The Keys to the Realms (The Dream Stewards) Page 21

  “We will need to know how far the breach stretches,” Glain said, retracing their approach along the wall. A few dozen steps back she found where the seam had been opened. “I can feel the veil begin to thin here.”

  She posted one of the soldiers where she was sure the veil was still strong and then began to walk ahead, past the gate, toward the orchard. Nerys was close on her heels, with two of the guardsman right behind. Glain counted nearly a thousand paces before she noticed the warm hum of the veil’s magic return.

  “Here,” she said, pointing to the spot where the nothingness ended. “Mark this place so that we can find it again.”

  “Before we attempt to reweave the veil spell, we should find the source of the disruption and destroy it,” Nerys suggested. “Else our efforts may fail.”

  Glain agreed. There was little doubt that the persons she had seen emerge from the orchard two nights before had been working magic against them. Anger made her skin crawl beneath the itch of the camlet robe. “I believe we shall find what we seek in the apple grove.”

  The orchard, with its twisted, spindly-limbed trees was in some ways more eerie than the White Woods, especially at night. The remnants of old magic and the echoes of past blessings lingered at ritual sites like this. There were two sacred places on the grounds of the Fane. The most powerful was an ancient oak tree that stood a few hundred yards farther, on the other side of the faerie meadow. This orchard was the second.

  Though densely grown, the apple grove was small and familiar. Within it was a single stone altar, a common place for seasonal blessings and worship that rested at the base of the First One, the original tree that had been the founding source of the orchard. Even in the dark, any Steward could easily find his or her way to it.

  “Do you see that?” Nerys stopped her with a hand to her arm. “There, huddled by the tree.”

  They were still too far off to make out much beyond shadows, but Glain could see a dark bulky form that looked to her like a sack of potatoes leaned against the trunk. She waved the two guardsmen forward and beckoned for a torch.

  Light in hand, Glain led the way, edging closer to the ritual tree and the suspicious object beneath it. Even from a distance it was clear the altar had recently been used. Glain could feel the resonance of spell work.

  “I smell a blood offering and burnt tallow,” Nerys said, her tone tense with anger and dismay. “The magic is fresh.”

  Nerys started ahead as if she meant to confront the altar, and the sack of potatoes at the base of the tree wriggled as if it hoped to retreat but had nowhere to go. Glain grabbed hold of Nerys by the folds of her cloak to keep her back while the two guardsmen rushed forward.

  “Who is it?” Glain demanded, gesturing for the guardsmen to intercede. “Who is there?”

  When the only response was a violent wriggle, one of the soldiers gave the shadowy bundle a good poke with the pointed finial of his halberd. The muffled cry that burst forth suddenly brought the sack of potatoes to life, and Glain recognized the shape of a human form wrapped in cloak and hood. A torch shoved close revealed a familiar face in the throes of torment. Euday was bound tight, and muzzled by a hideous magic Glain knew but had never seen. His mouth was sewn shut with enchanted twine, and the harder he tried to pull against the seam, the tighter the stitches cinched and tore at his flesh. It was a vicious hex and very effective.

  Her first thought was to free him, but that impulse was quashed quickly by the recent lessons so hard learned. Glain had more than enough reason to be suspicious. And she had no way to know how or why Euday had come to be in the grove, though she would need to find out.

  “I say we banish the muzzling but leave him bound,” Nerys suggested, “just to be safe.”

  It was a good idea. Glain stepped closer and bent forward to look into Euday’s eyes. He turned away but not before she saw the guilty terror, and in that instant Glain knew beyond any doubt that she had been betrayed. Fury overcame her in a flash of red heat.

  “Yes, Euday,” she whispered, shaking with rage. “You should fear me.”

  Glain stepped back and spoke aloud. “I will dispel the hex so that you can speak, and then you will tell me what you know. But be warned, old friend. The first lie that leaves your lips will set them ablaze, and I will gladly watch you burn.”

  Tears spilled onto Euday’s cheeks and glistened in the torchlight, but Glain was unmoved. She reached out with the fingertips of her right hand pursed together in a pincer-like fashion and made a plucking motion as she spoke the command to undo the hex. “Dadwnud.”

  Euday let out a whimper and wet himself. The stench gave him away, and still Glain felt no pity. She could have chosen a less painful way to release him from the stitching twine, but part of her wanted his suffering. Dark magic would come so easily, if she let it. But it was not vengeance she was after—not yet.

  Glain turned her attention to the altar and the herbs, animal bones, and tallow drippings that were evidence of a powerful conjure. “What is this, Euday?”

  “It holds the veil open, but only for a few days at a time,” he confessed through sobs and bloody spittle. “The spell needs tending, like a fire.”

  Nerys stooped and swiped the altar clean with the back of her hand, muttering a blessing under her breath.

  “Is that what you were doing here?” Glain asked him. “Tending your spell?”

  He struggled against the binds, trying to sit up, and failed. “We meet here every third night.”

  “Who,” she demanded. “Who meets here?”

  “Verica and Ynyr and I,” Euday blubbered. “It takes the three of us to work the spell. But then Ynyr went missing, and when we couldn’t find him, Verica and I agreed to meet tonight as we had planned. We thought he would be here.”

  “Ynyr?” Glain could not believe what she was hearing. “What are you saying?”

  “It was him all along. He had Machreth’s instructions. Ynyr called the Cythraul against Hywel,” Euday pleaded. “We only did as we were told.”

  “Ynyr is dead,” Nerys interceded, her tone flat and unfeeling.

  “What?” Euday was horrified. “Ynyr is dead?”

  “Victim to his own spell it would seem, sometime last night.” Nerys moved closer to Euday, as if to menace him further.

  “Th—the Cythraul?” Euday sputtered. “That cannot be.”

  “Oh, but it is.” Nerys bent close and snatched a fistful of Euday’s hair, yanking his head back so that he had no choice but to look at her. “Surely he did not intend to set the wraiths upon himself, so who, Euday? Who did Ynyr mean to kill?

  “Ah—I—,” Euday faltered, “I cannot say.”

  Nerys yanked harder. “Cannot, or will not?”

  Still Euday resisted. He set his jaw and summoned defiance. “I will not.”

  Nerys bent close. “Then I will rip out your tongue and feed it to the vermin while you watch.”

  Her quiet menace had a devastating effect. Realizing at last that Nerys had no mercy for him, Euday’s resistance collapsed. He shuddered as desperation took hold.

  “The Cythraul were meant for Alwen,” Euday blurted. “Ynyr hoped to avenge Machreth’s defeat.”

  “And gain favor with his new lord,” Nerys surmised. She glanced at Glain to gauge her reaction, or perhaps for instruction. But Glain was so staggered by what she was hearing that all she could do was shake her head in disbelief.

  Nerys let go of Euday’s hair and crouched in front of him, seizing him again by the collar of his robe. “Where is Verica?”

  Euday shook his head violently. “She never came.”

  “You fool.” Nerys shoved him away as she stood. “Just how do you suppose you ended up trussed and muzzled?”

  “Wait.” Glain’s head was spinning. “Nerys, how can you believe any of this? Ynyr had nothing to do with this. He couldn’t have.”


  Nerys was angry, but also pained. “I wasn’t sure until that scroll was found in my room. Ynyr is the only person who could have put it there.”

  “What?” Glain fell to her knees. She wanted to retch.

  “I’ve always known that he was more sympathetic to the reformers than he ever let show, but I never worried about his loyalties, not really. After the insurrection, though, he became more and more secretive, and when I pressed him, he was so offended, I felt guilty for asking. Then one night, just a few weeks ago, I caught him sneaking into the Fane very late. He was clearly up to something he didn’t want known, and I never asked him to explain. I didn’t want to know the answer. Things were never the same after that.”

  “How is this happening?” Glain could barely speak.

  Nerys let out a disheartened huff. “Perhaps I should have come to you, but would you have heard anything said against him, especially from me? And what was there to tell?”

  Glain gaped at Nerys, gutted.

  “When the scroll was discovered,” Nerys went on, “I knew it had to be him. The betrayal broke my heart. Ynyr could defend me earnestly without risk to himself, knowing full well that I would be found guilty no matter what he said. You would never believe me innocent, and he counted on that.”

  Glain was stunned beyond comprehension. She had been stupid and naïve, and here Nerys was speaking to her with all the respect and understanding that she herself had never been shown. It was unbearable.

  Nerys frowned and stepped closer, her head tilted to one side as though she were intrigued. “Your robe,” she wondered, “how is it shimmering?”

  “What do you mean?” Glain looked down at herself and scratched at her arms again, wondering what it was that Nerys was seeing.

  Nerys gasped and stepped back, drawing her wand from her sash. With a flourish aimed straight at Glain, she shouted. “Ymddatod!”

  Glain was horrified, confused. Before she could make sense of what was happening, the black camlet robe dissolved into a wriggling swath of tiny, shiny-eyed spiders. Thousands upon thousands of the hideous creatures crawled over her in their frenzied escape. They fled like fleas from a drowning dog, into the underbrush, where they disappeared into nothingness.

  “Great Gods!” she shrieked.

  “Are you all right?” Nerys was shaken, but still in control of her faculties. She reached out a hand to help Glain up. “How did you come by that robe?”

  Glain had already realized how the black camlet robe had used her. “It was left behind in Machreth’s wardrobe.”

  There was nothing unnatural about that. The proctor’s mantle belonged to the office, not to the holder. No one had ever considered that it might have been bewitched.

  “His eyes in the Fane,” Nerys said.

  Glain nodded, sickened by the realization of how she had been duped again and by the lingering sensation of spiders crawling on her arms. “Every time I have worn that robe, he has been there with me.”

  Nerys acknowledged this truth with a grim nod. “The things he must have seen. Alwen will need to know.”

  Glain panicked, ransacking her recollections of the last weeks and days, trying to remembered what all she might have accidentally allowed Machreth to witness.

  “Cerrigwen’s confession,” she recalled, which horrified her all the more. “And Hywel’s plan to raid Cwm Brith. Oh great Gods, Nerys.”

  “It won’t help us to worry about that now.” Nerys glanced past Glain to Euday. “What do we do with him?”

  Anger swelled in her chest, crowding the hurt and betrayal until she thought she would burst. “The guards will take him to Alwen while we finish here.”

  “And Verica?”

  “In due time,” Glain answered, pulling the parchment Alwen had given her from the pouch tied at her waist. “First we reweave the veil spell.”

  Glain dismissed the two soldiers with a nod and waited as they dragged Euday away. The two guardsmen who had been posted to mark the gap in the veil held their places. The last two took position to watch over her and Nerys while they worked.

  It was a complicated conjuration that was meant to be called by a high sorcerer, a mage far more seasoned than either Glain or Nerys. It had been decided that together Glain and Nerys would be as powerful as Alwen alone, at least for the needs of this spell.

  To work this magic, they needed oak bark scored with the magical symbols for strength, protection, and endurance; a tincture Alwen had provided from Madoc’s private stores; and a blood offering. The incantation itself was in the old language, but Alwen had explained its meaning so that the younger sorceresses could speak the words with intent.

  From the velvet bag she carried, Nerys pulled a measure of silk and a tallow wick end. She knelt on the ground to spread the silk over the flat, rectangular altar stone and set the candle upon it. Then Nerys placed bark shards on the cloth in the pattern the parchment prescribed.

  While Glain spoke the blessing words, Nerys spilled three drops of the tincture on each of the shards. The wick end sparked to life and both women sighed with relief. They had got it right so far.

  Glain knelt in front of the altar, facing Nerys. Using the bone-handled dagger she carried, Glain opened the skin of her outstretched palm with a cut deep enough for the blood to flow freely, and then repeated the ritual wounding for Nerys when she offered her hand. Together they blooded each of the inscribed oak shards, repeating three times the incantation they had memorized.

  In so doing, they invoked the power of the four realms—spiritual, celestial, natural, and physical—and caused the elemental magics to converge in answer to the commands within the incantation. Glain begin to feel the familiar shimmering vibration of the veil as it grew stronger. She envisioned the threads of light, energy, and intent intertwining, weaving a patch over the tear in the misty shield that protected the Stewardry from the outside world.

  By the end of the third refrain, the spell had done all it could. Nerys offered healing words and bound both their palms. Glain felt gratitude and admiration she had no way to adequately express.

  “Thank you,” she said, knowing it was not enough.

  Nerys nodded, which implied acknowledgment and nothing more. Glain had no expectations, but she hoped it was a beginning. She left Nerys to clear the altar and went to inspect the veil. As she approached the wall near the weakened place, Glain easily sensed the restoration.

  “Thank the Ancients,” she whispered, so filled with gratitude she could barely contain it.

  But the relief was short-lived and the night air cold. A violent shudder overcame her, and one of the guardsmen was quick to offer his cloak. The warm wool quelled the shiver, but a deeper chill remained. Disgust and sadness and self-loathing returned, and Glain forced herself to summon what was left of her resolve. This was but one tiny victory in a heaping mire of deadly betrayals. She could not deny the dark foreboding that the worst was yet to come.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Thorne observed Rhys from his perch on a nearby stump. He was impressed with how comfortable Rhys had become with the White Woods. This was their third night on the hunt, and though they had yet to encounter the Cythraul or any other real danger, Rhys had learned to handle the unexpected with calm and presence of mind. This was encouraging, but still well short of the training of a true mage hunter.

  “Tomorrow we will reach Banraven,” Thorne said. “You must be ready for anything.”

  Rhys glanced sidelong at Thorne, continuing to polish the blade of his boot knife with a swatch of doeskin. “You think that is where the Cythraul have gone?”

  “That is where the trail leads,” Thorne said, reluctant to mention the dark and deadly presence he had sensed in the dungeon.

  “Back to their master.” Rhys slid the knife back into the hidden sheath in his boot. “To Machreth.”

  Thorne nodded. “As I said.”


  “Be ready for anything,” Rhys grinned. He wadded up the doeskin and shoved it into his saddle sack and then settled himself near the fire. “I am.”

  Thorne was amused by the lad’s bravado, but it worried him. Rhys was sharp-witted and skilled, but occasionally he showed the overconfidence that so often afflicted the young. In fact, Thorne suspected that Rhys suffered from more than one of the usual follies of youth.

  “Tell me about the girl.” Thorne intended the directive to sound inconsequential, a natural turn of the conversation. He had been casually manipulating the topics all evening, under the guise of whiling away the time. It had worked well enough so far that Thorne decided to dig deeper.

  Maelgwn stretched himself out between Rhys and the fire, eyes facing the forest to keep watch, but making sure his belly was within easy reach. Instead of answering straight away, Rhys rewarded the greedy warghound with a good long scratch. He was not as adept at hiding personal things as he liked to think, though Rhys did finally meet Thorne’s gaze in a halfway convincing attempt. “What girl?”

  “The doe-eyed one, your mother’s second.” Thorne humored him, though they both knew which girl. “What is she to you?”

  Rhys looked away again, this time busying himself with tending the fire. “You mean Glain.”

  Thorne stayed quiet, giving Rhys time to decide what to say, if anything at all. The awkward meetings and forced restraint during that one night in the Fane had made it painfully obvious to him that there was some sort of relationship between the two. It only mattered to Thorne’s purposes if Rhys were obligated or had intentions toward the girl, and this he preferred to know sooner rather than later. The Brotherhood required absolute devotion to the cause, and a man at conflict with his loyalties was unlikely to succeed. However, as a rule, Thorne was averse to prying too much into private matters. Any man worth knowing held certain things sacred in his heart, and he respected that.