Dreamspinner (45 page)

Rùnach watched Miach reach behind him, then hand over a sheaf of paper, all without comment. Rùnach took it, then frowned. It looked as if part of it had been torn—and not very well. He looked at Miach, but the king of Neroche only shrugged. Rùnach frowned again, then read:

Rùnach dropped the sheaf of paper with the same alacrity he would have a live asp. Cathar leaned over and retrieved it, then set it on the high table, without comment.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Miach asked. “It would appear that someone found our guest in the crofter’s shed. Lothar was—how would you describe it, Cathar?”

“Worse for wear,” Cathar said succinctly.

“Lothar was worse for wear,” Miach repeated. “And I believe he was so angry at having a note pinned to his tunic, he tried to tear it apart with his teeth.”

“Did you find the missing piece,” Rùnach asked faintly. “The bit after the
fair warning
?”

Cathar shook his head. “I was too busy trying to stay out of Lothar’s way. He is bound, but he can roll and kick.”

Rùnach walked away. He realized he was cursing, but it seemed to help keep him where he was instead of being scattered in a thousand different directions, so he kept at it. He turned and walked back to the table.

“This is very bad.”

Miach looked at him in surprise. “Well, I’ll admit it isn’t good that Lothar was found, but surely the note means nothing—”

“Acair wrote that,” Rùnach said flatly.

Miach looked at him for a moment or two, then blinked. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Acair of Ceangail,” Rùnach said.

“I know who you meant,” Miach said, slightly impatiently, “but I’m not sure why you would think of him. He’s dead.”

Rùnach folded his arms over his chest, because he thought it might give him something to do besides wring his hands. “How do you know?”

Miach exchanged a brief frown with Cathar, then looked back at him. “After that last battle, we went inside the keep to fetch out Adhémar and Adaira. Cathar found a note in Lothar’s study written by Acair saying he had traded Gair’s spell of Diminishing for Lothar’s help in ridding Ceangail of the rest of his brothers.”

“He lied,” Rùnach said promptly. “He never had that spell to give.”

“I didn’t imagine he had,” Miach said slowly. “I simply assumed that Acair had tried to double-cross Lothar and paid the price.”

“Did you see a body?” Rùnach demanded.

“I wasn’t looking for a body—”

“Then he’s not dead.”

Miach looked at him as if he were mad. “Rùnach, this is Lothar we’re talking about. You know what he’s capable of.”

“You would know better than I,” Rùnach said, not intending the words to wound, “for which I assure you I grieved with Soilléir every day you were locked in his dungeon. And because you were witness to what I only heard reports of, tell me exactly how many bodies of mages Lothar had destroyed did he not put on display somewhere, either in his hall or on his land.”

Miach was motionless. “How could I possibly know that?”

“Very well,” Rùnach said carefully, “how many mages that he destroyed
in front of you
did he put on display where you could admire them every day?”

Miach closed his eyes briefly. “Every last one.”

“Precisely,” Rùnach said. “If Acair had died, his corpse would have been dressed in velvets and displayed outside Lothar’s front door until the sea had rotted it to mere bones and tatters. Such a trophy would never have simply been buried.”

Miach pulled back, as if he’d just encountered something fragrantly vile in his supper. He considered, then shook his head. “I want to believe you, Rùnach, truly I do, but there was no possible way to escape that chamber.”

“The seventh and final son of Gair of Ceangail and the witchwoman of Fàs?” Rùnach said flatly. “He has the full force of the power both parents possessed, and he’s devious as hell. I’m not sure any of us knows exactly what he’s capable of.”

Miach considered, then looked at Cathar. “I suppose that chamber in Riamh where we found Acair’s note earlier this spring wasn’t exactly freshly dusted, was it?”

Cathar shook his head. “I would imagine no one had been there for several fortnights, at least.”

Rùnach started to speak, then shook his head. He dragged his hand through his hair, then finally surrendered to the urge to pace. Miach’s floor was made for it. Lovely blue slate with just the right amount of smoothness to make it beautiful but the occasional patch of rough stone so that a man with things troubling him didn’t slip whilst about his pacing and fall upon his arse.

He stopped and looked at Cathar.

“How much worse for wear?”

“Do you want me to describe it for you?” Cathar asked, sounding as if he would have liked nothing better. “Lothar was extremely bruised and battered, but more interestingly, he was almost out of his head with rage. I would imagine whoever had found him had kicked him around quite a bit, then stayed to chat. And that note was pinned to the front of him as if he’d been a wee lad whose mother had sent him off to school with a message to the master?” He smirked. “A truly lovely piece of work, that.” He shook his head, then let out a long breath. “And whilst this has been lovely, all this Fadaire is giving me a headache. If you two lads will excuse me, I need a drink. I’ll let you know, brother, if I hear anything else.”

Rùnach realized only then what he was speaking. He watched Cathar make Miach a low bow, had a firm hand on his shoulder in turn, then watched Cathar stride purposefully from the great hall. He looked back at Miach who was only shaking his head wryly.

“He bows to annoy me.”

Rùnach smiled in spite of himself. “He has always loved you unreasonably. I daresay you couldn’t ask for a better advisor.”

“He is one,” Miach agreed. “And here is my other.”

Rùnach glanced over his shoulder to see his sister walking across the hall toward them. He leaned against the table, because every time he saw her, he was startled yet again. A little support for his poor form wasn’t unwelcome.

“You think she looks so much like her, then?” Miach murmured.

“My mother? Aye, she does. But they are very different.”
He looked at Miach quickly. “Not that Mhorghain isn’t elegant or lovely.”

Miach laughed a little. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me, brother. I knew your mother too. I daresay she would be proud of how you’ve both turned out.” He hopped down off the table and drew his wife into his arms. “You’re up early.”

“You were gone and I had the feeling you were about business I wanted to be a part of.” Mhorghain looked up and met his eyes. “My love.”

Miach laughed a little, kissed her thoroughly, then linked his fingers behind her back, keeping her trapped. “Very well, you’ve properly wooed me right from the start. Though the only reason you’ll stay is because this doesn’t involve you.”

Mhorghain rolled her eyes, pushed out of her husband’s arms, and gestured for him to sit back up on the table. She put her hand on the table, then looked at Rùnach purposely. “Well?”

Rùnach waved Miach on. “You tell her. I think I haven’t the stomach for it.”

He did, however, listen to Miach’s very brief recounting of the events so far, because he couldn’t help himself. He helped himself to a bit more pacing, but that didn’t ease him.

“You’re convinced it was this Acair,” Mhorghain said slowly.

“
Fair warning
was his preferred signature,” Rùnach said, trying to keep his lip from curling. “The arrogant little bastard.”

“I believe, Rùnach, that he’s at least fifty years older than you are,” Miach ventured.

“Yet he looks not a day over a score,” Rùnach muttered. “He gets that from his father.”

“What does he mean by
now I know where to go
,” Mhorghain asked slowly. She looked at Miach. “Is he talking about a place, do you think, or a person?”

Rùnach rubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t know.”

“Then what do you think he wants?” she pressed. “Specifically.”

Rùnach looked his sister full in the face. “The spell of Diminishing, as always.”

She wore the same what-
is
-that-in-my-stew look that Miach had just recently worn. They had obviously already spent too much time together. She managed to shake off her disgust more quickly than her husband, but he supposed that came from all that bracing discipline learned at Gobhann.

“Mages,” she said in disgust. “What an unruly lot.”

Rùnach exchanged a very brief smile with Miach. Some things never changed, apparently.

“So, what you’re saying,” Mhorghain continued, “is that Acair had gone to Riamh to trade the spell of Diminishing—which he didn’t have—for Lothar’s aid in casting everyone out from Ceangail—which he wasn’t interested in.” She looked at her husband. “That makes no sense, unless he intended to attempt to wrest Lothar’s spell of Taking from him and start his collection with that.”

“That’s possible,” Miach agreed.

“But how did he know where to find Lothar this morning?”

Rùnach swore. He realized he should have paid better heed to his first suspicion, which was that he had indeed seen his bastard brother walking toward Gobhann that morning on Melksham Island. Perhaps Acair had indeed overheard Miach talking earlier in the year about where Lothar was to be sent. If so, it was also possible that he had been loitering outside Weger’s gates, perhaps even waiting for Lothar to come out. And if that was true, he had likely followed Lothar with the intention of having a little tête-à-tête out in the open where he might not be so easily bested.

Which boded ill for them all, actually.

Rùnach took a deep breath. “I think I saw Acair on Melksham.”

“What?”
Miach said incredulously.

“I thought I was mistaken,” Rùnach said slowly, “but now I’m beginning to think perhaps not. Nicholas suggested as much, though I scoffed at it.”

“And you think Acair knew Lothar was at Gobhann?” Mhorghain asked in surprise. “How is that possible?”

Miach looked at her grimly. “I wasn’t careful when discussing where to put Lothar,” he said. “I have no idea who might have been listening.” He looked at Rùnach. “I hesitate to say this, but if Acair knew Lothar was in Gobhann and was possibly waiting for him, could he have seen you leave the keep?”

“Impossible,” Rùnach said, though he realized there was hardly any sound to the word. He started to speak, then shook his head. “Aisling and I left in the middle of the night. Besides, Acair thought I was dead. They all thought I died at the well. If he had known I lived, he would have attacked me in Buidseachd long before now.”

“Unless he thought you had the spell of Diminishing and could best him,” Mhorghain pointed out.

“I’m sure that has given more than one mage uneasy dreams,” Miach said.

Rùnach knew he had been pacing. He was fairly sure that his feet knew they were still supposed to be taking him across that lovely blue grey slate, but somehow he suddenly found himself standing, rooted to one spot. He turned and looked at his brother-in-law. “What did you say?”

Miach looked at him with a frown. “I said the thought of someone with Gair’s spell of Diminishing taking his power has likely given more than one mage nightmares—”

Rùnach shook his head sharply. “That wasn’t how you said it. What did you say, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” Miach said, holding up his hands in surrender. “Something about dreams, mages, magic—how the hell do I know what I said?”

Rùnach rubbed his hands over his face and sighed wearily. “Forgive me. I’ve heard too much about dreams of late, I suppose, and rivers of things running where they shouldn’t be.”

Mhorghain frowned. “Things running?”

“Rivers,” Rùnach said crisply. “Rivers of dreams running through a captain’s belowdecks, rivers of unease running through Weger’s empty head—”

“I imagine that’s just supper,” Miach put in helpfully.

Rùnach glared at him, then turned to his sister. “Rivers of something he cannot name troubling the sleep of the former wizard king of Diarmailt. Lothar killing an innocent lad to get to me. Why?”

“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Miach said firmly. “That’s all. And this business of dreams…well, what does it have to do with anything?”

Rùnach felt his entire world grind slowly, almost imperceptibly to a halt. He stood there, simply breathing, until he thought he could form words that for some reason seemed to be lingering just outside his reach.

“What did you say?” he managed, finally.

“I said,
What does this business of dreams have to do with anything
,” Miach said, looking faintly alarmed. “Why do you ask?”

Rùnach felt the floor become slippery beneath his feet, as if it had suddenly become a river itself. He looked down and saw the spells lying there, glittering as if they’d been water sparkling in the sunlight as it slid over flat rocks. He took a deep breath, then looked at his brother-in-law. “Because I’ve been in your library,” he said hoarsely.

“What did you discover?” Miach asked.

“Bruadair.”

Miach no doubt thought he was doing a smashing job of keeping his thoughts to himself, but that little twitch at the corner of his mouth was almost enough to inspire Rùnach to do damage to him.

“Stop smirking,” he growled.

Miach only blinked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And I don’t know what either of you is talking about,” Mhorghain said, looking at them as if they’d both lost their minds. “What is—”

“Don’t say the word,” Rùnach said sharply.

She looked at him as if she’d never seen him before. “What
are
you going on about?”

Miach reached out and pulled her over to sit on the high table
next to him. “In this, I think it might be wise to humor your brother. The place he mentioned, which discretion suggests we not name aloud, is not unfamiliar to any of us, actually. Sarah hails from there, though she wouldn’t remember anything about it.”