Katharine Kerr’s
Novels of Deverry,
The Silver Wyrm Cycle

Now available from DAW Books:

THE GOLD FALCON (#1)
THE SPIRIT STONE (#2)
THE SHADOW ISLE (#3)
THE SILVER MAGE (#4)

Title Page

Copyright Page

Copyright © 2009 by Katharine Kerr.

eISBN : 978-1-101-14918-8

DAW Book Collectors No. 1492.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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First Printing, November 2009

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.

S.A.

Dedication

For Howard
First, Last, and Always

PROLOGUE THE NORTHLANDS SUMMER, 1160

The serpent of Time winds itself about the cross of Matter. Some say it has seven heads, some only three, but the difference counts for little. It is the body of the serpent, not the head, that crushes its prey.

—The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid

.

DEATH HAD TURNED DOUGIE’S hair white and his flesh translucent. In the darkness he glowed with a faint silvery light as he stood smiling at Berwynna.

“Remember me, lass,” he said in the language of Alban, “but live your life, too. I loved you enough to wish you every happiness. Find a new man.”

“I don’t want to,” Berwynna said. “The only thing I want is for you to come back to me.”

“This is as far back as I can come, just up to this side of dying. Wynni, live your life!”

He vanished.

Berwynna screamed and sat up, scattering blankets. She found herself in a round tent so unfamiliar that for a moment she thought she still dreamt. The Ancients, she reminded herself. I’m safe among the Ancients, but Dougie’s dead. The first light of dawn fell like a gray pillar through the smoke hole in the center of the roof. Across from her, on the far side of the tent, a bundle of blankets stirred and yawned. Uncle Mic sat up and peered at her through the uncertain light.

“Are you all right?” he said in Dwarvish. “Did you make some sort of a sound just now?”

“I was dreaming,” she said. “In the dream I saw Dougie, and when he disappeared, I screamed.”

“Ai, my poor little niece!” Mic paused to rub his face with both hands and yawn prodigiously. “It sounded like a moan, here in the waking world.”

“That would fit, too.”