Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

“Do you think that silversmith will be in by now?” he said.

“No doubt. Otho wouldn’t leave his shop for long.”

Together they went out into the unwalled town, a straggling collection of round thatched houses and shops along a river. On the grassy bank fishing boats lay bleaching, from the look of their cracked keels and gaping planks barely seaworthy.

“I don’t see how these people make a living from the sea,” Rhodry remarked. “Look at that mast. It’s all held together with wound rope and tar.”

When he started to walk over for a better look, Jill grabbed his arm and hauled him back. Two local men, hard-eyed and dressed in filthy rags, were watching.

“It doesn’t pay to go poking your nose into other people’s business, lad,” one of them called out.

“Especially not scum like you, silver dagger,” said the other.

They both spat on the ground and laughed. Rhodry tried to shake his arm free of Jill’s grasp, but she hung on grimly.

“You can’t, Rhoddo,” she whispered. “They’re not but peasants. They’re too far below you to fight with.”

With a toss of his head he turned away. Arm in arm they walked on down the winding street.

“About those boats?” Jill said. “They’re not as shabby as they look. They keep them that way on purpose, to hide, like. There’s more than one kind of cargo that comes in under the mackerel.”

“Ye gods! You mean we’re staying in a den of smugglers?”

“Keep your voice down! Just that.”

Otho’s shop stood on the very edge of town, just on the other side of a dirt path from a field of cabbages. Under a droop of smoke-black thatch the plank door stood shut but no longer padlocked. When Jill opened it, silver bells tinkled overhead.

“Who’s there?” bellowed a deep voice.

“Jill, Cullyn of Cerrmor’s daughter, and another silver dagger.”

Rhodry followed her into an empty chamber, a small wedge of the round house set off by dirty wickerwork panels. In one panel hung a frayed green blanket, doing duty for a door, apparently, because Otho shoved it aside and came out. Although he stood only four and a half feet tall, he was perfectly proportioned and muscular at that, with arms like a miniature blacksmith. He had a heavy gray beard, neatly cropped, and shrewd dark eyes.

“Well, Jill it is,” he said. “And it gladdens my heart to see you again. Where’s your father, and who’s this lad?”

“Da’s in Eldidd. He won himself a place as captain of a tieryn’s warband.”

“Did he, now?” Otho smiled in sincere pleasure. “I always thought he was too good a man to carry the silver dagger. But what have you done? Run off with this pretty face here?”

“Now, here!” Rhodry snarled. “Cullyn gave her leave to go.”

Otho snorted in profound disbelief.

“It’s true,” Jill broke in. “Da even pledged him to the silver dagger.”

“Indeed?” The smith still looked suspicious, but he let the matter drop. “What brings you to me, lad? Have some battle loot to sell?”

“I don’t. I’ve come about my silver dagger.”

“What have you done, nicked it or suchlike? I don’t see how any man could bruise that metal.”

“He wants the dweomer taken off it,” Jill said. “Can you do that, Otho? Remove the spell on the blade?”

The smith turned, openmouthed in surprise.

“I know cursed well it’s got one on it,” she went on. “Rhoddo, take it out and show him.

Reluctantly Rhodry drew the dagger from its worn sheath. It was a lovely thing, that blade, as silky as silver, but harder than steel, some alloy that only a few smiths knew how to blend. On it was graved the device of a striking falcon (Cullyn’s old mark, because the dagger had once belonged to him), but in Rhodry’s hand the device was almost invisible in a blaze and flare of dweomer-light, running like water from the blade.

“Elven blood in your veins, is there?” Otho snapped. “And a good bit of it, too.”

“Well, there’s some.” Rhodry made the admission unwillingly. “I hail from the west, you see, and that old proverb about there being elven blood in Eldidd veins is true enough.”

When Otho grabbed the dagger, the light dimmed to a faint glow.

“I’m not letting you in my workshop,” he announced. “You people all steal. Can’t even help it, I suppose; it’s probably the way you were raised.”

“By every god in the Otherlands, I’m not a thief! I was born and raised a Maelwaedd, and it’s not my wretched fault that there’s wild blood somewhere in my clan’s quarterings.”

“Hah! I’m still not letting you into my workshop.” He turned and pointedly spoke only to Jill. “It’s a hard thing you’re asking, lass. I don’t have true dweomer. The dagger spell is the only one I can weave, and I don’t even understand what I’m doing. It’s just somewhat that we pass down from father to son, those of us who know it at all, that is.”

“I was afraid of that,” she said with a sigh. “But we’ve got to do somewhat about it. He can’t use it at table when it turns dweomer every time he draws it.”

Otho considered, chewing on his lower lip.

“Well, if this were an ordinary dagger, I’d just trade you a new one without the spell, but since it was Cullyn’s and all, I’ll try to unweave the dweomer. Maybe working it all backward will do it. But it’s going to cost you dear. There’s a risk in meddling with things like this.”

After a couple of minutes of brisk haggling, Jill handed him five silver pieces, about half of the smith’s asking price.

“Come back at sunset,” Otho said. “We’ll see if I’ve been successful or not.”

Rhodry spent the afternoon looking for a hire. Although it was too close to winter weather for warfare, he did find a merchant who was taking a load of goods back to Cerrmor. For all their dishonor, silver daggers were in much demand as caravan guards, because they belonged to a band with a reputation that kept them more honest than most. Not just any man could become a silver dagger. A fighting man who was desperate enough to take the blade had to first find another silver dagger, ride with him awhile, and prove himself before he was allowed to meet one of the rare smiths who served the band. Only then could he truly “ride the long road,” as the daggers referred to their lives.

And if Otho could blunt the spell, Rhodry would no longer have to keep his blade sheathed for fear of revealing his peculiar bloodlines. He hurried Jill through her dinner and hustled her along to the silversmith’s shop a little before sunset. Otho’s beard was a good bit shorter, and he no longer had any eyebrows at all.

“I should have known better than to do a favor for a miserable elf,” he announced.

“Otho, you have our humble apologies.” Jill caught his hand and squeezed. “And I’m ever so glad you didn’t get badly burned.”

“ You’re glad? Hah! Well, come along, lad. Try it out.”

When Rhodry took the dagger, the blade stayed ordinary metal without the trace of a glow. He was smiling as he sheathed it.

“My thanks, good smith, a thousand times over. Truly, I wish I could reward you more for the risk you ran.”

“So do I. That’s the way of your folk, though; all fine words and no hard coin.”

“Otho, please,” Jill said. “He doesn’t even have much elven blood.”

“Hah! That’s what I say to that, young Jill. Hah!”

All day the People rode into the meeting place for the alardan. To a grassy meadow so far west of Eldidd that only one human being had ever seen it, they came in small groups, driving their herds of horses and flocks of sheep before them. After they pastured the animals, they set up leather tents, painted in bright colors with pictures of animals and flowers. Children and dogs raced through the camp, cooking fires blossomed; the smell of a feast grew in the air. By sunset well over a hundred tents stood round the meeting place. As the last fire took light and blazed, a woman began to sing the long wailing tale of Donabel and his lost love, Adario. A harper joined in, then a drummer, and finally someone brought out a conaber, three joined reedy pipes for a drone.