WATERSPELL Book 1: The Warlock

by Deborah J. Lightfoot

  She, too, looked at it, seeing it as if it weren’t hers. Months ago, when she fled the wheelwright’s house, her hands had been reddened and calloused from years of chores. Now they might almost be called pretty, Carin realized with surprise. Her feet had borne the brunt of her journey across the grasslands. Her hands, with little more to do than steal food or skin a rabbit, had healed. Spared of any task in Verek’s quiet household except to handle his leather-bound books, her hands had regained the pale, unveined smoothness of youth.

  Slowly the warlock reached for the hand that Carin had laid on the table. He lifted it into his. It fit in his palm like an oyster on the half shell. He turned it to study the back, knuckles, palm, and each ringless finger individually. And he picked off a wispy cobweb that clung to Carin’s wrist, the residue of her snooping in the great hall.

  Verek rolled the dust-flocked spider-silk into a tiny ball. Then he released Carin’s hand.

  She snatched it back to the safety of her side of the table.

  “Unmarked, untouched,” the warlock growled, “when—by Drisha—you should now have nothing at the end of that arm but a charred stump. I would give much to know whether you were saved by your own otherworldliness, or by the same unguessed susceptibility that drew you to the portal.”

  They were interrupted by the sound of a wagon and team arriving in the stableyard. Myra and Lanse had returned.

  “Speak no word of these events to my housekeeper,” Verek ordered as he rose opposite Carin. “That simple woman is not so privy to my affairs as you may suppose. Myra can do nothing to help with any of the tasks that face you and me. To confide in her may gain you a sympathetic ear, but will alarm her needlessly. If you care for her, hold your tongue.”

  From the table, Verek picked up the trencher that held his uneaten bread and cheese. Turning, he stepped with it to the passageway. “Only tell Myra that I am occupied and will require dinner in my rooms. These bites will not long take the edge from a day’s hunger.”

  He paused, his dark gaze on Carin. “As for you, little spy: You’ll do well to resist, by any means, those unfathomable ‘feelings’ that call you to the chamber of magic. The spells which safeguard that vault are meant to burn to cinders any hands laid uninvited upon either of the door-latches. I think you will not risk again such an agonizing punishment, unless you are quite certain that whatever protection you enjoyed last night will not fail you.”

  As the warlock disappeared down the passageway, Carin sat staring after him. Waves of hot and cold traveled over her, and for a moment she forgot to breathe.

  Slowly she stood, stirred the coals on the hearth, and added wood. The fire blazed up, throwing some life back into a space that Verek had made grim. Carin picked up the apple core he’d left on the table and threw it into the fire. Then she hung a kettle over the flames and went out to meet the returning wagoners.

  She found Lanse and Jerold unloading crates and sacks under Myra’s watchful eye.

  “Oh my, have a care!” the housekeeper called to them as Carin joined her. “Spill the meal, my boys, and it means another long trip to Fintan. And haven’t we had enough of busy roads and thronging crowds to keep us for a month?”

  Myra didn’t take her eyes off the men unloading the wagon, but she reached to slip a plump, strong arm around Carin’s waist and give her a hug. “Oh my, dearie! Had you given us up for lost? We left so early this morning that I hadn’t the heart to wake you to tell you. But didn’t I spend the day fretting that our absence might trouble you? And most especially that you might go hungry? Did you find aught to eat in that barren kitchen? And what of the master? Have you seen m’lord today? He gave me no answer when I tapped at his door this morning to remind him of our errand. Do you know, child, whether my good master has eaten the least morsel this long day?”

  “Yes, Myra.” Carin patted the pudgy hand that gripped her waist. “Lord Verek and I ate the cheese and apples you left. That was plenty for me. But I think he’s hungry for a hot meal. Nearly the last thing he said to me today was, ‘Tell Myra,’” she repeated in her best imitation of the warlock’s clipped voice, “‘that I require dinner in my rooms.’”

  Carin’s mimicry threw Myra into a frenzy.

  “Oh my, dearie! What am I to do!” the housekeeper cried. “I’ve all these new-bought goods to stow and store, and a fire to build, and water to heat, and two brace of hare to season and stew. They’re skinned and gutted already, thank Drisha, as I bought them fresh from the butcher’s this very day, but I’ve got pot-herbs to chop and—”

  “Easy, Myra!” Carin interjected. “There’s time. I’m sure Lord Verek only meant that he wanted to eat alone tonight. He’s not expecting to be served a meal in the next five minutes.

  “Now,” she continued as Myra’s fluster began to fade, “tell me what to do to start supper while you finish out here. I’ve already built a fire, and water’s on to heat. I’m not the cook you are, Myra, but I can help.”

  “Bless me, what a joy it is to have you in this house,” Myra almost purred. “Start with these, dearie.”

  Springing into action with as much agility as her bulk would allow, the woman gave Carin a bunch of leeks, with instructions to slice them thickly. From another sack that was tied to the wagon’s side, she produced leaves of fresh savory for Carin to chop.

  “Then take a garlic from the string above the kitchen door,” Myra added, “and finely chop six cloves. By the time you’re done with the herbs, I’ll have my hands on the meat that’s in this jumble somewhere. And together, child, we’ll cook up such a kettle of stew as to make mouths water all around.”

  As Carin hurried off, Myra’s voice filled the yard. “Oh my, Lanse, you foolish boy! Would you crush a gross of fresh eggs with that great cask of vinegar you’re rolling about like a—” The kitchen door closed on what was not, Carin suspected, a comparison in the stableboy’s favor.

  Quickly she prepared the seasonings. She was mincing garlic when Myra came in carrying four fat hares on sticks. The skinned, headless carcasses hung by their back legs, two to a staff. Carin helped cut up the meat and brown it in butter with the garlic and leeks. Then all went into the kettle to boil. While Myra cheerfully bubbled with news of market day in Fintan village, the pot simmered an accompaniment. And when the meat was perfectly tender, into the kettle went the fresh savory for the crowning touch.

  Myra took Verek his meal, then carried two steaming bowls out to the yard for Lanse and Jerold. When the housekeeper—with a long, tired sigh—finally settled her frame at the kitchen table, Carin served up the cook’s supper and her own. Then she sought the answer to a minor mystery that had puzzled her for days.

  “Why is it, Myra,” she asked between bites of stew, “that we—you and me—always eat in the kitchen, and even Lord Verek eats in here by the fire when he’s not in a bad mood, but Jerold and Lanse don’t come in? Don’t they like a little company at dinner?”

  Myra shook her head. “The fault is Jerold’s,” she said, sounding vexed. “That old goat seeks no company but his own. In all my years as housekeeper to m’lord, Jerold’s never set foot in this kitchen but to carry in firewood, or to bring me a sack of apples from the store-shed. He cooks for himself in that crib he calls a bedchamber, in the loft over the horses’ heads—and mayhap he’ll set the place ablaze someday with a spark that catches in the hay, and kill himself, the boy, and all the luckless animals below!

  “But dearie, ’tis a sterner story with headstrong Lanse,” Myra went on. “That foolish boy ate every meal at this selfsame table, right up to the day when you wandered in like a lost lamb.” Myra reached across and patted Carin’s hand—the very hand, Carin realized with a start, that she would now be missing if the warlock’s spells had worked as he intended.

  “Um …” she began.

  But Myra kept talking: “The boy has not been persuaded, since, to keep a civil tongue in his head and join us at table. He eats instead of the messes Jerold slops together, and refuses any
dish from my hands unless I take it to him in the stable—as I did just now, out of pity for the weariness he must feel almost as sharply as I do after this long day.

  “I’ve believed for a week—and expected every day—that when Lanse tires of Jerold’s dreadful cookery, he’ll show some sense and return to this table, where he can get the nourishment a strapping boy needs. But he’s as hardheaded as Jerold. He vows never to sit at table with you, child.”

  “Huh?”

  What Carin felt at this snub must have shown in her face, for Myra rushed to add: “Don’t ask me why. I don’t know, and the boy won’t say. I suspected, at first, that the foolish cub was tongue-tied in the company of a pretty girl, and hid himself away to avoid the strain of speaking to you, like a love-struck Galen who fears to approach fair Dara. But, alas, I’ve come to doubt that Lanse’s reasons are anything so pure as love. I do believe, dearie, that the foolish boy envies you bitterly.”

  And what have I got going that Lanse could envy? Carin wondered, astonished. She mentally inventoried her situation: imprisoned in a mausoleum of magic, at the mercy of a quick-tempered sorcerer who wasn’t above throwing her into his dungeon; and vulnerable to strange nighttime beckonings that threatened her with paralysis and possible dismemberment.

  But, Carin conceded silently, I do have my own bedroom, a hot bath whenever I want one, and the library.

  “Does Lanse resent me staying in the house,” she asked Myra, “while he’s sleeping in the stable? Or does he envy me my job in Lord Verek’s library? He may think I have it easy, but maybe he doesn’t realize how heavy some of those books are. The hugest ones, I can barely move. Or does Lanse resent me having Lord Verek’s permission to read in my spare time? Would he like to take books from the library too?”

  The housekeeper shook her head. “Nay, dearie. The boy has no head for books. He doesn’t love them as you and my master love them. He cares only for his horses. He sleeps, by preference, in the hayloft to be that near to them, though he has his choice of any bedchamber in the great empty wing of this house.”

  Myra sighed and took another bite of stew. With her exceptional talent for eating and talking at the same time, she continued:

  “What the boy begrudges you, child, are the hours you spend with our master. He fears to lose—to you—his place at the master’s side. Before you came—and don’t doubt that your coming to this house has brought me great joy—but before you, no day passed that the master and Lanse did not ride together. They shot targets together and hunted deer. They tested one another’s hand with horse and sword. The boy is an apt pupil, dearie. He’s spent many an hour learning from his master fine horsemanship and skill with bow and blade.”

  The housekeeper leaned across the table, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Once, dearie,” she confided, “Lanse did aspire to learn the arts of alchemy and magic. But that was not to be. The boy hasn’t the gift.”

  Sitting back, Myra went on briskly: “No one knows better than I, how mistaken this old woman can be when she lets her thoughts gallop unchecked. But I’ve told you what I think. I do believe Lanse fancies himself angry with you—you blameless child—for drawing to yourself the notice that he craves from our good master.

  “’Tis a foolish notion the boy has, isn’t it, dearie? For well I do know, since the fright my master gave you in that awful cellar, that you’ve done your best to stay out of his way. But with the three of us tucked up in only this wing of the house, the grander part closed off long years ago, there’s little chance of any one avoiding the other two. So be easy in your heart, dearie. I’ve talked too long and said too much—’tis my greatest weakness. I ought not to have told you of Lanse’s spite. ’Tis only boyish nonsense, and ’twill pass.

  “But before I say good-night and take these weary bones to bed,” Myra said, rising from the table, “I’ll tell you one thing more, and also ask a thing. The question first: Did you find, among the lights I took up to your bedchamber, brightness enough to chase the fears that followed you up from that black cellar?”

  “Oh! Yes. Lights,” Carin stammered, surprised into recalling the blazing multitude in her room. “Er, thank you. You’re right—I don’t like the dark. It’s silly, I know. But after thinking I’d been buried alive in that horrible cellar …” She finished her excuse with a shrug.

  “Och,” Myra commiserated, reaching to pat Carin’s hand again. “You’ll not be needing so many lights in the night when you’ve forgotten that awful place. But till you’re over your fright, you’re to have as many as you wish. Just take care, child, that you don’t set yourself afire—or the curtains or the bed!” The woman’s warning, offered in words almost identical to Verek’s last night, was spoken with what seemed a far more genuine concern for her safety, Carin noted.

  Myra stacked her empty bowl with Carin’s. “Be off with you,” she said. “These few dishes will wait for the morrow to be washed and put away. I’ll call you early, child. If you’re not in this kitchen by daybreak, you’ll hear me rapping at your door. For you’ve work to do in the master’s great library, and no time to be a slugabed.”

  The housekeeper was nearly through the door to her bedroom when Carin remembered the other half of the woman’s closing promise.

  “Wait, Myra,” she called. “You said you had something else to tell me, didn’t you?”

  “Oh my, dearie—yes,” Myra exclaimed. “So weary I am, I quite forgot. When I took supper to my master, he bade me tell you … ” Her voice trailed off, her eyes stared blankly, and for a moment Carin feared the woman had forgotten the message. But Myra was only preparing to deliver it in faithful imitation of the warlock’s voice—her mimicry being in earnest, unlike Carin’s in the stableyard. “He bade me tell you three things, dearie, and these were his very words: ‘The waters are still. Do not heed the phantasmic summons. It needs but a thought to break the spell of stone.’

  “His message was skimble-skamble to me, child,” Myra added, her hand on her door. “But I did not ask its meaning. ’Twas likely, I thought, that you’d spent the day, the two of you, trading secrets among the dusty tomes or picking out some riddle from that puzzle-book—and so you would know of what the master speaks. He bade me say, also, that you’d left the puzzle-book in the library. As you’d only a brief bit yet to read, he wondered if you wouldn’t finish soon—then to tell it to him.

  “Now I’ve done my duty, child,” Myra said, pushing her door open. “You’ve the master’s message, and I’ve the weariest bones in all of Ruain to put to bed. Good night.”

  “Sleep well.”

  With the house to herself again, Carin lit a candle at the kitchen fire and headed for the library. Verek’s reminder about the puzzle-book had been unnecessary. With only four short chapters left to read, she would have finished the book that afternoon, if the warlock hadn’t caught her brooding about him, above his pool of magic.

  The library was pitch black. In Myra’s absence, no fire had been lit that day. Carin hadn’t needed one in the bright morning, but had warmed herself with the motions of sorting and stacking books. Now, however, she hesitated on the threshold, straining to see in the candlelight. The fears that had beset her since the suffocating blackness of the cellar-dungeon prodded her like invisible cudgels. How could she enter a room so dark—especially one that hid, as she now knew, a spell-shrouded portal to a vault of sorcery?

  What are you doing here then? Carin demanded, sharp with herself. Do you want the looking-glass book? Then go get it.

  Gulping a breath for courage, she threaded her way between stacks of books that were piled like cairns on the floor and dashed to the bench she’d occupied yesterday evening while Verek questioned her. She snatched up the volume, retreated nimbly through the stacks, and was in the hallway heading for the foyer before she took her next breath. The candle in her hand flickered wildly throughout this foray, but remained lit.

  Upstairs and safe in her bedroom, Carin lit a score of Myra’s multitude. Then, stri
pped to her skin, she dove under the bedcovers and opened the puzzle-book to chapter nine—“Queen Alice.” Thanks to the housekeeper’s overindulgence in lamps, Carin had ample light for reading, even without adding the uncanny glow of the bathing room to the ordinary light of many flames.

  Three chapters later, her long anticipation turned to disappointment.

  “A dream!” Carin grumbled. She slapped the book closed with such force that it made a loud pop and sent fluttering Verek’s note, which had served her as a marker. “It was just a dream!” The chess pieces that came to life, the talking flowers, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty and the clumsy White Knight: all of them were only a sleeping child’s fantasies. Or was Carin to believe that the Red King dreamed it, and Alice merely had a part in his fantasy?

  “Beggar it all,” Carin swore, as her old master the wheelwright used to. “I could tell a better story than this, and it would all be true. I’ve met a real talking tree, and I’ve watched a gardener freeze a horse. I’ve even helped a sorcerer conjure up images made of water.”

  Still grumbling, she crawled out of bed, picked up Verek’s note, and slipped it back inside the volume. Then she dropped the offending book onto the table by the door, snuffed all but two flames, and resumed her pillow. Tonight, she would not let racing thoughts keep her awake until all hours.

  But Verek’s three-part message, delivered by a drowsy Myra, crept unbidden into Carin’s mind. The waters are still, the sorcerer had said—an obvious reference to the waters of the magic pool.

  Did he mean that those forces were again at rest after last night’s raising of water-sculpted images? Or was Verek thinking of Carin’s brush with the spells that guarded the vault? Did he mean to imply that the demon-spirit of the pool had not been lastingly angered by her intrusion? Carin quivered at the thought that some wrathful specter might yet revenge itself upon her … in its unimaginable ways.