The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [72]
“A wretched shame, too, because my curiosity’s been pricking at me for weeks over that. At any rate, in Slaith you and your hideous captors took ship and sailed to Bardek, and somewhere along the way Baruma—I suspect at least that the most loathsome Baruma is responsible—ensorceled you and broke your memory into little shreds.”
“I remember somewhat of that.” Rhodry stood up with a convulsive, automatic shudder. “It wasn’t pleasant.”
“No doubt.” Salamander’s voice turned soft. “No doubt.”
With a shake of his head Rhodry paced back to the window. Although Jill wanted to go to him, she doubted that he’d tolerate sympathy. Brooding on the pain Baruma had caused him made her rage swell and burn like fever in her blood.
“Ye gods!” Salamander hissed. “What is that?”
In the corner stood the wolf, quite solid-looking though glimmering, his tail wagging gently, his tongue lolling as he watched Jill’s face, for all the world like a dog awaiting his master’s next command. What surprised Jill the most, though, was that Rhodry could see him, too. He drew back, then shrugged and held out his hand. The wolf sniffed it, tail still at the wag, then looked at Jill again.
“Uh well,” she said. “He’s mine, actually. I uh, well, I don’t quite know how I did it, but I sort of built him one night when I was doing my exercises.”
“Well-built he is.” Salamander sounded furious. “What did you feed him on, hatred and rage?”
“And why shouldn’t I, after what’s happened to Rhodry? I was thinking of vengeance, and the death-wolves of the Dark Sun, and—”
“I can see that, you idiot! What happened then?”
“Well, he seemed to … well … go off on his own.”
“Truly on his own?” Salamander’s voice held cold steel.
“Uh, well, I did sort of send him after Baruma.”
At that name the wolf leapt out the window and disappeared. Salamander swore in several languages for a good long minute.
“My apologies, turtledove, because when the apprentice makes a truly ghastly mistake like this, it’s the teacher’s fault. Oh ye gods and all your nipples! What have I done?”
“What’s so wrong?”
Salamander looked at her, started to speak several times, then merely shook his head.
“There are ethics in these things, turtledove, and you’ve just countered every one of them, to send a thing like that out into the world. You didn’t know, mind—I blame myself, and I’ll take whatever blame anyone else cares to lay on me—but it was an ill-done thing all the same. There are dangers, too, because Baruma has a blasted sight more power than you, and if he decides to follow the wolf back to its owner, well, he’ll find us, good and proper.”
At that Jill went cold all over. “Ethics” was a new and strange word to her, but danger she could understand. All at once Rhodry laughed, and for that moment he looked his old self, the berserker grin slashed into his face.
“Let him,” Rhodry said. “Let him track us down—if he dares. When Baruma was about to sell me off, I swore him a vow, that someday I’d slit his throat for him. Here, Jill, can you forgive me? The bastard’s got my silver dagger. He took it from me, and there was naught I could do about it.”
“Forgive you? There’s naught to forgive, but it aches my heart. Do you remember the man who gave it to you? Cullyn of Cerrmor? My father?”
“I don’t, or wait—I think I do remember his face, and that I respected him more than any man I’d ever met. By the Lord of Hell’s balls! Then I want that dagger back more than ever.” His voice was so quiet that he might have been discussing the loan of a couple of coppers, but the smile was etched even deeper into his face. “I want it badly, I do, so let him come after us if he wants. I’ll be waiting for him.”
When Jill laughed with a crow of vengeance, Salamander looked back and forth between them, his eyes filled with misgiving and a touch of fear.
“You two make a fine pair, truly,” the gerthddyn said at last. “And I certainly wouldn’t wish either of you on some other hapless soul. The