The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [6]
“And are you spoil from Rinbaladelan or Tanbalapalim?” he asked it. “The only roses my people know now are the wild ones with their five meager little petals.”
The ring lay mute on his palm, a gleaming paradox. Although it possessed no dweomer of its own, it was tied to the dweomer. Many years ago, a mysterious, nameless wanderer had given it to Devaberiel as a present for one of his as yet unborn sons. Now the omen reading of a dweomerwoman showed that it belonged to Rhodry, the youngest of the three and, like Ebañy, a half-breed. But unlike Ebañy’s, Rhodry’s mother was no pretty village lass, but one of the most powerful noblewomen in the kingdom. Rhodry could never learn the truth about his real father, who had given Ebañy the task of taking the ring to him.
“And what am I supposed to tell him when I find him?” he grumbled aloud, because talking came much easier to him than thinking. “Oh, well, this peculiar personage said it was yours, but I can’t tell you why. Of course, I don’t know why it’s yours—no one does—so, dear brother, I won’t be lying to you when I make my most feeble excuses. One dweomer says it encircles your Wyrd, and another working says that your Wyrd is Eldidd’s Wyrd, and so here we are, in the land of vagaries, nuances, and secrets. Ah, by the gods, doesn’t my elvish curiosity ache to know the truth!”
With a laugh, he slipped the ring back into its wrapping, then put that pouch into the one he carried around his neck. Soon he would be riding into the lands of men, where thieves prowl, and he would need a better hiding place for the ring than an open canvas sack. Thinking of the journey ahead of him, he went outside and wandered down to the riverbank, where the Delonderiel rolled by, flecked with gold in the lowering sun. Distantly he heard his father’s voice, firm and clear in its sorrow as the stanzas marched on. He stared at the river and used it to focus his mind, until at last his dweomer scryed Rhodry out, a pale image of him at first, then a clear picture.
Rhodry was standing on the ramparts of a rough stone dun and looking out over countryside where patches of snow still lay under dark pine trees. He was wrapped in a cloak, and his breath came in a frosty puff. Now that Ebañy knew they shared a father, he could see what had eluded him the summer before, when he’d met Rhodry by chance and wondered why this young warrior looked so familiar. Although Rhodry had raven-dark hair and cornflower-blue eyes, they looked enough alike to be what they were, brothers. As he studied the resemblance, Ebañy found himself grumbling again.
“So I’m not supposed to tell you the truth, brother, am I? What am I supposed to do, smash every mirror within your reach? Rhodry has to think himself human and a Maelwaedd, says my master in dweomer. Oh, splendid! Then I’d best hand over this ring and disappear before you look too closely at my face!”
In the vision, Rhodry’s image suddenly turned and seemed to be staring right at him, as if he were listening to his faraway kin. Ebañy smiled at him, then widened the vision, switching his point of view this way and that around the countryside to the limits of the scrying, about two miles away from its focus. He saw sharp rocky hills, covered with pine, and here and there among them small farms. Most likely Rhodry was in the province of Cerrgonney, then, a good five hundred miles away at the very least.
“It’s going to be a long summer’s riding, then, Ebañy, lad,” he told himself. “On the other hand, it would be a wretched shame to leave before the feasting’s over.”
Although it was cold up on the ramparts of Lord Gwogyr’s dun. Rhodry lingered there a few moments longer and looked out