, the truth, and then you shall know I love you, because I don’t speak cold truth as easily as all that. I need him.”
Dallandra goggled, speechless.
“Without me he’d cease to live, just as I told him. But I suspect, my love, deep in my heart I even believe, that without him I’d die myself. Light and shadow, my love,shadow and light. Can there be one without the other? Or hot without the cold, and moist without the dry, fire without water, air without earth? And so I call him brother, because it’s true, because we were born a pair, though I’m the elder, because light leaps from the candle flame before the shadow hits the wall”
“I see. And who then lit the candle?”
“That, my love, is a riddle I can’t answer. I wouldn’t even presume to try. Perhaps those beings your people call gods? Ah, I see from your face that you can’t answer it, either. Well, mayhap one day I’ll know, but until then it matters little to me.” All at once he smiled and turned away, calling to his court. “Wait for me! I’ll return in but a little space of time, before you truly know I’ve gone.”
To Dallandra he held out his hand.
“Let us go to Jill, then, since you want to and for no reason more.”
She took his hand and allowed him to lead as they walked slowly, deliberately, across the dusty ground. Round them the mist gathered, an opalescent, shimmering mist all light-shot and silvery.
“Mind your step,” Evandar said, and rather slyly.
When she glanced down she found a flight of broad stairs, a flow of white marble between walls of gray mist. She looked up and found him grinning like a pleased child.
“I thought I’d make the way easier than usual.”
“My thanks, my lord.” She made a little curtsy. “There’s something about these stairs that makes me feel like a great lady.”
“I modeled them upon those in the king’s summer palace in Rinbaladelan.”
She laughed, glad of a moment’s wit and grace before they braved the next battle in their peculiar war. As hand in hand they walked down the staircase, she thought for a moment that she heard music and laughter, the lilt of many harps in some vast room and many voices raised in song, a reminder of better times and peaceful days. The mist whirled, lightened, blew away. Dallandra took one last step down into Jill’s tiny chamber, where the dweomermaster sat at her table, fallen asleep over one of her books, her head pillowed on her arms.
“There she is.” Evandar’s voice was already fading. “When I have news of Alshandra, I’ll return.”
And then he was gone, relinquishing her to the world of men and elves, caught in the grip of Time and Time’s daughter, Death.
6
CAPUT DRACONIS
Some loremasters say that this figure signifies great blessings no matter into which house it falls—save the House of Salt. I myself have grave doubts, for all know that he who would ride a dragon must risk a great burning.
The Omenbook of Gwarn, Loremaster
“I WAS WONDERING ABOUT somewhat,” Rhodry said “What makes you so eager to see this dragon? Just the glamour of the beast?”
“A fair question,” Enj said. “But it be more than that.” In striped shadow they were perched side by side on an outcrop of black basalt like an overturned boat. Behind them rose forest; before, nothing, just a long fell of cliff down, down, down to a tiny riband of water among minuscule trees in a valley below. Far across that rift and to the west another cliff climbed, leveling off to forest.