The Gold Falcon (44 page)

“Wake up,” she murmured. “Somewhat’s going to happen.”

“Imph.” He sat up in bed, yawned, then glanced around him. “Ye gods, I’ve never seen so many Wildfolk!”

“No more I,” Branna said. “We should make a dweomer light.”

“No need. Look.”

In the center of the chamber a point of silvery glow appeared and began to expand. It turned first into a gleaming sphere, then a cylinder. It hovered, glowing as brightly as twenty lanterns, then lengthened into a pillar of silver light that stretched nearly floor-to-ceiling. All of the Wildfolk skittered to the edges of the chamber and arranged themselves around the walls. Within the pillar the light seemed as solid as smoke, flowing and ebbing only to brighten again in long streamers.

Branna’s gray gnome suddenly materialized on the bed between her and Neb. It did a little dance, laughing soundlessly and pointing at the shimmering pillar.

“Did you bring this?” Branna whispered.

The gnome nodded a yes and sat down, wrapping its skinny arms tight around its bony knees as it stared into the silver light. Inside the pillar two figures began to form. At first they were only the sort of misty shapes one sees in clouds or smoke; then they became solid and defined themselves into two vaguely human bodies. After some moments one form stepped out of the pillar and floated some inches above the floor.

Although still human in shape, she was far too slender to be an ordinary woman, and her skin, if one could call that tenuous membrane skin, was dead-white. Her hair, eyes, and lips shared the same shade of woad-blue, as did the suggestion of a tattered dress that she wore, but they glowed in a way that dyed cloth could never match. When she opened her mouth to speak, she revealed needle-sharp teeth.

“Jill.” Her voice sounded with the hoarse rasp of ocean waves. It was one voice, yet echoed with many voices. “You saved me long years past, and now I’ve come to repay. Your little one brought me here because I have speech.”

The gnome jumped up and clapped its hands. Branna tried to speak but could manage only a soft sigh. Neb caught his breath with a gasp and laid a hand on her arm.

“Don’t you know me, Master of the Aethyr?” the spirit said to him.

The figure still half-seen inside the pillar pulsed with light and seemed to speak—perhaps it was a he. Branna sensed his speaking rather than heard him. The white spirit, however, nodded as if she understood.

“You don’t remember,” she said to Branna, then glanced at Neb. “Nor do you.”

“Remember what?” Neb said.

“Who you are.” The spirit raised her illusion of hands and pointed at each of them. “Remember who you are and who you were once.” She turned to Branna. “There are no ghosts, only memories, in your dreams.”

“You’re saying that my dreams are true?” Branna whispered.

The spirit smiled, but her form was turning translucent. Her hair, her hands frayed into strands of silver light. “Remember!” she repeated. “You died at the ford. Don’t you remember?”

The light in the pillar began to swirl, and the male form within swirled with it. The white spirit was nearly transparent, and her hands and hair were indistinguishable from the light. With a last smile she stepped back into the pillar and became only a drifting form seen through a glowing haze.

“Jill.” Her last words seemed to ring through the chamber. “Remember.”

The silver light was fading, the pillar shrinking. It seemed to turn inside itself; suddenly it disappeared, leaving the chamber wreathed in a faint glow. The Wildfolk swarmed into the middle of the room, then flew this way and that, soaring up high, dropping down, dashing this way and that, only to disappear themselves, winking out like the last coals of a fire. The gray gnome turned to Branna, bowed like a tiny lord, and vanished, taking the last of the silver light with him.

Neb rolled off the bed and, still naked, strode over to the chest in the curve of the wall. He picked up a candle lantern and lit it with a snap of his fingers. As the golden light brightened, Branna could see him grinning like a madman.

“That priest of Bel,” he said, “the one I spoke with this afternoon—he said that the witch woman had a bond-woman’s name. Jill certainly would fit that.”

“It would, truly.” Branna still found it hard to speak. “The name just means ‘lass,’ doesn’t it?”

“Somewhat like that, I think.”

Neb set the lantern down on the windowsill, then came back to the bed. He picked up his brigga from the floor and put them on.

“I still don’t understand,” Branna said. “How could I have died at the ford all those years ago and still be alive now?”

“It should be obvious.” Neb was peering at the floor. Abruptly he stooped and came back up with his shirt. “There’s only one thing it can mean.”

“What? Don’t tease me!”

“I’m not.” He paused to pull the shirt over his head. “Remember what we discussed at the ford, all those old tales about how dweomerfolk can come back to life as birds and suchlike? Well, they must be able to come back as people, too, born in the usual way and all that.”

“You’re saying that I’ve lived another life before this one.”

“Not precisely. I’m saying we both did.” Neb sat down on the edge of the bed. “I feel like I’ve loved you forever, but we only met a few months ago. Don’t you feel the same?”

For a moment Branna was tempted to lie out of an odd sort of fear, as if she stood on the edge of some high cliff and was about to leap off into a chasm that plunged down beyond her sight. Either she would find wings and soar, or she would fall to her death. For the briefest of moments, she remembered how it felt to fly. Seeing his face, shadowed in the flickering candlelight, made her remember another face, that of the old man who’d held out the glowing gem, a gift beyond price.
Your dreams are memories,
the white spirit had told her,
not ghosts.

“I do,” she said, “I do feel like I’ve loved you forever.”

When he held out his hand, she clasped it in both of hers.

“We’ve found the way,” Neb said, “the path to someplace grand. Or I should say, the spirit gave it to us. Seeing her, hearing her—I remembered. I’m still not sure exactly what I remember, mind, but I suddenly saw that I have things to remember. Don’t you see that, too?”

“If you mean, that we’ve got another life to remember, then truly, I do see it.”

“Exactly that. And that’s the key. Now all I have to do is find the lock it fits in. You’ve got your lock—those dreams you told me about.” He laughed softly under his breath. “Don’t you see, my love? There’s a treasure laid up for us somewhere. I know it in my very soul.”

The eagerness in his voice, the joy, really, seemed to crackle around them both like the warmth of a fire, but still she felt fear like a sliver of ice in her heart.

“It’s not going to be easy,” she said. “It’s going to be dangerous, remembering.”

“Oh, no doubt.” Neb shrugged the warning away. “I wish to every god that Salamander would get himself back here,” he went on. “I’ve got a few questions for him, and he cursed well better have the answers.”

“I wager he will. Some of the things he told me were—well—” Branna paused, trying to think of some grand word, but her stomach growled as loud as speech.

Neb’s answered. They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Get dressed, my love,” Neb said. “Let’s go down to the great hall. I’m hungry enough to eat a wolf, pelt and all.”

When he left the Westlands, Prince Daralanteriel took with him his scribe, his warleader, his dweomermaster, fifty archers for a royal escort, packhorses laden with supplies, extra mounts, and of course Salamander. The prince planned on traveling fast, but he’d sent Maelaber ahead with two archers for an escort and the extra horses that allowed them to travel even faster. The royal retinue wasn’t far from Cengarn when the returning messengers met up with them. They had important news: the gwerbret was holding his wedding celebration.

“When we told him you were on your way, Ridvar just assumed that you’d received his invitation,” Maelaber said. “He sent a herald with an escort, but they must have missed us.”

“I hope they’re not still wandering around the grasslands,” Prince Daralanteriel said. “What did you think of Cengarn, by the way?”

“It’s a splendid sort of place from the outside, but I didn’t think much of it once we got through the gates. Ye gods, the stink! Maybe my father’s right about my mother’s folk.”

“Only when it comes to cleanliness,” Daralanteriel tried to sound stern, but he was grinning. “Let’s not judge others too harshly.”

“It’s a good thing you sent off messengers.” Salamander joined the conversation. “If we’d come blundering in without even realizing that the gwerbret’s getting married—”

“Yes, it would have been awkward, to say the least.” Daralanteriel finished the thought for him. “Well, fortunately we’ve brought along the perfect horse for a wedding present, that gold gelding I’ve been training. I can decorate his halter with wildflowers, and he’ll look festive enough.”

“A splendid gift, yes. Better than our gwerbret deserves.”

“I’d better tend my horse,” Maelaber said.

“Do that,” Dar said. “Because on the morrow I’m sending you back to the grass with messages and orders to find that herald and his escort. They can’t be allowed to wander around out there until they starve.”

The prince’s retinue found a good place to camp that afternoon, a grassy meadow next to a shallow stream. In the middle of this clearing stood a stone stele that marked the border ’twixt the Westlands and Arcodd province. The pillar bore inscriptions in both Deverrian and Elvish, not that many people in those days could have read either one. To compensate, on the east-facing side the stonecutters had carved the blazing sun device of the gwerbrets of Cengarn, while on the west, a rose under an arch of seven stars indicated Dar’s princedom.

At sunset Salamander went down to the stream to scry for Rocca. Dallandra came along, and together they knelt by the water, tinged a flickering gold as it caught the last of the sunlight. He was about to focus his mind on the distant fortress when he became aware of an odd sensation, a prickling of hair on his neck, a cold stripe down his spine. He sat back on his heels and let the sensation gather.

“What’s wrong?” Dallandra said. “You look startled.”

“I most definitely am that, and discomfited as well. Someone’s scrying
me
out, I think. It’s like the touch of a clammy hand. As soon as I thought of the fort, it stroked me.”

Dallandra got up and stood behind him. He could hear her murmur a brief invocation. The sensation of being watched vanished.

“Gone now,” he said. “My thanks.”

“Most welcome.” She sat down next to him. “I think you’d best scry for the fort later. Maybe we can catch this person off-guard.”

“I’ve suddenly discovered a well of patience in my heart.”

“Who, though? None of those people should have dweomer, from what you told me.”

“Quite so. Any Horsekin who did would have been slaughtered long ago. I suppose someone who was determined, someone with a strong gift for it, could hide it, if—Sidro.”

“Is Sidro the one who’s Rocca’s enemy?”

“The very. There was something suspicious about her, the way she guessed my mixed blood, and the way she was so sure that the wyvern dagger would work its little miracle.”

“I wish there was some way I could get a look at this woman.”

“Why? She’s not a pleasant sight.”

“What is she? A crone?”

“Well, no. It’s not that she’s ugly, but there was something about her that creeped my flesh. Her eyes, and the way she cocked her head at times—it made me think of a lizard or perhaps, if I wanted to be kind, which I don’t, a bird of some sort.”

“Didn’t you say she had glossy black hair?”

“Yes. Very Eldidd-looking, with the bluish highlights and all.”

“Like a raven’s feathers?” Dallandra thought for a moment. “The lore says that if a person’s been a shape-changer in a former life, they may resemble their animal form when they’re reborn.”

“By the Dark Sun herself! You told me about that other priestess—Raena, isn’t it?”

“That was her name, all right.”

“She’s now known as the Holy Witness Raena. The dagger and those other trinkets in the shrine were supposedly hers.”

“I knew that she’d gotten her claws on the wyvern dagger, but I didn’t realize she had the bone whistle, too.” Dallandra thought for a long moment. “Well, Sidro might be Raena reborn, though then again, maybe not. Curse it all, I won’t be able to tell until I get a good look at—” Dalla stopped speaking and raised a shaking hand to her suddenly pale face.

Salamander rose to his knees and leaned toward her, ready to catch her if she should fall into trance, but she waved him away.

“I’m all right now,” Dalla said. “I just felt a frost omen.”