Dreamer's Daughter (22 page)

“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.

R
ùnach 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 Muinear, 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.”

“That,” Rùnach said with feeling, “I do not doubt in the slightest.”

“Come in,” Uabhann said, beckoning for him to enter. “I don't get very many visitors.”

Rùnach imagined he didn't. He walked into the man's chambers and blinked in surprise. He could have been standing in the midst of any suite of rooms favored by a cultured gentleman. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure he hadn't seen that same style of sofa in the headmaster of Buidseachd's private solar. He thought he might like to know how that could possibly be, but perhaps later, when he was certain he would toddle back out that doorway alive.

He accepted a seat in front of a roaring fire, then didn't protest the further offering of what looked to be a glass of port.

“Not poisoned,” Uabhann assured him. “In case you were wondering.”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“That thought crosses everyone's mind.”

Rùnach almost laughed, but he thought that might be inappropriate. He sipped instead, thanked his host for the excellence of his libations, then set his glass down on the table at his elbow. He looked at the man sitting across from him, wearing runes that were only barely visible, and surrounded by a darkness that wasn't necessarily evil.

“How long have you been at this?” he asked politely.

“At what?”

“The business of nightmares.”

Uabhann smiled. “Long enough.”

“Don't suppose you gave my father any, did you?”

“I imagine I did, Prince Rùnach.”

Rùnach acknowledged the recognition with a nod. “I should thank you, then, for he had terrible ones.”

“Most were of his own making,” Uabhann said. “Guilty conscience, you know, troubling his sleep. I just added a few threads here and there when necessary.”

Rùnach didn't doubt it. He considered, then decided there was no sense in not asking for what he needed.

“I have a book I need to look at.”

“Something nasty?”

“Fairly. And I'm afraid that if I open it in the great hall, I'll bring the whole place down around my ears.”

Uabhann rubbed his hands together. “Sounds delightful. Let's have a look here, then, shall we? Sìorraidh and I have an understanding, as you might imagine.”

Rùnach didn't dare speculate, but he imagined they did indeed. He nodded, then took the book in both hands. He had to admit that he was nervous about opening it anywhere. He had very vivid memories of his grandfather's glamour protesting the action. Loudly.

“I'm not evil, you know.”

Rùnach looked at him. “I never said you were.”

“I make people uneasy.”

Rùnach imagined he did. Uabhann wasn't handsome, which Rùnach supposed was his saving grace. In his experience, evil had a very attractive face, which was what gained it entrance where it might not have found an open door otherwise. He shrugged.

“You don't bother me.”

“Not as ugly as your sire, eh?”

“Actually,” Rùnach said, “you're quite a bit uglier than my sire, if you don't mind my saying so.”

That was an understatement, he had to admit. He was hardly any judge of male beauty, he supposed, but he had two good eyes and he could tell the difference between a troll and a faery. His father had been terribly handsome and all the more dangerous because of it.

Uabhann only smiled. “I'll accept the compliment. Thank you.”

“But still I don't think you're evil,” Rùnach added.

“Perhaps your sight is clearer than most.”

“And perhaps you force people to see things they wouldn't like to.”

Uabhann lifted his eyebrows briefly. “Perhaps.” He sat back and looked at Rùnach. “I do like the light,” he admitted, “but I do my best work in the shadows.”

“That seems reasonable,” Rùnach said. “No darkness, no appreciation for light.”

“What do you prefer, Prince Rùnach?”

“Rain.”

Uabhann looked at him, then smiled. “I see I'll need to plan a bit more to entrap you, won't I?”

“Is that your goal?”

“We've been without a First for almost three decades now,” Uabhann said with a shrug. “Aisling comes from a long line of powerful, canny women. Don't want her being bamboozled by a pretty face.”

“I thought the hall doors would kill me if Bruadair didn't like me,” Rùnach said.

“Her,” Uabhann said distinctly. “They would have killed her. You, Your Highness, have a far different test to pass.”

“Any hints?”

“Do you need hints?”

“They might be useful.”

And then he felt something tugging at his soul, though perhaps that was a poor way to put it. There was something calling to him, singing with a song that was almost too tempting to resist.

Calling to his pride.

His ego.

His mighty magic.

It was tempting to trot out a few spells for Uabhann and show him just what he was capable of—

He looked at Uabhann and let out his breath slowly. “I see.”

“Oh, laddie, I don't think you've but begun to see, but there you have it.” He shrugged. “I make people uneasy.”

“I can see why.”

Uabhann looked at him. Well, through him, actually. Rùnach decided that perhaps he would do well to tread carefully around that one who was obviously not precisely what he seemed to be.

“Your half brother has dark dreams.”

Rùnach wondered if he should not bother looking any further at his book when apparently a veritable font of tidings was sitting right there in front of him. “Are you encouraging that?”

Uabhann smiled. “The idea has occurred to me.”

Rùnach suspected it had done more than just occur to the man in front of him. “How did you come to be here?”

“My father was a dreamspinner,” Uabhann said, “and his father before him. Where our line began, I hesitate to say for the source is not pleasant.” He paused and looked at Rùnach. “My grandfather's grandfather was reared . . .” He paused again. “The locale is not pleasant either. Let us simply say that it gave him a unique perspective on evil and all its incarnations.”

“I won't speculate.”

“You likely shouldn't.” Uabhann gestured toward Rùnach's book. “Let's discuss that instead. What is it besides something nasty?”

“A book I created of spells to counter my father's spells,” Rùnach said slowly, “a book I didn't realize had been lost. When I found the book where I hadn't left it, I quickly realized the innards were missing and had been replaced with what the covers currently hold.”

“Who lost the book?”

Rùnach considered. “
Lost
was perhaps a poor choice of words. I left it in the care of the witchwoman of Fàs, but she didn't guard it very well.”
Or at all
was what he didn't add and likely didn't need to add.