The Gold Falcon. Katharine Kerr

years, an appropriate sentiment since the longest day marked the turning of the year, when summer itself would begin to fade and die.

      ‘There’s something I’ve been wondering about,’ Dallandra said to Meranaldar. ‘The way the trees are cut and planted. Is that an old custom?’

      ‘Ancient,’ the scribe said. ‘It goes back to the Seven Cities, most certainly. It sprang from a very odd belief, that every person lives multiple lives. Nothing but superstition of course, but a persistent one.’

      ‘Indeed?’ Dallandra managed to suppress her sudden urge to laugh. ‘I suppose then that the planting of the new tree was symbolic.’

      ‘Yes, of the person’s supposed new life. That’s what the priests of the Star Goddesses taught, at any rate. A number of texts survive. A bad lot, those priests, or so history tells us. Some survived the Great Burning, but they were thrown overboard somewhere on the journey across the Southern Ocean.’

      ‘They were? By the Dark Sun herself! I never knew that.’

      ‘You didn’t?’ Meranaldar frowned in thought. ‘Oh, yes, of course. It was Princess Carra whom I told, and I don’t remember you being there at the time. The refugees ran dangerously short of water, you see, and the priests claimed a greater share. They based their reasoning, if one can call it that, on doctrine. Since they’d been born into the religious elite, they claimed, then in a previous life they’d done something to accrue great merit, and thus they deserved more of everything in this life.’

      ‘What a pernicious idea! I’ll wager there was a corollary, too, that the common people deserved whatever ill luck came their way.’

      ‘Exactly. The reasoning had ceased to be compelling, with Rinbaladelan in ruins behind them and so many people dead. The soldiers on the ship tossed the priests overboard, where they could have all the water they wanted.’ Meranaldar paused for a smile. ‘That very evening it rained, and the barrels they’d brought along for drinking water were filled to overflowing. The soldiers took this as a sign of the gods’ approval. Thus are new doctrines born.’

      They shared a laugh as they walked on. Dallandra had often wondered why the dweomermasters insisted that their belief in multiple lives be kept secret. She was beginning to understand.

      They were walking together in the forest, following one of the cool, shaded lanes between the trees. When he’d first come to the Westlands, Meranaldar had been a thin man, hollow-chested and stoop-shouldered, but forty years of riding with the royal alar had strengthened him. Now, no one would ever have confused him with a warrior, not with his slender arms and soft hands, but he stood straight and moved with the graceful ease of someone who knows his own strength.

      ‘Tomorrow the first alarli should arrive,’ Dallandra said. ‘I’ll be interested to see how many new babies we have, if any.’

      ‘There will be some,’ Meranaldar said. ‘At the Day of Remembrance, I noticed that a good many women were pregnant. What we need to do is tally up the number of our changelings.’

      ‘That’s true. We were up to forty-seven of them this spring. I’m particularly wondering about Carra’s new granddaughter.’

      ‘Indeed. So far the changelings seem to have very kindly spread themselves around, one to a family. It’s a good thing, since they can be such a burden.’

      ‘Yes. The gods must be taking a hand.’

      Meranaldar smiled, a bit too indulgently in her opinion. He could be condescending, the scribe, but she was too grateful for the knowledge he’d brought with him to hold it against him. Besides, she knew better than he did that it wasn’t the gods who were lending their aid, but a once-human man: Aderyn.

      Whenever she attended the birth of a wild child or held a new-born in her arms, she could feel Aderyn’s presence – naught so perceptible as a ghost, but rather a touch of mind on mind, a sense that he was reaching out to her across the planes. To fulfil his wyrd, Aderyn in his last life should have helped her heal the Guardians and the flock of half-formed souls that followed them. He’d shirked that duty. Now, while he still existed in the state that ordinary mortals call death, he was carrying it out as best he could, guiding their souls to birth and physical life.

      The first alar to appear at the festival brought with it the oldest wild child, Zandro, Salamander’s grown son, who lived with Salamander’s father, Devaberiel Silverhand, the most famous bard in the Westlands. The other men in their alar set up the bard’s tent next to the prince’s, a sign of rank as well as a convenience. Dallandra strolled over to greet them. Devaberiel seemed thinner than the last time she’d seen him, and his moonbeam-pale hair had turned completely white. His eyes, the dark blue of the night sky in moonlight, still snapped with life and good humour, and his face, though finely drawn, showed none of the folds and gouges of old age that signalled, among the People, approaching death.

      His grandson couldn’t have looked more different. Short and stocky, Zandro had pale brown skin and brown hair that he wore in a mop of curls. His eyes had changed colour since childhood; they were now a deep sunset orange, not quite as red as blood. When he saw Dalla, he turned his head to look at her sideways and grinned, revealing his mouthful of sharply pointed teeth.

      ‘Dalla,’ he said.

      It was the first time Dalla had ever heard Zandro say anyone’s name, and Devaberiel smiled as proudly as if his grandson had just rattled off ‘The Burning of the Vale of Roses’ or some other equally long and complex poem.

      ‘Yes,’ Dallandra said, ‘I’m Dalla. You’re Zandro.’

      Zandro flicked his eyes his grandfather’s way, then giggled and trotted off, heading for the pack of children and dogs playing on the lake shore.

      ‘He’s got a long way to go yet,’ Devaberiel said, ‘but we make progress.’

      ‘You certainly do. I’ll admit to being surprised.’

      ‘Valandario’s been helping me, actually.’ Dev glanced around. ‘I don’t see her. She’s probably setting up her tent.’

      ‘I’d best go greet her.’

      Dallandra picked her way through the growing encampment. She had so many people to greet that she made slow progress, but at last she reached the edge of the camp. For the festival, she’d had some of the men position her tent away from the crowd, where she could find some quiet for her workings. As she’d expected, Valandario had done the same, picking a spot near but not too near to Dallandra’s own.

      Val’s tent, so plain and grey on the outside, inside gleamed with colour – elaborately woven panels and embroidered tent bags, mostly blue and green, touched here and there with gold, hung on the walls, while red, silver and purple Bardek carpets and cushions lay strewn over the floor cloth. Sunlight from outside glowed through the walls. Entering the tent made Dalla think of walking into a giant jewellery box. Valandario herself sat on a red and gold carpet with jewels and gemstones spread out in front of her. She’d strewn them onto a scrying cloth, patched from Bardek silks. Some squares and triangles were plain, others embroidered with symbols, and here and there larger embroideries overlapped two squares. What they all meant only Valandario knew. She had devised this scrying system herself over a hundred years of hard work.

      ‘Am I disturbing you?’ Dallandra said.

      ‘Not at all,’ Val said. ‘In fact, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve done this reading twice today, and I can’t seem to interpret it.’

      Dallandra sat down on the opposite side of the scrying cloth. Light came in through the smokehole in the roof, caught Val’s golden hair and made it gleam like the silks. She held up delicate hands, clasped over a fresh handful of semi-precious stones. She whispered an invocation of the Lords of Aethyr, then scattered the gems over the cloth. Amethysts, citrines, lapis beads, dark jades, and fire opals – they lay glittering on the patches of silk among the rarer jewels. Here and there, as ominous as wolves lurking around a flock of sheep, sat tear-shaped drops of obsidian.

      ‘I