'In Aberwyn, where I was born, they say that seven skips like that means a good omen.'

'Do they now? Let us hope they be right.'

For a few moments they stood together looking across to the far sh.o.r.e. In the hot sun the forest exhaled a fine blue mist, beyond the power, apparently, of the endless wind to blow away.

'Well now,' Angmar said abruptly. 'I do think my daughter may know when her brother will come back to Haen Marn.'

'I didn't know you had a daughter.'

Angmar glanced up at the stone tower.

'I do, though a pitiful creature she be, a mooncalf, truly.'

'That aches my heart to hear.'

'Tell me, would you let her look upon you? I do have a reason for the asking.'

'Well, then, of course.'

'My thanks. Come with me.'

Angmar strode off, heading away from the lake toward the tower. Rhodry followed as she pushed open a heavy oak door in its base and led him inside to a tiny room smelling of damp and stone. An iron staircase spiralled up past landings and into shadow.

'You wear some talisman of hiding power, don't you?' Angmar said.

'I do.' Automatically he laid his hand on his shirt over the lapis lazuli. 'Why do you ask?'

'Curiosity and naught more. I did think so, when she lost the sight of you. Come up.'

They climbed up to the first landing, all piled up with full sacks and shabby chests, a broken chair, a heap of firewood. Inside the tower the wind moaned and hummed. Angmar pitched her voice louder to carry over it.

'I would not wish you to think she be prisoned here. She herself does cling to the heights and refuse the ground.'

As they were climbing to the next landing, Angmar suddenly paused and called out.

'Avain, Avain!'

Although no one answered they resumed their climb, coming out on the next landing into a proper room (though the stairs continued through it) sunny and bright from big windows, even though the walls were of dark and undressed stone. To one side stood a table and a half-round chair. Sitting next to the chair on the floor among clean straw was a la.s.s, no more than fifteen summers, Rhodry supposed, as yellow-haired as her mother, but plump in a soft and puffy way, with a big round face nodding over a round body. In her lap she held a broad but shallow silver basin, filled with water, and she was staring into it and singing to herself, a high tuneless song without words.

'Avain?' Angmar whispered. 'We do have a guest, my sweet.'

She looked up at Rhodry with the dragon eyes of his dreams. They were round, nearly lidless, and green, slit vertically like a cat's or elven eyes, with the yellow iris showing. When she smiled, he was expecting fangs, hut all else about her was human enough. She spoke a few words in Dwarvish.

'She says that she did sec you in the town where men live.' Angmar said. 'Do be forgiving of her. It were a struggle to teach her what little of her own tongue she knows, and any else were beyond her.'

'Of course, my lady. Tell her that when I slept, I saw her watching me.'

'Did you now?'

When Angmar spoke to the la.s.s, she laughed and clapped her hands, joggling the basin. Sunlight flashed on moving water, and the glints speared her attention. With a little contented sigh, she nestled into her straw and stared at the moving patterns. Every now and then she dipped a finger in the basin and touched a drop to her forehead, just above the bridge of her nose.

'I'll ask her about Enj.'

Angmar knelt beside her in the straw and spoke a few words. For a long moment the la.s.s frowned into her basin, then replied in a sing-song of Dwarvish.

'She docs see him far away, though he be a-heading in a homewards direction.' Angmar translated. 'He does love to wander, our Enj, and all his father's people do think him dafter than his sister for it, his walking here and there in the light of the sun, just for the seeing of what may lie upon the ground. But what she sees she sees in this water, and if ever the basin spill, then she do weep and carry on until someone brings the filling of it again.'

'Why did you watch me, Avain?'

Angmar laughed and didn't repeat the question.

'A word such as "why" will have no meaning for the likes of her, Rori. She sees all that does concern Haen Marn, and so your approaching did appear to her, just as the approaching of a storm or some doings of the beasts in the lake would appear.'

'Oh. Well and good, then.'

So this was why he'd been expected. He could remember how neutral the dragon eyes had felt in his dreams, a simple noting of his presence and naught else, unlike the malice of the other pair. She must have been telling her mother of his progress all along their way, until of course Othara had given him the talisman.

'But the boatmen knew I was hunting a dragon.'

'Avain did say this thing, many times over. I did wonder how she knew, but the poor child could not tell me, though I did ask the question in as many simple ways as I could invent. It distressed her so that I did stop, for she would weep at the mention of you after that.'

'Then my apologies. Here, tell her that I mean this dragon no harm, that I only wish its aid in a grave matter.'

'Be that true? She will know the truth of it, you see.'

'I swear it on my silver dagger.'

When Angmar pa.s.sed the information on, Avain looked up with the most beautiful smile that Rhodry had ever seen on a child's face, joyful, relieved and loving all at once, though her dragon's eyes never blinked the whole long while she looked at him. Angmar ran her hand through her daughter's hair, smiling herself while she straightened out the tangles. Avain leaned into the touch of her hand like a dog. When Angmar spoke to her briefly, the la.s.s nodded and returned to her basin of water, perfectly happy, apparently, even when her mother rose to go.

'Again we will ask her for some news of Enj.' Angmar said. 'Let us be going down now.'

Angmar escorted him to the manse by a path that stayed put and ordinary, but she stopped outside the door.

'I won't come in,' she said. 'I'll be seeing about my daughter's food, and I'll go up and help her with the eating of it. Cutting meat she cannot do. But one last thing. Before I did find you upon the lake sh.o.r.e, I met Envoy Garin, and he did complain to me about the chamber in which you sleep.'

'Oh here, no need to worry about that! It's perfectly fine for a man like me.'

'Some of my servants care not for those with elven blood. I'll have it tended to and a better chamber given.'

Without another word she walked off, heading for one of the side buildings. Rhodry went inside the manse and found Garin, Mic and Otho sitting in the great hall at a table by the main door to catch the air and sunlight. When he joined them, the elderly servant brought him a tankard of ale, then glided away again. All the other tables in the vast room stayed empty.

'The silence here is beginning to gripe my soul,' Rhodry said. 'I'm used to a bit of life in a hall, I am.'

'Me, too.' Garin said. 'It was different, last time I was here. The boatmen ate with us, and there were always people coming and going. I seem to remember a bard, too, or at least a singer with a harp, if he wasn't a proper bard.'

'Was Angmar lady here then?'

'She was, but her husband was still alive, of course. Hum.' Garin considered for a moment. 'Most likely being a widow has broken the poor woman's little heart. A sad thing it was. He was drowned in a storm, and here her daughter was just born by a fortnight.'

'Living in this cursed wind would drive me daft,' Otho said. 'Worse for a woman, I should think, all this whining and wailing air.'

'Er, about her husband?' Mic put in. 'You say he was drowned? Did they recover his body?'

'They did, and he's buried over in the hills with his ancestors,' Garin answered. 'Why?'

'I was just thinking about that beast we saw.'

'Ych!' Otho snapped. 'Don't be disgusting!'

'For a change, your uncle and I agree about somewhat,' Rhodry said, softening the remark with a grin.

'Her husband was one of the Mountain People, then?'

'Well, he looked like one of us. A tall man, for us, but not unduly so.' Garin pavised, stroking his beard.

'He said he was of dwarven blood, and truly, I never saw a thing to counter him.'

'You sound doubtful anyway.'

'True, true.' Garin glanced round. 'This isn't the place to be discussing it, though '

'Of course. My apologies.'

All that day, and on into the evening, Rhodry stayed on guard, watching and listening for the woman in white, but he never saw her. At the evening meal Angmar ate as silently and as sparingly as before, then left before the men were done - to tend her daughter, Rhodry supposed. After the meal was cleared away, Garin brought out dice, and the three dwarves settled in to one of their tournaments. Wondering whether the prize would go for squabbling or dicing, Rhodry watched for a while, then made his goodnights, took a candle end, and went upstairs.

He found his old chamber empty, remembered that Angmar had promised him a better one, and stood in the corridor, wondering whom to ask where his gear and bedroll might be. Drawn, perhaps, by the candlelight, an elderly dwarven woman, her grey hair tied back in a thong, came shuffling along, carrying a punched tin candle lantern that threw dots and slashes of light over the deep carved walls.

'Follow me,' was all she said.

Rhodry did so, down the long corridor, round a comer, up a narrow flight of stairs and out onto a landing. Opposite them stood an oak door, bound in iron and carved with birds and twining bands of interlace in a loose and wandering style that Rhodry had never seen before.

'In there,' the woman said.

She turned and shuffled off down the stairs, leaving him alone with his guttering candle end for light.

Hospitable lot, Rhodry thought to himself. He pushed the door open and found himself in a chamber some twenty feet on a side, with its own hearth at one end and a big window, overlooking the lake, on the other. He set the candle holder down on a little table and looked round - luxury indeed, a bed with embroidered hangings, big carved chests, a round table with two cushioned chairs. His pack and bedroll lay by the hearth. All at once he realized that he wasn't alone. Angmar was sitting in the window scat, so quietly that he'd never noticed her at first.

'This chamber,' she said. 'Does it suit you better?'

'It's yours, isn't it?'

'It is.'

'Then it suits me better than any chamber I've seen in years and years.'

She smiled but sat unmovmg, watching him as he crossed the room and sat beside her. When he glanced out, he could see far across the lake to the hills, black against a starry sky.

'I'll have to leave here as soon as ever I can,' Rhodry said. 'Whether I want to go or no.'

'I do know that.'

'Well and good, then.'

When he put his arms round her, she turned toward him and reached up, kissing him open-mouthed before he could kiss her. With one hand he untied the thong, and her hair spilled round her shoulders and over his fingers, soft as silk thread.

PART FIVE.

Career

An evil figure to the extreme, unless it fall into the House of Salt. Under that crystal presidency it does bode most well for the burying of treasures gained by some unseemly means and the concealing of secrets best left hidden from the light of day.

The Omenbook of Gwarn, Loremaster

One of the seven worst setbacks in war, Meer would later call it: a surprise attack. When the siege hegan, it came faster than Jill had ever imagined On a sunny morning she'd just returned from flying and settled into her tower room when she saw a messenger come riding in the gates. Hurriedly she dressed and rushed down to the great hall, coming in to find the gwerbret conferring at the table of honour with all of his servitors, who cl.u.s.tered grim-faced over a letter spread out on the table. Next to the chamberlain the scribe hovered, looking pale, as if he'd just read some hateful thing - which in fact he had. Lord Tren had replied at last, a message that came perilously close to demanding rather than asking that Cadmar turn his dead brother's holdings over to him.

'I shall ride to Cengarn soon but on my own terms.' Jill read out the ending. 'Let us hope this matter has a quick settlement.'

'No courtesies, no t.i.tle, naught,' the equerry sputtered. 'The gall of the man!'

'Worse than gall,' the chamberlain said. 'I think me that this sounds dangerous.'

'I agree,' Jill said. 'Your Grace, do you think that the time's come for alerting the countryside and your lords and suchlike?'

'I do indeed.' He turned to the equerry. 'My lord, see to it.' And to the chamberlain, 'How well provisioned is the dun?'

'It could be better, Your Grace. The harvest's still coming in,'

'But here, Your Grace,' the equerry broke in. 'Even with his brother's men joined to his own, Lord Tren could never siege Cengarn.'

'I'm well mindful of that, my lord. But what if he joined up with these other enemies of ours? Some new thing's made him arrogant, hasn't it?'

The equerry swore under his breath in agreement. All at once Jill saw what she should have seen weeks ago, or so she remonstrated with herself, a thing that seemed blindingly obvious now that, at last, she had seen it.

'I've been a dolt and a lackwit,' she said, surprised at how quiet her voice sounded. 'Your Grace, how long ago was this letter written? How far away is Tren's dun?'

'Close to two days' ride, straight north.' The gwerbret had swivelled round to stare at her in something like fear, 'fill, what -'

'The situation's grave, Your Grace. Our enemies could be upon us at any moment. They could fall upon us like dweomer, because dweomcr is exactly what they've been using.'