In his defense, he’d had no reason to expect anything more. His mother had power, of course, but she generally used it to torment houseguests and her various progeny. He couldn’t think of a single spell guarding her house that hadn’t come from someone else’s collection. Familiarity bred contempt, or so the saying went, and he’d launched himself out his mother’s front door without a backward glance, his sights set on the magic of the high and mighty of other lands. It had honestly never occurred to him that Fàs might have its own version of the same.
He was beginning to think that oversight on his part had been a grave mistake.
He set aside the map with its unsettling X drawn with many flourishes over his own damned house, tossed into the same pile a random sheaf of paper that had a series of rather rude doodles drawn alongside a decent representation of a fierce dragon spewing out lethal flames toward a certain essence-changing prince, and decided that perhaps a different approach might be called for.
He sat, pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, and started a list of people, not events. The cast of players in the drama that had become his life was haphazard, to say the least. It ranged from those he could name—Aonarach of Léige, his own grandmother, Soilléir, Léirsinn—to others he had no name for—the mage following them so relentlessly, a portly orchardist from his past, and a mage who had seemingly made the stealing of souls his life’s work.
He set aside the easier things first. Aonarach of Léige, that unruly royal spawn, had obviously spent too much time in his grandfather’s mines and the lack of air had led him to imagining things that couldn’t possibly be true. The boy’s spell had been unsettling only because it was so close to his own grandmother’s. The request for an introduction to Léirsinn’s sister had been nothing short of daft. Perhaps a carefully penned note suggesting the virtues of taking healthful air in the palace gardens would be the kindest thing he could offer.
His grandmother had more than enough incentive to want to keep him busy and out of her linen closet, which likely explained why she wanted him wandering in remote paths. He couldn’t think of any reason past that why she would find herself embroiled in his current quest, so he tucked her comfortably back in her solar where she couldn’t trouble him further.
He’d already consigned Soilléir to a fiery fate, if only on paper, which was no less than he deserved. At least the man wasn’t knocking on the front door, delivering more quests.
Léirsinn was last on that short list, but certainly not last in his thoughts. He was tempted to go check on her simply to have an excuse to look at her, but she was likely catching up on some very well-deserved rest. He would leave her in peace until he’d found at least one answer.
He turned to the collection of souls he couldn’t put a name to and considered each in no particular order.
First was the orchardist he had bumped off his ladder all those many years ago. His most vivid memory of the spell he’d tossed into the fire was his disappointment over its lack of desirability. Soilléir had insisted that it was the same spell that someone—presumably the orchardist—had cut from one of the books in his grandfather’s library, but Acair could hardly believe that.
For one thing, he couldn’t imagine anyone having bothered to steal what he remembered as a paltry spell of thievery. Second, if the spell had done what it had been intended to do, why hadn’t the orchardist used it long before now?
There were only two answers that made any sense: either the spell continued to be as pedestrian as he’d found it to be all those many years ago or it simply didn’t work at all.
But if the latter were the case, why wrap it up and use it to lure a bastard son of the black mage down the road into his house to steal it?
Acair had no illusions left about his father’s character, so whilst altruism would never have found itself on any list that applied to him, pride certainly would have. If someone had taken something of his—children, spells, his favorite dinnerware—Gair would have retaliated immediately and with a devastating fury. Only a fool would have provoked him thus.
Nay, either Soilléir was mistaken, something else had been stolen, or, as he feared, there was another, more unpleasant quest in the offing. Something about the whole thing didn’t smell quite right, but he couldn’t bring himself to start sniffing in that direction quite yet.
He looked at the second entry on that particular list, namely the mage who wanted the power of souls so badly. If that man was actually Sladaiche, as his mother had intimated, then tracking him down would take time, but it wouldn’t be impossible. After all, discovering secrets that didn’t want to be revealed was one of the things he did best. That, he suspected, might actually entail a lengthy troll through Seannair’s library. Heaven only knew what sorts of things that man had hiding amongst extensive studies on the art of taxidermy and the cultivation of root vegetables. Acair decided that could be penciled in near the top of his next to-do list for that reason alone.
Last on the list but perhaps the most pressing item there was the mage who stood outside his house, that uninspired worker of pedestrian magic who spoke in shards and seemed to be waiting for something. He hadn’t robbed anyone recently, nor had he rifled through any chests of spells. The only thing that made any sense at all was that he had crossed paths with the fool at some point in the past, done him dirty—and given the quality of the man’s spells, he had likely done him a great favor there—and now the mage so slighted had decided the time was ripe for a bit of revenge.
Unpleasant, but not life-threatening. If he had to keep a step ahead of the man for the next year until he had his magic under his hands again, so be it. He was capable of biding his time as well.
There was a blank space on that large page and he watched his hand as it wrote down what he realized he had been avoiding thinking about seriously. It was perhaps the least of the things that should have vexed him, but he found it was the one that left him with the most discomfort in the vicinity of his heart.
Who had slain Odhran of Eòlas and had that same man then stolen the spell he himself had hidden in his tailor’s workroom?
He sat back and looked up at the ceiling. He considered himself fairly discreet, but he was the first to admit that boasting of his mighty magic had been a failing he’d engaged in more than once.
Had some enterprising soul overheard him trumpeting his own magnificence at supper in Eòlas, then made inquiries about the establishments he frequented or where he bestowed his coveted commerce? And if the latter had intrigued anyone, would there have been any trouble discovering Master Odhran at the top of his list of sartorial destinations?
He shook his head at his own stupidity. There he’d been, not a trio of weeks earlier, heedlessly sending a message to that self-same tailor, advising him to expect a visit at some point during his stay. He had then made that promised visit only to find his tailor dead.