A Time of Exile

by Kerr, Katharine

  Until, that is, she came closer and he saw the little amethyst figurine at her throat, such a discordant detail that it made him wonder if this dream were different. He realized then that rather than appearing as a dream-image of himself, he’d somehow assumed his body of light, the pale bluish form, a stylized man shape, in which he traveled on the etheric.

  “Ado, it’s good to see you, even in this form,” Dallandra said. “But I don’t have much time. It’s hard for us to come to the Gatelands like this, you see.”

  “No, I don’t see. For the love of every god, Dalla, when are you coming home?”

  “Soon, soon. Oh, don’t sulk—it’s only been a few days, after all. Listen carefully. You know that guest of yours, Nevyn’s friend, the one the sprite loves?”

  “His name’s Maddyn. But it hasn’t been a few days.”

  “Well, five days then, but do please listen! I can feel them drawing me back already. Maddyn’s got a piece of jewelry made of dwarven silver. The Guardians need it. Ado, I’ve got so much to tell you. Sometimes the Guardians can see the future. Only in bits and flashes, but they do see it, in little tiny true dreams, like. And one of them saw that this Maddyn fellow’s going to be important. So they need the rose ring.” Even as she went on speaking, her form seemed to be growing thinner, paler, harder to see. “In my saddlebags are all sorts of things that you can trade him for it—take as much as you need, heap him up with it, I don’t care. Just get the rose ring. Leave it in a tree near camp.”

  “Do what? Why should I help these rotten creatures at all?”

  “Oh, please, Ado, do be reasonable! Do for my sake if you won’t do it for theirs.” She was a mere shadow, a colored stain on the view behind her. “The biggest oak tree near camp.”

  She was gone, and her companion with her. Aderyn looked down and saw the silver cord connecting his body of light with his physical body, lying in his blankets in his tent just below him. So—he hadn’t been dreaming after all! The meeting was in its way true enough. He slipped down the cord, returned to his body, and sat up, slapping the ground to earth himself out in the physical. The blue sprite was crouching at the foot of his bedroll and watching him.

  “Well, little sister, you were a messenger, were you?”

  She nodded yes and disappeared. For a long time that night Aderyn debated whether or not he’d do what Dallandra wanted, but in the end, for her sake, he decided that he would. He found her saddlebag—he’d been carrying it around for over a hundred and twenty years by then—and the jewelry she’d spoken of. Although it was all tarnished and dusty, she had some beautiful brooches and bracelets in the elven style, and they’d polish up nicely enough.

  Early that morning, he went looking for Maddyn and found him sitting in the grass and tuning a small wooden harp in the middle of a cloud of Wildfolk. Although it was all nicked and battered, Aderyn had never heard a sweeter-sounding instrument. For a few moments they talked idly while the Wildfolk settled round them in the hope of music.

  “I’ve got somewhat to ask you,” Aderyn said at last. “It’s probably going to sound cursed strange.”

  “Ye gods, after knowing Nevyn for all these years I’m used to strange things. Ask away.”

  “Someone told me that you’ve got a silver ring with roses on it or suchlike.”

  “I do.” Maddyn looked startled that he would know. “It was given to me by a woman that I … well, if I say I loved her, don’t misunderstand me. She was someone else’s wife, you see, and while I loved her, there was never one wrong thing between us.”

  He spoke so defiantly that Aderyn wondered if he were lying, not that it was any business of his. Mentally he cursed Dalla for asking for something that probably carried enormous sentiment for Maddyn.

  “Um, well.” Aderyn decided that the plain truth was the best, as usual. “You see, in the dream I was told by a dweomerwoman of great power that this ring is marked by dweomer for a Wyrd of its own. She needs it very badly for a working she has underway. She’s offered to trade high.”

  “Well, then, she shall have it. I’ve lived around the dweomer for years, you know. I’ve got some idea of the importance of dreams and what comes to you in them. I won’t trade, but I’ll give it to you outright.”

  “Oh, here, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to wheedle like a child. It must mean a lot to you.”

  “It did once, but the woman who gave it to me is beyond caring about it or me.” The bard’s eyes brimmed tears. “If you want it, you shall have it.”

  With the curious Wildfolk trailing after, they went to the tent that Maddyn was sharing with Nevyn. The bard rummaged through his saddlebags and took out something hard wrapped in a bit of embroidered linen. He opened the cloth to reveal the ring, a simple silver band about a third of an inch wide, graved with roses, and a pin shaped like a single rose, so cunningly worked that it seemed its petals should be soft to touch. He gave Aderyn the ring, but he wrapped the pin back up and returned it to his saddlebags. Idly Aderyn glanced inside the ring, half expecting to see the lady in question’s name, but it was smooth and featureless.

  “The smith who made it, and that pin, too, is a brilliant craftsman,” Maddyn remarked. “Otho, his name is.”

  When, out of idle curiosity, Aderyn slipped the ring on his own finger, his hand shook in a dweomer-induced cold.

  “Somewhat wrong?” Maddyn said.

  “There’s not. It’s just the knowing, coming upon me. You shall have this back, Maddo, one fine day. You’ll have it back in a way you never expected, and long after you’ve forgotten it.”

  Maddyn stared in frank puzzlement. There was nothing Aderyn could tell him, because he didn’t know what he meant himself. His heart was bitter, too, remembering the similar promise that Evandar had made him. Apparently the Guardian had meant that he would see Dallandra again, all right, but only in that agonizingly brief glimpse on the etheric plane.

  On the morrow morning, Aderyn did what she’d asked and placed the ring high up in the crotch of the oak tree while the alar was breaking camp. Although he never knew who had taken it, the next time the alar rode that way, it was gone. In its place was a small smooth bit of wood scratched with a couple of Elvish words, a simple “thank you,” but in her handwriting. He borrowed an awl and bored a hole in the scrap, so he could wear it on a bit of thong round his neck, just because her hands had touched it. Seeing her again had brought his grief alive even as it had killed the last of his hope.

  Early the next year, from an Eldidd port Maddyn sailed off with Nevyn to Bardek, and Aderyn never saw or heard of him again, not even to hear how he died, far off in the islands after the rose-shaped pin had been stolen from him. But oddly enough, Dallandra did hear of the bard’s death, or, to be more precise, she realized what had happened when his blue sprite turned up at the court of the Guardians on what seemed to her to be the day after she’d gotten the silver ring. It was the jewelry that drew the little creature, in fact, because they found her clasping it between her tiny hands. Her face was screwed up in an agony of despair, and when Elessario tried to stroke her, the sprite whipped her head around and sank her pointed teeth deep into the Guardian’s hand. Illusory blood welled, then vanished. Elessario stared for some moments at the closing wound.

  “What made her do that?”

  “I don’t know for certain, but I’d guess that Maddyn’s dead.”

  The sprite threw back her head, opened her mouth in a soundless howl, and disappeared.

  “He seems to be, yes,” Dallandra went on. “And she’s mourning him.”

  Elessario cocked her head to one side and considered the words for some time. They walked across the glowy emerald grass in a pinkish twilight, where blue-green trees on the horizon shifted like smoke. With a howl that they could actually hear, the sprite reappeared, much larger, about the size of a three-year-old child.

  “She mourns because he’s gone to the place called death,” Elessario said, “and she can’t follow him there.”

&nbs
p; “That’s right, yes.”

  They were sitting on the billowing grass with the sprite between them, leaning her head into Elessario’s silken lap.

  “Every now and then I wonder what it would be like to die,” Elessario said. “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know. I can only make guesses. I suppose it’s a lot like falling asleep—but you’ve never been asleep—sorry.”

  “I’m growing very tired of finding out that there are all these things I’ve never done.” But she sounded sad rather than cross. By then, the sprite was sitting on her lap and was larger again, like a child of nine or ten, cradled in her arms and silent. “If I go to Uve among the People, if I go to be born and someday die, what then, Dallandra?”

  “I don’t know. None of us can know what would happen then.”

  “I’m growing very tired of you telling me that there are all these things you don’t know.”

  “But I don’t know them. The only one who can find those answers is you.”

  They were walking among roses, with the sprite, tiny again, skipping ahead. All at once the little creature threw back her head and sniffed the air like a hunting dog. For the briefest of moments she froze, then darted into the air, swooped round them in joy, and disappeared.

  “Something’s made her happy,” Dallandra remarked.

  “Maybe her bard’s been reborn.”

  “Oh no, it’s much too soon! Although, I don’t know about the Round-ears. It might be different for them.”

  The lands of the court shifted and gleamed around them in a burst of moonlight, and now and again music drifted in warm air.

  “Oh, lovely—the moon’s rising,” Dallandra said. “It’s so hard to believe that I’ve been here seven whole days.”

  All at once, just from saying the words aloud, their import pierced her mind. How could it have been seven days, only seven short days, when enough time had passed for Nevyn to travel to the elven lands and leave them again, for Maddyn the bard to appear, then die, and now, maybe—no, it was quite likely, really—be reborn again. Dallandra shrieked aloud and felt the cry tear out of her as if by its own will.

  “Elessario! You’ve lied to me! You’ve tricked me!”

  “What?” She spun around to stare, then suddenly burst into tears. “Never! Dalla, what do you mean?”

  “How long have I been here?”

  Elessario could only stare while tears ran down her cheeks. Dallandra realized that she would have no way of understanding such things as the passing of time.

  “Take me to your father. Where’s your father?”

  “Here.” In full court garb, draped in a cloak of silvery blue and wearing a golden fillet round his yellow hair, he came strolling up to them. “I’m the trickster, Dalla, not my poor little daughter. Time runs different here in our country.”

  “You never told me.”

  “You never would have come.”

  “If you had gods, I’d curse you by them.”

  “No doubt. You know, I’m rather sorry I lied. What an odd sensation.”

  “Let me go home.”

  “Of course. That was our bargain, wasn’t it? Home you shall go, and right now.”

  “No!” Elessario howled. “Please don’t go, Dalla.”

  “I’m sorry, child, but I have to. You can come visit me in my own country, like you used to do before.”

  “I want to go with you now. Please, let me come with you and live with you.”

  Suddenly the air grew cold, and the moon slipped behind dark clouds. In the murky light torches gleamed on armor and sword; shields clashed, men swore, banners snapped and fluttered as an army rushed toward them, Alshandra riding hard at their head. With a frown of mild disgust, Evandar threw up one hand and snapped his fingers. All the charging soldiers turned into mist and blew away. Stamping one foot, Alshandra stood before them.

  “Dallandra will never leave. She’s turned my daughter against me, and I shall have her in return. It’s the law and it’s fair and she’s my prize.”

  “I made her man a promise,” Evandar said. “And I shall keep it.”

  “You made the promise, Evandar Yellow-hair, not me. She shan’t leave. If our daughter is going away because of her, she’s staying to be my prize in return.”

  Dallandra found herself clutching the amethyst figurine at her throat, as if to keep it safe. Alshandra howled with laughter.

  “You don’t know the way home, do you, girl? You don’t know which road leads home.”

  They stood on the misty green plain, looking into the setting sun. On their right hand rose the dark hills, twisted and low; on their left towered the high mountains, their white peaks shining in the last of the light. Before them stretched not one road but a tangle, all leading off into mist as dark as night.

  “You could wander a long time here,” Alshandra said. “Maybe luck would take you home straightaway. I doubt it.”

  Evandar grabbed her elbow. When she swung round to face him he grinned in smug triumph.

  “You say it’s fair that you have a prize, and so our laws run. But would it be fair, my sweet, my darling, to trap and keep a soul that never took a thing from you, that never saw Elessario before, that never, indeed, saw you or me before?”

  “What? Of course it wouldn’t be fair, and never would I do such a thing. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Everything, my sweet, my darling. Dallandra carries a child under her heart, an innocent child that never took a thing from us, that’s yet to see any of us.”

  With a shriek, a scream, a howl of sheer agony Alshandra swelled up huge, towering over them like storm clouds. When she cried out again her voice was a wail of mourning.

  “Unfair!”

  “No.” Evandar’s voice was cool and calm. “Very fair.”

  She stretched out, as thin as clouds dissolving under a hot sun, then all at once snapped back, standing before them as an old, withered woman, dressed all in black, with tears running down her wrinkled cheeks.

  “Clever,” Evandar remarked. “But somehow my heart doesn’t ache for you the way it should.”

  With a snarl she stood before them, herself again, in her hunting tunic and boots, her bow slack in one hand.

  “Oh, very well, show her the road home, but you’re a stupid wretched beast and I hate you.”

  She was gone. Dallandra caught her breath in a convulsive sob.

  “And what do you want from me, Evandar, in return for all of this?”

  “Only one thing. After your babe is born, and if you’re not happy anymore, come back.” He caught her by the shoulders, but gently. “But only if you’re not happy. Do you understand? Come back only if your heart aches to come back.”

  “I do understand, but I fear me you’ll never see me again.”

  “No doubt. Well, I can hope—no, I’m fairly sure—that Elessario will find her way to you and to your world, sooner or later. As for the rest of us, our fate is no concern of yours. I’ll take it up in my hands, the fate of us all, and see what I can do about it. Farewell.” He bent his head and kissed her, a soft, brotherly brush of his mouth on hers.

  The kiss seemed to wipe away the landscape around her. She blinked, staggered, then found herself standing on the edge of a shallow cliff. When she automatically clutched at her throat, she found the amethyst figurine gone. Down below in a brushy canyon stood the painted tents of her people. Off to one side she could see the big tent, painted with looping vines of roses, that belonged to her and Aderyn, but all the designs were oddly faded and weathered. Hasn’t he kept it up? she thought. Well, that hardly matters now—I’m home. Half laughing, half weeping, she ran along the clifftop until she found the path, then scrambled down, sliding a ways in her eagerness. As she got to her feet on the level ground, she heard shouts, and some of the People began running toward her, Enabrilia in the lead.

  “Dalla, Dalla!” As Enabrilia threw her arms around her, she was weeping hysterically. “Oh, thank every god, thank every god!
Farendar, don’t stand there gaping! Go get Aderyn!”

  A tall young man, fully grown and a strong-muscled warrior, ran off at her bidding. Dallandra grabbed her friend by the shoulders while the other elves stood around in dead silence and merely stared. Half of them she didn’t even recognize.

  “That can’t be Faro!” But even as she spoke, she felt unwelcome knowledge creeping into her mind like dread. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You’ve been gone so long.” Enabrilia began repeating the same thing over and over. “You’ve been gone so long.”

  Dallandra hugged her, shook her, yelled at her, until at last she fell quiet. When the other elves moved back to let someone through, Dallandra looked up to see Aderyn. For a moment she felt as if she would faint. He was so old, so thin, his hair dead white, his hands thin, too, like sticks or claws, and his face was so wrinkled, like ancient leather left out too long in the sun, that she sobbed aloud on a note that was close to a keen.

  “Oh, ye gods! I’ve come back just in time to help you die.”

  “I doubt that.” His voice was soft, but strong, younger somehow than his face. “My kind ages a long, long time before they die, Dalla.”

  All at once her knees would no longer hold her weight, and she staggered forward, caught herself before she fell, then staggered again, letting him grab her arms and steady her.

  “How long?” she whispered. “How long have I been gone?”

  “Close to two hundred years.”

  She threw back her head and keened, howling and raging all at once, just as Alshandra had done. The other elves closed in and caught her, supported her, led or shoved her along back to the camp and her tent. Only Enabrilia came inside with her and Aderyn.