The Spirit Stone (28 page)

In the long hot summer afternoons, Nevyn, Aderyn, and Valandario fell into a routine. After a scant meal they would walk upriver away from the noisy camp and work with the dweomer scroll, trying out the various incantations and discussing the results with one another until the images held steady in everyone’s mind. Loddlaen generally managed to find one excuse or another to skip these sessions. Much to Nevyn’s relief, Aderyn eventually stopped asking him to join them.

At first Val brought her obsidian gem along, but whatever its mysterious dweomer attributes might have been, working with the scroll was apparently not one of them. While either Aderyn or Nevyn intoned an invocation, she would study its various surfaces, but she saw nothing of any value.

‘Every now and then,’ she said in her careful way, ‘I see a flash of light, but it reveals naught. It comes and goes at random, not in response to any words.’

‘Very well then,’ Aderyn said. ‘Apparently Evandar’s two gifts aren’t related. It was a good guess that they might be, however.’

‘I shan’t bring it any more,’ Val said. ‘It will be safer in my tent. I should hate to drop it or suchlike.’

The danger lying in wait for the stone, however, had naught to do with chips and cracks. Late one afternoon, after the three dweomerworkers had returned to camp, Nevyn and Aderyn were sitting in front of Aderyn’s tent, taking the last of the sun and saying very little. They heard, above the usual noise and bustle, a piercing high shriek of mingled rage and fear that could only have come from a woman’s throat.

‘That’s Val!’ Aderyn sprang to his feet. ‘Ye gods!’

Nevyn got up and followed him as Aderyn ran through the camp. They found Val standing in front of her tent, fists clenched, tears running down her face, while Javanateriel held her in his arms and murmured soothing words in Elvish. When Aderyn spoke to them in the same, she answered him with a burst of fury that made him step back.

‘Val?’ Nevyn spoke in Deverrian. ‘What happened?’

‘My pyramid is missing, Master Nevyn.’ Val gulped for breath. ‘I know Loddlaen stole it, and no one wants to believe me.’

‘Val, beloved,’ Jav said, ‘we can’t accuse someone without a shred of evidence.’

Aderyn crossed his arms tightly over his chest and pinched his lips together.

‘I suspect that Val and her gem are linked strongly enough that she knows where it is,’ Nevyn said. ‘But “steal” is rather a harsh word. I suggest that we simply go and ask Loddlaen if he wanted a look at it.’

Both Aderyn and Valandario relaxed into smiles and nods. Javanateriel let his breath out in a long sigh of relief. They all trooped off to Loddlaen’s tent at the edge of the encampment, where, to Nevyn’s surprise, Morwen and Ebañy were keeping Loddlaen company. Eba˜ny was sprawled on a patch of grass and playing some elaborate game with sticks and pebbles, while Morwen was stirring a kettle of soup at Loddlaen’s fire.

‘Ah, there you are, lad,’ Aderyn said. ‘Val seems to be missing her black gem, and I was wondering if you’d seen it.’

Loddlaen got up slowly, his face a mask. ‘Why would you think I had?’ he said.

Morwen stopped her stirring and turned to look at him. Loddlaen abruptly shoved his hands into his pockets. Nevyn had the nasty suspicion that they were shaking and he was trying to hide them.

‘Well, no real reason—’ Aderyn began.

‘I know it’s in there!’ Val pointed at Loddlaen’s tent. ‘I can feel it call to me, and it’s in there.’

‘It is not!’ Loddlaen snapped.

‘Don’t lie!’ Jav stepped forward. ‘Don’t make it worse!’

Valandario moved so fast that Loddlaen could only make a futile grab at her as she dashed by. She ducked into the tent, and when Loddlaen tried to follow, Javanateriel stepped in front of him and blocked his path. Val made an inarticulate cry of triumph and ducked out again, the black stone cradled in both hands. Loddlaen turned pale.

‘It was sitting right on top of his blankets,’ Val said. ‘I told you so.’

Loddlaen said something in Elvish that made Jav grab him by the shirt with both hands and shake him, then answer in the same. They began shouting at each other while Aderyn tried to separate them. Nevyn glanced at Morwen and saw tears in her eyes. She swung the kettle off the fire, then grabbed Ebañy and picked him up. For a moment she hesitated at the edge of the raging argument, then turned and marched off back towards the encampment. Nevyn hurried after her.

‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

‘I don’t understand how Loddlaen could do such a thing!’ Morwen said. ‘My heart’s sore troubled, Nevyn. I’ve come to think of him as a friend, but if he’s a thief—’

‘Well, he may not have meant to steal it. He may have just wanted to study it privately.’

‘Do you truly believe that?’

‘Let’s just say I’d like to believe it, and it’s possible. It’s difficult for Loddlaen to—to—’ Nevyn hesitated, thinking. ‘To do things in the most direct manner, I suppose I mean. He might have been afraid to ask Val for a long look.’

‘I’ll try to believe that.’ Morwen paused to set ebañy down. ‘Oof! You’re getting heavy, my love.’

‘Tell me, ebañy,’ Nevyn said. ‘Do you like Loddlaen?’

‘I do,’ the child said. ‘The funny man don’t.’

‘Doesn’t,’ Morri interrupted. ‘What funny man?’

‘The man in the stone.’ ebañy frowned and looked away. ‘I saw him.’

‘When was that?’ Nevyn said.

‘Just now. In the tent.’ He looked at Morri. ‘You see him, too?’

‘I didn’t. You don’t mean Tirro, do you?’

Ebañy wrinkled his nose and shook his head. ‘The funny man,’ he repeated, ‘with the yellow hair.’

‘I think I know what he means,’ Nevyn said. ‘Someone from his Da’s tales, I suspect.’

Morwen nodded, accepting the white lie. Nevyn wanted to question ebañy further, but not in front of Morwen. Unfortunately, by the time he got a moment alone with the child, ebañy had forgotten the incident.

Nevyn would have explained more about Loddlaen if he’d thought that Morwen could understand. He knew that the priestesses had taught her some of the preliminary knowledge that they shared with dweomerworkers, but at the stage of knowledge that he was assuming she possessed she never could have comprehended the truth about that strange breed of incorporeal beings, the Guardians, or as Deverry men called them, the Seelie Host. Besides, as he had to admit to himself, he didn’t completely understand what had happened to Loddlaen’s mother, Dallandra.

Somehow the Guardians could keep a person alive indefinitely on the astral plane. In Dallandra’s case, Evandar—Ebañy’s funny man—had turned her physical body into an amethyst crystal, or perhaps it was only the semblance of a crystal wrought in some substance of which he had no knowledge. At will they could release her from the crystal, sending her back to the physical world, or entrap her again to bring her back to their astral country.

But inside her body, when first she’d gone off with them, had lain the beginnings of another body, and with it, the soul destined to become her son. It was time, Nevyn decided, to ask Aderyn a few questions.

Nevyn had to postpone his talk with Aderyn, however, because that morning Valandario announced that she and Javanateriel were leaving. They’d gathered a new alar and were going to head north to the far grazing for the rest of the summer.

‘I truly did think it was best, Master Aderyn,’ Val said, ‘if I took the black gem away.’

‘Perhaps so,’ Aderyn said. ‘It seems to spread an evil influence. Apparently it makes some people jump to conclusions and make false accusations.’

Startled, Val glanced at Nevyn. He smiled and slipped his arm through hers. ‘I’ll walk you back to your horses,’ Nevyn said. ‘Come along.’

Aderyn made no move to follow as they left. Nevyn waited to speak till they were well out of earshot.

‘You’ll never get Aderyn to think ill of his son,’ Nevyn said. ‘Surely you know that.’

‘I do, but—’ Valandario hesitated for a long moment. ‘This time it seemed so obvious.’

‘Have there been other times when he’s stolen somewhat?’

‘Oh, never that! He tells lies, though, and then there’s his nasty temper.’ She paused again. ‘Maybe he truly didn’t mean to steal the gem. I’ll try to think that, anyway’

‘It’s all we can do. Now, as you work with the gem, you can reach me through the fire if you have questions. If naught else, I’d love to know what you discover about it.’

‘My thanks, Master Nevyn. I’m honoured.’

Nevyn returned to Aderyn’s tent. They sat down outside the door, idly watching the life of the camp swirl around them. One of the women brought them a basket of wild redberries, which they shared as they talked.

‘How long, exactly,’ Nevyn said, ‘was Loddlaen’s soul trapped with Dallandra in that amethyst crystal?’

‘As we reckon time?’ Aderyn said, ‘Or as the Guardians reckon it?’

‘As we do. Loddlaen most assuredly has either a human or an elven soul. Had he been one of the Guardians’ flock of spirits, the experience wouldn’t have scarred him so deeply.’

‘I don’t know why you keep insisting he’s been scarred.’

Nevyn wanted to scream,
Just look into his eyes, you wretched doting fool! Are you blind?
Instead, he said, ‘Well, how could it not have? Trapped like that, half-born but not truly alive, aware of only himself and the gem around him?’

‘Oh, I doubt if he was truly aware. After Dallandra came back to us, it was a good many months before she gave birth.’

‘How many?’

‘I don’t remember.’

Nevyn decided against pointing out just how obvious it was when Aderyn lied.

‘But as for your other question,’ Aderyn went on, ‘it was close to two hundred years.’

Nevyn shuddered, his blood abruptly cold in his veins.

‘I do see your point,’ Aderyn said. ‘If he’d been truly aware, it would have been agony. But he wasn’t, he couldn’t have been, not for all of those years, or he’d be stark raving daft.’

‘Well, he’s not that, certainly.’

‘I suppose you’ve brought this up because of the misunderstanding over Val’s obsidian gem.’

‘I have. You’re convinced it’s a misunderstanding?’

‘He just wanted a look at the thing. He wasn’t stealing it. It is true, though, that he’s never been good at explaining himself, or at telling others how he feels. Maybe you’re right about those years in his mother’s womb, now that I think of it. No doubt they would have had some effect.’

‘Imph,’ Nevyn said. ‘Let’s hope that he slept in the darkness of his mother’s body, at least for most of the time.’
May the Lords of Wyrd have been merciful enough for that, at least.

Aderyn stood up, staring off into the distance. ‘I see there’s a new alar riding in. I’d better go tell them the merchant’s already left.’ He walked off without a glance back.

Nevyn stood and looked for himself, shading his eyes. Indeed, in the far distance he could see the tiny figures of horsemen riding through the billowing grass. They would have found out for themselves soon enough that they’d missed the trader, but Nevyn couldn’t begrudge his old friend the excuse.

Every day more and more Westfolk brought down their tents, cut their horses out of the herd, and struck out into the grasslands. Morwen and ebañy would watch them go until they disappeared, sinking into the grass, or so it seemed, along the far horizon, dancing with heat. With fewer people in camp, it became harder and harder for Morwen to avoid Loddlaen, and finally, one sunset hour when she went to the stream to draw water, he caught her alone.

‘Morri, please,’ Loddlaen said, ‘won’t you even talk to me? I didn’t steal that gem, truly I didn’t. I just wanted a chance to study it.’

His voice ached so badly that she felt her heart softening. She put down the heavy water jug and turned to look at him. Tears glistened in his eyes.

‘You could have asked Val first.’

‘I know, but I figured she’d never let me have it even for a day, and I just couldn’t concentrate on it when she was standing right there.’

Morwen looked away. The setting sun gilded the stream among the grey rocks. In the thick-growing rushes frogs were croaking their evening song.

‘Please, Morri?’ Loddlaen’s voiced dropped to a whisper. ‘You’re the only real friend I’ve got, you know. Don’t you remember telling me how things got taken away from you? Let’s not let our friendship get snatched away from us.’

He’d said the perfect thing to melt her resolve. ‘Oh, very well,’ she said. ‘But if somewhat like this happens again, you’ll ask first, won’t you? I’ll help you if you need me to.’

‘Then I will. I promise.’

She turned back to find him watching her, his eyes as large and solemn as a child’s.

‘Besides,’ Loddlaen said. ‘Don’t you want to go on with your lessons?’

‘I do, truly. I’ve missed them dreadfully.’

‘Them but not me?’

He reminded her so much of a small boy at that moment that Morwen had to smile. ‘You, as well,’ she said.

He grinned at her. ‘Here, let me carry that jug for you. It’s heavy when it’s full.’

‘So it is. My thanks. When it’s dark, and I’ve got Ebañy to sleep, shall I come to your tent?’

‘Please, and we’ll have one of our talks.’

Aderyn and Nevyn both felt Valandario’s absence, but they continued to work with the dweomer scroll. After they’d studied it for some weeks, Aderyn began to wonder about its place in the overall dweomer system developed in the ancient elven cities.

‘The language of the calls intrigues me,’ Aderyn said. ‘Some of the words have an oddly Bardekian flavour to me, but others are just simply odd.’

‘They are that, for certain!’ Nevyn said. ‘I wonder if it’s an artificial language.’

‘It could well be. Some of the old tales that have come down from the Great Burning mention sages who supposedly could talk in a great many strange tongues. Unfortunately, no one remembers exactly what they were.’

‘Well, if the names were invented, they’d be hard to remember, I suppose.’

‘Good point. And of course, they had that wretched obsession with secrecy.’ With a sigh, Aderyn stood up, stretching. ‘Shall we go back to camp?’

Nevyn got up and joined him. Twilight was just beginning to darken the sunset sky, and a soft wind made the tall grass bow down before it. When Nevyn looked towards the camp, he could see fires glowing between the tents and hear music as the Westfolk sang at their evening’s work.