by Lynn Kurland
Twenty
Rùnach pressed his father’s ring into the lock, such as it was, on the front door of his sire’s retreat and watched with no small bit of amazement as the invisible door became first outlined, then separate from the rock around it. He put his hand on it and suppressed the urge to swear in disgust. The things he and his brother hadn’t known about his father were legion. He seriously doubted his mother had known the extent of her husband’s duplicities.
He had Ruith to thank for providing him with the location of what he hoped would be a temporary refuge. His brother had been looking at their grandmother’s paintings and remarked casually that one of them was a very fine likeness of their father’s northernmost property. That had led to a brief discussion of locks and rings that were actually keys to several things and their opinions of their sire, none of which had been particularly complimentary.
“Rùnach, look,” Aisling said, tugging on his sleeve.
He looked over his shoulder and saw standing thirty paces away a sight that didn’t surprise him in the slightest. And why should it have? Those lads had been following them for several hours. He just hadn’t expected them to catch up so quickly.
He pushed the door open, assuming Aisling would rush inside, but she didn’t. Neither did Iteach, who slipped into dragonshape and spat out terrible fire.
One of his six bastard brothers—Díolain, he thought—deflected it, but it was done with something of an effort. They were all left perspiring rather heavily.
Yet they didn’t react.
He felt Aisling standing just behind his shoulder. She put her hand on his back. He supposed she wouldn’t have admitted it, but her hand was shaking badly.
“They’re not doing anything,” she whispered.
“Aye,” he murmured, because he could say nothing else. He was tensed and ready for an attack and that took all his powers of concentration.
Yet still the attack didn’t come.
“Go inside, Aisling,” he said, speaking behind the hand he’d pretended to use to rub his mouth.
“Nay.”
He didn’t dare look away from the six mages standing in front of him. “You can do nothing here,” was what he said, but what he meant was that she didn’t dare do anything. Her spinning would no longer surprise them because it simply wasn’t possible that Gàrlach hadn’t told them about her abilities, no doubt altering the tale to make himself look as if he’d had the upper hand. Rùnach honestly wasn’t sure how they might entrap her if she attempted anything.
Nay, it was best that he see to it.
Acair stepped suddenly out of nothing and all hell broke loose.
He supposed the only thing that he might look back on with any amusement at all would be the look on his bastard brother’s face when he realized that Rùnach had more magic than previously supposed. Acair staggered back a step, then shot Gàrlach a murderous look.
“You said he had no magic left,” he snarled.
Gàrlach threw up his hands. “He has no magic. Unless—” He frowned. “Unless he had it hidden.”
“Of course he had it hidden, you fool!”
“I am your elder brother—”
“And I will treat you with respect,” Acair said coolly, “or what? You’ll use a spell on me? I suppose you might try.” He turned to look at Rùnach. “Or will you make the attempt, little one?”
The term was so ridiculous, Rùnach smiled before he could stop himself, which he supposed, in hindsight, had been a somewhat unwise thing to do.
“I think he’s insulting you, Acair,” someone pointed out.
Rùnach supposed, by the look of his rather scarred face, that that helpful soul had been Amitàn. Then again, that one had never been particularly adept at keeping his mouth shut. He winced a little in sympathy at the scars on his bastard brother’s face, then dismissed him and turned his attentions back to Acair.
“I’m not insulting you,” he said mildly, ignoring his first instinct, which was to keep his own mouth shut. Perhaps he’d been cooped up in Buidseachd for too long and the fresh air was turning his head. “I wouldn’t waste the breath for it.”
Acair didn’t move, didn’t curse, didn’t so much as shrug. He simply held up his hand, and his older brothers, grumbling a bit, began to speak in unison what Rùnach recognized as a very crude spell of Diminishing.
How fortunate he knew the proper spell for that sort of thing.
It was half out in the air in front of him before he realized Aisling was shouting at him and understood what it was he was doing. He drew his hand over his eyes. Uachdaran had told him to be careful, hadn’t he? He supposed it might be wise to take that counsel a bit more seriously.
And then things took a turn Rùnach hadn’t expected.
It took him a heartbeat to realize what that was coming toward him and another heartbeat to shove Aisling inside behind him, pray Iteach had gotten inside as well, then leap inside the house and slam the door shut. The force of the spell crushed the door and sent him flying down what he sincerely hoped was a hallway and not something more sinister. He pulled himself together enough to make werelight, then reached for Aisling who was sprawled on the marble floor next to him.
“Are you all right?” he asked hoarsely.
She sat up and looked at him blearily. There was a thin trail of blood running down the side of her head. “I’m not sure, actually.”
Iteach hopped up onto her lap and rubbed his feline self against her, purring loudly. Rùnach felt her head gingerly, then healed her with a spell of Fadaire that didn’t seem to care for their surroundings and was rather unwieldy in his hands, truth be told. He wished he had the time to simply spend a fortnight doing nothing but testing his magic and its limits. Perhaps later, when he was sure they would manage to escape their current predicament.
He put his hand out and touched Aisling’s cheek. “How are you?” he asked.
“Better,” she said breathlessly. “You?”
“I’ll let you know in a minute or two.”
He left Aisling holding their, ah, cat as he pushed himself to his feet and went to see what was left of the front door. He was unsurprised by the strength of the spell of protection still intact on the inside there, but he supposed he couldn’t have expected anything else. His father had been nothing if not fastidious about his own personal safety. That of others in his care, perhaps not so much, but Rùnach wasn’t unhappy to be the beneficiary of that selfishness at the moment.
He turned around in a circle, marveling at the opulence of his surroundings. He sent werelight bouncing down what turned out to be a very long passageway. A score of chandeliers caught that light and threw the shadows back against the walls. The sheer luxury he was seeing just in that passageway was dizzying. He had no idea how long ago his father had created the place where he stood, though perhaps it had been even before he had wed with Sarait. The one thing he was certain of was that his mother hadn’t known of its existence.
“Rùnach?”
He turned and looked at Aisling who was standing behind him. “Aye?”
“There’s something pulling at the spell guarding the door.”
He realized that what was making him dizzy wasn’t his astonishment over his father’s luxurious hideout, it was that the spell guarding the front door was somehow being undermined as he stood there, as if a rushing river were pulling at its banks and continually washing them away.
Rùnach swore and dragged his hand through his hair. He was fairly sure their escape didn’t lay through the front door, which left him with very few options. He didn’t care for being trapped, though perhaps that was understating it. There was never a time, even in his long years of haunting Soilléir’s chambers, that he hadn’t had an exit strategy ready. He wasn’t sure why the thought of having nowhere to run seemed so suffocating. He supposed it was that it had been drummed into his wee head by Keir for so many years that he should never find himself trapped by their father. Perhaps they had watched Gair drain too many mages of
their power whilst those mages had cowered in corners like terrified rabbits.
He wove a spell of imperviousness, but that was unsteady and unruly beneath his hands. He cursed under his breath. It would have to do. He had nothing else to try.
He turned and hastily pulled Aisling to her feet. He held her briefly.
“We’ll have to try the back way.”
“Is there a back way?”
Her teeth were chattering. He couldn’t say he blamed her.
“I can’t imagine my father wouldn’t have had one,” he said grimly. “We’ll just have to find it.”
Quickly was what he didn’t say, but she apparently heard it anyway.
He took her hand and walked swiftly down the passageway, pausing only to open doors and peer into rooms, though he honestly wasn’t sure what he hoped to find. A window obscured by foliage? A door cut into the side of the mountain as the main entrance had been?
Aisling gasped suddenly, and it took no special powers of observation to understand why. It sounded as though the entire mountain was fair to coming down around their ears. He looked behind them and realized that hadn’t been just his imagination. He could see the werelight being extinguished and the hallway collapsing.
“They’re bringing the whole damned mountain down on us,” he growled. He stopped, turned, and threw the first spell that came to his tongue toward the darkness, but it fell onto the floor, useless. He froze, then looked at Aisling. “We’re in trouble.”
“Why?” There was almost no sound to the word.
“Because this has become a magic sink.”
“Magic sink?”
“Nothing will work here.”
She drew her finger through the air, but it did nothing save send dust motes dancing—what he could see of them from the werelight that he realized had been growing progressively fainter the farther along the passageway they’d come.
“What now?” she breathed.
“There has to be a back way out,” he said firmly. “My sire never would have built even a hut without one.”
“Maybe he never intended to be found here.”
“Perhaps not, but he still wouldn’t have left himself without an escape.”
Much like his own wont, something he supposed he would think about and shudder over later, when he was at his leisure. He took Aisling’s hand, laced his fingers with hers, then nodded toward the darkness.
“Trust me.”
“I do.”
He supposed she might regret that, but he had no choice but to continue on. Turning back was now impossible. Even if he’d been able to claw through the rock—something he most certainly couldn’t do—seven mages with his death on their minds would have been waiting for him there.
He walked swiftly with Aisling, keeping his hand skimming along walls. He ignored things that had once been on those walls but he had knocked off, spared the effort to wonder how his father had lit this part of his house without any magic to hand, and hoped he wasn’t missing something in the dark.
It was slightly unnerving when he realized that the passageway was becoming narrower until they could no longer travel side by side. He pulled Aisling behind him and continued hurrying down the way until . . .
Until he realized there was nowhere else to go.
He pushed against the wall in front of him, but it was as solid as it was no doubt meant to be. He started to turn back, but he realized that wasn’t possible either. What was behind them wasn’t spell; it was rubble. He and Aisling were trapped in a space that hardly allowed them to turn about. He had no doubt they would run out of air to breathe sooner rather than later and then they would die.
He put his arms around her and pulled her close. He wasn’t sure if he was the one shaking or if it was her. Perhaps at that point, it didn’t matter. He took as deep a breath as he dared.
“I fear I’ve led us into a trap,” he admitted slowly. “I am so sorry.”
She shook her head; he could feel her do it. “You couldn’t have done anything else.”
He closed his eyes and tried to memorize the feeling of her in his arms. The memory of it might be the only thing he carried with him into that undiscovered place in the east where there was reportedly no more sorrow and no more pain.
“Would this be an inappropriate time,” he said finally, “to ask you for your hand?”
She shivered. “Ridiculous.”
He smiled against her hair. “It isn’t.”
“You’re just saying that because we’re going to die.”
“Aisling, we could be standing in the midst of the very roomy and quite endless plains of Ailean and I would be asking the same thing.”
“You could have anyone,” she said with a sigh.
“As could you,” he countered, “but I want you. You’ll have to decide for yourself. Or are there lads I must needs push out of my way before you look at me twice?”
He could feel her reach up and touch his cheek. “I can’t see you—oh, wait.” She lifted her head from his shoulder and apparently looked up at him. “I can see the runes on your brow. You know, Rùnach, I believe Weger’s mark did take. Twice.”
“No wonder my brow hu—” He froze. “What did you say?”
“I said something about your runes.”
Her voice had begun to sound rather far away. He supposed he understood that, because he was becoming lightheaded. He held up his right hand and saw a very faint outline of the rune Còir had given him.
The rune of Opening.
“Your cousin’s rune?” she whispered.
“Can you see it?” he asked in surprise.
“Aye, but I hadn’t noticed it until you said that’s what it was. Don’t you remember?”
Rùnach promised himself a long rest when their task was done. That he was starting to talk to himself without realizing it was rather alarming. “Nay, I don’t remember saying anything about it. But I can see it as well.”
“Will it work?”
“I don’t know how to use it,” he said frankly. “They’re gifts, not weapons.”
“Is this one like the runes your grandfather gave you?”
“Nay,” he said slowly. “Còir said it would work all on its own. He wouldn’t have said that if it weren’t true, given that he’d gouged it out of his own flesh.”
“Perhaps you must do the same.”
“I think my ears are failing me,” he said grimly, “for I’m almost sure you just said the word gouge when speaking about my flesh.”
She laughed a little. “I believe your choices are to help me pull Còir’s handkerchief out of my pocket and have him rescue us, or you use your grandfather’s knife on your hand.”
Well, the first was definitely something he wasn’t quite ready to resort to yet. As for the other, she had certainly used his grandfather’s knife on his hand already. Or, rather, Uachdaran had. Rùnach supposed of all the things he could entertain as his last thoughts, that morning in Uachdaran’s solar was at the end of his list.
“I can’t reach it—ouch, damn you, Iteach—”
He had no idea what shape his horse had taken, but he had the feeling it was serpentine in nature. He took the haft of his knife from something with fangs, ignored the feeling of that serpent slithering back down his leg, then shifted so he could try to use the knife.
“Here, let me,” Aisling said.
It hurt less than he expected, but he was absolutely dumbfounded to see the rune impaled through the middle on the tip of an enspelled knife. It glowed softly in the gloom.
“Perhaps they do come with power of their own,” Aisling whispered.
“So the tales go,” Rùnach said, “though I’ve never seen it done.”
“Something to write down for future generations, then.”
“Our children will appreciate it, I’m sure.”
“Children?”
“Didn’t you say me aye?”
She laughed a little, though it sounded a rather sick laugh. “I don’t
remember.”
“I’m sure of it.”
She coughed. “Use the rune, Rùnach, before we perish.”
He wasn’t at all sure it would work as promised, but he had no choice but to try. He took a careful breath, then flung the rune off the knife against the solid rock wall in front of him.
The wall gave way with a mighty explosion of silver and gold. Rùnach felt the floor disappear from beneath his feet and barely managed to make a grab for Aisling before they both fell into icy cold water.
It was very deep, something he realized as he resurfaced, coughing and gasping for air. He assumed Iteach would manage to keep himself afloat and concentrated on getting himself and Aisling out of the middle of the rushing waters and over to the side, if that sort of getting was possible. The hillside sounded as if it were still coming down above their head, which added greatly to his haste. He pulled Aisling’s arm around his neck and struggled to keep them both from drowning.
“Upstream,” he gasped.
She was too busy coughing to talk, but she did nod vigorously. He winced at the feeling of needles going into his back, then realized it was just his horse, clinging to him as if he were a raft. Why Iteach couldn’t have chosen the shape of a fish, he didn’t know. If they survived, he would be having a stern talk with the beast about what shapes were and were not appropriate when death was looming. He let Aisling take his knife out of his hand at about the same time he realized that the knife was glowing.
As was a thin stream of magic he could see running along the wall to his right. He didn’t imagine the current was any weaker there, but perhaps it was. It was worth a try. He worked his way over, fighting against the drag, until he managed to get his fingers into a crack in the rock.
The magic—and aye, he could see that was what it was—found Aisling and swirled around her, spinning in a way that seemed vaguely familiar. It considered him for a moment or two, sentient bit of business that it was, then it encircled him as well. He realized with a start it was the magic of Bruadair.
“I want light,” Aisling gasped.
The magic smiled, then the entire tunnel exploded into a riot of colors so bright, they almost blinded him.