Wandering Lark (37 page)

Aunt Navareen frowned. “That is not a safe place, you know.”

“Yes,” Etienne said. “But I have to take the risk. I know of no other way.”

Shona was the first to turn towards the door and frown, but Wendon suddenly felt the limb on which the cottage rested swaying more than before. Faintly, he heard a man’s slurred voice.

“Do you like winterberry wine? I make a mean winterberry wine. Add a touch of clove to the mix to give it a bit of a bite.”

“That indeed sounds delicious, Master Strauss,”

Etienne leapt to her feet. And even Wendon recognized the deep resonate voice, for it was the same one that had sought them at the inn. Before anyone could so much as think of hiding, much less react, the door opened and two men entered. One was staggering a bit. The other bowed his head to pass under the lintel and straightened up just inside so that he was blocking the only visible way out, except for the window. Wendon was quite sure the window would be a mistake.

“Well,” Bran said as he thumped his staff on the wooden floor and peered at each of them with a smile. “Fancy finding you folk here.”

No one dared to move.

Etienne was not sure what to do now.
Here she had hoped they would get a good night’s rest and be on their way. Now she was wondering if it had been foolishness on her part to believe they could escape.

“You must be Lady Savala,” Bran said and offered a small bow. “This is a pleasure.”

“You may think so,” Etienne said, “but I fear I cannot return the sentiment.”

Bran sighed and bowed. “Ah…I am not sure what I have done to offend you, my lady…”

“I know why you are here,” she said.

“Do you?”

“Turlough has sent you to track us down,” she said. “Of course, I am sure he was hoping I would find Fenelon for you as well…and poor Alaric…”

Bran put up one hand in a gesture of submission. “Lady Savala, I think you need to sit down and have some of your uncle’s wonderful winterberry wine to calm your nerves.”

“I beg your pardon?” she said, stiffening her spine. What game was he playing now? “Are you not here to take us back to Turlough Greenfyn?”

“Hardly,” Bran said. “Turlough and I have not spoken to one another since I called him a long-winded, short-sighted nanny goat to his face in front of half the Council of Mageborn.”

Etienne blinked. “Then what are you doing here looking for us?” she asked.

“I’m here because Gareth Greenfyn sent me a message that you might want to know that it would be better for the three of you to wait in Blue Oak.”

“What?” Etienne frowned. “How could Gareth know that we have escaped Dun Gealach?”

“My lady, it stands to reason that if Fenelon was able to escape, that you would soon find a means to follow, so Gareth contacted me before he left Blue Oak and told me that I should watch for you to escape.”

“But, I cloaked my gate carefully. It would have sent anyone to half a dozen false places.”

“Aye, but Fenelon seemed convinced that if you were able to escape, you would come to Ross-Mhor since here is the only place Turlough would not be able to extract you so easily. So I asked several mageborn in this land to tell me if they felt your arrival. And one of them did.”

Etienne sat down. “How do I know I can trust you?” she asked.

“My lady Savala. My family holds its friendship with Gareth Greenfyn most dear. Like many a mageborn, we are unsettled by what we see as Turlough’s attempts to create a world ruled by mageborn. Are you aware that he has tried for several decades now to introduce mage blood into the royal lines?”

“Oh, yes, I have heard Fenelon speak of this often,” she said.

“Well, I am in Loughan to keep that from happening there.  But there are mageborn in other royal households who agree with Turlough that introducing mage blood into the royal lines would increase our ability to quell factions that are determined to root out and put an end to mageborn existence.”

“Why would that be a bad thing?” Wendon asked.

“Well, it would not from the point of view of mageborn in general,” Bran said. “But we should not rule the mortalborn. It would be just like bringing back the rule of the Shadow Lords…”

“But the Shadow Lords were evil,” Shona said. “We are not…”

“No, we are not,” Bran agreed. “But if all the myths and legends we hear of the ages before are true, it stands to reason that if magic rules, we risk the destruction of the world as we know it. It was, after all, the belief of many that mageborn caused the Great Cataclysm.”

“But I thought the Old Ones were to blame,” Wendon began.

“And just who do you think we are descended from, my lad?” Bran said and smiled.

“I never thought of it that way,” Wendon said.

“There is a theory that history repeats itself, my lad,” Bran said. “That the world goes in a circle that is seven times one hundred years in length, and that when this circle is complete, the world is renewed in one manner of another. And that this renewal can be to the betterment or the destruction of humankind as a whole. Before the Great Cataclysm, humans were in the minority. Now we are the minority and they are the majority. And sadly, they blame us for the ills of the world.”

He looked at Etienne. “Just as some of our own kind think we all conspire to their destruction,” he added.

She frowned at him.

“Sorry, my lady, but I could not resist taunting you just a little,” Bran said. “Especially after I heard about the fine curse you laid on that hapless landlord at the inn. The poor fellow gave me back my gold and begged me to lift your curse in the bargain.”   

Etienne felt her mouth fall open. She quickly closed it and in her mind, doubled the trouble she wished she could inflict on the innkeeper.

“Now, Master Strauss, about that winterberry wine,” Bran said as though nothing out of the ordinary had been said. “Do you have a tall mug for a tall man’s thirst? One drink, and then I will be on my way. A king’s advisor must never linger too long from his court, and now that my message is delivered, I must hasten back to mine.”

Etienne wanted to sigh with relief.

Well, at least they knew that Fenelon was well.

And it had been a long time since she had seen the great trees of Blue Oak.

The latter part of the day brought
Alaric and Talena to a copse on a hill. He was ready for a break. Traveling across this desolate landscape was starting to play havoc with his mage senses. Bad enough that some of the spirit folk would flutter around him like ragged curtains in a window, but some of them would actually waft through him, and when they did, he felt cold. He was surprised to see that many of them looked as though they were no more than children, and that disturbed him. It took a great deal of effort not to exclaim his surprise aloud when one of them hovered just in front of him, pointing a finger at him in an accusatory fashion before it whisked away.

Worse still were the ones that did not look so human. One had a head like a stag. Another appeared reptilian in nature. They had the bodies of men and women, but their faces, and sometimes their hands looked as though someone had grafted parts of creatures to them. Most frightful were the spider-like things that had the torsos and faces of men and women attached to the bodies of arachnids. Some of these were nearly as big as horses. They carried spears and rushed in and out in a frenzied fashion. One of them dashed right through Alaric, and he smelled blood and carnage.

That one made him gasp aloud.

“What?” Talena asked.

“Nothing,” Alaric replied. “I was dozing and thought I was falling off my horse.”

Talena looked thoughtful. Then her gaze darted over to one side, and Alaric saw something shadowy and sinuous and long. A worm on legs scuttled around one of the black stones that looked like a pile of manure, then dove into the ground and disappeared. It was merely a spirit, he knew, but the look on Talena’s face was one of momentary fear.

“She sees,”
Ronan whispered in Alaric’s head.

How?
Alaric thought.

Talena turned back and realized Alaric was watching her. He saw her face flush before she quickly looked away again.

“We need to find a place to make camp,” she said. “It’ll be dark in another hour. They say these moors come alive with spirit folk once the darkness falls.”

“Good idea,” he agreed. “Where shall we stop?”

She glanced at the nearest copse and pointed. “Up there, in those trees. It’s not safe to be out in the open once darkness falls.”

That sounded good enough to him, especially since he did not see any stones, black or white, in that area. Just a heavy patch of trees. “All right,” he said.

They directed their horses towards the copse. It quickly proved too thick and low limbed to ride into, so they dismounted and walked around it until they found a path. Talena took the lead, snarling when Kessa balked at the track.

“Come on you stupid...” Talena growled at the mare.

Alaric held back enough to keep from getting backed into. It took more than one try to get the mare going, and he started to wonder what she could sense in there that would have her so upset. As he stepped into the green, he noticed the shadows were almost as dark as the gloaming. Mage eyes quickly adjusted to the dimmed illumination, allowing him to peer into the thickness of the trees. He could see vines and shrubs and quite a lot of trees with holes in them. And now and again, something resembling a small black squirrel would dart from one hole to the next.

Well,
he thought,
if there are squirrels here, there is very little chance of danger.

That thought died when he reached the end of the trail. It passed under an old stone archway that opened into what was the overgrown courtyard of a small keep. He frowned. He had not seen any sign of a structure when they were approaching these trees, yet here it stood, old white stones rising in a ragged shell. There were lots of vines, and the top of the small tower in one corner had a tree growing out of it.

That would explain it,
he thought.

“Wonder what this place is?” he asked aloud.

Talena was staring at the structure in uncertainty, but she shook her head. “Just ruins,” she said. “Probably one of the old border keeps.”

“Then we are on the border already?” Alaric asked.

“No,” she said wearily. “There used to be a number of old towers up and down this moor, according to legend. They are probably all that remains of the walls that once marked the old borders. But Synalians and Tannish folk both find this place too spooky to exist on, so they keep to the edge of the mountains over there, and we stay at the edge of the forest we left earlier.”

Alaric nodded. It was getting darker, he noted. He glanced around at their chosen site. Those black squirrels seemed to be everywhere now. Talena did not seem to notice them as she tied Kessa to a branch. The mare nervously tried to pull free. Talena fussed at her and started to remove the saddle and the packs.

Alaric decided he had better lead Vagner someplace more private since removing the demon’s saddle made it disappear. He crossed the open area, ferns swishing against his calves. Beneath the growth he could feel cobblestones.

Talena glanced around at the ruins of the tower. “Why don’t you check inside and see if it’s secure enough. I’ll gather wood. We’ll need to set a ring of watch fires around us, just in case we can’t sleep inside there.”

“Watch fires?” Alaric repeated. “Why would we need a ring of watch fires?”

“To keep the raveners away,” she said. “Not that we have to worry about them for now, but when night falls, they come out and hunt.”

Alaric frowned. He left Vagner to head for the door of the tower. The wooden structure that once covered it was long ago gone. Carefully he mounted the steps and stopped just at the opening. Peering in, he saw that vines and plants had managed to work their way through the windows and the walls. Patches of light were scattered about the floor on inside. Beyond them lay thick shadows, as well as at his feet.

Alaric wrinkled his nose. The odor of death was in the air. He took a step and kicked something that shot across the floor. A skull bounced against the far wall and landed upright so it faced him.