The Silver Mage

by Katharine Kerr

  A number of people were standing around, watching their procession straggle into the courtyard. They all had the same furled ears and cat-slit eyes as the healer; they all wore tunics and sandals like his as well. Off to one side someone was leading a horse around the end of the main building, a stocky warhorse whose coat shone like gold and whose mane and tail flowed like silver. Rhodorix had a brief moment of wondering if he’d died without noticing and now walked in the Otherlands, but his thirst drove the fancy away. Dead men didn’t long for water.

  Bells chimed over the courtyard, followed by the louder boom and reverberation of huge metallic gongs. The sound came from the top of the tower to his left. When he looked up, Rhodorix saw men on the roofs, and the gleam of metal swinging as they struck the gongs. Up on the mountain peak the sun slipped a little lower. The long knife blade of light disappeared. The gongs fell silent as the healer urged his men forward again.

  They entered the largest building by a narrow door at one end. More colors, more mosaic walls—they turned down a corridor with walls painted with images of trees and deer, then passed red-curtained alcoves and went through a gilded room into a mostly blue corridor, decorated with a long frieze of circles and triangles. Glowing cylinders topped with flame burned in little tiled alcoves on the walls. In this maze of design and brightness, Rhodorix could barely distinguish what he was seeing, nor could he tell in what direction they walked.

  At last the healer ushered them all into a small chamber with a narrow plank bed, a round table, a scatter of chairs, and a window open to the air. The men with the litter transferred Gerontos to the planks, then pulled off his hauberk and his boots. They bowed to the healer and left.

  Rhodorix was just wondering how to ask for water when four cat-eyed servants came trotting in. He assumed they were servants because they carried plates of bread, silver pitchers, and a tray of golden cups. One of them filled a cup with water and handed it to Rhodorix without being asked. Thirst and dust choked his mouth so badly that he could only smile for thanks. The fellow pointed to the food on the table with a sweep of his arm that seemed to mean “help yourself.”

  Other servants carried in big baskets and set them down beside the plank bed. The healer took out several sticks with spikes at one end and put them on the table. Onto the spikes he put thick cylinders of wax with a bit of thread coming out of their tops. When he snapped his fingers, the threads caught fire, and a soft glow of light spread through the shadowed room. Rhodorix took a fast couple of steps back. The healer smiled at his surprise, then pointed to the food and water before returning to Gerontos’ side.

  Rhodorix drank half a pitcher of water before his head cleared enough for him to consider food. He took a chunk of bread and stood eating it while he watched the healer and two of the servants washing Gerontos’ broken leg. By then his brother had fainted. And a good thing, too, Rhodorix thought when the healer grabbed Gerontos’ ankle with one hand and guided the leg straight with the other. Gerontos woke with the pain, groaned, and fainted again. A servant came forward with a bowl of some thick, reddish substance. At first Rhodorix thought it blood, but the smell told him that it was in fact honey mixed with red wine and some ingredient that made the liquid glisten.

  The healer dipped strips of cloth into the mixture, then bound them round the break in the leg, over and over until he’d built up a thick layer. A servant came forward with a bowl of water and held it out while he washed his hands. Another slipped a pillow under Gerontos’ head. At that Gerontos woke again, groaning repeatedly, turning his head this way and that. Rhodorix strode over to the opposite side of the bed from the healer and caught his brother’s hand. Gerontos fell silent and tried to smile at him. His mouth contorted into a painful twist.

  Two servants hurried over to help Gerontos drink from a cup of a yellow liquid. A third handed Rhodorix a cup of red wine, which he sipped, watching his brother’s pain ease with every swallow of the yellow drink. The healer himself considered Rhodorix, seemed to be about to speak, and then smiled, a little ruefully, as if perhaps remembering that Rhodorix wouldn’t understand a word he said. He went to the doorway and spoke to someone standing just outside. A woman’s voice answered him; then the woman herself strode into the chamber.

  She stood by the bed and set her hands on her hips to look Gerontos over while the healer talked on. Now and then she nodded as if agreeing with something he said. Tall, nearly as tall as Rhodorix, she wore her pale hair pulled back into a pair of braids. Under thin brows her eyes were the blue of river ice and deep-set in a face that most likely became lovely when she smiled. At the moment, frowning in thought as she considered Gerontos’ leg, she looked as grim as a druid at a sacrifice. Gerontos looked at Rhodorix and quirked an eyebrow. Once, during Vindex’s ill-fated rebellion, they’d seen a contingent of Belgae warriors, all of them as pale-haired and pale-eyed as this woman.

  “She must be a Belgae woman,” Rhodorix said.

  “Indeed,” Gerontos whispered. “Unless she’s from Germania.”

  Neither the woman nor the healer took any notice of their talk. She wore a long tunic, belted at the waist like the healer’s, pinned at one shoulder with a gold brooch in the shape of a bird with outstretched wings. Around her neck hung a cluster of what Rhodorix took to be charms on leather thongs. One of the Belgae wise women, he assumed—he’d heard about them back home in Gallia. Eventually she turned to him and spoke. He understood nothing. All he could do was shake his head and spread his hands to show confusion. Her eyes widened in surprise.

  The healer came over to him, made a questioning sort of face, and pointed to his ear.

  “I’m not deaf.” Rhodorix made a guess at the meaning. He pointed to his own ear and smiled, nodding. “I can hear you.”

  The healer seemed to understand. He, in turn, nodded his agreement, then spoke to the woman. They left the chamber together.

  “What was all that?” Gerontos said.

  “I don’t know for certain,” Rhodorix said. “But I’d guess they were expecting us to understand her talk. They were certainly surprised about somewhat.” He paused to sip from the cup. “This wine is very good.” He pointed at a servant, then at his brother.

  The fellow filled a second cup and brought it over. With Rhodorix’s help, Gerontos raised himself up enough to take a few sips. He sighed and lay back down.

  “Enough for now,” Gerontos whispered. “Go eat. I have to sleep.”

  The servants took themselves away. Rhodorix got up and returned to the table, but even though he ate, he was considering suicide. He could go outside to the courtyard, find a corner where no one would see him, and fall upon his sword. Or, if the guards would let him, he could climb one of the high towers and step off into death on the stones below. Death seemed the only honorable act left to him after his failure of the day, yet at the same time, how could he abandon his brother here among these strange folk?

  If only Galerinos were still with them, he could ask the young druid to cast omens or deliver some kind of opinion based on the holy laws, but Gallo was far away—safe, or so he hoped. He finished his wine, downed what Gerontos had left, then poured himself more. Lacking a holy man, he sought his answers in drink. After the fourth cupful, the room began dancing around him. Rhodorix lay down on the carpeted floor and slept.

  “I don’t understand,” Nallatanadario said. “If they don’t belong to your people, who are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Hwilli said. “But they certainly didn’t understand a word I said to them.”

  The two apprentice healers, one human, one elven, were sitting in Hwilli’s tiny chamber, Hwilli cross-legged on her bed, Nalla on a high stool beside Hwilli’s slant-top lectern. On the walls, frescoes of rose gardens gave the small chamber illusory depth. Distant birds flew in the painted skies. While they discussed the two strangers, resting in a chamber just down the corridor, Nalla kept combing her silvery-pale hair. It tumbled in waves about her slender shoulders and down her back, so different
than Hwilli’s own fine, limp hair that would have hung in ugly tendrils, or so Hwilli felt, had she worn hers free like Nalla did.

  “Could Master Jantalaber tell you anything more?” Nalla said.

  “He thought perhaps they belonged to some northern tribe. With the Meradan on the move like this, their lands might have been attacked, too, and their tribe might have fled south.” Hwilli shrugged uneasily. “If that’s true, there must be thousands of Meradan out there. It makes my flesh crawl, thinking that.”

  “Mine, too.” Nalla looked down at the carved bone comb in her hand. Her fingers clenched tight around it. “I wonder sometimes what’s going to happen to us. I truly do.”

  Hwilli turned and looked out the small window, set into the frescoes at the chamber’s end, that looked out to the actual sky. She could just see the tops of the fortress’ towers, gleaming in moonlight. We’ll be safe here, she thought. Won’t we? Nalla shuddered, as if she were wondering the same. She resumed combing her hair, then paused, and with a quick frown shoved the comb into the pouch hanging from her belt.

  “Anyway,” Hwilli said, “the master’s going to ask the Guardians for help. He thinks the crystals Evandar gave him might allow us to talk to the men, since they transfer thoughts and images. But he doesn’t know how they could actually translate our speech.”

  “No one’s ever sure how Evandar does anything.”

  “That’s very true. And Evandar might not help with this, either. So I suppose there’s nothing we can do but wait and see.”

  “That’s the Guardians for you.” Nalla slid off the stool and walked to the door. “Are you coming to the refectory? The men will be waiting on table tonight in the great hall, so it’ll be just us women.”

  “Good. I don’t want to sit in the hall with the prince and his warriors.” Hwilli got up to join her. “All they talk about is the war.”

  “What else is there to talk about?”

  “You have a point, unfortunately. The master did say he was going to consult with the prince about the strangers. He was thinking that the prince might want send out a squadron to find the tribe they came from and see if they’d join the People.”

  “Ah, to be allies, you mean.” Nalla frowned, considering something. “I wonder where Evandar found them, though. They could have been up on the Roof of the World, for all we know.”

  “Quite so. I’ll wager that the prince realizes that. I doubt if he’ll want to risk losing any of his men on a scouting expedition. The Guardians never seem to grasp the idea of distance.”

  “That, alas, is very true. Or the idea of time, either.” Nalla abruptly shuddered with a little shake of her head.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know, maybe an omen, maybe not. There’s so much to be frightened of, these days.”

  “Well, that’s true.”

  Yet Hwilli assumed that some long wisp of the cloud that covered future events had touched her. Nalla’s marked for the dweomer, Hwilli thought, while I’m only here to learn herbs and the like. Master Jantalaber had made it clear to her from the beginning, that only the People could use dweomer, never the humble village folk that they treated like children at best and slaves at worst. As she and Nalla walked down the long corridor to the special dining area set aside for the healers in the fortress, Hwilli fought her endless battle between gratitude and envy.

  Once they were sitting in the refectory with food spread on the table in front of them, gratitude won a temporary victory. Hwilli reminded herself, as she generally did, that she’d been lucky to be chosen to study with a master healer, to live here in the fortress and have plenty to eat. She’d been born and raised in huts that always smelled of the manure and mud that filled in the chinks in the walls. Her parents had worked so hard that their backs were permanently bent and aching. Her father had died, feverish and half-starved, long before he’d grown old. Her own life, even though brief compared to the spans allotted to the People, would be comfortable and respected because of her knowledge. But so brief, she thought. Still so brief.

  Envy rose like bile in her throat. While the other women ate, chatting and laughing, she crumbled a bit of bread between her fingers and watched them. Despite their catlike eyes and furled ears, they were beautiful, young and beautiful, and they would still be lovely hundreds of years on, when she’d been dead and forgotten for those same hundreds of years.

  “Hwilli!” Nalla said. “Try some of this roast partridge.” She leaned over and placed a choice slice onto Hwilli’s plate. “It’s awfully good.”

  “My thanks.” Hwilli managed to smile. “I was just thinking.”

  “About that handsome stranger?” Nalla said. “And he is handsome, or he will be after a bath. His brother’s good-looking, too. Now, don’t deny it.”

  “Oh, yes, I suppose they are. For men of my kind.”

  “Well,” Nalla paused for a grin. “If you shut your eyes, you could ignore their ears.”

  When the other women laughed, Hwilli decided that hatred tasted like sour wine. She gathered a few bitter remarks, but when she looked Nalla’s way, Nalla rolled her eyes with a shrug toward the laughter, and Hwilli kept the remarks to herself.

  Caswallinos, or so he’d often told his apprentice, had also realized that distance and time meant nothing to Evandar, but much to the elder druid’s surprise and Galerinos’ relief, the river did lie where that supposed god had told them. As they came down from the hills, they could see the gleam of water far ahead, winding through a grassy plain scattered with huge boulders and dotted with the occasional copse. Laughter and cheers rippled up and down the line of wagons. The horses and cows raised their heads and sniffed the air, then walked a little faster.

  As they hurried across the plain, Galerinos noticed several long and oddly straight lines of small stones. The savages had laid them out, he assumed, though the landscape made him think of old tales about the giants of olden times and their furious wars. Perhaps the Devetii had wandered into an armory of sorts, with rocks laid ready for some battle that had never occurred.

  Just at sunset they reached the river. The Devetian line of march spread out along its banks to allow their weary horses to drink. After them came the cattle and sheep. Only when the animals had drunk their fill, and the mud had had time to settle, did the humans wade into the river to drink and to collect the precious water in amphorae and waterskins. As priests, Galerinos and his master received their share first. After they slaked their thirst, they stood by their wagon and looked out across the stone-studded plain.

  “This is a very strange place,” Caswallinos remarked.

  “It certainly is, Your Holiness! All those rocks! Do you know why they’re here?”

  “The Wildfolk told me that a big sheet of ice crawled down from the north. When it melted, it dropped them.” Caswallinos shook his head sadly. “The Wildfolk lack wits as we know wits.”

  “So they must.”

  “But rocks or no rocks, the land looks good enough to plant a crop in. We need to get the winter wheat in the ground.”

  “Are we going to settle here for the winter?”

  “We can’t march in the snow, can we? Think! Besides, we’re going to have to build a bridge to get the wagons across that river. It’s far too deep to ford.”

  “You’re right, and my apologies, but it wearies my heart. This will be our second winter in Evandar’s country. Do you think we’ll ever stop wandering?”

  “Eventually even our cadvridoc will grow tired of slaughtering the white savages. I’ve given him that omen to look for, one we can arrange when we find a suitable place.”

  “Arrange? You mean you lied to him?”

  “Let’s just say I created a soothing truth.”

  “But that’s still lying—” Galerinos caught the grim look in his master’s eyes and stopped talking in mid-sentence. “Apologies.”

  Caswallinos snorted with a twist of his mouth.

  Cadvridoc Brennos had reached the same conclusion, that the
Devetii would set up a temporary settlement near the river and plant their carefully hoarded seed grain. That night, in the midst of campfires he called a general council of the vergobretes, the clan heads, and every free man who wanted to attend. Once the crowd had gathered, he stood on one of the smaller boulders and raised his arms for silence. In the firelight his golden torque and armbands winked and gleamed. His stiff limed hair gave him the look of a spirit from the Otherlands.

  “You all know,” he began, “that we travel east in search of the omen granted to us by the gods. By another river we’ll find a white sow who’s given birth, and there we’ll found our city.”

  The gathered men murmured their agreement.

  “But the year turns toward the dark,” Brennos continued. “According to the bronze marker of days that our druid carries, soon Samovantos will be upon us. We must plant our crops somewhere and build ourselves shelter. Now, right here the gods have given us plenty of stones to work with—an omen, or so I take it. I’d say that this is the place for our winter camp.”

  More murmurs, a few cheers—as usual, Brennos had carried the day. Not even Bercanos of the Boars stepped forward to argue, an omen in itself, or so Galerinos thought of it.

  “For the first days here,” Brennos began speaking again, “we’ll camp in our usual order, all together in case the savages attack us. After that, we can build farmsteads and walls to protect ourselves.”

  More cheers, more murmurs of assent.

  “While everyone was watering our stock,” Brennos continued, “I rode a little ways south. I found a grand supply of stone, waiting for us right beside a spring. We can use that to build a dun that’ll strike fear in the hearts of the savages. What say you?”

  The entire assembly cheered him. The men of the council of vergobretes stood and threw a fist into the air to show their support. As the crowd scattered back to their various wagons and tents, Caswallinos and Galerinos left the camp to walk down by the river, rippled silver with moonlight.