A Time of Omens by Katharine Kerr

Author:Katharine Kerr
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780307574060
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1992-05-12T10:00:00+00:00

“Of course it is: Mael the Seer. His Ethics, isn’t it?”

“Just that. You’ve read it?”

“I have. Oh. Curse it!”

“What’s so wrong?”

“I just remembered a thing that Lord Erddyr said to me this morning. He asked me if I—we, I mean, you and I—asked me if we were noble-born, and I wondered how he knew, but I suppose I’ve been acting like a courtly man. I shouldn’t even admit I can read, should I?”

“Depends. Out here very few noble-born men can read, so I suppose it’d mark you as son of a scribe or suchlike.”

“And what about you? You can quote from the Seer’s books, but I can’t believe that you were raised in a scriptorium.”

“I wasn’t, at that.” Rhodry flashed him a grin. “But as to where I spent my tender years, I … oh, by the gods!”

All at once he sprang to his feet and spun round, peering out the door, and his hand drifted of its own accord to his sword hilt. Yraen glanced back to find that, much to his relief, no one else had noticed. When Rhodry slipped outside, he followed, wondering if he was going daft himself for suddenly and somehow believing that Rhodry was in danger.

Outside, the ward was dark, silent except for the noise spilling through the windows of the dun. Once Yraen’s eyes adjusted to the dim light from a starry sky and a sliver of moon, he saw Rhodry standing some five feet away. Otherwise nothing or no one moved, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched.

“Rhodry?” Yraen whispered it, even as he wondered why he was keeping his voice down. “What’s so wrong?”

“Shush! Come here.”

As quietly as he could Yraen stepped up beside him.

“There,” Rhodry hissed. “By the cart. Can you see him?”

Yraen obligingly looked. Some ten feet ahead of them stood a slab-sided wooden cart, tipped forward with the wagon tree resting on the cobbles. Its whitewashed side caught a square of light from one of the dun windows; Yraen could pick out the blurry shadow thrown by a tankard that someone had set on the windowsill. In the reflected light, he should have been able to see whatever it was that Rhodry saw… if indeed it was actually there.

“I can’t see a cursed thing.” Yet still, he whispered. “Much less anything I could call a ‘him.’ What do you—”

He stopped, feeling cold fear run down his spine. Although he saw nothing solid twixt the window and the cart, a shadow suddenly fell, a distinct silhouette, on the white square. It looked like a shadow thrown by a man standing sideways, except for the head, which was blunt and snouted. In one clawed paw it carried a dagger, raised and ready. In dead silence Rhodry drew his sword and flashed the blade in the light. The shadow wavered and distorted like an image seen on a still pond will bend and billow when someone throws a rock into the water. Yraen could have sworn he heard a faint and animal squeal; then the shadow disappeared.

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