Binding Spell (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms)

by Pope, Christine

  Lady Sedassa, it said, I am pleased to inform you that your niece, Lark Sedassa, became my wife on the fifth day of Octevre. The suddenness of these nuptials may surprise you, but rest assured that the violence of our regard for one another required a speedy ceremony. She is safe, and well, and content, and hopes that her family will wish her happy.

  I remain, his Highness, Kadar Arkalis, Mark of North Eredor

  “‘Violence of our regard for one another’?” I repeated. “I suppose it is only a slight stretching of the truth, as I must confess that I do find myself overcome by a violent desire to slap your jaw for concocting such a pack of lies. And better that it go only to my aunt, for I fear if my brother were to read it first, he might ride forth directly to seek your head.”

  His smile broadened somewhat. “You do have an interesting turn of phrase, my dear. No matter. I will send this by courier today, as I would not wish your family to suffer any more worries on your account than are necessary.”

  I scowled at his use of “my dear,” but decided to let it go. I had more important battles to fight. “And what do you think my aunt’s reaction will be? Why, once my father hears of this…” And I trailed off, for I realized that even if my aunt sent the fastest couriers in Sirlende to my parents in Marestal, still it would be at least a fortnight before they learned of my fate.

  “He will be surprised, no doubt,” Kadar said calmly. “But once faced with a feat already accomplished, I assume he will make the best of the situation.”

  “A feat already accomplished?” I echoed, even though I knew all too well exactly what he meant.

  “The wedding will take place tomorrow evening. I thought you should have some time to prepare yourself. Besides, even if I send my riders forth with this letter today, your aunt will be unable to respond until well after our marriage is a fact.”

  Tomorrow. Something inside me constricted at the word, and I swallowed. So little time to find a way to escape.

  For once I could think of nothing else to say. Legend told that in ages past messages could be sent back and forth between mages as fast as thought, but now time and distance constrained us all. Perhaps Kadar believed he was being magnanimous in allowing me some time to grow resigned to my situation, but I knew one day would make no difference when it came to hope of an outside rescue. The result would be the same even if he married me this very morning.

  In this, I could only rely on myself.

  * * *

  As promised, the seamstresses appeared later that morning, and all was organized chaos for a few hours. At some other time, I might have been thrilled at the prospect of acquiring a wardrobe of new gowns, most of them far more lavish than I would have expected, considering Kadar’s comments about the state of his country’s treasury. But now I could only nod and feign some sort of enthusiasm as fabrics and trims were matched up, and the seamstresses debated the merits of embroidery versus bullion or wool velvet as opposed to silk.

  If any of them noted my lack of excitement about this process, they were too well-mannered to show it. The senior of the group — I never did catch all their names — held up a length of exquisite silk of the palest grey, all woven with silver thread in subtle patterns, and said, “We thought this for your bridal gown, my lady. So few could wear this color, but you will look lovely.”

  I summoned a smile and thanked her. It was not her fault, after all, that Kadar was forcing me into this marriage. And truly, I did not envy them the task of churning out so many garments in such a short amount of time. If all went well, I would have no need of those new gowns, and their efforts would be for naught.

  Eventually they left, taking their fabrics and trims and chatter with them, and I was left alone. At the noon hour Beranne brought me a tray; I was thankful that apparently the Mark did not expect me to share my meals with him. I ate, though I had little appetite, for I hoped to be free of the castle by nightfall and knew I needed all my strength.

  After she had gone, taking the empty tray with her, I sat down in one of the overstuffed chairs by the fireplace and began the breathing exercises my father had taught me. This was the first step to centering my thoughts and gathering the concentration necessary for my next move.

  It was hardly a spell at all, but rather a way of focusing the consciousness and sending it outward. I must confess that my thoughts skipped and danced like a coracle in a heavy current, but at length I found the stillness at the core of my mind, the dark pool that dwelled in the very center of my being. I breathed in, and sent my mind forth.

  Two men stood guard only a few feet away on the top step directly outside my chamber. It appeared his lordship was taking no chances. And beyond them were two more flanking the end of the hallway, where it opened into the wide corridor that seemed to run the length of the building. From there I could sense only a confusion of many minds and many thoughts, and I pulled back within myself, considering.

  I did not possess the ability to turn myself invisible, but I did know one spell that shielded the caster by having those in the vicinity look away at a key moment, or by drawing them away on some remembered errand. I had tried it several times back in Maristel, with varying degrees of success. It was the sort of thing that worked better in large crowds where more distractions existed, and I had no idea whether the spell would get me past four armed guards whose only purpose was to make sure I didn’t escape.

  Still, I had to try.

  Once again I drew in a breath, and then another. Beneath the calm lay the acid nausea of panic, and I swallowed. No time for that. No time for anything except peace and darkness and the words of the spell.

  Ahl sar ostair, met fahl sar andaire.

  I felt no different, but as this was a spell directed outward to the observer, I never did. Holding the shape of those words in my mind, feeling their strength pulse along my veins, I rose from my chair and went to the door.

  It was locked, of course, but that was one spell I knew I could perform in my sleep. “Sorichar,” I whispered, and put my hand on the handle.

  Luckily the door was the type that swung inward, and so at least I avoided hitting the guards with it. I ghosted out into the hall, light as I could be in my soft borrowed slippers. The two men who had stood on the top step were now on the hallway floor proper, staring up in apparent great interest at the tapestry hanging from the wall there. Perfect.

  The other guards still maintained their position at the end of the corridor, but one of them was busy picking at a loose ring in his mail shirt, and the other had taken off his helmet and was occupying himself with polishing it on the hem of his cloak. Neither man looked up as I drifted past.

  Despite my best attempts at remaining calm, my heart had begun to pound in my chest. My success surprised even me. Surely it couldn’t be this simple?

  But apparently it was. I mingled with the crowds in the main corridor and followed the flow of bodies out to the courtyard. No one paid me any mind, although whether that was because my spell still held, or whether I, dark-haired and fair-skinned — a coloring shared by most Northerners — blended that well into the crowd, I had no idea. At the moment I didn’t much care, as long as I could get myself far away from the castle as soon as possible.

  What I would do next, lacking money, supplies, a horse, or any of the other necessities required for a successful escape, I didn’t know, but I told myself I could work that out once I was safely off the castle grounds. If nothing else, this same spell might aid me in procuring some of the items I required. My father would be most displeased if he ever learned I had turned my gifts toward picking pockets or stealing horses, but I guessed he’d be even more upset if I were forced into marriage with the Mark of North Eredor. One must have one’s priorities.

  With that thought to strengthen my resolve, I fell in behind a group of women carrying baskets — most likely off to do the marketing for the castle’s kitchens. They wore gowns much plainer than mine, but I blended in with them far better than I would the squad of men-
at-arms who exited the castle gates directly ahead of them. And none of the women seemed to notice me, which appeared to indicate that my spell was still doing its work.

  Feeling a bit more at ease, I glanced around me. The day held fine, the sky deep as the lapis inlays in a hair clasp my mother sometimes wore. The sun warmed me, although the air had a bite behind it that did not bode well for my further travels unless I could procure a cloak somewhere.

  We approached what looked to be some sort of farmer’s market, where the street widened into an area filled with wagons and stalls and the odd vendor selling his wares out of a wheelbarrow or a hand cart. My escort broke up as each woman went her own way, apparently intent on gathering her necessary supplies.

  Which seemed to be my cue to do the same. A cloak, of course, and a sturdier pair of shoes, food, water — the list seemed almost endless. I hated what I was about to do, and vowed to take careful note of the people from whom I took supplies so that I could try to send them some sort of compensation once I was safely back in Sirlende.

  The shoes and cloak were easier than I had thought. At the edge of the market stood a vendor with a table full of what appeared to be secondhand boots and mantles, and while he was occupied with another customer I sidled up to the table, cast a quick eye over its contents, and snagged a pair of low boots that looked close to my size. The mantle I pulled off a peg as he bent to sort through a box of laces under the table.

  Then, heart racing, I dashed down an alley and pounded my way through some muddy puddles until I was certain no one followed. No one had raised an alarm, apparently; I heard nothing except the normal rise and fall of voices out on the street, and the rumble of wooden cart wheels.

  I nodded to myself, and bent and unlaced the uncomfortable slippers I had been wearing and replaced them with the stolen boots. Those proved to be slightly large, but better that than the opposite. Then I shrugged the mantle around myself, shoved my now-unneeded slippers behind a couple of empty wooden packing boxes, and went back out to the street.

  Kadar and I had entered through the southern precincts of the town, and so that was where I headed. To the north lay only the lake, and to the east the wild lands that abutted the shoulders of the Opal Mountains. I must head south and then west, and hope I could find an outlying farm or small estate where I might steal a horse and some supplies. Perhaps I could have procured them here in Tarenmar, but I found myself wishing to leave the city as soon as possible. Every second I lingered within its walls seemed like tempting fate.

  And so I slipped once more unnoticed into a crowd, only this time moving through the streets toward the city’s southern edges. Although it had been almost dark the evening before when I entered Kadar’s capital, I thought I recognized the meaner dwellings that surrounded me now, the ones which formed the outer districts of the city. Good. The last thing I wanted was to go in circles.

  A jingle of harness seemed to ride over the noises of the crowd. Around me, people began to move aside. I shifted along with them, then lifted my face to see what had caused everyone to give way.

  Golden eyes bored down into mine. Kadar Arkalis rode at the head of a troop of armed men, all of whom wheeled to a stop as he paused his dapple-grey only a few feet away from me.

  “Going somewhere, my Lark?”

  Chapter 4

  Kadar said nothing to me during the ride back to the castle, nor once we were inside. I could sense the anger within him, though; his lean body was taut as a bowstring. Althan took charge of me as soon as we crossed the building’s threshold, and I was marched back up to my rooms and deposited therein. Almost at once I heard a shuffle of booted feet outside and knew the guards had taken up their positions again. In my agitation I could have miscounted them, but I thought this time they numbered at least eight.

  I knew there would be no more escapes that way. I also knew I had to will myself to stay calm, or I would be of absolutely no use to myself. While part of me would have very much liked to curl up into a ball on the divan and cry my eyes out, I realized I didn’t have the time for such indulgences.

  Instead, I went to one of the windows and peered outside. Unlike Kadar’s rooms, my suite did have solid ground directly below — at least twenty feet down, unfortunately. And even if I somehow managed to reach the ground safely, it would have done me no good. Another clot of men-at-arms stood underneath my tower rooms, more of Kadar’s measures to ensure that his would-be bride remained just where she was.

  Perhaps now it was time to weep. I could think of nothing else to do; my magic certainly would not allow me to sprout wings and fly away, or turn myself both invisible and inaudible. I had exhausted my limited repertoire.

  Rage against the idea I might, but it appeared clear to me that, come this time tomorrow, I would be Kadar Arkalis’s wife.

  * * *

  My sleep that night was restless and nightmare-ridden. I tossed and turned, dreams haunted by voices and faces — my father’s pale features, my mother’s serene countenance, even a young woman I had never met but who looked too much like me for comfort…my dream-envisioning of the Crown Princess Lyarris, no doubt, as I certainly did not know what she looked like in actuality. I would wake, and rage that I should be in such a situation, I who had only wished to accompany my brother as he went to claim his inheritance. This was none of my doing. Why, up until a few months earlier, I had had only a very hazy idea of how important my father’s family actually was.

  My father had left his homeland when he was younger than I, vowing that he would never be lord of Marric’s Rest, not afflicted as he was with his white hair and skin, and ice-grey eyes. He had concealed the truth of his magic, gone forth into the world to find someone who could train him. And so he had, in perhaps the most unlikely of places — the warm, friendly land of South Eredor, where he met the man who helped him learn how to control the power rising in him. Before he had gone, though, my father had promised his older sister — my Aunt Laranel — that if he were to have a son, one day the boy would inherit Marric’s Rest, and come home to Sirlende.

  Such a promise had seemed simple enough to make; my father had not thought any woman could ever love him. But the white hair and pale skin that made him such an outcast in his homeland were not quite so striking in South Eredor, where flaxen heads were common enough, and my mother ended up proving him wrong. Thani came along a few years later, with me following some five years after that. We both inherited our mother’s dark hair, as her own mother was Sirlendian, and raven-haired and dark-eyed, but my grey eyes were almost as silvery-pale as my father’s.

  To both our parents’ relief, Thani showed no sign of possessing any magical powers, whereas I…well, I was a slightly different matter. But my father taught me as best he could, showing me the simple spells most all users of magic could use, even as he told me that every mage-born soul had his own particular talent. My father was gifted in weather control; more than once I had seen him watching the harbor, lips moving as he conjured a charm to keep the fog away from the coast so the sailors might come safely into the port at Marestal.

  What my particular gift might be, we had not yet been able to determine. Perhaps I had none at all, and would be forever doomed to the minor charms and cantrips I’d already been taught. This happened sometimes, according to my father — or, more accurately, according to Lhars, the mage who had trained him. But more than that we did not know, as Lhars had died the year I was born, and far too much of his knowledge passed with him.

  Even those small skills I did possess had been kept secret, for magic-working was still met with suspicion and hatred. Memories were long when it came to the destruction the mages had wrought so many centuries ago. Foolish prejudice, really — I doubted my ability to unlock a door or always know where I had left an item was all that dangerous. And certainly these minor talents had been of no help to me in my current situation.

  And so I lay awake, and brooded, and rolled onto my back, and then my side, and realized it didn’t matter wh
at I did, for I could not escape my current situation. Somewhere toward dawn I fell asleep again, although again nightmares haunted me, visions of hands grasping me, pulling at my hair, my dress, dragging me down into darkness.

  The morning which followed was not much better. Oh, they did not neglect me — quite excellent meals were brought up at the proper times, and Beranne bustled in and out at regular intervals as she gathered together all the items required for a splendid turnout at my impending nuptials: slippers of silvered leather, stockings with the sheen of real silk, a truly lovely collection of jewelry — earrings and necklace and intricately wrought crown — all in silver set with gleaming grey river pearls.

  “It belonged to the late Mark, rest her,” Beranne said, and made an odd little gesture with her middle and forefinger toward the center of her brow. “His lordship wanted you to wear it for the ceremony.”

  Oh, did he? It was on my tongue to make a sharp remark as to the current Mark’s wishes, but what would have been the point? Beranne only did as she was told.

  As, apparently, did I.

  The afternoon wore on, and another woman appeared to dress my hair, Beranne’s services apparently not deemed skillful enough for such a momentous occasion. Then at last the seamstresses appeared, bearing my wedding gown.

  Truly it was beautiful, the rich patterned fabric set off by bands of plain silver trim around the low squared neckline and the separate sleeves, which tied on with lengths of silver cord. At another time I would have gladly worn such an exquisite creation, but now I looked on it as something very akin to a funeral shroud. Still, I could do nothing but allow Beranne and the seamstress to draw it on over my fine new silk chemise and let them lace up the back and tie on the sleeves. Finally Beranne set the delicate pearl and silver crown on my head, and fastened the necklace around my throat.