Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [62]
“The loss of a woman is a painful thing,” Evandar said. “Here.”
When he tossed the whistle over, his brother snatched it from the air, then jerked his horse’s head round and spurred it hard. As he galloped off toward the sunrise, the Dark Court howled and screeched, then spurred their own mounts to ride after him, until out of the retreating army it seemed that a vast storm rose up and raged, charging toward the horizon like a living thing. Just as suddenly it collapsed in a swirl and scatter of brown dust. The plain stretched empty and silent.
“I worry, my love,” Dallandra said. “Why do those rebels want that whistle so badly?”
“Probably for the same reason they made the wretched thing in the first place rather than some new mischief.”
Evandar turned his horse and jogged back to the waiting Host, leaving her no choice but to follow and to hope that he was right about the whistle. There were dweomer-workers who could pick up visions and the astral equivalent of scents from objects that a person had handled for a long time. She didn’t want such on Rhodry’s trail to work him harm.
“The border lies secure!” Evandar called out. “Let us return, and as a reward I’ll raise the golden pavilion. Feasting and dancing, my friends! There’ll be feasting and dancing.”
Although the Bright Court roared its approval, Dallandra was troubled. She’d never seen him reward them before, and she suddenly wondered if he were trying to buy their wavering loyalty. As they returned home, she noticed again that the lands along their route seemed solid and renewed, as if he were pouring energy into them as they rode through. When they reached the meadow by the riverbank, they found the trees growing green and tall, with wild roses and daffodils sprinkled in the grass. The Host cheered, howling out Evandar’s name over and over. He raised a hand in acknowledgment, but said nothing. They fell silent and dismounted, leading their horses away and disappearing as they reached the river, only to reappear without their mounts. Evandar sat on horseback and watched them unsmiling.
“What’s wrong?” Dallandra said. “Somewhat is.”
“Oh, I was merely wondering”—Evandar spoke so softly that only she could hear him—“if I’ve done a weak thing and thus a wrong thing. By giving my brother the whistle, I mean.”
“It seems to me that you did a noble thing, helping him rescue his woman.”
“True, in your mind and the minds of men and elves, and even in my own mind, that was a noble thing. But in his mind? It’s likely that in his mind it was a sign of weakness and naught more. Well, what’s done is done, even here in my country.”
Much later, when it was far too late to turn ill into good, she was to remember this conversation and to realize that indeed, Evandar’s profound mistrust of his brother had been justified.
While Dallandra was riding with the Bright Court, Jill had shut herself up in her chamber and devoted herself to scrying and meditation in a kind of border ride of her own — Occasionally a frightened page had knocked on the door to deliver food and water and take away leavings, but no one else had dared come near — Since despite its great power the dweomer has strict limits, Jill was working under considerable disadvantages. If she had ever seen these magical enemies in the flesh, she could have scried them out, or if they’d been nearby she could have scouted them on the etheric plane in her body of light — As it was, of course, she didn’t even know their names, and they were apparently staying away from Cengarn, judging from the utter lack of any evidence of their presence.
When Jill traveled on the etheric, she used not the elaborate hawk form, but a simple, stylized version of her own body modeled out of the bluish etheric substance and joined to her physical body by a silver cord, navel to navel, along which energy passed back and forth to sustain both her flesh and her consciousness — Although this creation wasn’t alive in any sense, it did serve as a vehicle for her consciousness and for her true etheric double, such as