The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [153]
‘There are more than just the two, then.’
‘A good many more, or so Hazdrubal told me. I remember a few of them. There’s a man with a stag’s head, and then someone the Ancients call Our Lady of the Beasts. They’re both forest spirits. There was a half-fox, half-man, too, who seemed more malicious than powerful. And oh yes, some sort of furred sea creature, a male, and another female the Ancients call Our Lady of the Waves. They’re all rather grotesque, living on the astral as they do. Apparently they try to look like creatures on the physical plane, but they’re not terribly good at choosing their illusions.’
Sidro grimaced and shuddered.
‘Sisi, what’s wrong?’
‘A grotesque spirit and a mortal, and I was ready to die for her.’ She turned her head to look at him. ‘I feel so shamed.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He was watching her without a trace of a smile or a glint of mockery in his eyes. ‘You look so sad,’ he went on. ‘I wish I could do something to make you feel better.’
‘The only thing that would help would be warning Lakanza somehow, and that’s impossible.’
‘Yes, but—wait! I wonder. We know that the white crystal links with the black. Were you the only priestess who used to look into the black one?’
‘No. We were all trying to see if we could feel the presence of the holy witness Raena through it. There was some sort of legend that she’d left a message in the stone.’
‘Maybe it was more than a legend. I might be able to send them an omen.’
‘But you want them dead. Why would you even want to warn them?’
‘Only out of love for you.’ Laz frowned, staring down at the floor. ‘It’s a vast thing, the love I bear you.’
Sidro felt like screaming at him, her usual shriek of ‘oh don’t lie!’, but he looked up with eyes so full of genuine warmth that she held her tongue. She’d seen him look at her with lust a thousand times, and with affection almost as often, but never with such a depth of feeling. When she reached out to stroke his hair, he caught her hand and kissed her fingers.
‘Let me think about this,’ he said. ‘There’s something about omen crystals in the Pseudo-Iamblichos Scroll.’
While Laz studied the book, Sidro left the cabin. She was planning on talking with Bren the Lijik rider, but she saw Faharn standing some yards from the cabin door.
‘You can’t go in,’ Sidro said, ‘Laz is studying.’
Faharn turned on his heel and strode off without a word. Sidro felt like yelling something nasty at his retreating back. Instead, she resumed her search for Bren.
She found him sitting on a log bench with Pir and eating cold porridge with his fingers from a cracked bowl. She could tell he’d washed, because his brigga were sopping wet, his hair was clean, and his wet shirt hung from a tree branch nearby. She could have counted his ribs had she wanted, proof that he’d wandered in the forest for a long while. When Sidro walked up, he started to set the bowl down, but she bade him go on eating.
‘There be no need on you to kneel or suchlike,’ she said in Deverrian. ‘But eat not too quickly and too much, or you risk a foul stomach after so much starving.’
‘True spoken,’ Bren said. ‘Holy one, do you despise me for not dying at the dun?’
‘I do not, because in your own way you be a true witness to our goddess.’ How could you, Sidro! she was thinking. You slimy deceiver! ‘What other news have you for me?’
‘I managed to hide until they took the dun,’ Bren said. ‘Then I pretended to be one of the servants. You see, there were a lot of noble lords in the siege army, and they’d all brought servants, so if anyone asked me who I served, I’d just pick a lord’s name and say I was new to his dun. I had to hide my sword, though, and then I never managed to fetch it back before I left. So anyway, I heard the fortguard talking. The gwerbret’s sent messages to the high king of all Deverry and to the Mountain Folk as well as his own vassals and allies. The lords say Alshandra’s men