Starborn Page 8

  “Perhaps,” he said, his smile now warm and filling me with a desire to grab his head and kiss the breath right off his lips. “But about this, I feel Nix was correct. Such spells do not get consistent results and are tricky to pull off without having something go badly awry. I’m afraid, my heart, we shall have to do this by the simple act of force. I wish I hadn’t sent Thorn back to Starfall to watch Darius. I could use him here. This place is filled with magic.”

  “Really? How do you know?”

  “I can feel it. Can you not?”

  “No. Kiriah is…” I rubbed my arms. “She’s still not talking to me, Hallow.”

  “Patience—” he started to say, but I cut him off.

  “I have been patient for eleven months!”

  He took my hand and gave my fingers a squeeze. “You have been very patient, and I know it chafes that your connection with Kiriah is currently in a dimmed state, but you’ve felt bereft of her blessing in the past, and she was there waiting for you when you needed her.”

  “This is different,” I answered, shaking my head. “Ever since I channeled Kiriah in Abet, I can feel her, but it’s as if she’s holding her power just out of my grasp. I think this is my punishment, and oh, Hallow, what if she never graces me again? What if I am never able to weave light, or call on Kiriah’s strength again? What if I’m doomed to nothing more than drawing ineffectual blessings on hopeless people?”

  “Kiriah would not have once so blessed you only to spurn you,” he said in the same maddeningly reassuring tone. “If I tell you to stop trying so hard, and just let it be, would you cuff me on the head?”

  “Maybe,” I said with an acid note about which I immediately felt guilty. I cleared my throat and tried to banish the gloom from my voice. “No, of course I wouldn’t strike you, but you don’t understand just how frustrating this is. You always feel arcany.”

  “That’s because it permeates everything,” he said with irritating mildness, although to be fair, everything irritated me at that moment. “Take heart, my love. Kiriah has not turned her back on you. When the time comes for her to grant you her grace, she will do so in a way that will leave you in no doubt that you are favored in her eyes.”

  There wasn’t much more I could say that wasn’t whining, so I let the subject drop, and stomped after Hallow as he headed for the privy where Ramswell had gone. “Let’s just get this over with. I’m damp, uncomfortable, and my clothes are going to need to be burned once we leave here, because nothing is going to get this stink out of them. Do you want to force Ramswell to tell us where Quinn is, or shall I?”

  “I’ll start. You can help if necessary.” Hallow squared his shoulders and stalked forward to where our target had emerged from the privy. I spent a moment in admiration of Hallow, at the breadth of his shoulders that made me feel feminine (despite the fact that I was what one of the priestesses had referred to as hearty peasant stock); at his long legs, and the magnificent ass that I loved to touch. I was just anticipating the pleasure I found when watching him wield arcane magic, when he confronted Ramswell. Before I could blink, Hallow went flying backward a good twenty yards, slamming up against a tree before sliding down it to the ground into a limp blob.

  “Hallow!” I screamed, racing toward him, pulling my swords from the scabbard on my back as I did so.

  “I’m all right,” he said groggily, shaking his head and trying to get to his knees. He peered up at me, squinting. “Then again, maybe I’m not. There appear to be three of you. I think I’m a bit stunned. What in the name of the goddess’s ten toes happened?”

  “I said I was done with this conversation,” Ramswell announced, marching up to us. “You will leave now, or I will break your bones into a hundred little pieces and scatter them for the gulls.”

  I spun around, my swords in my hands. “No one makes my husband see triple!” I pulled hard on the distant Kiriah, but all I felt was awareness of the sun, nothing more.

  Ramswell raised an eyebrow. “Really? And how do you expect to stop me?”

  “Allegria—” Hallow managed to get to his feet, obviously feeling that he needed to defend me, but we both knew that wasn’t necessary. I threw myself onto Ramswell, clearly the last thing he expected, because he staggered backward a few feet before falling to the ground.

  “It’s all right,” I told Hallow, getting to my feet quickly as he hurried over to me with a cry. “Everything’s fine. Now, you obnoxious Ramswell, I have a few things to say to you. Let’s start with an apology for hurting Hallow.”

  I approached the prone man, but before I could so much as prod him with my toe, his leg kicked out and I was suddenly on my back, my swords skittering out of my hands, while the cold edge of a blade stung my throat.

  “Move, and she dies,” he told Hallow, who had lifted the staff preparatory to casting a spell. “And that means your fingers, too. Don’t think I can’t see you trying to draw a spell in the air.”

  I raised an eyebrow at Hallow and smiled. Ramswell might have seen the movement of Hallow’s hands, but he didn’t see mine sketching blessings and protections.

  “Watch out!” The high, sketchy voice of Dexia reached my ear just as I spread wide my fingers, planning on casting a net of protection over myself when suddenly, Ramswell was gone, and a mad, vicious creature was on me, biting and scratching, sharp, pointed teeth snapping a hairsbreadth from my face.

  It was Dexia, but she seemed to have the strength of ten men as her small fingers dug into the flesh of my neck.

  Behind her, I could see Hallow casting a spell, but Ramswell tackled him at that moment, and the two men fell to the ground in a confusion or arms, legs, and various oaths.

  Black blotchy spots started to obscure my vision, my strength ebbing as the child throttled me. I squawked and pulled desperately on Kiriah’s strength, but the goddess only made my hands glow with a feeble imitation of her light. It was enough to make Dexia scream, though, and she leaped off me, dancing around as if she was on fire. I dragged myself over to where Ramswell and Hallow were still struggling, desperately trying to pull the former off Hallow at the same time as I tried to get air into my lungs.

  “Hallow, I—” Before the rest of the sentence was out of my mouth, Ramswell held me by the throat with one hand, while the other hand covered Hallow’s face, cutting off his air. But what drove me into a panic was the sensation of a great weight pulling me down into the soft earth, one that crushed me, squeezing my lungs flat and compressing my body until my heart could no longer beat.

  “No!” I yelled, kicking and struggling even as the black splotches returned. My mind was a mass of confusion and disbelief. How could these two people defeat us when an army of Harborym couldn’t?

  And yet the proof was there as I gave in to the massive weight that dragged me down, flattening me until I sagged against Hallow’s struggling body, my breath rasping almost as loudly as the heartbeat that filled my ears. I fought, pulling on Kiriah for aid, but my body was too weak, and the goddess too distant, leaving me to fall backward, my body limp and unresponsive.

  “My…” Hallow’s voice came faint and hoarse, the word drifting away on the wind.

  I didn’t even have the strength to turn to him, but a word slipped out through my lips. “…heart. What the—” There was a pulling sensation on my neck, and suddenly, I was propped up against the tree, the massive weight that had been crushing me into the ground blessedly lifted. I drew in great gasping, shuddering breaths of air, the black haze fading to reveal Ramswell squatting before me, the captain’s whistle that had hung around my neck now in his hands.

  “Where did you get this?”

  I didn’t answer him. The still, lifeless form of Hallow lay next to me. Without thinking, I snatched up one of my swords, and sliced off Ramswell’s head.

  It bounced to the ground next to him. The head, to my absolute and complete horror, was still animate
d. It donned an unhappy expression, rolled its eyes, and heaved a big sigh. Then Ramswell reached out, picked up his head, and plopped it back onto the stump of his neck. The skin seemed to merge together and become whole again, just as if my sword hadn’t cut through bone and sinew a few seconds before.

  “Ow.” Ram frowned at me. “Don’t do that again. It hurts.”

  “What…how…” I blinked first at him, then down at my sword, but before I could figure out what had happened, Hallow had staggered to his feet, and was gathering up arcany in his hands.

  “I am a patient man, but almost killing my wife and me makes me very, very angry. Hand over that damned moonstone before I blast you full of holes.”

  Ramswell got to his feet, then turned to show the whistle to Dexia, who was wiping her bloody mouth on the rag doll. “They have the talisman,” he told her.

  She grimaced. “I suppose that means we’re going to have to leave Aldmarsh. And me in the middle of a cursing. You know it takes a good week to get a head shrunken down to potato-size. Maybe they will wait until Grimalka’s head is down to a cantaloupe?”

  “I’ll ask them, but judging by the way that priest whacked off my head without so much as a by-your-leave, I’m judging you will have to settle for simply casting the spell. Here, stop doing that. It’s almost as painful as having my head lopped off.”

  The last was in reference to Hallow’s casting little balls of pure arcany at Ramswell, who twitched a little as each ball hit him, but didn’t fall over and beg for mercy, as we both expected.

  I looked at Hallow.

  Hallow looked first at Ramswell, then my sword, then met my gaze. “He’s more than he appears.”

  “That was my thought. He’s Quinn?”

  “I expect so.” Hallow turned back to the man who was absently tracing the symbols on the whistle. “Are you Quinn the Mad?”

  The man sighed again but didn’t deny it. “I knew you were trouble the minute I clapped eyes on the priest’s ample breasts.”

  Hallow’s lips thinned. “Why did you almost kill us?”

  “You were annoying me,” Quinn said simply. “The priest is dripping with weapons, and if you are Master of Kelos, you are one of the most powerful arcanists on Genora. Why didn’t you tell me you had the talisman? It would have been much easier, and I wouldn’t have had to defend myself.”

  “We’re looking for a man named Quinn the Mad, not Ramswell the Annoying,” I couldn’t help but snap. “You could have admitted who you were instead of insisting you were a fisherman named Ramswell. One with a particularly creepy daughter.”

  Dexia bared her pointed teeth at my accusatory look.

  “Eh? Dex? She’s not my daughter. She’s a vanth.”

  I came up blank and looked my question at Hallow.

  “Vanths are reportedly bloodthirsty, vicious beings born from the shadows who are used by unscrupulous people to set curses upon their enemies. I haven’t heard of any in existence outside of Eris,” he answered, giving Dexia a long look before returning his attention to Quinn. “As much as I’d like to discuss just who and what you are, not to mention why you’re pretending to be a fisherman stuck at the arse end of the world—”

  “If people called you Quinn the Mad, wouldn’t you pick another name?” Quinn interrupted.

  “I get called mad on an almost daily basis, but I take your point.” Hallow took a deep breath, clearly trying to hang on to his patience. “Regardless, we need the moonstone that Exodius put into your keeping. We are short on time, so if you could give it to us, we will leave you in peace.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “But…you knew about the whistle,” I said, gesturing toward the item. “The captain of the guard said that if we gave you the whistle, you’d hand over the moonstone.”

  “I can’t give you something I don’t have,” Quinn said, and with wink at me, he slipped the leather thong over his neck.

  “But the captain said you would!” I argued, my fingers itching to snatch back the whistle.

  “Are your hands glowing?” Quinn asked, then turned to Hallow. “Tell me, if she touches you when her hands are like that—”

  “It’s something you have to feel to believe,” Hallow said with a wolfish grin at me.

  “Reeeally,” Quinn drawled and eyed me.

  “Want to try it?” I asked sweetly, my hopes dashing when I saw that my hands barely glowed with the light of Kiriah Sunbringer. Evidently once again I was only allowed a modicum of the power I once wielded.

  Quinn looked surprised, sliding a glance toward Hallow. “Er…is it allowed?”

  Hallow just smiled.

  “Of course it is,” I said, waggling my fingers, which sadly, quickly lost their slight glow. “I’m known far and wide for my ability to geld without touching a blade. Both hands around a pair of testicles, a brief prayer to Kiriah, and boom: two testicles fall to the ground with a minimum of blood and discomfort to the former bearer. I’d be happy to show you just how it’s done.”

  His eyes opened wide, one hand protectively covered his groin. “Bellias’s ten silver toes, you’re worse than Dex at her most irate. If you so much as look at my bollocks, I’ll cast the talisman into the deepest part of the sea. The oath be damned.”

  “What oath would that be?” Hallow asked.

  Quinn let his lip curl a little before gesturing toward us. “You’re not going to just go away, are you? I can tell you’re not. Very well, if I have to tell this, I’m going to do it over ale. Dex, finish up your curse. We’ll be leaving as soon as Bellias gives us her blessing.”

  The little girl clicked her tongue in annoyance, but hurried off with her doll in hand, squatting next to the cold fire pit to resume her ceremony.

  “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” I whispered to Hallow when we followed Quinn into his ramshackle house.

  “Only a very slight inkling. The runes on the whistle were those of both Bellias and Kiriah.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, feeling out of my depth when it came to such things.

  “It means, my stabby little priestling, that I owe my existence—such as it is—to the twin goddesses,” Quinn answered, taking a jug and splashing ale into three not-very-clean looking cups before shoving two of them at us. I shook my head and he simply drained my cup of ale before stifling a belch, and adding, “The oath is to them. I owe them my life. Lives. All of them.”

  “You have more than one life?” I asked, confused.

  “Not really.” He downed another cup of ale. “It seems like it sometimes, but in reality there’s just the one.”

  Hallow had been studying him, and I could feel him thinking hard and fast on the enigma of the man who sat on a three-legged stool in front of us. I took over the second stool, while Hallow stood, absently sipping the ale. “You’re immortal?”

  Quinn grinned. “Oh, I can be killed,” he said with a sudden grin. “As you just saw. Over and over and over again.”

  “You’re lifebound,” Hallow said, a note of awe in his voice.

  “That I am.” He rubbed the now dried blood from his neck. There wasn’t even the faintest of marks where my sword had sliced through him.

  “Which means…what?” I asked, disliking this feeling of not understanding. Hallow seemed to be faring much better. He’d actually pulled out a small journal and made a few notes.

  “It means he’s tied to both goddesses and is in effect their servant, obligated to aid those who bear the talisman binding him.” Hallow’s eyes were alight with interest. “And as such, a fitting person to guard something so valuable as one of the three moonstones.”

  Quinn poured more ale. “If you’re going to insist that this conversation goes around and around, then I’m going to need more ale. And a woman.” He glanced at me. I wiggled my fingers at him. He blanched. “Maybe just the ale would do.
”

  “If you don’t have the stone, then why did the captain send us to you?” I asked, frustrated, tired, and desirous of a hot bath to wash off the stink of Cape Despair.

  “Simon loves to be mysterious,” Quinn answered with a little half smile. “He always has been so. When we were young, he used to claim that he was going to be more powerful than the Master himself, but that didn’t sit very well, and he spent the next nine years in gaol.”

  “Simon?”

  “The Master?” Hallow asked at the same time.

  “The captain of the guard is named Simon?” I turned to Hallow. “I always wondered what his name was, but he told me he’d always been known as the captain. That rat!”

  “You’re his…brother?” Hallow’s gaze suddenly sharpened. “If you were born at Kelos as was the captain of the guard—er—Simon, then you must be an arcanist, too.”

  Quinn set down his cup, gave us a cheeky grin, and held out his hands, palm up. Resting on each was a ball of pure blue arcane light. “I was apprenticed to the Master at the time, until we had our…accident…which left me lifebound and in service to the goddesses until they see fit to let me rest in the spirit world.”

  “I’m going to want to hear the story of this accident and your master,” Hallow said, making a quick note before slipping his journal away in an inner pocket of his jerkin. “I wish we had time for it now, but we don’t. We must have the stone so we can proceed to Aryia to pick up the second stone.”

  Quinn shook his head while Hallow was still speaking. “I told you that I don’t have the stone. No matter how many times you make me repeat myself, it won’t change facts.”

  “Then why did the captain—” I started to say, but he interrupted me.

  “What exactly did Simon say to you?”

  I thought. “He said that you would give us what we seek.”

  “And what do you seek? No, not the stone. What is it that you really want? For what purpose do you need the stones?”

  I glanced at Hallow. He held my gaze for a few seconds, clearly mulling over Quinn’s questions. “The captain said Quinn would lead us to what we sought.”