we need to do is tally up the number of our changelings.’
‘That’s true. We were up to forty-seven of them this spring. I’m particularly wondering about Carra’s new granddaughter.’
‘Indeed. So far the changelings seem to have very kindly spread themselves around, one to a family. It’s a good thing, since they can be such a burden.’
‘Yes. The gods must be taking a hand.’
Meranaldar smiled, a bit too indulgently in her opinion. He could be condescending, the scribe, but she was too grateful for the knowledge he’d brought with him to hold it against him. Besides, she knew better than he did that it wasn’t the gods who were lending their aid, but a once-human man: Aderyn.
Whenever she attended the birth of a wild child or held a new-born in her arms, she could feel Aderyn’s presence – naught so perceptible as a ghost, but rather a touch of mind on mind, a sense that he was reaching out to her across the planes. To fulfil his wyrd, Aderyn in his last life should have helped her heal the Guardians and the flock of half-formed souls that followed them. He’d shirked that duty. Now, while he still existed in the state that ordinary mortals call death, he was carrying it out as best he could, guiding their souls to birth and physical life.
The first alar to appear at the festival brought with it the oldest wild child, Zandro, Salamander’s grown son, who lived with Salamander’s father, Devaberiel Silverhand, the most famous bard in the Westlands. The other men in their alar set up the bard’s tent next to the prince’s, a sign of rank as well as a convenience. Dallandra strolled over to greet them. Devaberiel seemed thinner than the last time she’d seen him, and his moonbeam-pale hair had turned completely white. His eyes, the dark blue of the night sky in moonlight, still snapped with life and good humour, and his face, though finely drawn, showed none of the folds and gouges of old age that signalled, among the People, approaching death.
His grandson couldn’t have looked more different. Short and stocky, Zandro had pale brown skin and brown hair that he wore in a mop of curls. His eyes had changed colour since childhood; they were now a deep sunset orange, not quite as red as blood. When he saw Dalla, he turned his head to look at her sideways and grinned, revealing his mouthful of sharply pointed teeth.
‘Dalla,’ he said.
It was the first time Dalla had ever heard Zandro say anyone’s name, and Devaberiel smiled as proudly as if his grandson had just rattled off ‘The Burning of the Vale of Roses’ or some other equally long and complex poem.
‘Yes,’ Dallandra said, ‘I’m Dalla. You’re Zandro.’
Zandro flicked his eyes his grandfather’s way, then giggled and trotted off, heading for the pack of children and dogs playing on the lake shore.
‘He’s got a long way to go yet,’ Devaberiel said, ‘but we make progress.’
‘You certainly do. I’ll admit to being surprised.’
‘Valandario’s been helping me, actually.’ Dev glanced around. ‘I don’t see her. She’s probably setting up her tent.’
‘I’d best go greet her.’
Dallandra picked her way through the growing encampment. She had so many people to greet that she made slow progress, but at last she reached the edge of the camp. For the festival, she’d had some of the men position her tent away from the crowd, where she could find some quiet for her workings. As she’d expected, Valandario had done the same, picking a spot near but not too near to Dallandra’s own.
Val’s tent, so plain and grey on the outside, inside gleamed with colour – elaborately woven panels and embroidered tent bags, mostly blue and green, touched here and there with gold, hung on the walls, while red, silver and purple Bardek carpets and cushions lay strewn over the floor cloth. Sunlight from outside glowed through the walls. Entering the tent made Dalla think of walking into a giant jewellery box. Valandario herself sat on a red and gold carpet with jewels and gemstones spread out in front of her. She’d strewn them onto a scrying cloth, patched from Bardek silks. Some squares and triangles were plain, others embroidered with symbols, and here and there larger embroideries overlapped two squares. What they all meant only Valandario knew. She had devised this scrying system herself over a hundred years of hard work.
‘Am I disturbing you?’ Dallandra said.
‘Not at all,’ Val said. ‘In fact, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve done this reading twice today, and I can’t seem to interpret it.’
Dallandra sat down on the opposite side of the scrying cloth. Light came in through the smokehole in the roof, caught Val’s golden hair and made it gleam like the silks. She held up delicate hands, clasped over a fresh handful of semi-precious stones. She whispered an invocation of the Lords of Aethyr, then scattered the gems over the cloth. Amethysts, citrines, lapis beads, dark jades, and fire opals – they lay glittering on the patches of silk among the rarer jewels. Here and there, as ominous as wolves lurking around a flock of sheep, sat tear-shaped drops of obsidian.
‘I don’t see any pattern at all,’ Dallandra said.
‘Neither do I.’ Valandario looked up with a brief smile. ‘That’s the problem.’
‘Which makes me assume that there’s trouble coming our way.’
‘I’m afraid I have to agree. How many gems have fallen on their own colours? Only four out of twenty, and the black have dropped on the gold squares. I don’t like this.’ Val shook her head. ‘I don’t like it at all.’ She began gathering up the stones and shoving them into leather pouches. ‘I’ve spent too much time poring over it, and it still baffles me. The first spread was even more chaotic. Two stones rolled right off the cloth.’
‘That sounds ominous.’
‘Something is happening – no, something is trying to happen, some large event is struggling to be born, and it doesn’t bode well.’ She frowned as she pulled pouch strings tight. ‘That’s all I can say.’
‘It matches the omen-dreams I’ve been having.’
‘Then there’s nothing we can do but wait.’
‘Wait and be cautious. I was wondering, do you think you could join your alar to the prince’s? I’d feel better knowing that another dweomermaster rode on guard.’
‘I don’t see why not. Dev always enjoys exchanging lore with the prince’s scribe, and I’d be glad of the chance to do some more reading in your books.’
‘Good. If we keep travelling fast, there won’t be a problem finding enough food and water for both herds.’
‘And it seems to me that fast is the way we should be travelling, for a lot of reasons.’ Val patted the pouch of stones with one hand. ‘I’ll tell you what. We’ll leave a day before you and then camp where there’s plenty of grass. Once you catch up, we’ll head straight north. I’d best tell Dev now, so he doesn’t plan an extra performance.’
They went to look for Devaberiel and found him a little way from camp, where he was standing and practising his latest declamation with only the grass for an audience.
‘Clinging like lice on the backs of hoofed death –’ Dev broke off in mid-sentence, then grinned at the two women. ‘Not of course that I was speaking
