Star of the Morning

by Lynn Kurland

  “Tor Neroche,” he advised. “A body can likely find just about anything there.”

  “You hesitate,” she noted. “Why?”

  He shook his head. “ ’Tis nothing.” He smiled gravely. “The journey north is perilous, but you are not afraid.”

  “Are you?”

  “Quite,” he said frankly.

  “Then stay nearby,” she advised. “I imagine I can see to you and Fletcher both.”

  He smiled, more sincerely this time. “I appreciate that.”

  They ate without haste, but without lingering. Morgan helped Miach put the chamber to rights, then made certain the fire was completely out. She turned away from the hearth to find Miach standing near the door, a ball of werelight floating gently above his head. Morgan gaped at him.

  “How did you do that?”

  “A spell,” he said easily.

  “How do you know so many spells?”

  He only hesitated slightly. “I know many things. Knowing how to light things and hide them is very useful.”

  Morgan shouldered her pack and walked toward him. “Aye, I suppose so. It would be a poor thing indeed to stomp through the mire in the dark.”

  He snorted and shut the door behind her. “Indeed.” He shifted his pack and led her up the stairs, the little ball of light bouncing up high to light the stairs as they ascended them.

  “Have you ever been in Tor Neroche?” she asked as she followed him out into the hallway of the palace.

  “Aye,” he said simply.

  But he didn’t seem inclined to say more, so she didn’t ask. Perhaps it was a poor memory for him. Perhaps it was so glorious that he couldn’t bear to think on it for it compared poorly with his own life.

  Perhaps she had spent far too much of the past fortnight dreaming and it had wrought a foul work upon her own poor thoughts.

  She paused with him as he peeked out into the hallway. The light above his head vanished without his having to say anything. She did, however, hear him murmur a spell of un-noticing before he turned and looked at her.

  “Shall we?”

  “How did you make the light go out without saying anything?” she asked.

  “Years of practice. You know, not wanting to stomp through the pigsty in the dark.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, following him out into the passageway.

  He looked at her. “Would you care to learn a few?”

  “Learn a few whats?”

  “Spells.”

  She knew what he’d been going to say and had wished to avoid hearing it. It was quite some time before she could say anything. She took a cautious breath. “Spells?”

  He nodded.

  “I loathe magic,” she whispered.

  “I know.” He paused. “But a spell or two is never a bad thing.”

  “I have a sword.”

  “So do I.”

  “I know how to use mine.”

  He laughed a little. “You have little faith in my skill.”

  “Miach, I’ve watched you train. If training it could be called—and with someone else’s sword, no less.”

  “I’m fiercer in battle.”

  She snorted. She would have to see that.

  “You know,” he said slowly, “Adhémar could teach you a spell or two.”

  She looked at him in astonishment.

  Oddly enough, he was looking at her in the same manner, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d said.

  “Did I say that?” he asked, sounding incredulous.

  “Aye. Does he know any spells?”

  “Not any interesting ones,” Miach said. “But perhaps a useful one or two.”

  Morgan took him by the arm and started down the passageway. “I’ll think on it,” she said again. And unfortunately, she suspected she just might. She loathed magic, ’twas true, though she was beginning to find that spell of concealment tripping far too easily from her tongue. The werelight, as well, was something quite useful she couldn’t create with her sword.

  But anything else?

  If it were taught by Adhémar?

  She wondered if she would manage to listen to more than one spell before she grew so irritated with him that she would skewer him on the end of her sword. She likely should have done that the first time she’d seen him. She had been prepared to do damage to him without regret, but his visage had stopped her.

  Was it a weakness that would be her downfall now?

  She examined that as she allowed Miach to make a diversion to get them out the front door. Even Weger had been known on occasion to comment on the fairness of a wench’s face.

  Never hers, of course, but perhaps he had considered her unhandsome.

  She walked down the palace’s front steps, then stopped Miach at the bottom of those stairs.

  “Am I fair to look upon?” she asked bluntly.

  His eyes widened and a look of astonishment came upon his features.

  She scowled at him. “You wear that look often.”

  “You catch me unawares often.”

  “Is the question so difficult, then?” she asked tartly.

  He looked at her darkly, then turned and walked away, muttering under his breath. Morgan followed him, unsure why she felt so not herself. Indeed, her eyes began to burn and she suspected that had she had any feelings, they might be smarting as well.

  “It was a ridiculous question,” she announced, to save her pride.

  Miach whirled on her. “You’re bloody beautiful,” he snarled. “Satisfied?”

  Admittedly she hadn’t known him very long, but she had never seen him so undone. Confused, aye; baffled, aye to that as well; astonished, aye, more than once. But angry?

  It was her turn to be astonished.

  “It was a simple question,” she managed.

  “And a simple answer. Let’s go.”

  He strode away. Morgan followed him a little unsteadily. Well, it hadn’t been very politely said, but the words were somewhat pleasing. Whether Weger had ever stopped to consider anything about her besides her sword skill was really beside the point. It wasn’t Weger she was interested in. It was for damned sure she wasn’t interested in Adhémar.

  She was fairly certain she wasn’t interested in Miach, either.

  Fairly.

  Paien would have waggled his brows at this point and begun to list all Miach’s finer qualities. She would have, at that same point, reminded him that her quest, aye, her very choice of professions demanded that she not be interested in anyone.

  Perhaps it was time she reminded herself yet again that she was most certainly not interested in anyone who had truck with magic.

  Never mind that such a plague haunted her.

  Miach looked over his shoulder, glared at her again, then strode swiftly ahead.

  Still, there was much to like about Miach. He was frank and clear-eyed. He was seemingly unafraid to acknowledge his limitations, he agreed with her that Nicholas’s knife was unsettling, and he seemed as troubled by her dreams as she did.

  And she liked his laugh.

  She caught up to him and found it far too comfortable a thing. Despite the darkness that seemed to be swirling around her, she felt eased in her heart, somehow. It was almost as pleasant a feeling as a se’nnight on that goose-feather mattress at Lismòr.

  Almost as much of a feeling of home.

  Heaven help her.

  Seventeen

  Miach continued to walk away from the palace of Chagailt, cursing himself under his breath. What had he been thinking? He’d had almost two days alone with Morgan and what had he done? Had he wooed her? Had he sung lays to her beauty, taken long walks with her in Iolaire’s lovely gardens, plied her with delicacies from Finlay’s kitchens? Of course not. He’d opened his mouth and suggested an activity during which she could spend vast amounts of time with his brother.

  Adhémar could teach you a spell or two.

  Ha!

  It had either been the height of stupidity or a flash of brilliance. He
latched on to the latter and examined what the potential benefits of such an arrangement might be.

  First, if Adhémar taught her a few spells, she would continue to believe that he, Miach, didn’t know them. Given her substantial distaste for all things magical and their dispensers, that could only be good for him and bad for his brother. Second, the more time she spent with Adhémar, the less she would like him. Again, good for him, bad for his brother. Finally, if Adhémar spent time with her, he would no doubt begin to see her finer qualities and when she handed him that bloody knife she carried, he might actually be kind to her.

  Miach frowned. That was good for his brother, but he wasn’t quite sure what it meant for him.

  He blew out his breath and turned his thoughts away from the whole subject. It was certain that he had many more things to think on that were equally as troubling and perhaps more pertinent to the current situation.

  He ignored the fact that all those things seemed to have Morgan of Melksham in the center of them.

  So, Nicholas of Lismòr had given her a blade, a blade that so greatly resembled the Sword of Angesand that it had to have been made by Queen Mehar herself, to take to the king of Neroche. That was an extraordinary thing alone, but it was made even more so by knowing that Morgan had been dreaming of the sword itself.

  When she had never seen it before.

  More surprising still were her dreams of a situation that mirrored Gair of Ceangail’s demise so perfectly that he could hardly call it dreaming. He revisited his earlier thoughts. Perhaps she wasn’t dreaming after all.

  Perhaps she was remembering.

  Gair of Ceangail, of all people.

  Gair of Ceangail, whose daughter had possibly cast a spell of un-noticing over herself and escaped drowning in evil.

  But had the little girl escaped nothing more than that first wave of evil? Had she perished in the forest? Or had she been taken in by kindly souls and was now living out her life, blissfully ignorant of her parentage and what she was capable of?

  Or was Gair’s daughter walking next to him, remembering spells she’d learned as a child and dreaming memories?

  There were just too many things that made his mind expand far beyond where it should have. Gair, Morgan, the Sword of Angesand, Weger . . . and he himself, who couldn’t seem to stop finding ways to suggest to Morgan that she spend more time with Adhémar.

  He wondered if he should just turn and invite Morgan to run him through. At least with the latter, he wouldn’t have to watch his brother woo her—

  Which he was sure Adhémar would do when he took a long enough look at her.

  Miach cursed silently as he walked along. He had ample time to curse because he wasn’t walking all that quickly. There was no sense in showing up at camp sooner than he had to. He supposed the others might have continued on their way and perhaps he and Morgan would have some running to do to catch up with them.

  Perhaps while they were running, he would cast a spell of ugliness over Morgan that only Adhémar could see. It was possible, of course. After all, he was the bloody archmage of the realm. What good did all that power do him if he couldn’t use it for good now and then?

  He spent the better part of the morning thinking about that. In fact, the idea was so beguiling and he was concentrating so thoroughly on its implementation that he didn’t see the trap laid before them until he’d walked into the middle of it.

  Creatures came at them from all sides.

  It took him a moment or two to regroup. Before he could manage it completely, Morgan had spun him around so they were standing back to back.

  “Draw your sword, you idiot!” she shouted. She paused. “Do you even have a sword? Damnation—”

  Miach pulled one out of thin air.

  “Where did that come from?” she said, looking briefly over her shoulder.

  “Found it on the ground—”

  “Good,” Morgan said. “Use it.”

  He wasn’t a bad swordsman. In fact, if he’d taken the time to judge dispassionately, he would have said that he was a better swordsman than Adhémar and at least Cathar’s equal—and that without the benefit of any finger-waggling.

  He fought now with all the skill he had and he could hear Morgan behind him doing the same, but he knew almost instantly that it would not be enough. Had it been just men attacking them, aye, but not with these monsters. Miach continued to fight, but while he was doing so, he wove his spell of death.

  It wasn’t something that he did lightly. Indeed, it was something that he hadn’t done since he’d inherited his mother’s mantle. He certainly hadn’t managed it with any success the one time he’d done it before that, which had been during his extended visit to Lothar’s dungeon. There had come a point during that incarceration where he had been so desperate to see light, so desperate to be free, so desperate to be anywhere but where he was, standing in slime and knowing he would die anyway if he didn’t act, that he had woven a spell of death to include everything in Lothar’s keep save him.

  The spell had dropped into the air of Lothar’s keep like a coin into a bottomless well, silent and useless.

  Fortunately for his sorry, shivering young self, his mother had felt what he hadn’t realized had been a tremor in Lothar’s fortress and that had been enough to convince her he was still alive.

  Those were memories perhaps left for a better time.

  He wove his spell of death now over the hearts of all who lay within the scope of the battle, taking care to make certain it didn’t include him or Morgan. He also took care to make certain there were no others within the reach of the darkness he created who might innocently fall to his power.

  He quietly spoke the final word.

  All but three of the remaining creatures fell to the earth.

  Miach staggered as his spell rebounded off the remaining three. He gathered it to himself and dissolved it, managing at the same time to kill one of the last three with his sword. What were these creatures covered with? It was a spell, surely, and one that seemed faintly familiar.

  He realized why. It was the same magic Adhémar had smelled of after the battle in which he’d lost his power.

  Miach promised himself a good moment of being startled later, when their lives were no longer in peril. He heard one of their remaining two foes bellow in fury. He would have turned to aid Morgan but he saw that she didn’t need it. Sword skill alone would win the day with her, apparently. That left him with the final creature, a drooling troll who laughed maniacally as he strode across the glade.

  Miach focused all the rest of his power at the creature, smashed through the spell that had been woven over him, and crushed his body with a single command.

  The creature crumpled like a length of rough cloth.

  Miach dropped to his knees, feeling half dead himself.

  “Miach!”

  He could only manage to shake his head. He felt Morgan’s hands on his shoulders and found himself wrenched upright.

  “Are you wounded?” she asked.

  Miach knelt there, sucking in breath in an alarming fashion. He shook his head again, the only answer he could make. He was almost certain Morgan looked worried. Or he could have just been imagining that. He couldn’t actually see her face anymore for all the spots dancing in front of his eyes.

  “You don’t appear to be bleeding,” she said with a frown.

  “I’m not,” he managed. “Just spent.”

  “Miach, there weren’t that many of them,” she chided. “And look you there; it would appear that many of them simply died on their own.”

  Miach would have snorted out a laugh at that, but he was too busy trying to catch his breath.

  She took hold of the sword at his side. “Where did you find this? Is it yours?”

  “Nay,” he gasped. “Leave it behind.”

  She rose easily and jammed it into the ground. “Have you ever been in a battle before, Miach?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “Do you alway
s react this way?” She looked down at him narrowly. “You aren’t going to puke, are you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Good. Don’t. Or if you’re going to, don’t do it on me.”

  “Won’t,” he agreed.

  “Don’t move.”

  “If you say so,” he said faintly.

  She shot him another look of thinly veiled concern, then cleaned her sword and resheathed it. She walked around the glade for several moments, looking down at the creatures slain there and shaking her head slowly.

  Miach understood completely. He knelt there, wheezing, and managed to get his head upright where he could at least see what he’d killed. He wasn’t surprised to see spells hanging in tatters around the trolls. Miach renewed his determination to have a closer look at Adhémar’s sword. He suspected he might find the same thing there.

  Morgan came to the last troll, the one he had felled with his magic. She stopped, looked at the creature for a moment or two in silence, then turned and strode over to Miach.

  “Come,” she said, hauling him to his feet. “I do not like this at all.”

  “Did you see something?” he asked.

  “That creature,” she said, shivering. “He is much like the one that came at Adhémar. If his sword hadn’t come to life—” She stopped speaking. She looked at Miach with wide eyes. “I mean—”

  “I already know,” Miach said, struggling to get his feet under him.

  “Who told you?” she demanded.

  “Fletcher,” Miach said. “Accidentally. Kill him later.”

  “I just might,” she said, reaching out to steady him. “I suppose I will have to trust you with that secret as well. After the past two days, I daresay there are few still left between us.”

  Miach grunted. It was all he could do. Heaven help him if she found out any of his real secrets.

  Morgan drew his arm over her shoulders. She was surprisingly strong for a woman. He was not given to fat, but he was tall and solid. He did, however, find it somewhat satisfying that she staggered just a bit while trying to keep him there. She looked about them once more, then shivered.

  Miach understood. The stench of evil was overpowering.

  “I don’t like this,” she said quietly. “There are three times the number who came against us at Istaur.”