Spellweaver (23 page)

It was destined not to last much longer, she knew, but for the moment, she would enjoy it and not wish for anything else.

 

 

She woke to the sound of the door opening at the opposite end of the solar. She jumped briefly, then realized it was just Ruith and Soilléir, arguing in a good-natured way about how things had gone below. Rùnach, she realized with a start, was standing in his accustomed place at the window, but with his back turned to her, no doubt to give her a bit of privacy. She wondered how long he’d been there and how deeply she’d slept. Long enough for the books to grow warm under her hands, which was odd, but she set the thought aside in favor of watching Ruith. He smiled, then turned back to his discussion with Soilléir as they continued across the floor.

He was, as she had noted on more than one occasion, exceptionally handsome. He looked as though he’d spent the whole of his life doing physical labor, though without the roughness of it having aged him before his time. Then again, he was an elf—only three-quarters, as he would have said—so perhaps he had no reason to worry about having his face prematurely lined.

There was something about him, though, that she hadn’t seen before. She rested her chin on her fist and studied him as dispassionately as possible. She wasn’t sure if it was the Fadaire that shimmered in his veins or if it was merely that he was in a place where, for a change, he was accepted for who he was.

He looked happy.

His expression didn’t change as he pulled up a chair next to her and dropped down into it with a sigh. He looked at her and then smiled.

“How are you, l—er, I mean, my friend?”

She supposed she couldn’t complain about what he called her when she had been the one to insist on the terms of their relationship. He might think he wouldn’t indulge in a dalliance, but he also hadn’t seen what would be rushing his way like a mighty river all clad in silks and tulle once those finely dressed lassies discovered he was alive.

He smoothed her hair back from her face. “You think too much.”

“The future requires much thought,” she said, parroting her mother’s favorite saying before she realized what she was doing.

“Yours shouldn’t,” he said, his smile fading. “It should be full of nothing but happiness, beautiful yarns to please your hands, and the laughter of children to please your ears.” He stopped abruptly, as if he feared he’d said too much, then leaned closer to her. “What do you have there?” he asked, pretending great interest in the books she held.

She put her hand over the cover of the topmost one. “One is a book of poetry written in a language I don’t recognize. The second is a lexicon, but I can’t even begin to read the runes on my knives, so I’m not sure where to start with it.” She looked at Soilléir, who had come to sit in the chair across from hers. “My lord?”

He smiled. “The language is Mórachd, the tongue of Cothromaiche. We are a very small place in the grander scheme of things, a land full of lovers of good wine and pleasant poetry. Your knives bear the runes of my country, though I can’t imagine who would have forged them.”

He blinked owlishly, which led Sarah to immediately suspect he was attempting a lie. She might have pursued that more thoroughly, but she had other questions for him. She supposed politeness suggested that she tread lightly in asking the question that had nagged at her even in her dreams, but perhaps Soilléir wasn’t one to offend easily. She cleared her throat and looked at him.

“Do you all see?” she asked. “Or is it just you who possesses not only sight but magic enough to undo the world?”

“Both, though you flatter me with the latter,” Soilléir said with a modest little smile. “I would tell you of my people, but the history isn’t very interesting and likely too violent for your peace of mind this afternoon. Instead, if you’ll hand me the book of poetry, I’ll read to you from it. The fair Sarait was unwilling to listen to my words of love, but even she would humor me through a heroic poem or two.”

Sarah handed him what he’d asked for, even though she would rather have known what he’d done to her eyes so he could reverse it, but perhaps she could talk him into that after supper.

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes as Soilléir read. Though the verse was nothing but words at first, it soon became something far different, a picture that slowly came to life in front of her eyes. The rivers ran, a breeze set the trees to whispering secrets she was sure she could hear if she listened closely enough, and the flowers swayed as they sang in the heavy summer grasses. It was as beautiful in its own way as what she’d seen of Fadaire in the garden of Gearrannan, though somehow less elvish. Less glittering. Elegant, but not intimidatingly magnificent.

She liked it quite a bit.

“Sarah?”

She opened her eyes and realized that Soilléir was watching her. “Aye, my lord?”

“What did you think of it?”

“Rustic,” Ruith said with a snort.

“I don’t believe I asked you, whelp,” Soilléir said darkly. He turned a smile on Sarah. “What did
you
think, my dear?”

“I liked it very much,” she said, but that seemed inadequate somehow. “I could see what you were reading, as if it were happening afresh as the words were read.” She paused. “What do you think?”

He only smiled, then closed the book and handed it back to her. “Would you mind if I had a small game of chess with Ruith?”

Sarah pursed her lips. “You aren’t going to answer me, are you?”

“Timing, my dear. It is all about timing.”

And she imagined her time at Buidseachd would run out long before he managed to answer anything at all. She waved him and Ruith on to their game, happy to simply sit in front of the fire and be warm. She supposed she should enjoy that whilst she could.

She watched as Soilléir set up a chessboard between the two chairs.

But he didn’t pull out pieces.

She looked at Ruith in surprise, but he was only watching Soilléir with an expression she couldn’t quite identify at first. She wouldn’t have said it was resignation and it certainly wasn’t annoyance. It was as if he’d expected nothing less than what was coming his way and was almost resigned to his fate.

She wondered, briefly, what it would be like to walk into a place and be known, even after a score of years. She supposed she could have walked into the pub in Doìre and had Franciscus—

Nay, he wouldn’t have been there any longer. And if he had been, she would have had some very pointed questions for him as well. There would come a day when she had the boldness to demand answers from recalcitrant mages when she wanted them.

She turned back to what apparently passed for a game of chess at Buidseachd. Soilléir was very calmly setting up his board with traditional-looking pieces, though Sarah could easily see they were not fashioned from wood or marble. Ruith sighed deeply, then began to people his side of the board. They marched themselves out quite sedately, those creations of his imagination, beginning with the pawns, then moving on to the major and minor pieces in the back row. His queen he dressed in exquisite robes of emerald and his king in gold and sapphire. He paused, glanced at Soilléir, then placed fire-breathing dragons atop both his rooks.

He lifted an eyebrow in challenge.

Soilléir answered by changing his knights’ steeds into even larger, jewel-encrusted, fire-snorting beasts that hovered in the air just above their places, beating their wings impatiently.

Ruith looked at her. “You might want to move back a bit, love.”

She was happy to decamp for a stool a goodly distance away from the board.

“Your move, Ruith,” Soilléir said placidly.

Sarah was sitting behind him, but she could hear the suppressed delight in his voice, as if he were about to engage in something he’d savoured in the past and missed for far too long.

“Happily, my
lord
,” Ruith said pointedly.

A burly-looking toad hopped forward, hesitated, then belched. Soilléir laughed and the game was begun. Sarah had imagined it wouldn’t be all that sedate a match, but she realized quite quickly she had underestimated the skill and imagination of the players involved.

A mighty battle ensued, replete with fire and smoke and flashes of lightning cast down by clouds that sprang up over the board—and beyond, truth be told—and drenched all involved. Insults and weapons were hurled—and not just from the pieces—then chairs were pushed back from the board to give the combatants—mortal or not, as was the case—a bit more room to manage the fray.

And then Soilléir looked over his shoulder at her. “You might want to move,” he suggested.

Again?
was almost out of her mouth but she didn’t have time for it. She watched as a spell sprang up to the ceiling, spread out, and dropped to the floor like a curtain. The board went skidding across the floor, its pieces clinging to it like a raft, only to immediately increase in size until it filled almost all the solar. The struggle continued, but this time it was life-sized and limited, apparently, only to the resourcefulness of the mages in charge of their armies. It was no sedate game full of dignity and Nerochian rules of fair play. It was a glorious brawl with swords, spells, and creatures from myth. She didn’t recognize half the beasties she saw nor the spells she heard. It was also quite obvious to her that Soilléir and Ruith had been at this sort of thing before.

In time, the game finished with a spectacular amount of shouting and spells.

And then Sarah realized that all that had come before was just a skirmish before the true battle began. The board disappeared, and it was just Ruith and Soilléir facing each other, fighting with spells.

Rùnach stepped in front of her suddenly.

“What are you doing?” Sarah asked rather breathlessly.

“Protecting you,” he said faintly, “though I’m not sure with what.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “I thought I’d best attempt something as not.”

She peeked around his shoulder, then took her courage in hand and moved to stand next to him where she could see a bit better. “Soilléir won’t kill him, will he?”

“I don’t think so,” Rùnach said, sounding none too sure about that, “but I suspect my wee brother might wish he had after they’ve had done with their sport.”

Sarah swallowed with difficulty. “Why is Soilléir doing this?”

“Why do you think?”

Sarah imagined she could come up with several reasons if she gave it enough thought. Perhaps Soilléir thought to test Ruith’s resolve, or strength, or ability to encounter spells that made her flinch when she saw them being flung his way. In the end, she decided that Soilléir was hell-bent on showing Ruith just where he was lacking.

She also decided, after what had to have been half an hour of spectacle, that it was going to be a very long afternoon. She fetched her loom’s bench, then sat down and offered Rùnach the other half of it. He considered, then went to procure a bottle and two glasses. He poured wine for them both and handed her a glass before he sat down. Sarah watched the skirmish for a bit longer in silence, then looked up at Ruith’s brother.

His face bore marks that could have come from falling against unyielding stone, but surely Soilléir could have healed those well enough. Perhaps they were trails of something left behind by his father stealing his magic.

Odd how her arm bore the same sort of wound.

She looked into Rùnach’s eyes and smiled. “A sister and a pair of brothers,” she said quietly. “I’m glad for you.”

“Family is a good thing,” he agreed. He nodded toward Ruith. “He has become everything our mother would have wished for him, despite his years masquerading as a curmudgeon.”

“He wasn’t happy about giving up the disguise,” Sarah said with a smile, “but I think he needed to. Not, of course, that I know him well enough to judge that.” She shifted uncomfortably. “It’s just an observation.”

“An apt one,” he agreed. He studied his brother for several minutes in silence. “Whatever else he’s done, he’s become a good swordsman.”

Sarah had to agree. Though Ruith was using spells and not a blade, he moved as if he parried steel and fought as if he’d had a sword in his hands. She supposed he might think differently, but to her eye, the years of defending himself with his hands alone and no doubt looking for weaknesses in opponents that might not have been plain to a mage’s eye had certainly not harmed him any.

Soilléir flinched at a particularly pointed spell he had to stretch to counter, then laughed. “Damn you, Ruith, what spells
didn’t
you filch?”

“I told you my library was extensive,” Ruith said, his chest heaving.

“Aye, well, so is mine,” Soilléir said.

Rùnach sighed lightly. “Ruith is in for it now.”

Sarah couldn’t bring herself to speculate on what he might have meant by that. She was far too busy watching Soilléir throw apparently more than the usual complement of spells at Ruith. They began as swarms of beelike things that Ruith countered easily enough, then changed to mighty winds, which Ruith fought off much less easily, then enormous waves that beat down on him, which left him finally on his knees, simply struggling to fight off Soilléir’s attack with an ever-weakening magic of his own.

And then Soilléir cast a spell of Olc over him.

Sarah watched it, shocked at its vileness—and that was saying something given the rather gory battle she’d just witnessed. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Ruith had caught it, then thrown it back accompanied by a spell of some sort of terrible harm.

He didn’t. He simply watched it fall over him, obviously exhausted by the battle, then with a single word sent it scattering in shards that slid across the floor to encounter Soilléir’s spell of ... well, Sarah wouldn’t have called it protection. Containment, perhaps. Then again, what did she know? It had kept their battle within its confines and apparently absorbed what came its way. It treated the Olc no differently than it had anything else.