Dreamspinner (35 page)

She looked at his arm as if she had no idea what to do with it, though he was certain he’d escorted her thus before. Then again, with that woman, he was honestly not quite sure what was dream and what wasn’t. He reached for her hand, tucked it into the crook of his elbow, then nodded up the path.

“Things will seem easier with a full belly.”

She nodded, though she didn’t look convinced. She looked at the thread of Camanaë she had laid back onto the rosebush, shook her head slowly, then didn’t protest when he led her away.

T
wo hours after having managed a meal for them without garnering undue notice and managing further to get himself back to the library before he couldn’t stay awake any longer, he woke and wished he’d had an entire night’s sleep and not just a nap. He sat up, rubbed his bleary eyes, and found Aisling sitting at the table with a rather large stack of books.

She was reading, though looking rather less than pleased with her efforts. He pushed himself to his feet with a groan, stumbled over to the table, and collapsed into a chair around the corner from her. He forced himself to sit up with his elbows on the table.

“What are you looking for?” he asked with a yawn.

She started as if he’d poked her with a hot fire tong. She shifted. “Nothing in particular.”

“Which is why you’re so irritated at not being able to find it.”

She looked terribly uncomfortable. Rùnach couldn’t say he was a particularly adept reader of faces—though Soilléir had certainly been a master at it—but he could spot a lie coming at him from fifty paces.

“I am looking for myths.”

He leaned back in his chair and propped his ankle up on the other knee, trying to look as unassuming as possible. These were
details he found himself rather more interested in than perhaps he should have been.

“Myths?” he asked casually. “What sort?”

She shrugged, though she looked very nervous and didn’t manage it as smoothly as she would have liked. “Things that don’t exist. You know what I’m talking about.”

“I’ve forgotten.”

She glared at him. “Wizards, bejeweled caverns under the mountains belonging to dwarves where they pluck already faceted diamonds from the ceiling to spend in creating even more lovely halls, perhaps dragons. Elves too, though I’m willing to allow that there might be the odd thing I’ve read about that might exist.” She looked at him seriously. “A pegasus, for example.”

“There is that,” he agreed.

“I still don’t believe in magic.”

“I know.”

She sat back and looked around her. “Have you ever seen so many books in one place at one time? Well, save Lismòr, of course.”

He almost didn’t know how to respond. The library at Lismòr was very well stocked, he had to admit, but it paled in comparison to the library at Buidseachd, a place he had haunted for a score of years. He had heard tales that the library in Diarmailt contained so many books it took a small army of librarians to simply reshelve them all.

The thought made him a little light-headed, truth be told.

“You’re overwhelmed as well,” she noted.

“Aye,” he agreed, for he was, and not just by the thought of all the things he could discover with the right amount of searching.

She looked around. “I have looked in the most obvious places here. I may have missed something, given that this library is so large.”

Rùnach had to bite his tongue to keep from telling her that these were only the books put out for public use, that the king of Neroche had a vast library on the second floor for his own personal use, for then she would wonder how he knew that and that would lead to questions he simply didn’t want to answer at present.

She would think him a myth, no doubt.

“And you can’t let me help you?” he asked, though he didn’t have to see her shake her head to know what she would answer.

“Nay, but I thank you just the same.” She paused. “I think I might need to search elsewhere.”

“Tor Neroche, perhaps?”

She put her hand over the uppermost book. “I might find what I’m looking for there.” She looked at him carefully. “A mercenary for my quest as well, perhaps.”

He nodded, though he wasn’t as sure as he should have been about the potential for either finding the facts she needed or the mercenary. What he was sure of, though, was that Miach would have ministers from all over the world haunting his halls, trying to curry his favor. If there were a place in the whole of the Nine Kingdoms where he could casually mention a word or two and have an answer about its origins, it was Tor Neroche.

“When should we leave?” she asked.

“Now,” he said. “I’ll help you stack books.”

“But you won’t look at them?”

He looked at her seriously. “Is your errand so secret then, Aisling?”

She let out her breath slowly. “I don’t know anymore,” she said, sounding more weary than he’d ever heard her. She shook her head. “I just don’t know any longer what to believe.”

He watched her tidy up her small piles of books, carefully put Nicholas’s book in the leather pack he’d given her and filled, no doubt, with useful things, then simply stop and look at him. He settled her cloak around her shoulders, took her pack and his in his hand, then escorted her from the library.

There were none but the night guards to see them out the front door, but he thought that might have been a boon. He stood on the front steps of Chagailt, looked out over the landscape that was revealed thanks only to the heavy clouds that seemed to shimmer with a light of their own, then looked at Aisling.

“One question.”

She took an unsteady breath, then nodded.

“If you tell me the details of your errand, what will happen to you?”

Her expression was very grave. “I will die.”

He almost fell off the steps. Perhaps even more surprising than her answer was that he had absolutely no doubt that she believed it fully.

He wasn’t sure that he didn’t as well.

He stared at her, trying to mask his surprise, then took a deep breath, reached out, and gathered her into his arms. He was quite sure that she had never in her life been held, perhaps not even by her parents. She was stiff as a plank, but she wasn’t pulling away and she wasn’t screaming, so he thought perhaps he hadn’t terrified her beyond measure. He released her, then fussed with her cloak, pulling her hood up over her hair and adjusting the cloth over her shoulders. He would have to add thanks for new, quite serviceable clothing in that note he had yet to pen to the former king of Diarmailt.

“Let’s be off, shall we?” he said quietly.

She was looking at him with absolutely enormous eyes. “Very well,” she whispered.

It was all he could do not to hug her until she begged him to cease. Instead, all he could do was smile, reach for her hand—which didn’t seem to trouble her—and walk down the stairs with her.

He turned them toward the forest and hoped that his horse was waiting. He didn’t particularly care to think about the walk they would have if he wasn’t.

I will die
.

He suppressed the urge to shake his head. The woman was a mystery. And as he’d admitted before to more than one person, he loved a good mystery.

With any luck, he thought he might manage to limit his interest in her to solving hers.

A
isling woke to the feeling of falling. She jerked and managed to keep her seat only because Rùnach was holding on to her so tightly. She dragged her sleeve across her eyes, then looked into the wind, trying to get her bearings. The sky was rapidly lightening, so she knew she had slept yet another night away whilst Rùnach had obviously not. The only sleep he’d had in the past three days had been when his horse had deigned to descend from his heavenly lea to feed and water himself. She had spent that time demanding that Rùnach sleep at least an hour or so whilst she stood guard over him with his sword drawn.

Of course, she’d had no idea what she would do if a ruffian attacked, but the sword had made her feel fierce.

She leaned back and shouted over the wind. “What are we doing?”

“I saw something,” Rùnach said loudly. “Someone waving at us from down below.”

She couldn’t imagine how he could have seen that with the
rising sun blinding him, but she wasn’t going to argue. She had to admit she was grateful to be flying and not walking, but still the thought of getting out of the saddle and using her own legs for a bit was a welcome one.

Their mount didn’t seem to be particularly eager to land, but he was nothing if not obedient when Rùnach insisted. He took his time at it, however, as if he saw something that made him unhappy. Aisling didn’t see anything untoward, though she was surprised to find they had left the plains behind and had now come up upon a more mountainous and forested sort of terrain. She had never seen its like before, so she wasn’t unhappy to have a closer look.

Once the pegasus had landed, she swung her leg over the saddle and slid down to the ground before Rùnach could stop her. She was so grateful to feel solid earth under her feet, all she could do was hold on to the horse’s saddle and wait until her legs were steady beneath her. She heard Rùnach jump down behind her, then felt his hand briefly on her back.

“Stay here,” he said quietly.

She lifted her head and looked at him in surprise. “Why?”

He simply shot her a warning look and walked away. She considered, then removed her bow and quiver of arrows from off the saddle. There was no sense in not protecting Rùnach if she were able to, though she imagined by the way he had his hand on his sword, he wasn’t going to need all that much protection. Why he felt the need for that when he’d been the one to decide to land, she didn’t know.

She eased around the pegasus’s nose, then stood there, an arrow fitted to the string. The horse put his nose in her back, as if he were telling her he would keep her safe.

She looked past Rùnach and was surprised to see a lad standing there thirty paces away, a lad she recognized. She walked over to stand next to Rùnach before she thought better of it.

“’Tis Losh,” she said in surprise.

“What is he doing here, I wonder,” Rùnach murmured. He glanced at her. “Stay behind me.”

She nodded, though she had a hard time not looking at Losh. It was such a surprise to see him there, she could hardly fathom it.

Rùnach walked forward. “Losh, is it?”

“It is,” Losh said, looking both exhausted and unnerved. He pointed behind Rùnach. “And what would that beast be, sir? A demon horse, perhaps—”

“Nay, nothing so exotic, I assure you,” Rùnach said. “Why are you here, lad?”

Losh came closer and held out a sheaf of paper. “I was sent from Lord Weger to give you this. He said he thought you would be coming this way and to wait for you.” He paused. “’Twas a terrible journey, this one.”

“Did you
walk
?” Rùnach asked in surprise.

“Nay, took the ship as far as Magh, then bought a horse and rode like the wind.”

Rùnach took the sheaf of paper but didn’t unfold it. “Good of Weger to think of us.”

“He is a generous sort,” Losh agreed. He looked over Rùnach’s shoulder. “And about your horse, my lord—”

“Common enough in some parts, I’d imagine,” Rùnach said.

Aisling listened to them make idle conversation, but somehow the words grated against her ears. Not Rùnach’s actually, but Losh’s. She realized she hadn’t spent perhaps enough time with him to know, but there was something about him that was…dark. She listened to him speak of his journey and found herself rather surprised that Losh had managed it, though she supposed if Weger had demanded it of him, Losh would have walked on hot coals.

“But how much does a horse like that cost, my lord?” Losh asked, wide-eyed.

“Oh, I wouldn’t know,” Rùnach said easily. “He was a gift. And I am no lord.”

“Oh,” said Losh, shooting Rùnach a sly look, “you aren’t, are you? A pity for you that I know exactly what you are.”

Aisling watched as Losh disappeared and in his place stood a
man with a terrible scar down one cheek. It was red, angry, matching perfectly his expression.

Rùnach grabbed her arm, crushing the sheaf of paper in the process, and hauled her behind him.

“We have nothing you want,” he said calmly.

“Oh, you think not?” the other man said in a deceptively calm voice. “I think I’ll be the judge of that.”

Aisling looked around Rùnach’s shoulder and saw something come tumbling out of the other man’s mouth, words that were black, barbed, dripping with something that she instinctively shrank away from. She recognized the words; it was the common tongue, only corrupted, twisting and turning. It reached out toward Rùnach like a mighty rushing wind, poised to swirl around him and take him prisoner.

And then she realized with a start that the man facing them was the same one who had stabbed her through the heart with a blade.

She stepped around Rùnach and fitted an arrow to the string. The man saw her do it, paused in his evil spewing, and laughed. That was worse, for the things that appeared in the air to join in his mirth were—

“Don’t look,” Rùnach warned.