by Lynn Kurland
She didn’t want to think about why that might be so.
Fourteen
There was nothing like a bit of burgling to raise a man’s spirits.
Acair supposed the whole exercise was made quite a bit easier by two unexpected boons. First was the fact that Léirsinn was proving to be very adept at pointing out spells he was too blind to see himself. Second, and perhaps even more critical to their survival at present, most of his grandmother’s fouler minions were sound asleep at their posts. If he hadn’t known better, he would have suspected there was something foul afoot.
But since that was usually him about his workaday activities, he brushed aside the unease and concentrated on the work before him.
The inability to use his magic wasn’t even a bother at present. He never used it whilst about his current sort of business anyway. Where was the sport in that? With magic, he could have wafted in as an evening breeze, pinched what he wanted, then continued back out the same way, treasure in hand. But to enter a place guarded by spells and retrieve what he needed with naught but his wits and a decent bit of bluster? His life was full of delights, true, but a bit of plunder in the old-fashioned way was an especially delicious pleasure.
It was also safer that way, he had to admit. So many kings and landholders set spells of ward designed to shout out an alarm should anyone with magic creep over their walls uninvited. Suspicious bastards, but, alas, the world was not the paradise of his youth.
He considered the lay of the land, as it were, and the terrible little trolls he knew were guarding, even with just their snores alone, his grandmother’s back door. He could bring to mind several rather unpleasant encounters with them, but perhaps he deserved nothing less. He had accepted invitations to his grandmother’s house countless times, but he imagined she had kept a tally of the number of times he’d wandered uninvited into her private chambers to salivate over things behind glass and sturdy spells. If he’d found those to be the most interesting items in a grand house full of truly appalling things, who could blame him? His curiosity, as his mother would have said, was likely going to be the last thing he indulged.
But as he had no intention of skipping off into the eternal sunset anytime soon, he would simply take care, be quickly about his business, and get himself and the woman he lo—er, liked quite well back over the walls and away from the enormous manor house before his gran was the wiser. When he was at his leisure in a few months, he would take the trouble to make a proper investigation into things about that same grandmother that had puzzled him. There was ample history there for the studying.
For the moment, though, what he wanted was that book his mother had advised him to filch. With any luck, it might contain a list of crotchety old bastards who might have sent a tenacious, cranky spell of death after him to vex him. The sooner he solved that problem, the better off they would all be. Happening upon any stray bits of himself along the way would only be a boon. Indeed, he had the feeling he was going to need all the aid he could muster to finish the quest he’d so reluctantly started.
If he could also liberate that particular item he’d told Léirsinn about—something he’d never thought to need, actually—from under his grandmother’s chair, he would consider the venture a complete success.
Léirsinn’s hand was suddenly on his arm and he froze. He looked where she was pointing to find a fat, snoring lad half sprawled over the back stoop. He nodded, then very carefully walked with her to the back door. He picked the lock silently, then opened the back kitchen door. He stepped over the slumbering guardsman, made sure Léirsinn had followed him, then closed the door behind them. He silently turned the lock, then looked at her.
She only returned his look and shrugged.
He took a careful breath, then carried on.
He made note of the innards of his grandmother’s home and realized that he tended to judge houses more on their ability to provide him with places to hide and less on their beauty. His granny fared well on both, though he couldn’t say that her house extended any sort of friendly welcome. If she could have forced the very air he breathed into some sort of regimented order, he suspected she would have.
The hallways, as it happened, were replete with useful alcoves whilst everything else was placed at regular intervals, including furniture, plants, mirrors, and doorways. Even the carpets seemed terrified to buckle or lose track of any of their threads. He understood. He’d never made a visit during which he hadn’t been excruciatingly aware of his appearance and manners.
It had made poaching a doily or two almost irresistible, he had to admit.
He spared a wish for even the faintest hint of werelight, but set the thought aside almost immediately. He could see well enough in the dark and that had the added benefit of not disturbing the slumber of any sleeping butlers, of which he found several on the journey down the main passageway.
He made the appropriate turns through the house, avoiding grand staircases where possible and keeping to the darkest of shadows everywhere else. He tiptoed with Léirsinn through a great room full of statuary that he wasn’t entirely sure weren’t his grandmother’s enemies preserved for all time in marble—she shared some unsettling proclivities with his mother—and arrived finally at a particularly unassuming doorway.
He looked at Léirsinn but she was only watching him with wide eyes. He understood. The damned house was definitely built to intimidate.
He tried the knob and wasn’t surprised to find it unlocked. For all he knew—and he thought he might have good reason for being cautious—his granny had had un-noticed minions following him from the moment he crossed the boundaries of her land. He hadn’t sensed anything, but the uncomfortable truth was, his grandmother was a witch of the first water. He would have given much to have been allowed free rein in her private solar for even a single hour. He had attempted the same on more than one occasion, calling upon both his vast stores of charm and the ability to make a nuisance of himself, but he remained unenlightened.
Hence the need for a bit of sticky-fingeredness.
He kept his hand on the doorknob for another moment or two, then decided there was nothing to do but press forward. Without magic, they wouldn’t set off any alarms save ones normally triggered by the average housemaid. He supposed he could don the persona of distracted manservant well enough in the dark. Escape would be difficult, but within reach. He had already discussed the possibility with Léirsinn earlier, though he imagined she’d tried to put the warning out of her head as quickly as possible.
He let them in, looked about the chamber to make certain they were alone, then closed the door soundlessly behind them. He let go of a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been clinging to so thoroughly, then looked at his companion.
“Well,” he said, “we’re here.”
“Thrilling,” she said, sounding as if it were anything but. “What now?”
“I need a book.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“They’re useful.”
“I wouldn’t disagree with that,” she whispered, “just with where you seem to think you need to look for them.”
“I crave excitement like another might crave a bit of flight on the back of a spectacular horse.”
She pursed her lips at him. “Let’s discuss that later, after we’ve escaped.”
He couldn’t argue with that idea, so he turned his mind to a study of the chamber. He had never seen the book his mother had described for him, but knowing his grandmother as he did, he suspected she would have kept it either behind glass, behind spells, or behind her favorite decanter of port. There were bookshelves aplenty lining two walls, draperies covering windows on a third, then an enormous fireplace occupying the fourth. Chairs were set in a pleasing configuration in front of that hearth, chairs he was relieved to see were not only the usual ones set there, but ones that were comfortingly empty.
He identified a sideboa
rd bearing a full complement of what he was certain would be delicate, exclusive liquors. It occupied a prime spot within that gaggle of bookshelves, which seemed to him the most likely spot to begin his search.
“Do you have a grandfather here as well?” Léirsinn whispered. “Just so I know if we should expect disapproval from more than one direction.”
He smiled briefly. “Not to worry, we’ve only my grandmother to worry about. My grandfather ran off with a parlor maid before I was born, or so I’ve heard, but I’ve never taken the time to verify the truth of it. For all I know, my grandmother turned him into fire irons.” He shot her a look. “It’s been done before.”
“By Prince Soilléir?” she asked uneasily.
“He certainly has the spells for it,” Acair said, “but unfortunately he only uses his powers for good, or so he claims. I have absolutely no idea what he really does save endlessly put expensive creams on his visage to hide his age.”
“Is he old?”
“Extremely, though you wouldn’t know it to look at him.” He shrugged. “Virtuous living, I suppose.”
“I’m not sure I want to know more.”
“I’m not sure I want to think about any more,” he said honestly. “But remind me later if you’re curious about either essence-changers or fire irons. At the moment, let’s find what we need and escape whilst we still can.” He nodded to a long sideboard. “We’ll try there first.”
He walked with her across a floor that didn’t squeak—reassuring, he supposed—and stopped in front of a selection of bottles. He considered, carefully moved several to the right, then reached out and pushed on a square of wooden paneling behind them.
It opened soundlessly.
“Amazing,” Léirsinn breathed.
He shot her a look. “I may have done this before.”
“Less amazing, then,” she said, “but not by much. What’s inside?”
“Not purses made of my grandfather’s innards, one could hope,” he said grimly. He looked for spells adorning the opening, then hesitated and turned to Léirsinn. “Do you see anything dangerous that I’m missing?”
“Besides your minder spell next to you who’s about to fall over into a pile of crystal decanters?” she said, reaching around him and making a shooing motion. “I can’t see a damned thing. The fire isn’t bright enough.”
He couldn’t see much either, but his ever-present companion wasn’t hissing at him and he didn’t sense anything else with his death uppermost on its list of things to see to, so he reached inside the cubby and felt about.
He ignored piles of gold, a trio of purses he wasn’t sure weren’t someone’s innards, and a few crystal things he supposed were made of mages’ tears. He found a trio of books and wasted no time in pulling them free. He checked the spines, then returned two, because he was feeling particularly virtuous at the moment. He took hold of his prize and looked at Léirsinn.
“Let’s go.”
“You aren’t going to steal that,” she said in surprise.
“Of course I’m going to steal it—”
“Didn’t you learn anything from King Simeon’s solar?”
“Aye, that I should pay more attention to those I make bargains with. Let’s be away whilst we still can.”
She gave him a look he wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t learned from his mother.
“Didn’t your mother say your granny might already be annoyed with you?” she asked.
“She’s annoyed with everyone, so this won’t worsen her opinion of me. Besides, ’tis obvious by the dust on this thing that she never uses it. She’ll never miss it.”
She pulled something out of the satchel slung over her chest and held it up. “Book, pencil. Your mother gave me both. Why don’t you use them and leave everything here undisturbed? Then your grandmother won’t know you’ve been here.”
He had the feeling his gran would know anyway, but considered what Léirsinn held in her hands. There was something to be said for at least making the attempt to keep his visit a secret. He accepted the tools his mother had given Léirsinn, then had another look about the chamber as she lit a candle in the embers of the evening’s fire. He waited for her to set the candle down in an advantageous locale, then took his grandmother’s Book of Oddities and Disgusting Spells in his hands and tried not to give in to the temptation to chortle with delight. It even smelled exclusive.
He took a deep breath, then opened the worn leather cover.
The book didn’t disappoint. It was such a treasure trove of appalling things, he could hardly decide where to begin. He flipped page after page simply brimming over with so much goodness about badness that he was finally reduced to feeling his way down onto a side chair so he could properly appreciate what he held in his hands.
“Well?” Léirsinn prompted.
He looked up at her. “There is too much here. I can’t begin to decide where to start.”
“Close the book, open it back up to a random page, then start copying.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that,” he demurred. “What if I choose amiss? How do I favor one thing and slight another—”
“Acair, just pick something.”
He was torn between genuine distress over having to make a choice and quite a bit of unreasonable delight over the way she said his name. He generally heard my lord and a rather alarming number of variations of you bloody bastard to suit even the most discriminating of ears. His name, though? Not many used that and never with the ease she did—
“Acair?”
He looked at her and blinked. “Aye?”
“You’re half asleep and we don’t have all night.” She paused. “Do we?”
“I don’t imagine we do,” he said, dragging himself back to the matter at hand. He had to suppress the urge to simply wring his hands over an impossible decision. He looked at her. “I can’t limit myself to a few notes. I could spend the rest of my life unraveling the mysteries and stalking the mages listed here—”
“If you don’t choose five of each and do it now, you won’t have any life in which to investigate them,” she warned.
She had a point there. He forced himself to ignore how much more sense it made to simply pilfer the entire tome and hope for the best on his way over the walls. A choice it would have to be.
He sighed. “Very well, I’ll try.”
She held the candle up and leaned over his shoulder to look at the pages with him.
It took him several moments before he realized he wasn’t seeing what was on the page. He was far too distracted by the woman resting her chin on his shoulder. He tilted his head to look at her.
“I can’t concentrate.”
“Shall I slap you smartly to help?”
“I think you might do more good if you stopped breathing in my ear.”
“I’m not breathing, I’m wheezing in terror.”
“I fear, darling, that it has the same effect.”
She snorted at him and went to fetch a stool. She sat down and held up the candle. “Better?”
“Only a bit, but I am nothing if not disciplined.” He gave her a quick smile, then attempted to concentrate on the task at hand.
He wished the damned thing had been divided properly into sections, one for lists of terrible spells and another for dreadful oddities that seemed to include names of mages scribbled in the margins. Unfortunately, it was simply a compendium of random spells, hastily scribbled notes about various mages he did and unfortunately sometimes did not recognize, and vignettes about happenings that he suspected it might take him years to study properly. He gave it his best effort, truly he did, but in the end, he had to concede the battle. He looked at Léirsinn.
“I can’t choose.”
“Are you sure?”
“Perfectly,” he said. “We’ll need to take it with us.”
“I don’t think your grandmother will be happy,” she warned.
“I don’t think my grandmother will have any idea it was me to nick it,” he said. He handed her back her pencil and copybook, then paused. “Do you mind holding the prize as well? I have one more thing to look for.”
She accepted his grandmother’s book with the same enthusiasm she might have a live asp, but he couldn’t fault her for it. He thanked her, then rose and strode over to the hearth. He didn’t have to examine any of the chairs there to know which flowery, overstuffed bit of business belonged solely to his grandmother. He tossed the extra pillows onto another chair, virtuously ignoring the handwork adorning them lest he be tempted beyond what he could bear, and tipped the chair back.
He knew exactly what he was looking for and where it was to be found, and he wasn’t disappointed. He reached out and came away with the other thing for which he’d come to his grandmother’s lair.
A spell of un-noticing.
He held it up to the light, that sparkling thing that resembled a delicate piece of filigreed gold. It was as perfect as the day he’d fashioned it, which he knew shouldn’t have surprised him. He had intended it to last for several centuries.
He could remember the afternoon of its creation with perfect clarity simply because he’d been at his own home that he rarely visited, sitting in his own private solar in front of the fire, and contemplating the vicissitudes of life. It had occurred to him that finding oneself in a tight spot now and again wasn’t an experience limited to mages who were fools. He had never intended to be without magic, but he’d also been very cognizant that the world could be a dodgy place. His mother had muttered on more than one occasion something about a pinch of prevention is worth more than a handful of faery wings or rot of that sort. He’d never seen his mother caught unawares and he’d been fairly certain that even Ruamharaiche’s well hadn’t caught his father entirely flat-footed, so hiding the odd spell in places where he wouldn’t find himself without absolutely dire need had seemed like a prudent idea at the time.