“Exactly that. I didn’t catch all of it, which is a damned shame. I nipped back home before I was caught being where I shouldn’t have been—you’ll understand that, I’m sure. The spell nagged at me though. Not essence changing, of course, because who in Durial has that kind of spell?”
“Who, indeed?” Acair agreed. He’d often wondered about dwarvish magic, though he’d always supposed Uachdaran of Léige was satisfied with his ability to coax sparkling things from rock all on his own. Where would be the sport in simply changing rock to gem?
“I tried to find the source here, but had to leave my search unfinished. Not sure where I’d be if I hadn’t known about the side door. Grandfather doesn’t like having his library investigated, but you understand that, don’t you?”
Acair ignored the barb, mostly because it was all too true, then found himself willing to give the lad a second look. “Side door, did you say? I don’t suppose you would feel inclined to point out where such a thing might be located.”
“I might, for the price of a future introduction to your lady’s sister.”
“She has no sis—” Acair stopped and frowned, remembering an extremely brief conversation about the same somewhere in Sàraichte. “Shehada sister, rather, but I believe her sister died as a child.”
Aonarach looked genuinely surprised. “Are you that stupid?” He shook his head, possibly rolling his eyes as well. “Never mind. She has something I want, so I’ll just find her myself. As for the other, the second exit is over there in the corner, behind the bookcase and accessed by the usual lever of a cleverly concealed book. I’ll let you decide which one.”
Acair imagined that was as far as he was going to get with that, so he opted for another direction. “Anything else you’d care to share?”
Aonarach looked at him in silence for so long that Acair found himself almost nervous, he who made others uneasy with that sort of look. He was beginning to see why it was so effective.
“Grandfather had a book on his night stand for a fortnight or two recently,” he said slowly. “Something about bad mages coming to worse ends. Rather tedious stuff, that, but I assume he had good reason to be amusing himself with the contents.”
Acair imagined that had been the case, but wished to heaven the old bastard had left it as a place to rest his ale. The fact that he himself had brought along that very tome and tucked it under the cushion of the chair nearest the fire for a bit of light reading later was perhaps something he could conveniently forget to mention.
“I wonder why?” Acair mused.
“The kingdom is full of deep shadows,” Aonarach said, “but he’s heard rumors of shadows in other places. I don’t suppose I need to point that out to you.”
Acair hadn’t intended to comment on the shadows he suspected Aonarach had explored, but that lad had definitely gifted him the opening he’d been waiting for. There was no sense in not taking it.
“I don’t suppose you do,” Acair agreed, “but why don’t you tell me about the onesyou’veno doubt examined here in your Grandpappy’s environs?”
Aonarach looked at him without a trace of emotion on his face. “I imagine you’ll discover everything you need to know about them without my aid, more particularly the ones created by that mage watching the front gates. I don’t think you have a bloody clue who you’re dealing with or what he truly wants.”
“Am I to assume that you do?”
“Must I say it?”
“I think you would feel better about it if you did.”
There, more friendly words instead of unfriendly fingers wrapped around the throat. Good deed accomplished.
Aonarach reached out and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Sometimes, friend, we are far less important in the grander scheme of things than we believe. And I believe that is my cue to, as you would say, make an elegant exit stage left.”
Acair was torn between feeling flattered that his words had made such an impression on the lad and being overcome with frustration that he hadn’t beaten out of that self-same lad the details he’d needed. He leaned back against the stone because it seemed wiser to do that than stagger artistically into the nearest leather chair. He watched his recent tormentor leave the library, pulling the main door shut behind him, then considered what he’d just heard.
Less important than he believed?
That was offensive. There was a very long line of people who wanted him dead, beginning with that wee fiend’s grandfather. Of course he knew he wasn’talwaystopping everyone’s list of mages to slay before luncheon, but that could have definitely gone without being said.
He walked over to a sideboard placed just close enough to the fire for the distance between a fine glass of whisky and a comfortable place to settle in to be not unmanageable, poured himself something from the decanter there, then tossed it back without bothering to sit. It hardly began to properly address the insults to his pride, but as tempting as another few fingers of what he suspected was Gairnish brew might have been, he would do better to be in possession of most of his wits. For all he knew, he might run across someone whodidn’twant him dead—apparently there were more of those lads making lists than he suspected—and he would want to scold them for their lack of good taste whilst having a full complement of slurs at his disposal.
He accompanied himself to a chair with a few bitter curses and retrieved the pair of books he’d brought with him from under the seat cushion there. He’d been fighting a gnawing feeling that his grandmother’s map held secrets he would want to know sooner rather than later, but he forced himself to set it aside for when the whisky had taken full effect.
The second book was the one the king had foisted off onto him, that poorly chosen collection of lesser mages going about decidedly lesser deeds. If only the king had dog-eared a page or two that had intrigued him, the evening’s task would have been more easily accomplished. But things were as they were, which left him doing all the dirty work, as usual.
There was unfortunately no bookmark loitering between any of those mediocre pages, never mind any hint that he could see of anything magical having been left behind. Unsurprised but determined, he began from the beginning, giving it the proper study he hadn’t been at liberty to previously. He recognized many of the names, of course, but…
He held onto the page he had almost turned and wondered why it was that at the very moment one found something one hadn’t been expecting, the world seemed to pause and hold its breath. Usually that came about thanks to some piece of mischief he was preparing to perpetrate, which left him thinking that the book he held in his hands might just be of more worth than he’d suspected.
One can hardly fully explore the underbelly of the fouler pieces of magick-making in the Nine Kingdoms without a brief examination of those who slither in and out of tales with astonishing cleverness and an undeniably theatrical flair.
