The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [17]
A few at a time, Wildfolk came to join him, a gaggle of gnomes, mostly, all speckled and mottled in blue and gray and purple, quite different from the ones in Deverry, or at least, so he remembered. At the moment, he was disinclined to trust anything he “remembered” about himself. Who knew if it were real or some lie of Baruma’s? He did, however, have a clear memory picture of solidly colored gnomes, in particular a certain gray one who was some sort of friend. Apparently he’d been able to see these little creatures for some time.
The ability to befriend spirits was so out of character for what he knew of Deverry aristocrats that he considered this strange fact for a good long time. Although he remembered little about himself, his general knowledge of the world seemed to be intact, and he was certain that your average warrior-lord did not go around talking to Wildfolk. Yet here was a particularly bold gnome, a dirty-green and grayish-purple with an amazing number of warts running down its spine, who was climbing into his lap and patting his hand with one little clawed paw as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Well, good eve, little brother.”
The gnome grinned to reveal bright purple fangs, then settled into his lap like a cat. As he idly stroked it, scratching it behind the ears every now and then, Taliaesyn felt something pricking at his mind like a buried splinter trying to force its way out of a finger. The Wildfolk, the very phrase “little brother,” both meant something profound, something that would give him an important key to who he was if only he could find the lock. It was a secret, a very deep, buried secret, hidden even from Baruma, perhaps.
“I wish you lads could talk. Do you know who I am?”
The pack all shook their heads in a collective yes.
“Do you know my name, then?”
This time the answer was no.
“But you somehow recognize me?”
Another yes. He wondered if he’d ever been an introspective man—probably not, if he reminded people of a warrior-lord or a knife-fighter. The bits of truth he was finding made less sense than all the lies. One of the noble-born, or an athlete, but either way, he saw the Wildfolk, and they considered him a friend. Again came that twitch at his mind. One of their friends or one of their kin? The hairs on the nape of his neck prickled as he said it aloud.
“Or one of their kin. I should know what that means, curse it all to the third hell!”
But he couldn’t remember. All at once he was furious, furious with his mind, with Baruma, with the twisted fate that had stripped him of himself and dropped him here, a piece of human trash in Brindemo’s market. He slammed his fist into the wall, and the pain and the rage mingled to force a brief moment of clarity out of his maimed consciousness. The Westfolk, The Elcyion Lacar, the elves. They saw the Wildfolk; they called them little brothers. He’d known the elves once—hadn’t he? Hadn’t he ridden to war with some of them for allies? Once, a very long time ago.
“Or one of their kin,” he whispered like an exhalation of breath.
He went cold all over in the warm night. It was a hard thing, after all, for a man to realize that he wasn’t completely human.
Taliaesyn stayed at the market for two more days of drowsy boredom. Although he did his best to probe his mind, he found the work hard going, confirming his own thought that he’d never been a man who paid much attention to his mind. He did, however, remember one small thing, the matter of the piece of jewelry. Although he couldn’t remember exactly what it was, Taliaesyn was sure that Baruma had stolen a valuable piece of silver jewelry from him, some heirloom, handed down to him by some member of his clan or by someone he admired—he wasn’t sure which. He did know, however, that having lost that piece of jewelry was a shameful thing, that he would be dishonored forever if he didn’t find Baruma and get it back. The shame fed his hatred until at times he daydreamed for long hours about killing Baruma in one or another hideous way.
On the mid-morning