The Black Raven

‘Oh come now, lad,’ Rhodry said. ‘I made you a promise, didn’t I?’

‘You did, but so did Jill, and then she –’ His voice cracked. ‘And then she died.’

‘True spoken, but I’m too daft and mean and ugly to die.’ Rhodry sat up, grinning. ‘At least when there’s no war to ride, and truly, my lady Death seems to be spurning my suit even then. When Arzosah flies back to Cerr Cawnen, we’ll be on our way. She knows the weather and the seasons better than any sage or bard.’

Jahdo nodded, considering this. Privately Dallandra wondered if they’d ever see the dragon again. Wyrmkind was not known for its faithfulness.

‘It won’t be so long till spring,’ she said to the boy. ‘We’re well past the shortest day.’

‘I know, my lady. And truly do I think I could wait with good heart but for my worrying about my kin. My Mam, she be frail in the winter, and then my sister, she were to be married, and here I don’t even know which man they picked for her.’ Jahdo paused and took a deep breath. ‘Uh, my lady, I did wonder somewhat, you see.’

‘Could I scry your family out, you mean?’

‘Just that.’ He was looking at her with begging eyes.

‘Jahdo, I’m so sorry, but I can’t. I can only scry someone out if I’ve seen them in the flesh first.’

‘Oh.’ He gulped back tears. ‘Why?’

‘It’s just the way dweomer works. I don’t truly know why. I’m sorry. It’s a hard thing to be missing your kin and have no way to get news of them.’

‘That be true, sure enough. At least Evandar comes and goes, and you do see him now and again.’ Jahdo paused to wipe his eyes with the back of a grubby hand. ‘I did wake so cold this morning, and I did think on how warm it be at home.’

‘Oh come now!’ Dallandra said with a laugh. ‘Cerr Cawnen’s a good bit farther north than we are. It must be even colder.’

‘Ah, you know not about the lake. Our lake, it be warm, my lady, even in winter. My Da did tell me once that way down in the deeps of the lake lie springs, where water bubbles up from the fire mountain, and it be as hot as you’d heat for a bath, hotter even.’

‘Fire mountain?’ Rhodry said. ‘Does your town lie near a fire mountain?’

‘Too near, some say. I mean, we sit not in its shadow, but it be close enough. One of our gods does live in it, you see. As long as we do honour him and bring him gifts, he’ll not harm us.’

Dallandra had grave doubts, but she saw no use in worrying the lad when there was naught to be done about it.

‘So,’ she said instead. ‘Your town stands on the shores of this warm lake?’

‘On them and in them, my lady. You’ll see, or so I do hope. But truly, I might not shiver so badly now if my kin were here with me. Rori, and what of your kin? Never have I heard you speak of them, not once.’

‘Probably you never will,’ Rhodry said. ‘I’ve no idea if they ride above the earth or under it, and I care even less.’

Jahdo stared open-mouthed.

‘A silver dagger can’t afford a warm heart,’ Rhodry went on. ‘Think on Yraen, as much a friend as I’ve ever had, and ye gods, I don’t even know where he lies buried, do I? You learn, lad, after a while and all, to keep your heart shut as tight as a miser’s moneybox.’

‘Mayhap so,’ Jahdo said. ‘But never could I be a silver dagger.’

‘Good,’ Rhodry said, smiling. ‘You’re a lucky man, then. Although, truly, there’s one kinsman I do wonder over, just at times, and that’s my brother Salamander, as his name goes in this country.’ He glanced at Dallandra. ‘Did you ever meet him? In our father’s country he’s called Ebañy Salomanderiel tran Devaberiel.’

‘I’ve not,’ Dallandra said. ‘Although Jill told me a lot about him. He seemed to irritate her beyond belief.’

‘He takes some people that way. What’s so wrong, Jahdo? You look like you’ve just heard one of Evandar’s riddles.’

‘That be the longest name that ever I’ve heard in my life,’ Jahdo said. ‘How do you remember such?’

‘Practice.’ Rhodry suddenly laughed. ‘Let’s get up, shall we? I’m hungry enough to eat a wolf, pelt and all.’

‘So am I,’ Dallandra said. ‘And speaking of Evandar, I dreamt about him last night, and I have an errand to run.’

Since the presence of iron caused him agony, and the dun held an enormous amount of the stuff, Evandar had taken to finding Dallandra in the Gatelands of Sleep. They would then arrange a meeting somewhere free of the demon metal, as he called it. In the brief afternoon, when the air felt not warm but certainly less cold, Dalla wrapped herself in a heavy cloak and trudged through Cengarn to the market hill. At its crest the open commons lay thick with snow, crusted black with soot and ash from household fires. A group of children ran and played, their young voices sharp as the wind as they dug under the crust to find clean snow. Dallandra suppressed the urge to make a few snowballs herself and slogged across to a small copse of trees, where in the streaky shade of bare branches Evandar waited, wrapped in his blue cloak.

‘There you are, my love,’ he said.

‘I am indeed,’ Dallandra said. ‘Now what’s this urgent matter?’

‘Rhodry’s brother. Ebañy, as his name goes in Bardek.’

‘How very odd! We were just speaking of him, Rhodry and I.’

‘Not odd at all. You were feeling his approach, my love, through the mists of the future.’

‘His approach?’

‘That’s what I’ve come to ask you about. You see, he’s gone quite mad, and I don’t have the slightest idea of what to do about it.’

‘Ah. And I suppose you think I do.’

‘Don’t you?’

Dalla considered for a long moment.

‘Perhaps,’ she said at last. ‘I’m remembering some of the things Jill told me about him. He had a great talent for dweomer, so she said. He studied it for many years, but then he just walked away from it.’

‘Will that drive someone mad?’

‘Indeed it will. You can’t just stop your studies once you’ve reached a certain point.’

‘Imph.’ Evandar rubbed his chin with one hand. ‘This world of yours, my love. Everything here seems so – so wretchedly irrevocable.’

‘Not exactly.’ Dallandra paused for a laugh. ‘He could have left the dweomer, certainly, if he’d wished. But he needed to go back to his teacher and have her help him. How to explain this – let me think – well, I can’t, really, but there are rituals that seal things off properly, that stop certain processes which studying dweomer starts in motion.’

Evandar blinked rapidly several times.

‘Oh well,’ Dallandra went on. ‘It doesn’t particularly matter. I suppose you want me to try to cure Ebañy for you.’

‘Not so much for me, but for his own self and his father. You see, I promised Devaberiel that I’d bring his son home. And so I went looking for him in Bardek, and I found him quite deranged. His wife’s frantic about it.’

‘He has a wife, then.’

‘And children. A lot of children, actually. I didn’t get a chance to count them.’