Read Princess of the Sword Online
Authors: Lynn Kurland
Princess of the Sword (2 page)
Morgan of Melksham understood that. She had no desire to wake anything in that keep either. In fact, she had no desire to get close enough to it for any unfortunate night-time interruptions to be a possibility. Only a madman would have approached those walls, shrouded as they were in spells and other unpleasant things of a wizardly nature.
Normally, she wouldn’t have found herself anywhere near such a place. She was a very practical woman with a straightforward way of conducting her life, which generally included a fondness for sharp swords and a habit of avoiding whenever possible any associations with mages.
Or at least that had been true until the fall. It was then that her life had become something so far from what she’d expected it would be, she scarce recognized it as hers any longer.
It had all begun with a simple request from a man she loved like a father, a request to take a blade from the Island of Melksham all the way to the king’s palace on the northern border of Neroche. She had agreed, reluctantly, but knowing that she couldn’t in good conscience refuse. She’d expected the journey to be difficult, dangerous, and possibly fatal to her person.
She’d sorely underestimated the potential for all three.
The knife had revealed itself to be rather more magical than she’d been told, her travels had led her to discover things about her past she wouldn’t have dreamt in her worst nightmares, and the companions she’d collected along the way—or one of them, rather—had turned out to be substantially more magical than she’d feared.
All of which had led, in a most roundabout fashion, to her standing uneasily under the eaves of an inn and feeling an unreasonable amount of trepidation at the thought of assaulting the fortress in front of her so she could steal something that was critical to another battle she intended to fight in a place she most certainly didn’t want to go.
It wasn’t the climbing over walls that bothered her. She had, during her long and illustrious career as a mercenary, ended more than one siege by slipping into a keep and convincing the recalcitrant lord there that it would be wise for him to just give up and give in rather than face what she could promise would be a very long and unpleasant war.
It wasn’t even the theft that troubled her. Spoils were spoils and, when fairly won, really couldn’t be considered plundered goods.
What bothered her was that the castle before her was so slathered in magic that even
she
could feel it from where she stood fifty paces away, and she was preparing to be about her nefarious business with a man who should have known better.
she
could feel it from where she stood fifty paces away, and she was preparing to be about her nefarious business with a man who should have known better.
“This is a terrible idea,” she said, not for the first time.
Mochriadhemiach of Neroche stood next to her with his arms folded over his chest, staring thoughtfully at the fortress in front of them. “We’ll be in and out before anyone is the wiser,” he said, also not for the first time.
“Have you ever done this before?” she asked unwillingly. “Here?”
“Aye,” he said, but offered no further details.
She supposed she didn’t want further details. She suspected he did this sort of thing on a regular basis to add to his already too-large collection of spells. At least he had the benefit of not being bothered by the magic. She wished she could say the same for herself.
But she wasn’t one to shy away from the difficult, so she turned her thoughts back to the matter at hand. The keep had to be assaulted, and she needed to know the particulars of the defenses so she wouldn’t make any mistakes in the taking of it.
“You said something about magic guarding the walls,” she said, suppressing the urge to shiver from a cold that came from more than just evening mist. “You should tell me of it again.” She looked up at Miach. “I wasn’t listening when you tried before.”
He smiled as he turned her to him and pulled her cloak up closer to her chin. “I imagine you weren’t, so here is the tale. Several centuries ago, the headmaster, whose job it is to see to these sorts of things, determined that it would serve the wizards of Buidseachd to know who walked in and out of their gates.”
“Or over their walls,” she added.
“Aye, that too, I daresay,” he agreed. “Master Ceannard crafted a spell that sets off an alarm in his chambers if any but he who has presented himself to the gatekeeper uses any sort of magic within the boundaries of the castle. Keeps the rabble out, I daresay.”
“I daresay,” she muttered.
He studied her for a moment or two before he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You know, I wouldn’t think any less of you if you stayed here.”
“I can scale a wall as proficiently as you, my lord.”
He smiled briefly. “You know that isn’t what I’m talking about.” He glanced at the keep, then looked back at her. “I fear, Morgan, that I will walk places tonight where you won’t want to go.”
She looked up at him, his face cast in deep shadows, and supposed she could have told him that what lay before them was the least of her worries, but she imagined he already knew that. She also could have reminded him that he was braving the place in front of them to fetch a spell for her use, not his, but she supposed he knew that already as well. This was merely another in a very long list of things he had done for her benefit alone. The least she could do was go with him and see that he didn’t find himself with a sword thrust into his back.
No matter where his path led.
“I don’t fear what’s inside those walls,” she said, wondering if saying it often enough would at some point lead her to believe the lie. “Just tell me how we’re going to avoid that alarm.”
He looked at her for another moment in silence, then sighed. “We’re not going to use any magic as we’re about our business.”
“And just who you are won’t set bells to ringing?”
“I’m going to hide who—and what—I am.” He paused. “You’ll need to do the same.”
She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised by how dry her mouth had suddenly become, but she was. She had faced countless men over blades and never once doubted her skill, yet there she was, terrified just the same.
Magic was, as her former swordmaster Scrymgeour Weger had said on more than one occasion, a very dodgy business indeed.
“I’m going to give you a Duriallian spell,” Miach continued. “I think it will do for our purposes tonight.”
“I didn’t think the dwarves had any spells.”
“They don’t have very many, and they are, as you might imagine, exceptionally reluctant to share the ones they do have.”
“Find yourself locked in some dwarvish solar without anything to do save poke about in books you shouldn’t have been reading?” she asked pointedly.
He smiled. “I might have.”
“Miach, someday you’re going to get caught.”
Just please don’t let it be tonight.
Just please don’t let it be tonight.
“I always have a good excuse for being where I’m not supposed to be,” he assured her. “Now, the spell I’m going to give you is particularly useful when you want to hide something. A cache of gems, or perhaps piles of gold. Or yourself.” He paused. “Or, rather, merely a
part
of yourself. As in, just your magic.”
part
of yourself. As in, just your magic.”
“But how can I use one of their spells?” she protested faintly. “I thought you could only use what magic you had in your blood.” Well, unless you happened to be the archmage of some realm or other and then she supposed anything was possible.
“Magic is generally responsive only to what the mage has in his veins,” he agreed, “but ’tis possible to use things you aren’t entitled to by birth if you have enough power.” He smiled faintly. “Are you truly curious, or merely stalling?”
“Stalling, if you can believe it.” She purposely avoided looking to her right. “And I never stall.”
He rubbed her arms briskly. “Then let’s be about this before we think on it any longer,” he said. “I’ll give you the spell, then tell you two ways to undo it. One takes a handful of words; the other a single word only. I wouldn’t use the second unless you’ve absolutely no other choice.”
“Why not?”
“Because it will release all your power at once, much like a dam bursting. Everyone for miles will feel the echo of it.”
She swallowed with difficulty. “And alarm bells will go off?”
“Probably in the throne room of Tor Neroche,” he said dryly. “So please, be ginger. Now, the spell is laid thus—”
“Aren’t you going to do it for me?” she asked in surprise.
He hesitated. “I could, but I don’t think you’d care for it. You have power enough to use the spell successfully on your own.”
“But if I make a mistake, we are lost.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “All right, I’ll see to it. But stop me if you find you can’t breathe, aye?”
She nodded, but she couldn’t help but think he was underestimating her ability to endure things that were difficult.
Or, at least she did until he started weaving his spell.
All her power, the power she’d spent weeks denying, then yet more time trying to accept—all that power didn’t so much leave her as it was drawn into itself, then dropped down into some fathomless well. She looked over the edge of that well, fearing she had lost what she had never wanted but had so recently come to appreciate, but there it all lay, shining there in the dark like a treasure that was so lovely and so desirable, it almost brought tears to her eyes.
She had to pull away mentally from the sight. She was appalled to find how accustomed she’d become to that sparkle of magic cascading through her veins. It was the same sort of magic that whispered through the trees and sang as it fell down onto the ground like sunlight in her grandfather’s garden at Seanagarra.
It was beautiful.
She looked up to find Miach watching her silently, his eyes full of what she’d seen.
“If your grandfather could see your face right now,” he said quietly, “he would weep.”
She took a deep breath. “I never intended . . . I didn’t realize . . .”
“Not all magic is evil, Morgan, is it?”
She shook her head, because she couldn’t speak. She could only go into his arms, hold him tightly for a moment or two, then step back before she gave into the urge to display some womanly emotion that wouldn’t serve either of them. She waved him on to his business without further comment. She would think about magic, and mages, and other things that unbalanced her later. For now, ’twas best to do what had to be done.
Miach gave her both ways to undo his spell, and she memorized each faithfully. She didn’t hear him say anything on his own behalf, but she felt his power disappear as surely as if he’d snuffed out a candle—or dropped all his magic into a well and then capped it.
She wasn’t too fond of that last image, truth be told.
“Let’s go,” he said.
She nodded, then turned to slip through the shadows with him, giving no more thought to what she was doing than she would have any other offensive. They would be over the walls, find what they needed, then be back outside the keep before any of the mutterers inside were the wiser.
The outer walls of Buidseachd were relatively easy to scale, though very high. Heights didn’t bother her, so she didn’t trouble herself over them. She dropped onto the parapet with Miach, hid in the shadows as a sleepy sentry shuffled by, then followed him as he wound his way through towers and passages and up and down stairs. She didn’t ask him where he was going, and he didn’t volunteer any information.
Bells weren’t ringing—save the one tolling the hour that almost sent her tripping into Miach’s back—and students weren’t pouring out of their bedchambers with spells of death on their lips. Perhaps they would manage their business after all.
They passed others, but those lads seemed to find nothing unusual about two cloaked and hooded figures wandering the halls in the middle of the night. Miach had told her that it was common to see both students and masters in the passageways at all hours, studying or thinking or working on some perplexing magical tangle of some sort or another. Morgan wondered how anyone bore the place. Despite her attempts to ignore it, the magic was almost stifling. She could feel it rising up from the ground like a foul mist. In time, she realized she was gasping.
Miach stopped suddenly and pulled her into an alcove with him. “We’ll rest for a moment.”
She leaned back against the wall instead of collapsing there, but doing so took almost more of her self-discipline than she had to spare. “Thank you.”
“You’re doing well.”
She didn’t think she was doing well at all. She never should have set foot inside the accursed place—never mind what she thought she owed Miach, never mind that she’d come over the walls fully expecting to not take a decent breath whilst she was there.
She had actually listened to Miach earlier when he’d said that Buidseachd was built on a spring of magic, and three thousand years of wizards puttering about inside it had added innumerable layers to what had already been there. She had stopped listening once Miach and her grandfather had begun discussing the wizardly mischief that had dredged up things under Buidseachd’s foundations that perhaps had been better left alone, things that had left Sìle and Eulasaid of Camanaë and Proìseil of Ainneamh very nervous centuries ago. Perhaps she should have paid more attention to what those things had been. If she had, she might have been less likely to trust her ability to endure things far beyond what another might be able to.
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