The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [46]
And what of Angmar? Rori asked himself. He’d longed for her return himself, once, a very long time ago now, it seemed to him when he thought about it. He could remember her so clearly, and remember his grief at losing her, but the grief had lost its sting. Missing Angmar, flying north each spring to see if Haen Marn had returned, stopping to speak with Enj—he’d performed these actions faithfully each year for over forty years now, until they’d taken on a distant quality, like a ritual performed by a priest while he merely watched.
Yet, for Enj the grief still lived. For the sake of his friend, Rori flew north on Valandario’s errand. He’d bring the horn back, he decided, then return to his scouting. As for the other matter, he would wait and see if it were even possible to walk the earth as a man instead flying so far above it. If it turned out to be possible, he’d make his decision then.
The river that flows through Lin Serr’s parkland seems to emerge like dweomer from under the dwarven city, but in truth, it runs above ground for most of its course. At the time of which we speak, few people knew its secret, but Enj was one of them. About twenty miles north of Lin Serr, an ordinary-looking river flowed into a canyon gouged from the limestone of an ancient sea floor, only to disappear under the cliff blocking the canyon’s southern end. It ran through caverns until it reached the city, and from there at last regained the sunlight.
Every spring, Enj left Lin Serr and hiked to that canyon, then followed the river north. It led after many windings to the general area in which Haen Marn had existed during its sojourn on the Roof of the World. At times Haen Marn’s own river had joined up with it, though at other times, it hadn’t. No one knew why or how the changes occurred; they followed, like everything about Haen Marn, some unknowable fluctuation within the inner planes of the universe.
Over the past forty years Enj had built himself a cabin in a mountain meadow near the previous location of his old home. Every spring he returned there, planted a vegetable garden, and spent the summer waiting just in case the island decided to return. As Rori had guessed, Enj did have the remains of the horn that had summoned the dragon boat from the island. Occasionally he would sit on the front steps of his cabin, hold the crushed lump of silver, green with tarnish, and weep over it while he wondered if he’d ever see the island again. At times he felt profoundly foolish for doing so, but the ritual gave him a certain amount of satisfaction, rather like biting on a sore tooth.
Enj had just finished one of these sessions and was putting the horn back into its leather storage pouch when he heard the thunder of approaching wings. He hung the pouch from a nail on the cabin wall, then strolled outside as the silver dragon landed. Rori waddled over to greet him.
“I did wonder when you’d be turning up,” Enj spoke the Mountain dialect of Deverrian. “The weather be about right for dragons.”
“It’s spring, truly,” Rori said. “Did you fare well over the winter?”
“Well enough. Lin Serr does weigh upon me after but a month or so, all that stone and short views.” Enj glanced around the broad meadow, dusted with the first pale green grass, ringed with distant pine forest. To the north, beyond the trees mountains rose, glittering with snow at the peaks. “This does suit me far better.”
“Me, too.” The dragon folded his enormous wings with a long rustle like collapsing canvas tents. “I’ve brought you some news. Two Westfolk dweomerworkers have taken up the task of bringing Haen Marn back.”
Enj tried to speak, couldn’t, felt tears gathering in his eyes. Irritably, he brushed them away with the back of his hand. “That does gladden my heart,” he said at last. “Think you that they’ll succeed?”
“If anyone can, they will.”
“If anyone can.”
Rori shrugged with a ripple of massive muscles. “If not, then we’ll have to go on hoping that the island makes its own way back.”
“True