The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [187]
“So?” Dallandra said. “Better beholden than dead.”
Cal laughed. “True,” he said. “You’re quite right.”
“You know,” Dallandra went on, “no doubt Dar could use your advice about handling our part of this siege. I have work to do in our tent. Ebañy, why don’t you come with me?”
“Now just wait,” Cal snapped. “What kind of work?”
“Dweomerwork. I wouldn’t need privacy for anything else.”
“Privacy, is it? With Ebañy right there?”
Dallandra merely stared at him for a long puzzled moment. Salamander, however, felt like running and hiding somewhere, anywhere, from the cold, suspicious look that Cal was giving him.
“Please,” Salamander said feebly, “don’t tell me you’re jealous of me.”
“Of course not!” Cal snarled and crossed his arms over his chest. “I just want to know what she wants with you.”
“His dweomerlore, you idiot!” Dallandra laid a firm hand on Cal’s shoulder. “I have to scry, and he knows what to do if something goes wrong.”
“Oh.” Cal considered this for a moment. “I tend to forget that you’ve got dweomer, Ebañy. You play the prattling fool so well.” He turned on his heel and stalked off.
“I sincerely hope he gets over this fit, seizure, or spasm of unfortunate emotion,” Salamander said, “or my life is going to be difficult. Difficult? Not that alone! It might even be shorter than the gods intended.”
“He wouldn’t dare harm you. He knows that we need every bit of dweomer we have if we’re going to win these battles.”
“How nice to be useful! But I’m grateful, mind.” Salamander mugged relief and wiped his brow with an exaggerated wave of one hand. “On to the work ahead! I take it you want me to guard your body while you’re off scouting.”
“Just that. We’ve got to take a good look at that wretched temple.”
On the way to her tent, Dallandra saw Neb, hailed him, and brought him along. He would have the important duty of sitting directly outside of the tent door and keeping out anyone who might want to enter, including Calonderiel.
“I’ll gladly try,” Neb said, “but I fear me that Cal won’t listen to a word I say.”
“Then stand up and block the door,” Dallandra said. “If you need to, summon Wildfolk and threaten him. I love him dearly, but I cannot be disturbed. Tell him that if he comes charging in, he could break my concentration and kill me.”
“Is that true?” Neb sounded shocked.
“It is. Very true.”
“Then don’t worry.” Neb laid his hand on the hilt of his table dagger. “No one will get past me.”
“Good. Come on, Ebañy.”
Once inside, Dallandra made a ball of light, then flung it to the center of the roof of her tent, where it stuck, glowing silver. Shadows danced around the circling walls. Salamander knelt on the floor cloth and stared at the flickering play of light.
“I see Govvin,” he said after a moment. “Not much else, but I do see Govvin. He’s lying on a pallet of straw on the floor of what appears to be a tiny chamber. There’s a candle lantern burning on a table near the bed, if you’d call that miserable heap a bed. He’s lying so still that I’d say our priest was asleep, but his eyes are open.”
“He’s not dead, is he?”
“No. I can see his bony ribs rising and falling.”
“He might well be exhausted from this morning.”
“Or in trance?” Salamander turned to her.
“Maybe. Let’s find out.”
Dallandra lay down on her blankets, and Salamander moved over to kneel at her head. She crossed her arms over her chest, then slowed her breathing to a steady rhythm. First, she summoned the mental image of a silver flame. She visualized it so clearly that it seemed to be glowing in front of her rather than in her mind. Slowly, she enlarged the flame until it became the height of a tall woman, glowing above her, fed by her own life-energy, streaming from her solar plexus like a silver cord. At that point the image had become her body of light.
Dallandra transferred her consciousness over to the body of light. She imagined herself looking out from a silver hood, as if the flame were a cloak she wore. She heard a strange hissing sound, a click. It seemed that she floated within