The Shadow Isle

  “Wynni!” Marnmara came striding into the chamber, her arms full of sacks and supplies. “Don’t prattle! You’ll only upset her more.”

  “Oh, my loves!” Angmar said. “Please, not another of your squabbles!”

  For her mother’s sake, and hers alone, Berwynna held her tongue, even when Marnmara smirked at her—at least, she took her sister’s smile as a smirk, not a conciliation. Still, her thoughts were her own, and she found herself thinking about the strange book that Dougie had brought to Haen Marn. She’d heard Tirn tell Mara that it seemed to have somewhat to do with dragons. What if there’s a spell in it? She’d heard them mention dweomer, too.

  “I’ll brew you up a restorative,” Marnmara said to Angmar.

  “My thanks,” Angmar said, “but I doubt me if aught will help. My time must be upon me. There’s not much reason left to me to live, now that we’re home, and I know that I’ll never see your father again. At least you children will have your proper place and your proper destiny now.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Mam, please?” Berwynna said. “Enj thought the Westfolk could help. Who are the Westfolk, anyway?”

  “Ask Enj,” Angmar said. “I’m so weary in my very soul, and there’s somewhat important I needs must tell Marnmara. Help me sit up, Wynni.”

  Berwynna piled pillows between Angmar and the bedstead, then helped her mother lounge comfortably against them. At the hearth Marnmara was lighting a small fire. Once it caught, she placed an iron kettle of water next to the flames to heat.

  “Mam?” Marnmara turned around to face the bed. “You’re not about to die. I’d know it if you were, and you’re not, so please don’t talk about dying.”

  “I know your heart must ache, though,” Berwynna said. “Mine would in your place.”

  Angmar smiled, but she looked only at Marnmara. “Come here, child, and listen.”

  With a backward glance at the kettle, Marnmara walked over.

  “Now that we’re home,” Angmar began, “I shall tell you an important thing. There was no use in worrying you with it when we were so far away. I’ve told you many a time that you were born to be the Lady of this isle, though I doubt me if you know all of what it means. The Lady before you did bear no daughter to take her place when her time came upon her, only a son, and him I did marry. But our firstborn daughter was poor little Avain, and never could she take on such a task. Then my husband died. Your father found me, or perhaps the gods sent him. Either way, at last the isle had its trueborn Lady once again.”

  What about me? Berwynna thought. I suppose I’m just here by chance or such, for all they care!

  “It were a grave thing if the isle should have no Lady,” Angmar went on. “So one day you’ll have to marry in your turn, that you may mother a daughter.”

  “But I don’t want to!” Marnmara laid a hand over her mouth.

  “That matters not,” Angmar said. “You’ll have to marry a man of the Mountain Folk, not merely any man. That’s the rule of the isle, that the Lady must marry a Man of Earth and bear him children. Had I been the true Lady, I never could have taken your father to my bed, but I wasn’t, and the times were desperate.”

  Marnmara had gone pale. She lowered the hand from her mouth, looked at her mother for a long moment, then got up with a toss of her head. She hurried back to the hearth and knelt down to add herbs to the water in the iron kettle. We’re home, Berwynna thought, so maybe I can marry Dougie now, since I obviously don’t matter to the stupid island. She was about to ask her mother when Marnmara left the hearth and rejoined them.

  “I don’t want to marry,” Marnmara said. “Surely I should be able to adopt a girl child instead.”

  “You most certainly can’t.” Angmar sat up a little straighter. “Wynni, run along now. Go ask Enj your questions, because truly, you must have many of them.”

  Berwynna considered protesting, but her mother and sister were glaring at each other in a way she recognized all too well. They’ll argue the whole wretched afternoon, she thought. With a sigh she left the chamber and went downstairs. After all, she reminded herself, she had a brother to get to know, an unexpected gift from the gods.

  Fortunately Enj considered her a gift, as well. He was more than glad to answer her questions, explaining who the Westfolk were, and the Horsekin, recounting the story of how her father had been turned into a dragon in the far-off city of Cerr Cawnen in order to save his life after a traitorous woman had wounded him to the point of death. Tirn talked as well, telling her of the recent wars between his civilized folk and the wild Horsekin of the far north.

  Berwynna did her best to divert some of this flood of information Dougie’s way, translating when she could, explaining strange names when she couldn’t. He listened, but his stunned eyes and slack mouth revealed a shock almost as great as her mother’s. Finally he roused himself sufficiently to ask a question, which she translated for him.

  “This sorcerer who turned my father into a dragon?” Berwynna asked Enj. “Was his name Evandar?”

  “It was indeed,” Enj said. “Fancy our Albanwr knowing that!”

  At the news Dougie groaned and buried his face in both huge hands. “I might have known,” he said to her. “Truly, I might have known.”

  Not long after Angmar and Marnmara came downstairs. Angmar looked much restored, but Berwynna was pleased to notice that Marnmara’s usual composure had disappeared. Lady of the Isle or not, she kicked a chair out of her way as she passed it, yelled at her cats to get off the table where they were lounging, and strode out of the great hall without looking anyone’s way. Tirn got up and followed her out with the cats trailing after. What’s this? Berwynna thought. Don’t tell me she’s got an admirer in that poor beggar of a man! Huh! Serve her right!

  Angmar sat down in her usual chair at the head of the table and smiled at everyone. “Do forgive me my fit,” she said in Deverrian. “It were but the surprise.”

  “No doubt, Mam,” Enj said. “I doubt me if anyone here holds it to your shame.”

  “My thanks. Well, tonight we shall have a feast,” Angmar went on, “to celebrate our homecoming, like. Wynni, if you’d lend your aid to Lonna, there be that haunch of beef hanging in the kitchen hut that a farmer did give our Marnmara. It be the last Alban beef we shall taste, so let us roast it now.” Her smile suddenly darkened, and she spoke to Dougie in his own language. “I do apologize again, lad, for not forestalling you in time. My heart aches for your mother.”

  “Mine, too,” Dougie said. “No doubt she’ll know what happened to me when she hears that the island’s gone.”

  “It will be a bitter hearing.” Angmar considered for a moment. “Maybe one of the Westfolk sorcerers can find a way for you to return home.”

  “Should I want to go.” Dougie laid his hand over Berwynna’s. “My mother has other sons and daughters.”

  “I know, but it be perilous here for you.” Angmar hesitated, then shrugged. “Marnmara can perhaps explain it.” She glanced Berwynna’s way. “You’d best set that beef to roasting soon.”

  Berwynna choked back an angry reply and got up. She curtsied to her mother, then stalked out of the great hall.

  Once Berwynna got the beef salted and roasting over the hearth fire in the great hall, the boatmen came in to turn the spit, spelling each other at regular intervals. Berwynna and Lonna went back to the kitchen hut. They made a salad of herbs and greens to go with the beef, then brought out the day’s bread. Lonna had started the dough in Alban, and now they were baking it in the home country— the thought made Berwynna a bit dizzy as she considered it.

  “Lonna,” she said, “what do folk call this country?”

  “The Roof of the World,” the old woman answered. “We be high in the mountains, lass. Now, I know not who owns the land, like. No one, I’d say. But if anyone does, then it belongs to Dwarveholt and the city of Lin Serr.”

  “A city? Is it as big as Din Edin?”

  “Bigger, no doubt. Oh, it be a fine place, al
l made of stone. Mayhap one day you’ll see it.” Lonna paused to wipe her hands on her apron. “Anything might happen now, since we be home.”

  Once the loaves were baking in the stone oven, Berwynna left Lonna to tend them and went back to the great hall, perfumed with the scent of roasting meat. At the table Enj was telling their mother some long complicated story about the city of Lin Serr. Tirn had come back inside and now sat beside Mic to listen, but Otho had fallen asleep in his cushioned chair. Berwynna sat down next to Dougie.

  “Did my sister ever come back inside?” she said.

  “She didn’t,” Dougie dropped his voice to a whisper. “Tirn came creeping back in not long after you left, and he looked like a whipped hound.” He let his voice return to normal. “It wouldn’t hurt your sister to give you some help with all that kitchen work.”

  “I’ve often had the same thought, strangely enough.”

  “Well, here, when it’s time to serve, let me help. I don’t need to sit here like a lump on a log, and me not understanding a word of what your brother’s saying anyway.”

  “That would gladden my heart, and while we work, I can teach you a bit more about the language we speak.”

  “I’d best learn it.” Dougie gave her a grin. “I’m going to be here for the rest of my life.”

  Berwynna smiled in return, but her mother’s words hung over them like a sword. What if he did come to grief, now that they’d come into this strange country her mother called home? All through that evening, during her work in the kitchen and the feast that followed, she did her best to forget that question. Yet she was always aware of him, first helping her in the kitchen, then sitting close at dinner.

  “Your mother’s talking up a storm with your brother,” Dougie said, then slipped one arm around her waist.

  With his free hand he fed her tidbits from their trencher as if she’d been his wife, and when she took a choice bit of meat from his fingers, she would smile and at times, when her mother looked the other way, lick them. His smiles grew ever softer, ever warmer. Berwynna began to feel a languid sort of warmth herself, as if she’d downed a double tankard of the strongest ale ever brewed.

  At the meal’s end Enj announced that Berwynna had done enough hard work for the day. “You’ve shamed us all, Dougie,” he said. “Come now, Mic, you and I can clean up the mess.”

  “I do love having a brother!” Berwynna called out. “My thanks!”

  When the men began to clear the table, Angmar bade everyone a good night and went upstairs to bed. Berwynna and Dougie made a grateful escape to the cool night air outside. As soon as they were well away from the great hall, Dougie caught her by the shoulders and kissed her, a long lingering kiss.

  “Let’s find somewhere to sit down,” she said. “You’ll break your back, bending over like this.”

  “Ever the practical lass!” he said with a soft laugh. “Splendid idea!”

  “I’ve got an even better one.” Berwynna looked up at the manse and pointed to a window, glowing with candlelight. “That’s Mam’s chamber window.”

  As they watched, the light went out.

  “She’ll be asleep soon.” Berwynna dropped her voice to a whisper. “If we’re careful and quiet, we could go up the back stairs and go to your chamber.”

  “I like that one even better.” He paused to take another kiss. “Quiet, it is!”

  Laz woke in the middle of the night from dreams of sorcery so vivid that he wept, thinking of how much he’d lost. He sat up and wiped his moist eyes on the edge of his blanket. Dweomer lay thick all around him on the island, but he himself could do nothing—or so he thought, wrapped in self-pity. Yet something about the dream nagged at him, a brief image of a book, open to a page of Gel da’Thae script, his book, left behind with Sidro here in this familiar world. Perhaps his power lay waiting for him, too, now that he’d returned to his proper place.

  You could at least try, he told himself, not the raven, perhaps, something simpler, a divination, mayhap. He got up, pawed through his heap of clothing with his mangled hands, and found the black crystal. In the darkness of his chamber, he could see nothing in the gem or elsewhere, for that matter. Without thinking he summoned the Wildfolk of Aethyr. Although snapping his fingers lay beyond him, he clapped his hands together. A silvery dweomer light bloomed in the air above his bed.

  “Ye gods!” He wanted to throw back his head and howl with joy, but regard for the sleep of the house stopped him. He contented himself with grinning.

  When he looked into the black stone, he saw only darkness, though here and there the dark seemed to be moving. Water, most likely, and if so, the white crystal still lay at the bottom of the lake. When he placed his scarred palms on either side of the crystal, he felt a quiver of force that might have signified some sort of link between the pair.

  “There are too many beasts in this lake for anyone to try diving for your twin,” Laz said aloud.

  The crystal’s emanation never changed. He set it aside, then considered his dweomer light, the visible sign that once again, he could work magic. He basked in its glow for some long while before he dismissed the Wildfolk and allowed the light to fade. By then he felt far too excited to sleep.

  When he went to the window and looked up, he could see by the wheel of the stars that dawn lay close at hand. He dressed, then made his way downstairs and through the dark and silent great hall. Outside, the stars gave just enough light for him to pick his way down to the lakeshore. Slow waves lapped onto the graveled shore with a pleasant sound, and the fresh breeze smelled of spring and growing things. He breathed deeply and smiled, telling himself that yes, he was still a sorcerer.

  Footsteps crunched on the path behind him. He spun around and saw a slight figure walking toward him. Cats darted around her.

  “Mara?” he said.

  “It be so,” she said in her odd dialect of Deverrian. “You did rise early, Tirn.”

  “So did you.”

  She laughed and came to stand beside him. “Be it that you feel the difference in this world?” she said. “I do feel power flowing all around us.”

  “I do as well, most certainly. What about you? You told me that your dweomer might blossom here.”

  “It has.” She sounded as exultant as he felt. “Already have I learned new things.”

  He smiled, waited, but she said nothing more, merely turned away to look out over the lake.

  “I’d not pry into your secrets,” Laz said finally.

  “My apologies. I did but wonder if you knew how the two worlds differ.”

  “Do you remember what I told you about the etheric plane?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, here the etheric flows freely into and out of the physical plane, while back in Alban, there was a rift between them, a chasm is probably the better word. If we can’t draw upon the etheric, then we can’t work dweomer.”

  “I do understand now. It gladdens my heart that we’re back.”

  “Mine, too.”

  In the east a thin sliver of gray appeared, the herald of the sun. Seeing the light, knowing that it shone upon his homeland, filled Laz with such good cheer that he held out his arms to the silver dawn and chanted the first few words of an ancient Gel da’Thae prayer.

  “Be that your native tongue?” Mara said.

  "It is.” He let his arms drop to his side. “Welcome, O light of truth that shines upon our land. That’s how it begins.”

  “Lovely, that.”

  By then the sky had lightened enough for him to see her smiling at him. Perhaps it was the mention of truth, but Laz felt an odd sensation, something he’d never felt before. At last he deciphered it. He felt dishonorable, that he’d lie to someone who had healed him.

  “There’s somewhat I have to tell you,” Laz began. “About my name. It’s not truly Tirn, you see. That’s a name I’ve used, but the name my mother gave me was Laz Moj. When your boatmen fished me out of the loch, I was frightened. I didn’t want them to know I’m G
el da’Thae, because I thought they might throw me back again to drown.”

  “I do understand such a fear.”

  “My thanks, but truly, it weighs upon my heart that I deceived you.”

  “You have my thanks, as well, for that truth. I did wonder about your name, truly, because I did see somewhat of the liar about you.”

  Laz winced, and she laughed at him.

  “Do let us go inside,” she said. “There be a need on me to see how my mam does fare, and a need on you to tell the others the truth about your name.”

  Laz winced again at the thought of standing up at breakfast and admitting he’d lied—another new sensation, as he thought about it. It had never bothered him before. I’ve changed here, he thought. Thank all the gods I’ll be leaving soon!

  As soon as the sun rose, Berwynna woke. She grabbed her clothing from the floor and crept out of Dougie’s chamber before anyone could find her there. Once she’d gained the safety of her own chamber, she got into her bed. She only meant to rumple her blankets and pillow as if she’d slept there, but in the familiar comfort, after her tiring night, she fell asleep almost immediately.

  When she woke again, bright sunlight filled the room. Her mother was standing at the foot of the bed.

  “Hadn’t you best get up?” Angmar said. “The sun’s well on its way to noon.”

  Berwynna sat up and yawned. “My apologies,” she said. “I suppose everyone’s waiting for me to serve their breakfast.”

  “No, I did it.”

  “Oh, Mam! You shouldn’t have had to do that. Why couldn’t Mara take a turn?”

  “Because she’s the Lady of the Isle.” Angmar spoke solemnly. “Never forget that, love. Your sister was born to be the Lady of the Isle.”

  And I suppose the rest of us are worthless, especially me, but Berwynna kept that thought to herself. Aloud she said, “Very well, Mam. I will.”

  “You missed the big announcement, too,” Angmar went on. “I told you that I didn’t trust Tirn. Well, it turns out that he was lying about his name. He admitted it at breakfast. His real name is Laz, he tells us now.”