by Lynn Kurland
“Still want to, ah, well . . . you know?” she asked.
“I think I need to put a you know on your finger so you don’t ever have to ask that question again.”
She smiled because she loved him, she was sitting in a place that was safe, and for the moment, she could put off thinking about more of her future than what the next quarter hour contained. She shifted a little, then smiled into his very green eyes.
“You’re wearing a crown, you know.”
He reached up, looking very surprised, and patted the top of his head. Then he looked at her with a wry smile. “The visible world doesn’t think so.”
“Bruadair has an interesting perspective.”
He didn’t move. “And how am I supposed to learn to tell the difference between dreams and reality?”
“You’re asking me?” she said uncomfortably. “I haven’t a clue.”
“Is it a very large, impressive crown?”
She blinked, then realized he was teasing her. “Less gigantic than magnificent. Your grandfather would approve, I imagine.” She reached up and pulled off his head what she could plainly see. It became solid in her hands. She almost dropped it, truth be told.
Rùnach’s sharp intake of breath was followed by a bit of a laugh. “Aisling, I think you’re terrifying me again.”
“How do you think I feel?” She handed the crown back to him. “You’d best keep that.”
“And just what am I to do with it?”
“I have absolutely no idea, but Bruadair seems to think you should have it. You two can come to some sort of agreement later.”
“I shudder to think what that might entail,” he said faintly, “but I’m learning not to argue with your country.” He looked at her hand in his for several minutes in silence, then at her. “So, whilst I was being tormented in the lists, what did you do? A nap was involved, I hope.”
She shook her head. “I was given the tour by Freasdail. I was very briefly introduced to people I don’t remember, saw chambers that I don’t remember the use for, and was offered food I couldn’t bring myself to eat.” She winced. “I think Freasdail took pity on me and stopped when perhaps I looked as if I might soon weep. Or, rather, Ceana found me and ordered him to let me breathe.”
“I knew there was something odd about that woman,” Rùnach said with a snort. “Too canny by half.”
“She is,” Aisling agreed. She paused and considered her next words for quite some time before she felt equal to releasing them out into the hall. “I was curious about how she’d come so quickly,” she said carefully. “I was assuming, perhaps badly, that she hadn’t known what was to happen here until fairly recently. So I asked her how she got here.”
“And?”
“She said she had a map.” She paused. “They all have maps.”
“Maps,” he repeated slowly.
“Maps that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else,” she said, wishing with a fair bit of enthusiasm that she’d never had the conversation to start with. “I probably should have stopped there, but I had to know more.”
“Curiosity is a dangerous thing.”
“Spoken like one who’s had his fingers burned more than once,” she said grimly.
He smiled very briefly. “I wish I could deny it, but I can’t. Very well, so they—and I’m assuming that would be all these spinners we seem to be surrounded by—and who are they, do you think? Ceana, we know already. I recognized my grandmother Brèagha’s Mistress of the Cloth and waved across the room to the wizened granny who spins for Eulasaid, but didn’t recognize any of the others.”
“I think they’re just as you say, those in charge of spinning for various important households,” she said. “I haven’t had the chance to meet them all, but they seem to have some interest in the fate of the world beyond the norm.”
“Interesting,” he said, sounding far too interested for his own good. “We’ll have to investigate that later. But I interrupted you. All these important spinners have maps, but . . . ?”
She pushed herself to her feet. “I have to walk.”
The path sprang to life as if it had been poked with a sword. Rùnach laughed a little and heaved himself up. He left his crown behind, propped his sword up against his shoulder with one hand and took her hand with his other.
“Go on,” he encouraged. “Maps?”
She took a deep breath. “They’re maps that don’t display the locations that maps normally indicate. Maps with odd markings on them, or so I understand.”
He looked rather ill all of the sudden. “Is that so?”
“It is,” she said. She paused. “She said she would show me hers, did I care to see it.”
“Did she?”
“You’re doing it again,” she said miserably. “That thing where you answer questions with other questions.”
“I think I’m about to vomit on your lovely floor,” Rùnach said thickly. “I’m trying to comfort myself with my most annoying habit.”
She pulled her hand away, then threw her arms around his neck. She closed her eyes and held on to him as his arms came around her. Breathing was important, she decided, but perhaps less important than remaining upright. She held on to him until a cramp in her back left her with the choice of either continuing to cling to him and shake, or pulling away and walking upright to luncheon. She chose the former, then looked at him.
“I think we might have to find a side door to this place sooner rather than later.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking?” she countered.
He took a deep breath. “I’m thinking it’s very coincidental that there are maps in the world that aren’t maps that a normal lad or lass would recognize.”
“I agree.”
“And it’s further quite coincidental that I have a book of scratches in my pack, a book created by Acair of Ceangail, who it would seem has an interest in Bruadair’s magic.”
“Oh, Rùnach,” she said, pulling away from him but taking his hand. She laced her fingers with his and was grateful that his hand was no steadier than hers. “You don’t think Acair’s scratches might be a map. Not in truth.”
He dragged his sleeve across his forehead, then looked at her. “The witchwoman of Fàs seemed to think so, didn’t she?”
“Perhaps that was indigestion from tea,” she said, wondering how many more excuses she could invent before she ran out of them. “Or she was having us on.”
“I chopped wood for her,” he said wearily. “She doesn’t take that lightly.”
“And you would know,” she said.
“I would,” he agreed, “having had many answers from her over the years in return for adding to her wood pile. Besides, she liked you rather a lot, I’d say. She wouldn’t have lied to you.” He looked at her helplessly. “She’s a very committed diarist.”
“And collector of hair ornaments,” Aisling added. “How can you doubt a woman with those sorts of hobbies?”
“I wish we could,” he said with feeling, then he sighed. “I would like a peek at Mistress Ceana’s map, but perhaps later. I suggest we now go puke our guts out, have some supper, then walk along the shore. What do you think?”
“I think you’re daft.”
“And I think we may have stumbled upon something that merits further investigation. Tomorrow. After you’ve recovered from today and I’ve recovered from the thrashing your great-grandmother just gave me in the lists.”
Aisling smiled. “She didn’t.”
“I’ll tell you about it once I’ve recovered from the embarrassment of being knocked fully upon my arse by a woman half my size.”
Aisling laughed. “I wish I’d seen it.”
“I’m sure she would repeat the exercise for your pleasure, if you asked her,” Rùnach said dryly. He looked over his shoulder, then back at her. “Your steward is awaiting your pleasure. Perhaps we can filch something portable to eat and see if the ocean truly
does lie beyond that rise out there.”
An hour later, Aisling found herself standing on the edge of the ocean, breathing deeply of air that filled her lungs and soothed her soul. The words a ship’s captain had once said to her came back to her suddenly, that she was one for whom seeing the sea spelled doom. She sighed a little at the thought. It was a fate she could readily accept, especially if it included the man standing next to her.
Rùnach was looking up the coast, thoughtfully, as if he considered things he hadn’t before. He looked at her, then blinked when he apparently realized she was watching him. He smiled.
“Aye?”
“Nothing,” she said easily. “Just happy to have my two favorite things here together.”
He smiled and turned to pull her into his arms. “I would like to show an appropriate amount of gratitude for those sweet words but, again, we have an audience. Very fierce, those lads of yours.”
“I haven’t met them yet.”
“I think they’re trying to be discreet.”
“Not discreet enough if you keep seeing them,” she pointed out.
“Well, I have a terrible habit of always looking in the shadows,” he admitted, “so perhaps I’m not the best one to offer an opinion. They do seem to be armed with not only steel but spells, so I’m not about to discourage them. But I will look for a decent place to thank you at some point today. Perhaps they won’t swoon if I hold your hand for a bit.”
She nodded and walked with him along the shore until the sun had dipped well below the mountains to the west. She turned and walked back the other way with him, watching not the sea but the bluff to her left. She finally stopped because she realized why it looked so familiar.
“Rùnach?”
“Aye, love.”
“I think your grandmother was here, in this very spot.”
“I think so too.”
She looked at the spot in front of her and realized what had struck her as unusual. There wasn’t a great amount of color, but there was more than she’d seen in the usual spots in Bruadair.
“We should go back.”
Aisling looked at Rùnach in surprise. “Why do you say that?”
“I’m uncomfortable.” He smiled briefly. “Besides, it’s getting dark.”
She supposed that was as good a reason as any. She nodded and walked quickly with Rùnach back up the hill and through the forest. Somehow, the shadows didn’t seem nearly as benign as they had earlier in the afternoon.
“Do you think a battle was fought here?” she asked when the hall was again in sight.
“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? I suppose we could ask Muinear when we have a chance.”
“I wonder why your grandparents were here.”
“That,” he said with a smile, “is a question I think she would definitely answer without much prodding. Apparently she tried to school my grandfather in a little magicmaking and he wasn’t a very good student.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “I don’t doubt that. Well, at least it gave your grandmother time to walk on the shore and see the view.”
“Our view, I think,” he said slowly. He looked at her. “That bluff would be a lovely place to build a house, don’t you think?”
She leaned up and kissed him. “Aye,” she said simply.
He put his arm around her shoulders. “Let me escort you inside and in front of a fire. I have a little errand to run.”
“To the kitchens?”
“To the lists,” he said seriously. “It won’t take long, I don’t imagine.”
Aisling nodded and continued on with him. It made her wonder, however, just what had drawn the king and queen of Tòrr Dòrainn into a land not their own and left at least Sìle attempting to use his own magic.
It was very odd.
Perhaps there were more maps out in the world than she feared.
Sixteen
Rùnach decided that there was a fair bit of irony that he’d had a horrible night’s sleep in the very place where sleep should have come easily.
Then again, it was entirely possible he simply thought too much.
It was thoughts that had kept him tossing and turning until he’d finally given up any hope of slumber before dawn and taken to pacing along passageways until he’d reached the great hall. Fires had been burning merrily in hearths made of crystal and stone, servants had been industriously sweeping the polished floor, and not a single soul had asked him to leave. He’d been welcomed with smiles and pleasant greetings, queried about his need for sustenance or music, and left to himself when he’d declined both.
He’d paced until he thought he could give an accurate measure of the length and breadth of the great hall, then left it and took to finding other things to count. He wasn’t a counter as a rule, but he had to do something to keep his thoughts from straying in directions he didn’t care for.
What if the innards of his book were a map?
What if they were a map not of places, but of spots in the fabric of the world where there might be . . . he hardly knew what to call them. Flaws? Missing threads?
Portals?
What if Acair’s plans included not only stripping Bruadair of its magic, but stripping every country in the world of whatever magic it had? What if he intended to do that through the portals that the dreamspinners and their allies spread throughout the world used to travel from Bruadair and back home again as easily as stepping from one room to another?
The thought left him feeling profoundly chilled.
He realized he had almost plowed over Aisling and Muinear only because he lost his balance. He steadied himself with his hand on a wall and attempted a smile.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was thinking.”
“Take his arm, Aisling,” Muinear said, taking his other arm. “We’ll take him to the library and tuck him safely in a corner. I think they’ll allow breakfast to be brought there if we ask nicely.”
Rùnach didn’t protest. A chair was sounding particularly appealing. If he found himself snoozing over a book on unremarkable Bruadairian sheep, so much the better. And Muinear owed him a perch in a comfortable chair after what she’d put him through the night before. Necessary, but intensely unpleasant.
He was quite happy to be escorted to where he might have a chance to distract himself with something to read, though the journey to that chamber didn’t take as long as he’d hoped it might. They paused in front of a set of doors, then the doors swung open as if commanded to.
He stepped inside, then froze. He gaped at the library’s contents, then looked at Aisling. She was yawning.
“Interesting,” she offered, shutting her mouth abruptly. “Fascinating.”
Rùnach laughed. He walked into a library that for all intents and purposes was a copy of Bristeadh’s, down to the carpet on the floor. There were wheels and echoes of wheels and things that looked like wheels but were obviously just curved bits of a deep, dark wood that left him reminding himself that grown men did not skip across floors of libraries to touch and pat and pull books from shelves. In a palace that was full of endless amounts of light, this was the perfect place to spend an afternoon with a good book or sit at a long table and commence a serious study, all accompanied by warm tones, comfortable chairs, and just the right amount of muted light.
And then he realized something else.
Some of the books seemed to be less than corporeal, if such a term could be used for them.
He looked at Muinear in surprise. “What’s this?”
“Copies of every book in existence in every library, great and small, in the world.”
He retrieved his jaw that had fallen down for the same reason he’d refrained from skipping, because he thought it might behoove him to look like an adult. “How does it work?” he asked, wondering if a swoon would be looked at askance. “Though I have to admit that I’m not precisely certain why I’m daring to ask.”
“Afraid?”
He couldn’t help a smile. “My lady Mui
near, I’m not sure you’re the one to be asking that after what you inflicted on me yesterday. I’m certain I’m not the one to be answering that.”
“Call this penance, then,” she said with a smile. “Aisling, darling, let’s go spin and leave your lad to his gaping, shall we? Rùnach, you’ll be fine on your own?”
“Um,” he said, searching for the right thing to say.
They laughed, then left him without a backward glance.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed by the time he realized time had passed. Hours had gone by, no doubt. He had roamed happily through stacks, warming himself thoroughly by the thought of Soilléir learning where he’d been and suffering a fair bit of envy over it. Then again, knowing Soilléir, he had likely contributed heavily to the tomes that found themselves actually being housed on those endless shelves.
Of course, that warmth of smugness had only lasted until he’d come face-to-face with the thought he’d been trying to avoid all morning, namely that there was a book in his pack that he knew he needed to open sooner rather than later and contemplate in a new way what lay inside. He wasn’t sure the palace would permit such a thing without screeching, but he knew he needed to try.
He rose, thanked the librarians profusely for their aid, then left and went to retrieve his book from his backpack. He tucked it under his arm, then went in search of somewhere that wouldn’t kill him for cracking the damned thing open.
He wandered through the hallways unmolested until he found himself suddenly standing in front of a doorway. There were things placed on the doorframe, runes of might and power from a source he didn’t recognize. It wasn’t evil, that much he thought he could say with certainty, but it was certainly dark.
The door opened and a man stood there. Rùnach studied him for a moment or two. He had runes on his hands and face, runes of power and magic and darkness.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Uabhann,” he said mildly. “I am Dread.”
“Ah,” Rùnach managed. “An interesting thing to be.”
“I have sent you dreams before.”
