by Lynn Kurland
Which, he supposed, might well be the case in the end.
“We’ll go with her,” the Guildmistress said easily, “then I’ll show you a guest chamber where you can rest from your journey. We’ll discuss payment in the morning.”
Rùnach inclined his head because it was expected. He followed along after the guards and had to suppress the urge to knock one of them across the room after the man shoved Aisling so hard inside a chamber that she went sprawling. The door was slammed and locked without delay.
“And now you, good sir,” the Guildmistress said. “Follow me, if you will.”
Rùnach ignored the hair standing up on the back of his neck and followed her without balking. That she didn’t look back at him even once made him wonder, but what was he to do? He had to be inside and this was the price he had to pay.
He was shown into a surprisingly luxurious chamber, though he realized he shouldn’t have expected anything else. Appearances needed to be kept up, no doubt.
The Guildmistress stood back and smiled. “Only the finest,” she said smoothly.
Rùnach hesitated, but hopefully so slightly that she hadn’t noticed. He crossed the threshold and walked into the middle of the chamber.
The door slammed shut behind him and a key turned in the lock.
He stood where he was for a moment or two, wondering why he was in the slightest bit surprised, then walked back over to the door and made a great production of rattling the knob.
“Let me out!” he shouted.
“It’s for your own safety, of course. I’ll keep a guard here for the remainder of the night, again for your protection.”
“Well,” he said loudly, “unorthodox, but I suppose there is merit to it.”
She made no comment, but he hadn’t expected anything else. He made himself at home on a chair and wondered how long he dared wait before he picked the lock, disabled the guard standing outside, and went about his business.
He didn’t dare wait long.
Two hours later, he deposited his very pedestrian lock-picking tools in his pocket, thanking his late brother Gille for having decided it would be a brilliant skill for them all to have, and very quietly opened the door.
The guard there whirled around. Rùnach would have apologized for shoving the heel of his hand into the guard’s nose, then following that up with the hilt of his sword against the man’s head, but he supposed there was no point. He dragged the man inside and deposited him on the bed. It would probably be the best night’s sleep the poor fool had had in years.
He substituted the man’s cloak for his own and hoped that would be enough to at least keep other guards at bay long enough for him to get close enough to render them likewise useless. He left the chamber, locking the door behind him, then walked down the passageway in the direction he’d come earlier.
Guards only nodded to him, which he supposed was nothing short of a miracle. He nodded back, complaining occasionally about the earliness of the hour and the quality of the buttery offerings. No one questioned him as to why he was roaming the passageways, so he continued on until he had no choice but to make a decision between Aisling and her father.
There was no choice.
He found the dormitories through sheer dumb luck and perhaps only because he continued to wander until he found the shabbiest part of the Guild. He knew he shouldn’t have suspected anything else. He wasn’t even surprised to find there was no guard at the door, though he wouldn’t have been surprised to find the chamber itself full of men armed to the teeth, waiting for him.
Instead, it turned out to be a rather small chamber full of only a handful of beds stacked three high. He closed the door softly behind him and wasn’t sure where to begin looking—
Someone took him by the arm.
He almost jumped out of his skin. He was vastly relieved to see it was just Aisling. He was less relieved to see that she hardly seemed to be breathing. He took her hand quickly, but her fingers were like ice. He understood completely. He had a case of nerves he hadn’t had since the last time he’d gone inside his father’s private solar to nose about in his books whilst his father had been napping in his chair. He was too old to have to remind himself to breathe, but there it was.
He opened the door silently, looked out into the passageway, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He drew Aisling out of the chamber behind him, then flattened himself against the wall.
“My father,” she whispered. “We must find him.”
He looked at her. “I don’t think we dare—”
“I can’t leave him there.”
“We won’t,” he said quietly, “but if we go now, we’ll likely wake the whole damned place.”
She looked at the ceiling for a moment or two, then at him. “If we don’t survive, he likely won’t either.”
“I didn’t want to say it, but aye.”
“Then let’s see that we survive.”
“Any ideas where to start?”
“I would say her private chambers, but I’m not sure I can stomach that to start with,” she said grimly. She paused, then looked at him, dismayed. “I thought that perhaps once we reached the source of the—what would you call it?”
“Sink?”
“Aye, that. I thought perhaps the closer we came, the easier it would be to sense it, but I don’t feel anything. Beul is almost empty of any magic I might be able to call on.”
“That might be to our advantage,” he offered. “Perhaps our adversaries will find themselves in the same situation.”
“One could hope,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t aid us now. I suppose all we can do is roam the halls and see what we find.”
“I take it you never did this before?”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Nay.”
He didn’t dare ask for the particulars. “Let’s just walk,” he suggested, “and see if we run into anything interesting.”
An hour later he regretted heartily having suggested that. If picking the lock on his luxurious accommodations had been easy, and slipping down the passageway slightly less easy, then trying to find from where Bruadair’s magic was being drained was almost impossible. They had hidden in various corners, overhangs, and empty chambers until Rùnach had wished they’d had a better idea coming inside where to look.
He finally leaned back against a doorway with Aisling and looked at her. “Any ideas?”
“I—”
The doorway opened suddenly behind him and he went sprawling across the threshold. Aisling fell alongside him with a squeak. She scrambled to her feet, then hauled him up to his. He smiled apologetically, then plunged the hapless, no doubt quite innocent, Guild guard who stepped into his line of sight into insensibility. He flexed his fingers a bit, wishing he’d been more accustomed to that sort of thing, then realized Aisling wasn’t moving. He looked at her quickly, but she was simply standing there, gaping at something in the distance. He frowned, then turned to look at what she was seeing. He caught the door before it closed loudly, then let it slip shut with a soft click.
“I didn’t know this was here,” she whispered.
He imagined she couldn’t help but wish she didn’t still.
It was a garden, or, rather, it had been a garden. He suspected that in times past it had been an absolutely spectacular place. The only light there was from a dawn that had apparently bloomed whilst they’d been roaming the halls, but even that light revealed a glorious setting. He could see skeletons of trees and shrubs, long stretches of earth where flowers had no doubt been planted in pleasing patterns, numerous places to sit and enjoy the beauty there.
Now, it looked as the rest of Bruadair did, as if death had breathed on everything in sight and killed it without mercy.
In the middle of the garden lay—or, rather, had lain—a fountain. The only reason he knew that was that although the top two tiers were obviously missing, the bottom basin was still intact. It was enormous, actually. He supposed he could have stretched himself from one
side to the other and scarce been able to keep himself out of the water. He realized with a start that the bottom basin was definitely not empty, and it wasn’t water that filled it.
Aisling started forward, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. She looked up at him.
“That’s it,” she murmured. “You know what I’m talking about.”
He did. It was where Bruadair’s magic was being syphoned off to go heaven only knew where and through who knew which countries. He took her hand.
“I don’t want you falling in.”
She shivered. “I suppose that’s a possibility.”
“Not one I’ll let happen,” he said. “Let me go first.”
She nodded, but didn’t release his hand and didn’t walk anywhere but beside him. He supposed there was no convincing her to do anything other than that.
He approached the fountain. It took no especial powers of observation to see that magic was indeed being drained into the lowest bowl there. Or, rather, that magic had once been drained there. Echoes of it lingered against stone that had turned black. Rùnach knew the stone had been a beautiful slate blue before because there were patches of that color still visible amid the ruin.
“What to do now?” Aisling asked quietly.
“Well,” a voice said from behind them, “why don’t you let me suggest a few activities?”
Rùnach whirled around almost knocking Aisling over. He caught her by the arm and wasn’t sure what to do with himself. If he put himself in front of her, he might accidentally push her into the vortex behind him. If he left her beside him, she would be out in the open and more unprotected than he might like. Because he wasn’t facing the Guildmistress, he was facing Acair of Ceangail.
Acair seemed to be considering something, though Rùnach didn’t dare speculate what. He wasn’t reaching for a spell, which perhaps was the best they could hope for at the moment.
“How did you get inside Bruadair?” Rùnach asked.
“Bribed a border guard. You?”
“The same.”
“Bloody ugly country,” Acair said with a shudder. “At least what I’ve seen of it which, fortunately, hasn’t been all that much.” He looked at Aisling, dismissed her, then looked back at Rùnach. “Let’s cut out the chitchat, shall we? Give me what I want and I’ll let you and your little wench there live.”
“What do you want?” Rùnach asked. “Or should I bother to ask?”
“I want what we all wanted, even you, little brother,” Acair said. “Father’s spell of Diminishing.”
Rùnach supposed there was no point in denying what Acair was saying, though the only reason he had wanted his father’s spell had been so he could counter it. The only reason. He might not be able to say anything else in his own defense, but in that, he could defend his motives without hesitation. He shrugged.
“You should have just taken it from my book—oh, wait.” Rùnach smiled, pained. “You couldn’t get past the spell locking those damned pages together, could you?”
Acair threw a rather pointed spell of death at him, but Aisling caught it and spun it around what was left of a small, rickety wooden table. The table made a horrendous squeak as it collapsed in on itself. Rùnach looked at Acair. He was gaping at Aisling.
“What . . .”
“Too complicated for you to understand,” Rùnach said regretfully. “But what you might be able to understand is that you won’t have anything from me if I’m dead.”
Acair shook his head. “I’m continually baffled as to why I didn’t kill you when you were a lad—nay, I know. Because then I couldn’t have what I want. Yes, I understand, Rùnach. But I’ll have it now, I believe.”
Rùnach scratched his head. “You, against us? How quaint.”
“Oh, it’s not just me,” Acair said softly.
And apparently it wasn’t.
Nineteen
Aisling could hardly believe what she was seeing, but there was no denying it. Rùnach’s bastard brother, Acair, stood there, flanked by none other than the Guildmistress and, of all people, Sglaimir the usurping king. Acair nodded crisply to Sglaimir.
“See to them. Or have that horrible woman there do the deed. You said she has magic, though I’ve seen no indication of it.”
“Neither have I,” Aisling said before she thought better of it. “I don’t think she has any skill but cruelty.”
Acair looked at her briefly, then nodded reluctantly. “There is that, and it makes me a little queasy to agree with you on anything, but given that I intend to kill your lover there, perhaps that camaraderie won’t last.”
“Bloody hell,” Sglaimir complained, “do you ever shut up? I’m surprised your father didn’t slay you simply to spare himself having to listen to you blather on and on.”
Acair looked at him coldly. “You forget yourself, my lad. I am the reason you find yourself on your comfortable perch.”
“Lad,” Sglaimir echoed in disbelief. “I’m a century older than you are, you idiot!”
“And I was working great magic when you were still trying to set your ugly sister’s skirts on fire!”
Sglaimir’s mouth fell open. “You wouldn’t recognize great magic if it came up to you and bit you on the arse!”
The conversation, if that’s what it could be called, deteriorated from there. Spells began to fly again amongst the trio in front of her. Or, rather, between Acair and Sglaimir. The Guildmistress seemed to have very little magic of her own, or perhaps she didn’t know how to use what she had. Aisling honestly didn’t care which it was as long as the woman refrained from any demonstration of what she could or couldn’t do.
She found herself catching more than one stray spell on the dagger Soilléir had gifted her, as it seemed to function quite well as a spindle. Rùnach absently reached up and batted away everything else that came their way. Obviously his time in the lists with Muinear hadn’t been wasted.
Acair’s spells were nasty, true, but they were unwieldy and didn’t seem to work as he intended them to. Aisling was surprised, but then again, it was Bruadair after all. The only thing she didn’t find reassuring was how weak her country’s magic was in the garden. She wasn’t sure she could count on any of it to aid her.
She leaned closer to Rùnach. “What do you think?”
“If the fate of the world weren’t at stake, I might be looking for a chair to use whilst watching the spectacle.”
She smiled. “What do you think of their spells?”
Rùnach seemed to stop just short of stroking his chin. “Standard fare for your country, wouldn’t you say? They definitely seem to be expecting different results from what they’re getting. You would think by this time they would have realized what they can and cannot do.”
“Maybe they’ve spent too much time talking,” she said, “and too little time doing.”
He shot her a brief smile. “I think you might be right. I wonder how much longer they’re going to go on and what we can do until they stop?”
“I’d sit on the edge of the fountain, but I don’t think we dare,” she said.
“I don’t think so either.” He cleared his throat loudly. “Just so I’m clear on it, what is it you’re doing here?”
The Guildmistress pointed at Aisling. “We want her.”
“Why?” Rùnach asked. “What could she possibly have that you want?”
“I don’t want her,” Sglaimir said bluntly. “I want a throne. Actually, I’ll have the one I’m sitting on, the one you promised me, Acair you treacherous bastard, if I would help you get in and out of the borders.”
“You could have done that with just gold,” Rùnach put in.
“Shut up,” Sglaimir snarled at him before he turned back to Acair. “I have spent years aiding you in this stupid plan to strip Bruadair of its magic, which has done nothing but leave me in an ugly city with no proper subjects to rule over. And all the while I’ve been waiting for you to find that spell of your father’s which I don’t believe exists—�
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“Oh, it exists,” Rùnach said.
Aisling elbowed him, then ducked with him as Sglaimir tossed a rather wobbly spell of something their way. Aisling watched it drift past them, then looked at Rùnach.
“What was that?”
“I have no idea,” he said with a shrug. He looked over his shoulder as the spell fell into the vortex behind them. “I just don’t want to follow it to where it’s gone. Let’s move away from this thing, shall we?”
She was happy to do so, especially given that the two mages standing thirty paces away from them didn’t seem to be paying them any heed. She supposed she and Rùnach might have even managed to escape the garden if that had been their desire while Acair and Sglaimir continued to argue. Or perhaps not. The Guildmistress sent her a look that had her freezing in her tracks in spite of herself.
The Guildmistress clapped her hands together sharply. “Stop it, you fools,” she said. “Have you forgotten what it is we’re doing here?”
Aisling watched the two men in front of them snarl out a few more curses before they put up their spells, as it were. Sglaimir was obviously furious at what he no doubt considered being double-crossed. Acair, apparently the perpetrator of that injustice, was looking at the would-be king of Bruadair as if he simply couldn’t believe what he was forced to endure. The Guildmistress was one Aisling couldn’t quite bring herself to look at too closely. She hoped she wouldn’t pay a price for that as time went on.
“My father’s spell is more powerful than anything you’ve ever used,” Acair said stiffly.
“It’s apparently more powerful than anything you’ve ever used,” Sglaimir shot back, “given that I’ve waited almost twenty years for you to find someone besides your sire to share it with you!”
“I’ve been waiting as well,” the Guildmistress said, turning to face Acair as she stood alongside Sglaimir. “And perhaps you’ve forgotten this, but you promised me the throne.”