Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

Salamander, or Ebañy Salomonderiel tranDevaberiel, to give him his full Elvish name, was staying in one of the most expensive inns in Cerrmor. His reception chamber was spacious, with Bardek carpets on the polished wood floor, half-round chairs with cushions, and glass in the windows. When his visitors arrived, he poured them mead from a silver flagon into glass goblets. Both Elaeno and Nevyn looked around them sourly.

“I take it that your tales pay well these days,” Nevyn said.

“They do. I know that you’re always chastising my humble self for my admittedly vulgar, crude, extravagant, and frivolous tastes, but I see no harm in it.”

“There’s not. It’s just that there isn’t any good in it, either. Well, it’s none of my affair. I’m not your master.”

“Just so, though truly, I would have been honored beyond my deserving to have been your apprentice.”

“That’s true enough,” Elaeno broke in. “The bit about ‘beyond your deserving,’ that is.”

Salamander merely grinned. He enjoyed bantering with the enormous Bardekian, though he doubted if Elaeno liked the game as much as he did.

“I know my talents are modest,” Salamander said. “Here, if I had the power of the Master of the Aethyr, I’d be as dedicated as he. Alas, the gods saw fit to give me only a brief taste of the dweomer before they snatched that honey-sweet cup from my lips.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Nevyn said. “Valandario told me that you could easily make more progress—if only you’d work for it.”

Salamander winced. He hadn’t realized that his mistress in the craft had told the old man so much.

“But that’s neither here nor there right now,” Nevyn went on. “What I want to know is why you’re in Deverry.”

“The real question is: Why not be in Deverry? I love to wander among my mother’s folk. There’s always somewhat to see along your roads, and I’m also far, far away from my esteemed father, who is always and in the most perfect prose berating me for some fault or another, both real and imagined.”

“Mostly the former, I’d say,” Elaeno muttered.

“Oh, no doubt. But if I can be of any service to either you or the Master of the Aethyr, you have but to ask.”

“Good,” Nevyn said. “Because you can. For a change, your wandering ways might come in handy. I have every reason to believe that there are several dark dweomermen abroad in the kingdom. I don’t want you trying to tangle with them, mind. They’re far too powerful for that. But they’re also supporting themselves by smuggling drugs and poisons. I want to know where the goods are sold. If we can choke off this foul trade, it will hurt our enemies badly. After all, they have to eat like other men—more or less like other men, anyway. I want you to be constantly alert for signs of this impious trade. A gerthddyn’s welcome anywhere. You just might overhear an interesting thing or two.”

“So I might. I’ll gladly poke my long Elvish nose into the matter for you.”

“Don’t poke it so far that it gets cut off,” Elaeno said. “Remember, these men are dangerous.”

“Well and good, then. I shall be all caution, wiles, snares, and deceits.”

About ten miles east of Dun Deverry lived a woman named Anghariad, who’d been pensioned off on a little plot of land after many years of service in the king’s court. None of her neighbors were sure of what she’d actually done there, because she was the closemouthed sort, but the common guess was that she’d been a midwife and herbwoman, because she knew her herbs well. Often the folk of the village would trade chickens and produce for her doctoring rather than make the long trudge into the city for an apothecary. Yet when they visited, they usually crossed their fingers in the sign of warding against witchcraft, because there was something strange about the old woman with her glittering dark eyes and hollow cheeks.

Apparently the noble-born hadn’t forgotten the woman who once served them, either. It was a common sight to see a pair of fine horses with fancy trappings tied up by her cottage, or even a noble lady herself, talking urgently with Anghariad out in her herb garden. The villagers wondered what the noble-born could possibly have to say to the old woman. If they’d known, they would have been appalled. To the farmers, whose every child was a precious pair of hands to work on the land, the very idea of abortion was repellent.

Besides her abortifacients, Anghariad had other strange things for sale to the right customers. That afternoon she was extremely displeased at the paucity of goods that Sarcyn had to offer her.

“I can’t help it,” he said. “One of our couriers was taken with all his goods down in Cerrmor. You’re cursed lucky that Tve got any opium at all.”

The old woman picked up the black lump and scored it with her fingernail, then carefully examined the way it crumbled.

“I prefer it better refined than this,” she snapped. “The noble-born have more fastidious tastes than some sot of a Bardek dockworker.”

“I told you: you’re cursed lucky to get any at all. Now, if you do me a favor, I’ll give it to you for free.”

Suddenly she was all smiles and close attention.

“I know who some of your regular customers are.”

Sarcyn leaned closer. “And one of them particularly interests me. I want to meet him. Send Lord Camdel news of the delivery and tell him to come out here alone.”

“Oh, ye gods,” Rhodry grumbled. “We finally find a tavern with decent mead, and now you tell me that we can’t afford it.”

“Well,” Jill said, “if you weren’t too beastly proud to take a hire guarding a caravan—”

“It’s not just pride! It’s the honor of the thing.”

Jill rolled her eyes heavenward to ask the gods to witness such stubbornness, then let the matter drop. Actually, they had a fair amount of coin left from the winter, but she had no intention of letting him know it. He was just like her father, drinking the coin away or handing it over to beggars with never a thought for what might lie ahead on the long road. Just as she’d done with Cullyn, therefore, she let Rhodry think that they were close to being beggars themselves.

“If you spend coin on mead now,” she said, “how are you going to feel when we’re riding hungry without even a copper to buy a scrap of bread? I’ll wager the memory of the mead will taste bitter enough then.”

“Oh, very well! I’ll settle for ale.”

She handed him four coppers, and off he went to get the ale. They were in the tavern room of the cheapest inn in Dun Aedyn, a prosperous trading town in the middle of some of the richest farmland in the whole kingdom. When they left Cerrmor, they’d ridden there because they’d heard rumors of a feud brewing between the town’s lord and one of his neighbors, but unfortunately it had been settled by the local gwerbret before they arrived. Dun Aedyn was too important to the rhan for the overlord to sit by while it was ravaged by war. Rhodry returned with two tankards, set them down on the table, then sat next to her on the bench.

“You know,” she said, “we could ride east to Yr Auddglyn. There’s bound to be fighting there this summer.”

“True spoken, and it’s a lot closer than Cerrgonney. Shall we ride straight through the border hills?”

Since the road through the hills was shorter than turning south to take the road along the seacoast, Jill was about to agree when she suddenly felt as if an invisible hand had clamped over her mouth to silence her. Blindly and irrationally she knew that they should head for Dun Mannannan before going to the Auddglyn. Dweomer again, curse it! she thought. For a moment she struggled against it, decided that they’d blasted well go through the hills if they wanted to, but she knew stubbornly and fiercely that something of importance would meet them in Dun Mannannan.