A spiral staircase wound down to the great hall, dim with the shadows of twilight. Near the door the men of the warband were drinking at their tables while they waited for their dinner. Across from them, near the nobles’ hearth, Tieryn Cadryc sat at the head of the table of honour with his wife at his right hand. Branna was sitting next to Lady Galla. She wore a pair of clean dresses, the outer a pale blue, cut short in front and slashed at the sleeves to reveal a grey underdress. An embroidered band of interlace ran around the neck, and like a pendant hanging from a chain an embroidered dragon lay just over her collarbone. Neb felt himself blush for no particular reason, then noticed the gerthddyn staring at her, his lips half-parted as if in surprise. Or was it sexual interest? Neb wanted to slap him across the face, but the emotion shocked him so much that he managed to suppress it.
‘Have you met Lady Branna before?’ Neb said.
‘The ice in your voice, lad, would freeze most men’s blood.’
Neb raised one eyebrow and considered him.
‘Ye gods,’ Salamander said, ‘the look in your eyes just might do the same.’
‘Have you met her before?’
‘I’ve not.’
‘Then you’d best mind your manners around her.’
Salamander opened his mouth, then shut it again. Neb turned on his heel and strode off to the honour table, where Tieryn Cadryc waited for him.
After the meal, Salamander went up to the little room in the broch that Lady Galla had given him, a wedge of the circular floor plan defined by woven wicker partitions, but private nonetheless, because the compartments to either side held stacks of curing firewood. He spread his blankets out on the mattress on the floor, then strolled over to the unshuttered window. He could see over the dun walls to the meadows off to the east, where a quarter moon was just rising out of mist. When he boosted himself up to sit on the wide stone windowsill, the Wildfolk came to join him, a flock of sprites in the air, a gaggle of gnomes on the floor and the sill.
‘Well, this is a pretty predicament, isn’t it?’ Salamander said to them. ‘I’ve seen my brother now, and I can’t say I cared for the sight.’
The Wildfolk all nodded in sad sympathy. Beyond the window the mist in front of the rising moon glowed and seemed to swirl in the distant light. Salamander focused upon it and let his mind fill with the memory of the silver wyrm, flying overhead on huge wings. In but an instant the memory turned into a vision. The silver dragon lay curled on a flat outcrop of rock among high mountains, his scales gleaming in the moonlight. He was perhaps eating something he held nestled against his side; Salamander could see the enormous head moving in a regular rhythm, licking something – licking a wound. The dragon moved restlessly, tossing his head, and Salamander could finally distinguish a dark streak on his side, oozing what appeared to be blood. In a moment the dragon went back to cleaning the wound with the only tool he had, his own tongue, a gesture so like that of a dog that Salamander felt profoundly nauseated.
His brother was living like an animal. No, his brother was an animal now, albeit a sapient creature who could speak, and in several languages at that. But he had no hands, no tools to ease his life, nothing but what his dragon form gave him. Salamander broke the vision. As if they felt his distress, the Wildfolk crowded closer.
‘Ye gods, I feel sick and twice so,’ Salamander said. ‘I think me I’d best talk to my master in the dweomer.’
This time, when he gazed into the moon-mist he thought of Dallandra, his teacher and saviour. At first he remembered her face; then he thought he might be seeing her face; all of a sudden he did see it. Her steel-grey eyes were narrow with concentration, and wisps of her ash-blonde hair hung untidily across her forehead and stuck to her cheeks. Yet, although the vision enlarged, the mist only thickened, swirling around her and threatening to hide her entirely.
‘Dalla,’ he thought-spoke to her in Elvish. ‘Dalla, it’s Ebañy. Is something wrong?’
He saw her flinch in surprise, then smile. She sat back on her heels and appeared to be looking straight at him. Through the mist he could see flickering light. Smoke and a fire?
‘What do you mean, is something wrong?’ she thought her answer back to him.
‘I can barely see you for the smoke.’
‘It’s not smoke. We’re still on the coast. It’s high tide, and the ocean’s etheric veil is running high with it. Let me sharpen the image.’
With that he could see her clearly. She was kneeling in front of the flickering light, which proved to be a small campfire.
‘That’s much better,’ he said. ‘You haven’t left? I thought you’d have all started north by now.’
‘We had to wait for Carra to get back from Wmmglaedd. She and Meranaldar went there to talk history with the priests. We’ll ride out on the morrow, most likely. Where are you?’
‘In Tieryn Cadryc’s dun once more. I’ve got strange news. I’ve seen our Rhodry, but I don’t think he recognized me. It was down in the Melyn river valley.’
‘Does he look well?’
‘No. I mean, by the Dark Sun herself! How could he look well in that body? He’s a dragon, all scaly.’
‘Calmly now! Your thoughts are beginning to dance around.’
‘Sorry.’ Salamander took a deep breath. ‘But he seems to have hurt himself somehow. There’s something that looks like a dagger’s cut over one rib.’
‘How very odd! It couldn’t still be the old wound, the one I couldn’t get to staunch. On a creature the size of a dragon, it should have healed right up.’
‘Why would it? If it was a magical curse or suchlike –’
‘But it wasn’t any such thing. When it happened, I wasn’t thinking clearly, so I didn’t see the obvious. About a month later, when I was watching the men in my alar butcher a sheep, I realized the dagger had punctured a lung. There’s a tremendous lot of blood vessels there, and most of the blood was draining into his chest cavity. He was drowning, actually, in his own blood.’
For a moment Salamander nearly lost the vision in a wave of compassionate disgust. He steadied his mind and went on. ‘Then if it wasn’t a dweomer wound, what I saw must be a fresh injury. Perhaps something he was trying to eat fought back.’
‘Very likely, yes. Well, there’s naught I can do about it, unfortunately, unless he seeks me out, and so far, he hasn’t. Do you have any other news?’
‘Oh, a few small titbits.’ Salamander paused for drama’s sake. ‘I also ran across Nevyn, Jill, and Cullyn as well – or at least, I think it’s Cullyn. I only saw him once or twice, and that was years ago.’
‘You what? Ye gods! They’ve all been reborn?’
‘Yes, all reborn and here together, and Neb’s growling like a dog with a stolen joint of mutton at anyone who casts an unseemly glance at little Branna. I wonder if Gerran’s noticed the lass yet? Things could turn most unpleasant, you know, should he take a fancy to her. They’re all still quite young. I’d say that Gerran’s the oldest of the lot, and he seems to be
