feel power around her. And the trip down –’ The dragon paused, looking away as he remembered. ‘She lived in the deep city, you see, where visitors weren’t supposed to go. I was still in human form then, of course. So a friend – Garin it was – led me down hooded like a hawk. Once I was good and confused, he let me take off the hood. We went into a cavern where it was lit with blue light, oozing out of the walls. There were some women standing there, waiting to look me over and make sure it was safe to let me through the next doorway. Garin told me that the name of the cavern was the Hall of the Mothers.’ The dragon shuddered. ‘I went cold all over, just hearing it.’
‘That makes me shiver even now,’ Dallandra said.
Valandario nodded her agreement and went on studying the talisman. Dallandra tested the willow water and found it pleasantly warm. She put on her glove, picked up a linen bandage, wrapped it around a big handful of lamb’s wool, then dipped the lump into the water to soak.
‘Lie down again,’ Dalla said to Rori. ‘And remember, it might sting.’
The dragon flopped onto his side, making the ground shudder and the water in the kettle slop back and forth. With her gloved hand, Dallandra laid the wet bandage over the wound and squeezed to let the medicinal seep into the cut. He flinched, then relaxed with a ripple of scales.
‘Much better than itching,’ he said.
‘Good.’ Dallandra glanced at Valandario, who had closed her hand over the talisman and was staring off at the horizon. ‘Val? Are you still with us?’
‘Hmm?’ Valandario looked at her. ‘My apologies. Now, about Haen Marn. Rori, I know that it disappeared. Do you know why, exactly?’
‘It had the best reason in the world. Horsekin. One of their armies was marching straight for it.’
‘I just thought of something.’ Dallandra put the lump of cloth back into the herbwater to refresh. ‘At the time I assumed that the army was heading for Cengarn and that Haen Marn was merely on the way. Do you think they could have been planning to attack the island?’
‘I have no idea,’ Rori said. ‘I never saw them, only the trail they left behind. The tracks started and stopped by dweomer, Raena’s dweomer, or so you told me.’
‘Why bring an army up to the Northlands and then take it away again?’ Valandario sounded puzzled. ‘If they were actually going somewhere else?’
‘No reason at all,’ Rori said. ‘I wonder why Alshandra wanted to destroy Haen Marn?’
‘She may have simply wanted to capture it,’ Dallandra said, ‘though she did tend to destroy the things she coveted. I wonder if Evandar made some prophecy about the island that had to do with Elessario? She was determined to get Elessi back before she could be born.’
‘That was the whole point of the wretched war.’ Rori moved uneasily. ‘Could you put a bit more of that water on the cut? It’s better, but I can feel it still.’
Dallandra fished the sop out of the kettle and went back to work.
‘You’re missing something,’ Valandario said suddenly. ‘Evandar made a prophecy about the island, most assuredly, but it didn’t have anything to do with Elessi. It was about Rori, and the spell book – the vision Ebañy saw in the black crystal.’
‘Of course.’ Dallandra tossed the sop back into the bucket again – the medicinal water had soaked through the glove and her fingertips were turning numb. ‘It’s another hint that the crystal somehow belongs to the island.’
‘More than a hint.’ Val hesitated, then spoke calmly of what must have been painful things. ‘After Jav was murdered, Alshandra appeared to me. She was party to the theft, and that means she must have seen the message in the crystal.’
‘Maybe not.’ Dallandra paused to pull off the wet glove. ‘Evandar most likely locked it against her. Although for all we know, Loddlaen may have been able to see it and tell her.’
‘It seems more and more likely that the crystal’s on that island. So what we need to do, obviously, is bring Haen Marn back.’
‘Obviously, she says.’ Rori’s voice hovered near a growl. ‘And how, my dear Valandario, do you propose to bring it back?’
‘Dweomer, of course.’
‘Of course.’ Rori slapped his tail hard on the ground. ‘Just like that, eh?’
‘Will you stop that?’ Dallandra snapped. ‘The tail banging, I mean. It makes the water in the kettle slop around.’ She knelt down to rummage through her supplies, then brought out a pair of tongs to use instead of the glove.
‘My apologies.’ The dragon sounded less than apologetic.
Valandario once again gazed off at the distant horizon, using the lapis talisman for some sort of scrying or so Dallandra assumed. She used the tongs to fish the sop out of the herbwater and apply it to Rori’s wound. The dragon hissed with a long sigh of relief.
‘The itch is gone, and the sting’s easing up. You’re a marvel with your medicaments, Dalla, you truly are.’
‘My thanks.’
Valandario abruptly turned back to face them again. ‘But about Haen Marn,’ Val said. ‘Is there any chance that this lapis talisman came from there?’
‘No,’ Rori said. ‘I wore it there, and no one remarked upon it. They would have had it been theirs.’
‘I was afraid of that.’ She looked Dallandra’s way. ‘I was hoping that it might be linked to Haen Marn. All I get from it is a very dim impression of a rock vein, probably the one this thing was mined from.’
‘Life’s never that convenient, is it?’ Dallandra shared her regret. A dweomer talisman from the island might have given off a far more useful impression. ‘Rori, you didn’t happen to bring a trinket or suchlike away with you, did you?’
‘I didn’t. Naught except painful memories.’ He began to speak in Deverrian, as he often did when talking of the past. ‘And since it’s gone, I can’t fly off and fetch – hold a moment! I’ve just remembered somewhat. There was a silver horn chained to a rock outside Haen Marn. You could blow it, and it would summon the boatmen. Well, it would if you were meant to visit the island. Now, after the place disappeared, the horn was left behind, but all smashed and tarnished. Still, it must have had some dweomer upon it.’
‘It summoned,’ Valandario pronounced the words carefully. ‘Dalla, its function is to summon.’
‘The moons has horns when it’s new,’ Dallandra said.
‘And silver’s the metal of the moon!’ Val threw both hands in the air and jigged a few dance steps.
Rori growled long and hard. ‘What by the pink arses of the gods are you two talking about?’
‘Some omens, naught more.’ Dallandra turned to him. ‘Where is this horn?’
‘Enj has it, I think.’
‘Enj?’ Dallandra knew she’d heard the name before, but she failed to place it. ‘Who’s
