The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [219]
“Yes, but Avain will come back. Avain loves Mam and Mara and Wynni.”
“Very well, then. Learning to fly is dangerous. You could fall from the sky and die.”
Avain considered this for a long moment. Berwynna wondered if she understood what death meant.
“If you die,” Wynni said, “it will be like sleep, but you’ll never wake up. You’ll be gone. It will be dark, but you won’t see the dark. You’ll see naught.”
Avain frowned down at the floor while she thought this through. Her lips moved as she repeated to herself the things Berwynna had said.
“Avain is frightened,” Avain said at last. “But Avain will try to fly. Avain truly wants to fly, Mam.”
“Very well, then. Tonight, the black dragon will help you grow wings.”
Avain threw both arms in the air and began to dance, a clumsy jigging of her body, an awkward thrust of her massive hips to one side and then the other. She doesn’t belong on the ground, Berwynna thought.
“I’ll go tell the others.” Berwynna stood up from the table. “If you’re sure, Mam?”
“Oh, yes.” Angmar was fighting back tears. “But I’ll have you know that it’s for her sake, not my own, even though I long to have Rori back above anything in the world.”
“I never thought otherwise, Mam,” Berwynna said.
“No more did I,” Mara said. “I think me this is the moment when the dweomer gives back some of that fee you paid it, Mam. I truly do.”
Close to sunset, Branna, Dallandra, Grallezar, and Valandario went down to the pier. Arzosah carried Avain across on her back, but Lon and his crew of boatmen rowed the women across. Rori waited for them at the verge of the pine forest. The boatmen backed water and turned the boat into the shallows to let the women splash ashore. Branna carried a sack of cloaks as well as the implement she’d use for the ritual. Once she’d gotten the sack safe and dry onto the land, Branna turned back to watch the dragon boat gliding away. Mist rose from the water, just a few curls and tendrils as the evening breeze blew cool after the heat of the day.
Dallandra used her consecrated sword to cut a circle, some thirty yards in diameter, in the grass near the forest verge.
“We’d better mark out the circle now,” Dalla said, “while there’s still a little light.”
Valandario had brought several sacks of ashes from Haen Marn’s hearths. She began to walk the circle, trickling ashes between her fingers as she went. When she’d marked out about two-thirds of the figure, she paused.
“Rori,” she called out. “Come take your place.”
The silver dragon got up and shook himself, spreading his wings as if he would fly away, then folding them tightly against his back and sides. Head held high, he walked over to Valandario, ducked his head as if bowing to her, and walked into the ritual space, all without saying a word.
Dallandra placed Rori in the northwest quarter, facing the center, and Arzosah, facing him, in the southeast. The dragons lay with legs tucked under and tails wrapped around them, a posture that left just enough space for Avain to sit between them. The lass was so excited that she could barely sit still until Arzosah chanted a tuneless sort of lullaby under her breath. Branna found it irritating, but Avain smiled and grew calm, a mood that lasted even after the chant stopped.
Valandario took her second sack of ashes and finished the circle. She put the sack down, wiped her hands on her leather leggings, and picked up her sword. Grallezar had already taken up her ritual falcata. Branna, as a mere apprentice, held only a wooden staff.
“They are enclosed,” Val called out. “It’s time to begin.”
The dweomerworkers lined up behind Dallandra, then walked around the outside of the circle deosil. They made one full circum ambulation, then began another. As they reached each directional point, the woman whose station it was stopped there. Once everyone was in place, Dallandra nodded Branna’s way as a signal to begin.
“I stand in the north,” Branna said, “the station of Earth and darkness.”
“I stand in the south,” Grallezar said, “the station of Fire and light.”