The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [105]
“My people?” Penna’s eyes grew wide. “What do you know of my people? I know naught, you see. We did leave when I were so small, and my mam, she would tell me naught, no matter how much I begged to know.”
“Well, they do live in villages by the river and grow crops there. I think me they also be great fisherfolk.”
“Why?”
Wynni picked her words carefully before she spoke. “Well, I think me they do swim in the river and catch their fish on the fin, as it were. Like you the water?”
“I do not!” Penna stamped one foot. “My mam, she did always tell me, shun you the water. ’Twill carry you away, she did say.”
“Did she warn your brother, too?”
“She didn’t.” Penna frowned, considering. “She did let Taurro swim in the river with the other lads. I did ask her once why he might swim but not me, and she just said that I be different. When I did ask her how, she looked ever so frightened. I mustn’t ever ask her that again, she did say, and she did give me a good slap to help me remember her saying. So I didn’t.”
Berwynna hesitated, wondering if she should tell Penna the truth. The lass cocked her head to one side.
“You know why, don’t you?” Penna said. “Do tell me, please.”
“Be you sure you want the knowing? Naught will be the same for you if I do tell you.”
Penna hesitated. As Berwynna waited, she wished that she could run to Angmar or Dallandra for advice.
“I do,” Penna said at last. “Please, do tell me what you know.”
“Far to the north of here there be a people who do look much like you and your brother. They do have your hair, your brows, and the like. I think me you were born among them, and your mam, she did flee them for some reason with the pair of you. They be otter folk, truly, shapechangers. Know you what a shapechanger be?”
“I did hear old tales and suchlike.” Penna’s voice barely rose above a whisper. “Be they true?”
“They be so. I think me that if you were to swim in running water, a change would come over you. Why else would your mam worry so?”
Penna’s face blanched. Without another word she turned and ran from the chamber. Wynni followed more slowly, cursing her own bluntness. She could only hope she’d not terrified the poor lass into avoiding her ever after. That very afternoon, however, Penna sought her out.
“I be done with my work for the nonce,” Penna said. “Please, Lady Berwynna, would it please you to come with me to the meadow? There be a stream there. There be a need on me to know if you did speak true about my kin.”
“Well and good, then,” Berwynna said. “It be a nice warm day.”
No one noticed them when they left the dun and hurried down the hill to the meadow. Near the stream a wide circle had been beaten down in the grass, the place where the silver wyrm had laired during his brief stay. At the stream bank, Penna stripped off her overdress readily enough, then paused, her eyes wide with terror.
“Only do this if you be sure you do want to,” Wynni said. “Truly, I never meant to trouble your heart so deeply.”
“It be not you,” Penna said. “I be grateful that you did tell me what you know.” She took a deep breath, then bent down to grab the hem of her underdress and pulled it up.
Wynni helped her get the dress over her head. Wearing only a loin wrap around her skinny hips, Penna took a step off the bank and into the stream. She gasped aloud, then flung herself into the water with a cry of near-sexual delight. She rolled over and over, and as she moved, a glittering blue light sprang from her body and wrapped her round, so bright that Wynni could barely look upon it.
The light receded, then vanished. A skinny half-grown otter, just Penna’s size, wallowed in the water with little yips of joy. Wynni could just barely understand her words. “Good, good.”
The stream ran too shallow for diving or even proper swimming. After a few more splashes and rolls, the Dwrgi lass clambered out of the water and began to shake the drops from her fur. As she shook, she danced in a circle. In a flash of blue light, the otter disappeared.
Penna stood shivering on the bank with water dripping from her human hair and