The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [97]
“It could.” Dallandra felt suddenly weary. “It could also be a simple mistake. Evandar never much cared about consequences and details, you see. He could be very—well, the truth is—he was careless.” She sighed briefly. “And reckless. If an action matched one of his omens, if he thought he’d foreseen a thing, I mean, he’d do that thing without worrying about the outcome.”
Neb started to speak, then bit it back. Dallandra felt like screaming at him. I know what you’re thinking. He was awful and crazed and a spirit, and it was absolutely perverted of me to go off with him! That’s what everyone thinks, isn’t it? Aloud, she said, “Well, the real question is, what are we going to do about it now?”
“Have it out, I’d say,” Neb said.
“That’s my thought, too, though if it is a component—well, I suppose that doesn’t matter, since we’re trying to reverse the working.” She caught Rori’s gaze and gave him a grim stare. “Aren’t we?”
The dragon looked away. “Eventually,” he said. “I suppose.”
“Try supposing this,” Dallandra went on. “If we take the dagger out, if indeed that’s what it is, we stand a grand chance of getting your wound to finally heal. Is that worth the risk to you?”
With a long sigh the dragon rolled back to a sitting position, with his hind legs off to one side and his front legs extended in front of him.
“Besides,” Neb put in, “if we don’t heal the wound first, and you do decide to be transformed back, the wound will kill you.”
Rori contemplated his front paws then finally spoke. “If I didn’t want to return to Angmar, I’d die gladly once I was back in my old skin. My Lady Death might—”
“Oh, don’t start that again!” Dallandra felt like slapping him on the nose, dragon or not. “It’s so daft!”
“Very well.” Rori laughed in a long low rumble. “If there’s somewhat stuck under my hide, then I want it out, whether I’m a dragon or a man, so do your worst, chirurgeons.”
“I’m hoping we can do our best,” Neb said. “We have one problem left to solve. I don’t want to be slain by a pain-crazed dragon when I’m in the midst of slicing open that abscess. Truly, Rori, I don’t know if there are enough herbs in the grasslands to ease the pain for you. I do know for certain that there’s no one strong enough to hold you down.”
“Ah, but there are,” Rori said. “Arzosah and Medea between them, Medea to sit on my tail, and Arzosah to tend to the head. I’ll let you bind my mouth with rope, too, to make sure I can’t bite.”
“You sound positively cheerful about this,” Dallandra said.
“I’ve had this cursed wound itching and smarting for over forty years now. By the black hairy arse of the Lord of Hell, cursed right I’m cheerful! It’ll be worth a day or two of pain, let me assure you. Can we do it now?”
Dallandra glanced at the sky, where the sun sat just above the horizon. “Is there enough light, Neb?”
“Just, but I’d rather wait till morning. That will give me time to brew up an herbal wash to clean the wound once we’ve gotten the dagger out.”
“And it will give me time to explain the procedure to Arzosah,” Dallandra said. “She’ll need to be careful where she puts her weight.”
That night, Dallandra lay awake in her blankets. Finally she rose and left the tent before her tossing and turning woke Cal and the baby both. The warm night air soothed her as she picked her way through the sleeping camp, as did the sight of the river of stars hanging close above. At the edge of the tents she paused and looked out across the grass, much beaten down by the day’s comings and goings, to the place where Rori and Arzosah were sleeping, curled into tidy bundles. Medea lay sprawled nearby. As Dallandra watched, the young dragon flopped over onto her back, legs akimbo in the air.
In the starlight Rori’s skin gleamed with silver highlights, much like his dagger from the old days, which he’d always kept polished to a high sheen. Dallandra searched her memories of the dweomer that had turned Rhodry into a dragon. She was trying to pin down the moment of Evandar