by Lynn Kurland
“What was the need?” Sosar had asked wearily. “I knew what she planned to do.”
Miach had begun to read. He hadn’t read but one paragraph before he’d realized what he’d just been given.
Directions to the well and as much of Gair’s spell as Sarait had been able to piece together herself.
She warned that it wasn’t the complete spell. Gair had been notorious about guarding his magic and extremely stingy with his knowledge. Sarait had suspected that he’d found something useful on one of his journeys to Beinn òrain and she’d included a list of masters she suspected might have helped him.
Sosar had cursed viciously. Miach had joined him. It was better that than to weep over events that were a score of years behind them and couldn’t be changed.
But he could change the future.
He blew north until sunrise. Ceangail was on the western slopes of the Sgùrrach Mountains, so it was still in shadow when he reached it. It reminded him somewhat of Riamh, desolate and uninviting. There was a castle there, built on the side of a cliff, hovering over a valley of ruined soil. The keep was unrelentingly grim, devoid of any but the most rudimentary of windows. Miach could only imagine the darkness that dwelt inside.
Poor Sarait. How had she borne such a place, she who had spent all her life in the beauty and luxury that was Seanagarra? He pitied her as he never had before.
He scanned the countryside for landmarks, then saw, even from a great height, a hint of a path that wound through a forest—a forest that tended to slip away out of his vision if he didn’t concentrate on it fully.
Much like the magic that was assaulting his spells.
He would have caught his breath if he’d had breath to catch. So his suspicions had been right. He promised himself a good bout of surprise later. He swirled downward, slipped through the spell that covered the forest, and resumed his proper form on that path. He was immediately assailed by a chill so profound, he shivered in spite of himself.
There was more to that chill than just a forest in shadow.
He was not fainthearted, but even he hesitated. He had spent a year in a dungeon full of horrors meant to drive a man mad and walked in half a dozen other places where Olc reigned supreme and no light was possible, yet he had to force himself to walk forward here.
He saw, as he walked, why it was a man would pass the forest and never take notice of it. It was covered by the most extensive spell of un-noticing he’d ever encountered. Layer upon layer of distraction, illusion, and confusion hung in great tatters from the trees, yet now that he was under it, Miach could see how it was still intact above. A man would trudge past that forest every day of his life and never notice it unless he somehow had the misfortune to accidentally blunder under the eaves of the spell.
Miach wondered if he’d just managed to fall through a hole in it or if his magic had been enough to penetrate it.
He didn’t particularly want to examine which it might be.
He continued on, feeling the remains of Gair’s spells press in on him more with every step. He finally had to stop and simply breathe for a few minutes. He lifted a part of the spell that blocked his way. It moved easily, so he supposed that he wouldn’t have trouble removing the entire thing if he needed to.
Though even having to touch it in any fashion was abhorrent.
He tried to ignore how it fell down through the trees like rancid bits of sunlight. The evil was everywhere, making it difficult to think, difficult to walk, difficult to breathe. Miach stopped thinking about Sarait, Morgan, or any of the rest of them having been anywhere near the place.
He hoped Gair had suffered a bloody great bit before he died.
It took what felt like hours to reach the end of the path, though he supposed it hadn’t been that long. He walked out into a glade and had to lean over and stare at the ground to keep from puking.
It was so much worse than he’d thought.
The glade itself was dripping with tentacles of evil that hung down from the sky above. The air was heavy with a stench of rotting things that lay below the surface of the worst of his nightmares. It took him several minutes of desperately sucking in air before he thought he could straighten without heaving.
He managed it, eventually, then dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and blinked away the mist that blinded him. He looked in front of him.
The well was there.
It was actually a rather unassuming thing, perhaps six feet in diameter, and built up from the ground with three feet of rock. Miach would have thought it a simple country well if he hadn’t known better.
And if he hadn’t been able to see the evil trickling from it still.
He willed his gorge back where it belonged, then walked across the glade. He stood ten feet away from that well and watched as what should have been water but wasn’t bubbled up, caught hold of the rock, then clawed its way up and over to drop onto the ground with a distinct plop.
Miach watched in astonishment as that evil began to take shape. There was a spell there, just under where that vile, putrid bit of watery substance fell. The spell waited patiently until enough had been gathered, then it shaped that evil into a formless creature that grew, filled in, then straightened.
And became one of the nightmares that had been hunting them.
Miach drove his sword through its heart as it flung itself toward him.
He pulled his sword free and stepped aside as the creature fell to the ground, fortunately quite dead. He walked over to the well, his sword still in his hand, and looked down. The stench there almost knocked him flat. He looked down and knew with a sickening bit of certainty that this was what had been undermining his spells. How the water, if that’s what it could be called, had gotten from Ceangail to the borders of Neroche was a mystery, but he had the feeling he knew who was behind it.
He squatted down and looked at the spell in front of him. He could see the strands of it as easily as if they had been threads woven there by some untidy spider. The spell was saturated with a vile magic that was all too familiar. Miach swallowed his revulsion and sorted through the strands, looking for how it was fashioned and what the purpose was.
It was as all Lothar’s spells were, crudely wrought but effective nonetheless. Miach saw how the creatures were made from the watery spewings of the well and realized without surprise what they were to do.
Hunt down those with Camanaë magic and kill them.
He caught sight of something just before he stood. He looked closer, then found himself having to lean quite thoroughly upon his sword.
They were also to hunt down Gair’s descendants and carry them to Riamh.
Miach straightened and resheathed his sword. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised by either. Lothar’s idea of sport was to leisurely track down any with but even a hint of Camanaë in their blood and kill them slowly, if possible. ’Twas a certainty he wouldn’t have wanted any of Gair’s descendants interfering with his plan to rule the Nine Kingdoms.
But he didn’t want to think on what Lothar planned to do with them in his keep.
He closed his eyes briefly. No wonder they had been coming for Morgan. He supposed it also explained why Adhémar had been hunted on the borders in the fall. Obviously, Lothar had been somewhere nearby, watching Adhémar huffing and puffing as he rode the northern border, then helped himself to the king of Neroche’s power simply because he could. Adhémar was too stupid to ever protect his magic, and he had paid the price as a result. Miach had never, even in his youth, been that foolish. He might have spent a year in Lothar’s dungeon, but Lothar hadn’t been able to touch his power.
He rose and looked at the well itself. Though the cap wasn’t completely covering the opening, it had been pulled over almost all the way. That said a great deal about Sarait’s power.
But she had failed.
He had planned to see if he couldn’t succeed where she had not, and flattered himself that he would manage it, but now he wondered if he had be
en overconfident.
Well, there was nothing to be done except to try. He wove a spell of concealment over himself and the well, thicker and more impenetrable than Gair’s. What he intended to do would render him quite vulnerable, and he had no one to guard his back.
He set spells of ward along the spell of concealment, then added other spells that would incinerate anything that came close to him. He finished by diverting the trickle from the well so it didn’t touch the magic waiting there to receive it and mold it into something else.
Once that was done, he set to work. He very carefully wove the first spell that he’d read in Sarait’s letter. He threw all his own power behind it and spoke the final word with an additional word of Command attached to it.
The ground trembled beneath his feet, but the cap of the well didn’t budge.
He tried the other two spells he’d found in Sarait’s letter with exactly the same results. At that point, he put aside what Sarait had used and settled for things of his own make. He spoke other words of Command, he wove complicated changes of essence, he tried to seal the opening with an impenetrable spell of Binding.
The evil oozed through the last spell as if it hadn’t been there.
And then his spells of ward began exploding around him.
He tore his attention away from the well and found himself surrounded on all sides by trolls. They couldn’t break through his protection, fortunately, and that had apparently driven them mad. They were flinging themselves at his spell, shrieking with rage and fear.
Miach didn’t have the luxury of a lengthy contemplation of what to do next. He had the feeling that even if he pulled the entire mountainside down on the well, it wouldn’t do anything but bury the evil. It would bubble up eventually. It had to be capped, permanently, but it would take the proper spell.
He refused, absolutely refused, to consider the postscript of Sarait’s letter.
Gair uses his own blood in all his spells. I fear that it will take one with Gair’s blood to succeed. If I fail…
Gair’s blood, or enough power. He didn’t consider himself particularly arrogant, but he had a fair idea of what he could do. Perhaps Sarait hadn’t been able to close the well; with the right spell, he was certain he could. He had to. He could not ask Morgan to do it for him.
Nay, he would look for the spell and see to it himself. But he wouldn’t have the luxury of finding that spell if anyone knew he’d been there, poking his nose where he shouldn’t have. He removed his spell that diverted that business seeping out from under the well’s cap, then changed the dead troll nearby into harmless and unremarkable dirt. He then gathered up all the edges of his spells of protection. One of the trolls slipped under and rushed toward him.
He flung himself up into the air as a bitter wind, destroying his spell and sending it into untraceable oblivion. He sliced through Gair’s spell, leaving behind a large contingent of furious demons. He looked down as he floated higher, watching the forest shimmer with its coating of disregard. He left it in the same state he found it. Truly, it was better if no one managed to get themselves lost there.
He turned and blew south again, keeping to the western side of the Sgùrrachs, paying no heed to the updrafts that tore into him and the peaks of the mountains that cut through him. He was heartily sick both in body and mind from what he’d seen. The fact that he now knew what was attacking Neroche and trailing after Morgan didn’t ease him any.
It also left him with the uncomfortable feeling that there was still more to it than he was seeing. Lothar would have been pleased to have some new means to wreak havoc, but Miach knew damn well he wouldn’t settle for that. If he had found Gair’s well, he wouldn’t be content with just sitting and watching it trickle. He would be actively seeking to open it fully, using any means at his disposal.
Or any one.
And it was only a matter of time, perhaps, before he found out that there might be someone he could use.
Miach bolted back south.
Two hours later he reached Slighe, the village at the crossroads a pair of hours north of Seanagarra. It was notorious for rough company, quietly disposed-of bodies, and very bad ale. Miach imagined Làidir had spent more than his share of time in the taverns there. He couldn’t even truly enjoy that as he should have.
He didn’t particularly want to stop there either, but he was exhausted. Even half an hour of simply sitting would be enough.
He walked through the muddy streets and pulled disinterest about him like a cloak. It kept him from being noticed, but it didn’t keep him from noticing who was cursing his way up the same street.
Searbhe of Riamh.
Miach wasn’t sure if he was surprised that Searbhe would find himself so far from home, distressed that Searbhe was so close to where Morgan was safely hiding, or terrified that Searbhe might know where Morgan was.
And who she was.
Miach followed him without hesitation. As he did, he considered that evening when Searbhe had attacked Morgan in Weger’s gathering hall. Had it been in retaliation for Morgan’s having thrown him down the stairs, or had there been more to it? Morgan had been particularly loath to talk about it, which likely should have given him pause. It wasn’t possible that Searbhe had recognized Morgan as Sarait’s daughter, was it?
Perhaps he had good reason to find out the truth of it.
He followed Searbhe into a particularly unpleasant-looking tavern and took a seat in the corner where he could watch him.
Searbhe sat down near the ale keg and demanded quite loudly to have his cup filled. Repeatedly.
Miach paid for ale that he left untouched on the table in front of him. The serving wench didn’t approach again, but he’d planned that. What was the use in being the archmage of Neroche if he couldn’t drape himself in a decent spell of aversion now and again? A pity he didn’t dare use something to silence Searbhe.
Instead, he sat in the darkest corner of the great room and watched Searbhe drink far more ale than he should have. The longer he drank, the more he seemed to think there were actually people in the chamber who gave a damn about what he said.
Miach found that he certainly did.
“She was bloody beautiful,” Searbhe said, waving his mug about expansively. “Dark-haired, green-eyed, slender. And that wench could even wield a sword.”
Snorts of derision greeted that announcement.
“I lost her outside Angesand,” Searbhe said, looking about himself for sympathy, but finding none. “The creatures followed her there, and I followed them, but I was too late to capture her.”
Miach closed his eyes briefly. He had suspected they wouldn’t escape that encounter completely unscathed.
“But now I have a handful of those same creatures listening to me. They seek out magic, you know, and she has an abundance of it. So does that mage who was with her.”
Miach watched as every man in the chamber turned his back on Searbhe. There was one rule in Slighe: no magic was allowed. Obviously, Searbhe hadn’t read the sign posted prominently over the bar. He continued to drink, continued to blather on, continued to make others in the chamber extremely uncomfortable.
Miach was equally as uncomfortable, though for different reasons.
It came as no surprise to him that Searbhe was looking for them. Miach imagined that Searbhe had every intention of doing him in if he could. He hesitated to think what Searbhe would do if he actually managed to capture Morgan. It was, however, the knowledge that Searbhe had managed to bend the wills of a few brutes to his own that was unsettling.
They would have to be seen to.
Searbhe demanded more ale, but apparently the barkeep had had enough. Before Searbhe could blurt out any more of what he planned, he’d been taken in hand by a pair of burly lads and hauled to his feet.
“I’ve got to find her,” Searbhe slurred as he was helped toward the door. “Find the wench and I’ll find the mage. And if I kill the mage, then he will trust me.”
Miach could ju
st imagine who he was. Searbhe would need to be careful or he would be meeting Smior of Treunnar’s fate soon. Lothar was not one to be either trusted or courted. As Nicholas had said, he was capricious.
Miach rose and eased unobtrusively outside. Searbhe was lying in the mud, unmoving. Miach watched him for a few minutes, but the other man made no move to rise. He was breathing, though, so perhaps he would manage to get himself to his feet in time.
Miach stood in the shadows and considered. As tempting as it was to merely drag Searbhe behind the tavern and silence him forever, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. There was always something to be gained from a fool who blurted out all his secrets to anyone who would listen.
At least it didn’t sound as if Searbhe knew who Morgan truly was. As far as Searbhe was concerned, Morgan was only a means to Miach himself.
Miach could understand that. He’d humiliated Searbhe more than once. He wondered, absently, if he might somehow use that to his advantage at some point.
He’d barely begun to truly contemplate that when he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He looked about him, but saw nothing suspicious. Even so, he slipped along the front of the tavern slowly, then ducked into a side street and changed himself into a sparrow. Within moments, he was sitting on top of a lamppost, looking down at the street. What he saw almost knocked him off his perch.
Cruadal of Duibhreas was standing in the middle of the street, looking at where Miach had last been.
He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised.
Cruadal walked over to Searbhe and hauled him up out of the mud. Cruadal shook him vigorously. Searbhe’s head lolled from side to side. Cruadal swore.
“Wake up, you fool!” he shouted.
Searbhe’s only answer was to vomit down the front of Cruadal’s tunic.
Miach fully expected that Cruadal would fling the other man away and stomp off in a fury. He did throw him back into the mud, but he didn’t walk away. He went to sit on the edge of a horse trough, apparently content to wait for Searbhe to sleep off his malaise.