Tellin raised a brow, curious. "That's an odd way to put it. There have been treaties holding the Highlord back for some time now. War has not been imminent, and we have certainly not been in it."
"Do you think so?" Dalamar shrugged. "Well, most people do. But isn't it odd to think that we, of all the world, will be invisible to the Highlord, that her Dark Mistress will burn her way across Krynn and leave our land untouched? Yes, I know that we are the best beloved of the gods. One hears that all the time. That doesn't seem to matter as regard the treaties House Advocate made with Phair Caron. Those treaties are already ash, my Lord Tellin. And if treaties are ash, how long before the forest itself is burning?"
He traced a mark in the air above Silvanesti on the map, the mark indicating the Barrier Hedge that had so long withstood in-comers. One word he whispered, and the invisible mark became visible in the air as a ragged orange glow. Fire!
Dalamar glanced at the cleric. He saw neither startlement nor anger, but he did see agreement. "But you have thought that, too, haven't you? And you are laying plans against it."
Tellin's blue eyes glinted sharply. "Yes, I have been putting up stores here in the Temple, and I have been looking north waiting."
Dalamar glanced out the window, away across the gardens and out beyond the open gate to the road he'd taken from Lord Ralan's hall. He had, only this morning, come from there with cartloads of clothing and bedding, the very things Eflid had set him to sorting in the attics on the hottest days of summer.
"Waiting for refugees," he said. "Are all the temples of the city making these plans?"
"Yes, we are. But we won't be housing them here in the city. That would be impossible. We don't have the food or the room for that. It would be a disaster to try. " He shrugged, one who'd thought the matter through, or who had heard others speak their own thinking. "In any case, we've made our plans. Clerics in the various temples will gather clothing and bedding and medicaments and send them out to the cities up-river, to Alinosti and Tarithnesti, to Shalost in the west. The temples there will house and feed those who flee the war.
"Here, we are putting by other kinds of supplies, among them herbs for salves and ointments and infusions. These we'll gather and prepare for both the army and the refugees, sending supplies where they are most needed."
"Very neatly planned," Dalamar murmured.
Tellin flicked him a quick glance, wondering whether the mage mocked. "Yes, we think so. And so you see, I'm glad to know that you have made a special study of herbs, Dalamar. Do you know," he asked, eyes keen, his regard sharp and searching, "where the best herbs are to be found?"
Dalamar answered carefully, not certain he understood the intent of Tellin's question. "In the gardens of the temples, my lord, to be sure."
"Indeed. And if that were so, would I have asked my question?"
Dalamar smiled, this time with some real warmth in spite of himself. The cleric did have a little blood in him after all, enough to rise to a flush of anger. "No, my lord, I don't imagine you would have. I do know places across the river and into the forest where one may find such herbs as lobelia and cohosh and gentian and whatever else you might need that doesn't grow in temple gardens. I have made," he said with not the least note of wryness in his tone, "good use of the time I spent away from my Lord Ralan's hall."
Tellin lifted the map from the table and rolled it carefully. "So it seems. And if I tell you to map these places for others to find, will you do that and return here each day in good and fair time?"
Or will I run away north, to the secret place, the cave and the magic? Will I spend illicit hours at forbidden studies? The questions were like longing to Dalamar, an ache in his soul. He had not been able to study those tomes or practice the darker arts in many long weeks. Had he missed them? Yes-the magic more than the darkness.
Sun on tiles, light glinting off the tiny scales of a platinum dragon, these things shone brightly in Dalamar's eyes. He moved to turn away from the glare, but he didn't, for he was struck by a sudden thought, a swift understanding that he did long for something not necessarily darkness. Only magic, only that, and if Lord Tellin could convince the white-robed mages of House Mystic to offer him the teaching he craved, if they were to acknowledge the talent in him, that talent they could not deny but would not honor, he would take his magic there. Like a man standing upon a threshold, he felt drawn one way and then another, into light, into shadow.
Making no choice, hanging in the moment, Dalamar looked at his new master long and with steady gaze. "I will do what you ask, my lord."
"Have I your word?"
Tellin's narrow-eyed glance stung Dalamar to bristling. "The word of a servitor? Why, what good is that to you, Lord Tellin?"
"As good as you show me it is, and I say this with confidence. You don't look like a liar to me, Dalamar Argent."
Dalamar nodded, the nod a small bow, the only one he'd made to Lord Tellin Windglimmer in all the time he'd stood in the scriptorium. "I will go now, and if it pleases you, my lord, I will return before midday."
Chants rose up and fell, birdsong stitched through the staid rhythm like silver thread through a dark tapestry. Another voice drifted through the temple-song, soft and low, a woman's voice murmuring in the garden. Dalamar and Tellin looked out the window and saw Lady Lynntha. She stood, silvery in the sunlight, her long hair bound high upon her head and held there with gemmed pins so that it seemed she wore a glittering crown.
"I wish to see the Lord Tellin," she said, soft to a gardener walking by. "Will you find someone to announce me?"
Tellin blushed, his face flamed red and he glanced at Lynntha's hands and the small scroll case she held. Dalamar noted this, and he said nothing about it, but he did volunteer to show the lady into the scriptorium.
"Yes," Tellin said, eyes on his papers again. "Please do that."
Dalamar bowed, hiding his curiosity, and walked out into the garden. "My lady," he said, gesturing toward the open window behind. "I have come from Lord Tellin Windglimmer, for I have heard it that you wish to see him."
She glanced at him only briefly, not recognizing him as one who had lately served in her brother's hall. Her hands held the scroll case gently, careful of the delicate embroidery. She hung in a hesitating moment, as though some hard-won resolve were melting. She took a breath, and it did not seem to hearten her.
"Servant," she said, her eyes straying past him to the window and the cleric sitting at his desk. Her cheek flushed, not so brightly red as Tellin's, only the delicate tint of a rosy pink petal. "I have changed my mind. I don't need to see Lord Tellin. Only take this to him." She put the scroll into Dalamar's hands. "Say to him that I appreciate the care he took in crafting this, but I cannot accept it. I cannot…"
She turned and left. With no other word she walked out of the garden, her slender back straight, her shoulders a firm line against the pain Dalamar had seen in her long eyes. And what is that? He wondered, walking back into the scriptorium. What is that between a member of House Cleric and one of House Woodshaper? A hopeless dream, and my new master won't be happy to have this gift of his back.
Yet Tellin was not so unhappy as Dalamar had imagined he would be. He took the scroll case and looked at it a long moment, then set it upon a stack of unused parchment, the colorful embroidery bright against the creamy vellum. He looked up, and when he saw Dalamar still standing there he said, "A gift returned, and a gift exchanged."