"You miss Ivradan," Belegir said.
"Doesn't matter," Glory answered shortly. Was it that obvious, or was Belegir just going all wizardly on her? "Every hero has to have a sidekick, and all. But I guess I'm out of the heroing business."
Belegir regarded her shrewdly. Though he still slept a great deal, and tired easily, the bruises were fading quickly and he was well on the mend. A new set of pink robes, a tube of Max Factor, and he'd be back in the Mage business. "Yet it seems to me that you have some unfinished business that disturbs you."
Glory sighed, shaking her head. "Yeah, well, you remember that night at the wellspring when you dreamed I was going to make a dog's breakfast of this whole business? I dreamed something, too."
As best she could remember it after so long, she told Belegir about what she had dreamed: about the Dreamer of Worlds, who was somehow responsible for Glory's presence here in the Land of Erchanen. The more she told him, the more she remembered, but it still didn't really make a lot of sense to her. It all seemed a little too much like bad television.
". . . and she said I was being tested, but she didn't say what the test was, or how I'd know if I'd passed—just that if I didn't pass, everybody back where I come from would be toast, and that if I did pass, they'd all be admitted into the Universal Dream and have magic and wizards and unicorns up the wazoo—only that didn't sound so good either. And I don't even know if it was a real dream, Bel—maybe this Oracle-stuff only works for the Allimir, not for people like me."
Belegir considered the matter with careful deliberation, frowning as he thought.
"Yet you are here, and have held Cinnas' sword in your hands, and unmade the Warmother, so I think we must believe that Erchane smiles upon your people as well as upon my own. Still, this sending you speak of contains much to puzzle me. It is true that Erchane wears many names among her peoples, but never is she needlessly cruel. And never in all the ancient texts that I have studied have I seen any mention of such a being and such a test as you name—yet if such a test were true and real, the Allimir must have faced it and passed it in the long-ago, for all of Erchane's gifts are ours to wield. I cannot help you, Slayer, but there is yet one who may. Erchane herself, if She so wills, do you but seek Her counsel."
And look how well that turned out the last time, Glory thought sourly.
"Whether you would accept Erchane's counsel in that matter is your own decision, yet there is one more matter upon which you would do well to consult Erchane—and soon," Belegir said, breaking into her thoughts.
Glory looked up at him guiltily, hoping her opinion of the uselessness of Erchane's Oracle wasn't as obvious as she was afraid it was.
"Will you go home—back to your own people? Or will you remain here—with us?" Belegir said gently.
* * *
Unfortunately, there was no way around that one. Glory wanted to go home, she told herself—of course she wanted to go home; who wouldn't want to go home?—and that meant going off to see the Oracle again.
She put it off as long as she could.
Three more days. Her shoulder had been unbraced, and she had Tavara's permission to exercise it gently. She was down to a light bandage on her left hand and an only slightly heavier bandage on her right, she could wiggle all her fingers, and had even gone back to doing parts of her morning warm-up routine. She'd nagged Cambros about the importance of watching for smoke to give them warning of the mercenaries' possible approach, especially with the horses stabled so far away (though she had to admit that the cavern did smell better now) and had taken to going to the cave-mouth several times a day to look herself, but she'd seen nothing.
Maybe they'd all killed each other. Maybe they'd all marched up to the top of Grey Arlinn and jumped off. Maybe they were all still getting drunk. But wherever they were, they hadn't come this way.
She wondered where Ivradan was, and what he was doing.
Tavara was the one who had mended Gordon, and she'd also resewed a couple of the acolyte's shifts so that Glory would have something to change into besides her jeans. Glory'd managed something close to an actual bath, and washed her hair, but aside from her jeans and T-shirt, everything else she'd brought to the land of Erchanen was gone: it had been with the horses when the Warmother had magicked them off the mountaintop, and hadn't survived the trip. So—no makeup, no mirror, and no aspirin. She wasn't sure which—if any—she missed.
She was standing in the cave-mouth, watching the afternoon—more for something to do than because she believed, by now, that any trouble would come—when she saw a bright flash of red among the trees. At first she thought it was a bird, but when she saw it over and over again, coming closer, she realized it was one of the spellbirds that Helevrin had loosed the first day she'd come here. It flashed by her, arrowing into the cave.