The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [80]
Laz tried to widen the vision, but much of the view around the fellow with the book stayed murky and dark. He got an impression rather than a clear view of stone walls, roughly circular, of battered tables and rush torches, a straw-strewn floor gleaming beneath the auras of a pack of large dogs. When he returned to the book, the vision began to break up. The slave was putting it back into its wrappings, and as it slid into its leather prison, Laz lost sight of everything. He looked at Faharn, who was watching him wide-eyed.
“Horseshit and large heaps of it!” Laz said. “I saw it, but I have no idea where it is. Here, I need to talk with Dallandra. Come with me, and they’ll feed you, most likely.”
Sure enough, when Laz and Faharn came to the edge of the Westfolk encampment, the men at the nearest fire hailed them like long-lost friends. They shoved a drinking horn of mead into Laz’s hand and a wooden skewer threaded with chunks of cooked lamb into Faharn’s. One of their number trotted off to fetch the Wise One.
“This bodes well,” Laz said in the Gel da’Thae tongue. “I don’t see Sidro anywhere nearby.”
Faharn, his mouth full of roast lamb, nodded and went on eating. Though the Westfolk offered Laz meat as well, he turned it down. He had no desire to smear himself with grease in front of Dallandra. He did allow himself a few small sips of the mead, though he had to clutch the horn in both hands to compensate for his dearth of fingers.
The Wise One herself appeared just as Faharn was starting on his second skewer of meat. As she approached, the men around the fire fell silent; two of them knelt; the rest took a step back. To Laz’s hungry eyes she looked particularly beautiful that night, her skin glowing in the flickering light of the tiny fire, her ash-blonde hair, freed of its usual braid, swirling around her shoulders in long silvery waves.
“It’s good to see you here, Laz,” Dallandra said. “You’re welcome to come to my fire.”
“Not where I might see Sidro,” Laz said. “But I have news. I finally got a glimpse of that wretched book.”
Dallandra gasped with a toss of her head. “Let’s go discuss this privately.”
“Splendid idea.” He glanced at Faharn, who had acquired a pottery stoup of mead whilst Laz had been looking elsewhere. “Don’t get drunk. I’m going to consult with the Wise One.”
Laz handed the drinking horn to one of the Westfolk, then followed Dallandra out into the rustling grass. Since, unlike her, he couldn’t see well in the dark, they didn’t go far, just a hundred yards or so away to put some silence between them and the noisy camp. The soft night wind lifted her long waves of hair, shining as silver as the river of stars that flowed across the sky.
“Could you see where the book was?” Dallandra said.
“Inside what appeared to be a Lijik dun,” Laz said. “Not much of one, either. Alas, I have no idea where it might stand, but I did see some of the men who were looking at it. Typical Lijik warriors, except for one.”
When he described the slave and his brand, Dallandra agreed with him that the fellow had to have elven blood in his veins.
“He seemed well-fed for a slave,” Laz said. “Plump, in fact. That surprised me.”
“He may well have been castrated. The Horsekin do that to lads they capture young.”
Laz winced. “That was outlawed in the cities years ago.”
“Well, I didn’t think these men were Gel da’Thae.” Dallandra smiled briefly. “Have you heard the tale about the temple of Bel that the Horsekin raiders destroyed?”
“Evan mentioned it, truly. Didn’t they find a bit of writing there?”
“Of sorts. A single letter carved into wood next to a Boar clan mark. Prince Dar wondered if