LITMIR.BIZ

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see the Wildfolk.’

      ‘She can’t, truly, but I did. They were spirits of Aethyr. They appeared once as flames, icy white with strangely coloured tips. Another time I saw them as a lozenge, floating just over the book. They can move it, by the by, and they must have some way of influencing people’s minds. Somehow they tricked Wynni into taking it from the island.’

      ‘That’s fascinating! I can see Evandar’s hand in this, all right.’

      ‘Have you ever heard of anything like this?’

      ‘Once.’ Dallandra hesitated, then spoke carefully. ‘It reminds me of a tale I heard a long time ago. Have you ever heard of the Great Stone of the West?’

      ‘I’ve not.’

      Yet Laz felt an odd touch on his mind, not a memory, more a feeling of danger attached to the name. Dallandra was watching him, not precisely studying his face, but certainly more than usually alert.

      ‘What is this fabled stone, if I may ask?’ Laz said.

      ‘An opal that one of the Lijik Ganda enchanted – oh, a long time ago. Ebañy told me about it. It had spirits guarding it, too, you see, which is why it came to mind.’

      ‘Ah, I do see. Ebañy’s Evan the gerthddyn?’

      ‘He is. My apologies, I forgot you wouldn’t know his Elvish name. He’s Wynni’s uncle, by the way.’

      ‘And a mazrak, I gather.’

      ‘He is that. He’s not the dweomerman who enchanted the opal, though. Nevyn, his name was, and I know it means “no one”, but it truly was his name.’

      The danger pricked him again. Laz felt as if he’d run his hand through the silken grass only to thrust a finger against a thorn. Dallandra was smiling, but only faintly, pleasantly. He wondered why he was so sure she was weaving a trap around him.

      ‘Can you scry for the book?’ Her abrupt change of subject made him even more suspicious. ‘You’ve actually seen it, and I never have.’

      ‘I’ve been doing so to no avail, alas.’ Laz decided that talking about the book was safe enough. ‘When Wynni took it, she put it into a leather sack, then wrapped the sack in some of her clothing. The bundle’s still in her lost saddlebags, or at least, I’m assuming that. All I get is an impression of a crowded darkness.’

      ‘Well, that’s unfortunate!’

      ‘If I ever see anything more clearly, I’ll tell you, though. Does the book belong to you?’

      ‘In a way, I suppose it does. I think – I’m hoping – that it contains the spells I need to turn Rori back into human form. The being who wrote the book is the same one who dragonified him, you see.’

      ‘So Enj told us. Um, the “being”? This Evandar wasn’t an ordinary man of your people, I take it.’

      ‘He wasn’t, but one of the Guardians, their leader, as much as they had one, anyway.’

      ‘Ye gods, then he’s the one the Alshandra people call Vandar!’

      ‘Just that. He’d never been incarnate, so he could command the astral forces – or play with them, would be a better way of putting it. He never took anything very seriously.’

      Laz looked away slack-mouthed for a moment, then regained control of his voice. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why I’m so surprised. It would take someone that powerful to work the dweomers we’re discussing.’

      ‘Indeed. And I have no idea how to unwork it, as it were.’

      ‘You said you knew him well?’

      ‘I did. He was my lover, in fact, for some while.’

      Laz felt himself staring at her like a half-wit. A hundred questions crowded into his mind, most indelicate at best and outright indecent at worst. A beautiful woman like this, and a man who wasn’t really a man, but some alien creature in man-like form – the idea touched him with sexual warmth. He could smell the change in his scent, but fortunately she seemed oblivious to it.

      ‘Working the transformation killed him – well, I don’t know if killed is the right word,’ Dallandra went on. ‘It drained him of the powers that were keeping him from incarnating. That would be a better way of putting it.’

      ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

      ‘I’m not sure I do, either.’ Dallandra smiled at him. ‘He had no physical body, only an etheric form that he’d ensouled. To be born, he had to remove that form, but he’d woven it so well, and he had so much power at his disposal, that it refused to unwind, as it were. Turning Rhodry into a dragon left him absolutely helpless, all that power spent, his own form destroyed. He could go on at last to cross the white river.’

      ‘I see.’ Laz turned his mind firmly back to questions of dweomer. ‘Speaking of incarnations, you mentioned having somewhat to tell me about mine.’

      ‘I certainly do, thanks to Rori. It turns out that dragons have a certain amount of instinctive dweomer. He remembers you quite clearly from the days when he was human, and in dragon form, he can recognize you.’

      ‘I’d suspected as much, but I’m glad to have the suspicion confirmed. What does he remember that’s so distressing? Distressing to me, I mean.’

      ‘Do you remember aught about your last life?’

      ‘Only a bit, that last battle in front of Cengarn, where Alshandra – well, died, or whatever it is Guardians do when they cease to exist. It’s all cloudy, but I think I was a Horsekin officer.’

      ‘You were there, certainly, but you were a Deverry lord with an isolated demesne just north of Cengarn. You’d gone over to the Horsekin side. They probably treated you like one of their officers.’

      Laz winced. ‘Oh splendid! A traitor to my kind, was I? No wonder I’ve ended up a half-breed in this life! You’re quite right. That does distress me.’

      ‘Well, Rhodry thought it was your devotion to Alshandra that drove you to it.’

      ‘Worse and worse!’ He forced out a difficult smile. ‘Mayhap it’s just as well that Sidro left me. She’d gloat if she knew that.’

      Dallandra nodded, and her expression turned sympathetic.

      ‘I have a vague memory of dying in battle,’ Laz went on, ‘so I suppose I got what I deserved.’

      ‘Your last fight was with Rhodry Aberwyn, a silver dagger. Um, here’s the odd part. Rhodry’s the man whom Evandar turned into the dragon.’

      ‘He killed me?’ Laz tossed his head back and laughed aloud. ‘No wonder he remembered me, eh? And wanted to do it again.’

      It was Dallandra’s turn for the puzzled stare. The Ancients, Laz decided, weren’t as morbid as Deverry men and Gel da’Thae if she couldn’t see the humour in the situation.

      ‘Your name was Tren,’ Dallandra went on. ‘Another tale I heard has you killing a Gel da’Thae bard.’

      Laz winced again. ‘That’s a heinous thing among my people,’ he said. ‘And among the Deverry folk, too, I think.’

      ‘One of the worst crimes under their laws, truly. I don’t know much else, because you were part of the Horsekin besiegers, and I was inside the city walls, so –’ Dalla paused abruptly. ‘Now, who’s that?’

      Someone was calling her name as he came walking through the rustling long grass. Dallandra rose to her feet, and Laz followed, glancing around him. A man of the Westfolk was striding toward them; he paused, waved to Dallandra, and hurried over with the long grass rustling around him. Tall, slender, pale-haired and impossibly handsome like all the Westfolk men, he had cat-slit eyes of a deep purple, narrowing as he looked Laz over. Ah, Laz thought, the lover or husband, no doubt!

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