Night of The Eye

Chapter One

Two men were stoning a witch in the village square of Thonvil. The first rocks dropped the beggar woman to her knees. Her bony hands waved wildly in a pathetic attempt to fend off the missiles. Another rock hit the ground in front of her, splashing mud and dirty water into her face.

Guerrand DiThon, brother of the local lord, watched in horror. The woman was no witch. An eyesore in the village, perhaps. Demented, certainly, even possessed, but Guerrand thought her condition more likely the result of harsh street life, or even a diet of tainted flour or fermented grain mash, too common on the bleak, unyielding southern coast of Northern Ergoth. But a witch she was not. No one knew better the signs of a mage than one who secretly wielded magic himself.

A crowd had gathered. Guerrand knew nearly all of those present since the village was small and family lines stretched back to well before the Cataclysm. The nobleman felt he had to do something to stop the shameful persecution.

"Evard, Wint, drop those stones." He put a knobby hand to the thick shoulder of the bully nearest him. "Malvia has done no wrong, certainly nothing to warrant this treatment."

Evard started at the touch. Scowling, the paunchy, red-faced man craned his thick neck around to examine the interloper. Seeing the tall, lanky younger brother of Lord DiThon, Evard's eyebrows raised, and he turned around to face Guerrand. The man's fingers relaxed around the rock in his hand, but he didn't let it drop. Instead, he juggled it lightly in his rough palm. A surly smile raised his fleshy cheeks. "Would your brother approve of you releasing a witch?"

Guerrand sighed inwardly. He, above all, knew Cormac's obsessive hatred for magic. "I'm sure he wouldn't, but I'm also sure he wouldn't let one of his subjects be tormented for no good reason. Even Lord DiThon could see this woman is no witch." He jerked his head toward the cow-eyed, ragged woman. "Would you live as a beggar if you could grant yourself wealth?"

The rock fell still in Evard's hands. Wint dropped his own rocks and tugged on the other man's sleeve. "Let 'er be, Ev," he muttered, stepping away, his face averted. Evard cast one last glance between the beggar woman and Guerrand, almost in puzzlement that the young noble should stop their sport. With a slight shrug, the middle-aged rummy, who looked twice his actual age, let the rock tumble from his coarse fingers to the dust. Evard and Wint drifted down the narrow, winding road to the pale, cobblestone structure that served as Thonvil's inn. With the excitement gone, the rest of the crowd began to disperse.

Guerrand's thoughts were not on any of them as he stepped forward to help the woman to her feet. Her wounds were not severe, mostly bruises to her arms, though her left cheek bore a nasty gash that Guerrand knew would mark her for the rest of her days.

Malvia's gnarled old hands clutched the ones that helped her to her feet. Her dull eyes regarded the young noble with reverence that made him uneasy. "You saved me," she breathed through rotted teeth.

Turning his dark head from the smell, Guerrand brushed her hands away gently. "I think not, Malvia. Those two had simply drunk too much and were looking for some cruel sport. They wouldn't have seriously harmed you." Secretly, Guerrand doubted his own words.

The woman tugged out the pockets of her tattered skirt. "Would that I had anything to give you in exchange for my life," she said, as if he hadn't spoken.

At that Guerrand reached into his own fine silk pouch, which hung at his waist, and withdrew two steel pieces. He pressed them into her dirty palm and folded her thin fingers back over the cool metal. "This should help you to live more comfortably, so that no one will have cause to call you a witch again."

Guerrand passed his hand across her face as he mumbled a soft incantation beneath his breath. The mud and caked dirt there fell away. The woman's cheeks and forehead were brown and weathered, but clean.

"After you've purchased some clothing, make your way to the castle kitchen and tell Gildee that I sent you. She'll give you a hot meal and perhaps might even find work for you." As an afterthought he reluctantly added, "Uh, Malvia, it would be better for both of us if you didn't speak to anyone of this incident, or what we've just discussed."

The beggar woman gave him a nearly toothless smile. "You have a kind heart, sir, kinder by far than your brother's. Everyone in the village thinks so."

Guerrand was fully aware of the villagers' contempt for his brother. Cormac offered largesse with one hand while emptying their pockets by taxation with the other. There was discontent among the merchants and the peasants, but they were kept far too poor to do more than grumble to themselves.

Guerrand chuckled softly at the intended compliment. "You'd be wise not to repeat that at the castle, either," he said to Malvia. "Now, good luck to you."

Bobbing her head, the woman hobbled down the street toward the heart of the village, where the buildings were clustered together. A number were timbered and plastered structures owned by some of Thonvil's wealthier merchants and craftsmen. Out here on the edge of town the thatched, wattle-and-daub houses were farther apart, each surrounded by a vegetable garden and small livestock pen.

Guerrand started to follow behind Malvia, to complete the errands he'd been about when he'd happened upon the stoning, but a voice from behind stopped him short.

"If she had been a witch, would you still have let her go?" asked the strong, commanding voice.

The young man's heart seized up in his chest. Just as he'd feared, his defense of the woman had drawn notice. Without turning, Guerrand responded: "I am sympathetic to weaklings who are preyed upon by bullies, that's all." That said, Guerrand began walking down the street to end the discussion.

But the speaker followed behind him. "Do you possess any magical skill yourself?"

Guerrand whirled around angrily. Standing there was a man of indeterminate age, dressed for the cool day in a heavy brown cloak, the red fabric of a robe beneath it brushing his boot tops. A thick cowl was bunched up around his neck and ears, and a floppy hood concealed much of his face. Guerrand could see a nicely trimmed goatee and a sharp nose, but no other details. "I don't know who you are, and I don't care. And I am definitely not going to answer your impertinent question."

The man's eyebrows raised. "Your defensiveness is answer enough, in this part of the world."

Guerrand forced an unconcerned shrug and turned away. "Think what you will, stranger."

Again, the man's words followed him. "Your anger at me is misdirected, young Master DiThon. We're on the same side in regard to magic."

Guerrand scowled darkly. "I'm not on any side. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've errands to run." As Guerrand DiThon stormed down the narrow street, he could feel the man's overly observant eyes on him. The entire incident in the square, from first stone to this disconcerting conversation, made him wish he'd left his errands in the village to another day.

Guerrand took the long way home, through the heath along the Strait of Ergoth. It was springtime, in the month of Chislmont; the heather for which the landscape was named was starting to bloom, dotting the otherwise scrubby seaside with pinkish-purple flowers. He didn't notice that the stiff, woody stems scratched at his calves.

The young man felt a kinship with this bleak land. He loved the sound of pounding surf. He liked how the heath met the sea at the horizon and formed a gentle line, unbroken by trees or hills, like one precise stroke of an artist's brush. Today, with the heather blooming and the sky typically cloudy, the line to the south was the color of new heliotrope.

Guerrand often wondered if someone like him stood across the gray water looking north, contemplating where earth met sky. In all his nearly twenty years he'd never left the island of Northern Ergoth, had ventured little farther than Hillfort, not even ten leagues to the east. Once Guerrand had hoped to study in Gwynned, the capital to the north, but Cormac had forbidden it.

The memory of that age-old argument slowed Guerrand's steps. He settled himself on a boulder worn flat by centuries of slapping seawater. Guerrand was in no hurry to return to Castle DiThon. He felt no kinship with those cold stone walls. He looked to the east, to the promontory on which the centuries-old fortress rested.

The castle rose up between blue sea and green earth like a lone, wicked mountain of stone, as if the first DiThon meant to correct a mistake of nature. It seemed to Guerrand that there was no place he could go where the stone structure didn't dominate the view. It drew the eye as a flame draws moths. But, unlike a flame, the castle was cold and bleak even in the brightest sunshine.

Guerrand had never liked it, not even before his father, Rejik, died. Guerrand had been but nine years of age then. He scarcely remembered him, a distant bear of a man. Or perhaps it was that he confused the memories of Rejik with Cormac, who so resembled their father.

Nineteen full years Guerrand's senior, Lord Cormac of Castle DiThon had always seemed more a father than a brother to Guerrand, anyway. Their family tree had tangled limbs, which was not unusual, considering that childbirth and rampant disease took many so early in life. Cormac's mother, Rejik's first wife, had died of Baliforian influenza at thirty, with young Cormac just eight years of age. In the bleak isolation of Northern Ergoth, ten years passed before Rejik defied convention and married Zena, a local lass less than half his age and just two years older than his son Cormac.

Rejik's second family arrived seven months later with the birth of Guerrand. As soon as physically possible came a third son, Quinn. And then, at three and fifty, Rejik received the news of the birth of his first daughter and the death of his second wife in childbirth. Guerrand, Quinn, and Kirah's young mother had seen the seasons change only twenty-eight times. Rejik survived two heartbroken years without her.

And so it was that cold and distant, critical and demanding Cormac inherited his father's holdings in the summer of his twenty-eighth year. Having married at twenty and already the father of two, Cormac was not happy about taking on his father's young second family as well.

Unfortunately, Cormac had not inherited their father's business acumen. Thousands of hectares had been passed down from generation to generation. Even ten years before, the DiThon lands had stretched beyond where the eye could see, to within less than two leagues of the Berwick family's manor house at Hillfort. Guerrand remembered his father boasting that if he stood on the easternmost edge of DiThon lands, he could watch the uppity merchant Berwick sputter in anger and jealousy at his dining table.

It was not a boast Cormac could make. In fact, Rejik's eldest son was the one sputtering in jealousy now. Cormac had been forced to sell off parcels of land to pay the debts he claimed could be laid at the feet of both Rejik and the fickle gods. One of those parcels was the land their father had so coveted, the hilly coastlands and fertile grasslands that bordered Hillfort. The purchaser had been the merchant himself, Anton Berwick.

But Cormac had a plan to get that land back. In fact, his usual sour mood had been considerably lighter of late in anticipation of its return. Cormac had arranged a political marriage between Berwick's daughter and Quinn DiThon, Guerrand's younger, adventurous brother. The merchant was desperate for his daughter to marry a title, and Cormac wanted money. Cormac had negotiated as dowry the land he'd once sold. That the land would be in Quinn's name, not Cormac's, was a minor detail to the lord.

Still looking at the world across the Strait of Ergoth, Guerrand thought of his younger brother somewhere out there, a cavalier questing for experience. He hadn't seen Quinn in nearly two years. Only ten months apart in age, as children they'd been confused as twins until Quinn had begun to follow with a passion the vocation Cormac had chosen for both of them. Quinn is likely so muscular and bronzed after two years on the road that we scarcely resemble each other anymore, Guerrand chuckled to himself. He missed him sorely, missed the cheerful optimism Quinn's presence inspired at Castle DiThon. Everyone liked the charming Quinn-even Cormac, who seemed as willing to forget that Quinn was only half blue-blooded as he was possessed to remember it of Guerrand. Guerrand looked forward to Quinn's return at month's end for the marriage.

"Rand! There you are at last!" a young girl's high-pitched voice called above the pounding of the surf. The sound startled Guerrand, despite the fact that he recognized the voice. His head jerked up, and his dark eyes fell on his youngest sibling, twelve-year-old Kirah. A smile creased his face. She was one of only two people he allowed to use the nickname he preferred.

Poor, motherless Kirah. He'd heard it whispered in the dark and drafty corners of the castle by well-meaning servants. Blond and blue-eyed, as fair as the boys were dark, she was the only one of them to look like Rejik's second wife. Guerrand secretly wondered if the resemblance hadn't deepened the despair Rejik had felt, rather than offering comfort. Kirah was a living reminder that Rejik's second marriage was to a woman beneath his station, a pale-skinned, common "newcomer." Her family had settled in Northern Ergoth just after the Cataclysm, some three hundred years before. But prejudice ran high, especially among the nobility. Those who were not of the old, darker-skinned stock that had lived in Ergoth proper, before the Cataclysm split the region into two islands, were considered newcomers.

While Rejik had loved the fair-haired Zena, he never seemed able to hug the baby daughter for whom he'd longed. Seven-year-old Guerrand and six-year-old Quinn, who looked tanned enough to pass as blue-bloods, had supplied the affection to young Kirah. Cormac, with two pure-blooded children of his own by the time of Kirah's birth, suffered from his own prejudice regarding his half siblings.

"What are you staring at?" Kirah demanded now, filthy hands on her boyish hips. She pushed her stringy blond hair back from her face impatiently.

"You," he said, smiling in obvious delight. "You're a mess."

Kirah and I should not even get along, thought Guerrand. It was not in looks alone that they were different. Guerrand was cautious; Kirah was adventure itself. He was neat and organized; she looked like a walking whirlwind, everything about her askew. He was silent and contemplative; she was opinionated and outspoken.

"I'm always a mess," she said brightly. "But if anyone is to blame today, it's you. I've been running hither and yon looking for you. I followed your trail."

Guerrand chuckled. "I wasn't aware I'd left one."

Kirah playfully poked him in the chest. "For me, you did. You know you can't hide from me, Rand. I know your haunts. Besides, I asked Zagarus."

"I'll have to speak with that traitorous sea gull!" Guerrand laughed. "I wasn't trying to hide; I just wasn't in a hurry to get home. Why did you follow me, anyway?"

"Cormac wants to see you. He sent several servants out to find you. I thought I should warn you that he's lost much of the good mood we've all benefited from since he sold Quinn to that buck-toothed biddy from Hillfort."

"However did you get so cynical, child?" He ruffled her hair. "Cormac didn't sell him-he wrote to Quinn, who agreed to the marriage."

"That's because he hasn't seen her since she got her second teeth. I'm telling you, if Quinn could see her tusks-" the young girl flapped a hand before her mouth to demonstrate, "-he'd stay in Solace, or Solamnia, or wherever she isn't!"

Guerrand stifled a smile. "You're very uncharitable, Kirah. Surely they're not that big. Besides, Ingrid Berwick sounds pleasant enough to me."

"Pleasant enough for a sister-in-law, you mean. Lucky for you, Cormac and Rietta deemed you unworthy of the Bucker Princess."

"She's not a princess."

Kirah shrugged. "She acts like one."

Guerrand sighed. "What does Cormac want?"

"Oh, yes." She sniffed. "I was getting to that. He wants to talk to you about how long you're taking with your training as a knight."

"Again?"

"Did you think he would just forget you've spent ten years as a squire?"

Guerrand sighed once more and tossed a small stone into the surf. "I was hoping with all the excitement of Quinn's return and wedding that Cormac might have other things on his mind."

"He'll never be happy about your interest in magic, and he'll never allow you to become a real mage," Kirah said softly, her tone uncharacteristically serious.

Guerrand scowled. "He doesn't even know I still want to be one. Only you do, Kirah." He looked at her intently, almost pleadingly. "It must stay that way."

Kirah nodded her blond head decisively. "We should do it, Rand. We should just run away so that you can become a mage."

Guerrand rubbed his face. "Kirah, you think too fast. You hope too hard."

His sister crossed her arms. "What's going to change then, to end this stalemate of yours and Cormac's? Are you hoping he'll drop dead and you'll inherit everything?"

"No!" Guerrand said too vehemently. "No, of course not," he added more softly. "Besides, I wouldn't get anything, nor would you. Castle DiThon would go to Bram now. He's a good kid, despite his parentage. He deserves it." His voice was distant, his thoughts far beyond the DiThon family lands.

Guerrand ran his hands through his hair in agitation. "Honestly, I don't know what I'm hoping will happen, Kirah. There aren't many options for the second son of a noble family whose fortune is on the decline. I only know what I don't want, and that's to become a warrior."

"Well, you'd better think of something, because Cormac intends to grill you the instant you return home."

"Why now?"

"Why not now?" she asked. "The arrangements with Berwick are complete. If he can get you through your training and out on crusade like Quinn, he'll have one less mouth to feed around here."

Kirah's pale eyebrows lifted as a thought struck her. "Frankly, if you ask me, Rietta brought you to his mind. You know little-miss-my-father-was-a-Knight-of-Solamnia can never stand to have anyone happy around her, least of all her husband. Rietta doesn't like you, you know."

Guerrand snorted. "Thank you. She doesn't like you either."

"Oh, fie," said Kirah with a toss of her pale head. She skipped barefoot along the shore. "Rietta would marry me off tomorrow if she didn't fear that I would do something to ruin her own simpering Honora's chances for a suitable match. I think she suspects I'm the one who puts the frogs in her bed."

"Perhaps you shouldn't giggle every time Rietta mentions it at table," suggested Guerrand. He looked up suddenly, as a breeze, cool and damp and smelling of rain, tickled his nostrils. "The wind's changed." He stared across the water to the south and frowned. "The sky's black. There's a storm brewing." The lanky young man slapped his thighs and stood. "Time to face the lion, I guess."

"What are you going to say?"

Guerrand shrugged. "What I always say-that I'm working as fast as I can, but swordplay and such doesn't come as easily to me as to Quinn."

Lightning suddenly jagged across the southern sky. Guerrand waited three seconds for the accompanying crack of thunder, then grabbed his sister's arm and pulled her after him down the sandy beach. "Come on, Kirah. If we run hard, we can beat the rain."

Guerrand and Kirah raced up the last green, gentle slope just as the first drops of cool rain began to fall. Winded, they strode arm in arm through the open portcullis on the northern curtain wall. At the inner gatehouse, both nodded to the lone guard clothed in well-worn ceremonial garb. Old Wizler, his eyes clouded over with cataracts, gave a toothless smile and waved them through. Loyal, if ineffectual, Wizler had served the DiThon family since before Guerrand was born. During Cormac's rule, staff had been cut back to bare bones. Since these were relatively calm times in Northern Ergoth, there was little need to guard the entrance to the castle.

Just past Wizler's station, in the shadows of the temple to the god Habbakuk, Kirah slipped away from Guerrand's side like a pale, luminous shade. "Good luck, Rand," he heard her whisper. Guerrand knew well her penchant for traversing the castle through the network of tunnels and secret passageways that she'd spent her young life discovering. It was a great measure of her trust that she'd shown a number of them only to him.

Wishing he could slink into one of those dark, musty stone tunnels himself, Guerrand instead set his spine and strode across the inner ward toward the chiseled and sculpted entrance to the rectangular four-story keep. The moment he stepped inside, he felt the old, familiar tightening of muscles in his neck. His senses narrowed in the dark confines of the cold stone walls. A serving woman scurried by with buckets on her shoulders, headed up the broad, sweeping staircase. Squinting furtively in the dim light of the torches, she visibly brightened when she saw who was there.

"Hello, Master Guerrand. How be you today?"

His own smile was warm. "I've had an… interesting day, Juel." Thunder cracked outside. Guerrand looked reflexively toward the wooden door. "But I suspect there are more clouds in my future." His eyes shifted upward to the ceiling. "My brother is waiting for me."

Juel shook her head. She well knew Cormac's stiff nature, and was aware of the conflict between the brothers. Few secrets could be kept from servants. She gave the lord's younger brother a sympathetic look before continuing up the staircase, the heavy load on her shoulders swaying gently in tempo to her steps.

Guerrand was two steps up the staircase when a voice stopped him from behind.

"Befriending the servants again, Uncle Guerrand?"

The muscles in his neck tightened even more. Honora. Cormac and Rietta's eldest child, just three years younger than he. Hand still on the polished wooden rail, he turned to face her. Gods, he thought, how could such an angelic-looking creature sound so vicious? In Guerrand's charitable estimation, his niece seemed to embody the worst of her parent's traits in all areas but appearance. Who would guess that behind her perfect curvaceous figure and raven hair, which glistened even in the dim light of torches, beat the heart of a viper?

"You're mistaking common civility for friendship, Honora," he said calmly. "That's understandable, considering that you're unfamiliar with both concepts."

Honora's vivid green cat-eyes narrowed. "You've been talking to your ragamuffin sister again."

Guerrand snorted. "I'd love to stand here and exchange barbs, Honora, but I'll leave that to my ragamuffin sister. She enjoys it so much more than I. Right now your father would like to discuss something with me." He continued up the stairs.

"You mean Father wants to give you another dressing-down."

Guerrand stopped, but didn't turn around. His hand gripped the railing more tightly. "Tell me, Honora, does your spitefulness come naturally, or is it a symptom of spinsterhood?"

"I am not a spinster!" she shrieked. Guerrand gave a secret little smile at the direct hit to her pride. "My mother is searching for the best match to a Knight of Solamnia. She's already found one for Bram to squire under. But she'll not be satisfied to marry her daughter to just any cavalier, Ergoth's pathetic excuse for knights." She arched a thin brow. "Which, I might add, you haven't managed to become in ten years of trying."

To Honora's great irritation, Guerrand threw back his head and laughed. "I'd be offended, if I cared for your opinion, or even to become a cavalier." He continued up the staircase. "I'd wish you a good day, Honora, but I don't think you could have one if you tried."

Guerrand ignored her sputtering response. His foot came to the first landing. He looked to the second door on the right-Cormac's study. It seemed at once stiflingly close and leagues away. He hadn't had a pleasant conversation there since before his father died. Steeling himself one last time for the inevitable confrontation, Guerrand took two steps forward.

Suddenly, to his great surprise, the door to Cormac's study burst open. Cormac's arm thrust through the doorway, his bejewelled fingers pointing.

"Get out! I do not deal with mages!" his baritone voice boomed.

Guerrand's eyes went wide, and he instinctively pressed himself up against the tapestry-covered wall. His jaw dropped in amazement when the persistent stranger from the village calmly stepped through the portal. Guerrand had never suspected the man was a mage! Instantly the man's dark eyes fell on Guerrand, as if he'd known the younger man was there all along. To Guerrand's great relief, the mage merely nodded toward him, without any outward sign of recognition.

"I'm an excellent ally, but a terrifying foe," the mage said calmly, his back to the doorway and Cormac. "You're making a grave mistake, DiThon."

"Not as grave as yours!" Watching Cormac's booted toot rise in the doorway, Guerrand was horrified to see that Cormac meant to add injury to insult. His foot was in midarc to the mage's posterior when it seemed to jerk sideways, missing the target completely. Cormac was thrown so badly off balance that he collapsed onto the floor.

Guerrand was simultaneously shocked and amused. He quickly looked back to the stranger. It had to be a magical effect of some sort, but Guerrand was sure the man hadn't so much as twitched, hadn't whispered a sound. No one had ever made a fool of Cormac without regretting it. Especially not in his own home.

"You may loathe and distrust magic, DiThon, but you make a bigger mistake yet by underestimating it." Standing in Cormac's line of sight, he looked directly, pointedly, at Guerrand. "One never knows when there is magic about."

Red-faced, Cormac scrambled back to his feet. "I may not be able to control its vile presence beyond these walls, but in my castle there will be no magic or magic-wielders." Though he had lost some of his bluster, Cormac would not be cowed. "I'll tell you one last time to get out."

The mage bowed his head in acknowledgment. He walked past Guerrand without a look and took to the stairs, his cloak softly brushing over the cold stones. "I leave because I choose to. You may soon regret this day."

"I regret only that my servants gave you entrance!" Cormac hollered after the disappearing figure. But the mage had already faded into the darkness at the bottom of the steps.

Still pressed to the wall, unnoticed by Cormac, Guerrand held his breath as his brother slammed shut the door to his study. He waited a number of heartbeats for Cormac to move away from the door to his desk. Then, creeping ever so quietly, he sneaked past the door and down the hall to his own chambers, getting safely inside.

Like most of the family quarters in the keep, Guerrand's room was small and simple. A wood-frame bed with several feather mattresses was the centerpiece. Two large chests provided storage for his clothing and other belongings, doubling as seats if needed. A small table against the wall held a basin and pitcher of fresh water. The walls were hung with rugs and painted sheets to add some warmth and to still drafts. During the day, a thin stream of light filtered through the narrow window in the outer wall. At night, candles and the fireplace provided the only illumination.

In spite of his proximity to Cormac's study, Guerrand felt safe here. Generally, no one bothered him in his room. Within the castle walls, it was the best place to rest. He had covered a lot of ground that morning, and his legs ached. Guerrand sank onto the bed and closed his eyes.

Rain was still falling softly, but the light outside his window was nearly gone when Guerrand awakened to the sound of someone fumbling with the latch to his door. By the time he was fully awake, the door had swung inward abruptly, revealing Cormac in the doorway. He swayed slightly as he looked around the room, then focused on Guerrand. "Get yourself to my study. I've been searching for you all afternoon."

Guerrand's heart sank. Cormac had obviously been drinking since his encounter with the strange mage. Guerrand knew the signs too well. This would be a bad time to speak with him about anything. "You have?" he asked evasively. "Been looking for me, I mean."

"Didn't Pytr or Horat find you?"

"No." That was true enough.

"I'll tan their lazy hides!" Cormac struggled visibly to keep his thoughts on track. "Never mind that. I've found you. Now come along." Cormac stomped back down the hall with Guerrand trailing reluctantly behind.

Cormac's study was cluttered and smoky. Books, both ancient and new, lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Guerrand recognized many of the dull-colored spines, since he'd read most of them as a child. He'd learned all that he knew of the world from those tomes. They were dusty now from lack of use; Cormac neither read them himself, nor allowed anyone else to. No one was permitted into Cormac's study without him, and Guerrand never felt like browsing while he was there.

In spite of the books, the room was clearly Cormac's.

Shields and weapons and pieces of armor leaned against the walls or stood in corners. Spiders crawled over a stack of wood near the fireplace. The bread crumbs on the floor would attract mice, Guerrand knew, if one of Cormac's dogs didn't lap the scraps up first.

"Sit." It was more a command than an invitation. Guerrand dropped onto an uneven stool near the cold fireplace. He regarded his elder brother, who was edging himself through the now too-narrow space between his ornate desk and high-backed chair.

Cormac was a very tall man, the tallest Guerrand knew. His once lanky frame was now more than filled out, obese in fact. Strangely, his arms and legs were almost spindly, like four sticks poked into a large potato. His faded clothing was about ten years-and two stone-out of date. He had never cared much for appearance. Many of the ties that should have held his breeches to his doublet hung loose on his hips; he couldn't be bothered either to tie them or yank them off. Cormac's wife saw to it that his clothes were clean, although no one seemed able to remove the stains that slowly accumulated down the front of every shirt and doublet the man owned.

The cause-or actually, a symptom-of the enlarged waist and the veiny, crimson nose was the very thing Cormac was pursuing at the moment. A bottle of brandy in one hand, Cormac was pouring the amber liquid into a pear-shaped cut glass snifter. He swirled it around once, twice, staring at it intently before throwing the entire contents to the back of his throat with a satisfied, calming sigh. Only then did Cormac look at his younger brother.

"We need to discuss the intolerably long time you're taking to complete your training." After considering the brandy bottle, which was nearly two-thirds empty, Cormac poured himself another snifter and turned to look out the very rare and expensive glass window to the right of the desk.

Over Cormac's shoulder, Guerrand could see through the window. The view to the east, where land met sea, was magnificent: dark, pounding storm-tossed sea to the right, the gently rolling heath on the left. Twilight and rain clouds drew a gray curtain across the strait. He was surprised and grateful that his brother sounded more reasonable than he had expected.

Suddenly, something about the view seemed to make Cormac explode. Whirling about, he slammed the glass down on the desk, his expression as stormy as the sky behind him.

"Damnation, Guerrand, I can't afford it! I've had to sell off valuable DiThon land-my heritage-to pay for your shilly-shallying."

You mean for your drinking and mismanagement of affairs, Guerrand thought, but he held his tongue. As the son who inherited little, he was at Cormac's mercy in every conceivable way.

"Then stop paying for my training," the younger sibling suggested calmly. "Knighthood has always been your ambition for me, not mine."

Cormac snorted. "I should leave you untrained, instead? My sense of charity and family honor would force me to support you still. This lazy streak of yours must be the result of your mother's pale blood." Guerrand noticed that his brother's eyes were not focusing entirely; the drink affected his senses.

"Why couldn't you have taken to it as Quinn did?" slurred Cormac. "He's a year younger than you and has a self-supporting vocation already! Not only that, his marriage will return to the DiThon family what is rightfully ours-Stonecliff."

Guerrand now knew why the view had set Cormac off-it took in the promontory overlooking the bay, the land he so coveted. Stonecliff would be his again within the month, as part of the dowry agreed upon between Berwick and Cormac. Quinn had done this for him, while Guerrand drained him of funds.

Guerrand wouldn't be shamed. "As I've said before, I am not Quinn. The training comes hard to me, because my interests are not the same as his."

"If you're going to bring up going to Gwynned to study damnable magic again, I won't hear it!" Both of them were obviously thinking of Cormac's previous visitor. "I'll not have one of those sneaky wielders of witchery in my home, let alone my family, even if we are only half-blooded brothers!"

"You've made that abundantly clear, Cormac. I never thought to suggest it." Guerrand twined his fingers together in his lap and flexed them. "If you'd like my promise to work harder at my training, you have it. More than that I cannot do."

Looking beyond Cormac now, to the view through the glass, Guerrand absently took note of three distant, dark spots, as of riders approaching in the gloom. Merchants were always arriving from Thonvil to sell something to their lord. Strange, thought Guerrand, that they should approach from the east, when the village was to the north and west.

"I suppose you think I'm at your mercy, since I can't force you to learn faster," growled Cormac. Guerrand had to chuckle at the irony of Cormac feeling powerless. It was so like him to feel the victim.

Guerrand felt some relief when a knock at the door interrupted Cormac's self-pity. The large man swaggered impatiently across the room and yanked open the door. In the hallway stood a cluster of five men: two household servants carrying torches, two rain-soaked men-at-arms, and another soggy herald wearing Quinn's colors. Guerrand's heart leaped at the sight, as he realized that this meant Quinn must be in the castle.

The men in the hallway stared at Cormac for several moments, until he prodded one of the servants to life with a question. "Well, what is it?"

"Sir," blurted one of the servants, "these men have brought Master Quinn."

He is here, thought Guerrand. Still, the servants seemed very uneasy and stared fearfully at Cormac. The other men shifted uncomfortably in their dripping clothing.

Oblivious to the awkwardness of the messengers, Cormac's face lit up like a child's on his birthday. "And about time, too," he thundered. "Where is my great, conquering champion? Drying his hair? Fetch him and send him in! I would see him at once."

The men exchanged nervous glances. The servants with the torches seemed about to turn and flee. After an uncomfortable silence of several heartbeats, the herald stepped forward and spoke. "Master Quinn is dead."

"Dead?" roared Cormac. He stepped menacingly into the knot of retainers, fists clenched. "If this is someone's sick idea of a joke, I'll crack his thick skull. Where is my brother?"

Guerrand did not hear the answer to the desperate question, if indeed one was given. He had shifted his gaze back out the window, to the dim, starless night and the pattering rain. The study had grown very dark during their conversation, and no servant had come in to make a fire. His mouth was dry, his hands and feet suddenly so cold he could not move them.

To Guerrand, a pall seemed to cover the entire castle. It grew outward from his own heart and then hung, sodden and tattered, over every room and corridor and building. Guerrand was certain the gloom would never lift-the rain would fall forever, and the sun would never again shine on Castle DiThon.