The Worlds of Katherine Kurtz

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I should have clarified that Jerusha wrote most of the Sidona paragraphs. I was a little sad myself to discover that things hadn't gotten any better in the past four years.

Agreed. Hopefully Iain will be able to get past Sidana's early brainwashing in time. She might give him more of a chance if she can ever be convinced that everything she believed growing up was a carefully cultivated lie.

This is amazing and the mindscapes are really cool. I like the dam analogy. Feel sorry for Iain with Sidana for a wife. Sad that she never thawed at all. Kelson certainly did not reward Iain for his services by marrying him to Sidana. It was another service to the king but sad that he was unable to have a happy marriage.

((Deepest gratitude to Jerusha for the update on Sidana and Iain))

Sir Iain Cameron watched Airich leap through the window with some bemusement. He picked up Lady Amaryllis—for truly, who could see her as anything but a noble lady, dressed as she was—and carried her through the window, unsurprised by the way they floated gently to the ground. He set the lady on her feet and looked around.

They stood in a canyon within the mountains, at the base of an immense dam made of rocks, boulders, and logs. Water poured forth from the top of the dam, mocking the dam's efforts to do its job, and poured downstream towards a peaceful valley below the canyon. Not far from them, a man-sized badger leaned against the dam, as if trying to support it. Sir Airich was hard at work, carrying large rocks up the side of the dam, trying to reinforce it; Sean assisted, helping him with the larger boulders and logs. Their efforts were insignificant, compared to the dam and the spillage.

Collos stepped up beside Iain, covering his eyes against the glare of the sun as he looked up towards the top of the dam, which seemed to grow higher even as they watched. "I see," he said. "This will be quite the task."

"Will we need to help them build up that dam?" Iain asked the master assassin.

"No," Collos said with a rueful smile, "We need to help Airich drink the reservoir behind it."

"That's a stomach-ache waiting to happen," Iain murmured.

"Sir Airich," Collos called out, "could you bring us to the top?"

As quickly as thought, they were standing near the bank of the reservoir itself, looking into the water, which glimmered in the sun with visions and images and ideas.

"This is where I keep them," Airich said, looking out over the water. "I used to be able to contain them better, but the dam keeps crumbling. It's not as stable as it used to be."

"That's because your mind was not meant to house a reservoir of memories like this, Sir Airich," Collos said. "Before we start, I would like you to show me the spell that triggered this affliction. How you used it, what you expected to happen as a result."

"Of course. Come this way," Airich said, and the two of them were suddenly on the other side of the reservoir. Iain could see Airich pointing into the water and Collos peering at it.

Sean came up to Iain, carrying a large rucksack. "Iain Earl Isles," he said, then stopped and made a face. "I can see why you think of yourself as Sir Iain. The other is a tongue-twister."

Iain shrugged. "Not all of us have a name as lyrical as Sean Lord Derry. What can I do for you, Sir Sean?"

"I overheard that you were going to review the memories that could affect the security of the kingdom. Did I hear correctly?"

"You did." Iain noticed the Derry knight projected sheepishness about something.

Sean held the rucksack out to Iain. "Could you see to it that these memories are put with the others that need to be destroyed?"

"I suppose I could." Iain took the pack. "What's in here?" He started to untie the flap.

"Don't look." Sean set his hand on the top of the pack. "Please. For the sake of my Countess."

Iain looked at Sean and raised a single eyebrow.

Sean rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and wouldn't meet Iain's questioning gaze. "These are certain memories... of a personal nature. My wife..." He paused, then shrugged. "She's not even my wife. I remember her as my wife, but to her, I am her son." He gave a sad chuckle. "I enjoy teasing Airich with these memories, but honestly, he shouldn't have them. He should never have to see them. And I—" He sighed. "I don't need to be tormented by intimacies I will never experience again with a woman I love beyond reason." He squared his shoulders and finally looked Iain in the eye. "So, yes. Have those memories destroyed. They are the history of a different man. My future, if I have one, is tied with Airich's. And if things go well with..." Sean glanced towards Amy, who was chatting with Trevor, "Well, we won't need these old memories cluttering up the place, will we?"

Iain, on the other hand, would much appreciate some pleasant marital memories cluttering up the place for himself. "Absolutely not," he said. "I'll make sure these are disposed of for you."

Iain's mind went backward. Four years ago, Sidana de Paor, the Princess of Meara and King Kelson's prisoner, had been given three choices at the end of the Mearan War: execution, exile to a remote convent, or marriage to a man she loathed. She had chosen to marry Iain, and the King's raising of Isles to an Earldom had not softened the punishment in her eyes. Iain had done his duty and brought his bride to the isolated islands at the far northern border of Gwynedd, and there she remained to this day.

The woman who had treated him with such disdain and hatred as his prisoner had turned to cold marble the day they had wed, and so she remained. She fulfilled her duties as wife and countess—he could not fault her there—but she had never warmed to him, even as he had tried to bring her some measure of happiness. The earl and countess of Isles now kept well apart from each other, except when protocol demanded otherwise. In truth, he preferred to be away on the king's business for as often, and as long, as possible.

Iain's musings were interrupted by the approach of Sir Airich—or Scholar Airich, as he currently appeared to be—hiking up the incline Iain stood on. "Guardsman Jimmy," he greeted the spy, then stopped a few paces away and cocked his head. Then he bowed. "Lord Iain," he corrected himself, having picked up on Iain's identity in this deep rapport. "I ask a boon of you."

Like father like son, Iain thought—a little too loudly, apparently, for Airich grinned.

"Speak your request, I'll see what I can do for you," Iain said.

"You plan to report to the King, yes?"

"I do."

"Everything?"

"Everything relevant."

"And that will mean... everything you see and hear within my mind?"

"Likely."

Airich pursed his lips, thinking. "I have been summoned by His Majesty to appear before him as soon as feasible. I had anticipated that I would likely tell him about... all this." He gestured toward the shimmering reservoir. "I'm trying to set everything straight, you see. Confessing my... error to those affected by it. And obviously, considering your part in all this, it does affect our King."

"You're not asking me to keep confidence from him, are you?" Iain asked, bemused that the knight would ask such a thing. 

"No, I'm not. And yet..." Airich looked out into the canyon blocked by the dam, and the valley beyond. "I'm asking you to not tell him yet. In fact, ask him if you can wait to give him your report until after I've had the chance to speak with him. The sin is mine. The confession should be mine as well."

"I can't speak to sin. I don't know how you acquired your father's memories," Iain told him, "and I don't judge you for it, for I know that Earl Derry was alive and well the last I heard. I will ask His Majesty for permission to keep your secret for a short time. If he says No, then I will report everything I deem necessary." And then, because he could feel the concern coming from the  younger man, Iain said, "You should know that Sir Jamyl has advised His Majesty of your injuries, and the fact that this is the reason you have not reported to him. Jamyl has assured him you have not been derelict in your duties."

"Thank you, my lord. I could not ask for a better brother-by-marriage than Sir Jamyl," Airich said, smiling. "I ask nothing further of you. Would you like me to show you where you can find the memories that pertain most specifically to the security of the kingdom? I keep them all together with other political matters. Come this way..."

Mindscapes can be really cool

I love the worlds within the mind. So cool!
Thank you , Nezz, for the pretty filmy dress and jewlery.


Bynw, Feyd's Heraldry is awesome!

((Massive thanks to Laurna being our wardrobe mistress.))

As the final words of the ritual summoning died away, Master Collos began a new incantation, speaking in a language not from Gwynedd. The air grew heavy with magic. Lethargy steeped into their limbs. A blue mist seemed to form within the warded room. It grew thicker until none could see anything else.

Then the mist began to clear, and they seemed to be standing in a large loft. Piles of fresh sweet hay filled the room and the pleasant smell of horses wafted up from below. Looking around, they saw two young men sitting in the hay, sunbeams glowing around their heads from a nearby window as they laughed at a shared jest. Trevor knew the place immediately as the main stable of Castle Derry. It had been a favored hiding place for all the O'Flynn children at varying times throughout the years.

Amy recognized one of the men to be Airich, but he was younger than her Airich, the planes of his face softer and not so angular. He wore gray scholar's robes, a knotted red cincture at the waist, and his long brown hair caught in a g'dula. The other man could have been his brother, and appeared to be newly knighted—white belt spotless, silver spurs shining at his heels, and his blue-on-blue surcoat looked new. Brown curls surrounded laughing blue eyes, and Amy remembered having seen an image of this man once before, the night she'd first discovered she was Deryni. 

Both men looked up as the mist cleared and saw their visitors. Both rose to greet them.

"I'm so glad you came," Airich said to Amy, grasping her hand to kiss her cheek. "And this is my da. I've told you about him."

"I would prefer you to call me Sean," the knight at Airich's side said, bowing before her and raising her fingers to his lips.

"This is for you," Airich said, holding out a green squirrel towards Amy. It leapt onto her and clambered up to sit on her shoulder. She heard chuckles from the men, but she quickly remembered the training Airich had given her that allowed her to keep certain thoughts and memories hidden from those she might be in Rapport with. She delicately slipped knowledge from her past, especially concerning Carwyn, in among other unimportant things where he would be overlooked by all but the most determined searchers.

The squirrel disappeared in a puff of thought, and Amy realized how very strange this scenario was. The last time she'd been deep into Airich's mind, she'd taken the form of a small fish. But here and now, she wore the form of a woman, and it felt proper to remain that way. She looked down at herself and saw that someone had dressed her in clothes she would never have had the temerity to wear. A shimmering lavender gown—made of dream-stuff that could never exist in the waking world—draped her figure. Hammered-gold bracelets encircled her wrists: none that she could ever afford. An array of perfectly cut amethysts decorated her neck. She really was in Airich's dreams; she wondered if he had dressed her like this, or if she had done so without thinking.

She looked to the men who'd accompanied her here: none of them appeared as they did when they'd begun this ritual. Trevor looked every inch the nobleman, dressed in a stylishly cut, tooled black leather jerkin, long to the knees and slit for riding, The sleeves were slashed exposing a deep blue shirt with white embroidered cross-and-vine motifs on the cuffs and neck edge; a gift of protection from the Madre of the O'Flynn household. A small silver cross on a blue cord lay over the jerkin against his chest. Trevor's hair was long and wild, same as the young knight Sean; the family resemblance was keen.

Jimmy—no, not Jimmy, Amy realised, but Lord Iain—Iain wore clothing more extravagant than Trevor's, a light blue tunic over a sea-green shirt, with some sort of seabird embroidered in silver on the front; kilted plaid of three colors of blue intersected by grays, ending at the knee, held in place by a belt and sporran; woolen argyle socks tied just below the knee, with ankle high soft leather Ghillie Shoes laced up their fronts. He wore exquisite—but tasteful—jewelry, including a pewter brooch and a gold signet ring on his right fifth-finger.

Master Collos looked nothing like the scholar she'd seen him as in the real world. This man was as noble a knight as any she'd seen, wearing strange foreign scaled armor, light and maneuverable. Beneath all, black silks, knee-length embroidered in gold threads at hem and neck edges. A curved sword hung at his belt, and on his shield she saw a device she'd never seen before: a blue dragon, wings displayed inverted, holding a silver-rimmed shield, upon it: a dragon of the East, richly enameled in gold on a black background.

While Amy had been inspecting their surroundings, Airich dropped to one knee before Collos, and bowed his head. "Lord Collos, I see now I had no need to question your motives," he said in the language of Vezaire. "I thank you for your generosity in attempting this healing; it is a far greater boon than I could expect. Forgive me for insisting that we wait for a different healer."

"That is quite all right," Collos replied. "Baron Washburn is a formidable healer. If your situation weren't so dire, I would have thought it wise to gain his cooperation and assistance."

Not knowing how she understood the foreign language of the lands south of the Southern sea, Amy pushed that aside, for she was more surprised by the discourse of what she heard. "You know m—you know Washburn?" Amy asked. Did every nobleman know this man? Who was he in the real world that he was known, so well known?

"I know him well. And I love him as a brother," the Vezaire lord said, and Amy could feel the truth in this statement.

Green squirrel, green squirrel... the fluffy-tailed four-legged creature circled her neck, acting as her protector, then dived under her hair. She cleared her thoughts of all but what was going on in the here and now. The visitation of the unusual creature raised eyebrows, but nothing more.

"We should get started." Lord Collos announced. "Even though our perception of time here moves much differently than we're accustomed to, we still have much to do."

"Very well. Follow me," Airich said, and vaulted out the hay loft window.

((graphic courtesy of bynw))

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