The Shadow Isle

by Katharine Kerr

  “Here’s your mama, little one,” Sidro said. “Just in time.”

  Dallandra sat down in the chair by the window, pulled up her tunic, and took the baby, who fastened herself onto the nearest nipple with no need for coaxing.

  “Like a leech,” Dalla said. “Malamala’s little leech.”

  Dari took no notice. Dallandra leaned back and watched the gray mist falling softly outside the window. Nursing her daughter filled her with a great tenderness toward the smelly little bundle, yet she wondered if she could honestly call it love. When she’s older, Dalla thought, she’ll be more interesting then.

  “Nasty weather to be riding in,” Sidro remarked.

  “I hope it clears by tomorrow.” Dallandra craned her neck and considered the pale gray clouds. “It probably will, but I don’t much care. I want to get on the road.”

  “You must miss the banadar dreadful like.”

  Dallandra sighed and considered what to say. “Him, too,” she said at last. “But more to the point, I’m needed up there, and so are all of us, you, me, Grallezar, Branna, and, of course, Solla, for Gerran’s sake.”

  “I see.” Sidro thought this all over carefully. “You know, Wise One, it’s all been so much to my good, knowing you and Valandario. Before I did play with the dweomer like a toy, but now I see that it be a duty for those who have it, beyond what they might want in life.”

  “Very well put. Tell me, do you still long for Laz?”

  “I know not if I do or not. The more days I do spend with Pir, the more I think he should be my first man, mayhap my only man, but truly, often before did I think to break free of Laz, and never could I do it.” Sidro raised both hands palm up, then shrugged. “If never I do see him again, my heart will ache, but Pir’s will be gladdened, and so I ken not if I wish Laz back or not.”

  "Your hands, they be mostly healed,” Marnmara said. "It no longer be needful to pull the scars apart.”

  "I cannot tell you how much it gladdens my heart to hear that,” Laz said.

  They were sitting in Haen Marn’s great hall at a table under a window. Sunlight streamed in and glinted off the surface of the bowl of herbed water in which Laz’s hands were soaking. He lifted out his right hand and considered the scars while the water dripped away. They were soft, pink, and whole without the painful cracks between them. The left hand also looked as healthy as it would ever be. When Marnmara handed him a rag, he dried his hands, then laid them on the table for her inspection.

  “Truly,” she said, “there be naught more for me to do. Mayhap you’ll master the fingers better as time goes on.”

  “I’ll hope so. I suppose I’d best be on my way.”

  She smiled at the hesitation in his voice. “It were best,” she said. “Your wyrd lies not here.”

  When Angmar came downstairs for the evening meal, Laz told her that he’d be leaving on the morrow morning. She considered him sadly, then nodded her approval.

  “My lady?” Laz said. “Has Avain seen Berwynna in her basin?”

  “She has,” Angmar said. “Surrounded by stone, Avain said, so I think me Mic and Enj did take her down to Lin Serr.” For a brief moment she smiled. “Avain did see Enj. He be coming home, at least.”

  The smile faded, and Angmar walked on past without another word. She sat down at the head of the table in her usual place, then leaned back, staring out across the great hall. Marnmara took Laz to one side and whispered.

  “Her heart be so torn with fear for my wretched sister,” Mara said, “that she does think of naught else.”

  “It’s a sad thing.” Laz dropped his voice as well. “I suppose Wynni loves her Dougie too much to let him go off without her.”

  Marnmara’s eyes grew wide, and she stared at him, as puzzled as if he’d spoken in some foreign tongue. “Here,” she said finally, “be that why she did run away? Because of Dougie?”

  “I’m assuming so. Surely you knew she’d been creeping into his chamber at night.”

  “Never did such a thing occur to me! The little slut!”

  “Here, that’s a vicious thing to say! Why do you hate your sister so?”

  “I don’t hate her.” Mara scowled at the floor. “It be just that Mam does favor her over me. Huh! Look at the small reward Wynni did give her for it, too.”

  “What? When did she ever favor Wynni?”

  “Always does she talk of the work Wynni does for us all.”

  “Oh? Well, I’ve heard her speak more of the Lady of the Isle than the lass who helps in the kitchen.”

  “It be so unfair! I ken how grand it does sound, that I be the lady of this isle. Mam does go on and on about it, how I be the lady, and so I must do this, and I must do that, and truly, at times I do wonder if she ever does see me, just me.”

  “Ah, I think I’m beginning to understand. But she loves Wynni just because Wynni is Wynni.”

  “True spoken.” She paused, looking up at him with wide eyes. “I be frightened, Laz. I must marry, Mam tells me, some man of the Mountain Folk, and I want not to marry or have aught to do with such things. All Wynni needs must do is live her life as she chooses, and it be not fair!”

  “I see. You envy her.”

  Mara nodded.

  “I’ll tell you somewhat. I’ll wager that Wynni thinks your mam loves you more, and that, in truth, Angmar loves you both the same.”

  Tears filled Mara’s eyes. With an irritable shake of her sleeve she brushed them away. Moments like this one forced Laz to remember just how young she was, no matter how powerful her dweomers were or would become. “I think me,” he said, “that when you meet a man who pleases you, what you want and don’t want will change.”

  She looked up, shocked, then smoothed her face into an unread-ably bland expression. “Mayhap. Mam does say the same. I’ll think on it.”

  In the morning, Marnmara walked with him down to the pier. The dragon boat stood ready, bobbing in the slack waves of the lake. Some distance from it, out of earshot of the boatmen, Mara stopped Laz for a few last words.

  “I slept not much, this past night,” Marnmara said, “for there be much to brood about. The nature of this isle does much concern me, but you, too, were in my thoughts.”

  “For that I’ll thank you,” Laz said.

  “You’d best wait for gratitude till you hear what I did see.” She paused for a smile. “You did teach me many things it were needful for me to know, Laz, and for that my heart be grateful. So I did scry upon your wyrd. You stand in the middle of a dangerous road, and which way you might go, I cannot say. I will tell you, though, that one way leads to great evil, for I think me you did much evil in lives past. Go that way, and great evil will befall you in return. The other way leads to the saving of you. There be more than one way to pay the debts you owe.”

  Laz found himself shocked speechless.

  “It be your choice, which way you turn on the road. For your sake I do hope you choose the correct way.”

  “So do I.” Laz suddenly found himself laughing, a high nervous giggle. “So do I.” He choked the noise back with an effort of will. “Can you tell me more about—”

  “I can’t. It be not given for me to know. My thanks again for your teaching.”

  Marnmara smiled again, patted him on the arm, then turned and walked back to the manse. As Laz watched her go, he found himself wanting to run after her and beg her to let him stay in safety on the island. Yet his old life lay close at hand, his men, his sorcery, and above all, Sidro. With a sigh, he picked up his meager bundle of belongings and headed for the pier.

  The boatmen rowed him across without comment, but when they reached the shallows, Lon stopped him as he was about to go over the side.

  “You sure you’ll fare well here?” Lon said.

  “I hope so,” Laz said, grinning. “I always have before.”

  “Well and good, then. Here’s luck to you!”

  Laz jumped down into the shallows. When Lon handed down the bundle, Laz caught it twixt his lowe
r arms and his chest. He distrusted his stumps of hands when it came to carrying something heavy, but he safely splashed across and gained the shore. By the time he turned to look back, the dragon boat had put out into deep water. The clanging of the gong echoed around the valley, then slowly faded away as the boat disappeared into the rising mist.

  Laz had a moment of wondering if the island itself would disappear into that mist and never be seen again. If it did, would he regret it? A little, he decided, perhaps he’d regret it a little, for Marnmara’s sake.

  Clutching his bundle, he walked away from the lake and clambered partway up the side of a low hill to the shelter of three gnarled trees, bent low by a perpetual wind. He set the bundle under them, then sat down in the long grass. From his perch he could see that the island still stood in the middle of the lake. Perhaps one day he’d return—a pretty idea, he decided, but at the moment, what he needed to do was leave it behind.

  “I’m home,” he said aloud. “Well, in a manner of speaking. It can’t be more than a few hundred miles away.”

  Now that he was free of Haen Marn’s water veil, he could scry again. As an experiment he brought out the black crystal and looked into it. He realized immediately that he was seeing through it to its white twin: in a greenish murk of lake water a dead log lay directly in the crystal’s narrow field of vision. Beyond it some large thing swam, indistinguishable in the clouded light.

  “One of those beasts, no doubt,” Laz said to the crystal. “Well, your twin came with us, but it’s still well and truly lost. I can’t imagine anyone being willing to dive down and fetch it out.”

  With a shudder at the thought of the lake beasts and their toothy mouths, he put the black crystal back in his sack. To scry for persons, especially those whom he knew well, the long grass waving in the wind would serve as an adequate focus.

  The first person in his thoughts was Sidro. Her image came to him straightaway, standing outside a painted Westfolk tent and talking with Exalted Mother Grallezar. Both women looked excited and happy, laughing as they exchanged some sort of jest. Sidro must have left the forest on her own, he assumed, and sheltered among the Ancients with Grallezar and her refugees. As he watched, two blurry shapes, which he assumed belonged to Ancients, began to take the tent down. When he pulled back to see more of the area around Sidro, he realized that she was part of a small group who apparently had camped by a road.

  What of the rest of his men? When he sent his mind out to Pir, he saw him walking through a herd of Westfolk horses in a very different encampment. Vek? He was in the same camp as Pir, spreading wet clothing to dry on tall grass. He scried out Faharn next, but rather than living among the Ancients, he and the remaining men had made a camp in open country—somewhere. Laz couldn’t recognize the place, an undistinguished stretch of grass, a stream that wound through boulders and straggly trees, and in the distance, some hills. It could have been anywhere in the Northlands. As he scried through the camp, Laz recognized nine of the men. The rest appeared only as the blurry aura-shapes of persons he’d never seen in the flesh.

  Interesting, Laz thought. Faharn always envied Pir’s horse mage abilities. I wonder if that’s why they separated?

  The strength of his scrying images gave him hope that he could still perform the one dweomer he truly craved: flight. He got up and stripped off his clothes, a clumsy job with so few fingers left to him. Just in case he managed to transform, he packed the clothes away in the sack and tied it shut as securely as he could with his maimed hands. He hopped up onto one of the rocks and stood naked. In the warm sunlight he breathed deeply, steadily.

  When he pictured the raven in his mind, the form came to him, as strong and clear as ever. He imagined it standing outside of himself, prepared himself for an effort of will, and found himself inside the raven form before he could even say aloud the formulaic names. With a caw of triumph he hopped up and down and flapped his wings.

  When he spread his wings, however, the feeling of triumph vanished. Dweomer had created his wing tips from his hands, and like his hands, the tips of his wings showed damage. What would those missing feathers do to his control? The raven existed, but could he fly? Only one way to find out—with a defiant caw Laz leaped into the air.

  Flapping hard, he gained height, found a rising thermal, and soared. Success! At least at first—when he tried to land, the missing feathers blunted his wings and spoiled their perfect camber. He tumbled in the air, squawked, fluttered, and finally managed to glide back to the rock with some of his dignity intact. Not so easy, he thought, I’ll need a fair bit of practice. The next challenge would be carrying his sack of belongings. He hopped up onto it and sank his talons into the cloth, then chanced to glance at Haen Marn.

  In the raven form Laz saw with etheric sight, not his normal vision. The island had disappeared into an enormous swirl of silvery blue energy that swept the lake up like a waterspout. At first, in fact, Laz thought he was seeing a real waterspout, then remembered that no wind blew in the cloudless sky. Inside the throbbing mass he could just discern slender lines of light like gold wires. They swung back and forth, twisted around each other only to uncurl, glimmered and darkened only to brighten again while the silver-blue energy-mist swirled around them.

  As he watched, this tremendous play of dweomer force suddenly coalesced into images of the island, its lake, and its manse, a clear and vivid view. Another moment, and the images vanished. The play of lights began again—only to produce another image, slightly different, and then another, all of them laced with silver and gold.

  For a long time he stared, fascinated, at the true form of Haen Marn.

  Finally he wrenched his gaze away. He had his own affairs to attend to. Although he was tempted to fly straight to Sidro, he decided that it would be best to join up with Faharn first rather than go charging into the midst of an Ancients’ camp. Faharn could tell him what had happened to everyone over the winter and explain why the outlaw band had split into two. Although he had no idea of Faharn’s precise location, once he created an astral tunnel that would lead him to the mother roads, he could build an image of Faharn and use it as a focus. The road itself would find him as rapidly and surely as a hunting dog finds prey.

  This close to the astral vortex that was Haen Marn, however, working any dweomer more complex than the raven transformation would be profoundly dangerous. The tunnel working—Laz’s own discovery—was dangerous enough on its own. He would have to get some miles away, he decided, before risking it. Once again he got a secure grip on his sack, then rose, flapping hard, and headed straight west. As he flew, he was thinking of Sidro.

  The misty rain had cleared, leaving the roads too damp for dust but not wet enough for mud. Dallandra, her women, her squad of archers, and Penna, driving a pony cart with their possessions and supplies, had a pleasant journey to Cengarn in the bright warm weather. On the second day, as they were riding through meadowlands only a few miles from the city, their escort received some unexpected reinforcements. Vantalaber, riding in the lead, suddenly raised his arm and pointed at the sky.

  “Dragons!” he said. “Look!”

  Dallandra glanced up to see two dragons circling high above them: Rori and Arzosah, she assumed. They dropped lower, allowing her to see them more clearly. While one of them was indubitably Arzosah, the other, a smaller wyrm, had wings as dark a green as a pine tree in winter, and its body shone a glimmery gold.

  “Arzosah!” Dallandra called out. “Land over in the meadow, and I’ll come join you.”

  The black dragon dipped her head to acknowledge the call, then lowered a wing and turned toward the meadow. The smaller wyrm followed. By the time that Dallandra had dismounted and walked over to meet them, they were both stretched out, nose to tail, basking. Some fifty yards’ worth of scales glittered in the sun. Arzosah got up and waddled over to greet Dallandra. The smaller dragon lifted her head, but at a word from Arzosah she stayed where she was.

  “That’s my daughter, Medea,” Arzo
sah said in Elvish. “That’s her false-name, of course—a fancy of her late father, my former mate. He named her after a famous Greggyn woman that he admired. ”

  “That’s nice.” Dallandra had never heard of Medea, famous or not. “She’s very beautiful.”

  “Of course she is.” Arzosah rumbled softly, her equivalent of a smile. “My second hatchling, she was, and I must admit that she turned out well. I decided to bring her along when Rori asked me to come guard you. Four wings shelter more eggs from the rain than two, as they always say. Rori’s gone off to scout the Horsekin again, which is why he didn’t come himself.”

  “Is that why you’re here?” Dallandra said. “I’m sincerely grateful. These days you never know what might happen.”

  “Too true, alas. You’re welcome. We’ll stay with your alar after you all leave Cengarn. I want to keep an eye on Prince Dar. Now, if we run into trouble, I can summon my older daughter as well. Mezzalina, my elder mate called her for a false name. For the nonce, I’ve left her in the lair to care for my young son.” Arzosah paused, then rumbled loudly and long. “The look on your face, Dalla! Absolutely bursting with curiosity! I know you’re wondering who the father of that son may be.”

  “Well, I can’t deny it.”

  “I think me you can guess the answer.” Arzosah lifted a wing, then folded it close to her body.

  Dallandra found herself utterly speechless. Why am I surprised? she thought. It’s the dweomer of the thing, I suppose. She had somehow assumed that two species so completely different could never—but he is a dragon now, she reminded herself. Arzosah was watching her with one huge eye half-closed, as if she were smiling to herself.

  “You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?” Arzosah said. “I don’t understand why. We’ve both had more than one mate.”

  Dallandra had to admit that the dragon was right—it wasn’t the hatchling itself that was troubling her, but its getting.

  “Is your lair nearby?” Dallandra managed to speak at last.

  “No,” Arzosah said. “It’s off to the west in a fire mountain, in fact. By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I destroyed that wretched bone whistle. I dropped it into a little pool of steaming rockblood down on the floor of the cavern. It burned with a puff of nasty smelling smoke.”