The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [161]
Nevyn happened to notice the rose ring a few nights later, when Maddyn came to his tower room with a note from the princess. As he handed it over, the silver gleamed in the candlelight.
“That’s a pretty thing,” Nevyn said. “Where did you get that?”
“Our lady gave it to me,” Maddyn said. “The prince suggested she reward my patience, not that it needed rewarding.”
“Ah, I see.”
Nevyn looked up and found Maddyn troubled. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Well, someone else noticed it, too,” Maddyn said. “Lady Merodda’s ghost.”
“What?”
“It was a blasted strange thing, my lord. She appeared in broad daylight and told me the ring would cause her harm, but it was a greater evil to me. I was fair troubled by it.”
“No doubt! Here, let me see it for a moment.”
Maddyn slipped the ring off and handed it over. Nevyn clasped it in his palm and stared off across the room. He could feel the ring emanating—something.
“It’s odd,” Nevyn said. “There’s dweomer on this ring, sure enough, but I’d not call it evil, exactly. All dweomer is dangerous if you don’t understand it, and that’s the sort of danger I feel.”
When Nevyn gave the ring back, Maddyn put it on without a heartbeat’s hesitation. He’s accepted the dweomer, then, Nevyn thought. With the thought came the dweomer cold, racing down his spine, and grim knowledge. Within its silver circle the ring bound many a Wyrd within it: himself, Bellyra, Maryn, and Lilli as well, but no one would know the truth and the working of it for many years hence. At the center of the circle of Wyrd, however, would stand Maddyn, down the long years and in the lives ahead of them all.
EPILOGUE
SPRING 1118
When a man wishes to study sorcery, the art drives him a hard bargain, to wit, that it will trade its secrets only for sacrifice and lonely toil. Should he try to clutch at common human happiness, he will find that he might as well pour wine into his hands. The sorcerer’s art will allow him to drink no more of life’s wine than the few drops he can lick from his fingers.
—The Pseudo-Iamblichos Scroll
Without any effort on Evandar’s part, spring came to his country. Formerly, a hundred years and more could pass in the lands of men and elves while a single afternoon crept by in his. Now spring burst upon him while he mourned his people, so quickly that he knew it must have fallen upon the physical world as well. He stood on the hilltop and watched, dazed, as the snow melted into rivulets that poured into the river below. Spring, however, came only where it wanted to come. He picked his way downhill across brown mud, flecked here and there with dead stone. Once the river had run silver, but now it oozed, a dark grey like lead. The water reeds along its banks stood dead and brown.
For a moment Evandar stared into the river, which in the past had shown him many a vision. He saw nothing. He turned away and set off upstream, walking slowly, listening for voices in the wind—none. As he walked, the dead terrain around him changed. First he spotted a few blades of grass, then some small saplings, more grass, and then trees until he found himself far from the river in a meadow of spring grass, dotted with white flowers. Still, even in the midst of this burgeoning life, he heard no voices, and he saw no visions.
For the seeming-space of an afternoon, Evandar walked his lands to see how they’d changed. All the images of cities had vanished, and the rose gardens, the arbors, the cloth-of-gold pavilions where his people had once feasted had disappeared with them. Much to his surprise the green hills remained, dusted with yellow buttercups and little daisies now instead of roses. Tall trees stood unpruned; straggly saplings grew amid tangles of weeds and shrubs. Now and then a flock of birds flew overhead, and he could hear bees among the clover. Once, when he passed a tangle of hazel withes near a stream, he saw a little pointed face and two bright eyes. He took a step closer, but with a noiseless slide into the stream, the water