He continued on boldly, despite Quiddle seeming to nod off in his seat. “With my new spell, I can find out if a previous adventurer has warded a larger area around here, or even if the dragon is sending a spell our way. Between that and my own ability to determine magic…”
“You’re going to search the whole mountain range?” Bren asked, doing nothing to hide the skepticism in his voice.
“No, but I have a proposition.” Ainsworth brought out a map of the range he had found in his attic archive. A few small tears around the edges meant the republic side of the range suffered, but the map was a thorough account of the Dubhrach Mountains from the kingdom’s side.
“What are those marks?” asked Quiddle, finally taking a bit of interest now that Ainsworth had provided a visual aid.
The lad referred to five points Ainsworth had marked around the map; he had sketched a pentagram linking them, with the Misnich Inn sitting in the middle ofit.
“I have marked here the spots where I must place wards to activate my detect-magical-interference spell.” Three of the spots were on the land around the inn, one heading back toward Wenslykirk. Two, however, would need to be placed on the lower slopes of Mount Vengeance. “My journey will also allow me to search for other signs of magic that may be present. Once I have set the five wards, I can trigger my spell. It will tell me if anything is targeting us from any direction. Depending on which ward triggers when I activate the spell at the final point”—he tapped one of the wards set on Mount Vengeance—“I’ll know which direction the interference is coming from.”
“And…if it doesn’t tell you anything?” Honey asked, frowning.
Ainsworth threw his hands in the air. “In that case, I am out of ideas, and I will have to conclude that I will never quite understand what happens here—or perhaps I’ll have to enlist some help from my colleagues. My book could also be adapted to describe the curse and leave it as a mystery.” He sighed, thinking of the funding council’s interest in his book. “It would not be what I wished this book to be, but many academics have to be flexible when circumstances foil their research plans. I must do so, too.”
“Oh, how brave of you,” said Ashe. Her deadpan delivery would make anyone who did not know her feel stung, but Ainsworth was used to her ways by now.
“Why does it have to be so far?” Ruraidh asked. “I mean, it would take you at least a week to travel around to all these spots. Can’t you just set them closer to the inn? Make a smaller connection?”
“Ah, I’m glad you asked, Ruraidh,” Ainsworth said, although he was not. “A couple of reasons. First and foremost, I wish to explore more of this territory and seek physical signs of magical interference, like those I mentioned previously. The other reason…” He sighed. “Is that I am not an accomplished enough magic-wielder to use such an acute, targeted spell. The sheer size of the shape, and the use of seunore binding the wards to the ground will help me harvest enough magic to use the spell in the first place. There’s power in the shape, and this is the only way I can be certain the spell will activate accurately.” It was fairly humiliating—but it wasn’t as though anyone at the inn was an adept sorcerer, either!
“Ah, so you believe the Matron Below bestows us magic, since you’re using the land to power your spell?” asked Spin.
“Well—” Ainsworth started, about to give a diplomatic, scholarly answer suggesting that it didn’t matter whether it was the Matron—in either face—who provided magic, or if it was a natural phenomenon; the point was, it was there for the taking.
But Bren interrupted. “Donotget Gladsly, of all people, started on that. We’ll be here for a week before he even sets out on this quest of his.”
“You know,” said Honey, leaning over the table to peer at the map, her hair brushing the parchment. “If you had just believed us—believedme—when we told you about folk turning away from the mountain, you could have tried something like this much earlier.”
“Yes, thank you, Honey; aptly observed,” replied Ainsworth, folding his arms. “My own stubbornness is partly to blame for the delay in my research project. However, if I had not been so stubborn, I would not have been able to spend these weeks with—all of you.”
He had almost saidwith you,but he caught himself at the last second. Her gaze snapped to his, and her twinkling eyes suggested she knew exactly what he had been about to say.
“I suppose when you put it like that, we should all be grateful for your stubbornness,” she said, mouth twitching and eyes alight in a way that had Ainsworth suddenly wishing there were not a table between them.
He blinked, momentarily astounded by the thought. He was grateful when Spin, oblivious to the exchange between them, offered a change of subject.
“Why cannot you simply launch the spell from here?” she asked. “It would save you an awful lot of bother, Ainsworth.”
“Spin, he already told us, it’s because he’s a rotten magic-user,” said Quiddle.
Ashe and Bren snorted with laughter as Ainsworth buried his face in his hands. “Look. Doing it the way I’ve proposed would take more time, but I believe it would be much more reliable. And as I said, I also wish to scout the area for physical signs of magical interference, should I find any. I only want to try this once. Then I can move on in the project, whatever the answer.”
Honey, now also looking at the map, shook her head. “But this kind of journey…it would be difficult, Ainsworth. You’d be traveling around the bottom of the range to set these two wards, progressing much farther around the mountain than we did. You might be attacked!”
“I believe I can achieve what I need in a week. I have my camping supplies, and I can pay for food supplies. Also, despite these”—he pointed to his antlers—“I used to know how to hunt. There’s more human, more predator, in me than prey—er, if someone could lend me a bow. Or a dagger or something, maybe?”
“I mean no disrespect, Ainsworth, but…can you actually protect yourself, though? I mean, the beasts you’ve seen since you arrived…they’re not even half of what’s out there!” Honey gave him an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry, Ainsworth. I really don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Look, I’ll admit, I am a little scared,” Ainsworth said. Initially, he had briefly considered waiting for an adventuring party to take him out to the mountain to set his wards. But, well, the whole pointof this spell was to figure out why they didn’t want to go near the bloody thing, so it wasn’t as if that was going to happen. “I didn’t face any bother on the way here, and as for the mountain—I can be stealthy, I know a few helpful spells, andI—”
Ashe, who had been loudly gulping down a tankard of ale, slammed her cup on the table. “Not to worry, Honey. I’ll protect him for you.”
A day after Ainsworth had proposed his plans, the rain on his skin was a welcome relief from the heat his exercise-challenged body generated. They had departed early that morning, and Ashe had swiftly turned into the mountain cat form she favored—which, when seen from up close, was far larger than any mountain cat Ainsworth had ever heard of. She was more wolflike in bulk, and had spent the day circling wide, every so often returning to Ainsworth’s line of sight to indicate a safe path onward.
They were still a day’s trek away from where he wished to place his first ward, and walking in solitude suited him. He found that the harder his body worked, the clearer his mind felt. He had even started to appreciate the wild, riotous surroundings. There was an art in how the landscape he once thought monotonous shifted and shone in the wake of rain, which left the area slick and deepened in color. At times a splash of greenery interrupted: thick, spongy shrubs of hardy heather, or a cliff-fern sprouting from between fallen rocks. It was odd to feel warmth about such a fearful place—especially with a dragon and dreadful beasts lurking around.
It was enough to send a chill down his spine—but still he relished the walk and thought that even the most fearsome of creatures deserved somewhere to call home.
