The Silver Mage

by Katharine Kerr

  The danger-omen left Laz as suddenly as it had appeared the night before. He turned around to speak to Faharn and saw his apprentice slumped over a dwarven cart, hands clasped around the shaft of an arrow protruding from his chest. Blood flowed from between his fingers. Laz swore with every foul oath he knew as he caught Faharn by the shoulders and gently laid him down on the ground.

  Laz dropped to his knees beside Faharn and bent over his body. A quick glance showed him that pulling the arrow free would only make the wound worse. Faharn still breathed, but each breath wheezed and rattled in his chest. His mouth opened in a gasp. A thick red bubble burst on his lips. Nothing to be done here, Laz thought. He slipped into trance and summoned his body of light in one smooth motion of his mind. This time the man-shape appeared, as robust as ever. Laz transferred his consciousness into it and followed Faharn into what his apprentice would see as the Deathworld.

  Faharn’s etheric double, pale and stretched thin in the bright blue glow, hovered a long way above his body. The silver cord had dwindled to a mere thread, and as Laz rose up, he saw the thread snap. Faharn’s utter bewilderment clung around him in a thick gray mist.

  “Faharn!” Laz thought to him. “I’m here!”

  The etheric double swooped down to meet him, but Laz could hear no thought, only feel Faharn’s wordless terror. His own stab of guilt made him tremble. I should have told him, I should have told him the truth earlier. He forced his mind steady.

  “You’re dead.” Laz projected as much cold calm as he could muster. “You’re dead, but it’s not the end. You’re going to go on and live again. I’ll lead you.”

  Faharn held out pale blue hands.

  “You can’t touch anything here,” Laz thought to him. “You’re going to a new life. Follow me!”

  His years of unthinking trust brought Faharn rewards now. Whenever Laz glanced back, he saw Faharn’s glowing blue form following him. Laz rose to the upper levels of the etheric, then opened a gate to the astral world beyond. As he swooped through, Faharn came after. They soared upward through the indigo tunnel, studded with stars and images, echoing with ghostly voices, past the twisting, churning forms projected from both their memories, until at last they burst out into the pale lavender meadows of Death. Ahead, beyond the field of white poppies, lay the white river, where water that never flowed on earth nor reached an earthly sea slid past without a ripple or a sound.

  “Cross over!” Laz said. “Cross over to a new life!”

  Yet Faharn lingered, hovering close to him. When Laz let his own form drift toward the river, Faharn came after. Close to the bank a mist was rising, reaching toward them with pale wisps like hands. Laz glanced down and saw his own silver cord stretching out thin.

  “Faharn, go to the river.” He made his thought-voice as gentle as he could. “Trust me. Life awaits you.”

  With a bob of its head the etheric double obeyed. The misty hands caught the image of Faharn’s hands and pulled him to the river’s edge. A vast silver wave rose up and enveloped him, washing him safely to the farther bank. In the rising mist Laz could see no more.

  Laz turned his consciousness to his body, left far below. With a yank, the silver cord thickened and hauled him back to the gate. He plunged through. Down he swept through the indigo tunnel, down and down, until with a gasp and a wave of pain, he fell back into his flesh.

  Aching and gasping for breath, Laz opened his eyes. He found himself still crouched over Faharn’s body, soaked with darkening blood.

  “Here, here, lad,” a familiar voice said. “There’s naught to be done for him. Come away now.”

  Laz looked up to see Garin standing nearby, his eyes all sad sympathy.

  “True enough,” Laz said. “I was just saying a prayer or two for the dead. It’s our custom, you see, among the Gel da’Thae.”

  “Ah, well and good, then.”

  Laz stood up and turned away from the dead thing that had once been his friend. He would miss Faharn, he realized, another person he’d not appreciated until it was too late. Ye gods! he thought. That’s a nasty thread to have woven through your life! When he glanced around him, he saw Brel nearby, barking commands as his men restored order in the disrupted camp.

  “We’ll bury him with our dead,” Garin said. “Back in Lin Serr.”

  “My thanks, Envoy. That’s an honor indeed.”

  Garin bowed to him.

  “It’s time for the truth, Envoy,” Laz continued. “Even though remaining with your people would be another honor, I have a grave reason to leave you. The mage Dallandra charged me with the task of retrieving a book from the Boars. I’ve done that, and now I’m supposed to take it to Haen Marn to wait for her there.”

  “Never would I stand in your way if Dallandra’s behind this,” Garin said, “but if you’ll come to Lin Serr, we can give you an escort to the island.”

  “That’s truly generous, but I’d best take my leave of you. I can get to Haen Marn faster on my own.”

  “What?” Garin said. “You’ll be in danger the entire way, a lone horseman out in wild country.”

  “I’ll be leaving our horses with you.”

  “What? But—”

  Brel turned and shouted something in Dwarvish that made Garin wince. Laz could guess that it was some variant of “He can fly, you idiot,” since both the warleader and the envoy knew about his raven form.

  “You know your own mind best, Laz,” Garin said in Deverrian. “We can give you some food for the trip, at least.”

  “That would be a blessing, and I thank you. I’ve been an outlaw for years, you know. I’m good at slipping through wild country unseen.”

  “Very well.” Yet Garin hesitated.

  What would he do, Laz wondered, if I told him the truth? Or is that what Brel shouted at him?

  “If you’re certain you’ll fare well?” Garin said at last.

  “Certain I am, good Envoy! And my thanks for your aid.”

  With a sack full of supplies, Laz left the dwarves as they began to wrap up the bodies to take home to Lin Serr. He walked to the top of the hillock, looked around, and saw a ravine leading off to the east. He followed it, climbing over boulders, avoiding the tangled brush and thorny shrubs as best he could, until he could be sure that he was out of sight of the Mountain Folk. He took off his clothes, winced at his shirt, stained with Faharn’s blood, and stowed them in the sack along with the dragon book. He tied it securely with his belt and laid it on top of one of the largest boulders.

  With a cry, Laz transformed into the raven. He shook his wings, picked up his sack, and flew. He circled the camp once in farewell, then headed off for Haen Marn. As he gained height, he was wondering if the silver wyrm would forgive him for whatever ancient fault it was that lay between them, now that he’d retrieved the book. He hoped so, because he feared that even in human form, Rori would make an enemy that no man would want ranged against him.

  After some days of searching, Rori had found the mob of Horsekin emigrants, with their wagons, herds of cattle, horses, and slaves, a good distance away from the ruined fortress. Where the Northlands plateau began to rise into the foothills of the Western Mountains, they’d made a fortified camp. Although the fortifications only amounted to dirt heaped up along ditches, they troubled him, implying as they did that the emigrants were planning on spending some days behind them. He circled overhead and made a rough count of the soldiers scattered here and there in the camp—less than half as many as he’d seen before, another troubling detail.

  The camp lay on the banks of another river, this one flowing south. Perhaps the leaders of this Horsekin horde were planning on following it to some goal and had sent some of their armed riders out as scouts. To test this assumption, he followed its course, but he’d not traveled more than a few hours when he found another camp, this one laid out with military precision and swollen with soldiers, far more than he’d seen all summer long, as many as two thousand by his rough estimate. As he circled above, he realized tha
t the terrain around the camp looked familiar. In the hills to the west, not far away at all, lay his and Arzosah’s summer lair.

  Surely the Horsekin had no idea that the dragon caves lay so close. Would they attack the great wyrms—of course not! Cerr Cawnen! The name burst into his consciousness. This river ran through canyons until it reached the flatlands again, then meandered down to the marshes around Cerr Cawnen, a town that the Horsekin had coveted before. When the war at Cengarn had left them too weak to take it, they had tried to win its citizens over to a false alliance—but failed.

  Now the Horsekin had grown strong again. Little, however, had changed for the Rhiddaer since that day forty years earlier. Although the town was beautifully fortified, it could muster at the utmost nine hundred members of an ill trained and ill-armed militia in its defense. Rori knew that if the huge army below him could breach the walls, take even a single gate, they would slaughter every man in it and enslave the women and children. Once the town was theirs, getting them out of it again would likely be impossible with the force that Dar and Voran could muster.

  By then, the summer twilight was gathering in the sky. Rori banked a wing and headed south, flying until the night darkness made it too difficult for him to follow the landmarks below. He settled among rocks in the hills to rest, but with the first silver gleam of dawn he launched himself into the air again and flew onward. As he traveled, he made a rough estimate of distances. An army the size of the Horsekin threat would move slowly over this hill country. The marshy land north of Cerr Cawnen would slow them down as well. It would take them some days—perhaps even a fortnight if dragons should continually disrupt their line of march—to reach their prey.

  It took Rori, however, less than a day to fly wearily into the town. Up on the central island of Citadel stood the ruins of an ancient temple, half-hidden by trees on a slope just down from the public plaza. Rori circled the plaza once and roared out Niffa’s name as he did so, over and over until one of the terrified townspeople below finally understood him.

  “I’ll be fetching her!” the man called up to him. “Please eat not our folk!”

  “I’d never do such a thing,” Rori called back. “I’ll lair at the temple.”

  The fellow ran off, and Rori landed to rest and wait.

  “I be mourning Aethel as deeply as he,” Cotzi said, “but truly, Niffa, I do try to get myself up and about, like. Your brother, he be wallowing in grief, I think me.”

  “I do agree at least in part,” Niffa said. “Well, let me go see if talk might help him.”

  Cotzi smiled in thanks. She’d turned into a stout gray-haired matron, her face graved with deep lines, but still she reminded Niffa of Demet, Cotzi’s brother and her own long-dead husband. The family resemblance among the weavers had always run strong. Aethel did look like them, too, she thought. Ai! Our poor lad!

  She found Jahdo upstairs in the long bedroom he shared with Cotzi. He was sitting at the window and looking out at Cerr Cawnen spread out below, a view tufted with clots of mist from the lake. When Niffa joined him, he looked up and managed a smile.

  “What be all this?” Jahdo said. “Did my Cotzi send you here to cheer me?”

  “She did just that,” Niffa said. “She does worry.”

  “I be not mad with grief or suchlike. Truly, life on the caravan road be a dangerous thing. I nearly did die myself twice or thrice, as well you and Cotzi both do know.” He paused to lay a hand on his right knee, broken years before in a fight with bandits. “But what does irk and gall me, sister of mine, is that one so young should die and an old man like me still live.”

  “That does happen often enough that it should come as no amazement.”

  “True enough, but for some daft reason, never did I think it would come to me and mine.” He stood up and smiled again. “I’ll be going down now to ease Cotzi’s heart.”

  “My thanks! That were best. And think on this. It may be that the gods did keep you safe for some reason we cannot know.”

  Jahdo merely snorted at the idea, but Niffa knew, in the wordless way that omens often come to dweomermasters, that she’d spoken an inadvertent truth. They’d barely reached the ground floor of the house when a pounding on the front door proved the omen.

  Jahdo flung open the door to reveal the blacksmith’s apprentice, his face dead-pale with alarm.

  “Mistress Niffa,” he gasped out. “There be a dragon here in town. He did demand to speak with you.”

  “What color be this wyrm?” Niffa said.

  “All silvery, like, with bits of blue here and there. He does lair at the old temple.”

  “Rori! He be a friend, fear not.”

  The apprentice looked less than reassured, but Niffa hurried past him. Her clogs clattered on the stone-laid alleyways as she trotted along. The temple stood some distance from her brother’s house, round back and just down the hill. As she drew near, she could smell dragon, but trees blocked the temple from her view.

  “Rori!” she called out. “Be you here?”

  “I am,” he called back, his voice as deep as thunder. “And the bearer of ill news indeed.”

  Niffa turned cold all over as the omen returned to her mind. She made her way through the trees and straggly weeds to find the dragon lounging on the remains of the temple’s roof. She clambered up on fallen blocks of stone until she was more or less at his level.

  “I’d guess the trouble be the Horsekin,” she said. “Bain’t?”

  “It is indeed. An army of them is assembling up north, and they seem to be headed this way.”

  “Only seem to be?” She clutched at the tiny comfort of the words.

  “Where else would they be going?”

  The comfort vanished. “True spoken,” she said. “We be the only prize worth fighting for in this part of the land. Have we any chance of fending them off?”

  “Not alone. I’m on my way to Prince Daralanteriel. He’s allied with you, and he has archers.”

  “Not enough. I be no fool, Rori.”

  “Alas, ’tis true.” He lowered his head, and his oddly human, dark blue eyes watered in sympathy. “Still, it’s far too early to give up hope. Dar can call upon his alliance with Deverry. It’s obvious that if Cerr Cawnen falls, the Westlands will go next, and then the Horsekin will be at the Deverry border.”

  “Will the prince of the Slavers see that as jeopardy?”

  “Of course! And so will the High King once the prince informs him. Now. Is Jahdo still Chief Speaker here?”

  “He is.”

  “It’ll be up to him to keep your people from panic, and I can’t think of a better man for the job.”

  “No more can I. He’ll be mustering the town council as soon as I do tell him.”

  “Good! Besides, if arrows won’t turn the Horsekin back, there’s dweomer, too, for a weapon.”

  The dweomer was already warning her of disaster. For Jahdo’s sake, she kept that knowledge to herself.

  After Rori left, flying straight south like a silver spear hurled into the blue, Niffa lingered among the fallen stones of the temple. She used the trees, swaying in the summer wind, as a focus and contacted Dallandra. She repeated the gist of Rori’s message and saw her fellow dweomermaster’s image turn pale.

  “This be horrible news, but Rori be on his way back to you,” Niffa said. “He’ll be telling you more than I know.”

  Dalla’s image, floating on the surface of a shallow stream, nodded her agreement. “Go tell Jahdo,” Dallandra said. “I’m going straight to Prince Dar with this.”

  “Well and good, then. I be remembering Cleddrik. He were the fellow from Penli, who did come to us begging for shelter behind our walls should war come upon us. I did wonder at his fear, but it did turn out that he were merely prudent.”

  An exhausted Rori returned to the royal alar with the sunset and found a council of war waiting for him out in the meadow. Although Arzosah had gone off hunting earlier in the day, Dallandra and Salamander had joined Daralante
riel and the banadar. In the sky, a few clouds caught the sinking light like streaks of blood across the blue, or so they seemed to Dalla’s troubled mind.

  When Rori finished his report, Prince Dar swore softly to himself. He turned to his banadar and raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “The situation’s plain enough,” Calonderiel said. “If the Horsekin take Cerr Cawnen, then they’ll have a fortified salient.” Cal turned to the dragon. “Do you think we can defend Cerr Cawnen?”

  “Not unless we move settlers up there. It’s too far north, too isolated. You’d need a new gwerbretrhyn and a thousand good riders and archers to hold it.”

  “And how many farms,” Salamander put in, “would it take to feed them all?”

  “Huh!” Calonderiel snorted profoundly. “We can barely hold onto the Melyn River Valley as it is. Dar, sometimes I wish you’d never made that alliance with Jahdo’s people.”

  “But I did make it,” Daralanteriel said, “and cursed if I’ll break my word.”

  Calonderiel sighed and shook his head in frustration.

  “We’ve got to do something,” Dallandra joined in. “We can’t just let the Horsekin take that city and enslave everyone in it. That would be horrible.”

  “The Horsekin are prone to doing horrible things,” Salamander said. “The question is, can we stop them from perpetrating this one?”

  “And the answer to that is most likely that we can’t,” Calonderiel said with a shrug. “I don’t like the idea any more than you do, my darling, but we have to be hardheaded—”

  “You what?” Dallandra’s rush of rage made it hard for her to speak. She took a deep breath and began again. “There are four thousand people in that town—four thousand souls who deserve better than being dragged off and sold in a Horsekin market! The ones they don’t kill outright, that is, or torture to death.”

  The men and the dragon merely looked at her with a certain sympathy, as if she’d been taken ill.