Wandering Lark

by Laura J Underwood

  Gareth sighed. Well, this was not failure. Just the first step, he told himself, and once more, he let his mage senses stretch and test the currents around him for signs of magic or Alaric’s presence.

  What he found, however, was not what he had expected. Ronan’s essence was everywhere, masking Alaric and the demon, as though the bard had taken over.

  “Horns, no,” Gareth whispered. “Please don’t let it be so.”

  If Ronan had taken over Alaric’s body, there was no telling what dangers the bard would lead Alaric into. And the worst of it was, Alaric might “lose” himself. He might become Ronan, and that would be a physical strain on his body, having two masters in one flesh. One might actually destroy the other...

  This made it all the more important, in Gareth’s mind, for him to find Alaric. Gareth knew that Ronan was not always truthful. Granted, he had said that he had good reason to leave his old life and come to Ard-Taebh, to spend his days wandering, hiding his magic, and pretending to be little more than a bard. But not all of Ronan’s motives were as pure as Gareth would have liked. There were times Gareth suspected that Ronan was more than he admitted to being.

  It was all too well known that a mageborn who lost life and tasted it again in mageborn flesh, was sometimes tempted to regain what they had lost.

  If Ronan decides he wants to continue living in Alaric’s flesh, Alaric might find himself forced from his own flesh.

  That would not be a good thing at all.

  Gareth cast about. The hut was in a bit of disarray, and he noticed that the bedding of Marda’s pallet had been shoved aside and left off kilter. Lifting it, he discovered the hole in the floor. It was empty, except for one small coin. Gareth picked up the coin, rolled it about in his fingers and frowned. A brass farthing. There were no farthings in Ard-Taebh where sgillinns were the main means of bartering. Gareth had seen very few such coins at all, but he knew where they came from, and it was not the High King’s mint.

  He sighed and pocketed the coin. It was a clue he preferred not to contemplate. Standing, he let his mage senses test the hole, and detected some small tinge of magic that was not like anything he knew.

  That magic had risen from the hole. It had been carried outside. Gareth honed in on it and followed it. Apparently, they had left on foot. The trail was fading, but it was just enough for Gareth to pick out, and so he followed.

  A wise move...leaving this place to cast magic. He only hoped that whatever that item was, it held its power enough for Gareth to keep tracking them until he found Alaric.

  A summons from the temple was never something to ignore. Talena Elderwood could think of a dozen reasons not to, which were eleven more than she could come up with otherwise. But it was Watcher Desura who sent the summons, and Talena knew that her cousin would only send a message if there was something afoot that needed Talena’s skills as a mercenary.

  Usually, a heretic had been sighted.

  Of course, as soon as Talena got to the temple, she noticed that several of the Temple Bounty Hunters were milling about the courtyard. She tried not to trade looks with any of them, but set her eyes firmly on the door. To look would mean having to answer their questions as to why she was there.

  She hurried into the Temple, surrendering her weapons to the guards there. Were she one of the Temple Bounty Hunters, she would not be asked to do so, but she was a mere mercenary.

  Not for long, she hoped. She needed just one more capture to seal herself a commission. Bounty Hunters were usually selected by the Temple on the basis of loyalty, skill or connections. Talena was far better with a sword, but that did little to earn her the trust of the Temple Patriarchs. Her only connection was Watcher Desura. A lot of good that did, since the Watcher was little more than a tool. Loyalty...well that had to be proven. They knew who her father was.

  Loyalty was the doorway she was trying to push her way through.

  Ten captures, they told her. “Ten heretics and you will be considered for a post as a Temple Bounty Hunter.” She had heard that from the Lord Patriarch Rothanan himself. So far, she had nine captures to her name. She only needed one more.

  So she was hoping that what Desura wanted was to send her after another heretic.

  One more capture, and Talena would be a Temple Bounty Hunter. And once she was a bounty hunter, she would be allowed to carry her weapons into the Temple.

  And that would be when she would enact her revenge.

  SIX

  Turlough came to see Etienne later that day. She had rested and changed, and now sat at Shona’s side, savoring a cup of honeyed tea prepared by the healer, when the High Mage arrived.

  Oh, what now? Etienne wondered and fought the urge to roll her eyes.

  Turlough asked the healer to leave them alone for a while, and she did so, though looking a little reluctant to obey. It was no secret that certain healers of Diancecht were not wholly approving of Turlough or his ways. But then, Etienne mused wryly, healers of Diancecht were quite disapproving of tyrants of any sort, and there were times when Turlough could not keep from being pompous and overbearing in their presence.

  Of course, that could have been tied to the fact that Turlough forced all healers who worked in Dun Gealach’s walls to obey him, even though he treated them with a little less respect. “For all their skills,” he once confided to one of his assistants, “they are a nuisance, what with their desire to see to the needs of every being alive, no matter what station or principle...”

  “Two visits in the same day,” Etienne said, feeling her old self now that she was rested and fed and clean. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  Turlough ignored the sarcasm in her tone. He walked over and looked down at Shona. “She is such a pretty child,” he said. “And the most promising of your pupils, I have heard... I believe the Council will take her youth and innocence into consideration and find that she was led astray by the demon lover.”

  Etienne arched eyebrows. “Really? Will that be your defense for me as well? And Fenelon too? That we are all victims of Alaric’s evil influence?”

  Turlough frowned and claimed the chair the healer had deserted at his arrival. “Why do I get the impression that you hate me?” he asked. “I’ve only tried to keep your best interests in mind all these years.”

  “Yes... my best interests,” she said. “And no, I do not hate you, but I cannot help but feel a certain amount of pity for you.”

  He leaned forward. “Once, I thought you loved me,” he said.

  “As one loves a father or a favorite uncle, perhaps,” she said, and smiled when his face twitched at the word “uncle.” “You were good to me, after all, when I first came to these strange lands. You saw to my comfort and allowed me plenty of time to readjust to this life, which was so different from that I led as a healer in training in my own lands.”

  Turlough sighed and nodded. “I saw your potential, Etienne. You alone have what it takes to replace me when my time comes. You have a good head on your shoulders, so forgive me if I question why you would be so foolish as to dally with my rogue of a nephew and follow his way of thinking.”

  “He intrigues me,” she said. “Love makes us do strange things, they say. Be it follow a man who is a little eccentric or seek vengeance against the innocent for a crime that is not their fault...”

  That brought a glower to Turlough’s brow, but he swiftly changed let it disappear and shook his head. “I still do not understand what you see in him.”

  She shrugged. “And I thought you had given up trying to sway me away from Fenelon. How is he, by the way.”

  “Recalcitrant as ever,” Turlough said and leaned back once more. “I have been forced to send for Gareth.”

  “Really?” she said. “Why? I think Fenelon is a little old for a paternal spanking to be of any use.”

  “Gareth has certain... skills, and his knowledge of Fenelon’s spell casting has made him useful to me.” Turlough smiled. “Gareth is going to hunt down Alaric Braidwine, and eit
her force him to return and face my justice, or kill him.”

  It was Etienne’s turn to frown. “And what makes you think Gareth will comply?”

  “Because his only other choice was to watch his son sundered and executed tomorrow at sunrise.”

  Etienne sat up straight, thrusting the tea aside so that it sloshed over the rim of the cup and splattered the table beside Shona’s bed. “You would not dare,” she said.

  “And what makes you think I would not?” Turlough said. “You and he have committed what amounts to treason against the Council of Mageborn and the Crown of Keltora. Our laws are quite clear where demons are concerned. Any found guilty of consorting with demons will be put to death. Now, quite frankly, you and Fenelon protected Alaric and his demon. You harbored them rather than report them to me and the Council, and that makes you part of the conspiracy.”

  “The only conspiracy I see is the one you are dangerously provoking,” Etienne said. “If it should get out that you have twisted the laws, all to satisfy your insatiable revenge over the death of the woman you loved, I believe you might find yourself seeking other employment.”

  Turlough charged out of his chair, and for a moment, she thought he might actually give in to the urge to cross the chamber and strike her for that remark. But if she had learned anything dealing with Fenelon, it was never to cower from Turlough’s rage. So she held herself stiff as a post, daring him to complete the move with her eyes. Give me a reason to defend myself and prove you are mad, she thought.

  He did not cover the distance, however, but stopped where he was, looking away. “You can still provoke me as easily as Fenelon, but unlike the feelings I harbor against him, I find it difficult to hate you, Etienne.”

  “I’m to be grateful for that, I imagine,” she said.

  “Do you still want to see him?” he asked.

  “You would actually allow it?” she said.

  “Under escort, of course,” he said. “You are still under house arrest.”

  “Very well, but what do you hope to gain from this?” she asked plainly.

  “Some sense,” Turlough said and started for the door. “Come.”

  “Now? What about Shona?”

  “Your healer friend has her ear to the door, I imagine,” he said, and even as he opened it, the healer was there, her face livid. She blustered into the room, head bowed. Turlough looked back at Etienne. “Well?” he said.

  Etienne stood up with what quiet dignity she could muster and followed him out of her quarters. They were met at the entrance of the women’s hall by guards. Mistress Wallace was there as well, looking quite dourly upon the High Mage. Her expression softened at the sight of Etienne.

  “Well, come along. I shall be quite pleased to see the expression on his face when I let you visit him.”

  Etienne was willing to bet it would not be a pleasant look.

  Gareth followed the trail of Ronan’s magic until he came to the ruins of a broch. There, he discovered the marking on the ground around the menhir. The magic he had been trailing stopped there. As if it had stepped into the stone itself.

  “By the Silver Wheel,” he muttered as he knelt to study the marks more carefully.

  There was no doubt in his mind that Ronan had made this. Ronan’s essence was everywhere. Gareth saw that the cardinal points were ancient elemental runes, but the other marks—he had to admit he had never seen their likeness before. Even as he touched them gently with his fingers, hoping not to obliterate them, he could sense that magic had been used here. Magic of an ilk too ancient to understand. He frowned.

  He had only encountered such magic in one place in his travels through the Great Ranges. Beyond them and to the east, lie the mythical lands of Garrowye. Gareth drew out the brass farthing and looked at it carefully. His mind crawled back to a time before Fenelon was even conceived. Gareth had begun his travels through the Great Ranges as much to escape his own father and the harridan to whom he was then betrothed as to satisfy his curiosity about what lie beyond the known world. He had not even married his second wife, the lovely Sive Mulryan. The mother of his children had yet to be born.

  Since the ranges had never been fully explored, or even partially explored, he had chosen to try and find a way through. Many a false trail dead-ended in canyons or just twisted back in a circle and brought him to the place he started again. He had studied all the old texts he could find. There were a few remaining bits of parchment that had been brought through the Great Ranges by the Haxon priests and scholars who eventually settled in Ross-Mhor. He knew from those and from his studies that the Haxons had been led along a long trail that wound under as well as between the mountains, a trail known only to the Stone Folk and the Hidden Folk of Haxon lore. Determined as he was, he made several trips, but always failed.

  But there was the one time that he got lost. Then he had fallen into a ravine and been carried along by a river that forked into two, and the rushing water forced him down one path that threw him into a cavern hole. How long he traveled underground, he could not say, but at length the river tunnel spat him out into another gorge. Most of his supplies were gone, and he had barely managed to get out of the frigid waters alive. But his accident had given him a glimpse of what he had sought, or so he thought, for the riverbank that he was forced to follow was definitely some sort of trail. And it took him out of the mountains, going northeast, and into a green valley.

  There, he found the remains of a village that looked to have been destroyed by a slide. Strangely, there were no bodies, but then, some of the stone and sediments had settled enough to indicate that this tragedy took place long before his own birth, likely at the time of the Great Cataclysm, if not before.

  What he had found was a marker stone with a picture of some sort of hammer wielding figure. Thunor. This had been a Haxon village he thought. But then, he had found other things. Stones bearing writings he could not read. And a sense that some magic resided in the place. Ancient magic he could not comprehend.

  Ancient magic that prevented him from finding his way back. For as soon as he gated out to civilization, it was as though his mind lost that little bit of awareness. A mageborn had to have been to a place, or be given knowledge of it, to gate there. What he found, when he tried to return, was that some magical barrier kept turning him away. He even tried finding the place where he fell into the river the first time, thinking he could follow its course. He ended up wandering for such a long time, and the impression he got was that there were greater magics laid there than he or any mageborn could imagine.

  Magics that if his memory served him, felt a lot like what he was experiencing now.

  You took him to your homeland, didn’t you, Ronan.

  Not good. Gareth hoped he could find the way there. Like as not, there was no way he could decipher this gate spell and follow them that way.

  All right, then, he thought. I shall gate to the Great River in Feenagh, and from there, to the north east of Ross-Mhor.

  And perhaps, with luck, from that border he could find one of the Stone Folk who still dwelled in or knew the Ranges and barter for passage to Garrowye.

  SEVEN

  The sight of Fenelon shackled to the wall like some torture victim sent a twinge of anger and concern through Etienne as she stepped into the tower room. She glared at Turlough.

  “This is an outrage,” she said.

  “But necessary,” Turlough said, staying outside the door. “I do not trust him.”

  Etienne narrowed her eyes. As if you should be trusted?

  Whether Turlough sensed her thought, she was unsure. But his expression soured. “He has not made it easy on himself,” he said. “He would do well to follow your example, which I am sure he will not. Go on. Speak to him. I will leave you two alone. There is no way either of you can escape.”

  With that, Turlough stepped back from the door. It was closed, and Etienne felt the magical locks sealed. She turned towards Fenelon and paused.

  He was no longer
in the shackles. In fact, he was leaning casually against the wall, arms across his chest, wearing one of his infuriating smiles. She opened her mouth to ask how, but he put a finger to his lips to still her shock. She took a deep breath and quickly crossed the room and took his hands.

  “How did you do that?” she whispered. “Turlough would have fits if he knew.”

  “My father said it wasn’t possible,” Fenelon said softly and grinned. “So naturally, I had to prove him wrong.” He drew arms around her and put his lips to hers, and for moments, there was no reason to speak.

  At length, though, he broke off the kiss and smiled at her as he pressed his forehead to her. Inside her head, she heard him ask, “How’s Shona?”

  “They stopped the death bolt,” Etienne thought back. “But she has not regained consciousness.”

  “So we have no idea what happened down there,” Fenelon said.

  “Turlough said he was going to have you sundered and executed at dawn, and that your father had been sent to hunt Alaric and Vagner.”

  “I know,” Fenelon said. “My father has already been here. Turlough is ransoming my life, which I don’t like.”

  “Nor I,” she said. “I didn’t realize just how deep his hatred of demons was. Poor Alaric.”

  “Hopefully, he didn’t hang around where I sent him,” Fenelon said. “I wish I could have sent him to my father.”

  “But then, Turlough would have Alaric now.”

  Fenelon smiled. “I doubt it. Father’s got a head on his shoulders, and he doesn’t believe the things Turlough does are right. I dare say, when he finds Alaric, he will do what he can to protect him.”

  “So all we can do is wait,” she said. “You here in your shackles, and I in my quarters with Shona.”

  He shrugged. “How about your other apprentices?”

  “Turlough took them away to keep me from corrupting them.” She frowned.

  “Not good,” Fenelon said. “I was hoping we could put them to work.”