The Spirit Stone

by Katharine Kerr

  Dallandra lay down on her back and set her hands on her chest. Salamander placed the black pyramid in her fingers, then knelt at her head while Calonderiel left to stand guard outside the door. Dallandra built up the image of her body of light, a glowing silver flame, then transferred her consciousness into it. Once she was free of her body, she looked down and saw the obsidian, shot through with lines of blue light, clasped between her pale hands. Unlike ordinary stone, so dead when seen on the etheric plane, the black crystal pulsed gold.

  In this state she could work from above, as it were, upon the spirit trap. After an invocation to the Light that shines beyond all the gods, she focused her concentration upon the crystal. She could see the spirit as a golden line beating against the bars of its prison. Now and then it twisted into an agony of struggle.

  ‘Hold still!’ she thought to it. ‘I come in the name of the Light!’

  The golden line swelled in greeting, then shrank down to a point. Inside her flame-shape, Dallandra raised her etheric hands and began to gather force from the blue light billowing around her. She shaped it into the image of an axe, then grabbed the handle with both hands. With another call to the Light, she swung the axe up high and brought it down hard upon the bars of the spirit cage. They shattered into a shower of black sparks.

  On a wave of joy the golden line darted from the crystal. As it rose, it grew until it reached a spear’s length of gleaming metallic light. Trembling, it stood before her.

  ‘You will have my thanks through all eternity,’ the spirit thought to her. ‘You are my deliverer. What may I do to serve you?’

  Dallandra nearly lost her concentration in sheer surprise. She’d been expecting a fragment of mind such as the Wildfolk have, but this spirit belonged to a much higher order of being if it could send thoughts in the form of words.

  ‘I ask nothing from you,’ Dallandra said, ‘but to serve the Light always.’

  ‘That shall I do with great joy.’

  ‘Tell me, who trapped you in this gem?’

  ‘I know not his name. If I had, I should have cursed him thrice over. His image—look!’

  The golden line flickered, swelled, and transformed itself into the blurry but recognizable image of a Deverry man—a typical Cerrmor man, Dallandra realized, with pale hair and high cheekbones. The illusion melted as fast as a sliver of ice on a hearthstone, leaving the spirit standing before her.

  ‘I can show no more,’ it said, ‘but if you find that man, beware beware beware!’

  ‘I shall indeed, and my thanks for the warning.’

  ‘The man dripped evil. First he bought my prison from a murderer. He gave the murderer a golden coin for it. Then he built the cage and chased me until I could flee no more. When he trapped me, he mocked me, saying that the only being in any world who could release me was the murderer’s mother. And so I raged, thinking I would be bound for all eternity.’

  Dallandra felt such a stab of grief that it manifested. A long howl of pain, a keening wail, cut through the billowing blue light. She could feel the spirit’s confusion as it swirled about her silver flame.

  ‘You are my deliverer,’ it said. ‘I meant not to pain you by repeating that evil fool’s lie.’

  ‘It was no lie,’ Dallandra said. ‘I am that woman. I am the murderer’s mother.’

  The spirit turned into a rigid line of gold, pure force frozen briefly into form. For a moment it hovered in front of her, trying to comprehend, then like an arrow loosed from a bow it launched itself and flew, darting away into the billowing blue mists. Far more slowly Dallandra retreated down the silver cord to her body.

  With a grunt of pain she woke to find herself still lying on her back with her fingers twined around the obsidian pyramid. Salamander reached over and took the crystal from her, then rose to call Calonderiel. She unfolded her hands and shook them to bring back feeling to them. She sat up just as Cal came hurrying back into the tent.

  ‘No flopping around this time,’ Calonderiel said. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am, too.’

  ‘So am I,’ Dallandra said. ‘I don’t need bruises.’ She looked Salamander’s way. ‘The spirit is free.’

  Salamander smiled, but tears were running down his face. He handed her the pyramid and tried to speak. With a shrug, he stood up, then ducked under the door flap and left the tent.

  ‘Sisi!’ Laz said. ‘Come look at this!’

  He was sitting at the table with the white pyramid in front of him. Sidro sat down opposite and leaned onto the table to stare into the crystal. Her first glance made her gasp and lean closer. Instead of the Inner Shrine, she saw the smoky image of a woman of the Ancients sitting inside a tent. Golden light fell around her. The woman, silver-eyed and silver-haired, was talking as she pointed to the pyramid. The view changed and swooped so rapidly that Sidro felt momentarily ill. When it cleared, she saw the face of Exalted Mother Grallezar, peering into the smoky view. The Ancients woman had apparently handed the crystal to the Gel da’ Thae.

  ‘Rocca must have saved the holy relics somehow.’ Sidro tore herself away from the image and looked at Laz. ‘They wouldn’t have the crystal otherwise.’

  ‘That’s true. She did one thing right in her benighted life.’

  ‘Oh, hold your tongue! Don’t mock the dead!’

  ‘Why? Do you think she’ll come back to curse me if I do?’

  ‘Naught of the sort! It’s merely an ugly stupid thing to do.’ Sidro looked away, shocked at her own feelings. For years she’d hated Rocca, her rival and tormentor, but now Rocca was dead while she still lived. ‘My sister in Alshandra,’ she whispered. ‘She really was, you know, in spite of everything, a sister. I shall miss her.’

  Laz stared, uncomprehending.

  ‘I used to envy her so much,’ Sidro continued. ‘Her faith came so easily, like a river in spate, where mine was a little trickle from a muddy spring. But now I see that she was mad, absolutely moon-struck. She’ll never have the chance to learn the truth. I don’t envy her any longer. I’m sorry she’s dead, I really am.’

  ‘I suppose I understand that.’ Laz spoke softly. ‘But I also suppose I don’t need to understand.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ She managed a smile. ‘Not in the least.’

  He smiled in return, then lowered his gaze and contemplated the white crystal again. It glowed from within, as if celebrating its twin’s release from the dark shrine.

  ‘What I do want to understand,’ Laz said, ‘is this crystal. I wonder if I can make it show me other views. I want to know how it manages to convey images from one place to the next. And here’s an answer very much worth knowing. If someone looks into its twin, can they see us?’

  Sidro reflexively laid her hand on her throat.

  ‘Not a nice thought, is it?’ Laz said. ‘Especially if that minstrel can see you. You’d best not look into it again, Sisi.’

  ‘I won’t, then. Maybe you shouldn’t either.’

  ‘I’ll certainly put it aside for now. I don’t want to cause Grallezar any more pain by forcing her to see my disgusting visage. But later, I’ll come back to it. It intrigues me.’ He picked it up in one hand and stroked it with the forefinger of the other. ‘It has other secrets to show me. I’m sure of that.’

  Sidro felt a ripple of cold run down her spine. A wizard warning, she thought, but she knew Laz too well to hope he’d stop pursuing a thing he wanted because of a mere omen.

  Salamander’s grief had finally forced him to see the obvious, that he’d been in love with Rocca. The bitterness of the realization haunted him, that he’d not seen how much he’d loved her until his treachery had killed her. He knew that he’d had no choice, that he’d had to protect his people from the Horsekin warriors no matter what the cost to himself or to her. She was an enemy, he would remind himself. She wanted the Westfolk dead. But always in his mind a traitor voice would answer, I could have changed her, I could have shown her the truth.

  That night, when sleep refused to come to him, h
e slipped out of the tent without waking Gerran and Clae, then walked for hours at the edge of the sleeping camp. Now and then he would look up at the stars, so cold and far above him, and weep for her. At last, so weary that he could barely stand, he stumbled back to his blankets and fell into welcome darkness, only to have Gerran shake him awake at dawn.

  ‘You’ve got to get up,’ Gerran said. ‘The army’s pulling back this morning.’

  Salamander mumbled a few unpleasant words under his breath and rolled out of his blankets. He pulled on his boots—he’d slept in the rest of his clothes—and staggered out of the tent to search for food. The servants had been busily packing up all the supplies, but he managed to talk one of the freed village girls into giving him some cold soda bread and half a greasy sausage, which he ate on his way to the horse herd to fetch his roan gelding.

  While the rest of the army formed up into a rough marching order, Salamander sat on horseback and looked at the ruins of what had once been Zakh Gral. A breeze lifted wisps of ash and dust and sent them drifting before they scattered and fell. Somewhere in the cinders and shattered stones lay Rocca’s ashes. The wind would scatter them, too. The rain would wash them into the river and down to the sea.

  ‘Ebañy!’ He heard Dallandra’s voice so clearly that it took him a moment to realize he was hearing it only in his mind. ‘Ebañy, get back here!’

  ‘I’m on my way!’

  Salamander turned his horse and jogged back in the direction of the army to find it already moving out. On her grey gelding, Dallandra was waiting for him. He pulled up next to her mount and turned in the saddle to face her.

  ‘You had to do what you did,’ Dallandra said. ‘If Rocca had left with the other women, she’d still be alive. She chose to die, Ebañy. You didn’t kill her.’

  ‘I forced her into a position where she had that choice to make.’

  Her silver eyes considered him in the same cool way that they would assess a man with a battle wound. ‘You did?’ she said at last. ‘Ye gods, how vain are you? The will of the princes, your people, the Deverry lords, and the Deverry high king himself, to say naught of the rakzanir who decided to build that wretched fortress in the first place—none of them had a thing to do with it, did they? It was all you?’

  Salamander had never felt so murderous in his life. Dallandra sat calmly in her saddle, though her horse tossed up its head as if it suddenly feared him.

  ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Am I right?’

  Salamander choked back a barrage of curses, then released his anger with a sigh that let him speak normally. ‘Of course you are. I wouldn’t be furious if you were wrong.’

  ‘Ah, so you can see it. Good!’

  ‘You’re becoming as cold-hearted as Nevyn was, I hope you realize.’

  ‘Maybe it’s old age.’ She smiled at him. ‘Let’s go catch up with the army. We can talk later.’

  That day the army marched back to the west-running road leading to Braemel, a position about half-way between Zakh Gral and the ford. Dallandra and Salamander left the noise and confusion behind and rode a short distance west. Beyond the forested hills they could see the dark rise of the distant mountains. Someday the People will have to go back there, Salamander thought, Horsekin or no Horsekin.

  ‘Do you feel a little better?’ Dallandra said. ‘About Rocca, I mean.’

  ‘The guilt has not yet ceased to chew upon my heart, if that’s what you mean,’ Salamander said. ‘But its teeth are shorter and duller. I still wish—’ His voice clouded, and he stopped speaking.

  ‘Grief takes its own time to heal,’ Dallandra said. ‘I’m so sorry you lost her.’

  ‘So am I. Very sorry.’

  When they’d gone about a quarter of a mile, they halted and dismounted beside a rivulet, trickling down to join the Galan Targ. They slacked their horses’ bits and let them drink while they sat among the rubble from the clear-cut forest. Dallandra set the black pyramid down between them on Salamander’s old shirt. With the spirit unbound, Salamander was expecting it to glitter in the usual way of gems, but a peculiar quality still marred its reflected light.

  ‘It’s staining the light that touches it,’ Salamander said. ‘Or withering it? No, that’s not it, either. I don’t understand.’

  ‘I don’t, either, not completely,’ Dallandra said, ‘but this pyramid isn’t physically here in the way that an ordinary piece of stone is here in this world. It’s the shadow of a thing that exists on a higher plane.’

  ‘A what? I’ve never heard of that before.’

  ‘Evandar explained it to me years and years ago. He gave Rhodry a knife that shared the same qualities. These things have their true being on another plane of existence—the lower astral in this case, I’d say—but they cast a shadow onto the physical plane. The shadow’s made of matter.’

  ‘It’s like the Wildfolk, then.’

  ‘Not precisely, no. When the Wildfolk manifest in our world, they’re no longer in their own. They’ve travelled here, you might say. But with one of these—’ Dallandra held up the obsidian pyramid, ‘—only the shadow is here. The real object’s still in its proper world.’

  ‘Yet it feels so solid.’

  ‘It is solid, even though it’s only the shadow. It can be held and used and carried around, but doing so has effects in its own world, ones we can’t be aware of.’

  ‘That must be why it could bind such a powerful spirit.’

  ‘Exactly.’ She paused, her eyes stricken. ‘Loddlaen sold it to the man who trapped the spirit.’

  ‘I see.’ Salamander tried to think of some comfort to voice but found none. ‘Who was he?’

  ‘The spirit had no way of telling me that. It did show me an image of him, a very typical Cerrmor man, I’d say. The spirit used the words “he dripped evil”.’

  ‘Dark dweomer, then—’ Salamander paused, thinking. ‘There was a Cerrmor man who’d learned the dark dweomer in Bardek. He tried to steal the Great Stone of the West—Alastyr, that was his name. Nevyn drove him into a trap, and then the scum’s own apprentice killed him. Nevyn told me that this Alastyr had some sort of link with Loddlaen.’

  ‘And a great interest in dweomer gems, it sounds like. Well, it probably was him, then.’

  Her face betrayed nothing, nor did her voice, but Salamander knew that hearing her son had trafficked with the dark dweomer must have stabbed her to the heart.

  ‘Should we go back to camp?’ he said.

  ‘Not yet.’ Dallandra turned calm eyes his way. ‘The others can tend the wounded. I want to sit where it’s quiet for a while.’

  ‘Shall I look into the stone?’

  ‘Why not? I hope it’ll finish giving you Evandar’s message. You know, there was a time when I couldn’t bear to say his name, just because I missed him so much, but now things are better, partly thanks to Cal, of course, but partly just because it’s been so long. That’s one of the gifts the People have, the time to let old loves slip away. The Deverry folk and the Gel da’ Thae aren’t so lucky.’

  ‘And that’s your message to me?’

  She merely smiled for an answer.

  Salamander picked the black pyramid up in both hands and stared into it through the clipped square of its tip, only to see what appeared to be a section of a wooden plank. When he leaned closer, the view widened just enough to for him to realize that he was seeing part of a rough-made table and the edge of a red pottery plate. Before he could tell Dallandra, the vision inside the crystal changed. With it memory came flooding back.

  He saw the island once again, remembered seeing it before, remembered, even, sitting in Nevyn’s lap and his bewilderment at the pictures that seemed to come out of nowhere. Now, as a man, he could focus his trained mind and understand what he was seeing.

  ‘There’s an island with a long wooden dock,’ he said aloud. ‘At the dock, a boat with a dragon head for a prow is bobbing at anchor. The island itself isn’t all that large, and half of it’s wooded. In the midst of the trees there’s
a tall square stone tower. I think there’s a house of some sort in front of the tower. Someone’s standing on the pier. Ye gods, it’s Evandar, all right, yellow hair and turquoise eyes and all.’

  Dallandra leaned closer. ‘Is he holding something?’ She kept her voice low. ‘Val told me that he was carrying something when you saw him.’

  ‘It’s a book, bound in white leather. On the cover’s a black figure of a dragon—it must be Arzosah! He’s opening the book now, and I can see writing in it. It’s the instructions for some sort of dweomer working. Blast and curses! The vision’s fading. I can’t read it.’ He looked up from the crystal.

  Dallandra was gazing into some far distance. ‘Haen Marn,’ she said.

  ‘Um, what?’

  ‘Not what. Where. That island and its lake are named Haen Marn. Rhodry told me about it, years and years ago. A woman he loved lived there at the beginning of the Cengarn wars. Her son, Enj, was the man who helped him find Arzosah, but when they returned to the place where the island had been, it was gone.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘Yes, disappeared, and its lake with it. It can move itself, apparently, in times of danger.’ Dallandra turned back to look at him. ‘And it certainly was in danger, with a Horsekin army heading for it. No one has the slightest idea of where it might be.’

  ‘Which means no one knows where that book is, either.’

  ‘Unfortunately, you’re right. I wonder what that working was. Something important enough for Evandar to enchant this crystal with a message.’

  ‘Why by all the hells couldn’t he just say outright what he meant? Dalla, you’ve told me many a time that he loved riddles and jests and all sorts of tangled prophecies, but by the silver shit of the Star Gods, if I may quote your esteemed beloved banadar, why couldn’t he just come straight out with his wretched predictions?’

  ‘Because he was so afraid of being wrong.’ Dallandra smiled, just faintly. ‘He couldn’t truly see the future, not whole, anyway. It took me years to understand that. He saw hints of the future—images, voices, bits of visions, nothing clear and nothing fixed. So he passed them along as riddles.’