Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

That particular day Salamander had done remarkably well, and he stood them a flagon of fine Bardek wine. When they settled into a table by the wall to drink it, Enopo savored each sip.

“A fine vintage,” he pronounced. “Ah, but it brings back bitter memories of home.”

“So it must. Here, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but—”

“I know.” He flashed Salamander a grin. “Your storyteller’s heart is aching with curiosity about my exile. Well, I don’t care to go into all the details, but it had to do with a married woman, very highborn, who was far too beautiful for the ugly and old rich man she married.”

“Ah. It’s not an uncommon tale.”

“Oh, no. Far from it.” He sighed profoundly. “Ugly or not, her husband had great influence with the archons.”

For a moment they drank in silence while Enopo gazed away as if he was remembering the beauty of his dangerous love. Salamander decided that if Enopo would tell him the reason for his exile, he now trusted the gerthddyn enough for Salamander to make his next move.

“You know, wine isn’t the only fine thing Bardek produces,” the gerthddyn casually remarked. “When I visited your lovely and refined homeland, I enjoyed a pipe or two of opium.”

“Now, look.” The minstrel leaned forward. “You want to be very careful with the white smoke. I’ve seen men become so degraded over it that they’ve sold themselves into slavery just to ensure they got more.”

“Really? Ye gods, I didn’t know that! Will just a pipeful every now and then do that to a man?”

“Oh, no, but as I say, you’ve got to be very careful. It’s like drink. Some men can drink or go dry; others turn into sots. But the white smoke has a stronger pull than drink ever can.”

Salamander pretended to be considering this carefully while Enopo watched with a slight smile.

“I know what you’re thinking of asking me, gerthddyn,” he said. “And I don’t know anyone who has the stuff for sale.”

“Well, if it’s as dangerous as you say, it’s doubtless for the best, but I was wondering.”

“From what I understand, in fact, it’s only the noble-born men in this city who use it.”

“Indeed?” Salamander sat bolt upright. “Where did you hear that?”

“From a man of my people, a merchant, who came through here about—oh, a month ago, I guess it was. He looked me up for my father’s sake, just to see if I was well and all, and he gave me some money my brothers had sent, too. We had a fine dinner with lots of wine.” He turned briefly wistful. “But at any rate, old Lalano and I were talking, and he mentioned the white smoke. Merchants back home were starting to sell it to Deverry men, he said, just now and again. He was troubled about it, because the trade’s disreputable enough back home, and he knew it was against your laws here. So as we talked about it, it occurred to us to wonder who would have the money to buy smuggled foods.”

“Who but the noble-born, true enough.”

“Or an occasional rich merchant, maybe, but these so-called lords of yours are certainly good at keeping a merchant poor.”

Now, isn’t this interesting? Salamander thought to himself. If Camdel had been smoking opium, it would certainly explain how the dark dweomermen had gotten their claws into him. He decided that over the next few days he’d do a little discreet asking around, as if he were interested in buying the stuff himself. At that point he felt the little tug on his mind that meant some other dweomer-person was trying to contact him. Casually he stood up.

“Excuse me a moment, Enopo. I’ve just got to go to the privy out back.”

With a wave of his hand the minstrel dismissed him. Salamander hurried out and went round to the stable yard, where a watering trough stood, catching the late sun. He stared into the dappled water and opened his mind, expecting to see Nevyn. Instead, Valandario’s beautiful but stern face looked up at him. He was too startled to think anything to her.

“So there you are,” she said. “Your father’s asked me to contact you. He wants you to ride home straightaway.”

“I can’t. I’m running errands for the Master of the Aethyr.”

Her storm-gray eyes widened.

“I can’t tell you what, exactly,” he went on. “But dark and dangerous deeds and doings are—”

“Less chatter, magpie! I’ll tell your father you’ll be delayed, then, but come home as soon as you can. He’ll be waiting down by the Eldidd border, near Cannobaen. Do not disobey him this time, please.”

The image of her face vanished. As he always did when confronted by his old teacher in dweomercraft, Salamander felt profoundly guilty, even though this time he’d done nothing wrong.

At dinner that night Blaen insisted on treating his cousin as an honored guest. Every time a page called him “my lord,” Rhodry winced, and hearing a servant use one of his old titles, Master of Cannobaen, brought tears to his eyes. All this well-meant courtesy only made him think of his beloved Eldidd, her wild seacoasts, her vast oak forest, untouched since time immemorial. He was profoundly glad when he and Jill could take their leave of the gwerbret’s table and go to their chamber.

By then it was late, and Rhodry was more than a bit drunk and much more tired than he cared to admit. While he struggled to pull off his boots, Jill opened the shutters at the window and leaned out, looking at the stars. Candlelight danced shadows around her and made her hair gleam like fine-spun gold.

“By every god and his wife,” Rhodry said, “I wish you’d left that cursed bit of jewelry in the grass when you saw it there.”

“And a fine lot of good that would have done. What if the dark master had found it?” “Well, true spoken. I guess.”

“Oh, I know, my love.” She turned from the window. “All this talk of dweomer aches my heart, too.”

“Does it, now? Truly?”

“Of course. What do you think I’m going to do? Leave you for the dweomer road?”

“Uh, well.” All at once he realized that he’d been afraid of just that. “Ah, horseshit, it sounds stupid now that I hear you say it aloud.”

She looked at him, her mouth slack as if she were debating what to say next, then suddenly smiled. She bent down and held out her hands to something, then picked up what he assumed was her gray gnome and cradled it in her arms.

“Is somewhat wrong?” she said. “No? Good. Did you just come to see us, then? That’s sweet, little creature.”

Seeing her speak to something that he couldn’t see yet knew existed was eerie, troubling him further. As he watched her in the candlelight, he was remembering being a tiny lad, and thinking that maybe the Wildfolk were real, and that maybe he could see them. At times, when he was out in his father’s hunting preserve, it would seem that maybe there was an odd creature peering at him from under a bush or up in a tree. Yet even as a very small child, Rhodry had dismissed the Wildfolk as only something his nurse spoke about to amuse him. His hard-bitten father had made sure that his son had no trace of whimsy about him.

“Here’s Rhoddo,” she said. “Say ‘good eve’ to him.”

Rhodry felt a little hand clasp his finger.

“Good eve,” he said, smiling. “And how does our good gnome fare?”

All at once he saw it, a dusty sort of gray, with its long limbs and warty nose. It was grinning at him while it held his fingertip in one spiky hand. Rhodry caught his breath in a gulp.

“You see him, don’t you?” Jill whispered.

“I do, at that. Ye gods!”

Jill and the gnome exchanged a smile of triumph; then the creature disappeared. Rhodry stared openmouthed at her.

“I asked Nevyn this afternoon why you couldn’t see the Wildfolk,” she said, as calmly as if she were discussing what to serve her man for dinner. “And he told me that you probably could, with that trace of elven blood and all. Being around the dweomer will open his eyes, he said.”