Darkspell - Katharine Kerr

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to me.” Rhodry dropped his voice to a whisper. “All that cursed dweomer! It’s enough to drive anyone mad! I pray to every god we’re never touched by sorcery again.”

      Although she nodded her agreement, Jill knew that he was praying for the impossible. Even as he spoke, her little gray gnome manifested onto the table and sat down by Rhodry’s tankard. All her life Jill had been able to see the Wildfolk, and this particular skinny, big-nosed creature was a close friend. Oh my poor Rhoddo, she thought, you ride with dweomer all around you! She felt both angry and frightened, wishing that her peculiar talents would go away, fearing that they never would.

      Yet once, last summer, Nevyn had told her that if she refused to use her talents, they would eventually wither and be gone. Although she hoped that the old man was right—and certainly he knew far more about the matter than she did—she had her doubts, especially when she considered how dweomer had swept her into Rhodry’s war and Rhodry’s life last summer. She’d been an utterly obscure person, the bastard daughter of a silver dagger, until her father had taken what seemed to be a perfectly ordinary hire, guarding a merchant caravan that was traveling to the western border of Eldidd. Yet from the moment that the merchant had offered Cullyn the job, she’d known that something unusual was going to happen, felt with an inexplicable certainty that her life had reached a crossroads. How right she’d been! First the caravan went west to the land of the Elcyion Lacar, the elves, a people who were supposed to exist only in fairy tale and myth. Then, with some of the elves in tow, they’d returned to Eldidd and ridden right into the middle of a dweomer war.

      Just in time for her to save Rhodry’s life by killing a man who, or so the dweomer seemed to declare, was invincible—Lord Corbyn will never die by any man’s hand, or so a prophecy declared. Like all dweomer-riddles, this one had two sharp sides, and a lass’s hand had slain him sure enough. As she thought about it, it all seemed entirely too neat, too clever, as if the gods shaped a person’s Wyrd the way a Bardek craftsman shapes a puzzle box with its precise little workings that mean absolutely nothing in the long run. And then she remembered the elves, who were not men in any true sense, and Rhodry himself, who was only half of one. She saw then that Rhodry might have slain his enemy himself, if only he’d believed he could, and that her coming, while convenient, need not be foreordained any more than a snowstorm that appears in winter could be said to be a mighty act of dweomer.

      Yet dweomer had brought her to him; that she was sure of, if not to save his life, then for some obscure purpose. Although she shuddered at the thought, she also found herself wondering why dweomer should frighten her so badly, why she was sure that following the dweomer road would lead to her death. Suddenly she saw it: she was afraid that if ever she tampered with dweomer, it would bring not only her death, but Rhodry’s. Even though she told herself that the idea was stupid, the irrational fear seemed to hang round her like smoke, acrid and choking. For a moment, in fact, she thought she could see gray tendrils, curling through the room. When she leaped up, ready to shout fire, the smoke disappeared—a dweomer-vision.

      She had no way of knowing that the smoke of her vision came from a fire that burned some three hundred years in the past, when she and Rhodry both had lived another life, as all souls have many lives, as many as the moon, cycling from light into darkness and back to the light yet once again.

      All men have seen the two smiling faces of the Goddess, She who brings love to men’s hearts. Some have seen Her stern face, the Mother who at times must chastise her erring children. But how many have ever seen the fourth face of the Goddess, which is hidden even to most women who walk the earth?

       The Discourses ofthe Priestess, Camylla

      The rider was dying. He slid off his horse to the cobbles, staggered once, and fell to his knees. Gweniver flung herself down and grabbed him by the shoulders before he fell on his face. Warm blood oozed through his shirt onto her hands.

      “Lost, my lady,” he gasped. “Your brother’s dead.”

      Blood welled into his mouth and broke in a bubble of death. When she laid him down, his foundered horse tossed its head once, then merely trembled, dripping gray sweat. She got to her feet just as a stable lad came running.

      “Do what you can for that horse,” she said. “Then tell all the servants to pack up and flee. You’ve got to get out of here or you won’t live the night.”

      Wiping her hands on her dress, Gweniver ran across the ward to the tall broch of the Wolf clan, which would burn that night beyond her power to save it. Inside the great hall, huddled by the honor hearth, were her mother, Dolyan, her younger sister, Macla, and Mab, their aged serving woman.

      “The Boar’s men have caught our warband on the road,” Gweniver said. “Avoic’s dead, and there’s an end to the feud.”

      Dolyan threw back her head and keened out a wail for her husband and three sons. Macla burst into moist sobs and clung to Mab.

      “Oh, hold your tongues!” Gweniver snapped. “The Boar’s warband is doubtless riding here right now to claim us. Do you want to end up as trophies?”

      “Gwen!” Macla wailed. “How can you be so cold-hearted?”

      “Better coldhearted than raped. Now, hurry, all of you. Get the things you can carry on one horse. We’re riding to the Temple of the Moon. If we live to reach it, the priestesses will give us refuge. Do you hear me, Mam, or do you want to see me and Maccy handed over to the warband?”

      The deliberate brutality forced Dolyan silent.

      “Good,” Gweniver said. “Now, hurry, all of you!”

      She followed the others as they puffed up the spiral staircase, but she went to her brother’s chamber, not her own. From the carved chest beside his bed she took a pair of his old brigga and one of his shirts. Changing into his clothes brought her a scatter of tears—she’d been fond of Avoic, who was only fourteen—but there was no time for mourning. She belted on his second-best sword and an old dagger. Although she was far from being a trained warrior, her brothers had taught her how to handle a sword. Finally she unclasped her long blond hair and cut it off short with the dagger. At night she would look enough like a man to give any lone marauder pause about attacking her party on the road.

      Since they had over thirty miles to go to reach safety, Gweniver bullied the other women into riding fast, trotting, walking, then occasionally galloping in short bursts. Every now and then she would turn in her saddle and scan the road for the dust cloud that would mean death chasing them. Shortly after sunset the full moon rose to shed her holy light to guide them. By then her mother was swaying in the saddle with exhaustion. Gweniver saw a copse of alders off to one side of the road and led the others there for a brief rest. Dolyan and Mab had to be helped down from their saddles.

      Gweniver walked back to the road to stand guard. Far away on the horizon, in the direction from which they’d come, a golden glow flared like the rising of a tiny moon. It was most likely the dun burning. She drew her sword and clutched the hilt while she stared unthinking at the glare. Suddenly she heard hoofbeats and saw a rider galloping down the road. Behind her in the copse the horses nickered a greeting, unknowing traitors.

      “Mount!” she screamed. “Get ready to ride!”

      The rider pulled up, then dismounted and drew his sword. As he strode toward her, she saw his bronze cloak pin glittering in the moonlight: a Boarsman.

      “And who are you, lad?” he said.

      Gweniver dropped into a fighting crouch.

      “A page of the Wolf, from your silence. And what are you guarding so faithfully? I hate to kill a slip of a lad like you, but orders-are orders, so come now, turn the ladies over to me.”

      In utter desperation Gweniver lunged and struck. Taken off guard, the Boarsman slipped, his sword swinging up wildly. She cut again and sliced him hard on one side of his neck, then struck back on the other, just as her older brother Benoic had taught

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