The Mage's Daughter (23 page)

“What is it?”

She leaned her cheek on her fist and studied him. “I was just looking at you.”

“Should I be nervous?”

“Nay, there's nothing more to it than that. I've always liked to look at you, truth be told. Even when I thought I didn't like you, I liked to look at you.”

“Thank you,” he said, finding to his surprise that he was starting to blush. “Not many lassies bother themselves to look at me.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because I generally encounter women thanks to their fathers' swords in their backs. I daresay what they're looking for is the nearest means of escape.” He shrugged. “Most of them don't care for my magic.”

“Then it's lucky for me I don't mind it, isn't it?”

He sat back with a smile. “Why, Morgan, I think you might have a few fond feelings for me.”

“'Tis possible, but if I were to tell you of them, you'd blush again and where would you be?” She pushed away her bowl. “Let's go. And I'd rather walk than nap, if it's all the same to you.”

“As you will,” he said. He rose and followed her from the buttery. He watched her out of the corner of his eye and wondered what she was thinking. She seemed very pensive and stopped now and again to look at this building or that passageway, as if she thought she might never see them again. He found her hand and laced his fingers with hers.

“We will come back,” he said quietly.

She looked up at him quickly. “You are reading my thoughts, aren't you?”

He shook his head. “Just watching you, as usual.”

She walked in silence with him until they reached the outer gates. She nodded to the gatekeeper, then walked with him across the bridge that spanned what looked remarkably like a dry moat. Miach would have walked on, but Morgan stopped him with her hand on his arm.

“I can't see anything in front of me,” she said finally. “It is all darkness. Well, except for one thing.”

“What?”

She looked up at him. “You.”

He pulled her into his arms so quickly, he suspected he'd pulled her off her feet. He hugged her tightly, then set her back down.

“All right,” he said briskly, “now
I'm
the one who needs to walk.”

“Will it count as wooing?” she asked slowly.

“Are you wooing
me
now?” he asked in surprise.

“I bested you so thoroughly in the lists this morning, I thought it might make you feel better.”

He laughed and put his arm around her shoulders. “I think you might be right.”

She stopped him. “Do you,” she began, then she had to pause. “Do you truly think we'll see it again? Lismòr?”

He wanted to assure her that she didn't need to worry, that they would return, but he couldn't. There were times he left Tor Neroche and wondered if it might be the last time he would see it. He wasn't a grim sort of lad by nature, but the task before him was sobering. Morgan was right to worry.

But as they stood there, he couldn't help but think things would turn out right in the end. Perhaps spring would come in spite of spells and evil and everything that was amiss in the realm. At least on Melksham, things were as they always were. The breeze was light and the smell of the sea something he realized he'd truly enjoyed at Gobhann, in spite of all the work.

“I think we will,” he said quietly. He took a deep breath, watched her do the same, then propelled her forward. “We'll return. But let's think on something else for the moment. I'm interested in hearing more about these wooing ideas—”

“Miach!”

He felt Morgan spin him around.

“Draw your sword, you fool!”

He found that her suggestion was unnecessary. Perhaps he should have been impressed that Weger's training had become such a part of him that he was fighting before he was fully conscious of doing so, but he was too unsettled by what he was seeing to spare that any thought.

There were a dozen of them, creatures from nightmares, creatures of the sort he and Morgan had met before. He half wondered if they had simply risen up from the ground. 'Twas a certainty that he hadn't seen them approaching. Then again, he hadn't been watching for them. He had no idea how they would manage to see to them all.

Then he realized that fighting wasn't all he had to worry about.

Morgan was weaving a spell of death—over them all.

“Morgan, stop!” he shouted.

“I can do this—”

He began to undo her words as quickly as she spoke them, pushing himself to keep up with what she was weaving and avoid losing his head at the same time.

He yanked a particularly loathsome thread from her spell and heard her curse him.

“Morgan, you're casting the spell over
all
of us!” he exclaimed as he bumped into her back. “Stop it!”

“I know what I'm doing—”

“You don't,” he said, stabbing a troll through the heart. “Just fight and stop the magic!”

“But there are too many of them,” she said, saving him from having his head cleaved in twain. “We have to do something.”

“I'll see to it.”

She stepped aside as he skewered a particularly misshapen creature through the belly. “Then be about it quickly,” she suggested.

He had to agree. He was going to have to do something—and soon—or they wouldn't last the day. He fought ferociously and heard Morgan behind him doing the same, but the tide was still coming in swiftly. He took a deep breath and prepared to kill the rest of the beasts with magic. Or he would have if he hadn't been interrupted by a savage roar sounding directly above him.

He jerked Morgan down to crouch next to him and scarcely managed to pull a spell of protection up over them before a glittering dragon swept down from the sky. The dragon covered the field with a fire so hot, Miach began to sweat.

The subsequent screams of their enemies were hard to listen to, and he wasn't unused to the noises of battle.

Soon there wasn't anything left of the trolls but charred remains.

Miach removed his spell, then pushed himself to his feet, pulling Morgan up with him. He glanced heavenward to see the dragon continuing to circle; he would address the identity of that one later. For now, he would see that Morgan didn't fall apart. He cleaned off his sword, resheathed it, then watched Morgan do the same. She turned to him, her eyes huge in her face.

“I didn't think about that spell,” she said with a violent shudder. “I wish I'd never heard a word of Olc. It comes far too easily to hand.”

He reached out and pulled her into his arms. She was trembling badly. “Unfortunately, my love, the most evil magic is ofttimes the easiest to use.” He paused for several moments, debating whether or not to say anything else. He could see, though, that he had no choice. “Morgan,” he said quietly, “either you have to stop using your magic entirely, or you have to know what you're doing. If you're going to be Morgan, then you must ignore that other part of yourself. But if you choose to be Mhorghain, then you have no choice but to learn to use your birthright. There may come a time when I cannot undo what you've done.”

She looked at him in surprise. “In truth?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “You do not realize it, perhaps, but your power is immense.”

She sighed deeply and rested her forehead against his shoulder. “I should have listened to you.”

“Repeat that to yourself several times a day,” he said with a smile. “I'm sure it will serve you well.”

She pulled back and met his eyes. “I'm too unsettled to give you the response that deserves.”

“I know,” he said gravely. He looked over her head, then put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “There's a distraction for you. Look at that shameless dragon making a final circle. Note the excessive and unnecessary amount of gems on his breast. I imagine his crown was just as overdone. Shocking, isn't it?”

“I fear to say aye, lest something else surprise me,” she managed. She paused. “I think I'm less shocked than simply
afraid
. I didn't expect any of this when I first put my hand to Mehar's knife.”

“I imagine you didn't,” he agreed. “Fear isn't a bad thing, though. It keeps you from doing something you shouldn't,” he said as he watched the dragon make lazy, swooping circles in the sky. “It takes courage to learn all the things you
could
do. Credit yourself for that, at least. And there are spells of defense in the other languages of magic. I can teach you those if you like.”

“What did you use on those creatures near Chagailt?”

“Wexham,” he said. “'Tis the magic that the rulers of Neroche have generally used in their wars. It was a quick and brutal spell, but not evil.”

“Is there a difference when it comes to death?” she asked.

“Perhaps not so much for the slain, but there is a great deal of difference for the mage.”

She sighed. “I'm surprised you're so cheerful when this is what you face each day.”

“Good and evil, my love. Life would be dreary without it.”

She put her hands over his, but said nothing.

Miach turned his attention to the dragon who had apparently decided enough was enough. He landed with a flourish some fifty paces away, dazzling them with his treasures. The next moment, the dragon was gone and Nicholas was walking toward them rubbing his hands together.

“That was interesting,” he said, looking as if it hadn't displeased him to be useful. “I don't have much call for scorching trolls these days, but I thought you needed an extra pair of hands. Or talons, as it were.” He looked about him and his expression grew more serious. “I think we saw to them all, but just in case I suggest a retreat inside the gates.” He snapped his fingers and all the corpses were gone. “Wine, children?”

Miach looked at Morgan, then at Nicholas. “Briefly.”

Nicholas nodded, then led them back through the gates and to his solar. Miach followed Morgan inside, then watched her as she propped her sword up in the corner as she always did. He noticed, though, that she hesitated as she did it, as if she had some especial thought attached. He supposed he knew what she was thinking, so he made no note of it. He took a seat next to her in front of Nicholas's fire.

Nicholas brought a bottle and three goblets, then made quick work of pouring wine all around.

“So,” he said, handing Miach and Morgan their glasses, “what was that, do you think?”

“What's been hunting us all along,” Miach said.
Or hunting Morgan, rather,
he thought, but he didn't say as much. He looked at Nicholas and suspected that the old man was thinking the same thing.

“Do you sense any more of them?” Nicholas asked.

Miach cast about the island, but felt nothing. Then again, he hadn't known those were there either. “They are covered by something that eludes me,” he admitted unwillingly. “I haven't yet been able to unravel their spell of concealment, though I will say I've never seen its like before. And they saw through my spell of un-noticing—which no one sees through. Well,” he amended, “except Morgan.”

Nicholas looked at him sharply. “That is odd, isn't it?” He looked at Morgan. “Did you know those brutes were there?”

“Me?” she asked, sounding surprised. “I have no idea. I hadn't considered that I might be able to.”

“I think that the next time you encounter these creatures, children, you should both take another moment to see what spell covers them. Perhaps you'll determine why it is they are coming for you.”

Miach cursed silently. “I hadn't thought about it before, but I suspect 'tis our magic that has drawn them here. I wasn't careful at Gobhann and neither of us has been so here. The shapechanging alone could have been enough to do it. And I think that before we somehow draw more of them to your home, Your Majesty, we should be on our way.”

Nicholas smiled at him. “That sort of deference, lad, might have earned you a pair of saddlebags packed by my cook, but I imagine you won't be traveling on horseback, will you?”

“I think we must fly,” Miach conceded, “but I can erase those tracks easily enough. No one will sense our passing, or the magic that made the shapechanging happen.”

“Devious,” Nicholas remarked.

“I learned the art from Lothar,” Miach said dryly. “I can hide quite a few things, but I'll limit it to just our shapechanging for the moment.” He looked at Morgan. “We'll make for Angesand first and beg a meal from Hearn. We'll gather tidings, then head east.” He rose. “My thanks, Your Grace, for the refuge. We needed it.”

Nicholas rose as well. He embraced Morgan, then put his hand on Miach's shoulder. “I would tell you to be careful, but you are that already.” He smiled at them both. “I'll expect you back at some point.”