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‘Where’s Dari?’ she snapped.
‘Sidro put her down for a nap in our tent,’ Cal said. ‘I want to talk with you, beloved. I don’t want you going off alone with that Laz fellow. If you don’t want me to go with you, take some of the men. He’s not trustworthy.’
Dallandra sighed, considering him as he stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes narrow. Arguing with him in one of his jealous moods would only waste a long valuable part of the day.
‘Very well,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask Ebañy to go over and finish our talk.’ She glanced around and saw him standing nearby with Branna and Berwynna. ‘Ah, there he is now.’
‘That’ll be much better.’ Cal grinned at her. ‘And my thanks.’
Salamander left Berwynna in Branna’s care, then went to his tent with Dallandra. She stood watching while he took the black crystal from his saddlebags, then repeated his instructions all over again.
‘But don’t talk to him about Alastyr,’ Dallandra finished up. ‘I don’t want to awaken any memories of dark dweomer.’
‘The temptation to use it might be too great, you mean?’
‘Just that. Sidro told me about their teacher back in Taenbalapan. Ych! A truly loathsome dark dweomer refugee from Bardek, back when the cities were breaking the power of the dark guilds. Apparently he escaped the archon who was trying to hang him and managed to take ship for Cerrmor. How he made his way north Sidro didn’t know. I’ll wager that Laz learned plenty of dubious things from him.’
‘Very well, then.’ Salamander made her a bob of a bow. ‘My lips are sealed with the wax of circumspection and the signet of prudence.’
As he walked over to Laz’s camp, Salamander called up from his memory what he knew about Alastyr, whom he’d seen in the flesh only briefly, when he was a very young child and Alastyr a young lad who went by the nick-name of Tirro. Salamander had been gone from the camp when a fully-grown Alastyr had helped Loddlaen murder Valandario’s lover, but he’d of course heard the tale. Many years later he’d helped Nevyn track down an utterly corrupt Alastyr, who preyed upon young children of both sexes not merely for pleasure but also to drain their life force for his evil dweomer workings. Although Salamander had never actually seen the dark dweomermaster Tirro had become, Nevyn had told him the tale in some detail. A thoroughly loathsome soul, that Alastyr, Salamander thought.
And yet, when he sat down with Laz to discuss the black crystal, Salamander found him no fiend. Berwynna had told him how Laz had risked his own life to save the caravan. Laz seemed concerned about her, asking Salamander how she and her uncle fared, expressing sincere sorrow over the death of her betrothed and the deaths of the other men as well.
‘But in the end,’ Laz said at last, ‘death takes us all, and life on the caravan road is generally short.’
‘True enough, and alas,’ Salamander said.
They shared a brief silence in the memory of the slain. Salamander took the chance to study Laz’s aura, a strangely mottled swirl of purple and green. Laz, he supposed, was doing the same to his.
‘I see you’ve brought that black crystal with you,’ Laz said eventually. ‘Do you know somewhat about it? Dalla mentioned that I’d owned it in a former life.’
Salamander had sudden thoughts of doing Dallandra bodily harm. How was he supposed to gain Laz’s trust by telling him the truth but never mention Alastyr? Fortunately Laz misread his silence.
‘I take it you don’t know,’ Laz said.
‘Well,’ Salamander found a dodge just true enough to pass muster. ‘Dallandra doesn’t like to tell tales of other people’s past incarnations unless they’ve told her she may.’
‘Very honourable of her, then.’
‘I do know a bit about the crystal, though. Whenever I look into it, I see the same vision, of Evandar standing on the pier at Haen Marn.’
Laz mugged shock. ‘Evandar again? Very strange!’
‘Even stranger,’ Salamander went on, ‘is this. I’ve never been to Haen Marn, and yet in the crystal, I’m apparently scrying it out. What have you seen in it?’
‘Only the location of the white crystal, which is, unfortunately, now at the bottom of Haen Marn’s lake. They’re linked in some way, but I have no idea of how.’
‘Have you ever thought of using it to scry for the dragon book?’
‘I haven’t, but that’s a good idea.’
When Salamander held out the crystal, Laz took it in both of his maimed hands, using them like a pair of tongs to set it down on the ground in front of him. He leaned over and stared down through the squarecut tip. After some little while he swore with a shake of his head.
‘When I think of the book,’ Laz said, ‘the interior of the crystal changes to a thick black darkness. I suspect I’m seeing the inside of Wynni’s saddlebags.’
‘Not very helpful, then.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. I felt my mind touch those spirits attached to the book. I have no idea, though, if they knew it did.’
‘They might have. If they’re spirits of Aethyr, they’re more highly developed than most. I suspect that this crystal and its brother are attuned to Aethyr, too. May I ask you where you came upon the white one?’
‘In the ruins of Rinbaladelan.’ Laz grinned, a gesture sharp as a knife-edge, as if he were expecting a reaction.
Salamander saw no reason to deny him. He whistled under his breath in sheer surprise.
‘I went there on a whim,’ Laz continued, ‘just to see what I could see, which wasn’t much. The city’s been taken back by the forest. The walls are split, the streets crumbled, the towers fallen, and over everything grows trees and ivy and the like. I was poking around, pulling off a vine here, a cluster of weeds there, and along one wall I poked too hard. It started to collapse, and when the dust cleared, lo! I saw the remains of a wooden casket. Inside was the white crystal.’
‘You found it just like that?’ Salamander said. ‘By chance?’
‘Not chance.’ Laz frowned, remembering. ‘Someone or something had left a trail. Some of the underbrush was cleared away or trampled down, so it was easier to walk up to that particular wall. And the casket itself looked big enough to hold a pair of crystals, but only one remained.’
‘I think we can guess who made that trail.’
‘Evandar?’
‘So I suspect. Very well, you found the crystal he left for you –’
‘Oh ye gods!’ Laz stared, the grin gone. ‘How would he have known I was going to go there?’
‘From what Dalla’s told me,’ Salamander said, ‘Evandar knew a great many things about the future. Unfortunately, they were all small details, mere glances, glimpses, and flashes of things to come, like lines snatched randomly from a long poem. So he saw naught wrong with trying to arrange those fragments into the tale he wanted told. I’d wager high that he saw someone finding that crystal. Whether or not he saw you in particular, who knows?’
‘Very well, then.’ Laz’s grin came back, but as brittle as glass. ‘And here I thought I was being so clever!’
‘Evandar played a great many tricks on a great many clever people. Don’t let it trouble your heart.’
For some while they discussed the crystal and the dragon book, until Salamander felt he knew everything Laz had learned about them – not that such amounted to a great deal. Laz, however, seemed pleased with their talk. When Salamander stood up to leave, Laz joined him and invited him to come back whenever he wanted.
‘It’s a relief to find people who’ll talk openly of dweomer matters,’ Laz told him.
‘No doubt, after being surrounded by Alshandra’s believers.’
Laz laughed and agreed.
When Salamander left the camp, two of the men followed him, both pure Gel da’Thae from the look of their long black hair, braided with charms, and the brightly coloured tattoos on their milk-white skin. His heart pounded briefly in fear, but they bowed to him, then knelt at his feet.
‘Big sir,’ one of them said in a language that was more or less Deverrian. ‘I speak little words, but we –’ he paused to gesture at the other man’ – now want leave Laz. Go with Drav. We ask, safe?’
‘It is. The prince has taken Drav into his service.’
The man stared at him in desperation. Salamander tried again.
‘Safe,’ he said. ‘Come see Drav with me.’
At that they both smiled.
As they followed him back to the Westfolk tents, Salamander saw Grallezar and hailed her. She took these new recruits to Drav while Salamander sought out Dallandra to give her his report.
‘Laz thinks the spirits of the book may be aware of his mind trying to reach them, but he couldn’t be sure,’ Salamander finished up. ‘And they wouldn’t know if he were a friend or an enemy.’
‘That’s very much too bad,’ Dallandra said. ‘I keep wishing I’d seen the wretched thing myself.’
‘Me, too. You know, it’s an odd thing about Laz. Is Rori truly sure he knew this soul as Alastyr?’
‘Well, he’s told me so a couple of times now. Why?’
‘He doesn’t seem as horrible as he should.’ Salamander shrugged with an embarrassed laugh. ‘I suppose that’s what I mean.’
‘You know, some people do learn from their lives. It’s one of the things that keeps my faith in the Light strong, actually, that some people really do see the evil they’ve done and do their best to redeem themselves. The opportunity’s offered to every soul in the Halls of Light.’
‘Of course.’
‘You sound doubtful.’ Dallandra cocked her head to one side and considered him.
‘In a way I suppose I am. I’ve never had grand memories of my past lives, you know. I assume I must have had some, but without actual memories, the assumption’s – well – bloodless.’
‘You should talk less and meditate more.’
‘Why am I not surprised you said that?’
When he grinned at her, she scowled at him, then softened and returned the smile. Still, he told himself, she’s right, you know – you should.
‘Besides,’ Dallandra continued, ‘Laz also had that miserable life without a shred of dweomer in it, where he was nothing but a renegade Deverry lordling, and I think he truly learned something from that, too.’
‘Which reminds me. Laz said you told him that he owned the crystal in a former life. He certainly did – as Alastyr.’
‘Yes, I know, that was a nasty slip on my part. I’ll have to think of a way to tell him without evoking that life in his mind.’
‘Good luck! Better you than I.’ Salamander hefted the crystal. ‘Shall I give this to Valandario?’
‘By all means. It rightfully belongs to her.’
Valandario was sitting in her tent, studying an array of her scrying gems, when Salamander called to her from outside.
‘Oh esteemed teacher, may I enter?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
Salamander ducked under the tent flap and came in, carrying something wrapped in what looked like an old shirt. Val smiled at him, then began picking up the gems and putting them back into their pouch. He hunkered down and waited until she’d finished.
‘I brought this back to you.’ Salamander laid the bundle down in front of her. ‘It’s the black crystal. I know you asked me to smash it, but it occurred to me that you might enjoy doing it yourself.’
‘Most likely I will,’ Val said. ‘My thanks.’
She unrolled the wrapping – indeed, an old shirt – and set the crystal down on the tent cloth between them. At the moment it appeared so ordinary, just a carved bit of obsidian, that she wondered if it were the correct crystal. Salamander supplied the evidence without being asked.
‘Every time I look into it,’ he said, ‘I see Haen Marn and Evandar.’
‘That seems to be its one power,’ Val said. ‘I wonder why Loddlaen wanted it so badly.’
‘Doubtless he didn’t know how limited it is, and besides, he was fetching it for the man called Alastyr.’
Val nodded. She was remembering Jav, laughing at some jest as they walked together down by the ocean. With a shake of her head, she banished the memory.
‘Well, what to do with it?’ Val said briskly. ‘I’d enjoy smashing it to bits, certainly, but since we don’t truly understand this bit of work, I’m hesitant. Besides, it doesn’t seem evil to me, now that I look at it.’
‘Was the crystal evil, or was it the lust for the crystal that brought the evil?’
‘A very good point.’ With a sigh Val wrapped the black stone up again in the shirt. ‘Well, I’ll keep it for a few days at least, to study its emanations. Evandar’s little gifts – by the Black Sun, how much trouble they’ve caused! The rose ring, this crystal, and now that wretched book.’
Some words they had, for dealing with those, either spiritfolk or flesh-folk, who knew Elvish words, but among themselves, the spirits of the dragon book used shape and colour to convey what thoughts they needed to share. Some leapt up in long iceblue lines, others agreed in a dim blue glow: danger, terrible danger, despite the smothering dark around the book they guarded.
Evandar, where is Evandar? They asked each other repeatedly by creating images of his various shapes, flashing like lightning in the dark. They summoned their lords and petitioned them. They brazenly asked their king, when at last he deigned to notice them. Where is the spirit known as Evandar?
Answers never came. No one knew.
‘You know, it’s odd,’ Branna said, ‘but I keep thinking about the dragon book. I wonder if we’ll ever find it?’
‘I do hope so,’ Grallezar said. ‘Without it, I doubt me we can ever turn the silver wyrm back into his true form.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that, too. Since dragons have some kind of instinct for dweomer, couldn’t we just teach him how to transform himself?’
‘After many a long year, mayhap. And mayhap the turning would fail and kill him, too.’ Grallezar sucked a thoughtful fang. ‘Did Dalla ever tell you how Evandar worked the dweomer?’
‘She did. He made some kind of dragon-shaped mould out of astral substance and wound it round Rhodry. Then the physical matter poured into it.’
‘Just so. And here be the crux of the thing. The turning itself may well be simple enough, once we find the key. But what then do we do with the astral substance that did make the mould? It be heavily charged with dweomer – twice so charged, once we free it from the man inside. I doubt me if a simple touch of a pentagram will turn it harmless and send it on its way.’
‘Oh. I’d not thought of that.’
‘The problem be a bit much for an apprentice, truly. I know you be eager to help with this working, but dealing with that dragon simulacrum had best be left to me and Dalla. Other work will come your way.’
‘Very well, then. Of course I’ll do as you say.’
Grallezar smiled briefly. ‘It gladdens my heart to see you listen to your master in the craft.’
‘Well, after what nearly happened to Neb –’
‘Indeed. At least some good did come of it, since you did take the lesson to heart.’
