Spellweaver (17 page)

Actually, his father would have agreed with that as well, but Ruith preferred not to think about that.

“And at least you have the magic to do what I cannot,” Rùnach mused. “If only you had the spells.”

Ruith pursed his lips and remained silent.

“You should, if I might offer an opinion,” Rùnach began carefully, “be grateful for what you have.”

Ruith smiled wearily. “Am I so easy to read, then?”

“I just know you, Ruith,” Rùnach said quietly. “I know your demons.”

“Because they’re yours as well?”

Rùnach nodded. “I’m simply fortunate I’m not forced to confront them.”

“You have always led a charmed life.”

“Haven’t I, though?”

Ruith smiled. “I’ve missed you.”

“And I you, but if you fling yourself in my arms again and slobber all over me like a woman, I’ll stick a knife in your gut.”

“Do you ever talk this much to Soilléir?”

“Oh, aye. He begs me to be quiet.”

Ruith smiled, then looked down at his hands for a moment or two. He could feed himself, clothe himself, and keep himself from freezing to death in the mountains. He could wield a sword, make arrows for a bow, and extricate himself from situations not requiring a sword but instead a tactfulness his mother would have been satisfied with.

But that wasn’t enough to do what he had to.

“Tell me of the pages you’ve been hunting.”

Ruith looked up. “What—oh, those. I’ve been finding pages of Father’s book—well, Sarah’s been finding them. We had a few, but I lost them.” That wasn’t exactly the case, but the truth was too unsettling to look at presently. “I suppose I don’t need those, though, given that I could write at least most of them from memory.”

“Could you?” Rùnach asked in surprise.

“Couldn’t you?” Ruith asked, feeling equally surprised.

Rùnach shook his head slowly. “I had the entire bloody book memorized ... before. When I lost my power, I lost those memories as well.” He smiled grimly. “Blow to the head and all that, I suppose. I have over the years, however, found most of the spells I think he drew from.”

“Where are those?”

“I gave them to one who needed them.”

“Do I want to know who?” Ruith asked unwillingly.

“I don’t think so today.”

Ruith dragged his hands through his hair and sighed deeply. “What do you think I should do now?”

“Oh, nay,” Rùnach said, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to stop making a complete arse of yourself. Unless you’d like me to echo the suggestion that you take your lady for a wee walk. I, however, would suggest that you do so in Grandfather’s garden.”

Ruith wondered why it was he was continually being caught off guard. He didn’t remember his last visit to Buidseachd having been so taxing. “An interesting thought.”

“You can’t tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind before.”

“It has,” Ruith managed. “And I made certain the thought continued on into the darkness where it belongs. I’m quite happy pretending to be something I’m not and ignoring things that make me uncomfortable.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Rùnach said sadly. He shook his head. “How have you managed without me all these years, Ruith?”

“Poorly,” Ruith admitted, then steeled himself for the better part of an afternoon spent listening to his elder brother point out to him just where he’d gone wrong. Instruction on how to go about winning a woman he wasn’t at all sure would want to be won would no doubt figure prominently in Rùnach’s conversation.

Ruith supposed that whilst he was listening, he would think more than he should have about the fact that whilst he would happily have retreated to his mountain sanctuary, his brother would have shouldered his burden and marched doggedly into the battle that lay ahead.

But Rùnach couldn’t.

While Ruith realized with a start he most certainly could, but he wouldn’t.

Fadaire is smothered by Olc more often than not,
he had said to Soilléir that first night.

If you believe that, Ruithneadh, then you do not give your mother’s power its due
.

He wondered, casually lest the thought become more important than he wanted it to be, what would happen in truth if he sauntered down to his grandfather’s garden, released all his magic, then attempted entry, just to see what Fadaire in its strength would think of him.

Aye, he wondered, indeed.

 

 

The thought burned in his soul like a raging fire, leaving him fighting for breath until the sun began to set and Sarah woke. She didn’t look any better than she had before, but Soilléir promised her a walk would do her good. Ruith would have happily avoided the bloody expedition until the next day—or never, if he could have managed it—but Soilléir handed him a rucksack full of supper, assured him that Droch was shut up in his chamber, raging at his current crop of spies, and held open the door for him. Never mind that Ruith had already opened it, perhaps in spite of his better judgement. Sarah didn’t seem opposed to being liberated from a nest of mages, so there was no rescue coming from that quarter.

He supposed he would just have to carry on down a path that was so full of thorns he could scarce put his foot to it.

He slipped out the kitchen door with Sarah, then heard her sigh of relief at the reprieve from being inside a keep full of spells. He wished he could have shared the feeling, but what he dreaded lay in front of him, not behind. He walked quickly with her along side-walks just the same, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, following a path that even he could see was laid out before his feet.

The way to the garden of Gearrannan hadn’t changed at all in a score of years. He found the place without trouble, then stopped in front of the gate. He wondered, absently, if he should have brought a lamp. He knew there was a path whose head lay just inside, but he wasn’t sure they would manage to find the end of it.

He reached out toward the gate, then froze as memory washed over him. He could see his father’s hand there on that latch, the flat black onyx stone in the ring he always wore glinting dully in the moonlight. But his father had drawn his hand back immediately, as if the gate had stung him. He’d laughed off the moment, then pleaded a sudden thirst as reason not to accompany his family inside the garden. Ruith had thought little of it at the time; he’d simply been relieved to be free of his father’s oppressive presence.

Now, though, he didn’t feel any relief at all.

He stood there with
his
hand on the latch, unable to move. He heard Sarah call his name, but he couldn’t speak—partly because he was still so damned tired he could hardly stand up and partly because he had, at some point during the afternoon, turned into a blubbering ... something. It would have been an insult to call himself a woman because the women he knew didn’t blubber. They wept, when appropriate, or drew steel, or wielded spells. But they never blubbered.

And still he stood there, motionless, wrestling with things he couldn’t see but definitely couldn’t ignore.

“I’m going to go.”

That surprised him out of his stupor. He looked at Sarah. “What?”

“I appreciate the refuge for a bit,” she said quietly, “but I know you have things to do. I do too. I should be about them sooner rather than later.”

He was still struggling for something to say when she brushed past him. He caught her hand before she went three paces.

She stopped, but she didn’t turn around.

He looked down at her hand in his. It was her right one, the hand with his father’s spell burned into her flesh, tangible proof that there was evil in the world that would stop at nothing in attempting to destroy what was beautiful and whole. And she, Sarah of Doìre, had set out from the ruins of her home with nothing more than a drooling hound, a fierce-looking kitchen knife, and an unquenchable desire to do good in order to try to stop that evil.

And he had shut his door in her face.

Never mind that he’d followed after her within hours. He should have offered to help her immediately. He should have told her who he was from the start, then he should have taken back his magic from the ghost of his father and used it to keep her safe.

He feared it was too late.

He took a deep breath. “There is a pleasant garden beyond this gate.”

She still wasn’t moving. “How do you know?”

“’Tis my ... grandfather’s garden,” he said, having to take another deep breath or two. “His glamour is laid over it, but I don’t think that will trouble you. Fadaire is a beautiful magic.”

She turned slowly and looked at him. She was silent for so long, he wondered if she was wondering how best to stab him and be free of him, or if she was looking for something particularly cutting to say to put him in his place, which he supposed he would have deserved. Or perhaps she, like he, was wrestling with things that for all their innocence were very serious indeed. Such as her sight. Or his ability to survive the evening without his grandfather’s garden snuffing out his existence.

“It would be a safe place to linger,” he added.

She hesitated, then let out her breath slowly. “Perhaps for a few minutes.”

“An hour,” he countered.

Her eyes narrowed. “Very well, an hour, but then I
will
go.”

It was a start, but only half the battle had been won. He would have to get them both inside the gate—alive—before safety would be theirs. He took a deep breath, then very carefully released his magic. He felt Sarah catch her breath.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”

She gestured helplessly at him. “What you just did. I saw it. The riverbeds are now full to overflowing.”

He didn’t mean to gape at her, but he couldn’t help himself. “Riverbeds?” he echoed.

She waved away the words. “Don’t ask. Let’s just go.”

He promised himself a goodly bit of speech with her later—hopefully he would still be alive to do so—then nodded. He hesitated, then cast caution and pride to the wind. He put his hand on the gate, then looked at her.

“We have a bit of a problem here.”

She looked over her shoulder immediately, as if she expected Droch and a contingent of his vile minions to be standing there, then back at him with a frown. “What sort of a problem?”

“The garden is not without its safeguards,” he said slowly. “To keep out undesirables who might attempt entrance where they shouldn’t.”

She stared at him blankly for a moment or two, then a look of profound pity came over her face. “Oh, Ruith.”

If he hadn’t been finished before, he was then. He didn’t dare reach for her, simply because he found he did have a bit of pride left and he couldn’t stomach the thought of her knowing how badly he was trembling. He attempted a casual shrug.

“There’s nothing to it, truly,” he said, tossing away the words as if they touched him not at all. “Just a feeble spell that keeps out what the garden doesn’t want in or, more insultingly, allows the refuse in but doesn’t acknowledge it. If my grandfather were here, the trees would make light of their own for him. Actually, I think they would do it for any of his family. But for me, assuming the gate doesn’t fell me on the spot the moment I open it ... well, I imagine I won’t be welcomed.”

Sarah’s expression was very grave. “Because of Gair?”

“Because of Gair.”

She shrugged. “I don’t mind the dark.”

He most certainly did, and she was lying. He knew the dark bothered her even more than it bothered him, but there was nothing to be done about it now. He wanted to mutter a casual
nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh?
but he found he could do nothing but stand there and breathe for several minutes in silence, like a poor, spooked nag facing what terrified it the most.

Sarah squeezed his hand, just the slightest bit. “You are not your father.”

He laughed a little. “So we could hope.” He started to open the gate, then paused and looked at her. “If something happens to me,” he began carefully, “the garden will let you inside, I’m sure. If you can bear to, wait for Soilléir. He will know if I perish. He won’t leave you here alone.”

The last galled him to say out loud, but more galling would have been the thought that he’d left Sarah unprotected.

Which, he supposed, was why he was willingly trying to find the place where his soul would shatter and doing so by presenting himself to a place that judged mercilessly, just to see if it would reject him.

Sarah said nothing. She merely squeezed his hand again and waited.

Ruith took a deep breath, then reached out with a trembling hand and opened the latch of the gate.

He didn’t feel anything amiss, and he still drew breath. It was promising, but not overly. His grandfather, it could be said, was nothing if not imaginative whilst about the happy business of tormenting miscreants.

Ruith walked inside, drawing Sarah behind him. He shut the gate and felt his grandfather’s glamour drape down behind him and seal itself with a click. Sarah shivered, but he supposed that came more from the twilight mist rather than the spell.

“Still breathing,” he said, a little more breathlessly than he would have liked. He looked at the path beneath his feet, trying not to think about the last time he’d walked up it. It had been with his mother, Rùnach, and Gille. In fact he could almost see them hurrying up the way in front of him, laughing, heedless of the magic that protected them as only lads who’d enjoyed its benefits for the whole of their lives could be. The path had been lit, of course, because of his mother and his brothers.

“What now?” Sarah asked.

“We carry on.” He nodded toward the path. “That leads upward to a bower. A lovely place, truly. Happily secluded and undeniably safe.” He hesitated. “I would make light—”