The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [52]
Just after dawn on a chilly wet day the Gray Kestrel left her dock at Daradion and wallowed out to sea. Since they had a favoring wind, in about an hour or so the lumbering ferry-barge was out of sight of land, and the tedium—to Jill’s taste, anyway—of a sea voyage settled over her. While Salamander regaled crew and fellow passengers alike with his stories, songs, and juggling, Jill spent most of the uneventful voyage working with her wolf image. Finally, on the last night aboard, she felt for a moment that a giant wolf lay beside her on her bunk, and it seemed that she could almost see it. Although she made the usual banishing gestures at the end of the practice session, the wolf seemed curiously reluctant to go.
They reached Ronaton in the middle of a sunny morning and left the city straightaway by the main road, running southwest along the coast. They rode for about two hours, until, just at noon, they came to a stand of trees and a spring, deepened then lined with stone for the benefit of travelers by the archons of Ronaton, where they stopped to make an early camp to rest the horses and mule, who were still nervous and stable-weary from being in the ship. While Jill unloaded the stock and let them roll, Salamander wandered away a few yards and stood staring out to sea. When he returned, he was shaking his head in frustration.
“Well, I scried Rhodry out, for all the good it’s going to do us. He was down in some sort of cellar, arranging big clay pots of what looked like pickled food and even larger amphorae of wine against a wall. There was an older man with him who seemed to be in charge of things. Ye gods, I hope they don’t stay down there all day!”
By then both of them were used enough to the Bardekian custom of the afternoon nap to spread out their bedrolls and lie down for a couple of hours. Although Salamander went straight off to sleep, all of Jill’s rage came to a head that afternoon. She was thinking of Rhodry, as she so often did, and she burst into tears that were more frustration than grief, a baffled rage at all the dark and magical events that had pulled them apart. Once her fit of weeping had run itself out, she gave up trying to sleep and began to think of her wolf image. It built up fast, and she imagined the shaggy creature lying at her feet.
As Salamander had taught her, she used all her senses in building the image, imagined she could smell it, could feel its weight across her ankles and its warmth through the thin blanket. All at once, she felt something snap into place in her mind. Right where she’d imagined ft, the wolf appeared, a bit misty and thin, to be sure, but the image actually seemed to be there, living apart from her will. She worked on bringing it into focus, made it appear more substantial, thickened its glossy coat, imaged the teeth and the panting tongue. When she noticed it was wearing a gold collar of elven design, she was suddenly afraid, because she’d imagined no such thing. The great head turned her way, and the dark eyes considered her. Only then did she realize that a thin, misty cord seemed to connect her solar plexus with that of the wolf; yet whenever she tried to look directly at the cord, it faded away.
With a stretch like a real dog, the wolf got up. Although she started the banishing ritual immediately, her words and motions had no force behind them, because frightened though she was, she was fascinated with her creation. The wolf ignored the ritual, anyway, merely sniffed Salamander and his blankets with a remarkably real-looking wet black nose.
“It’s a pity you’re not real, you know. I could send you tracking Baruma down.”
It swung its head and looked at her. She found herself talking to it, then, a confused babble of all her hatred, all her scraps of knowledge about Baruma, what he was, what he looked like, but she somehow knew that his physical appearance was of little moment to the wolf. With a toss of its head it