The Silver Mage. Katharine Kerr
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something for a moment, then shrugged the problem away. ‘Ah well, the dragons are sleeping the morning away in the sun, but when they wake, I’ll introduce you. In the meantime, Wynni, come with me, and let’s meet some of the ordinary folk.’
‘Ordinary’ was not a word that Berwynna would have applied to the Westfolk. With their cat-slit eyes and long, furled ears, they fitted Father Colm’s descriptions of devils, yet she saw them doing the same daily things that the people of her old world did: cooking food, mending clothes, tending their children. They greeted her pleasantly, and some even spoke the language she now knew as Deverrian. Several woman told her how sorry they were that she’d lost her betrothed. Not devils at all, she thought. Most likely Father Colm never actually knew any of them.
One odd thing, though, did give her pause. Now and then she saw a person talking to what appeared to be empty air. Once a woman carrying a jug of water tripped, spilling the lot. After she picked herself up, she set her hands on her hips and swore at nothing, or at least, at a spot on the ground that seemed to contain nothing. Another person, a young man, suddenly burst out of a tent and chased – something. Berwynna got a glimpse of an arrow travelling through the air, but close to the ground and oddly slowly. With what sounded like mighty oaths, the man caught up, snatched it from the air, and aimed a kick at an empty spot near where he’d claimed the arrow.
‘Uncle Salamander?’ she said, pointing. ‘What does he talk to?’
‘Hmm? Just one of the Wildfolk.’
‘Oh, now you be teasing me.’
‘You don’t see the Wildfolk?’ Salamander spoke in a perfectly serious tone. ‘I would have thought you could.’
Wynni hesitated on the edge of annoyance. With a smile he patted her on the arm.
‘Don’t let it trouble your heart,’ Salamander said. ‘Ah, there’s Branna. Let me introduce you.’
Branna turned out to be a human lass, blonde, pretty, and about Wynni’s own age – a relief, she realized, after all the strange-looking folk she’d seen and met. She also spoke the language that Wynni had come to think of as Deverrian, another relief.
‘Dalla told me that you’d lost your man,’ Branna said. ‘My heart aches for you.’
‘My thanks.’ Wynni managed to keep her voice steady. ‘I’ll be missing him always.’
‘Well, now,’ Salamander said. ‘I have hopes that in a while you’ll –’
‘Oh, please don’t try to make light of it,’ Branna interrupted him. ‘It sounds so condescending.’
Salamander winced and muttered an apology. Wynni decided that she liked Branna immensely, even though it surprised her to see her uncle defer to one so young.
Branna accompanied them as they continued their stroll through the camp. As they walked between a pair of tents, they came face-to-face with a small child, perhaps four years old, who held a small green snake in both hands. The child ignored them, and Branna and Salamander turned to go back the way they’d come. Wynni lingered, watching the child, who had eyes as green as the snake and slit the same vertical way. She was assuming that the snake was a pet, but the little lad calmly pinched its head between thumb and forefinger of one hand, then twisted the creature’s body so sharply with the other that it broke the snake’s neck and killed it. Wynni yelped and stepped back as the child bit into the snake’s body. Blood ran down his chin as he spat out bits of green skin.
Salamander touched Wynni’s arm from behind. ‘Come back this way,’ he said. ‘That’s one of our changelings, and he won’t move for you.’
A changeling, Wynni assumed, must be the same thing as a halfwit. She followed Salamander out of the narrow passage, but she glanced back to see the child still eating the snake raw.
‘My apologies,’ she said. ‘He just took me by surprise.’
‘No doubt,’ Branna said. ‘We never know what they’ll do.’
When they reached the last tent, Berwynna looked out into the open country and saw dragons lounging in the grass. She stopped with a little gasp and stared at them, the enormous black dragon, her glimmering scales touched here and there with copper and a coppery green, and the smaller wyrm, her scales the dark green of pine needles, glinting with gold along her jaw and underbelly.
‘They be so beautiful,’ Berwynna said. ‘How I wish my sister Avain were here to see them! She does love all things dragonish so deeply.’
‘Well, if the gods allow,’ Salamander said, ‘mayhap one day she will. Now, the black dragon is Arzosah, your father’s second, well, wife I suppose she is. The smaller is Medea, a step-sister.’
As the three of them started toward the dragons, Wynni heard Dallandra calling from behind them, though she couldn’t understand her words. She glanced back to see the dweomermaster running after them, waving her arms.
‘She wants us to stop,’ Branna said.
The three of them waited for Dallandra to catch up.
‘Let me go ahead,’ Dalla told them. ‘I want to make sure that Arzosah’s in a good mood. One never knows with dragons, and she’s very jealous of your mother, Wynni.’
Dallandra strode off through the grass to join the dragons. Arzosah lifted her massive head, and Medea sat up, curling her long green and gold tail around her front paws like a giant cat. Although they were too far away for Berwynna to hear their conversation, she could see the results. At first Arzosah listened carefully, then suddenly threw back her head and roared. Dallandra set her hands on her hips and yelled right back.
‘Oh joy,’ Salamander said. ‘It’s a good thing Dalla did go ahead, it seems.’
While the black dragon and the dweomermaster argued, the green and gold dragon waddled toward Berwynna and Salamander. Although Father Colm had always said that dragons were the absolute peak and zenith of evil, Berwynna had lost her faith in the priest’s sayings, but she had to admit that her heart began to beat faster and harder. Salamander went tense, then stepped in front of Berwynna, but the dragon ducked her head and let out a quiet rumbling sound, a dragonish equivalent of a smile.
‘Greetings, step-sister!’ she said. ‘My for-sharing name is Medea, and I assure you that I don’t bear you the least ill will.’
‘My thanks.’ Berwynna curtsied to her. ‘I do feel a great fear upon me of your mother.’
‘No need.’ The dragon rumbled a bit more loudly. ‘She agreed right away to never harm you. They’re arguing about somewhat else, the spirit named Evandar.’
‘Ah.’ Salamander sounded greatly relieved. ‘They argue about him constantly, so we may rest assured that all is normal and summery in life.’
‘Very true.’ The dragon paused for a yawn that revealed teeth like long dagger blades. ‘My apologies. These warm days make me sleepy. Anyway, so you’re my step-father’s hatchling?’
‘I am, and I do have a twin sister back home. Her name be Mara.’
‘So I have two step-sisters.’ Medea seemed honestly delighted with the news. ‘And you have another step-sister and a brother back home in our fire mountain.’
‘Oh, that be splendid!’ Berwynna said. ‘We were so lonely, you see, on our island, but now we do have a clan. What be your father like?’
‘Alas, he’s no longer with us. The wretched Horsekin slew him.’
‘That aches my heart. They did kill my betrothed as well.’
Medea stretched out her neck and gave Berwynna a gentle nudge of sympathy. ‘So sad!’ the dragon said. ‘To lose someone so young! Now, our father was old and ill. That’s the only reason those horrible bastards of Horsekin could capture him.’
‘Were your da a fair bit older than your