The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [205]
“Or near the village, I should say,” Nevyn said. “You need privacy for our kind of work. You’ll see when we get there. Now, I haven’t visited my house in fifteen years, but I’ve sent the Wildfolk ahead to air it out, like. I wonder what kind of job they did?”
They found out on the hot summer afternoon when they finally reached the tor. Under a glaring, windless sky it stood dusted with clover, looking like some grim old giant turned to stone with the ravine for a battle scar. As they approached, Jill could see Wildfolk clustering in the cleft. So could her horse—it danced and pulled nervously at the bit until Nevyn soothed it with a few soft words.
“We’ll have to walk the horses up,” he remarked. “It’s too steep a ride.”
“Oh here! Is this where you live?”
“I did until about fifteen years ago. I’ll admit to being pleased to see it again.”
The cleft was about six feet wide, and one side was just a natural cliff of packed dirt and weeds. The other, however, was a proper stone wall, made of massive true-cut blocks, and sporting a wooden door with a big iron ring in the middle. The Wildfolk came to meet them, sylphs like a thickening in the air, gnomes with scrawny faces and long arms, dancing and clustering round Nevyn like children welcoming their father home. A blue sprite with a mouthful of pointed teeth materialized on Jill’s shoulder, then pulled her hair so hard that it stung. With a yelp, Jill swatted her away.
“Stop that,” Nevyn said to the sprite. “Jill’s going to live here, too.”
The sprite glowered, then vanished with a puff of air.
“I put this door in myself,” Nevyn said. “A carpenter would laugh at the job I did, but it opens and shuts well enough.”
As if in demonstration he swung the door wide and walked in, the horse and mule following him gingerly. When Jill led her horse after, she found a stable, a big stone room with four mangers along one wall and fresh hay piled up by the other. Somewhere nearby, she heard the sound of running water. On the wall was an iron sconce with a half-burned wooden torch. Although it took Nevyn two snaps of his fingers to light the old, damp wood, finally the smoke rose straight up and disappeared through a hidden vent. The air was remarkably clean and fresh for a cave.
“The Wildfolk have done a good job,” Nevyn said. “But I fear me they stole this hay from some farmer. I’ll have to find out who and make amends.”
They unsaddled the stock and set them at their hay, then carried their gear down a short tunnel into what seemed to be an enormous room, stretching away and echoing in the darkness. Jill heard the dweomerman moving in the dark; then a fire blazed up in a huge hearth of square-cut blocks. Even though it was breathlessly hot outside, the caves were downright cold. The room was about a hundred feet on a side, with walls of smooth stone and a flat ceiling a good twenty feet above them. Huddled near the hearth were a wooden table with a pair of benches, a narrow cot, a large freestanding cupboard and a wooden barrel.
“Stolen ale, as well,” the old man remarked with a sigh. “We’ll have to get you a cot of your own. There’s a carpenter in the village.”
“I can sleep on a pile of straw for now. Did you build this place?”
“I didn’t indeed.” He paused to give her a mysterious grin. “But I did dig it out with a gnome or two to help me. Let’s have a bit of this purloined ale, and I’ll tell you the story.”
Nevyn rummaged through the cupboard, which was crammed full of books, cooking tools, packets of now-stale herbs, bits of cloth, and a few dusty trinkets. Finally he brought out two pewter tankards, dusted them out, and filled them at the barrel. The two of them settled themselves by the fire away from the chill of the vast room. For some minutes the old man gazed around him fondly like a merchant who, after a long year on the road trading, is finally home and at his own hearth.
“Well,” he said at last. “This tor isn’t a natural