He went on his way with eager steps now, shouldering through the crowd and heading for that part of the city to which no colorful name was attached, the place known simply and always as Their Quarter, or Our Quarter, if the speaker were a mage. Here the streets narrowed to lanes. He walked past the Shop of the Dark Night, past the Red Moon Waxing, Solinari's Hand, and finally to the Three Children where his own apartments waited. He did not take the back stair up or go inside to the speak with the one-eyed Palanthian who ran the shop for a mage no one knew or had ever seen. Dalamar stopped outside the door, where the two halves of a sawn whiskey butt stood filled with herbs, thyme, mint, and bright orange flowers of nasturtium spilling over the sides.
"Good day," said a woman, her white robes shining in the shadowed doorway, her dark hair pulled back from her cheeks. Her sapphire eyes shone as Regene of Schallsea approached. "Welcome home, Dalamar Nightson."
Dalamar served her elven wine in gray earthenware cups patterned with red swirling lines, two of three he'd uncovered in the ruins of Valkinord. He showed Regene to a comfortable seat on the couch near the window. He drew the shades so that the bright light of Tarsian summer shone muted, and the foul breezes off the garbage heaps made only slight incursion-he lit incense against that, for his own sake. He longed for forest breezes and would find none here.
Regene accepted his hospitality, smiling serenely over the wine, and she behaved in all ways as though her visit was expected-as did he. She thought she had never met a man more incapable of ruffled feathers than this dark elf out of Silvanesti.
They sat in silence a while, for a time playing the game of seeing which of them would speak first. Small psychic probes rustled the magical plane, seeking, rebuffed, seeking. In the end, Dalamar spoke first. The mask of hospitality fell from his face, his eyes glittered, and she thought of keen-edged blades.
"Explain yourself," he said.
Regene shrugged. "I would think I am as transparent as a whore's veil." She folded her legs beneath her, tugging the hem of her robe modestly over her ankles. "I'm here because I thought you would be here." She gestured around her, pleased. "And you are. You left the Tower in some haste after only a quarter hour in conversation with Ladonna, and I don't think she called you to her to tell you how poorly you fared in your Tests. Rather, the opposite. Something is a-brew, Dalamar Nightson, some storm of events magical and political. I have a good ear. I know when the Heads of the Orders are stirring and what type of brew they like to mix. If you are not at the eye of the storm, you are certainly within eye-shot."
Bold, he thought as he reached for her cup and filled it again. She took it, her fingers warm against his. He settled into the chair opposite her. He had not been here since spring, yet it seemed the cushions had only that morning felt the weight of him, the impression of his back still comfortably molded from months of long sitting with books, with thinking, with the dangerous dreams of mages when he fell asleep in the light of the three moons.
"You are a fool," he said quietly. He wasn't certain of that, but he liked to test. "You come here as though you expect good greeting, as though you know me well and can count on civil treatment."
Regene shrugged. She held up the cup of wine, looked around at how comfortably she was situated, and said, "If this is rough greeting, I will likely survive."
Dalamar sipped his wine, the smoky vintage that whispered of Silvanesti in autumn. He closed his eyes and saw the golden forest, heard the shivering of aspen leaves before the first breath of winter. He thought of the forest as he had last seen it, savaged, ruined, the trees falling dead, the forest home to green dragons. Silvanesti had not changed so much in three years, so said all the rumors and news. The prince of the Qualinesti had wed Alhana Starbreeze, and nominally the two elven nations were one. No doubt it all looked promising when discussed in the parlors of the powerful, but the forest yet lay in torment, that torment begun because Lorac Caladon had not the faith in his gods to withstand the onslaught of Phair Caron's dragonarmy. How good it would feel to wring the life from the one of her minions who had survived Lorac's Nightmare!
"I am going," he said, the taste of Silvanesti on his lips, "to take a bit of personal revenge. You need not concern yourself about it."
Regene arched a brow, settling back in the couch. She drew her legs up closer, and a bare ankle peeked out from beneath the hem of her robe. "So Ladonna called you to her and bade you go and find yourself some revenge? I didn't know the lady brokered vengeance."
"When it suits her."
"Your, ah, bit of personal revenge," Regene murmured, "would that have to do with the dwarf Tramd?"
"Yes."
She nodded, satisfied in her reckoning. "Then that's where the storm is." Swiftly, she leaned forward. The hem of her robe slipped up the calf of her leg, revealing white smooth skin. "Let me tell you something, Dalamar Nightson-I know you are bound on some mission for Ladonna. Perhaps for Par-Salian as well." When he shook his head as though to deny, she stopped him. "Don't bother to say I'm wrong. I'm right, and the more you deny, the more certain I am. I want to go with you, whatever it is you're planning, I want to be part of it. Listen! I don't want your glory, I don't want anything more than to be part of what you do. I am young in my craft, but I am strong."
Regene sat back a moment to think. He let her have it, intrigued.
"I am young," she said, "but I am well regarded. There is a thing I want, a goal I have, and I don't know how it will harm you, but I can imagine it would help you. If you take the long view."
"The long view of what?"
"Of your life, Dalamar. I hope-and I don't hope without reason-that one day I'll sit among the Conclave of Wizards. But there are deeds that need doing before that will happen, a reputation to build, a body of work to which I may point before I can think to put myself in nomination."
And a life to live, he thought. They are such headlong fools, these short-lived humans, burning their candles as fast as they might, flinging themselves into a future they imagine and so trust will be. This is the one, he thought, who lectures me about long views.
"You make a nice plan for yourself," he said, forbearing to smile. "Have you noted that they are all well and strong, those wizards of the White Robes who sit in the Conclave?"
Regene nodded. "They are, for which I am grateful." Her sapphire eyes sparked with silent laughter. "Their continued good health provides me with plenty of time to do what I must in order to be what I will."
Dalamar eyed the white robe over the rim of his cup, the mage like a swan sitting comfortably upon his couch. She had many skills beyond illusion-crafting. He knew that because he'd checked. She went high in the regard of the head of her Order, and that meant in the regard of the Master of the Tower himself. She was not his ward, and neither was she his student. Perhaps her standing was better, for Par-Salian used her for his little missions, such as her turn as a guide in the Forest of Wayreth. This, more than anything he knew about her, recommended her to him.
Outside, the breeze grew stronger. Beneath the ever-present smell of garbage a fresher, cleaner scent ran. In this late summer season, when none could be expected, the breeze spoke of rain. Dalamar rose and lifted the window shade. The freshening air sent streamers of smoke drifting out from his front room and into the bedroom.
"The weather looks to turn foul," he said. "Have you a place to stay in the city? I'd be pleased to show you to a good inn."