LITMIR.BIZ

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then?’

      ‘Truly he was. At least a thousand years older, maybe more.’

      ‘Ai! You live so long a time!’

      ‘We do, at that. But Papa was so ill that he wanted to bathe in a hot spring near our lair. When he didn’t come home, Mama left me to watch my younger hatchling while she went off to find him.’ Medea hissed as if she were remembering the day. ‘Papa never came home. The Horsekin slew him while he tried to get free of the spring, and then they gloated about it.’

      ‘Did your mother kill them for it?’

      ‘As many as she could catch, truly. They couldn’t harm her. I can’t imagine anyone capturing Mama.’

      ‘No more can I. She be magnificent.’

      ‘I’ll tell her you said so. She’ll like that.’

      Medea turned around and waddled off, heading back to her mother, who was still in full argument with a furious Dallandra. Salamander sighed and shook his head.

      ‘They can go on like that for half a day.’ He waved a hand toward the pair.

      ‘Truly,’ Branna said. ‘I think we’d best go back to camp.’

      ‘Indeed,’ Salamander said. ‘Wynni, I’ll introduce you later.’

      By the time she finished talking with Arzosah, Dallandra’s mood had turned foul. It seemed to her that all of her female friends, whether Westfolk or Wyrmish, were taking entirely too much pleasure in telling her their low opinions of Evandar. She stalked back to camp to find Calonderiel waiting for her.

      ‘Where’s Dari?’ she snapped.

      ‘Sidro put her down for a nap in our tent,’ Cal said. ‘I want to talk with you, beloved. I don’t want you going off alone with that Laz fellow. If you don’t want me to go with you, take some of the men. He’s not trustworthy.’

      Dallandra sighed, considering him as he stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes narrow. Arguing with him in one of his jealous moods would only waste a long valuable part of the day.

      ‘Very well,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask Ebañy to go over and finish our talk.’ She glanced around and saw him standing nearby with Branna and Berwynna. ‘Ah, there he is now.’

      ‘That’ll be much better.’ Cal grinned at her. ‘And my thanks.’

      Salamander left Berwynna in Branna’s care, then went to his tent with Dallandra. She stood watching while he took the black crystal from his saddlebags, then repeated his instructions all over again.

      ‘But don’t talk to him about Alastyr,’ Dallandra finished up. ‘I don’t want to awaken any memories of dark dweomer.’

      ‘The temptation to use it might be too great, you mean?’

      ‘Just that. Sidro told me about their teacher back in Taenbalapan. Ych! A truly loathsome dark dweomer refugee from Bardek, back when the cities were breaking the power of the dark guilds. Apparently he escaped the archon who was trying to hang him and managed to take ship for Cerrmor. How he made his way north Sidro didn’t know. I’ll wager that Laz learned plenty of dubious things from him.’

      ‘Very well, then.’ Salamander made her a bob of a bow. ‘My lips are sealed with the wax of circumspection and the signet of prudence.’

      As he walked over to Laz’s camp, Salamander called up from his memory what he knew about Alastyr, whom he’d seen in the flesh only briefly, when he was a very young child and Alastyr a young lad who went by the nick-name of Tirro. Salamander had been gone from the camp when a fully-grown Alastyr had helped Loddlaen murder Valandario’s lover, but he’d of course heard the tale. Many years later he’d helped Nevyn track down an utterly corrupt Alastyr, who preyed upon young children of both sexes not merely for pleasure but also to drain their life force for his evil dweomer workings. Although Salamander had never actually seen the dark dweomermaster Tirro had become, Nevyn had told him the tale in some detail. A thoroughly loathsome soul, that Alastyr, Salamander thought.

      And yet, when he sat down with Laz to discuss the black crystal, Salamander found him no fiend. Berwynna had told him how Laz had risked his own life to save the caravan. Laz seemed concerned about her, asking Salamander how she and her uncle fared, expressing sincere sorrow over the death of her betrothed and the deaths of the other men as well.

      ‘But in the end,’ Laz said at last, ‘death takes us all, and life on the caravan road is generally short.’

      ‘True enough, and alas,’ Salamander said.

      They shared a brief silence in the memory of the slain. Salamander took the chance to study Laz’s aura, a strangely mottled swirl of purple and green. Laz, he supposed, was doing the same to his.

      ‘I see you’ve brought that black crystal with you,’ Laz said eventually. ‘Do you know somewhat about it? Dalla mentioned that I’d owned it in a former life.’

      Salamander had sudden thoughts of doing Dallandra bodily harm. How was he supposed to gain Laz’s trust by telling him the truth but never mention Alastyr? Fortunately Laz misread his silence.

      ‘I take it you don’t know,’ Laz said.

      ‘Well,’ Salamander found a dodge just true enough to pass muster. ‘Dallandra doesn’t like to tell tales of other people’s past incarnations unless they’ve told her she may.’

      ‘Very honourable of her, then.’

      ‘I do know a bit about the crystal, though. Whenever I look into it, I see the same vision, of Evandar standing on the pier at Haen Marn.’

      Laz mugged shock. ‘Evandar again? Very strange!’

      ‘Even stranger,’ Salamander went on, ‘is this. I’ve never been to Haen Marn, and yet in the crystal, I’m apparently scrying it out. What have you seen in it?’

      ‘Only the location of the white crystal, which is, unfortunately, now at the bottom of Haen Marn’s lake. They’re linked in some way, but I have no idea of how.’

      ‘Have you ever thought of using it to scry for the dragon book?’

      ‘I haven’t, but that’s a good idea.’

      When Salamander held out the crystal, Laz took it in both of his maimed hands, using them like a pair of tongs to set it down on the ground in front of him. He leaned over and stared down through the squarecut tip. After some little while he swore with a shake of his head.

      ‘When I think of the book,’ Laz said, ‘the interior of the crystal changes to a thick black darkness. I suspect I’m seeing the inside of Wynni’s saddlebags.’

      ‘Not very helpful, then.’

      ‘Maybe, maybe not. I felt my mind touch those spirits attached to the book. I have no idea, though, if they knew it did.’

      ‘They might have. If they’re spirits of Aethyr, they’re more highly developed than most. I suspect that this crystal and its brother are attuned to Aethyr, too. May I ask you where you came upon the white one?’

      ‘In the ruins of Rinbaladelan.’ Laz grinned, a gesture sharp as a knife-edge, as if he were expecting a reaction.

      Salamander saw no reason to deny him. He whistled under his breath in sheer surprise.

      ‘I went there on a whim,’ Laz continued, ‘just to see what I could see, which wasn’t much. The city’s been taken back by the forest. The walls are split, the streets crumbled, the towers fallen, and over everything grows trees and ivy and the like. I was poking around, pulling off a vine here, a cluster of weeds there, and along one wall I poked too hard. It started to collapse, and when the dust cleared, lo! I saw the remains of a wooden casket. Inside was the white crystal.’

      ‘You found it just like that?’ Salamander said. ‘By chance?’

      ‘Not

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