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By Root 1231 0

hill. As far as I can tell from poking around in here, it was a village long ago—very long ago, before the Dawntime. The folk threw their garbage out onto the street and built new houses on the ruins of old ones, until the village grew higher and higher above the meadow. Then they left for some reason, still long before the people of Bel rode to Deverry. So the wind blew dirt over it, and the grass grew up. Then, around the Dawntime, someone built a dun on the hill to guard themselves from our bloodthirsty ancestors. Didn’t do them one bit of good. I found a room with headless skeletons in it round the other side of the hill. I always thought those skeletons were human, but after meeting Perryn, I’m not so sure. Most of the dun was razed, but this corner of it was untouched when I found it. So, then, the people of Bel rode on down to the coast, and the wind and the grass came back, and with time, it all got covered up with dirt again and the hill was higher than ever. All I’ve done, you see, is to clear myself a space to live in.”

“And what about the ravine?”

“Oh, that runs along the old outside wall. Maybe there was a moat once, but whatever the reason, the ground settled away from the stonework. I happened to see it one day, when I was passing by, and climbed up to investigate. That’s how I stumbled onto the tor’s little secret.” He smiled briefly. “I’ve been digging like a mole, truly. It amuses me in the long winters. I put a tunnel down here and there, and sometimes I find a bit of pottery or jewelry. They’re all in that cupboard.” He sighed heavily. “One of these days, I have to clean the cursed thing out.”

“I’ll do it. I’m your apprentice now.”

“So you are.” Nevyn’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Ah, by the gods, so you are.”

The gratitude in his voice stirred the constant strange feeling in Jill, that she had known him before, long long ago in some other country. With it came another, that her whole life had led her to this room, half under the earth, half above it. Hastily she got up and fetched food from their saddlebags, to lay out the meal for the master like the apprentice she was. In the hearth, the Wildfolk of Fire cavorted, rubbing their backs on the logs like a cat will do on a doorjamb. Nevyn stared into the fire while Jill cut bread and cheese and laid the slices on a plate.

“Trying to teach you should be interesting,” Nevyn said. “First, I suppose, we’ll have to unscramble what that chattering elf taught you. I find it hard to believe there was much order or logic in his lessons.”

“There wasn’t, truly, but it didn’t seem to matter. It’s odd, but I almost feel as if I’d studied dweomer before.”

“Oh, do you now?” He smiled briefly. “Well, well, do you now!”

During their meal, Nevyn said nothing more, merely ate absentmindedly and stared into the fire. Against her will, against all her efforts to stop herself, Jill started thinking about Rhodry. Ever since their tormented farewell, she had been trying to put him behind her, as if his memory were a place she could ride away from forever. During the day, she could distract herself, but at this time of night the memories came, when they would have been sharing a meal and talking over the day behind them, whether at a table in some lord’s hall or by a campfire on the road. She was surprised, because she’d been expecting that she would miss having him in her bed most of all, but it was his company that meant the most to her. I truly did love him, she thought, but I always knew the dweomer demanded its price. She could see him so clearly in her mind that she almost wept, see him standing by a hearth, turning toward her with his beautiful sunny smile, his cornflower-blue eyes snapping with a jest and yet he was miserable—she could see that, too—the merriment and the jesting were a feverish attempt to hide how unhappy he was. He was wearing a fine linen shirt, embroidered with the dragons of Aberwyn in silver thread that caught firelight. When a page brought him a silver goblet of mead, Rhodry gulped it down much too fast. Suddenly the vision widened. Jill