by Lynn Kurland
Of course that had presented the unforeseen hazard of almost running afoul of trouble.
She was almost on top of the men whispering furtively together before she had time to open her eyes and see them. She pulled back quickly and, as an afterthought, pretended to fuss with something in her shoe. No sense in giving an overzealous mage a reason to question why she was where she found herself.
“But my master wants a parley with him.”
“No one parleys with him without a damned good reason,” said the second man, making a sound of impatience. “Look, friend, I slipped you in the back door because we’ve done business before, but—”
“I have a spell.”
Sarah felt something slither down her spine, which was remarkable given where she was and the quantity of spells she imagined were surrounding her. She also thought she might have recognized one of the voices. It was the man who had come in the gates behind her and Ruith that first day.
He was Droch’s servant, Tom.
“What sort of spell?” Tom asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” the other man said with a snort, “and I’m not telling. My master told me to just bring a corner of it, for proof.”
“And did you?”
“Better than that. I tore the whole thing to pieces and brought a pair of scraps.”
“And just where did you hide the rest?”
“I’m not sayin’, but if things go south for me—if you know what I mean—I’ll scatter the bloody thing about and make my exit before my master can catch me.”
“Powerful is your master, is he?”
“Stupid, more’s the like.” The other man laughed. “But young and arrogant. From Shettlestoune, if you can believe it. Thinks he’ll trade a spell for a ring, I daresay. Worse still, thinks Droch is the one who gives ’em out.”
“Stupid, indeed.”
Sarah could scarce believe her ears. From Shettlestoune? How many mages once possessing pages of spells could possibly come from Shettlestoune? It wasn’t possible that Daniel had stolen the spells back from Ruith.
Was it?
There was a long pause. “Seems a shame to waste a decent spell on someone that stupid, don’t it?” the first man mused.
“What are you suggesting?”
“A bit of pocket lining.”
“Gold won’t mean much to you if you’re dead,” Tom warned. “And Droch doesn’t like to be played.”
“I wasn’t thinking of playing him.”
There was again silence for a very long time, then a grunt of assent. Sarah listened to their footsteps recede and made a quick decision. Of course she still planned to go off to seek her own fortunes—most likely in the morning—but there was no reason she couldn’t at least ferret out a bit of information that Ruith could possibly use to find his father’s spells. He was going to need help, especially since she wasn’t going to be there to dream their location for him.
She pulled her hood more closely around her face and walked around the corner as if she had every right to. She continued on, following the two men in front of her into a passageway that seemed to be quite a bit colder than the one she’d just left. She thought that observation might have been something simply conjured up by her frenzied mind, then she realized that not only was the passageway growing cold, it was growing dark as well. The men faded, then disappeared as if they’d never been there.
She had almost decided it was time to panic and turn around, when the passageway ended and she walked out into a garden.
It was like nothing she’d ever seen before and never could have imaged existed. She set aside thoughts of the men she’d been following—indeed she suddenly couldn’t remember why she’d been following them—and was enveloped in a feeling of profound pleasure, a secret sort of pleasure, as if only she could have been clever enough to have found such a place. Haunting music filled the air, music that she was suddenly certain only she could hear, a song that wrapped itself around her like a luxurious cloak fit for a princess. She pulled it closer to her, then lifted her face up and found that the sky was obscured with something. That might have bothered her at another time, but since that spell seemed to be keeping most of the rain off her face, she wasn’t going to complain. She turned her attentions instead to the long, lush space that stretched out in front of her.
There was a path beneath her feet, carpeted with soft moss that led toward a small flower garden so gloriously colored that it seemed a lush oasis in the middle of the desert where she was parched with thirst. There was a bench at the end of the path, a bench that sat under a tree that beckoned to her with dozens of branches that turned into delicate fingers.
She paused. She knew that was wrong, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to make anything of it. There was a cushion on the bench and a little table within easy reach, a table laden with luscious-looking fruits and a pitcher of something cool. She could tell it was cool because condensation had beaded up on the glass, dripping down to pool gently at the base, as if a well had overflowed and spilled its contents over its side.
That was wrong, too, that image. It reminded her of that cobalt bottle of potion in her mother’s workroom that her brother had stolen from her and left sitting on his table next to a spell that had reached up and wrapped itself around her arm. Her arm burned with renewed vigor, which troubled her. Remembering the spell troubled her as well, because it made her think of black mages and wells of power and castles covered in spells ...
She pulled herself away from those memories and concentrated on the garden in front of her, because it was a welcome relief from things that disturbed her.
A wide swath of marble lay between her and the bench, marble that glistened from the gentle rain that fell. She put her foot on it, walked a few paces, then had to stop. The scent coming from the flowers blooming by the bench was so overwhelming, she found herself almost turning away from it. Or she would have if she hadn’t been so mesmerized by it.
In time as she managed to take another pair of steps across the marble pavers, the smell became less troubling than intoxicating. She took another deep breath, then another step forward.
She studied the flagstones beneath her feet, wondering why it was they were alternating blocks of grey and black, then realized she wasn’t alone. She looked up to find a man now standing behind the bench, all strength and terrible beauty. He was smiling pleasantly, holding his hands open, as if he invited her to come enjoy the coolness of the contents of the pitcher on the delicate table, the shelter of the tree, and the comfort of a place to sit and be safe.
Safe.
The very thought of it was such a profound relief, she started to walk forward—
Only to find herself distracted by something she couldn’t quite hear. It bothered her, that sound, interrupting the music and buzzing against her ear. She swatted it away in annoyance and tried to concentrate on what was in front of her. The buzzing didn’t abate; it increased. It took several minutes, but she finally realized that it wasn’t a fly or a bee troubling her, it was a voice coming from behind her.
Sarah.
She looked over her shoulder. Soilléir was standing there, quite a ways away, as it happened, surrounded by a rather ordinary light that seemed dull when compared to the glorious sparkle of what she’d been walking toward. She realized it was his voice she was hearing, cutting across the music and fraying it at the edges. She wondered why he’d followed her, then found herself growing increasingly annoyed at him that he’d interrupted the first moment of true pleasure she’d had since Ruith had dragged her into a place she hadn’t wanted to go. She frowned at him, then turned away, back to what was so much more appealing.
Sarah!
“Sarah, is it?” the dark-haired, exceptionally handsome man in front of her said, still smiling. “What a lovely name. And how fortunate that you are here in time for luncheon.”
Sarah couldn’t have agreed more. She wasn’t sure she’d eaten in Soilléir’s chamber. She’d been
weaving, true, and trying to ignore Soilléir’s servant, who had simply stood in his accustomed place near the window, swathed in robe and cowl, no doubt keeping watch over her that she didn’t poach any of his master’s more valuable texts. If he hadn’t gone on his self-appointed mission to fetch her something to eat, she never would have managed to escape Soilléir’s chamber, she was certain of that—
“Sarah!”
Sarah paused in mid-step and frowned a bit more. That wasn’t Soilléir. When Soilléir said her name, his voice washed across her mind in a particularly magelike way. This new voice was nothing more than some fool standing behind her and shouting.
She turned back over her shoulder to see a man standing next to Soilléir, someone who wasn’t covered in light, however garish. She realized, with a start, that it was Ruith. He and Soilléir began to argue, which somehow annoyed her more than their calling her had. Their voices grated on her and made her feel very out of sorts.
Not like the man in front of her. The more she looked at him, the more at peace she felt. Best of all, he didn’t look like he would use a spell unless the welcoming smile on his face could be called magic. She happily turned her back on Ruith and Soilléir both, ignored Soilléir’s repeated calling of her name, then took another step forward.
She paused, because it suddenly felt to her as if the world held its breath for something truly unprecedented. She couldn’t believe that could be for her sake, so she took another step forward—
And the world rent in twain.
Or, more precisely, she did.
It was the most horrendous, terrifying, unbearable thing that had ever happened to her. If having Gair’s spell attack her arm had been painful, this was agony. She dropped to her knees, feeling as if her body had been torn from her, leaving her kneeling there on the hard, wet marble in her soul alone.
And then she opened her eyes.
And she saw.
She wasn’t standing in the middle of a garden; she was standing in the middle of death. The flowers should have been flowers, but they were actually thorns pretending to be flowers. The moss wasn’t a soft carpet beneath her feet, it was the putrid leavings of spells that had been cast aside like refuse. The bench was a cage built to trap and hold those foolish enough to wander under a sky that wasn’t overcast, it was full of dank, rotted spells of Olc. She could see them writhing and twisting in a wind of their own making, reaching out for her.
She looked at the master of Olc—and she now knew him for who he was—and didn’t manage to even open her mouth to cry out before his spell slammed into her, stealing her breath. The only reason it didn’t steal her life was because of what Soilléir had thrown over her the split second before Droch had cast his spell. As it was, Droch’s spell sent her sprawling back along the marble. She crawled to her feet, then looked down in horror at what she was standing on.
It was a chessboard.
She knew without being told that Droch had intended her to be one of the pieces.
Soilléir stepped in front of her suddenly and faced Droch. Sarah would have warned him to be careful, but she supposed he knew that already. That, and she feared that if she opened her mouth, sounds would come out that would terrify them all.
She was pulled backward. She knew it was Ruith even though she had closed her eyes to the terrible battle going on in front of her. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to help, as she could see it just the same.
Droch and Soilléir were fighting with spells. Droch’s were easily identified for what they were. Soilléir’s, though, were not. They sounded familiar—or at least the language did—but she couldn’t place it. Then again, her education was perhaps not what it should have been in order to find herself moving comfortably in such a high and lofty place as the schools of wizardry.
She realized she was babbling—in her own head, no less—but she found she couldn’t stop. To say she was terrified was to completely understate the chill that enveloped her. To think how close she had come to walking willingly into not death but something far worse ...
“Let’s go,” Ruith said hoarsely.
She couldn’t move. Ruith must have realized that as well when he almost wrenched her arm from her shoulder.
“I can’t get my feet free,” she said, feeling terribly alarmed. Actually, alarmed didn’t describe it. She was completely panicked. She looked at Ruith, who was now standing in front of her. “Help me—nay, you cannot. Soilléir must—”
He cursed, then looked about himself, presumably for something to use in getting her feet free of spells she could see had already wrapped themselves over her toes and were now beginning to crawl up to her ankles. She pulled one of her knives out of the back of the belt of her dress, bent, and slit the spells, leaving them waving frantically, just as the ones she’d cut in Ceangail had done.
The smell of them was so vile, she almost lost her breakfast right there in the midst of more spells that sprang up out of nothing and reached for her.
Ruith swung her up in his arms and carried her out of the garden.
“What of Soilléir?”
“He’ll manage.”
“Can’t you help—” she began, then she shut her mouth. Of course he couldn’t help. Well, he perhaps could have, but she knew he wouldn’t.
Though after what she’d seen, she could understand why he was so adverse to magic in general and Olc in particular. She felt a rush of sympathy for his poor mother, having had to endure all those years in Ceangail with its halls slathered in vile spells. She wondered how often Sarait had been there, if she’d managed to shield herself and her children from the brunt of that horrible magic, if Gair had ever been anything but darkness.
She wondered what horrors Ruith had been subjected to, having spent even a part of his youth in that terrible place.
All of which reminded her that since she didn’t want anything to do with magic and mages, she couldn’t have anything to do with Ruith.
“I can walk,” she said, trying to crawl out of his arms.
He let her down reluctantly, but put his arm around her shoulders. She would have told him she didn’t need any help, but she wasn’t entirely sure she could manage any sort of escape on her own. It was all she could do to resheath her knife.
She stumbled along a stone-floored corridor worn smooth by the passage of countless boots over the centuries, then finally had to close her eyes against the sight of the trails left behind by those feet, shadows she certainly hadn’t been able to see earlier but now could for some reason.
Simple. Unmagical. Very far away from anything to do with mages. Aye, that was the life for her. She finally gathered enough strength from that thought to push away from Ruith—
Only to step forward, then fall flat on her face. She realized at that moment that she was so ill, she wasn’t entirely certain she wouldn’t sick up her breakfast on the first thing that moved in front of her eyes. She had never drunk anything stronger than Master Franciscus’s mildest ale—and that sparingly—but she had once smelled something her mother had brewed which had made her almost as ill as she felt now, as if she couldn’t scrub the smell or its terrible after-effects out of her skull.
Ruith’s hand was suddenly against her forehead, smoothing her hair back from her face.
“I can’t move,” she whispered.
“’Tis the spells.”
“I’m going to be ill.”
“Well, we’re in front of Droch’s door,” Ruith said quietly. “It might be fitting.”
She would have heaved herself to her feet and bolted, but she found she could only rest her cheek against the cold stone passageway floor and keep her eyes closed. Ruith continued to stroke her hair, as if he sought to comfort her.
And then suddenly, he was pulling her up and into his arms. “Hold on.”
Sarah felt the world spin wildly, but she’d heard the shouting as well and had no desire to find herself sprawled in the passageway in front of Droch’s door whilst Droch was trying to get ins
ide his chamber to put his feet up in front of the fire and grumble about conquests unmade. She clapped her hand over her mouth and kept her gorge down where it belonged through sheer willpower alone.
Ruith stopped eventually and used his foot to bang on a door. The door opened, then a man gasped. Ruith pushed into a chamber, sending that someone stumbling backward. Sarah didn’t protest as Ruith carried her a bit longer, then set her down in a chair. She leaned her head back against the wood and kept her eyes closed, trying not to tremble.
She failed miserably. She shook so hard, her teeth chattered. She wasn’t sure what had been worse, being so beguiled by Olc that she had come within a heartbeat of casting herself into its depths or finding herself suddenly aware of just what she had thought so beautiful.
She wondered if Gair had ever been in that place, or if he had realized all along what he was doing, chasing after the illusion that was Olc.
She opened her eyes and looked at Ruith, who was sitting on a low stool in front of her, watching her closely. The worry in his eyes was difficult to look at. Worry, and something else, actually.
Shame.
She would have told him that wasn’t necessary, but she found she couldn’t speak. And that was because she was suddenly seeing things she had never seen before in her life, things she’d never dreamed existed.
The man sitting in front of her was Ruith, true, but he was suddenly somehow much more than that. He was his house in the mountains, built from rock that had sent down taproots deep into the earth, immovable, stark, implacably resolute. Yet beside that house, around it, under it, were springs that should have bubbled up and flowed down to form a mighty, rushing river full of magic. She could see the place where the river should have been running through his soul, where the magic would laugh with delight as it tumbled over rock and falls, always pure and full of the birthright of generations of his ancestors who had been full of magic themselves. Aye, there was Olc as well, but it wasn’t part of him. It had fixed itself to the windows of his house, crowding out the light, making things seem other than they were.