The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [230]
‘Rori?’ Branna said. ‘Are you awake?’
‘I am now,’ he said and raised his massive head.
His voice stirred memories, so deep in her mind that they brought no images or words with them, merely a piercing sense that she’d heard his voice before. Salamander had warned her about his eyes. Like Salamander, she nearly wept, seeing that human gaze, trapped behind the face of another order of being. He studied her with longing, a minute examination.
‘You’re no longer Jill,’ he said. ‘Dalla made that clear to me. I don’t want it to be true, but I know it is.’
‘Good. I don’t want to be Jill. She’s dead.’
‘So she is.’ He sighed and laid his head to rest upon his enormous front paws. His claws dug into the earth, then relaxed. ‘It gladdens my heart that you’ve come out to speak with me. I hoped you would, in your own time.’
‘You’ve not been here more than half a day.’
He rumbled with laughter. ‘I’ve always been the impatient sort.’
‘You could have sent a message back with Dalla when she tended your wound.’
‘That would have spoilt it.’ He raised his head to look straight at her. ‘I wanted to—I needed to see if you’d come on your own.’
‘Well, here I am.’
Branna waited, let him continue studying her with his all too human dark blue eyes. The moment had come that she’d been anticipating, when she would meet the silver wyrm at last and speak with him. The moment grew longer as she realized that she still had no idea of what to say. There should be somewhat, she thought. Or is Dalla right? Finally he sighed so deeply that the sound came close to a roar.
‘Ever since that night in Cengarn,’ Rori said, ‘when you called out to me that you’d come back, I’ve been thinking of things to say to you. I might as well have been a bard, going through every fine word and phrase I knew. But now we’re face to face, and none of the words are right, because you’re not Jill. Now I can see it for myself. It’s not just a tale that Dalla told me.’
‘You know, I’ve been doing the same thing, but I don’t remember who you were to Jill, so I’d not thought of much to say at all.’
‘You don’t remember anything?’
‘Well, I know she was your friend. If there was somewhat more, my apologies, but I truly don’t remember.’
‘My friend? Well, she was that, too.’ He sighed in a long hiss. ‘You don’t remember.’
‘Does it truly matter? Dalla told me you want the dweomer lifted. One day I’ll know what Jill knew, whether I’m her or not. And I swear it, Rori, I’ll do whatever I can to lift that spell.’
‘Will you? Then my thanks.’
His eyes, those striking dark blue eyes, filled with tears. Dragons can’t weep, can they? Branna thought. It’s the man inside the form who’s so sad.
Rori raised his head with a shake to knock the tears away. For a moment he busied himself in rearranging his front paws on the grass. ‘I’ll be leaving for the winter in a little while. I can’t take the cold in this body. Even cool days like this, they make me sluggish.’
‘Well and good, then. I’ll see you in the spring.’
He nodded, then lowered his head onto his paws and closed his eyes. She lingered, unsure if he were truly sleeping or if he were telling her farewell. Finally she walked away, heading back to the camp and Neb.
She’d killed some fine thing, she realized, some grand love, most likely, that she’d once shared with the man Rori had been. What precisely it was, she couldn’t remember, and no more did she mourn the thing itself, but she wept, anyway, just a scatter of tears for all the honour and love that the river of Time sweeps away in its scouring flow.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
If any readers want to know more about the dwarven fire bolts, which are based on real weapons, they can find the source information in Aeneas the Tactician’s How to Survive a Siege. Various reference books, such as Peter Connolly’s Greece and Rome at War, have more detailed reconstructions. The falcata was also a real weapon, carried by the native Hispanic troops in Spain against the Roman