Spellweaver

by Kurland, Lynn

  “Possibly,” Uachdaran agreed. “I suppose you’ll only know that when you find other fragments of it, I daresay. Of course, I could be wrong. It could simply be someone with a rather offensive sense of humor who has the time and means to see if anyone will bite at such bait.”

  Ruith grunted. “It sounds like something my father would do.”

  “It does, my boy.”

  Sarah felt silence descend, a silence that was only broken by the rushing in her ears and the beat of Ruith’s heart in his throat where she rested her forehead.

  “He’s dead,” Ruith said quietly.

  “I don’t doubt it, son.”

  Ruith took an unsteady breath. “I’ll think on other possibilities.”

  “I believe I would if I were you. I am not much out in the world, and I don’t know as many mages as I should, but I would think that the lad we’re looking for will be a mage who wants your sire’s spells the most. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Ruith shifted. “Your Majesty, I didn’t think anything could possibly be worse than those unrelentingly, torturous hours in your lists, but I was wrong. Even giving thought to this makes that work pale in comparison.”

  “But you’ll find the answer.”

  “I will.”

  Uachdaran rose. “I’ll leave you to rest for a bit, children. Don’t be late for supper. I think we’ll spend another day together, thinking on your route, but no longer.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty, for your hospitality,” Ruith said sincerely.

  “Oh, don’t think I’m throwing you out the front gates,” Uachdaran said with a brief laugh. “I’d keep you both a bit longer and not regret it—and will in the future if you’re ever wandering close to my hall. I think, however, that time grows short to solve this tangle, and you may not be the only ones who stumble upon these spells. Best to find them sooner rather than later, eh?”

  Sarah listened to Ruith agree that that would be best, heard the door soon shut, then remained with her head on Ruith’s shoulder for far longer than she likely should have.

  “Who wants those spells?” she murmured finally, when she could chew on the question no longer.

  “Only those who know about them,” he said with a deep sigh. “Franciscus—”

  She lifted her head so quickly, she had to put her hand to it to keep from being ill. “Ruith, you can’t be serious.”

  “I’m not accusing him,” he said wearily. “Just making a list.”

  She let out her breath slowly. “Very well. List away.”

  “Franciscus,” he said slowly and seemingly unwillingly. “Your brother. All my bastard brothers, as well as Rùnach, Soilléir, Miach of Neroche, and Uachdaran.”

  She closed her eyes, because she couldn’t look at the names hanging in the air in front of them.

  “Droch,” he continued grimly, “and his brother Urchaid, half a dozen kings on the Council I haven’t even considered, and last of all, me.”

  “And what would you do if you had the spells, Ruith?” she asked quietly.

  “Destroy them,” he said without hesitation. “Wrap them in illusion and rot and impotence, then drop them into a bottomless well before capping the thing, then burying it under a score of things that would take millennia to even begin to unravel.”

  “A simple fire wouldn’t do?”

  He smiled, apparently in spite of himself. “Nay, love. A simple fire wouldn’t do.”

  She put her head back down on his shoulder. It was appalling how accustomed to it she had become over the past three days and how just the thought of his going off with some other perfectly pressed and mannered princess vexed her.

  “Seven left,” he murmured, dragging his fingers through her hair. “And may they all descend at once.”

  She smiled. “I loved the red gown, if you were wondering.”

  “I wasn’t sure about the color,” he admitted, “but you were glorious in it.”

  “You have excellent taste.”

  “You’re proof enough of it,” he said, a smile in his voice. “What say you to a quarter-hour nap, then a final push to supper? I think if we last through it, we might both be weary enough to sleep.”

  She had to agree. She closed her eyes and tried to let the sound of the steady beat of Ruith’s heart soothe her. In time, she could have sworn she heard the trees from the garden of Gearrannan begin to whisper their names across her mind.

  Sarah … Sorcha … Athair …

  She frowned, for the last two names sounded uncommonly familiar, but she couldn’t bring to mind why. Perhaps on the morrow, when her head had ceased to pound.

  She closed her eyes again and fell asleep to the feeling of a remarkably persistent man carefully combing his fingers through her hair.

  Twenty-one

  Ruith looked at the map on the table in front of him and struggled to commit it to memory. It was difficult, which it shouldn’t have been given that he had slept well the night before. He had spent a lifetime memorizing spells and lore and endless lists of names, in the beginning because it had been expected and later because he had found the discipline of it to be rather bracing.

  Now, though, his discipline—and his wits—were failing him at a most inconvenient time. He couldn’t imagine Sarah wouldn’t remember everything she’d seen, but in a moment of duress, it was always wise to have more than one person in a company with the journey’s route at their fingertips.

  He looked up, then jumped a little. King Uachdaran was standing on the other side of the table, watching him with his dark, shrewd eyes.

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Ruith said wearily. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I planned it that way,” Uachdaran said, “on the off chance you were rifling through my private books.”

  “I will admit, King Uachdaran, that I’ve been too tired to even contemplate the like.”

  “Don’t expect any pity from me,” Uachdaran said with a snort. “You’d sleep better if you allowed that lass of yours some peace, but I can see why you want to keep her close.” He considered, then reached inside the purse hanging from his belt and pulled out a scrap of parchment. He held it out. “I thought you might be interested in this.”

  Ruith took it, though he knew before he touched it what it was: another piece of his father’s spell of Diminishing. He looked at the king. “Where was it found?”

  “Outside my gates.” He handed over another. “This was brought back by one of my scouts last night. Someone, I daresay, knows you’re here.”

  Ruith accepted the second offering with even less enthusiasm. “And the direction this was found in?”

  “North,” Uachdaran said, “and a bit east. Toward An-uallach.”

  Ruith chewed on his words until they became dust in his mouth. “Then I’m being led.”

  “I would say aye,” Uachdaran agreed. “You and that gel of yours.”

  Ruith considered. “Why her?” he asked, finally.

  “Because she sees, for one thing,” Uachdaran said without hesitation. “As for the rest—” He shrugged. “You of all people should know that things are not always as they seem.”

  Ruith leaned gingerly against the sideboard behind him and considered things he hadn’t had time to before. “Your historian seemed surprised to see Sarah.”

  “He’s skittish.”

  Ruith couldn’t argue, because he’d said much the same thing to Sarah. “But he’s been following her, as if he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. She is exceptionally lovely, I’ll admit, but he must know she is … ah …”

  “Spoken for?” Uachdaran asked politely. “You could only hope, my boy.”

  “I do,” Ruith said fervently, “but that still doesn’t clear up the mystery of his interest. And whilst we’re about the happy work of discussing things that puzzle me, why do the runes on the sword I brought you match the runes on Sarah’s knives that I found for her in Gilean? Why was there no message attached to the blade, yet you understood what Soilléir had b
een trying to tell you?”

  Uachdaran only looked at him steadily. And silently, damn him.

  “Master Eachdraidh seems to be unusually interested in the histories of Cothromaiche,” Ruith continued. “He told Sarah several of their tales, I believe.”

  “He’s always interested in a good tale. Or an intriguing mystery.”

  Ruith frowned. When that didn’t help him any, he frowned a bit more. “I didn’t realize they had any mysteries in Cothromaiche.”

  “Only one,” Uachdaran said with a smirk, “which would be how that young rogue Soilléir managed to slip out with all those spells of essence changing before his great-grandfather was the wiser.”

  Ruith tried another tack. “I understand that the runes on our blades are theirs, but they aren’t a simple rendering of their tongue.”

  “Are the runes of Tòrr Dòrainn any different?” Uachdaran asked pointedly. “Even ones on a simple blade would take a body years to unravel—being, as they are, unnecessarily complicated—then a lifetime to understand. Yet somehow your grandfather and his get seem to use them easily enough.”

  “But they’ve been taught what they mean.”

  “Then I suppose you’d best look for someone to teach you how to read what’s on your blade, hadn’t you? But don’t look at me. I’ve no patience for that sort of rot. I prefer my blades to bear words of power and might in a tongue that’s easily recognized as it finds home in a lad’s gut.”

  “There is a certain beauty to that sort of simplicity,” Ruith agreed. He considered a bit longer, then made Uachdaran a small bow. “I believe, Your Majesty, that whilst Sarah is happily occupied with your granddaughter this morning, I will make a little visit to your bard.”

  “Don’t render him unfit for supper.”

  “I won’t.” Ruith made him another bow, then took up his quest for answers he hadn’t thought he would need but now found himself quite anxious to have.

  He knocked on Master Eachdraidh’s door, then opened it before the man could escape out some hidden passageway. The historian was sitting in front of the fire, poring over a book he subsequently dumped into the fire in his surprise. Ruith rescued it, restored it, then handed it back to him.

  “Thank you,” Eachdraidh said faintly. “I’m grateful—”

  “How grateful?”

  Eachdraidh eyed the door, but Ruith sat down in the chair across from him and affected a pose he hoped bespoke plans for a long visit. Eachdraidh hesitated, then sighed.

  “Grateful enough for several tales,” he said. “If His Highness wishes.”

  “I wouldn’t trouble you for that much,” Ruith said smoothly. “I would simply like to have the one you told Sarah yesterday, the one about the lovers from Cothromaiche whose romance ended badly.”

  Eachdraidh looked as if he would rather have been facing Uachdaran in his lists, but he’d apparently resigned himself to being trapped.

  “They were slain,” Eachdraidh said hollowly, “so it wasn’t exactly that the romance ended badly, it was just that it ended prematurely.” He paused and seemed to be looking for the right thing to say. “They were terribly happy, or so I understand, for as long as they were wed.”

  “What befell them?”

  “They were slain.”

  “By whom?”

  “By a neighbor.”

  Ruith considered the countries that bordered Cothromaiche. There was Gairn to the west, then Bruadair to the northwest where the forests were full of dreams and spells and things that sensible souls avoided. There was nothing to the east but endless plain claimed by no one at all. But to the south …

  An-uallach.

  Ruith rubbed his arms suddenly, wishing Uachdaran could do a better job at keeping the bloody place warm. He looked at Eachdraidh.

  “Which neighbor was responsible?”

  Eachdraidh shifted uncomfortably. “Ah,” he said, “I’m not sure …”

  “You led Sarah to believe it was a king, but there are no kings in Bruadair or Gairn—at least none who would sit on the Council. That leaves Morag of An-uallach.”

  Eachdraidh fidgeted, then let out a deep, shuddering breath. “So it does, Your Highness.”

  Ruith stared into the fire for a bit. Interesting that Eachdraidh should feel compelled to tell Sarah a tale of Cothromaiche. Uncanny that to An-uallach he was apparently being led, for reasons he couldn’t see.

  He looked at Eachdraidh. “What were the names of this hapless pair?”

  “Athair and Sorcha,” Eachdraidh said nervously. “They had a wee gel. Don’t remember her name, though.”

  A lie, Ruith thought. “And what did this unfortunate pair look like?” He paused. “Did you ever meet them, Master Eachdraidh?”

  Eachdraidh looked profoundly miserable. “Athair was a great friend of King Uachdaran’s granddaughter Dreachail’s husband, so aye, I knew him. And his bride, Sorcha. Athair was tall and fair-haired. Handsome enough for a lad, I suppose.”

  “And his lady?”

  Eachdraidh swallowed convulsively. “Flame-haired. Green-eyed.” He swallowed again. “About your lady’s height.”

  Ruith caught his jaw before it fell to his chest. He wasn’t one to engage in idle speculation—his long bouts of it during his youth accompanied by Miach of Neroche as they speculated on the caches of spells they might plunder if given the opportunity aside—but in this instance, he couldn’t stop himself.

  Soilléir of Cothromaiche had given Sarah not only a book of his people’s poetry but the means to learn his language, ostensibly to read runes that Uachdaran himself had said could only be read after considerable teaching from one who knew more than just the language. He himself had been sent to Léige to deliver a sword inscribed with the same runes only to have the king shrug it aside whilst his bard followed Sarah about as if he were looking at a ghost.

  Further, Uachdaran had made Sarah a crown. Ruith had supposed it had been for his sake, but he wondered now if he had been wrong. Soilléir had treated them with a level of care that had been far above what Ruith could have reasonably expected even given Soilléir’s undeniable affection for his mother, going so far as to give them horses that were truly beyond price.

  Why?

  He was beginning to consider things that couldn’t possibly be true, but then again, the world was full of impossible things. Such as an elven prince who had denied his birthright falling in love with a weaver of cloth who could see things in broad daylight that eluded even the most powerful.

  He leaned forward and looked at Eachdraidh seriously. “How old was the wee gel when her parents were slain?”

  “Not yet two summers, or so I’ve been told.”

  “Are you telling me you never saw the child?”

  “N-n-nay,” Eachdraidh managed. “I mean, aye, Your H-highness. I-I never saw h-her.”

  Ruith sat back. Another lie, but he suspected if he pressed the man, Eachdraidh would burst into tears. “I don’t suppose you have any books on Cothromaichian genealogy, do you?”

  Eachdraidh shook his head nervously.

  “I see,” Ruith said, and he did. And he also knew where he might find just such a thing.

  A pity it was in Sarah’s pack.

  And then something utterly unthinkable occurred to him. He looked at Eachdraidh sharply. “What was the name of Athair’s father?”

  Eachdraidh opened his mouth to speak, then shut it with a snap. He stood up suddenly and looked behind Ruith. “My lady,” he said, inclining his head.

  Ruith looked over his shoulder, expecting to see one of Uachdaran’s granddaughters.

  He was mistaken.

  It was Sarah.

  He rose immediately and walked over to her. He reached for her hand and smiled at her. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “I was afraid you had snuck off to Uachdaran’s solar,” she said quietly. “I was coming to save you from yourself.”

  “I was just intimidating Eachdraidh for you,” he said lightly. “Work’s don
e, but with enough of him left to entertain his liege lord later. Shall we go have another meal, then see to our packing?”

  “If you like,” she said slowly.

  He started off with her, then heard Eachdraidh call his name. He turned in the doorway. “Aye?”

  “You forgot something, Your Highness,” Eachdraidh said, looking as pale as Sarah did.

  Ruith squeezed Sarah’s hand, then released her to walk over to the bard. Eachdraidh handed him a sheet of paper.

  “Franciscus,” he whispered under his breath, then straightened. “A good journey to you, Prince Ruithneadh,” he said loudly. “And to your lady, as well.”

  Ruith looked at what he held in his hand. It was nothing but a blank sheet, but Ruith supposed it had been useful enough as an excuse for a quiet word. He rolled up the sheaf and stuck it down his boot, because it was all he could think to do. He thanked Eachdraidh again, then turned and walked over to the door to collect Sarah.

  Sarah, that gel from a no-name town in the midst of ruffians and thieves who had been guarded by an alemaster named Franciscus—a man far better educated than the average alemaster—who had suddenly discovered the ability to see, and who looked so much like a woman from a land of legend that a dwarvish bard had fainted the first time he’d seen her.

  “Ruith?”

  He stopped in the middle of the passageway, turned her to him, then gathered her into his arms. It wasn’t possible that all those things could pertain to her. It wasn’t possible that she was the granddaughter of Franciscus who was apparently the grandson of Seannair of Cothromaiche, the original keeper of the spells of Caochladh.

  Was it?

  “You’re shaking.”

  “I’m cold,” he lied without hesitation. “Let’s go find a fire and I’ll sit on your lap where you can comfort me.”

  She laughed a little and pulled back to look up at him. Her smile faltered. “You look terrible.”

  “Thank you. At least you’re so beautiful no one will notice me.” He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her along with him. “Perhaps Uachdaran has something to eat in his solar. It will give me one last chance to poach a spell or two, to make him feel as if I’ve made a proper visit.”

  She only nodded and walked down the passageway with him, her arm around his waist. She finally cleared her throat. “Something occurred to me this morning.”