~
Vagner took the corpse apart and devoured it with practiced ease. Dead flesh was not as satisfying as live, but it filled his belly and he was starved. The owl form had gorged on smaller things frequently, but since they had fled Eldon Keep, the demon had found little time to indulge.
True to his word, Vagner cleaned up every hint of the remains. And he was about to smudge away the circle when he froze. Something flicked at him, something familiar and chilling that whispered to his True Name.
No!
the demon thought.
The temptation to become smoke and wind grew strong, to make himself something invisible. But that call would not be so easily deceived.
He knows I still live,
the demon thought.
Quickly, Vagner rushed from the hut, practically sliding in the snow as he stopped at the table.
“Tane knows I am here,” he said.
“What?” Alaric said.
They all rose as one. “Where is he?” the Greenfyn demanded.
“In the mist,” Vagner said. “I’ve got to hide. He’s scrying us. He knows I’m here…”
“Not what I wanted to hear,” the Greenfyn hissed. “Alaric, can you draw a shield around yourself?”
“What? How?” Alaric said.
“Simple enough. Like building the walls in your head, only you concentrate on stretching them outward.”
“But why?”
“Because once you block yourself, you can extend that ward to cloak the demon,” Fenelon said.
“Be quick, then,” the demon said. “I feel him searching, and if he chooses to summon me, I may have no choice but to obey him.”
“All right, I’ll try,” Alaric said and closed his eyes.
Vagner held his breath. He felt the magic the young mageborn invoked. Warm and soothing compared to that from afar, its comfort veiled the demon. Within moments, he could no longer feel the other call. Vagner relaxed, sinking to his haunches. From there, he looked into Alaric’s strained face. Eyes opened, and the demon offered the equivalent of a smile. At the sight of it, the little master hitched back.
“Well done,” the demon said. “The call is gone…”
“This is why he should have stayed an owl,” Fenelon said.
Vagner merely sneered.
FORTY SIX
Fenelon wanted to get closer to the mist, but he made Alaric and Shona stay behind. Rather than let him disappear alone, Etienne accompanied him. She frowned when he insisted on carrying a bundle of faggots from those piled around the hut, wondering if he thought they would have need of a fire.
We can use magic to stay warm,
she thought.
He used a gate spell to cover most of the distance, sighting on the distant fields of snow. Etienne felt something was not quite right within this place, and it made her grateful he chose to continue on foot rather than touch the strange magic in the air.
The world was a great deal colder here too. The wind that cut them from the far northwest carried the odor of ice. Etienne increased her warming spell. She was grateful for the thick fur cloak Gareth had supplied her.
Fenelon stopped, on hand on his hip, and peered at the mist that rose like a wall and sent tendrils curling about. It reminded Etienne of some tentacle-laden, living creature she had once observed in the southern seas when she first traveled from Ross-Mhor to Ard-Taebh. She felt just a little apprehensive as she stopped beside Fenelon and studied the undulating swirl of the fog. Interesting, she thought, for in spite of the furious wind that whipped about them, the mist hovered and shifted in a leisurely manner.
“This is a strange place,” she whispered.
Fenelon nodded. He was not in one of his more talkative moods. She knew, of course, he wanted to concentrate, and so stilled her tongue to wait. The flicker of his mage senses reaching outward touched her. He was trying very hard to draw essence from the world without letting the theft be felt. Wise, she would agree, since they knew Tane was in the area. He might notice too swift a gathering of power.
Etienne looked down and pushed her foot through a drift of snow. Her boot found rocks slick with ice below the surface. And something else…Grass frozen into hard blade-like shards where it grew in crevices between the stones. Ignoring Fenelon, she knelt to satisfy her curiosity and brushed more of the snow away. Beneath its layers, she found more signs of life’s sudden change, including a hare. It was caught in a pose that indicated it has just looked up before it was frozen. The bits of nibbled grass still projected from a corner of its mouth.
“How very strange,” she muttered.
“What?” Fenelon ceased scrying and looked down at her. Etienne pointed to the hare. He squatted beside her, one eyebrow rising in amazement. Tentatively, Fenelon reached out and touched the hare. “Solid as stone,” he said, “Look here, you can still see every hair and whisker in detail. Stories of the Great Cataclysm tell of such things, but I have never seen it for myself before now.”
Etienne nodded and stood once more. “Did you find anything out there?”
Fenelon shook his head and rose with her. “No. Whatever magic is here, it’s thick and distorted. It’s a wonder the demon could sense Tane at all.”
“They are bonded,” she suggested with a frown.
“Aye, I suppose that’s it…” Fenelon pulled his cloak a little tighter. “Let’s go closer,” he said and started forward.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Etienne said. “What if we get lost in that fog?”
“I get lost in a fog every time I’m near you, love,” Fenelon said with a smile.
“Fenelon, I’m serious,” Etienne said, tempted to push him down in a snow bank on principle. “If it’s hard for you to scry in this mist because of the magic, it will be hard to find out way back out as well. There will be no way to sense out the direction. We might even step into a void or off a cliff…”
“I’m fully aware of that,” Fenelon said and waved one hand in dismissal of her concern. “Why do you think I brought these along?”
He slung the bundle of faggots off his back and started breaking one of the thin sticks into pieces the length of his arm. Then he thrust one into the ground upright so it stuck out above the snow.”
“Clever,” Etienne said.
“Father used to tell me a story about a beggar lad whose wicked stepfather kept leaving the lad out in the woods to have one less mouth to feed, and how the lad always found his way back with a trail of breadcrumbs and sticks.”
“What a terrible story,” Etienne said. “Was your father contemplating leaving you out in the woods?”
“I don’t think he would have told me the story if he was planning that, though I do remember some threat about leaving me in the swamps of Mallow if I didn’t behave,” Fenelon said,
“Apparently, it didn’t frighten you in the least,” Etienne said with a wry smile.
Fenelon shrugged as he walked a few steps and stuck another stick upright in the snow. “Moral lesson aside, I thought it was a clever idea. Here, break these for me will you. Oh, and loan me your staff, love.”
Etienne nodded, trading her staff for the bundle. Breaking the sticks, she handed them to Fenelon who placed them at visible intervals. He prodded ahead with her staff for good reason, for at length, they came to an edge where rock descended into white. By then, the mist was all around them, thick enough to distort anything more than a few arms length away. It was all Etienne could do to keep track of Fenelon’s cloak, which she noticed was white and invisible against the landscape. Fortunately, that crop of red hair was slipping out of the mouth of the hood and giving her a visible reference point.
“Hmmm,” Fenelon said, kneeling at the edge. He scraped under the snow and found a frozen stone which he used the end of her staff to thump free. Then he tossed it over the edge. It clattered as it bounced down a face of rock, and the echo gave Etienne the impression of something vast and deep. “Hopefully, there’s a path,” he said.
Etienne frowned. Something suddenly did not feel right to her. Something to do with the mist. She closed her eyes briefly. An aura of danger rode on the air.
Oh, dear,
she thought.
“If we’re going to go down there,” she said abruptly, “I think we should go back and fetch the others first. Personally, I don’t like the thought of leaving Shona and Alaric alone back there.”
“It’s not like he’s going to rape her or anything, Etienne,” Fenelon said. “Alaric has more self-control and morality than you are willing to credit him for.
I mean just because he forgot himself a little around you that day.”
“I am not worried about Alaric not behaving like a gentleman, since he is more of one than you at times.” Fenelon’s brows quirked in response to her declaration. “I’m worried about them being alone and unprotected. What if Tane should return to the hut?”
Fenelon nodded. “Hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “And since we can’t sense him. But they’ve got the demon with them. He would know if Tane was coming.”
“Yes, and since Vagner is still under Tane’s control as well, I doubt he would be of any use to them.”
“Oh,” Fenelon said. “Good point.” He sighed. “But by the time we get back to the hut, it will be too late to bring them along.”
“So we come back tomorrow,” Etienne said. “I would much rather return in daylight and know they are safe. Something feels wrong just now.”
“All right,” Fenelon said, shaking his head. He started to follow his trail of stick back towards the edge of the mist and smiled over his shoulder at her. “But you’re going to feel rather silly if we get back and they are only having an intimate chat.”
Etienne narrowed her eyed. Fenelon took one look at the expression and blanched.
“Right,” he said and started to trudge away from the edge.
Etienne dropped the faggots where she stood and followed.
~
Alaric felt a little disappointed at being left behind like some errant child. He and Shona had moved inside the hut to get out of the blinding whiteness. A warm fire burned in the hearth, knocking off the uneasy chill Alaric felt, and Shona kept her fingers busy with a bit of mending. Why women always brought along mending to occupy themselves puzzled Alaric. But then, he recalled many an evening of sitting before the family fire, watching his mother and sisters engage in this activity while he sang or played one of his instruments. His sisters, of course, thought it quite unfair, but Father always quelled their tongues with a glance. They would grow sullen, and later, they would find some means of tormenting their only brother, much to Alaric’s chagrin.
With a sigh, he pulled out his psaltery and used the plectrum to stroke the strings. Vagner crouched in a corner to watch the door, but at the first note, the demon crawled across the floor and stretched out at Alaric’s feet like a gigantic dog. The sight was enough to make Alaric want to laugh. Instead, he concentrated on playing a few simple tunes then slipped into a jig. Shona tapped time with a foot, while Vagner used his claws…
“This is nice,” Shona said when Alaric paused. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to sit before a hearth in an isolated hut with a handsome young man.”
Alaric glanced at her, uncertain. Teasing filled her smile as she studied her stitches. The firelight haloed her with delicate softness that was quite attractive. She suddenly looked much older than him, more sensual. He took a deep breath and looked elsewhere, not liking where all his thoughts were wandering.
“Yes, well, it’s not all that exciting, is it?” he said.
Shona laughed. “Oh, I think it’s just fine,” she said, and her eyes held a hint of longing as she looked up from her mending.
“My sisters all have hearths and homes and husbands. My brother has a wife. They all work as crofters to my father and share a farmstead that has been in the family for generations. I’m the only daughter who is not wed, though my father had no objections. He always said I saved him the price of a dowry when I turned out to be mageborn.”
“Yes, Fenelon told me that,” Alaric said.
“Did he?” Shona cocked her head. “Whatever for?”
Alaric shrugged. “Making conversation,” he said. “I don’t really know. I’m sorry if it was something I wasn’t supposed to know.”
“If it was something you were not supposed to know,
I
would not have mentioned it, silly,” Shona said. She set her mending aside and drew her stool closer to Alaric. “Will you show me how to play the psaltery again?”
He nodded, suddenly both excited and uncomfortable with the thought of having her so near. Yet he dared not voice his concerns for fear of hurting her feelings. Matters were not made better when he saw the demon grinned up at them.
“I think I shall go check around outside.” Vagner crawled to his feet as he spoke.
“No, wait…Fenelon said we were to stay in the hut until he and Etienne returned,” Alaric stammered.
Both Shona and the demon looked amused.
“I think he is afraid of being alone with me,” she said.
“I would agree,” Vagner said.
Alaric’s face went hot with embarrassment. “No, that’s not it at all. I just don’t think it would be out and away when something could happen.”
“Like what?” the demon teased, and leaned close to Alaric’s ear. “She wants you as much as you want her, so why deny yourself this opportunity,” Vagner whispered so low, Alaric barely heard the words. He still knew what they meant.
“By your True Name, I forbid you to leave!” Alaric said.
The demon frowned. “Very well,” Vagner said and thumped over to a corner to squat and glower. “Try to be nice to you. Try to give you the opportunity of a lifetime. The old folk are away, in case you have forgotten. No one will know but me.”
Alaric felt fury rise then. “What makes you think I would ever…?” He suddenly caught the look in Shona’s eyes. The deep hurt welled like a flood. “I mean…I’m not the sort who takes advantage of a young lady, no matter how desirable I may find her…”
His words trailed off. Shona said nothing. Merely reached over and took his face in her hands. The kiss she offered was tender and sweet. It was more than enough to abate his fury and soften his resolve. Slowly, she drew back and looked him in the eye.