He smiled. "Aye, I would." His smile faded. "What do you want to do, Aisling?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "I want to go hide back in Durial."

"You'd never get a decent night's sleep for the rocks and veins of ore fighting each other to most loudly declare their magnificence to you. We'll have a holiday each year in Inntrig, if you like. The surroundings there seem to be of a more modest mien. And you're stalling."

What she wanted to do, as she had very honestly said, was run to Durial and hide behind the king's very st.u.r.dy door. At the moment, she would have braved Annastashia of Cothromaiche's wrath to seek asylum in Inntrig. But she knew she couldn't. She also knew that the only way to find out anything about dreamspinners was to find out things about herself. And there was only one place to do that. She looked at Rnach.

"Don't want to lay siege to the castle?"

He shook his head slowly.

She closed her eyes briefly, then looked at him. "The Guildmistress would know from whence my parents hail."

"Could we get inside, do you think?" he asked. "Is there magic there?"

"I have no idea."

"Don't you?"

She thought it was impossible to feel any more terrified than she felt at present, but she realized that wasn't at all true. "Are you asking me to try to determine that?"

"I fear I am."

She closed her eyes and forced herself to relive her memories. She walked through the gates, heard them click shut behind her, heard the heavy metal doors of the building close behind her as well and felt something come down behind her that wasn't visible. She walked to the dormitory where she'd slept for the whole of her life with three score other girls and women. She forced herself to look at the weaving room and the Guildmistress's chambers, then follow along the stark white pa.s.sageways until she found herself standing at Mistress Muinear's doorway.

She sighed deeply, then opened her eyes and looked at Rnach.

"There is a spell of watching surrounding the outer walls," she said, trying not to shudder. "I'm not sure what else to call it but that. There is no action to it; it simply watches what comes and goes through the gates. There is another much more powerful spell of containment that closes behind you when you enter the Guild building. Mistress Muinear had, I think, a different sort of spell in her chambers. A more pleasant one, but the magic is unfamiliar to me. Twisted beyond what it was meant to be, perhaps."

"And the Guildmistress herself?"

"Something very unpleasant there. Not Olc, I don't think. I can't name it now, but I think I might be able to if we were closer to her chambers. Not that I'd ever find myself in that place again, of course."

"I wouldn't think to ask you to go," he said quietly. "Leave that to me."

She felt her mouth fall open. "Leave it to you?" she repeated. "What does that mean?"

"What it means is that I'll be the one to go inside and ask the Guildmistress where your parents live."

She turned to face him fully. "You can't be serious."

"Actually, I am," he said carefully. "I won't have you subjected to that place again. I'll find you a safe place to stay whilst I see to what needs to be done today."

She had thought, a fortnight earlier, perhaps a pair of fortnights earlier, that even thinking to take up her quest to find a way to save Bruadair was taxing the limits of her courage. Actually putting her foot to that path had required yet more digging deeply into her heart for the strength to ignore her fear. Coming to Bruadair with Rnach hadn't been as hard as she'd suspected it would be, mostly because she had a.s.sumed they would find what they needed to overthrow Sglaimir, Rnach would use a few handy spells to put him in his place, then they would hurry off-well, she hadn't considered exactly where they would hurry off to, but she'd been fairly certain it would be a pleasant place.

She had never once considered walking back into the Guild. That was something else entirely.

"Or we could try a library," he said quietly.

She looked at him, grandson of elven royalty and a powerful wizardess, a man who could have easily taken up a place as an equal to any number of lovely if not sharply heeled princesses and lived out his life in splendor and ease. Yet there he sat on a rotting bench, waiting for her to decide what she was willing to do so he knew what unpleasantness was left for him.

She closed her eyes briefly, then looked at him.

"I'll come."

He looked as if he intended to protest, then he sighed. "I'm not sure you would be any safer tucked away in an inn than you would be with me which is the only reason I'll agree to this." He shot her a look. "We might make a bit of a mess getting out if things go south."

"Don't expect me to clean it up."

He smiled faintly. "Nay, I'll see to it."

She chewed on her next words for far longer than perhaps she should have. "I'd like to see the Guildmistress with boils or some other nasty ailment."

"I'm not sure I can manage that and everything else," he said thoughtfully. "You might have to see to the festering sores."

"Have you a spell for that sort of thing?"

"I have spells for all sorts of things, love."

She smiled in spite of herself. "Off we go, then."

Her good humor lasted approximately ten paces, but no more. She knew what lay ahead of her and could scarce bring herself to enter those terrible gates voluntarily.

Then again, Rnach had done the same thing twenty years earlier when he'd walked into a glade to try to keep his father from unleashing an incalculable amount of evil.

She took a deep breath and kept walking.

Six.

Rnach walked behind a pair of very burly guardsmen and wondered if he'd just walked into h.e.l.l.

He supposed he could thank his uncle Nicholas for the spell of clarity that had seemingly only been enhanced by the recent return of his magic, though thanks were not precisely what he was interested in offering at present. Being able to see the spells that hung like filthy drapes over the entire Guild was extremely unpleasant. How Aisling had borne it so long was a mystery to him.

Perhaps she was blessed not to have been able to see at the time.

She was half a step behind him, close enough that he could turn and pull her close if something went wrong, but far enough away that it didn't look as if that were his intention. She was, after all, merely his a.s.sistant and he a very rich, rather annoyed trader come to find out details about a customer who owed him money.

He walked along floors of dingy grey tile and suppressed the urge to flinch at the relentless whiteness of the walls. At least in Ceangail, there had been blood, a decent layer of fear, and the shrieks of lesser mages coating the castle walls. It had added a bit of interest to the relentless grey of the stone. Here, there wasn't even that. How Aisling had survived so long in such stark surroundings, he didn't know. He fully intended to be in and out of the place in less than half an hour. He didn't think either of them would survive any longer than that.

He was just sure it was his imagination, but he felt as if the pa.s.sageway were constricting the farther along it they went until there was finally nowhere else to go. The guard stopped in front of an unremarkable steel door, rapped smartly, then stepped aside. Rnach was very grateful for all the years he'd spent perfecting the ability to remain still and, when warranted, paste a neutral expression on his face.

The door was wrenched open and a tall, austere woman stood there. She was dressed in black, which surprised him slightly. She was wearing an expression of annoyance, which didn't surprise him at all.

He found himself sized up expertly in the s.p.a.ce of a pair of heartbeats. The Guildmistress glanced at Aisling, but immediately dismissed her. Rnach supposed the close-fitting hat, the dirt-smudged cheeks, and the hood pulled close to her face was disguise enough. As he had said, despite it all she was safer right next to him than waiting in some seedy inn. Perhaps he'd spent too much time imagining the horror of returning to their lodgings and finding her gone. Besides, if things truly became dodgy, he could release his magic and save them both.

a.s.suming his magic worked as it should.

The Guildmistress stepped back and welcomed him into her office with a sweeping motion. "Do come inside, Master Buck."

Rnach felt a little as if he were going into Droch of Saothair's chambers at Buidseachd, but there was nothing to be done about it now. He found himself regretting sorely having brought Aisling along even though he couldn't have done anything else. He would die before he left her behind to be yet again imprisoned, though he sincerely hoped it wouldn't come to that. His goal was to slip in and out of the Guild whilst garnering as little notice as possible, not raze the place.

The Guildmistress reached out suddenly and took Aisling by the arm. "Do not sit."

"Oh, I wouldn't think to have him dirty one of your chairs," Rnach drawled in his best imitation of his grandfather, Sle. "I know I never let him dirty any of mine. He spends more than his fair share of time trotting behind the carriage, as you can see."

The woman pursed her lips. Perhaps she was smiling. Rnach had no idea. She sat down behind her extremely large and heavy desk, then motioned for him to take a seat on the other side.

"My men said there was a trader here to see me on business that required my immediate attention. I had a.s.sumed it would be someone here for large quant.i.ties of cloth. Is that your need?"

"Actually, I'm here for an exchange that I hope will prove mutually beneficial," Rnach said smoothly. "Weighted, of course, more heavily on your side of the scale."

The Guildmistress studied him for several minutes in silence. Rnach didn't begrudge her that examination. Aisling hadn't told him much at all about her, but he hadn't needed the details. He could immediately see that there was a woman who took pleasure in small things: intimidating those weaker and poorer than she, sending fear rolling through the pa.s.sageways to bring her workers to heel, no doubt torturing small animals. He'd seen his father do much worse, so he was less intimidated by it than perhaps he should have been.

"So," she said, leaning her elbows on her table and clasping her hands in front of her. "What do you have to offer me?"

Rnach smiled. "Why don't we discuss what I need first?"

"Because I am not particularly interested in what you need," she said with a very slight lifting of one of her shoulders, "only in what you can provide me. Perhaps you might begin with your trader's license."

Rnach removed that from the purse at his belt, making sure to brush the coins lingering there in a way that could leave no doubt as to their quant.i.ty. He slid the paper across the desk toward her.

"There you are."

"Gold?"

"I have plenty," he a.s.sured her.

"Allow me to admire some of it."

He reached in and pulled out several gold sovereigns minted in an equal number of locales. He put them just within her reach and watched as she picked them up one by one, examining where they had been struck. She looked at him calculatingly.

"You have traveled far."

"Exclusive goods are my delight," he said easily. "And one travels where one must to find them."

"Pricey goods, are they?"

"Extremely."

"What did you bring with you today?" she asked, fingering one of his coins.

"A question and ample payment for the answer."

She frowned as if that answer had displeased her somehow, but she examined his license just the same. He only watched with as bored a look as he could muster. Soilleir had obviously gotten himself in and out of Bruadair many times with the same sort of thing. Rnach had no doubt the current sheaf in question would survive even the Guildmistress's scrutiny.

She didn't shortchange the process, which Rnach appreciated. She was obviously waiting for him to shift first, if shifting was to be done. He didn't move. He'd learned that much at least from all his years as his father's son.

She finally shot him a glare, then shoved the license back at him. She gathered the coins onto her side of the desk.

"Ask," she said briskly.

Rnach removed the purse from his belt and put it on the edge of the table nearest his knee, which he'd propped up against the wood. He also took a packet from within his cloak, set it on the table, then opened it partially to reveal the contents. It was nothing more than a silk scarf, but the fabric had come from a Cothromaichian loom, so perhaps the Guildmistress would find that rare enough for her tastes. He set it next to the gold, then looked at Aisling's former jailor.

"As I said," he said, "I deal in only the most exclusive of goods, and my clientele is equally discreet. I was persuaded by a third party to engage in a piece of business with a man I'd never met before and had not interviewed myself."

The Guildmistress snorted. "I can see where this is going already."

"I would imagine you can," he said. "Unfortunately, I was far less perceptive at the time and I found myself swindled over an exceedingly rare and valuable piece of carving. Elvish, of course, and almost impossible to come by. Once I realized my prize was gone but my payment not forthcoming, I set about tracking down this cagey lad and his lady wife."

"Tracking them down where?"

"Here."

She looked momentarily confused, then she frowned. "There are no married couples here at the Guild. Only women."

"I was led to believe they had done business of some kind with you," he said. He reached for his package and his gold. "My mistake, obviously-"

"Don't be so hasty," the Guildmistress said, holding out her hand. "I do business with many."

Rnach released the prizes and sat back. "Then hope remains."

"How long ago was the crime?"

"Three months."

"Why didn't you come to me three months ago?"

"I only discovered the fraud a pair of fortnights ago, of course," Rnach said coolly. "Why else would I wait so long? While the theft was an annoyance, I have had other, more profitable transactions requiring my attention. I am just recently arrived in Beul with time to see to the matter. I called at their reputed lodging to find them gone, of course. Unfortunately, no number of threats jogged the innkeeper's memory as to where they might currently find themselves."

"You didn't threaten me."

"I am a gentleman."

"So you appear to be." She looked at him. "Very well, what are the names of this unwholesome pair?"

"The husband's name is Riochdair. The wife had a very unusual name. Dannar, Dagnar, Dannemar." He shrugged. "Something akin to that."

The Guildmistress had gone very still. "And you didn't bother to find out the particulars of this pair?"

Rnach drew himself up slightly. "Perhaps I wasn't clear before," he said evenly. "I do not screen my clients personally. I have trusted, very ambitious tradesmen chosen especially for that pedestrian labor. It is their business to seek out suitable buyers for me."