Dreamspinner Read Free Page B

Rùnach’s shoulder. “Simplicity has always been my desire, as well. But the achieving of it is more difficult.” He paused and looked at Rùnach solemnly. “Isn’t it?”
    Rùnach supposed simplicity and obscurity weren’t exactly the same thing, but there was no sense in trying to argue the point.
    Sgath released him and smiled. “Somehow, son, I don’t imagine obscurity is your destiny.”
    “It has served you well enough.”
    Sgath only lifted an eyebrow briefly. “How conveniently you overlook my brushes with something other than obscurity, but we’ll leave that for later. Go meet your pony who has chosen you for your obvious appreciative eye. We’ll be waiting back at the house. And if you decide to just trot on off, I’ll make your excuses for you.”
    Rùnach took a deep breath. “I’ve already said my good-byes.”
    “Then what are you waiting for?”
    “I thought I would walk to Melksham.”
    “A fortnight on foot?” Sgath asked mildly, one eyebrow raised. “As you will. You could leave in the daylight, you know, and make it easier on yourself.”
    Rùnach shook his head. “I see perfectly well in the dark. ’Tis the only gift left me.”
    “I think you underestimate yourself, Rùnach, but perhaps we can discuss that later, after you’ve had enough of adventuring and need a quiet place to land for a bit. We’ll be here.”
    He imagined they would. He embraced his grandfather briefly, then watched him turn and walk back up toward the house, whistling something that sounded familiar. Rùnach listened for a moment or two, then shook his head. Too much trouble to try to place it. He leaned back against the railing of the dock until there was nothing left there but him, the breeze, and a horse worth a king’s ransom. He took a deep breath, then walked up the path to meet that stallion who was destined for nothing more interestingthan an unimportant stable courtesy of an unimportant lord who would need a marginally skilled guardsman who would live out his very long life in obscurity.
    Because regardless of what either of his grandsires thought, he was no longer an elven price except by birth. He was also no longer a lad of ten-and-nine, but a man with a rather full tally of years to his credit. He wanted to say that a score of years haunting a musty library at the schools of wizardry hadn’t ruined him for polite society, but he feared it had. The only thing he was likely good for was the crusty society of mannerless garrison knights—and he wasn’t sure he was even fit for that.
    But he couldn’t simply loll about and do nothing with his life. He refused to live any longer off the charity of others, though at least at Buidseachd, he’d had his skill for finding hidden spells to trade for his keep.
    That was before, when his hands had scarce been equal to the task of even turning pages. Now, he could at least hold a book. A sword was more difficult, but manageable as well.
    Which would all lead, he could only hope, to a simple life as a marginally skilled, unremarkable swordsman.
    It seemed like the safest thing to do.

O ne

    T he pub was as unremarkable as any pub would be on the last day of the week, lit with just the right amount of candlelight reflecting off the dark wood of the floors, tables, and beams in the ceiling. If things were a little more worn than was polite, the wooden paneling sporting more evidence of knives having resided in their soothing embrace than was comforting, and the barmaids more steely-eyed than in other places, who could complain? When a pub owner found himself in the seediest district of Beul, seediest of all cities in Bruadair, he was simply happy to sell his wares in peace.
    Aisling slipped inside the door and flattened herself against the wall in as much shadow as she could find and forced herself not to gasp for breath. She wasn’t sure she had ever run as she had just run, as if her life had depended on it, and she sincerely hoped she would never need