Dreamer's Daughter

by Lynn Kurland

  Or at least they had only been known to them before.

  She didn’t want to think about how Acair had found out where those portals were or what else he knew.

  She jumped a little as she realized Muinear was walking down the passageway toward her. She smiled and went into her great-grandmother’s embrace.

  “Thank you,” she said, though thanks seemed particularly inadequate.

  “Ah, my love,” Muinear said, pulling back and kissing her on both cheeks, “I’m so happy you’re finally here.”

  “And I’m so happy you’re alive,” Aisling said frankly.

  Muinear laughed a little. “Iochdmhor is powerful, true, but she has so little imagination that it was an easy thing to leave her thinking she had the victory.”

  “I would like never to see her again,” Aisling said, “no matter how easily fooled she might be.”

  “Oh, not easily,” Muinear said, her smile fading, “but done readily enough, I suppose. In the end, darling, she is just a little witch who will fade into obscurity. There have been and will no doubt be in the future those with much more power than she.” She took Aisling’s arm. “I thought you might like to see your chamber at sunrise. Sunset is better, perhaps, when the light is full west and you have twilight to look forward to, but sunrise is lovely as well.”

  “My chamber?”

  Muinear smiled. “Yours, my love. I didn’t have a chance to show it to you yesterday and Freasdail had left the honor of it to me.” She started to walk, then apparently realized she was pressing on alone. She paused. “What is it?” she asked.

  Aisling hardly knew how to voice her thoughts. “I’m not sure where to begin.” She looked at her great-grandmother. “Were you in truth the First?”

  “For centuries, until your grandmother took my place.” She nodded toward to her right. “Let’s walk, Aisling, and I’ll tell you of it, what there is to tell.”

  “Are you afraid I’ll bolt?”

  Muinear smiled. “Nay, my girl, not that. Though I hope it was clear enough yesterday that you can walk away from your birthright. There are other paths you could choose.”

  “And who would take my place?” Aisling asked reluctantly.

  “For the moment? No one.” She paused. “We would begin a search for someone with the right temperament and the requisite magic, but whether or not we would find him or her—well, we would continue on as we have been until that person was found. And our line would end.” She smiled. “Sometimes that happens, in spite of our actions or lack of action.”

  “Who was the first dreamspinner?”

  “My grandfather’s grandmother,” Muinear said. “Your lad could likely find you all the details you want in his wonderland of a library, or if we manage to do what we must, we’ll spend long evenings during the fall in front of my fire, talking of those who have come before. I will tell you this, Aisling: every last one of the men and women who came before you and put their hands to that wheel felt as if the task was too great at first.”

  “I’m not sure I’m equal to even thinking about the task,” Aisling said faintly, “much less how to accomplish it.”

  “Come look at your chamber, then, love, and see what you think.”

  Aisling nodded and continued on with her. She wasn’t blind to the deference everyone she passed showed her great-grandmother, nor could she deny that she was shown the same deference.

  Well, perhaps a bit more.

  “I keep thinking I should look for Rùnach behind me,” she said.

  “Oh, I imagine he receives his share of courtesies. Lovely man, that one. I imagine he accepts them politely but doesn’t need them for the sake of his ego.”

  “Nay, he knows who he is.”

  “Do you, my girl?”

  Aisling took a deep breath. “There are times I’m not sure.”

  “What was the first spell you used, Aisling?” Muinear asked.

  “Do you not know?”

  “I think you know the answer to that already.”

  “What I think is that there must be a very select dinner group comprised of you, Soilléir of Cothromaiche, Uachdaran of Léige, and perhaps even Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn, who meet regularly and discuss how best to torment those with much less knowledge than you have.”

  Muinear laughed. “You might be surprised to learn how close that is to the truth. And you forgot Queen Brèagha and Eulasaid of Camanaë.”

  Aisling started to ask her just how many people she knew, but she shut her mouth around the question. She wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t heard Rùnach ask that same thing of various souls over the course of their journey. He had never been particularly happy with the answer, so perhaps it was best she remain ignorant. She looked at Muinear.

  “If you’ll have the tale from me,” she said, “I’ll tell you. Rùnach and I had just escaped Gair’s hiding hole in the mountains using a rune of opening Còir of Tòrr Dòrainn had gifted Rùnach. We dropped into a river that carried us away—in truth, I was sure it would drown us. There were things in that river—” She shivered. “Unpleasant things. So I said the last thing that came to mind before I thought I would simply consign myself to a watery grave.”

  “What was that?”

  “I wanted light.” Aisling shook her head at the memory. “And the magic gave me light.”

  “Of course it did, love,” Muinear said gently. “I’m sure it was happy to be of use to you.”

  “I believe it was.”

  Muinear stopped in front of a simple door made of a pale, blond wood. “Light, Aisling, is what allows us to see, gives us hope. I think you’ll find the same thing here.”

  Aisling took a deep steadying breath, then nodded. She waited until Muinear had opened the door, then stepped inside.

  And she caught her breath.

  She walked into the chamber and stopped in the middle of it, in front of a wheel that looked so much like the one she’d made from Soilléir’s spell of essence changing that she had to look at it twice to make certain it wasn’t. She put her hand on it, felt Bruadair sigh a little at the touch, then looked around her. She turned around, looking at walls she had first thought were covered with tapestries . . . only those tapestries weren’t cloth. They were made of events.

  She turned around and around until a shaft of sunlight came through a ceiling partly made of glass and lit up her wheel. It shone through one of the scenes as well, turning it into something less than reality but slightly more than a dream.

  Unbidden, the memory of the first time she’d touched a spinning wheel came to her. She had been standing in the very humble home of a widow, looking at her worn, wooden wheel, and knowing that if she touched it, she would die. But she’d reached out to it just the same, sending it spinning without touching it at all.

  A vision had come to her of standing on the edge of a cliff she now realized was the bluff outside the palace. The sky had been full of colors, colors she had never before seen and suspected she never would again if she didn’t do something to save Bruadair, and scenes of battle, scenes of sorrow and delight—

  Much like what she was looking at presently.

  She looked for Muinear. “What—”

  “The world,” Muinear said with a smile. “As it passes by.”

  “And what is my task?”

  Muinear sat in a comfortable chair Aisling hadn’t noticed until that point. “Tasks,” she corrected gently. “Your most important task, of course, is to oversee the other dreamspinners, adding your own touches to what they send out. It is their task to provide the weavers with something to weave for more substantial intrusions into the events of the world.”

  “Weavers?” Aisling echoed. “There are weavers?”

  “You have weavers, Aisling, who weave what you and the Council will spin. You will learn to pull threads from what passes before you here in this chamber, as you’ve learned to find bits and pieces of things along your way here.”

  Aisling put her hand to the little purse sh
e’d been given in Cothromaiche only to realize she’d left it in her chamber. She looked at Muinear in alarm, but her great-grandmother shook her head.

  “Not to worry. No one will disturb your things.” She considered the moving scenes for a moment or two, then looked at Aisling. “We take our turns here in the world, Aisling, for whatever length of time we’re allotted. Part of the task of each soul who takes breath is to contribute something to the body of creative work, if I can call it such a pedestrian thing. All the tales written, the songs composed, the mighty deeds done, the magic wrought, all those things make up the fabric of our world, becoming a grand tapestry of the Nine Kingdoms. Part of your task is to decide how that tapestry is best woven. Though, I hasten to add, you need not do the weaving yourself.”

  “Thankfully.”

  Muinear smiled. “I understand. I far prefer to spin as well. You can, of course, weave your own tapestry—and you will—but that will come later, when you have the leisure to see how you might draw on what you see that moves you.”

  “Single words and simple thoughts?”

  “You’ve been talking to Soilléir, I see.” She smiled. “He is a master at letting the world go on its way without interference, though in this instance, he has been almost as involved as the rest of us. There are times when the fate of the world hangs in the balance that you must perhaps do things you might not otherwise.” She sat back and smiled. “So, what do you think of your chamber?”

  Aisling sank down on a stool in front of her wheel. “I’m not sure what to think. I don’t even know where to begin.”

  Muinear cocked an ear, then looked at the doorway. “Your answer might be arriving, I daresay. I’ll go—”

  “Nay,” Aisling said, holding out her hand to stop the woman from rising. “I’ll answer it.”

  It was Rùnach. She held open the door and motioned for him to come inside. He did, then stopped so suddenly, he almost lost his balance. He looked around with wide eyes.

  “Well,” he said finally.

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “May I?”

  Aisling looked at Muinear, but her great-grandmother only waved her on.

  “The chamber is yours, my love. Make use of it how you will.”

  Rùnach reached for her hand briefly. “This is . . . unbelievable.”

  She couldn’t answer. All she could do was watch him as he walked around the chamber, pausing to look at the scenes being played out there in front of him. He lingered an especially long time in the spot where the sun shone. She realized with a start that he was looking at her.

  “Your eyes are the color of the sea.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “What?”

  “The sea in the south,” he clarified. “That sort of bluish green that has color but doesn’t.” He smiled. “I’ve been trying to decide for some time now, actually, just what color they were.”

  “Well, that’s settled.”

  He smiled, then his smile faded. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’m wondering if you would be willing to come look at something and give me your opinion.”

  “You look so serious,” she murmured.

  He hesitated, then shook his head. “Just come and see what you think.”

  She took his hand and walked with him to the door. He paused in front of Muinear’s chair.

  “Would you care to come, my lady?”

  She popped up out of her chair with the energy of a woman a fraction of her age. “Of course, Rùnach. Where are we congregating?”

  “Uabhann’s chambers, if you don’t mind.”

  Aisling watched her great-grandmother take Rùnach’s arm. “I never mind. He is one of my favorite people. So many interesting things rattling around in his head.”

  Aisling didn’t dare ask what those things might be, but she was happy to exchange a look with Rùnach before he nodded and walked with them down the passageway that led toward a chamber she wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Then again, Muinear had a point. Lord Dread was full of all sorts of observations that he seemed to take genuine delight in.

  She expected to find the entire collection of dreamspinners in Uabhann’s chambers, but it was just him standing next to his table, leaning on his hands as he looked at the map that he and his cohorts had put together the night before. He looked over his shoulder when he heard them come inside his chamber, then immediately turned and made her a bow.

  “Oh,” she said uncomfortably, “you don’t need to do that.”

  “Yes, my lady Aisling, I do,” he said seriously. “If you’ll permit me the privilege.”

  Well, if there was anyone she didn’t suppose she would be arguing with, it was Uabhann. She nodded, smiled as best she could, then looked at Rùnach and waited. He took a deep breath.

  “I’ve discovered something.”

  “On the map?”

  He nodded. “Unfortunately. Or perhaps not, if we look at it the right way. Let’s just say I think we’ve solved the mystery of where the magic is being drained from. Where’s it’s going to is another story, but perhaps for now that is less important than this.”

  “Stanch the wound first?” she said quietly.

  “Exactly. Let me show you what I’ve seen.”

  She stood with Rùnach at the table and looked at the map. It didn’t look any different—or any less unsettling—than it had the night before. She glanced at Rùnach.

  “How do you think Acair discovered all this?”

  “I would like to say he eavesdropped on someone far more intelligent than he, but I’m afraid he’s canny enough to have mapped this out all on his own, damn him for it just the same.” He sighed and gestured to the map. “What do you see?”

  She looked but saw nothing different from what she’d seen the night before. The world was there, outlined faintly as if borders didn’t matter as much as the portals to be found within those borders. There was nothing that stood out, nothing that seemed any less unsettling than what she’d already dealt with the night before. She looked at Rùnach and shrugged helplessly.

  “It looks the same to me.”

  “So I thought this morning. And then I realized there was something tucked into the pocket I’d made on the inside of the back leather binding.”

  “Clever you.”

  “Aren’t I?” he said wryly. “It was covered with a spell, but apparently Acair is equally clever because he unraveled it. Or his mother did it for him. The material point being, there was something tucked inside that pocket.” He took a folded sheaf, unfolded it, then smoothed it out. “Does this look at all familiar?”

  She took the page but saw nothing but more scratches. The sheaf was thinner somehow, though, as if it had either been made poorly or had been meant to go over something else. She studied it, then looked at the map laid out on the table. “If I could hold the entire thing up to the window—”

  The table began to glow, which made her jump.

  She looked at Uabhann in surprise. “Did you do that?”

  He inclined his head. “Night light. Very useful for keeping nightmares at bay.”

  And he would certainly know. She looked at the table, looked at the sheaf in her hand, then held it over the map to see if it might match anything there.

  She was somehow unsurprised to find it did.

  She was, however, very surprised to see how when she laid it down, there was a particular spot in Bruadair that was emphasized. She pulled her hand back because she feared its trembling might disturb the entire puzzle. She took an unsteady breath, then looked at Rùnach.

  “The Guild?”

  He nodded. “I think so.”

  She looked at Muinear. “Did you know?”

  Muinear looked, for the first time Aisling could remember, actually troubled. “I didn’t. Rùnach, are you certain that is where the siphoning is occurring?”

  “I’m more sure than I think I would like to be,” he said slowly. “But there is only one way to find out for certain.”

&
nbsp; “Agreed,” Muinear said.

  “I’ll leave Aisling here—”

  “Of course you won’t,” Aisling said, before she thought better of it. And after she’d thought better of it, she looked at him with an expression she hoped said all she couldn’t say. “You won’t.”

  “It won’t be safe,” Rùnach said seriously. “Acair will likely be there. Sglaimir, assuredly.”

  “But I know the Guild,” Aisling said.

  “You’ll spend the rest of today telling me what you know, then. I’ll leave tonight and see to it.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve already been there once, Aisling. And it’s not as if I’m planning to go knock on the front door and alert the Guildmistress to my intentions. I’ll slip over the walls—”

  Muinear shook her head. “In this, my boy, I have to be the bearer of very evil tidings. There is absolutely no possible way to enter the Guild without Iochdmhor knowing you have. The spell is impenetrable.”

  Aisling watched Rùnach frown and wished she had the wherewithal to join him. All she could do was stand there and feel the cold hand of doom come to rest on her shoulder.

  “Not even with a change of essence?” Rùnach asked carefully.

  “Impenetrable,” Muinear repeated. “We’ve tested it a thousand ways with every spell possible.” She looked at him seriously. “Even with a spell or two of your father’s, if you’re curious. And don’t tell Uachdaran or Sìle that their collection is a little less secure than they might want to believe.”

  Aisling would have smiled but she was too busy trying to simply breathe. There was no worse hell than the Guild . . .

  “I can’t let Aisling go back inside,” Rùnach said quietly. “Lady Muinear, there are simply things you cannot expect me to do.”

  “I’m not sure, Rùnach my lad, that you have any choice.”

  He looked ashen. Aisling wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t look the same way. She took a deep breath and pushed aside thoughts she didn’t want to entertain.

  “Let’s say we could find a way inside the Guild,” she said, “what then? If we stop the leak, we stop any more magic from leaving, but that doesn’t solve getting back what’s already gone.”