The girl’s eyes rose, and they met his. “He’s talking to me.”
Aidan swallowed hard. This had to be a dream…and yet, stranger things had happened. “You can see and hear me?”
“Of course I can see and hear you. You’re standing right there.”
Aidan clenched his fists. “Don’t tell Meraude what I’m saying. Make things up. Do not let her know who I am or what I look like.”
The girl frowned. “Why?”
Shaking, he ran a hand over his face and blinked rapidly. “Maybe this is a hallucination.”
Meraude was growing impatient. She grabbed Larkin by the shoulder and shook her. “What is this person saying? Where is he? Why did he appear to you?”
Aidan shook his head. “Don’t tell her a thing.”
“He— He’s from years down the way. I think he came here to warn you about something.”
Aidan sighed in relief. “That’s good. Keep lying.”
The girl acquiesced. “He thinks there’s a plot to murder you. In your sleep, twenty years from now.”
A crease formed on Meraude’s brow. “Ask him where he got his information.”
He shook his head when the girl frowned. “Don’t let her know I can hear or see her. That could ruin the whole game. Ask me what she asked you to.”
“Well, girl, ask him,” Meraude said.
Aidan nodded. “Please.”
“Meraude wants to know how you got the information.”
If he wanted to ask, he had to do so quickly, before the girl gave up the game. “Two and twenty years ago, I made my family vanish.”
“What makes you think that?” she asked him.
Meraude cut in. “Think what?”
Larkin held up a hand for the mage to wait. “You can tell me.”
“I am Blest. Something to do with the Goblets—”
“The Goblets Immortal, yes. The Summoning one?”
If Meraude had been impatient before, she was livid with unease now. “Is the person who is attempting to murder me in twenty years in possession of a Goblet? How did they come upon it?”
Larkin frowned and sighed. “My mistress wants to know if— Oh, just a moment, milady, he is speaking again.” She nodded at Aidan, who took the chance.
“Is there any way to bring them back? Can Meraude help me? Will Meraude help me?”
Her frown deepened. “Only the dead can be—” Whatever the dead alone could be, Aidan did not find out. He was roused from his sleep with a jolt.
Opening his eyes, Aidan was disoriented and confused to find himself wrapped around Slaíne, her red hair wound up in his hands. He groaned and untangled himself gently.
Slaíne was still asleep, for once no care written on her face. She stirred as he got to his feet, but he did not remain. He needed to think.
His shoulder throbbed, though it no longer pained him as severely as it had the night before. Truth be told, though, he hadn’t slept so well in quite some time. Not that he would tell Slaíne…ever.
Having to make water rather urgently, he left her for a nearby gathering of trees. By the look of where the sun sat in the sky, and by the lack of dew on the ground, they had slept into the late morning. The dream still burned brightly in his mind, and every time he blinked, he swore he could see that pale child staring back at him.
Once he had finished his business, Aidan made himself decent and was going to see if he could rouse Slaíne, but thought better of it. Let her sleep for now. He would think of what was to be done next in solitude.
He felt for Pulls. There were more than he had felt for days, though only one in the near vicinity was human. Slaíne. Aidan shook his head, ignored that Pull in particular, and reached out to feel for other living things around him. Smaller life, like insects and mice, were within a hand’s reach underground. But that was not quite what he was feeling for. Just a little larger…. He felt bigger animals, deer and elk, perhaps. Too large. He needed—
“Aha!” He heard them before he felt them: frogs. They would lead him to what they needed desperately right now.
Smiling, he was about to take off in pursuit of them, but remembered Slaíne and ran back for her. When he returned to camp, he hesitated.
The girl was awake, sitting cross-legged, a scowl on her face and the silver blade in her lap. This did not bode well.
Aidan moved in slowly, and for a moment, he wondered what she would do with that sword if she weren’t bound to him by the curse. Run him through? The thought sent a shiver down his spine. He hoped he never had to find out. “You’re awake,” he said, wincing for having stated the obvious. When she didn’t respond, he tried again. “About last night— I’m sorry. It was cold and….” And I enjoyed it a lot more than I ought to have.
Slaíne’s scowl deepened. “Who is Larkin?”
Aidan’s brows shot heavenward. “You want to put that sword down and tell me what this is about?”
She looked at the blade as though she’d forgotten she had it. “The only thing they left, it seems. Found it by a tree.”
Aidan waited, wondering what had her so perturbed. “Slaíne, I had another dream last night.”
Her spine stiffened. “Oh? You think I don’t know?” Her grip on the sword’s haft tightened, and Aidan quickly Dismissed it before she could cut herself…or him, for that matter. She jumped as the blade disappeared.
It might be wise to head her off with the truth before she could get any jumpier. The girl would get to the truth sooner or later; she seemed to have a knack for that. Aidan knew he would do well to offer at least some of it freely. “It was a little girl with…. What?” Her expression had gone from cross to confused and then smoothed over again.
“Go on.”
Aidan shook his head. “I recognized her, but I can’t figure out from where. I don’t know any children, but….” Why was he rambling? Perhaps Slaíne’s mood, or whatever it was, was contagious.
“What was the dream about?” Slaíne asked. “Was she in it?”
Aidan sighed. He knew whom she meant. “Yes, Meraude was in the dream. But something was different this time.”
Slaíne narrowed her eyes at this news. “What seemed different?”
How to put this without seeming completely out of his right mind? “She seemed, I don’t know, younger.”
“I thought the Seeing Pool only showed the present and the future. Yer certain you was seeing the past?”
Aidan frowned. “I don’t know what I was seeing.” The thought that he’d been talking to someone from the past hadn’t occurred to him. Could it be?
“And you said she was with a child.”
Aidan nodded. “The child – Larkin – said she had been taken from her parents, and…. What now?”
Slaíne had gotten to her feet, agitated all of a sudden. “Sir, what you saw…if you were seeing her with a child…Meraude, she killed the parents, and she killed the children. All of them.”
“Whoa, Slaíne, slow down. You’re babbling.”
She shot him a dark look. “Oh, try and keep up. The Blest. She killed all the Blest. And she hated children. And parents. And everyone. Still does, far as I know.”
So, there were other things that Slaíne had neglected to tell him. When would she ever learn to trust him? Probably not until he stopped keeping secrets of his own, he knew. But now was not the time. “Walk with me.”
“Where? Why?”
“I’m close to finding water.” Aidan turned and took a few steps back to the edge of the clearing, pausing when he sensed she was not following him. “What?”
“How can you think of water at a time like this?”
Aidan stared at her. “Because I’m dying of thirst. Come.”
Slaíne hesitated a moment longer, but at last relented and tramped after him. “Where is this supposed water?”
>
Aidan smiled to himself. “I thought it was scandalous, thinking of water at a time like this.”
Slaíne snorted. “I didn’t say scandalous. And besides, my throat’s as dry as paper.”
He motioned for her to be quiet for a moment, so that he might listen to the natural life and concentrate on Pulls. He heard gentle keening directly ahead by several paces. Water had no Pull. Aidan always supposed it was too changing to act as much of an anchor anyway. It had never bothered him before, as he had always been familiar with the areas he traveled. Water had always been plentiful. What he stumbled into now was swamp water. He sighed.
“This ain’t drinkable.” Slaíne’s voice was thick, and if he didn’t know her as well as he did, he might think she was on the verge of tears. “Stagnant. We’d get sorely sick if….”
Aidan held up a hand to stay her comments. This would take concentration. “Kneel now.”
Slaíne snorted. “Are we going to pray over it?”
“No,” Aidan said, fighting a smile, “just do as I say. Cup your hands and….”
Slaíne beat him to the punch, and scooped up a handful of water. “All right. Now what?”
Aidan closed his eyes and concentrated. He felt for Pulls in the water, Pulls so small that he would never notice them unless he was specifically looking for them. And he had to work quickly before it all leaked out of her hands. There! A few dozen potentially harmful things, he was fairly certain. He Dismissed them all, just to be on the safe side. He looked up at Slaine, who was staring at him, a question on her face. “Drink it.”
She hesitated. “You just stared at it real hard and now it’s safe to drink, is it?”
Now Aidan did laugh, though he was really in no laughing mood. It must seem rather absurd to her. “Just drink it. I got rid of anything that wasn’t water.”
Slaíne gave him a disbelieving look but didn’t need any more prompting. She gulped down what was in her hands and didn’t hesitate to scoop up another handful, staring at him expectantly.
Aidan was thirsty himself, but humored her by Dismissing the harmful elements from that handful. He half-expected her to scoop up another palmful of the water, but she instead wiped her mouth clean and got to her feet. So he cleansed the water for himself, not two but five handfuls. That strange drink he’d lifted from the nymphs had left a funny taste in his mouth…going down and coming back up. He grimaced at the memory, and hoped Slaíne did not think of it anymore.
Now that water had been taken care of for the moment, the next concern was finding something to transport it in. He could not simply Dismiss it handfuls at a time; it had no Pull and was tied to whatever vessel it was in. This meant he could Dismiss a wineskin full of liquid, but not the pond itself. Too large. Too unstable a vessel.
“If only I knew where we were.”
“Do it matter?” Slaíne asked, and Aidan could tell she was saying it just to irritate him, though he could not imagine why she meant to provoke him.
Aidan ignored the intent behind her words and took them at their literal value. “If we don’t want to wander around and die from thirst, yes.” He gave her a wry look. “You wouldn’t happen to be harboring anything else from me?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“A bucket down your trousers? Or perhaps behind a tree.”
“That sword,” she said, her color rising, “was just where I said I found it.”
Aidan regarded her. “I’m sure it was.”
She did not seem to think that he believed her. Her stare was heated, but she veered away from the argument only to start another. “I’ve not seen no buckets around. No strange jugs, neither.” Parry, riposte, lunge.
So, she wasn’t going to let that one go. He knew full well what she meant, and it was his turn to give her a heated stare. Before he could retort and say something he might regret, Slaíne held up her hands.
“Let’s let it be, sir. You’ve your secrets, I’ve mine. You have your, er…faults, and I’ve me own. Fair?” She held out her hand for him to shake.
Aidan regarded her for a moment, a bit of the devil rising up in him. He grasped her hand from where he sat, shook it firmly…then threw her off-balance and into the stagnant water. Laughing from the banks, he expected her to spit and swear at him. What Aidan did not expect was for her to sink below, her arms churning the surface in panic. What had he done? Not bothering to throw off his boots, Aidan leapt into the water, which he found indeed much deeper than he’d suspected.
Something grabbed him from behind, and he almost struck out at it in the dimness, but he knew that Pull. She released him, and they both kicked for the surface.
“What did you do that for?” Aidan shouted at Slaíne, once he’d caught his breath.
She was treading water and laughing at him.
“I thought you were drowning.” He splashed her, and she splashed back.
“Should nay have thrown me in,” she shot back, her voice rising as well.
She swam out of reach. “Don’t ever do that again,” he snarled. He splashed at her again for good measure, but she was too far away, so he swam after her.
Screaming, she swam toward the other end of the swampy pond. But she didn’t make it before he overtook her.
Aidan grabbed her and dunked her under once, then pulled her back up.
Slaíne struggled against him, thrashing like a prize fish on the line, but Aidan didn’t let go. He was behaving absurdly. He knew his behavior was reprehensible. And yet…. It was too tempting. Only this time, there was no strange brew to blame.
“What’s the matter?” she said, laughter in her voice.
Aidan answered by touching her face. It was shallower water on this end, and he was able to stand with his head above water. Slaíne was not so able, thus making her vulnerable to his attack. His hands steadied her, held her above the surface and he stared at her, into her.
Her breathing had grown as ragged as his own. Aidan took that as all the permission he needed. For the second time in the span of a day, he leaned in and was prepared to kiss her, but remembered her words from before.
You’ll ruin it, she’d said. What had she meant by that? Perhaps he would be wise to find out before he attempted anything again.
Willing his blood to cool, Aidan planted a kiss on her cheek. He met her eyes, and of course could read no betrayal of what she might be feeling. Typical, he thought, chiding himself for again overstepping his bounds. “How do we—”
“Transport the water?” Slaíne said.
He released her, and they both swam back to the other side of the pond, Aidan allowing her to reach the bank before he did. When she got out, her clothes clung to her small frame and showed more beneath than was modest. Aidan looked away and gave her privacy.
A thought occurred to Aidan. It was almost too good to hope for, yet the nymphs would have had to dispose of his belongings somewhere. It stood to reason that that somewhere was near at hand. “Slaíne,” he said after clearing his throat. He didn’t look at her, but took to scanning the woods surrounding. “Where did you find the sword?”
For whatever reason, her tone turned brittle yet again. “I found it by a tree. Why?”
Aidan rolled his eyes but did not pursue the cause of the tone. “Perhaps they hid my belongings nearby.”
There was a pause. She sighed, and he felt her moving away from him a ways. When she spoke, her voice was farther away. “It was over here somewhere, though I can nay remember exactly.”
He frowned. “The general direction is good enough. I should be able to find anything if I have that.”
“You can’t feel nothin’ now?”
Aidan nodded. “That doesn’t mean it’s not there. There might be iron involved.” He traipsed past Slaíne, ignoring her sharp intake of breath, and stood with his back to her in the gathering of trees. Her Pull, though, was prov
ing as problematic to his concentration as usual. Aidan shook his head. “Slaíne, would you mind moving off a little ways? Your Pull is throwing my perception off.”
He felt rather than heard her move back ten paces. Not perfect, but it would have to do. Aidan closed his eyes and concentrated. Again he felt for familiar Pulls but found none. Next, he felt for the absence of Pulls, for a presence that should be there but was not. He stretched himself a little, ignoring everything that was, and— “Yes. There’s something here.”
His eyes flew open and he followed that repulsion he felt toward that particular metal. It was repelling him as he fought his way toward it, its presence clearer than it would normally have been, since he had been looking for it. The pulsing spot was in the ground, so Aidan looked for disturbed dirt. Sure enough, there was a patch of fresh soil that radiated a ‘stay away’ feeling. He got on his hands and knees and dug, all the while the force of the repulsion hitting him hard in the stomach.
“You find something?”
Aidan didn’t answer at first. He was busy moving mounds of dirt aside, ignoring the small cuts the rocks were scraping into his hands. There! Not two feet below was a chest made of iron, about four by three feet. He hastily cleared away the rest of the dirt, and with a triumphant laugh, he pried the lid off the coffer and found his store of water bladders, his saddlebag and moneys, his knives, some herbs, his fire-making tools, and his cooking patera. He was so happy, he could kiss something.
“Why’d they bury it?” Slaíne asked. She reached around him for one of the bladders, and her arm brushed his, causing his hairs to stand on end.
Aidan ignored his body’s reaction and Dismissed all but the bladders. “Perhaps they thought we wouldn’t escape if we didn’t have our supplies.” Who cared as long as they had the much-needed possessions back?
“And you’re sure they’re dead?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t they be dead? You said it yourself. Their life forces were tied to the light. No light, no nymphs.” It sounded stupid coming out of his mouth, but it had to be true. And even if it weren’t, it didn’t matter now. They were free to be on their way.
Slaíne let out a grunt. “All right. If you say so, sir.” Before he could say anything else on the matter, she changed the subject. “Are we still for Wontworth?”
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