The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [132]
As the boat came nearer, he could discern two women standing in the bow. One he recognized as Avain, grown tall and hugely stout, her hair puffed out from her beefy face like a dragon’s frill. The other was Angmar, slender and frail, her hair half-silver now, but Angmar nonetheless. The way his heart seemed to turn over in his chest told him what his decision was bound to be.
“I wish she’d not see me like this,” Rori said.
“Why not?” Kov said. “She’s known the truth for some months now, or so Mic told me. She lives in the midst of marvels, Rori. I think me she’ll understand.”
“Perhaps so. But I feel shamed nonetheless.”
The boat came as close to shore as it dared. Avain jumped down into the rocky shallows and caught her mother as easily as a woman might catch a little child. As they splashed ashore, Lon called out orders. The dragon boat backed water, holding its place. Avain set her mother down on the shore, then rushed over to Rori. Her green, strangely lashless eyes were huge with excitement.
“A dragon,” she said. “You be a dragon!”
“I am at that,” Rori said.
She clapped her hands and did a little jigging dance in front of him. He could see a bare faint shadow or mist in the sunlight, a dragon form hovering around her, but he had no idea what might have produced or caused it. Kov had arranged a polite if frozen smile as he watched Avain.
Angmar walked up slowly and laid a hand on her daughter’s hip.
“Avain?” Angmar said. “You go back now. You did promise Mama.”
“Avain go back. Avain be a good girl. Avain did see the dragon.”
Angmar turned to Kov, who bowed to her.
“Will you take the hospitality of the island?” Angmar said softly. “I be eager to speak to my lord alone.”
“Gladly, my lady,” Kov said. “I’d rather not intrude.”
Kov waded out and threw his bundle up to Lon, then boarded, clambering over the side. Avain took a step away from her mother, looked back, still grinning in delight, then hurried to the shore and splashed back out to the dragon boat. She climbed aboard with Lon and Kov’s help. At a few crisp orders from Lon, the boat turned and glided away, leaving Rori and Angmar alone, facing each other.
With a sigh, Rori settled onto his stomach, tucked his front legs into his chest, and lowered his head so they could see each other at her level. Gray mottled her pale hair, yet he could see her familiar strength when she smiled at him. Her beauty had always lain in her strength, her ability to endure and still smile.
“Well, your eyes, they be the same,” Angmar said. “Larger, but human enough.”
“They are, truly. My love, forgive me.”
“Be this your own doing?”
“It wasn’t, but I did naught to turn it aside.”
She laid one hand on his jaw and stroked it. Her touch felt cool, comfortable in such a familiar way that he remembered her stroking his human face with the same gesture. Without hands, he could do nothing to caress her in return. A touch from his massive paw would likely have knocked her to the ground.
“I did return before,” he said. “Once I’d captured the dragon I was sent to find, I returned, but the island was gone.”
“Enj did tell me so. Rori, I do blame you for naught.”
His eyes filled with tears. He shook his head to scatter them. “My thanks,” he managed to say. “A thousand thanks.”
“Enj did tell me that the elven folk be trying to take the dweomer off you.”
“They are, and truly, I think me they can succeed. It’s not without its dangers, but if they do, then I’ll return to Haen Marn for good this autumn, at the waning of the war.”
Her smile broke through the mist of age. At that moment he could only think of her as young and beautiful, as lovely in her way as his daughter was in hers.
“I’ll be an old man, no doubt,” he said.
“And am I not an old woman? If we do get a few years of peace together, then I shall be content.”
“So shall I.” He repeated the words, marveling at them. “So shall I.”
At the pier, the dragon