And around them, other people. Gareth's people, Jenny thought, the way the villagers of Alyn and Great Toby and Far West Riding were John's people. She could almost match them, face for face—old ladies who were certainly the spiritual sisters of Granny Brown, the rough-faced, smiling Cowans and Bills and Muffles of the world; girls in bright dresses and tight bodices like Mol Bucket, and innkeepers like Gowla and Grobe from the Silver Cricket, and the woman who'd been hawking hot pies in the alley behind Bliaud's house. She glimpsed Bliaud's son Abellus, in elaborate mantlings and a truly amazing hat, and Brâk with his scrollwork tattoos.
Weary faces full of hope, or red with free wine. The faces of those who'd come through plague and war and Rocklys's rebellion, through doubt and confusion and lies. The faces of those who'd lost wives and husbands and children to the plague—some who'd seen them return, only to be cheated and mocked by the demons who'd poisoned even their memories.
They deserved their celebration, thought Jenny. And their time of peace.
It would be good, she thought, to start for the North again. She looked forward to teaching Ian, sensing that he was already a better mage than she and would be better still—that knowledge filled her with joy. To meditate in quiet in the house on Frost Fell, watching the luminous blue borealis ripple through the summer evenings when the birds sang through the hour or two of darkness, and the world smelled as close to God as it was ever likely to get.
To be with her children, and with John, and with herself.
With Morkeleb, too, she hoped—if not to go away adventuring, then to lie, as he had once said, in the thin turf of the downs, and to talk as friends of the endless lore of the star-drakes.
Time is long, she thought as her eyes turned to John once more—“—yes, but if the sceptre only dates back to the reign of Heskooth IV—” he was arguing, oblivious to the priests of Cragget investing Gareth with the keys and hammer of the Orange God in the name of the twenty-seven Guilds of the city. Time is long, and the God of Time, the thirteenth God who dreamed the other Twelve, holds all things in his pockets. And no one knows what he will decide to bring forth.
We all are what we are, and to fear that is to fear the stars in the sky.
The gnomes of the Deep came forward: Sevacandrozardus the King, who was called Balgub among men, in robes that seemed to be plated with gold and gems; the gnomish Wise Ones and the Patriarchs of the noble clans of the gnomes, Miss Mab's clan of Howeth-Arawan among them; Miss Mab herself, bowing with great dignity to the young man who had visited her in the slums when the dragon drove her and her people forth from the Deep.
Yet another hymn was sung by yet another ill-rehearsed choir. A face in the crowd caught Jenny's eye: a thin, small man with gray hair and eyes like the diamond labyrinths of the star-fields, and hands gloved in black, to hide his dragon claws. Morkeleb stood in the crowd, elbow-to-elbow with fishmongers and pork-butchers and the girls in their bright dresses and tight bodices, watching the King and watching the King's people with the fascination of one who has never seen such things before.
A dragon? she thought. Never.
A Dragonshadow?
Or one who was only the sum of what he had once been, and was now only what he was? As are we all, she thought.
The musicians broke into a fanfare, marred by a single out-of-tune hautbois; the children of the Weavers' Guild Choir lifted their voices in yet another hymn of banal praise. For one moment, across the crowd, Jenny met those diamond eyes.
Then Morkeleb lifted a hand to her, and smiled, and disappeared into the crowd.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
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Copyright © 2002 by Barbara Hambly
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eISBN: 978-0-307-56567-9
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books By This Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Copyright