The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [204]
Laz swore under his breath in a mix of several languages.
“I agree,” Dalla said. “How like Evandar! He never could do anything simply. I wonder what sort of lock he’s put on this? An elaborate one, most like.”
“Oh.” Laz leaned back in his chair. “You mean there’s some sort of meaning under all of that.”
“So I hope, anyway.” Ye gods, Dalla thought, if poor Faharn died for no reason! “I’ll have to work with this. I just hope it doesn’t take me days and days.” She stood and picked up the book. “I’ll let Branna have a look at it, too. She seems to have a good mind for symbols. The key might well be hidden in this welter of runes, for all I know.”
“Very well. If you could tell me eventually what it says, I’d be quite grateful.”
“Of course. Tonight I’m truly weary from traveling the roads and all, or I’d try to open the lock right now.”
She hurried to the staircase before he could ask any questions. At the top of the stairs, she glanced back to see Laz still sitting at the table, staring at the place where the book had once lain.
Branna could make no more out of the writing in the dragon book than Dallandra had. Dalla sprawled in a cushioned chair and watched as Branna examined each page by dweomer light. Finally, she looked up and shut the book with a snap.
“I can’t make any sense out of this,” Branna said. “Maybe Val can. My Elvish still isn’t very good.”
“That’s true,” Dallandra said. “I keep hoping there’s some sort of cipher hidden among the runes, but, of course, it would be in Elvish. If there is one! Maybe Val’s right about Evandar and his wretched riddles.”
“Well, he really did make things difficult, I must say.” Branna frowned at the book in her hands. “Omens tucked here and there, and dragon rings. And that scroll, the one in the strange language.”
“It was very strange, indeed. The ritual we worked with it did have some effect on the island, I think. I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
“And then there’s the crystal, the black one, I mean, with the visions in it. And—”
“Wait!” Dallandra leaned forward. “The black crystal held a vision of the book and Haen Marn. Salamander saw it there. He must have mentioned it to you.”
“He did, one day when he was helping me with one of the lore lessons.”
“Good. We’ve all been assuming that the point of the vision was to tell us that the book was on Haen Marn. But what if the crystal itself is part of the vision’s meaning?”
Branna blinked at her, then suddenly grinned. “What if the crystal holds the key to the book, you mean?”
“Just that!”
“I hope we don’t need both of them. Salamander told me that Laz lost the white one.”
Dallandra’s excitement disappeared as fast as it had arrived. “Oh, by the Black Sun!” she said. “Let’s hope we don’t, indeed! I also hope that Val hasn’t smashed the black one. She wanted to at one time.”
“Can you contact her from here?”
“Let’s hope so! If I have to go across to the mainland, it’ll mean waiting till morning, which will drive me daft.”
Dallandra got up and walked over to the window. Outside, the stars glimmered high above in the moonless night. She leaned a little way out of the window and used the Snowy Road as her focus, then let her mind reach out to Valandario. Although Haen Marn’s astral forces turned the vision fuzzy and small, eventually she saw Val sitting in her tent and studying her array of scrying gems.
“Dalla?” Valandario looked up suddenly. “I can barely see you.”
“Yes, it’s because I’m on Haen Marn.” Dallandra thought to her in Elvish. “Do you still have that wretched black crystal?”
“The spirit stone, you mean? Yes, I do. I was going to smash it, but somehow I just couldn’t. I kept thinking that it still had secrets inside it.”
“It does, and thank every god that you still have it! When you come here, bring it, will you? It might be the key to one of Evandar’s wretched riddles.”
“Very well, I won’t let anything happen to it. Wretched riddles, are they? I’m glad you can see—”
Dallandra broke the link. She was in no mood for one of Val’s little lectures, even though she had to admit that on this occasion