The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [147]
Nevyn felt a touch of the ghast-cold himself.
“How long ago was this?” he snapped.
“Not very. I came straight down and found Clodda and the lasses, and so I was just telling them.”
“Where’s your lady, Clodda?”
“Up in her chambers, my lord. That’s why Pavva was bringing her the water.”
Nevyn swore like a rider and took off running, leaving the lasses staring after him.
Since Nevyn’s cure proved temporary, a mere trick as indeed he’d warned her, Lilli had felt exhausted again by the middle of the afternoon. She’d asked Pavva to bring her a pitcher of water, then gone to her chamber to sleep. She barely noticed when the girl came in, and by the time Pavva shut the door behind her, Lilli had dozed off—only to wake with a start some moments later.
“I didn’t bar the door.” Yawning, she got out of bed.
Between her and the window her mother appeared, materializing like a fall of dust in a beam of sunlight. All at once Lilli remembered everything: the dream, her mother’s ghost, her mother’s revenge. Her heart started pounding.
“You’ve come to kill me, haven’t you?” Lilli began to back away and circled toward the door as she moved. “You want to take me with you to the Otherlands.”
The glimmering bluish-white image smiled and began to move its lips as if it spoke, but once again Lilli could hear nothing. When the apparition moved forward, Lilli stepped back, but Merodda followed, gliding a foot or so above the ground. Her lips framed the words “my daughter, my daughter” over and over. Slowly she reached out one hand and one long pale finger, ready to pierce Lilli’s aura and drain her very soul.
With a scream Lilli bolted and ran, banging out of the chamber door and into the corridor. Down at the far end a man was running straight toward her like Burcan in her dream. She screamed again, then clasped both hands over her mouth to shield her lips.
“It’s just me!” Nevyn stopped running and strode up to her. “I saw Pavva out in the ward and got here in time, and thank the gods for that!”
Lilli was shaking too hard to object when Nevyn took her arm and guided her back into the chamber. The apparition had fled. Nevyn shut the door behind them.
“Now,” he said, “tell me what you saw.”
“My mother’s spirit. She was standing at the end of the bed and looking at me. And I remember now, my lord. It was her, the other night. She came to me and touched me on the lips.”
“Well, that’s what I feared, all right. It seems your mother’s dweomer has true power.”
Lilli sank shaking onto her wooden chest. Nevyn glanced around the chamber, saw the pitcher and cup, and poured her water. She clasped the cool pottery cup in both hands and sipped like a child.
“Will she ever let me be?” Lilli whispered.
“Not here, not in Dun Deverry. I doubt me if she can appear anywhere else. Her dweomer’s real, but she was no master of the dark craft. It takes a lifetime of practice and study to travel as a haunt. Sooner or later, she’ll have to face her reckoning, but I’ll wager she clings to life—if you can call it life—for as long as she can.” Nevyn considered, frowning, for a long moment. “We’ll have to find somewhere safe for you to go. As long as you’re here, she’ll try to prey upon you, sucking your life to feed her spirit.”
Lilli laid cold fingers on her throat.
“I’m sorry,” Nevyn said gently. “I know these things are hard to comprehend.”
“It’s not that. I felt—I was sure she was trying to kill me. Not just do what you said, but kill me.”
“Then we’ve got to get you out of here straightaway.” Nevyn hesitated, thinking. “Although it’s just possible she could somehow follow you like a barnacle riding a ship, and I can’t go with you. The prince needs me here. Blast her! I’m honestly not sure what she can or cannot do. I’ve never heard of a haunt appearing in the middle of the day before.”
The weariness