The Silver Mage Read Online Free Page B

human form. The being who wrote the book is the same one who dragonified him, you see.”
    “So Enj told us. Um, the ‘being’? This Evandar wasn’t an ordinary man of your people, I take it.”
    “He wasn’t, but one of the Guardians, their leader, as much as they had one, anyway.”
    “Ye gods, then he’s the one the Alshandra people call Vandar!”
    “Just that. He’d never been incarnate, so he could command the astral forces—or play with them, would be a better way of putting it. He never took anything very seriously.”
    Laz looked away slack-mouthed for a moment, then regained control of his voice. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know why I’m so surprised. It would take someone that powerful to work the dweomers we’re discussing.”
    “Indeed. And I have no idea how to unwork it, as it were.”
    “You said you knew him well?”
    “I did. He was my lover, in fact, for some while.”
    Laz felt himself staring at her like a half-wit. A hundred questions crowded into his mind, most indelicate at best and outright indecent at worst. A beautiful woman like this, and a man who wasn’t really a man, but some alien creature in manlike form—the idea touched him with sexual warmth. He could smell the change in his scent, but fortunately she seemed oblivious to it.
    “Working the transformation killed him—well, I don’t know if killed is the right word,” Dallandra went on. “It drained him of the powers that were keeping him from incarnating. That would be a better way of putting it.”
    “I’m not sure I understand.”
    “I’m not sure I do, either.” Dallandra smiled at him. “Evandar had no physical body, only an etheric form that he’d ensouled. To be born, he had to remove that form, but he’d woven it so well, and he had so much power at his disposal that it refused to unwind, as it were. Turning Rhodry into a dragon left him absolutely helpless, all that power spent, his own form destroyed. He could go on at last to cross the white river.”
    “I see.” Laz turned his mind firmly back to questions of dweomer. “Speaking of incarnations, you mentioned having somewhat to tell me about mine.”
    “I certainly do, thanks to Rori. It turns out that dragons have a certain amount of instinctive dweomer. He remembers you quite clearly from the days when he was human, and in dragon form, he can recognize you.”
    “I’d suspected as much, but I’m glad to have the suspicion confirmed. What does he remember that’s so distressing? Distressing to me, I mean.”
    “Do you remember aught about your last life?”
    “Only a bit, that last battle in front of Cengarn, where Alshandra—well, died, or whatever it is Guardians do when they cease to exist. It’s all cloudy, but I think I was a Horsekin officer.”
    “You were there, certainly, but you were a Deverry lord with an isolated demesne just north of Cengarn. You’d gone over to the Horsekin side. They probably treated you like one of their officers.”
    Laz winced. “Oh, splendid! A traitor to my kind, was I? No wonder I’ve ended up a half-breed in this life! You’re quite right. That does distress me.”
    “Well, Rhodry thought it was your devotion to Alshandra that drove you to it.”
    “Worse and worse!” He forced out a difficult smile. “Mayhap it’s just as well that Sidro left me. She’d gloat if she knew that.”
    Dallandra nodded, and her expression turned sympathetic.
    “I have a vague memory of dying in battle,” Laz went on, “so I suppose I got what I deserved.”
    “Your last fight was with Rhodry Aberwyn, a silver dagger. Um, here’s the odd part. Rhodry’s the man whom Evandar turned into the dragon.”
    “He killed me?” Laz tossed his head back and laughed aloud. “No wonder he remembered me, eh? And wanted to do it again.”
    It was Dallandra’s turn for the puzzled stare. The Ancients, Laz decided, weren’t as morbid as Deverry men and Gel da’Thae if she couldn’t see the humor in the