by Lynn Kurland
“Which thrilled you so much that you immediately tried it again.”
He smiled sheepishly. “I was a lad.”
“Who were you with?”
“Miach of Neroche and, if you can believe this, Rùnach.”
“How old were you?”
“Five.”
“Your poor mother.”
He smiled a little at the memory. “Aye, I daresay. She spent the evening convincing my grandfather that beating us soundly for our cheek would only drive us to do it again. Elves do not shapechange! he bellowed periodically that evening at supper until the lot of us were simply bundles of nerves.”
“And what do elves do?” she asked. “Though I hasten to add I’m only asking out of polite and friendly curiosity.”
“We admire flame-haired weavers of exquisite cloth and always hurry about our business on the ground so we might fly with them again.”
She scowled at him. “I’m not going any farther on this quest of yours if you don’t stop that.”
He smiled and put his arm around her, because she was trembling. He imagined it wasn’t from the cold. “Where—” he began, then he stopped. The moonlight had broken through the clouds and cast the whole of the tableau in front of him into sharp relief, making his werelight unnecessary.
There was something standing twenty paces behind Daniel.
“Let’s go,” she said quickly. “I’ll try not to scream so much this time.”
He was happy to acquiesce. He climbed onto his horse-turned-dragon’s back, then pulled Sarah quickly up onto the saddle in front of him. He put his arms around her and held on as Tarbh leapt up, beating his wings against the chill air. He looked over his shoulder but saw nothing untoward following them. If someone had shapechanged to chase after them, he certainly couldn’t tell. He didn’t imagine Sarah would be willing to open her eyes long enough to look. Perhaps later, when she felt more secure.
He started to pull Sarah’s hood up over her hair only to have her shriek.
“Don’t let go!”
“I never plan to,” he assured her. He wrapped both arms around her again, then rested his chin on her shoulder. “I won’t let you fall. I promise.”
She didn’t relax, but she did pat his hands briefly before she went back to clutching the pommel of the saddle. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the feel of the chill wind against his face.
“I left my cloak behind,” she said suddenly. “The very lovely green one you made for me.”
“I know.”
“It was too fine for a journey such as this will be.”
He tightened his arms around her briefly. “We’ll fetch it after we’re finished. Soilléir will keep it for us.”
She nodded, then fell silent for quite a while. Ruith would have thought she had gone to sleep if it hadn’t been for the way she flinched every now and again, as if she’d almost fallen asleep but reminded herself unhappily of where she was. She finally leaned back.
“Ruith?”
“Aye, love?”
“I can’t help but wonder about that spell of Gair’s. The one of Diminishing. I tried not to listen too closely when Connail was speaking of it on our way north, but it was hard to avoid.”
“Given Connail’s unfortunate familiarity with its effects, I can understand why he was obsessed with it.”
“That was the spell that Daniel had half of, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. He could scarce believe he’d lost that half he’d had, which was indeed his fault. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so fastidious about not using magic—
“I wonder why someone would want it so badly,” Sarah said, interrupting his thoughts.
He leaned up a bit so the wind wouldn’t carry away his words. “There are mages out in the world who aren’t satisfied with their limits. In the beginning of the world, I think there were boundaries set—by good taste, if nothing else. Over the years, though, there have been many who sought to cross those boundaries and do the unthinkable.”
“Taking someone else’s power?” she asked faintly.
He nodded. “Neònach of Carragh was the first to attempt it, but it went badly for him. He began with inanimate, enspelled objects that rendered him, in the end, quite inanimate himself.”
“So it is as Connail said,” she said. “When Gair took his power, he took his madness as well.”
“No one ever said it came without risks,” he said. “Lothar has his spell of Taking, but it is, from what I understand, a crude and inelegant thing that might siphon off half another mage’s power. Droch has his own variation of the same thing, loftily called Gifting, which produces about the same result.”
“But Gair’s?”
“Every last drop,” he said with a sigh, “as Connail also said. It is a spell that never should have been conceived, much less refined and certainly not written down. Why my father allowed such a thing to be let loose, I’ll never know.”
“Perhaps he never intended it be discovered.”
“I imagine he didn’t,” Ruith agreed. “He guarded it jealously, never uttering it in the presence of anyone but those whose power he took.”
“Then how do you and your brothers know it?”
“I was very young when Keir first determined that it was something we all should know,” Ruith said slowly. “He eavesdropped first, but refused to pass along what he’d heard—to his credit. He and Gille argued bitterly about that, for Gille thought the only way to counter my sire’s evil was to know how to name it thoroughly, but Keir feared the spell would somehow corrupt us.”
“Did it?”
“Nay,” he said simply, because he couldn’t blame her for asking. “Keir insisted that if we wanted it, we would have to have it for ourselves and watch with our own eyes what it could do. We all then made it a point to overhear my father using it, though we certainly never would have used it ourselves.”
“You were never tempted?” she asked casually.
He pursed his lips. “Never, you heartless disciple of Soilléir of Cothromaiche. Not even when my father was opening that damned well, though perhaps I should have been.” He sighed. “I’d never heard him spew out so many spells in such a short time. First he used his spell of Diminishing on my brothers, then, with their power in hand, he opened the well. He then turned his favorite spell on the well itself only to realize that he was sadly out of his depth. By the time the evil had raced up into the sky and was headed back down toward him, he was frantically trying spells of containment and closing. ’Twas too late for that, I fear.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “’Tis in the past, fortunately. I feel somewhat better about it, knowing that I’m doing something to stop his evil from spreading instead of merely sitting in the mountains, fretting over it.”
She fell silent. He wasn’t sure if she contemplated all his years hiding away in the mountains or wondered if he now had the power to protect her. Perhaps, in the end, it was just better not to know.
“Ruith?”
“Hmmm?”
She leaned her head back against his shoulder and turned toward him slightly. He had a difficult time concentrating on what she was saying. If he’d been a less gentlemanly sort of man—or one with more sense, perhaps—he would have kissed her right then, professed his undying love, then begged her to wed with him. But that might have caused both of them to fall off, so perhaps that was better left for another, less perilous perch.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Trying to.”
“Try harder.”
“The wind is fairly loud,” he said. “And you, if I may say so, are extremely distracting.”
She elbowed him firmly in the gut. He grunted, then wrenched his thoughts away from where they would have lingered quite pleasantly.
“What?” he asked.
“I was wondering,” she said loudly, “given that your father was so interested in taking the magic of others, if he ever worried about someone taking his?”<
br />
“Never,” Ruith said automatically, but then he found he couldn’t say anything else.
In truth, he’d honestly never considered it. His father had always seemed all-powerful, a towering figure full of arrogance and strength. The thought of anyone being able to do anything to Gair of Ceangail instead of running from him had certainly never crossed his mind as a child.
But now that he didn’t have his mother and brothers to protect him and he was exposed to the full brunt of whatever black mages wanted to throw at him, he certainly thought about his own mortality more often than he cared to. Surely his sire must have at least considered in passing the same sort of thing.
He tightened his arms around Sarah briefly. “Nay, he never would have, but I’ll think on it just the same, if you like.”
“At least it will keep you awake.”
He smiled. “I won’t fall asleep.”
“I know I certainly won’t,” she said with a shiver.
He wrapped his arms more securely around her, then rested his chin on her shoulder and gave some thought to things he hadn’t considered before. His father, who had spent more time than he would have admitted to looking over his shoulder, wouldn’t have left himself unprotected, in spite of his belief in his own invincibility. Surely.
What if he had created a spell to counter Lothar’s spell of Taking and Droch’s attempt at the like?
Or what if he had suffered a spontaneous and quite unwholesome bout of altruism and created a spell to restore what had been taken with his own spell of Diminishing?
The thought was intriguing, but Ruith wasn’t certain it was worth thinking on too seriously. His father never would have let his magic be taken, so he had likely never thought seriously about needing to find a way to have it restored. He certainly wouldn’t have given such a spell to anyone else. As for using it himself, on himself, he wouldn’t have had the magic to use it had all his own power been taken.
Then again, perhaps even if another mage managed to find and use the spell of Diminishing, anyone but Gair of Ceangail might not have managed such a thorough result—especially on Gair himself.
Which would have left Gair with perhaps enough power to save himself with a spell of Anti-Diminishing.
Ruith rolled his eyes at the thought. His sire was dead and gone. Whatever fools might have been left in the world were not his equal and would never harness the full power of the original spell.
Still, they might manage a good bit of damage, which left him with his original task, which was preventing the meeting of those two halves before someone with a decent bit of power put them together.
And in the meantime, he supposed he might be wise to actually do the unthinkable and create something of his own to fight whoever might be canny enough to have the entire spell at his disposal, though the thought of that was a bit like walking over his father’s grave.
He shivered, and not from the chill. That wasn’t a path he wanted to put even a single foot to.
Though he supposed he might not have a choice.
Sixteen
Sarah walked down the muddy street with Ruith, grateful she had him to duck behind if things became too dodgy. She’d never been in a place that was so overtly unpleasant, not even when compared to a few of the seedier villages in Shettlestoune she’d traveled to with her mother to hunt for new customers. The buildings had quite obviously taken their fair share of abuse from the weather, which was particularly nasty and had consisted of, over the past half hour, a driving rain that had turned to a painful sort of hail that had abated into a sleet that stung her face and gathered on her eyelashes until she could hardly see where she was going. If she hadn’t known better, she might have suspected it all to be the work of some vile mage.
“Why does anyone live here?” she muttered, not entirely under her breath.
“Last bit of civilization for leagues,” Ruith said with a shrug, “such as it is. There isn’t anywhere of note between Slighe and Ceangail or, for that matter, between Slighe and Léige. You’ve seen for yourself what lies on the plains of Ailean—or perhaps you weren’t watching whilst we were flying.”
“I kept my eyes closed,” she said, mustering up a glare.
“I imagined you had,” he said wryly. “As to what lies to the south, there is nothing of any decent size for a few days’ travel at least. If you want supplies for even a modest journey, this is your last chance to purchase them.”
“I’m not sure I would stop here for supplies,” she said, wishing she had a sword and the skill to use it. “And that because I would most likely be robbed of them on my way out of town.”
He smiled. “I would disagree, but I think you have it aright.” He studied her briefly. “Are you concerned?”
She pursed her lips. “I think if your sword didn’t frighten any and all ruffians off, your knives would, so nay, I’m not overly concerned. I won’t say that I won’t be happy to leave the place behind, though, no matter how intimidating you are.”
Though why putting Slighe behind her would be an improvement, she couldn’t say. At least in Slighe it seemed fairly obvious where trouble might be coming from—any doorway that opened onto the street, actually—but out in the wilderness? Enemies lurking there would be more difficult to see, especially given the possibility that the mountains and forests were full of Ruith’s bastard brothers. It was difficult to accept that she felt more comfortable in Buidseachd, but there was no denying it. At least there, she knew to distrust most everyone she met.
She let her mind wander as she walked and it wandered right to the first unpleasant thing she’d seen on her current journey, which was her brother flinging a sword into his messenger’s chest. Obviously the double cross the messenger had attempted had gone horribly awry. She didn’t want to content herself with knowing the man would have suffered a much worse fate at Droch’s hands, but the truth of it was also difficult to deny.
At least she’d had the time to gather up the pieces of spell, and she and Ruith had escaped without harm. She supposed Daniel would free himself eventually, and whilst he might consider Ruith’s parting words to him, he wasn’t one to learn lessons easily. If he thought he could have even a fraction of Ruith’s sort of power, he would risk everything to obtain it. She sincerely doubted they had seen the last of him.
“Why did Soilléir give you that sword, do you think?” Sarah asked, dragging her thoughts away from things that bothered her but finding only other bothersome things to think on.
“I have no idea,” Ruith said. “King Uachdaran certainly doesn’t need another blade given the quality of work his own smiths produce.”
“Would you want it?” she asked.
He shot her a quick smile. “I would be lying if I said nay. I’m not sure where Soilléir came by it, but it is a very lovely blade. Well balanced and discreetly made.”
“None of the flash and pomp of the Sword of Neroche?” she asked with a smile.
“With a gem in the hilt large enough to blind you?” he said. “Nay, fortunately none of that. Unlike Adhémar, I prefer my weapons to be unembellished.”
“At least the spells won’t bother you—ah, I meant the runes.” She cursed herself silently, but ’twas too late. Ruith was already looking at her with the same sort of sharp look he’d turned on Soilléir a time or two, as if he intended to have answers even if he had to wait days on end to have them. She attempted an owlish blink, but she feared she’d been no more successful at it than Soilléir had been.
“Spells?” he echoed pointedly.
“I meant runes.”
“That isn’t what you said.”
“You heard me awrong,” she said promptly. “Too much wind in your ears, no doubt. Or in mine. I’m not sure which, but I’ll give it some thought and let you know later.” She tried another innocent look. “I’m weary and speaking out of turn.”
“What you’re going to be out of, woman, is one of your begging-off-from-unpleasant-courtly-affairs excuses if you don’t
elaborate on what I heard awrong.”
She shrugged, vowing to be more careful in the future with her single words and simple thoughts. She was beginning to see that it would be more difficult than it looked. She yawned hugely, then wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Are we here for a meal or sleep? I can’t remember.”
He pursed his lips at her. “I know what you’re doing and I won’t press you now, which isn’t to say that I won’t later.” He slid her a sideways look. “Runes, my arse.”
“I don’t think that’s where they’re inscribed, but I could be wrong.”
He blinked, then laughed. “Very well, you’ve very saucily avoided any more pressing questions until the proper time. As for our immediate plans, whilst I’m not sure I want to trap us in a chamber here in town, we do need to sleep for at least a handful of hours. I think Tarbh will be safe enough where we left him.”
“In the trees,” she said with a smile. “Not exactly where I would think to look for a horse, were I a villain.”
“Well, an owl is a mighty bird, given the right breed,” he allowed. “As for anything else, I had originally planned to return here after our little foray to Ceangail and regroup with our good alemaster. I don’t know if Franciscus will choose this as a place to roost, but the rest of our lads might. It seems as if we should at least make the effort to find them.”
“Will they have dared wait here?”
“We’ll soon know, I imagine,” Ruith said, “given that Oban isn’t easily hidden. If he’s even set foot in town, someone will have noticed him.” He slowed. “We’ll try this tavern first. I suggest you keep your face covered and a knife up your sleeve.”
“And just where will you be?” she asked, eyeing the particularly unpleasant-looking place in front of them.
“Asking a question or two of the barkeep.” He frowned at her. “You couldn’t try a bit of a manly swagger, could you?”
She opened her mouth to tell him she would not only swagger but be happy to brawl with him if he needled her much longer, but he laughed before she could and pulled her hood farther over her face.