The Mage's Daughter

by Lynn Kurland

She nodded, but she looked unconvinced. She turned the pages of the very thick book for a moment or two more, then glanced up at him. “Are you ready to go?”

  “We’ll wait until sunset,” he said. “But until then, why don’t you put away your books and come train with me? You’ll feel more yourself once you’ve humiliated me in the lists.”

  “In truth?” she asked, looking as if he’d offered her the crown of Neroche along with an endless supply of extremely skilled guardsmen to go with it.

  Well, perhaps not the crown. But the other, aye, that was conceivable.

  “I’ve missed training from dawn to midnight,” he said dryly.

  “So have I,” she said happily, hopping up out of her chair. She stacked the books quickly, shot Master Dominicus a glare, then picked up her sword and smiled. “Let’s be about it.”

  He had to laugh. “After you, my lady.”

  She didn’t even protest the term. She only put on her cloak and walked from the library with a spring in her step that had been missing for quite some time. “You know, I think you’ll prove to be a rather formidable opponent.” She smiled at him over her shoulder. “I appreciate the distraction.”

  He was more grateful for it than she, no doubt. He wasn’t sure why he thought spending a pair of hours in the lists with her was going to be of any help, but he was nothing if not courageous and he needed a few minutes to think on something besides the affairs of the realm.

  He stopped at the edge of Nicholas’s outer gardens, tossed his cloak onto a handy bench with hers, then followed her out into the middle of the garden.

  “I wonder if this might count as a bit of wooing?” he mused.

  “It depends on how well you show, I imagine,” she said, loftily.

  “Then ’tis a fine line I walk,” he said. “If I best you, you’ll not want any of my attentions; if I don’t best you, you’ll not want any of my attentions.”

  She shrugged. “If you bested me, which you most certainly will never do, I might be amenable to quite a few things. Unfortunately, I’m feeling much better today, so I don’t think it will go very well for you.”

  “Your arrogance, woman, is breathtaking.”

  “So is my swordplay.”

  He laughed, “I can hardly wait to see it.”

  Morgan paused and frowned. “Do you have a ribbon?”

  “What color?”

  She thought for a moment. “Black,” she said finally. “In honor of you.”

  He produced one from out of the air. She walked over to him and turned around.

  “Braid my hair?”

  “Unfair,” he said, stabbing his sword into the ground. “You’re trying to distract me with something I enjoy so I’ll be easier on you.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him. “Do you honestly think I need to resort to that?”

  He put his hand on the top of her head and turned her face forward. “I’m teasing you.”

  “I know.”

  He braided her hair deftly, tied it at the bottom with his silk ribbon, then turned her around and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “And when I best you,” he said, fighting his smile, “what prize will I have? Shall you dance with me?”

  She blanched. “Dance?”

  “Aye. Or perhaps another of any number of other horrifying courtly activities?”

  “Do you know any other horrifying courtly activities?” she asked.

  He pursed his lips. “Surprisingly enough, I just might. Now, are you woman enough to agree to that, or not?”

  She took a deep breath. “Very well.”

  “And if you best me?”

  “I’ll think on it.” She took several paces backward, unbuckled her swordbelt, then drew her sword and tossed the scabbard aside. “Let’s begin.”

  He smiled at the first crossing of their blades. “You’re feeling better.”

  “Decent food helps. And sleep.”

  “And the company?”

  “Aye. I’ve always loved Nicholas.”

  He scowled. “That wasn’t who I was talking about.”

  “I know,” she said pleasantly.

  She attacked him unmercifully, forcing him back. Then before he could stop her, she had captured his sword between her blade and Mehar’s knife.

  “I’m happy you’re here,” she said with a hesitant smile.

  It took him a moment or two to recover from that. “You’re using your womanly wiles,” he protested. “Unfair.”

  She gave him a mighty shove that sent him stumbling backward. He barely had time to gather his wits about him before she was following that up with yet another ruthless attack.

  “Ignore them,” she advised.

  “That’s difficult.”

  “Be a man.”

  “That’s part of the problem.”

  She laughed, which undid him almost as much as her admittedly spectacular swordplay. He was forced to work very hard to keep her from completely thrashing him. He had to admit that he was better than he had been and Morgan was not quite where she had been. He supposed that she would recover completely at some point and then he truly would be digging deep for skill that he might not have.

  It was a very long morning.

  It was well past noon before he finally held up his hand and called peace.

  “Do you yield?” she demanded.

  “Completely.”

  “Done, then,” she said.

  He looked at her and found himself somewhat gratified to find she was breathing as rapidly as he was. He resheathed his sword and walked over to take hers.

  “How are you?”

  “Wonderful,” she said, dragging her sleeve across her forehead. “Thank you for a decent bit of sport. I didn’t even have to recite Weger’s strictures to keep myself awake.”

  “I didn’t learn any of those,” he said with a frown.

  “He probably thought you had enough things rattling about in your poor head without his adding to the chaos,” she said, sliding Mehar’s knife into her boot. “Besides, most of them have to do with spotting mages at great distances so you can avoid them. The rest have to do with how to kill them quickly lest you find yourself unhappily trapped with them.”

  He smiled wryly. “I’d like to accuse you of exaggerating, but I’m quite sure you aren’t.”

  “’Tis Weger at the helm, after all,” she agreed. “I suppose there might be a handful about swordplay tucked in amongst the others.”

  “I’ll ask him to give those to me another time,” Miach said. “It likely won’t take me very long to learn them.”

  “Likely not,” she said. “What now, my lord?”

  “I’ll see you fed,” Miach said, “then I think it would serve you to have another nap in Nicholas’s solar. I’ll hold your feet, if you like.”

  She smiled wearily. “I’ll never refuse that offer. I’d also have a bit more of that brew you made me last night. I didn’t dream of anything. What was in it?”

  He reached out to tug on her braid. “Love and a bit of lavender. A very potent combination.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “You’re daft.”

  He laughed and took her hand. “Besotted, more like. Now, let’s be off to the buttery before you think on that overmuch.”

  Twenty minutes later he was sitting next to her at a long, rough table, tucking into a lovely bit of stew. He ate heartily, wondering in the back of his mind when they might eat so well again.

  He realized, after a time, that Morgan was watching him instead of eating. He turned and smiled at her.

  “What is it?”

  She leaned her cheek on her fist and studied him. “I was just looking at you.”

  “Should I be nervous?”

  “Nay, there’s nothing more to it than that. I’ve always liked to look at you, truth be told. Even when I thought I didn’t like you, I liked to look at you.”

  “Thank you,” he said, finding to his surprise that he was starting to blush. “Not many lassi
es bother themselves to look at me.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because I generally encounter women thanks to their fathers’ swords in their backs. I daresay what they’re looking for is the nearest means of escape.” He shrugged. “Most of them don’t care for my magic.”

  “Then it’s lucky for me I don’t mind it, isn’t it?”

  He sat back with a smile. “Why, Morgan, I think you might have a few fond feelings for me.”

  “’Tis possible, but if I were to tell you of them, you’d blush again and where would you be?” She pushed away her bowl. “Let’s go. And I’d rather walk than nap, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “As you will,” he said. He rose and followed her from the buttery. He watched her out of the corner of his eye and wondered what she was thinking. She seemed very pensive and stopped now and again to look at this building or that passageway, as if she thought she might never see them again. He found her hand and laced his fingers with hers.

  “We will come back,” he said quietly.

  She looked up at him quickly. “You are reading my thoughts, aren’t you?”

  He shook his head. “Just watching you, as usual.”

  She walked in silence with him until they reached the outer gates. She nodded to the gatekeeper, then walked with him across the bridge that spanned what looked remarkably like a dry moat. Miach would have walked on, but Morgan stopped him with her hand on his arm.

  “I can’t see anything in front of me,” she said finally. “It is all darkness. Well, except for one thing.”

  “What?”

  She looked up at him. “You.”

  He pulled her into his arms so quickly, he suspected he’d pulled her off her feet. He hugged her tightly, then set her back down.

  “All right,” he said briskly, “now I’m the one who needs to walk.”

  “Will it count as wooing?” she asked slowly.

  “Are you wooing me now?” he asked in surprise.

  “I bested you so thoroughly in the lists this morning, I thought it might make you feel better.”

  He laughed and put his arm around her shoulders. “I think you might be right.”

  She stopped him. “Do you,” she began, then she had to pause. “Do you truly think we’ll see it again? Lismòr?”

  He wanted to assure her that she didn’t need to worry, that they would return, but he couldn’t. There were times he left Tor Neroche and wondered if it might be the last time he would see it. He wasn’t a grim sort of lad by nature, but the task before him was sobering. Morgan was right to worry.

  But as they stood there, he couldn’t help but think things would turn out right in the end. Perhaps spring would come in spite of spells and evil and everything that was amiss in the realm. At least on Melksham, things were as they always were. The breeze was light and the smell of the sea something he realized he’d truly enjoyed at Gobhann, in spite of all the work.

  “I think we will,” he said quietly. He took a deep breath, watched her do the same, then propelled her forward. “We’ll return. But let’s think on something else for the moment. I’m interested in hearing more about these wooing ideas—”

  “Miach!”

  He felt Morgan spin him around.

  “Draw your sword, you fool!”

  He found that her suggestion was unnecessary. Perhaps he should have been impressed that Weger’s training had become such a part of him that he was fighting before he was fully conscious of doing so, but he was too unsettled by what he was seeing to spare that any thought.

  There were a dozen of them, creatures from nightmares, creatures of the sort he and Morgan had met before. He half wondered if they had simply risen up from the ground. ’Twas a certainty that he hadn’t seen them approaching. Then again, he hadn’t been watching for them. He had no idea how they would manage to see to them all.

  Then he realized that fighting wasn’t all he had to worry about.

  Morgan was weaving a spell of death—over them all.

  “Morgan, stop!” he shouted.

  “I can do this—”

  He began to undo her words as quickly as she spoke them, pushing himself to keep up with what she was weaving and avoid losing his head at the same time.

  He yanked a particularly loathsome thread from her spell and heard her curse him.

  “Morgan, you’re casting the spell over all of us!” he exclaimed as he bumped into her back. “Stop it!”

  “I know what I’m doing—”

  “You don’t,” he said, stabbing a troll through the heart. “Just fight and stop the magic!”

  “But there are too many of them,” she said, saving him from having his head cleaved in twain. “We have to do something.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  She stepped aside as he skewered a particularly misshapen creature through the belly. “Then be about it quickly,” she suggested.

  He had to agree. He was going to have to do something—and soon—or they wouldn’t last the day. He fought ferociously and heard Morgan behind him doing the same, but the tide was still coming in swiftly. He took a deep breath and prepared to kill the rest of the beasts with magic. Or he would have if he hadn’t been interrupted by a savage roar sounding directly above him.

  He jerked Morgan down to crouch next to him and scarcely managed to pull a spell of protection up over them before a glittering dragon swept down from the sky. The dragon covered the field with a fire so hot, Miach began to sweat.

  The subsequent screams of their enemies were hard to listen to, and he wasn’t unused to the noises of battle.

  Soon there wasn’t anything left of the trolls but charred remains.

  Miach removed his spell, then pushed himself to his feet, pulling Morgan up with him. He glanced heavenward to see the dragon continuing to circle; he would address the identity of that one later. For now, he would see that Morgan didn’t fall apart. He cleaned off his sword, resheathed it, then watched Morgan do the same. She turned to him, her eyes huge in her face.

  “I didn’t think about that spell,” she said with a violent shudder. “I wish I’d never heard a word of Olc. It comes far too easily to hand.”

  He reached out and pulled her into his arms. She was trembling badly. “Unfortunately, my love, the most evil magic is ofttimes the easiest to use.” He paused for several moments, debating whether or not to say anything else. He could see, though, that he had no choice. “Morgan,” he said quietly, “either you have to stop using your magic entirely, or you have to know what you’re doing. If you’re going to be Morgan, then you must ignore that other part of yourself. But if you choose to be Mhorghain, then you have no choice but to learn to use your birthright. There may come a time when I cannot undo what you’ve done.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “In truth?”

  He hesitated, then shrugged. “You do not realize it, perhaps, but your power is immense.”

  She sighed deeply and rested her forehead against his shoulder. “I should have listened to you.”

  “Repeat that to yourself several times a day,” he said with a smile. “I’m sure it will serve you well.”

  She pulled back and met his eyes. “I’m too unsettled to give you the response that deserves.”

  “I know,” he said gravely. He looked over her head, then put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “There’s a distraction for you. Look at that shameless dragon making a final circle. Note the excessive and unnecessary amount of gems on his breast. I imagine his crown was just as overdone. Shocking, isn’t it?”

  “I fear to say aye, lest something else surprise me,” she managed. She paused. “I think I’m less shocked than simply afraid. I didn’t expect any of this when I first put my hand to Mehar’s knife.”

  “I imagine you didn’t,” he agreed. “Fear isn’t a bad thing, though. It keeps you from doing something you shouldn’t,” he said as he watched the dragon make lazy, swooping circles in the sky. “It takes
courage to learn all the things you could do. Credit yourself for that, at least. And there are spells of defense in the other languages of magic. I can teach you those if you like.”

  “What did you use on those creatures near Chagailt?”

  “Wexham,” he said. “’Tis the magic that the rulers of Neroche have generally used in their wars. It was a quick and brutal spell, but not evil.”

  “Is there a difference when it comes to death?” she asked.

  “Perhaps not so much for the slain, but there is a great deal of difference for the mage.”

  She sighed. “I’m surprised you’re so cheerful when this is what you face each day.”

  “Good and evil, my love. Life would be dreary without it.”

  She put her hands over his, but said nothing.

  Miach turned his attention to the dragon who had apparently decided enough was enough. He landed with a flourish some fifty paces away, dazzling them with his treasures. The next moment, the dragon was gone and Nicholas was walking toward them rubbing his hands together.

  “That was interesting,” he said, looking as if it hadn’t displeased him to be useful. “I don’t have much call for scorching trolls these days, but I thought you needed an extra pair of hands. Or talons, as it were.” He looked about him and his expression grew more serious. “I think we saw to them all, but just in case I suggest a retreat inside the gates.” He snapped his fingers and all the corpses were gone. “Wine, children?”

  Miach looked at Morgan, then at Nicholas. “Briefly.”

  Nicholas nodded, then led them back through the gates and to his solar. Miach followed Morgan inside, then watched her as she propped her sword up in the corner as she always did. He noticed, though, that she hesitated as she did it, as if she had some especial thought attached. He supposed he knew what she was thinking, so he made no note of it. He took a seat next to her in front of Nicholas’s fire.

  Nicholas brought a bottle and three goblets, then made quick work of pouring wine all around.

  “So,” he said, handing Miach and Morgan their glasses, “what was that, do you think?”

  “What’s been hunting us all along,” Miach said. Or hunting Morgan, rather, he thought, but he didn’t say as much. He looked at Nicholas and suspected that the old man was thinking the same thing.