The Spirit Stone

  The returning army arrived a full fortnight after the messengers. When they heard the tieryn’s horn announcing their return, Branna and Solla rushed out of the women’s hall and raced down the stairs to the ward. Lady Galla followed more slowly, yelling after them the entire way to mind their courtesies.

  Men and horses filled the ward. The servant lasses whose men had come home rushed to greet them, while those who had lost their men busied themselves with their work, their eyes brimming with tears. Branna and Solla found a place to stand near the entrance to the great hall where they’d be out of the way of the confusion.

  ‘I feel like running to Gerran’s side,’ Solla said, ‘but what if he’s changed his mind about marrying me? He never came right out and asked, you know.’

  ‘Oh hush!’ Branna said, smiling. ‘Look! Here he comes!’

  Gerran strode over to them. He’d made a heroic effort to look presentable, Branna decided, considering he’d been riding a long campaign. He was reasonably clean, freshly shaved, his hair trimmed up, and his shirt looked as if it had been dipped in a stream somewhere along the way home to get the worst of the dirt off. Tied around his left arm he wore Solla’s blue scarf. Branna stepped back out of the way and stood watching.

  ‘It gladdens my heart to see you, Lord Gerran.’ Solla dropped him a curtsey.

  ‘It gladdens mine to see you, Lady Solla.’ Gerran bowed to her in turn. ‘I have some interesting news. The Falcon clan’s going to have a new dun, down in the Melyn River valley. I’d be honoured thrice beyond my worth if you’d be its lady.’

  ‘My lord Gerran.’ Her voice softened to a whisper. ‘I’m a warrior’s daughter, and the sister of a gwerbret, but I’ll be the one honoured to be your wife.’

  Gerran caught her hands in his. ‘Done, then,’ he said. ‘My lady.’

  For a moment their rigid courtesy held; then all of a sudden she laughed, a joyous ring of laughter, and threw her arms around his neck. He caught her by the waist, kissed her, then kissed her again, while all around them the ward rang out with cheers. Branna wiped a few sentimental tears away on her sleeve, then went into the great hall.

  At the table of honour Cadryc and Galla had taken their places, and Mirryn, still sulky, sat with them. Branna glanced around for Neb and saw him standing at the honour hearth, talking with Salamander. She hurried over, paused to greet her uncle with a kiss on his bald spot, and joined them.

  ‘I’ve received a very flattering offer,’ Neb said with a wink in her direction. ‘Prince Daralanteriel wants me to come be his scribe.’

  ‘We’d live among the Westfolk?’ Branna said. ‘That sounds most interesting.’

  Galla caught her breath with a gasp and turned in her chair to glare at Neb and Salamander impartially.

  ‘Now, my love,’ Cadryc said. ‘I’ve already agreed that if Neb wants to take the offer, he can go. I’ll be the prince’s vassal in a few short months, you know, and so we’ve got to weigh his wishes carefully.’

  ‘I suppose we must,’ Galla said, ‘but Branni, I’ll worry about you, out there so far from home.’

  ‘It’s not like I’ll be lonely, Aunt Galla. The prince travels with a huge retinue,’ Branna said. ‘I shall miss you, though.’

  ‘And I shall miss you, dear. I do hope that you’ll be leaving us that lovely wool-spinner of yours.’ She glanced at Salamander. ‘You must get her to show it to you. The Westfolk women will probably want one, too.’

  Salamander smiled and bowed. Doubtless he had no idea of what she meant.

  ‘Of course I will,’ Branna went on. ‘And you’ve got Adranna and the children here now, and Solla will be staying till Gerran gets his new dun. So you won’t be alone any more.’

  ‘Well, true spoken.’ Galla sighed heavily. ‘And no doubt the prince will visit us from time to time, and you with him. Neb, have you decided?’

  ‘I have, my lady. I’m so truly grateful to you for everything you’ve done for me, taking me and Clae in, letting me marry Branna, but to take a prince’s service—what an honour to come my way! Didn’t you tell Branna that one day I might be attached to a great man’s court?’

  ‘Oh!’ Galla made a sour face at him. ‘Snared with my own wire!’ She paused, thinking. ‘You know, though, I must admit that it’ll be a useful thing, having kinsfolk in our new overlord’s court.’

  ‘Scheming already, eh?’ Cadryc grinned at her. ‘Now, what am I going to do for a scribe? Curse it all, I just got used to having one.’

  ‘Solla can read and write,’ Branna put in. ‘It’s going to be a while before the Falcon clan gets its new dun, isn’t it?’

  ‘A woman for a scribe?’ Cadryc stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Well, why not, eh? A pen doesn’t weigh all that much. There’s no reason a woman can’t lift one.’

  By the time the Westfolk army returned to the pastures around Mandra, the night winds hinted at the coming of autumn’s chill, and Dallandra was feeling most assuredly pregnant. Calonderiel hovered around her, making sure she had the best food to eat and the softest blankets he could find for her to sleep upon, until she was ready to scream at him to stop fussing. It was Sidro, oddly enough, who told her that she should be grateful that her man cared so much.

  ‘I did bear a child once,’ Sidro said, ‘to a man who cared not in the least. He did turn me out of his mother’s house in his jealousy.’

  ‘You mean he thought it wasn’t his child?’ Dallandra said.

  ‘Nah, nah, nah, but that he were jealous of the child. He knew I would love it as much as I loved him, and he brooked no rival in his house.’

  ‘That was Laz?’

  ‘It was.’ Sidro looked away, and for a moment Dallandra thought she might weep. ‘But the child, he were born sickly, and he died. Laz did want me back, then, but I went instead to Alshandra’s service.’

  ‘I can see why! The selfish little beast!’

  Sidro considered her for a moment, then smiled, but sadness welled behind that smile. ‘He were that, then. Over the years, he did change for the better.’ She paused briefly. ‘In some ways.’

  ‘It seems to me that you’ve got the better man in Pir.’

  ‘Oh, he be that most certainly, Dalla. There be a need upon me to remember it if we do find Laz. Always has he held my heart in his fist.’

  ‘He hasn’t ensorceled you, has he?’

  Sidro shook her head no. ‘Only if love be sorcery, and truly, at times I think it be as dangerous as any spell.’

  ‘I think you be right,’ Grallezar put in. ‘I do feel blessed that never did I succumb to such.’

  ‘But Exalted Mother,’ Sidro said. ‘You did bear children of your own.’

  ‘The children I loved. Their father—’ Grallezar shrugged. ‘I did pick him for his mach-fala and the lands they owned. He did have a good scent, too.’ She glanced at Dallandra. ‘They all be safe upon those lands now, far from Braemel, so I think me I did pick well.’

  Sidro smiled her agreement, then paused to sniff the air. They were all sitting in Dallandra’s tent, while outside the rain drummed down, another omen of autumn. For want of much else to do, Sidro had attached herself to Grallezar as something of a serving woman and maidservant. Dallandra still found it unsettling to see the Gel da’ Thae women constantly raising their heads to sample the smells around them, but she had to admit that at times it did come in handy.

  ‘Exalted Mother,’ Sidro said. ‘Do you think Dallandra’s child be female?’

  Grallezar paused for a deep breath. ‘I think you be right,’ Grallezar said. ‘I smell not the male taint.’

  ‘Well, wonderful!’ Dallandra said, simply because she knew they expected her to be pleased. ‘I’m so happy to hear it!’

  She would have felt as happy—and as burdened—with a boy as well, and in fact, she’d been expecting that the child would be male. Later, when she and Grallezar were alone and able to discuss dweomer and its secrets in their private language, Dallandra brought the matter up and mention
ed how surprised she was to be carrying a girl.

  ‘I’d been thinking that this soul would be Loddlaen’s,’ Dallandra said. ‘I was sure of it, actually, the more I meditated upon it.’

  ‘And why shouldn’t it be?’ Grallezar said. ‘Male or female, the dweomer doesn’t care.’

  ‘You know, you’re right. All this talk of Gel da’ Thae and Mountain Folk, the People and the Roundears—I’ve fallen into tribe-bound ways of thinking again, I’m afraid.’ She patted her stomach. ‘I’m sure it is the same soul. I truly am.’

  ‘You would know. Well, poor Loddlaen! At least you have the chance now to make things up to him. Or her, I should say.’

  ‘What? I don’t feel that I owe him anything. I did what I had to do. Far more souls than one needed me desperately. The times now are dangerous enough that I’ll have to do what I find the need to do again. But this time, I’ll make sure that she’s well provided for if I should have to leave her. And this time she’ll be one of the People on both sides of her line, which will make her life much easier.’

  ‘So it will. I just realized something. I’ve been trying to think what I might do for you, something to repay you for your generosity in taking me in—’

  ‘You don’t owe me anything.’

  ‘Oh, I know, but we Gel da’ Thae, we dislike feeling like useless guests. Look at Sidro, bustling around, washing my clothes and blankets, and her with dweomer gifts of her own! When the child’s born, I’ll be your nursemaid and help raise her.’

  ‘Wonderful! She’ll have a splendid start in life.’ Dallandra suddenly laughed. ‘Especially if she wants to be a commander of armies.’

  Late on the following day, Salamander rode into the camp with Neb and Branna in tow. Since everyone knew that the two Roundears had come to study with Dallandra as well as write the occasional letter for Prince Dar, a tent stood ready for them on the edge of the encampment near Dallandra and Calonderiel’s. The members of the royal alar crowded round them in friendly curiosity, and that first evening, Dallandra barely saw them. It would take them some days to grow used to the Westfolk way of life, Dallandra knew. In the long tent-bound winter they would have plenty of time to begin the methodical study of the dweomer that they both needed, as she informed them the next morning.

  ‘It can get tedious, down in the winter camps,’ Dallandra told them. ‘But you’ll have lots to keep you occupied.’

  ‘No doubt,’ Branna said. ‘Dalla, will the silver dragon be there?’

  ‘Not in the camps, but he should turn up here soon, once it stops raining. I’ve got to treat his wound.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ Branna hesitated, thinking. ‘I keep feeling like there’s somewhat I should say to him, or discuss with him, more like, but I can’t think of what it may be.’

  ‘Well, you know, other than helping me lift the dweomer upon him, there may be naught for you to say. I’ve learned that at times, saying naught means more than words. It’s a message in itself.’

  Branna looked utterly puzzled, but Dallandra merely smiled. Evandar had taught her that some truths needed to be left as riddles so that the persons who needed the answers could find them for themselves. It’s the finding that matters, she thought, not the answer. Dallandra did, however, have a straightforward question for Neb. She’d not forgotten Penna and Tarro.

  ‘I remember Penna from the village, truly,’ Neb told her. ‘Tarro I only met once, when the gwerbret’s captain let him come home for a visit. Penna was an odd child, but it gladdens my heart that she’s been rescued from the Horsekin.’

  ‘Odd how?’ Dallandra said.

  ‘First off, they were stepchildren. Their father was a river fisherman who drowned, and her mother married a farmer—his name was Gutyn—who took her children in and raised them as his own. He was a decent man, truly. The mother died before Clae and I got to Uncle Brwn’s farm, so I never met her.’ Neb suddenly paused. ‘Gutyn must have been killed by the raiders, now that I think of it. Gods, it’s horrible still, remembering all that.’

  ‘Of course it is. Penna’s still half in shock herself, I think. You could see her grief written on her face.’

  ‘No doubt!’ He frowned, thinking. ‘She was terrified of the river, too.’

  ‘Well, that’s understandable, since her father drowned in it.’

  ‘True spoken, but it had to be somewhat more than that. I found her weeping once because she was supposed to lead the cows down to drink. The river will take me one day, she told me. I thought she meant she’d drown, but she insisted it wasn’t that.’ Neb shrugged and spread his hands. ‘She couldn’t quite say what she meant. So I led the cows down for her, and after that, her half-brother took over the task.’

  The half-brother had died in the raid, too, Dallandra supposed. The sudden look of slack-mouthed grief that crossed Neb’s face confirmed it.

  The dragon lounged in the lair he’d made in tall grass. The sun gleamed on his silver scales, tipped here and there with blue, as if he were wearing the finest mail in the world, made from some dweomer metal—except for the pink gash of his old wound, spoiling it. Branna could see where Dallandra had cleaned the dead flesh away, but the gash remained, stubbornly unhealed. Still, he sprawled comfortably enough. His eyelids drooped, and he yawned, revealing fangs longer than her arm.

  ‘Rori?’ Branna said. ‘Are you awake?’

  ‘I am now,’ he said and raised his massive head.

  His voice stirred memories, so deep in her mind that they brought no images or words with them, merely a piercing sense that she’d heard his voice before. Salamander had warned her about his eyes. Like Salamander, she nearly wept, seeing that human gaze, trapped behind the face of another order of being. He studied her with longing, a minute examination.

  ‘You’re no longer Jill,’ he said. ‘Dalla made that clear to me. I don’t want it to be true, but I know it is.’

  ‘Good. I don’t want to be Jill. She’s dead.’

  ‘So she is.’ He sighed and laid his head to rest upon his enormous front paws. His claws dug into the earth, then relaxed. ‘It gladdens my heart that you’ve come out to speak with me. I hoped you would, in your own time.’

  ‘You’ve not been here more than half a day.’

  He rumbled with laughter. ‘I’ve always been the impatient sort.’

  ‘You could have sent a message back with Dalla when she tended your wound.’

  ‘That would have spoilt it.’ He raised his head to look straight at her. ‘I wanted to—I needed to see if you’d come on your own.’

  ‘Well, here I am.’

  Branna waited, let him continue studying her with his all too human dark blue eyes. The moment had come that she’d been anticipating, when she would meet the silver wyrm at last and speak with him. The moment grew longer as she realized that she still had no idea of what to say. There should be somewhat, she thought. Or is Dalla right? Finally he sighed so deeply that the sound came close to a roar.

  ‘Ever since that night in Cengarn,’ Rori said, ‘when you called out to me that you’d come back, I’ve been thinking of things to say to you. I might as well have been a bard, going through every fine word and phrase I knew. But now we’re face to face, and none of the words are right, because you’re not Jill. Now I can see it for myself. It’s not just a tale that Dalla told me.’

  ‘You know, I’ve been doing the same thing, but I don’t remember who you were to Jill, so I’d not thought of much to say at all.’

  ‘You don’t remember anything?’

  ‘Well, I know she was your friend. If there was somewhat more, my apologies, but I truly don’t remember.’

  ‘My friend? Well, she was that, too.’ He sighed in a long hiss. ‘You don’t remember.’

  ‘Does it truly matter? Dalla told me you want the dweomer lifted. One day I’ll know what Jill knew, whether I’m her or not. And I swear it, Rori, I’ll do whatever I can to lift that spell.’

  ‘Will you? Then my thanks.’

  His
eyes, those striking dark blue eyes, filled with tears. Dragons can’t weep, can they? Branna thought. It’s the man inside the form who’s so sad.

  Rori raised his head with a shake to knock the tears away. For a moment he busied himself in rearranging his front paws on the grass. ‘I’ll be leaving for the winter in a little while. I can’t take the cold in this body. Even cool days like this, they make me sluggish.’

  ‘Well and good, then. I’ll see you in the spring.’

  He nodded, then lowered his head onto his paws and closed his eyes. She lingered, unsure if he were truly sleeping or if he were telling her farewell. Finally she walked away, heading back to the camp and Neb.

  She’d killed some fine thing, she realized, some grand love, most likely, that she’d once shared with the man Rori had been. What precisely it was, she couldn’t remember, and no more did she mourn the thing itself, but she wept, anyway, just a scatter of tears for all the honour and love that the river of Time sweeps away in its scouring flow.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  If any readers want to know more about the dwarven fire bolts, which are based on real weapons, they can find the source information in Aeneas the Tactician’s How to Survive a Siege. Various reference books, such as Peter Connolly’s Greece and Rome at War, have more detailed reconstructions. The falcata was also a real weapon, carried by the native Hispanic troops in Spain against the Roman army when Rome was mopping up after the Carthaginian Wars. Human beings have been wasting man-hours and resources on finding better ways to kill each other for a very long time.

  GLOSSARY

  Alar (Elvish) A group of elves, who may or may not be bloodkin, who choose to travel together for some indefinite period of time.

  Alardan (Elv.) The meeting of several alarli, usually the occasion for a drunken party.

  Astral The plane of existence directly ‘above’ or ‘within’ the etheric (q.v.). In other systems of magic, often referred to as the Akashic Record or the Treasure House of Images.