She paused briefly, wondering if her father had come to the well beforehand and left his mark on the trees, or if he had done it just before he opened the well. Perhaps it didn’t matter when her father had etched it there. All that mattered was that hopefully he had.
She looked first on the lid, that slab of stone that almost covered the opening entirely, then she made another circle, looking at the rock that made up the sides. She got down on her hands and knees and began to study the stone more closely.
She saw nothing.
She took a deep breath, then settled on a new strategy. She closed her eyes, which handily blocked out the sight of her trollish companions, and ran her fingers over every stone of the well.
She felt nothing, which left her more than a little agitated—and panicked. If she didn’t find what they needed, they were lost. They would have to continue looking and that would mean more lives lost from Lothar’s monsters. It would mean more time spent in places she had no desire to go and more encounters with mages she would have preferred not to meet.
She sat back on her heels, then heaved herself to her feet. The answer was in front of her; she was certain of it. All she had to do was find it. She pushed her hair back from her face with her scraped and filthy hand, then turned away from the well for a change of scenery.
Lothar was standing five paces behind her.
She almost screamed. She would have, if she hadn’t managed to take all her fear and ruthlessly squelch it.
Fear crushed immediately has no chance to flower into panic.
She repeated that stricture a handful of times until she felt the clean edge of its truth straiten her soul like a particularly unforgiving pike. She clasped her hands behind her back and looked at Lothar calmly.
“Looking for something?”
“Actually, I think I might have found it,” he said, with a satisfied smile. “Princess Mhorghain.”
Morgan inclined her head the slightest bit in acknowledgment. “So I am. How did you know? Did Cruadal of Duibhreas tell you as much?”
“Never heard of him. And I didn’t need to be told.” He smiled again. “After I poisoned you in the fall, I began to think about how much you resembled someone else I once knew.”
“Who?”
He shot her a look. “Your mother, of course. Naturally, I wanted to have a few more details about you from the king of Neroche, who currently languishes in my dungeon, but he was rather unwilling to give them, despite my tactics of persuasion.”
Poor Adhémar. Morgan wasn’t particularly fond of him, but she wouldn’t have wished Lothar’s tortures on anyone. She spared a hope that there would be something left of him by the time they reached Riamh, then turned back to what she faced.
“You might be persuasive,” she said lightly, “but you’re not a very good brewer of poisons.”
Lothar drew himself up and glared at her. “I think you would find, my girl, that I’m quite adept at several terrible things that you daren’t imagine.”
Morgan shrugged dismissively. “Bore me with the details later. If you’ll excuse me, I have business here—”
Before she could even begin to turn away from him, he attacked.
His spell of Taking slammed into her with the force of a score of fists, leaving her gasping in spite of herself. Fortunately, there was no power there for him to have. When he realized what she’d done earlier, he cursed, then tore at the spell of illusion that hid the well containing her power. Morgan searched frantically for something to counter it, but he was everywhere, attacking her from all sides. Her illusion was suddenly ripped aside as if it had been a flimsy spider-web.
Lothar then turned to the spell that hid her magic, seeking for a spot of weakness. Morgan realized, with an enormous sense of relief, that he would not succeed. She was very, very grateful Miach had appropriated a Duriallian spell or two at some point in the past.
She found her feet beneath her again and sighed silently. Then she very deliberately folded her arms over her chest. “Do you need any help?” she asked politely.
The change in Lothar’s mien was swift and terrifying. Morgan wasn’t unaccustomed to seeing that in the lads she had fought over the years, so she paid it little heed. Weger’s strictures ran under the surface of her mind like a swiftly flowing river, loud and strengthening. She watched Lothar dispassionately as his fury exploded into spells of Olc that spun themselves around her and tried to encase her just as Droch had tried to encompass Miach. She waited until they had come within arm’s reach, then slit through them with a simple spell of Olc that came to her tongue uncalled.
Lothar looked at her in surprise. “How did you know to do that?”
“Gair of Ceangail was my sire,” she said contemptuously. “Did you think I was completely without any power?”
Lothar seemed to collect his fury and contain it. “I’m not sure exactly what I thought.” He looked at her for a moment or two, then gestured behind her. “If you are as powerful as you claim, prove it. Open the well.”
She snorted. “Why would I want to do that? So you can benefit?”
“You want to do it because I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
Morgan lifted an eyebrow. “Do you think so?”
Lothar only smiled in answer.
She realized, as she lost her breath in a rush, that she’d had only a small taste of his power as he’d tried to take her magic. Miach had been right: Droch was a hammer; Lothar was a sinewy snake, wrapping his spells around her and waiting until she breathed out before he tightened them, leaving her less and less able to continue to draw in breath. She fell to her knees before she realized they had buckled beneath her. She began to see stars swirling around her, sparkling across the field of her vision, distracting her from the smile on Lothar’s face.
She groped for her knife, but her fingers were numb and useless. She tried to put her hand on the Sword of Angesand, but her hand wasn’t working and she couldn’t find the sword’s hilt. She tried to blurt out a spell of death, but Lothar’s laughter carried her words away as if they’d been eiderdown whisked away on a brisk spring breeze.
She felt blackness begin to creep relentlessly toward her.
She gasped out spell after spell, but they were just words without any power behind them. Her steel was useless, her spells impotent, and she had no more breath for even trying to rip aside the spell that covered the Sword of Angesand. She tried to simply think the word she was to use, but it was just a word, nothing more.
She wondered how it was that Miach even dared stand against the man.
And then, quite suddenly, it was all gone. Her breath returned to her and the blackness receded. She looked up blearily from where she lay on the ground at Lothar’s feet and saw why.
Miach was being dragged into the glade, bound in not only ropes but cords of magic that even she could see through the haze that had become her vision. The men holding him shoved him forward.
“I found him lurking in the shadows, Grandfather,” one of the men said shortly. “Perhaps the woman isn’t all alone after all.”
Morgan didn’t dare look at Miach. Obviously he’d seen her distress and allowed himself to be captured. She wasn’t happy about needing a rescue, but she was also no fool. She was even more out of her depth with Lothar than she had been with Droch. If Miach hadn’t distracted Lothar, she likely would have died right there in front of her father’s well, without having done what she’d come to do.
She managed to get to her knees, but she could rise no farther. She groped for the spells of attack Miach had given her, but she found herself, for the first time in her life, afraid to use what she had to hand lest her plans go awry. Weger would have been disgusted.
Then again, she was facing Weger’s grandfather, and Lothar was not without power.
She thought about Weger, about how Lothar had slain his father and brothers, likely because Lothar had known it would grieve him. If Lothar had any idea what Miach meant to her, he would do the same thing for the same reason.
But if he thought she loathed Miach, perhaps she could distract him with that loathing long enough to free Miach. Then, at least, Miach could engage Lothar and leave her at liberty to proceed with her plan.
Which she wasn’t altogether sure hadn’t been Miach’s intention anyway.
She pushed herself to her feet, swayed, then steadied herself. She leaned over and tried to catch her breath.
“I can’t seem to rid myself of him,” she wheezed.
“Who? The wee one of Neroche?” Lothar asked in surprise.
“Aye,” Morgan said, putting as much disgust as possible in her voice. “He follows me everywhere.” And thank heavens that he did. She straightened with an effort. “I wish he would stop.”
Lothar considered, then nodded to his lads. They shoved Miach so hard that he went sprawling—directly in front of the well. Morgan didn’t dare look at him, but she could tell from where she stood that he was bound by more spells of Olc than she’d realized at first. She wasn’t altogether certain that they weren’t too many for him to rid himself of. And if she opened the well, the evil would wash directly over him and kill him.
She wasn’t sure how this was any better, but it was done and there was no turning back. She rubbed her hands over her face suddenly, managing to snatch a look at Miach as he did so. He was watching her tranquilly, as if he willed her to know he trusted her.
She hoped that trust wasn’t misplaced.
“I think I can aid you,” Lothar said pleasantly. “In return for a favor from you, of course.”
Morgan could only imagine what that would be. “I don’t think I would like the favor you want,” she said slowly. “I’ve seen what happens when that cap comes off and I have no desire to see it again. Unless, of course, the incentive inspires me. And I don’t think removing the annoyance of the archmage of Neroche would be very inspiring.”
“Then what would you say to being rid of him and having all his power in the bargain?” Lothar asked pleasantly.
She shook her head. “I don’t want it.”
He turned his dark, fathomless eyes on her. “And what is it you want, Gair’s daughter?”
“No more magic,” she said before she could stop herself.
“Easily done,” he said smoothly. “I’ll take the power from the well for myself, kill the archmage of Neroche so he doesn’t trouble you further, then, if you like, I’ll rid you of the nuisance of your power as well. Then I’ll let you go, freely.” He smiled, but that smile was a very cold one indeed. “That seems a reasonable trade, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve heard worse,” Morgan said with a shrug, though she doubted very much Lothar would allow her to leave the glade alive. She started to turn away, then looked back at him. “I have your word on all that?”
“Of course.” He lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “Why would you think otherwise?”
Because every word that came out of his mouth was a lie, that’s why. She nodded, as if she believed him, then turned away, calculating furiously. If she could, as the well was opening, manage to undo her magic and then free Miach’s as well, the balance of power in the glade would shift. A pity everything useful was buried under layers of—
She froze. It took a moment before she could catch her breath. Everything was
under
layers of spells.
What if the end of her father’s spell was burned into the
under
side of the cap?
Lothar made a brief sound of impatience. “Surely it can’t be that difficult to use a simple spell of opening.”
She ignored him. It was possible, wasn’t it? If she had time to open the well, find the word, then slam it shut . . . she could do all that whilst Miach kept Lothar busy. Besides, her grandfather was also in those trees, as was Sosar, and their power wasn’t insignificant. They could prevent Lothar from taking the well’s power, surely.
She took a deep breath, then very slowly began the spell of opening she had used on the bottle of wine in her father’s solar. She had only a fraction of her power free, but the spell began to take shape just the same.
Apparently, she wasn’t working fast enough. Lothar was standing at her shoulder, his impatience a tangible thing. She pretended to hesitate, but that only sent him into a sudden frenzy of cursing.
“Stop it,” she spat, glaring at him. “I can’t concentrate.”
He started to throw a spell at her—she saw it begin to form in the air—then he snapped his fingers and it was gone.
“Your sire would find your proficiency to be quite lacking,” he said, looking down his nose at her, “but I have no choice but to make do with your pitiful self. Hurry, or it won’t go well for you.”
“I need room.”
He sighed gustily, then turned and strode away. Morgan turned back to the well, shot Miach a look, then concentrated on repeating the words in the order she’d written them down.
“Make haste!” Lothar shouted from behind her.
In one single, smooth motion, she drew the Sword of Angesand and spoke the word that stripped away its spell of concealment. It blazed forth with magelight as she slit the spells of Olc that kept Miach bound. She spoke the single word that released all her power before she even paused for breath, then pulled Miach to his feet as he did the same for himself. He squeezed her hand, then pushed past her and engaged Lothar. Morgan took a deep breath.