The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [138]
Although still human in shape, she was far too slender to be an ordinary woman, and her skin, if one could call that tenuous membrane skin, was dead-white. Her hair, eyes, and lips shared the same shade of woad-blue, as did the suggestion of a tattered dress that she wore, but they glowed in a way that dyed cloth could never match. When she opened her mouth to speak, she revealed needle-sharp teeth.
“Jill.” Her voice sounded with the hoarse rasp of ocean waves. It was one voice, yet echoed with many voices. “You saved me long years past, and now I’ve come to repay. Your little one brought me here because I have speech.”
The gnome jumped up and clapped its hands. Branna tried to speak but could manage only a soft sigh. Neb caught his breath with a gasp and laid a hand on her arm.
“Don’t you know me, Master of the Aethyr?” the spirit said to him.
The figure still half-seen inside the pillar pulsed with light and seemed to speak—perhaps it was a he. Branna sensed his speaking rather than heard him. The white spirit, however, nodded as if she understood.
“You don’t remember,” she said to Branna, then glanced at Neb. “Nor do you.”
“Remember what?” Neb said.
“Who you are.” The spirit raised her illusion of hands and pointed at each of them. “Remember who you are and who you were once.” She turned to Branna. “There are no ghosts, only memories, in your dreams.”
“You’re saying that my dreams are true?” Branna whispered.
The spirit smiled, but her form was turning translucent. Her hair, her hands frayed into strands of silver light. “Remember!” she repeated. “You died at the ford. Don’t you remember?”
The light in the pillar began to swirl, and the male form within swirled with it. The white spirit was nearly transparent, and her hands and hair were indistinguishable from the light. With a last smile she stepped back into the pillar and became only a drifting form seen through a glowing haze.
“Jill.” Her last words seemed to ring through the chamber. “Remember.”
The silver light was fading, the pillar shrinking. It seemed to turn inside itself; suddenly it disappeared, leaving the chamber wreathed in a faint glow. The Wildfolk swarmed into the middle of the room, then flew this way and that, soaring up high, dropping down, dashing this way and that, only to disappear themselves, winking out like the last coals of a fire. The gray gnome turned to Branna, bowed like a tiny lord, and vanished, taking the last of the silver light with him.
Neb rolled off the bed and, still naked, strode over to the chest in the curve of the wall. He picked up a candle lantern and lit it with a snap of his fingers. As the golden light brightened, Branna could see him grinning like a madman.
“That priest of Bel,” he said, “the one I spoke with this afternoon—he said that the witch woman had a bond-woman’s name. Jill certainly would fit that.”
“It would, truly.” Branna still found it hard to speak. “The name just means ‘lass,’ doesn’t it?”
“Somewhat like that, I think.”
Neb set the lantern down on the windowsill, then came back to the bed. He picked up his brigga from the floor and put them on.
“I still don’t understand,” Branna said. “How could I have died at the ford all those years ago and still be alive now?”
“It should be obvious.” Neb was peering at the floor. Abruptly he stooped and came back up with his shirt. “There’s only one thing it can mean.”
“What? Don’t tease me!”
“I’m not.” He paused to pull the shirt over his head. “Remember what we discussed at the ford, all those old tales about how dweomerfolk can come back to life as birds and suchlike? Well, they must be able to come back as people, too, born in the usual way and all that.”
“You’re saying that I’ve lived another life before this one.”
“Not precisely.