Dreamer's Daughter (24 page)

“Oh,” she said uncomfortably, “you don't need to do that.”

“Yes, my lady Aisling, I do,” he said seriously. “If you'll permit me the privilege.”

Well, if there was anyone she didn't suppose she would be arguing with, it was Uabhann. She nodded, smiled as best she could, then looked at Rùnach and waited. He took a deep breath.

“I've discovered something.”

“On the map?”

He nodded. “Unfortunately. Or perhaps not, if we look at it the right way. Let's just say I think we've solved the mystery of where the magic is being drained from. Where's it's going
to
is another story, but perhaps for now that is less important than this.”

“Stanch the wound first?” she said quietly.

“Exactly. Let me show you what I've seen.”

She stood with Rùnach at the table and looked at the map. It didn't look any different—or any less unsettling—than it had the night before. She glanced at Rùnach.

“How do you think Acair discovered all this?”

“I would like to say he eavesdropped on someone far more intelligent than he, but I'm afraid he's canny enough to have mapped this out all on his own, damn him for it just the same.” He sighed and gestured to the map. “What do you see?”

She looked but saw nothing different from what she'd seen the night before. The world was there, outlined faintly as if borders didn't matter as much as the portals to be found within those borders. There was nothing that stood out, nothing that seemed any less unsettling than what she'd already dealt with the night before. She looked at Rùnach and shrugged helplessly.

“It looks the same to me.”

“So I thought this morning. And then I realized there was something tucked into the pocket I'd made on the inside of the back leather binding.”

“Clever you.”

“Aren't I?” he said wryly. “It was covered with a spell, but apparently Acair is equally clever because he unraveled it. Or his mother did it for him. The material point being, there was something tucked inside that pocket.” He took a folded sheaf, unfolded it, then smoothed it out. “Does this look at all familiar?”

She took the page but saw nothing but more scratches. The sheaf was thinner somehow, though, as if it had either been made poorly or had been meant to go over something else. She studied it, then looked at the map laid out on the table. “If I could hold the entire thing up to the window—”

The table began to glow, which made her jump.

She looked at Uabhann in surprise. “Did you do that?”

He inclined his head. “Night light. Very useful for keeping nightmares at bay.”

And he would certainly know. She looked at the table, looked at the sheaf in her hand, then held it over the map to see if it might match anything there.

She was somehow unsurprised to find it did.

She was, however, very surprised to see how when she laid it down, there was a particular spot in Bruadair that was emphasized. She pulled her hand back because she feared its trembling might disturb the entire puzzle. She took an unsteady breath, then looked at Rùnach.

“The Guild?”

He nodded. “I think so.”

She looked at Muinear. “Did you know?”

Muinear looked, for the first time Aisling could remember, actually troubled. “I didn't. Rùnach, are you certain that is where the siphoning is occurring?”

“I'm more sure than I think I would like to be,” he said slowly. “But there is only one way to find out for certain.”

“Agreed,” Muinear said.

“I'll leave Aisling here—”

“Of course you won't,” Aisling said, before she thought better of it. And after she'd thought better of it, she looked at him with an expression she hoped said all she couldn't say. “You won't.”

“It won't be safe,” Rùnach said seriously. “Acair will likely be there. Sglaimir, assuredly.”

“But I know the Guild,” Aisling said.

“You'll spend the rest of today telling me what you know, then. I'll leave tonight and see to it.”

“But—”

“I've already been there once, Aisling. And it's not as if I'm planning to go knock on the front door and alert the Guildmistress to my intentions. I'll slip over the walls—”

Muinear shook her head. “In this, my boy, I have to be the bearer of very evil tidings. There is absolutely no possible way to enter the Guild without Iochdmhor knowing you have. The spell is impenetrable.”

Aisling watched Rùnach frown and wished she had the wherewithal to join him. All she could do was stand there and feel the cold hand of doom come to rest on her shoulder.

“Not even with a change of essence?” Rùnach asked carefully.

“Impenetrable,” Muinear repeated. “We've tested it a thousand ways with every spell possible.” She looked at him seriously. “Even with a spell or two of your father's, if you're curious. And don't tell Uachdaran or Sìle that their collection is a little less secure than they might want to believe.”

Aisling would have smiled but she was too busy trying to simply breathe. There was no worse hell than the Guild . . .

“I can't let Aisling go back inside,” Rùnach said quietly. “Lady Muinear, there are simply things you cannot expect me to do.”

“I'm not sure, Rùnach my lad, that you have any choice.”

He looked ashen. Aisling wasn't entirely sure she didn't look the same way. She took a deep breath and pushed aside thoughts she didn't want to entertain.

“Let's say we could find a way inside the Guild,” she said, “what then? If we stop the leak, we stop any more magic from leaving, but that doesn't solve getting back what's already gone.”

Rùnach turned to sit on the edge of the table. “True enough. For all I know, there's no way to get it back.”

“But it has weakened Bruadair,” she said quietly. “I can feel that.”

“But if we stop the flow—”

She shook her head. “It will take centuries to rebuild what has been lost, if it could even be rebuilt.” She took a deep breath. “We'll have to call it back.”

He grasped the edge of the table and looked at her. He looked paler than he had, if such a thing were possible.

“I don't think I have a spell for that,” he admitted slowly. “Well, save my father's spell of Diminishing.”

“And what does that do?”

“It's what he used to drain mages of their power,” he said grimly. “It was what Acair tried to use on me in front of my father's bolt-hole.”

“It wasn't very well done,” she said.

“One could hope Acair hasn't refined it since then,” Rùnach said seriously, “though I wouldn't be surprised to learn he had.” He considered, then shook his head. “I don't know, Aisling. I think I could perhaps draw all the rivers of magic back into Bruadair, but what do I do with them then? I know my father's spell, but I can't guarantee what it will do here and I'm honestly not sure I dare use it.”

“I wouldn't suggest it,” Uabhann said. “Very nasty things come with that spell, if you don't mind my saying so.” He shook his head. “The dreams your father has.” He shivered. “Unpleasant.”

Aisling was tempted to smile. “And do you help them along?”

“Well,” he said modestly, “that
is
what I do. But in Gair's case, unless I'm feeling particularly cheeky, I just leave him to his own devices. He frightens
me
.”

Rùnach patted the table next to him. Aisling was happy to lean for a bit, even happier to have his arm around her.

“I have been thinking about the magic that's already gone,” he offered. “What's been unraveled, if we can call it that.”

“Unraveled,” she echoed. “What a thought.”

“It is,” he agreed. He paused, then looked at her. “It occurred to me that perhaps there is a way to call it home.”

She knew what he was getting at before he even said the words. “You think I can spin it back here.”

“It seems logical,” he said, “though I can't believe I'm saying as much. The thought is not so much ridiculous as it is terrifying.”

“It might be difficult to contain something that's been loosed,” she said, finding it hard to speak for the sudden dryness in her mouth.

He shot her a wry look. “Well, we could make a journey to Shettlestoune, I suppose, and ask my father how that goes, but I think I might have enough experience with it to agree with you.” He looked off into the distance for several minutes in silence, then looked at her. “It would be interesting, though, wouldn't it, if you could draw it all back here to Bruadair.”

“That would be a fairly large bobbin, I imagine.”

“I daresay.” He continued to look at her. “It might be good to have help.”

“Can you spin?”

He smiled, pained. “You know I can't. But I imagine you could think of a few spinners, couldn't you?”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “This is becoming a very uncomfortable conversation.”

“Your brother's lady wife, Princess Sarah,” Muinear put in carefully. “She's a spinner, isn't she?”

Aisling watched Rùnach look at Muinear for a moment or two in silence, then let out his breath slowly.

“She is.”

“Are you thinking to have her come here?” Aisling asked in surprise.

Rùnach shook his head. “Sarah spun my father's power when it was hanging in the air between him and someone else, which is what I think your great-grandmother is getting at. But that was just a single person's power and all she had was a spindle.” He paused. “I don't think she has the power to create a wheel of sunlight, which you do. That might be enough to do what's needful.”

“Soilléir will frown at me if I do that again.”

“But Bruadair won't,” Rùnach said.

“There is something else you might want to consider,” Muinear said, “not to throw a pole between the spokes of your tidy wheel or anything.”

Rùnach smiled faintly. “My lady?”

“If you discovered this, Rùnach my dear, don't you think it's possible others might have discovered the same thing? Or have known about it long before now?”

Rùnach dragged his hand through his hair. “The thought has occurred to me.”

“What about the thought that there might be those looking for you to attempt to slip over the Guild's walls?”

He sighed. “What else am I to do?”

“We,” Aisling said, though it was the last thing she wanted to say. “What else are
we
to do.”

Muinear looked for the first time slightly weary. “I think, children,” she said with a sigh, “that you'll need to go to Beul, but I'm not sure you can go as you are.”

“More patina?” Rùnach asked grimly.

Muinear smiled briefly. “I noticed that Soilléir had applied a bit, which didn't surprise me. But nay. You'll need to do something a bit more drastic, I think.”

“More drastic than a change of essence?” Rùnach asked in surprise. “Is there such a thing?”

“Well,” Muinear said slowly, “if you were the Guildmistress and you were expecting someone, let's leave aside who for the moment, to attempt to come into your domain, what's the last thing you would expect?”

Aisling felt Rùnach go very still.

“I would never expect someone to simply walk in,” he said. His expression was very grim. “Shall I give myself up to the Guildmistress and allow her to chain me to a loom?”

“Nay,” Muinear said softly. “I think that perhaps Aisling should.”

Aisling had no idea if the conversation continued past that point, because she did the most reasonable and useful thing she'd done in at least a score and seven years.

She fainted.

I
t could be said that there were occasions when reminding oneself of all the miserable places one had been and terrible situations one had survived was quite useful. It gave a certain perspective to the dire straits currently being contemplated. Unfortunately, there were just some situations that couldn't be made any less horrifying, no matter what one tried.

Rùnach looked at the Guild in front of him and wondered if he were equal to thinking of anything miserable and terrible enough to possibly mitigate the horrors he fully expected his current locale to offer.

And not to him.

“I don't like this,” he murmured, not for the first time.

“I don't see any other possibility,” Bristeadh said very quietly, perhaps for the fourth or fifth time.

Rùnach had lost count.

“Let's raze the damned place and see what's in the cellar,” Rùnach suggested.

“I won't dignify that with a response.”

Rùnach would have looked at his love's father, but he'd been having the same conversation with the man for hours. He'd seen the absolutely haunted look in Bristeadh's eye. He didn't suppose seeing it once again would solve anything. He also imagined that allowing the man to see the same look in his own eye wasn't going to do anything useful.

He looked at Aisling who was standing a pace or two away, as still as if she'd been a statue. He couldn't begin to imagine what was going through her head. She'd fainted at the thought of going back into the Guild, though she'd claimed that had been because she'd been overwhelmed by lack of food and too much excitement over spinning and, well, other things she hadn't been able to articulate with any success.

Rùnach suspected she'd been lying through her teeth.

He shook his head, something he'd been doing for hours. He looked at Bristeadh and shook his head again.

“I can't do this,” he said. “I can't let her go back inside there. Not like this.”

Bristeadh looked at him for several minutes in silence, then sighed. “All I can say, son, is that I understand exactly what you're feeling.”

Rùnach closed his eyes briefly. “My sympathy for you is complete. I'm not sure how you managed this.”

“There was no other alternative, Rùnach,” Bristeadh said, then he cleared his throat as quietly as possible. “Better the Guild's horrors where she would be anonymous than out in the world where I had no means of protecting her. We didn't dare even leave her in Ciaradh given what had happened to my mother-in-law. At least Iochdmhor had no idea who she was at the time, so she was relatively safe. Miserable, but safe.”

“And now?”

“I don't know what Iochdmhor knows. She was obviously at my house recently, but whether or not she connects that place to me, I can't say.” He lifted one shoulder in the slightest of shrugs. “I don't think any of us are safe, but I imagine we never expected we would be.”

“And if she connects you with Aisling?”

“Then she'll slay me on the spot,” Bristeadh said, “though I don't think she will. Far better to make me pay dearly for not returning with her prize as quickly as I should have.”

Rùnach suppressed the urge to shake his head again. Their plan was to have Bristeadh drag Aisling into the Guild and present her as a trophy, Rùnach hard on his heels with a sorry tale about wanting to collect the bounty on her head given that her parents had refused to pay him what they owed him. There were more variables with the plan than he cared for, mostly concerning Aisling's foster parents. There was no way of knowing whether or not they'd talked to the Guildmistress after he and Aisling had visited.

He didn't like uncertainty. He and Keir had gone over every possible scenario before going to Ruamharaiche's well, endlessly and behind their mother's back. She had done the same thing with Keir, but Rùnach had never been included in the conversations. His brother was older than he was by several years, so he'd known that Sarait was trying to spare him any distress. Of course Keir had divulged everything she'd said just the same and they'd factored it into their plans and into the plans they had made with their mother. Every damned possibility had been accounted for.

Well, save the one that Gair would slay his three middle sons whilst taking their power with a single word.

Rùnach had no desire to make that same mistake again, but there were simply too many variables to account for them all. The Guildmistress, Sglaimir, Acair, and the magic sink itself: all things he couldn't predict and couldn't control. And he with magic that wasn't what he wanted it to be, Aisling with her essence as hidden as she and Muinear could hide it, and Bristeadh without any magic at all.

What he wouldn't have given for a contingent of powerful relatives, though he supposed if his grandfather arrived on wing he would simply attempt to order things about to his satisfaction and make an unholy mess of it all.

He looked at Bristeadh. “I don't like this.”

“What other choice do we have?”

“None,” Rùnach said, resigned. “But I don't like it.”

Bristeadh put his hand on Rùnach's shoulder briefly. “There is no one else to do this, Rùnach.”

“What of the other dreamspinners?” Rùnach asked wearily. “What of her bloody steward? Has he no magic?”

“Don't you think that if there were any other way, I would take it?”

“You, without magic?” Rùnach said, perhaps a bit more sharply than he'd intended.

“I would be fighting to the death to keep her from that accursed place if it took all my strength to my last breath,” Bristeadh said evenly. “As I believe you would do. Unfortunately, Aisling is the only one who can do this. She is the First.”

“Then sell me instead,” Rùnach said. The words came out of his mouth and he realized they were completely daft, but once they were hanging in the air in front of him, they made perfect sense. “We'll use a spell of essence changing and you can return me in her place and I'll see to things.” He looked around himself. “Where is that damned Soilléir when you need him?”

A throat cleared itself from behind him. “Here.”

Rùnach wasn't at all certain that was a welcome voice. He looked over his shoulder to find standing behind him none other than Soilléir of Cothromaiche himself, dressed as a fop. He frowned.

“How did you get here?”

“The usual way.”

Rùnach supposed it might be useful to ask a few pointed questions about Bruadair and its environs, but he suspected he would have the same answers he'd had at Inntrig, which were none. He looked over Soilléir's shoulder to find Ochadius of Riamh standing there, dressed like a palace guard.

“What are you doing?” Rùnach demanded. “Escorting us inside?”

“I have other things to see to,” Ochadius said hoarsely, “though if you find Acair, tie him up and leave him for me. I have a few things to repay him for, should I have the good fortune to find his throat within reach of my grasping hands.”

Rùnach winced. “I appreciate the time you bought us at Taigh Hall.”

“Happy to have been of service. Now, if you all will excuse me, I'll be off to make my own pieces of mischief.”

And with that, he walked away and disappeared into the darkness.

Rùnach turned to Soilléir. “Make me look like Aisling. I'll do what needs to be done, slay them all, then she can walk in and see to whatever's left.”

Soilléir looked at him for far longer in silence than Rùnach was comfortable with. He started to speak, but stopped when Aisling put her hand on his arm. Rùnach realized only then that she had come to stand next to him.

“I must go.”

Rùnach closed his eyes briefly, then looked at her. She looked so calm, he flinched. He reached for her hand and pulled her into his arms, holding her close. She wasn't shaking; he was. He looked over her head at Soilléir.

“Very well,” he said quietly. “We'll go as planned.”

Soilléir's expression was very serious. “I've done what I can.”

“I know.”

“I can do no more.”

“I know that too. Stay out of sight.”

“Are you protecting me now?” Soilléir asked with a faint smile.

“Yes,” Rùnach said simply.

Soilléir looked a little winded, which Rùnach supposed was nothing more than he deserved. If they survived the day, he supposed he might look back on that moment and enjoy his erstwhile host and mentor's inability to catch his breath.

He looked at Bristeadh. “Ready?”

Aisling's father nodded. Rùnach realized that Aisling was watching him, which made him wish he dared hold her one more time. Not one last time, but just once more before they walked into darkness he didn't want to try to imagine. But he knew the time for that had passed and there was nothing to be done but walk forward. He couldn't even bring himself to call the start of the battle, he simply waited for Bristeadh to take the lead and march them straight into hell.

It was almost as terrible as he'd imagined it would be. Bristeadh walked out of the shadows, dragging Aisling by the arm, and marched across the road right up to the Guild's front gates. Rùnach followed hard on his heels. The Guild guards were an unfortunately alert lot, surprisingly alert, actually, given that it was only a couple of hours before dawn.

That made him extremely nervous.

They were allowed in, however, without any fuss. He trotted out his best imitation of his grandfather, but even that didn't do anything to mitigate his unease. He stood in the Guild's vestibule, affecting a look of boredom laced with disdain coupled with a bit of outrage, and wondered how that might go over with anyone who was watching.

Time passed with excruciating slowness, though he supposed he expected nothing else. He waited with a fair bit of manufactured impatience until the Guildmistress herself sauntered into view. It was an effort not to flinch. If nothing else could be said about the woman, it had to be said that Iochdmhor of wherever she'd come from was terrifying. For a moment, he had the most overwhelming urge to fling himself forward and confess all his crimes.

Then again, his father had inspired that sort of thing now and again, but Rùnach was fairly sure Gair had used a spell. He didn't sense any magic coming from the woman who'd stopped in front of them and was looking at Aisling as if she'd been something recently scraped off the bottom of her shoe.

“I heard, but didn't believe,” she drawled. “I see I was mistaken.” She looked at Bristeadh. “You were successful.”

“It took longer than I anticipated, madame.”

Rùnach found himself under her scrutiny next.

“And what are
you
doing back here, merchant?”

“Her parents were unwilling to reimburse me for my goods and my time,” he said with a careless shrug. “Since I provided an escort for these two over the past several hours, I thought you might want to perhaps reward me for my trouble.”

“I daresay I might,” she said, looking at him as if she didn't quite see him. “I think I might want to repay you handsomely for your efforts.” She looked at the guard to her right. “Take George to the dungeon.”

Rùnach realized that's what Bristeadh was being called only after realizing that the Guild had a dungeon and that Aisling's father was going to be put in it. He forced himself not to react as Bristeadh was led off. A rescue would be accomplished soon enough if he could simply keep Aisling—

“And you,” the Guildmistress said, stepping close to Aisling and looking at her with an unwholesome light in her eye, “you, little runaway. Know that if it were my decision, I would have you flayed to within an inch of your life.” She stepped back. “Unfortunately, that decision is not mine. Guards, take her to the sinner's dorm.”

Rùnach hardly dared attempt to identify the look in the woman's eye, but there was definitely madness lurking there. It took all his willpower to keep from pulling Aisling behind him, but he forced himself to remain still as she was taken roughly by the arms as if she were somehow thought capable of overcoming everyone in the Guild and needed to be restrained.

Which, he supposed, might well be the case in the end.

“We'll go with her,” the Guildmistress said easily, “then I'll show you a guest chamber where you can rest from your journey. We'll discuss payment in the morning.”

Rùnach inclined his head because it was expected. He followed along after the guards and had to suppress the urge to knock one of them across the room after the man shoved Aisling so hard inside a chamber that she went sprawling. The door was slammed and locked without delay.

“And now you, good sir,” the Guildmistress said. “Follow me, if you will.”

Rùnach ignored the hair standing up on the back of his neck and followed her without balking. That she didn't look back at him even once made him wonder, but what was he to do? He had to be inside and this was the price he had to pay.