Wandering Lark (8 page)

“The only conspiracy I see is the one you are dangerously provoking,” Etienne said. “If it should get out that you have twisted the laws, all to satisfy your insatiable revenge over the death of the woman you loved, I believe you might find yourself seeking other employment.”

Turlough charged out of his chair, and for a moment, she thought he might actually give in to the urge to cross the chamber and strike her for that remark. But if she had learned anything dealing with Fenelon, it was never to cower from Turlough’s rage. So she held herself stiff as a post, daring him to complete the move with her eyes.
Give me a reason to defend myself and prove you are mad,
she thought.

He did not cover the distance, however, but stopped where he was, looking away. “You can still provoke me as easily as Fenelon, but unlike the feelings I harbor against him, I find it difficult to hate you, Etienne.”

“I’m to be grateful for that, I imagine,” she said.

“Do you still want to see him?” he asked.

“You would actually allow it?” she said.

“Under escort, of course,” he said. “You are still under house arrest.”

“Very well, but what do you hope to gain from this?” she asked plainly.

“Some sense,” Turlough said and started for the door. “Come.”

“Now? What about Shona?”

“Your healer friend has her ear to the door, I imagine,” he said, and even as he opened it, the healer was there, her face livid. She blustered into the room, head bowed. Turlough looked back at Etienne. “Well?” he said.

Etienne stood up with what quiet dignity she could muster and followed him out of her quarters. They were met at the entrance of the women’s hall by guards. Mistress Wallace was there as well, looking quite dourly upon the High Mage. Her expression softened at the sight of Etienne.

“Well, come along. I shall be quite pleased to see the expression on his face when I let you visit him.”

Etienne was willing to bet it would not be a pleasant look.

Gareth followed the trail
of Ronan’s magic until he came to the ruins of a broch. There, he discovered the marking on the ground around the menhir. The magic he had been trailing stopped there. As if it had stepped into the stone itself.

“By the Silver Wheel,” he muttered as he knelt to study the marks more carefully.

There was no doubt in his mind that Ronan had made this. Ronan’s essence was everywhere. Gareth saw that the cardinal points were ancient elemental runes, but the other marks—he had to admit he had never seen their likeness before. Even as he touched them gently with his fingers, hoping not to obliterate them, he could sense that magic had been used here. Magic of an ilk too ancient to understand. He frowned.

He had only encountered such magic in one place in his travels through the Great Ranges. Beyond them and to the east, lie the mythical lands of Garrowye. Gareth drew out the brass farthing and looked at it carefully. His mind crawled back to a time before Fenelon was even conceived. Gareth had begun his travels through the Great Ranges as much to escape his own father and the harridan to whom he was then betrothed as to satisfy his curiosity about what lie beyond the known world. He had not even married his second wife, the lovely Sive Mulryan. The mother of his children had yet to be born.

Since the ranges had never been fully explored, or even partially explored, he had chosen to try and find a way through. Many a false trail dead-ended in canyons or just twisted back in a circle and brought him to the place he started again. He had studied all the old texts he could find. There were a few remaining bits of parchment that had been brought through the Great Ranges by the Haxon priests and scholars who eventually settled in Ross-Mhor. He knew from those and from his studies that the Haxons had been led along a long trail that wound under as well as between the mountains, a trail known only to the Stone Folk and the Hidden Folk of Haxon lore. Determined as he was, he made several trips, but always failed.

But there was the one time that he got lost. Then he had fallen into a ravine and been carried along by a river that forked into two, and the rushing water forced him down one path that threw him into a cavern hole. How long he traveled underground, he could not say, but at length the river tunnel spat him out into another gorge. Most of his supplies were gone, and he had barely managed to get out of the frigid waters alive. But his accident had given him a glimpse of what he had sought, or so he thought, for the riverbank that he was forced to follow was definitely some sort of trail. And it took him out of the mountains, going northeast, and into a green valley.

There, he found the remains of a village that looked to have been destroyed by a slide. Strangely, there were no bodies, but then, some of the stone and sediments had settled enough to indicate that this tragedy took place long before his own birth, likely at the time of the Great Cataclysm, if not before.

What he had found was a marker stone with a picture of some sort of hammer wielding figure. Thunor. This had been a Haxon village he thought. But then, he had found other things. Stones bearing writings he could not read. And a sense that some magic resided in the place. Ancient magic he could not comprehend.

Ancient magic that prevented him from finding his way back. For as soon as he gated out to civilization, it was as though his mind lost that little bit of awareness. A mageborn had to have been to a place, or be given knowledge of it, to gate there. What he found, when he tried to return, was that some magical barrier kept turning him away. He even tried finding the place where he fell into the river the first time, thinking he could follow its course. He ended up wandering for such a long time, and the impression he got was that there were greater magics laid there than he or any mageborn could imagine.

Magics that if his memory served him, felt a lot like what he was experiencing now.

You took him to your homeland, didn’t you, Ronan.

Not good. Gareth hoped he could find the way there. Like as not, there was no way he could decipher this gate spell and follow them that way.

All right, then,
he thought.
I shall gate to the Great River in Feenagh, and from there, to the north east of Ross-Mhor.

And perhaps, with luck, from that border he could find one of the Stone Folk who still dwelled in or knew the Ranges and barter for passage to Garrowye.

The sight of Fenelon shackled
to the wall like some torture victim sent a twinge of anger and concern through Etienne as she stepped into the tower room. She glared at Turlough.

“This is an outrage,” she said.

“But necessary,” Turlough said, staying outside the door. “I do not trust him.”

Etienne narrowed her eyes.
As if you should be trusted?

Whether Turlough sensed her thought, she was unsure. But his expression soured. “He has not made it easy on himself,” he said. “He would do well to follow your example, which I am sure he will not. Go on. Speak to him. I will leave you two alone. There is no way either of you can escape.”

With that, Turlough stepped back from the door. It was closed, and Etienne felt the magical locks sealed. She turned towards Fenelon and paused.

He was no longer in the shackles. In fact, he was leaning casually against the wall, arms across his chest, wearing one of his infuriating smiles. She opened her mouth to ask how, but he put a finger to his lips to still her shock. She took a deep breath and quickly crossed the room and took his hands.

“How did you do that?” she whispered. “Turlough would have fits if he knew.”

“My father said it wasn’t possible,” Fenelon said softly and grinned. “So naturally, I had to prove him wrong.” He drew arms around her and put his lips to hers, and for moments, there was no reason to speak.

At length, though, he broke off the kiss and smiled at her as he pressed his forehead to her. Inside her head, she heard him ask,
“How’s Shona?”

“They stopped the death bolt,”
Etienne thought back.
“But she has not regained consciousness.”

“So we have no idea what happened down there,”
Fenelon said.

“Turlough said he was going to have you sundered and executed at dawn, and that your father had been sent to hunt Alaric and Vagner.”

“I know,”
Fenelon said.
“My father has already been here. Turlough is ransoming my life, which I don’t like.”

“Nor I,”
she said.
“I didn’t realize just how deep his hatred of demons was. Poor Alaric.”

“Hopefully, he didn’t hang around where I sent him,”
Fenelon said.
“I wish I could have sent him to my father.”

“But then, Turlough would have Alaric now.”

Fenelon smiled.
“I doubt it. Father’s got a head on his shoulders, and he doesn’t believe the things Turlough does are right. I dare say, when he finds Alaric, he will do what he can to protect him.”

“So all we can do is wait,”
she said.
“You here in your shackles, and I in my quarters with Shona.”

He shrugged.
“How about your other apprentices?”

“Turlough took them away to keep me from corrupting them.”
She frowned.

“Not good,”
Fenelon said.
“I was hoping we could put them to work.”

“Doing what?”

“Errands, of course,”
Fenelon said.
“We need someone we can trust who can run errands.”

“For what purpose?”

“Because, I have no intention of staying cooped up in this tower any longer than I have to,”
Fenelon said and smiled.
“Which means I need someone to come in here and take my place.”

Eithne pulled back, fixing him with a startled look. “I’m not sure I like the way you have said that,” she whispered and wagged a finger at him. “If you fail.”

Fenelon drew her back to renew the contact. Once more, she felt him pushing his thoughts into her head.
“I can’t get into any deeper trouble than I already am,”
Fenelon said.

“Ha,”
she said.
“Just who did you have in mind to replace you?”

“
Wendon,”
he said.

Etienne drew back as though he had presented her with a serpent. “Wendon?” she whispered. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” he said and pulled her close.
“Stop breaking away, love. I’m very serious. Remember, if I transform someone so they will look like me, they have to be about the same size.”

“Wendon is no where near your height or coloring.”

“But he’s the right weight, and that means his change would make him my height,”
Fenelon said.

“And just what makes you think he will go along with this?”

“Wendon wants knowledge, love,”
Fenelon said.
“He wants to be a master mage, and he’ll gladly pay the price no matter what it costs.”

This time, Fenelon released her and chucked a finger under her chin. She took a deep breath and glanced towards the door. “All right, I’ll see what I can arrange. Mind you, it won’t be easy.”

He smiled and kissed her quickly. “Nothing ever is, love,” he said and lowered his voice. “The next time you see me, I won’t be in this tower. I won’t even look like me.”

“Just be careful,” she said.

“For Alaric’s sake, I have to.”

The door bolts were pulled suddenly. Fenelon threw himself against the wall, and the shackles locked back into place as the door opened. Etienne felt her heart beating rapidly, and knew her face was flushed.

“Well, well, look who’s here,” Fenelon said. “Don’t you have some small children to frighten?”

Turlough stepped in. “Is he going to tell you where he sent Alaric Braidwine?” the High Mage asked.