Ruith leaned back against Franciscus’s wagon, suppressing the urge to beg the man for a hefty tankard of ale in which to drown his thoughts, and allowed himself a brief moment of repose and speculation.
How was it that Sarah had lived her entire life as a witchwoman’s daughter without having inherited any of her mother’s magic? Had her mother known?
Did Daniel know?
He imagined that it had been an unspoken secret. The question was, why? What reason would her mother, a woman notorious for her foul temper, have had for not berating her daughter for her lack of magic? Unless she had, but Sarah had certainly never given any indication of that. Not that she would have said anything about it, he supposed, even if he’d asked. After all, why would she? It wasn’t as if he’d been forthcoming with any of his secrets.
But he wondered about hers, just the same.
And speaking of secrets, Ruith couldn’t stop himself from looking at Connail of Iomadh, who had his fair share of them. He was currently making a great production of warming his hands at the fire. He had been, for the past half hour since they’d made camp, entertaining himself by regaling anyone who would listen with tales of mighty magic wrought and arrogant mages humiliated. By him, of course. Ruith pursed his lips. Connail was just like his father, whom Ruith knew not only by reputation but by an unpleasant encounter or two.
Peirigleach of Ainneamh and some tavern wench had produced Connail three hundred years ago, or so the tale went. Ruith wasn’t at all surprised that Connail had styled himself a great lord in a relatively small city far enough from his home so that he wasn’t bothered by nosy relations, but large enough where he could be genuflected to whenever he passed. It would have suited his ego perfectly and perhaps been the start of repayment for the slights he no doubt endured from his father’s family whenever chance encounters occurred. Connail had made no mention of having found Ruith’s face familiar, though he’d certainly looked closely enough in Iomadh. That could have been for any number of reasons, though—
“Shall I spin a tale for you all?” Connail asked brightly. “Something so horrifying as to defy belief?”
Oban and Seirceil seemed amenable enough. Sarah was too busy feeding her fire and looking as if she would have rather been anywhere but where she was to offer comment. Ruith caught her eye and gave her a faint smile. She lifted an eyebrow, then started to crawl to her feet.
“Oh, nay,” Connail said, catching her by the arm quickly. “You’ll want to stay for this.”
Sarah looked torn, likely between a desire to be polite and an equally strong one to pull the knife from her belt and use it on the fool sitting next to her. Ruith almost smiled, for he could plainly see the thoughts flit across her face. She sat back down, apparently with great reluctance, and nodded warily.
Connail obviously needed no encouragement to begin. “I had lived many years in Iomadh,” he said, settling in comfortably and sending Ned off to refill his mug of ale, “enjoying the luxuries I had provided for myself, taking on the occasional apprentice and teaching him just enough for him to be useful. But not too much, lest he prove ... troublesome. But you understand that, don’t you, Master Oban?”
Strands of werelight sparkled and swirled around the camp, coming to join themselves to the fire. Ruith shook his head slowly. Oban agreed, apparently.
“Of course, there is a danger in setting oneself up as a powerful mage in a large city,” Connail continued, “for one then draws attentions to himself that he might rather avoid. I, however, had wasted little time worrying about it, for I knew I was equal to the task of protecting myself. Besides, I had a small garrison of mages at my disposal, should I have fallen ill, or been weak from making too spectacular a piece of magic. Unfortunately, the beginning of my tale comes not in my comfortable abode, but as I was out traveling about the countryside where I found myself in a rustic tavern in Gilean—which happened to be the only place within miles where one might have a decent cup of ale. Nothing to compare to yours of course, Master Franciscus.”
Ruith watched Franciscus lifted his mug slightly in acknowledgment of the compliment, though he said no word.
“I don’t admit weakness often,” Connail said, “but I will concede that on that particular night, whilst I was well into my cups, I might have made mention of my magic. And being in Gilean, I thought it might be instructive for the inhabitants if I offered my thoughts on a certain wizardess who happened to live in the area. She had, you see, caused me to lose a position at a certain prince’s palace because she said my magic was too dark and unpleasant.”
Ruith wasn’t unused to exercising an austere sort of control over himself. It had served him well in the past. It served him well at present, for it took every smidgen of it to keep himself from displaying any reaction to those words. The only wizardess he knew living near Gilean was Eulasaid of Camanaë.
His grandmother, as it happened.
“So you disparaged a wizardess,” Franciscus said, moving to set his stew to boil over the fire. “Not very chivalrous, are you?”
Connail smiled, but it was not a warm smile. “I have learned to hold my tongue since then, thanks to a lesson on the subject from a most unlikely source.”
“Oy, but by who?” Ned asked, his eyes very wide.
“I’ll get there in good time, young one,” Connail said. “For now, I’ll say only that I dragged myself back home and gave no more thought to the evening than I might have an unremarkable meal. It was over and forgotten before I lay my pounding head on my luxurious silken pillow. It never occurred to me that on another night such as the first, a dark and stormy night where the wind howled and the rain lashed the windows, that I might find myself regretting my words.”
“Did you, indeed?” Sarah asked, not looking up as she continued to feed her fire.
“I did, indeed,” Connail said smoothly. “Thank you for asking. And to answer the unasked question of what possibly could have befallen a powerful mage such as I, let me tell you. There I was, sitting in front of my fire a scant month after my outing, enjoying a fine, rare wine imported from Penrhyn and listening to the wind howling outside, when who should have simply appeared in front of me but a man. He was unannounced, unescorted, and obviously uninvited, but before I could open my mouth to chastise him for his poor manners, he bound me so I couldn’t speak.”
There was complete silence save for the crackle and hiss of the fire. Ruith was rather more grateful than he should have been for a very solid wagon to lean against.
“Of course, I wasn’t unwilling to use the sword hanging over my mantel,” Connail continued, “but I found that in addition to rendering me mute, the whoreson had rendered me immobile as well. I could only watch in stunned silence as the man pulled his hood back and revealed himself to be the youngest son of that particular wizardess I had spoken of in the tavern. I knew the man not only by sight but by reputation, and there is no shame in admitting that I knew at that moment I had made a terrible mistake. I was fully prepared to apologize—profusely, if necessary.”
“And was he willing to have that,” Ned asked, his eyes absolutely enormous in his face, “or did he demand a duel with swords at dawn?”
“Swords, my lad, were not the man’s first choice,” Connail said with a faint smile. “He was more inclined to choose a weapon that would inflict a more lasting, painful wound. As for the other, who knows? I’m not sure an apology was what he was after.”
“What, then?” Ned asked, edging closer to Sarah, presumably to use her as a shield if things went south.
“He wanted my magic.”
Ruith felt his mouth go dry.
Connail shrugged. “He took it, of course. Every last, perfect drop of it, then stretched like a cat and made himself at home in one of my chairs. He finished my bottle of wine, and watched me weep until he apparently tired of the sport. That took longer than you might suspect.” Connail smiled at Sarah. “Care to know his name, my dear?”
Sarah shook her head just the
slightest bit.
“I’ll tell it to you just the same, for the knowing of it might serve you at some point.” He paused dramatically. “It was Gair of Ceangail.”
Master Oban’s wand quivered with his fear, causing several squeaking things to appear and flap off frantically. Even Seirceil looked a bit unsettled. Ned only gaped at Connail.
“Oy, who is that?”
Connail shot him a look of distaste, then turned back to Sarah. “Surely, you’ve heard of him.”
“Nay,” she said faintly, “but I don’t know very many mages.” Ruith found himself the unhappy recipient of a quick look from Connail, a look full of hate and several other unpleasant things. He wasn’t at all surprised, for he imagined Connail suspected quite a few things he hadn’t considered before. Ruith had always thought he resembled lads from his mother’s side of the family, but perhaps he looked more like his father than he’d feared. And apparently Connail thought so too.
The only mystery remaining was why Connail didn’t blurt out the truth right then and there.
Connail turned to Sarah. “Perhaps your rather secluded upbringing has left you without the tales you’ll need to know to move in a larger world. Let me tell you of Gair of Ceangail and what befell him.”
Sarah looked as if she would have rather been sticking needles into her eyes than listen to Connail of Iomadh bludgeon her with tales about mages, but she was apparently on her best behavior, for she didn’t just up and leave.
Ruith wished she had.
“I should say first that the particular evening I spoke of was over a century ago. After that time, Gair wed an elven princess, sired six strapping sons and a beautiful daughter on her, then continued on his journey to madness, a journey I believe he began in my house. You see, my dear Sarah, the spells he was using, or rather that particular spell, take not only a mage’s power, but some of his own ... peculiarities. When Gair seized my power, he took along with it a bit of my own madness and arrogance.” He nodded at Sarah. “I am willing to admit my failings freely. I consider it a virtue.”
Ruith imagined he did, and he wished heartily that Connail had cultivated the virtue of keeping his bloody mouth shut.
“By the time I had recovered enough to pay heed to the events in the world—and that took several decades—I realized that perhaps my revenge on Gair would be meted out by Gair himself.”
“How so?” Sarah asked uneasily.
“He had acquired enough power that he thought himself able to do anything, including opening a well of evil. I understand he boasted he would open it, then shut it quickly, simply to display his marvelous strength. That he intended to open that well, then take all the evil to himself is, I believe, closer to the truth. But we don’t know that, given that we have no one to ask who might have known Gair’s mind.”
Ruith forced himself to merely watch Connail as if he’d been one of Ehrne of Ainneamh’s bards, spinning a tale of evil to send chills down the spines of children listening.
It took more effort than he wanted to admit.
Connail lifted an eyebrow at him, then returned to doing his best to entertain Sarah.
“Of course, the well was too much for him. What he’d loosed sprang up, then poured down and slew everyone in his family, including him.”
“How terrible,” Sarah murmured.
“I think it a mercy. Can you without horror think on how vulnerable the world would have been had Gair survived? And can you imagine the danger that would have been augmented had any of the sons lived, they who were full partakers of their father’s magic?” Connail shivered. “Terrifying.”
Sarah shivered as well. “Fortunate, then, that they didn’t.”
“They would have had the power to destroy the world, surely,” Connail said thoughtfully. “I know I wouldn’t trust one, were he alive. Perhaps the lad might look safe enough, but Gair looked sane enough in the beginning, or so I understand. His madness was unpredictable, or so ’tis rumored, and all the more dangerous for it.”
Sarah rubbed her hands together and tucked them under her arms. “Is there more?”
“There always is, isn’t there, my sweet?” Connail said pleasantly. He had a sip of his ale, then shrugged. “Before that business at the well, I understand Gair thought so much of his magic that he gathered all of his spells into a single tome, a book that never left his person. In time, as he grew to realize that no one around him was as clever as he, he took to hiding the book in his library. He amused himself by enspelling all the books there so that the titles shifted continually, effectively hiding that very desirable bit of writing. I’ve also heard that after Gair died, the library at his keep caught fire. Several of the books were saved, but I understand a terrible battle ensued over their possession. Things were torn, manuscripts were divided, men were maimed and killed.”
“What happened to the book?” Sarah asked. “That book of spells?”
Ruith could scarce hear her words. He wondered, in a way that left him feeling slightly queasy, if she were thinking the same sorts of thoughts he was.
“The book of spells,” Connail said, “was scattered on the wind like so many seeds, destined to fall into fertile soil, germinate, and grow up into quite lovely gardens of particularly vile spells. The location of these gardens remains a mystery to most, I imagine. Some don’t realize what they have; others don’t dare show it, lest they find themselves—how shall I put it?—ah, yes . . . dead. The wise ones, the brave ones, display their page of history with pride.”
Ruith imagined they did. He glanced at Sarah to find her studying Connail silently.
“Why do I have the feeling you know this personally?” she asked.
“Because you are as astute as you are lovely,” Connail said smoothly. “Once I heard of Gair’s demise, I decided that I would see how much of his book I could find. I planned to collect it all, then destroy it so that his magic might have an end. There could have been no greater hell for him than that.”
“And did you find any of it, Lord Connail?”
Ruith found Master Franciscus standing at the edge of the firelight, his arms folded over his chest, his stirring spoon held in one hand as if he brandished a knife.
Connail looked at him, an eyebrow raised slightly. “Aye, I did, Master Franciscus. It took me ten years, but I finally found a single page of the book. I might have found more, but I am, as you see, no longer suited to arduous journeys.”
“And what sort of spell did the page contain?” Franciscus asked.
“Nothing for you to use in your alemaking, my good man,” Connail said with an indulgent chuckle. “The spell was one of Reconstruction. For those with less experience than I in these matters, a spell of Reconstruction is one in which a thing can be remade into something else but only for a certain amount of time. An annoyance for the subject so reconstructed, but not life changing.” He rubbed his hands together suddenly. “Of course, once I had the page, even just that page, I found I couldn’t destroy it. It was ... mesmerizing.”
“Was it, indeed?” Sarah asked reluctantly.
“It was,” Connail said, looking at her with a light in his eye that wasn’t entirely pleasant. “Mesmerizing and perfect in every way. Evil though Gair might have been, it is undeniable that he was a master at his craft.” He shook his head. “I obviously didn’t have the magic to work the spell, but I could look at it every day and imagine I did. And I could imagine that Gair was too dead to do the like.” He shrugged. “A cold comfort, true, but a comfort nonetheless.”
“Where did you find the page?” Seirceil asked.
“In the bottom of a peddler’s cart.”
Ruith was somehow unsurprised. He couldn’t say that he didn’t share Connail’s joy over the fact that someone besides Gair of Ceangail had even a small a piece of his bloody life’s work, except for the fact that now Gair’s damned spells weren’t walled up inside his own black soul. They were out in the world, where they could have been found and used by anyone with enough m
agic to attempt them.
That said nothing about what would be left of a mage not equal to the strength of the spell.
Perhaps Daniel of Doìre would use the spells in his possession once too often and go mad as a result, though Ruith didn’t hold out much hope for that happening before Daniel wreaked undeniable havoc—
“But the page is gone now,” Sarah said, interrupting his thoughts.
“Aye,” Connail agreed. “Your brother took it, after he tried to take my magic.” He held up his right hand. “I laughed at him when he failed, and he broke one of my fingers. I mocked him further and he broke another.” He paused. “I think one day I must learn to curb my tongue. I just never know what sorts of details are going to come spilling out at an inopportune moment.”
Ruith imagined so. He supposed Connail could decide this was an inopportune moment and tell everyone there that he, Ruithneadh of Ceangail, was Gair’s youngest son. Sarah would look at him in horror, or with distrust, or not at all.
He wasn’t sure which of the three would have been worst.
“What was the spell Daniel was trying to use?” Sarah asked.
Connail looked at her with an emotionless stare. “Gair’s spell of Diminishing. The one used on me a century ago. Your brother only has enough of the page to be irritating, not dangerous, though he’s certainly strapping enough to do a bit of physical harm. My only comfort is that your charming brother doesn’t realize that what fraction of the spell he has will eventually begin to turn on him.” He shivered. “It has a mind of its own, that spell.”
Sarah climbed ungracefully to her feet. She pulled her cloak around herself, then took a step backward, almost going sprawling over Castân. She caught herself before Ruith could leap forward, then looked down at Connail.
“Thank you for the tale,” she said. “It was most interesting.”
Connail held up his hand and looked at the fingers Sarah had set that morning. “Consider it repayment for this fine work. Perhaps when you’re better rested, you would care to try a spell of healing on them.”