The Silver Mage by Katharine Kerr Page A

certainly didn’t understand a word I said to them.”
    The two apprentice healers, one human, one elven, were sitting in Hwilli’s tiny chamber, Hwilli cross-legged on her bed, Nalla on a high stool beside Hwilli’s slant-top lectern. On the walls, frescoes of rose gardens gave the small chamber illusory depth. Distant birds flew in the painted skies. While they discussed the two strangers, resting in a chamber just down the corridor, Nalla kept combing her silvery-pale hair. It tumbled in waves about her slender shoulders and down her back, so different than Hwilli’s own fine, limp hair that would have hung in ugly tendrils, or so Hwilli felt, had she worn hers free like Nalla did.
    “Could Master Jantalaber tell you anything more?” Nalla said.
    “He thought perhaps they belonged to some northern tribe. With the Meradan on the move like this, their lands might have been attacked, too, and their tribe might have fled south.” Hwilli shrugged uneasily. “If that’s true, there must be thousands of Meradan out there. It makes my flesh crawl, thinking that.”
    “Mine, too.” Nalla looked down at the carved bone comb in her hand. Her fingers clenched tight around it. “I wonder sometimes what’s going to happen to us. I truly do.”
    Hwilli turned and looked out the small window, set into the frescoes at the chamber’s end, that looked out to the actual sky. She could just see the tops of the fortress’ towers, gleaming in moonlight. We’ll be safe here, she thought. Won’t we? Nalla shuddered, as if she were wondering the same. She resumed combing her hair, then paused, and with a quick frown shoved the comb into the pouch hanging from her belt.
    “Anyway,” Hwilli said, “the master’s going to ask the Guardians for help. He thinks the crystals Evandar gave him might allow us to talk to the men, since they transfer thoughts and images. But he doesn’t know how they could actually translate our speech.”
    “No one’s ever sure how Evandar does anything.”
    “That’s very true. And Evandar might not help with this, either. So I suppose there’s nothing we can do but wait and see.”
    “That’s the Guardians for you.” Nalla slid off the stool and walked to the door. “Are you coming to the refectory? The men will be waiting on table tonight in the great hall, so it’ll be just us women.”
    “Good. I don’t want to sit in the hall with the prince and his warriors.” Hwilli got up to join her. “All they talk about is the war.”
    “What else is there to talk about?”
    “You have a point, unfortunately. The master did say he was going to consult with the prince about the strangers. He was thinking that the prince might want send out a squadron to find the tribe they came from and see if they’d join the People.”
    “Ah, to be allies, you mean.” Nalla frowned, considering something. “I wonder where Evandar found them, though. They could have been up on the Roof of the World, for all we know.”
    “Quite so. I’ll wager that the prince realizes that. I doubt if he’ll want to risk losing any of his men on a scouting expedition. The Guardians never seem to grasp the idea of distance.”
    “That, alas, is very true. Or the idea of time, either.” Nalla abruptly shuddered with a little shake of her head.
    “What?”
    “I don’t know, maybe an omen, maybe not. There’s so much to be frightened of, these days.”
    “Well, that’s true.”
    Yet Hwilli assumed that some long wisp of the cloud that covered future events had touched her. Nalla’s marked for the dweomer, Hwilli thought, while I’m only here to learn herbs and the like. Master Jantalaber had made it clear to her from the beginning, that only the People could use dweomer, never the humble village folk that they treated like children at best and slaves at worst. As she and Nalla walked down the long corridor to the special dining area set aside for the healers in the fortress, Hwilli fought her endless battle