The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [53]
At that point she woke up, or so she thought of it. All at once she felt a jarring sensation, as if she’d dropped flat on her back from a few inches up, and her eyes were open to the sunlight flooding the camp. Oh by the gods and their wives! she thought irritably. So that was just a dream, was it? Perhaps it’s for the best. She got up, and as she was rummaging for food in her saddlebags, she forgot the whole thing. Although she was so exhausted that she felt drained of blood, she put it down to the long months of strain.
In a few minutes Salamander woke, muzzy-eyed and yawning, and stumbled over to the spring. He knelt down, plunged his head into the cold water, snorted, coughed, and swore for a moment, then looked up grinning with the water streaming from his hair to drench his shirt.
“Much better,” he announced. “I’m going to try scrying out Rhodry again. He’s got to leave that wretched cellar sooner or later. Come join me—see what you can see.”
Through a break in the pale stone the water welled up noiselessly and rippled out, splashing a little against the side of the basin before it ran out the overflow pipe. When Salamander put his arm around her and pulled her companion-ably close, she was aware not of his physical touch but of his aura, raw power welling up from his very being as the water did from the earth.
“Concentrate on the ripples and let your eyes go a bit out of focus. Then think of Rhodry.”
For a long while she saw nothing but the glassy surge of water against stone. Then, all at once, she saw a dim, broken picture on the ripples: Rhodry making his way through what seemed to be a marketplace. To her imperfect vision the stalls and peddlers waved and fluttered as much as the cloth banners, but Rhodry’s image was solid and steady At first he looked perfectly well, tanned and fit, striding along and even smiling as he greeted the occasional person that he seemed to know. As she stared at him with hungry curiosity, she had the sensation of moving in closer, until it seemed that she hovered beside him. Then, when he turned his head so that he would have been looking right at her if she’d actually been there, she saw the change in him, a subtle thing, truly, a certain slackness about the mouth, a certain bewilderment in his eyes. Even when he smiled, something was missing. Where was the life that used to burn in his eyes, the grin that could set a roomful of men laughing in answer? Or the half-toss to his head, and the proud set to his shoulders that said here was a warrior, dangerous but a man of honor, born to command? She felt gut-wrenching sick when she realized that his mental injury was as clear and palpable as a physical wound.
“I know this place,” Salamander whispered. “All that stucco and pink stone, and that view of the mountains from the marketplace, it’s … Wylinth, by the gods!”
His crow of triumph broke the vision. He let go of her, sat back on his heels, and gave her a grin which disappeared abruptly at the sight of the look on her face.
“Salamander, he’s going to recover, isn’t he? We can do somewhat for him, can’t we? We can cure him. Can’t we?”
His mouth as slack as his brother’s had been, he was silent for a long moment.
“Salamander!”
“I don’t know, turtledove. I truly don’t know. If naught else, we can get him home to Nevyn, and there’s Aderyn, too—I’m sure he’d come to Eldidd to help.” Again the heavy silence. “But I don’t know.”
Jill dropped her face to her hands and wept. When they rode out, vengeance shared her saddle.
Although Wylinth was only some sixty miles away, about three day’s ride, Salamander decided that they’d best approach it by a roundabout way. That first afternoon they headed dead west, following the river to the small town of Andirra, which sported only two inns, both, much to Salamander’s horror and Jill’s relief, of medium price and quality. Their performance, however, was a great success, as few traveling showmen came through Andirra. The head of the local merchant guild even invited them to meet some