A Time of Exile. Katharine Kerr

anyway.’

      As the afternoon wore on, everyone was perfectly friendly, and most of the People spoke the Eldidd tongue but, on the whole, Aderyn was ignored or, rather, taken for granted in a way that made him feel slightly dizzy. After they ate, Halaberiel sat down on the ground in front of one of the tents and started an urgent conversation in Elvish with two men. Aderyn wandered through the camp, looking at the paintings on the tents, and watched what the People were doing in a vain attempt to fit into their pattern. The People strolled around, talking to whomever they met, or perhaps taking up some task only to drop it if they felt like it. Aderyn saw Jezryaladar and another young man bringing a big kettle of water up from the stream to the fire; it sat there for a long time before Calonderiel put it on the iron tripod to heat; then it sat some more until a pair of the lads got around to washing up about half of the wooden bowls. When Aderyn wandered off, he found a young woman sitting on the ground behind one of the tents and talking to a pair of sleek brown dogs; she lay down, fell asleep, and the dogs lay down with her. Later, when he strolled back that way, they were gone.

      Finally, towards twilight, the roast lamb was done. Two of the men took it off the spit and slung it down on a long wooden plank, while others kicked the various dogs away. Everyone gathered round and cut off hunks of meat, which most of them ate right there, standing up and talking. Aderyn saw Dallandra putting a few choice slices on a wooden plate and taking them away to a tent painted with vines of roses in a long, looping design.

      ‘Nananna must be awake,’ Halaberiel said with his mouth full. ‘She’s very old, you see, and needs her rest.’

      Privately Aderyn wondered if it might be days before Nananna got around to remembering she’d had him brought here. As it grew dark, some of the elves built a second fire, then sat around it with wooden harps that looked somewhat like the ones in Deverry but which turned out to be tuned in quarter-tones; they had long wooden flutes, too, that gave out a wailing; almost unpleasant sound for a drone. They played for a few minutes, then began to sing to the harps, an intricate melody in the most peculiar harmonies Aderyn had ever heard. As he listened, trying to figure them out, Dallandra appeared.

      ‘She’s ready to see you. Follow me.’

      They went together to the rose-painted tent. Dallandra raised the flap and motioned him to go in. When he crawled through, Aderyn came out into a soft golden light from dweomer globes hanging at the ridgepoles. All around were the Wildfolk: gnomes curled up like cats or wandering around, sprites clinging to the tent-poles, sylphs like crystal thickenings of the air. On the far side, perched like a bird on a pile of leather cushions, was a slender old woman, her head crowned with stark white braids. Aderyn could feel the power flowing from her like a breath of cool wind hitting his face, a snap and crackle in the air to match the life snapping in her violet eyes. When she gestured to him to sit down by her feet, he knelt in honest respect. Even when Dallandra joined her mistress, Aderyn couldn’t take his eyes from Nananna’s face. When she spoke, her voice was as strong and melodious as a lass’s.

      ‘So, you’re the dweomerman from the east, are you?’

      ‘Well, I’m a dweomerman from the east. I take it you had some warning of my coming.’

      ‘I saw somewhat in my stone.’ Nananna paused, leisurely studying his face. ‘In truth I asked for you.’

      Dallandra caught her breath with a small gasp.

      ‘I’ll die soon,’ Nananna went on. ‘It is time, and Dallandra will have my tent, my horses, and my place among our folk.’ She laid a bony pale hand on the lass’s shoulder. ‘But I leave her a bitter legacy along with the sweet. I am old, Aderyn, and I speak bluntly. I do not like your people. I fear their greed and what it will do to us.’

      ‘I fear it too. Please believe me – I’d stop them if I could.’

      Nananna’s eyes bored deep into his. Aderyn looked back unflinchingly and let her read the truth of what he said.

      ‘I have heard of the dweomer of the east,’ she said after a moment. ‘It seems to serve the Light I serve, only after its own manner.’

      ‘There is only one Light, but a rainbow of a thousand colours.’

      Pleased by the answer, Nananna smiled, a thin twitch of bluish lips.

      ‘But one of those colours is the red of blood,’ she said. ‘Tell me somewhat: will your people kill mine for their land?’

      ‘That’s what I’m afraid of. They’ve killed others for theirs – or enslaved them.’

      ‘No one will ever enslave an elf,’ Dallandra broke in. ‘We’d die first, every last one of us.’

      ‘Hush, child!’ Nananna paused, thinking. ‘Tell me, Aderyn. What sent you to us?’

      ‘Just this spring I left my master and received my vision. In it I saw a river, far to the west. When Halaberiel brought me to you, I crossed that river.’

      ‘And do you want to go back across it to your own kind? I can have the banadar escort you.’

      ‘Wise One, there are some rivers that can never be recrossed.’

      The old woman smiled, nodding her agreement. Aderyn felt cold with excitement, a sweet troublement. He could hear the distant singing, drifting in from the night with the wailing of flutes.

      ‘If you asked for me, and if I’ve been sent to you,’ Aderyn said, ‘what work do you want me to do?’

      ‘I’m not truly sure yet, but I do want Dallandra to have a man of your people at her side, who understands your ways as she understands ours. I see blood on the grasslands, and I hear swords and shouting. It would be a shameful thing if I didn’t even try to stop it. Will you ride with us for a while?’

      ‘Gladly. How can I stand by and let my folk do a murdering thing to haunt their Wyrd forever?’

      ‘Nicely spoken. Tell me, Dalla – can you work with this man?’

      Dallandra turned her storm-cloud gaze Aderyn’s way and considered him for so long that his heart began pounding.

      ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘I’d work with the Dark Fiends themselves if it would help my people. He’ll do.’

      ‘Well and good, then, as your folk would say.’ Nananna raised a frail hand in blessing. ‘Ride south with us, young Aderyn, and we’ll see what all our gods have in store.’