The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [110]
On a late afternoon that threatened rain, Nevyn was digging up comfrey roots out in a fallow pasture when he felt Aderyn’s mind reaching out to his. He lay down his trowel, sat back on his heels, and used the gathering grey clouds as a scrying focus. When Aderyn told him about the murder, Nevyn was so shocked, so bitterly surprised, that for a moment he could say nothing at all. Finally he found words.
‘I never ever thought Loddlaen would do such a thing,’ Nevyn said. ‘Never in a thousand years!’
‘I can’t tell you how it gladdens my heart to hear you say that,’ Aderyn said. ‘I’ve been berating myself, thinking I should have known what he was capable of.’
‘Don’t! The Loddlaen we knew wasn’t capable of it. Besides, do you really think he intended to kill Jav? It sounds to me like he panicked when Jav came into the tent.’
‘So I thought, too. From what Val told me, one of the Guardians was mixed up in this as well—Alshandra, most likely.’
‘Worse and worse! Why would she have wanted the obsidian piece?’
‘I have no idea. The message from Evandar in it, mayhap? Or maybe to allow one of her worshippers to travel in her country the same way Dalla did, all those years ago.’
Nevyn felt old grief troubling Aderyn’s mind. It took some time before Aderyn could continue.
‘If only I had seen,’ Aderyn said. ‘If only I’d seen what you saw, all those years ago.’
‘You couldn’t have. Now, look, you told me that Val doesn’t blame you. Well and good, then. Don’t you blame yourself, either.’
‘My thanks.’
The words reached Nevyn on a wave of sincere gratitude. With them he felt the breach between him and Aderyn, caused all those years ago by Morwen’s death, finally close and heal.
‘What hurts me the most,’ Aderyn continued, ‘was the way he wormed himself into Val’s trust, telling her he’d come to see me, and all the time he was planning on stealing the gem. I suppose he dragged me into it in order to punish me somehow. I was so happy, thinking he’d come home at last.’
‘I was wondering about that, not that I wanted to say it first.’ That little viper! Nevyn thought to himself alone. If I ever get hold of him –
‘Well, now he’s gone,’ Aderyn said. ‘Probably to Bardek. Doubtless I’ll never see him again.’
‘Oh, don’t believe that,’ Nevyn said. ‘He’ll come back to Deverry one day. I’m sure of it. He’s set forces in motion that will drag him back, and he’ll want to take out his rage on you again, if naught else.’
‘Perhaps so. If he does, it’ll be up to me to deal with him, too. I’m torn in half, hoping he does come back but wishing he’d stay away forever.’
Aderyn sounded so exhausted that Nevyn said nothing more that afternoon but comforting platitudes. He mulled the situation over in his mind for days, however. He knew with the wordless surety of a great master of magic that dark dweomer lurked somewhere on the fringes of Loddlaen’s life. Exactly where and how he couldn’t know—not yet. He could only watch and wait for him to come back to Deverry. His own kind will draw him, Nevyn thought. Ai! None of us ever dreamt that there was so much hatred in the lad!
From time to time during his unnaturally long life, Nevyn had to leave whatever place he’d been living in and relocate somewhere else. If he stayed in one home too long, the local folk would have noticed that he was living for far too many years. That summer, after the murder, Nevyn left Cannobaen. He travelled north-east, heading for Cantrae province and his hidden dwelling in Brin Toraedic. He stopped in Cerrmor, however, when he received an obscure hint from the Lords of Wyrd that someone of great interest happened to be there.
Although the Lords of Wyrd were once ordinary human beings, they have evolved so far, and live on such an exalted plane of existence, that communicating in words lies beyond them. All they can do is send hints, intuitions, odd twists of feeling and thought—the sort of thing men call omens—down to the dweomermasters who live so far below. Nevyn interpreted this particular omen as meaning that Lilli or Morwen