The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [148]
“Do you want it?” Pol laid his empty bowl down. “I’d be honored to give it you out of sheer gratitude. If nothing else, you rescued me from that wretched hut. I was terrified that the prince’s men were going to set fire to the compound, and I’d be roasted alive in it.”
“I saw the door moving as if someone were banging on it,” Laz said, “so I thought I’d best go see. Are you sure you can part with the book?”
“Of course.” For the first time all day Pol smiled. “I don’t need it now.” His soft boy’s voice quivered with joy. “I’ll be returning to my people.”
“I’ll ensure that you do.” Laz rose to his feet. “Let me just see if I can have a word with the prince.”
Laz found Voran sitting on a folding stool in front of his tent. Brel Avro sat nearby, and the dwarven warleader looked as pleased with himself as a cat with a stolen fish cake. When Laz knelt before the prince, Voran gave him permission to speak.
“Your Highness,” Laz said, “today my apprentice and I rescued a man who’d been enslaved by the Horsekin. He has Westfolk blood in his veins, and he fain would return west to his people.”
“The fat fellow?” Voran said. “I take it that the Horsekin unmanned him.”
“I fear me they did. I was wondering if Your Highness might grant me a boon, that you’d take the poor man under your protection and see that he gets home.”
“Easily done. We have extra horses, thanks to the Boars. But here, won’t you be returning to Cerrgonney with the army?”
“I fear not, Your Highness.” Laz suddenly realized that he needed a good lie to explain why he’d been leaving the prince’s service in the middle of nowhere.
“I offered him a position with us.” Brel Avro saved him. “We need to learn the Horsekin language. He and his apprentice know it.”
“So they do.” Voran swung round and scowled at the warleader. “Which is why I gave the man a position with me.”
“Your Highness, forgive me,” Laz broke in. “But what with my maiming, and the ill-will your people bear the Horsekin, my apprentice and I live in fear when we’re in your territories. My scars make me an object of scorn, and poor Faharn—your folk shun or threaten him.”
“Oh.” Voran considered this for a moment. “Well, truly, I can understand that. Very well, then. I’ll have my captain make provision for the rescued eunuch. We’ll get him back west, one way or the other.”
“You are most generous, Your Highness, and my thanks.”
That night, while Pol and Faharn slept, Laz sat up by the glowing coals of the campfire and gloated over the dragon book. He’d done Dallandra the enormous favor she’d asked of him. Now he needed to see what profit he could gain from it. Yet, when he considered the silver wyrm, who hated him from lives past, and the dragon’s possible rage should Laz try to withhold the book, he decided that it would be best to pass it along in the same way he’d received it—freely.
Late that night the white spirit appeared to Dallandra in her tent. In the dim glow from a dweomer light, hanging at the ceiling, her womanish form looked so substantial that both Calonderiel and Dari could see her, even though she’d created herself out of etheric substance. The baby gurgled and held out both chubby arms when the spirit bowed to Dallandra. Cal merely stared, his mouth slack in surprise.
“Greetings,” Dallandra said. “Do you have something to tell me?”
“Yes,” the spirit said. “The dragon book now belongs to the man with the burned hands.”
“Excellent! What about the man with the beast on his face?”
“He is safe. He’ll return to you here on the grass. The prince of the Children of Aethyr has promised him aid.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Laz—the man with the burned hands—is supposed to take the book to Haen Marn.”
“So he intends. I heard him speak to the commander of the Children of Earth. He will travel with them.”
“Well and good, then. You have my heartfelt thanks for coming to tell me all of this.”
The spirit smiled and nodded in an oddly human way, then disappeared. Dallandra handed Calonderiel his daughter to hold.
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