The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [55]
“I will. My apologies.”
“Very well, then.” Dar paused, thinking. “You know my bloodlines as well as I do. But the princes of the Vale of Roses were supposed to have dweomer of their own, weren’t they? A kind of inborn thing that they passed on to their heirs. Well, I’ve got a touch of it. It was the same night I was just speaking of, when the Meradan laid a trap for us. Jill came to me in a sort of vision or sending or somewhat like that. I don’t understand it, but I heard her and saw her, and she warned us about the trap. So hold your tongues, all of you. I’ve got some hard thinking to do.”
Dar glanced at the sky. Already the sun was hanging low in the cloudy west, sending streaks of gold across the sky like spears aimed at their hearts. He would try to contact Dallandra, but then he would have to lead his men home to the warmth and safety of the dun, no matter how much it ached his heart to abandon Rhodry.
Dallandra was sitting in her tower room with one of Jill’s books open on the table in front of her. Her mind kept drifting from the particular passage she was reading, which in the event proved a fortunate thing. Out of a daydream she heard Daralanteriel’s voice, so clear and close that she turned round in her chair, expecting to see him standing in the doorway.
“Dalla! We need help. Dalla, I hope you hear me!”
All at once a flock of Wildfolk swept into manifestation. Sprites hovered round her in the air, holding out translucent little hands. Warty grey gnomes mobbed her, grabbing her tunic’s hem, pulling on her sleeves.
“What is this?” Dallandra said. “Is the prince in danger?”
They shook their heads, but apparently someone was facing a threat. Some of the gnomes pantomimed the act of loosing arrows; others pretended to attack an invisible foe.
“Who is it?” Dallandra leapt to her feet. “Rhodry?”
This time they nodded yes.
“Do you know where he is? Can you take me to him?”
They nodded and caught her hands. As she hurried to the window, she was thinking of Evandar, picturing him in her mind and calling out to him with her thoughts. No answer—she could only pray that he’d heard her. She pulled off her clothes, tossed them on the bed, then yanked the leather covering from the window in a cloud of dust and mildew. Icy wind slapped her and pushed past into the chamber. She ignored it and perched naked and shivering on the broad stone windowsill.
In her mind she summoned her bird form, a thought picture only, but she’d trained her mind through long years of this working to make thoughts that had a reality of their own. In an instant she first imagined, then saw the construct perched beside her on the windowsill. It was strangely featureless, a smooth grey creature with a songbird’s beak and the general shape of a linnet. When she transferred her consciousness over, first she heard the usual rushy click; then she was aware of warmth. The linnet’s feathers kept off the cold a fair bit better than her elven skin could. She shook her wings and with a hop leapt into the air. The linnet could fly fast when she needed to. Dallandra winged her way north with the sprites to guide her.
When the dweomer mist cleared away, Rhodry found himself standing on a dusty plain under a copper-colored sky. Overhead dark clouds churned and roiled; off at the horizon smoke billowed in front of an enormous sun, turned blood-red and swollen. He’d seen the place once before, during the last summer’s war, when Evandar’s magic had brought him here.
“Evandar!” Rhodry yelled it as loudly as he could “Evandar! Are you here?”
Nothing but silence answered him. He realized that he was holding his silver dagger, though he couldn’t remember drawing it. Something about it struck him as odd, but when he examined the blade, it looked perfectly normal, except perhaps for the oily way the metal reflected the unnatural light. Finally, he realized that the heft felt wrong, perhaps twice as heavy as it should have been. With a shrug, he sheathed it and drew the bronze knife instead. The triangular wedge of the blade,