Verek pushed his hood back and rubbed his head where Carin had yanked out a hank of his hair. “I fancy that some mountain bird will weave a bit of Ruain into its nest, when spring reveals the part of me that’s now buried, by your hand, down there.” He gestured at the slopes that stretched below them.
Carin still held her tongue, provoking a sigh from the wizard.
He reached for the pot of tea and refilled Carin’s mug and his own. Then he raised his cup to her in a mock toast. “Again you’ve bested me. I confess myself utterly confounded.”
Carin popped her last bite of raisin cake into her mouth and chewed slowly. She washed the cake down with a little tea. Then she held up a face that she hoped looked innocent.
“I tripped, that’s all.” She shrugged. “Sorry. You know I’m not usually that clumsy.” Carin looked at the wizard as directly as she could. Without the headband to tamp down the fires of sorcery, they smoldered visibly in Verek’s eyes now. “It is lucky we weren’t both killed,” she admitted. “If the sprite hadn’t been there to help, I probably wouldn’t have got to you in time. You were buried much deeper than I was.”
Verek gave her a long, searching look. Carin gazed back at him, although the urge to avert her eyes was as strong as a drowning swimmer’s desire to breathe.
“Humph,” the wizard grunted.
He rose to his feet. “Come.” The movements of his bare hands were sharp and quick as he lashed on his snowshoes and crammed their empty tea mugs into his pockets.
Carin hastily bagged the uneaten cake. Then she strapped on bearpaws that did not need mending.
“Here,” Verek ordered brusquely. He thrust the empty pan at Carin. “As you go gloved and I bare-knuckled, you’ll carry this.”
She took the pan in one mitt, her hiking stick in the other, and fell in behind as Verek shoved off down the trail. But before they’d gone far, Carin was crowding up behind the wizard, as near as she could get and not step on his heels.
“Lord Verek.” She didn’t quite shout at him, but she spoke up to be heard over the crunch of their rapid strides. “Will you tell me something?”
Verek stopped so suddenly that she couldn’t avoid him: again they collided. The wizard’s efforts to prop them up proved more successful this time, however. Both kept their feet.
“Excuse me,” Carin mumbled as she disengaged and backed away with all the speed that was manageable on snowshoes. She looked up at Verek, drew a breath, and pressed on. “Why don’t you just use your magic to take us to Lanse and the deer? For that matter, why don’t you spirit us over these mountains to wherever we’re going? You’ve got the power to do it. But you’re using your magic just to make fire or boil water or heat a little bread.”
Carin gestured back toward the avalanche slope. “The way you dug yourself out back there, that’s the strongest wizardry I’ve seen from you since we left Ruain. I understand why you’d avoid being obvious when people are around. But we’re alone up here.” She tilted her head. “Why not cast a spell or two to make this trip go easier?”
For a moment, Verek didn’t answer. He only stood looking at Carin with an expression that was quite somber—and maybe a little miserable.
Then he raised his bare hand from the folds of his cloak, and with the back of one finger stroked her cheek. Carin stood stock-still, powerless to move … or to stop the color from rising in blood-warm waves over her face.
“I make fire,” he whispered in a voice like a labored breath, “because we must have it, and because my kindling of a blaze is not as conspicuous as are nature’s own terrible illuminations. My escape from my snow-tomb, however, was the heedless act of a mind dazed with cold and fear. Had my wits stayed with me, I would not have made that magic; it was a mistake. It may be seen and known … by one who watches … as a manifestation of the power.
“I tell you distinctly, fìleen: also mistaken is this notion of yours that we are alone in these mountains. There is a presence in these peaks from whom I would hide us. But I fear that I have failed to do so.”
Verek dropped his hand from Carin’s face, and he turned his gaze to the west.
* * *
They caught up with Lanse where he’d pitched camp at the end of the deers’ day’s run. The blizzard caught them all before Carin had finished hollowing out her snow cave.
Verek took the shovel from her. Tersely he ordered Lanse to see to the deer and Carin to secure their food and supplies.
As the wizard commanded, she doled out bread, jerked meat, cake, water, and a measure of dhera for each of them. She slid Verek’s rations up the tunnel to his snow shelter, left Lanse an untidy heap he could stow for himself, and got her own provisions to her just-finished burrow in time to serve the wizard in her usual way, as airhole spotter. Reemerging to a gale that stung her face, Carin secured the camp gear under the tarp on the sled. With Verek’s help, she lashed down the canvas and checked that the sleigh was reliably anchored.
The wizard saw her back to her cave, conjured a witchlight orb for her, and tossed another one to Lanse. Then he dived into his own shelter as the storm turned the close of day into a white fury of wind and snow.
In Carin’s den, all was calm and quiet. She slept. The witchlight, when she woke, cast its same pleasing illumination. The wind, as she crawled partway down her cave’s entrance tunnel to listen for it, had not abated. So she ate, drank a little dhera, and went back to sleep. Cut off from natural light, she lost track of time. The glowing orb never flickered, never faded.
This cave was roomier than the one she’d dug without help. It was long enough to stretch out in. By slouching a little, she could sit up without the top of her head brushing the ceiling. When she couldn’t sleep any more, Carin propped herself up, pulled the three sheets of paper out of her pocket, and passed the time extracting more words from Legary’s ensorcelled narrative.
What revealed itself, however, was hardly useful. Each quick uncovering of the bewitched paper brought up only a was, or a shall, or an in or an on. The tantalizing phrases that had once risen to view seemed more deeply buried than ever.
Carin sighed, and cursed her luck. “My fingers were in his hair,” she muttered. “If I’d held on, I’d have what I need.”
Carefully she unwrapped her collection: three hairs from Welwyn’s head, one from Verek’s. She jerked a single strand from her own mane and laid the auburn shaft beside the black one and the salt-and-pepper threesome.
Could she work the spell with fewer than the prescribed number of hairs from each “witch’s” head? No, she shouldn’t try it. Chanting the wisewoman’s rhyme when she had no circlet of braided hair to look through had seemed to do more harm than good. Legary’s writing was less decipherable now than before. Carin wouldn’t risk compounding her error by weaving too small a ring of magic.
Patience, she counseled herself. Watch for a second chance—and don’t bungle it.
Carin put Legary’s narrative away, with her precious cache folded securely within. Then she snuggled back into her rabbit-fur robes and lay gazing into the witchlight, letting her thoughts wander where they would.
And as surely as the tide returns to the beach, her mind took her back to Verek’s manor house. Although she’d lived under his roof for only a month—and much of that time she’d been frightened half to death—there was something in that ancient, crumbling mansion which still called to her.
Was it Verek’s library, with more thousands of books than she could read in two lifetimes? What she’d learned from her studies there had whetted her appetite for more. In his books she might discover secrets of the apothecary’s art, and in time become a healer like the wizard. She might learn to conjure fire and light. Maybe the spell of “seeing” that she meant to use on Legary’s ensorcelled writing could lift the veil from all the Book of Archamon and allow Carin to read the mysterious pennings of generations of wizards.
But was it, in fact, her love of Verek’s books that seemed to call her back to his house?
Could she still be hearing, not her own yearning for knowledge, but the voice of the wizards’ well?
That voice, as lustrous as sea-spray in moonlight, was overpowering. It had summoned her only once, but with such authority that Carin even now could feel the force of it as she had felt it that night … irresistible, impossible to oppose.
She couldn’t think about the well of magic without also remembering the dragon that she’d conjured to those waters: the Jabberwock that had risen, howling, when Carin read aloud the incantation from the Looking-Glass book. She hadn’t meant to bring a bloodthirsty monster into this world. But Verek had demonstrated, with a sackful of chickens, what the Jabberwock’s teeth and claws could do to living flesh.
The wizard had also established that the dragon would not answer to him. The incantation that summoned it must be recited in its native language by a native speaker.
And that was her. That had to be Carin’s purpose on this journey. What else could it be?
“The time may come,” Verek had told her, “when I will ask you to embark with me on an enterprise that will endanger both our lives.”
That time was now. This struggle through the mountains had to be their venture into danger that Verek had foreseen months ago.
Carin rubbed her forehead. What else had the wizard said? He’d called the dragon “an instrument for good.” And he’d talked about killing someone … killing one person so that millions might live … so that life itself might continue, on Ladrehdin and on other worlds.
In horror Carin had recoiled from him, convinced that she was Verek’s intended victim. But he’d denied it. “I have in mind another—someone who is a more urgent threat to this world than you are,” he’d said.
Carin’s skepticism countered: That warlock sees threats everywhere. He even thinks the woodsprite is dangerous—just because the creature belonged to another world, she supposed. Why else would Verek have warned her not to trust the sprite?
She raised her head and stared into the witchlight. In the orb, Carin seemed to see the flash of the sprite. She sat up and reached for the sphere.
Its crinkly shell filled her hand with a slight tingle but no heat. The clear white light burned cool—not like the sprite, which had a sort of warmth to its nature. At least when the creature got excited and sparked feverishly, Carin could feel the bark of its dwelling-tree grow warm under her hand.
“Don’t listen to that warlock,” she cautioned herself in a soft whisper. “He’s trying to mislead you about the sprite. He knows that the two of you together are strong enough to stand up to him. If he can drive you apart, he can weaken you.”
She returned the orb to its niche. The witchlight glowed steadily, with none of a candle flame’s shadow-dancing. Its stillness, however, was more hypnotic than a candle’s flickering. Gradually, as Carin gazed into its unwavering light, she began to fancy that it stared back. Was the orb watching her?
Starting up, Carin grabbed the sphere and dug her other hand into the nook that had held it, scraping out snow to widen the space. She jammed the orb into one end of the enlarged cavity and packed loose snow in front of it to hide the thing from view, leaving one side uncovered. Only its light remained, shining into the open end of the cavity and reflecting out into her cave.
If anything peered from the orb, the watcher could see nothing now except the snow that surrounded it.
The watcher? Carin’s thoughts swung round to Verek’s claim that they were not alone in these mountains—that someone hidden amid these peaks might know of their intrusion and must object to it.
Who could be here in this wilderness of rock and snow? What reason could anyone have for dwelling in such awful solitude?
“Wizards have their reasons,” Carin muttered under her breath. “Welwyn told you: every magician of Ladrehdin who survived the Wizards War sought these peaks, because … ” She trailed off, but the monk’s voice finished the sentence in her head: “In these mountains and forests it’s hard, don’t you know, to find a magician who does not wish to be found.”
At the edge of Carin’s vision, something moved, briefly and gently. She sat still, alert to any repetition, however slight.
And there: it came again. Falling from the ceiling was a fine mist. No, not a mist—more like a sprinkling of hoarfrost. The delicate, feathery crystals caught the reflected witchlight like tiny cut gems.
Now the frosty shower fell faster. It cascaded from a crack that was forming in the roof of Carin’s snow cave.
She grabbed for something to cover her head; she got her cloak. Diving under it, Carin half crawled and half rolled toward the tunnel that led outside. Where cave and tunnel met, she paused and looked back at the cracking ceiling.
The fissure in the roof widened, deepened—and broke. Punching through was a furry paw with its hooked claws fully extended. It was a cat’s paw—but one large enough to break Carin’s neck with a single swipe.
She screamed an oath. “Drrrisha!”
The paw withdrew, and chunks of snow filled Carin’s ruined den as the roof completed its collapse. Snow buried her possessions and obscured the witchlight.
Carin wriggled into what remained of the tunnel. She hid there, her hands knotted in the folds of her cloak. Sweet mother of Drisha, how dark and close it was in the tunnel. Carin’s breathing sounded harsh, loud in the narrow space.
But not so loud that other sounds could not reach her, from outside. There was the wind, still strong but beginning to let up. Through the treetops it moaned like a chorus of demons. Over the snow it swished, a thousand phantoms draggling ghostly trains.
Then, above the wailing of the wind, a scream rose. Human? Animal? Carin couldn’t tell. It came again, as heart-stopping a shriek as she’d ever heard.
And footsteps pounded by, so close to the mouth of Carin’s tunnel that she felt the jarring and got a faceful of snow grains.
Fear said to stay where she was. Reason argued otherwise. If the footsteps were those of Verek or Lanse gone to fight the cat, the battle might carry them to Carin’s hiding place and bring swordsman or predator—or both—crashing down on top of her. She needed to be where she could see and evade the danger.
Carin squirmed into a night that was gusty, bitterly cold, and pitch black. She wrapped up in her cloak and stood listening for the boots that had stomped past.
From a short way off came the crunch of steps on a crust of snow. Then something screamed. Throatier than the first outcries, this was a scream not of terror, but of rage.
A man shouted. Not Verek—the voice was not as deep as the wizard’s. It was Lanse out there in the darkness.
He shouted again, but his voice sounded muffled. Then came another cry—unmistakably human this time, and sharp with pain and fear.
A flash lit the darkness like a flaring torch, so bright for an instant that Carin blinked. Then the light was gone, quick as a spark. But in its wake came the snap and crack of wood breaking and the crash of a heavy bough that smashed through lesser limbs on its downward plunge. It landed with a thud—burying itself in the snow? Or was that the sound of timber striking flesh?
Clearly, the woodsprite had entered the fray—but on which side? Was the creature aiming for Lanse’s skull, or the cat’s?
“Sprite!” Carin yelled. She took one hesitant step in the direction of the flash and the noise.
Then a hand seized her by the collar and shoved her blindly toward the scene of battle. She shrieked and stumbled.
An arm wrapped itself around her. It hauled her upright and propelled her forward in one violent motion. Who it was that manhandled her, Carin had no doubt. She caught the scent of calendula.
“Forbear, sprite!” Verek shouted. He jerked Carin to a halt after a half-dozen steps that bruised and staggered her. His voice at her ear was as harsh as the night around them. “Accursed creature! Did I not warn you what price would be paid for treachery?”
A light blazed behind Carin, throwing her shadow and Verek’s onto the snow
. Was it the sprite? Or had the warlock conjured witchlight?
She tried to turn toward the beacon but she couldn’t twist away from Verek. He grabbed her hair and jerked her head back, hard. Carin gasped. Pressing against her throat was an edge of cold steel.
“Do you doubt my resolve, sprite?” Verek yelled. “Then see who I have here. I do not depart from my word, you wicked changeling. If you have harmed the boy, then you’ll watch my knife lay open the wench’s throat.”
Chapter 14
Unnatural Things
Down through the pine boughs a spark dropped. It fell groundward like a lost star.
“Stop!” shrieked the sprite. “Stay your hand, fiend! I’ve made no move against that detestable boy. My object was the giant of its kind that’s ripped the throats from two of your animals. It’s hauled one carcass away through the trees and left the boy bleeding in the snow. Shine your light on the sorry scene below me and see the truth of my words. If you would help your servant, then release the girl and hurry to him!”
The light at Carin’s back flew over her head and lodged in the sprite’s tree. It illuminated the carcass of a deer that lay on the snow in a mangled, bloody heap. Near it was Lanse, on his side, unmoving. The sleeve of his coat from shoulder to wrist was dark with blood, yet he still grasped his long-bladed dirk.
Behind Carin, Verek made a strangled sound deep in his throat. The knife at her neck and the hand that was knotted in her hair fell away. He darted past her to fall on his knees in the snow beside the boy. With a flick of his bare fingers Verek summoned another five witchlight orbs. They brightened the scene as if the sun had suddenly appeared in the middle of this dismal night.
Carin stumbled to the nearest tree, to lean against it and press her hand to her throat. Her hand came away spotted with blood. Crouching, she cleaned her palm on new-fallen snow and scooped up a handful to press to her neck. The cold deadened the sting of the knife cut.
For a moment Carin stayed like that, while the wind picked up the fresh powder at her feet and dusted it over her. The blizzard had died, leaving behind a surfeit of new snow with which errant gusts toyed. By the light of Verek’s sorcery, Carin watched, as if from afar, as a swirl came sweeping toward them through the trees. Briefly it obscured the wizard and Lanse. Then its white needles struck her full in the face, making her gasp.
The Wysard (Waterspell 2) Page 24
