The Wisewoman (Waterspell 3)

by Deborah J. Lightfoot

  In truth, the only items of real value had already been carried inside. They awaited Meg in the kitchen: her sacks and pouches of medicinal supplies, the mortar and pestle the barber-surgeon of Easthaven had given her, and Merriam’s book of remedies.

  Tucked between the pages of that book, put there for safekeeping, was the letter to Carin from the girl’s missing parents. Meg made a mental note: She should return that letter to Verek and suggest that he sleep with it under his pillow. It might provide a link that would help Carin find her way back to him.

  As Megella turned from the windows, a faint glow drew her to the fireplace. The coals on the hearth were not completely cold. Her eyes were now so adapted to the darkness that Meg could see the fire-irons nearby. She drew out the poker, stirred the embers to life, and added logs from the firewood basket.

  She had roused the fire to a crackling blaze when the door to the hallway opened. Megella looked up, expecting to see Theil framed in the doorway. But instead it was Welwyn who pushed through, carrying a steaming mug in each of his beefy hands.

  “Oh, for the chance to sit and have a cup!” Welwyn exclaimed. He set one mug on a low table between the benches at the fireplace. “Will you take tea with me, Madam Megella, and talk awhile? I am eager to learn all that has transpired since I last saw our hasty Lord Verek, his headstrong Lady Carin, and that bloody-minded Lanse.”

  “How is the boy?” Meg asked, lifting the mug from the table and nodding her thanks at Welwyn; she was parched. She took a sip, then settled herself on the cushions of the bench opposite his.

  “Remarkable,” Welwyn said, smacking his lips over his tea with such pleasure that Megella first thought he was praising the brew. But then he smiled at her and said, “What you did with that wound, how skillfully you stopped the bleeding, was truly remarkable, madam. Such a grievous injury should inevitably have proved fatal to the boy, don’t you know.”

  Megella nodded. “I expect the worst.”

  “But Lanse still breathes,” Welwyn said, “so I dare to hope for better—though it’s long odds. I magicked his torn entrails to the best of my abilities. I know a deer’s innards better than a man’s.” The monkish wysard shook his head. “I had not thought the woodsprite capable of such violence. My Trosdans adore the creature, don’t you know, and those beasts are generally good judges of character.”

  “Trosdan deer?” Megella muttered. Those, surely, are fairy-tale creatures, she thought. But then, I would have doubted the existence of a spear-chucking woodsprite, too, had I not seen it with my own eyes.

  Welwyn was making a whistling noise, sucking his teeth. “The sprite is utterly devoted to Carin, however,” he said after a moment. “I see now that the creature would do anything—including murder—to protect that young lady.”

  “Where has the woodsprite gone?” Meg asked.

  “I cannot guess. This long day was just in its dawning when I last glimpsed the creature,” Welwyn said. “It was sparking through the trees outside the gate—seeking for Lanse in one direction, I expect, while I continued the search in another.”

  “The search?”

  Welwyn nodded. “Having heard from Myra of her suspicions that the boy meant harm to Carin, I have spent weeks scouring the countryside for Lanse. First I tried Fintan, the market village north of here. Fintan did not lie on your road from the coast, but Myra tells me the boy knows that town well and would have found it an easy place in which to hide.”

  Welwyn sipped his tea, then added, “Failing to turn him up there, however, I visited the nearest neighbors. Only one, Cian Ronnat, had seen Lanse. Ronnat was of the opinion that the boy would lie low in the woods, which he knows like the back of his hand.”

  “Have you any idea,” Megella asked, “why Lanse would wish to hurt Carin?”

  “Myra’s explanation is that the boy sees Carin as a usurper. Before she walked into Ruain and into the heart of Theil Verek, Lanse could count on spending a great part of each day in the company of a master whom he revered.” The monk chuckled. “’Tis easy to see why Theil had less time for the boy after Carin arrived. Give me a choice between the two of them, and I know which one I’d take.”

  Welwyn chuckled again—a bit lasciviously, Meg thought.

  Carin as usurper, she reflected. Lanse’s great rival. Yes, that helps to explain why the boy refused to halt his attack even when Theil—having long ago undergone a great change of heart—ordered him to stand down.

  “In hindsight,” Welwyn was saying, “it seems clear to me now that I should have followed the woodsprite and trusted the creature to lead me to Lanse. That sprite proved more capable than I of tracking the boy in these woods.”

  “For much of our journey through Ruain,” Meg commented, “I noticed that Theil and Carin remained watchful. One may have suspected that Lanse would try some knavery, while the other dreaded a meeting with the woodsprite. But so close to his own front gate, Theil seemed to let down his guard. His eagerness to reach home may have clouded his judgment.”

  Welwyn smiled, a bit ruefully.

  “I cannot fault him. I have been in a fog myself, with my directions turned ’round, ever since I got here. I’ve been staying in this house for a while now. Thought I’d keep an eye on the place while Theil was off seeing the sights. Rumor had it that Ruain was missing its wysard, and as an old friend of House Verek I felt a duty to guard his property while he remained absent. In this edifice, don’t you know, are many things of value.”

  Welwyn tipped his head, indicating not only the priceless books in the library, Megella thought, but also the well of the wysards deep underground.

  “In any event,” the monk went on, “Mistress Myra told me—the same way she had earlier told Lanse, I suspect, since the talkative biddy seems unable to hold her tongue—that Theil and Carin would be arriving home from the east coast of Ruain. She said she had it on good authority. But I could not shake the notion that the pair should approach from the west. The last time I saw them, they were tramping away on snowshoes, climbing resolutely up the slopes of mountains that lie far westward from Ruain.”

  Megella nodded. “They have told me some of what they accomplished on that journey. Are you aware, Master Welwyn, that the two of them witnessed the necromancer, Morann, disappearing down the gullet of a magical dragon that Carin conjured?”

  Welwyn raised both eyebrows. “Quite an accomplishment, that! When he joined me in the kitchen to torture himself about Lanse, Theil did mention—but hurriedly and in irksomely sparing detail—that he and Lady Carin had done all that they set out to do: the necromancer destroyed, and the bridges that the sorceress had built between the worlds torn down.”

  Megella tilted her head. “Not all the bridges are down, as I understand it. Carin attempted to leave that dodgy woodsprite behind on its native world. In that attempt—obviously—the girl failed. It appears the creature managed to find or build a bridge back to Ruain. Theil, when he began to suspect the sprite had returned, expressed his opinion that the creature could have made use of arrows, crafted of Ruainian wood, which Carin involuntarily left behind on the sprite’s native world.”

  “Charms and chancels!” Welwyn exclaimed. “So that’s what happened.” He nodded slowly, then sipped his tea.

  After a moment in which Megella could almost see the fellow’s thoughts turning in his head, he added, “The devil’s-guts hitched a ride with the sprite, so to speak. Perhaps the stuff crept secretly over the bridge on the creature’s ‘heels,’ as it were. I do not pretend to understand the workings of those otherworldly bridges. But the timing tells us much, don’t you know. The sprite returns to Ruain, and immediately we hear of devastating infestations of an exotic species of strangleweed.”

  “Yes, you have reasoned it through as Theil and Carin did. The woodsprite is responsible—perhaps unintentionally—for the strangleweed invasion.”

  Megella leaned forward from her cushions to signal her desire to speak of other matters. “But that plague is over, I
believe. The weed is dead; the land recovering. Tonight, I find myself chiefly concerned with Carin’s welfare. And her whereabouts—

  “Which begs a further question,” Megella interrupted herself, glancing at the door to the hallway. “What, pray tell, has become of Lord Verek?”

  “I left him in the kitchen,” Welwyn said, “keeping vigil over Lanse and weeping about as freely as Myra is. I caught enough of what Theil was saying to her, between sobs, to appreciate what the man is feeling. He’s filled with anguish for the boy, certainly. But it’s Carin being gone again that has nearly torn Verek’s heart from his body.”

  Meg sighed in sympathy. “The girl has a disconcerting habit of appearing and vanishing. When she’s near a body of water—be it the Granger millpond, the harbor of Easthaven, or the wysards’ well of Ruain—it’s as if she is tugged to and fro by the tides of magic.” Megella hesitated, then asked, “Do you know the story, Master Welwyn, of the crystal dolphyns that are said to have brought magic to Ruain?”

  Welwyn, in the midst of taking another sip of tea, choked. He sputtered into his mug, then set the tea down and stared at Meg.

  “You are an extraordinary woman, don’t you know.” He chuckled. “So much for wizardly secrets. I had thought the story of the crystal dolphins was known only to the House of Verek and a few of its closest confidants.”

  “You forget, sir, that I—by marriage—am of the House,” Megella replied, frostily. “Legary shared much of his family’s history with Merriam, and she repeated the stories to me.”

  “Of course, of course,” Welwyn murmured, nodding. “Then I shall answer your question. Yes, I am familiar with the family tradition that credits the crystals for the appearance of magic in Ruain—and thence throughout Ladrehdin, as the power spread from this province to other parts of the world. I was not certain I believed the story, however … not until I made my way to this house, drawn by my fretting over Carin and Theil. Discovering that the pair remained missing, I filled many an anxious hour after my arrival by reading the great Book of Archamon.”

  “Oh, surely not!” Megella exclaimed.

  Welwyn chuckled. “Surprised, madam, that—having touched the book—I still live?”

  “Somewhat,” Meg replied with a shrug. “Though I did have an inkling that the book’s protective charms might be less fierce now than they were in Legary’s day. Carin herself tore a page from the Book, and for her temerity suffered no ill effects.”

  “Did she now?” Welwyn muttered. Then he chuckled again. “I knew there was a strength in the lass that surpassed anything I had ever before encountered in a young worker of wizardry. Theil, early on, showed prodigious talent. But that young lady …”

  Welwyn canted his head. “As I once said to the girl, not expecting her to understand me but needing her to hear the words: ‘Still water runs deep. But the restless sea casts forth the greatest gift.’”

  “Still water,” Megella echoed, thinking of the utter stillness, the mirror smoothness of the wysards’ well under the library. She lifted her chin. “Theil swims in the still water. He is a wysard of Ruain; his source is that deep pool of magic to which he returned tonight. But Carin …”

  “Carin,” Welwyn said as Megella fell silent, “is a creature of the restless sea. You can almost glimpse the ocean in that girl’s eyes. She did tell me once that she hears the ocean. She hears its powerful waves pounding the shore—pounding, I do not doubt, the shore of her native world.”

  “A mermaid who dives in the deep water and swims with the dolphyns,” Megella muttered. “A sea creature like them. And now she’s gone off with the dolphyns again.”

  “Pardon?” Welwyn tilted an ear toward her. “Did you say Carin has the dolphins?”

  Megella nodded. “I believe that must be what has happened. She and Theil found the necromancer of the West in possession of the two crystal dolphyns that had long been the property of House Verek. It seems likely Morann stole them from Legary when she fled Ruain. Theil and Carin shared the amulets, wearing one apiece on cords round their necks. And you noticed—did you not, Master Welwyn?—that Theil’s shirt is ripped. The cord at his neck is snapped, and the crystal he wore is gone.”

  “Perishing oaths!” Welwyn swore, sitting stiffly upright. “If Lady Carin has taken both crystals and leaped with them into the void, then it may be that Ladrehdin will lose the last tattered remnants of its magic.”

  “Or perhaps,” Megella countered—remembering what Carin had once said about the dolphyns being ‘the problem’—“perhaps Ladrehdin will lose the threat to its magic, the drain on its powers that has left you wysards feeling increasingly sapped, the whole lot of you fearing that you are a dying breed.”

  Welwyn stared at her openmouthed. He looked thunderstruck.

  Then he rolled to his feet and hurried to the desk under the library’s windows, beckoning for Megella to join him. With a flick of his wrist, Welwyn produced an orb of Ercil’s fire and suspended it in midair above the desk. The orb shone on the Book of Archamon.

  “I believe, Madam Megella,” he whispered, “in light of what you say about the dolphins draining Ladrehdin of magical power … I believe you should read the opening page of this ancient text. I had long wondered, don’t you know, what words could have been deemed worthy of taking first position in such a book. Until I journeyed to Ruain in search of my brave young friends, I had never been privileged to read the first page of Archamon’s book. But no spell of concealment lies upon the volume now—perhaps it was Carin who lifted the ensorcellment. Drisha knows, that young lady has wrought many a change in House Verek.”

  Welwyn clucked approval, then added, “If you please, Madam Megella, examine these opening lines and give me your thoughts on their meaning.”

  Meg bent over the book, her pulse quickening. Not even Merriam had been allowed to read this treasury of wysards’ lore. Jealously, with carefully crafted spells of concealment and alteration, Legary had sought to shield the book from prying eyes.

  By the light of Welwyn’s conjured orb, Megella could easily read the opening page. The pen nib that had scratched across the sheet of heavy, durable paper had left lines that remained dark and distinct, unfaded by the uncountable years that had passed since their composition.

  As Meg read, she was struck by the style of the language. It did not seem as archaic in tone as she would have expected from such antique verses—raising the question in her mind, again, as she had often wondered in past, idle moments: What had Ladrehdin been like in the days of the ancients?

  Strangers from a world apart came

  Bearing a gift of crystalline perfection:

  A jewel, a bauble to wear on a chain;

  A creature of the sea, sleek and finned,

  Yet a breather of air.

  “Be still!” the Strangers said. “Feel the

  Power coursing through the crystal.

  The Dolphyn draws to itself the

  Power of the elements: Water, yes,

  And air; and also fire and terra firma.”

  Around the Strangers and the Dolphyn

  Gathered the wisest men and women:

  Philosophers and seers, alchemists and

  Those who thirsted after knowledge.

  Said they all: “We will use this power!”

  “Use it!” affirmed the Strangers. “Yes!

  Draw forth the power of your world

  And make it serve your every whim.

  You shall be as gods, forcing Nature to its

  Knees, bending Amangêda to your bidding.”

  And the Strangers traveled on, to bring

  Like gifts to other, unknown worlds.

  On Ladrehdin the Wise Ones drew upon

  The crystal Dolphyn to seize the strength

  Of stone and fire, and wind and water.

  “It is not enough!” cried Archamon,

  Chief among the Wise. “I wish for

  More of Nature’s power than a single

  Crystal can c
onduct. I will take a second

  Dolphyn, and none shall be my equal!”

  Across the void he quested long, until

  He found a second bestowed Dolphyn.

  And from its proper world he stole the

  Amulet of crystal; then lived to see it

  Bring an Ashen Curse to Ladrehdin.

  “My lust for power,” Archamon cried,

  “Has been my world’s undoing! Blood

  Runs to the sea as the plague spreads wide.

  But worse: the Power ebbs away, so

  Quickly with the double drain upon it.”

  The Second Dolphyn sped the Power

  Far off into the Void; it delivered unto

  Others—Strangers—the force of wind

  And wave and sun and stone and fire:

  The magic of Ladrehdin drained away.

  Strangers from a world apart

  Bestowed a Gift to bring to focus

  The Power of this world, so they—

  And we, the wysards—could take

  From Ladrehdin all it had to give.

  And now the world gives more than

  It can spare to us and to the Strangers.

  We use it up, we drain it dry;

  We bleed the planet ruthlessly, and in

  Our turn we also bleed: Ashen Cursed.

  “Take them back!” cried Archamon,

  Flinging his crystalline Dolphyns

  Unto the stars from whence the

  Strangers brought foul “Gifts.” But to

  Our peril, both remain, indestructible.

  “Indestructible,” Megella muttered, reaching the narrative’s end. “Carin discovered as much, when the girl attempted to destroy those two crystals in a magian inferno.”