Wolfsbane s-2

by Patricia Briggs

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Cain?”

  Wolf shook his head as well, but slowly. “Not exactly, no.”

  “Did he ask you to kill anything?” asked Kisrah.

  “No,” said Nevyn. “But what I did was worse.” He turned slightly to address everyone. “I knew that the spell was intended for the Lyon and that he was to be the bait that drew Aralorn and . . . Cain here.” His voice grew quieter. “I—I—I suggested it to him. Aralorn hadn’t come here for ten years. When he asked me what would make her return, I told him that I thought the only thing that would work was if someone died—if Henrick died.”

  He looked at Wolf, and his voice became guttural. “So he put a spell on the Lyon that only you could break. Black magic, he said, so that Kisrah would not know how to unwork the spell. I told him that you might not come, might not expose yourself for someone you didn’t know. So he decided to see if we could trap Aralorn in it as well. I called the baneshade here and set it to extend the spell to Aralorn.”

  “Do you know what he intended to do to Wolf—sorry, Cain—once he was here?” asked Aralorn, interested in what Geoffrey had told Nevyn. “After all, here he is . . . and no one has moved against him.”

  Nevyn shrugged. “Kisrah was to come upon Cain working black magic, and then he’d have to face justice at the ae’Magi’s hands.”

  Kisrah’s bells rang as he started in surprise. “My dear Nevyn, I don’t think I have the power to constrain or kill Cain—you haven’t seen what he can do.”

  “After unworking the spell on the Lyon, he would be in no shape to resist you.” He sat forward suddenly, a bitter twist to his mouth. “You can rot, Cain, for all I care. But Henrick has been more of a father to me than my own ever thought of being, and I helped to trap him. Any magic that binds a person as tightly as he is bound will be tricky to unwork at best. It has become increasingly obvious that Geoffrey doesn’t care if Henrick lives or dies—but I do. If I can help you, I will—if you die in the process, so much the better.”

  “All right,” said Wolf, and Aralorn eyed him sharply.

  “What did you do with the sword after you worked the spell?” asked Kisrah.

  Nevyn drew in a breath. “I gave it to Henrick the day he was enspelled; I met him at the stables as he was leaving to inspect the burnt-out croft. I told him a messenger brought it from Aralorn.” He lowered his eyes. “Henrick gave me his old campaign sword, told me to put it in the armory, and carried the one I’d given him.”

  With a casualness that spoke of more practice than Aralorn had suspected, he gestured with both hands, and a sword appeared on the floor in front of them. “This sword. You see why we knew that he would carry this one.”

  It wasn’t a ceremonial sword, nor was it ornate. But even Aralorn, who was admittedly not the best of sword judges, could see the care that had gone into its making. The pommel was wood, soft finished—nothing spectacular, but high quality nonetheless. It was the blade that attested to the care that had gone into the sword’s making. Countless folds of a repeating pattern marked the blade: a master-work of a talented swordsmith.

  Wolf knelt and ran a hand over it without touching. “There’s no magic to it now other than the power of a sharp blade.” He smiled. “It belonged to my father’s predecessor. I suspect that means it is yours now, Kisrah.”

  “No,” said the Archmage, sounding revolted. “If there’s no more harm in it, then it should be the Lyon’s, assuming you can fix this. He’s paid enough for it.”

  Once he’d called the blade, Nevyn had ignored it completely. Rising to his feet, he walked around Wolf to the bier.

  “He’ll hate me when he knows what I have done.” Nevyn stared at the Lyon’s body.

  “No,” said Aralorn gently. “He never expected any of his children to be perfect. Tell him what you have told us; he’ll understand. He liked Geoffrey, too.”

  Nevyn shook his head.

  “My turn,” said Gerem, flushing when his voice cracked.

  “Your turn,” agreed Aralorn.

  “I’ve been having strange dreams for a long time. Nightmares mostly.” He swallowed heavily. “I don’t really know where to start.”

  They waited patiently, giving him a chance to get his thoughts in order.

  Finally, he looked at Aralorn. “I don’t know what life here was like when you were a child, but to me it always seemed as if I was lost in a crowd. I’m clumsy with a blade and have no interest in hunting some poor fox or wolf. The only thing I can do is ride, but in this family even Freya and Lin do that well. The week . . . the week that Father was ensorcelled, he talked to me once—and that was to ask me if I had any clothes that fit.” Self-consciously, he pulled a sleeve down so it briefly covered the bones in his wrist before sliding back up.

  “One night I dreamed that I saddled my horse and rode up to the old croft. There was a rabbit hiding under a bush that I killed with an arrow. Something happened then . . . when it died I felt a rush of power that filled me until I could hold no more. I walked the fence line of the croft, chanting as the rabbit’s blood dripped to the ground.”

  There was a grim factuality to his story that Aralorn could not help but approve. To a boy who disliked hunting, the realization of what he had done must be sickening.

  “When I was through, I dipped my finger into the rabbit’s death wound, and I was thinking of Father, on how much this would impress him, how proud he would be to have a son who was a mage. I made a mark on the corner post of the fence.”

  “What did the mark look like?” asked Wolf.

  “Two half circles, one above the other—connected bottom to top.”

  Wolf frowned. “Open to the left or right or one each way?”

  “To the left.”

  Wolf closed his eyes as if it allowed him to better visualize the spell.

  Still looking at the drawings, he asked, “You said you were chanting. Do you remember what you said?”

  Gerem frowned. “No. It was in Rethian, though, because I knew what I was saying at the time. I remember thinking that it was strange. I remember that it rhymed.” He was silent for a moment. “Something about feeding, I think. Death, magic, and dreaming, but that’s all I can remember.”

  “And then you burned the croft,” said Wolf.

  Gerem nodded. “They said later there were animals in the barn.” He sounded sick.

  “Be glad there weren’t people,” commented Aralorn.

  “Thanks,” he said sourly, but with a touch of humor. “Now I can have nightmares about that every night, too.”

  “You thought this was a dream?” asked Kisrah.

  Gerem nodded. “Until we received news of the burning of the croft. Even then I didn’t really believe I’d been the one to burn the croft until Father collapsed.” He paused and looked at Aralorn. “I am really glad he isn’t dead. After he was brought back to the keep, I took out my hunting knife—there was dried blood on the blade just beneath the handle where my cleaning cloth might have missed.”

  “Gerem,” said Kisrah, “of all of us here, you hold the least guilt. Without the protection of the spells binding master to apprentice, a dreamwalker of Geoffrey’s caliber could make you do anything he wanted you to. You are no more guilty of killing that rabbit, burning the animals in the barn, or entrapping the Lyon than a sword is guilty of the wounds it opens.”

  Aralorn could have kissed him.

  Gerem’s lips twitched up just a little. “You’re saying that I was just a hatchet that happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

  The Archmage smiled and nodded. “After we free your father, I’ll speak to him about setting up a real apprenticeship.” He turned to Nevyn. “I’ll make certain he doesn’t have your experiences, Nevyn. You should have told—” He stopped when Nevyn flinched and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Wolf folded the drawings and put them into a pouch he carried on his belt.

  “Do you know enough to rel
ease him?” asked Aralorn.

  Wolf hesitated. “I will only get one chance at this. I’d like to think about it a little more. I know where Father kept his favorite spell books: Let me take a day or so to look through them before I try this.”

  “In my library,” said Kisrah dryly.

  “Not exactly,” said Wolf. “Remind me sometime to show you some of the secrets you ought to know about the ae’Magi’s castle. In the meantime, I need to look a few things up.”

  “That sounds like a good idea to me,” said Kisrah. “Do you need any help?”

  Wolf shook his head. “No. There are only two rune books he used—it wasn’t Father’s forte either.”

  Kisrah bit his lip. “May I talk to you in private before you go, Cain?”

  Wolf raised one eyebrow in surprise. “Certainly.” He took Aralorn’s hand and raised it to his lips. “I’ll be back this evening.”

  She smiled and kissed his cheek. “Fine.”

  He turned back to the Archmage. “Shall we walk?”

  * * *

  Kisrah led the way to the frozen gardens, making no attempt to talk until they were out in the cold.

  “Cain, the Master Spells are missing—or rather half of them are.”

  “What?” Shock broke through Wolf’s preoccupation with the spell he would have to perform in order to free Aralorn’s father.

  “Haven’t you noticed?”

  Wolf shook his head, still feeling disbelief—the Master Spells held the fabric of wizardry together. “They haven’t had any effect on me for a long time.”

  “Without the spells, the position of ae’Magi is no more than a courtesy title. I have no way of controlling a rogue wizard, no way of detecting black magic unless I am in the proximity of whoever is working it. When I found them in Geoffrey’s library, the pages that contained the ae’Magi’s half of the rune spells were missing.”

  Ah, thought Wolf, as he said, “I don’t know where they are.”

  “I believe you,” said Kisrah, leaving Wolf feeling odd—as if he’d braced himself for an attack that hadn’t come. “You had no motive to take them. If anyone could have controlled you with them, Geoffrey would have done so a long time ago. Do you know where he would have hidden them?”

  “The only time that I saw them, they were in the ae’Magi’s grimoire in the vault in the library.”

  “They are no longer there. If you find them—”

  “I’ll bring them to you. It’s not rogue wizards that bother me; it’s what will happen if everyone realizes you no longer control them.”

  “Witch hunts,” agreed Kisrah grimly.

  Wolf nodded. “I’ll look out for them, but don’t be surprised if I don’t find them. Father wasn’t the only wizard who dabbled in the black arts—I know there were at least two others. It would be worth their lives to keep them from you.”

  Kisrah swore heatedly. “I hadn’t thought of that. Who are they?”

  Wolf shrugged. “I don’t know their names, and they kept their faces hidden. Do you still have the other half of the spells?”

  Kisrah nodded. “We hid them as soon as it was clear that something had happened to Geoffrey’s.”

  “I’ll look,” promised Wolf again, then turned away from the ae’Magi.

  “Cain,” Kisrah said.

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  Wolf swept him a low bow before heading briskly out of the gardens. He would look, but he suspected the spells were long gone, maybe destroyed. Not entirely a bad thing, he decided after a while. Geoffrey ae’Magi could not have been the only ae’Magi who used them for other than their intended purposes, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many black grimoires left after ten centuries.

  He had a library to visit with more urgent business. More than he needed his father’s books, he needed a quiet place.

  * * *

  Aralorn waited until Gerem and Nevyn followed the other mages out the door before turning to the chicken in the crate.

  “Coming out, Halven?” she asked.

  The hen let out a startled squawk.

  She pulled the lid off the crate and shook her head. “Don’t give me that. If you wanted to remain anonymous, you could have made your clucks less pointed. Otherwise, I’d never have thought to check to see if the chicken was really a chicken. I never have been able to switch from one sex to the other.”

  The hen jumped to the top of the crate and landed on the floor as her uncle—this time in the form of a tall red-headed man wearing the clothes of one of the Trader Clans. “Having you around makes spying much more interesting,” he said, sounding pleased.

  “What would you have done if he’d been ready to unwork the spell and tried to sacrifice you?” she asked.

  He grinned. “I wouldn’t have let him slit my throat, but I was pretty sure that he’d want to consider the spells for a while.”

  “Be that as it may, I for one am glad you’re here. How much do you know about human magic?”

  Halven raised his eyebrows. “Less than Wolf, I imagine.”

  “He’s busy—and I’m not certain that it’s something I want to discuss with him right now. Just how powerful would a dreamwalker have to be in order to control a howlaa?”

  “Ah, dreamwalking is not just a human talent, and I do know a little something about it.” He scratched his chin. “Howlaas are magical creatures, much more difficult to influence than a half-fledged boy like Gerem. Dreamwalking is more common among us than among the humans, but we don’t tend to be nearly as powerful. I know two dreamwalkers; only one of them can dreamspeak. We don’t even have stories of dreamwalkers who can influence others the way Gerem was, except for the—what was it you called it? Ah yes, the Dreamer.”

  “Now you’ve heard the whole story of the spell on the Lyon. Do you still think that a dead dreamwalker couldn’t do this?”

  “Maybe one could,” he said. “Kisrah and Nevyn’s part, yes. I am less certain of whoever held your brother in thrall—I’d think that would take a fair bit of power. The howlaa? I just don’t see how a dead man would have the power to do that. But I haven’t talked to any dead dreamwalkers to be certain of it.”

  “Maybe,” she said thoughtfully, “I should go talk to someone who knows more about dead people.”

  * * *

  The wind was gusty as Aralorn took the path to the temple, but it didn’t bother her as much today. Perhaps her lessons on centering helped her to block the voices more effectively, or else the ability was fading with time. She rather hoped for the latter.

  The temple doors stood open, so she rode directly there, dismounted, and left Sheen standing outside.

  “Tilda?” she called softly. The room appeared deserted, though by no means empty. In spite of the open door, it was warm inside, but there was no sign of a fire. She shivered and backed out of the temple, closing the doors carefully behind her.

  Leading Sheen toward the little cottage, she told him, “I don’t know why that should unnerve me when I run around with wizards and shapechangers, but it does.”

  There was a hitching post in front of the cottage, and Aralorn dropped Sheen’s reins beside it.

  “Be good,” she said, and patted him on the shoulder before taking the shoveled path to the door of the cottage.

  “Enter,” bade a cheerful voice when she knocked. “I’m in the kitchen, baking.”

  Sure enough, when Aralorn opened the door, the smell of warm yeast billowed out.

  “It’s me, Aralorn.” She followed the smell to find Tilda up to her elbows in bread dough. “I see I caught you working.”

  Tilda laughed. “Shh. Don’t tell. A priestess is supposed to stand around and look mysterious.”

  “That’s all right, I generally get plenty of mysterious. Speaking of which, the temple door was opened. I shut it before I came here.”

  Tilda smiled. “Well then, we both welcome you here.”

  “Thank you,” said Aralorn with what aplomb she’d managed to dev
elop running around with Wolf. “I came because I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Me or the priestess?”

  Aralorn shrugged. “Whichever one can answer my questions. Geoffrey ae’Magi is dead, right?”

  “Yes,” Tilda answered without hesitation. “Ridane sometimes tells me when significant people die.”

  Aralorn let out a harsh breath of relief. She’d been pretty sure of it, but hearing it was better. She could deal with him dead—it was the living Geoffrey who had scared the courage out of her. “A great many people, including the current ae’Magi, are convinced that his spirit is dreamwalking around Lambshold. Is that possible?”

  “Dreamwalking?” Tilda stopped kneading her bread and looked thoughtful. “I don’t know.” She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.

  Something stirred in the air. It wasn’t magic, but it was like enough to it that Aralorn could feel it drift through her and wrap itself about the priestess.

  When Tilda opened her eyes, the pupil filled her iris, making her eyes appear almost black. “No,” she said. “There are a few ghosts in the area, old things for the most part. But nothing strong enough to influence the living.”

  Aralorn nodded slowly. “That’s what I needed to know. Thank you.” She turned to go.

  “Wait,” said the priestess. “There is something ...”

  “Yes?”

  Tilda stared at her bread for a moment before looking up. She was pale as milk, and her pupils were contracted as if she stood in the noonday sun rather than in a cozy but rather dim cottage. “If you are not very careful and very clever, there will be several more deaths soon.”

  “I am always clever,” responded Aralorn, with more humor than she felt. “Careful, we may have to work around.” Tilda still looked upset, so Aralorn added, “I know that there is danger. It should not take me long to discover what has been happening these last few weeks. Once I know that—I’ll know what can be done.”

  “Ridane says that the web is spun, and one person at Lambshold will die no matter what you do.”

  Aralorn had not dealt with gods much, but she was a firm believer in writing her own future. She was not about to let Ridane decide the fate of her family and friends. “I’ll do what I can. Thank you, Tilda. You’ve helped a great deal.”