The Spirit Stone

by Katharine Kerr

  ‘Splendid! I’m truly glad to hear it, and I’m sure Valandario will be, too. Come to think of it, maybe you can also help me with a little problem I’ve run into.’

  ‘I’ll most assuredly try. How’s Loddlaen these days?’

  ‘Doing well.’ Aderyn’s image turned expressionless, but since they’d joined minds through the fire, Nevyn could feel his anger. ‘I don’t know why you’d assume—’

  ‘My apologies, my apologies. What’s the real trouble, then?’

  ‘Oh, well, mostly, my grand scheme’s not going as well as it should.’

  For a moment Nevyn quite simply couldn’t remember what Aderyn’s grand scheme was. Aderyn felt the lapse and smiled.

  ‘My compilation of dweomerlore,’ Aderyn said, ‘trying to piece together the ancient elven dweomer by filling the gaps with our own lore.’

  Nevyn’s memory creaked into life at last. ‘Of course, the dweomer system the Westfolk lost when the cities were destroyed. We’ve talked about it many a time. Ye gods! I cannot tell you how aggravating it is, not being able to remember things the way I used to. Next I’ll be forgetting my own name.’

  ‘Well, you have a great deal more to remember than most men. Three hundred years’ worth, isn’t it now?’

  ‘Somewhat like that. Your own memories stretch a fair way back.’

  ‘Ah, but life out here is simple. You’ve always managed to complicate matters for yourself.’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it, I suppose. But about that problem—’

  ‘I’ve gathered together every shred I can, but there are large stretches of territory still missing from my mental map, as it were.’

  ‘I like that figure of speech.’

  ‘My thanks.’

  ‘Do you have any idea of what was in that missing province?’

  ‘Some important thing at the very centre.’ Aderyn’s mind radiated frustration. ‘I do know that the masters of the seven cities studied dweomer for very different reasons from ours. Their ultimate goal wasn’t to help their folk, though they did that, too, but to—well, to do somewhat that I can’t fathom, some grand result.’

  ‘No clues at all?’

  ‘Only an unusually elaborate schema of Names and Calls. When I first came to the Westlands, there were still a few dweomerworkers alive who had studied with a teacher who’d been taught in the lost cities. Unfortunately, that teacher was young by elven standards, and only a journeyman. The masters among the dweomerfolk stayed to fight till the end.’

  ‘And so the lore was lost with them?’

  ‘Just that. But one thing that did survive was a list of names of certain areas of the Inner Lands. These names, or so I was told, were all that survived of a twice-secret lore. Apparently you had to prove yourself worthy before you were allowed to study it.’

  ‘Secrecy has a bitter price in evil times.’

  ‘Just so. But I’m looking forward to telling you what little I’ve gathered, once we can talk face to face.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it, too. We’ll be there as soon as we can.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘I’ve acquired a rather odd apprentice. I’ll tell you more once you’ve met him.’

  The Westfolk lands lay a good month’s journey away, out beyond the western border of the kingdom. Wffyn the merchant’s ultimate goal was to trade iron goods for Westfolk horses, but rather than pack the heavy metalwork all the way from Cerrmor, he’d brought Bardek spices and fine silks to trade for it in Eldidd. As they made their slow way north from market square to market square, Nevyn had ample time to sell his herbs and other medicinals as well as collect more in the meadows and along the roads.

  Nevyn also made a point of treating Gwairyc as the apprentice he supposedly was. He taught him herblore, trained him in the drying of herbs, and used him as an assistant when he performed the few simple chirurgeries he knew how to do. When it came to procedures, Nevyn found that having a large, strong assistant was very useful indeed, since the various anodynes available in those days lacked the power to render the sufferer unconscious. Over the years Nevyn had learned how to dodge the sudden fists or teeth of a patient driven mad enough by pain to attack the man trying to help him. Gwairyc, however, could hold them down and occasionally administer an anaesthetic of desperation by clipping the patient hard on the jaw. That part of the work he seemed to enjoy.

  When they worked together in less trying situations, Nevyn studied the apprentice as much as the patient. Once, over three hundred years before, Nevyn had been a prince of the royal house, as arrogant as Gwairyc—if not more so, he reminded himself. Yet studying herbcraft with his teacher in the dweomer had opened his eyes and his heart. Once he’d seen how the ordinary people of the kingdom lived, and in particular the bondfolk who were at that time little better than slaves, he’d wanted nothing more than to end every moment of suffering that he could. He’d been hoping that this similar exposure to the ills and suffering of the common folk would open Gwairyc’s heart as well, but he saw on his apprentice’s face only the flickers of disgust and annoyance that would, occasionally, break through a mask of utter indifference. You weren’t a warrior, he told himself. You never had to temper your soul like iron.

  Only once did Gwairyc take any interest in a patient. In a village called Bruddlyn, they met the local lord, a certain Corbyn, who brought them to his dun to treat his small son, also named Corbyn, for spotted fever. Fortunately, the boy’s mother had kept him in a dimly lit room, away from the sunlight that might have blinded him. Nevyn brewed one type of herbwater to lower the fever and a second as a soak for compresses to ease his itching skin.

  ‘Our lordship didn’t have much coin,’ Nevyn told Gwairyc afterwards, ‘but he did give us a silver cup that belonged to his own father. It has the name ‘corbyn’ inscribed on the bottom, but still, we should be able to sell it somewhere, for the silver if naught else.’

  ‘I take it the lad’s going to recover,’ Gwairyc said.

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Good.’ Gwairyc smiled in sincere pleasure at the news. ‘He’s the only son of that clan, the only one yet, anyway, and I’m glad they won’t lose their heir. But here, do these lords always name their first-born Corbyn?’

  ‘So it seems. Why?’

  ‘There’s somewhat odd about Eldidd, foreign-like.’ Gwairyc frowned at nothing in particular. ‘And that’s another thing that I just can’t…’ He let his voice trail away.

  Nevyn waited for him to go on, but in a moment Gwairyc merely said that he’d saddle the horses and walked away.

  Eldidd may be strange, Nevyn thought, but I begin to think Gwarro matches it! And what am I going to do with the lad, then? His first course of treatment for the illness in Gwairyc’s soul was failing, and badly. With a sinking feeling around his heart, he realized that he didn’t have a second.

  It wasn’t until they’d almost reached their destination that Nevyn saw Gwairyc respond to the sufferings of a commonborn soul, and even then, the circumstances were decidedly unusual. He received his first omen of that future event, and a hint of just how complex the days ahead might be, when he contacted Aderyn again.

  ‘Here’s a question for you,’ Nevyn said. ‘How will I be able to find you once we get to the grasslands? The trading grounds are quite large, as I remember them anyway.’

  ‘They stretch a good hundred miles, yes, north to south.’ Floating over the campfire, Aderyn’s image smiled at him. ‘I’ve arranged an escort for you and your merchant.’

  ‘Splendid! Where do I find this escort?’

  ‘In Drwloc. The fellow’s a bard, Devaberiel by name, and he’s going there to fetch a little son of his.’

  ‘What’s an elven woman doing living in Pyrdon?’

  ‘She’s not elven, though I suspect there’s elven blood in her clan—somewhere. She looks human, and her kin certainly act that way.’ Aderyn’s image scowled into the flames. ‘Her brother’s done naught but berate her since the day she had to tie her
kirtle high. A bastard in his clan! Oh, the shame of it! To hear him rant, you’d think he was the high king himself.’

  ‘I see. The child’s better off with his father’s people, then. We’re not far from Pyrdon. How soon will this bard get there?’

  ‘Around the next full moon. We—my alar, that is—are on our way to the border now.’

  ‘Good. Well, my thanks. This will make things a fair bit easier. Huh, I’ve not seen Dun Drw since King Maryn was young.’

  ‘The place must hold plenty of memories for you.’

  ‘Doesn’t everywhere?’

  ‘True enough.’ Aderyn’s image turned solemn. ‘But oddly enough, Drwloc holds some memories for me as well, bitter ones. I think I told you about this—the young lad who died of consumption because of that poor twisted spirit-woman. Meddry, his name was. I feel responsible for his death. I should never have left his side for a moment.’

  ‘Well, don’t be too harsh on yourself. I—wait. Ye gods! Meddry died only a few years ago, didn’t he?’

  ‘He did.’ Aderyn paused, thinking. ‘Maybe ten, maybe less. Time truly loses its meaning out here on the grass, and so I don’t remember precisely when.’

  ‘That’s good enough. It makes me wonder who else might be living in Drwloc or roundabout.’ Nevyn paused for a morose sigh. ‘And here I am, bringing Gerraent with me.’

  A few more days of travelling brought them to the gwerbret’s own town, Drwloc, a much grander affair than Lord Corbyn’s village. The town sported a proper stone wall, sheltering nearly two hundred round houses arranged around a big market square. Among them Wffyn found a good-sized inn, which sat beside a stretch of grass pasture and near the local smithy as well.

  ‘Excellent!’ the merchant said. ‘We’ll be able to get our stock reshod before we start for the trading grounds.’

  A crowd of villagers gathered round to watch the caravan tether out its stock on the pasture. The muleteers would camp there with the horses and mules, just in case Drwloc included a horsethief among its denizens. Nevyn and Wffyn, however, rented themselves a chamber, little more than a loft, above the tavern room.

  ‘Well, this is quite the day!’ the innkeep’s wife announced. ‘Here’s a caravan come through, and we’re having a market fair as well.’

  ‘That’s a bit of luck for me, too,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’ll just go down to the market, I think, and let everyone know that there’s a herbman in town.’

  ‘I’ll do my trading later with that blacksmith,’ Wffyn said. ‘You go on, and I’ll keep an eye, like, on things here.’

  Nevyn opened his mule packs, filled a sack with bundles of various remedies for common ills, then handed it to Gwairyc to carry. They followed the curving street to the open square in the centre of town and the market, which turned out to be a straggling line of farmers, selling fresh produce, eggs, and chickens out of the backs of wagons. Here and there a peddlar spread out his wares on a blanket: pottery, soap, embroidery threads, all manner of small port ables brought up from the more prosperous coast. The villagers stood around gossiping or strolled along, looking at the various offerings, or hunkered down to bargain when they saw something they liked.

  ‘We’d best buy some more food for the last bit of our journey,’ Nevyn said. ‘Usually there’s someone selling cheeses at these village markets.’

  As they made their way through the confusion, they came upon a young woman, walking some paces in front of them. She was so short and thin that at first he thought her a young lass. She carried a child in her arms. Her dark hair, however, was combed straight back into a clasp at her neck in the style of an unmarried woman. While her overdress of undyed linen looked clean and well made, there was nothing fancy about it. She wore another strip of plain linen around her waist as a kirtle. A nursemaid, Nevyn thought. The child in her arms twisted around to rest his chin on her shoulder and look back.

  ‘Ye gods!’ Nevyn said. ‘There’s a beautiful little lad!’

  Perhaps two years old, the boy had enormous grey eyes and hair as pale as winter sunlight on snow—Westfolk blood in his veins, Nevyn decided. When he realized that Nevyn was looking at him, the boy smiled so cheerfully that Nevyn had to smile in return. The boy giggled and said something in his nursemaid’s ear. She stopped and turned round.

  She would have been a pretty lass, if it weren’t for the witchmark that split her mouth. During his long years as a physician, Nevyn had seen plenty of harelips and cleft palates—normal disfigurements, he was tempted to call them at that moment, because this unusual blemish sat well off-centre. Although it revealed the pink upper gum, a couple of stained teeth, and a twist of dark pink scar, it looked more like a healed wound than a harelip, so puzzling a feature that it took Nevyn a moment to notice her eyes, deep-set and cornflower blue. He caught his breath. He recognized her: his Brangwen reborn again.

  She set the boy down, then caught his hand to keep him close. For a moment she studied Nevyn as intently as if she saw a puzzle in his eyes. He could guess that she recognized him without knowing how or why she did. Maybe, at last, he would be able to bring her to her true wyrd, the dweomer, and free himself of the rash vow he’d sworn so many hundreds of years earlier.

  ‘Good morrow, good sir.’ She spoke with a pronounced lisp, a moist thickening of many consonants. ‘I see you’re new to our town.’

  ‘We are,’ Nevyn said. ‘My name’s Nevyn, I’m a herbman, and this is my apprentice, Gwairyc. Forgive me for seeming to follow you. Your young lad there caught my attention.’

  ‘Oh, no harm done. My name is Morwen.’ When she smiled, the scar tissue curled her lip into an animal snarl that matched the lack of good humour in her eyes. ‘A herbman’s always a welcome thing. He’s not my lad, though, but my sister’s.’

  ‘Well, your sister’s a lucky lass, then.’

  Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked sharply away.

  ‘My apologies!’ Nevyn said. ‘What did I—’

  ‘Forgive me, good sir. My sister doesn’t think she’s lucky in the least. She’ll be sending our Evan away soon to his father’s people.’

  ‘And you’ve been his nursemaid?’

  Morwen nodded. Evan leaned against her skirts and stared at Gwairyc, who’d been listening to all this with a sullen kind of patience. Nevyn suddenly realized just who this child had to be.

  ‘The lad’s father?’ Nevyn said. ‘Is his name Devaberiel, and he’s a bard of the Westfolk?’

  ‘He is. Fancy you knowing that!’

  ‘Well, actually, I rode here to meet up with him. He’s a friend of a friend of mine. We were going to ride west together.’

  ‘I see.’ The tears were back in her voice. ‘That means he’ll be here soon, doesn’t it? Dev, I mean.’

  ‘Well, it does, truly.’

  The silence hung between them, awkward and painful. Evan picked up her mood and whimpered, holding out his arms. When she picked him up, he buried his head in her shoulder.

  ‘Morri,’ he said. ‘My love you.’

  ‘I love you too.’ She nearly wept, then forced out her twisted smile. ‘Well, we’d best be getting home. Your Da should be riding in ever so soon, and your Mam will want to know that.’

  With the child clutched tight in her arms, Morwen hurried off, head held high.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ Gwairyc said.

  ‘It is, truly,’ Nevyn said. ‘Poor lass! The child’s probably the light of her life.’

  ‘That too, I suppose. I meant the witchmark.’

  Nevyn didn’t bother to answer. His mind was racing with plans, to return to Drwloc as soon as possible and win Morwen’s confidence. The dweomer will provide plenty of light for her life, he thought, if I can only make her see it. As Morwen passed by, some of the market people turned away. Others frankly stared. She ignored them all, doubtless from long practice, but a gaggle of boys, farm lads judging by their much-mended clothes and dirty faces, proved harder to ignore. The four of them followed her, taunting and laughing.
>
  ‘Here, ratface!’ one yelled out. ‘Witch lass! Too proud for a word with us, are you?’

  When she walked a little faster, they ran after and surrounded her. The two largest lads planted themselves firmly in her path.

  ‘That’s enough!’ Gwairyc muttered.

  Before Nevyn could say a word, Gwairyc took off running straight for the lads. He grabbed one from behind by the shirt, swung him round, and punched him so hard that blood poured from the lad’s nose. With a yelp the lad sank to the ground. One of the others broke and ran at that, but two remained game—at least until Gwairyc hit one back-handed and split his lip. With a shriek the coward fell to his knees. Gwairyc had saved the largest lad for last. Him he grabbed by the shirt and punched him in the stomach. The lad sank to the ground and vomited cheap ale all down his front. By the time Nevyn trotted up, the fight, such as it was, had finished.

  ‘All right, you dogs!’ Gwairyc snarled. ‘Now you’re a fair bit uglier than this poor lass is. Get out of my sight!’

  The two who could still walk grabbed the vomit-covered lad by the arms and hauled him up and away. Their more cowardly but wiser friend was hovering nearby. With his help they broke into a shambling trot and disappeared in the crowd. It had all happened so fast that little Evan seemed barely troubled. He did pop his thumb in his mouth, then twisted in his nursemaid’s arms to watch her assailants run away. Morwen herself was staring wide-eyed at Gwairyc.

  ‘My thanks,’ Morwen said in her thick, moist voice. ‘But you needn’t have troubled yourself. I’m used to this sort of thing.’

  ‘Mayhap so,’ Gwairyc said. ‘But it griped my soul, somehow, seeing you mocked.’

  ‘You’re the first man I’ve ever met who felt that way.’ Morwen seemed less pleased than thoughtful. ‘I do appreciate it, good sir. Don’t think that it didn’t gladden my heart to see them bleed.’

  Gwairyc laughed, briefly. After a nod in Nevyn’s direction, Morwen turned and walked off, carrying Evan. This time, no one bothered her.

  ‘Very good,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’m glad to see you have a bit of pity for someone beneath you in rank.’