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By Root 906 0

yet he knew that somehow someone watched him from a great distance away, perhaps from the astral, perhaps even from the fabled Halls of Light, where the Great Ones gave their judgments. If it were true that he’d taken the path of the dark dweomer, if he’d defiled the lore he loved so much with crimes such as those, he had restitution to make, wyrd to endure. He began trembling so hard that he fell forward onto the mattress. For a long while that night he lay rolled in a blanket like a child, trying to hide from the terrors of the darkness, until at last he escaped into sleep.

“I just can’t reach Laz’s mind,” Dallandra remarked. “I’ve been trying all evening. I can scry him out easily enough, but I can’t contact his thoughts. He seems to be somewhat ill. He’s shivering and rolling himself in a blanket.”

“Ken you where he be?” Niffa said.

“Inside some sort of house. I think it might be Haen Marn, because I can sense a water veil around it. I saw the dragon book propped up against a wall near his bed. I suppose that’s all I really need to know, that he’s safe and the book with him.”

They were sitting in the great room of Jahdo’s house in front of a small fire, lit to chase away the omnipresent damp of Cerr Cawnen. Dallandra had fed Hildie’s child, and his mother had taken him away to clean him and wrap him in swaddling bands for the night. As the two dweomermasters sat talking, Jahdo came in to join them. He sank into a cushioned chair with a long weary sigh.

“How does the temper of the town run?” Niffa said.

“Foul,” Jahdo said, then smiled. “Well, half of it be foul. I understand not our folk at times. Some fear to leave more than they fear to stay, even though we all do know what evils the Horsekin will bring with them.”

“Do they think your walls will fend them off forever?” Dallandra said.

“Not forever, only to the winter, when, or so they do hope, the snows will freeze the Horsekin where they sit. It be true that winter around our town be a fierce thing. Were it not for our lake’s warmth, none could live here, I think me.”

“True,” Niffa put in, “but the Horsekin, they live in the cruel north, too. They do ken how to outlast the snows.”

“So I did say to the doubters,” Jahdo said. “The true problem, I do believe, be a fear of what might wait for us in the Southlands, so close to the Slavers’ Country. Some do think that we shall be slaves there again, and it does seem preferable to be enslaved by the evil we know rather than some new one.”

“Surely they don’t think the Westfolk will enslave them?” Dallandra turned in her chair to look straight at Jahdo.

“None who remember Prince Dar do have such thoughts, but the young men, well, they know not what to think. They do have a hope that we might offer to join with the Horsekin to take the Summer Country back from the Slavers. I did try to impress upon them that the Horsekin, they want not an alliance this time, but a conquest.” Jahdo shrugged both shoulders. “What will the Horsekin want with our hundreds of ill-armed warriors, when they do command their own polished thousands?”

The fire was burning low. Niffa got up and took a stick of wood from the basket by the hearth, then placed it carefully among the coals to avoid the salamanders playing among them.

“Brother?” Niffa said. “Did the council send messengers to Penli?”

“We did. On the morrow, most like, will we get a reply.”

The reply arrived on the following afternoon in the form of the entire village of Penli. Some twenty families showed up at the south gates driving their milk cows, sheep, and hogs, with their dogs trailing after and some cats as well, perched on the loaded wagons and handcarts, and ferrets in cages. The town militia led them around the lake to a spot on the grassy commons where they could pitch tents, feed their livestock, and settle their crying children. Jahdo brought Cleddrik to the council chambers by the plaza, where Dallandra met them.

At the sight of her, Cleddrik took a step back. His eyes grew wide, but he stammered out a pleasant enough greeting after Jahdo’s introduction. Dallandra