The Prince of Souls (The Nine Kingdoms Book 12) Read online

  The why, however, was what caused him a rather significant amount of discomfort. It wasn’t the man’s arrogance, which he appreciated, or his stinging wit, which was admirable, or even his command of truly disgusting spells, which even Cruihniche of Fàs might have found worthy of a second look. It was that gaping hole he could see—metaphorically speaking, of course—lingering over Aonarach’s heart. It was all he could do at present not to reach out and give the lad a brusque embrace whilst assuring him everything would no doubt turn out for the best.

  Appalling.

  He pulled back from that abyss of do-gooding before he slipped over the edge yet again and turned his attention to a more pressing need which was to find out where the lad had been nosing about for tricks of the old trade.

  “Let’s discuss spells instead,” he suggested. “Where did you come by the one you used last night?”

  The king’s grandson lifted one of his shoulders in something of a shrug. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Well, there was a word for that sort of horsing about and Acair used it without hesitation.

  Aonarach smiled. “Language, my lord Acair. You’ll offend my delicate sensibilities and then where will we be?”

  “Outside your grandfather’s gates where you’ll find me in a far less forgiving mood than you find me at present,” Acair said evenly.

  “You can’t have what you want from me if I’m too dead to give it to you.”

  Acair was fairly certain he’d had the same sort of thing spat his way more than once in the past, but that wasn’t enough to put him off the scent at present.

  “You might be surprised,” Acair assured him.

  Aonarach only shook his head, continuing to smile. “No need for threats. The truth is that I was scouting along our western border and eavesdropped on my grandfather and your grandmother having a chat.”

  “Hurling spells at each other, you mean.”

  “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. “She had a 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 ones you’ve no 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’t always topping 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 who didn’t want 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 wor
k, 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.

  Well, that made his non-appearance on the roster even more painful, but he made a note of the author’s name to pass along to his mother just the same. Perhaps he would find himself sitting across the table from that man at some future supper where he could offer a gentle rebuke about omissions that had surely been nothing more than simple oversights.

  Included on our list of mages who paired arrogance with foul deeds like another might pair a fine red wine with perfectly cooked beef is a man named Sladaiche—

  “Is there anything you require, my lord Acair?”

  Acair caught the book he had thrown upwards in surprise, rather thankful it had been a book and not one of the king’s very fine crystal whisky glasses. Damnation, he had had enough of slinking about like a mere mortal. Things in his life had to change.

  He looked at the trembling bard standing just inside the library door. “Nay, Master Eachdraidh,” he said, wishing he sounded less hoarse and more annoyed. “I am well. Very kind of you to ask.”

  Master Eachdraidh bobbed his head and retreated, looking positively thrilled to be escaping. Acair found his place again in the king’s book and had another look at the words that seemed to be glowing with a bit of their own importance.

  Naturally, there was little patience for the petitions of Sladaiche, but such was the nature of the king of—

  Acair blinked, then swore. Why, that was a damned smudge right there in the bloody book, just where it didn’t need to be! He scanned the pages on either side of that salacious tidbit and found that there wasn’t a single reference to the country in which that worker of perilous magic had been found. If he hadn’t known better, he would have suspected that the whole bloody world was marshaling its forces for the sole purpose of causing him grief.

  He reread the pages before and after the one with the smudge—put there, no doubt, by Uachdaran himself—but still found nothing of substance. As usual, he would have to poke his nose into places it shouldn’t go and find out what he needed without help. He indulged in a hearty curse or two, then forced himself to turn another page.

  Rumor has it he mistreated his horses, which earned him no affection from the stablemaster.

  Horses. Of course. He should have known it would wind round to them in the end.

  He considered things he hadn’t had time for earlier. First, it wasn’t possible that Uachdaran didn’t realize what he’d ordered delivered. Acair suspected there wasn’t a damned sliver of the worst quality quartz lingering in the most distant wall in his worst mine that Uachdaran didn’t hear calling his name and asking permission to be carried off in some dwarvish pouch or other.

  Nay, the king knew. Why he’d thought Acair needed to have it was perhaps a much more interesting question.

  Second was the strange coincidence, something he rarely believed in, that he should be keeping company with a horse miss when the apparent maker of substantial mischief had run afoul of those noble beasts…

  He closed the book, then stared at the fire for a bit, allowing his thoughts to gallop about without attempting to rein them in.

  He had started out on the final leg of his penance tour expecting to face nothing more taxing than blisters on his hands from shoveling too much horse manure. Instead, he had found himself saddled, if he could use that term without any irony at all, with a quest to save the world from a man with plans to stockpile souls for his own nefarious purposes. He’d been gifted a collection of grandmotherly scribblings fit to undo the peace and quiet of innumerable mages of all stripes, then been handed another list of things to do that included a quest to find a missing page from a particular book of spells.

  It was a formidable selection of things to see to whilst at his best, but he’d been given no choice but to attempt everything whilst operating under vastly reduced circumstances.

  He set aside the king’s book, then opened up the little notebook his mother had gifted Léirsinn and his grandmother had filled with appalling things. He found the map she’d made and wondered if that aggressively drawn X resting right over his house might be something more than a pointed reminder that he hadn’t yet invited her to supper.

  Whilst ’twas true his house was spectacular, it was also rather too close to the border of Bruadair for comfort and he honestly couldn’t think of a damned reason why he would want to travel so far north in the middle of winter. As a brisk, non-descript wind, the journey was nothing. In his present state, with at least one angry mage on his heels, the very thought made him want to reach for another glass of the king’s finest, then go straight to bed.

  Perhaps he was getting old before his time. All the excitement was giving him a tummy upset that he suspected would only be cured by completing his quest, donning a dressing gown, and retiring to a comfortable spot in front of the fire for the spring. Hot soup would be involved, he was certain.

  Well, he might not see morning if those shouts he could hear coming suddenly from outside the door boded ill. Politely inquiring about the cause of the kerfuffle wouldn’t serve him if the result was his being shown the way back to his dungeon abode. He knew he was likely being overly suspicious, but experience had taught him to be cautious.

  Also, he just might manage a wee visit to places he shouldn’t go whilst the king’s relentless gaze was fixed elsewhere, so there was no sense in not making his own elegant exit offstage.

  He heaved himself to his feet, shoving both books into the belt of his trousers, and walked briskly over to the wall where Aonarach had indicated the second egress from his current locale was located. He chose a shelf at random and ran his finger over the books until that finger came to rest on a heavy leather volume emblazoned in gold with the title, Famous Durialian Swords and Their Makers. A likely suspect, to be sure. He blew out his breath, then pulled on the book.

  He wasn’t past admitting surprise when necessary, so he freely gaped at the bookcase as it creaked toward him. He didn’t think, he simply consigned himself to nowhere good, leapt behind it, and pulled the case closed. The click that echoed was altogether unwholesome sounding, but what else could he have done? There was pompous trumpeting going on in the king’s library accompanied by the particular sorts of shouts guardsmen on the hunt tended to make. Uachdaran might have been getting in a final dig whilst he could, but there was no reason to be involved in it. Obviously it was time to gather up his companion, saddle his horse, and ride off into the arms of his Noble Quest.

  Normally, his sense of direction was very good, but he had to admit after a quarter hour that he was thoroughly lost. The floor was perhaps a bit smoother than he would have expected, which served him well considering he didn’t dare fashion so much as a marble-sized ball of werelight. In time, he came to a fork in the passageway. He didn’t stop to consider, he simply took the right-hand path and within ten paces had encountered a latch just hanging there, attached to the wall.

  He tugged and a door opened. He wasn’t a fatalist, truly, but there was a part of him that fully expected to find himself missi
ng his head as he poked that head out into what he immediately realized was a main passageway. There were no guards roaming about, so he made a quiet exit from his former safe haven then jumped a little when the door simply shut behind him without his aid. He was somehow unsurprised to find there was absolutely no indication that the door existed.

  He considered, then decided that whilst he was at liberty to open and close doors, there was no reason not to pop by His Majesty’s solar and see if a bit of his soul might be lingering there. He wanted to dismiss his mother’s injunction that he needed to collect pieces of himself for use down the road, but the more he thought about the maker of those shadows and what he wanted, the better the idea began to sound.

  He walked down the passageway as if he had every right to and realized soon enough where he was. A quick turn or two and ducking into a doorway to avoid a clutch of dwarves on their way to supper was enough to allow him to soon put himself in front of the king’s solar. If he’d accidentally put out the nearest torch by dropping it and grinding out the flame with his boot, perhaps he could apologize for it later.

  Burgling was best done as simply and unobtrusively as possible, which had been his guiding principle over decades of the same sort of activity. He preferred picking locks with a bit of complexity, but perhaps that would come back to haunt him at some point in the future. At the moment, what was haunting him was his own stupidity at having left his gear for his current activity in Léirsinn’s bedchamber.

  He sighed as silently as possible. Whilst it was tempting to just step back and give the door a good kick, he suspected that would not gain him entrance. He patted himself for anything useful to use in besting the door in front of him, then realized that was going to be unnecessary.