LITMIR.BIZ

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the dragon stretched out her neck, Rhodry slid down to the ground, then paused.

      ‘How can you smell dweomer?’

      ‘It’s like the air after a storm when lightning’s struck, all clean and tingling but a danger-smell, too.’

      ‘Huh. Interesting. I think I smelled it myself, there for a moment.’

      ‘That’s your elven blood. All of the People know magic in their hearts.’

      Rhodry retrieved the black feather which was like a real feather in every respect save one. It stretched a good three feet long. His memory taunted him. How could he recognize such a powerful creature without putting a name or time to their meeting? With a shake of his head he ran the feather through his fingers, felt it turn cold, seem to run like water, tingle in his hands. He yelped and dropped it. On the grass lay a long strand of raven-black hair, glistening with blue highlights in the sunlight.

      ‘Ah,’ Arzosah said. ‘She’s turned herself back, wherever she is.’

      Rhodry mouthed an oath.

      ‘Do you want to hear a strange thing, master?’

      ‘By all means. It seems to be the day for them.’

      Arzosah rumbled in her version of laughter.

      ‘So it is, so it is. But when she dropped into our world and looked at you, I could have sworn she recognized you.’

      Borne on its inner wave, the memory rose again, and this time the image of a face came with it. Impossible! he thought. It could never be her, never! And yet in a wordless way, he knew perfectly well that it was, that he had met again an enemy from many years past, when he and Jill were young. It had happened, in fact, during their very first year of riding the long road together. And a strange affair that was, he thought, as soaked with evil magic as a battlefield is with blood. Strange then and stranger to look back on now, when I know a thing or two more than I did then.

II PAST

      Gwaentaer and Deverry Spring, 1063

       CONJUNCTIO

      This figure brings good out of prior good, and evil out of prior evil. Yet by a most cunning paradox, when it does fall into the Land of Steel, which governs marriages, it produces evil even unto the point of death.

       The Omenbook of Gwarn, Loremaster

      The tavern catered, it seemed, to shabby young men, laughing and talking among themselves – craftsmen’s apprentices from the look of them. Jill propped one foot up on a bench and settled her back against the curved stone wall. Since she and her man both carried the silver dagger, the mark of a notoriously poor band of wandering mercenaries, the other customers seemed willing to ignore them, but she preferred to take no chances. Besides, even though she wore men’s clothing and had her blonde hair cropped off like a lad’s, she was very beautiful, back in those days, and men had seen through her ruse before.

      ‘What’s so wrong?’ Rhodry whispered.

      ‘They’re all thieves.’

      ‘Ye gods! Do you mean we’re drinking in a –’

      ‘Shush, you dolt!’

      ‘My apologies, but why are we –’

      ‘Not so loud! What other tavern in Caenmetyn is going to serve a pair of silver daggers? It’s a fancy sort of town, my love.’

      Rhodry studied the crowd and scowled. Even in a black mood, when Rhodry was young (and he was barely one and twenty that year) his elven blood was obvious to those who knew how to look; his face, handsome all through his life, was so finely drawn in those days with a full mouth and deep-set eyes, that it would have seemed girlish if it weren’t for the nicks and scars from old fighting.

      ‘Which way shall we ride tomorrow?’ he said at last. ‘I’ve got to find a hire soon.’

      ‘True enough, because we’re blasted low on coin. You should be able to find a caravan leaving here, though.’

      ‘Ah by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell! I’d rather find some lord with a feud going and ride a war. I’m as sick as I can be of playing nursemaid to stinking merchants and their stinking mules! I’m a warrior born and bred, not a wretched horseherd!’

      ‘How can you be sick of it? You’ve only ever guarded one caravan in your life.’

      When he scowled again, she let the subject drop.

      Oddly enough, about an hour later someone offered Rhodry a very different type of hire. Jill was keeping a watch on the door when she saw a man slip into the tavern room. All muffled in a grey cloak, with the hood up against the chill of a spring night, he was stout and on the tallish side. When he approached the table, the hood slipped, giving Jill a glimpse of blue eyes and a face handsome in a weak sort of way.

      ‘I heard there was a silver dagger in town.’ He spoke with a rolling Cerrmor accent. ‘I might have a hire for you, lad.’

      ‘Indeed?’ Rhodry gestured at the bench on the opposite side of the table. ‘Sit down, good sir.’

      He took the seat, then studied them both for a moment, his eyes flicking to Jill as if her standing while he sat made him nervous. Since he was wearing striped brigga and an expensive linen shirt under the cloak, she figured he might be a prosperous craftsman, perhaps a man who made incense for the temples, judging by the scent that lingered around him. All at once, Jill’s grey gnome popped into manifestation on the table. He had his skinny arms crossed over his narrow chest, and his long-nosed face was set in a disapproving glare for the stranger, who of course saw nothing. He leaned forward in a waft of Bardek cinnamon.

      ‘I have an enemy, you see,’ he whispered. ‘He’s insulted me, mocked me, dared me to stop him, and he knows blasted well that I’ve got no skill with a blade. I’ll pay very high for proof of his death.’

      ‘Oh indeed?’ Rhodry’s dark blue eyes flashed with rage. ‘I’m no paid murderer. If you want to challenge him to an honour duel and formally choose me for your champion, I might take you up on it, but only if this fellow can fight and fight well.’

      Biting his lip hard, the stranger glanced round. The gnome stuck out its tongue at him, then disappeared.

      ‘An honour duel’s impossible. He … uh … well won’t respond to my challenge.’

      ‘Then I’m not your man.’

      ‘Ah, but they always say that silver daggers have their price. Two gold pieces.’

      Jill nearly choked on her ale. Two gold pieces would buy a prosperous farm and its livestock as well.

      ‘I wouldn’t do it for a thousand,’ Rhodry snapped. ‘But at that price, doubtless you’ll find someone else to do your murdering for you.’

      The fellow rose and dashed for the door, as if the dolt had just realized that he’d said too much to a perfect stranger. Jill noticed one of the thieves, a slender fellow with a shock of mousy-brown hair, slip out after him, only to return in a few minutes. He sat down companionably across from Rhodry without so much as a by-your-leave.

      ‘You were right to turn him down, silver dagger. I just talked to the idiot, and he let it slip that this enemy of his is a noble lord.’ The thief rolled his eyes heavenward. ‘As if anyone would touch a job like that! If one of the noble-born got himself done in, wouldn’t the town be crawling with the gwerbret’s marshals, poking their stinking noses into every corner and wondering how the likes of us made our living? You silver daggers can just ride on again, but us Guildsmen have to live here, you know.’

      ‘True spoken,’ Jill broke in. ‘Here, did he say where this noble lord lived?’

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