Spellweaver (14 page)

“He walked, if not a little unsteadily,” Soilléir said gravely. “But he was but a lad of ten-and-six when he’d passed all my tests. And he hasn’t used any of my spells ... yet.”

“Which means Adhémar still sits on his throne, instead of lounging on a lily pad in the back garden,” Ruith said with a snort. “Though how Miach bears him, I’ll never know.”

“Actually, Adhémar is now residing somewhere quite a bit less comfortable, but I won’t bother you with the details since you’re not terribly interested in the goings-on in the Nine Kingdoms.”

Ruith blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“Are you referring to your disinterest in the realms of the world or Adhémar’s fate?”

Ruith glared at him. “I never said I wasn’t interested. At least in the former.”

“Careful, Ruith,” Soilléir said mildly. “You might find yourself getting involved in things that will require more than sitting in front of your fire and avoiding Fate’s heavy hand.”

Ruith found himself on his feet, pacing, without truly knowing how he’d come to be doing it. He turned to Soilléir and folded his arms across his chest. “What happened to Adhémar?”

Soilléir looked up at him. “He was riding the border with his lovely bride, Adaira of Penrhyn—”

“A perfect choice.”

“Miach thought so too,” Soilléir agreed. “Unfortunately, she might be regretting her choice now given that her husband was too stupid to take the sort of guard he needed and both of them now find themselves unwilling guests of Neroche’s neighbor to the north.”

“Lothar?” Ruith asked in astonishment.

“The very same.”

“What an idiot,” Ruith said without hesitation. “Adhémar, I mean.”

“Agreed,” Soilléir said. He looked up tranquilly. “Very foolish to take one’s lady anywhere close to a nasty sort of mage when one has no magic to protect that lady.” He paused. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

Ruith started to agree, then realized just what Soilléir had said. He wished the words felt less like a kick in the gut. He wished he’d not been so stupid as to fail to continually remind himself that with Soilléir of Cothromaiche, conversation was rarely just words. He had to take a handful of decent breaths before he could speak with any success.

“Do you ever just talk for the pleasure of it?” he managed.

“Only to myself.”

Ruith closed his eyes briefly. “I would say I loathed you, but I am not a silly serving wench.”

Soilléir shrugged. “What else am I to do with you, Ruith? Slap your good sense back into you?”

“It wouldn’t work.”

“I didn’t think it woul—”

Ruith realized that Soilléir had stopped bludgeoning him with things he didn’t want to listen to only when he realized someone else was talking in a hoarse, ruined voice that made him flinch just listening to it. He turned around to find Soilléir’s servant standing at the doorway.

“The young miss,” he rasped. “I left her at her loom whilst I went to fetch her something to eat. When I returned—”

Ruith leapt forward only to run into Soilléir’s outstretched arm. He cursed, but the words died on his lips when he realized Soilléir was looking for Sarah.

That Seeing magic was ... well, it was damned spooky, that’s what it was. He could see spells, of course, and he had been, in his youth, able to hear the sentient things in Tòrr Dòrainn—brooks that laughed as they bubbled and flowers that sang as they bloomed. He’d been able to remain unaffected by elvish glamour cast by his grandfather. He’d heard rumors that some kings could see what was passing in their realms, though most of those sorts of tales had come from Neroche. He had assumed, over the years, that Adhémar’s sight had been limited to the quickest path to the ale kegs in every village pub cellar, but perhaps he’d been mistaken about that.

But Soilléir’s craft of sight?

It was unsettling.

Soilléir swore suddenly. “She’s walking toward Droch’s garden.”

Ruith pushed past him, but Soilléir caught him by the arm. “And just where do you think
you’re
going?”

“I’m going to rescue her, of course,” Ruith said.

Soilléir shot him a look. “With what magic, Ruith?”

“I don’t need—”

“Don’t be a fool,” Soilléir said sharply. “Against Droch? You cannot aid her with good intentions.”

Ruith supposed over the course of his life several things had stung him to the very quick. His father telling him he would never be his equal was one. Sarah telling him she couldn’t bear to be within five paces of him was another. Soilléir telling him in not so many words that he hadn’t the skill to fight the master of Olc, the master of the magic his father had taken and twisted in ways that Droch envied to the depths of his soul.

It was almost enough to make him reconsider his vow of magical celibacy, as it were.

“Go back to my solar and wait,” Soilléir said shortly. “We’ll be there presently.”

Ruith dragged his hand through his hair and hesitated. He had never hesitated in his life and it galled him to the depths of his soul to do so now.

Nay, that wasn’t what galled him. It was being sent back to the house like a woman whilst another man went off to rescue the woman he loved.

“You cannot aid her,” Soilléir repeated.

Ruith would have cursed Soilléir, but it was difficult to condemn someone else for telling the truth. He couldn’t fight against Droch’s spells with a sword, and he couldn’t fight off the spells of death he knew Droch would throw at him the very moment he realized whom he had within reach.

But he would be damned if he would go upstairs and wait like a woman.

Eight

Sarah began to suspect she might have taken a wrong turn.

The journey to her current location had started out quite innocently, actually. She’d woken to find Ruith gone but a loom waiting for her in the corner of Soilléir’s chamber. She’d happily spent part of the morning weaving, but found that whilst the warp threads had been innocuous enough, the yarn Master Soilléir had found for her to use was full of things she hadn’t expected, tales she hadn’t wanted to listen to gathered up with the roving, memories and magic she hadn’t wanted to be a part of spun into the wool. Not that any of it had been unpleasant; it had just been too much to look at. She liked her yarn to be just yarn, in colors she had made herself without any magic attached. She definitely didn’t like it to feel like a live thing under her hands.

She had remembered, as she’d sat at that loom, a particular fire she’d seen along their journey to follow Daniel. Seirceil of Coibhneas had made it, but as she’d sat there, she’d seen other things dancing along the wood. She realized now that it had most likely been Ruith to add those little touches. It had been elven magic, of that she was now certain.

It had been beautiful.

That memory had pushed her to her feet and left her hastily snatching up a cloak before she left Soilléir’s chambers and went for a walk to clear her head. Not that being outside in the passageways was much of a help in that. The entire place was crawling with spells, though she’d realized that if she closed her eyes, it wasn’t so obvious.

Of course that had presented the unforeseen hazard of almost running afoul of trouble.

She was almost on top of the men whispering furtively together before she had time to open her eyes and see them. She pulled back quickly and, as an afterthought, pretended to fuss with something in her shoe. No sense in giving an overzealous mage a reason to question why she was where she found herself.

“But my master wants a parley with
him
.”

“No one parleys with
him
without a damned good reason,” said the second man, making a sound of impatience. “Look, friend, I slipped you in the back door because we’ve done business before, but—”

“I have a spell.”

Sarah felt something slither down her spine, which was remarkable given where she was and the quantity of spells she imagined were surrounding her. She also thought she might have recognized one of the voices. It was the man who had come in the gates behind her and Ruith that first day.

He was Droch’s servant, Tom.

“What sort of spell?” Tom asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” the other man said with a snort, “and I’m not telling. My master told me to just bring a corner of it, for proof.”

“And did you?”

“Better than that. I tore the whole thing to pieces and brought a pair of scraps.”

“And just where did you hide the rest?”

“I’m not sayin’, but if things go south for me—if you know what I mean—I’ll scatter the bloody thing about and make my exit before my master can catch me.”

“Powerful is your master, is he?”

“Stupid, more’s the like.” The other man laughed. “But young and arrogant. From Shettlestoune, if you can believe it. Thinks he’ll trade a spell for a ring, I daresay. Worse still, thinks Droch is the one who gives ’em out.”

“Stupid, indeed.”

Sarah could scarce believe her ears. From Shettlestoune? How many mages once possessing pages of spells could possibly come from Shettlestoune? It wasn’t possible that Daniel had stolen the spells back from Ruith.

Was it?

There was a long pause. “Seems a shame to waste a decent spell on someone that stupid, don’t it?” the first man mused.

“What are you suggesting?”

“A bit of pocket lining.”

“Gold won’t mean much to you if you’re dead,” Tom warned. “And Droch doesn’t like to be played.”

“I wasn’t thinking of playing
him
.”

There was again silence for a very long time, then a grunt of assent. Sarah listened to their footsteps recede and made a quick decision. Of course she still planned to go off to seek her own fortunes—most likely in the morning—but there was no reason she couldn’t at least ferret out a bit of information that Ruith could possibly use to find his father’s spells. He was going to need help, especially since she wasn’t going to be there to dream their location for him.

She pulled her hood more closely around her face and walked around the corner as if she had every right to. She continued on, following the two men in front of her into a passageway that seemed to be quite a bit colder than the one she’d just left. She thought that observation might have been something simply conjured up by her frenzied mind, then she realized that not only was the passageway growing cold, it was growing dark as well. The men faded, then disappeared as if they’d never been there.

She had almost decided it was time to panic and turn around, when the passageway ended and she walked out into a garden.

It was like nothing she’d ever seen before and never could have imaged existed. She set aside thoughts of the men she’d been following—indeed she suddenly couldn’t remember why she’d been following them—and was enveloped in a feeling of profound pleasure, a secret sort of pleasure, as if only she could have been clever enough to have found such a place. Haunting music filled the air, music that she was suddenly certain only she could hear, a song that wrapped itself around her like a luxurious cloak fit for a princess. She pulled it closer to her, then lifted her face up and found that the sky was obscured with something. That might have bothered her at another time, but since that spell seemed to be keeping most of the rain off her face, she wasn’t going to complain. She turned her attentions instead to the long, lush space that stretched out in front of her.

There was a path beneath her feet, carpeted with soft moss that led toward a small flower garden so gloriously colored that it seemed a lush oasis in the middle of the desert where she was parched with thirst. There was a bench at the end of the path, a bench that sat under a tree that beckoned to her with dozens of branches that turned into delicate fingers.

She paused. She knew that was wrong, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to make anything of it. There was a cushion on the bench and a little table within easy reach, a table laden with luscious-looking fruits and a pitcher of something cool. She could tell it was cool because condensation had beaded up on the glass, dripping down to pool gently at the base, as if a well had overflowed and spilled its contents over its side.

That was wrong, too, that image. It reminded her of that cobalt bottle of potion in her mother’s workroom that her brother had stolen from her and left sitting on his table next to a spell that had reached up and wrapped itself around her arm. Her arm burned with renewed vigor, which troubled her. Remembering the spell troubled her as well, because it made her think of black mages and wells of power and castles covered in spells ...

She pulled herself away from those memories and concentrated on the garden in front of her, because it was a welcome relief from things that disturbed her.

A wide swath of marble lay between her and the bench, marble that glistened from the gentle rain that fell. She put her foot on it, walked a few paces, then had to stop. The scent coming from the flowers blooming by the bench was so overwhelming, she found herself almost turning away from it. Or she would have if she hadn’t been so mesmerized by it.