The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [224]
“Summer’s almost gone,” Dallandra said. “Will you be going back to Mandra for the winter?”
“I don’t know,” Valandario said. “I’m too comfortable there.”
“What? There’s naught wrong with being warm and dry.”
“That’s not what I meant. Comfortable in my soul, with my gems and the books all around me. How long has it been since I truly worked dweomer?”
“When you evoked the spirit of Hanmara.”
“Oh, that was just a typical evocation. I wouldn’t call it a real accomplishment.”
“Well, your scrying system is certainly valuable.”
“I know, I know, but once Sidro gets it written up from her notes, anyone with the smallest dweomer gift will be able to use it. I mean real dweomer, something to stretch my mind and soul, something with risks, even.” Val paused to add another patty of dry horse dung to the campfire in front of them. “Ever since I approved Ebañy’s plan to go live in that tower, I’ve felt guilty. I was always badgering him to do more with his dweomer gifts, but I wasn’t using mine fully, either.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“But I would.” Val smiled at her. “I’ve been looking back over my life. When Jav died, I retreated from it, life that is. I’ve been living in a jewel-encrusted shell, Dalla. I’ve forgotten that I’m still young, and I’ve been a coward.”
“Here! I wouldn’t call you that.”
“Thank you, but I would. I can’t even make up my mind whether to destroy the black stone, can I?”
“Why should you, really?”
“It caused a murder, and Evandar meddled with it.”
“That’s true.” Dallandra hesitated then decided against saying anything. She badly wanted the crystal, she realized, wanted to cherish it as the last token of her love for Evandar. It’s Val’s, she reminded herself, not yours to have or destroy. She concentrated on watching the salamanders basking in the tiny flames. For their sake she added a few sticks to the fire.
“I’m going to ride out tomorrow,” Val said eventually. “I want to take the black crystal back to the place where Jav found it, the ruins of that tower. I have the feeling that I’ll know what to do with it once I’m there.”
“But the tower fell nearly two hundred years ago. There won’t be much left. You probably won’t even be able to find the place.”
“He said the broken stones were huge. The tide won’t have washed them away.”
“Ah, I see. Who’s going to go with you?”
“No one. I’m going alone.”
“What? That’s dangerous!”
“I don’t care.”
“Val! You can’t!”
“I’ve made up my mind.” Val rose from her seat. “I’m leaving on the morrow.”
When the morrow came, Dallandra continued arguing the point while Valandario loaded supplies onto her pack mule and saddled up her riding horse. Val merely smiled, refusing to answer. Eventually Dallandra ran out of words.
“If I get into trouble,” Val said, “I’ll call to you mind to mind. Besides, if you’re truly this worried, you can always scry me out.”
“That’s true,” Dallandra said. “Very well, I’ll hold my nagging tongue. The truth is, I keep wanting to beg you for the crystal. It’s the last thing of Evandar’s that I have.”
“I know you loved him, but it’s time to put his schemes to rest.”
“So it is.” Dallandra hesitated, then forced out a smile. “Take it and give it to the Lords of Aethyr then, should they want it. It’s time, indeed, for me to let Evandar go.”
Over the next few days, as she rode west, Valandario was aware now and then of the touch of Dallandra’s anxious mind, watching over her. At first Val found it annoying, but by the end of an eightnight, she began to welcome it. The grasslands stretched out empty to the north; to the south lay only the sea, muttering on its rocky beach. For company she had only the seabirds, wheeling and mewling over the green swells and the dark water that stretched to the southern horizon.
Although she’d brought a canvas shelter with her, most nights she left it tied in a bundle. She lay out in the grass near her tethered horse and mule and watched the wheel of stars while the sea murmured and sang nearby. On nights when the fog came in thickly over land and sea, she gathered