The Spirit Stone. Katharine Kerr
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these images drifted one that Nevyn hadn’t expected to see: Lord Gerraent of the Falcon clan. The set of his broad shoulders, his easy warrior’s stance, the falcon-image embroidered on his shirt – the image was true in every detail, so much like Gerraent that Nevyn felt his old hatred for the man well up. He had been tangled with this soul’s wyrd for three hundred years, yet he would have assumed that any image seen here would have come from a much later incarnation, Owaen for instance, the captain of Prince Maryn’s personal guard. Another surprise: rather than dissolving into the general drift, this image lingered, pacing back and forth over a red glow like a carpet of fire. Finally Nevyn realized the truth, that he was seeing no mere memory-ghost, but the actual Gerraent, or rather, his soul reborn in a new body.
Nevyn dropped down through the blue light and hovered a few inches above the ground. This close he could see that the red glow emanated from a lawn, enclosed in the dead black of a stone wall. Off to one side a cluster of pulsing orange resolved itself into rose bushes, swelling with the astral tides of spring. Nevyn could see Gerraent – or whatever he was called in this life – in the midst of his aura, a typical young warrior, his sword at his side even in the midst of the king’s gardens, blond, tall, heavily muscled and every bit as arrogant as always. His aura was shot through with blind rage, a blood-coloured crackle of raw energy that Nevyn found sickening.
Nevyn’s sudden disgust seemed to touch Gerraent’s mind. He stopped his pacing and whirled around, his hand on his sword-hilt as he peered through the night. In puzzlement his aura shrank, then swirled around him. Nevyn marked him well so that he could recognize him again, then let his body of light drift upward. He was high above the ground when he saw another gold aura entering the garden, this one glowing softly around a female body. When Gerraent hurried forward to greet her, Nevyn lingered just long enough to confirm that she was no one bound to him by wyrd, then glided away.
Not far from the garden stood the heart of the king’s dun, four towers joined to a central fifth like the petals on a wild rose. In the bottom floor of the tallest tower, open windows glowed with torch light. Nevyn swung himself through one of them and found himself inside the great hall. The last time he’d seen this room it had been filled with shabby furniture, its walls hung with faded, torn tapestries, its huge hearths filthy with ash and refuse. Now the walls had been plastered and decorated with bright banners, one for each of the great clans, hanging between each pair of windows. The tables and chairs at the honour hearth shone with polish, and light winked on silver goblets. Over on the servants’ and riders’ side of the hall, the furniture was stained and old, but serviceable. Neatly braided rushes covered the entire huge floor.
Nevyn took himself over to the honour hearth, where noble lords sat drinking and a bard sang, his voice sounding oddly hollow and distorted to Nevyn’s etheric ears. Although no one sat at the king’s table, that is, the one closest to the fire, Nevyn saw a page leaving the hall with a flagon of mead on a silver tray. He followed the lad up the spiralling stone staircase, then along a familiar corridor to the king’s apartments.
Fine Bardek carpets covered the floor; elaborately carved furniture sat upon them. On a long, narrow table, candles flamed in banked silver candelabra, but they sent out as much etheric force as light, making it hard for Nevyn to see in the chamber. Looming out of the golden mist, a man with dark hair but green eyes stood by the empty hearth. His linen shirt, stiff with embroidery, displayed the red wyvern of the royal clan, and he wore brigga in the red, white, and gold royal plaid of Dun Deverry. The page set the flagon down on a little table, then bowed and walked backwards to the door. With one last bow he let himself out.
Nevyn remained, floating near the candles, and considered Casyl the Second, King of all Deverry and Eldidd. Casyl poured himself mead into a golden goblet, then sat down in a cushioned chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him. Finding the king alone was such a rare bit of luck that Nevyn decided to take it as a good omen. He moved closer still to the candles and began gathering both their etheric effluent and their smoke, winding it round his hands with a motion like that of a woman turning loose yarn into a proper skein. Although he couldn’t speak from the etheric, he could send thoughts to the king’s mind that to him would seem to be speech.
‘My liege,’ Nevyn thought to him. ‘A faithful servant stands ready to aid you.’
Casyl leapt to his feet so fast that he nearly spilled his mead. He set the goblet down on the tablet and began looking around him. With a wrench of will, Nevyn tossed his skein of smoke and effluent around the head of his body of light. Casyl yelped and stepped back. At that Nevyn knew he’d been successful – a ghost-like shape had come through to visible appearance.
‘Sometimes great gifts come from no one at all,’ Nevyn went on. ‘Remember this jest well in days to come.’
Casyl’s aura shrank so tight against him that it was barely more than a skin of light hanging around his body.
‘Your most honoured grandsire knew who no one was,’ Nevyn said. ‘The blood royal has its friends.’
With that Nevyn broke the vision. He allowed the candle smoke to disperse, scattered the effluent, and let his body of light drift towards the open window. The working had tired him badly. Casyl never moved, merely stared open-mouthed at the spot where Nevyn’s image had appeared.
Time to get back, Nevyn thought, and with that thought he felt something nearly as tangible as a pair of hands tugging at the silver cord. In a dizzying swirl of motion he swept back to Olnadd’s house, where his physical body lay, calling him back with a force his exhaustion couldn’t resist.
Yet, tired though he was, Nevyn lay awake for a while that night, thinking about Gerraent. If his old enemy were here, perhaps he would also find the woman who had shared their original tragedy, Brangwen of the Falcon, Gerraent’s sister and Nevyn’s betrothed, back in that far-distant time when he’d been a prince of the blood royal himself. He hoped and prayed to the Lords of Light that he would find her. If only he could make restitution to her for his fault, he would at last be allowed to die. If it’s meant to be, he told himself, I’ll see Gerraent again, and no doubt he’ll lead me to Brangwen – if she’s here.
Whether by chance or wyrd, Nevyn saw the reborn Gerraent early the next morning, when Nevyn and Olnadd went together to the dealer in books to buy Petyc’s bribe. As they were walking back to the priest’s house, they heard the clatter of hooves and the chime of silver bridle rings. Horsemen were trotting straight for them. All the nearby townsfolk ran for safety, darting into doorways or down alleys, plastering themselves against the walls of the houses. Silver horns blew; men shouted, ‘Make way in the king’s name! Make way!’ Nevyn and Olnadd found a safe spot in the mouth of an alley just as twenty-five riders on matched grey horses trotted past. At their head, unmistakably arrogant, rode Gerraent, his blond head tossed back, his blue eyes narrow and cold. Nevyn pointed him out to Olnadd.
‘Do you know who that captain is, by any chance?’
‘Only by name,’ Olnadd said. ‘He’s something of a hero, you see, but I truly don’t remember his tale. His name’s Lord Gwairyc, and he did somewhat or other in the war a few years ago that won him King Casyl’s favour. You’ll have to ask Petyc about it. I don’t keep up on the court gossip. I’ll send him a note asking him to join us tonight.’
Directly that evening, after dinner, Petyc arrived at Olnadd’s house. He may have been the head of the royal scriptorium, but his god held higher rank than his king, and as he remarked to Olnadd, he couldn’t refuse the summons.
‘Not that I mind answering it,’ Petyc said with a smile.
The scribe was a lean man, hollow-cheeked and balding, with deep-sunken dark eyes that flicked this way and that around the room, as if he were looking for hidden enemies. After they seated themselves at Olnadd’s table, the priest introduced Nevyn simply as a friend and scholar of strange lore. Petyc looked him over with a half-smile.
‘Nevyn?’ Petyc said. ‘It’s an odd name, Nevyn. You seem too corporeal to be no one at all, though that’s what the name might mean.’
‘It does mean no one, and it was a nasty jest