Authors: Lynn Kurland
Dreamspinner (2 page)
| ALWAYS LEARNING | PEARSON |
D
REAMSPINNER
P
rologue
A
gentle breeze whispered over the waters of Lake Cladach, carrying with it a goodly amount of the last of winter’s chill. The waves rolled up endlessly onto a fine sandy beach on one side of the pier and up against a haphazard collection of smaller rocks that turned into boulders as they retreated from the shore on the other. Those boulders were just the right size for a lad to sit on and try his luck at catching something for supper.
Rùnach of Ceangail walked down a long, weathered dock and stopped at its end. He looked out over the lake as it sparkled with the dying rays of an early spring sunset. He could bring to mind innumerable occasions when he had either sat on one of those rocks by the shore or made himself at home exactly where he was currently standing, with rod and tackle, and pitted his skill against the inhabitants of his grandfather’s lake. He had, as a matter of honor, never used magic to lure the fishes his way, nor cast a spell to make them visible, nor otherwise done anything to give himself an unfair advantage.
He knew from experience that there was more to the lake and its environs than met the eye. The waves laughed as they lapped against the rocks, the birds sang, the trees reached back into their timeless memories and told tales that were strange and unchanging, the flowers chattered, and over it all the wind murmured endlessly of the things it had heard. Only now it was just wind, just water, just trees with their branches moving gently. He heard no song, listened to no tales, could not tell where the fish were biting.
It was odd how one’s self-imposed prohibitions as a youth could become one’s life-imposed limitations as a man.
He would have given quite a bit to have escaped those constraints, but sometimes escape wasn’t possible. Escape was especially difficult when what a man wanted to do was flee his beloved, well-meaning, but somewhat stifling family.
That was something, that thought, given how long he had been without family. And now to want to leave them behind…he shook his head. It said more about him, surely, than it did them. Then again, he had been to two weddings in the previous fortnight. Perhaps he could be forgiven for wanting to run.
He looked out over what was, he was quite convinced, the most beautiful lake in the Nine Kingdoms. He would have given much to have simply turned himself into something with wings and hurtled out across that deep blue water that was rather less still than usual, but he was who he was so he simply let the thought slip past him without holding on to it. He put his hands on a bit of railing that overlooked a rocky patch of beach and settled for clutching wood.
He looked down at his hands dispassionately, rather thankful for the shadows that showed less of what they were than did the harsh light of midday. They were useful hands, which was an improvement, but they were not the hands of a mage. They weren’t the hands of a swordsman either, though they bore a web of scars that perhaps a swordsman would have been proud of. Only he hadn’t won his scars in any battle with swords. He didn’t particularly care to think about the details of how he had earned them, truth be told.
He looked back over the lake and suspected it might be time to
be on his way. He had already said his farewells to his sister Mhorghain and her husband Miach, and his brother Ruithneadh and his wife Sarah earlier. He’d taken tea with his grandmothers and argued loudly and at great length with his grandfather Sìle before, during, and after luncheon. That only left his grandfather Sgath to exchange opinions with about his plans.
A discreet cough sounded from behind him.
Rùnach turned and saw Sgath of Ainneamh, lately of Lake Cladach, standing at the end of the dock, looking as if he was considering whether or not he dared approach. Rùnach smiled wryly and waved his grandfather on.
Sgath, who it had to be said looked not much older than Rùnach himself, walked over the well-tended wood and joined Rùnach at the end of the dock. Rùnach studied his grandfather thoughtfully. He wondered, at times, whom he resembled more, Sgath or his mother’s brother Laìdir, but the truth was he couldn’t have said. He hadn’t looked in a polished glass in a score of years, and before then he’d limited his admiring of his visage to what he could see of it in a well-polished sword—
“Off on an adventure, are you?”
Rùnach looked at Sgath warily. “I was considering it.”
“Leaving me to face Sìle’s grumbles for who knows how long,” Sgath said. “That seems rather unkind.”
Rùnach sighed deeply and turned back to look out over the lake. His mother’s father Sìle had done slightly more than grumble at him that day.
What in the bloody hell are you thinking?
his grandfather had bellowed directly into his ear directly after breakfast. Sìle had shouted quite a few more things at him, but he didn’t have the energy to bring the particulars to mind at present. They mostly had to do with Sìle’s inability to understand how Rùnach could possibly prefer life out in the wilds of the Nine Kingdoms to a comfortable, elegant existence in Seanagarra, arguably the most beautiful place on earth.
Rùnach hadn’t been able to answer. He’d simply soothed his grandfather with compliments, been charming during the day,
and slipped out when his grandfather had been distracted by the menu for supper.
He released the railing. He rubbed his hands together—gingerly, for they still pained him—then turned and looked full at his father’s father. “If it eases you any, I imagine he’ll go back to Seanagarra to grumble where he can put his feet up on his own stool and make a proper job of it.”
“One could hope.” Sgath paused, then looked at Rùnach. “You know I don’t like to agree with Sìle if I can help it, but out in the middle of nowhere, son? Surely there is somewhere comfortable you could choose to land instead.”
“Where would you suggest I go?” Rùnach asked.
“Back to Buidseachd?”
Rùnach pursed his lips before he could stop himself. He had spent half his life there, haunting the library at the schools of wizardry, pretending to be the servant of the most powerful master there whilst in reality being kept safe by that same master. He took a deep breath, then shook his head. “Soilléir has been enormously kind to feed and house me there for all these years, but I can’t impose on his hospitality any longer. And, because you won’t ask, I’ll answer and tell you that he did offer.”
Sgath sighed. “You need to make your way in the world, I suppose.”
Rùnach looked at him seriously. “And what else am I to do, Grandfather? Remain here at your home for the rest of my exceptionally long life, eating at your table, loitering in your salon, drinking your very fine wine?”
“I can think of less tolerable guests.”
Rùnach couldn’t bring himself to smile. “My other choice is to give in and return to Seanagarra with Sìle, to take up the life of a pampered elven prince.”
“Oh, I imagine Sìle would find something useful for you to do,” Sgath said.
“What?” Rùnach asked, more sharply than he’d intended. He dragged his hand through his hair, then looked at his grandfather wearily. “Let me attempt that again, more politely this time. With
what task, Grandfather, would he saddle me? I have no magic, no sight, nothing but the hard, grim realities of a mortal life coupled with elven years. I could walk through the halls of Seanagarra, but I would see nothing of Sìle’s glamour, hear nothing whispering in the wind, feel nothing coursing through my veins besides my dull, unmagical blood.”
“And that, my lad,” Sgath agreed quietly, “would be terrible.” He paused, then rubbed his chin absently. “And staying here would be intolerable as well?”
Rùnach sighed, because he had seriously thought about asking if Sgath might need an extra stable hand. He had considered that request for the space of approximately five heartbeats before he had put it aside with other things he couldn’t bring himself to consider. He shook his head. “It wouldn’t, and perhaps I will return one day and beg a patch of dirt from you. But until then, I need to go and do something I can do.”
“And what can you do, Rùnach?”
Rùnach would have taken offense at that question from his mother’s sire, but not from Sgath. Then again, Sgath generally went about his life in a most unmagical fashion, wearing any one of a rather large collection of crumpled felt hats sporting fishing lures whilst waxing rhapsodic about the current batch of wine he had pressed himself and left curing in a special root cellar he’d built for just that purpose. If anyone would understand what Rùnach wanted, it would be Sgath of Ainneamh, elven prince and husband to the granddaughter of the wizardess Nimheil. Most people mistook him for a rather rumpled farm holder.
“I thought,” Rùnach said carefully, because in all the time he’d been contemplating it, he had never dared voice his thought, “that I might take up the sword.” He paused. “In spite of my hands.”
“Well, your hands are healed well enough, aren’t they?”
Rùnach found he could do no more than nod.
“A logical choice, then, given your skill with a blade in your youth,” Sgath said, not sounding in the least bit horrified. “Where will you do this taking up?”
“Perhaps with some lord who needs another lad in his garrison,
” Rùnach said slowly, “though I suppose I would do well to engage in a bit of training first.”
Sgath only looked at him steadily.
“Perhaps somewhere where I can regain some of my very disused skills,” Rùnach added.
“South?”
Rùnach nodded.
“An interesting direction,” Sgath conceded. “Many things to the south.”
“So there are.”
“How far south are you considering?”
“South and a bit west. Until there is no more of either.”
Sgath laughed a little. “Not many places that fit that description, are there? And nay, you’ve no need to elaborate. I know what you’re considering without your needing to say anything. I will tell you I think Gobhann is a mad choice, but one I can’t say I wouldn’t make myself were I in your boots. You do realize it’s a magic sink, don’t you?”
“Miach said as much, yes,” Rùnach agreed. “I doubt I’ll notice.”
Sgath only sighed. “Very well, when do you want to go?”
“Now.”
Sgath slid him a look. “And how is it I already knew that?”
“Because I’ve been a terrible guest,” Rùnach said with a sigh. “Prickly, unpleasant—”
“Snarling, moody, sour,” Sgath finished for him. “Not at all like the very charming, elegant young man who used to be first in the lists in the morning when Sìle would notice and last to come in, again, when Sìle would notice.”
It had been so long since he’d been anything akin to that, Rùnach felt a little like his grandfather was talking about someone else. He couldn’t say he had ever been charming or elegant, but he had been passing fond of a decently fashioned blade.
“Eulasaid has prepared a thing or two for your pack,” Sgath continued. “Clothing, delicate edibles, that sort of thing. Sìle made his own contributions, which aren’t, as you might fear, poisonous serpents or rocks.”
Rùnach managed a faint smile. “Did he?”
“He did.”
“Good of him.”
“He’s been pacing in the great hall, accompanied by a formidable glower.”
“Has he?”
“I don’t think you’ll have words, but you never know. It is Sìle, after all.” Sgath put his hand out and reached for something on his far side. He turned and handed it to Rùnach.