WATERSPELL Book 1: The Warlock

by Deborah J. Lightfoot

  Carin wedged the book into a crotch of the oak. Knife in hand, she followed the flashes of the sprite’s leaps.

  The creature led her to an entire grove of young yews. The particular tree the sprite had chosen grew well above her head. But at a height easily reached from the ground, the tree had produced a straight, slender limb that seemed made for her purposes.

  “It’s perfect, sprite!” she exclaimed. “Thank you. Now, please go to some other tree while I cut this limb off.” She frowned. “After what happened when those dogs chased me and you broke the branches to help me get up high, I’m a little worried that I’ll hurt this tree. But I guess you’ll be all right if you’ll move.”

  When the creature had leaped to safety, Carin put her knife to the branch and sawed. Many strokes and a sore hand later, she sliced through the last fibers that held the limb.

  “Sprite, I’ve got to go now,” she said, eyeing the lengthening shadows. “The day’s getting on, and I’ll be missed.”

  She hurried to get the archery book. With it, the knife, and the yew limb filling her hands, she turned to reenter the great hall through the weather-fretted door that hung on one hinge. But the feel of the slender branch in her hand reminded Carin of another stick she’d handled that day: the wand that Verek kept behind the liquor cabinet in the library.

  “Sprite!” she called. “Wait a minute. I just remembered—I’ve got some news for you.”

  Carin wasn’t ready to tell the creature everything she had learned since their last meeting, least of all what Verek had said about the “master wysard” who had whirled her to Ladrehdin. Though Verek had not given her an answer when she’d asked—only a look that could raise blisters—Carin felt certain that he knew the name of that master of magic. The all-but-confirmed existence of such a blackheart might be enough to set the woodsprite off hunting for the agent to send it home. Carin wanted the sprite with her, not carried away on a quest for a shadowy figure who might or might not help the creature. That Verek stood in awe of the master wizard’s powers also argued for keeping quiet. The sprite was safe in the warlock’s woodland. But if the creature actually found and entered the domain of one whom Verek called a master, the sprite might confront a sorcerer it could not escape as easily as it eluded the lord of Ruain.

  No, now wasn’t the time to talk of the blackheart who wielded the power of passage between worlds. In good conscience, Carin could keep the excitable woodsprite in the dark for a while. But the sprite deserved to hear about the wand that might have the same origins it did.

  As she stood at the rowan door, Carin described for the sprite the wand’s smooth luster and honey color. She related Verek’s story about the manner of its arrival years ago, and how the warlock hadn’t known what to make of a gleaming stick that was tossed up like driftwood on the rim of his magic pool. She repeated what Verek had said about first meeting the sprite in his ensorcelled woods a year and a half after the wand washed up.

  “I remember you telling me, sprite, that for a while after you came to this world you wandered around,” Carin added. “And then you found Verek’s woods and settled here because they made you feel protected, the woodcutters not being able to bother you here.

  “It seems to me,” she said, “that you and the wand probably came to this world at the same time, but not in the same place. It’s interesting, isn’t it, how you started out wandering but you wound up here, where the wand has been all this time. Maybe it’s not just a coincidence that both of us ended up in Verek’s cursed woodland. And we both found him keeping things that might have belonged to us where we used to live: my book and—maybe—your wand.”

  Carin’s news threw the sprite into such a frenzy of sparking that she feared for the creature’s safety. The sprite leaped from root to bole to branch of the rowan, then back again—all the while piping in its shrillest and most broken voice. Soothing it as best she could, gently stroking the rowan’s trunk, Carin managed to make the creature stay still enough that she could understand what it was saying.

  “My friend!” the sprite gasped. “I beg you to help me. You must bring me the wand so that I may see and feel it. You must help me to discover whether it truly is a piece of my homeworld. I wish to leap within its heart. I want to press myself into every pore of it. Please, dear girl—you must bring it to me!”

  “I’m not sure I can do that,” Carin replied, alarmed by both the creature’s frenzy and its request. “Verek has it locked away with his liquor—which tells you how much he values it. He’s already got me down for a thief. If I broke into the cabinet and stole the wand … I don’t even like to imagine what he’d do to me. You know how bruised he left me, the last time he caught me stealing from him.”

  Out of the rowan came a whine like a lost litter of puppies crying for comfort.

  “Do help me!” the sprite pleaded. “If you cannot bring the wand to me, then carry me to it. I’ll leap into a sprig so small that you may put it in your pocket and take me to the treasure. Please, Carin! I beg you to not deny me this.”

  The sprite’s second plan was better than its first one, Carin thought. But even so, the venture would have its dangers.

  “All right,” she said, and patted the rowan’s trunk. “Maybe I can take you to the wand, if I can sneak you into the library in a twig that’s too small for anyone to notice. But remember what Verek said. He threatened to ‘use you for tinder and laugh as you burn’ if he ever catches you. So if we’re going to do this, we’ve got to be sure that warlock is out of the house and not coming back for a while. I won’t risk your life, sprite.”

  She gave the rowan a final pat. “I have to go. And you have to be patient. The next time you see Verek riding off into the woods, wait for me here. If I’m sure that we’ll have enough time while he’s away, then I’ll take you to see the wand.”

  Carin slipped past the tree and shut the tottering scrap of a door. In the great hall, she retrieved the broom. Carrying the book, knife, and yew limb also, she ran up the steps to the balcony. Along its back wall, in a dark alcove, she hid the knife and the cut branch. Then she made her way back through the dusty corridor and the double doors, to return to the wing where life kept a foothold in this crumbling mausoleum of wizardry.

  At the door to her bedroom, Carin slowed and checked her clothes for tell-tale signs of her afternoon’s errand in the garden grown wild. The breeches Myra had made for her and the shirt borrowed from Verek were still respectably clean. But the damp leaves and catkins that clung to them, and the resin staining her hands, would inform even a casual glance that she had been outdoors. Better to rid herself of the evidence and stop any questions before they were asked.

  In her quarters, Carin whisked off the plant debris, cleaned her hands, and brushed her hair. When she had made herself presentable enough for kitchen duty, she retrieved the borrowed broom and went downstairs.

  Myra was tending a pot of poultry and veal, slicing bread with which to thicken the broth. “Here you are, dearie!” she exclaimed as Carin entered. “Done with your nap and standing before me fresh-faced and rosy-cheeked, with hardly a hurt to show for that folly in the stable. The master’s medicines work their good for foolish heads the same as for wise. Put aside that broom, dearie—have you been tidying your room?—and take this knife, and trim the crust from all this yesterday’s bread. I’m glad to have you here at just this moment, for with your two hands and mine, we’ll soon have the broth properly drawn and put to boil.”

  Carin put up the broom, glad for the housekeeper’s ceaseless patter that made no reply necessary to the woman’s question about the broom’s use. While Carin trimmed the bread, Myra skillfully drew off the broth from the meat, tipping the heavy kettle on its iron pot-hanger so the hot liquid poured without splashing into a second kettle. Carin put the bread to soak in the broth, then helped the cook crush a large bunch of parsley in a mortar. When the bread had soaked up most of the liquid, Myra pounded the parsley and a handful of other spices into it, then
put the mixture through a strainer. Adding wine, she returned the seasoned and thickened broth to the pot and put it back on the fire to simmer.

  And all the while, Myra talked: of yesterday’s storm, and of Carin’s red, rain-soaked kirtle—“Dearie, the master dyer of Fintan shall have my thanks for a fine bit of cloth; ’twas soaked through but the color held as rich and true as when it left the vat.” Most especially, Myra talked of Carin’s foolishness in going out in such weather, while wearing her best.

  Carin submitted tight-lipped to the scolding, and grabbed her chance when the housekeeper paused to stir up the fire.

  “I noticed that Jerold hasn’t come after his oilskin,” she said, and pointed. “It’s still hanging by the door. If you don’t need me anymore just now, Myra, I’ll take it out to him. We could get another storm any day, and he might get soaked without it.”

  “It would do the old goat good,” Myra said, “to be caught in the rain with no hood. Might soften him up, as a pot of fair broth will soften a loaf that’s gone hard and dry. But you’ve a good heart, child, and I’ll not stop you doing what you think you ought. So go on now, and run your errand. A boiled salad is all that’s needed to finish this meal, and I’ve my own two hands for chopping spinach. And with them also,” Myra added, more to herself than to Carin, “I’ll put in a good handful of currants for savor.”

  Carin’s throat tightened at the housekeeper’s mention of currants. After her morning with Verek, drinking currant-flavored liquor with him—and wondering with each sip why the Jabberwock’s proven abilities as a killer would delight the warlock—she never wanted to taste those tart fruits again.

  She draped Jerold’s oilskin over her arm and left the kitchen through the side way. The yard felt almost firm underfoot. The day’s bright sun had dried the quagmire more thoroughly than Carin would have thought possible in such a short time. Only scattered pockets of mud remained to catch a careless step.

  As she paused on a dry mound halfway out to the stable, Carin scanned the grounds for some sign of Jerold—or of Lanse. Though Verek had warned the stableboy of dire consequences if he hurt her again, Carin wasn’t sure the threatened punishments would stop Lanse. He might choose to remove his “rival” first, then seek his master’s forgiveness afterward. Lanse had served the warlock much longer—and much more willingly—than Carin had. If loyalty counted for anything with Verek, he might show his stableboy more leniency than his heated words from yesterday suggested.

  Carin remembered how Lanse had stood up to Verek, straight-backed and self-assured. If the boy had felt fear, some hint of it would have shown in his hazel eyes. She’d seen nothing there but anger and defiance.

  Forget Lanse, Carin told herself. He won’t help you. You need Jerold.

  The old gardener apparently had no reason to be afraid of Verek. Though he worked and lived in the warlock’s household, Jerold was clearly not a servant. When the grumpy elf stopped Verek from lending Carin his own rain-cloak, Jerold’s manner had had nothing of the “craving m’lord’s pardon” or “by m’lord’s leave” about it. What was it he’d said? “No point you taking a soaking, Theil.” Theil—a name spoken familiarly, as an equal might speak it.

  With eyes as restless as her thoughts, Carin searched the stableyard but saw nothing of either Jerold or Lanse. Hiking the oilskin up to her shoulder, she went around the back of the stable and silently approached the cut in the hedge that opened to the hidden orchard beyond.

  Jerold was there. High on a rickety ladder, the old man was harvesting by the setting sun’s last light what few apples remained on the trees after yesterday’s storm. On the ground were several baskets full of dirty fruit—the bulk of the crop, salvaged from the mud into which torrential rains and winds had dumped it.

  Carin approached cautiously and stopped at a discreet distance from Jerold’s ladder. The wisp of a gardener, working on in silence, ignored her. Soon he filled the basket that teetered on the ladder’s top rung. He started to climb down with it.

  “Be careful, Mister Jerold!” Carin exclaimed, alarmed into speaking first. Basket, ladder, and white-haired elf all seemed in imminent danger of tumbling to the ground. She rushed to the ladder. “Let me help you.”

  “Much obliged,” Jerold growled. He sounded more peeved than grateful. But he didn’t take another step down the rungs until Carin had draped his cloak over a handy tree limb, then stationed herself to brace him.

  Jerold descended far enough that he could lower his apple basket to Carin’s hands. No word passed between them as she set it on the ground, found an empty basket, and handed it up to him. Then she steadied the ladder again while he climbed into the tree’s upper branches to pick the last of the fruit.

  This time when Jerold descended partway, he handed Carin a half-full basket. When she had put it with the others and resumed her post, the old man clambered the rest of the way down.

  Carin let go of the ladder then, and stood looking at him through its rungs. They framed his thin, wrinkled face in an odd portrait.

  “I’m obliged,” Jerold muttered, though he looked and sounded disapproving.

  Take heart, Carin told herself with forced cheerfulness. If the old elf petrifies you the way he did Emrys, who’ll help him put up all these apples?

  She smiled at him. “I’m glad I found you, Mister Jerold. I wanted to return your raincoat.” She retrieved the oilskin from the tree limb and held it out to him. “Thank you for letting me use it.”

  Jerold lifted his chin and jerked his head toward the stable. “I’ll be wanting that put back where it was, missy.”

  He turned from her and stacked one apple basket atop another. Awkwardly lifting the double load, he shuffled to the cut in the hedge and disappeared through it, not speaking another word.

  Carin sighed. She draped the cloak around her neck to free her hands, picked up a basket, and followed. Though Jerold hardly seemed to want her help, offering it gave her a reason to be around him. She still nursed hopes of making the gardener her ally. Lanse, she knew for an implacable enemy. Verek, she suspected of plotting something diabolical for her and “her” dragon. If there was a friend to be found among the men of this odd household, it would have to be the old elf.

  She got to the back of the stable just as Jerold emerged, now empty-handed, from the low store-shed that was set against the wall. With a curt nod, he reached for the basket she carried.

  “Mister Jerold.” Carin delayed him with the first thought that came to mind. “Emrys loves apples. I see a couple in this basket that are so bruised from the storm yesterday that they’ll go bad fast. May I have them, please, for the mare?”

  Jerold grunted, a sound that might as easily have meant “no” as “yes.” But Carin took it for consent. She picked out the two apples and handed the rest to the gardener, not daring to hold him with another question.

  As Jerold reemerged from the shed, however, Carin matched her steps to his and walked with him back toward the orchard. When he didn’t shoo her away, she ventured further onto his turf.

  “Your garden is beautiful, Mister Jerold. Myra says there’s not another one like it in all of Ruain. She says you keep a garden where things grow even in the winter, and flowers bloom in the snow. She said there’s magic in the garden. Would you tell me, please, what kind of magic can keep things from getting killed?”

  Jerold stopped in his tracks, turned, and scowled at her.

  “That old woman talks too much. I can’t abide a talker.” Grumbling, he walked on, leaving Carin to wonder if that was the only reply he would make.

  But a few steps later, Jerold stopped again. Turning to her, he gave Carin an answer that only deepened the garden’s mystery.

  “’Tis the magic of life, missy,” he snapped. “And when I die, it dies with me. Ask me no more,” he growled as he disappeared through the cut in the hedge.

  Carin obeyed. Leaving Jerold to bring in his crop alone, she walked back to the stable. She carried an apple in each hand and
the old elf’s cloak round her neck.

  At the stable’s entrance she paused, listening for any hint of Lanse’s presence. Hearing none, she stepped inside. A railing near the doorway served to hold Emrys’ two apples while Carin hung the cloak on the peg where Jerold kept it. Then she took the treats to the mare, and noticed as she passed their empty stalls the absence of both Brogar and Lanse’s gelding.

  Were the stableboy and his master out riding? Or were both horses with Lanse, as they had been on market-day when he had taken both of them to the village, tied to the wagon’s tailboard? Maybe it was Lanse’s job to see that Verek’s big hunter had exercise when the warlock didn’t ride regularly.

  “Whoa, horse,” Carin murmured as Emrys stretched a sleek black neck between the rails of her stall to claim the apples. “You should eat these slowly and make them last. I can’t promise that I’ll ever bring you any more. The boy who takes care of you is my sworn enemy. Your master, that warlock Verek, has murder on his mind. One or the other of them could make sure that I’m not around to bring you apples. You ought to enjoy these while you can.”

  Her advice went unheeded. The mare finished off both apples almost before Carin had finished speaking. And as the sound of her voice died softly away, a noise came from the direction of the stable’s wide doorway.

  Carin whirled.

  Two figures stood in the opening, silhouetted against a luminously twilit sky. Though matched in height, in build one was a willow to the other’s oak. Both were armed. Beside each dusk-shrouded, featureless face rose the outline of a shouldered bow.

  In the whole province of Ruain, there were only two who might want Carin dead. Both of them now stood before her.

  Chapter 18

  Visions

  With a show of self-confidence that was completely fake, Carin trod toward the doorway where the two figures stood in the soft light of evening. Neither of them spoke, but both turned in her direction. Though she could not see their faces, the change in their outlined shapes told her they now stood looking into the shadows of the stable from which she would momentarily emerge.