A Time of Omens

by Katharine Kerr

  “Mother, no, they mean to give us life, true life, the like of which we’ve never had before.”

  The old woman spat onto the ground.

  “Touching, Alshandra, very touching,” Evandar said suddenly. “Truly, you should go be born into Deverry and grow into a bard.”

  With a howl of rage the beggar woman rose up, shedding her rags like water dripping, dressed now in a deerskin tunic and boots; her stick became a hunting bow, and her hair flowed gold over her shoulders. Dimly, at the margins of her sight, Dallandra realized that the stone broch behind them had disappeared, and that the cloth-of-gold pavilion glimmered in the moonlight in its stead.

  “My curse upon you, Evandar!” Alshandra snarled. “A mother’s curse upon you and your elven whore both!”

  With a gust of wind and a swirl of dry leaves from some distant forest’s floor, she disappeared. Evandar rubbed his chin and sighed.

  “She always could be a bit tiresome,” he remarked. “Elli, come with us. I’ve a lesson to give Dallandra, and I’m not leaving you here alone.”

  As Bardekian merchantmen go, the ship was a good one, soundly built and deep, with room enough in the hold for the troupe’s gear and room enough on deck twixt single mast and stern for them to camp under improvised tents. The troupe’s horses had a comfortable place up on the deck tethered by the bow rather than in the stinking hold. During the crossing Jill spent most of her time in their equine company. Even in normal circumstances the troupe lived in a welter of spats and jests, gossip and sentiment, outright fights and professions of undying loyalty, and now that they were sailing off to unknown country, they as tightly strung as the wela-wela. Tucked in between the horses and the bow rail, Jill could have privacy for her meditations. Every now and then Keeta joined her, for a bit of a rest, as the juggler put it.

  “I don’t know how you stand this lot sometimes,” Jill remarked to her one morning.

  “Neither do I.” Keeta flashed a grin. “Oh, they’re all good people, really, and the only family I’ve ever had or am likely to have. But they do carry on so. It’s Marka’s marriage, you see. She started out as nothing, the apprentice, the waif we all pitied, and now here she is, the leader’s wife. Everyone’s all stirred up and jockeying for position.”

  “And Salamander’s really become the leader, hasn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes. No doubt about that, my dear, none at all.”

  At that moment Jill realized why she’d objected to Salamander’s marriage. He’d so loaded himself up with responsibility for other people’s lives that she couldn’t possibly reproach him for letting his dweomer studies lapse. She said nothing, merely watched him over the next few days as he busied himself with the troupe or sat grinning beside his new wife. Perhaps he knows best, she would think. Perhaps he simply doesn’t have the strength of will, perhaps he’s too weak, somewhere deep in his heart, to take up his destiny. Yet, despite this sensible reasoning, she felt that she was mourning a death. For Nevyn’s sake, she would do her best to keep him from squandering his talent, but a crowded ship was no place to confront him.

  From the moment the troupe landed, Jill hated Anmurdio. While Orystinna was every bit as hot, it was a dry heat there, thanks to the way the mountains channeled and deflected the prevailing winds. Anmurdio, the collective name for a group of volcanic islands, caught the tropic-wet winds full in the face. It seemed that if it wasn’t actually raining, then the wind was howling round, or if the air was still for a brief while, then it became so humid that everyone wished it would rain. The towns—random clusters of wooden houses—sagged in the ever-present mud between stretches of primal jungle. The water wasn’t safe to drink without a good dollop of wine in it; beef was unknown, and bread rare. Yet all of these aggravations might have been bearable if it weren’t for the mosquitoes, drifting in twilight clouds as thick as smoke.

  Traveling in heavy wagons would be impossible, but fortunately all the hamlets in the archipelago lay right on the ocean. Swearing and sweating over the expense, Salamander made a bargain with the owner of a little coaster that would just barely hold the troupe. The wagon horses, which Marka loved like pets, had to be stabled at a further cost in the main town—city being far too dignified a word for Myleton Noa—rather than merely sold and abandoned.

  Just when all these expensive arrangements were concluded, it began to rain, a dark sodden pour that went on and on and on for three days and washed away the troupe’s remaining coin along with their tempers. In a flood of jokes and compliments Salamander moved from person to person, keeping up morale and stopping fights. As she told him late one night, when they got a moment alone together, Jill had to admire him for it.

  “But still,” she remarked. “If you’d only put this much hard work into your studies—”

  He busied himself with slapping mosquitoes.

  “I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you,” she went on, relentless. “No doubt you’ve lost some ground lately, but now that you’re married and settled, there’s no reason that you couldn’t gain it back.”

  “No doubt you’re correct, O Princess of Powers Perilous, as well as accurate, precise, and just plain right, but the times are a bit troubled, not to say noisy, with all of us packed into this stinking inn together, for concentration. At the moment, the only dweomer I feel like working would be a bit of weather magic, to drive away this wretched storm, but I know that such would offend your fine-tuned sense of ethics.”

  “Things aren’t quite desperate enough for that, yet.”

  “True. It doubtless will clear soon enough on its own. The innkeep assures me that this much rain is most unseasonable.”

  Apparently the innkeep knew his weather, because they woke on the morrow to clearing skies. In a much improved mood the troupe set about cleaning and readying their equipment for the coming show.

  “I hope to every god that I was right about the profit to be made here.” Salamander remarked to Jill. “If I’m not, we are well and truly in the thick of battle without a sword, as the old saying would have it.”

  She said nothing, by a great effort of will.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he went on with theatrical gloom. “You might as well berate me and be done with it.”

  “I was merely wondering why anyone bothered to settle here in the first place, and then, in the second, why they bother to stay.”

  “Pearls.” All at once he grinned. “Pearls both black and white, mother of pearl and fine shells of all sorts, the best and the rarest for the jewelers of Bardek. And they quarry the black obsidian, too, to send home, and catch the parrots and other rare birds to delight the fine ladies of Surtinna. Merchant ships sail back and forth all the time, trading for their wares.”

  “Nothing but a lot of trinkets, if you ask me.”

  “Trinkets have made men rich before. Of course, a lot of men have died out here, too. The sea’s bounty demands its price.”

  “If it’s that dangerous, maybe you should just take the troupe home now.”

  “Not until I’ve put my scheme to the test, O Monarch of Might Mysterious. And tonight, here in the very market square of Myleton Noa, will the test come!”

  The market square in question was a big sprawl of mud in the center of town. All round the edge stood such civic buildings as the town could muster: a customs house, an archon’s residence, a barracks for the town guard, and a money changer, who supported a small guard of his own, according to the wine seller.

  “He’s a shrewd one, old Din-var-tano,” he remarked to Jill. “And as honest as the sea is deep, too. But a miser? Ye gods! He lives like a slave, and he won’t have a wife because of the expense of keeping one, you see. I’ll wager we won’t see him tonight at this here show. He’d feel obliged to part with one of his precious coppers! But it looks like everyone else in town is here, that’s for certain.”

  Jill and the wine seller were standing on the wooden steps of the archon’s palace, a little above the crowd swarming round the muddy
square. The old man had set up his little booth on the top step, and as they talked, he was busily chaining wine cups to the rail In the velvet twilight, the troupe was raising crossed pairs of standing torches round the stage while Salamander himself stood underneath the slack rope and pulled on it to make sure it was secure.

  “We’ve never had a show through here before,” the wine seller went on. “I wager I’ll do good business after it’s over.”

  “No doubt, I take it things are lonely in Anmurdio.”

  “As lonely as the sea is deep, that’s for certain. Sometimes I’m sorry I came, I tell you, but then, a man can live his life as he likes out here without a lot of city clerks laying down the law and grabbing his coin for taxes.”

  “Ah. I see. Tell me something. Do you ever hear of ships sailing south?”

  “South? What for? Nothing out there but sea and wind.”

  “You’re sure?” She paused to kill a particularly big mosquito that had landed on her wrist. “You’ve never heard of any islands lying far to the south?”

  He sucked his stumps of teeth while he considered.

  “Never,” he said at last. “But I can tell you who you want to ask about that. See over there, that great big fellow standing in the torchlight? The one with the red tunic—that’s right, him. Dekki’s his name, and he’s quite a sailing man, goes to all sorts of places, and not ail of them are on maps, if you take my meaning.”

  Jill signed, because she did see. A pirate, most likely, and not her favorite sort of person in the world. Before she could ask the wine seller more, on the stage drums boomed out and flutes sang. In a pleasurable shudder of applause, the crowd surged closer. The show had begun.

  From the very first moment, when the youngest and clumsiest acrobat cartwheeled across the stage, Jill could see that Salamander’s commercial instincts had delivered triumph. No matter whether a performer pulled off a difficult trick or fell in the middle of an easy one, the crowd clapped and cheered. At the end of each turn coins clinked and slithered on the stage. After all, these colonists were rich by the standards of the cities they’d left behind, but lacked luxuries to spend their wealth upon. When the heart of the show appeared, Keeta and her flaming torches, Marka dancing upon the slack rope, the crowd screamed and stamped their feet. Silver flashed like rain in the torchlight. When Jill turned to speak to the wine seller, she found him utterly entranced, smiling as he stared. Salamander himself performed the greatest trick of all, making the crowd fall silent again to catch his every word. It seemed to Jill that he luxuriated in their attention like a man drowsing in a hot and perfumed bath. She felt as if she should slap him awake before he drowned.

  Finally, when the performers were exhausted beyond the power of cheers and coins to revive them, the show wound down. By then the moon was low on the horizon, and the wheel of stars turning toward dawn. In a cooler wind from the sea the crowd lingered, watching the troupe strike its stage or drifting over the various booths and peddlers selling food and drink. When Dekki came strolling up, the crowd round the wine booth parted like the sea beneath a prow to let him through, and the wine seller handed him a cup without waiting to be asked. The pirate paid twice its worth for it, though; Jill supposed that his high standing in the town depended on his generosity just as a Deverry lord’s respect among his folk depended on his. The wine seller made him a bob of a bow.

  “This lady here would like to speak with you, Dekki.” He jerked a thumb in Jill’s direction. “She’s a scholar and a mapmaker.”

  “Indeed?” His voice was a rumble like distant thunder. “My honor, then. What do you want to know?”

  They moved away from the press of thirsty customers and stood by a pair of torches. Jill pulled her map out of her shirt and held it unrolled in the flaring light.

  “I got this over in Inderat Noa,” she said. “Do you see those islands far to the south? You wouldn’t happen to know if they really exist, would you?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me they did. Let’s put it this way. There’s something out there.” He took the map and frowned at the dim markings. “Once me and my men, we were blown off course by a storm, and a bad one it was, too. We rode south before it for many a day, and we just barely pulled through, and we found wrack from a ship that wasn’t so lucky. We spotted what looked like a figurehead and hauled it on board. We were thinking, see, that it was an Anmurdio ship, and so we’d take it home for the owners’ reward. Huh. Never seen anything like it in my life.” He handed back the map. “It was a woman, and she was smiling and had all this long hair, a nice job of carving it was, you would have sworn you could have run your fingers through it. But she had wings, or, I should say, what we found had stumps of wings. They must have folded back along the bow, like. But anyway, there were these letters carved round the belt she was wearing. Never seen anything like them. I call them letters, but they were magic marks for all I know.”

  “And what-happened to this thing?”

  “Oh, we tossed it back. Wasn’t one of our ships.”

  “I see. So, then, it must have come from somewhere to the south?”

  “Most likely. And then there’s the bubbles, too. Down on the southern beaches, sometimes you find these glass bubbles after a storm/” He cupped Ms massive hands, “About so big. Bad Suck to break one. The priests say there must be evil spirits trapped inside. But someone must have blown the glass and trapped the spirits.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in sailing south someday, just to find out what lies that way.”

  “Not on your life!”

  “Not even if someone paid you well?”

  “Not even then. You can’t spend coin down Hades way, can you? That storm took us about as far as a man can sail and still get himself home again, and we all came cursed near to starving to death before we made port.”

  The way he shook his head, and the edge of fear wedging into his voice, made it plain that not all the persuasion in the world was going to change his mind. Jill stood him to another cup of wine in thanks for the information, then bid him farewell and strolled over to join the troupe. They were laughing, tossing jests back and forth and all round the circle, dancing through their work, so happy—so relieved, really—that she couldn’t bear to spoil their celebration. She would wait to talk with Salamander on the morrow, she decided.

  “Ebañy?” she called out. “I’m going back to the inn. This trip’s wrung me out.”

  He tossed a length of rope into a wagon and hurried over, peering at her in the flickering torchlight. He himself looked exhausted, streaming with sweat his eyes pools of dark shadow.

  “Jill, are you well? Lately you’ve looked so pale.”

  “It’s the heat.” As she spoke, she realized the grim truth of it. “I’m not used to it, and I’m not as young as I used to be, you know. And it seems to be taking its toll on you, as well.”

  He nodded his agreement and ran both hands through his sweaty hair to slick it back from his face.

  “Don’t stay up too late yourself, my friend,” Jill said. “As for me, I think I’ll go have some of that watered wine or winy water or whatever it is, and then just go to bed.”

  She was so exhausted that once she lay down in her inn chamber, she fell straight asleep and never even heard the entire troupe clattering in, an hour or so later.

  In the middle of the night, though, Jill woke in a puddle of sweat. Since the window was a patch of black only slightly grayer than the room itself, she could assume that the moon had already set but the dawn was still hours away. Swearing under her breath she got up, rubbed herself dry with her dirty shirt, and put on her cleaner one to go outside for a breath of air. The compound was utterly silent, utterly dark except for the faint murmur of water in the fountain and a glimmer of stars far above. She made her careful way across the cracked tiles to the fountain, groped around, and found a safe seat on its edge. Here outside, with a trace of breeze brushing her face and the sound of water splashing
nearby, she felt cool enough to think.

  Getting an Anmurdio ship for the trip south was out of the question. She decided that straightaway. Even if the crew proved trustworthy, they and their passengers both would still likely die from the bad water and worse food on such a long journey. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she could never subject the troupe to the journey, not even if they had the best boat in the world to carry them. Not even Marka? She indulged herself with a few choice curses on Salamander’s head. They could neither take the lass along nor leave her behind, not now, unless of course Salamander stayed with her. But go alone? She was willing to admit that the idea of traveling alone across the southern sea frightened her, in spite of all her dweomer, but she also knew that if she had to, she would. When she looked up, the stars hung bright and cold, a vast indifferent sweep dwarfing even a dweomermaster and her concerns in a tide of light and darkness. In the spirit of an invalid demanding a lantern in her nighttime chamber, Jill snapped her fingers and called upon the Wildfolk of Aethyr. They came, clustering round the decayed stone nymph in the center of the fountain and shedding a faint but comforting glow.

  The silver light made her think of Dallandra, just idly at first, until an idea struck home like an arrow. Jill pointed at one of the spirits hovering nearby.

  “You know the lands of the Guardians. Fetch Dallandra for me.”

  The spirit winked out of manifestation, but whether it had truly understood the command, Jill couldn’t say. She waited for a long time, was, in fact, about to give it up and go back inside when she saw a wisp of silver light gathering above the fountain.

  “Dalla?” She breathed out the name.

  But it was only an undine, raising itself up, as sleek as a water snake, to stare at her with enormous eyes before vanishing in a swirl of water. Dressed in her elven clothes, though the amethyst jewel no longer hung round her neck, Dallandra herself strolled across the courtyard, as solid as the cobblestones.