Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

Nevyn realized, too, that he’d been thinking that he knew his opponent, only to find out that he was wrong. He had an old enemy, a dark master with whom he’d crossed swords several times in the last hundred years, a Bardekian who was particularly skilled in reading omens of future events. The war last year in Eldidd, the attempt on the dweomer-opal, even leaving Rhodry alive as a kind of experiment—it would all have fit Tondalo perfectly. Of course, he reminded himself, Tondalo might be behind it from a distance. By now the Bardekian would be some hundred fifty years old, and likely too weak to travel far. Although dark dweomermen can keep themselves alive by unnatural means, they have no way of remaining healthy, especially toward the end. Nature herself tries to thwart them, simply because they go counter to her principles, like water trying to flow uphill.

Caught in Alastyr’s strong grasp, the brown-and-white rabbit struggled, trying to work its hind feet free to rake him, but he knocked its head against the kitchen table until it went limp. He slit its throat with his knife, then leaned over to suck the hot blood directly from the wound. Even though he’d done it for years, the procedure always disgusted him, but unfortunately it was the only way to ensure that he got all of the blood’s magnetic effluent. He could never understand why other masters of the craft left killing their meat to their servants. As he drank, he felt the magnetic strength flow into him in a small rejuvenation. He wiped his mouth carefully on a rag, then set about skinning the rabbit and cutting it up.

As he worked, he felt his fear like a pounding in his blood. Although he wanted to flee, he was afraid to return to the Brotherhood with another failure on his hands. The Old One might well forgive him, especially since he’d know that Rhodry’s elven blood was the factor that had ruined his calculations, but the other masters of the dark path would see him as weak. Once a man weakened, he was likely to be attacked, torn apart, and drained of his power. Suicide would be a better fate than that. The thought of death made him tremble all over. After all, it was simply the fear of dying that had made him turn to the dark craft all those years before. Soon he would have to decide whether to flee or fight. Soon. Very soon. Although the dark dweomer sends no warnings of danger to those on the dark path, simple logic told him that time was short.

He looked up from his brooding to find Sarcyn watching him.

“What do you want?” Alastyr snapped.

“I only wanted to butcher the rabbit for you, master. It’s my place to wait on you.”

Alastyr handed him the knife, then washed his bloody hands in a bucket of water. Nearby Camdel sat crouched in the straw.

“If we do make a run for it,” Alastyr said, “Camdel has to die. He’ll only slow us down.”

Whimpering, the lordling shrank back. Sarcyn looked up with the knife in his hand, and his eyes were murderous with rage.

“I won’t let you kill him.”

“Indeed? And who are you to let me do or not do anything?”

Alastyr sent a wave of hatred down the link between his aura and Sarcyn’s, following it up with a twist of rage. With a gasp Sarcyn dropped the knife as the emotions translated themselves into pure physical pain. Writhing, he fell to his knees, his face twisted as he tried to keep the pain from showing there. With a snarl Alastyr released him, shaking on the floor.

“Now hold your tongue until you’re spoken to,” he snapped. “I have to think.”

He paced over to the window and stared out blindly, feeling his fear clutch and pulse within him. Once he glanced back to see Sarcyn and Camdel clasped in each other’s arms. Fools! he thought. Maybe I’ll kill them both!

When the time came for the evening meal, Jill ate in Nevyn’s chamber with the old man and Rhodry. Although she had no appetite, Rhodry packed away roast beef and fried onions like the true warrior he was, eating cheerfully before a battle because he knew he might never get another meal. And what am I, then? she thought. A coward, sure enough. As much as she hated the word, she had to admit that she was terrified at the thought of dark dweomer wanting to capture her for reasons of its own. Finally she couldn’t stand to watch them eat any longer and went to the window.

Looking out on the golden sunshine of a summer evening reminded her that the real, solid world was still there, untouched by dweomer, yet she knew that she would never see that world in the same way again. A question haunted her, almost as frightening as the dark dweomer itself: How do I know so much about all of this? Although she’d been caught up in events that would have baffled most people, she’d known so many things instinctively: that the jewel could shapechange, that the apprentice had the dark dweomer and could use it to see if she was speaking the truth, that she could reach Nevyn through the fire. Reluctantly, slowly, fighting all the way, she was being forced to realize that she had not only a dweomer-talent, but a strong one.

Clenching her hands on the sill, she leaned out of the window and reassured herself by watching the ordinary bustle of servants in the ward below. Then she saw Bocc, lurking by the main gate of the dun and peering around him. He must want to talk with me, she thought. And why had she gone to the window at just the proper moment to see him?

“Is somewhat wrong, child?” Nevyn said. “You’ve gone a bit pale.”

“Oh, it’s naught, but Bocc’s at the gates, and I think we’d best speak with him.”

Nevyn insisted on sending a servant to bring Bocc up to their chamber rather than going down to the ward. The poor man was so nervous at being inside the gwerbret’s broch that he couldn’t bear to sit down. He paced restlessly back and forth, clutching the tankard of ale that Jill poured him.

“Here, good herbman,” he said, “are you truly sure we won’t be overheard?”

“I swear it. I’ll lie to the gwerbret’s face if I have to protect you.”

“Well and good, then.” He had a gulp of ale. “I think we’ve found the men who tried to poison my Da.”

It took Jill a moment to remember the lie that Nevyn had told Ogwern, but the dweomerman sat bolt upright in his chair and smiled.

“Oh, have you, now? Here, tell me everything.”

“After you warned us, you see, we did some hard thinking. It had to be a stranger who put that oily-fur-what’s-it in Da’s ale, because he’s as fair as fair when it comes to splitting swag, and none of the lads would want him done away with. So we figure another gang’s trying to move in on us. So we all spread out, like, marking any strangers we saw and following them. We spread a bit of coin around, too, for information. And so just before noontide I had a bit of luck when this fellow comes into town to buy at the market fair. Someone told me he was a farmhand, but he was buying a cage full of rabbits. Now, I ask you, why would a farmer spend coin on rabbits when his fields are full of free ones?”

“A better question than you can know, my friend.”

“So I got my horse and followed the man out. I was being careful as careful at first, but he never even looked back once. From the way he sat on his horse, all slumped over, it looked as if he was ill or suchlike, so I could follow pretty close. He goes to a farm, all right, and I begin to think I’ve got a false trail. But I’m there and all, so I spread a few coppers around in the village nearby, and I hear a strange tale. That farm belongs to an old widower, who’s gotten a bit strange over the years. Now, everyone thought he didn’t have a soul in the world, but all of a sudden, like, he’s got guests. One of the village lads was chasing a lost cow up that way, and he saw a fellow saddling up an expensive horse out in the farmyard. Fortunately the lad had to keep after his cow, so he didn’t go down to ask nothing.”