Twenty-four
Sarah stood in front of the fire Ruith had made her earlier in her chamber that still seemed to be smoldering from the spells he’d used to rid it of what had been there before, and looked around her. He had changed the closet into a rather lovely place, all things considered, with enough light to keep her from having to look into corners for unpleasant things. It was difficult to believe, sometimes, that the only reason he did what he did was that he wanted to make certain she was comfortable.
A pity there wasn’t anything he could do to ease the terror she felt over the task that lay in front of them.
She tried not to think about Athair and Sorcha, that poor pair who had perished in a way no one seemed to want to talk about. It occurred to her, as she stood there and looked into the flames of the fire, that if they were descended from Seannair of Cothromaiche, that patriarch with no delusions of grandeur, and so was Soilléir, then he and Athair were cousins.
Odd that Soilléir had said nothing.
Then again, she hadn’t mentioned their names after that morning in the garden of Gearrannan, so he would have had no reason to discuss them with her.
She felt rather than heard something behind her. She had scarce gotten one of her knives in her hand and turned before she realized it was only Ruith there, standing just inside her door. She replaced her knife with trembling hands, then glared at him.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“No choice,” he said, dropping his pack onto the floor, then striding over to her. He put his hands lightly on her shoulders. “How are you?”
“About as you might think,” she managed.
He put his arms around her and pulled her close. Perhaps she should have protested, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She put her arms around his waist and held on, hoping he wouldn’t realize how badly she was shaking.
“We should go, shouldn’t we?” she asked, her voice sounding far more breathless than she would have liked.
“In a moment,” Ruith said. “I don’t think the spell is going anywhere.”
“Spells.”
He took a deep breath. “Spells, then.”
She stood with him for several moments in silence, then pulled back and looked up at him. “I’m appalled by my lack of courage.”
He reached up and brushed a few stray strands of hair back from her face. “A wise warrior doesn’t shun the fear that prepares him for battle.”
She pursed her lips at him. “Did you just invent that?”
“I believe ’tis one of the more famous strictures of Scrymgeour Weger, who you may or may not know is without a doubt the fiercest warrior of our age. I would imagine he knows of what he speaks.”
“Did he face a keep full of spells tended by a queen who wanted his escort to wed one of her daughters?”
“Escort,” Ruith echoed, sounding amused. “Is that what I am?”
“It seemed a circumspect thing to call you,” she said, feeling altogether quite ill. She took a deep breath. “Might we go? I can’t think about this any longer.”
He blew out his breath, then nodded. “I’m going to cover us in a spell of un-noticing. I’m afraid it won’t be pleasant, but I think it best to use a magic the queen won’t think out of the ordinary.”
“Olc?” Sarah asked uneasily.
He only nodded. “I’ve been studying the spells slathered all over my chamber and found one that I’ll use to cover the Olc. Morag wouldn’t see us if she stood between us.”
Sarah closed her eyes briefly. “Don’t wish that on us.”
“I wouldn’t,” he said fervently. “Just trying to reassure you.” He reached for her hand. “In and out, Sarah. A trivial exercise.”
She nodded, then steeled herself for the sight of his spell falling over her. She found, to her dismay, that the reality of the spell was far worse than the thought of it. She didn’t doubt that Ruith was right about using it, though, so she closed her eyes and let him lead her from the chamber. It wasn’t as if she needed her eyes to see where the first spell was anyway.
“Where to, do you think?” he murmured.
“Down.”
Ruith nodded, then took her right hand. She winced initially at the pain, but soon forgot it in her terror. They paused every time a guard approached and then walked past, then continued on. By the third time and after a set of stairs, Sarah flattened herself against the wall and squeezed Ruith’s hand.
“Stop,” she wheezed. “I can’t breathe.”
“Of course.”
She decided after a minute or two and another pair of guardsmen tromping by that it was best they just get on with their work. She nodded in the direction they’d been going. “We should hurry.”
He nodded, then continued on without comment.
She followed him through passageways, down stairs, then down more stairs until they reached the point where they could go no farther. Sarah found that after what she’d been through upstairs, waiting for guardsmen to pass now was easily done.
Sarah padded silently through the cellar with Ruith and led him without either haste or enthusiasm to the spell that lay there behind casks of grain. Ruith squatted down by it, then looked up at her.
“Well?”
“Well, what?” she managed. “I’ve gotten you here. You do the rest.”
“I can see the spells,” he said slowly, “but not as you can. Is there a flaw or a weakness that you can see?”
She gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering. She supposed she looked as if she were exactly three heartbeats away from either bursting into tears or sinking to the floor and rocking herself in misery. “Are you trying to make me feel useful?”
“I wish I were,” he muttered, “but unfortunately I’m not. I’m also fresh out of time to coddle you, so be about your work quickly.”
Sarah felt her eyes narrow even though she knew perfectly well he was provoking her intentionally. “You great bloody bully.”
“Which is exactly what you need, you vexatious, headstrong wench.”
A pity he’d said the last with a quick, affectionate smile that left her truly undone. She dragged her sleeve across her eyes. “Don’t be kind to me. I can’t bear it. Not now.”
He reached for her hand and held it, hard. “Then let’s finish this, quickly, and go somewhere where I can be kind to you. And to humor you, I’ll tell you what I can see. This,” he said, pointing to the topmost spell of illusion, “is an everyday spell of Olc, fashioned to conceal and repulse at the same time.” He studied the nasty web spread across the page a bit longer. “I can’t see the complete composition of what’s underneath, but there appears to be a bit of Caol—” He shot her a look. “The queen’s magic, as it happens. The other I can’t discern.” He pointed to the four corners where the spell was attached to the floor, then to a spot where other magics were oozing out. He looked at her. “Can you improve upon that, friend?”
“Olc,” she said hoarsely, “holding down the four corners of the concealing spell. Suarach—or it claims it is called—is indeed coming out from underneath it on that side, for it announces itself as it does so, but you missed the Lugham underneath that and a rather vile perversion of Croxteth over there.” Her hand shook only a bit as she reached out and pointed to the farthermost corner of the spell of concealment. “That is Seiche, whatever that is. There is Wexham and something from Léige, mixed together in an unwholesome way.” She looked at him. “Not that I would recognize it as such if the language of the spell wasn’t woven into the spell itself.”
“Is it?” he asked, peering at it thoughtfully. “An interesting combination. The dwarves have, as you might imagine given their riches, a compelling interest in keeping things hidden from unfriendly eyes. The dwarvish bit is there, I would imagine, to leave anyone resourceful enough to get that far feeling as if they were imagining what they were seeing.” He looked at her. “Clever, isn’t it?”
“Diabolical,” she agreed. She paused. “What do we do now?”
“You slit the spell with your knife, we pull the page out, then you tell me how to repair the damage.”
She was silent for a moment or two, then she met his eyes. “You truly cannot see what’s there?”
“Nay, Sarah, I truly cannot see what’s there.” He smiled gravely. “That’s your gift.”
“I think I would rather be doing something.”
“And I would rather be sitting happily upon my arse with my feet up, watching you doing something.”
She fought her smile. “A bully, and a lazy one at that.”
“Aye,” he agreed cheerfully, then his smile faded abruptly. “We must hurry. We’ve been here too long.”
She nodded, drew her knife, then reached out and carefully slit a few of what he assumed were threads holding the spell to the ground. She heard no alarms go off, so she assumed they were safe enough. She pulled the page free, then looked down at it.
“There’s something on it—”
“No time to look,” he said.
She held it out on the tip of her knife. “You should be careful with it, unless you want the barbs going into your shin. And you’ll have to patch the hole. I cannot.”
He patched quickly, then rolled the spell up and stuck it down the side of his boot. Sarah supposed he was going to need to find a better place to stash spells than that, but now wasn’t the time to look for it. She heard footsteps coming their way. She looked at Ruith in alarm, but he merely put a finger to his lips and pulled her behind him. He waited until the guard was within arm’s reach before extending a greeting.
The guard never saw Ruith’s fist coming toward him.
He fell without a noise, thanks to Ruith’s catching him, and no doubt had several hours of pleasant rest to look forward to behind the ale kegs. Ruith took her hand.
“Where for the next spell?”
“Up,” she said, but there was absolutely no sound to the word. It was bad enough to have descended into the kitchens. The thought of going anywhere else in the keep was nothing short of terrifying.
But it was what she’d committed herself to doing that morning in Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn’s garden, so she reminded herself that Ruith’s mother had put herself in far more peril than she ever would, put her shoulders back, and nodded.
And if it was unsteadily done, perhaps Ruith hadn’t noticed.
She lost count of the twists and turns they took and the guards they passed. The only thing she could say with any certainty was that the second spell that awaited them was more powerful than what they’d found in the cellar.
She stopped Ruith outside a particular door, then leaned back against the wall as he put his hand on the wood and bowed his head. After a brief moment, he looked at her.
“No one inside.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m guessing.”
She pursed her lips at him, but followed him inside just the same. The chamber was empty, as he’d said, but that wasn’t a relief. She walked immediately over to a wall sporting shelves full of treasures. There in the place of honor was what they’d come for. There were no strands of barbed magic laid across the glass case, which surprised her. In fact, there was nothing at all there, just a sturdy lock, as if Morag didn’t think anyone would dare make it into her inner sanctum.
“Which spell is that?” she asked, because she had to do something to keep from weeping.
“Finding,” he said, “which surprises me because it isn’t a particularly powerful spell.”
“And the other one from downstairs?”
“I didn’t stop to look, but I can tell you it’s burning a bloody hole in my leg—”
She would have smiled, but she had been jerked off her feet—literally—and pulled into a corner of the solar. Ruith backed her up against the wall, then pressed himself back against her. If his intent had been to crush her, he was coming close to succeeding. She put her hands on his back, closed her eyes, and forced herself to breathe silently. It was surprising how accustomed she’d become to having him put himself between her and danger.
A gel could learn to appreciate that about a man.
The door opened, bodies entered, then the door slammed shut.
“I think you should let them go,” a male voice ventured.
“Are you mad? He’s Gair’s son, you fool.”
Sarah forced her hands to remain flat against Ruith’s back instead of clutching the cloth of his tunic in terror. Ruith didn’t seem to be panicking, but, then again, he never had during the whole of their acquaintance. He simply stood in front of her, an intimidating and hopefully quite invisible barrier to the terrible storm brewing there before the fire.
“He’s no good to you dead,” the prince consort said.
“I have no intention of killing him. I want him for what spells he might have.”
“But you don’t have the power to use ... ah . . . them—”
“I know where to have help with that!” Morag bellowed. She took a deep breath. “Let me explain this to you again, Phillip, and simply, so you’ll understand. I am, as you can’t help but have noticed, collecting spells.”
“Gair of Ceangail’s spells?” Phillip asked hesitantly.
“Aye, Gair of Ceangail’s spells,” Morag repeated, in the same tone of voice she might have used with a small child. “These are very desirable spells because whilst Gair was the most hated mage of his generation, he was also the most powerful. Indeed, it wouldn’t be exaggerating to say he was perhaps the most powerful mage of all. To have even one of his spells commands great respect and admiration.”
“But everyone respects and admires you already—”
“It isn’t enough!” Morag bellowed. “Is it possible you’re this stupid? I don’t want respect, I want power!”
Sarah listened to Morag in fascination. Indeed, if she hadn’t been cold with terror, she might have been slightly amused by the queen’s tantrum. It must have been extremely frustrating for Morag to find herself trapped in a keep that no doubt seemed far below what she likely supposed she should have had, being forced to socialize with rustics, remaining unadmired for her obviously superior self. Sarah couldn’t imagine that having any more of Gair’s spells would help with any of that, but what did she know? She could only see spells, not use them to flatter her vanity.
“Why do you think I’ve been looking for these spells for so long?” Morag demanded.
“Well, not you personally,” Phillip protested.
“Nay,” Morag said in a deceptively soft tone, “you have been looking for me, haven’t you, my love? Traveling the world for the past twenty years, trying to make up for your blunder.”
“I couldn’t kill a child—”
“So you left her to rot in the moors instead,” Morag snarled. “At least I would have made her death quick.”
Sarah felt Ruith flinch, but she had as well, so she couldn’t blame him. Killing a child? What sort of woman was Morag that she could contemplate the like?
And what had the child seen, or done, or known that would have merited such a fate?
“I couldn’t kill a child,” Phillip repeated, sounding as if he would rather have been having a different conversation. “So I saw to her end as I saw fit.”
There was silence in the chamber for so long, Sarah finally could bear it no longer and gingerly peeked out from behind Ruith’s shoulder.
Morag and Phillip were facing each other in front of the fire, frozen there, as if they’d been statues. She initially suspected that Morag was angry and Phillip equally so, then she realized that wasn’t the case at all. Morag wasn’t angry. She was something else, something that went beyond anger.
She was mad.
Sarah could see her lunacy wrapping itself around her as if it had been a fine cloak she had reached for, swathing herself in its comfort with a pleasure that was actually quite difficult to watch.
“You didn’t send her out to the moors, did you?” she asked in a soft voice. “Come, now, Phillip. You have no need to fear me.”
“I don’t fear you, Morag.”
Even Sarah could tell that was a bald-faced lie. The poor man looked as if he might soon fall to his knees and beg his wife to kill him quickly rather than end his life in other, more painful ways.
“What did you do with the babe?” she asked soothingly. “The truth, now, after all these years.”
“Why does it matter?” Phillip asked nervously. “I got rid of her.”
“Why does it matter,” Morag repeated slowly. “Why does it matter?” She lifted her arm and pointed back toward the door. “It matters , you imbecile, because of what walked through my gates this morning!”
“Gair’s get—”
Morag took a deep breath. “Nay, Phillip, not Gair’s son. The girl, the girl that came with him. Surely if anyone would see her for who she is, it would be you, given how often you admired her dam.”
Phillip looked at her in surprise. “But she doesn’t look like Sorcha—”
“Of course she looks like Sorcha!”
The prince fell silent, obviously considering things he hadn’t before. “But that’s impossible.”
“Because you killed her?” Morag asked in a low, furious voice. “Or is there another end to this tale you haven’t told me?”
“Ah—”
“What did you do with the bairn?”
Phillip swallowed convulsively. “I sold her, her and a kitchen lad I picked at random, to a gypsy—”
“You liar!”
“Very well,” he shouted back, “I didn’t sell her, I gave her to the witchwoman Seleg and begged her to carry her off somewhere you wouldn’t find her because I could not kill a child!”
Sarah blinked. She would have shaken her head, but there were stars spinning around it already and she didn’t want to add to the cluster of them. Ruith’s hand was immediately around her, holding her to him. She clutched his arm and continued to look at the pair before her, because she couldn’t look away. Phillip had apparently found the spine he’d been missing for quite some time, but the truth was, he wasn’t his wife’s equal in power or craft. Sarah watched spells gather in front of Morag, spells of death and misery and horror that sprang up and blossomed into a single something that towered over them both. Phillip watched it, openmouthed and unmoving.
But it never fell upon him.
It took Sarah a moment or two to realize that someone was pounding on the door. The spell disappeared, Phillip collapsed against the mantel, holding himself up by willpower alone, no doubt, and Morag walked over to the door and threw it open.
“What?” she snapped.
“My queen,” a guardsman said, sounding thoroughly terrified, “I’ve heard word there was one of the night lads found on the floor of the kitchens—”
“Put a guard in front of Gair’s get,” Morag said immediately. She shot Phillip a look. “Guard the spell here, if you have any power at all.” She sent him another withering look. “I told you we should have killed her.”
“But she has no magic,” Phillip protested. “She had no magic as a babe, which was why you wanted her in the first place, wasn’t it?”
“Shut up, you fool,” Morag said, drawing herself up and looking down her nose at him. “What would you know of it?”
“I know what you did to her sire—”
“Enough,” Morag thundered. She swept out of the chamber and jerked the door closed behind her.
Ruith walked immediately over to the case. Sarah could only watch him, numb, as he picked the lock with an adroitness she might have admired another time. The prince consort had been staring into the fire, but when the hinges on the glass squeaked, he whirled around, his mouth open.
He watched for a moment or two, then shut his mouth.
Sarah could still see Ruith, perhaps only because she could see, but obviously Phillip could not. Until, rather, Ruith dissolved his spell of un-noticing. He locked gazes with the prince as he rolled up the spell and stuck it down his boot. Phillip looked around him in surprise—presumably for her, but she was apparently too well hidden by Ruith’s spell. Sarah supposed that was just as well. She knew she must have looked like death.
She certainly felt like it.
Ruith continued to look at Phillip. “I have a spell for you, Your Highness.”
“What sort—” Phillip licked his lips nervously. “What sort of spell, Prince Ruithneadh?”
“A spell of protection,” Ruith said quietly. “I don’t know if you have the power to use it, but you could certainly try.”
“I’ll stretch myself.”
“That might be wise.”
Sarah listened to him give Phillip the spell, watched the prince consort attempt to use it—badly—then watched Ruith nod briskly at him. He pulled his spell of un-noticing over himself again and walked swiftly toward her.
“Let’s go.”
She’d hardly gotten halfway across the chamber with him before the door burst open again and guards spilled inside.
Ruith took her by the arm—her right arm, unfortunately. She almost fainted from the pain.
“We’ll need to shapechange,” he whispered harshly.
She gaped at him. “But I cannot—”
“Trust me.”
The next thing she knew, she was running along behind him, hugging the wall and praying no one would step on her very long tail. Either Ruith had chosen their colors well, or the guards were simply too busy shouting at each other to notice two plain brown mice skittering along underfoot. Sarah found herself almost felled by the unaccustomed smells assaulting her nose alone, but she ignored them and pressed on until she and Ruith were at her door.
Guards were there, trying to get past not only the lock but Ruith’s spell he’d covered both the inside and outside of the door with. He paused so suddenly that Sarah ran up his back before she realized what she was doing.
We’ ll need to change again. His voice whispered across her mind.
I can’t—
We’ll try air this time.
She was going to kill him. If she ever had hands again, she was going to find some slow, painful, unpleasant way to do him in. She tried to concentrate on that, but it was too difficult. She found herself somehow wrapped up in Ruith as he pulled her under his spell and through the doorway with him.
She regrouped—or was regrouped, as it were—near enough to the fire that she was a little surprised she hadn’t rolled right into it. Ruith materialized out of thin air and went sprawling half over her.
“Get off me,” she squeaked, because squeaking was all she could manage. She patted herself frantically and was very relieved to find she was herself and not something for which squeaking might come more naturally.
Ruith conjured up a cloak and pulled it over her, sending sparks flying. He looked down at her, his eyes full of wildness. It was mageish delight at becoming something he wasn’t, no doubt.
“I have to go,” he said, sounding a little breathless. “I’ll be outside before they manage to get through my spell. Feign ignorance.”
She had every intention of doing just that. She looked up at him. “I think I’m going to be ill.”
“Puke on Morag.”
“You, sir, have absolutely no compassion for the unmagical.”
He bent his head, kissed her cheek—rather near her mouth, actually—then pulled away. She caught him before he could get to his feet.
“Don’t ever do that again, damn you,” she warned. “You turned me into a mouse!”
He smiled at her. “And the breath of air?”
“I still feel scattered.”
“I understand, believe me,” he said with a bit of a laugh. He pushed himself to his feet. “Hold them off as long as you can.”
And with that, he disappeared.
She cursed him again but had to clap her hand over her mouth. She lay on the floor, feeling truly very ill, and listened to the pounding on the door continue.
“Coming,” she called weakly.
There was a sudden silence. Sarah knew without being told that Morag was now standing just outside the door. She could only imagine the terrible spells that would accompany the woman. She had no way of knowing where Ruith was, how he would get himself on the other side of the door, or what he would do when Morag realized he had his father’s spells stuck, as usual, down the sides of his boots.
She decided it was better to meet the storm on her feet, as it were, so she heaved herself up—and almost into the fire. She clung to a chair until a violent wave of nausea passed, then staggered over to the door.
“Open this door,” came the voice that cut through the wood and spells as if they hadn’t been there.
Sarah shuddered. She was frankly terrified to stand alone—for however long that might be—against a woman so ruthless as to take a child and order her to be killed—
That was something she was going to have to come to terms with, she suspected, very soon.
She put her hands on the door to hold herself up, then suddenly found herself stumbling backward. Morag towered over her as if she’d been a thundercloud, accompanied by a dozen spells Sarah could see surrounding her and half out of her mouth. It was one of the single most horrifying things she’d ever seen, and that included what she’d been witness to at Ceangail.
She realized abruptly that she was going to be ill.
So she did the first sensible thing she’d done in a fortnight.
She took Ruith’s advice and sicked up her supper on the queen.