Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

“Do you know your little gray brother who follows Jill around the kingdom?”

They nodded, a vast rustle of tiny heads.

“And you know the bad man I’m chasing? Well, I’m afraid he’s gotten hold of your brother.”

A faint sound of anguish swept over him.

“Try to find where he is, but stay, very very far away from the bad man. Do you hear me? Be very careful.”

Suddenly they were gone, and the fire was only a normal fire again. Nevyn turned his attention to it and thought of Jill. He saw her at once, sitting in a filthy tavern next to an enormously fat man, but try as he might, he couldn’t get her attention, couldn’t influence her enough to make her look toward the fire. He could feel, however, how frightened she was, and her fear fed his own. Finally he banished the vision and got up to pace restlessly back and forth.

It was some time later that the Wildfolk returned, grinning and dancing in triumph. Nevyn hastily counted heads to make sure that they were all safe.

“I take it you found him.”

Rubbing his stomach, the yellow gnome stepped forward and nodded a yes. When he held up thumb and forefinger to define something small and square, Nevyn could guess his meaning easily.

“The bad man bound him into a gem.”

The gnome nodded.

“Now for the hard part, my friends. I have to know where the gem is. Does the bad man still have it?”

When the gnome indicated no, Nevyn sighed in relief. The gnome pointed to a salamander’s red face.

“It’s a red gem.”

It was, indeed. As the Wildfolk put on elaborate pantomimes and clever mimicking, Nevyn finally understood all that they had to tell him. The gnome’s elemental spirit was bound into a ruby stolen from the king himself; the dark master had given it to a bandit with red hair; that bandit had taken it to a town to sell. Although the name of the town was difficult, finally a sprite rode on a gnome’s shoulder while others indicated something big.

“Marcmwr! A big horse!”

In a swirl and dance they spun around him, then disappeared. Feeling a little weary from all that guessing, Nevyn sat down by the fire. It was just like a dark master to bind a spirit into a gem and then give it to someone who knew naught of such matters, thus trapping the poor thing there for all eternity. Fortunately, he would reach Marcmwr by noon on the morrow.

“And then on to Cwm Pecl,” he remarked to the fire. “It’s a good thing that I know faster ways through these mountains than that wretched pass.”

By staying in the stables, where he was sleeping, Rhodry managed to keep out of Comyn’s way all evening. Once the captain and his weary men were settled in the barracks some hours after sunset, Rhodry went back to the broch, where Seryl had been given a chamber on the second floor. The merchant was awake, staring blankly at the candle-light dancing in the room.

“Here, good sir,” Rhodry said, “I’ve come to beg you a favor. I know I swore to stay with you, but one of the gwerbret’s men brought me a message from Jill. She’s in some kind of trouble down in the city.”

“Then by all means you’d best ride tomorrow.” With a sigh Seryl raised himself on one elbow and looked around the room. “Do you see that pouch lying on my cloak? Take the lot, silver dagger, and my thanks with it. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”

Although Rhodry’s honor nagged at him, he took the coin. As he left the chamber, he realized that he’d lied to Seryl, the very first lie he’d ever told in his life. He was starting to think like a silver dagger, and such a black hiraedd swept over him that he nearly wept.

That night he had trouble falling asleep. Since he was determined to reach Dun Hiraedd by sunset of the next day, he thought out his plan carefully. Not only was his own horse well rested, but he had Sunrise. By changing his weight back and forth between them, he could make good speed, and if the bay gelding tired too badly, he could trade it for another horse, perhaps, at some lord’s dun.

Yet the next morning Rhodry woke to the sound of rain. Although he left anyway, willing to ride wet for Jill’s sake, he could no longer travel fast. As he slopped and sloshed his way down the muddy road, he cursed his luck and wondered if it was only bad luck. If someone had wanted to keep him from reaching town by sunset, they couldn’t have found a better way.

“That should slow the stinking silver dagger down,” Alastyr remarked, looking up from the fire. “The road’s turned to muck, good and proper.”

“Splendid, master. Then I should be able to catch him a good long ways from town,” Sarcyn said. “Are you sure that I shouldn’t just kill him? I know he’s the better swordsman, but I can ensorcell him and slow him down.”

“I’m tempted to tell you to just go ahead and get him out of our way, but the Old One ordered me to leave him alive.”

There was no arguing with that, of course. Sarcyn felt fear clutch his stomach with icy hands. Although he tried to keep up hope, every day that the stone eluded them was a day that brought them closer to failure, a failure that could mean their deaths, whether at the hands of the dweomer of Light or of the Hawks of their own Brotherhood, who never tolerated the weak and the failed for long. Alastyr looked haggard, as if he too were thinking such unpleasant thoughts.

“Well, Rhodry might well have the gem,” the master said. “After all, they travel together; things get shifted from one piece of gear to another all the time. If only I could scry out the wretched thing itself! Now, we know that she had it at one time. The Wildfolk were definite on that. If Rhodry doesn’t have it, I’ll simply have to summon them again, but ye gods, with the Master of the Aethyr keeping watch, it’s cursed dangerous.”

“So it is. For all we know, the gem fell out of her gear during that fight with the bandits.”

“Just so. Well, go look up our fat thief first, and then get on the road after the silver dagger. If all else fails, I’ll slip into town and try to ensorcell Jill myself. I’d forgotten that she must have dweomer-talent.”

“And a strong one, master. She brushed me aside like a fly.”

Alastyr snarled and stared into the fire. Sarcyn saddled his horse, told Gan to keep a good eye on Camdel, then left their camp among the trees and rode out through the dweomer-induced rain to Dun Hiraedd.

On Nevyn’s side of the mountains, the weather held clear and warm, and he reached Marcmwr well before noon. Since he kept track of every smith in the kingdom who served the silver daggers—and that sort of smith usually traded with thieves as well—he knew to inquire at a rundown little shop on the east side of town. Just below the filthy thatch hung a sign bearing a faded picture of a silver goblet. When he opened the door, silver bells tinkled above him, and Gedryc came out to greet him from an inner chamber. A skinny fellow with enormous hands, the silversmith was going quite badly bald.

“Well, if it isn’t old Nevyn!” he said with a smile. “What brings you to me, good herbman?”

“A matter of some stolen property you’ve received.”

Gedryc went pale.

“Now, don’t waste my time,” Nevyn snapped. “I’m not about to turn you over to the laws if you just give me the ruby.”

“The square one as big as a thumbnail?”

“The very one. I figured it would pass through your hands.”

“Right you are. Here, if I’d known it was yours, I wouldn’t have touched it.”

“It’s not mine, and anyway, I’m just as glad you’ve got it. Have you cut it yet?”

“I was going to this afternoon. Make it a little less recognizable, like, but it ached my heart to spoil a stone like that. You know, I paid a cursed lot for it.”