“You’re damned right we—” Acair began. He would have finished, but he was distracted by the spell Soilléir was using. It wasn’t essence changing, but it was something very much like it. “What was that?” he asked.
“Something I dug up out of one of my grandfather’s books,” Soilléir said mildly. “Interesting, isn’t it?”
“Have the book with you?”
Soilléir looked at him with perhaps what passed with him for a smile. “What do you think?”
“I think you probably returned it to its spot and hoped Seannair wouldn’t notice, what with all the dust disturbed, that you’d been nosing about his solar.”
“Library,” Soilléir corrected.
“How interesting,” Acair said smoothly. “I’ll remember that.”
Soilléir did smile then. “You’ll never get past the front gates.”
“I can certainly try.”
Soilléir looked at Mhorghain. “He is impossible, you know.”
“I think he’s just like you,” Mhorghain said seriously. “All you mages are always on the hunt for the next spell. Never satisfied with what you have.”
Soilléir raised his eyebrows briefly at her, then set his cup aside and looked at Acair. “You sent out a call for help and I’ve come. What do you need?”
Acair realized he was spluttering and it took him more time than it should have to control it. “Help,” he gasped. “I never asked you for help. I want you to get rid of that damned spell over there so I can be about my business without dying.”
“Whom did you offend this time?”
“I could have offended the entire world and it wouldn’t change the fact that I need to use my magic without being slain for the same!”
“Humor me.”
Acair would have preferred to do damage to him, but there were many reasons why Soilléir couldn’t aid him if he were dead, so he had another fortifying drink of his ale and dredged up the last remaining shreds of his patience.
“I’ll be brief,” he said, lest Soilléir think they were going to be chatting all day. “I stepped in a spot of shadow, apparently stirred up a hornet’s nest, and I’ve been trying to keep myself alive ever since by running from an ever-increasing collection of black mages. Is that clear enough for you?”
Soilléir only lifted an eyebrow. “I’d prefer to have a few more details, actually. If you wouldn’t mind.”
Acair minded very much, but he was also a realist. He would have nothing out of the fool sitting across from him until the man had satisfied his curiosity. But if he knew what was good for him, he would consider that curiosity satisfied sooner rather than later.
“Léirsinn,” Acair said, “the lass running the stables where you sent me to serve out my hellish sentence, had been seeing spots on the ground, things that are only shadows of shadows. I found them unusual, so I thought I would investigate the same by stepping in one, just to see what it would do to me.”
“Of course you did,” Soilléir said mildly. “Your curiosity, Acair, will someday be the last thing you indulge. Very well, what happened then?”
“It assaulted me,” he said, “and I’m still trying to forget the great tussle I had trying to rip myself out of its midst. I’m not too proud to say I believe I left a part of myself behind.”
“Flesh?”
“Soul.”
Soilléir considered the depths of his cup for a moment or two, then looked up. “Did you see these spots anywhere besides Sàraichte?”
“Lake Cladach and Aherin. I believe there was one in Beinn òrain as well, but my memory fails me about the particulars of that. I was rather occupied at the time.”
“Busy being chased by Droch?” Soilléir asked politely.
“Aye, and finding that you’d done the unthinkable and flitted off on a bloody holiday,” Acair said pointedly. “Who do you think you are taking days of leisure when there is evil afoot in the world?”
Soilléir looked at him for a moment or two in silence, then glanced at Mhorghain. “There are times I don’t think he listens to what comes out of his mouth.”
Acair cursed him. “I’m not talking about my sort of evil—and aye, I hear everything that comes out of my mouth. Sometimes I repeat the pithier statements to myself at bedtime to send me off properly into a blissful slumber, but that isn’t the point here. Those spots are in places I wouldn’t expect them to be. Why would anyone put anything untoward in Aherin?” He looked at Mhorghain. “Have you seen anything like them at Tor Neroche?”
She shook her head, wide-eyed. “I haven’t. I’m not sure I would have thought to be looking for them, though.”
“Well, if you do see any, I suggest not stepping in them. I am no woman when it comes to pain, but pulling myself free from that damned thing was quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever felt.”
“And then what?” Soilléir asked.
Acair looked at him narrowly. “And then, as I said, I found my life in peril, beginning with a pair of mages trying to murder me in my sleep in Sàraichte. If Léirsinn hadn’t put crossbow bolts in them, I would be dead. I wasn’t at my leisure to examine those bolts and we unfortunately left them behind in our haste to flee that damned barn, but I suspect they were enspelled.” He blew out his breath in frustration. “Who knows who has them now.”
“That was ill-advised,” Soilléir offered. “Leaving them behind, that is.”
“And you almost got me killed, which was perhaps just as ill-advised,” Acair shot back. “You and your vaunted Seeing. Did you not see this coming down the road toward you? Nay, toward me, rather?”
“’Tis possible to make mistakes.”
Acair wasn’t entirely sure Soilléir wasn’t mocking him, but he was quite certain he didn’t care for where those words might be leading. “I wish you wouldn’t admit that. It leaves me a little uneasy about the fate of the world, if you must know.”
“I suppose you’ll have to shoulder a bit of the burden.”
“Me?” Acair hardly knew how to respond to that. “Thank you, but nay. I am utterly uninterested in any more do-gooding—”
“Why not you?” Soilléir interrupted. “Your ancestors are noble. Your father’s are, definitely. And I think you might give your mother too little credit.”
“I give my mother just as much credit as she deserves, the old harridan,” Acair said with a snort. “If you think she longs for a happy, peaceful world, she has beguiled you as thoroughly as she does most everyone who walks through her door.”
“I think she has perhaps stepped back from the issues of good and evil,” Soilléir conceded, “which leaves her in a unique position to simply watch the world as it unfolds before her. She is, as you well know, a very committed diarist.”
“With a collection of spells that would make you wince,” Acair said, “which perhaps you didn’t know.”
“Oh, I know,” Soilléir said. “We’ve discussed them more than once over tea. And speaking of things discussed over tea, you should know that she’s enormously proud of you.”
“She has reason, I suppose.”
Mhorghain laughed. Acair wasn’t sure he shouldn’t have been offended, but he was finding that he quite liked a grown-up Mhorghain of Tòrr Dòrainn, her choice of husbands aside. He watched her lean closer to Soilléir.
“He’s not exactly what he likes people to think, is he?”
“He is a mystery,” Soilléir said. “Conflicted, I daresay, but absolutely fearless, if one must begin a list of his finer points.”
“I am,” Acair agreed, “which is why your grandfather had best send a diligent maidservant in to dust his library, that he might know when I’ve come to pay a call to investigate his most treasured and hidden of spellbooks. Now, before I find myself dazzled beyond measure by that thought, let’s get back to the matter at hand.”
“Those spot
s,” Soilléir agreed slowly. “Any ideas on what they are?”
Acair almost threw up his hands in frustration. “I don’t give a bloody damn about those spots. I’m talking about that spell over there in the corner! I want to be free of it so I can find out why I’m not seeing the usual suspects trailing after me with my murder at the top of their hastily scrawled lists of things to do before supper. Is that clear enough for you?”
Soilléir frowned. Acair didn’t care for the look at all mostly because it contained an alarming amount of something that might have been termed I haven’t a bloody clue if the look had been worn by someone else.
“Don’t tell me you don’t know what that spell is,” Acair said, because he couldn’t not say it.
“I haven’t a bloody clue.”
Acair realized he was halfway across the table only because his sister’s hand was suddenly there against the middle of his chest, holding him still in mid-lunge. She was, he had to admit, rather strong for a wench. She looked him in the eye.
“Don’t.”
“But I want to so badly.”
“You cannot fight him in your present state,” she reminded him.
“In any state,” Soilléir offered, then smiled. “Just thought you ought to remember that.”
Acair sat back down with a curse, then glared at Soilléir. “You know, for someone who paints himself as always above the fray, you can be a great whacking bastard from time to time.”
Soilléir sighed. “I know. I think I need a change.”
“Fine, let me help you with that,” Acair said. “I’ll give you my spells and you give me yours. We’ll meet back up in a year and see where we are.”
Soilléir laughed reluctantly. “Heaven forbid.” He considered, then sighed. “I must tell you, Acair, that this whole thing is odd.”
“Then take off that bloody spell and let me see to it in the normal way!”
“I’ll go have a look at it.” Soilléir rose and looked at Mhorghain. “If Her Majesty will excuse me?”
She only smiled and waved him on. Acair watched him go, then looked back at his sister.
“I don’t know how you endure him so often.”
“You like him,” she remarked.
“I can’t bloody stand him. Now, if he were to break into his grandfather’s solar library with me, then step aside as I helped myself to the most potent of those Cothromaichian spells, well, then we might have something.”
“He never would.”
“See? Doomed from the start.” He paused and looked at her. “Don’t suppose you know any of those spells of his.”
“Don’t suppose I would share if I did.”
“You, my wee sisterling, have spent far too much time in Weger’s company.” He shook his head. “Hard-hearted wench.”
She only smiled, so he supposed she knew he wasn’t completely in earnest. He waited, considered a quick game of cards to refill his purse, contemplated with even more seriousness lifting the purse of a fat lord in the corner, then watched as Soilléir came back into the gathering hall. He looked perplexed, which Acair just couldn’t believe was a good thing.
Soilléir sat, drank, then simply stared at him.
“Well?” Acair demanded finally.
“That’s not my spell.”
Acair retrieved his jaw from where it had fallen to his chest. “But . . . well, then ’tis something of Rùnach’s that he made using your spells. You can remove his spell just as easily.”
“It doesn’t belong to either of us,” Soilléir said. “Honestly, I have absolutely no idea how it came to be.”
Acair felt his mouth working. He would have attempted to force a few choice insults out whilst he was flapping his lips, as it were, but he was simply too astonished for words. He shook his head, then realized he was sitting there, shaking his head as if he couldn’t latch onto anything else useful to say.
“But that can’t be,” he managed finally.
“Unfortunately, it is. ’Tis a very elegant thing, though. I’ve never seen its like before.” Soilléir shrugged. “I have no idea—”
“Stop saying that!” Acair exclaimed. “Good hell, Soilléir, what am I to do now?”
“Be careful?”
He exchanged a look with Mhorghain, which resulted in his not bothering to lean over the table and strangle that damned mage sitting there. He blew out his breath, then tossed a pair of coins on the table.
“For myself and the feisty one there,” he said. “You can pay for your own drink, you useless whoreson.”
“I think I should—”
“Consider how greatly you’ll mourn the loss of your spells?” Acair finished for him, bitterly. “Aye, you should, for when I have my magic back to hand, you will find yourself missing them.” He rose. “Come along, Morgan, and we’ll leave this fool to his excuses.”
He walked out of the door, snarling at his spellish companion as it left the inn with them. He walked a goodly distance away—no sense in terrifying the locals with a robust bit of shapechanging—then looked at his sister. “Well.”
“I’m sorry, Acair,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure what else to say. There is dancing to look forward to tonight, if that helps.”
He shot her a look, but realized immediately that she was only trying to distract him out of pity. “Perfect,” he said, trying to match her light tone. “And perhaps I’ll kill Mansourah before supper, just to pass the time.”
“I’m sure he would enjoy that.” She paused, considered, then looked at him gravely. “We could fly for a bit, if you think better that way.”
He looked at her in a fair bit of surprise. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“I’m not an inventive shapechanger,” she admitted, “but if you give me a spell you like, I’ll see what I can do.”
He wasn’t one given to astonishment, but he could hardly believe what he’d just heard. “You would trust me that far,” he said, almost unable to spew the words out. “To use one of my spells.”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“That isn’t an answer, I don’t think. I’m too off balance to properly judge, though.”
She smiled. “What’s your pleasure? Wind? Hummingbirds? An evil intention?”
“Heaven preserve me should I teach you that shape,” he said faintly. “But a brisk wind? Aye, that might do. Just don’t leave me strewn about the plains, if you don’t mind.”
“I won’t—”
“Acair, wait.”
He shut his mouth around the spell he was going to give Mhorghain when he found that Soilléir had come to stand next to them. He had appeared rather suddenly, which Acair supposed should have left him wanting to curse the man for his ability to change his shape into a swift thought, but in truth, he was simply too frustrated to do anything but snap at him.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
Soilléir looked hesitant. Of all the things Acair had seen and heard in the past pair of hours, that was the thing that unsettled him the most.
“I may have details you should hear,” Soilléir said.
Acair realized that Mhorghain had come to stand shoulder to shoulder with him. He would have told her he didn’t need protection, but the truth was, he wasn’t sure he didn’t. He raised an eyebrow at her briefly, then looked at the mage in front of him.
“Do tell,” he said coolly.
Soilléir looked at Mhorghain. “You may not want to hear this.”
“She’s a strong-stomached wench,” Acair said promptly. That and he thought he might want to use her shoulder as a handy place to lay his head and weep when he heard what he was certain would be Soilléir admitting that that damned spell of death was his but he’d forgotten how to destroy it. “She needn’t leave on my account.”
“Very well, if she likes,” Soilléir said slowly. He seemed to gat
her his thoughts for far longer than it should have taken him before he spoke. “Why do you think we sent you to Sàraichte?” he asked.
“To shovel manure,” Acair said without hesitation, then he rolled his eyes at the look of disbelief on Soilléir’s face. “How the bloody hell should I know why you sent . . . me . . .”
He stopped speaking because he had to.
A stillness had descended over their little tableau there in the clearing, a stillness unlike anything he’d ever experienced before and his life was not without its memorable moments. Those had been confined generally to his irrevocably changing the lives of those he had chosen to vex, but there it was. He was not an elven prince, sprinkling his sparkling spells over everything in sight like so much faery dust. He was a ruthless, powerful mage, wreaking havoc and altering the course of kingdoms.
He didn’t like thinking that his own life was about to be changed past all recognition.
A numbness started at the top of his head and spread rapidly downward. He was afraid he might be fainting. Perhaps that was more obvious than he cared it to be because Mhorghain had quite suddenly pulled his arm over her shoulders. The wench was strong, he would give her that, and ignored him when he made a sound of protest.
He forced himself to take a deep, even breath. “Why did you send me to Sàraichte?” he managed.
“To walk where I cannot.”
“Walk?” Acair echoed with as much disdain as he could drape over the word. “Aye, all I can do is walk because I can’t bloody shapechange—and apparently you can’t make that any different for me!”
The faintest of smiles crossed the man’s face. “You know what I mean.”
Acair looked at him and felt as though he were looking at him for the first time. He leaned on his sister for a moment or two, then felt some of his old enthusiasm and strength return. He ceased holding on to her as if she were the only thing keeping him on his feet—which she had been, he had to admit—and simply kept his arm around her shoulders in a casual sort of brotherly way. “I vow I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” he said, attempting a yawn.