A Tapestry of Spells (44 page)

“Use your magic, Ruith,” she said, her eyes closing relentlessly. “Open the ”well ... inside you ...”

“I can’t,” he said, feeling a terrible lassitude seep into him. “He’ll take it if I do.”

“Who?”

“I’ve no idea.” He struggled for breath. “Powerful.”

And then he found he could say no more. He felt Sarah’s fingers slip from his grasp, just as Mhorghain’s had a score of years ago. He wanted to reach for her, but his arms wouldn’t obey and his fingers were numb and useless.

He tried to fight the relentless pull of the spell, but he couldn’t. He raged against it, but it was useless. He swore, but even those words slipped away from him before they could warm him.

It couldn’t end this way. He had a woman to woo. He had mages to best and the rest of his father’s spells to find. There was something about them, that shimmer he’d noticed before but hadn’t understood the purpose of until that moment exactly.

The spells were being called.

But by whom?

He felt himself begin to fall. Sarah had been right. He should have at least used a spell of un-noticing. Then perhaps the mage who was attacking them might have passed them by. As it was, he could only suck desperate—and more difficult—breaths of air so thick he could scarce breathe it in. He groped for Sarah, but he felt nothing. He called for her, but his tongue was bound and he had no voice.

He felt the ground suddenly under his cheek and heard the sound of footsteps by his head. He forced his eyes open, but could see very little in the darkness that surrounded him. Boots the color of night. And a piece of lace that fluttered to the ground in front of him.

And then he knew no more.

U
rchaid of truly an exhausting number of places stood over his fallen captives and congratulated himself on a hunt well executed. It had been long and rather tedious, but in the end worth the effort. He had rid the world of Connail of Iomadh and his loose tongue, left that irritating Daniel of Doìre in a ruined keep with angry mages where his enthusiasm for elegant spells would be truly appreciated, and he was now going to very generously take on the task of looking after the only living, legitimate son of Gair of Ceangail.

From afar, of course, and discreetly.

In fact, he suspected the lad would never know. Until, of course, he had collected all the spells of his father’s book. And then Ruithneadh of Ceangail would have no illusions about anything.

Urchaid looked at the leader of the mercenaries he’d hired who was standing under a tree some twenty paces away.

“Take the woman and do something with her. Sell her,” he said as an afterthought. “The traders of Malairt should be on their way south soon. She’ll fetch a decent price on some farm, I imagine. She’s a sturdy-looking gel.”

“And what of ’im?” asked the man, chewing on the end of a pipe. “Sell him too?”

“Oh, nay,” Urchaid said softly. “He’s a lord’s son, you see, and requires special care. I’ll see to him myself. But he has a temper, unfortunately. Best you bind him, perhaps to that tree over there, using very strong ropes. The spell might wear off him and I wouldn’t want any unpleasantness if he wakes.”

The man shrugged, then shoved his pipe into a shirt pocket before he went to work with his fellows. Within moments, Ruith and his companion were off, as it were, on their respective journeys, never to be reunited again.

Urchaid studied his new undertaking a bit longer in the darkness. It was odd that Ruithneadh’s magic was so ... inaccessible. Urchaid’s command of all sorts of spells from many unique libraries and private solars was impressive, but he’d never seen something that took a mage’s power and hid it so thoroughly.

A mystery.

He was almost as fond of a mystery as he was a decently fitting overcoat.

But he was even more fond of a good meal and lively conversation, which he would seek out posthaste. He threw a spell of protection over Ruith, even though it galled him a little to utter the words. The rest of it he would see to on the morrow. It wasn’t as if any of the players in the drama he was conducting were going anywhere. Not until he told them to, that was.

He adjusted the lace on his cuffs, then strode off into the rather pleasant afternoon. The witchwoman of Fás set a very fine table in spite of herself and it had been far too long since he’d invited himself to tea.

Too long, indeed.

I
t was a splendid day to be dealing out death.

Adhémar, king of Neroche, nodded to himself over the thought, though he suspected that nothing so exciting would actually come to pass. He was out for a simple jaunt along his northern borders, not a pitched battle. Indeed, it had been so long since he’d encountered any trouble that it seemed that the only thing he did with his sword these days was prop it up at his elbow at supper.

It was a pity, truly. He came from a long line of superior warriors. And he had to admit, quite modestly, that he had inherited more than his fair share of prowess. It wasn’t something he made mention of overmuch; his reign spoke for itself. No disasters since he’d taken the crown fourteen years earlier, no wars with neighboring kingdoms, no real trouble with the menace in the north. That sort of peace was a fine accomplishment, though it had robbed him of as many exploits to brag of as he would have liked. At least there was nothing of a disastrous nature for some bold-tongued bard to use to entertain those less respectful of a king’s burden.

Aye, it was a good life. Adhémar looked about him in satisfaction. He was surrounded by his most elite guardsmen, each of them equal to an entire garrison of a lesser king. His castle, Tor Neroche, hovered on the sheer side of a mountain behind him like a fearsome bird of prey. Even kings of other lands shivered a bit when they rode beneath the shadows of those battlements. And who could blame them? It was impressive in the extreme.

And there were the more personal particulars to consider. Adhémar turned to those with a decent amount of enthusiasm. He examined himself, looking for flaws. It was difficult to find many, though he was surely more critical of himself than he was of anyone else. He was young, for a king of Neroche; he was handsome, based on reports by others he knew to be perfectly impartial; and his entire life had been full of might, magic, and many other kings wishing they could be him.

And now to be out and about, savoring the first days of what promised to be a glorious autumn, knowing that the seasons would stretch out ahead of him in as fine a manner as they trailed off behind him. He listened to the jingle of tack and the low conversings of his men and knew deep in his heart that today would be yet another day that would pass peacefully and quietly into the splendor that was his reign.

And then, quite suddenly, things changed.

There was the sound of a slap. Adhémar turned around in his saddle to find the man behind him looking quite surprised to see an arrow sticking out of his chest. The man met Adhémar’s eyes.

“My liege,” he said before he slid off his horse and fell to the ground. He did not move again.

Adhémar turned to face the assault. It came, somewhat surprisingly, from a bit of forest to the north of the road. Adhémar cursed as he spurred his horse forward. Surely someone could have warned him about this. There were mages aplenty in his kingdom and one in particular whose duty it was to see that their northern borders were secure. There would be words later, to be sure.

But for now he would do what he did best, and that would be to intimidate and terrify his foes with his sheer presence alone. That and the Sword of Neroche, the king’s sword that had struck fear into the hearts of innumerable enemies in the past. Adhémar drew his sword with a flourish. It blazed with a bloodred magelight that sent his enemies scattering.

Adhémar bellowed his war cry and followed, with his men hard on his heels. They cut through the enemy easily, soon leaving the ground littered with the bodies of the fallen. Adhémar paused on the far side of the glade and examined the corpses from his vantage point atop his horse. The lads before him weren’t precisely of the sort he was accustomed to encountering. Indeed, he suspected that they weren’t precisely human. He found himself hoping, with a desperation that never found home in his breast, that he was imagining what he was seeing.

He watched his men finish up their work, then resheathed his sword and nodded to his captain to move on. The men made their way up the small hillock to the road, looking over their shoulders uneasily. Adhémar normally wouldn’t have admitted that he understood such looks, but he could not lie and say he did not. There was something fell about these creatures, fell and foul and not of this world. And here he’d thought that pesky black mage to the north had been contained.

Obviously not.

He looked over his shoulder for one last quick count of the dead. He counted two score.

But apparently that wasn’t all.

Adhémar watched, openmouthed, as from those trees stepped one last something that was definitely not a man.

Adhémar’s captain checked his horse and started back toward the creature. Adhémar called him off. If this spoil belonged to anyone, it was to the king. Adhémar wheeled his horse around and urged it forward, but despite its training, the horse reared with fear. Adhémar, despite his training, lost his seat and landed on the ground in an undignified sprawl. He scrambled back up to his feet with a curse. He twitched aside his finely wrought cloak and drew his sword. The magelight shone forth brilliantly.

Then it went out.

A blinding headache struck him at the same time. Adhémar reeled, but managed to shake his head hard enough to clear it. He took a minute to look at his sword in astonishment. This was beginning to smell like a disaster. He drew his sleeve across his eyes, trying to wipe away the sudden sweat. Damnation, would the indignities never end this day? He resheathed the sword with a curse, then drew it forth again with a flourish.

Nothing. Not even a flicker.

He took the sword and banged it with enthusiasm against its scabbard.

Dull as stone.

He spat out a spell or two, but before he could wait to see if they were going to take effect, his enemy had taken him by a gnarled, four-fingered hand and flung him across the clearing.

Adhémar narrowly missed landing in a very unyielding clutch of rocks. He sat up, looked around blearily, then realized that he was no longer holding on to his sword. He looked around frantically for it, then saw a shadow fall over him. The creature who had thrown him across the clearing was standing above him with its sword raised, preparing to plunge it through Adhémar’s chest.

Then the creature paused. His face, gnarled in the same manner as his hands, wore what might have been termed a look of surprise. Then he slowly began to tip forward. Adhémar rolled out of the way before the creature crashed to the ground. There was a sword hilt sticking out of his back.

A hand pulled him to his feet and shoved his blade back at him. Adhémar nodded his thanks and resheathed his useless sword. The headache and that unsettling weakness were receding so quickly, he almost wondered if he’d imagined both. It was with an unwholesome sense of relief that he put the whole episode behind him.

Well, except for the discovery that his sword was now apparently quite useless for anything more than carving enemies in twain.

He walked swiftly back to his horse. All was not well in the kingdom and he knew just whom to blame.

He swung up onto his horse’s back, then nodded for his company to return to the keep. Someone would need to come back to see to the corpses. Perhaps then he would have answers as to what sort of creatures they had been and who had spawned them.

He looked around him to make certain no one was watching him, then drew his sword halfway from its scabbard. Still nothing but a sword. He waited for it to speak to him, to answer to the kingship in his blood.

The sword was silent.

He, on the other hand, was certainly not. He cursed as he led his company swiftly back to the castle. He swore as he thundered through the gates, dismounted at the front doors, and strode angrily through the hallways, up and down flights of stairs, and finally up the long circular stairway that led to the tower chamber where his youngest brother was supposed to be diligently working on affairs of the realm.

Adhémar suspected that he might instead be working his way through the king’s collection of fine, sour wine.

Adhémar burst into the chamber without knocking. He allowed himself a cursory glance about for piles of empty wine bottles, but to his disappointment found none. What he did find, though, was the sort of semi-organized clutter he’d come to expect from his brother. There was an enormous hearth to Adhémar’s right with two chairs in front of it, straining to bear up under the weight of books and clothing they’d been burdened with. Straight ahead was a long table, likewise littered with other kinds of wizardly things: papers, scrolls, pots of unidentifiable substances. Adhémar supposed they couldn’t be helped, but it seemed all foolishness to him.