Princess of the Sword (13 page)
Read Princess of the Sword Online
Authors: Lynn Kurland
Miach knew Léir was humoring him; Léir was powerful in ways he was too modest to admit. He was also cruel in ways that didn’t bear admitting either.
Never mind that that cruelty was usually for the best.
Miach watched Morgan as she bent over the sheaf of paper. She considered for a moment or two, then quickly wrote out in a very fine hand a very complicated spell of opening. The words of Olc slithered in and out of spells of Camanaë, twisting them, uprooting them, turning them into something ugly and repulsive. There were other things there as well, glimpses of magics that were equally as vile. But Miach wasn’t a weak-kneed maid either, so he read along as Morgan wrote, pitying her that such things were inside her head, casting a shadow over her soul.
She finished suddenly, shoved the quill at Léir, then pushed her chair back. She leapt to her feet and pulled Miach up to his.
“Let’s fly.”
“We cannot,” he said, seeing by the haunted look in her eye just how much what she’d done had cost her. “You cannot use your magic here lest everyone know who you are.” He paused. “We could run, though, if you like.”
She nodded and pulled him toward the door. Miach spared Léir a look before he shut the door.
His servant was sidling over to him, hugging the shadows as if he couldn’t bear to be in the light. He stopped behind Léir and looked down at the paper still lying on the table.
Miach would have given that more thought, but Morgan’s fingers tangled with his were starting to cause him pain. He supposed there would be time enough to unravel other mysteries later, when she’d agreed to come back inside.
He wouldn’t have blamed her if she wouldn’t.
Seven
M
organ paced about Master Soilléir’s chamber restlessly, unable to sit and enjoy the after-supper conversation. Her legs ached from an hour spent running around the inside of Buidseachd’s bailey, but that discomfort wasn’t distraction enough from the darkness she now found creeping toward her again.
organ paced about Master Soilléir’s chamber restlessly, unable to sit and enjoy the after-supper conversation. Her legs ached from an hour spent running around the inside of Buidseachd’s bailey, but that discomfort wasn’t distraction enough from the darkness she now found creeping toward her again.
She wandered around the room, touching books, looking at tapestries, searching for something else to think about besides where she was and what she’d done that afternoon. Finally, she came to a stop at the window. Soilléir’s windows faced north, which she supposed was pleasant enough during high summer. Now, though, the sun had set and the gloom outside was very disquieting. Not even the reflections of the candles on the table behind her and the men she was quite fond of helped her overmuch.
The words of her father’s spell swam before her eyes and the darkness of them was complete.
She turned away and started to make another circle of the chamber. The occupants of the table didn’t pay her any heed. Her grandfather was too busy being flattered by Master Ceannard, who had somehow slipped into Soilléir’s chamber along with supper. Sosar and Turah were busy discussing things she imagined had to do with ill-mannered tavern wenches. Miach was sitting there with his eyes closed, working on his spells of ward. He’d been willing to pace with her, but she’d declined his offer. He was exhausted and Neroche’s defenses had to be attended to before he could sleep. Perhaps Master Ceannard could be persuaded to leave soon, so he could be about the latter.
She stopped in front of the fire and stared into it for several minutes before she realized she wasn’t alone. She looked up to find Master Soilléir standing next to her.
“Am I forgiven yet?” he asked politely.
She shot him a weak glare. “I’m thinking on it.”
He only smiled, a small, charming smile that made her suspect he had his own share of faeries fawning over him whenever possible. “I’m sorry, Morgan,” he said, his smile fading. “If I might call you that. I’m sorry for what you’ve faced in your childhood, for what I forced you to face earlier today . . . and for what you’ll face next.”
“I’m not afraid of difficult things,” she said, lifting her chin.
“I imagine you aren’t,” he said. “And I suppose I shouldn’t wish away the pain of the road you’ll walk along. A blade is only strong because of the fire it passes through, isn’t it?” He studied her for a moment or two. “Have you ever forged a blade, Your Highness?”
Morgan shifted uncomfortably. “I haven’t.” She had certainly destroyed one, but perhaps his sight wasn’t clear enough to see that.
“Perhaps you’ll have the chance someday,” he said. “If you do, you might like to incorporate a few more magical elements into the fashioning of it, as many have done before you.”
“You mean like Catrìona of Croxteth?” she asked, happy to turn the conversation to someone besides herself and something besides the ruined Sword of Angesand. “Miach told me her tale one night when I couldn’t bear to sleep.”
“I was thinking of her, actually.” He looked at her casually. “You know, I gave Catrìona the spell to make her sword sing.”
“Did you?” Morgan asked in surprise.
“Aye. I also taught it to Mehar of Neroche, but only after she’d already forged her very famous sword. She used it on the knife you carry in your boot and the ring you wear on your hand. Her sword always seemed to sing on its own, though, for some reason.” He looked at her with a faint smile. “Or at least it did when it was in one piece.”
Morgan shut her mouth with a snap when she realized it was hanging open. “I have no secrets, I see.”
“Not many,” he agreed. “I see echoes of the shards of the Sword of Angesand floating in the air around you, shimmering with power, much like the runes your grandfather placed about your wrist.”
“And here I thought I was keeping my unsavory deeds to myself.”
He only smiled. “I wouldn’t presume to pry into why you did what you did, though I imagine you had cause. I will, however, give you Catrìona’s spell before you go, if you like.”
“Would you?” she asked, doing her best to mask her surprise. She knew the tortures Miach had gone through simply to apply to the man for a few spells. “Why?”
“Penance,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
She smiled in spite of herself. “Then I accept.”
“I thought you might.”
She nodded, then felt her smile fade. Thinking about spells for swords reminded her that she needed spells for other things. She cast about for something else to talk about so she could avoid the unpleasant a bit longer.
“Do you see things about everyone?” she asked Soilléir, latching onto the first distraction she could think of.
He nodded solemnly.
She wasn’t one to delve too deeply into any species of magic, but she found herself more curious about his particular sort of it than she should have been. Perhaps it was that she had seen so much of Olc that day that anything else would have been a relief to face. And given that Weger wasn’t there to needle her if she asked questions he wouldn’t have approved of, she thought she might venture one or two more.
“Does it work on everyone? For instance, do you see things about my grandfather?”
“Aye,” he said with a small smile. He turned to look at Sìle. “I see the echoes of his runes first and foremost. Then gossamer layer after layer of the centuries he has lived. Every spell, every flaw in the cloth that overextension of his power has left, every marring of his soul that grief has left behind; ’tis all there for the viewing. But mostly I see a riot of colors, glittering and beautiful, as if out of a dream.”
She found, to her profound surprise, that she wished she could see as Soilléir did.
But that would require the seven rings of mastery, then whatever other tortures Soilléir would put her through until he deigned to give her a spell or two. Miach might have managed it, but she was quite certain she wouldn’t.
That she had even considered the price was truly appalling.
“Prince Sosar carries that same beauty about him,” Soilléir went on, “though it has not run so deeply in him yet. He is still but a sturdy sapling, of course, compared to the mighty oak that is his sire, but age and experience will no doubt color him as well at some point.”
“And Miach?”
Soilléir clasped his hands behind his back and studied Miach for a moment or two. “Miach is Neroche,” he began slowly, “with its ancient mountains sending their roots deep in the earth, its terrible winds sweeping across the plains, its highland meadows full of endless flowers. He is Chagailt with its painful beauty, its bubbling brooks laughing as they cascade over rocks and tumble along banks, its endless rain. His foundations stretch so far down into the earth that there’s no separating him from the land, or the realm, or its magic. And now, laid over it all, is the glamour of Tòrr Dòrainn, something he’s entitled to by birth and is now heir to because of his love for you.” He turned slightly toward her and smiled. “Do you think?”
She had to take a deep breath. “Aye, I daresay it describes him very well.”
“Shall I tell you what I see in you?”
“Can I stop you?”
He looked at her with the same gentle pity Miach had often in his eyes. “Morgan, no one is completely full of light. Not your grandfather, nor your father, nor your love over there pouring the bulk of his strength into spells meant to keep the darkness at bay.” He studied her thoughtfully for a moment or two. “I think you have the courage to know what I see.”
She swallowed, painfully, then nodded.
He lifted the hood back away from her face and studied her. “I see the fire that burns along a freshly forged sword, the beauty of the light of first sun on the peaks of the Sgùrrachs, the shadows of Ceangail where no spring ever comes. You are those dreams that tangle men’s feet as they walk through Seanagarra, under the boughs of trees that whisper Fadairian songs, through the air full of the sweet smell of spring and the sharp taste of rain. And underneath all that,” he continued, “is a well of power that springs from sources that are pure and beautiful. Ainneamh, Camanaë, Tòrr Dòrainn . . . the heritage you claim from those sources will color you just as it has your grandfather.” He smiled. “You have drunk deeply from a very bitter well, my dear, but there will come a day when you’ll have the chance to drink just as deeply from a well of joy.”
She had to take several deep, steadying breaths before she trusted herself to speak. “I think you flatter me.”
“Never,” he said seriously. “I will say, though, that you won’t see those things yourself until you dispel the darkness—a darkness that you did not choose, by the way. But often we cannot choose what surrounds us. All we can do is choose to change ourselves to master it.”
She nodded, then found herself unable to move. A thought occurred to her, a thought that filled her with such dreadful hope, she hardly dared voice it. She was standing next to the man who had given Miach all the spells of essence changing he knew.
What if he could change more than just fire to air?
She gathered her courage and looked at him. “Miach says you can change the nature of things with your magic.”
“Judiciously.”
She plunged ahead before she thought better of it. “Could you change what spews from my father’s well?”
He winced. “That is a terrible question.”
She only waited. She couldn’t unask it.
He sighed. “Perhaps I could, but I dare not. To change either good or evil would unbalance the world in a way that would destroy it.” He smiled at her. “Besides, if there were no evil, what would there be for good men to do?”
“Put their feet up in front of the fire and enjoy?”
He smiled. “Dull.”
“Safe.”
“But at what cost?” He shook his head. “Nay, Morgan, there are things in this world that shouldn’t be made to be other than what they are. To change them is to the change the fates of men and mages both.”
She nodded, because she knew he was right. There were no easy answers for what she faced, no matter how much she wished otherwise.
“And you don’t know, lass, that you weren’t given this place in the history of the Nine Kingdoms because you were the only one who could see what needed to be done—and had the courage to do it. To take away what will refine you in a fire you didn’t create would be to rob you of the light you were meant to have.”
“I wish it were a battle with swords.”
He laughed and put his hand briefly on her shoulder. “I daresay you do, gel. I daresay you do.”
Morgan sighed, thanked him kindly for the pleasant conversation, excused herself and began her circle of the chamber again before she had to think any longer on what they’d discussed. Aye, it would have been easier indeed had the battle been with swords.
She touched Miach’s head in passing before she thought better of it, then realized she’d also neglected to pull her hood back up over her face.
Master Ceannard dropped his fork onto his plate so loudly, she jumped. He stared at her for a moment or two, then leapt to his feet and looked at Sìle in astonishment. “My eyes deceive me.”
Sìle sighed gustily. “My long-lost granddaughter, as you can plainly see.” He shot Ceannard a pointed look. “I wish that her identity remain secret, for reasons that are known only to myself. Those who help me in this endeavor might find themselves invited to her wedding at Seanagarra.”
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