A Time of Omens

by Katharine Kerr

  “Mayhap I was a bit sudden about it. It was seeing her with those tiles. Ye gods, how many hours have I watched her, sitting there at that little table, poring over those tiles, and joking with me about what she was seeing, or—”

  “Even if they should be incarnations of the same soul, Marka and Alaena are not the same person, No one is, truly, from life to life.”

  His eyes filled with tears, and he tossed his head, turning half away. Jill let out her breath in a long sigh. They were sitting in their tent, off at the edge of the campground. From outside Jill could hear Marka, babbling in a frenzy of joy, and Keeta’s low voice, celebrating with her. It was certainly impossible to make Salamander go back on his offer.

  “Well, that’s torn it, then,” she said. “I’ll be going on to Anmurdio alone.”

  “What? I can’t let you do that!”

  “And I can’t let you drag that child along with us, either.”

  “Why not? Is it any more dangerous than the life she’s used to, wandering the roads and never knowing where her next copper’s going to come from? We’ll be safe enough. That’s why I’ve been building up the troupe.”

  “Are you trying to tell me, you stupid chattering elf, that you want to take all these wretched acrobats all the way to Anmurdio with us?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Jill could only stare at him. He smiled, all sunny charm.

  “List but a moment, O Princess of Powers Perilous, and all will become as clear as a summer sky. Cast your mind backward to our youth, and our adventures in Slaith. Ah, glorious Slaith! Alas, thanks to my brother and his righteous wrath, no more do its beds of fish entrails scent the warm and tropic air, no more do pirates swagger down its rich and arrogant streets, no more do—-”

  “Are you going to hold your tongue or am I going to cut it out? Get to the point!”

  “Well and good, then, but you do take the bloom off a man’s rhetoric, I must say. The point, my turtledove, is this: Slaith was a foul and evil den of pirates, but even there, in that den of the accursed, my humble gerthddyn’s calling made us both welcome and immune to infamy. Far more welcome, then, in isolate, nay, even desolate Anmurdio shall be an entire troupe of performers.”

  “Imph. I hate to admit this, but you’re probably right.”

  “Of course I’m right. I’ve spent many a long and guileful hour in thought, working this scheme through. We’ll probably even turn a profit.”

  “Oh, very well, then! Since there’s naught I can do about it all, anyway, I might as well go along with your daft scheme. Poor little Marka—a fine way to start married life!”

  “Aha! You’re the one who’s making the mistake this time. You’re remembering pampered Alaena, the rich widow who lacked for naught. Marka has lived as hard a life as ever you did as a child, following your father round the kingdom.”

  Jill said something foul beyond repeating, simply because he was right, but he merely laughed at her.

  Later that afternoon Jill went looking for Marka and found her sitting in front of the tent she shared with Delya and Keeta. She’d spread out a large mat and arranged the tiles, which might possibly have come back to her from another life, in tidy lines to study them.

  “Marka?” Jill said. “I’ve just come to offer my congratulations.”

  “Oh, thank you!” She looked up with a smile of such sheer, innocent joy that it wrung Jill’s heart. “You know, I never ever thought I’d be this lucky, not ever.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re so happy.” Jill sat down on the ground across from her. “Keeta tells me that the troupe’s going to join together to buy you a wedding dress.”

  “Yes, and it’s so wonderful of them.” She hesitated briefly. “You look sad, too, just like Keeta and Delya do. Why?”

  “Oh, there’s just something about a wedding that takes us old crones this way. Don’t let it trouble you.”

  “But it does trouble me. You’re all acting like I’m going to get dragged off to the archon’s prison instead of married.”

  Jill hesitated, but the girl deserved an honest answer.

  “Well, I suppose it’s because this kind of happiness just can’t last, just because of the way life runs, I mean. It’s sad, in a way, like seeing a spring flower and knowing it’s going to fade when summer comes. I know that sounds awfully harsh, but do you think you’ll always be this gloriously happy?”

  “Well, I wish I could be, but of course you’re right. All right, then, if that’s all it is.”

  It was, of course, a great deal more than that, but this was no moment to turn vulture and dwell upon all those worries that used to trouble older women at a wedding: the slow death of a girl’s youth, the quick death of the little freedom allowed her in life between her father’s house and her husband’s, to say nothing, in those days—hundreds of years before the dweomer taught women to control their pregnancies—of her possible literal death in childbirth or from the simple exhaustion of birthing too many children.

  “That’s a nice set of fortune tiles,” Jill said instead. “Did Salamander buy them for you?”

  “Yes. Aren’t they lovely?” But she frowned, tilting her head a little to one side. “You know, it was the oddest thing. I saw these in the marketplace, just sitting in their box, and I didn’t pick them up or anything. I didn’t even touch them. But I somehow knew that there was this wine stain on the bottom. And you know what the oddest thing was? Ebañy knew it, too. And he never looked, either.”

  Jill’s doubt that the girl might be Alaena reborn vanished.

  “Well, odd things like that do happen.” She stood up quickly, before Marka could ask further and touch the edge of secrets. “I think it means you were meant to have them. And meant to have Ebañy, too, most like.”

  Marka favored her with a smile as brilliant as the moon at her full.

  Later that evening, after the show, when the troupe was eating its midnight meal round a leaping fire, there was a celebration. Vinto was a fine musician, playing the wela-wela, a zitherlike instrument; another of the acrobats played the drum; the flute boy outdid himself, especially since there was plenty of background noise to cover his occasional squeak. Everyone was laughing and singing, toasting Salamander and Marka with cups of red wine and taking turns in wishing them happiness, and even some of the merchants who were sharing the public field drifted over, getting into the spirit of things by bringing stuffed dates and nut cakes and the other traditional gifts for this sort of celebration. After about an hour the noise and the crowd began to get on Jill’s nerves, and when she drifted away for a quiet walk, Keeta and Delya joined her. They found a bench by the public fountain and sat down to watch the water splashing in the moonlight. Although Delya was smiling, a little flushed from the wine and humming a tune under her breath—in fact, she never did add a word to that entire conversation—Keeta looked downright melancholy.

  “Ah, well,” she said at last. “At least Salamander looks like he’ll make her a better husband than most.”

  “Oh, he certainly will,” Jill said. “I’ve known him a long time, and lean honestly say that.”

  “Good. By the way, has he mentioned anything about going to Anmurdio to you?”

  “Oh, yes. What do you think of the idea?”

  “It’s a good one. The towns over there are so starved for a good show that we should do really well.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. I didn’t want to drag the rest of you along only to have it turn out to be a disaster.”

  “What I don’t understand, frankly, is how there could be any rare books and things over there for you to find.”

  Jill fell back onto a version of the truth.

  “There may not be any, indeed. But a long time ago there was a horrible war in the country adjoining our kingdom, and a large band of refugees fled south. Now, they didn’t settle in Bardek proper nor here in Orystinna. What I’d like to know is where they did end up, and what books they brought with them when they fled.”

>   “I must say that you people seem to have a ghastly lot of wars.”

  “Well, yes, I’m afraid so.”

  Keeta glanced at her companion and suddenly smiled.

  “Delly, you’re just about asleep. Want to go back?”

  “Mph?” Delya woke with a start and yawned. “I’m fine.”

  “I think we’d best get back.” Keeta got up and held out a hand. “Come along.”

  With a nod and apologetic smile in Jill’s direction, Delya rose and allowed herself to be led off to camp. Jill considered going, too, then decided to sit in the cool and moon-shot dark for a while. Not only did ail the noise and fire’s heat seem a burden, but she was hoping that Dallandra would come through into the physical plane again. Ever since Dalla had appeared to her with Elessario along, Jill had been trying to puzzle out her cryptic last words, which she’d heard only as “islands Evandar.” Whether “Evandar” was the name of the islands where the refugees had settled or of some person, she simply didn’t know. Yet, though she waited there for hours, the elven dweomerwoman never returned.

  When Jill got back to the camp, she found it silent, with no one up but Keeta, sitting yawning by a dying fire.

  “I moved your gear and blankets and things over to our tent. Better let Salamander and Marka have one to themselves. Thought I’d better wait up and tell you.”

  “Ah, I see,” Jill said. “Thank you.”

  On the morrow, when the troupe marched off into town to register the wedding officially at the archon’s palace, Jill stayed in camp, but she came to greet them when they paraded back again. At the head of the line, sitting sidesaddle on Salamander’s dapple-gray horse, rode Marka, flushed and smiling, with her new husband walking beside her. In full costume the acrobats followed, singing, laughing, doing a bit of juggling or a dance here and there. A crowd of children and citizens brought up the rear, treating the acrobats’ wedding as just another show, although, in all fairness, Salamander and Marka seemed delighted to provide them with it. When they reached camp, he swept her out of the saddle and kissed her soundly. To the cheering of the crowd they held hands and bowed, while the rest of the troupe scurried round collecting the small coins that rained down upon the pair. Jill could only think that indeed, Salamander had found himself a perfect wife.

  Toward evening, however, Jill dragged him away from the dancing and music. In the lengthening shadows they walked together among the palms at the edge of the campground. A sunset wind was springing up, sending drifts of dusts across the dead-flat plains.

  “Somewhat I wanted to ask you,” Jill said in Deverrian. “When you agreed to come to Bardek with me, was it mostly on the hope of finding Alaena again?”

  “I cannot tell a lie. Indeed it was.”

  Jill snorted profoundly, realizing even as she did it that she sounded just like Nevyn.

  “But, Jill, it ail worked out for the best, didn’t it now? Have I not been your guide, your escort, your loyal companion and faithful dog, even, while at the same time rescuing my beloved from a life of virtual slavery to her bestial father?”

  “It was Keeta who did the rescuing. You were just the bait.”

  “Imph, well, I suppose so, but how crudely you put things sometimes.”

  “My heart bleeds. On the morrow we’re going to find a ship for Anmurdio and get on with our search and that’s that.”

  “I’ve already found the ship.” He favored her with a brilliant grin. “We had to wait a fair bit down at the archon’s palace, and there was a ship’s captain waiting there as well to register his last cargo, and so lo and behold! A deal was struck.”

  And that was the worst of Salamander, Jill reflected. Just when you were about to allow yourself the pleasure of berating him, he went and did something right.

  Evandar lounged upon a hilltop that overlooked the remains of a formal garden, roses gone wild and tangled, hedges sending long green fingers into the air, muddy walks cracking. The plan of squares and half circles stretched out skewed, as well, as if the right half had shrunk and the left grown along the diagonal.

  “It looks squashed,” he remarked to Dallandra. “As if a giant had fallen against it.”

  “I see what you mean. Is this the garden you showed me when first I came here?”

  “It is, yes, but now it’s spoilt. And the house, the splendid rooms I made for you—they’ve all gone away, too, turned into air and blown far, far away. It always happens. I try to build as once your people built, but never does a stone or stick last me out.”

  “This world was meant for flux, not forms. If only you’d come be born into my world…”

  “Shan’t!” He tossed his head in irritation. “Don’t speak of it.”

  She knew his moods and let the subject drop.

  “I found a marvel, Dalla. The islands of which your friend spoke? They’ve rebuilt Rinbaladelan there, but it’s a poor thing, all small and flimsy, wood where once stood stone.”

  “You found them? You didn’t tell me that!”

  He shrugged, then rose, standing for a moment to frown at the ruined garden. Twilight gathered purple in the sky and dropped shadows round him like rain. Wind ruffled his yellow hair with a flash of palpable light. At moments like these Dalla found herself wondering who or what he might be, and where they might be, as well, if perhaps even she’d died and all this bright country was only an illusion of life built of memory and longing. It seemed that her very wondering threatened to destroy the world round her. The hill upon which they stood dissolved and began to float away in tendrils of mist, while the garden below became only a pile of weeds and sticks. Evandar grew as thin as a shadow himself, a colored shadow cast upon empty air. Her heart thudded in her throat.

  “Don’t go!” The words seemed torn out of her. “I love you.”

  All at once he stood solidly in front of her, and the hands that caught her shoulders, the mouth that caught her own, were warm and substantial. He kissed her again, his mouth all hunger, his hands pulling her tight against him. Together they sank to their knees, then lay down, clasped in each other’s arms. She lost all awareness of her body, if indeed it were anything more than a mere image or form of a body, yet she could feel him, twined round, feel the energy pulsing from him as tangible as flesh, feel the power flowing from her own essence as well to mingle with his, while they shared an ecstasy more intense than any sexual pleasure she’d ever known. On waves of sensation that made them both cry aloud they seemed to soar, a twined, twinned consciousness.

  And yet, afterward, as always, she couldn’t quite remember what had happened to make her feel that way. They lay on the hillside, clasped in each other’s arms like an ordinary pair of lovers, and yet, without her conscious thought, whatever illusions of clothing that they wore had returned. She felt cool, alert, almost preternaturally calm, and he merely smiled at her as if he were surprised at what they’d shared. Yet when he released her, she saw the garden blooming down below, renewed and glorious.

  “I love you as well,” he said, as if nothing had interrupted their earlier talk. “Dalla, Dalla, I thought I was so clever when I lured you here, but you’re the hunter and the snare both. And in the end you’ll abandon me, no doubt, like some animal left dead so long in a trap that its fur’s all rotted and spoilt.”

  She pulled away from him and sat up, running her hands through her long tangle of hair. Already her hands and the hair itself felt perfectly normal to her, no different from the flesh she remembered. He lay back on one elbow and watched, his face as stricken as a man who’s been told he’ll hang on the morrow.

  “In the end you’ll force me to go,” she said at last. “I love you too much to stay and watch you die into nothingness.”

  “That’s a cruel speaking.”

  “Is it? What would you have me do instead?”

  “I don’t know.” He paused, then shook his head. “By those gods you speak of, I’m weary tonight. I went a long way, seeking out those islands. You should see them for yourself.�
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  “I want to, yes. I wish I could talk with Jill about them.”

  “Why can’t you? Go with my blessing, my love.”

  “It’s not that. I just never have enough time to say much once I find her, before the vision breaks, I mean.”

  “Well, if you insist on going only in vision.”

  “And how else am I supposed to go?”

  “Are you not here in the world between all worlds? Wait! Forgive me. I forget you don’t know. Come with me, my love, and you shall learn to walk the roads.” He hesitated, cocking his head to one side like a dog. “Where’s Elessario?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s just go take a look at her. I have the strangest feeling round my heart.”

  A feeling that, it turned out, was well justified. Hand in hand they drifted down from the hilltop to find the Host feasting in the meadowlands. It seemed a huge pavilion of cloth-of-gold, hung with blue banners, sheltered rows of long tables, set with candles in silver candelabra, but once inside Dallandra realized that she could look through the roof and see stars, spread in the long drift of the Snowy Road. Music floated over the talk and laughter as they made their way through the tables and asked for his child. None had seen her. All at once the pavilion changed, grew stone inside the cloth, the meadow crisping into straw, the banners transmuting to faded tapestries. Out of the corner of her eye Dallandra thought she saw fire leaping in a huge stone hearth, yet when she looked straight at it, she saw only the moon, rising through a mullioned window.

  “Come with me.” Evandar tugged her hand so hard that he nearly dragged her away. “I don’t like this.”

  At the back door they found Elessario, dressed in a long tunic of blue, kirtled at the waist with a silver, white, and green plaid. In her hands she carried a loaf of bread, which she offered to an old beggar woman, all gnarled hands and brown rags, leaning on a bit of stick.

  “Mother, Mother,” the child was saying. “Why won’t you come in and feast?”

  “No more am I welcome in your father’s hall. Child, can’t you see that they plot your death? Come away, come with me to safety. Better the life of a beggar on the roads than this murderous luxury.”