Dragonspell: The Southern Sea. Katharine Kerr

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СКАЧАТЬ course the slaves, not the spirits. ‘It’s a horrible, primitive place, lots of small islands, all infested with disease. They say the people there are cannibals.’ He shrugged, dismissing the island group and its inhabitants both. ‘Here’s a rag. Take it and dust off the litter. The mistress is almost ready.’

      The litter itself was a beautiful thing, made of ebony like his staff, painted with floral garlands on a dark blue background. The cabinet in which the two passengers rode was fastened to the poles by cast brass fittings of monkeys, whose paws and tails joined to form the enclosing circle. Inside were more of the purple velvet cushions that the lady seemed to favour. Rhodry had just handed the rag back to Porto when Alaena appeared, dressed in a brocaded, knee-length tunic, a large number of emeralds at her throat and a scarf of green silk gauze wrapped round her head to keep the sun off her face. In the sunlight she definitely looked in her mid-thirties, but beautiful all the same. When Rhodry helped her into the litter, she gave him a little pat on the cheek. Disna followed right after, carrying a carved wooden box about two feet square but only some four inches deep. When Rhodry helped her in as if she were a fine lady, he was rewarded with a brilliant smile.

      Although Porto rattled off a long string of directions, Rhodry would have been lost if it weren’t for the litter boys, who seemed to have followed the route many a time. As he strode along, scowling at passers-by, the closest bearer called out where they were supposed to turn in a voice shaking with fear. It occurred to Rhodry that if they all got lost, the boys would be whipped, not him, thanks to the rigid hierarchy among the slaves. He decided to try to get them some extra food that evening; he could think of no other reward that would have any meaning in their desolate lives.

      Their destination was no more than a mile away, another splendid compound whose outer walls were painted with an underwater scene of fish in a coral reef. Rhodry left the litter and the litter-boys in the care of a gatekeeper, but carrying the wooden box, he accompanied the mistress and Disna up to the house. An elderly maidservant, all toothless smiles, bowed them into a house even more luxurious than Alaena’s.

      In a central chamber where the walls were painted with climbing roses, and four grey and black kittens chased each other among embroidered cushions, three women were waiting at a low table. Even though he’d never seen them before, Rhodry could tell immediately that they were a mother and two grown daughters; they shared the same beautifully shaped brown eyes and full mouths, as well as a certain way of tilting their heads and smiling. They got up to greet Alaena with a flood of chatter that was hard for Rhodry to follow, since most of it seemed to concern neighbours and friends of which he knew nothing. Then one of the daughters noticed Rhodry and gave a small, ladylike squeal.

      ‘A barbarian, ’Laen! Where did you get him?’

      ‘From the tedious Pommaeo, actually. He may talk about himself all the time, but he certainly does know how to buy gifts.’ She motioned Rhodry closer. ‘Look at his eyes. They’re blue.’

      The daughters gawked and giggled while the mother merely smiled in a fond sort of way and Rhodry blushed, a response that only made them giggle the more. At last they’d satisfied their curiosity and all knelt on cushions round the table. Alaena took the wooden box from Rhodry and emptied out a set of little ivory tiles, painted with flowers and birds among other designs. With a rumbling sound of thunder the women began flipping them face down and mixing them up. As if at a prearranged signal, two servants appeared with brass trays piled up with sweetmeats and set them down at the corners of the table. When they started to leave, Alaena signalled to Disna to follow them, but an imperious wave of her hand kept Rhodry on the dais.

      ‘You may sit behind me.’

      ‘Thank you, mistress.’ Rhodry had the distinct feeling that she hadn’t seen quite enough of her present, like a little girl who won’t put a new doll down for a moment.

      By then the tiles were apparently properly mixed, because the other three women had stopped scouring the table with them and were looking at Alaena expectantly. A few at a time, a small crowd of Wildfolk materialized to stare at the table as well, but as far as he could tell, anyway, Rhodry was the only one who saw them, even when a bold blue gnome laid a skinny finger on one of the tiles.

      ‘Do you want to be first, Malina?’

      ‘Age before beauty?’ the mother said comfortably. ‘Mine always is the dullest one, so we may as well get it out of the way.’

      When the others laughed, Malina began picking out tiles, one at a time, and placing them, still face down, in a star-shaped pattern. Rhodry realized that what he’d been thinking a game was actually some sort of fortune-telling device. He felt a certain mild contempt, a condescension really, that these silly women would believe in this nonsense when there was real dweomer all around them. Suddenly he felt cold. What did he mean, real dweomer? How did he know that such a thing existed, how could he be more certain of it than he was of his own name? He felt like a man who, talking over his shoulder to some companion, walks himself smack into a wall – both confused and foolish. The only evidence for his certainty was the Wildfolk, settling down on the floor and unoccupied cushions to watch as Alaena leaned forward and turned the first three tiles face up to reveal a sword between two flowers.

      ‘A lover? Well, well, well – what do you mean, yours is always dull?’

      At that all four of them laughed with sharp little cries like birds in an aviary, and the Wildfolk clapped soundless hands and grinned. Alaena helped herself to a sweetmeat, a gelatinous oblong covered in a dead-white powder. She took a thoughtful bite while she studied the tiles, then turned, motioned to Rhodry, and held the sweetmeat out to him like a treat for a dog. When he opened his mouth to make a polite refusal, she popped it in and patted his cheek. Rhodry had no choice but to eat it, but it was so sweet that he nearly gagged. Fortunately Alaena had returned to her tiles and never noticed. By all the ice in all the hells, he thought, the sooner I escape and start hunting Baruma down the better! I’d rather die than be a lapdog, even for a pretty wench like this. Then he set himself to the difficult task of staying awake as the long drowsy morning dragged on.

      When they left Myleton, Jill and Salamander had opted for the direct if difficult route straight south from the city, and for over a week now they’d been winding their way through the hill country. Since the travelling was slow and tedious, and the imaging exercises kept her mind off Rhodry, Jill poured herself into the work and made such rapid progress that Salamander admitted he was impressed. Before they’d left Myleton, they had indeed found a picture scroll for her lessons. About a foot high and five long, it unrolled right to left, all backwards to Salamander’s way of thinking. Since she’d never read a Deverry book or scroll, to Jill the direction seemed as good as any other. She rather liked the paintings themselves, three scenes from the history of Myleton, showing the first colonists founding the new city, a famous tidal wave of some hundred years later, and finally, the election of an archon known as Manataro the Good. Each picture was crammed with small details, all cleverly arranged so that it seemed she was looking into a box, not down onto a flat surface.

      Yet, after days of staring at the historically renowned tidal wave and working on seeing it as if it were real in her mind, she was heartily sick of the scroll and the practice both. The banishing ritual she found more tolerable, even though Salamander drilled her mercilessly, because she could see its direct benefit, the control of the floods of imagery that threatened to overwhelm her whenever she was angry. First she would place those images in her mind as if they were practice lessons, then banish them with the sign of the flaming pentagram. At times she still failed, and the fires of rage would seem to burn around her unchecked, but every time she succeeded she felt her skill growing, and over the days the out-of-control images came less and less often.

      On the afternoon that they reached the centre of the island, everything seemed to go wrong with her workings. First, she stumbled over the words of the ritual, drawing СКАЧАТЬ