Dragonspell: The Southern Sea. Katharine Kerr

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ debts, but I have my doubts. It doesn’t matter a pig’s fart, mind, just so long as you watch your courtesies from now on.’

      ‘And do I have any choice about that?’

      ‘None, of course. Now listen, you’re about to go to a fine household that makes those barbarian duns of yours look like pig-sties. You’ll have strict duties, and there’ll be other slaves to make sure you perform them in the correct manner. If I hear of you giving the lady Alaena the least jot of trouble, I’ll flog you myself. Do you understand me?’

      ‘I do, master.’

      Although Rhodry bobbed his head respectfully, he was considering ways to strangle Pommaeo and leave his body beside the road. The mincing piss-proud excuse for a real man! he thought to himself. Hunting rich widows! Let’s hope the poor old woman has the wit to see him for the snake he is!

      ‘Do you know what the whole secret of the dweomer is?’ Salamander said abruptly. ‘Making pictures in your mind. Just that and little else – making the right sort of pictures and saying the right words to go with them. How does that strike you?’

      Startled, Jill looked up from her breakfast.

      ‘Are you sure you’re not having a jest on me?’

      ‘I’m not, though I know it must sound like one. There’s this book we all study – eventually you’ve got to learn to read, my little turtledove – which is known as The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid, though I’ve been told that it’s actually a lot of short bits and aphorisms jotted down by various dweomer-masters over the years. Be that as it may, there’s one particular piece that springs to my mind at the moment. “You could go to the marketplace and, like a gerthddyn, preach aloud the secret of all dweomer without one soul being a wit’s worth wiser.” Do you know why? Because it’s so simple everyone would sneer. Or to be precise: simple to describe; cursed hard to do.’

      ‘I’ll admit to fighting the urge to sneer if all you’re talking about is a lot of pictures.’

      ‘Aha, I know a challenge when I hear one. Very well.’ He held up his elaborately jewelled table dagger. ‘Look at this for a moment. Then shut your eyes. Try to see the dagger as clearly as you could with your eyes open – a memory picture, like.’

      Although Jill stared at the dagger for a long moment, she did so blankly, as if she could soak it up the way a bit of rag soaks up spilled ale. As soon as she shut her eyes, its image was gone, and no amount of struggling with her memory would bring a clear picture back. With an oath, she looked again, and this time she actively tried to memorize the details, but she could only retain the vaguest general impression, more of a dagger-like shape than a dagger.

      ‘Harder than it sounds?’ Salamander was grinning at her frustration.

      ‘It is.’

      ‘By the time you’re done with your prentice-work, you’ll be able to walk into a chamber you’ve never seen before, stay but a few minutes, yet be able to call up a picture of that chamber so clearly that you’d swear you were standing inside it. You’ll curse the work before you’re done, too, because learning how to manipulate images is the most boring thing in the world. Think of it as a test, my minuscule finch. The bard tales talk about suffering mysterious ordeals both harsh and lurid to gain the dweomer, but are you willing to be bored sick with it? That’s the true test of every apprentice.’

      ‘When my father was teaching me how to use a sword, he drilled me until I wanted to weep. Have you ever lunged at a bale of hay over and over in the hot sun? Some days I’d do it a hundred times, while he stood there and criticized the way I was standing or holding my wrist or suchlike.’

      ‘Gods, I doubt if you’ll find me as harsh a master as Cullyn of Cerrmor must have been. Now, let’s see. It’s easier to start with a picture than it is with a solid thing, somehow. We can search the marketplace for a painted scroll.’

      ‘Oh come now, you don’t expect to find some rare dweomer book right out in the Myleton market, do you?’

      ‘Of course not, but we don’t want one. What we need is the sort of thing a merchant’s wife would have in her reception chamber to amuse a guest, a little scroll with four or five coloured drawings on it, maybe pictures of famous temples, maybe sea-coast views – that sort of mundane thing. Trained slaves copy them out by the hundreds, so we should be able to find one with little trouble. You need a complicated thing to keep your mind alive while you do the wretched exercises.’

      ‘Whatever you say. What comes after learning to hold pictures in your mind?’

      ‘Oh, extensions of the basic work. You start by maybe changing some details of the picture you’re seeing mentally – adding clouds in the sky, say, or putting in a tree. Then, let’s see … uh well … eventually you have to pretend you’re in the picture yourself and looking around at all its various parts … I know we did that …’ His voice trailed away.

      ‘You don’t really remember it all, do you?’

      ‘You may berate me for a wretched and most frivolous elf, if you wish, because, alas, alack, well-a-day, and so on and so forth, you speak the truth. I do remember the beginning banishing ritual, though, and that’s truly important for someone in your state of mind.’

      ‘Well and good then. What is it?’

      ‘There’s no time to go into it right now. If we’re going to buy horses, we have to get to the market before it closes for the mid-day heat, so let’s wait till we’re out on the road. But don’t let me forget to show it to you.’

      It occurred to Jill that as harsh ordeals went, learning dweomer from Salamander was going to have its moments.

      Before they went to the market, Salamander did his usual morning’s scrying. His face all narrow-eyed concentration, the gerthddyn bent over the glowing embers in the charcoal brazier and watched as strange images moved among them. All at once he smiled and began to speak in a whisper.

      ‘Finally! He’s riding up to a city, my turtledove, so we can – now wait, what’s this? Hell-ice and foul humours! Rhodry’s been sold again! Curse it all! I can see him riding behind some new master.’ He paused for a long moment. ‘Ah finally! They’re going into the city gates. I can see the crest, oh joy, oh rapture, the glorious city crest! Daradion down on the south coast … Oh ye gods! Curse them, curse me, a pox and the vapours upon us all! They’re going down to the harbour! Oh dear, dearest gods, not on to a ship!’ He made a gargling noise deep in his throat, then watched in silence for a long while. ‘May the Lord of Hell’s balls atrophy and fall off! This wretched fool is dickering with a ship owner for some kind of passage!’ With a toss of his head he looked up, sweeping away the vision. ‘At least I got a chance to read the ship’s name. It’s the Grey Kestrel, so we can ask the harbour master where it was going.’

      ‘When we get there. Ye gods, how far away is this place?’

      ‘Well over a fortnight’s ride, alas. We have the lovely choice of travelling straight and slowly through the mountains, or round-about but at a more rapid pace along the coast. I can’t scry while they’re crossing the sea because of the …’

      ‘The blasted elemental what’s it … veils of astral force.’

      ‘Where did you learn that?’

      ‘You told me yourself, lackwit.’

СКАЧАТЬ