Dreamer's Daughter (26 page)

The man waved his hand and Sglaimir crumpled to the ground. Aisling didn't bother to look to see if he breathed still. There was something about the older man standing there that made her extremely uneasy.

He looked at the Guildmistress and smiled. “She's the First Dreamspinner, Iochdmhor, and you're a fool.”

“The what?” the Guildmistress echoed, looking down her nose at him. “And who are you to insult me that way?”

“I know who he is,” Rùnach said. “He's Carach of Mùig. Unless I'm mistaken.”

“Never said you weren't clever, lad,” the man said. “But powerful? You are nothing compared to your father.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

“You shouldn't.”

“Who are you,” the Guildmistress demanded, “and why have you come to disturb our parley?”

“Oh, I suppose you might call it that,” Carach said with a smile, “but I wouldn't bother. To introduce myself, I'll just say that I'm young Sglaimir's grandfather.”

“Oh,” the Guildmistress said. “I didn't know.”

“Of course you didn't know,” Carach said, looking at her as if she possessed no wits whatsoever. “Why would I want you to know?”

“Familial affection?” Acair offered.

Acair went flying, landing on his back in an undignified sprawl. Aisling felt very cold all of the sudden. She supposed that was terror. It wasn't just an angry bastard of Gair's they were dealing with. She could look at Carach and see the layers of his life built up over centuries, only the layers weren't haphazard or unkempt. They were the layers of a man who had methodically and deliberately chosen evil every single time when a choice was offered him. She wasn't even sure what to call the magic she could see running through his veins, but whatever it was, it was very dark.

“I didn't ask for you to come here,” the Guildmistress said stiffly, “so if you'll be off—”

“Oh, I don't think 'tis me who'll
be off
, my dear,” Carach said. “I have come for that girl there because she will spin the world's power out of the very earth on which we stand, then hand it over to me because I tell her to. You were instructed to keep her safely captive in your guild, which you have done fairly well until recently. But now that I have her and unlimited power at my fingertips, I have no more need of you.”

Aisling realized her mouth had fallen open only because she heard some sort of noise come from within herself. She thought it might have been a scream, but she wasn't sure she was equal to identifying it. All she could do was watch the Guildmistress go rushing across the garden, absolutely not under her own power, and fling herself into the fountain.

She disappeared with a long wail.

Sglaimir heaved himself to his feet and started to run, but he met the same fate. Aisling would have run as well but before she could force herself to move, she found herself in Carach's sights—

Until Rùnach stepped in front of her.

“Why don't you dispatch me first,” Rùnach said quietly. “If you have the courage to.”

Aisling was still looking for the courage to do something,
anything
, when she found her hand taken. She didn't have the time to even protest that before she was stumbling along the portico and being pulled down behind what looked remarkably like a crypt. She realized her rescuer was none other than Acair of Ceangail.

“You,” she managed.

“I know,” he said, looking thoroughly unsettled. “It must be something I ate for breakfast, which I actually didn't have because you and Rùnach—damn you both to hell—were at this business too early for my stomach.”

Aisling felt a shudder run through her and she wasn't sure if it was for herself or Rùnach. She eased up to peek over the edge of the stone but Acair jerked her back down.

“Are you mad?” he whispered. “Don't let him see us. He'll suck us dry and leave us as husks if he can.”

“Can he?” she managed. “Take our magic, I mean. Does he have that spell?”

“Diminishing? No idea, though I imagine he has something very much like it.”

“Why does everyone want that horrible spell?”

“Power,” Acair said distinctly.

“Is there never enough for you black mages?”

“Never,” he said grimly, “which is why we'll let Rùnach distract him long enough for me to clunk him over the head and render him senseless. Then I'll take
his
power. Yours, too, if I can manage it. I imagine by that time, Rùnach will be so exhausted, he'll hand his over freely.”

She very much doubted that, but supposed there was no reason to say as much. She looked at Acair skeptically. “I thought you didn't have that spell.”

“Oh, I do.” He paused, then shifted. “Mostly.”

“I don't think it works with just
mostly
. Why don't you go help instead? I think you can do that with only part of a heart and a full tally of rudeness.”

“You have a point there,” he conceded. “My mother has no manners and my father was—is, rather—an arrogant whoreson. I'm operating under reduced circumstances, if you will.”

She frowned at him because in spite of everything, she had the feeling he wasn't completely without the odd redeeming quality. “I don't trust you.”

“Very wise.”

“Don't make any sudden moves,” she whispered sharply. “You won't like what happens to you otherwise.”

He blew out his breath. “Trust me, I've seen your handiwork on my older brother. I'll just sit here like a powerless lad and let your lover there die for us. And as to the old bastard who'll be killing him, if you weren't paying attention, that's Carach of Mùig. A very nasty sort, old as death. I'm not entirely sure my father didn't steal a few of his spells.” He nodded. “There's a bit of revenge here, I daresay.”

“Then go help!”

Acair looked torn. “I might sally forth and step on what's left of the victor's neck. We'll see.”

He stopped speaking, at least to her, which she supposed was a good thing. Then again, perhaps that was because Carach of Mùig had tossed a spell of death their way and Acair apparently had a keen sense of self-preservation. He drew a spell of protection over them, which Bruadair protested with a screech. He glared at her.

“You do it.”

She drew a net of loveliness over them that Carach's spell didn't care for in the least.

To her dismay, neither did Rùnach's.

She realized that he was using magic that wasn't at all pleasant and spells that he couldn't possibly have learned anywhere but from his father's book. She watched in horror for far too long before she couldn't let him continue. She stood up to stop him, but Acair pulled her back down in spite of her protests.

“He's Gair's son,” Acair said coolly. “What did you expect?”

“For him not to destroy himself with your father's spells,” she said, shaking off his hand. “I'm not sure he sees—”

“Aye,” Acair said quietly, “he does. Look.”

She watched Rùnach stop, then take a deep breath. Acair cursed him, but Aisling felt a sigh come from deep inside her. Rùnach continued to counter Carach's spells, but he was no longer using things that were causing Bruadair to shrink from him. Unfortunately, even with her country's attempts at shoring up his strength, Aisling could see that he was weakening.

And Carach's spells were unyielding, as if they had come from the deepest mines of the dwarf king's palace.

“That's a nice blade.”

She blinked and looked at Rùnach's half brother. “What are you talking about?”

“I'm looking for spoils,” he said philosophically. “Rùnach's sword. Where'd he get that?”

Sword
. Aisling leaped to her feet. “Rùnach, your sword!”

He looked at her blankly, as if he'd heard her words but simply couldn't understand their meaning. Aisling shook off Acair's hand and rushed out from behind the crypt. If she could just get to his sword, or convince him to draw it, or perhaps even use the knife stuck down the side of his boot—

Without warning, Carach of Mùig backhanded Rùnach, sending him stumbling to one side. Before Aisling could rush forward or Rùnach regain his balance, Carach had pulled the knife from Rùnach's boot and turned.

Aisling watched that spell-laced blade coming toward her, accompanied as it was by Carach's spells she could scarce bear to look at, and knew she was going to die.

And still the blade came.

R
ùnach spun around to the sound of a slap. He realized only then that it hadn't been Carach of Mùig's fist across his face to make that noise, it had been his knife going into Aisling's chest—

Nay, not Aisling's.

Acair's.

He could hardly believe his bastard brother had taken a blade meant for Aisling, but there was no other conclusion to come to. He realized at that instant that he had less than a heartbeat to decide what to do and do it before Carach made his next move.

He didn't even attempt a breath. He simply took the first thing that came to hand, a spell of elven glamour as it happened, and wove it over his foe. He slammed the edges of it into the ground, anchoring it without apology to the faintest hint of Bruadarian magic, then covered it with a spell of containment.

Carach whirled around and looked at the spell in surprise. Then he shot Rùnach a look of disbelief before he laughed.

“You have no idea who I am, do you, boy?”

“You might be surprised,” Rùnach said.

Carach ripped aside the spells as if they'd been threadbare cloth. Rùnach refused to be baited. Mockery had been one of his father's favorite weapons against him and his brothers. It was difficult to ignore, but not impossible. He steeled himself for the next wave of terrible things and wasn't at all disappointed.

The only thing that aided him, he decided after an eternity had passed, was that he had spent an afternoon with Uachdaran of Léige having Carach's own spells thrown at him. At least he wasn't surprised by anything he saw presently.

He was surprised, however, by the things that he found himself reaching for. Again. He had already used half a dozen things of his father's, terrible spells that should have had the mage facing him backing up a pace, at least.

Bruadair was silent, as if it understood what he had to do.

He wished he'd had another choice. He didn't want to think about what the cost to his soul would be if he didn't do something besides use vile magic to fight vile magic.

And then something happened that he hadn't expected at all. He realized abruptly that Carach had lost his hold on his own magic, as if it had been a dream he'd been able to cling to for only a few minutes after he'd woken.

The look on Carach's face once he realized he was reaching for dreams was almost worth the time he himself had spent in Uachdaran of Léige's lists.

Aisling was spinning his power out of him. Rùnach might have considered pointing out to her that even Diminishing couldn't compare to what she was doing, but he thought it was best that he just keep his damned mouth shut. Besides, it wasn't only Aisling manning the tiller, as it were. He could see Bruadair's magic swirling around her just as it had when she'd first encountered it in an underground river where they had been on the verge of drowning. Now, Bruadair seemed to aiding her, however faintly, in rescuing itself.

Carach was not pleased.

“Stop it, you . . . you . . .”

“Dreamspinner,” Aisling said crisply. “The First Dreamspinner, if you want to be exact. You are trying to rob my country of its birthright and I will not allow it.”

Rùnach thought he might want to find somewhere to sit very soon. If he managed to see his grandmother Brèagha again, he would ask her to paint that woman there just as she was at present: a slender, pale, impossibly beautiful barrier between a black mage and the destruction of an entire country.

She was breathtaking.

Carach took a step back, then whirled to look at Rùnach. “I will not submit.”

“Then draw your sword,” Rùnach said with a shrug, “and let's see if that's just for show or not.”

Perhaps it wasn't a fair fight. Rùnach's last encounter on any serious level had been with Scrymgeour Weger, after all, and that after several days of a brutal training regimen. It took him less time than perhaps it should have to disarm Carach and leave him standing there, swearing furiously.

“Rùnach, move!”

He looked at Aisling in surprise, then spun around to see what she was pointing at. He leapt out of the way of tendrils of magic that were slithering out from the fountain. The stench that accompanied that magic reminded him so sharply of what his father had loosed, he almost lost his gorge. Aisling pulled him out of the way and held his arm tightly as the magic felt for Carach. It surrounded him in an embrace he obviously wasn't going to escape, then drew him inexorably to itself.

He went over the edge of the fountain and into its depths with a shriek.

Rùnach pulled Aisling into his arms. He wasn't surprised to find he was the one shaking, not she. He stood there with her until he thought he could speak without weeping.

“Thank you,” he managed.

She tightened her arms around him so quickly, he lost his breath, then she pulled back and looked at him. “You're welcome. But I had help.”

“I think you were the one offering help,” he said. “You were magnificent, by the way.”

She lifted her chin. “I decided I wasn't going to look at the ground anymore.”

“Weger would be impressed.”

“I'll tell him.”

“I think he'll notice before you can.” He nodded toward the fountain basin. “We should close that.”

“Wait,” she said, taking his arm before he could walk away. “We can't yet.”

“Why—oh.”

She nodded. “Oh.”

He resheathed his sword. “What can I do?”

“I'm not sure yet,” she said slowly. “Let me see if I can spin the magic back here, then we'll decide what to do with it.”

He nodded, then watched her consider. He supposed it wouldn't be a terrible thing to sit for a moment or two, so he found a handy stone bench and availed himself of it. He looked down to find his bastard brother lying at his feet, gasping as if each breath were his last.

He reached over and yanked the knife from Acair's body, then healed him with the first thing that came to mind. Acair put his hand over his chest, sat up, and glared at him.

“Fadaire?” he accused.

“It was all I could think of in a tight spot,” Rùnach said with a yawn. “Shut up and let Aisling work, would you?”

Acair patted his chest suspiciously. “You put something inside there.”

“I wouldn't have bothered. It's probably leavings from the blade. Soilléir gave it to Aisling so I can't guarantee what was on it.”

“I feel an undue warmth in the vicinity of my heart.”

“Heartburn from all your vile deeds,” Rùnach said. “And still shut up.”

Acair fell silent, thankfully. Rùnach watched Aisling continue to spin. He realized Acair was watching as well because his half brother was making the sort of noises a body makes when it's on the verge of a faint.

Aisling had created a flywheel and bobbin out of air and sunlight and was spinning magic back from the fountain. She looked over her shoulder.

“Help.”

He pushed himself to his feet and strode over to her. “How?”

“Things are coming with it that I don't like. What can you do?”

“Pick them out as I see them?”

“Perfect.”

And so he did. He realized that Aisling had done the same thing as she'd been spinning his magic out of him, which led him to believe that whatever darkness had been left inside him was of his own making. Muinear would have something philosophical to say about it, he was sure of that.

Time passed in a way he couldn't measure. He worked with what Aisling was spinning until he was almost blind from a weariness he suspected was exacerbated by the spells he'd used against Carach of Mùig. At the very moment when he thought he might have to unman himself by begging Aisling for a rest, the last of Bruadair's magic was drawn from the fountain. Aisling sighed deeply, then fashioned a loom of sunlight. He would have told her that he was beginning to suspect she'd found her favorite medium with which to create otherworldly things, but he was too damned tired to.

“A rest?” he asked hopefully.

She shook her head. “I'm fine. I'll sleep later.” She paused. “What of you?”

“If you can continue, so can I,” he said, hoping that would be the case.

She leaned over, kissed him, then smiled. “I love you.”

“I think you've inspired me to bear up for at least another quarter hour.”

She laughed a little, then began to weave what she'd spun until it was an enormous piece of fabric that sparkled with endless facets of light and shadow. She looked at him and sighed.

“What now, do you suppose? A dwarvish spell?”

“That seems a little indelicate,” he said slowly, “don't you think?”

“What would you suggest?”

“Mist?”

“Can you do mist?” she asked.

“Today, Aisling, I think I can do anything.”

She smiled and stepped back. “Then the task is yours, my love.”

He considered, then decided he couldn't make a bigger fool of himself than he had by using his father's damned spells earlier. He posed a silent, casual question to Bruadair's magic that was spread out on that loom in front of him and was almost surprised to find the decision of what to do was left up to him.

If he managed to survive the rest of the day without weeping, he would be very surprised.

He gathered the cloth of magic, infused it with the spell for creating a healing mist his grandfather had learned from his own land, then flung the magic up into the sky. He watched, openmouthed, as it spread almost instantly farther than he could see. And then, to his utter surprise, magic fell like rain.

Or, rather, mist.

Aisling laughed, then put her arms around him and held him tightly. “Beautiful.”

He held her close, closed his eyes, and wished for nothing more than any place to lie his sorry self down and sleep for a fortnight. He sighed and looked at the fountain.

“We need to close that portal still.”

“Will you?”

“Will Bruadair mind a Cothromaichian spell—or perhaps not.” He had known Bruadair had a mind of its own when it came to things inside the border, but now that magic was drenching everything the country's opinions were undeniably clear. He took the spell he was given, wove it over the portal, and felt to his bones how the entire doorway calcified, then sealed itself closed with a faint click.

He thought he might have to sleep not for a fortnight, but a solid month. He yawned, covered his mouth as an afterthought, then put his arm around Aisling's shoulders.

“Let's find somewhere to sit.”

“Let's find somewhere to nap.”

He smiled and kissed her hair. “That too.” He yawned again, then walked with her to where Acair stood, still looking terribly unsettled. Rùnach wasn't at all prepared to forgive him—he was a complete bastard, after all, in every sense of the word—but perhaps leaving him alive wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. He considered, then looked at Aisling.

“What shall we do with him?” he asked.

“Do?” Acair echoed. “What do you mean,
do
? As if either of you had the power to
do
anything with me!”

Rùnach looked at Aisling. “You could give him nightmares. Well, not you, exactly, but you have people who do that sort of thing.”

“I'm not afraid of nightmares,” Acair said haughtily.

“Nay, not nightmares,” Aisling said slowly. “Something less dark.”

“Unicorns and dancing elven maidens?” Acair asked sourly.

Aisling looked at Rùnach. “Unicorns?”

“I believe those definitely
are
creatures from myth,” he said with a smile.

“I don't know,” she said slowly. “I think perhaps there are things in this world we haven't investigated yet—”

“Spare the world any more of your quests,” Acair interrupted.

Rùnach looked at him coolly. “You know, you're not helping your case any. You did, after all, try to steal all the world's power.”

“I'm my father's son,” Acair said with a shrug. “And my mother's. It's in the blood.”

“Why did I avoid it?”

“Too much of your mother in you,” Acair said. “I can't help that.”

Rùnach looked at the half brother who had made his life so miserable as a youth and supposed that perhaps even Acair couldn't help some of his predilections. After all, both his parents had been less than stellar souls. But that didn't mean he couldn't do a little penance and then retire quietly to a little spot in some obscure country where he could at least refrain from attempting to undo the world.

“We could have him go round and apologize to those he tried to use for his own nefarious purposes,” Aisling suggested.

“And why,” Acair said in disbelief, “would I do that?”

“Because,” Rùnach said, “I know all Soilléir's spells of essence changing and if you don't, I'll turn you into a gargoyle for your mother's front porch. Or, better still, a servant to the faeries of Siabhreach.”