Days of Blood and Fire

by Katharine Kerr

  “Want to put a seal on that knot?” the innkeep said.

  “I don’t. If someone steals it, they’ll break it anyway, and I trust Mic.”

  The young dwarf smiled with a bob of his head and took the tablets. As he watched Mic hurry out, Rhodry felt profoundly relieved. He’d had every right to kill Matyc after all, or so it seemed to him.

  When Mic arrived in the great hall, Jill had a servant fetch him a tankard of ale for his trouble, then took the pair of tablets just outside the door, where she could read them in relative privacy. As much as it griped her soul to admit it, she was pleased that she no longer had to worry about Matyc popping up like a witch’s curse every time she was trying to keep something secret. The message was brief enough, anyway.

  “Matyc’s last word was Alshandra’s name.”

  Jill whistled under her breath and shut the tablets fast. For a moment she considered sending a message back, then decided that she needed to talk to Rhodry outright. While Mic finished his ale, she told Yraen where she was going, then accompanied the young dwarf back to the inn.

  In the common room Rhodry was sitting on his bedroll on the floor with his back against the wall and his long legs stretched out in front of him. At the table Otho brooded over his geomancy figure while the innkeep consulted the painted cowhide.

  “So,” Rhodry called out. “You thought that message important, did you?”

  “You knew I would. I’m glad you finally remembered this.” She waved the tablets vaguely in his direction. “We need to talk in private.”

  They went down to his tiny chamber. With a snap of her fingers Jill summoned Wildfolk of Aethyr to spread their silvery light. Rhodry tossed his bedroll down in a corner and sat upon it again, but though tall for a woman she was still short enough to be comfortable sitting on the bed. She opened the tablets and laid her hand upon the message, letting the wax warm.

  “You’re certain of this?” she said.

  “As sure as sure. He looked right up at me, coughed out her name, and died.”

  “Well, and grim news that is. I’ve had a singularly unpleasant thought, and this one’s got naught to do with dweomer. If you’re right about Matyc being a traitor, and it certainly looks like you are, who’s to say that his brother isn’t one, too?”

  It was Rhodry’s turn for the surprised whistle under his breath.

  “I was asking the Lady Labanna about Lord Tren— that’s Matyc’s brother, you see—earlier. She tells me that their entire clan tends toward brooding, them being all alone up there on their ancestral lands. Their nearest neighbor’s some fifteen miles away.”

  “A bit far for a casual ride over of an afternoon, truly. Huh, sounds like they’re the most northerly dun in the entire kingdom.”

  “They are. The most northerly one that claims allegiance to the High King, anyway. But Matyc’s dun and his brother’s manse would have been good places for some of these prophets that Meer tells me about to fetch up.”

  “I suppose so.” Rhodry paused for a long moment, thinking something through. “I don’t understand this business of new gods. What good would worshiping someone do you, if it weren’t a god of your own people and your ancestral lands? I mean, you’d need to propitiate a foreign god, but worship it?”

  “Well, I don’t know, but I suspect that Alshandra’s become a goddess that men can see and touch, no doubt the first one ever in their lives. And from what Meer says, she performs mighty dweomers in front of her worshipers and promises things to them.”

  “Promises? What sort of things?”

  Jill smiled thinly.

  “New land and new slaves, Rhoddo. Us, in short. The lands and people of Deverry.”

  Rhodry swore in a mix of several languages.

  “Just so,” Jill said. “Now, Alshandra has no idea of the extent of the kingdom. I doubt me if she even knows the High King exists, much less how large an army he can command in times of need. But then, neither do her followers, do they? If she raises enough of them in holy war, things are going to go very badly for those of us on the border, before the king marches west to put a stop to it.”

  “Badly indeed. Now here, Cadmar’s going to need every sword he can find. This is no time for me to run off hunting some beast.”

  “Very clever, Rhoddo, but you’re not slipping out of this noose as easy as all that.”

  When he made a sour face at her, Jill laughed. Under her hand the wax moved as it turned soft enough for her to efface the writing. She rubbed it smooth with the heel of her hand.

  “Besides, you’ve got your own affairs to consider,” she went on. “Lady Labanna and her women have begun asking me pointed questions about you, with your fine manners and courtly ways. It’s been a long time since you rode away from Aberwyn, but not so long that someone might not recognize you, some noblewoman who was but a lass then but has a long memory. Alliances get sealed by marriages all the time, and they take women long ways from their homes.”

  Rhodry winced, remembering, no doubt, his own lady, who’d been less than happy with the disposition her brother had made of her life.

  “That’s true spoken,” he said, “and for more reasons than one. It was all very well down in Eldidd to assume that no one would ever believe me to be as old as I am. Look how young he seems—he couldn’t be the old gwerbret, they’d say. But up here in Cengarn they know how long an elven half-breed lives, and thanks to the malover, they know my father’s name. If someone were to accuse me, if it ever came out that I was once Rhodry Maelwaedd, Gwerbret Aberwyn, but yet: no true Maelwaedd at all—well, then. Will my son have a claim to the gwerbretal chair any longer?”

  “He won’t, truly, and it would be a pity to see him deposed. He’s been a splendid ruler, you know. You raised him well.”

  “My thanks. I tried to.”

  She considered for a moment.

  “Tell me somewhat,” she said finally. “Do you miss your kin and clan?”

  “Miss them? You mean long to see them or suchlike? I don’t, truly, not after this lapse of years. News of them is welcome, though, and it gladdens my heart to hear that they’re doing well. And it would ache that heart bitterly if I were the cause of doing them harm.”

  “Nicely put. Then I think, my friend, you’d best take yourself out of Cengarn, whether you want to go or no.”

  “So it would seem.” He got up, wincing as he moved his wounded arm.

  “I should have a look at that while I’m here. I’m not sending you off anywhere till it heals.”

  “It feels a fair bit better today than it did yesterday, I tell you.”

  With his good hand he picked his sword belt up from the chest and slung it onto the bed next to her, then raised the lid to rummage round.

  “I’ve got somewhat to show you,” he said. “Ah, I think it’s in this one.”

  He brought out a leather saddlebag, set it on the floor, then closed the chest so he could sit on top of it. Jill had to untie the toggle on the bag, but once she had, he reached in himself and brought out something wrapped in a bit of old rag. This lump proved to be a leather sheath carrying a knife of sorts, a crude wedge of bronze stuck into a wooden handle, bound round with thongs to keep the blade in place.

  “What do you think of that?” Rhodry said.

  “I hardly know what to think. It’s no ordinary knife. It looks like it was made long before the Dawntime, and I feel dweomer upon it.” Jill took it, hefting it cautiously. “Where did you get it?”

  “From Evandar. Do you remember me telling you about the whistle and the badger-headed creature?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, this is the blade that killed it. I doubt me if an ordinary one would have done the job.”

  “I see.” She held the knife in one hand, looked absently away, and let its impressions flood her mind. “I don’t think this blade is really here, you see — It exists on another plane of being, and this, the thing you feel, is more of an image of it, though an image made of matter, j
ust as that badger creature probably was only an image of his real existence — So when you stabbed him with this, you were stabbing his real body, back on its own plane — An ordinary blade would only have stabbed his image to no lasting ill effect.”

  Rhodry tried to speak and failed.

  “I know that doesn’t make much sense,” she went on. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how else to explain it. Consider this knife a shadow, like, thrown by the real one, which has its true home elsewhere.”

  Still he said nothing, merely shook his head, half-angry, half-baffled. When she handed the knife back, he started to wrap it up, then hesitated.

  “Do me a favor, since you’ve got two good hands. Put this on my sword belt for me, near the silver dagger. I think me I’m going to need it,”

  After she’d taken care of the knife, Jill took a look at his wound, which was healing cleanly and far faster, of course, than a cut would have on a full-blooded human being. Even so, she made him promise to be careful of it for some days yet. As he was walking her back to the inn’s door, she paused for a moment to glance at Otho’s earthen omens.

  “It looks clear as clear,” Otho said, sighing. “There’s no way out of going to fetch the dragon.”

  “I could have told you that,” Jill said, grinning. “That dragon’s calling to you, Otho lad.”

  The dwarf groaned with a roll of his eyes.

  “Gods!” Rhodry snapped. “I nearly forgot another thing. All last night, Jill, I dreamt that someone was watching me. It was like a huge eye, floating above me. Does that mean aught?”

  Jill felt her blood run cold.

  “It does, indeed. Be careful, will you? On guard, every moment. Especially since there might be someone here to work you harm.”

  “There’s not,” Jorn broke in. “If you mean the fellow who tried to kill young Carra, he’s dead. We found him out, you see.”

  “Oh. You might have told me.”

  “Well, truly.” Otho looked embarrassed. “In all the excitement, it slipped my mind, like.”

  Jill waited, expecting more of the tale. The dwarves merely looked at her.

  “Do you mind telling me why he tried to kill the lass?”

  Jorn and Otho exchanged a glance first with each other, then with the innkeep, who looked down at the floor. No one spoke for some minutes.

  “Er, well,” Jorn said at last. “It’s a dwarven matter.”

  Jill considered both threats and invective, but she knew them useless. When Rhodry started to speak, she waved him into silence.

  “Well, keep Rhodry safe for me, will you? And send Mic with a message if you need me for aught.”

  When Jill got back to the dun, she hurried up to her chamber in the hopes of finding some message or token from Dallandra, if not the elven dweomermaster herself, but her room was exactly as she’d left it. In a fit of irritation she went down to the ward to pace back and forth where she had some room. Whenever she came to a place with a good view of her chamber window, she would stop and peer up, but she never saw anyone in it.

  During one of her rounds, just as she passed the stables, she heard voices behind a nearby shed, nothing unusual in itself, but there was something oddly furtive about these, an old man’s voice, a woman’s. Such was her mood that she sidled close to hear.

  “They don’t look worth the fart of a two-copper pig,” the woman was saying. “No wonder they got left behind!”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. There’s a pretty pair of blue beads, and then this here bit could be silver, couldn’t it now? Looks silver. And a nice bit of bronze with a design, like, on it. I deserve somewhat for all the trouble I went through with them prisoners. That worm-gut silver dagger ordering me around!”

  Jill walked round the hut in her usual quiet way, raising a shriek from the pair—one of the kitchen maids and the elderly jailor, who was holding a cluster of thongs and amulets much like the ones Jahdo wore.

  “And what have you there?” Jill said.

  “Naught, naught.” The jailor started to shove them into his pocket, then paused, caught by her stare. “Er, well, now, don’t you be putting the evil eye on me!”

  “I’m doing naught of the sort. All I did was ask you a question.”

  He licked dry lips and looked this way and that. The kitchen maid began to move backward, one cautious step at a time.

  “Well?” Jill said.

  “Er, I found them, like, in the straw in the cell where that hairy creature and his lad were kept, and I’ve been wondering what they were, like, for days now. You can’t say I stole’m, can you now? They left ‘em there, threw them away, and you can’t say I stole’m!”

  “I never said you did. I merely asked you what they are.”

  “Take’m, then, take’m! They creep my flesh, anyway.”

  He tossed the thongs her way, then turned and bolted with-the kitchen maid right behind. Jill caught them in one hand. As soon as she got a good look at them, she realized that they were Gel da’Thae work. When she glanced at the sky, she realized that it was about the time of the afternoon when Meer took his nap and that, therefore, Jahdo was likely to be outside somewhere.

  She eventually found the boy out behind the stables, rubbing down his mule with a brush braided from straw. She made sure that they were alone before she took the thongs and charms out of her pocket.

  “Oh, Thavrae’s amulets,” he announced. “Where did you find them?”

  “The jailor just gave them to me, I suppose you could say. Had he stolen them from you?”

  “He hadn’t. I did cut them off—well, we found Thavrae dead, you see.” The boy’s voice shook badly. “I did cut the thongs so I could get them free from—well, anyway, I did think Meer would be wanting them. But he said Thavrae were no brother of his and did throw them against the wall. When we were in the cell, I mean. So I guess the old man found them there.”

  “I see. The old man could have kept them, then. Meer certainly didn’t want them.” Jill glanced round, but there was no sign of the jailor. “Though I don’t know, if any of these have real dweomers laid on them, he shouldn’t be carrying them about, for his own sake, like.” She began to look through the handful of charms and immediately spotted a pewter disk with a sigil she recognized.

  Now that’s odd! Jill thought to herself. The Gel da’Thae dweomermasters would never use the same sigils and suchlike as we do, would they? But here’s the sigil of the Lord of the Fire of Air, plain as plain.

  “Jahdo, do you have a talisman with this kind of picture on it?”

  “I don’t. But I’ve seen one like it before.” All at once the boy’s eyes seemed to cloud over. “Somewhere. I don’t remember.”

  Jill hesitated, wondering if she should test him for ensorcelment. then and there, but the ward was as usual full of people coming and going on their various errands.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter.” With a deliberately casual gesture, because she wanted to spare Jahdo worry, she shoved the handful into her brigga pocket. “I might ask Meer later, if I remember it.”

  What she did instead was go to Meer’s chamber, wake him up, and ask him there and then. Although just describing the sigil told him nothing, when he felt it with a fingertip he could form, or so he said, a good idea of its shape.

  “I can tell you this,” he rumbled. “It’s naught that he received from his mother or from one of the priestesses of the Gel da’Thae. I’ve never come across this mark before, and as a loremaster, you leant a good bit about the sacred symbols. Beyond that, I have no idea of what it might be. As for the rest of these holy marks and symbols, ask me not, because those secrets, mazrak, I will not betray.”

  “Very well, then. Well, my thanks, good bard, for what you’ve seen fit to tell me.”

  Jill left him, then stood hesitating by the staircase, considering what she needed to do next. All at once she felt the touch of Dallandra’s mind on hers, a sign that the elven dweomermaster was back on the physical plane. When Jill went up to
her chamber, she indeed found Dallandra there, sitting at her table and leafing through the book of elven chronicles that Jill had brought back from the Southern Isles.

  “My gnome found you, then?” Jill said.

  “He did.” Dallandra looked up with a smile. “Have you been waiting long?”

  “Two days.”

  Dallandra made a small irritated sound and shut the book.

  “It seemed but a few moments to me.”

  “Oh, I know. I’m not blaming you or suchlike.”

  “I need to come back to this world, don’t I? I simply can’t keep traveling back and forth, trying to skip along the river of Time the way a child skips a rock on water. A delay like this could be a disaster if you needed me badly.”

  “Just so, but what about your own work? What about Evandar’s people?”

  “Well, I could stay here months, and it would be but a single day in his world, wouldn’t it?”

  Jill laughed, in relief, not merriment.

  “Of course. I’d quite forgot that the differences run both ways. I’m getting worried, Dalla. Alshandra’s already sent one pack of her worshipers here, trying to kill Carra and the child. Now that they’ve failed, she’s bound to raise another. She’s determined to get Elessario back.”

  “So she is. Naught can make her understand the truth, Jill. She honestly believes that I’ve stolen her daughter, and that if she kills Elessario’s new body, then her daughter will be free of some sort of trap and come back to her.”

  “In a way you have to pity her, but I keep thinking of those other women, the ones her dogs of war killed, and their men, too, dying trying to defend them.”

  Dallandra shuddered.

  “I do have to return to make my farewells and to make sure Evandar realizes that we’re going to need his help and most likely soon. But I’ll be back as soon as I can, and this time I’ll stay until this matter’s settled, and the child is born.” Dallandra rose and picked up the chair in both hands. “We have to stay on guard if we’re going to protect Carra from Alshandra, and you do have to sleep.”