Forging the Runes

by Josepha Sherman

  "I—I can't! I d-don't know what he's doing." And now, to Sorcha's horror, the tears did break free. "He—he wouldn't t-tell me."

  "Och, lass . . ."

  But Sorcha continued fiercely, "If he's doing what I think, if he's trying to—to protect me as if I was a—a— a stupid little girl, I—I'll show him a feud! I—excuse me."

  At Aedh's sympathetic wave of a hand, she dashed away.

  "Your pardon," Cadwal said, irony behind the words, "but we've been hiking through the forest for," he glanced up at the twilight sky, "nearly two full days now, and I haven't seen any signs of wondrous transport."

  Ardagh shot him a wearily angry glare. "As you humans say, 'O ye of little faith.' I may be Sidhe, but even the Sidhe need time to absorb a new magical system." He'd been practicing and practicing again, struggling with the runes, with the whole bizarre system that was so unlike his own, trying to find the way to fuel Sidhe magic through human runes. It was almost working, but almost wasn't going to help him against Osmod. There was also that disconcerting, not-quite-perceptible sense of Darkness watching—no, no, too strong a word. Dimly aware, perhaps.

  To the Darkness with the Darkness! Cadwal wasn't exactly cowed by the prince's glare. "And now?" he insisted.

  "And now, wait."

  There wasn't the slightest guarantee that this would work, any more than any of his other attempts had succeeded. But, Ardagh told himself, the moment one began doubting a spell would work, it was guaranteed to fail. Drawing out the carved sigil known, according to Einar, as Reid, he studied it thoughtfully. The rune literally referred to riding, but it also involved the entire concept of journeying, both actual—which certainly made it applicable here—and spiritual. It also, the humans being as devious in their thinking at times as the Sidhe, involved aspects of control and self-control, and—

  And he, Ardagh decided abruptly, was not going to spend all day puzzling over each and every interconnected possibility. He was of the Sidhe, he was an inherently magical being, what he wanted to do took very little Power, and there was not the slightest reason for even this hybrid form of magic to fail him.

  Raising the rune aloft in one clenched hand, the prince began a Summoning, focusing his will through the twisted shape of the rune, seeing it glowing in his mind's sight, seeing it as a lure pulling and pulling, feeling the Power building with a small twinge of satisfaction because it was going just the way it should. . . .

  Cadwal's startled bark of a laugh snapped Ardagh back to reality. There, half-hidden in leaves, were two shaggy grey shapes, their rough coats glowing in the dim light: wild ponies watching him with ear-pricked equine curiosity and feral wariness.

  "Well, they aren't exactly my idea of wondrous transport," the mercenary said with a chuckle, "but they're better than walking. Assuming they let us ride them."

  The two ponies had started at Cadwal's voice, and were sidling nervously, nostrils flared, ready to bolt at any moment. "You don't understand," Ardagh whispered to the mercenary, his voice quavering with excitement. "The runic spell worked. Maybe not as fully or as—yes—wondrously as it might. But it did work."

  Oh, it had, in more ways than one. There was that slightest of shadows at the back of his senses. There was also—Ardagh tensed, hardly noticing the wild ponies dashing back into the forest. The magic he'd just cast had been as good as a beacon for some equally magical someone, no, someones: Sidhe!

  "Down," Ardagh hissed to Cadwal—no time to explain any further—and stalked silently forward, blazing with mingled hope and alarm, wary as a predatory wild thing. Crouching in the underbrush, he parted leaves ever so softly, hardly feeling their prickling. There, now, he could see—

  Ardagh froze, staring, heart racing, in that one astonishing moment too stunned to do more than think a dazed, My . . . lord . . . Iliach. Iliach, here!

  No doubt about it. However Iliach had managed it, that was definitely the scheming Sidhe courtier Ardagh remembered from his brother's court, tall and graceful as ever as he stalked warily through the human Realm. Iliach, fashionable as always, was clad in beautifully cut hunting leathers over elegant spidersilk—sending a pang of pure envy through Ardagh—and his hair was a dramatic blaze of gold against the forest's dark background.

  Look at that: Elegant as though he's strolling through a park. But Iliach would never be alone in such a perilous place. There are others nearby; there must be.

  He didn't have a doubt as to whom they were hunting. That they hadn't found him already Ardagh attributed to their unfamiliarity with the feel of this Realm. It would surely be confusing their sensing of his aura.

  What a shame.

  The prince waited with predatory patience until Iliach had moved past him, then slipped out of hiding to stand leaning in apparent lazy ease against a tree. A good, sturdy oak, this, and he intended to keep his back safely against its broad trunk. "Looking for me?"

  Iliach whirled with a startled hiss, golden hair swirling. But after that second of alarm, he had himself back under Sidhe self-control, revealing his shock only by the slightest widening of his eyes. Still, thought Ardagh, that tiny reaction said volumes.

  "Why, my lord," the prince purred, "aren't you glad to see me? Or have I changed so very much?" Gesturing to his worn, disheveled clothing, some of Tylwyth Teg weave, some Lochlannach, he added, forcing his voice to betray none of his inner turmoil, "What, does my appearance alarm you?"

  "You . . . are somewhat different than when last I saw you." Iliach admitted in what Ardagh mused was surely a masterpiece of Sidhe understatement.

  "And you are exactly the same as when last I saw you, my lord." Just as sly, just as perfidious. "Tell me, my lord, what brings you to this outre land?" And how did you get here? A Portal? A Portal that I can use? No. Iliach would never be so careless as that. "Surely it wasn't merely from some casual whim. For that matter, how were you able to find me?"

  Iliach's smile was a nasty thing. "Oh, distant cousins aided me."

  Distant cousins. Tylwyth Teg. Thank you, Tywthylodd. You've found a nicely devious way to strike back at me, haven't you? "How charming of them. But surely," the prince continued, putting the barest edge to his voice, "you have not come here alone—ah, no, indeed you have not. Good day to you, my lord Charalian, my lady Tathaniai. You may step out of hiding now." Are there others, lurking there at the edges of Power's scan? I can't be sure. "And to what, pray tell, do I owe this visit?"

  Lord Iliach glanced ever so subtly at the others, then began, "Prince Ardagh, I shall be blunt."

  "What a wonderful change."

  "Ah. Prince Ardagh, you nave been most sorely misused by your royal brother."

  "You've just decided this, have you? After all this while? After you, my lords, my lady, played such a large part in my ousting? Come, come, don't play the hypocrite, Lord Iliach. The role fits you far too prettily."

  Ae-yi, look at the anger flash in those elegant blue-green eyes—but just for a moment. "I can't fault you for your bitterness, Prince Ardagh," Iliach said smoothly. "Indeed, it is only to be expected. But . . ." This time the glance he exchanged with the others was a touch longer, a touch more uneasy. "The past is exactly that, and surely the current need overwhelms it."

  "Meaning?"

  "Prince Ardagh, have you had any communication with our Realm since . . . leaving it?"

  "Since being exiled," Ardagh corrected dryly. "And yes, I have. From my brother. Warning me about treacherous nobles. Why do you ask?"

  "Enough, Iliach." That was Lady Tathaniai, her face impassive, her eyes as icy-chill as ever. Not a shred of softness in Tathaniai. "Prince Ardagh, blunt we shall be, indeed: Your brother is rapidly proving himself unfit to rule."

  "Is he? In what way?"

  "There are whispers throughout the Realm of irrational decisions, unfair edicts, suspicion of everyone and everything—the word is even that he plans to put aside his wife."

  Karanila! Now, there was shocking news—if, indeed, Ardagh reminded himself with
a jolt, it was true. The prince smiled slightly, never moving from the sheltering tree; he'd half forgotten how to play the game of never quite saying truth while ever avoiding falsehood. "Interesting. And now many of you, I wonder," he added, glance sweeping over them all, "are in my brother's employ?"

  Not a Sidhe muscle so much as twitched, but that, of course, meant nothing. "So far," Ardagh continued, "you've given me some nice little snips of gossip, but not one word of solid fact."

  Lord Charalian sighed as though in genuine regret.

  "Facts are difficult things to catch at court, as you know. Suffice it to say, Prince Ardagh, that were one of the blood royal to return, there would be those who would gladly support that one, even as far as . . . one might go."

  Ardagh shook his head lazily. "Tsk, you never do learn, do you? I will not be a puppet, not of you, not of anyone."

  "Yet," Iliach commented, "you would seem to be doing the humans' bidding."

  "Such spite, my lord! For shame!" He leaned forward ever so slightly to put a physical emphasis to his words. "I repeat, and this time please do listen fully, for I shall not repeat myself: I will not be your puppet! And I will not be an oathbreaker to my brother!" He leaned back against the tree, watching them through half-lidded eyes. No reaction. Well now, he'd expected none. "And why, while we're on the subject, would you ever expect me to trust you or work with you after you betrayed me?"

  Iliach looked genuinely surprised at that. "Your pardon, Prince Ardagh, but what has the past to do with the here-and-now?"

  "Forgive me. I had almost forgotten how . . ." devious . . . "practical our politics can be."

  Tathaniai took the smallest step forward, the faintest hint of color in her pale face. "Prince Ardagh, listen to us. It was no easy thing for us to open a Portal into this Realm, particularly in secrecy. We cannot hold it open for much longer; it is too Powerful a thing not to attract attention."

  "And you certainly don't want to be trapped here."

  Lord Iliach sighed ever so softly, ever so dramatically. "This Realm has changed you. It would be so wrong, so terrible for one of the Sidhe, for a prince of the Sidhe, to be lost to . . . humanity. Come back with us, Prince Ardagh. You need make no promises. Only come back with us to your rightful Realm and then we will have sufficient leisure for more graceful speech."

  Oh yes, there would be a good deal of leisure for me in my brother's prisons. If he didn't slay me outright this time around. But Ardagh said nothing, and after an awkward moment, Iliach continued, "Surely you see that we're offering you your only chance to come home. You cannot return on your own. Think of it, Prince Ardagh. Perhaps your mind has been permanently altered so that it may not retain that one vital spell."

  Powers, no! But then Ardagh noted Iliach's careful wording and smiled thinly, refusing to show the surge of terror he'd just felt. "Perhaps. Anything may be 'perhaps.' "

  But what if he did return with them? What was there to say he couldn't outwit them? Once back in his rightful Realm—

  What then? Act against these would-be traitors? Eirithan would thank him sweetly and simply cast him back into exile; his brother had already implied as much in their last meeting. But to act against Eirithan—

  Then I really would be an oathbreaker.

  "Shoo," he said suddenly, making whisking-away gestures with a languid hand. "Go play somewhere else. I won't join in your games."

  "I fear," Iliach said, smiling ever so urbanely, "that you have little choice. This Realm, we've noted, is disgustingly lacking in Power. But there are, after all, three of us—"

  "Yes, yes, I know how the rest of that melodramatic line goes, 'and only one of me.' Try me, my lord, if you think me so weak. Try me."

  It was bravado. He could feel their threefold Power, and even though it was ridiculously weak in comparison to what any one of them could work in the Sidhe Realm, still, it was, perforce, three times stronger than what he could wield.

  Cursed if I'm going to meekly surrender!

  Ardagh slipped a hand into the pouch containing his makeshift runes—

  Ae, hot! And hot, too, the little amulet he used for far-speech—reacting to the rousing Power, yes, and to the nearby Portal, and for all he knew there would be an out-and-out magical explosion if he tried to even—

  "Now I don't know what's going on here," a familiar voice said in Gaeilge, "but I don't think I care for the odds."

  Cadwal! "Come join the party, my friend," Ardagh called in relief. "And bring your nice shiny sword!"

  "Already have."

  The iron blade blazed out, bright as a brand to Sidhe eyes. Ardagh, used to such things by now, never blinked, but his would-be abductors flinched back in alarm, faced for possibly the first time in their long lives by this deadliest of metals. "See, my lords?" the prince drawled. "I have sunk so low. Yes, this human is my friend, and yes, he does bear iron, and yes, I have no fear of it." As long as it stays in Cadwal's keeping. "Can you say the same?"

  Of course not. And of course they weren't about to admit it. Their faces masks of inhuman rage, the three noble Sidhe spat out, "Live here, then! Live among the humans and rot!"

  They turned and fled, managing, Sidhe that they were, to make it look like a graceful, voluntary pace rather than a rout. Ardagh raced after them, suddenly overwhelmed by the need to see the Portal, feel it, know if it would somehow miraculously let him pass. There it was, there ahead of him, glistening and shimmering in the night. The three Sidhe leaped into it and were gone, and Ardagh leaped and—

  Someone was shaking him. Someone was calling his name. Ardagh forced his eyes open to find himself lying sprawled on the forest floor in the middle of true night, a frantic Cadwal at his side. The prince slowly dragged himself up on one elbow. "What . . . happened?"

  "Damned if I know! One moment you were racing after those—those folk. The next: hell, I don't know how to describe it. There wasn't anything that I could see, but something somehow threw you aside as though you didn't weigh a thing." Cadwal shook his head, clearly remembering. "I was sure you were dead."

  "Not quite." Ardagh forced himself dizzily back to his feet, not quite staggering. He warily stretched his arms and winced. "Bruised, definitely, but not broken."

  "But what happened?"

  "Ae, Cadwal. The Portal . . ." But even with his Sidhe will, he couldn't get that all out in one steady breath. "It . . . rejected me. It simply would not let me pass." The bitterness would not let itself be repressed. "It let them go. Those would-be traitors may pass as freely as they will—but I, I who have kept every oath I swore, I cannot!"

  Cadwal never flinched, even though, judging from his expression, Ardagh must not have looked even remotely human just then. "I see," the mercenary said after a moment. "That does have a foul reek to it, yes."

  His matter-of-fact manner was more comforting than any gushing words of sympathy. "Forgive me," Ardagh told him. "I tend to forget that you're enduring your own exile."

  "Hey now, at least I'm still living in my own world!"

  That struck a sore spot all over again. What if Iliach's half-veiled suggestions were true? What if Eirithan really had lost control of the throne and the land? What then? Civil war? Chaos? Remembering the many eddies and undercurrents of ambition forever swirling in his brother's court, Ardagh shuddered. What of the land? What of the magical heart and fertile soul of the land? There must be a ruler, one ruler, one just, strong will who could guard the land and those upon it. Eirithan just barely fulfilled that role, but if he fell . . .

  Not me. It can't be me. Even if it were so, even if I were the one foolhardy enough to take up the burden—I cannot leave this cursed human Realm!

  Watching the prince—and probably, Ardagh realized, guessing the gist of his thoughts fairly well—Cadwal pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Tell you what. We get back to Eriu, we really do get good and drunk!"

  The deliberate coarseness of that forced a shaken laugh out of Ardagh. "Thank you. I never thought I'd see the time when I'
d be gladder of human friendship than of Sidhe, but—thank you."

  "Helpful, that's me."

  "Don't belittle yourself." Ardagh slipped a wary hand in among the runes. Still almost uncomfortably warm, runes and amulet both. Odd reaction. But then, no one had ever tried mixing Sidhe and runic magic before and—

  Powers. He was on the edge of something. Shivering anew, Ardagh thought that if this weird mix of Sidhe magic, runic spell and Eriu amulet could actually produce enough force to be felt, so much force just by accident, then it just might be the key he'd been seeking, the key that would unlock the doorway home. . . .

  No, he corrected wearily. Not that easily. This was all very new, very theoretical. He wasn't going to achieve anything without a great deal of wary experimenting. After all, the heat was also a warning of magical wildfire that had almost been released.

  And yet, and yet—no. Time enough for serious study when we are back in Eriu. I can wait till then. For . . . there is hope. For the first time in . . . however long there is hope.

  "Still going after Osmod?"

  Ardagh, startled back to the present, grinned sharply. "To coin a phrase, my mercenary friend, damned right I am! Powers willing, at least something in all this strange adventuring is going to have a satisfying ending!"

  Complications

  Chapter 34

  Alone in his bedchamber with no one to see him—no one save for innocent Leofrun, and she hardly counted—Egbert rubbed his hands wearily over his eyes, then suddenly threw back his head with a cry of alarm and frustration, hastily choked off

  What was happening? What was the matter with him? It was one thing to dream of conquest, of glory. Any king worthy of his throne now and again harbored such imaginings.

  But this was something more. These dreams, these so very aggressive dreams, these visions of war and victory and domination, had started intruding on his waking life. They insinuated themselves into his mind whenever he wasn't on his guard and, Egbert thought, it was only purest luck that they hadn't actually interfered with his duties.