The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [181]
“No doubt you’re right. Just where can we discuss it, though? I suppose I could come to the tavern room where you’re staying.”
“That might be politic, Your Grace. We just arrived here ourselves, you see, and I’m hoping that on the morrow I’ll have more to tell you about Rhodry, too.”
“Suppose he is sailing home right now. Is he coming directly into Aberwyn? Will we get some advance warning before he lands?”
“I hope he’ll land here, Your Grace, and as for the warning, well, I’ve figured out a way to get us some hours’ notice.”
“A few hours? A night and a day would be better.”
“Of course, my lord, but this is going to be tiring enough.” Aderyn looked pained, as if over an insult. “I’m not as young as I used to be, you know.”
It seemed to Jill that during the trip from Bardek the Guaranteed Profit had traveled not across the ocean but through a crowded city. Not only was the dweomer-wind full of sylphs that swarmed round the mast and played among the sails, but gnomes and sprites thronged the deck, and sea undines clustered round the hull and in the wake like a mob of citizens lining up to watch a parade. At night the spirits of the Aethyr settled on the mast in a glow and flicker of blue fire. When she wasn’t with Rhodry or working on her dweomer-exercises with Nevyn, she would sit in the bow for hours and watch the Wildfolk. Usually her gray gnome came to sit in her lap or run up and down beside her like a restless child.
Early one morning, when Nevyn had taken it upon himself to lecture Rhodry about the various political problems, in his new rhan, Jill was sitting in her usual place in the bow when she saw a particularly large flock of sylphs. Some hundreds of yards ahead they wheeled and dipped and circled around some unseen center like seabirds above a shoal offish. She got up and stood shading her eyes with one hand. As she peered at the flock, it seemed she could see an enormous bird at its heart—an albatross maybe? No, it was too large and too silver a gray. In fact, it looked like an owl, but no owl would ever fly out to sea.
“Aderyn!” She began jumping up and down and waving her arms. “Aderyn! Here we are! Over here!”
With a weary sort of flap the owl circled round and glided straight for the boat. As it came closer, she could see that it carried a cloth sack in its talons. Winging lower it passed overhead, dropped the sack safely on deck, then set-tied gracefully after it, perching onto a coil of rope.
“Aderyn, Aderyn, I’m so glad to see you! Can you talk in that shape? I don’t remember.”
“Somewhat.” His voice was a flat distorted squawk. “Fetch Nevyn.”
As Jill turned and headed for the hatch, she realized that a number of sailors had seen the owl, too. Their faces a pasty gray, they jumped back and rushed to the stern to huddle around the helmsman, who was looking at the sky with the expression of a man engaged in furious full-speed prayer. Apparently Nevyn had heard her yelling, because he climbed up on deck, with Rhodry right behind him, before she reached the hatch.
“Aderyn’s here.” Jill was jigging in delight. “He’ll have news.”
When they all trotted back to the bow, Aderyn was not only human again, but he’d already put on the pair of brigga he’d been carrying in the sack and was slipping a shirt over his head.
“That’s better,” he announced. “This wind is cold, I must say. Did you invoke it, Nevyn?”
“Merely asked, actually. It most certainly gladdens my heart to see you. What’s the situation in Eldidd?”
“Vexed, very vexed, but not blood-spilling dangerous—yet. We need to talk to your captain here, because it would be best to land in Abernaudd, not Aberwyn herself. Rhodry, Blaen’s in ’Naudd, waiting for you.”
“Is he now?” Rhodry broke into a grin. “It’s going to be cursed good to see him again.”
“Well, you will and soon, because you’re not all that far from land. Ye gods, my arms hurt! I’ve been flying out