by Lynn Kurland
“But why create such a thing?” she asked, shivering.
“Power,” he said succinctly. “No mage ever has enough.”
She looked at him carefully. “Not even you?”
“Well,” he said with a faint smile, “I suppose not even me, though I was content to go about stretching my power by honorable means. Diminishing was a shortcut, but as with all things you don’t earn, along with the power came things that might not have been so desirable. In the case of mageish power, my father acquired the occasional character flaw or tendency to madness from the mage so diminished. There are times I think that by the time he got to the well, he was mad.”
“Terrible,” she murmured.
He smiled briefly. “It was, but it’s in the past now.”
“Is it?”
He looked at her sharply, then laughed a little. “You see too much.”
“You’re worried about things you haven’t shared.”
He lifted an eyebrow briefly. “Unfortunately, I suppose I am. And whilst I don’t want to worry you overmuch, I’ll say that it bothers me to have Acair out in the world stirring up trouble. He has a lust for power that I don’t think he will ever slake. If he had the spell of Diminishing to hand . . .” He seemingly considered his words for quite some time before he looked at her. “I’ll only say that I find several things odd about what is afoot in the world. Simeon of Diarmailt telling his chief librarian that he was about to have more power and Sglaimir of Bruadair—or wherever he’s from—sitting on the throne of a country stripped of its magic.” He shrugged. “I’m curious.”
“You know what curiosity killed, don’t you?”
He smiled, a quick smile that was utterly charming. “My mother said that to me more times than I can count.”
“A very wise woman, your mother.”
He brought her hand to his mouth, kissed it, then rose, pulling her up with him. “You should sleep.”
“You’ll be here in the morning.”
He sighed. “Aye, against my better judgment, I will.”
“And we’ll go together.”
He looked at her seriously. “Aye, Aisling, we will. Because I think Bruadair needs you far more than it needs me. How, I don’t know yet, but I have the feeling that is a mystery we’ll solve in time.”
She couldn’t imagine it, but she wasn’t going to argue with him. She had committed herself to a quest that might well result in her death, yet she felt no thrill of fear, no dread that left her wanting to find something to hide behind.
“You know,” he said as he stopped with her in front of her door, “if Bruadair falls, then perhaps the last bastion of dreams will cease to exist as well.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Neither do I,” he agreed. He reached up to touch her cheek, then smiled at her. “Goodnight, love. Sweet dreams.”
“You as well.”
“Well, that might be why I’m allowing you to come along on this doomed errand,” he said dryly.
She pursed her lips and pulled away from him. “If I knew how to give you nightmares, I might just for that.”
He leaned against the wall and looked at her. “Aisling, I’m not sure you have that in you.” He nodded toward her chamber. “Go on and go inside so I can watch you do it. I don’t want you poaching my horse.”
She opened her door, looked inside, then looked back at him. “He’s asleep on the foot of my bed.”
“Tell me he’s masquerading as a puss.”
“I think he likes that shape.”
“Heaven help us,” he muttered, then he smiled. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She nodded, went inside, then closed the door softly behind her. She supposed she perhaps should have been tempted to leave him behind, but the truth was, she didn’t want to. It was madness, but there it was. Besides, his horse didn’t look inclined to do anything but roll over on his back where she might more readily scratch his tum.
She went to bed, the tale of Caileag of Tòsan running through the back of her mind like a river in her dreams.
Twelve
Rùnach stood just inside Tòrr Dòrainn’s border and suppressed the urge to pace. He had enough practice in that that it shouldn’t have been difficult, but there was something about his current straits that seemed to inspire it.
He held on to Iteach’s withers with one hand and Aisling’s hand with the other. Iteach was absolutely immobile, which Rùnach appreciated. Aisling was equally still, and her hands were freezing. He smiled briefly at her.
“Not to worry.”
“Me, worry?” she said uneasily. “Surely you jest.”
Rùnach patted Iteach, then turned and pulled Aisling into his arms. He realized he was beginning to do that with regularity, but who could blame him? She was, as his cousins had pointed out to him several times the night before, an angel in human form, surely worthy of the most ardent and sustained pursuit by the most jaded of elven princes. They had tripped over each other to also assure her of that.
Rùnach just thought she was lovely.
He rested his cheek against her hair and watched his cousin Còir, second son of the crown prince, stand as silent as a sapling with his hand outstretched and as light as a strand of sunlight against the glamour that even Rùnach could see. Unorthodox, perhaps, but a very easy way to tell when Sìle and his company had breached that security and begun their purposely frantic but utterly pointless journey east toward Beinn òrain.
It was a plan Rùnach hadn’t dared disagree with, especially given that his grandfather had been the one to suggest it. The idea was that Sìle and a small company would pretend to be Rùnach and an escort making for a logical place, namely the schools of wizardry. Whilst that company was heading east, Rùnach would slip over the border and fly under cover of night and spell toward Ceangail, which was perhaps the very last place Acair would expect him to go.
Còir stirred, then looked at Rùnach. He nodded.
Rùnach patted Aisling on the back. “We’re off,” he breathed against her ear. “Up you go, but don’t leave without me.”
She shook her head, then accepted his leg up. She settled herself on Iteach’s back in the very lovely saddle provided, then drew her cloak more closely around herself. Rùnach watched Còir walk over, look up at Aisling, then make her a low bow. Rùnach would have given in to the urge to reach out and slap his cousin smartly on the back of the head whilst he was almost folded in half, but there was something about the sight that brought him up short.
Aisling continued to believe she was a simple weaver of no importance in the world, yet the grandson of a king was making her an obeisance better fit for the queen of some important realm. Rùnach wished he’d had some means of painting the scene so Aisling might have enjoyed it at another time.
Còir turned to him and stepped forward. “Guard her well,” he said in a low voice.
“I will.”
Còir reached out and touched the back of Rùnach’s right hand. “Last night Grandfather gave you a spell of glamour that when laid under Mochriadhemiach’s will make you impenetrably invisible to anyone, including any of Prince Gair’s get. I will give you something far different. It will reside here amongst the runes until you need it.”
Rùnach looked at Còir in surprise. “That’s very generous.”
Còir didn’t look at all happy, but perhaps his ale that morning had been unusually bitter. “Aye, it is,” he said briskly. “Keep in mind you can use this only once.”
“Interesting—”
Còir reached out and touched the back of Rùnach’s left hand. Rùnach caught only a flash of gold and silver before something sank into his flesh. It burned like hellfire, rivaling even Weger’s worst efforts.
“What was that?” he gasped.
“Don’t ask,” Còir said grimly.
“Còir, you can’t simply embed something into the back of my hand without telling me what it is.”
“It’s one of my own runes,” Còir s
aid almost angrily. “I gouged it out of my own flesh and gave it to you.”
Rùnach felt his mouth fall open. “Why?”
Còir jerked his head sharply toward Aisling. “Because of her, and I’ll tell you now that you don’t deserve her and if I find out you’ve mistreated her, I will come dig out not only that rune from your hand but your heart from your chest. Are we clear?”
“Perfectly,” Rùnach said, feeling as if he were suddenly facing an angry elven father who thought Rùnach might have had less than honorable designs upon his daughter.
Còir glared at him again, then moved to stand next to Aisling. He pulled a handkerchief from the bosom of his tunic and held it up toward her.
“For you, lady.”
Aisling looked at him blankly. “What is it?”
“A gift. There is a spell woven into the cloth.”
“What does it do?”
“It tattles on Rùnach if he doesn’t treat you well.”
She smiled. “In truth?”
Còir pursed his lips. “Aye. I might also have enspelled the threads with the delicate scent of twilight from my grandmother’s garden, though I’ll never admit as much. If you find yourself in trouble, pull that cloth out, write a message with your finger upon it, and the spell will send the words to me instantly. I will then come either to rescue you or to kill this young rogue without delay; your choice.”
Rùnach had other suggestions about what Aisling might do with Còir’s offering, but he supposed it would be wise not to give voice to those. He shook his cousin’s hand, promised him Aisling would be perfectly safe—never mind that he had little to no idea exactly how he would manage that—and swung up upon Iteach’s back behind Aisling.
Còir looked at him seriously. “Be careful.”
Rùnach nodded, then turned his attentions to the parting his cousin had made in the king’s glamour. Iteach stepped daintily across the border, sprouted wings, then leapt up into the air with all the magnificence of a horse who was absolutely aware of his own spectacular self.
Rùnach settled himself in for a rather long ride and supposed he would have ample time to think about all the things his family had done for him and more particularly the protections they had offered him.
He just wished he hadn’t needed them.
* * *
It was mid-morning the next day when he found himself walking through woods near his father’s keep of Ceangail, woods he had frequented as a child and young man. He could safely say that he disliked them every bit as much at present as he had a score of years ago. Aisling walked next to him, her expression guarded. Iteach trailed at their heels in the shape of a hound that Rùnach certainly wouldn’t have petted had he not known who lurked behind those very impressive fangs.
They were all wearing not only Miach’s spell of un-noticing, but Sìle’s glamour underneath it as well. Rùnach found the combination oddly comforting, though he would be the first to admit the rune Còir had gifted him itched well past ignoring. It wouldn’t have surprised him to learn that was on purpose.
He walked to the edge of a clearing, then paused and looked at Aisling to see her reaction.
She looked past him into that break in the trees, blinked, then looked up at him in disbelief.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
She pointed into the glade. “That is where the witchwoman of Fàs lives?”
“Amazingly enough.”
“Rùnach, it looks edible.”
He had to admit that was the case. The house wasn’t overly large, but it was constructed and then painted in a way that left it resembling a rather tall, plump sugared bun such as he might have had for tea as a boy. The thatching of the roof didn’t mitigate the desire the house had ever inspired in him to simply go up to one of the walls and lick it to see if it tasted as good as it looked. He looked at Aisling and smiled. “She lures people inside with the exceptionally tasty shutters.”
Aisling pursed her lips. “She does not.”
“Very well, she doesn’t, but I think the whole effect is to soothe and put at ease.”
“Someone will someday write a tale about her and her house,” Aisling said, “but it won’t be me. I’m too terrified standing here just looking at it.”
“Well, I won’t tell you that she isn’t dangerous, but she doesn’t see very well and she has more interesting things to do than put us in cages and prod us with sticks.”
“Such as?”
“Such as looking for pencils and quills in her hair. She is, as I’ve said before, a very committed diarist. She possesses the necessary tools of the trade, you know.”
“I’ll take your word for it. How do we proceed now?”
“We trot right up to the front door and knock.”
She looked at him in alarm. “You can’t be serious.”
“The only other alternative is to trot up to the back door and knock, which I don’t think will go very well.”
She seemed to be having trouble swallowing. “Why would that be?”
“Because there is a spell there that slays anyone immediately upon their touching the wood.” He shivered delicately. “Very nasty.”
Her mouth was moving but no sound was coming out. “You,” she finally managed, “are mad. Utterly mad. What’s come over you?”
He smiled, wishing he dared kiss her as he so desperately wanted to. “There’s nothing I like better than questing with an exceptionally fetching weaver from Bru—”
“Shhh!”
He smiled. “I had a lovely nap on the back of our charming lad there, I’m not required to return to Ceangail to sleep in a bed that belongs in the rubbish heap, and I have you to look at. How can I be anything but happy?”
She pursed her lips at him. “You worry me.”
“Perhaps I should, but the truth is, I’m fairly certain this will be the least terrifying thing we face,” he said, unable to be less than honest. “I’ll keep my grandfather’s spell handy.”
“Will it work here, do you think?”
“Aye.” He supposed it wasn’t the time to explain exactly why he knew Sìle’s glamour would work on his father’s soil or enumerate how many times he had used the same spell himself in his youth for various and sundry purposes. “We’ll be safe enough.”
“I trust you.”
He smiled at her, but she wasn’t paying him any heed. She was looking with alarm at the house in front of them that looked indeed as if it had sprung from some sort of book of tales for children. Only inside that house was not a kindly old granny with sweets and stories for any and all who knocked on her door. Rùnach had managed to never run afoul of her ire, but he knew others who hadn’t been so fortunate—including her own sons.
Nay, the witchwoman of Fàs was not to be underestimated, no matter how many innocent-looking birds might have been nesting in her hair.
He took a deep breath, then had a final look around before he stepped out into the glade and walked with Aisling up to the front door. He and Aisling were still wearing not only his grandfather’s glamour, but Miach of Neroche’s spell of un-noticing. They would be safe enough out in the open. He knocked and prepared himself for a bit of a wait.
The door creaked open eventually. With again absolutely no concession to haste, the door was opened wide to reveal a hunched-over, warty-nosed crone. The old woman stuck that nose out into the sunshine, sniffed, then frowned. She then tilted her head and looked down at Iteach who was sitting at Aisling’s feet.
“Oh, a nice doggy for lunch,” she said, sounding pleased. “Come in, little one, and we’ll put you right on the fire.”
Iteach whinnied indignantly at her.
The witchwoman of Fàs patted herself, presumably looking for spectacles that were neither on her nose nor residing in her hair, then frowned.
“You, little one, are obviously not what you seem.” She frowned and looked up. “Who else is there?”
Rùnach hoped he wasn’t making a colos
sal mistake as he drew both spells aside and tucked them into his pocket, unmagically speaking. The witchwoman of Fàs looked at him for a moment or two without a spark of recognition, looked at Aisling in the same manner, then back at him.
“Hmmm,” was all she said.
“Indeed,” Rùnach agreed.
She looked at the side of his face, then reached for one of his hands and studied the scars there. She frowned, then released him.
“You’d best come in, the both of you.”
Aisling gulped audibly, but the witchwoman of Fàs didn’t seem to notice. Rùnach stepped across the threshold and drew Aisling through the doorway behind him. He hadn’t but closed the door behind him before his father’s erstwhile paramour turned and tossed a spell over them both.
The runes on his hand blazed forth with a light that almost blinded him. When he could see again, the witchwoman of Fàs’s spell lay in a tidy pile at his feet.
The witchwoman of Fàs harrumphed in displeasure.
Rùnach shrugged and attempted a polite smile. “So sorry.”
“Sìle’s glamour has a very long reach, I see.”
“I think those were just the runes,” Rùnach offered, “though the spell he gifted me is useful enough.”
“As is that little something you hold from the youngest prince of Neroche.”
“King now,” Rùnach said.
“So he is.” She patted herself, then muttered a curse or two. “Lost my spectacles.” She looked at Aisling. “Don’t suppose you’d go hunting for them, dearie, would you?”
Rùnach would have stopped Aisling from moving, but she seemed thankfully and quite conveniently frozen to the spot.
“Where?” Aisling managed.
“Over there in my comfortable chair.”
“And what else will I find there?”
The witchwoman of Fàs smiled, looking almost pleased. “The odd coin, perhaps my favorite pencil. Who knows? You might find out, though, if you have the courage to go and look.”