Deep Magic

by Joy Nash

  “No, I dropped like a stone right after dinner. I woke just after midnight, with a dream of a sword vivid in my mind. I started drawing …” he spread his hands. “It’s often like this for me. I don’t keep regular hours. Sometimes I get days and night completely switched around, arriving at dinner as if it were the morning meal. Other times I forget to eat at all.” For the first time, he noticed the basket on her arm. His stomach rumbled in sudden hope. “Is that food?”

  She laughed. The sound went right to his groin. He half-turned back to the table, not wanting her to notice his burgeoning erection.

  “When ye did not appear to break your fast, nor to eat the midday meal, Rhiannon asked me to bring ye a bite. Meat and bread, and some cheese and apples.”

  Marcus had already uncovered the basket and downed his first mouthful. “Thank you. I’m half-starved.” He finished off a hunk of cheese and rooted around for an apple. He eyed her. “You look a little tired. Did you spend the night with Breena? Did she have another one of her dreams?”

  “I stayed with Breena, but she had no dreams.”

  “Because of a spell you taught her?”

  “Nay. She had no cause to try it. No vision came. She slept peacefully till morn.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  She blushed and looked away. “ ’Tis nothing new. I told ye, I have difficulty sleeping.”

  He set his half-eaten apple aside. “I could help with that,” he said softly.

  The flush on her cheeks intensified. “I do not know what you mean.”

  “Let me do for you what you did for me in the woods yesterday. Believe me, I’d make sure you could do nothing but sleep afterward. I’d leave you as boneless as a cream pudding.”

  Her embarrassment warred with her laughter, as he knew it would. He smiled. She wasn’t used to being teased.

  “A cream pudding? Do ye think of nothing but food, then?”

  “I’m a growing lad. I need nourishment. I need …” He caught her gaze. “I need you, Gwen. Let me love you. You won’t regret it.”

  The laughter evaporated from her eyes. “Ye would regret it, Marcus.”

  “Never.”

  She shook her head. “Let us speak of it no more. I came to discuss the sword, that is all.” Reaching around him, she picked up one of his rejected drawings.

  He sighed. “Not that one.” He eased it from her hand and located the correct one. Ink had splattered in one corner, but luckily, it hadn’t obliterated any crucial lines.

  He waved the papyrus in the air to dry it, then placed it in her hands. “What do you think?”

  He waited while she examined the intricate drawing. The blade of the sword he’d drawn was long and sleek, with Celtic tracework on the flat. An intricate design decorated the wide crosspiece. At the opposite end of the hilt, to balance the weight of the long blade, Marcus had set a round pommel embossed with the mark of the Druids of Avalon.

  She examined the drawing for a long time, without comment. The odd expression on her face worried him, until she looked up and he saw that her eyes were filled with wonder.

  “ ’Tis beautiful, Marcus. ’Tis the sword of my dream. How could ye know?”

  He shrugged, taken aback. “It just came to me. In my own dream.” The thought was unsettling.

  Gwen seemed pleased with the explanation, though. “The Great Mother sent you this inspiration, I am sure.” For the first time since she’d entered the smithy, she bestowed him upon a wide, generous smile. “When shall we begin?”

  “Today, if you’d like.” He propped his hip against the table and nodded toward the furnace, trying to project a sense of nonchalance. In truth, he’d avoided thinking of how close he’d have to work with Gwen’s magic. But now, to his surprise, he realized the prospect of experiencing her Light didn’t unsettle him nearly as much as it should have. All he could think of was that it would take a fortnight or more to forge her sword, and for much of that time, she would be here beside him. Alone. Hour after hour, bathed by the heat and solitude of the smithy.

  She was Rhys’s sister, and all but promised to another man, but when he looked at her, he could not seem to remember his honor. All logic and reason were blotted out by the fierce urge to possess her. A blunt voice in his brain ordered him to claim her. Conquer her. Mark her as his own.

  The sheer violence of his feelings shocked him to the bone. This was not at all what he had felt for Clara. That emotion had been tender. Protective. He would not have dared to touch Clara before wedding her. Perhaps that was why he had managed to step aside and let Owein have her. In contrast, whenever Marcus thought of Gwen’s betrothed, a murderous rage overtook him.

  The faceless Druid would not be the first man to love Gwen—Marcus meant to claim that prize himself. His and Gwen’s physical joining was inevitable. He knew it, as she did, even if she hadn’t yet acknowledged it. There was nothing, save abandoning the sword, that would stop it.

  Gwen looked at the furnace, then back at him. He was still leaning against the table; their eyes were on a level.

  “The ore I purchased yesterday will be delivered this afternoon,” he said steadily. “We can smelt it tonight. Then we will see what my skill, and your magic, can create.”

  “The mist is thinning.”

  “I know that,” Rhys snapped.

  He did not turn toward Owein, nor rise from his seated position on Avalon’s shore. Owein, approaching from behind, came to stand beside him. Rhys continued his brooding, gazing out over the swamp in silence. He was weary with a fatigue that went far beyond the effort of holding the mist, beyond the sleepless nights he spent at Cyric’s bedside, though those trials were bad enough.

  Cyric’s nightmares were turbulent. When he woke, he could not say what they had been, but Rhys had a good idea. Tamar, Cyric sobbed over and over in his sleep. Tamar.

  Rhys’s mother.

  Rhys had been visited with his own nightmares of his mother’s death. During the day, when Mared or one of the other Druids sat with Cyric, Rhys had tried to sleep. Though spells of Light surrounded his pallet, he could not close his eyes without seeing the waxen face of Mama’s corpse. Now he did all he could to stay awake, so the nightmares could not reach him. But it was impossible for a man to eschew sleep entirely.

  He shredded a willow frond in his fingers. His gaze was fixed on the faint glow of torchlight that had sprung up on the hills beyond the swamp as dusk fell. The Romans had returned to their camp for the night. The thought did not calm Rhys. He should not be able to see the camp at all through the mist.

  Despite his best effort to hold the mist, it was thinning. Strabo’s Deep Magic was taunting him, as it taunted Cyric. Gods. If only Gwen were here, they could combine their power and face the threat together. But she would not answer him.

  Putting aside his pride, he tried once more. “Gwen. Please. I need ye here. Strabo’s Deep Magic has strengthened. I do not know if I can guard Avalon without your help.”

  He held his breath, listening for Gwen’s response. He sensed nothing but the faint hum of the spell she’d erected to block him. Where was she? Why did she persist in maintaining this silence between them? Did she not realize how much she was needed?

  Owein, fortunately, did not speak for a long time. He lowered his large frame to the ground at Rhys’s side and joined him in gazing out over the swamp.

  “How is Clara?” Rhys asked at last.

  “Her belly tightens and relaxes, but Mared says it will be a sennight or more before the babe comes.” He paused. “I wish very much that Rhiannon were here.”

  Rhys heard the worry in the older man’s voice. Owein’s mother had died birthing him; Rhiannon was more mother than sister to him.

  “It does no good to worry,” Rhys told him. When had he become so hypocritical? “Mared will see Clara through her time safely.”

  “Mared’s healing skills are stretched thin. Cyric commands much of her attention. The Darkness covering him grows stronger.”

&n
bsp; “Aye. He sobs my mother’s name. He speaks of leaving Isca and traveling to Avalon—a journey he took long ago.”

  “He is lost in the past.”

  Rhys grimaced. “My own dreams are mired in the past as well.”

  “As are mine,” Owein admitted.

  Rhys looked up in surprise. With Owein’s gift of Sight, he was sometimes visited by dreams that were something more. “Have ye received a vision, then? Guidance from the Great Mother?”

  “Nay. I see only memories I thought long dead. Memories I do not wish to revive. It has been the same for Clara, and I suspect for Trevor and many of the other villagers as well.”

  Rhys shredded the last of the willow frond. “Strabo’s Deep Magic affects us all.”

  “He is a dreamcaster.”

  “Aye. ’Tis very likely.” Cyric had once told Rhys of dreamcasting—the talent of forming images from a person’s most intense memories. It was a rare gift. Rhys had never encountered it on his travels, and no one on Avalon claimed that talent. Rhys did not know how to fight it.

  “Gwen should be here to face this with us.” Rhys couldn’t keep the bitter edge from his tone. “She insults us all by staying away.”

  “If I have learned anything about your sister in the past year, ’tis that Gwen doesna easily dismiss her duties. If anything, she feels them too keenly.”

  “She’s never accepted Cyric’s authority. She’s always done as she wished, even as a child.”

  “While ye have never done as ye wished.”

  “You make me sound churlish in my obedience.” Though his obedience, Rhys reflected, was far from untarnished. The memory of his leap into the forbidden—flying as a merlin—was a weight on his conscience. He’d berated Gwen for succumbing to the lure of Deep Magic when in truth he was no better than she. Pride had kept him from confiding in his twin. He wanted her to believe he was perfect. That he was better than she.

  No wonder she would not answer him.

  Owein’s voice cut through Rhys’s dark thoughts. “Ye dinna take my meaning. Of course I dinna think ill of ye for obeying Cyric. He is a powerful Seer, and has his reasons for what he commands. Ye live a hard life without complaint, and Avalon is strong because of it. I only mean to suggest that though ye and Gwen shared your mother’s womb, ye are different people.”

  “I know that only too well.”

  “I’ve come to admire Gwen very much in the past year. Her skill in crafting new spells from the sacred Words of the Old Ones is unique. She’s helped me banish much of the pain my visions bring, relieving Clara of that burden. She ever has the good of Avalon at heart.”

  “Mared says …”

  “Mared is too close to Gwen. She sees only her faults. Not the war Gwen wages within her own soul. If Gwen is gone, if she doesna answer your calls, there is a good reason. Trust her, Rhys.”

  Trust? Gwen had asked him to do the same, but Rhys wasn’t sure he could. Or should. He had, after all, known Gwen far longer than Owein had. True, Owein had reminded Rhys of Gwen’s loyalty, but Rhys knew his twin’s recklessness was just as strong.

  And he did not know how much longer he could hold the mist without her.

  The spring days were growing long; though the evening meal was done, the sky was still very bright. Gwen walked slowly toward the smithy, where Marcus awaited her. Marcus, with his teasing laughter. Marcus, with his beautiful dark eyes and his shameless coaxing.

  The forge was already hot; smoke rose from the vent in the furnace. She’d almost reached the door when she felt a whisper in her mind, and realized she had let her defenses down.

  “Gwen.”

  She stopped dead and stiffened, trying to push Rhys away. But it was too late.

  “Gwen. I know ye can hear me.”

  There was a weary edge to her brother’s silent communication. Guilt warred with anger; her first instinct was to comfort her twin, but close upon the heels of that impulse came a deep sense of betrayal. Rhys had kept his own secret from her. She was entitled to hers.

  “Gwen, please. Ye must stop this folly and come home.”

  Folly? She bristled. What she was doing was not folly.

  “Gwen, please. I need ye here. Strabo’s Deep Magic has strengthened. I do not know if I can guard Avalon without your help. Strabo … he’s a dreamcaster, Gwen. He’s assaulting Avalon with nightmares. Cyric is much affected. He no longer holds the mist.

  Her chest contracted so tightly she had to remind herself to breathe. She answered before she could silence her thought. “The mist is gone?”

  “Nay. Not gone. I am holding it. But Gwen, Strabo’s magic affects me, too. I need ye here beside me.”

  “I am coming, Rhys.”

  “When?”

  She bit her lip. “Soon. When I can. Trust me, Rhys.”

  “Gwen—”

  She threw up the blocking spell. She could not bear to listen. He needed her, and her instinct was to go to him. But not yet. Not without the Lady’s sword.

  “Gwen?” She started at Marcus’s greeting. He stood in the doorway of the smithy, wearing a soot-stained apron. “Are you coming in, or do you intend to stand on the path all night?”

  She pushed Rhys and Avalon from her mind. “I’m coming in, of course. But I’d best not stay past midnight. I need to be with Breena in case—”

  “Of course.”

  The coals in the main furnace glowed red. The newer chamber, in which the bright iron was to be smelted, was no longer empty.

  Marcus’s tone turned businesslike. “I’ve laid the layers of ore and charcoal. Heat causes the ore to melt and change. Afterward, the molten iron—the bloom—is found under the ashes. If we can produce enough heat, and sustain it long enough, the bloom will yield chalybs.” He took a second apron, similar to his own, from a hook on the wall. “Put this on. Sparks are a danger.”

  Gwen accepted the apron, fastening the ties around her neck and waist.

  “I’ve designed the bellows to keep a steady flow of air over the coals.” He demonstrated the two-handed apparatus. When one bellows rose, the other lowered, so that the flow of air was never interrupted. They were positioned so one person could sit between them and operate both at once. “Once the fire is lit, the temperature will rise quickly.” He glanced at her. “But I don’t know if it will rise high enough.”

  “It will,” Gwen said quietly. “I will see to it.”

  “With magic.”

  “Aye.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I … I will need to touch ye.”

  He sent her a slow smile. “I’ve no objection to that.” The heat in his eyes matched that in the furnace. His voice was pitched low. “Where?”

  She ignored the fluttering in her stomach. Harder to ignore was the memory of Marcus standing half naked in the woods, of touching him intimately. She placed her hand on his shoulder and felt the muscle leap.

  He was remembering, too.

  She drew a breath and considered her next step. She had thought long and hard about the spells and methods she would employ to enchant the sword Marcus created. “I … I will send my magic through ye, as ye work the bellows.”

  “That will make the heat rise?”

  “Aye, I think so.”

  For a moment he looked as though he would ask another question, but then he seemed to think better of it. He offered her a crooked smile. “Are you ready, then?”

  His voice was low and intimate and sent swirls of sensation through her body. Ready? Most likely not.

  She took a steadying breath. “Aye. Let us begin.”

  Using a coal from the main furnace, Marcus lit the charcoal in the new chamber in several places. Folding his large body onto a low stool in front of the forge, he placed one hand on each bellows and began a steady up-and-down motion, sending air into the fire.

  The coals flared. A red glow spread slowly through the layers of ore. Heat rose in waves, bathing her face. Soon sweat was trickling down her temples.

&nb
sp; “The heat takes some getting used to,” Marcus said.

  “I do not mind it.”

  She fell silent as he worked the bellows. The rush of air over the coals was like the breath of the earth. Like the breath in her own body. Like the call of Deep Magic.

  Suddenly, doubt assailed her. Doubt and guilt. Marcus thought she called only the Light, when in truth, she was prepared to call both Light and Deep Magic. She was well aware that there was not a single Druid on Avalon who would approve of her plan. Cyric, especially, would be devastated by her disobedience.

  And if she held back? If she sent only Light to meet the Deep Magic threatening Avalon? Rhys’s communication had disturbed her. Strabo’s Deep Magic had cowed Cyric, and Rhys was wavering as well. Her own Light had been no match for the powers the Roman had commanded.

  She’d always run with her instincts—the wolf had taught her that. Her heart told her that despite the danger, Deep Magic was Avalon’s best hope. But she dared not call only Deep Magic—she was not so reckless as that. She meant to bind Deep Magic with Light.

  Would such a binding work?

  She did not know. She could only try, and pray—and hope that her pride did not destroy her.

  Deliberately, she moved behind Marcus and laid both hands on his shoulders. He flinched at her touch, but his rhythm on the bellows didn’t falter. She sucked in a breath. She could feel his desire for her beneath her fingertips, flaring as hot as the coals in the furnace. Her eyes were drawn to the gap between his short hair and the neckline of his dampened shirt. His skin glistened with sweat; the musky scent caused her nostrils to flare. Her tongue swiped her lower lip; it was only with great effort that she resisted the urge to dip her head and taste him.

  She closed her eyes. Better that she did not see—feeling him was bad enough. Each flex of his muscles sent a ripple of lust to her loins. His desire seared her, opened her, softened her. Tightened the tips of her breasts until she longed to lean forward and rub them against the hard planes of his back.

  Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, her nails digging into his flesh though the fabric of his shirt. If she caused him pain, he gave no indication of it.