My face must have expressed alarm at that, for Lan chuckled and added, “I think you’ve not too much to fear. Save you give them greater cause for concern, I think you shall be safe.”
He appeared entirely at ease; I was not. I heard the shutters rattle over my window, buffeted by a wind that seemed, for all the chamber was warm, to pierce my bones. Almost, I blurted out that I concealed secrets greater than those entrusted me by this strange Changed. But I did not-I did not yet quite trust Lan that far. Instead, I asked him, “Have you any word of Urt or Rwyan?”
“Of Rwyan, none,” he said. “There are no Changed on the Sentinels, and so I can tell you only that she was brought safely to the islands. Of Urt? Urt went to Karysvar, where he is, as best I know, a servant to a merchant named Connys. News from so far north is hard to get.”
“You seem,” I said, “to get news aplenty.”
Lan nodded, again as if this were entirely normal. “This hold is famed for its orchards and its tobacco,” he explained. “Craft from both coasts come to Mhorvyn, and traders by land. All bring news, but seldom from farther north than the Treppanek.”
It was more than I had hoped for. Rwyan was resident on the second Sentinel, about which I could do nothing, but if Urt was still in Karysvar … Perhaps someday I might go there and find this merchant. I smiled at the thought.
“You’d find them again?” Lan asked.
“Could I.” I ducked my head and sighed. “But I doubt I shall. At least, not Rwyan. I think she must be forever lost to me. But perhaps someday I might meet Urt again. I should like that.”
“If he’s still there.”
Lan’s voice was soft, the sentence less statement than unguarded thought. I looked up, catching his eye-and saw the mask descend even as I said, “Where should he go?”
The feline Changed shrugged, not replying.
I said, “Across the Slammerkin, Lan? To join the wild Changed?”
Again, he shrugged. “Some do.”
There was hesitation in his voice. I thought he regretted that slip. I suspected he knew more than he revealed. I thought he had revealed so much, what he hid must surely be of great import. I thought we both, for all we exposed ourselves, held back secrets still. I knew mine: I wondered what Lan’s were. I said, “I know nothing of the wild Changed; nothing of Ur-Dharbek. It seems none do, save perhaps the sorcerers. And they’re closemouthed on that subject.”
“Nor I,” he said. “Save Truemen gave Ur-Dharbek to the Changed that the dragons leave them be. Our lot, it seems.”
I said, “I’d go there. I’d know what’s there.”
The mask remained a veil over his true feelings, but I thought I discerned amazement as he looked at me. “Think you a Trueman should find a welcome there?” he asked. “Be there any to welcome him.”
“Have the dragons eaten them, then?” I returned.
He laughed aloud at that. “Dragons, Daviot? Surely the dragons are all dead; the stuff of your stories now, and no more.”
“Be that so,” I said, “then perhaps the wild Changed prosper.”
“Perhaps.” He seemed to me to hold his expression bland. “I’d not know.”
I had taken too many steps along this path to turn back: I pressed on. “Are the dragons gone, what reason for the Border Cities?” I asked, deliberately making my tone one of idle curiosity.
“What reason for any city?” Lan echoed an answer I had got before. “They trade along the Slammerkin just as they do along the Treppanek. They exist for that and no more reason, likely.”
I saw he would give me no more. It was the same bland claim of ignorance I got each time I broached this subject. Perhaps he really knew nothing; I suspected he hid knowledge. I was about to speak again when he flung back his arms, yawning noisily, as if weariness suddenly took him.
“Forgive me.” He became once more the humble servant. “I think perhaps I should find my bed, and you yours. The services of Bannas Eve start early, and I’d get some sleep ere I commence my duties.”
I nodded, aware our conversation was ended. Save I commanded him-which would surely undo his confidence in me; and was not, anyway, in my nature-I should have no more from Lan this night.
“Yes.” I smiled as he rose, collecting my cup and the jug from the hearth. “But I hope we shall speak again.”
“I think we shall,” he said. “Goodnight, Daviot.”
I said, “Goodnight, Lan. And my thanks.”
“For what?” He paused at the door. His face was composed in an unreadable expression.
“For all you’ve told me,” I said. “For … trust.”
“Trust is like a sword, Daviot; it cuts both ways.”
Before I had opportunity to comment, he was gone, the door closed quietly behind him.
We Truemen went afoot into the town the next day, leaving the Changed behind to prepare for the feasting as Yanydd led us in procession around the walls of Mhorvyn. The sleet had blown away inland, but the wind still blew harsh, sending waves in crashing progression against the rocky shoreline. A few brave gulls fought the gusting, but they were the only interruption of an otherwise featureless and sullen sky. I hugged my cloak close, the wind ofttimes so strong, I must lean against it. Laena clutched my arm as if she feared it might blow her away, her lined face creased deeper as she studied the heavens.
In the lee of a building, where the blast could no longer steal the words unheard, she said, “Bannas Eve is not often so unkind. Last year the sun shone.”
There was a note of trepidation in her voice that prompted me to wonder. “Where I was born,” I said, “the weather is much like this on Bannas Eve.”
We passed beyond shelter then, and she fell silent, gripping my arm again, her face hidden in the hood of her cloak. I looked at the sky. It seemed not at all out of the ordinary to me: in Whitefish village we’d name such weather squally and expect it, until Matran at the least. I wondered why it disturbed the commur-mage so. I did not know her well, and she gave an impression of taciturnity, but I sensed she was concerned. It might have been the cold or the wind, but her shoulders were braced rigid under her cloak, and the eyes she turned upon the sky were narrowed as if she sought something there.
“I doubt even the Sky Lords can master such a wind,” I said.
It was a flippant comment. I did not believe she looked for sign of aerial attack, but her unease communicated and I looked to diffuse it with a joke. Her answer took me aback.
“Think you not?” she said.
I said, “Surely not! In winter? Besides, a wind like this must surely deny them grounding.”
We came to another open space then, and she did not reply until we stood again protected. We had completed our circuit and now walked the winding streets, returning slowly in the direction of the keep. From either side folk waved cedar twigs or clusters of dried oak leaves, their shouts loud, so that I must put my face close to Laena’s to hear her answer. Even then she kept her voice low.
“Not a grounding,” she said. “Not a Coming, even. But I tell you, Daviot Storyman, that this weather is unseasonal.”
I shrugged. I was yet heir to my father’s weather lore, and I knew that what was customary was never graved in stone. I said, “Do you tell me this is the Sky Lords’ doing?”
She gave me a wan smile then, one that spoke of doubt, of self and opinion. “They bind the elemental spirits to their command, no?”
She awaited a response, and so I ducked my head and gave her, “Yes. But as yet only to their little airboats, surely. The sorcerers I’ve encountered this past year seem largely of the belief they can do no more for a while. A twelvemonth, perhaps; perhaps longer, before they can bind those creatures to their great ships.”
“And likely all those sorcerers are right,” said Laena. “I do not speak of airboats, but of this weather.”
Her voice was low and held not much expression, as if she spoke of a thing she had sooner not contemplated and was loath to say openly. That somehow lent her words a greater impact. I grunted, surprised (I seemed to spend much of my time in Mhorvyn surprised by one thing or another), and said, “You believe they control the weather now?”
She had pushed back the hood of her cloak, and so I saw the pursing of her lips, the doubt that shone clear in her eyes. “Not believe,” she said. “Wonder, perhaps. I tell you-for years Mhorvyn has seen the sun shine on Bannas Eve. But now …” She shook her head and tilted it to indicate the sky.