Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

Almost immediately he saw her, keeping a lonely camp by a riverside amid rolling hills. Although she was asleep, she was sitting up with her back to a tree, and her sword was clasped in her hand. At least she seemed to realize that she was in danger, but he knew that the sword would do her little good against this kind of enemy. And where by all the gods was Rhodry? Irritably he switched his thoughts and saw the lad, lying on his blankets on the floor of a badly overcrowded barracks. All of the men packed in there looked sullen and shamed. Nevyn widened the focus, made his mind walk through the barracks door, and saw armed men on guard outside. So Rhodry had been captured while riding in some war or other. Jill was out on the road alone.

Nevyn swore so vilely that he nearly lost the vision, but he recaptured it and sent his mind back to Jill. What counted now was where she was. Using her camp as a starting point, he enlarged the vision and circled round in ever-widening sweeps until he saw enough to know that she was in the central part of Yr Auddglyn. He broke the vision and resumed his restless pacing while he made plans. He had to travel fast. He would buy a second horse, he decided, because he could make more miles a day if he switched his weight between two mounts.

“I’ve got to reach her in time,” he said aloud. “And by every god I swear I will, even if I have to founder every horse I get my hands on.”

Yet his fear swelled, because the dark master behind the theft had to be closer to her than he was. He went back to the brazier and took up a watch over her through the fire.

The mirror lay upon a cloth of black velvet, embroidered with reversed pentagrams, that evil symbol of those who would tear down the very order of nature. Two candles stood to either side, their light caught and focused in the center of the curved surface. Alastyr knelt over it, bracing himself with his hands and wishing that he had a proper table. Since he had never actually seen the Great Stone of the West, he couldn’t scry for it in the normal, easy manner. He took a deep breath and called on the evil names of the Lords of Husks and Rinds. At the names he felt spirits gather, but just beyond his mental reach.

“Show me the stone,” he hissed.

In the center of the mirror shadowy shapes came and went, but nothing resolved itself into a clear image. No matter how hard he cursed the spirits, they fled from him, as they’d been doing all day.

“We need blood,” Alastyr said, looking up.

Sarcyn smiled and went to the corner of the kitchen, where Camdel sat crouched in terror. When Sarcyn hauled him to his feet, he began to whimper, but the apprentice slapped him into silence.

“You’re not going to die,” Sarcyn said. “You might even like this. You’re coming to see how well pain and pleasure blend, aren’t you, my fine lord?”

Slack-mouthed, Camdel half leaned against Sarcyn as the apprentice dragged him to the mirror cloth. Hobbling and shuffling, Gan came up with the thin-bladed ritual knife. Sarcyn stood behind Camdel and began to fondle him. Chanting, Alastyr summoned those spirits that he had trained to do his will. Three black, twisted gnomes and a sprite with a huge mouth of blood-red teeth materialized in front of him.

Gan slashed the back of Camdel’s hand. The lord moaned, but he leaned back into Sarcyn’s embrace as the blood dripped down. The deformed Wildfolk clustered round, catching the drops on their tongues. Although they would get no nourishment from the blood itself, they were soaking up the raw magnetism that both the blood and Camdel’s state of sexual arousal were exuding. Slowly the shallow wound stanched. The gnomes stretched clawed hands out to Alastyr.

“No more until you show me the stone. Then more.”

The spirits dematerialized. Although Camdel was trembling, close to his climax, Sarcyn took his hand away.

“Later,” he whispered in his pet’s ear. “Later we’ll work the ritual again. You’ll end up liking that—in spite of yourself.”

Camdel looked at him, his face torn between lust and loathing. Alastyr ignored them and knelt down by the mirror again.

“Show me the stone!”

In the light-struck mirror clouds formed, swirled, and turned slowly to darkness. Smiling, he leaned closer as the darkness resolved itself into solid shapes: hills under the night sky, a horse standing at tether near a tree. Pacing back and forth under the tree was a lad with a sword in hand. Not a lad—it was Jill, the warrior-lass who’d interfered with his plans the year before.

“The stone,” he whispered. “Where is the stone?”

The vision swooped down and focused on her saddlebags.

“Now, show me exactly where she is.”

The vision flickered, then began to expand, to swoop out—and suddenly vanished in a blaze of white light. Half-blinded, Alastyr nearly fell forward onto the mirror as the Wildfolk materialized in the room. From the way they writhed on the floor in front of him, he could guess that they’d been banished by force. A person with great dweomer-power was watching over the lass, then, and he could guess who that someone must be.

“The Master of the Aethyr,” he whispered.

Nodding, the gnomes agreed with him, then disappeared. Alastyr sat back on his heels and considered Sarcyn, who stood watching with his usual stone face.

“The Master of the Aethyr,” the apprentice said. “Are we running back to Bardek?”

Old Gan gurgled and moaned.

“We’re not,” Alastyr snarled. “I’ve worked too long for this.”

Years had he worked—finding informants, laying his snares, then expending such a flood of power upon ensorcelling Camdel and maintaining the ensorcellment that he needed every drop of magnetic force that he could suck from his cowering victim. He refused to run again, not until he had the stone in his hands. Besides, he’d seen Jill in the flesh last summer, when she and her famous father had been sitting in an Eldidd tavern. At the time he’d thought that sight of her was merely a piece of luck, but now he was sure that the Lords of Husks and Rinds had guided him. Since he’d seen her, he could scry her out normally, and Nevyn would have no way of detecting him. He got up, stretching his painful joints.

“I’ve seen who’s carrying it,” he said. “And we should be able to kill her easily.”

Jill woke in the morning, feeling stiff and sore, to find the sun risen well over the horizon. She got up fast, stretching and cursing at her sluggishness. At least Sunrise had finished his morning graze. She gave him a nose bag of oats, then ate her bread and cheese standing up. Although it was a beautiful sunny day, she felt as cold as if she were about to take a fever. She packed up her few possessions in a hurry, and Sunrise had barely nibbled the last oat before they were on their way.

That morning her road took her away from the river. As she jogged along, the dark line of mountains that separated Yr Auddglyn from the province of Cwm Pecl loomed closer and closer, like clouds on the horizon. Toward noon she was trotting through a small valley when she saw dust on the road ahead. As the dust resolved itself into six armed men, she loosened her sword in her scabbard, but when they met, the riders hailed her with a friendly wave.

“Hold a moment, lad,” the leader said. “Are you riding a message from Lord Marclew by any chance?”

“I’m not, but I’m going to Lord Ynryc’s dun, sure enough. That silver dagger he’s holding for ransom is my man.”

The riders leaned forward in their saddles and stared at her.

“And isn’t that an evil Wyrd to fall upon such a pretty lass, to have a silver dagger for a husband!” the leader said, but with a pleasant smile. “Won’t old Marclew ransom him for you?”