The Spirit Stone (26 page)

‘Oh, maybe, maybe not. I’m surprised that all those little things still matter so much. But you see, I’m afraid that if I asked Nevyn or your da to teach me about dweomer, they’d just laugh. That would be so horrid.’

‘I can understand that.’ Loddlaen reached out and caught her hand in a sympathetic squeeze. ‘But I could teach you what I know.’

‘Would you? Will you truly?’

‘I will.’ He smiled at her. ‘It’ll be our secret until we see how strong your gifts are.’

‘Our secret?’ Morwen hesitated, feeling a stab of doubt. ‘Shouldn’t we tell Nevyn at least?’

‘And have him stop us? He might, you know. The masters are really jealous of their precious lore. They don’t want to share it with anyone they don’t think is worthy of it.’

If ever a person fell under the heading of ‘unworthy’, Morwen supposed, it would be her, with her nasty temper and well-stewed resentments, to say naught of her ugly face. Loddlaen—handsome, kind Loddlaen—smiled a little as he leaned towards her and touched her hand.

‘Oh do come on, Morri,’ he said. ‘It’ll be grand, having a secret that’s ours alone.’

‘So it would. Well and good, then, and my thanks.’

They talked until late that night, while above them the stars wheeled in a brilliantly clear sky. Somewhere well past midnight Morwen realized that she was in danger of falling asleep where she sat, and Loddlaen kept yawning. She gathered the remains of the honeycomb up in the leaves and hurried back to Devaberiel’s tent.

Fortunately Ebañy slept late the next morning. Apparently his father had kept him up far longer than Morwen would have. It was the middle of the morning before she woke, only to find Ebañy just beginning to stir. He was wet, of course, since he’d slept so long. She fed him, then took him down to the stream, where she washed out his blanket. Ebañy was singing to himself and playing some elaborate game with shiny pebbles when Loddlaen came hurrying up to them.

‘Morri?’ Loddlaen said. ‘I’m going down to talk with the merchant about Tirro. Why don’t you come with me?’

‘What’s Tirro done?’

‘Naught, naught.’ Loddlaen smiled at her. ‘I had a long talk with the lad early this morning, and we hatched a plan. I could use a bit of support.’

‘I’ll come then, of course. Let me just finish cleaning Ebañy up. He had that honeycomb with his breakfast.’

Honey and dirt smeared his face from ear to ear, but a twist of grass and some stream water soon solved that problem. She spread his blanket out to dry on clean grass before they left. Hand in hand they walked with Loddlaen across the empty stretch of meadow between the Westfolk and the merchant’s camps. Morwen felt as if she were crossing a real border, twixt the Deverry world and the Westfolk world, and that by going over to the Deverry side she’d gone among strangers rather than back to her kinsfolk.
We’ve not been here long,
she thought,
but oh, it’s been so lovely!

They’d just reached the merchant’s camp when someone hailed them from behind. Morwen glanced back to see Gwairyc trotting after them.

‘Oh ye gods!’ Loddlaen muttered. ‘What does he want, I wonder?’

Gwairyc told them when he caught up. ‘I just thought I’d have a last word with Tirro.’

‘It might not be the last one,’ Loddlaen said. ‘Wait and see!’

‘What?’ Gwairyc snapped. ‘What do—’

Loddlaen chuckled under his breath. ‘Wait and see,’ he repeated. ‘We might be having a bit of a surprise.’

In Wffyn’s camp the muleteers were trotting back and forth. Some were carrying packs and packsaddles out to the herd to set beside the mules, who were still grazing; others were haltering the Westfolk horses and roping them together. Wffyn was standing in the midst of all this confusion while Tirro knelt at his feet, putting the last pieces of ironware into a canvas pack. When he saw Loddlaen and the others coming, Tirro got up.

‘Master,’ he said, ‘I want to ask you somewhat.’

‘Do you?’ Wffyn said. ‘Well, ask away.’

Tirro took a deep breath. His eyes shone—it was the first time she’d ever seen him look truly happy, Morwen realized. ‘I want to stay here with the Westfolk,’ Tirro said. ‘I spoke with Loddlaen about it, and he said I could. It will save Da a fair bit of coin if I never come back, and he won’t mind.’

‘Well, by the gods!’ Wffyn said with a laugh. ‘This is a bolt from a clear sky, lad.’ He glanced at Loddlaen. ‘Do you truly think your father would allow him to stay?’

‘I do, sir.’ Loddlaen stepped forward. ‘There’s one good thing about living as we do out here. We always have room for another person. Tirro’s been truly unhappy in Cerrmor, and he told me that he’d got into some sort of trouble, but out here, in the wild country, he would –’

‘Some sort of trouble?’ Gwairyc turned to Tirro. ‘Did you tell him what?’

Tirro went dead-pale.

‘I see you didn’t,’ Gwairyc said. ‘Here, Loddlaen, this is a horse you don’t want running with your herd. He was thrown out of Cerrmor for raping a little lass, no more than six summers old, she was.’

‘I did not rape her!’ Tirro burst out. ‘I truly loved Mella, and she loved me. I never would have hurt her.’ He froze for a long moment, then winced and clasped both hands over his mouth, as if he could shove the confession back in.

For a moment Morwen feared that she was going to vomit and disgrace herself. ‘You horrible foul swine,’ she said. ‘You disgusting lump of-’ Words failed. She grabbed Ebañy, picked up him, and stepped back a few paces to put distance twixt him and the creature she once had pitied.

Tirro turned to Loddlaen and held out both hands, but he could say nothing, apparently, judging from the way he gulped for air.

‘You’ve got children in your alar,’ Gwairyc continued. ‘Do you truly want this piss-poor excuse for a man riding with you?’

‘I don’t.’ Loddlaen was very nearly whispering. ‘You have my thanks, Gwarro. I had no idea.’

Tirro spun around and raised balled fists at Gwairyc. ‘I hate you,’ Tirro burst out. ‘I’ll hate you forever for this.’

‘Will you now?’ Gwairyc hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked the lad over. ‘Am I supposed to be frightened by that?’

Tirro’s face turned dark red. ‘You wait,’ he snarled. ‘I’ll get you for this. I swear I will.’

Gwairyc laughed. Tirro spun on his heel and took one stride as if he were planning to break into a run, but he nearly collided with Wffyn. He began to cry, moist sobs so loud, so violent, that he could barely stand upright.

‘Oh ye gods,’ Gwairyc said wearily. ‘I should have slit your throat and thrown you out for the ravens. You snivelling little coward!’

At last Tirro managed to control his sobs and haul himself upright. Panting for breath, he set his hands on his hips. ‘Sneer all you want,’ he said between gasps. ‘I’ll get you for this one fine day. I swear it. I shall have my revenge.’

‘Such fine words! There’s green snot all over your lip, by the by.’

Morwen burst out laughing, a shrill little cackle of mockery. Tirro began to sob, his skinny little face so pale that she thought he might faint, but Wffyn grabbed him by one arm.

‘Come along, you,’ Wffyn said. ‘It’s time to ride to Cerrmor. That ship bound for Bardek will be waiting for you.’

Tirro pulled his arm free, shook himself, and tried to muster a haughty expression. For a moment the expression held, but only for a moment, before he began to weep again. Wffyn hauled him off, still sobbing. No one spoke until they were out of earshot.

‘In a way,’ Loddlaen said, ‘I feel sorry for him.’

‘How could you?’ Morwen snapped.

‘Well, he’s another human being, isn’t he?’ Loddlaen hesitated, thinking. ‘Some evil thing must have made him the way he is.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’ Gwairyc’s eyes showed a brief flickerof remorse. ‘But this should teach him that he’d best mend his ways.’

‘We can ask your da,’ Morwen said. ‘About what made Tirro the way he is, I mean.’

‘Oh, I don’t think we’d better.’ Loddlaen’s voice trembled. ‘I don’t want my father to know about this.’

‘And why not?’ Morwen said.

‘Because I nearly let Alastyr into the alar. I feel like such a cursed fool now, trusting him. I even kind of liked him. I don’t want Da to know how stupid I was. And then there’s Nevyn. I can’t tell you how much I admire him. I don’t want him to know, either, how close I came to making a wretched rotten mistake.’

‘I do see what you mean.’ Morwen glanced at Gwairyc. ‘What do you think?’

‘Doesn’t matter to me.’ Gwairyc shrugged. ‘I won’t mention it if you’d rather I didn’t.’

‘I do wish,’ Loddlaen said. ‘Please, let’s just not let anyone know.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘They all hate me enough already.’

Nevyn and Aderyn, meanwhile, were sitting in the sweeping shade of a willow tree, upstream a good long way from both encampments, where they could examine Jav’s gift privately. Before he opened the box, Aderyn made a warding circle around them, the scroll, and the trees, too, for good measure. Once the pentagrams shone clearly at the cardinal points, he sat down again and took out the scroll. In the dappled shade he spread it out, revealing it to be only a few feet long and torn off towards the end as well. Rows of dark brown symbols marched across the tan-coloured pabrus, whilst all round them in the margins someone had scrawled more symbols in red.

‘That red ink intrigues me,’ Aderyn said. ‘It hasn’t faded like the other, older writing. I’m guessing, anyway, that the main body of writing was black to begin with.’

‘No doubt,’ Nevyn said. ‘Now, that red—they make it in Bardek, but it’s a guild secret.’

‘That’s a pity. Perhaps I can get one of the merchants to bring me some next year. I’ll wager it’s for sale in Aberwyn, what with Wmmglaedd so near. Maybe the pabrus is, too. But be that as it may, the style of the brown writing is much older than the red, so I’m assuming that the scroll was annotated long after it was copied.’

‘That’s reasonable. Do you know by whom?’

‘I don’t.’ Aderyn laid a fingertip on one of the red scrawls. ‘But it must have been by someone with dweomer. This note tells us that at least one word is missing from this formula, because it, and I quote, gave no result.’

‘Fascinating! One of these days I must learn to read Elvish.’

‘Well, the actual formulae aren’t Elvish. They just use the same syllabary, but there’s an Elvish translation given for each one. Let me sound out a bit for you.’

When he read out loud, Aderyn kept his voice deliberately conversational; he even at moments paused to break up the flow of sound. Neither he nor Nevyn wanted to find some powerful being standing in front of them, evoked by accident and furious about it.

‘Bah-zoad-em ay-loh ee-tah,’ Aderyn began, ‘Pee-rip-so-noo obla-noo. Noh-zoad-ak-vah bay-hay—Well, you get the idea.’

‘Ye gods!’ Nevyn said. ‘I’ve never heard anything like that in my life. What does it mean?’

‘According to the translation, it means: the mid-day, the first, is like the third of the highest, made of twenty-six purple –’ Aderyn hesitated briefly ‘—purple pillars. Sorry, the Elvish word the glossor used for pillar here is quite archaic.’

‘I’m not surprised. Read out some more of the originals, if you don’t mind, and let me see what impressions I receive.’

As Aderyn continued reading, one careful syllable at a time, Nevyn allowed himself to sink into a shallow trance. Even though the words sounded like utter nonsense to him, his mind began to form images in response to the sounds. He began to see pieces of buildings and quick flashes of bizarre landscapes, lit by peculiar light. Very occasionally he got a brief impression of a spirit or a being moving through the image.

Aderyn paused to rest his voice and drink from the waterskin he’d brought along. Nevyn shook himself and slapped his hand upon the grassy ground to earth out any trace of the forces they might have invoked.

‘Those are incredibly powerful formulae,’ Nevyn said. ‘I don’t know a word of that language, but it had its effects upon me nonetheless.’

‘I was hoping it would.’ Aderyn’s eyes gleamed, like those of a farm lad who sees a market fair spread out before him after long months of hard work. ‘This scroll was truly a splendid gift. It must have come from the ruined cities.’

‘It’s lucky it survived. I wonder why Evandar gave it to you?’

‘Well, you know, from time to time he has done favours for me. I suppose you’re right, and the wretched creature is trying to pay me a price for my wife.’

‘He may be honestly remorseful.’

‘Hah! He’s not evolved enough for that.’

‘Are you certain?’

‘Of course I am!’ Aderyn had snarled the words, but he caught himself and took a deep breath. ‘My apologies. I’m grateful for this scroll, mind, no matter what Evandar may have had in mind.’ He stroked the box lid as if it were a pet cat. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if these evocations lead me right into the centre of the lost lore.’

‘No more would I,’ Nevyn said. ‘If I were you, I’d study them most carefully before chanting any of them.’

‘Have no fear of that! I’m not given to sticking my hand into fires, either.’

One by one they worked through the formulae on the scroll. Aderyn would read the original words; Nevyn would consider them and mouth a few to see what images they evoked in his mind. Aderyn would do the same, and then they would compare the images, only to find in every case but one that they matched. At that point Aderyn would read the translation. They found that the images consistently bore some relation to details in the translation of the formula as well. The one exception was, of course, the formula with the missing word or words. Somehow or other each formula was putting them in contact with an exactly designated part of the inner planes.

By the time they’d finished reading the last evocation on the scroll, the sun was hanging half-way between noon and sundown. Nevyn felt a little dazed, even though they’d both taken care to remain in normal consciousness.

‘We need to eat,’ Aderyn said. ‘I should have brought food with us, but somehow it slipped my mind, I was so eager to take another look at the scroll.’

‘Well, I didn’t think of it either.’

‘Huh, we should both start taking some of our own herbs. Do we have any that help the memory? I don’t remember.’