by Lynn Kurland
His spellish companion was slouched in a chair—actually, it was slouched in what Acair noted was the chair he’d always sat in as a lad. That thing there was looking more like a surly youth with every day that passed, which he supposed he should have found damned unnerving.
He needed to bump find maker of that bloody thing up on his list of things to attend to.
He leaned against a bit of wall that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house and allowed himself to entertain memories he hadn’t in decades, maudlin fool that he was. He would have to share them with Léirsinn later, perhaps as his good deed for the day.
His mother had never lived at the keep, something he’d never thought to question as a child then never had the heart to question as an adult. His father had been a cold, particular man and perhaps the thought of bringing his lover into his home had simply not been to his taste. His mother’s house was roomy enough, but he couldn’t deny that he had rejoiced when each of his brothers in turn had packed up their things and moved on to the keep to live with their sire.
He supposed it could be said that he’d lingered at his mother’s fire longer than he should have, but she hadn’t complained—well, she’d complained endlessly about his cluttering up her salon and eating all her veg. Somehow, he’d still managed to spend an inordinate amount of time at that very table, poring over this grimoire or that collection of magelike scratches. It was a little startling, actually, to see how comfortable that damned spell seemed to be, sitting there as if it wasn’t full of death and destruction.
If he’d been a more superstitious soul, he might have thought he was looking at himself.
He cleared his throat carefully to alert his dam that conversation was coming her way. It wouldn’t have been the first time catching her by surprise had resulted in her flinging a knitting needle and leaving a mark.
“Mother?” he said politely. “Knitting anything interesting?”
“I don’t know,” she said absently. “I’m thinking and it keeps me hands busy.” She shot him a look. “Come and sit. I’ve almost rounded out a few thoughts you might be interested in.”
He imagined she had. He pushed away from the wall, then walked over to the table, yanked his chair out from under that spindly fingered piece of mischief, then sat down. If he stepped on its sorry self as he did so, so much the better.
The spell picked itself up, hissed something foul at him, then went to stand by the fire, silent and watchful. Acair did his best to ignore it, though it was a powerful reminder of just how impossible were his straits.
He waited for his mother to finish her row. She set her knitting aside, then reached for the teapot. She pushed a cup toward him, then paused before she poured. “Tea?”
“If you drink it first.”
She poured him a generous amount, then helped herself to the same. “You still have wood to stack and a roof to tend. I’ll kill you a different time when I don’t need your labor.”
“The gods weep with relief, no doubt,” Acair said.
He waited for his mother to lift her cup before he lifted his, then he waited a bit more before she smiled very briefly and applied herself to her brew. It didn’t fell her immediately, which he supposed was reassurance enough for him.
“What have you discovered?” he asked politely.
She set her cup down and looked at him seriously. “You need to go find pieces of your lost soul.”
He felt his mouth fall open. He was fairly sure that wasn’t attractive, but damnation, the woman said the most appalling things without any warning at all.
“Do what?” he managed.
“You need to revisit the places of your worst deeds and look for the pieces of your soul you’ve left there. You’ll never manage what you need to against what hunts you otherwise.”
“What absolute rot,” he managed. “Rubbish.”
“You came here for answers—”
“Actually, I came here for a list—”
“Which wouldn’t serve you anyway, which is why you’re here for answers,” she finished. “Now, shut up and listen to wisdom.” She started to speak, then eyed him suspiciously. “Are you listening?”
What he was doing, with more commitment to the activity than he was comfortable with, was wondering if his mother had lost her wits. It was a thought that genuinely left him without a single useful thing to say. He could only stare at her helplessly, which he supposed was enough for her.
“Let’s review,” she said slowly, as if she thought he might have reverted to trotting about in short pants. “What happens when a mage uses black magic?”
“Glorious business that leaves every other mage in the surrounding environs wishing he had even half the skill or courage to attempt the same,” he said promptly.
She blew a stray curl out of her eyes. “You wee daft bugger, give me an answer of less than five words.”
Acair rolled his eyes then. “He loses a part of . . .”
He stopped speaking. He did that because he suddenly found that five words were not quite enough for a proper answer. Along with that came a realization that he supposed he should have been clever enough to have made long ago, which was how thoroughly he’d underestimated the woman sitting across the table from him.
He’d done the same thing with his great-aunt Cailleach, of course, and she’d cuffed him so hard for the same that he was fairly sure he would never hear again as well out of his left ear as he had before. But this was his mother, the woman who puttered in her house with her books and her pencils and her quills. This was a woman who spun and knitted and pulled out a cloth now and again to polish her reputation as one of the most terrifying spellweavers in the world.
This was also his dam who chortled over arrogant monarchs laid low and annoying mages brought to their knees with a proper bit of retribution.
He was beginning to think he was more like her than he’d feared.
She was a silent recorder of the madness that went on in the Nine Kingdoms, but he wondered what had made her so. Eulasaid of Camanaë had been a ferocious and constant champion of goodness and right. He wasn’t sure what his mother had dabbled in and he didn’t think he wanted to ask her.
But a fool she was definitely not.
He took a deep breath. “When a mage uses black magic,” he said slowly, “he loses a part of his soul in the bargain.”
She poured herself a bit more tea, then held up the pot with a questioning look. He shook his head and waved her on to her libation. She sipped, then sat back.
“What a fascinating observation,” she said, looking at him as if she were sorely disappointed in his cleverness. She waited, then made a noise of impatience. “I can’t believe you don’t see the connection.”
He couldn’t either, but it had been a very long fall to which he suspected he would add an even longer winter. He was definitely not at his best.
“Connection?” he ventured.
She threw a tea towel at him. “Those damned spots, Acair! Have you forgotten so quickly what they do?”
“I hadn’t, but that doesn’t follow,” he said, grasping desperately for anything useful to say. “Léirsinn didn’t lose a part of her soul when she stepped in one.”
“Well, the feisty little wench certainly lost her peace, didn’t she?” She looked at him sharply. “Have you not talked to her about what happened that night?”
“I haven’t had the courage,” he said honestly. “Nor the time, actually. We’ve been too busy with fleeing from those who want me dead to have a proper chat about anything else.”
“You might want to make time for it.”
He stared at a biscuit hiding behind the teapot, not because he was hungry but because he was trying to give himself time to digest what she’d said. He finally gave up and looked at her.
“So,” he began carefully, “what you’re say
ing is that those spots are black magery?”
She lifted a shoulder slightly. “I’m not saying anything. I’m simply making an observation.”
He tried a different tack. “You said I needed to go find parts of my soul that I’ve traded for the glorious pieces of business I’ve seen to over the years. Why?”
She shrugged and sipped.
He shifted to another spot on the metaphorical chessboard for a different direction from which to attack. “Are you telling me that I don’t have enough soul to see to this quest?” he asked, trying to dredge up as much offended dignity as he could muster.
“I’m not saying anything,” she said with a snort. “You have an annoying habit of putting words in others’ mouths.”
“I like to get right to the point.”
She shook her head. “You are an insufferable little clot, but very skilled at reading between the lines.”
“That’s because my mother never says anything,” he said pointedly.
“And where would be the sport in that?” she said with a smile that sent a shiver down his spine. “I would never see you at all if I didn’t give you some reason to pop in and out every now and again to remind me just how clever you are.”
He leaned his elbows on her table and looked at her seriously. “I am that insufferable, I’ll admit it.”
“Yet here you sit at my table, unpoisoned.” She shrugged. “You might want to consider the condition of the field before you march into the fray.”
“The field and my own stash of weapons?”
“As I said.”
He rubbed his hands over his face, then looked at her. “Mother, I don’t need to tell you that trying to even bring to mind all the places I’ve perpetrated mischief would be impossible.”
“Perhaps just the most egregious pieces of it, then.”
He was tempted to laugh, but it occurred to him that he could think of several places that would qualify for that. They happened to coincide quite nicely with places he didn’t want to go, peopled by rulers and whatnot he absolutely preferred to avoid encountering without his magic to hand.
He shot that damned spell leaning negligently against the hearth a dark look, just on principle.
“It seems very protective of you.”
Acair blinked. “What?”
“Your lanky companion there,” she clarified. “It tutted at me this morning when I considered dropping a gilded volume of Nerochian heroic lays on your head whilst you slept.”
“You could have killed me with that pompous trumpeting of their imaginary deeds.”
“Indeed I could have.” She picked her knitting back up and shot him a very brief smile. “But you’ve such a handsome face, I couldn’t bring myself to mar it.”
He grunted at her, because he hardly knew how to respond to that. He watched her knit for quite a while before he finally managed to chase down the thought that had scampered across his mind when she’d first brought up the business of the day. He had another sip of tea, then set his cup down before he dropped it.
“So,” he said slowly, “since we agree that the purpose of those spots of shadow is to steal souls—at least for the most part—am I to assume you believe there is a particular mage behind the laying of those spots about?”
She leveled a look at him that had him smiling in spite of himself.
“I’m wearing another man’s boots, Mother. I’m not at my best.”
“That shouldn’t affect your wits, Acair.”
He hoped it would be only boots he would lose before the entire thing was set to rights. “Then let me rephrase. Who do you have in mind for the starring role in this drama?”
She paused in the middle of her row, looked about her as if to make certain she was alone, then leaned forward. “It is rumored that to say his name is bad luck—”
“That’s Mochriadhemiach of Neroche,” Acair said promptly. “I say his name all the time and look at me.” He held open his arms. “Still breathing.”
“And incapable of using your magic.”
“That isn’t little Miach’s fault, but I digress. Go on.”
She had to knit a bit longer before she apparently found the wherewithal to voice her opinion. “I could be very mistaken about this, of course. This man dropped out of tales hundreds of years ago, though I’ve heard . . . well—”
“Please don’t hesitate on my account,” he said when it looked as if she might not finish.
She considered, then shook her head. “I could be daft.”
“Mother, of all the things anyone might call you, daft is not on the list.” He tried to smile, but he feared it had come out as more of a grimace.
She sighed deeply. “Very well, if my memory hasn’t completely failed me, the mage I’m thinking of went by the name of Sladaiche. He was born, if the tales are accurate, in a place that once rivaled Bruadair for beauty. The country, small as it was, doesn’t exist any longer, but you could look for it in an archive perhaps.” She paused, then shook her head. “I think it best to keep the true placename to myself.”
He felt a shiver go down his spine. Even his spellish companion had sunk down on a stool there by the hearth, where it commenced gnawing on its fingernails in fright. Acair shot it a warning look, then turned back to his mother. He supposed it would take a decent amount of digging to find a name for that sort of place, though he wasn’t afraid to look. At the very least, he could bring to mind a pair of locales that might have spewed forth such a lad.
“His name means thief in his language,” she said absently, “though he has used different names through the centuries—”
“How do you know so much about him?” Acair asked in astonishment. “And who is he?”
She waved away his question. “I’ve given you his name, you’ll find his place of birth on your own I’m certain, and his purpose was ever to steal souls.”
Acair gave it a decent bit of effort, truly he did, but there were times his mother talked in such circles that he honestly couldn’t make head nor tails of anything she said. He shook his head in frustration.
“I don’t understand why he would bother,” he said finally.
His mother rolled her eyes. “In truth, Acair? Name me a trio—nay, a single reason why you destroy men.”
“I don’t destroy them,” Acair said. “I woo the women, vex the husbands and fathers, and pilfer kingly jewels and priceless art because it gives them all something to talk about. What else has a king to do these days besides stomp about and weep over losing his favorite landscape?”
“You have a point there,” she agreed.
“The acquisition of power I can understand,” Acair said, “but what in blazes would you do with a soul?”
She fingered her pearls which he still wasn’t convinced weren’t more than they seemed.
“Why did your sire spend so much of his life perfecting his spell of Diminishing?” she asked.
“Because he was—still is, in theory—a peerless mage and an arrogant whoreson,” Acair said grimly. “What else was he to do with his days? There is never enough power to be had.”
“That isn’t the point of the question,” she said impatiently. “Why did he need that spell?”
“To obtain more power,” Acair said, “something we just discussed.” He looked at her helplessly. “What decent mage doesn’t want that?”
She blew a curl out of her eyes. “I despair, truly I do. Let’s look at this from a different direction. What did Gair leave of those whose power he stole?”
“Lads grateful they merited his notice, no doubt,” Acair said without hesitation, though he supposed he didn’t particularly want to think about that overmuch because he had seen what his father’s tender ministrations could do.
He had felt the shudder in the world when his sire had loosed the power of Ruamharaiche’s well, int
ending to take it for his own. He had himself managed to arrive too late to stop the madness, but he’d certainly had an eyeful of the aftermath. Actually, he’d closed Sarait of Tòrr Dòrainn’s eyes so even in death she wasn’t forced to look at what her husband had done.
He wasn’t sure he would ever forget that.
He had done what he could for his half-sister Mhorghain, at the very least, then watched from afar, wringing his hands like a fretful alewife until he was certain she would be safely hidden. If others had seen to the rest of Sarait’s children, he hadn’t argued. He’d been simply crushed with invitations to dinner and attempting to carve out the odd hour to make lists of foul deeds to be about as quickly as possible. He hadn’t had time for any of his other step-siblings.
He looked at his mother. “Father left them as shells,” he said flatly.
“Exactly.”
Acair thought of Hearn of Angesand telling him about his son—Tùr, he suspected—who had stepped in a spot of shadow once too often and wound up empty and mad as a result. He thought of Master Odhran, who had been left sitting, a lifeless shell of himself, before a cold hearth.
Was the same mage responsible for both deeds?
Did that mage now possess the spell of distraction he himself had left in Odhran’s back workroom?
He shoved aside the last thought as unimportant. Any mage worth being called such could have fashioned the same. More important was what was being done to those who had apparently simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He looked at his mother. “I don’t like the sound of this.”
“I’m not sure this cares what you like.”
“But surely this mage is dead by now,” Acair said, wondering if it would make him look weak to reveal how greatly he wished that might be so.
“Most likely.”
He didn’t like the way she’d said that, as if she wanted to believe it but couldn’t bring herself to.
“I recoil from the very idea of looking dense as a rock,” he said, “but I still don’t understand why any of this matters. Let’s assume, if we must, that this man is still roaming through the world, hunting for souls. The question is, why would he bother?”