by Lynn Kurland
Or worse.
Morag stopped a handful of paces from Sarah, so close that Sarah could see that there weren’t so much as even the beginnings of faint lines around her mouth or eyes. She wondered, absently, how old the queen was, how she managed to look as young as any of her daughters, how many innocent people she had slain in her quest for power. She wondered how it was that Prince Phillip ever managed to walk through the halls of his keep without looking over his shoulder to make certain Morag wasn’t about to cast a spell of death over him just because she could.
“Now,” Morag said softly, “let us be about finishing this unpleasant business, shall we?”
“What business?” Sarah asked, her mouth completely dry. She knew she was squeaking, but since she was back again in the position of mouse facing cat, perhaps that was fitting.
“The business of my taking your power,” Morag said with a smile.
But I have no power would have been the first thing out of her mouth if she’d dared speak, but since it was always the first thing she said when Morag was trying to kill her, she supposed there was no point in saying as much any longer. Morag wouldn’t believe it until she’d finally succeeded in killing Sarah and found there was no power there to take.
“Where’s Ruith?” Sarah asked, because when she opened her mouth, it was what came tumbling out.
“Prince Ruithneadh,” Morag said sharply, “who is so far above you in station, you can’t possibly think to have him consider you anything but a chambermaid, is happily wandering about in a spell he doesn’t realize I’ve cast over him.”
“But he set spells of ward—”
Morag’s laughter was like claws across her skin. Sarah flinched in spite of herself, which seemed to please Morag all the more.
“Spells,” she said with a disdainful half laugh. “Is that what he calls them?” She leaned closer. “Let me share a secret with you, young Sarah: he may be Gair of Ceangail’s youngest son, but he inherited none of his sire’s power. He certainly wouldn’t have the power to use his sire’s spell of—what was it Gair called it?”
“Diminishing,” Sarah whispered.
Morag fixed her gaze on Sarah. “Aye,” she said softly, “Diminishing—not that Gair’s spell was nearly as useful as he thought it was. You see, ’tis at the instant a soul leaves this world that power is best taken, something even Gair didn’t understand. He was too greedy, too impatient to wait for the proper moment. And yes, my little innocent, I have my own spell for that sort of thing.” She lifted an eyebrow. “I used it on your parents, to great effect—”
“I hope it hurt you,” Sarah blurted out.
The change in Morag’s mien was terrifying. Sarah had known she was walking along a knife’s edge as it was, but to see Morag in a full-blown rage was something else entirely. A spell came rushing out of her mouth, a spell full of barbs and clawing fingers, a spell designed to tear open her soul and have what Morag wanted as her final breath left her body.
And she could do absolutely nothing to keep it from falling on her.
Nine
R
uith caught Morag’s spell of death and wrenched it away from falling upon Sarah even though taking hold of it was like grasping the fangs of a score of asps. He fell to his knees, gasping in pain. “Well,” a voice purred, “if it isn’t the handsome prince of Tòrr Dòrainn, who was clever enough to free himself from confusion in time to come rescue his little dreamweaving trollop from death.”
Ruith shoved himself back to his feet and jerked Sarah behind him. He would have told her to run, but he didn’t imagine she would be safer away from him than she would be near him. At least he could keep her out of Morag’s sights with his body alone.
He looked behind Morag to find half a dozen guardsmen who looked as if they shared not only their queen’s foul humors but perhaps her magic as well. He was appalled to find his first instinct was to finish them all with a spell of death. He shoved aside the thought, then laid a spell over them that turned the falling rain into stinging insects. The mayhem that immediately ensued would have been entertaining if he hadn’t been so unnerved. A mage underestimated Morag at his peril.
Hadn’t he had proof of that not half an hour ago? He’d been walking with Sarah alongside him only to realize at some indeterminate point that he was no longer walking beside her. Worse still, he couldn’t have said when he’d lost her.
He had thrown off the spell he’d realized had been cast over him, then frantically searched for Sarah, cursing the fact that he didn’t have her sight. He’d finally resorted to hawk shape, skimming the tops of the evergreens, desperately looking for Sarah before something befell her.
To his horror, he’d found her covered by what he’d originally thought was a spell of death.
Only to discover that it wasn’t.
She had been under a spell of…well, he couldn’t call it Diminishing. It had been something else he hadn’t been able to name, but it had been terrible. He didn’t want to know what sort of things Morag dreamed up in the bowels of her castle, stewing over what she didn’t have, restlessly searching for more efficient means to remedy that.
And though that piece of evil had been destroyed, he was sure it was just the beginning of what Morag could do. For all he knew, she had others just waiting to join in the battle. He looked behind Morag’s frantically dancing guardsmen and realized that they weren’t the only souls watching the goings on. There was a wagon there, a well-used ale wagon being leaned on by four lads he recognized.
The youngest of the lot was gaping at Morag as if he’d just had a peep into the deepest pit of hell and thought the slightest push might leave him lingering there for an eternity or two. That was Ned, Sarah’s farm boy, whose only skill in life lay in escaping either peril or his father’s barn.
The much shorter man to the right of Ned was Master Oban, wizard extraordinaire, who had faced Daniel of Doìre and come out much worse for the wear. He was gaping in much the same way Ned was, only his open mouth was partially covered by his wand, as if he feared to blurt out any expression of terror. His most obvious sign of distress was that his pointed wizard’s hat had fallen so far forward and to the side, it had completely obscured one of his eyes. Ruith thought it might be best for Oban and Ned to scamper behind one of the wagon’s ale kegs for the duration of the morning’s events, but he suspected he wouldn’t have the chance to say as much.
Next to Oban stood Seirceil of Coibhneas swathed in a simple dark cloak and wearing not so much an expression of dismay as one of satisfaction, as if something he’d suspected earlier had just been verified. Ruith was fairly sure he knew what that something might be. He hadn’t been exactly forthcoming with the details of his life to any of his company earlier in the winter, and he had outright lied to Seirceil about his identity. No doubt the jig was up.
Then again, the fourth member of that little group behind Morag’s frantic guardsmen hadn’t been exactly forthcoming about any of his details, so Ruith supposed he might be considered the lesser of the two offenders there.
That fourth man, Franciscus, the alemaster of Doìre, was leaning negligently against the side of the wagon, looking for all the world as if he’d just stopped to water his horses and decided a nap on his feet was a good way to pass the time. Quite a pretty sight for a man who was in truth the grandson of King Seannair of Cothromaiche. Franciscus’s hood was pulled over his face and his arms folded over his chest. He certainly didn’t look as if he spared any concern for the fact that the dragon queen of An-uallach was about to kill him, Ruith, and then quite possibly Franciscus’s own granddaughter, Sarah.
Morag didn’t seem to have noticed anything that was going on behind her or noted who might have been watching her. Ruith was happy to leave it that way. He wasn’t above asking for a rescue from old friends if the need arose.
“You don’t look well, Prince Ruithneadh,” Morag said with exaggerated concern. “Why don’t you go have a little rest until you feel more yourself. I�
��ll pass the time very pleasantly with the lass hiding behind you.”
“I don’t think you will,” Ruith said, promising himself at least a solid handful of hours in a safe place to recover from Morag’s initial salvo at Sarah. He could only imagine what she would throw at him.
“You don’t,” Morag said sharply. “You don’t? Why, you arrogant, foolish boy, who do you think you are? Coming to my hall uninvited, leaving me with a hole in my wall, assaulting my guards, stealing—”
“Stealing?” Ruith echoed, dredging up his own bit of disdain. “Surely you can’t be serious. We were guests in your hall when we were assaulted by your spells—”
“Which were nothing but a pale foreshadowing of what magic I have to hand now,” she spat.
“One would hope,” he said, affecting a look he imagined Sìle would have been proud of, “considering the spells in your keep weren’t all that impressive.”
“Will you shut up?” Sarah hissed from behind him.
“If you think you’ll get in the way of my prize,” Morag said, drawing herself up, “then you are sorely mistaken, my young princeling.”
Ruith shrugged. “I don’t think I am. And I am usually right about these kinds of things—”
He didn’t gasp, but it was only because he didn’t have the wind to. Her spell slammed into him with even more power than Miach’s had toward the end of their little tête-à-tête. He remained on his feet only because Sarah’s hands were buried in his cloak, keeping him upright. He planted his feet apart and prepared to face a woman who was, in the end, just a woman. Those of An-uallach had lifespans that far outstripped the average farmer in the south, but certainly didn’t stretch out unendingly like those of elvenkind. She had power enough, but nothing, in the end, to equal any of his forebearers.
He suspected that annoyed her quite a bit.
It was no doubt why she had spent so much of her time trying to invent a way to copy his father’s spell of Diminishing. Perhaps she thought that if she could steal power, she could steal life as well.
And then he had no more time or space for leisurely thoughts. Morag wasn’t his father, but she had her own store of very vile spells that she didn’t hesitate to use. The only thing in his favor was that those spells were no worse than what Miach had thrown at him—and a handful of them were ones he wasn’t entirely sure Miach hadn’t possessed himself—so he countered them if not with ease, at least without drawing back in revulsion.
And then she turned to things he realized he truly did recognize.
It took him a moment to identify them as magic akin to what Uachdaran of Léige had used. He didn’t want to know where either of them had learned those spells for they were full of shadows from nightmares and depths better not peered into. He had a strong stomach, but he found that even he flinched a time or two.
He noticed after a bit that there hadn’t even been a change in Morag’s breathing, which worried him. He certainly couldn’t say the same for himself. He dragged his sleeve across his eyes and fought with renewed determination. But he felt himself beginning to slip
Just a bit.
And then he realized suddenly that Morag was being quite a bit more devious than he’d imagined she would be. She was hurling spells at him at an alarming rate, true, but she was also weaving something behind him.
Something meant just for Sarah.
He countered that spell—a spell that was far too much like his father’s spell of Diminishing for his taste—as best he could, but just the effort of that wore on him in a particularly inconvenient way. Then, as things took a turn for the worse, he found himself contemplating a few less savoury things. He had to physically stop himself from spewing out a spell of essence changing. That the bloody thing came so easily to his mind was alarming, but what kept him from using it was the thought of Morag hearing it. He could only imagine what she would turn others into without hesitation. For all he knew, she was less interested in whatever magic she thought Sarah might possess than she was in Cothromaiche’s most powerful spells—
Diminishing.
He hesitated, then brushed the thought aside as if it had been an annoying fly buzzing round his head. As tempting as it was to rid the world of Morag, he couldn’t do it that way. He wouldn’t do it that way, not if that was the only means left him to do her in.
But that didn’t seem to keep the thought from continuing to tug at him.
He realized, with a start, that it wasn’t just his imagination or his sense of self-preservation that was making untoward suggestions to him in the less-than-quiet of his mind.
It was the bits of spell in his pocket.
“Ruith!”
He looked up in time to see a wave of evil geysering up into the sky.
And in that moment, he knew he was lost.
He was once again standing at the edge of a particular glade, watching his sire uncap a well of evil, watching the precise moment occur when his sire knew that he had no hope of containing it. He listened to his father spew out spell after spell in an effort to contain what he’d loosed. He watched as his father stretched up his hands and spat out his most treasured, most closely guarded, most potent spell.
Diminishing.
Ruith realized the words were half out of his mouth—nay, half the spell was out of his mouth—only because something connected very sharply with his ribs and he abruptly lost his breath. He found himself shoved aside so hard that he almost went sprawling. He made a grab for Sarah because he saw Morag’s spell beginning to descend. It was obviously going to fall on someone, but he was going to make certain that someone wasn’t going to be Sarah.
It was apparently going to be Franciscus.
The man said nothing as he stood there, facing Morag in her terrible rage, but the spell above them was changed abruptly—and quite permanently—into a soft, gentle rain that healed as it fell.
Ruith supposed it might not be politic to point out to the grandson of the king of Cothromaiche that those sorts of spells weren’t to be used lightly, so he kept his mouth shut.
Morag had begun to swear in a most unattractive fashion. Ruith looked at her fists, clenched and held down at her sides, and wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t reach out and strike Franciscus. It took her but a moment, but she recaptured her mocking expression and looked down her nose at the man standing twenty paces from her.
“And who might you be, come at such an opportune moment?”
Sarah’s grandfather considered for a moment or two, then lifted his hood back off his head and faced Morag without any disguise.
Morag blinked in surprise, then threw back her head and laughed. Ruith didn’t see anything humorous about it, but he was beginning to suspect that Morag was not in full possession of her wits.
“Well,” she gasped, dabbing at her eyes with a snowy white handkerchief she produced from her sleeve, “if it isn’t Prince Fransciscus of Cothromaiche, back from the dead.”
Franciscus only inclined his head slightly. “So it would seem.”
“This is unexpected,” she said with a smile. “It has been many years, my friend.”
“It has been many years,” Franciscus agreed, “but you and I, Morag, were never friends.”
“Oh, come now,” Morag cajoled, “you aren’t going to hold a small and insignificant disagreement against me, are you? After all this time?”
Ruith stopped listening to her only because he realized he was being beguiled by her words. He watched her hand weaving something and was on the verge of calling out a warning to Franciscus only to realize that wasn’t necessary. Franciscus batted her spell away as if it had been eiderdown, only the spell became fluff in truth. Ruith imagined Soilléir wouldn’t have approved, but he also imagined Soilléir didn’t have the cheek to tell his uncle what to do with his magic.
“Why don’t you speak those spells aloud?” Morag taunted. “Afraid I’ll memorize them?”
“I wouldn’t give you the pleasure,” Franciscus said without any inflectio
n in his voice.
And that was the last thing either of them said for quite some time.
Ruith thought he had seen quite a few things that would have shocked most polite mages, but he found himself watching, openmouthed, as what had been a fairly polite discussion between dignified members of some exclusive club turned into a full-on battle between two mages who had no intention of giving any ground to the other.
And then Morag used spells that made Miach of Neroche’s look pleasant by comparison.
Sarah gasped. Ruith stepped back in front of her and pulled her hard against him. “Don’t look.”
“But—”
“Repeat the spell,” he said, keeping her turned toward him. He looked over his shoulder, winced, then bowed his head to shield Sarah’s face. “The one Soilléir gave you to shut off your sight. Dimming, or whatever rot we’re calling it.”
She was trembling badly, but she said the words. His sight was nothing compared to hers, and it did occur to him that he was perhaps imagining things, but he could have sworn he saw a shadow fall over her. It wasn’t an evil thing, but instead merely the shadow that came over the ground when a cloud obscured the sun. Sarah sighed deeply, put her arms around his waist and buried her face against his neck.
He would have drawn her away from the fray, but a darkness sprang up so suddenly, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face—and that was no pleasant effect of one of Soilléir’s spells. He didn’t dare move for fear he would walk them into Morag instead of ushering them toward escape. His sense of direction was normally very good, but along with that darkness, Morag had added a fair amount of confusion—
And then, suddenly, the sky above them burst into light thanks to a thousand arrows that had been shot up to linger above their heads, arrows tipped with werelight that was almost too bright to look at it.