The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [5]
Valandario quirked an eyebrow. Dallandra kept silent.
“What about the archives in the Southern Isles?” Val went on. “Could it be a copy of something there?”
“I had hopes that way, but no.” Dallandra said. “Meranaldar was a librarian there, you know, and he knew every single volume that survived the Great Burning. Before he left last autumn, I asked him about the book that Ebañy saw in the crystal. He didn’t recognize it, and yes, he remembered all the covers of the books, too.”
“He would.” Valandario grinned at her. “But boring or not, he was a useful sort of man to know. You were already wondering, last summer, if the book contained dragon lore, too.”
“So I was. He told me that the only dragon lore they had was the occasional comment or passage in books about other things.”
“Didn’t you say that Jill had books from the Southern Isles?”
“Yes, and when she died, Evandar reclaimed them. Meranaldar told me that he brought them back to the archive. I’ve got her other books, and the only dragon lore in them is what she wrote in the margins.”
“So much for that, then. Now, what about Laz’s book, his copy of the Pseudo-Iamblichos Scroll? It has such a similar cover. Sidro told me that he bought it already bound but with blank pages up at Taenbalapan. Do you suppose the dragon book came from there, too?”
“A very good point.” Dallandra rose and began to pace back and forth in the tent. “I wonder if Evandar saw the other one there and acquired it somehow.”
“Stole it, you mean.” Valandario got up and joined her.
Dallandra swirled around to face her and set her hands on her hips. Val’s expression revealed only a studied neutrality. She’s right, Dallandra thought. He really was an awful thief. She wasn’t quite ready to admit it aloud.
“Anyway, to return to the book.” Val’s expression changed to narrow-eyed disgust. “I suppose we’d better talk with Laz Moj about it.”
“You suppose? Val, you look like you just bit into turned meat.”
“He’s someone else I have to forgive.” Valandario forced out a brittle little smile. “After Jav’s murder, Aderyn and Nevyn spent a long time trying to piece together what had happened. A very long time, truly. Things didn’t fall into place till after the war where Loddlaen died.”
I was still gone then, Dallandra thought. The guilt bit deep. If she’d not gone off with Evandar, how different things might have been!
“It wasn’t till then,” Val continued, “that they realized Alastyr lay behind the murder and the war both.”
“Rori told me that Laz was once Alastyr.”
“Exactly, and I actually saw him when he was only a lad, a nasty little bit of work named Tirro. He grew up to be a merchant, and it was his ship that carried—” She paused briefly. “—the crystal away, which is why no one could scry for it. They would have been out on the open sea by the time I tried to find them.”
She means the crystal and Loddlaen, Dallandra thought. Aloud, she said, “I’ll go speak with Laz, but there’s no reason you need to come along.”
“Thank you. I was hoping you’d say that.” She hesitated again then glanced away as if she’d decided not to say some painful thing.
“What is it, Val? You might as well say it.”
“Why couldn’t Evandar have just told you about the book on Haen Marn?” Val’s words floated on a bitter tide. “Why all this secrecy and glittering crystals and the like? If that wretched crystal hadn’t existed, Loddlaen wouldn’t have coveted it. Yes, I know that sounds stupid, but he wanted it enough to kill for it. Why all the—” She stopped, breathing hard. “My apologies.”
Dallandra could think of a dozen reasons why, but faced with Val’s undying grief, she found them shallow, stupid, pointless—rationalizations, not reasons. She sighed and said the simple truth, “I don’t know why, Val. I truly don’t.”
“Oh.” Val paused for a long cold moment. “Yes, I suppose you don’t.” She got up and left the tent.
Dallandra followed her, but she left Val her privacy, and instead went looking for Grallezar. The royal alar spread