Katharine Kerr - A Time of Exile

Voyager

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by GraftonBooks 1991

Copyright © Katharine Kerr 1991

Cover design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Katharine Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of 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.

All rights reserved under International and Pan–American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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: 9780586207888

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2014 ISBN: 9780007400980

Version: 2019–10–08

tibi, Dea, nominis pro gloria tuae

Cover

Title Page Voyager KATHARINE KERR A Time of Exile A Novel of the Westlands

Copyright COPYRIGHT Copyright Map Dedication Prologue: The Eldidd Border 1096 Part One: Deverry and Eldidd 718 One Two Part Two: The Elven Border 719–915 Part Three: Eldidd 918 One Two Three Epilogue: The Elven Border Summer, 1096 Keep Reading Appendices Glossary About the Author Other Books By About the Publisher Voyager An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by GraftonBooks 1991 Copyright © Katharine Kerr 1991 Cover design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019 Katharine Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue copy of 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. All rights reserved under International and Pan–American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. 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: 9780586207888 Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2014 ISBN: 9780007400980 Version: 2019–10–08

Map MAP Map Dedication Prologue: The Eldidd Border 1096 Part One: Deverry and Eldidd 718 One Two Part Two: The Elven Border 719–915 Part Three: Eldidd 918 One Two Three Epilogue: The Elven Border Summer, 1096 Keep Reading Appendices Glossary About the Author Other Books By About the Publisher

Dedication DEDICATION Dedication Prologue: The Eldidd Border 1096 Part One: Deverry and Eldidd 718 One Two Part Two: The Elven Border 719–915 Part Three: Eldidd 918 One Two Three Epilogue: The Elven Border Summer, 1096 Keep Reading Appendices Glossary About the Author Other Books By About the Publisher tibi, Dea, nominis pro gloria tuae

Prologue: The Eldidd Border 1096

Part One: Deverry and Eldidd 718

One

Two

Part Two: The Elven Border 719–915

Part Three: Eldidd 918

One

Two

Three

Epilogue: The Elven Border Summer, 1096

Keep Reading

Appendices

Glossary

About the Author

Other Books By

About the Publisher

‘As thrifty as a dwarf’ is a common catch-phrase, and one that the Mountain People take for a compliment. Although they see no reason to waste anything, whether it’s a scrap of cloth or the heel of a loaf, they keep a particularly good watch over their gemstones and metals, though they never tell anyone outside their kin and clan just how they do it. Otho, the silver daggers’ smith down in Dun Mannannan, was no different from any other dwarven craftsman, unless he was perhaps more cautious than most. His usual customer was some hotheaded young lad who’d dishonoured himself badly enough to be forced to join the silver daggers, and you have to admit that a wandering swordsman who fights only for coin, not honour, isn’t the sort you can truly trust with either dwarven silver or magical secrets.

During his long years among humans in the kingdom of Deverry, Otho taught a few other smiths how to smelt the rare alloy for the daggers, an extremely complicated process with a number of peculiar steps, such as words to be chanted and hand gestures to be made just so. Otho would always refuse to answer questions, saying only that if his students wanted the formula to come out right they could follow his orders, and if they didn’t, they could get out of his forge right then and spare everyone trouble. All the apprentices shut their mouths and stayed; they were bright enough to realize that they were being taught magic of some sort, even if they weren’t being told what the spells accomplished. Once they opened shops of their own, they went on repeating Otho’s procedures in the exact way they’d been taught, so that every dagger made of dwarven silver in Deverry carried two kinds of dweomer.