Then she spoke the last word of her father’s spell.
The cover sprang open. Evil shot up out of the well, though not as fiercely as it had when her father had released it. She knew she should have moved, or called a warning, or woven some spell of protection over herself and those she loved, but all she could do was stand there, openmouthed, and watch the evil as it fell back down toward the earth.
It shied away from her. She realized, with a start, that the power that pushed the evil away was coming from not only the magelight of the Sword of Angesand, and not only from the amulet she wore resting against her heart, but from the sparkle of elven magic that sprang from the runes about her wrist and wove itself through that same magelight.
And then there was the song that her blade began to sing.
“Stop that!” Lothar shouted in fury.
Morgan didn’t bother to look at him. She watched the evil as it tumbled over the edge of the rock to soak into the ground. The sight of it was at once both familiar and horrifying. All she could do was stand there and watch as it avoided splashing itself against her boots.
“Mhorghain!”
She looked up and saw Keir standing next to the well.
“Hurry,” he said, turning quickly to thrust his sword through the heart of a troll. “Damnation, the spell of opening isn’t holding.”
Morgan saw that was true. The lid had begun to quiver in place, as if it couldn’t decide what to do. She heard Lothar shouting behind her and realized that he was weaving his own bit of magic over the well, but she couldn’t tell if he was trying to open or close it. Keir leapt on top of the well with his back against the stone, holding it up by sheer strength alone. He stood with feet braced on either side of the yawning darkness.
“Find the last word,” he commanded. “It must be here somewhere.”
Morgan dropped to her knees and looked frantically under the cap of the well. It was too much in shadow to see without aid, so she made werelight and sent it skimming along every surface. She crawled to Keir’s left to look behind him, but saw nothing. She scrambled to her feet and lurched to the right.
Engraved into the stone behind her brother was a single word.
She could hardly believe her eyes. She didn’t dare rub them, though, lest it be a dream she had stumbled into and any stray movement might force her to wake. She looked at the word again, memorized it, then leapt to her feet.
“I found it,” she said, feeling slightly giddy. “Keir, the word was exactly where . . . we . . .”
She found she couldn’t finish her words.
There was a sword protruding from Keir’s chest.
She blinked, then looked to Keir’s left. Cruadal stood there, smiling disdainfully. Morgan leapt toward him only to have Keir shout hoarsely at her.
“Forget him and weave the spell, Mhorghain!”
Miach bumped into the back of her, almost sending her tumbling into the well itself. He cursed, then pulled her back away from the edge before he continued on with his own fight. Morgan looked at her brother. There was, and she could hardly believe it, an expression of peace on his face.
“Someone of Gair’s blood must close the well,” he said calmly.
“But,” she said, blinking, “it cannot mean this. Grandfather and I can heal you. We’ve done it before.”
Keir flinched as Cruadal wrenched the sword, then pulled it free. Morgan would have turned on him, but her grandfather was seeing to that well enough on his own, engaging Cruadal with spells and steel both. The magic became an annoyance to her, buzzing against her ears, drowning out what she thought Keir was saying to her.
She realized suddenly that it wasn’t her grandfather’s magic she was listening to.
It was Lothar’s spell of Taking.
But it wasn’t directed at her. She realized with a start that he was preparing to take the power of the well, just as he’d promised he would. And if he did, there would be no finishing him. Morgan wasn’t sure where to turn first. Keir was struggling to counter Lothar’s spell with Fadaire, Miach was fighting Lothar with very ugly spells of Olc, and the magic from her father’s well had apparently now decided she was worth its notice, for it was lapping at her boots.
“Mhorghain, close the well,” Keir gasped.
She wrenched her gaze up to meet his. “But you—”
“Weave the spell, then use the final word before you forget it.”
Morgan realized she couldn’t see her brother any longer and that made her angry. She dragged her sleeve across her eyes, then looked at him. “I have a very good memory,” she said, because those were the first words that she could hold on to. “You don’t have to do this!”
He looked at her, tears streaming down his face. “Mother would have been very proud of you. I’ll sit with her soon, sister, far beyond the east where there is no more toil or sorrow.”
“Oh, Keir, please,” she begged. “Please, nay—”
“I’m dead already,” he said with a faint smile. “I’ve been dying for years and not even grandfather’s magic could mend it. This is how it was meant to end. I always wanted to undo what Father had done. Now, I’ll have that chance.” His breath rattled loudly in his chest. “Help me, Mhorghain. Help me do what I must.”
Morgan found the words of closing on her tongue, but they were so bitter, she didn’t think she could spit them out.
“Hurry.”
She took a deep breath, held Keir’s gaze with hers, then repeated the words she had no choice but to use. She paused, the last word shimmering in the air between them.
Keir looked at her one more time, then called to the evil. Whether it recognized his voice or his blood, she couldn’t have said. All she knew was that it rushed back toward the well, almost unbalancing her in the process. It surrounded Keir, swirling up around him and surrounding him like a particularly generous cloak. He didn’t protest; he merely released the stone lid and disappeared down into the darkness. Morgan whispered the last word and the cap of the well fell onto the rock with a crash and sealed itself with a faint click.
No more evil trickled from it. Morgan fell to her knees on ground that was simply innocent dirt, unpolluted by what had troubled it for a score of years. She heard fighting going on all around her, but she couldn’t force herself to be a part of it. She had never felt such bone-wearying exhaustion, not even when she’d fashioned spells of death.
Perhaps it was her grief that had broken her.
She watched dully as her mercenary companions fought trolls, aided by elves she supposed Sìle must have called to himself. Perhaps they had been sent by Làidir. She wasn’t sure and, worse, yet, she wasn’t sure she cared. She had accomplished what she’d set out to, but she felt no satisfaction.
And then she caught sight of Cruadal.
He was fighting her grandfather furiously. He attempted to change his shape, but Sìle wrenched him out of his spell and sent him sprawling. He heaved himself back to his feet with a curse, then attacked Sìle with renewed fury, forcing Sìle back.
Morgan watched in horror as her grandfather stumbled over the corpse of one of Lothar’s creatures lying behind him. He went down heavily. Sosar was there, though, and closer to the king than she could possibly have been. He reached down for his father’s hand to pull him to his feet.
A shadow loomed behind Sosar suddenly, and a blade flashed in the sunlight as it descended.
Morgan threw herself to her feet, pulling Mehar’s knife free from her boot as she did so. She flung the blade with all her strength at Cruadal.
She supposed ’twas nothing but dumb luck that it went into Cruadal and not into her uncle, who straightened suddenly. Sosar looked at her with very wide eyes, then turned and finished Cruadal with his sword.
That should have eased her, but it didn’t. A white-hot fury clawed through her like a live thing, anger mixed with grief for a brother she’d had only a few days and lost thanks to Lothar and Gair and evil magic that came too easily to her tongue. She looked past her grandfather, who was getting to his feet, past her uncle, who was wiping his sword on the grass, over to where her mercenary companions and a collection of elves were fighting creatures made from her father’s arrogance and Lothar’s cunning.
She began to crush them with spells of death that fell on them like hammers.
“Mhorghain!” Sosar exclaimed.
She ignored him, relishing the power that rushed into her suddenly. She slew a score of monsters, then another half dozen, until there were only a handful left. She knew she should have felt spent, but she instead felt strengthened.
That was startling enough that it gave her pause. It couldn’t be the evil from the well adding to her power. That was gone, drawn back into where it had come from. This power was coming from somewhere else. Somewhere human.
Lothar.
She looked to find him fighting Miach languidly, but watching her as he did so.
He spoke a word and the spell he’d cast over her left her abruptly. She fell to her knees, weary beyond belief. She stared at him stupidly, wishing she’d had the good sense to recognize his evil for what it was. She understood then the truth of Miach’s words. Olc was a seductive magic and the learning of it cost a mage dearly. Using it, she suspected, exacted an even higher price.
As she listened to Lothar continue to speak, she realized that he was quickly reweaving his spell of Taking. It occurred to her that he intended to use it not on the well now, but on Miach. She threw herself to her feet and stumbled toward Miach. She flung herself in front of him and held up the Sword of Angesand and Mehar’s knife both as a ward. She and Miach were instantly surrounded by light and song and the power of the runes that encircled both their wrists.
Lothar only yawned, then finished his spell.
Someone a fair distance away from her gasped, then cried out. Morgan whirled around in time to see Sosar fall to his knees, a look of absolute horror on his face.
Morgan turned back around in time to see Lothar stretch in satisfaction. He smiled pleasantly at Miach.
“You’d best hurry home, young one. I think you’ll find that there’s more to do there than you suspected—only now I am yet again infinitely more powerful than you are, making the fight even more difficult for you. But that has always been the case, hasn’t it?”
Miach pushed past Morgan with a curse and a spell on his lips.
Lothar vanished.
Morgan pulled Miach back. “He’s gone; let him go.” She tugged on him again when he wouldn’t look at her. “Miach, leave it. We must see to Sosar.”
He cursed, then turned and looked over her head. He closed his eyes briefly. “I fear the worst, but we’ll do what we can.”
She resheathed her blades, then hurried with him across the glade. She dropped to her knees next to her uncle. She put her hand on his shoulder.
“Sosar?”
Sosar looked up at Miach. “It’s gone,” he said in astonishment. “My power is gone.”
“All of it?”
Sosar laughed, but there was nothing but absolute desperation in the sound. “And just how do you expect me to judge that?”
Miach rubbed his hands over his face, then shook his head as if he sought to clear it. “We’ll follow him.”
“Let him go,” Sìle said grimly. “I’ll take Sosar home—”
“Nay,” Miach said sharply, “we must follow. Only Lothar can restore what he’s taken. Keir was adamant that was the case.”
“And how,” Sìle said heavily, “do you propose to force that bastard from Wychweald to give back what he’s stolen?”
“When the right pressure is applied, Your Majesty, even the strongest man will fall to his knees and beg for mercy. Morgan, can you fly?”
“Of course,” she said, even though she suspected she would be hard-pressed to merely propel herself across the glade.
“Your Majesty, bring Sosar after us,” Miach said briskly. “We will follow Lothar and I will end this. But before I do, I
will
have back what he took from your son.”
Sìle stood with his hands on Sosar’s shoulders. “If you think so, Miach,” he said, his expression very grave, “then we’ll come. But what about this business here? Is it finished?”
“It will be in a moment.”
Morgan watched Miach weave a handful of spells over the well. He was brutally efficient about it all, layering things over the stone that she wouldn’t have wanted to try to undo. Even her grandfather pulled back, an expression of distaste on his face. Morgan walked over to stand next to Sìle, happy to have him to lean against as Miach continued his work. She understood Miach’s fury and his grief. She only wished she’d had some of the former. All she had was grief and it chilled her to the bone.
Miach finished, then turned to Sìle. “Your Grace, please give the horses wings and follow us with Morgan’s lads. I dare not take the time to do any of this for you.”
Sìle nodded, then reached out and pulled Morgan briefly into his arms. “I’m sorry, Granddaughter.”