Again a long pause, until the laughter and shouting had moved on. ‘I won’t revive mine, I promise you. The news just took me by surprise, that’s all.’
‘I’m sorry I let it slip like that. I should have prepared you –’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Yet Valandario continued staring out of the window. ‘You were gone when the murder happened. I can’t expect you to remember the particulars.’ Her voice nearly broke on the word ‘particulars’. ‘It’s just that all sorts of little things have happened, just lately, to remind me of Jav.’ She turned around at last. Her eyes glistened with tears. ‘And I still miss him. Elven lives are so long, no one stays together forever, but for us, everything ended too soon.’
‘Very much too soon, yes.’
Val went back to her work table. For a moment she stood, letting her fingers trail across the tooled leather cover of a volume lying there; then with a sigh she sat down in one of the two chairs standing behind it.
‘I’ve put together some interesting information about crystals.’ Val’s voice was steady again. ‘I’ve compiled a set of notes for you. Grallezar brought us some immensely valuable books.’
For some hours they discussed Valandario’s findings. When the light in the chamber faded, Val lit candles. Sidro came and went, bringing food and news. With warm bread came the information that Branna had gone with Grallezar and the Gel da’Thae. Chunks of roast lamb accompanied the welcome bulletin that thanks to a speech that Devaberiel had composed, Prince Daralanteriel had impressed everyone at the banquet. Along with a flask of Bardek wine for Val, Sidro reported that Calonderiel was discussing the town’s defence with the mayor and the leader of its ill-armed militia.
Dallandra was resting on the bed in Valandario’s chamber when Sidro came in for the last time, carrying a pottery cup of boiled milk with honey for her to drink. At her table Valandario had spread out her scrying cloths. Sidro noticed them and lingered for a moment.
‘I did want to ask you, Wise One,’ Sidro said to Val, ‘if there be aught I may do to help you find Laz. I know but a little dweomer, though it would gladden my heart to learn more, but what I have I’ll happily use if it would give you any aid.’
‘Thank you,’ Val said, ‘but I don’t know –’
‘Val,’ Dallandra interrupted in Elvish, ‘did you know that Sidro can read and write?’
‘I didn’t, no,’ Val answered in the same. ‘That might be useful.’
‘It’s time to record your gem scrying.’ Dallandra gave her a stern look over the rim of the cup. ‘The lore’s too valuable to risk losing.’
‘Oh.’ Valandario looked surprised, then nodded. ‘Sidro,’ she said in Deverrian, ‘there’s indeed somewhat you can do for me. How would you like to learn how to use these cloths and gems to search for omens?’
‘That would gladden my heart indeed.’
‘Good. I’d like you to write down what I teach you, too. Could you do that?’
‘I can, though the only letters I know be Horsekin ones.’
‘It won’t take you long to learn the Deverrian letters,’ Dallandra said. ‘I can teach you. There’s only thirty of them.’
‘Oh, well then!’ Sidro smiled at her. ‘It be easy, truly.’
‘Splendid!’ Valandario said. ‘We’ll start on the morrow, but for now, why don’t you just sit down and watch, to get an idea of the process, I mean.’
Sidro pulled a chair up to the table and sat down while Valandario went to a hanging tent bag and brought out a leather pouch of gems. Dallandra meant to watch the lesson, but the hot milk combined with her weariness from travelling, and she felt asleep with the empty cup clasped in her hands.
Valandario took the cup from Dallandra without waking her, set it down outside the door, then seated herself at the table next to an eager Sidro. She poured out her pouch of gems, then chose twenty for a simple reading. In the candlelight they glittered, a chaotic rainbow. A crowd of sprites appeared to dart among the glints of coloured light. One settled briefly on Sidro’s hair, then darted away again.
‘We want four each of the five colours,’ Val told her new apprentice. ‘They represent the elements and the Aethyr, of course.’ She put the rest of the gems away. ‘Now, if we were considering an important matter, we’d add other colours, but this will do for now.’
Valandario spread out the scrying cloth, a patchwork of Bardek silks, some squares embroidered with symbols, others plain. Sidro listened carefully as Val explained each symbol.
‘I’ll repeat this on the morrow,’ Val said, ‘so you can write it down. At the simplest level, a gem that falls upon its own colour represents what most people would call good fortune. It’s all based on the compatibility or incompatibility of the elements.’
‘I see.’ Sidro leaned a little closer to study the cloth. ‘So if a blue stone, it do fall upon a fire square, then that be a dangerous sign?’
‘Exactly. Very good!’
Valandario shook the gems in her cupped hands like elven dice, then strewed them out with a careful motion of her wrist. For a moment she studied the pattern formed.
‘What do you think this means?’ Val said. ‘I know you don’t know all of the system yet. Just give me an impression.’
Sidro frowned, tilting her head this way and that as she studied the layout from different angles. ‘Forgive me,’ she said at last, ‘but I can see naught in it.’
‘Then you’re going to do well at this.’ Val grinned at her. ‘I can’t, either. This is the most confused reading I’ve ever seen, probably because we’re doing it just as a lesson.’ She let the grin fade. ‘I hope, anyway.’
‘What would it mean if you were asking it about the future? Aught?’
‘I’d have to say that it signified some sort of standoff, a balance of forces that were locked together like this.’ Val held up her hands, hooked her fingers together, and made a pulling motion. ‘I couldn’t say between what or whom, since we never focused our minds on a particular question.’ She felt a sudden irritation, as if a stinging insect were flying around and around her head. The feeling was so strong that she lifted a hand to brush it away but found nothing. ‘Let’s put these back in their pouch. I must be more tired than I thought.’
‘It were a long day, truly,’ Sidro said. ‘I’ll fetch the banadar so he can carry his lady to their tent.’
That night Valandario dreamt about Jav and the black crystal pyramid. They stood together on a sea cliff and looked down at a heap of stones on the beach below. He was trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t hear him over the sound of the waves. Finally she woke to a sudden understanding.
‘The place where he found the crystal. That’s what he was trying to show me.’
The grey light of dawn filled the room. Valandario got up and dressed while she considered the meaning of the dream. Could there be another crystal at the tower? But Aderyn had told her, all those years ago, that Evandar must have found the
