The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [140]
Once she’d eaten, Valandario went to talk with Dallandra further. The ritual had left her tired enough for sleep, but though the sun still hung low over the eastern horizon, the camp had come alive. Children and dogs raced around, yelling and barking. Some of the adults were standing between their tents, talking and laughing. Even though Valandario’s tent stood on the edge of the camp, the noise penetrated the heavy leather walls.
Dallandra’s tent was just as noisy. Val found her fellow dweomerworker nursing the baby, while Sidro sat nearby, ready to take Dari when she was done. Val sat down on a cushion and stifled a yawn. The baby pulled away from the breast just long enough to glance Val’s way, then returned to her meal. She’s not Loddlaen, Valandario reminded herself. She’s someone new now. Dallandra yawned with a shake of her head.
“I’m tired, too,” Dalla said. “But Dari isn’t.”
“Most like she’ll sleep soon enough,” Sidro said.
Valandario suddenly realized that she’d not included her apprentice in the ritual. “I need to apologize to you,” she told Sidro. “I should have asked you to come along this morning.”
“No need for apologies,” Sidro said, smiling. “I do think me that my studies, they must soon take less of my day. I be pregnant again.”
“Well! Congratulations!” Valandario hoped she sounded sincere. “That’s lovely.”
“Not that I wish to leave the dweomer behind,” Sidro said. “But until the little one be born, my mind, it will be clouded. Bearing children does take my folk that way.”
Once Dari had finished nursing, and Sidro had taken her out of the stuffy tent into the fresh air, Valandario asked Dallandra the question that was nagging at her. “Why did you warn those spirits against Laz?”
“It’s not because of Laz as he is now,” Dallandra said. “It’s because of who he was. Not in his last life, but the one before that. Alastyr treated spirits like so many slaves. I’m as sure as I can be that he’s the one who bound that gold spirit into the black crystal.”
“I see. That would explain why the golden spirit reacted at the mention of the man with the burned hands.” Val considered this briefly. “He treated his apprentices the same way, from what I”ve heard from Ebañy.”
“Yes, I’d agree with that. That’s the way of the dark masters. They break someone down and then put them back together again on their own particular warped pattern.”
Val paused, caught by her memories of Jav, lying dead in their tent. Was Loddlaen truly to blame? Her own question startled her. In all the long years since the murder, she’d never considered the possibility that Alastyr might have been the true killer. He’d broken Loddlaen’s will with evil magics, then used him as a weapon. Would I blame the knife?
“Val?” Dallandra spoke in a hesitant whisper. “Are you thinking about—”
“Of course I am.” Val got up from her cushion. “But you know, I think Loddlaen was bound every bit as tightly and wrongly as that spirit.” She walked to the door of the tent. “Don’t blame yourself any longer, Dalla, not for my sake. I can forgive Loddlaen. As for Laz—well, I’ll have to think this all through before I see him again.”
Valandario ducked under the tent flap and walked out into sunlight. During their conversation the sun had risen and chased the shadows away.
For some days Prince Voran’s army, with Laz and Faharn trailing after with the other servants, had been struggling through the broken tablelands. When they finally crested the last ridge, they saw spread out before them the rocky plateau, the heart of the Northlands. Stumps from fresh-cut trees stubbled the gentle fall of the last hill down to the plain. Someone had been cutting timber, but the only structures Laz could see were a cluster of farm buildings, a mile or so away, encircled by a gray line that most likely signified a stone wall. The faint green blush of new grain covered the fields surrounding them. Far off, nearly out of sight, a tuft of smoke rose, perhaps from the fireplace of yet another farmhouse. The late afternoon sun gilded the scene with