Katharine Kerr - A Time of Exile

‘And here’s a trinket from Brin Toraedic. He said to tell you that since it was older than both of you put together, it was a marvel indeed.’

Aderyn laughed and held up the golden cup, made of beaten metal and decorated with a ridged pattern utterly unlike any made by human or elf. Jill found herself studying the old man; he seemed no older, no weaker than he ever had, but still she worried. He picked up her thought.

‘My time won’t be for a little while yet. I have Gavantar to train, and he’s just begun his studies.’

‘Ah. I just … well, wondered.’

‘Things have been hard for you with Nevyn gone.’ It was not a question.

‘They have. It’s not just the missing of him, though that’s bad enough. I feel so wretchedly inadequate, little more than an apprentice myself, truly, and not fit to be the Master of the Aethyr.’

‘Oh, here, we all go through that! You’ll grow into the job. It’s like becoming captain of a warband, I suppose. All that responsibility at first – why, it must overwhelm a man, thinking of all those lives that depend on his decisions.’

‘True spoken. But I’ve got Nevyn’s work to finish. I keep feeling that I’ve absolutely got to do it right for his sake.’

‘Wait a moment now! It’s not his work, any more than it’s your work. Don’t let that kind of vanity enter in, or you’ll find yourself worrying indeed. It’s all our work, and the work and will of the Great Ones. Think of it as an enormous tapestry. We each weave a little piece, what small amount we’re capable of, then hand the grand design on to the next worker. No one soul could possibly finish the entire thing by himself.’

‘You’re right enough, aren’t you?’ Jill smiled, feeling her dark mood lift. ‘I’ll drink to that! Here comes your Gavantar now.’

Carrying a leather bottle, dripping wet and smelling of Bardek cinnamon and cloves, Gavantar ducked through the flap and joined them. Once the drink was poured round, he sat down by the door on guard, and with a shy duck of his head refused to move closer even when Aderyn invited him. He was new to the dweomer, Jill supposed, and still in awe of what he considered strange and mighty powers. Soon enough, when he came to see how natural in their way Aderyn’s magicks were, he would begin to feel at ease.

‘Is Rhodry still with Calonderiel?’ she asked.

‘He is, O Wise One. The whole camp wants to meet him.’

‘Good. Then he’ll stay out of trouble for a few hours, anyway.’ She turned back to Aderyn. ‘Rhodry is one of the things that’s vexing me.’

‘Ah. He’s still in love with you?’

‘That, too, I suppose, but that’s not the important thing. I wonder what’s going to happen to him now, mostly. No, I worry about him, worry badly. We’ve snatched him away from everything he knows and loves, which is harsh enough, and then beyond that, there’s his Wyrd. For so long his whole life was ruled by that prophecy, and now he’s fulfilled it, and well, what’s going to become of him?’

‘Prophecy?’

‘The one Nevyn received all those years ago. Don’t you remember it? Rhodry’s Wyrd is Eldidd’s Wyrd, it ran.’

‘Oh, that! Of course – he became gwerbret in the nick of time, didn’t he?’

‘You seem to take it all blasted lightly, but so he did. Look, there would have been a long and ghastly war in Eldidd if Rhodry hadn’t been there to inherit the rhan.’

Aderyn merely nodded. Jill supposed that he was so old, and had seen so many wars, that one more conflict would have meant nothing to him.

‘And then there’s the rose ring, too,’ she went on. ‘I’ve been vexing myself about that bit of jewellery for months now. That’s why I want to talk to Devaberiel, you see, to ask him about it and the strange being who gave it to him. I’ll wager he wasn’t an ordinary elf.’

‘You’re right about that.’ Aderyn’s voice had gone tense and strange. ‘I’ve got my own ideas about who that mysterious benefactor was.’

‘I want to hear them. And what about that wretched inscription? If we knew what it meant, we might be able to unravel the entire mystery.’

Although she was expecting him to tell her his ideas or at least acknowledge that she’d spoken, Aderyn sat for a long time merely staring out into space. At last, though, he spoke in a voice that was half a whisper, half a sigh.

‘The ring – that cursed ring! Dwarven work, and it had a life of its own, just like their trinkets always do. Stranger than most, this one, and I’ll wager its work isn’t over yet.’ He shook his head, then went on in a normal voice. ‘But, oh yes, the prophecy … so a man of elven blood finally ruled in Eldidd! Fancy that!’

‘Well, you know, his son has a good dollop of elven blood in his veins, too. Young Cullyn.’ Jill had to smile at his expression. ‘Here, Aderyn, you look shocked to the very heart!’

The old man shrugged and looked away, and at that moment the weight and sadness of all his long years seemed to press him down. Wildfolk clustered round, patting his hands, climbing into his lap, glaring at Jill as if accusing her of causing their friend pain. In spite of his shyness Gavantar inched himself closer, looking back and forth between the two masters of his craft with a worried little frown.

‘Well, the land did belong to the People once,’ Jill went on. ‘I’d like to see them welcome there again. Or is it a wrong thing for men and elves to mix their blood like this?’

‘Not in the least.’ Aderyn threw off the mood and half the Wildfolk with a shrug and a wave of one hand. ‘And it would be splendid, in my opinion, anyway, for the People to have some say in ruling Eldidd, too. It’s just hard for me to believe, when I remember some of the things that have happened over the years. There’s been a lot of bad feeling, Jill, just a terrible lot of bad feeling between my two tribes. That’s how I always think of elves and men, you see, as both mine now, though once, truly, I hated thinking that I might still be a human being. Of course, Rhodry’s the one who’s really caught between the two worlds, isn’t he? It’s not going to be easy for him, either. I can testify to that, from my own experience.’ He paused for a long moment. ‘Well, it’s going to be much worse for him, truly. There are things that have happened to him in other lives that are bound to come to a head now. That’s one reason I made sure to be here on the border when he came.’

‘Indeed? What sort of things?’

‘Well, it’s a long and winding tale, truly, and one that runs hundreds of years, all told, though I think me that we’re about to get to the end of it at last. You do remember, don’t you, that his soul in another body was my father?’ The old man grinned. ‘If anyone can remember that far, way back in the mists of time when I was born.’

Jill smiled with him, but she felt a touch of dweomer eerily run down her back. She had, after all, in another body been his mother. Aderyn was too courteous to mention the point.

‘But Gweran – my father, that is, and Rhodry in other flesh – was the most human man I’ve ever seen.’

‘But he was a bard. You’re forgetting that. There’s a touch of … well, what? madness? the Wildlands? somewhat strange and magical and crazed and inspired, all at once, in the soul of every bard.’

‘Well, so there is. I hadn’t truly thought of it that way before. Wyrd and the tangles of Wyrd! They always say that no man can know the truth of it.’

‘Or woman either, but we’ve all got to try to untangle our own.’

‘Just so, and we were speaking of other people’s work earlier, weren’t we? But Rhodry might well be my work now – no need for you to bother and all – though I might end up needing your help one fine day. After Gweran died, I doubt me if you were involved in much of this.’ He thought hard, chin in hand. ‘You’ve always belonged to the human race, Jill, not to the Elcyion Lacar like I do – not that Rhodry’s soul was ever supposed to be so mixed up with the elves, either, truly, bard or not. It’s an odd thing, how tangled a man’s Wyrd can become, and all through muddles and blunders. But you don’t need to trouble your heart over it. Truly, I don’t think you were involved, except in the most casual way.’