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The Silver Mage
Katharine Kerr
The fifteenth and final novel in the celebrated Deverry series, an epic fantasy rooted in Celtic mythology that intricately interweaves human and elven history over several hundred years.Spurred on by the priestesses of the false goddess Alshandra, the Horsekin hordes are massing on the northern border of Prince Dar's holdings. Their leaders believe that the rich grasslands of the prince's domain belong to them by divine right, no matter whom they must destroy to claim them.But Dar has powerful allies on his side, including the dragon Arzosah, who has hated the Horsekin for hundreds of years. She will vow to take a revenge worse than anything the Horsekin and their priestesses could possibly foresee.The prince’s most powerful ally, however, is the one the Horsekin refuse to understand: the deep magic of the dweomer, as wielded by the band of sorcerers sworn to protect him, and especially by the elven master of magic, Dallandra, the silver mage.
THESILVER MAGE
BOOK SEVEN OF THEDRAGON MAGE
KATHARINE KERR
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_aef0614c-7b4a-5c57-ab7e-8cbc26490d65)
HarperCollinsPublishers
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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
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First published by HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2009
Copyright © Katharine Kerr 2009
Katharine Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9780007287369
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2014 ISBN: 9780007301935
Version: 2014-08-04
DEDICATION (#ulink_d5b6838f-f6ed-5e73-adff-e4c67bcd9ea3)
For Howard First, Last, and Always
CONTENTS
Cover (#ud5a933ff-058d-54cd-88eb-add986927dcb)
Title Page (#u76ece4e3-9633-58f9-8c4e-6361d229949d)
Copyright (#ulink_2305ef77-9883-5133-9be5-43b0b875eb1b)
Dedication (#ulink_49068a31-d8e3-509b-8b58-1765a5542fec)
Prologue: The Northlands Summer, 1160 (#ulink_ca95d03b-7057-5ba2-95fb-f04916f6be3e)
Part I: The Northlands Autumn (#ulink_fa167548-9b2d-5773-ae19-c1300fc7235d)
Part II: The Northlands Summer, 1160 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue: The Westlands Autumn, 1160 (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Glossary (#litres_trial_promo)
A Note on Dating (#litres_trial_promo)
Table of Incarnations (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_3b38664a-102d-5816-b957-2a55de5807d4)
The Northlands Summer, 1160 (#ulink_3dc66a27-7e05-5abb-9732-48bfd125f7f1)
The serpent of Time winds itself about the cross of Matter. Some say it has seven heads, some only three, but the difference counts for little. It is the body of the serpent, not the head, that crushes its prey.
The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid
Death had turned Dougie’s hair white and his flesh translucent. In the darkness he glowed with a faint silvery light as he stood smiling at Berwynna.
‘Remember me, lass,’ he said in the language of Alban, ‘but live your life, too. I loved you enough to wish you every happiness. Find a new man.’
‘I don’t want to,’ Berwynna said. ‘The only thing I want is for you to come back to me.’
‘This is as far back as I can come, just up to this side of dying. Wynni, live your life!’
He vanished.
Berwynna screamed and sat up, scattering blankets. She found herself in a round tent so unfamiliar that for a moment she thought she still dreamt. The Ancients, she reminded herself. I’m safe among the Ancients, but Dougie’s dead. The first light of dawn fell like a grey pillar through the smoke hole in the centre of the roof. Across from her, on the far side of the tent, a bundle of blankets stirred and yawned. Uncle Mic sat up and peered at her through the uncertain light.
‘Are you all right?’ he said in Dwarvish. ‘Did you make some sort of a sound just now?’
‘I was dreaming,’ she said. ‘In the dream I saw Dougie, and when he disappeared, I screamed.’
‘Ai, my poor little niece!’ Mic paused to rub his face with both hands and yawn prodigiously. ‘It sounded like a moan, here in the waking world.’
‘That would fit, too.’
Mic let his hands fall into his lap. From outside came the noises of a camp stirring awake – dogs barking, people talking in an unfamiliar language, occasionally a child crying or calling out. Distantly a horse whinnied, and mules brayed in answer.
‘We might as well get up,’ Berwynna said.
‘Indeed, and I wouldn’t mind a bit of breakfast, either.’
They’d both slept dressed. Mic pulled on his boots, then got up and left the tent. Berwynna busied herself with rolling up their bedrolls.
‘Berwynna?’ Dallandra pulled back the tent flap and came in. ‘You’re awake, then?’
‘I am, my lady.’
‘There’s no need to call me lady,’ Dallandra said with a smile. ‘I wanted to tell you that your father’s flown off to scout the Northlands. He asked me to give you his love and to tell you he’ll be back again as soon as he can.’
‘My thanks.’ Berwynna bit her lip in disappointment. ‘I’d wanted to say farewell.’
‘Dragons come and go as they please, not as we want, I’m afraid. He also told me about the lost dragon book.’
Berwynna winced. Dallandra sat down opposite her. In the pale light from the rising dawn, she seemed made of silver, with her ash blonde hair, steel grey eyes, and her pale skin, so unexpected in a person who lived most of her life out of doors. Silver or mayhap steel, Berwynna thought, like the pictures on the doors of Lin Serr.
‘In a moment I’ll have to go tend the wounded men,’ Dallandra said. ‘But I wanted to ask you about the book. You’ve seen it, I take it.’
‘I have,’ Berwynna said. ‘Not that I were able to read a word of it, mind. Laz, he did say that it be written in the language of the Ancients, your language, that be.’
‘It was written, then, in letters?’
‘Be not all books written so?’
‘They are, truly.’ Dallandra smiled at her. ‘But some also have pictures in them.’
‘I never did see such, but then, my sister wouldn’t be allowing me to turn its pages, and no doubt she were right about that, too. What little I did see did look to me much like the carvings on our walls.’
‘The what?’
‘Forgive me.’ Berwynna smiled briefly. ‘I do forget you’ve not seen Haen Marn. In the great hall, the walls, they be of wood, and there be carvings all over them, letters and such, I do suppose them to be. Laz, he did call some of them sigils, whatever those may be.’
‘They’re a particular type of sign, a mark that stands for the name of a thing or a place or suchlike.’ Dallandra paused. ‘Well, that will do as an explanation, though it’s not a very good one.’
‘’Twill do for me, truly. But the book, it were such a magical thing. It does ache my heart that I had somewhat to do with the losing of it.’
‘No one’s blaming you, Wynni. Try not to blame yourself. You’re exhausted, you’re mourning your betrothed, and every little thing’s going to weigh upon you now. One of these days your mind will be clearer, and you’ll be better able to judge what happened.’
‘I’ll hope that be true.’
‘It is true. I lost a man I loved very much, and I thought at the time that I’d mourn him all my life. In time, I laid my mourning aside and found another love. So I know how you must feel.’
‘You must, truly.’ For the first time since Dougie’s death, Berwynna felt – not hope, precisely, but a rational thought, that one day hope would come. ‘My thanks for the telling of this.’
‘You’re most welcome.’ Dallandra reached over and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Now, about the book, though, I’d like to know how large it was, how thick, how many pages.’
‘As to the pages, well, now, I be not sure of that. It were a great heavy thing –’ Berwynna stopped, struck by a sudden realization. ‘At least, it were at first, when Dougie did bring it to Haen Marn. But it did shrink.’
‘It what?’
‘I did carry it once on Haen Marn, and it were so heavy that there were a need on me to clasp it in both arms.’ Berwynna demonstrated by holding her empty arms out in front of her. ‘But when I did take it from the island, it did fit most haply in one of my saddlebags.’
‘That’s extremely interesting.’
‘Laz did talk of guardian spirits. Think you they do have the power to change it – oh, that sounds so daft!’
‘Not daft at all. That’s exactly what I think must have happened. A person with very powerful dweomer made that book.’ Dallandra got up, stretching her back as if it pained her. ‘My apologies, but I truly do have to go now. Your uncle should be here with your breakfast in a moment, but please, feel free to leave this tent. Come out whenever you’re ready. This will be your first day in a Westfolk alar, so everything’s going to seem strange to you, but your other uncle – Ebañy, his name is – will be glad to introduce you around.’
‘My thanks.’ Berwynna rose and joined her. ‘Be there any help I may give you?’
‘Not needed. I have apprentices.’ Dallandra cocked her head to one side to listen. ‘Ah, here’s Mic now.’ She strode over and held the tent flap open.
‘My thanks,’ Mic said as he ducked inside. He was carrying a basket in one hand and a pottery bowl in the other. ‘Bread and soft cheese, Wynni.’
Berwynna took the bowl from him. When she glanced around, Dallandra had already gone, slipping out in silence.
Dallandra found Neb and Ranadario at work in the big tent that the alar had allocated to its healers. Ranadario was explaining how to bandage a bad wound on the upper arm of one of the Cerr Cawnen men while Neb listened, his head cocked a little to one side as if he were afraid that her words would evade him. Their patient, a beefy blond fellow with the odd name of Hound, kept his eyes shut tight and panted in pain. The wound had cut deep into the side of his upper arm, missing the largest blood vessels but severing muscles and tendons. Dallandra doubted that he’d ever be able to use the arm properly again.
‘Ranadario,’ Dallandra said in Deverrian. ‘Did you give him willow water to drink?’
‘I did, Wise One,’ Ranadario said. ‘This cut is healing so slowly, though.’
Hound opened his eyes and stared at her. His breathing turned ragged, and Neb laid a hand on his unwounded shoulder to steady him.
‘Not slowly for a child of Aethyr.’ Dalla paused for a quick smile to reassure him. ‘It’s doing as well as we can expect. Don’t you worry, now. It’ll heal up soon.’
Hound returned the smile, then shut his eyes again.
With her apprentices to help her, Dallandra tended the wounds of the two Cerr Cawnen men and did what she hoped was right for the wounds of the others, four of them Horsekin and one a half-blood fellow. Since those who’d sustained the worst cuts in the fight to save the caravan had all died during their journey south, she could be fairly confident that those who’d lived to reach her would recover.
When she left the tent, Neb followed her with his fat-bellied yellow gnome trailing after. For a moment he merely looked up at the sky as if he were expecting rain. The gnome kicked him hard in the nearer shin.
‘Dalla,’ Neb said, ‘I owe you an apology.’
The gnome grinned and vanished.
‘You do, truly.’ She kept her voice gentle. ‘I wondered when it would come.’
‘Pride’s an infection in itself.’ He was studying the ground between them. ‘I should have spoken before this. I never should have tried to ride away like that.’
