The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [142]
‘I know the wyvern dagger did at one point. But you know, I met Raena, and she didn’t have the power to bind spirits. She only knew the most elementary things about dweomer. All her dweomer acts derived from first Alshandra and then Shaetano working through her.’
‘Then someone must have done it before it came into her hands.’
‘Well, there’s Loddlaen.’ Dallandra pronounced the name carefully, slowly, as if it pained her. ‘But I doubt if he had the skill to do a binding like that. I’m just judging from what Val’s told me, over the years, though. I don’t know for certain.’
‘Maybe someone got hold of it after he—um, ah, no longer had the crystal.’
Dallandra flinched as if from a blow.
‘I’m sorry to bring this all up,’ Salamander said. ‘We don’t have to discuss it.’
‘Yes, we do. It could be important. Does Val know what happened to the stone after Loddlaen died?’
‘No. She told me that no one knows.’
‘Then he probably didn’t have it when—’ She let her voice trail away.
Salamander waited.
‘I’ve really got to go back to my work,’ Dallandra said abruptly. ‘We can talk more later.’
Before he could answer, she turned on her heel and strode off to rejoin her assistants.
Although Princess Carra led her contingent out just after dawn, the army lingered to allow the army from Deverry to rest their horses. Some of the Westfolk archers had fought at the siege of Cengarn, as had some of the dwarven axemen, and they spread out among the Deverry men to tell them what they knew about the Horsekin they’d faced in battle. When Salamander walked through the camp, he saw the fighting men standing in small groups and talking urgently together.
Around noon, the two dragons flew over just as Arzosah had promised. Salamander and Dallandra had been waiting at her tent with a sack of medicinals. They hurried through the camp as fast as possible—not very, with the clutter and crowding of tents, men, horses, and wagons all around them. The dragons stayed high, drifting on the wind, then slowly led them off to the north about half a mile before they settled to ground. As the two Westfolk pushed their way through the high grass, Salamander could feel his heart pounding, but not from the physical effort.
‘You look anxious,’ Dallandra said.
‘I am,’ Salamander said. ‘What does one say to a brother who’s been turned into a dragon?’
‘What does one say to an old lover who has?’
‘Aha! That’s why you never wanted to discuss him with Branna.’
‘Well, yes. You have to admit that it’s all a bit complicated. ’
‘Complicated?’ Salamander found himself on the edge of laughter but pulled back. If he gave in to the impulse, he knew, his laughter would become a hysterical giggle or perhaps even a shriek.
Apparently Arzosah found the situation distressing as well. The two wyrms had beaten down a good-sized circle in the grass, but well before Dallandra and Salamander reached it, Arzosah sprang into the air and flew, a black glint against the sky like a spark from the obsidian pyramid. Rori sat alone at its centre, lounging on one side, his front legs outstretched like a Bardek lion at ease. From a distance he looked as majestic, too, with his massive silvery head, touched along the jaw and the lines of the skull with a glistening blue. Although he’d folded them, his huge silver wings shimmered with a rainbow pattern where they caught the light.
As they approached, however, Salamander saw the wound in his side, barely a foot long but black with crusted blood and morbid flesh. It stank so badly that they could smell it through the normal vinegar scent of wyrm.
‘By the Black Sun!’ Dallandra murmured.
‘Indeed.’ Salamander nearly gagged as he spoke. ‘It must be dweomer-cursed.’
Dallandra shook her head no. By then they were close enough for Rhodry to overhear. When they stepped into the circle, he lifted his wings, just very slightly before he folded them again, yet enough to show that he felt like taking flight. Dallandra marched straight up to him.
‘That wound!