A Tapestry of Spells (42 page)

She realized, with a start, that she was standing still, staring off into nothing at all. She recaptured her fury and started again down the road. That bloody lout could rescue himself, then go on to lead whatever sort of purposeful life sons of black mages led. She washed her hands of him. She had her own quest to see to, one she could obviously not count on anyone but herself to fulfill. The sooner she was about it, the—

She saw a glint of yellow in the trees. She was surprised enough by the sight to leap off the road into a handy clutch of pine trees. She wondered if perhaps she was imagining things, but nay, there it was again: a blond-haired man walking through the trees on the far side of the road, oblivious to anything but his cursing.

Her brother, Daniel.

Sarah cast a baleful glance toward the keep, which was quite obviously Daniel’s destination. She supposed she should have followed him, but she had no desire to enter those horrible walls again. She might find her brother, but then she would likely elbow him in the nose and render him senseless. If she saw Ruith again, she would stab him and render him dead.

Perhaps she would simply let all the mages she now knew congregate inside that spell-covered castle, then hope the bloody thing collapsed in on itself. If she could have found the right thread to the spell that covered the stone to accomplish that feat, she would have pulled it without hesitation.

It was tempting.

But so was a life free of magic, enspelled castles, and mages she wanted to see rotting in a hell of their own making.

She stood there for longer than she should have, dithering, before she made a decision, the best decision she’d made in a pair of fortnights.

She turned her back on the keep and walked away.

R
uith knew he was going to die.

The last time he’d been faced with that knowledge, he’d been a lad of ten winters, standing next to his sister under the boughs of a terrible forest and cursing to give himself courage. He’d watched his father open that well, watched him gape up at its contents shooting toward the heavens, and known that all hope was lost. He remembered letting go of his sister’s hand to rush forward and try to stop the madness.

He’d failed.

He’d failed his mother, his brothers, his wee sister who he’d been charged to protect, yet somehow, beyond all reason, he’d been spared—only to find himself standing in a great hall that had once been free of his father’s bastards but now was not, waiting to die.

He felt the first spell wrap itself around him even though Doílain’s lips didn’t move. Doílain was, after all, Gair of Ceangail’s eldest son, bastard though he might have been. His power was great, even corrupted as it was by the blood of his mother, the witchwoman of Fás. Then again, she was powerful enough to give the masters at Beinn òrain pause.

The only thing good to come of the day was that Sarah was safe. He regretted how he’d had to bring that about, but perhaps she wouldn’t, when she thought about it and could see why he’d done what he’d done. Perhaps she would even forgive him, in time.

He was tempted to release all his power and bring down the hall around his ears, killing everyone inside including himself, but he realized with a start that that was what Doílain was waiting for. He felt the first tentative intrusion inside his soul and knew Doílain was testing him to see just what he had that Doílain might want to take for himself.

“Where have you been?” Doílain asked idly, sending one of his servants off for a chair.

“Away,” Ruith said shortly. He sensed others leaning closer, still bound together by magic he couldn’t see but could definitely feel, but he paid them no heed. He supposed he knew without asking what
they
wanted.

Doílain put his chair near Táir, shot his brother a sardonic look, then sat and leaned back in that chair, looking for all the world as if he contemplated a fine afternoon behind the chess board.

“I’m surprised you didn’t find your way here after Father was murdered. Keir did, you know.”

Ruith struggled to mask his surprise. “Is he still here?”

“Unfortunately not,” Doílain said with mock regret. “He seems to have slipped out of our ... protection, shall we say. He has very little power left, of course, so I didn’t waste the effort to follow him.”

Ruith folded his arms over his chest. “Was my brother an unwilling inhabitant of his own home, then?”

Doílain smiled, but there was no warmth in it.
“His
home? How quickly you forget who lived here for centuries before you were spawned on that pretentious trollop from Torr Dòrainn.”

Ruith threw himself forward only to realize he hadn’t moved. He cursed himself viciously, but quite silently. He had been too long out of the world of mages and their ilk, had spent too many years numbing himself to their machinations and intentions. He had sensed the first spell, but now he realized that whilst he’d been dawdling amongst his memories, his bastard brother had wrapped him in so many spells that he couldn’t move.

“If it eases your mind any,” Doílain said, crossing his legs and swinging one foot, “we didn’t mistreat Keir. Not overmuch.” He smiled. “Just a bit, now and again. Poor lad, he just couldn’t fight us. I think Father must have taken most of his magic before he met his very untimely end, wouldn’t you agree?”

Ruith didn’t want to think on those memories. Aye, Gair had taken quite a bit of power to himself, including most of Keir’s, which had rendered him almost unstoppable in the final seconds as he opened the well. Ruith knew that was why his mother hadn’t been able to fight him, in the end. Her power had been immense, but Gair’s had been more so, augmented as it had been by his sons’ bloodright.

He could scarce believe Keir was alive. He had never considered it, but now he wondered why not.

Well, he knew why not. Because he’d hidden himself away in the most unlikely place possible and never intended to come out again, not even to see his family. Or, at least that had been his plan until he’d found a woman with pale green eyes and hair the color of cognac on his doorstep, a woman who wanted nothing more than peace, safety, and a place where she could weave things to make the world more beautiful.

“I wonder what Father left of you?” Doílain asked.

Ruith didn’t have a chance to answer before his soul was ransacked. He felt as if he’d just been kicked in the gut by a young stallion, but he ruthlessly refused to acknowledge it. It would only give Doílain pleasure he didn’t deserve. He felt Doílain find the well of magic he’d created inside himself and knew of the other’s intense displeasure at its construction.

And imperviousness.

“You won’t last,” Doílain promised.

“Why did you keep my brother here?” Ruith asked, ignoring the threat. He wished he sounded less affected by both Doílain’s torture and the little spells someone—he had no idea who—was tossing at him, painful little spells that stung where they landed and blossomed into raging, invisible fires.

If he escaped, he was going to bring the entire bloody place down on everyone in that circle.

Doílain was smiling, as if he knew exactly what Ruith was thinking. “Amitán, stop tormenting him.”

“I never liked him,” a voice said from behind Ruith.

“I imagine he feels the same way.” Doílain looked back at Ruith. “So, tell me, brother. Why do you think I kept Keir here?”

“My father’s spell of Diminishing.”

Doílain sat forward suddenly.
“Our
father’s spell of Diminishing, boy.”

“Perhaps he was
our
father,” Ruith conceded, “but you have to wonder why it is he didn’t see fit to share that particular spell with you. Could it be that you didn’t have the power for it, or was it that he thought you too stupid to use it?”

Doílain was faster than a striking snake, Ruith had to concede that. His bastard brother had backhanded him before he saw the blow coming. He went sprawling only to find himself hauled to his feet and struck again.

Doílain’s rage was palpable. “I’ll kill you, you little whoreson.”

“I suppose you could try—”

Doílain launched himself forward. Ruith felt his head connect with the stone of the floor in an unwholesome and quite abrupt way. He saw stars, but it wasn’t the worst thing to happen to him, so he ignored it.

“Can’t have what ... you want ... if I’m dead,” he managed to gurgle.

Doílain heaved himself up, releasing Ruith’s throat as he did so. He stood over him, simply shaking with fury. “I’ll have your power if it is the very last thing I do on this earth.”

Ruith didn’t want to lay odds on that happening. He kept that to himself, though, and accepted help to his feet. He thanked his other bastard brothers, who would just as soon have slit his throat as look at him, then concentrated on Doílain. The others were powerful, to be sure, but Doílain was the one to watch. Hadn’t he learned that well enough in his youth?

“Give me the spell,” Doílain demanded.

“Never,” Ruith said politely.

It was then that things began to go badly indeed for him.

He supposed it was prudent not to comment on the quality of Doílain’s spells, more of which were being wrapped around him with alarming velocity, but he honestly couldn’t help himself. It took his mind off realizations he couldn’t help but come to quite abruptly.

He had made a grave miscalculation.

If he had been using his magic all these years, he might have stood a chance of releasing it all, then wiping out the entire collection of his bastard brothers, but his magic was unwieldy and the power too great. He had killed those trolls in the glade successfully, but without any finesse at all. He’d only glanced at them before he’d incinerated them, but they had been a bloody mess, as if a great sledgehammer had fallen upon them. He could only imagine how his other spells might go awry.

And he was in a hall full of mages whose magic might have been black as night, but it was well honed and well used. He wouldn’t stand a chance against them.

And whilst Doílain might not have had Gair’s spell of Diminishing, he was who he was and his power was not insignificant. Ruith was genuinely afraid that if he released all his power, Doílain might manage somehow to take it—even a fraction of it—and then where would the world be?

Nay, better that it all died with him.

Only he had the feeling his death would not be quick.

At least Sarah would be safe. He regretted to the depths of his soul every word he’d said to her, but what other choice had he had? She was defenseless and he unable to help her. He hoped her fury would carry her at least a few days’ south where she would meet up with Franciscus and the two of them would decide, with any luck at all, to go to the schools of wizardry. She could tell the masters her tale, then someone would help her.

And then, with any luck, she would feel his last wish for her, which was that she seek out Sgath and let him build her a little house in that perfect spot on Lake Cladach. He himself would sit down beyond toil or sorrow in the east with his mother, his brothers, and his sister and tell them how much he’d loved her.

A pity he hadn’t had a chance to tell her.

“You stubborn git,” Doílain panted,
“surrender
!
”

Ruith didn’t have any strength left to manage even a grunt. He was in his father’s hall, surrounded by mages who would as quickly slay him as look at him, and he was quite ill from the memories of living there in the past. It would be easy, so much easier actually, to push Doílain past the point of reason and find himself too dead to be a temptation to them any longer. It would certainly end problems of magic and the pain of knowing he alone of his siblings was left alive to come to ... well, this. He opened his mouth to spew out the most vile insult he could. Or he did until he caught sight of movement near the window.

A blond man was gingerly crawling through the jagged glass and spells of a window at the back of the hall. He was apparently unhappy with the condition of his hands, judging by the look on his face and the way he was apparently on the verge of letting loose a torrent of curses. But those curses never came. He stiffened, then fell over, senseless.

Sarah crouched behind him in the window well, a rock in her hands.

Ruith focused immediately on Doílain, suppressing his own string of what would have been very impressive curses. He imagined half of them at least would have been directed at Sarah of Doire. Damn her to hell, what was she thinking? He’d perjured himself to the depths of his soul to send her away, yet there she was back again.

And she would soon be in Doílain’s sights if he didn’t do something very soon.

He opened his mouth to curse Doílain, then flinched at the streak of lightning that split the great hall from top to bottom.

Her name whispered across his mind as if someone else had said it, though he knew he was the only one in the hall who knew her name. The very thought of her was, as always, a cascade of sunshine pouring down through the trees of a forest. Pure, clear, and enough to drive away the darkness that was in him.