Part 19 (1/2)
”I was able to take control of my dreams,” said Aralorn. ”And Kisrah loved Geoffrey and welcomed him. I don't think Gerem has any defenses against magical attacks.” Someone-Nevyn-should have seen to it that Gerem had started training a long time ago.
She looked away from the hawk as she worked out some things she'd never put together before. ”The dreams I was given were true dreams, Uncle. At first, whoever sent them to me had tried to alter them, but I was able to see through to the true memories. The dreams concerned things that only the ae'Magi and Wolf knew about.”
”How do you know Wolf didn't send the dreams?”
”It was not not Wolf,” she said. Wolf,” she said.
”Where was he when your father was enspelled?” Her uncle's voice was somber. ”If his father was a dreamwalker, can you say for certain he is not? He wouldn't necessarily even know he was doing it. You've seen how his magic escapes him.”
Aralorn snorted. ”If you knew Wolf, you would understand just how stupid it is to accuse him.”
She tried to think how to put into words something that was so clear to her that it was almost instinctive. ”First, he would never involve other wizards in his spellcasting. He doesn't trust anyone except maybe me that much. He would never-not ever-voluntarily share as much of his past as I saw in that dream. I knew him for years before he would admit to being anything but a wolf.”
”I think that it is a better possibility than a dead wizard,” said Halven. ”Humans just don't interact with the natural world well enough to do anything after they are dead.”
Aralorn digested that comment for a minute. ”You mean shapes.h.i.+fters do?”
The hawk gave its version of a laugh. ”Not to worry. Most people who die don't linger to torment the living.”
”The only other explanation that we've come up with is that the Dreamer has awakened,” she told him.
Halven made a derisive sound.
”Do you have another explanation?” she asked.
”What about another dreamwalking wizard? A living dreamwalker might be able to do what you have described,” he said.
”I'm told it's a rare talent,” said Aralorn.
”Not rarer than a dead human mage who is making everyone tap to his tune,” said Halven. ”Have you figured out why someone decided to attack the Lyon?”
She shrugged. ”As we discussed earlier, it is probably to get me here. There are any number of people after Wolf, and some of them know that where I go, Wolf is not far behind.”
”To get Wolf here and do what?” asked Halven. ”What do they want?”
She frowned at him. ”To kill him.”
”You don't know that,” Halven said. ”Maybe they only need you.”
She laughed ruefully. ”I don't die easily. And other than as bait for Wolf, I can't think of a reason any wizard would want me.”
”If they kill you, they kill him,” he reminded her.
”Only since day before yesterday,” she said. ”And how did you know about that?”
”After I objected to finding my niece in a man's bed, Wolf told me Ridane's priestess married you.”
”You couldn't care less if I was sleeping with the sheep,” she said tartly.
”He didn't know that. You didn't invite me to the wedding.”
”I didn't know for certain that I was going to go through with it until we were there. I had to do something,” she told him, trying to stem the defensive tone that wanted to ease into her words. She'd known that she was making him more vulnerable-she was certainly more easily killed than he. But her reasoning still stood. ”You said he had a death wish, and I believe you.”
”So you tricked him into the death G.o.ddess's binding?” asked her uncle. There was, she thought, a certain admiration in his tone. ”That's the reason for your sudden marriage. He'll take more care of himself now.”
”Uhm,” she said. ”I haven't told him about the side effect of being married by Ridane.”
”He doesn't know?”
”He wasn't raised next to Ridane's temple,” she answered. ”She's not wors.h.i.+pped many places anymore. The G.o.ds have been quiet for a long time.”
Two beady eyes stared at her unblinkingly. ”What good is marrying him going to do if he doesn't know that his death will kill you also? You've undercut the very reason for the marriage.”
She started to defend herself, but a slow smile caught her unexpectedly. ”Not really.”
The marriage itself, she thought, had accomplished what she had sought to enforce with the bond the priestess had set between them. From the awed tone in Wolf's voice when she'd asked him if he'd marry her to last night when, after they'd retired to this room, he'd brought his pain to her and allowed her to help him forget. She was still a little stiff from the methods they'd employed.
Her uncle waited for a moment, and when she didn't continue, he said, ”Just make sure you don't die before you tell him.”
She grinned. ”I'll try to keep that from happening.” She threw back the bedcovers, restless with prebattle nerves. She knew how to deal with those. ”Rather than wait around for Wolf, I'm going to visit Falhart and persuade him to fight with me. You're welcome to come if you'd like.”
She found Falhart, finally, in the accounting room, slaving over the books. As she walked into the little room, she heard him swear, and he began to scratch out what he'd written.
”Why don't you find someone who likes those things?” asked Aralorn with a certain amount of fellow feeling. Give her a scroll of stories or a five-volume history, and she'd devour them, but account books were a whole different kettle of fish. Somewhere in the volumes stacked neatly against the walls was a large number of accounting sheets in her own poorly scribed hand.
Falhart looked up and sc.r.a.ped the hair from his eyes. ”No one, but no one, likes to keep the accounts. Father, Correy, and I switch off, and this is my month.” He eyed the hawk on her shoulder, nodded at it, then focused on the pair of staves she carried in one hand.
She grinned. ”Want to play, big brother? Bet you a copper I can take you two times out of three.”
”Make it a silver, and I'll do it,” he said, pus.h.i.+ng back his chair. ”But I get to use my staff.”
She shook her head at him. ”Your staff is fine, but someone has given you an inflated idea of what they pay us mercenaries, Hart. I'll go three coppers and not a bit more.”
”Three coppers isn't enough to make it worth my time,” he said.
”I guess you'll just have to stay here and do the books then,” replied Aralorn with a commiserating pat on his arm. ”Come on, Halven, let's see who else we can find.”
”All right, all right, three coppers it is,” grumbled Falhart, then he brightened. ”Maybe I can find someone else to lay a bet with.”
Aralorn examined his bearlike form and shook her head as she started for the training grounds. ”And who are you going to find who will bet on a woman against a brute like you?”
”You did,” he pointed out.
”Yes, but I've fought you before.”
They faced off in the old practice ground. It was cold, and the sand was packed hard, though the snow had been swept away. Once they started fighting, the cold wouldn't matter. Aralorn wielded one of her staves while Falhart held a quarterstaff half again as large and twice as thick as hers. Halven had opted for a better perch on the corner of the stable roof.
”You're sure you don't want to use a quarterstaff as well?” Falhart asked, watching her warily.
”Only a brute like you gains an advantage wielding a tree,” she replied. ”It's all right, though; you'll need all the advantages you can find, big brother.”