The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [81]
At each ordinal point, he put a seal in the shape of a five-pointed star made of blue fire. Once the four directions were sealed, he spread the light until it was not a ring but a hemisphere over the dun like a canopy. He made two last seals at zenith and nadir, then withdrew the force from the astral sword until it vanished. To signify the end of the working, he stamped three times on the roof. The dome, however, remained visible—that is, visible to someone with dweomer sight. Although he would have to renew the seals five times a day, whenever the astral tides changed, everyone within the dome would be safe from evil, prying eyes.
Wrapping his cloak tightly around him, for the air nipped with the promise of winter, he went to the wall and idly looked down into the ward. Someone was walking there, and the way he moved was suspicious: taking a few steps, pausing to look carefully round, then walking slowly on again. With his mind full of thoughts of spies, Nevyn left the roof and rushed down the inside staircase so fast that he nearly ended his physical existence there and then. When he ran out into the ward, the mysterious figure was no longer in sight. Muttering under his breath, he summoned Wildfolk, among them a large mottled gnome who had indeed seen the prowler. The gnome led him straight around the main broch and toward the stables with absolutely no sign of fear, which made Nevyn think he’d been overly dramatic to assume that the dark dweomer had a spy right in the dun. Sure enough, when he saw his quarry, he realized it was Branoic. Even in the dark the lad’s sheer size and the straight-backed way he stood were recognizable.
“Good eve, lad. Taking the air?”
“In a way, Councillor. I … uh well … I thought I saw a fire.”
“Ye gods! Where?”
“Well, I was wrong about it, you see.” The lad sounded profoundly embarrassed. “I’m cursed glad now that I didn’t go waking everyone up. I must have just been having a bad dream.”
“Indeed? Tell me about it.”
“Well, since I’m the new man, I got the bunk right by the drafty window in our barracks. I dreamt I was awake and looking out, and the dun walls were blazing with fire. So I started to shout the alarm, but then I remembered that this dun has stone walls, not a wooden palisade or suchlike. Right then I must have woken up. But I lay there thinking about it, and it nagged at me, so I grabbed my boots and came to look around. And as soon as I did, I realized that it had to be a dream, but it was a demon-sent vivid one, good sir.”
Nevyn was taken completely aback. Obviously this young lout of a warrior had a touch of the dweomer, and in his dream state had seen Nevyn sealing the walls. Yet none of the men in the charmed circle of his Wyrd had ever shown such talents. By the hells, he thought, and irritably; just who is he?
“Tell me, do you often have dreams like that?”
“Well, sometimes. I mean, I’ve never dreamt about fires before, but at times I have these dreams that seem so real I’d swear I was wide awake. Every now and then …” He let his voice trail away.
“Every now and again you dream somewhat that turns out to be true.”
With a gulp of breath, Branoic stepped sharply back.
“If my lordship will excuse me,” he stammered. “I’d best be