Dreamspinner (36 page)

“Oh, can she see?” the man asked, looking frankly quite delighted. “Perhaps there is something here I want after all.”

“When I’m dead,” Rùnach said calmly.

“Given that you have nothing to give me, as you’ve said, then perhaps that would be the kindest thing for you,” the man said. “Can you see what I’m doing, little lad, or is it just your wee wench there with the sight? Shall I make it visible for you and whomever else might be looking?”

“I don’t think either of us cares,” Rùnach said dismissively, “given that anything you do would be—what is the word I’m looking for? Ah, yes, I have it now.” He looked at the scarred man coolly. “Less.”

Aisling felt the arrow fall from her fingers and the bow from her hands. The words that were coming out of the man’s mouth
were worse than the ones before. Those had been barbed, dark, dripping with poison. These were full of despair, hopelessness, and an almost overwhelming suggestion that she and Rùnach both simply give up. She felt rather than saw Rùnach take half a step backward, as if he’d been assaulted by a wind so strong he couldn’t stand against it.

Aisling realized at that moment that there was something she didn’t want to accept as truth but could no longer deny.

Magic existed.

And the man in front of them was a master at it.

Before she thought better of it, she put the flat of her hand toward him and set air to spinning. Perhaps it was Fate—or, more likely, simply luck—but part of the man’s spell became caught up in her flywheel. She knew that wasn’t the proper way to spin anything, but it didn’t seem to matter. The wheel of air didn’t seem to mind that it was pulling into itself threads of despair. Aisling reached for the hopelessness, trying to pluck a single strand out of the wave of it that was about to fall upon her and Rùnach both.

Her hands caught fire.

She looked down at them and couldn’t see anything, but they burned with a heat that simply wouldn’t abate.

The man facing them laughed.

“Well, what do we have here?” he said, snapping his fingers and destroying her wheel of air. “How in—”

Aisling watched in surprise as he stopped speaking. The words he had been building into such a towering wave of evil fell to the ground in front of him, writhing like snakes for a moment or two before they simply stopped moving and lay still. She looked at the man in time to watch his eyes roll back in his head. He listed to the left, then continued to list until he fell over onto the ground.

Another man, a younger man, stood behind him, holding on to a stout club. Rùnach blew out his breath, then put his arm around her and pulled her close.

“Are you unharmed?”

“I don’t know,” she said, finding it difficult to be clutched by
Rùnach and keep her hands free of his cloak. “Is that one friend or foe?”

“Friend, assuredly,” Rùnach said. He pulled back, then caught sight of her hands. “What in the bloody hell happened to you?” he exclaimed.

She gestured helplessly toward the fallen man, but could find nothing to say. The pain was so intense, she could hardly breathe. She felt the world begin to fade. That, she supposed, was a boon, for it dulled not only the fire on her hands but the sight of what had been left behind by that…man’s…well, whatever it was he had spoken that had come out so foully.

“Miach, help her,” Rùnach said, his voice sounding very far away. “Her hands are burned.”

Aisling watched the man she assumed was Miach step over his fallen foe, then walk across the polluted ground. She looked down, wondering how he would keep the words from attacking him, then blinked in surprise. Where he had passed, he had left footsteps behind, footsteps of gold and silver. He dropped the club, rubbed his hands together, then smiled.

The footsteps suddenly disappeared along with the remains of the other man’s spell.

As well as the pain in her hands.

Aisling looked at him in surprise. “Who are you?”

He opened his mouth, then looked at Rùnach. “Who am I?”

Rùnach gestured toward him with less elegance than he usually used. “This is Miach. Miach, this is Aisling.” He reached for her hand, then sighed in relief. “Healed, aye?”

“When the words on the ground disappeared, so did the pain,” she said, though she thought she perhaps might like to wash her hands rather soon. She looked at Miach. “Was he a mage?”

“Who?” Miach asked, looking quickly at Rùnach. “A mage?”

“That man there,” she said, pointing behind him. “The one who used—” She started to say
magic
but she simply couldn’t bring herself to. “I’m not sure what he used. He was, however, masquerading as someone we know, else we wouldn’t have landed.” She looked up at Rùnach. “Would we?”

Rùnach shook his head firmly. “We wouldn’t have.” He reached out and clapped a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “I think we might be well served to find a refuge nearby. Any ideas?”

Miach said nothing. He simply pointed back over his shoulder, his eyes very wide.

Aisling followed his finger, then felt her mouth fall open.

A castle sat on a bluff, overlooking the valley below it. Well, actually it didn’t overlook, it guarded. She moved closer to Rùnach, because she thought she might like to have something to lean against if she felt any fainter than she did at present.

“What is that?” she managed. “
Where
is that?”

“Tor Neroche,” Rùnach said, putting his arm around her. “Seems a handy enough place to go, don’t you think?”

She inched closer to him. “Will they let us in, do you think?”

“One could hope. Perhaps Miach will find a way to sneak us in through the stables.”

“Absolutely,” Miach said without hesitation. “Easily done.”

Aisling found it difficult to look away from the fortress in front of her. She could hardly believe she hadn’t noticed it, though it was true they had landed at sunrise and she had been slightly preoccupied with impending doom. All she could do was look at the keep and try to keep her mouth from hanging open in astonishment. It wasn’t so much a palace as it was a bastion of security.

“Do you like it?” Miach asked mildly.

She looked at him and found he was as difficult to look away from as was the keep, though for different reasons. He was terribly handsome, to be sure, but she had almost grown accustomed to Rùnach’s face, so this Miach’s handsomeness didn’t affect her. There was something else about him, though, something she couldn’t find a name for…

She let her curiosity slip past her without holding on to it and concentrated on what he’d asked her. She nodded toward the castle. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” She considered it a bit longer. “I’m not sure it cares what I think.”

“You might be surprised.”

She looked at Rùnach. “We would be safe there, wouldn’t we?”

“We would.”

The thought crossed her mind that she shouldn’t accustom herself to any sort of security, not from Tor Neroche, not from Rùnach, but at the moment and after the morning she’d had already, she was thoroughly glad for both.

She realized suddenly that the men she was standing with knew each other perhaps better than she would have thought to suspect, if the looks they were exchanging were any indication. She decided to question Rùnach, though she knew she would pay a price for it in answers herself.

“How do you know him?”

Rùnach sighed lightly. “He’s wed to my sister.”

“That’s handy,” she noted.

He smiled. “Aye, it is, actually.” He released her and handed her her bow and arrow. “And since we know him and he has at least access to the stables, I think perhaps we should be off sooner rather than later.”

She took her weapon but couldn’t move. “What will they think when we arrive on that?” She nodded toward their pegasus, on the off chance Rùnach hadn’t understood what she’d been getting at.

Rùnach looked at Miach. “Well?”

Miach only smiled faintly. “I imagine they’ve seen all kinds of things that would unnerve and unsettle more rational lads and lassies. I wouldn’t worry.”

Aisling looked around her, then frowned. “Where is your horse, Miach?”

He gestured to the trees a fair distance away. “Left him there, of course, in the interest of stealth.”

She was vaguely dissatisfied with that answer, though she wasn’t sure why. She frowned thoughtfully, then looked at the note the man pretending to be Losh had handed Rùnach. “What does that say?”

He unfolded the sheaf of paper, then shook his head. “’Tis blank, of course.” He looked at the man lying there unconscious, then at Miach. “I’m not sure what you intend to do, but I cannot aid you with that one.”

Miach clasped his hands behind his back and smiled briefly.
“Not to worry. Perhaps Mistress Aisling would care to stow her gear, as it were, then you two could be off on the rest of your journey? I’ll catch up as quickly as I can.”

Aisling nodded, then walked over to attach her bow to the pegasus’s saddle.

Iteachhhhh…

She jumped a little, then looked around her. It occurred to her with a bit of a start that the voice in her head belonged to Rùnach’s horse. She stepped up to stand at the side of his head and look him in the eye. “Iteach?”

He tossed his head and whinnied.

She put her hand to her head to stop it from spinning. Truly she was going to need time at some point where she could sit and try to unravel truth from fiction, fact from legend. She stroked his nose and looked around her, trying to distract herself.

That was when she saw the body.

She walked past Iteach, if that’s what his name truly was, and over to a young man who was lying still as death on the ground some thirty paces away from where she’d been standing. She realized as she drew closer that it was none other than Losh himself. She sank to her knees next to him, then put her hand out and touched his cheek only to find it was still warm.

But she suspected he was dead.

She jumped to her feet and stumbled backward. She had never seen death before. It wasn’t something that happened in Bruadair, at least not where anyone could see it. She stared down at the lad in horror, then realized there was something tucked into the collar of his tunic. She thought it might have been a sheaf of paper, but she didn’t dare reach for it.

“Rùnach,” she called, only to realize he was standing next to her. He put his hand on her arm and pulled her back, away from the body.

He squatted down next to Losh, then put his fingers to the boy’s neck. He paused, then bowed his head and sighed. He looked up at her.

“Dead,” he said quietly. “And recently gone, unfortunately.”

She swallowed with difficulty. “That man killed him, didn’t he? That man with the scar.”

Rùnach nodded. He reached out and closed Losh’s eyes, then paused. He very carefully pulled the sheaf of paper out from the lad’s tunic, then read it. Aisling looked over his shoulder and read it as well. If Losh had perhaps come looking for the both of them, there was no reason she shouldn’t know why.

Aisling glanced at Rùnach. He was looking off into the distance as if he saw things she could not. He suddenly folded the missive and tucked it into a pocket.

“Let’s go.”

“Wait,” she protested, “what did any of that mean?”

He looked at her seriously. “What it means is that we should seek the shelter we’ve been offered until I decide what we’ll do.”

“What did he mean,
you won’t be the only one they’re after
?” she asked.

“Weger is cryptic,” he said. “We’ll take it apart later, when we’re safe.”

She stopped him before he tried to take her elbow, presumably to steer her in the direction he wanted her to go. She gestured to Losh. “What will we do with the body?”

“We’ll ask Miach to ask a handful of lads to come bury him.”

She didn’t move. “Who did Weger mean by Lothar?” She hadn’t had much time to read, she would admit, but she had pulled out the small, very rare book Nicholas had gifted her and read for a bit whilst Rùnach slept for those very brief periods of time. “The only Lothar I’ve ever heard mentioned was the son of Yngerame of Wychweald.”

Rùnach stopped trying to steer her and simply looked at her. “What else do you know about him?”

“He has been the enemy of the kings of Neroche for…” She had to take a deep breath. “For centuries. The book Lord Nicholas gave me claimed he was a mage.” She looked up at him searchingly. “That can’t be the same man Weger was talking about.” She paused. “Can it?”

Rùnach dragged his hand through his hair. “It can.”

She gestured to the fallen man behind them, the man who had spewed out such vile words that had seemed so much more than mere words. “Who is that man?”

“The black mage of Wychweald,” he said quietly. “Lothar.”

She wanted to smile, to dismiss his words as a jest, but she knew he was absolutely serious. All she could do was stand there and try not to shake. “But mages…they don’t exist.”

He only looked at her, silent and grave.

“I think I recognized him,” she said unwillingly.

“That’s because, love, he is indeed the one who stabbed you at Gobhann.”

She had known it, of course, but hearing it put into words was substantially more unsettling than she would have thought it might be. Rùnach’s hands were immediately on her arms, which she supposed saved her an undignified sprawl. She held on to his forearms until she thought she could stand on her own. She also drew in an unsteady breath that if she hadn’t known better she would have sworn felt a bit like a sob. She looked up at Rùnach.

“Nothing is as I thought it was,” she whispered.

He reached out and tucked hair behind her ear and this time he looked less uncomfortable. “Aisling,” he said very quietly, “there are many things in the world that
are
as you think they are. But then there are some that aren’t. This might be properly classified as the latter.”

“I’m not sure if I want to weep or find those responsible and…and…” She looked at him. “I’m not sure what I want to do. I just know it wouldn’t be
that
.” She gestured at the fallen lad. “Not that. Why would Lothar of Wychweald do that?”