Spellweaver

by Kurland, Lynn

  “One could hope,” Ruith said grimly. He watched Sarah a bit longer, then looked at his host. “Well?”

  Soilléir only looked at him innocently. “Well, what? You act as if you think I’m preparing to pepper you with questions.”

  “You forget, my lord, that I knew you quite well in a former lifetime and watched you grill my mother more than once.”

  “I never grilled your mother.”

  Ruith had to concede, grudgingly, that Soilléir’s questioning of Sarait had always been very gentle, but it had been undeniably relentless. It had been motivated, no doubt, by love and concern. He didn’t want to credit the man with such warm feelings for him, but since he had provided such a useful and convenient refuge, satisfying his curiosity perhaps wasn’t out of the question.

  He sighed deeply and suppressed the urge to pace a bit more. He wished with equal desperation for something to do with his hands.

  “I don’t suppose you have any decently kilned wood hiding in your chambers, do you?” he asked.

  “Nay, short of pulling apart my favorite armoire made especially for me by King Uachdaran’s third son—”

  “How did you flatter him out of that?” Ruith asked in surprise.

  “I imagine you would want to know,” Soilléir said mildly, “having found flattery unequal to the task of winning you the spells you would have happily had out of His Majesty’s solar.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you did the unthinkable and actually pilfered them, did you?”

  “I had help,” Ruith said defensively. “Miach of Neroche was the one who opened the door.”

  “And you opened the glass case containing the book.”

  “That the blame might be spread about equally,” Ruith agreed, smiling a little at the memory. “And aye, all because flattery didn’t serve us.”

  Soilléir sat and looked up at Ruith. “I’ll find you wood on the morrow. I’d rather have a bit of your tale tonight, if you’re of a mind to give it. I’ll leave the difficult questions for when you don’t look as if you’ll fall asleep in the middle of the answers.”

  Ruith had no doubt that Soilléir could see the entire journey written there on his soul, but perhaps there was something healing about the recounting of a tale that had been created with such difficulty.

  “Very well,” he said, sitting down with a sigh. “Where will you have me begin?”

  “With why your lady isn’t happy with you.”

  “She is not my lady,” Ruith said, though he certainly wished it to be otherwise, “and she’s irritated because I led her to believe I was a simple mage, then I didn’t correct her when she incorrectly assumed I was nothing but a swordsman.”

  “When did she find out the truth?”

  Ruith pursed his lips. “As we were standing in the great hall at Ceangail and Díolain was making a production of reminding us all of our familial connections.”

  “I would smile,” Soilléir said, pained, “but I can imagine it was very difficult for her. And you might be surprised, Ruithneadh, just how many gels don’t care for that sort of thing and the violence of their reactions once they realize they’ve been—how shall we say it?”

  “Misled for their own good?”

  “Lied to,” Soilléir corrected with a smile. “How long was it before you knew she had no magic?”

  “How did you know that?” Ruith asked in surprise, then he held up his hand. “Never mind. I know: you are who you are. I knew early on, though she is quite adept at hiding it. I imagine her lack made for a very difficult life with Seleg and that damned brother of hers.”

  “I suppose that’s understating it a bit, but those are likely happenings she would rather leave in her past. Let’s discuss your past instead. What were you doing all those years whilst our lovely Sarah was trying to stay out of Seleg’s sights? I know about the well, of course, and I knew you’d gone south to regroup—”

  “That is one way to put it,” Ruith muttered.

  “You were a lad of ten winters, Ruith, and not your father’s equal—though that was simply a matter of age and experience, not raw power. You’ll remember that not even your mother was able to stand against him in that glade, empowered as he was by the acquisition of your brothers’ magic.”

  “Acquisition,” Ruith echoed grimly. “Aye, I suppose you could call it that.”

  Soilléir shrugged. “What else is there to call it? ’Tis an awful business, and your father was a master at it. You could not have fought him at your tender age, and for all you knew, he was still hiding there in the woods, wounded but alive. You made the choice to retreat in order to fight another day.”

  Ruith dragged his hands through his still-damp hair. “You’re trying to assuage my guilt.”

  “You know I’m not,” Soilléir said without hesitation. “There are many, including me, who have been faced with that same sort of decision and live now with the consequences of our actions. You cannot go back and change what’s done, but you can accept that you did what was needful at the time.”

  Ruith wasn’t sure he cared to know what sort of choices Soilléir had made. He couldn’t imagine they’d been easy ones.

  “And in case you’re wondering, I have left you your privacy all these years—not that I didn’t think about you now and again and hope you were well.”

  “I appreciate that,” Ruith managed.

  Soilléir laughed a little. “I imagine you do. And I will admit that I hadn’t given you much thought recently until you healed Seirceil of Coibhneas. You woke me out of a dead sleep with that little piece of magic, if you’re curious.”

  “I wasn’t,” Ruith said sourly, “but I appreciate knowing as much. How far does your sight extend, anyway?”

  “Not to the innards of your stewpot, if that eases you any.” Soilléir poured more wine for them both, handed Ruith his cup, then settled back comfortably in his chair. “I’ve often wondered how it was you so easily found a place to land. Perhaps someone knew you were coming.”

  “I shudder to think who that might have been,” Ruith said. “No one could have suspected I would travel south. I imagine it was just a matter of happy coincidence.”

  “Others might have a different opinion,” Soilléir said with a smile, “but we’ll leave that for now. What happened after you shut your door and no doubt slept for days?”

  “I survived,” Ruith said, then he stopped as something else occurred to him. “I don’t suppose you have stretched your sight to looking for other things besides what I put in my stew, have you? Perhaps as far as determining if any of my siblings are still alive or not?”

  “I might see,” Soilléir said mildly, “but I don’t divulge.”

  “Damn you.”

  Soilléir laughed softly. “Ah, Ruith, it is good to see you again.”

  Ruith only grunted. “I’m sure my lack of deference is refreshing. And since you won’t divulge, I will. Keir is alive, if Díolain is to be believed.”

  Soilléir didn’t look particularly surprised. “Is he, indeed?”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “Discreet,” Soilléir corrected with a smile. “And instead of your past, tell me of your journey east. I’m curious about the particulars of it and what you saw on your way here.”

  Ruith set the cup aside for future need and began with his encounter with Sarah at his front door. He related with no relish at all the events that led up to his realizing that his father’s spells were still out in the world and that his task would be to find them. It took another cup of wine to get him through the journey to his father’s well and their subsequent trek to Ceangail to look for more of his father’s spells.

  “We fled the keep,” he continued, “but were overcome by magic from a source I didn’t see. I woke to find myself alone and Sarah carried off by traders. I followed, gave her no choice but to come with me, and here we are in your very comfortably appointed solar, enjoying your very fine wine.”

  Soilléir looked at him assessingly. “
You’re leaving out details.”

  “Details I don’t care to think on at present, actually.”

  “Such as who would cover you with a spell of protection fashioned of Olc,” Soilléir agreed. “Any ideas?”

  Ruith took a deep breath. “I was hoping you might have one or two.”

  “Well,” Soilléir said with a bit of a laugh, “I think we can safely say it wasn’t Droch. If he encountered you in a darkened alleyway, I imagine he would just as soon slay you as greet you pleasantly.”

  “After he attempted to take my power, you mean,” Ruith said, wondering just how much Soilléir had seen that morning. “How is his little spell of Taking coming, anyway? What is it he calls it—Gifting?”

  “Thankfully it isn’t what it should be, in spite of his centuries of attempting to perfect it. I daresay he would give much to have Gair’s spell of the same, though fortunately he hasn’t found it yet. It isn’t for a lack of trying, believe me.”

  Ruith paused. “I had half of the one my sire had written down in his book, if you’re curious.”

  “Did you?” Soilléir asked in surprise. “How did you come upon it?”

  “Sarah’s brother found it in the bottom of a peddler’s cart.” He nodded her way. “Perhaps you can look at her arm when you have a moment. She touched the half page of my father’s spell of Diminishing that her brother had left lying about.” He paused. “Oddly enough, I touched something akin to it in a dream and my arm bears the same mark.” He paused. “I can’t see it, but she can.”

  Soilléir studied her for a moment or two, then moved to kneel down by the low cot on the floor. He took her hand that lay atop the blankets in his, then ran his fingers over it gently. He took a deep breath, sighed it out, then wove a simple spell of Camanaë over her skin. The words hung in the air, then dissipated, leaving behind the scent of clean, wholesome herbs that refreshed in a way that eased Ruith as well. The angry red disappeared from the lines that wrapped themselves around her arm like vines, but the black remained.

  Soilléir frowned, then looked up at Ruith. “That’s odd.”

  “Very,” Ruith agreed.

  Soilléir put his fingers on several of the lines and wove a more complicated spell. Ruith wasn’t familiar with it—though he memorized it immediately, out of habit. He supposed it was a spell of Caochladh and was faintly surprised that Soilléir had used it aloud.

  The lines faded, but they didn’t disappear.

  Soilléir sat back on his heels for a moment or two, then rose and resumed his seat in his chair. “That sprang up from your father’s spell of Diminishing, did it?”

  “Aye. Half of it, at any rate.”

  “That, my lad, is a mystery there. Simple healing will not work, nor will attempting to change the essence of what’s left buried in her flesh.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Let me see your arm.”

  Ruith pushed his sleeve up and held out his arm. He could see nothing, but when Soilléir traced trails on his skin, similar vine-like marks flashed silver. They remained for a moment or two, remained remarkably painful for just as long, then faded to nothing.

  “Interesting.” Soilléir sat back in his chair and stared into his fire for quite some time before he looked at Ruith. “Memorized that spell I used, did you?”

  “You shouldn’t have spoken it aloud,” Ruith said placidly.

  “I should have checked your pockets for poached rings of mastery on your way in before I blurted it out, I suppose.”

  Ruith pursed his lips. “I don’t want them.”

  “Not even for a chance to have all my spells?”

  “Not even for that, my lord.”

  Soilléir studied him for a moment or two in silence. “Could you earn them, do you think?”

  Ruith shrugged, though now found that the question felt a bit more serious than it had when Sarah had asked it. “I’ve spent twenty winters in a place with a library that, for all its remote location, rivals what you have downstairs—”

  “And you would know, given all the time you spent in the bowels of this keep, looking for obscure spells,” Soilléir conceded.

  “I would,” Ruith agreed. “So, without being a braggart, I can say that I think I am familiar enough with lore and craft to satisfy the masters below.”

  “And your collection of memorized spells no doubt rivals Miach of Neroche’s,” Soilléir agreed.

  “Since we appropriated many of the same things together, I suppose that might be true.”

  Soilléir studied him for several minutes in silence. “But you didn’t come here for rings.”

  Ruith suppressed the urge to shift uncomfortably. Nay, he hadn’t come there for rings, but the truth of it was, what he had come to Beinn òrain for was something he couldn’t even begin to admit to himself.

  Because if he did, it meant a change in his life that would leave him never being able to retreat to that safe, fairly comfortable, undeniably isolated house on the mountain where all he needed do to carry on was worry about what he would have for supper.

  “I came here for safety,” he said, when he realized he hadn’t responded.

  “You could have provided that for yourself.”

  Ruith opened his mouth to protest, but found he couldn’t. He drew his hand over his eyes, then looked at Soilléir.

  “I don’t want to continue this conversation.”

  Soilléir only raised one pale eyebrow.

  Ruith looked at him evenly. “It is, as I said, the only safe place I could bring to mind on short notice.”

  “Not all magic is evil, you know. Your legacy is more than your father’s spells, which Sìle would tell you, were he here.”

  “Fadaire is smothered by Olc more often than not,” Ruith said.

  “If you believe that, Ruithneadh, then you do not give your mother’s power its due. However, if you fear losing control of yourself and undoing the world with your mighty power, then I can understand your reticence.” Soilléir smiled pleasantly. “You always were a hotheaded, impetuous boy.”

  “I have outgrown whatever you think you imagined in me,” Ruith said with a snort. “And I was never hotheaded.”

  “Then what have you to fear?”

  Ruith found himself standing in the midst of a trap he hadn’t realized he was walking into. Obviously he had been out of the world too long. He didn’t waste time answering, for there was no answer that satisfied. Soilléir only looked at him, but said nothing. Ruith didn’t bother to wonder if he agreed or disagreed. With Soilléir, one just never knew.

  “And you know, all this could have been Fate,” Soilléir continued with a shrug, “shoving you in a direction you needed to take for reasons you have yet to discover, reasons we’ll look at later.” He dropped his booted foot to the floor and put his hands on his knees. “I don’t think your lady will want a midnight supper, but you might. Then you can toddle off to bed and curse yourself to sleep.”

  Ruith cursed him just the same, but it was without any true malice. He would admit, almost readily, that he had always rather liked Soilléir of Cothromaiche. If he were to be entirely truthful with himself, he would have to admit that more than once he had wished his mother had wed the man instead of Gair of Ceangail. He had come with his mother to Buidseachd several times and found Soilléir’s chambers to be where he felt most comfortable. No pretentious trappings of nobility, though he knew Soilléir’s lineage was a noble one. His forefathers, many of whom Ruith assumed were still alive, were content like Hearn of Angesand to simply tromp about in their boots, doing whatever it was those lads from Cothromaiche did. Weaving spells that truly would have undone the world if they’d gone awry, no doubt.

  Yet Soilléir had chosen none of those things for himself. He could have walked down any street in any large city in the Nine Kingdoms and passed himself off as a youthful, not hideous-looking man of no especial distinction. Not even those with any powers of seeing would have recognized him as the keeper of the spells of Caochladh, had Soilléir not revealed
himself as such.

  But there was no reason Ruith couldn’t glare at him a bit, just to make himself feel better.

  “And perhaps you would indulge me in a game of chess after supper,” Soilléir suggested, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

  Ruith looked at him sharply. “What sort of chess?”

  “With pieces fashioned from marble,” Soilléir answered, looking at him with wide, innocent eyes. “Is there any other kind?”

  They’d played chess often enough in the past, but the pieces had been ones fashioned out of their imagination, leading to glorious battles on a board that had continually expanded to suit their needs, often growing to cover a sizeable block of Soilléir’s floor.

  “Don’t corner me, my lord,” Ruith warned.

  “I don’t corner,” Soilléir said cheerfully. “I nudge.”

  “Aye, like a battering ram.”

  Soilléir laughed and rose. “I’ll go fetch supper, then we’ll play. You should put another blanket over your lady, for she shivers.” He paused. “Her dreams are unpleasant ones.”

  “Of me, no doubt.”

  “Actually, Ruith, I think you might be right.”

  Ruith cursed him, but had only a faint smile in return. Nay, he didn’t care for the nudging, though he was no fool. He couldn’t remain in Buidseachd forever, nor had he intended to. But what galled him the most was that he’d needed refuge in the first place.

  He stood with his hand on Soilléir’s mantel, looking down into the fire. There, in front of him, was the vision he’d had in the mountains of Shettlestoune, the vision of that river of Fadaire, laughing and singing as it tripped over rocks and rills and cascaded around his feet. As beautiful as that had been, the truth was, the bedrock of that river had been Olc and Lugham and half a dozen other dark magics his father had taken and blackened with his own twisted powers.

  And Ruith wanted nothing to do with any of them.

  And if that meant that his own powers would remain buried for the next several millennia, perhaps that was for the best. He would figure out, sooner rather than later, just how he intended to keep Sarah safe from what hunted them with just his steel.