Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [183]
Niffa nodded in silent amazement.
“The black and the silver?” Jahdo sheathed the knife, then knelt beside her. “I did. Where be Rhodry?”
“You saw him.”
Niffa stared, then began to shake her head from side to side in a no, over and over. Dalla grabbed her apprentice's arm and hauled herself up to a sitting position.
“He did it to save the town. There was no saying him nay.”
Niffa shuddered profoundly.
“It do be a hard thing to believe,” Jahdo said. “It—ye gods, what am I, what are we all to think?”
“Think of him as dead. In a way it's true. The Rhodry you knew is dead, and his long melancholy's all over at last, just as he wanted.”
“And what of Evandar? The same?”
She hesitated for a long moment, thinking, then smiled though her eyes brimmed tears.
“He's not. In fact, I'd say that for the first time in his long ages of existing, he's truly alive. Now help me up. I've got to have some water, and I've got to have it now.”
EPILOGUE
SUMMER 1118
The North Country
The dweomermaster who would call forth a mighty flood had best be sure he knows how to swim.
—The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid
Dallandra refused to leave Cerr Cawnen until she knew that Verrarc would mend. Even more than her death, Raena's treachery had sucked the life out of him. He slept late of a morning and went early to bed, his servants told Dallandra. When he left the house, it was only to walk to the ruined temple and sit by the door, as if he expected Raena to come out to rejoin him. He would stay until the middle of the night, then creep back when the servants were asleep.
“The thing is,” Dallandra told Niffa, “he has a certain knack for the dweomer. When Raena was working her spells, he could sense their evil, but blindly. Deep down he knew somewhat was wrong, even if he didn't understand what he was perceiving.”
“And what was that?” Niffa said.
“She was draining his life-stuff to get power for her workings.”
“Ai!” Niffa laid a hand at her throat. “That be an evil way to treat him who loved her so much.”
“It was, though not the worst of her evils. Although, I don't know whether to lay the evils she brought to Dun Cengarn at her door or not, frankly. Alshandra stood behind them all.”
They were sitting on the flank of Citadel, taking the sun on a wooden bench beside the path. From their perch Dallandra could see over grey rooftops to the lake and the town below, then beyond the walls to the water meadows, lush and green, laced with sparkling lines of water.
“There be one thing I have no understanding of still,” Niffa said. “Why the Horsekin did steal Raena's corpse.”
“I don't know either,” Dallandra said, “but I wouldn't fret about it.”
“What if they should find some way to bring her back to life?”
“They can't. When I scryed I found no trace of her etheric double. She must have shattered it deliberately when she realized she was dead. Don't forget, she was expecting Alshandra to come and take her to some marvelous country.”
“For that I almost pity her.”
“Me too. Almost.”
Dallandra found the solution to this riddle when she went to the Gel da'Thae camp to bid farewell to Zatcheka. Her men were laughing and talking as they loaded up the mules with big canvas packs and saddled the riding horses. The two women walked down to the lakeshore and stood watching the sun dance on slow waves, while they talked of this and that.
“You know,” Dallandra said finally, “mayhap you could answer a question for me. In all the confusion after Rhodry broke Raena's neck, Kral and his men took her body and fled with it. Is there some rite that Horsekin work over their dead?”
“You might call it that.” Zatcheka smiled with a flash of pointed teeth. “They do eat them.”
“They what?”
“They do believe that by eating the dead person's flesh, they keep that person with them always. Otherwise, they say, the dead person will wander alone and lost.”
“It makes a certain sense, truly. Do they cook them first?”
“They do, and the preparation of that meal and its serving are solemn things, taking a