Although it was decent of the ship’s master to be concerned about feeding his prisoner, it was also a waste of time. As soon as the ship left the harbor and hit the open sea, Perryn’s stomach decided to turn itself inside out. As the seasickness washed over him in rhythmic waves, he lay on his straw pallet, moaned, and wished he were dead. Every now and then one of the sailors would come see how he fared, but for the entire thirty-hour journey, the answer was always the same. He would look at them with rheumy eyes and beg them to hang him and have done with it. When the ship finally made port in Aberwyn, they had to carry him off.
Lying on the pier was like reaching paradise. Perryn clung to the rough, dirty wood with both arms and considered kissing it as the nippy sea air cleared his head of the last of the nausea. By the time men came down from the gwerbret’s dun with a cart, Perryn felt almost cheerful. Even being shut in another cell couldn’t spoil his good humor. The straw may have been dirty, but it covered a floor of real dirt on solid land.
Yet his good mood evaporated when he realized that he was cold and getting colder. The day was gray with high fog, and a brisk wind blew in the barred window. He had no blanket, not even a cloak. Although he huddled into a corner and spread some straw over his legs, he was shivering uncontrollably in a few minutes. By the time he heard someone coming to his door, about half an hour later, he was sneezing as well. The door swung back to reveal an old man, tall, white-haired, and dressed in plain gray brigga and a shirt embroidered with red lions at the yokes. Just as the fellow started to speak, Perryn had a fit of cramps, or so he thought of it. He felt as if a number of invisible cats had leapt upon him and were clawing at him, so deeply and painfully that he yelped and squirmed.
“Stop that!” the old man said. “All of you—stop that right now!”
When Perryn obediently went still, the pains stopped, leaving him to wonder why the old man had addressed him as “all of you.”
“My apologies, lad. My name is Nevyn, and I’m Madoc’s uncle.”
“Are you a sorcerer, too?”
“I am, and you’d best do exactly what I say, or … or I’ll turn you into a frog! Now come along. I can see by looking at you that you’re very ill, and I have the regent’s permission to keep you in a chamber under guard rather than out here.”
Perryn sneezed, wiped his nose on his sleeve, then got up, brushing away the straw and wondering what it would be like to hop through a marsh all his life. When he happened to catch Nevyn’s eye, the old man’s glance struck through his very soul, pinning him to some invisible wall while the dweomerman rummaged through his mind at leisure. At last Nevyn released him with a toss of his head.
“You’re a puzzle and a half, truly. I can see why Madoc sent you along to me. You’re also close to death. Do you realize that?”
“It’s just a chill, my lord. I must’ve gotten it on that beastly ship.”
“I don’t mean the chill. Well, come along.”
As they crossed the ward, Perryn glanced up at the tall broch complex and noticed that the towers seemed to be swaying back and forth. Only then did he realize that he was burning with fever. Nevyn had to help him climb up the staircase to a small chamber in one of the half-brochs. Perryn was shocked at the old man’s strength as he hauled him through the door and lifted him bodily onto the narrow bed.
“Get those boots off, lad, while I light a fire.”
The effort was so tiring that he barely had the strength to get under the blankets. He was just drifting off to sleep when Elaeno, the shipmaster, came into the room, but tired as he was, no amount of talk could keep him awake.
“He isn’t much, is he?” Nevyn said.
“That’s what I said when I first saw him.” Elaeno shook his head in a mild bafflement. “Of course, being seasick for days never helped a man’s good looks.”
“He was badly beaten recently, too. You can see the missing tooth and the fresh scars and suchlike. Salamander tells me that our Rhodry caught him on the road.”
“I’m surprised he’s still alive.”
“So am I. Salamander had no idea why Rhodry didn’t kill him, and neither do I. Ah well, he is alive and our puzzle to untangle as well. Take a look at his aura.”
Cocking his head to one side, Elaeno let his eyes go slightly out of focus as he examined the area around the sleeping Perryn.
“That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” the Bardekian said at last. “The color’s all wrong, and all the inner Stars are out of balance, too. Do you truly think he’s a human being?”
“What? What else would he be?”
“I have no idea. It’s just that I’ve never seen a human with an aura like that in my life, nor an elf or dwarf either.”
“Now that’s true-spoken, and well worth a little thought. If he’s some sort of alien soul trapped in a human body, it would explain a great many things. Unfortunately, we may never find out the truth. He’s very ill.”
“Do you think you can save him?”
“I don’t know. I feel duty-bound to try, in spite of what he did to Jill. He’s suffering, after all, and besides, it strikes me that we should find out what we can about this strange being. But ye gods, all I need now is another burden.”
“I was thinking about that. We could winter over here if you need my help. I can send messages to my wife on another ship.”
Nevyn started to speak, then paused, wondering what was wrong with his voice. All at once he realized that he was very near tears. A startled Elaeno laid a hand on his shoulder.
“I’d appreciate that,” Nevyn stammered at last. “Ah ye gods, I’m so tired.”
“My lord Madoc, I hardly know what the king thinks anymore,” Blaen said. “And I’ll admit that it aches my heart. I wonder if I pressed him too hard or suchlike.”
“You might have. Our liege is a touchy man, and jealous of his strong will.” Madoc hesitated, swirling the mead around in his goblet. “On the other hand, I think Gwerbret Savyl has more to do with our liege’s coldness than your lack of tact.”
Blaen winced. Although he knew perfectly well that he was no polished courtier, he didn’t care to have it pointed out. They were sitting in Madoc’s comfortable chambers high up in one of the auxiliary brochs of the palace complex. As well as a pair of cushioned chairs, the usual table, and a large charcoal brazier, glowing at the moment against the night chill, the main room sported a wall shelf with twenty-two books on it. Blaen had counted them in amazement; never in his life had he seen so many volumes together outside of a temple of Wmm.
“Well, that was tactless of me in turn, Your Grace,” Madoc said with a self-deprecating smile. “My apologies, but this matter of your cousin is beginning to vex me. He belongs in Aberwyn, but if the king won’t recall him …” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
“Just so. I’m afraid to request another audience. If I have annoyed our liege, I don’t want to make things worse. I must say I appreciate all you’ve done in my service. You can count on me for aid whenever you need it.”
“My thanks, but the dweomer has a great interest of its own in our Rhodry.”
“So it would seem.” Blaen had a sip of mead, then put the goblet down on the table. When he was at court he preferred to stay sober and on his guard. “I don’t suppose I can ask why.”
“Certainly. It’s no true secret. When Rhodry was a lad Nevyn received an omen about him. Eldidd’s Wyrd is Rhodry’s Wyrd, or so it ran.”
“Oh.” Blaen was too staggered to say more. “Oh.”
Madoc smiled, then got up to pace restlessly to the window and look out at the night sky, stippled with clouds in the light of a half-moon. At that moment he reminded Blaen strikingly of Nevyn, just in the warrior-straight way he stood and in the look in his eyes, as if he were seeing a much wider view than that from the physical window. The gwerbret wondered all over again if Madoc truly were the old man’s blood kin. Although he’d doubted it before, the relationship was beginning to seem plausible.
r />
“So,” the equerry said, “I’ll see if I can have a word with our liege myself. Never in all the time that I’ve been here have I asked for a private audience, so perhaps I can get one now. We’ll see on the morrow.”
When the coaster put into Dun Mannanan, early on a clear day whose crisp wind proclaimed the coming autumn, Jill was profoundly glad to get onto dry land again. In her joy at feeling solid ground under her feet, she barely registered Salamander’s stream of chatter as they unpacked their gear and piled it up at the end of the pier. Finally, though, some of his words caught her attention.
“… can’t stay in an inn, it’s too dangerous.”
“Probably so,” Jill said. “I’ve got a friend here in town, but I don’t think he’ll put you up.”
“What? How ungracious, my turtledove. Why not?”
She leaned close to whisper.
“Because he’s a dwarf, and he thinks all elves are thieves.”
“And I consider his people to be dullards and sots, and bad cess to him. But you’re right enough. We’d best acquire some horses and get on our way.”
“We might stop in at Otho’s, though.” Jill was looking forward to seeing the silversmith again. “He’ll be able to tell us the best place to buy stock.”
Otho’s house was at the edge of town, down by the river. Over the door hung three silver bells that rang in a gentle cascade when Jill pushed it open. They went into the antechamber, a narrow slice of the round house, set off from the rest by a wickerwork partition. In the partition hung a dirty green blanket for want of a proper door.
“Who’s there?” Otho called out.
“Jill the silver dagger, and a friend.”
Wiping his hands on a rag, the smith pushed aside the blanket and came out. He glared at Salamander in exaggerated suspicion.
“So, young Jill, your taste in men gets worse and worse. You’ve left one misbegotten elf for another, but this one’s a fop to boot!”
Salamander’s mouth dropped open, but Jill hurriedly started talking before he could recover from his surprise.
“I haven’t left Rhodry at all, Otho! This is his brother, not some lover of mine.”
“Humph. Fine family you’ve married into.” He paused, looking the gerthddyn over carefully. “You must be cursed clever with your fingers, lad, to have such fine clothing. I’m not letting you into my workshop, that’s for sure.”
“Now here! I’m not a thief!”
“Hah! That’s all I have to say to that: hah! Now, what do you want with me today, Jill?”
“Just some advice. Is there an honest horse trader in town?”
“Not in town, but there’s one about a mile north of here. Bevydd’s his name, and he’s somewhat of a friend of mine. I’ve made him many a fancy piece of tack over the years. Tell him I sent you. You take the river road straight out of town to the north, and then turn left at the lane edged with beech trees.”
“A mile?” Salamander said with a groan. “Walk a whole mile?”
Otho rolled his eyes up so far it looked like he was going to lose them.
“And doesn’t her ladyship have soft feet today? Ye gods, Jill, I’d find some other clan to marry into if I were you.”
“They grow on you once you get to know them.”
“Like moss, no doubt, or mildew.”
“I beg your pardon,” Salamander snapped. “I don’t have to stand here and be insulted.”
“No doubt you could be insulted anywhere you went.”
When Salamander opened his mouth for a retort, Jill elbowed him sharply.
“Please forgive him, Otho. I was wondering if you had a map of the Auddglyn I could look at. One that shows what lies to the east.”
“Well.” He paused to scratch his head with one gnarled finger. “I might have somewhat like that, and for old times’ sake I’ll go look for it. You keep an eye on this fancy lad out here for me.”
Otho pushed his way back through the blanket, and in a moment or two they heard the unmistakable sound of heaps of objects being rummaged through, a rustling, a banging, and the occasional oath.
“May the gods shorten his beard for him!” Salamander hissed. “The gall, calling me a thief.”
“Now, now, it’s not like it were personal or suchlike.”
“Humph! And you’ve got gall of your own, asking him to forgive me.”
“Well, I was just trying to smooth things over. Hush—here he comes.”
Otho made a triumphant return with a yellowed and cracking scroll in one hand. He took it to the window and unrolled it carefully while Jill and Salamander crowded round for a look. It mostly showed the Auddglyn coast, and Jill got the distinct impression that it had been drawn long before the province was truly settled. To the east beyond Dun Mannanan it showed the island group known as the Pig and Piglets, but the village of Brigvetyn just to the north of them was missing. Even farther on, the eastern side of the parchment was blank, except for a small banner bearing the words “Here there be dragons.”
“Dragons?” Jill said. “That must be some scribe’s whimsy and naught more.”
“Just so,” Salamander said. “Deverry dragons all live in the northern mountains.”
“What?!”
“Oh, just a jest.” Yet he spoke so hurriedly that she knew he was covering something over. “A tale for another time. Now see that little river here, my turtledove? The Tabaver? That estuary is where we’re going.”
“I never heard that there was any town out there.”
“Of course. That’s why I said you were in for a surprise.”
Salamander was speaking naught but the truth for a change. After they bought new stock, a sturdy gray for Salamander, a battle-steady chestnut for Jill, and a pack mule, they headed east, following the coast road to Cinglyn, about four days’ ride away. For this part of the journey, the gravel and packed-earth road was well kept up, and it ran through good farmlands, where the farmers were beginning to harvest the golden summer wheat. Cinglyn itself was on the verge of growing into a small town from a large village; they had no trouble buying provisions there. When it came to knowledge of the road ahead, however, all they got was blank stares or outright mockery.
“There’s naught out there,” the blacksmith said. “Naught but grass, that is.”
“Perhaps so,” Salamander said. “But hasn’t anyone ever been curious, like? Surely someone’s ridden out just for a look.”
“Why?” He paused to spit in the dirt. “Naught out there.”
For the first couple of days, Jill had to agree with him, and she began to wonder if Salamander were daft. The road dwindled first to a dirt track, then to a deer trail, then petered out entirely some fifteen miles from Cinglyn. Salamander led the way down to the beach itself, and for the rest of the day and on into the next they rode on the hard-packed sand by the water’s edge. Wildfolk appeared in swarms and mobbed them, riding on their saddles and horses’ rumps, running alongside, swirling thick in the air, rising up from the silver waves that crashed and boomed close at hand. When they made their evening camp, the spirits sat around in orderly rows, as if they were waiting for something. Jill found out what when Salamander obliged them with a song. They listened, fascinated, then vanished the moment he was done.
On the fourth day, though, she was in for a surprise. They left the water’s edge and turned inland to find another road. Long disused, it was only a narrow track through the sea meadows of tall grass, but it ran straight and purposefully. Just at noon, they came to an orchard gone wild, where under the tangle of unpruned trees apples lay rotting. Just beyond was a circular grassy mound that looked like the remains of a village wall; inside it Jill could pick out dimpled circles on the earth where houses had once stood. As soon as they came close to the ruins, the Wildfolk vanished.
“What happened to this place?” Jill said. “Do you know?”
“It was burned by pirates.”
“Pirates? What would they want with a farming village
? I’ll wager there wasn’t any fabulous plunder here.”
“No gold nor jewels, truly, but wealth all the same. Slaves, my innocent turtledove, slaves for the Bardek trade. The raiders would kill all the men as being more trouble than they’re worth, and take the women and children over in the carracks. Deverry slaves are rare in the islands, you see, exotic and therefore expensive, like Western Hunters in the Eldidd horse trade. There used to be a lot of small villages out here, scattered up the river into the Auddglyn. All gone now.”
“By all the ice in all the hells! Didn’t the local gwerbret put a stop to it? Why did it take him so long?”
“The local gwerbret is about a hundred and forty miles away, my sweet. The pirates finally ended it themselves. They’d overhunted the place, and there weren’t any villages left that were safe to raid.”
“Oh. You’d think that blacksmith in Cinglyn would’ve know about this.”
“Of course he did. He refused to mention it, that’s all. That whole town must live in fear that one day the scum will be bold enough to come take them.”
The biggest surprise of all lay two more days along. Here the coastal cliffs became lower and lower, finally fading out into a long stretch of dunes, scattered with coarse grass. As they rode east, the grass grew thicker; tiny streams appeared; the ground grew damp, and here and there trees stood beside ponds and rivulets. Quite suddenly they found a road made of logs laid down in the muck. Whenever Jill tried to get some information out of Salamander, he would only grin and tell her to wait. After a couple of hours more, the road brought them to a straggle of fishermen’s huts in a sandy cove at one side of a broad, shallow estuary. Drawn up in the harbor were ships, a few tattered fishing boats, and then three sleek carracks and two galleys, all with suspicious-looking accouterments on their prows.
“By the Lord of Hell himself,” Jill said. “Those look like corvos and ballistas.”
“That’s exactly what they are. Remember those pirates I told you about? This is where they winter. They’ve got a whole town here, they do, just upriver, and farther on farms to feed it. This, my dearest turtledove, is Slaith.”