Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

“So, little one,” said the taller. “You’ve slain your master, have you?”

Sarcyn went rigid with terror, a coldness that started at the base of his spine and rippled upward.

“I see you know who we are,” the assassin went on. “The Hawks of the Brotherhood have you, sure enough. The Old One sent us to follow Alastyr and keep an eye on him. We’ve been scrying you out all along, little one, but never did we think to see a murder.”

“I’ll wager the Old One suspected somewhat of the sort,” said the second. “He never tells a man all his thoughts.”

“It may be, at that.” He kicked Sarcyn hard on the side of the head. “But you’ll pay, little one, and slowly, after you’ve told the masters everything you know. We’ve lost one of our own men because of the opal, you know. You’ll pay for that as well.”

Although the world danced like fire from the blow, Sarcyn bit his lip hard and kept from crying out. Even though fear was making him tremble, he swore himself a solemn vow: he would tell them nothing at all, no matter how cleverly they tortured him, because he would get no mercy from them even if he obeyed them. As the Hawks went to get their horses, hidden somewhere in the trees, he shrank into himself and clung to his will. It was all he had left, his ability to concentrate his will and drive himself with it. He forced the fear away, stopped trembling, and lay as limply as a netted deer while he stared into the fire.

Although Nevyn returned round noon, Jill had no chance to talk with him until sunset, because the dweomerman worked on Camdel all afternoon, washing and treating his various wounds as well as soothing his mind. After dinner he sent a page to fetch her to his chamber, where the last blaze of light poured in the window. Jill sat down on a chest while he paced restlessly back and forth.

“How’s Camdel?” she asked.

“Sound asleep, the gods be thanked. I had him tell me some of what’s happened to him, but I made sure he won’t remember doing so. He’s too weak to face his memories just now.”

“No doubt. Why did they—well, use him like that?”

He cocked his head to one side and considered her in an oddly sly way.

“By rights, I shouldn’t tell you,” he said at last. “Besides, I thought all this talk of dweomer ached your heart.”

“Oh, Nevyn, don’t tease!”

“Very well, then. Well, when two people bed down together, a certain amount of a substance called magnetic effluent is given off. I know you don’t know what that is, and I’m not going to explain it further to someone without more knowledge, so take what I say on faith. This effluent has many a peculiar property, but it’s basically a kind of life stuff. It’s also present in blood. Now, the dark dweomermen are trained in ways of sucking up the effluent if it’s present and using it to restore their own vitality. When his apprentice was using Camdel, Alastyr was basically feeding off their lust.”

Jill felt sick to her stomach.

“Disgusting, isn’t it?” Nevyn remarked. “Now, here, though—that reminds me of somewhat. The apprentice—Sarcyn his name is, or so Camdel told me—did escape. You and Rhodry are going to have to be very careful when you ride out.”

“I’ve been brooding over that all day, truly.”

“I’m planning on hunting him down, or I’d insist that you two stay with Blaen, no matter how shamed it makes Rhodry feel. As it is, he’s fairly weak, and he has worse enemies than me.”

“Who?”

“Remember the man who poisoned himself in Ogwern’s chambers?”

“Oh, ye gods! Didn’t you say that there were more like him?”

“I did, and thanks be to every god, I expect they’ll be too busy with this Sarcyn fellow to worry about revenging themselves on you. Still, stay on guard. Sarcyn’s got a head start on me, and of course, I can’t scry him out. I’ve never laid eyes on him in the flesh.”

As soon as Jill had her idea, it seemed obvious, except that she had no idea of how she knew what she did. She sat very still, thinking it over, feeling her fear grow, not only a fear of Sarcyn, but of deliberately and coldly using the dweomer. If she voiced her idea, she knew she would be taking the first step on a very strange road. Or was it truly only the first step? Somewhat puzzled, Nevyn watched her until, at last, she made her decision.

“I’ve seen him in the flesh,” she said. “You can scry through me, can’t you? I don’t know why I’m so sure of this, but can’t you use me like a pair of eyes?”

“By all the hells! You’re right enough, but are you sure you’d let me? It means my taking over your will.”

“Of course I’d let you. You should know that I’d trust you with my life.”

Nevyn came close to weeping. Hastily he turned away and wiped his eyes on his dirty sleeve while she wondered at it, that her good opinion would mean so much to a man of his powers.

“Well, my thanks,” he said at last. “Let me just get some wood from a servant, and we’ll build a fire.”

By the time the fire was burning steadily, the twilight was deepening to a velvet dark. Nevyn had Jill sit in a chair in front of the fire while he stood behind her. Although she was frightened, with the fear came the same kind of exultation she felt just before a battle. When he laid his hands on the back of her neck, just where the spine meets the skull, at first his fingers seemed normally warm; then the warmth increased and seemed to flow into her very veins, to spread along them through her face and mind, until at last it centered itself between her eyes as a peculiar twisting sensation.

“Look into the fire, child, and think of Sarcyn.”

As soon as she did, she saw him, lying asleep by a campfire, somewhere in hilly country. The image was small at first; then it swelled to fill first the hearth, then her whole mind, until she hovered above the scene the way she did in a true dream. As she floated over the valley, she saw two men leave the trees up the hill and begin to stalk the unsuspecting sleeper. Slowly they moved, and quietly, gliding along low to the ground like ferrets. Even though she’d hated Sarcyn not a minute before, she was suddenly terrified for him.

In her vision-trance she tried to cry out and wake him, but no sound came. She swooped down and grabbed his shoulders, but her incorporeal touch couldn’t shake him awake. Just as the two men pounced, she darted away and stood on the other side of the fire as the Hawks bound and taunted their prisoner. She saw the Hawks stride off, leaving their prisoner alone. All at once she heard Nevyn’s voice in her mind—speaking through her mind.

“Call upon the Light and forswear the Darkness.”

Sarcyn must have heard. He writhed, flopping against his bonds, looking this way and that.

“Call upon the Light and forswear the Darkness.”

Sarcyn looked right at Jill. She could see his eyes narrow as he peered at her; what he could see, she of course could not tell. Since her mind and Nevyn’s were so intertwined, it felt to her that she was weeping real tears over the prisoner as he lay trembling before her, but the grief, she knew, was Nevyn’s.

“Call upon the Light.”

For a long moment Sarcyn stared her way, then wept, his lips moving though she could not decipher what he might have been saying. She glanced round and saw the Hawks, returning with laden horses. Nevyn had apparently seen them, too.

“Come back now!” His voice rang loud in her mind. “They have the power to see you if they should look your way with the second sight. Think of me, child. Come back to the room.”

She pictured him, the room; suddenly her eyes were open, and she was looking into the fire. Nevyn was no longer touching her. She got up, stretching a peculiar stiffness away.