Princess of the Sword (21 page)
Read Princess of the Sword Online
Authors: Lynn Kurland
Miach smiled and made Sìle a low bow. “We’ll meet you in Durial, Your Grace. A safe journey to you and Sosar both.”
“Take care of Mhorghain.”
“I will.” He exchanged a look with Sosar, then turned himself into a bitter wind.
“Disgusting,” Sìle said loudly.
Miach suppressed the urge to ruffle the king of Tòrr Dòrainn’s hair in response, then rose swiftly into the air. He paused and searched briefly for Morgan’s essence. He wasn’t looking in Neroche or any of her territories, so he wasn’t terribly surprised that he couldn’t sense her.
Well, that and all of Ceangail was covered with spells of confusion and aversion.
He would be about his business quickly, then search by more pedestrian means.
Dawn was just breaking when he reached the glade containing Gair’s well. It wasn’t a place he returned to gladly, for he’d been there a fortnight ago and had unpleasant dreams about it ever since.
It was no wonder Morgan had had nightmares in the fall.
He allowed himself to seep through the spells of illusion that still covered the forest, but he didn’t dare resume his proper shape when he reached the ground. He simply kept himself intermingled with the dank air there.
He merely watched for several minutes, waiting to see if anything had changed from his last visit. The well was still slightly open, still oozing evil. Miach watched as the evil dropped bit by bit into a depression made in the earth directly in front of the opening. In time, when enough evil was gathered there, a creature began to form itself from a spell that had been laid there for that exact purpose.
It was a spell he had destroyed a fortnight earlier. That it had been repaired since then said that Lothar had been busy whilst Miach’d been off doing other things.
Miach had no sense of him there at present, but that wasn’t a guarantee of anything. Lothar was not an apprentice and he had spent centuries perfecting the art of lurking in darkened corners where he might work his foul arts in peace. Miach could understand Sìle’s loathing of Droch, but his own hatred of Lothar of Wychweald made Sìle’s pale by comparison. It wasn’t something he thought on often, which was probably for the best. He wouldn’t be unhappy, however, to thwart Lothar in the piece of iniquity before him.
He very slowly and with great care floated across the glade. The creature who was now fully formed paid him no heed, which boded well. Miach allowed it to go its way unmolested, then he hung over the well and looked down to see if there might be anything useful there. It took him a moment to realize that the well’s cap was not as he’d left it.
Admittedly, the last time he’d been there trying to shut the thing, he’d been chased off by trolls. It was conceivable that he was remembering things amiss—but he would have bet gold that the cap had been tampered with. As if someone were trying to open it.
He cursed. There was surely nothing Lothar would have wanted more than to have opened that bloody thing fully and taken all its power to himself. It was, after all, what he did best.
And he might have managed to harness the power of the well now that most of that power had been lost a score of years ago when Gair had opened it. At least it wouldn’t erupt so violently that Lothar would find himself crushed beneath its contents as Gair had. Miach had no way of knowing what was left, but the fact that it was even trickling twenty years later said there was at least enough to make the effort of having it worth the price to be paid.
He started to float away, then something caught his eye. He looked more closely and saw that someone had indeed been trying to pry the cap off.
With a sword.
The marks were there, scratches in the rock that hadn’t been there before. Miach would have gaped if he’d been able. He looked a bit longer, saw not only the marks from a sword, but little bits of ash as if someone had tried to burn the rock itself.
Two
people trying to remove the cap? Those attempts were nothing Lothar would have stooped to. Those were the marks of someone without any useful magic and a decided lack of patience and good sense. He considered, then decided to call the effort what it was.
Two
people trying to remove the cap? Those attempts were nothing Lothar would have stooped to. Those were the marks of someone without any useful magic and a decided lack of patience and good sense. He considered, then decided to call the effort what it was.
Completely daft.
He supposed Cruadal might have been frustrated enough to try to set the cap on fire, but he couldn’t imagine him trying to use a sword to open Gair’s well. He looked around carefully, but saw nothing in the glade save the troll who was now walking into the trees. No sign of either black mage or irritating elven prince. Indeed, there was no sound at all, as if nothing living could bear to remain nearby. He could understand that very well.
He looked about the glade, made certain it was as empty as he’d found it, then forced himself to float up and through the spell above without any haste whatsoever. He’d proved to himself that Lothar was indeed still obsessed with what the well could do for him, found something that was too ridiculous to even be taken seriously, and come to the conclusion that leaving Morgan alone was a very bad idea indeed. There was no guarantee that Lothar was in the area . . . but there wasn’t any reason to believe that he might not be either.
Miach turned and bolted east.
Eleven
M
organ sat next to a very small fire she’d built in an equally small clearing and permitted herself a brief moment of reflection on the undeniable truths she was currently faced with.
organ sat next to a very small fire she’d built in an equally small clearing and permitted herself a brief moment of reflection on the undeniable truths she was currently faced with.
First, she was not and never would be very good with a map—especially a map that had been drawn in the dirt and erased before she could truly commit it to memory. She was fairly certain she had been going in the right direction for the past two days. She could, after all, still tell east from west and she felt fairly safe in betting that as long as she went up into the mountains, she was going north. Then again, she didn’t remember Ceangail’s keep being due north from where they’d been, so for all she knew, she was headed off toward paths she wouldn’t particularly care for.
Second was a puzzle of a slightly more unsettling nature. She was being followed. She’d realized it within hours of leaving her companions behind. She would have credited it to Miach simply being perverse by following her in a guise other than his own form, but the shape—or lack thereof, as was the case—was covered in Olc. And if that hadn’t been unsettling enough, she’d been almost positive that the first shape had been joined by another sometime during the previous night, but she was the first to admit that she wasn’t at her best at present and it had much to do with the fact that she hadn’t slept very much in the past two days.
And that lack of sleep had everything to do with the companions she’d acquired.
She lifted her head and looked around her at the lads who sat in a circle just outside the light of her fire. Monstrous trolls, the lot of them. The first ones who’d stumbled upon her had tried to capture her, then howled when they realized that for some reason, they dared not. She had put several of that batch out of their misery without hesitation. The remainder had stopped shouting, apparently preferring to merely snarl at her. Morgan had stared at them for several minutes, Mehar’s knife in one hand and her sword in the other, until she realized what had probably been saving her. She had slipped Mehar’s knife back into her boot, then reached under the neck of her tunic and pulled out her mother’s amulet.
The trolls had shrieked in fear and fallen back.
That might have been a boon if they’d actually scampered off to bother someone else. Unfortunately, they seemed to find her to their liking. They had followed her as she had taken up her journey again, collecting fellow brutes on the way, until she found herself with quite an escort as she made her way into the mountains. It must have been a terrifying sight, but she supposed it had likely saved her from more unsavory hands.
Well, save that lad covered in Olc who seemed to be following her just for the sport of it.
She hadn’t dared sleep except in very brief fits. Every time she’d woken, the creatures had been sitting just as they were now, in a circle around her, just out of the light of her fire, just out of the reach of the magic contained in her mother’s pendant.
Damnation, what was she going to do now?
Well, she was going to do what she’d done in the past. She was going to sneak inside the keep, catch the lord unawares, then put a knife to his neck and threaten him with acute harm until he gave her what she wanted. If Ceangail was full of darkness, the lord should be full of spells, and he should have a good idea of where the worst spells his library had to offer were kept. And perhaps he was as susceptible to a blade in his back as the next evil lord.
She had to believe it. She had no other choice.
She got up, stomped out the flames of her small fire, then considered her options. She supposed she could continue on with her companions, but it wouldn’t help her any to arrive at the keep with a score of terrors at her heels announcing her presence. She looked at the creatures that were now on their feet as well, their gazes locked on her. There was, she supposed, no point in trying to reason with them or tell them what she planned.
She took a deep breath, then leapt up suddenly into the air as a hawk. She chose that because she only knew how to change her shape into two things and she supposed dragonshape might not be all that inconspicuous. As an afterthought, she drew a spell of un-noticing over herself, then flapped off away from the sunlight that was now beginning to spread from the east.
The trolls were not pleased. She supposed any hope of secrecy had been ruined by their howls of dismay. She couldn’t say that she was going to miss them particularly—they were spectacularly frightening-looking—but she had become accustomed to them. Weger would have been appalled.
Then again, knowing what she knew about him now, perhaps he wouldn’t have been.
She decided, an hour later, that taking wing had been a wise choice. The only reason she found the keep was because she saw it in the distance—well to her left, not in front of her.
She landed carefully atop a bit of parapet that was still intact. Perhaps flying had been the wisest choice for more than one reason. It was a miracle that any of the stones still remained standing atop each other. Trying to scale that wall would have been nigh onto impossible.
She hopped down onto the walkway, then resumed her proper shape, flattening herself against the stones until a guardsman walked past her, yawning. She had hoped for a keep full of drunkards so she might be about her business whilst they slept off their stupor, but the lad who walked past her was unfortunately quite sober. Perhaps she would have better luck inside.
She followed the guardsman in front of her as he made for the tower door. She slipped in behind him as he opened it, then leapt out of his way before he could shut it on her.
He did, apparently, try to shut it on someone else.
The only reason she knew this was that she could hear that someone else cursing. She certainly wasn’t going to look behind her to see who might or might not have been there.
She never allowed herself to panic, but she also wasn’t one to linger where moving suited her better—especially when moving might prevent her from having to see what was in the guardsman’s way.
Obviously now that she didn’t have her gruesome companions, that soul who had been following her—Cruadal, she decided without hesitation—had decided she was unprotected enough to be taken. Why he’d thought doing so inside Dìobhail was wise, she couldn’t fathom, but it was yet another reason to believe it was Cruadal. He was a fool—and a dangerous one.
She ran lightly down the circular stairs, leaping aside to avoid someone coming up them. She stepped out of the stairwell—
And felt her spell of un-noticing be stripped from her instantly.
Spells tangled about her and held her in place. She tried to pull her feet free of them, but with no success. She groped for Mehar’s knife and used it liberally. She was almost surprised to find that it severed the spells as if they’d been naught but worn threads. The only thing that ruined that happy bit of good fortune was the fact that once she cut one spell, another sprang up to take its place.
She cursed viciously as she continued to cut through spells. The sooner she found the vile lord of Ceangail, the better off she would be. At least she could force him to call off the magic that tormented her.
She drew her sword and carried on as best she could. She continually fought both the spells that caught at her and the men who confronted her. The man behind her seemed to be doing the same thing. It was either take the time to dispatch him or press on. She chose the latter. And once she had the lord of the keep at her mercy, she would demand that he toss Cruadal into a dungeon that would hopefully be full of very unpleasant spells.
She bested the guards standing in front of what she hoped were the great hall doors, then commanded the doors to open. They obeyed her without hesitation, which surprised her, but she didn’t pause to examine it. She strode inside and was vastly relieved to find that the floor was no longer swimming with things she was going to have to wade through. That was made up for, though, by the number and viciousness of the men who attacked her from all sides.
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