Aidan remembered the blood on his own hand, and then he wasn’t so sure he believed her. Twigs snapped under his mucky boots as he tramped toward her, upsetting the peaceful crackling of the fire. He stopped at the makeshift spit and stared. There were two birds roasting – pigeons, he’d bet his money on. “How the blazes did you manage all this?” he asked.
Slaíne froze where she stood, her eyes narrowed.
Aidan stopped and raised his hands. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “I snuck up on them.”
His eyebrows shot up of their own accord. “You snuck up on them?”
“I didn’t steal them, if that’s what you’re accusin’.”
Aidan had to laugh at this. “Pigeons are wild birds and don’t fall under poaching laws.”
The girl didn’t seem to know what to say to that statement, and went back to turning the spit again. “I ate the eggs.”
Aidan suppressed a grin. “I see.”
“I’m sorry,” she snarled.
The grin broke through. “No need to apologize. You did all the work.”
The girl seemed to be deciding if he was making fun of her or not. Stooped over the small blaze, she returned her attention to the task at hand.
“Eggs are hard to Dismiss and save for later, anyway. All that brittle shell.” That drew no comment from her, so he tried a different approach to getting her to talk. “And you managed to catch, pluck, and gut them within half an hour’s time?”
If he didn’t know better, he’d wager a smile was fighting its way onto her face. She grimaced. “Took two hours or so, but I’ve got fast fingers.”
Aidan rubbed the backs of his hands over his eyes. “Two hours? Was I really gone that long?” He’d said it more to himself than to her. “One loses track of time when one’s punishing oneself.”
* * *
The birds cooked through, Aidan removed them from the spit and placed the carcasses on slabs of bark he pried from a nearby tree. After dining on nothing but cold food and under-cooked tubers for a month, this was a treat. He ate slowly, savoring.
Slaíne, on the other hand, ate as though her next meal weren’t guaranteed. Grease dribbled down her chin, and she didn’t mop herself up until every morsel had been chewed off the bones.
Aidan wondered if he should offer her some of his, but decided it might hurt the strange girl’s feelings. He handed her a water bladder and said, “Thank you. I didn’t expect….”
She was already waving the words away and drinking. When she came up for air, she said, “There enough water for me to drink a few more?”
“A few more…?”
“Mouthfuls.”
Aidan felt the bladder. She had already drained more than he could afford. “No. Sorry.”
With apparent reluctance, she passed the bladder back. “Vines.”
“Hmm?”
She looked around the woods, and his gaze followed hers. “Blast. Naught but poisonous things.” Of all things, she reached to the ground, dusted off a few pebbles, and stuffed them in her mouth. When she caught him staring, she frowned and went about cleaning up after the meal.
“Do you think your m—the elves are following us?”
Slaíne shrugged and swept ashes onto the fire with a thick stick.
Aidan wandered off to feed and water Triumph while the girl worked, keeping mindful of her Pull and the other Pulls surrounding him. There were no other humans nearby, nor did he sense the elves. They might be safe. Still, best not to leave anything to chance.
Once he’d finished with his horse, he returned to the camp, where the girl had piled all his belongings.
Slaíne watched him, silent expectation written on her face.
Amused, Aidan made a show of waving his hand and Dismissed everything.
The girl nodded once to herself, as if a burning question had been answered, and wiped her hands down her skirts. “Right. Where’re you off to now?”
His eyes narrowed. “We are headed for a town.”
She snorted. “Right. And what town might that be?”
He frowned. “That is my concern.” If the elves found her before they found him, he would still have a chance of escaping. It wouldn’t do to give away his plans to her…especially since he didn’t know where her loyalties lay.
With a scowl, Slaíne put her bony hands on her bony hips. Her look said it all: “So that’s how it is.”
That rankled. “See here, I haven’t time to explain myself. If we’re to make it to W—the village, I mean….”
She smirked at him.
Exasperated, he jabbed his finger in her direction. “If we’re to make it to the village before nightfall, I need your utmost cooperation. Is that understood?”
Eyes ablaze, the girl snapped him a smart salute—“Aye, sir.”—causing her loose shirt to dip down over her shoulder.
Aidan froze. “What is that?” He was looking at a bloody gash the size and shape of a whip lash. Recalling the dried blood on his hand, he again berated himself. He needed to take care of this, before it could get much worse. Left untended, it could be deadly. “Come here.”
It was her turn to freeze. “Nah, sir.”
He pointed at the wound, which she was covering up as best she could. “That’s going to become infected.”
To his frustration, the girl merely shrugged and muttered something that sounded like ‘ruddy meddler’.
“Let me have a look.” Aidan made a move for her, but she skirted out of his reach. “Slaíne, please, I’m only trying to help you.”
“I can manage m’self.”
He decided to change tactics. With a sigh, he threw up his hands and moved toward his horse. “I’m sure you can. Now, can we ride?”
Slaíne gave him a suspicious look, hesitated, and finally approached Triumph, who was huffing impatiently. She was ready to mount the steed, when Aidan grabbed her around the waist and pinned her against the horse’s side. “Gerroff!”
Aidan Summoned a clean rag and dabbed at the green pus oozing around the edges of the wound. He tried to ignore her Pull as he held, examined, and cleaned her up. It wasn’t easy, and she thrashed against him with surprising strength for someone so slight. “I should not have returned the salve. You didn’t manage to slip it out of camp, I assume?”
She swore at him. “’Course I didn’t. Get off!” She pushed off Triumph, who snorted and took a few steps ahead, which left Slaíne to fall on her side.
Suppressing a laugh, Aidan held out his hand to help her up. “Come now,” he said as she ignored him, “I’m just trying to help.”
The glare on her face told Aidan she didn’t believe him. Slaíne gathered the opening of her blouse tightly about her neck and stumbled to her feet.
He gestured to the horse, his hands outstretched and his eyebrows raised. “Need help mou—”
The girl leapt astride Triumph with grace that didn’t fit her manners, and took the reins in her hands. “Anytime you’re ready, sir.”
The smirk faded from his face as good humor left him. One foot in a stirrup, he raised himself up into the saddle. Next to her, he mounted like a clumsy oaf, and that hurt his pride. “Hold on tight.” When the girl failed to grab him round the waist, he almost said something, but contented himself with wildly slapping the reins, and they flew off into the distance.
* * *
They rode off and on again into the evening, when the sun melted into the hill-capped horizon, and the waxing moon crested the burgeoning trees. Glowworms flittered like many lanterns in the gloom, and bats scurried about in the sky. Slaíne seemed to have fallen asleep. She was still. Too still. It was almost as though she was trying to lull Aidan into a false sense of security.
For her sake or his own, he kept quiet, pretending not to know what she was up to. Let her scheme. He waited and rode, ex
pecting her to attempt an escape at any moment. She didn’t. Nor had the elves pursued them. Odd, that.
The great galleon in the sky continued to climb, and soon all was plunged into its dusky light. They could travel no farther that day, for the town was still nigh fifteen miles off. Triumph was growing weary and cantankerous – so was the horse’s master. “Girl, wake up,” he said, steering his steed off the road. “We need to make camp.”
To his surprise, she did not move but let out a great almighty snort and lollopped even further forward in the saddle, forcing Aidan to catch her before she could plummet to the ground.
He pinched her, eliciting a few choice words he thought unnecessary, and hoisted himself to the ground. “We’re making camp. On your feet.”
Slaíne shivered and tucked her arms tightly about her torso. “Yessir.”
Aidan rolled his eyes. “Come on, we haven’t all day.”
“No, but we’ve all night, haven’t we?” Then, without waiting for Aidan to help her, Slaíne jumped from Triumph’s back, giving the beast a start.
Aidan waited for the sound of her feet hitting the ground. There was only silence. Odd one, she.
“See about collecting some tinder for a fire,” he said snappishly before he could stop himself. The way the girl glared at him was unnerving. For a moment, he thought she was going to tell him where he could shove his fire. But she turned and tread off into the woods, making nary a sound.
Satisfying himself that his one connection to information couldn’t run off without her Pull informing him, Aidan licked his right pointing finger and held it aloft. The air was still, and there were no clouds in sight. They should have a cold, clear night. Perhaps it was folly, lighting a fire that could easily draw the elves to them. Though, something told Aidan that if the four sisters had wanted to follow them, they would have caught up already.
He dragged some branches that were tolerably dry into a row, and went about Dismissing small sections away, thus separating the wood into logs. Once the logs had been consumed by the fire, he could Summon what he had Dismissed and use them in another blaze. He arranged them as he had done many times before, making a tepee which would shelter the tinder in the middle. He removed his flint and the stick of magnesium from the pouch he kept in Nothingness.
Soon there would be no light to be guided by as he struck the flint with his tools. He might slice right through a finger or worse. He needed that tinder. He needed it now.
Anxious, Aidan checked the Pulls around him and noted that the girl was less than five yards off. “Bring what you’ve gathered,” he said, trying to keep any ire out of his voice. Why was he so angry with her? There was no putting his finger on it. Maybe it had something to do with her attitude. That was most likely. He had saved her from those elves, and how did she repay him? By taking her blasted time gathering the essential starting ingredients for a fire.
Well, she might be having difficulties finding anything in the shadows, said the voice of fairness in the back of his mind.
He ignored it. “Girl, where are you?”
Her approach was much noisier than her departure – Crunch! Crash! Thud! Thunk! – followed by swearing, muffled by the back of her hand, which swiped at her mouth. When she stepped into the waning light, it was obvious what had taken her so long. She had enough dry grass to make several fires.
Aidan bit down on the corners of his mouth. Had she never made a fire before?
As if reading his expression, she snorted and handed him a fistful. “Some’s for your steed, of course.”
Oh. He hadn’t thought of Triumph. “Thank you.”
Soon, he had a large blaze crackling before him, and the warmth soaked into his bones, driving all ill humor out of his body. He Summoned his rations and divided them between the girl and himself. It was a gamble, finishing the meager amount off, but he was optimistic that they would reach Wontworth before noon the next day.
With a yawn, he shot a glance over at his traveling companion, who was hunched over and staring mutely into the blaze. “You should get some rest.”
She didn’t answer at first. The firelight danced in her glassy eyes, and she moved nary a muscle. It was almost as if she had fallen into a trance. She was too still.
“Slaíne? Are you all right?”
“I’ll keep first watch.”
“You don’t have to.”
“There’s a storm coming.” Lightning crackled in the west, and the sky darkened.
Aidan felt the wind. “It should pass us.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He opened his mouth to ask her what she did mean, but she turned her back to the fire and himself, ending the conversation. Well, if she wanted to keep guard, that was up to her. Not that he trusted Slaíne, but he was fairly certain he could rest. Her Pull would alert him if she moved too far…he hoped. There was little choice left to him.
Aidan yawned, stretched, and lay down on his side. He was sore from riding and exhausted from the week’s trials. Before long, his eyelids flickered closed, the yellow flames dancing on the other side as sleep overtook him.
* * *
He was standing in a great room. If he didn’t know that his country had no true royalty, he would say he was standing in a palace hall.
The structure was made of gleaming white stones, bricked together so seamlessly that the octagonal room’s walls might’ve been carved from a single rock. But that couldn’t be. There were no windows, no door, but the ceiling was open to the elements, and silver moonlight poured in.
A crystal-blue carpet runner spilled out before him, twisting and winding its way from where Aidan stood in the middle of the room to an unoccupied glass throne against the wall on his left. He turned toward it and took a tentative step forward, but ran into some invisible barrier. Not one to quit, Aidan rose and tried again with the same results. Without being told, he knew he had to reach that throne before someone else did. Someone wicked. But short of cursing, there was nothing he could do. “What is this place?”
“You are dreaming, Aidan Ingledark.” It was a woman who spoke, her voice a deep, rich roar.
Aidan made to turn around, but found himself paralyzed from the waist down. Panic seized hold of him and he pounded with his fists on the invisible wall, making no sound. Sore, he paused. “What is this magic?”
A woman – no, an angel stepped out of the throne’s shadow and approached him. Her hair was blacker than the deepest night, her face as pale as snow, and the silver circlet atop her waves suggested that she was in fact a queen. But the land had no queen. This made no sense.
“You are wondering why I summoned you here.”
He shivered, trying and failing to meet her gaze. He settled instead for staring at a spot just over her left shoulder. “Summoned? What do you mean?”
She laughed, a lovely sound that made Aidan think of children playing in summertime. “No, Aidan Ingledark, not the sort of Summoning you are thinking of.” Her smile widened as she glided toward him without making a sound.
“What am I doing here? Who are you?”
The woman tut-tutted him. “They told me you were a suspicious one. I see that they did not express the half of it.” With a sigh, she reached out as if to touch Aidan’s face, but her hand swept right through him. “I told you. You are not here. You are dreaming. That is how I brought your Inner Man to this place.” Her smile went lopsided when he opened his mouth to protest. “You’ll be gone as soon as you wake. There is no keeping the living in this room.”
Aidan swallowed. “So, am I dead? And you are…?”
“We’re both very much alive. Aidan Ingledark, I need your help uniting the Immortal.” Her eyes became two pools of fire at the word, and Aidan grew afraid, though he knew not why. It passed soon enough, along with the memory of the sensation.
The Immortal. There was that word again.
But what did it mean? “The Immortal? Who?”
She shook her head. “Not who. What.”
He considered this for a moment. “I’ve heard of you.”
“I assumed no less.”
“You are Meraude, then. They say….” He hesitated. The reports he had on her were conflicting. The girl, Slaíne, apparently wanted the mage dead. The elves and the Romas had warned him that she wanted all magical beings dead. Yet the seer at Prewitt Manor had said Meraude would be able to help him. That she was the only one who could help him.
The mage gave him a knowing look. “I am neither good nor bad, Lord Ingledark.”
“What do you want with the Immortal?”
Her eyes twinkled in the moonlight and she whispered, “That is my own concern, milord. I need the Goblets Immortal, and you are the one who can get them for me.”
He stalled. “The Goblets?”
She nodded. “You know of what I speak. You are Blest.”
“Blest?”
How could a smile be benign and so piercingly cold at the same time? “I warn you, do not play the fool with me. Lady Meraude knows.” The room trembled at the sound of her name. So did Aidan, for that matter. “You met with one of my servants. It has been said you are on the road leading toward the Warring Goblet. Have you found it?”
He’d run into her servant? When? Who? The truth slipped out of Aidan’s mouth without his meaning it to. “I came across a Goblet.”
Her grin widened. “And did you Claim it?”
“Claim it? No. The elves took it.”
Lady Meraude scowled and put a pale white finger to her brown lips. “Interesting. No matter. No matter. It shall be recovered soon enough. I thank you for your honesty, Lord Ingledark.”
What could Aidan do but nod his acknowledgement? His voice seemed to have temporarily left him…along with his wits.
When she looked at him again, the smile had returned. “You will need to be careful in Wontworth. There is talk of murders and robberies there. And don’t look so surprised. It was the general direction you were headed, was it not?”
Aidan nodded mutely.
The Goblets Immortal Page 6