Katharine Kerr - A Time of Exile

Aderyn smiled in bare politeness while Wenlyn sucked his teeth and sighed for the folly of lasses.

‘Tell me, good sir,’ Aderyn said at last, ‘If I ride straight west on the king’s road, will I eventually meet up with some of these folk?’

‘Oh, no doubt, but what do you want to do that for? If you do, be cursed careful of your mule and horse. They might take a fancy to them, like. But as to where, let’s think – never been there myself – but Cernmeton, that region, that’s where our merchants go to trade.’

‘My thanks. I’ll be leaving on the morrow, then. I’ve just got a fancy to take a look at these folk.’

Wenlyn stared at him as if he were daft, then left Aderyn to finish his meal in peace. As he sopped up the last of his stew with a bit of bread, Aderyn was wondering at himself. He felt something calling him west, and he knew he’d better hurry.

Out on the grasslands the seasons change more slowly than they do in the mountains. At about the time when Aderyn was seeing omens of autumn up in the Eldidd hills, far to the west the golden sunlight still lay hazy on the seemingly endless expanse of green. When the alar rode past a small copse of alders clustered around a spring, the trees stood motionless and dusty in the windless heat, as if summer would linger there forever. Dallandra turned in her saddle and looked at Nananna, riding beside her on a golden gelding with a white mane and tail. The elder elven woman seemed exhausted, her face as pale as parchment under her crown of white braids, her wrinkled lids drooping over her violet eyes.

‘Do you want to rest at the spring, Wise One?’

‘No need, child. I can wait till we reach the stream.’

‘If you’re sure-’

‘Now don’t fuss over me! I may be old, but I still have the wit to tell you if I need to rest.’

Riding straight in the saddle for all her five hundred years, Nananna slapped her horse with the reins and pulled a little ahead. With her second sight, Dallandra could see the energy pouring around her, great silver streams and pulses in her aura, almost too much power for her frail body to bear. Soon Nananna would have to die. Every day Dallandra’s heart ached at the thought of losing her mistress in the craft of magic, but there was no denying the truth.

Their companions followed automatically as they rode on. Earlier that morning, their alar had hurried ahead with the flocks and herds and left them a small escort of others who needed to move slowly. Enabrilia came first, leading the packhorse that dragged the heavy wooden travois with the tents. Her husband, Wylenteriel, their baby in a leather pack on his back, rode some distance behind and kept the brood-mares with their young colts moving at a slow but steady pace. His brother, Talbrennon, rode point off to one side. In the middle of the afternoon Nananna finally admitted that she was tired, and they made camp near a scattering of willow trees. Normally, since they were only stopping for one night, they wouldn’t have bothered to unpack the tents, but Dallandra wanted to raise one for Nananna.

‘No need,’ Nananna said.

‘Now here, Wise One,’ Wylenteriel said. ‘Me and Tal can have it up in no time at all.’

‘Oh, children, children, it’s not time for me to leave you yet, and when it’s time you can fuss all you like, but it won’t give me one extra hour:’

‘I know that’s true,’ Dallandra said. ‘But–’

‘No buts, child. If you know it, act on it.’

Wylenteriel, however, insisted on a compromise: he and Tal set up a small lean-to to keep the night damp off and unpacked cushions from the travois to lay on the canvas ground cloth. Dallandra helped Nananna settle herself, then knelt and pulled off the old woman’s boots. Nananna watched with a faint smile, her thin gnarled hands resting on her frail knees.

‘I’ll admit I could use a bit of a nap before dinner.’

Dallandra covered her with a light blanket, then went to help set up the camp. The men were already watering the horses at the stream; Enabrilia was sitting on the ground by a pile of dumped gear and nursing Farendar, who whimpered and fussed at her breast. He was only a year old, still practically a new-born by elven standards. Dallandra wandered downstream, driven by a sudden stab of omens. Even in the bright sunlight she felt cold, knowing that warnings were trying to reach her like slivers of ice piercing the edge of her mind, an image of winter, when something would tear her life in half and change her irrevocably. Nananna’s death, probably. With a shudder she ran back to the safe company of friends.

That night, while the others sat around a small campfire, Dallandra went to the lean-to. Nananna made a large ball of golden light and hung it on the ridge-pole, then rummaged through her saddle-bags for the small silver casket that guarded her scrying stones. There were five of these jewels, each set in a small silver disc graved with symbols: ruby for fire, topaz for air, sapphire for water, emerald for earth, and finally, the largest of them all, an amethyst for aethyr. Nananna laid the discs on a cushion and frowned at them for a moment.

‘I had a dream while I was napping, and I need to see a bit more. Hum, the amethyst will do.’

Carefully Nananna wrapped the other jewels up in bits of fine silk cloth, then laid the amethyst disc in the palm of her right hand. Dallandra knelt beside her and looked into the stone, where a small beam of light gleamed in the dead-centre, then swelled to a smoky void – or so it seemed to Dallandra. Nananna, however, watched intently, nodding her head every now and then at some detail. Finally she spoke the ritual word that cleared the stone of vision.

‘Now that’s interesting,’ Nananna said. ‘What do you think of it?’

‘Nothing. I couldn’t see.’

‘A man of magic is coming to us from the east. His destiny lies here, and I’m to take him in.’

‘Not one of those smelly Round-ears?’

‘Any man who serves the Light is welcome in my tent.’

‘Of course, Wise One, but I didn’t think a Round-ear would have the wits for magic.’

‘Now, now! Harsh words and prejudice don’t suit a student of the Light.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t like the Round-ears much either, mind. But I’m trying. Do your best to try, too.’

In the middle of the next afternoon, they rode into the alardan, the great camp, where the People meet at the end of the summer after a long season’s wandering with their flocks and herds. That year the banadars of the scattered tribes had chosen the Lake of the Leaping Trout, the most southerly of a chain of four lakes along a wide river which the Eldidd men, with a characteristic lack of imagination, called simply Aver Peddroloc, the four-lake river. To the south stood a vast oak forest, tangled and primeval, that was a burying ground held sacred by the People for thousands of years. From the north shore spread an open meadow, where now hundreds of the brightly painted tents rose like flowers in the grass. Out beyond were flocks of sheep and herds of horses, watched over by a ring of horsemen.

As their little group rode up, Talbrennon peeled off to drive their stock into the communal herds. Dallandra led the others down to the lakeshore and found an open spot to set up camp. As they dismounted, ten men came running to do the heavy work for the Wise One and her apprentice. Dallandra led Nananna away from the bustle and helped her sit down in the grass, where Enabrilia and the baby joined them. Farendar was awake, looking up at his mother with a wide toothless grin.

‘Look, sweetie, look at the camp. Isn’t it nice? There’ll be music tonight, and you can listen.’

Farendar gurgled, a pretty baby, with big violet eyes, a soft crown of blond hair, and delicate ears, long and tightly furled, as all babies’ ears were. They would begin to loosen when he was three or so.