‘We’re going to have to get away from camp, so we need to wait for a break in the rain.’
The rain fell all the next day, keeping everyone in camp. Dallandra took the opportunity to bring Neb into her tent for a private talk. She spoke in Deverrian to make sure that he understood her. When his yellow gnome followed him in, Dallandra shooed it out again. Even though the gnome lacked a true consciousness, she wanted no witnesses to what Neb might well find shaming.
‘Neb,’ she began, ‘there’s a common problem with dweomer apprentices, that they don’t work hard enough at their studies.’ She paused for a smile. ‘But I’d say you have the opposite problem. You need to work a little less and do more of the physical work around the camp, like helping with the horses.’
‘Indeed?’ Neb’s eyes flared in rebellion. ‘But I’ve got so much work to do already.’
‘Are the exercises I set you too much to finish in a day?’
‘They’re not. I’m studying herbcraft, too, is all, and I want time for that.’
‘You’ve got years ahead of you for all of that.’
‘You know, I’m human. I’ll only have a short life this time. I don’t see why I should waste any of it when I’ve got so much to learn.’
‘Why are you so sure your life will be short?’
“Well, because –’ Neb stopped, startled. ‘Well, won’t it be? Compared to a Westfolk life, I mean.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. But those who give their heart to dweomer, and you obviously have, tend to live a fair bit longer than ordinary folk. You of all people should know that.’
‘True spoken.’ He ducked his head and looked only at the floor cloth.
‘Now, I’ve taught several apprentices in my day, and for that matter, I was an apprentice myself once. I know how hard it is to hold back when you’re so eager to learn.’ She paused, as if thinking. ‘That was so long ago, truly. Nevyn only knew me as an apprentice, you know. Why, it must have been over four hundred years ago, now.’
‘I take your point.’ Neb looked up, and the rebellion came back into his eyes. ‘You’ve lived a cursed lot longer than I have, and you know a cursed lot more, too.’
‘Then why don’t you listen to what I say?’ Dallandra dropped any pretence of jollying him along. ‘I’m your master in dweomer now. You refused to listen to the last one, too, Rhegor that was, so long ago. Do you remember what came of that?’
Neb turned white around the mouth, and his hands clenched hard into fists.
‘I see you do,’ Dalla went on. ‘Well?’
Their gazes met and locked. The drip and patter of the rain outside sounded as loud as drumbeats until at last, he looked away.
‘I’ll help with the horses,’ Neb whispered. ‘Morning and night.’
‘Splendid!’ Dallandra arranged a friendly smile. ‘That gladdens my heart to hear.’
‘May I leave now?’ He was staring at the floor cloth.
‘You may, certainly.’
Neb got up and rushed out without looking her way. Stubborn colt! she thought. But he’ll grow into a splendid stallion one day.
In the late afternoon the rain slackened. A strong south wind sprang up, chivvying the fading storm and driving it off. Dallandra and Valandario walked to the edge of the camp and stood studying the sky. The damp wind felt pleasantly cool, not biting or chilly, and it carried the scent of new grass.
‘We could go out now, I suppose,’ Dallandra said. ‘I do love the feel of a spring wind.’
‘So did I,’ Val said, ‘but the ground’s still too wet. The grass will be soaked.’
‘Well, if this wind keeps up, it will dry out quickly. We should be able to do the ritual just at sunrise, once the astral tide turns toward Aethyr. We’ll probably travel all day tomorrow, and I’d like to experiment with that evocation before too long.’
‘Me too.’ Val grinned at her. ‘Sunrise it is. I’ll memorize the words tonight.’
In the chilly dawn Valandario left her tent and met Dallandra out by the horse herd. Both of them carried their ritual swords, wrapped in bits of cloth to keep off the damp. They were blunt blades of cheap metal to look at, but charged with a very different kind of power than that in a warrior’s muscles. For privacy’s sake they walked a good mile from the camp, then chose a spot suitable for the working. A gaggle of gnomes trailed after them, but as soon as Val unwrapped her sword, they rushed away to disappear.
Together Val and Dallandra trod down a rough circle in the grass. After the proper invocations Val evened up its perimeter into a proper circle by marking the damp sod with the point of the sword. As the sun rose, she greeted the powers who stand behind this visible symbol of warmth and light. To them she consecrated the ceremony.
‘Are you ready, sentinel?’ Val said.
‘I am.’ Dallandra raised her own sword. ‘Let the ritual begin.’ She brought the sword down sharply.
Valandario stood in the centre of the circle, lifted her arms over her head, and vibrated the words from the scroll, drawing breath from deep within herself, breaking each word into syllables as Aderyn had taught her, all those years before.
‘Ol-duh um-duh non-ci do a doh-oh-ah-een day Iah-ee-da, O gah day poh-ah-mal ca a no-tay-hay-oh-a ah av-ah-bay-hay. Ha-na-ma-rah ha-na-ma-rah! Ah-ca-ray, ca, od zah-meh-rah-nah, la-pay ol zee-air-do noo-coh ol-pay-ee-air-tay de ol-pay-ee-air-tay.’
For a moment nothing whatever happened. Valandario took another deep breath – and flew, or so it seemed to her, darted up through the air and the brightening sunlight, up ever upward, until she stood on an island, a perfect circle in the midst of hyacinth-coloured seas. All around it purple waves rose stiffly, then subsided without a trace of foam. A greenish sunlight shimmered on the sea and glinted from the island’s glass-smooth surface. In the island’s centre a circular dimple formed. Out of it rose a silver pillar, a mere stump at first, then growing higher and higher, until at last Val stood before a translucent tower.
‘Ah-ca-ray, oh servant of the Light!’ Valandario said.
Within the pillar a point of violet light bloomed, grew larger, stretched into a vertical line. The line thickened, swirled, and formed at last into the tenuous shape of a woman.
‘Why do you call upon me?’ the spirit said. ‘What do you wish to know?’
‘I wish to know about Haen Marn, the island in the planes of form that’s a shadow of this island.’
‘Not of this island, but of another. I know not where that lies.’
‘If you do not know, how may I find out?’
‘I know not that, either. You must ask the Lady of the Black Stone Isle, she who dwells on the plane of matter and death.’
‘How may I find her?’
