by Lynn Kurland
Actually, that had been more of an unfriendly shove than a cousinly push, but Sarah supposed tempers were frayed all around. She waved everyone away and looked more closely at the stone.
And she saw the spell.
It was an unhappy combination of Olc and Lugham, Gair’s signature magic. It started above her head near what she could see was a seam in the rock, traveled to the opposite side of the door, down almost to her knees, back over again, and then back up to the original point, forming a perfect square. The thread of the spell wrapped ever inward, becoming smaller and smaller until it terminated in the middle of itself. She supposed that if it could be unwound, it would reveal interesting things.
The thought of unwinding it, however, was one she couldn’t bring herself to consider.
Ruith touched her arm, and she jumped in surprise. She let out a shuddering breath, then looked at him. His expression was very grave.
“What is there?” he asked.
“A spell.” She paused. “I’m not sure I can touch it.”
“Who laid it there?”
She met his eyes. “Your father, I think.”
He nodded, as if he hadn’t expected anything else. “Where does it begin?”
She drew her knife and pointed to the initial spot. “There. It ends in the center of the door.”
“Well,” Ruith said under his breath, “here goes nothing at all.”
He flinched as he touched the end of it, but the pain was apparently not enough to keep him from carrying on. He unraveled, as it were, and as he did so, the true face of the door became clear.
There was one thing she could say about Gair: he seemed to be quite fond of riddles. The door was plain, unremarkable, and sporting nothing resembling a keyhole. There was, however, a spot in the middle of the door where the spell had finished that seemed odd, as if it didn’t quite belong. She started to lean over to have a closer look at it, but felt Ruith pull her back.
“A false lead,” he said regretfully. “I suppose we’ll need to look elsewhere. Perhaps another spot farther up the path? Thoir, lead the way, why don’t you?”
Sarah stepped away from the door only because Ruith gave her no choice. She continued to step backward until they were standing some fifteen paces from the spot she’d uncovered. She didn’t dare look at him, for fear she might spoil some plan she hadn’t been told about.
“There’s an indentation there,” she murmured under her breath when she could stand it no longer.
“I know.”
She looked up at him then. “You do?”
“Aye, and I think I’m slightly more comfortable keeping that to myself for the moment.” He cleared his throat and spoke up. “Keep a weather eye out for anything useful, lads. Press on with enthusiasm.”
Ardan turned and shot him a look of fury. “And why don’t you come sully your lily-white hands right along with us, Ruithneadh? Are you so far above this labor?”
“Not at all,” Ruith said cheerfully. “Be right there.” He tightened his arm briefly around Sarah’s shoulders. “Wait for me.”
She nodded, then watched Ruith walk back across the road and begin to brush away debris and rubble from another section of the house’s façade just as enthusiastically as his cousins. Sarah watched the rest of the company join them, but she thought she might like to stay just where she was. It was true that the door looked as if it hadn’t been opened in a decade, but who was to say that was the case? Gair was the most powerful black mage in the history of the Nine Kingdoms. Putting a little rubbish on the outer wall of his keep and ageing it wouldn’t have been beyond his skill. And adding that little spell to the front door was easily done as well. She supposed even a child—
She would have squeaked at the feeling of being jerked off her feet, but a hand was clamped over her mouth before she could. It was so startling, she didn’t think to reach for her knife or throw an elbow before Ruith had turned around with a frown. He looked at her in surprise, then put his hand out to presumably warn the rest of the company to stay where they were. He lifted an eyebrow.
“Daniel,” he said smoothly. “What a pleasure.”
“A pleasure,” Daniel croaked. “You left me on the plains!”
“With water right there and your own tremendous amount of skill at your disposal,” Ruith said with an indulgent smile. “Just a little test to see if you’re worthy of what you want.”
“Don’t want your test,” Daniel spat. “I’ve come for the other.”
“What?” Ruith asked as he stepped away from the door and gestured to it. “This?”
Sarah was happy to have Ruith be a bit closer to her, but she wasn’t sure that would make any difference. Daniel was trembling so badly, she could feel it in her bones. That, and he was leaning quite hard on her, as if he simply didn’t have the strength to stand up. At least it was simply his forearm across her throat and not a knife. Things could have been worse.
“Give me…spells,” Daniel wheezed. “Now.”
Ruith walked another few steps closer, then froze when Daniel blurted out for him to stop. He slowly pointed to the pack in the middle of the road. “I put them in there but a moment ago. I’ll need to fetch them out.”
“Go…on, then.”
Ruith continued to watch Daniel as he carefully walked forward and reached for his pack. He pulled the spells out, set his pack down, then held out the sheaves of parchment.
“Here they are, my friend. Come and get them, if you want them.”
Sarah found herself dragged across the road, but only for a few steps before she felt her brother stop, then suddenly become an almost intolerable weight against her back. Ruith leapt forward and pulled her away before Daniel collapsed entirely.
She turned around in surprise and found Ardan standing there with a rock in his hand. He looked down at Daniel, looked down his nose at her, then shrugged and walked away. He heaved the rather substantial stone into the river where it landed without making a sound.
Daniel groaned. He suddenly shook his head, rose to his hands and knees, then staggered to his feet. He looked around himself frantically, then flinched at something he saw.
“You!” he gurgled.
And he threw himself across the road.
At Thoir.
Sarah wasn’t surprised to find herself with her nose to Ruith’s back, though she was going to have to tell him eventually that he was continuing to ruin her view of interesting events. Perhaps she would tell him at some distant point in the future when the most interesting thing happening to them would be trying to identify what sorts of musical notes were hanging in Uachdaran of Léige’s great hall, or admiring a life-sized game of chess in Soilléir of Cothromaiche’s solar, or perhaps even discussing the offerings for supper at some decent inn or another.
“—you told me to come here—”
She looked around Ruith’s shoulder to try to catch Daniel’s words and instead managed only to watch Thoir take his knife and plunge it mercilessly into Daniel’s belly.
Daniel fell at his feet and didn’t move again.
Thoir didn’t clean his knife, he merely shoved it back into his belt and looked at Ruith.
“How do we get inside that damned door?” he demanded.
Ruith ignored him and went to check Daniel’s boots—presumably for stray spells. There were none there, which didn’t surprise Sarah. They had relieved Daniel of the single page he’d possessed when they’d met on the plains of Ailean well over a fortnight ago. It wasn’t reasonable to believe that Daniel could have followed them, not with the twists and turns they’d taken, which meant that he’d known where they intended to wind up.
But how was that possible?
Ruith left Daniel where he was and walked back over to where he’d been working on the mountain face. Thoir followed him, seemingly untroubled by what he’d just done.
“Let’s go over this again,” Thoir said impatiently. “The runt of Neroche believes your sire wrote down a score and two spel
ls—”
“Keir said there were a score and two,” Ruith said, shooting him a dark look. “I don’t know how many are here.”
“Well, why don’t you have a look?” Thoir said shortly. “Since we don’t seem to have anything else productive to do.”
Sarah watched Ruith merely look at his cousin in silence. Thoir returned his look, as if he sought to motivate Ruith with his gaze alone. Ruith lifted his eyebrows briefly, then walked to where Sarah found herself, standing near his gear. He took a deep breath.
“I suppose I don’t have any choice but to look at these seriously now.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Truly I am.”
He smiled very briefly at her, then took a deep breath before he retrieved the collection of spells and began to sift through them. She didn’t particularly relish aiding him at that task, but she supposed it was the least she could do. She stood next to him and held her hands out to take the spells once he’d looked at them.
Or at least she did until she got too close to the first one and the wound on her arm burst into flames.
Ruith swore in surprise, then extinguished the flames with a spell. Sarah looked down at her skin and realized, to her profound surprise, that there were no scorch marks there. Either those flames had been naught but her imagination or there was some sort of spell in her arm that had a mind of its own.
“I’ll keep them,” Ruith said faintly.
“Thank you,” she managed, putting her hand behind her back. “I think that would be best.”
He nodded, then began to look through the stack, slowly and methodically. He finished, then stared off into the distance for several minutes without speaking. Sarah didn’t say anything. For one thing, her arm was burning as if it had truly sported flames, and for another, she didn’t want to distract Ruith. He finally let out his breath and looked at her.
“A score and one.”
“A score and one,” a voice said brightly from beside them, “how delightful. Which ones do we have?”
Sarah watched Ruith turn to look at his cousin. She listened to them speak—if that’s what it could have been called—for several minutes about the number and names of the spells Ruith held in his hands. Something bothered her, but she couldn’t lay her finger on what it was.
It occurred to her suddenly that Miach had said there were twenty-two spells. Given that he had traveled with Ruith’s eldest brother Keir who had apparently known the number and kind of all the spells, she supposed there was no reason to doubt him.
“Why don’t you list them and let’s see what we have there,” Thoir suggested, sounding as if he were recommending nothing more taxing than a stroll through the garden.
Sarah watched Ruith look at his cousin as if he couldn’t quite see him, then bend his head and recite tonelessly the spells he held in his hands. Sarah listened carefully, then realized what was missing. She hardly considered herself an expert on Gair of Ceangail’s most treasured spells, but given the one that Ruith had omitted, she felt fairly safe in identifying it.
“You didn’t list the spell of Diminishing,” she said.
Ruith looked at her in surprise. “What?”
“The spell of Diminishing.” She felt her mouth fall open as she realized what else was bothering her. “You have twenty-one spells.”
Ruith looked at her blankly. “Aye.”
“But there were at least a pair that were stolen from you just outside Ceangail. We only recovered the spell of Un-noticing from Daniel on the plains of Ailean, which means—”
Ruith swore and flipped through the spells again. He closed his eyes briefly, then blew out his breath. He separated a single sheaf from the rest.
A sheaf that had been scorched along the edges and torn in half.
“The second half of the spell of Diminishing,” Sarah said uneasily.
“So it would seem,” he agreed grimly.
“But how is that possible?” Sarah asked. “That spell was taken from you outside Ceangail. As were two of the others you hold in your hands—”
The blood drained from Ruith’s face. He held up the pages and looked at Thoir. “Where did you find these?”
Thoir waved his hand dismissively. “Where Sarah said to look. They were all there.”
Ruith began to pace. Sarah watched him and shared the unease that was plain on his face. Someone had stolen spells from Ruith’s boot, spells that now found themelves in his hands. Why steal them just to leave them lying about for Thoir to find—for it had obviously been Thoir to find them. Ruith hadn’t looked closely at what he had discovered, but Sarah had and the second half of Gair’s most prized spell hadn’t been among the lot.
That led her to another very uncomfortable question. Every since they had left Buidseachd, they had been finding pieces of the first half of the spell of Diminishing left either near spells they had been recovering or along their route to a particular refuge. Who had been tearing up the first half of the spell of Diminishing and leaving it lying about?
And why was it they hadn’t found any of those pieces since they’d left the inn behind?
Sarah began to feel the world begin to spin. They hadn’t found any of those pieces since Thoir had joined the company—
“What are you missing still?”
Ruith ignored his cousin and continued to pace.
“I say,” Thoir said, sounding for the first time as if he were truly annoyed, “Ruith would you bloody stop pacing and pay attention to me?”
Ruith shot him a disgusted look, but ignored him. Sarah watched his cousin grow increasingly angry until Thoir’s face became a rather unattractive shade of red.
“Stop,” Thoir commanded, “and tell me what we’re missing.”
Ruith whirled on him. “What I’m missing is a bit of peace and quiet for thinking,” he snarled, “so either shut up or go away. If you stay and continue to yammer at me, you will leave me with no choice but to silence you myself.”
His words hung in the air, sharp shards of anger that seemed particularly suited to their location. Sarah didn’t blame him for them. If she’d been in his place, she likely would have silenced Thoir by means of a fist to his mouth.
There was something very odd, though, about the sudden feel in the air. The storm which had been brewing for the past hour was upon them and the air was thick with power that Sarah half fancied she could see was on the verge of exploding.
Thoir was perfectly still. In fact, he was so still for so long, Sarah began to wonder if he had been so shocked by Ruith’s words that he’d lost his ability to speak.
And then she realized she was wrong.
“Oh,” Thoir said, his tone suddenly soft, “I don’t think you’ll want to do that.”
“Why the hell not?” Ruith snapped.
Thoir pulled something out of his boot and unrolled it. “Because of this.”
Sarah saw what he had in his hands and realized just how badly they had miscalculated everything.
Fifteen
R
uith wished the buzzing in his ears would cease. It was making it very difficult to think clearly. That was the only reason he was looking at his cousin, who was holding on to a good-sized scrap of his father’s spell of Diminishing. The first half of his father’s spell of Diminishing. He could see without any trouble at all where bits of the spell had been torn away. Those bits of spell were ones he had in the purse at his belt.
He looked at his cousin in astonishment. “Was that on Sarah’s map?”
Thoir raised an eyebrow. “Why would you think that?”
Ruith suppressed the urge to draw his hand over his eyes. In truth, he wasn’t quite sure of anything. “I don’t know.”
Thoir handed him the spell. “You can have it. You might as well put it with the rest.”
Ruith looked at his cousin, dumbfounded. “Was it intact when you found it? And where did you find it?”
“I found it here, at this spot,” Thoir said, nodding at the wall behind
Ruith. “Hidden securely in a box that I uncovered with my own two hands. And aye, it was intact. Well, at least the top half of it.”
Ruith shook his head, because he just couldn’t understand how it was his cousin would have found the first half initially. “If it was intact, who has been ripping it into shreds? And why?”
“Well,” Thoir said softly, “who do you think has been ripping it into shreds, Ruithneadh?”
“You?” Ruith said shortly.
Thoir only lifted his eyebrows briefly, but said nothing.
“How long have you had that spell?” Ruith demanded. “If I’m allowed to satisfy my curiosity about something you shouldn’t have been stupid enough to touch much less carry with you.”
“And why couldn’t I see it with you?” Sarah asked suddenly.
Thoir shot her a look of disdain. “And just who did you think I was, my little country bumpkin?” he asked cuttingly. “The witchwoman Seleg’s son? Not only did I have the first half of Gair’s very useful spell of Diminishing, I had the second, which I removed from Ruith’s boot whilst he was senseless in the glade near Ceangail. That little scrap of velvet that Connail of Iomadh prized so thoroughly was something I spelled into oblivion.” He looked at them, his eyes hooded. “And I took them to keep them with me because I could.”
Ruith could scarce believe his ears. Thoir? He would have believed it of Ardan, but not his cousin. He hazarded a glance at Ardan, who was looking at Thoir as if he’d never seen him before. It was a genuine look of astonishment. Ruith knew the difference. He turned back to Thoir. The first question was why he had been so interested in those spells. The second was, how had he cut through that spell of Olc so easily? Ruith suspected he might like the answer to the first better.
“Why?” he asked simply. “Why would you want any of Gair’s spells?”
Thoir conjured himself up a chair. Ruith realized, with a rather sick feeling indeed, that he’d done so using one of Gair’s spells. It was almost impossible to believe, but he was beginning to suspect that Thoir had more than a passing acquaintance with his sire’s magic.