The Black Raven. Katharine Kerr

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.’

      ‘Well, you can’t just snatch him away from his family.’

      ‘Here’s a great marvel. I realized that all on my own.’ Evandar smiled and leaned over to kiss her. ‘So I thought I’d bring them all over.’

      ‘Over where?’ Dallandra grabbed his shoulders and pushed him to arm’s length. ‘And when? There’s not enough food in the dun for everyone who’s already in it. You’ll have to wait until the first harvest – early summer, that will be.’

      ‘Well, then, you see? It’s a grand thing that I thought to consult with you first. Especially since there’s also the little matter of his travelling show.’

      ‘Travelling show?’

      ‘His eldest son juggles. His eldest daughter and her brother walk the slack wire.’ Evandar held up one hand and began counting things off on his fingers. ‘Then he’s got friends who are jugglers and acrobats. Rather a lot of those, actually. Some lasses rescued from slavery who dance with scarves. Servants. Horse handlers, and of course, the horses and wagons. And then –’

      ‘That’s quite enough.’

      ‘And then,’ Evandar went inexorably on, ‘the elephant.’

      Dallandra goggled at him.

      ‘An elephant, my love,’ Evandar said, grinning, ‘is an enormous beast. Not quite so big as a dragon, but large enough. It has a thick grey hide, a pair of huge ears, and then a long nose that acts like a hand. It picks things up.’

      ‘I don’t care about its nose. You can’t bring it here.’

      ‘I did come to that conclusion.’ He went on grinning. ‘So where, my love, shall I bring it and all the rest of them?’

      ‘I haven’t the slightest idea. Let me think on it.’ Dallandra paused for a sigh that came out more like a growl. ‘I’m beginning to understand why the very mention of Salamander made Jill furious.’

      ‘Indeed? Here, Salamander claims that Jill cursed him when they parted, but frankly, I can’t believe it of her.’

      ‘No more can I. How very very odd! I’ll ask Rhodry what he thinks.’

      ‘Do that, if you’d be so kind.’ Evandar frowned down at the filthy snow. ‘And now I’d best be off again. I’ve a great many concerns these days, and they seem to have got themselves all tangled in my mind.’

      From Cengarn Evandar took to the mothers of all roads. It seemed to him that he walked on the north wind like a long grey path in the sky. When he travelled between worlds, he heard now and again scattered words and snatches of conversations, and at other times he saw visions in brief glimpses, as if he looked through windows into the future, a vast shadowed room. Today, however, the omens shunned him. The silence irked; he found himself pausing to listen, but all he ever heard was the whistle and churn of the air, and all he saw were clouds.

      When he left the north wind’s road, he found himself at the edge of the forest that marked the border of his own true country. Instead of crossing it, he