The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [9]
“I did. He was my lover, in fact, for some while.”
Laz felt himself staring at her like a half-wit. A hundred questions crowded into his mind, most indelicate at best and outright indecent at worst. A beautiful woman like this, and a man who wasn’t really a man, but some alien creature in manlike form—the idea touched him with sexual warmth. He could smell the change in his scent, but fortunately she seemed oblivious to it.
“Working the transformation killed him—well, I don’t know if killed is the right word,” Dallandra went on. “It drained him of the powers that were keeping him from incarnating. That would be a better way of putting it.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“I’m not sure I do, either.” Dallandra smiled at him. “Evandar had no physical body, only an etheric form that he’d ensouled. To be born, he had to remove that form, but he’d woven it so well, and he had so much power at his disposal that it refused to unwind, as it were. Turning Rhodry into a dragon left him absolutely helpless, all that power spent, his own form destroyed. He could go on at last to cross the white river.”
“I see.” Laz turned his mind firmly back to questions of dweomer. “Speaking of incarnations, you mentioned having somewhat to tell me about mine.”
“I certainly do, thanks to Rori. It turns out that dragons have a certain amount of instinctive dweomer. He remembers you quite clearly from the days when he was human, and in dragon form, he can recognize you.”
“I’d suspected as much, but I’m glad to have the suspicion confirmed. What does he remember that’s so distressing? Distressing to me, I mean.”
“Do you remember aught about your last life?”
“Only a bit, that last battle in front of Cengarn, where Alshandra—well, died, or whatever it is Guardians do when they cease to exist. It’s all cloudy, but I think I was a Horsekin officer.”
“You were there, certainly, but you were a Deverry lord with an isolated demesne just north of Cengarn. You’d gone over to the Horsekin side. They probably treated you like one of their officers.”
Laz winced. “Oh, splendid! A traitor to my kind, was I? No wonder I’ve ended up a half-breed in this life! You’re quite right. That does distress me.”
“Well, Rhodry thought it was your devotion to Alshandra that drove you to it.”
“Worse and worse!” He forced out a difficult smile. “Mayhap it’s just as well that Sidro left me. She’d gloat if she knew that.”
Dallandra nodded, and her expression turned sympathetic.
“I have a vague memory of dying in battle,” Laz went on, “so I suppose I got what I deserved.”
“Your last fight was with Rhodry Aberwyn, a silver dagger. Um, here’s the odd part. Rhodry’s the man whom Evandar turned into the dragon.”
“He killed me?” Laz tossed his head back and laughed aloud. “No wonder he remembered me, eh? And wanted to do it again.”
It was Dallandra’s turn for the puzzled stare. The Ancients, Laz decided, weren’t as morbid as Deverry men and Gel da’Thae if she couldn’t see the humor in the situation.
“Your name was Tren,” Dallandra went on, “Another tale I heard has you killing a Gel da’Thae bard.”
Laz winced again. “That’s a heinous thing among my people,” he said. “And among the Deverry folk, too, I think.”
“One of the worst crimes under their laws, truly. I don’t know much else, because you were part of the Horsekin besiegers, and I was inside the city walls, so—” Dalla paused abruptly. “Now, who’s that?”
Someone was calling her name as he came walking through the rustling long grass. Dallandra rose to her feet, and Laz followed, glancing around him. A man of the Westfolk was striding toward them; he paused, waved to Dallandra, and hurried over with the long grass rustling around him. Tall, slender, pale-haired and impossibly handsome like all the Westfolk men, he had cat-slit eyes of a deep purple, narrowing as he looked Laz over. Ah, Laz thought, the lover or husband, no doubt!
“This is Calonderiel,” Dallandra said, “our banadar, that is, our warleader.”
“How do you do?” Laz made him a small bow.
“Well, my thanks.” Calonderiel held out